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geonncannon
March is Women's History Month in the United States. And March 8 is International Women's Day. I figured that in honor of that fact, I would list some of my favorite female characters from television shows and ask you guys to do the same. So, let's have it. Who are your top five favorite fictional women and why?
1. Xena
Xena seriously should not need an explanation. She kicks ass better than any comparable male hero. She's unashamedly sexual and at the same time completely in control. I didn't see the original Xena trilogy in HTLJ until after I'd seen her first season; I think the moment I fell in love with Xena was when she walked out of the lake, totally naked, to save a child being chased by bad guys. It's a scene that sums up Xena perfectly: she knows darn well that her body will distract the enemy and she's using her nudity as a weapon, yet at the same time she behaves as if her lack of clothing is irrelevant to her. I love her because she's smart and because she's imperfect. Her evil past is kinda typical of fantasy heroines but Xena never entirely escaped it. Though her moral compass pointed the right way she did get stuff wrong and she did make mistakes; the series wasn't afraid to let the heroine on occasion behave in a villain-like way. She wasn't just a warrior: she had a big heart. Though the show had its faults, her pregnancy storyline showed that a woman doesn't have to be defined by her pregnancy: being a mother added to what Xena was, it didn't change what she was. And, of course, Xena also did a heck of a lot for the gay cause in real life, which is no small part of why I love her.
I could populate my top five with women just from this series (Gabrielle, Nebula, Ephiny, Lao Ma, Callisto, Najara...whoops, that's more than five!), but I'll let Xena stand for all of them and go on to
2. Delenn (Babylon 5)
She could kick ass with the best of them, but Delenn's heroism was of a less...physical kind. She was an incredible character: a politician and diplomat, a war leader and a mystic. You were never sure she was telling the whole truth and yet somehow you trusted everything she said. And that was just in the first series :-) I can't remember any other show where I've anticipated every single episode so much, and Delenn was one of the main reasons for that. She went through so many changes over the course of the five-year story, but she never stopped being a character I admired. She was wise and knowledgable, but her inexperience of human ways made her...not naive, but perhaps young in some ways, too. She had a great sense of humour, an amazing capacity for compassion and an almost equal capacity for ruthlessness. I remember when the show was first aired I though that the romantic storyline she was given detracted from her as a character; with hindsight I no longer think so. It was just that we were seeing a different side of her, and for a while, the show concentrated on that. Delenn also had what remains, in my opinion, the greatest and most memorable moment I've ever seen in any TV show: that moment in Severed Dreams when she scared off the Earth fleet without even firing a shot - and if you've seen the show I have no doubt you remember how she did it.
Babylon 5 is another show I could mine for more than five fantastic women characters: Susan Invanova, Lyta Alexander, Talia Winters, Londo's nagging wife (gods, I can't remember her name but she was awesome!), Na'Toth, and so many others who were in only one or two eps.
3. Amanda Darrieux/Montrose (Highlander)
Okay, I admit it: I have a thing for kick-ass chicks with swords. But Amanda is special, with or without the sword. In Highlander she's a thousand-year-old thief and con-artist, with a habit of manipulating our hero into fighting her battles for her and leaving him holding the bag (of trouble!). But he still loves her, and she him and it's not hard to see why. Underneath her flighty ways and her flexible morality is a woman with a core of steel. Highlander: The Raven explored her in more depth, and gave some insight into why she chose her particular lifestyle. There's a moment in one of the early episodes of Raven when she justifies being a thief by making reference to the misogyny of history: I don't have a transcript to hand but she essentially says that a woman could only be independent (of male control) by being a whore, and even then if she tried to be too independent she was a witch. Nick responds by pointing out that this isn't true any longer. But that's the thing about Amanda: she's very much a person shaped by her history. She's a thief because she knows what it's like to starve and doesn't much like it. She's a con artist because that's how she's survived for centuries. She's smart and gorgeous and a survivor. She makes mistakes - huge ones - but she doesn't run away from the consequences. Well...not over the long term. She's suffered some terrible losses but still knows how to enjoy life. She is imperfect: amoral, sometimes cowardly, sometimes loyal to the wrong people (her loyalty is a big part of why I love her); but she's not afraid to stand up for a cause she believes in.
