Days 9, 10, 11 & 12
Mar. 27th, 2011 10:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
anghraineI've just returned from the worst vacation ever.
I spent a week in a small house with not just my two nephews (Tyler's four, Luke's five months) and my foster sister (eight), but also my grandparents' two foster children, one of whom is a raging anti-Semite who constantly mutters under his breath à la Walburga Black (twelve), and the other who is much nicer but she's always humming or singing when she's not talking (thirteen). Also, all of them except Luke were constantly trying to get the others in trouble and I was in charge of them.
I've mentioned once or twice that I don't want children. It's not because I honestly care that much about overpopulation or whatever, it's because I don't like children. This was hell. And then it turns out that my grandfather is going to need open-heart surgery, and then it turns out they want him to have it this Tuesday and my grandmother started throwing up and my uncle wanted to fly down from Alaska and everybody's also talking about my grandfather's little brother committing suicide and my grandmother is blaming her (alive and healthy) mother-in-law, but glad that all the relatives at the funeral are fatter than our side of the family and I DON'T EVEN WHY.
Just as the very last thing, the "contemplative education" class I had to sign up for turned out to be on meditation. The prof signs himself "with love and respect, Rob."
What.
The only good thing that happened is that my lowest grade was, yet again, in Spanish. And that was an A-. I'm not sure I deserved an A in English, given that she said people who missed more than three weeks' participation would almost certainly fail and I skipped almost four, but apparently she really liked my essay on why unhitching Wide Sargasso Sea from Jane Eyre is stupid and doesn't make any sense. (I might have been a little more eloquent than that in the essay itself. And maybe spent several hours just formatting my works cited page, which was ... a little excessive.)
So, I could really use a good meme about now. And look, I'm five days behind!
Day 9: Who is your favourite female character in a drama show?
Going with the limited number of shows I watch, it's got to be Dr Temperance Brennan, from Bones.
She is kickass (but damaged), brilliant (but confused), fierce (but loving). She's an atheist who doesn't hate God, she just doesn't believe in one because it doesn't make sense to her. She doesn't see how the "bizarre" religions they come across are any more or less out there than Booth's orthodox Christianity. She's comfortable in her sexuality without ever seeming self-conscious about it, she doesn't see why other people should have a problem with how she approaches things. She dresses professionally in the lab and wears whatever the hell she feels like away from it (which mostly seems to involve pretty dangly jewellery and elegant coats, just 'cause).
She tries to be a good friend, even though she doesn't always get things. She really doesn't get things, a lot of the time, but she tries. She has to approach the world in her own way, and it's treated as every bit as valid as Booth's and Angela's -- she's able to see things they can't, and vice-versa. She's open-minded about nearly everything (except psychology). And no matter what happens to her, nothing can destroy her, because she is Temperance frigging Brennan and she is better than that.
Also, she's the first woman I ever saw on television who talked like me. I don't mean how I talk here (...some of the time), but in RL, it's like I'm constantly translating out of pedantic and trying to understand people who keep using this dialect I don't really get. I don't know what that means has pretty much been my catchphrase from childhood. I've had to figure out when I'm talking too loudly or laughing too long, which things are socially acceptable to talk about in what situations (even though it doesn't often make much sense), and I had to practise smiling in the mirror to get it right. And Bones shows a woman who is like that, and who will never be what people call normal, and then they take her way beyond Magical Oddball -- Brennan is confident, successful, admirable, sympathetic, and the main character.
Thanks.
Day 10: Who is your favourite female character in a sci-fi/supernatural show?
Donna Noble from Doctor Who.
I love that, like Romana, she doesn't take any of the Doctor's shit. I love that she refuses to be the love interest or eye candy. I love that she's loud and abrasive and genuinely annoying to a lot of people, but she's also better than any of them. I love that she's fierce and loyal from the get-go, and goes from a woman obsessed with the meaningless and trivia to someone with perhaps the widest, deepest perspective of anyone.
I love that being the Doctor's Morality Chain doesn't make her identity revolve around him; Donna is herself and a fully-articulated character. I love that she's funny and sharp and smart and basically a wonderful person and she matters because she's that person. Unlike Romana (obviously), I love her because she's not a Time Lord, because she's this human woman who refuses to let that make her somehow lesser than -- anyone, really.
In fact, I love every single thing about her except her end. (This is about the love, so I won't go into my feelings about that here.)
Day 11: Who is your favourite female character in a children's show?
Hm. Harley Quin and Poison Ivy were pretty awesome, and of course there's the previously-mentioned Adora (SHE-RA!), but I think I'll actually go for Carmen Sandiego. I'm not sure why, except ... she was cool. Her coat was cool and her hat was cool and her cracktastic thefts were cool. For a long time my favourite computer game was Where In Space is Carmen Sandiego and I'm pretty sure she stole the asteroid belt at one point. (Irrelevantly, the talking database was called VAL 9000, which was also awesome.)
