girlofprey (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
girlofprey) wrote2010-02-10 08:35 pm
girlofprey) wrote2010-02-10 08:35 pm
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My het pairings, and a few thoughts on female characters
Based partly on my last post - I haven't said much about the latest meta and discussion going around about female characters in fandom. But frankly, if I was writing anything at all, I would probably shy away from het a little bit, because things like Dr Facilier/Tiana are the kinds of heterosexual pairings I have. They're are the kind of pairings I have, most of the time, really, but it feels a bit different to have a female character involved than a male character, if you know what I mean. I'm not saying it's inherently bad or can't be written well, but it would kind of put me off a little bit.
I tend to think of them as my Little Red Riding Hood/Wolf type of pairings. Of which Little Red Riding Hood/Wolf is one of them, for certain alternate versions of the tale, generally. I went to see the ballet of Sleeping Beauty a few weeks ago because I found out a while back that in the third act a bunch of other fairytale characters turn up to sort of contrast with/attend the wedding of Aurora and the prince - which they did not do in Sleeping Beauty on Ice when I saw it - and one of the couples is Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf. It was kind of great. She sort of danced that she was running away from him, and he carried her off over his shoulder, and then when they danced together later there was a bit where she sat on his shoulder and he lifted her up. It was brilliant. Which is nice because I wasn't sure about the ballet as a whole - I had an odd view of it because I was up in the balcony, but it was a bit sugary for me I think. Although that could have been because I spent a lot of it paying attention to interruptions around me and waiting for Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf to come on.
Anyway. I have a lot of these kinds of pairings. But even the ones I can think of that are a bit nicer tend to have jerks in them. Kelly and Nathan is one of them, but even he seems to have a wolf as his shadow or following his shadow in the credits, which I'm not sure we've had fully explained just yet - I suppose whether the wolf is his shadow or is following it is itself quite important. And Makino and Tsukasa from Hana Yori Dango, but - as much as I love it and as much as it shows how UNABLE TO DEAL WITH WOMEN he is - it's hard to ignore the fact that he started out tormenting Makino, possibly sending dudes to rape her (that bit's a little ambiguous), and even when he decided he likes her, has her kidnapped and drugged and taken to his house to be dressed up so he can insult/woo her. And there's Virginia/Wolf from 10th Kingdom. But that's not exactly getting away from the Little Red Riding Hood/Wolf mould. Hm.
However, I don't feel too bad, because I love all of these pairings. And it's not like I ship any slightly evil man and a woman that are in a film/tv show/book together. And in my head, a lot of these pairings are smoking. So there's that.
Another thought I had about female characters in fandom is that maybe a lot of people have female characters they like, but they don't like to say it because they're worried they like them for the wrong reason. Personally, when I saw Goblet of Fire a few years ago, I really liked Fleur, even though generally speaking she mostly looks pretty and does a lot of screaming and failing of tasks. So I did feel a little bit self-conscious about it. Although she did turn out to be kind of great in the book of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, when she was in it. And personally, I've always had kind of a big thing, emotionally, for pregnancy. I remember being in a high school biology class when I was a teenager and getting kind of teary over a pregnancy science poster on the wall. And I used to want about 10 or 11 kids, mostly because I'd picked out a bunch of names I liked. I don't want a bunch of kids, or kids really, quite as much any more, but I do notice that I often start liking female characters after they've had some sort of pregnancy or motherhood storylines or issues. And it does seem sort of problematic to like female characters better for a reason like that. But then again, it's not always idealised situations that get to me - Debbie Dingle from Emmerdale's struggles to give up and then regain her daughter is one of the reasons I really love her, and Maria Connor from Coronation Street's loss of her unborn baby was one of the main parts where I started to really love her. There is another example I can think of, but it's kind of a major spoiler for a film, so I'm not going to go into it. But then again, it's a major part of people's lives, a lot of the time, and very emotionally charged. And it's not like I don't love mpreg. I don't know. It's tricky. There are clearly problems with how certain female characters are written. But there's an issue sometimes over whether female characters are "progressive" or well-written. And then there's the fact that some people just don't like certain female characters or aren't interested in them, and it's not because they think they're "bad female characters".