4. Catwoman (Halle Berry)
My favourite thing about this movie is that she doesn't get the guy at the end. She choses independence, but she knows her independence will cost her a measure of happiness. She's okay with that. My second favourite thing is the part where she drowns noisy-guy's sound system in water when he won't turn the music down because, let's face it, who hasn't wanted to do that at some point? I know the critics hated this film and I don't care. I love it. I love the transformation from a talented but struggling artist bullied by her boss to the self-confident (maybe over-confident) Catwoman. I love that she's brave (or stupid) enough to climb out of her window to try to rescue a cat that's not even in real danger, and I love how she goes from horror at the thought of wearing that leather outfit to wearing it with such attitude it looks perfect on her. I love how she struggles with her dual persona, how she feels almost taken over by Catwoman and how she comes to embrace that instead of going back to her humdrum life.
5. Sharon/Boomer/Athena/Eight (Battlestar Galactica)
I know everyone loves Starbuck, but it was Boomer's story that drew me in to BSG. She's like any other kid struggling to find a place among people older and more experienced than she, but unlike the others she really is different. On some level, she knows it, and the difference haunts her. I really felt her struggle in the first season, the tragedy of her realisation that she wasn't really human. In Athena we see the same personality as she would have been without that cataclysmic struggle: focussed and determined, loyal, yet still well capable of screwing up when she's scared. I love the way the two personas switched places: the courageous and very human Boomer becoming, in effect, an evil cylon and Athena, who started out as manipulative and apparently evil, turning on her kind to become a hero to the humans. It's like they're a reflection of each other. BSG is complicated and twisty and other characters have always been more prominent, but it's Sharon and her many copies that still keeps me coming back to the show.
geonncannonMarch is Women's History Month in the United States. And March 8 is International Women's Day. I figured that in honor of that fact, I would list some of my favorite female characters from television shows and ask you guys to do the same. So, let's have it. Who are your top five favorite fictional women and why?
1. Xena
Xena seriously should not need an explanation. She kicks ass better than any comparable male hero. She's unashamedly sexual and at the same time completely in control. I didn't see the original Xena trilogy in HTLJ until after I'd seen her first season; I think the moment I fell in love with Xena was when she walked out of the lake, totally naked, to save a child being chased by bad guys. It's a scene that sums up Xena perfectly: she knows darn well that her body will distract the enemy and she's using her nudity as a weapon, yet at the same time she behaves as if her lack of clothing is irrelevant to her. I love her because she's smart and because she's imperfect. Her evil past is kinda typical of fantasy heroines but Xena never entirely escaped it. Though her moral compass pointed the right way she did get stuff wrong and she did make mistakes; the series wasn't afraid to let the heroine on occasion behave in a villain-like way. She wasn't just a warrior: she had a big heart. Though the show had its faults, her pregnancy storyline showed that a woman doesn't have to be defined by her pregnancy: being a mother added to what Xena was, it didn't change what she was. And, of course, Xena also did a heck of a lot for the gay cause in real life, which is no small part of why I love her.
I could populate my top five with women just from this series (Gabrielle, Nebula, Ephiny, Lao Ma, Callisto, Najara...whoops, that's more than five!), but I'll let Xena stand for all of them and go on to
2. Delenn (Babylon 5)
She could kick ass with the best of them, but Delenn's heroism was of a less...physical kind. She was an incredible character: a politician and diplomat, a war leader and a mystic. You were never sure she was telling the whole truth and yet somehow you trusted everything she said. And that was just in the first series :-) I can't remember any other show where I've anticipated every single episode so much, and Delenn was one of the main reasons for that. She went through so many changes over the course of the five-year story, but she never stopped being a character I admired. She was wise and knowledgable, but her inexperience of human ways made her...not naive, but perhaps young in some ways, too. She had a great sense of humour, an amazing capacity for compassion and an almost equal capacity for ruthlessness. I remember when the show was first aired I though that the romantic storyline she was given detracted from her as a character; with hindsight I no longer think so. It was just that we were seeing a different side of her, and for a while, the show concentrated on that. Delenn also had what remains, in my opinion, the greatest and most memorable moment I've ever seen in any TV show: that moment in Severed Dreams when she scared off the Earth fleet without even firing a shot - and if you've seen the show I have no doubt you remember how she did it.
