These Women

[lls_mutant]

First off... whoohoo! No gestational diabetes! :) I really thought I would have it, just because it does run in my family, and it's not like my family is excessively heavy or anything. I'm still watching my sugar intake anyway, just to be safe (it doesn't hurt regardless, right? Right.), but I don't need to be psychotic about it.

Second of all- I'm holding a bridal shower this weekend for my sis. (Yes, I know it's not proper etiquiette. :P) Does anyone have any suggestions for games that aren't totally lame? A high percentage of the shower guests are older women who are friends or family of the groom's. I'm kind of looking for the kind of game where you can play if you want, but it doesn't take over. The two I have so far are the "how well do you know the bride?" game where participants fill out the sheet, and bridal shower bingo, where you cross gifts off your card as she opens them. Any other good suggestions?

I've been spending a lot of time thinking about the roles of women in the Harry Potter series and why I was so disappointed with that aspect in the Half Blood Prince (see jazzypom's essay on it), and what do I want to see from female characters? "Strong" female characters doesn't at all need to mean perfect to me- in fact, I find that even more annoying, as it puts women on a pedastal and is basically sexism in and of itself. So I've been thinking about portrayals of women I've liked. I keep wanting to do a full blown list, but I'm lazy at the moment. Actually, I want to write an article for Mutant Reviewers, so I'm curious about the response to this.

For me, I just want to say two words (and then elaborate): Aaron Sorkin.

I've now seen four seasons of West Wing, and the entire run of Sports Night, and I've decided I really, really like the way Aaron Sorkin writes women. (And that Jeremy IS my ex. Seriously. They look alike, their speech patterns are similar, and the geekdom... it's very, very scary. In a good way. That ex is a really great person.) They're flawed, but they're still strong. But there was something that bugged me when I was watching Sports Night- Dana can be a major flake, but I still like how Aaron Sorkin writes women, and I was unhappy with HBP. What gives? And then it hit me: balance.

I DO expect to see women screw up, be depressed, worry about their love lives, be bitches, be weak sometimes, to do hurtful things. We ALL do these things- men or women. But I was watching Dana make a mess, and I realized that at the same time, Natalie was holding everything together. And vice versa. The two of them (being the two main female roles on the show) rarely, if ever, have bad moments at the same point in time. That's kind of where I feel like JKR made her big misstep in HBP- I had problems with how almost every single female character behaved in love in the same book.

Additionally, Aaron Sorkin tends to maintain a good balance of screw-ups across gender and job structure. There are certain characters that make fewer big mistakes than others. Toby in West Wing, for example, rarely actually "screws up"- certainly CJ does it far more often than him. But CJ is the press secretary and has to deal with constant questions from reporters all the time, whereas Toby is often doing his job behind closed doors, writing speeches and having the benefits of a backspace key and people reading over them. And then add into that the fact that CJ is, by far, a much more likeable person (and much more a people person, to put it mildly) than Toby, and she doesn't at all come across as a weaker character, even though she might have more work-related fiascoes.

The balance extends to the love-life oriented problems, too. Dana comes up with the dating plan. Jeremy breaks up with Natalie, basically calling her a slut and shallow, which was incredibly hurtful. Josh and Amy both screwed up royally (I loved that aspect of it their relationship). Leo's wife left him because he didn't make enough time outside of work. Zoe really kind of screwed Charlie over by expecting him to be delighted that she was dating a young Sirius-lookalike in front of him. Toby tells his pregnant ex-wife she's as big as a minivan (one of my favorite lines, because it so sums him up). And Abby and Jeb win for my favorite married couple of all time, and again, they both make mistakes. And even better, their mistakes are rarely black and white. I've kind of cited more men than women here, but the nature of the two shows means you have to have more men than women, so.... But anyway, the messes are pretty balanced- as are the successes.

The last thing I noticed- and more in Sports Night than The West Wing, simply because love lives were more of an issue- when the women screw up in love, they pay the consequences. Dana's whole "dating plan" where she and Casey had to date other people for six months was a really, really dumb idea on her part. STUPID. And it backfired. But instead of having Dana and Casey throw themselves in each other's arms ala a bad romantic comedy, Casey simply moved on, and Dana had to live with that fact. I really liked that, and the way it was handled gave them both a certain dignity. Casey did move on, and Dana did live with it. That was one thing I really kind of missed in HBP- there was a lack of consequences in the emotional arena.

Anyway, what I want to know is, what other portrayals of females in fiction are people truly impressed with?

Comments

Re: more fictional women I love...

[thistlerose.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen the movie yet. The book is fun. It's not fantastically well written, but I found it refreshingly realistic, and by the end I really cared about all four girls. They deal with things like love, death, divorce, and sex (one girl has sex, but it's not at all explicit) but none of those things sever the bond they share. I recommend it.