>Ripley
>Sarah Connor
>Lara Croft
Hollywood has had strong women for ages so why is it only now that people are throwing a hissy fit over the likes of Furiosa in Mad Max and Black Widow?
youtube.com
If the above scene happened today I guarantee that everyone here would be calling Ripley a Mary Sue.
Other urls found in this thread:
youtube.com
youtube.com
twitter.com
who gives a shit
the scifi and fantasy genres were full of female leading roles in the 90s and early 00s with strong females as main characters on Buffy, SG-1 and Atlantis, Voyager, Xena... and that was just normal then. so why are people now acting like it's a media revolution to have strong female main characters with Wonder Woman or in GOT? has nobody been watching tv for the last 20 years?
Furiosa is alright, black widow is the "YAAAS QUEEN SLAY" feminist icon that everyone hates. Danaerys and Rey as well. The political statement oozes through the writing.
>The political statement oozes through the writing.
And furiosa IS fine
>black widow is the "YAAAS QUEEN SLAY" feminist icon that everyone hates.
Said no one ever
Because back then they were well written and not created by spiteful feminists who wanted to shit on men.
Ripley was heroic but still very feminine and willing to show love maternal caring, attraction to strong male leads and physical vulnerability to those who could overpower her.
Sarah Connor was equal parts strong woman and crazy protective mother. Her physical prowess was explained by her time spent traumatized and readying for a desperate fight.
Today's Mary Sues have no weaknesses or realistic explanations. They will be girly girls who can take on 10 armed men at once. Happily making quips while going through extreme ordeals. Always shown to one up leading men because the writers are desperate to make them look superior.
Personally i think Furiosa wasnt that bad. Plenty of other examples to pick from.
>why is it only now that people are throwing a hissy fit
Because they don't want actual strong women who fight aliens (Ripley) and cyborgs (Sarah Connor) and love hunting for treasure (OG Lara Croft). Those women to them are "men with boobs".
They want strong women who "fight the patriarchy" like Furiosa fights all the males except Max, or Harley Quinn whose main struggle is an abusive boyfriend, not being an effective criminal. Or nu-Lara who is being oppressed by male thugs on an island.
Women can't relate to stories of grand adventure in space, or the thrill of treasure hunting. They can only imagine going against some man as being the ultimate act of heroism. It makes me sad because I actually love female characters like Ripley and Sarah Connor.
The outrage culture of identity politics.
I don't know exactly how we got here, but I have a guess. We inundate our children with stories of civil rights leaders and the Holocaust and suffragettes (who rightfully worked for equality). I think this makes people, who as society becomes more egalitarian while remaining based off of an individualist ideology, feel that in order to make a difference they need to shake things up and push for progress in society. When born in a relatively egalitarian era, there is a sense of helplessness that sets in when one realizes that they came too late to help large swaths of the population gain property or voting rights, so smaller goals such as representation in the media become paramount. And when even that has come a long way, it is easier to simply forget Ripley or the Rocketeer or Blade or Sarah Connor or even Ingrid Bergman and Grace Kelly roles so that one can feel a satisfaction in being a fan of Black Panther or Wonder Woman.
I don't know that there is an easy solution to the problem, either. As a society we need to find new ways for people to feel they are making a difference in the world without striking clean the historical record so that they can claim the feats of past generations. Perhaps by building up a greater culture around volunteering or military service. Who knows? But the single biggest thing is almost certainly getting citizens to see themselves as Americans before seeing themselves as (ethnicity)-Americans or women ot democrats or republicans. We have a ways to go.
>Personally i think Furiosa wasnt that bad.
Especially since Max beats the shit out of her and spends the whole movie constantly saving her ass because she has no skills besides murdering people