And she was such a good sport about it all, really. Sure, she'd go around stealing national (or galactic!) landmarks, but she left clues to make it fun and she was cool with being inevitably outwitted. For her, it was enough just to steal the Great Wall of China right from under everyone's noses and have a hell of a time carting it around.
Can't really argue with that.
Day 12: Who is your favourite female character in a movie?
Princess Leia, of course. I talk about her a lot, so you all probably know why I love her, but ... just damn. I love that A New Hope is such a classic quest and you know exactly what every character is, and of course Leia is the distressed damsel and she's totally going to be the GFFA's Princess Peach OH WAIT. I love that she's the one who guesses at Tarkin's dastardly plan and uses it against him, that she tries to pull a third option when faced when unthinkable horror, that even when it happens and she's devastated, she's prepared to go down fighting.
What else? I love that she's very hard and fierce, but also kind. In the wake of the destruction of her entire planet, she reaches out to comfort a boy who's just lost his mentor; after everything she went through at Cloud City, again, her first impulse is to fuss over Luke. I love that she's beautiful, in the least Barbie-like way possible, that she's just as much herself in long princess gowns and elaborate hair as she is in jumpsuits and practical power braids. I love that she loves two different men who both love her, and that she never lets this tear her, them, or their friendship, apart. It's never about being the reward for either of them. It's not even about choosing between teams; for Leia, loving Han in no way precludes loving Luke, too, well before the sibling reveal.
I love thateven particularly at her gentlest and most emotionally open - in Jedi - she's completely kickass. I love that Jabba tries to objectify her, to claim her body for his personal enjoyment ... and she kills him. She may be a princess and in considerable distress, but Leia Organa doesn't put up with this shit, y'all. You turn her into fanservice and she'll choke you to death with her own slave-chain. I love that no matter what happens, she puts up with it and moves on. It turns out that her own father tortured her for information? She struggles for a few minutes, tells Han STFU I DON'T HAVE TIME FOR THIS and then she's ready to shoot some more stormtroopers. And to cuddle Ewoks, 'cause that's how Princess Leia rolls.
I love that every implication is that she's about to become a Jedi, which is the only way she could possibly be cooler than she already is. I even love that Luke knows and Vader knows and we all know perfectly well that she very probably could be turned to the Dark Side. Anger, aggression, she's got the whole Dark Side package in spades and she's still a good person. But if she turned, pretty much everyone would be screwed, and it's a very real possibility.
I also really, really like that she's not a sidekick in the way that, say, Hermione is. Narratively, Leia is Luke's co-star; she gets a little less attention, but the story consistently follows her plotline, her exploits and her character arc, whether Luke is involved with them or not. For all the ways in which ROTJ's treatment of her can be seen as problematic, Leia's identity is never lost in her connection to the men in her life, as so often happens. Nor to the women either. Ultimately, she's not identified as Luke's sister or Han's lover or Vader's daughter or Padmé's daughter. It's as she says herself, when Lando walks up and asks what she is.
I'm Leia.
I spent a week in a small house with not just my two nephews (Tyler's four, Luke's five months) and my foster sister (eight), but also my grandparents' two foster children, one of whom is a raging anti-Semite who constantly mutters under his breath à la Walburga Black (twelve), and the other who is much nicer but she's always humming or singing when she's not talking (thirteen). Also, all of them except Luke were constantly trying to get the others in trouble and I was in charge of them.
I've mentioned once or twice that I don't want children. It's not because I honestly care that much about overpopulation or whatever, it's because I don't like children. This was hell. And then it turns out that my grandfather is going to need open-heart surgery, and then it turns out they want him to have it this Tuesday and my grandmother started throwing up and my uncle wanted to fly down from Alaska and everybody's also talking about my grandfather's little brother committing suicide and my grandmother is blaming her (alive and healthy) mother-in-law, but glad that all the relatives at the funeral are fatter than our side of the family and I DON'T EVEN WHY.
Just as the very last thing, the "contemplative education" class I had to sign up for turned out to be on meditation. The prof signs himself "with love and respect, Rob."
What.
The only good thing that happened is that my lowest grade was, yet again, in Spanish. And that was an A-. I'm not sure I deserved an A in English, given that she said people who missed more than three weeks' participation would almost certainly fail and I skipped almost four, but apparently she really liked my essay on why unhitching Wide Sargasso Sea from Jane Eyre is stupid and doesn't make any sense. (I might have been a little more eloquent than that in the essay itself. And maybe spent several hours just formatting my works cited page, which was ... a little excessive.)
So, I could really use a good meme about now. And look, I'm five days behind!
Day 9: Who is your favourite female character in a drama show?
Going with the limited number of shows I watch, it's got to be Dr Temperance Brennan, from Bones.
She is kickass (but damaged), brilliant (but confused), fierce (but loving). She's an atheist who doesn't hate God, she just doesn't believe in one because it doesn't make sense to her. She doesn't see how the "bizarre" religions they come across are any more or less out there than Booth's orthodox Christianity. She's comfortable in her sexuality without ever seeming self-conscious about it, she doesn't see why other people should have a problem with how she approaches things. She dresses professionally in the lab and wears whatever the hell she feels like away from it (which mostly seems to involve pretty dangly jewellery and elegant coats, just 'cause).
