Nine for IX - An Inspiration

Summer Olympics 1996 I was sitting in my preferred spot on our living room floor in front of my family's TV watching in awe. My heroes at the time, The Magnificent Seven (who I'll be calling the M7), had just won their gold medals. The following school year suddenly we all wanted to be gymnasts again. My friends and I had always done cartwheels at recess, but now we were inspired. These girls were our idols. I can remember wanting to be Shannon miller (that hair!) as well as wanting her poster for my wall. (I never did get one - I'm thinking b/c my mother and I had a mutual, unspoken agreement that such a poster would clash with my ballerina decor. Also, it was made very clear that we didn't poke holes in Mom's wall.)

As time went on other figures covered those walls (i.e. NSYNC) and the inspiration I got from Miller, Strug, Dawes, Moceanu and the like was replaced with, well, let's face it, hormones.

Cross-Post: How Admission Breaks Many Molds

Admission isn't your typical book or movie.  It's not just a maudlin love story.  It's so much more.  Tina Fey's character Portia, now in her 40s, is just getting her coming-of-age story where she finally learns to live and to stand up for what's right.  It's about her ability to love and accept love, to connect with her estranged hardcore feminist mother, to balance work and her increasingly unstable personal life, and most of all it's about establishing and maintaining roots.  It's a complex story that aptly divvies out proportions of multiple people's lives in a mere two hours.  We feel like we know the entire characters' histories in this film (I can count five characters that adhere to this, despite Portia being the main character).  The movie's writing by Karen Croner is beautifully stellar, carefully crafted, and knowingly faithful, in essence, to its source by Jean Hanff Korelitz.

(Story originally from Anything You Can Do)

January Comic News!

A new Marvel NOW! release, just announced yesterday by USA Today is a relaunch of X-Men by Brian Wood in April.  But the main characters all happen to be arguably the biggest stars of the X-Men: the females Storm, Rogue, Psylocke, Kitty Pryde, Rachel Grey, and Jubilee.  Bling! and Pixie guest star in the first issue.  The premise of the book, for the first year or two revolves around Jubilee bringing home a baby that could save or destroy the world, and the X-Men must protect it.  But don't expect it to be just a rehash of Hope's story!  Wood revealed that Jubilee will be the focus, but everyone will get their shine time!  And if any of you read Wood's X-Men run this year, you know he tells a mean story and writes complex and rich characters.  His Storm is absolutely stellar.  Oliver Coipel pencils the first few issues and rotates with Wood's penciler on the former X-Men run David Lopez.  This is the best thing to happen in comics of everytime, everyone!  Pre-order as soon as possible!  This needs to succeed!

Book Review: The Steel Seraglio

Every now and then, a book comes along with a quiet power and dignity.  The Steel Seraglio is one of those books that will have gone under the radar for a majority of worldwide readers, but it shouldn't.  The book is fairly complex in its themes, characters, and even plot due to reasons soon to be expounded.  What is also striking is its ability to not acknowledge any genre boundaries.  It is written much like an ancient document, detailing the lost city of Bessa in the Middle East, but it draws from historical fiction/alternate history, as well as magical realism, all lending to an unnerving, gripping, thrilling, and unexpected page turner.  Though it's given these qualities of historical fiction and magical realism, it also brings forth the epic fantasy vibe, though not so much as journey of a fellowship of different races trying to save a world.  Rather, this is the story of the concubines a seraglio, or harem, of the fictional city of Bessa's sultan Bokhari Al-Bokhari.

Al-Bokhari and his wives and legitimate children with said wives are killed by a religious extremist Hakkim, who is also a trained assassin.  He believes it his destiny to eradicate all debauchery and sin from Bessa.  The seraglio managed to persuade Hakkim to send them as a gift to a neighboring sultan through the techniques they'd always used on political figures and men to do their bidding in subtle arts.  But the women of the seraglio have a different idea: take back Bessa.  Read on for a complete review, spoiler-free but very in-depth.