I don't know. Mostly I'm just taking how I feel about het pairings and female characters and discussing it generally. These are my thoughts anyway. Well, some of them.
I tend to think of them as my Little Red Riding Hood/Wolf type of pairings. Of which Little Red Riding Hood/Wolf is one of them, for certain alternate versions of the tale, generally. I went to see the ballet of Sleeping Beauty a few weeks ago because I found out a while back that in the third act a bunch of other fairytale characters turn up to sort of contrast with/attend the wedding of Aurora and the prince - which they did not do in Sleeping Beauty on Ice when I saw it - and one of the couples is Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf. It was kind of great. She sort of danced that she was running away from him, and he carried her off over his shoulder, and then when they danced together later there was a bit where she sat on his shoulder and he lifted her up. It was brilliant. Which is nice because I wasn't sure about the ballet as a whole - I had an odd view of it because I was up in the balcony, but it was a bit sugary for me I think. Although that could have been because I spent a lot of it paying attention to interruptions around me and waiting for Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf to come on.
Anyway. I have a lot of these kinds of pairings. But even the ones I can think of that are a bit nicer tend to have jerks in them. Kelly and Nathan is one of them, but even he seems to have a wolf as his shadow or following his shadow in the credits, which I'm not sure we've had fully explained just yet - I suppose whether the wolf is his shadow or is following it is itself quite important. And Makino and Tsukasa from Hana Yori Dango, but - as much as I love it and as much as it shows how UNABLE TO DEAL WITH WOMEN he is - it's hard to ignore the fact that he started out tormenting Makino, possibly sending dudes to rape her (that bit's a little ambiguous), and even when he decided he likes her, has her kidnapped and drugged and taken to his house to be dressed up so he can insult/woo her. And there's Virginia/Wolf from 10th Kingdom. But that's not exactly getting away from the Little Red Riding Hood/Wolf mould. Hm.
However, I don't feel too bad, because I love all of these pairings. And it's not like I ship any slightly evil man and a woman that are in a film/tv show/book together. And in my head, a lot of these pairings are smoking. So there's that.
Another thought I had about female characters in fandom is that maybe a lot of people have female characters they like, but they don't like to say it because they're worried they like them for the wrong reason. Personally, when I saw Goblet of Fire a few years ago, I really liked Fleur, even though generally speaking she mostly looks pretty and does a lot of screaming and failing of tasks. So I did feel a little bit self-conscious about it. Although she did turn out to be kind of great in the book of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, when she was in it. And personally, I've always had kind of a big thing, emotionally, for pregnancy. I remember being in a high school biology class when I was a teenager and getting kind of teary over a pregnancy science poster on the wall. And I used to want about 10 or 11 kids, mostly because I'd picked out a bunch of names I liked. I don't want a bunch of kids, or kids really, quite as much any more, but I do notice that I often start liking female characters after they've had some sort of pregnancy or motherhood storylines or issues. And it does seem sort of problematic to like female characters better for a reason like that. But then again, it's not always idealised situations that get to me - Debbie Dingle from Emmerdale's struggles to give up and then regain her daughter is one of the reasons I really love her, and Maria Connor from Coronation Street's loss of her unborn baby was one of the main parts where I started to really love her. There is another example I can think of, but it's kind of a major spoiler for a film, so I'm not going to go into it. But then again, it's a major part of people's lives, a lot of the time, and very emotionally charged. And it's not like I don't love mpreg. I don't know. It's tricky. There are clearly problems with how certain female characters are written. But there's an issue sometimes over whether female characters are "progressive" or well-written. And then there's the fact that some people just don't like certain female characters or aren't interested in them, and it's not because they think they're "bad female characters".
I don't know. Mostly I'm just taking how I feel about het pairings and female characters and discussing it generally. These are my thoughts anyway. Well, some of them.