Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
Via Miss Cellania we learn that now, after decades of cardboard-flat Strong Willed Woman (SWW) characters having been pumped out in cinema to placate the anger of our feminists who demanded them, and we’ve gone so many revolutions on that silly merry-go-’round that it’s long ago become a parody of itself…it turns out the feminists wanted something completely different. Or want something completely different now. Or something.
I think the major problem here is that women were clamoring for “strong female characters,” and male writers misunderstood. They thought the feminists meant [Strong Female] Characters. The feminists meant [Strong Characters], Female.
So the feminists shouldn’t have said “we want more strong female characters.” They should have said “we want more WEAK female characters.” Not “weak” meaning “Damsel in Distress.” “Weak” meaning “flawed.”
Mmm, hmm. I think I get it. Methinks the problem might not have been so much with the goal, as with the tactic. Write the characters this way…otherwise, we shall become very angry, and boycott your movie. Sticks instead of carrots.
Punishment-over-reward doesn’t work too well when your objective has something to do with precision. It works for ball-park stuff. Puppy should be housebroken, but isn’t, so he gets a whack. The point is, once the trainee puts some effort into meeting expectations, the punishment has to stop, because if it doesn’t the feeling of futility sets in right away. So does a feeling of confusion. A flawed female character? Like a female version of William Macy’s character in Fargo? Yeah. Find me a woman who likes that, I’ll find you two that hate it. Probably more than that. Literature already gives us MacBeth’s wife. Where are all the feminists slobbering all over this, wondering wistfully why she can’t appear in modern film? So I call bull doots on this.
Good luck on it though.
Meanwhile, anybody who wants to get extra-jaded on this whole “we have strong women because feminists demanded them” thing can just go watch an old Superman episode, and feast their eyes on what sort of Lois Lane Superman was saving. Thought that “tough enough to make it in a man’s world” storyline started with Teri Hatcher, didntcha? Nope, not even. Women who know their stuff, who are capable of making their own decisions, have been intoxicating — to both sexes — for a very long time now. An extraordinarily long time. It’s the way we’re built. Men don’t make all the decisions; they make all the decisions in some settings, women make all the decisions in others. Men do things that haven’t been done before. It’s quite silly to say “hold my beer and watch this” just before you do something someone else already did. Women, on the other hand, establish, maintain and enforce protocol.
That’s why feminism doesn’t work. It’s a mutation of womens’ instincts to establish, maintain and enforce protocol — but it deals with a protocol that experiments with relegating men to complete uselessness. And women, with very few exceptions, don’t want that. And, it promises to make things unpleasant for people if they don’t meet certain conditions; but promises nothing about the unpleasantness coming to an end, if & when the conditions are met.
Thing I Know #52. Angry people who demand things, don’t stop being angry when their demands are met.
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