Chloe King's Nine Lives Are Used Up

Skyler Samuels

ABC Family has just pulled the plug on the adorably dramatic The Nine Lives of Chloe King, but it's looking to the future with a new show Strut by Gilmore Girls creator Amy Sherman-Palladino.  Nine Lives followed the trials of The Uniter, Chloe King, who suddenly wakes up (after dying) to find that she revived and has feral powers.  She had to deal with her human life and her Mai life.  Poor Chloe found love on both sides of the fence.  Being fiercely protected by her fellow Mai, she feels caged and has to break rules put on her.  It's nice to see a young independent lady making decisions for the just and good.  Chloe's decisions often put her in danger, but she risks her life to save others or to do what's right.

Feminist Feature: Leslie Knope

I look up to Leslie Knope--played by the lovely, talented, and hilarious Amy Poehler.  On the surface Leslie can seem...ditzy.  But she's far from it.  Not only is Leslie the most likeable female character on TV; she is the most well-rounded character, which is odd for a comedy.  She's not overly aggressive and not dumb.  She's herself and she loves everyone, except librarians...and people from Eagleton.  Let's take a look at her brilliance and feminism through the past three seasons.

Sister Site: Anything You Can Do

I've developed a new blog for my feminist rants called Anything You Can Do under the address of womenarepersons.blogspot.com, after the lovely Susan B. Anthony's wondrous speech.  You'll still find feminist features here, but as long as they pertain to nerdy pop culture.  I was pushing it with the last few feminist posts.  If anyone wants be a co-blogger, reply to this post.

Feminist Feature: Aung San Suu Kyi

"Please use your liberty to  promote ours."  -Aung San Suu Kyi

And so I will...

With the new film coming out next year, I thought it important that I bring about the awareness of all that is Aung San Suu Kyi, Nobel Peace Prize winner and the symbol of the Democratic revolution in Burma.  Before November 13, 2010, Aung San Suu Kyi spent fifteen years under house arrest and other types of detentions.  Heroism runs in the family.  Her father Aung San was also an advocate of independence, who was killed when she was two.  She was highly educated, having graduation from Oxford.  In 1988, Burma called her back for her ill mother.  Approximately five thousand people were killed in the revolution she got caught up in on August 8.  Five thousand!  In one day!

Photo courtesy of Asian News

Book Review: At Issue's Women in Islam

This collection of essays in Women in Islam confronts the topic of Muslim women, so Westerners can better understand points of view of women in Islam with religion, society, gender, and law.  Though some points of view oppose in certain fundamentals, like Eltahawy’s “Muslim Women Should Not Be Stereotyped” and Pollitt’s “Muslim Women Need Their Rights to Be Recognized”, they are trying to do accomplish the same feat: provoking Westerners to overcome their ignorance based on stereotypes, fed by media, history, religions, and politics.  Read on for the review.

Feminist Feature: My Feministy Heroes

It's no secret; I'm a feminist.  I'd actually like to think I'm more of a humanist.  There are so many people without rights or respect.  But it's high-time women gained equal rights and respect.  My dad said he'd never want a woman covering him in the battlefield.  My response: history has proved otherwise.  Women get the job done, no matter what.  I wanted to share with you some women who've made me into the passionate feminist I am today.  I'll start with the earliest living...after the jump.

Site of the Week 7/18/11-7/24/11

Not to dwell on the subject, but I found this week's and last week's at the same time...
Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media pleases me in so many ways.  It gives well-researched studies on gender, leaned more towards girls, in the media, and the problems that can arise from depicting females in the media as objects of affection, downtrodden damsels in distress, or the bitchy girlfriends or nagging wives.  Davis uses her fame (or what's left of it) to promote the subject, even going as far as presenting bills to Congress.  Davis is working with the First Lady and the FCC to change the film industry as fast as possible.  We need better role models for women on screen.