Babylon 5 is another show I could mine for more than five fantastic women characters: Susan Invanova, Lyta Alexander, Talia Winters, Londo's nagging wife (gods, I can't remember her name but she was awesome!), Na'Toth, and so many others who were in only one or two eps.
3. Amanda Darrieux/Montrose (Highlander)
Okay, I admit it: I have a thing for kick-ass chicks with swords. But Amanda is special, with or without the sword. In Highlander she's a thousand-year-old thief and con-artist, with a habit of manipulating our hero into fighting her battles for her and leaving him holding the bag (of trouble!). But he still loves her, and she him and it's not hard to see why. Underneath her flighty ways and her flexible morality is a woman with a core of steel. Highlander: The Raven explored her in more depth, and gave some insight into why she chose her particular lifestyle. There's a moment in one of the early episodes of Raven when she justifies being a thief by making reference to the misogyny of history: I don't have a transcript to hand but she essentially says that a woman could only be independent (of male control) by being a whore, and even then if she tried to be too independent she was a witch. Nick responds by pointing out that this isn't true any longer. But that's the thing about Amanda: she's very much a person shaped by her history. She's a thief because she knows what it's like to starve and doesn't much like it. She's a con artist because that's how she's survived for centuries. She's smart and gorgeous and a survivor. She makes mistakes - huge ones - but she doesn't run away from the consequences. Well...not over the long term. She's suffered some terrible losses but still knows how to enjoy life. She is imperfect: amoral, sometimes cowardly, sometimes loyal to the wrong people (her loyalty is a big part of why I love her); but she's not afraid to stand up for a cause she believes in.
4. Catwoman (Halle Berry)
My favourite thing about this movie is that she doesn't get the guy at the end. She choses independence, but she knows her independence will cost her a measure of happiness. She's okay with that. My second favourite thing is the part where she drowns noisy-guy's sound system in water when he won't turn the music down because, let's face it, who hasn't wanted to do that at some point? I know the critics hated this film and I don't care. I love it. I love the transformation from a talented but struggling artist bullied by her boss to the self-confident (maybe over-confident) Catwoman. I love that she's brave (or stupid) enough to climb out of her window to try to rescue a cat that's not even in real danger, and I love how she goes from horror at the thought of wearing that leather outfit to wearing it with such attitude it looks perfect on her. I love how she struggles with her dual persona, how she feels almost taken over by Catwoman and how she comes to embrace that instead of going back to her humdrum life.
5. Sharon/Boomer/Athena/Eight (Battlestar Galactica)
I know everyone loves Starbuck, but it was Boomer's story that drew me in to BSG. She's like any other kid struggling to find a place among people older and more experienced than she, but unlike the others she really is different. On some level, she knows it, and the difference haunts her. I really felt her struggle in the first season, the tragedy of her realisation that she wasn't really human. In Athena we see the same personality as she would have been without that cataclysmic struggle: focussed and determined, loyal, yet still well capable of screwing up when she's scared. I love the way the two personas switched places: the courageous and very human Boomer becoming, in effect, an evil cylon and Athena, who started out as manipulative and apparently evil, turning on her kind to become a hero to the humans. It's like they're a reflection of each other. BSG is complicated and twisty and other characters have always been more prominent, but it's Sharon and her many copies that still keeps me coming back to the show.
no subject
Well, it took me until series three to become really invested in the storyline. Before then I was watching, but other than Sharon I didn't really care. In season three stuff started coming together and I could see the shape of the overall story. That's what gets me invested in TV: these shows where there's a new story every week and no overall arc just don't interest me.
I think the unique thing about BSG is there's so much of the characters' individual stories they don't tell onscreen. These huge things happen and then the next ep goes off on a different tangent so you don't see what followed on the personal level. It's fantastic for fanfic, and in some ways it's a really strong way to tell the ensemble story but it's also frustrating in spots.
Starbuck is an interesting character. It's unusual to have a character in SF who's that messed up, but still one of the good guys. But they've built up such a huge mystery around her that at this point I'm thinking the payoff had better be stunning or it'll be horribly anticlimactic.