She tries to be a good friend, even though she doesn't always get things. She really doesn't get things, a lot of the time, but she tries. She has to approach the world in her own way, and it's treated as every bit as valid as Booth's and Angela's -- she's able to see things they can't, and vice-versa. She's open-minded about nearly everything (except psychology). And no matter what happens to her, nothing can destroy her, because she is Temperance frigging Brennan and she is better than that.
Also, she's the first woman I ever saw on television who talked like me. I don't mean how I talk here (...some of the time), but in RL, it's like I'm constantly translating out of pedantic and trying to understand people who keep using this dialect I don't really get. I don't know what that means has pretty much been my catchphrase from childhood. I've had to figure out when I'm talking too loudly or laughing too long, which things are socially acceptable to talk about in what situations (even though it doesn't often make much sense), and I had to practise smiling in the mirror to get it right. And Bones shows a woman who is like that, and who will never be what people call normal, and then they take her way beyond Magical Oddball -- Brennan is confident, successful, admirable, sympathetic, and the main character.
Thanks.
Day 10: Who is your favourite female character in a sci-fi/supernatural show?
Donna Noble from Doctor Who.
I love that, like Romana, she doesn't take any of the Doctor's shit. I love that she refuses to be the love interest or eye candy. I love that she's loud and abrasive and genuinely annoying to a lot of people, but she's also better than any of them. I love that she's fierce and loyal from the get-go, and goes from a woman obsessed with the meaningless and trivia to someone with perhaps the widest, deepest perspective of anyone.
I love that being the Doctor's Morality Chain doesn't make her identity revolve around him; Donna is herself and a fully-articulated character. I love that she's funny and sharp and smart and basically a wonderful person and she matters because she's that person. Unlike Romana (obviously), I love her because she's not a Time Lord, because she's this human woman who refuses to let that make her somehow lesser than -- anyone, really.
In fact, I love every single thing about her except her end. (This is about the love, so I won't go into my feelings about that here.)
Day 11: Who is your favourite female character in a children's show?
Hm. Harley Quin and Poison Ivy were pretty awesome, and of course there's the previously-mentioned Adora (SHE-RA!), but I think I'll actually go for Carmen Sandiego. I'm not sure why, except ... she was cool. Her coat was cool and her hat was cool and her cracktastic thefts were cool. For a long time my favourite computer game was Where In Space is Carmen Sandiego and I'm pretty sure she stole the asteroid belt at one point. (Irrelevantly, the talking database was called VAL 9000, which was also awesome.)
And she was such a good sport about it all, really. Sure, she'd go around stealing national (or galactic!) landmarks, but she left clues to make it fun and she was cool with being inevitably outwitted. For her, it was enough just to steal the Great Wall of China right from under everyone's noses and have a hell of a time carting it around.
Can't really argue with that.
Day 12: Who is your favourite female character in a movie?
Princess Leia, of course. I talk about her a lot, so you all probably know why I love her, but ... just damn. I love that A New Hope is such a classic quest and you know exactly what every character is, and of course Leia is the distressed damsel and she's totally going to be the GFFA's Princess Peach OH WAIT. I love that she's the one who guesses at Tarkin's dastardly plan and uses it against him, that she tries to pull a third option when faced when unthinkable horror, that even when it happens and she's devastated, she's prepared to go down fighting.
What else? I love that she's very hard and fierce, but also kind. In the wake of the destruction of her entire planet, she reaches out to comfort a boy who's just lost his mentor; after everything she went through at Cloud City, again, her first impulse is to fuss over Luke. I love that she's beautiful, in the least Barbie-like way possible, that she's just as much herself in long princess gowns and elaborate hair as she is in jumpsuits and practical power braids. I love that she loves two different men who both love her, and that she never lets this tear her, them, or their friendship, apart. It's never about being the reward for either of them. It's not even about choosing between teams; for Leia, loving Han in no way precludes loving Luke, too, well before the sibling reveal.
I love that
I love that every implication is that she's about to become a Jedi, which is the only way she could possibly be cooler than she already is. I even love that Luke knows and Vader knows and we all know perfectly well that she very probably could be turned to the Dark Side. Anger, aggression, she's got the whole Dark Side package in spades and she's still a good person. But if she turned, pretty much everyone would be screwed, and it's a very real possibility.
I also really, really like that she's not a sidekick in the way that, say, Hermione is. Narratively, Leia is Luke's co-star; she gets a little less attention, but the story consistently follows her plotline, her exploits and her character arc, whether Luke is involved with them or not. For all the ways in which ROTJ's treatment of her can be seen as problematic, Leia's identity is never lost in her connection to the men in her life, as so often happens. Nor to the women either. Ultimately, she's not identified as Luke's sister or Han's lover or Vader's daughter or Padmé's daughter. It's as she says herself, when Lando walks up and asks what she is.
I'm Leia.