Site of the Week 7/11-7/17: indiewire's Women and Hollywood

Classify this under Feminist Feature as well.  If you're like me, you follow and analyze women's roles in today's media.  Women are no longer being resorted to objects of men's affections.  Rather they're complex individuals and main characters.  There are even female directors and writers!  Imagine that, 1990s!  Women in Hollywood breaks down critical reception of female-centric TV and film, provides breaking news in female-centric Hollywood, and analyzes female-centric film and television.  They also provide week-by-week data analyses, providing numbers and interpretation on what movies have main female roles, female writers, and female directors each week.  Check it out, feminist folks.

Feminist Feature: Warehouse of Women

Warehouse 13 was surely considered female-centric in its first season, but the second season was considerably more so, and I'd say even feminist.  The addition of Helena "H.G." Wells, played by Jaime Murray, as a recurring cast member was a wonderful idea.  Her character is complex and mysterious.  Her motives for her actions were understandable and clear in the end, and I felt so bad for her.  I hope one day she'll return to the Warehouse under more trustworthy terms. H.G.'s like X-Men's Mystique: unpredictable, mysterious, sly, and dangerous but with misunderstood good intentions carried out in unfathomable and militant ways.  She must have been a hit, and the SyFy network must have loved her because she will be starring in a Warehouse 13 spin-off, revolving around her life prior to being bronzed by the Warehouse agents.  Steampunk goodness awaits!

Feminist Feature: Esquire's Sexism

Esquire Magazine recently ran a list of 75 Books Every Man Should Read.  Seventy-four of those were by males, Flannery O'Connor's A Good Man is Hard to Find (of course) being the only female work.  (They did state, though, that their list was "utterly biased," in their defense.)  Why O'Connor and not Margaret Atwood?  Don't get me wrong: Esquire is promoting reading!  That's a good thing, right?  But I'd rather they promote gender equality as well; this is not to say have 50/50 gender split.  That in itself would be discriminating...and as retaliation Jezebel released their list for women, including three men...just as discriminating.  Good job on the war front, ladies.  All that should matter is that a book is stellar.  The author's biological makeup should contribute nothing to the quality of writing.  As fellow blogger Sally said, "I'm amazed, though, that To Kill a Mockingbird wouldn't be on there because it belongs on any Must Read List, regardless of gender."  It's true.

Feminist Feature: Legend of the Seeker's Inspiration

I've recently read a book called Women Warriors: A History by David E. Jones, which my students at school have chuckled at because clearly they have not even been exposed to the idea of feminism, of female warriors, or of ancient matriarchal societies.  Out here, it's typical for girls to go straight to the marriage life and pop out babies and be a dutiful wife, silent and complacent and in the kitchen.  Upon reading this book, I came across certain groups or individuals that reminded me of female warriors in television, books, and movies.  Some instances remind me of Legend of the Seeker.  In relation to the TV series and the books, these ancient warrior women are present in the development of the characters.

Here, Kahlan the Mother Confessor is killing the Sisters of the Dark, badassly.

Feminist Feature: Bridesmaids

First of all, we have a Paul Feig directed comedy co-written by Kristen Wiig.  How can you go wrong?  Its brilliance solely because of their names.  But now onto the feminist points at hand.

All-female casts are becoming more common.  It's not to say they never existed before Baby Mama because they totally did (Witches of Eastwick, anyone?), but they're appealing to a broader audience now with extremely funny ladies.  I've already written on Spring Breakdown and its underrated and misunderstood nature.  (It might have actually been my first post.)  Bridesmaids succeeded in even taking mostly unknown actresses to the general public and created a sweeping greatness that I've not seen in a comedy, well, since Baby Mama.  I've never laughed so hard in my life.

Feminist Feature: Female Messiah!

So we went from the "decimation" of the mutant race because of Scarlet Witch warping reality, taking away the powers of most mutants in the world, many of which died due to their mutations physical features stayed the same and couldn't adapt to being homo sapien (known as M-Day). Then came the Messiah Complex: the "arms" race to get to the new, and only, mutant baby born since M-Day. The baddies obliterated an entire town, babies and all. The X-Men were too late to save the day, but they managed to rescue Hope, the newly-born mutant. There, Cable took her into the future, followed by Bishop. The entire run of the recent Cable series has Bishop following their tracks, trying to kill Hope. This is how she's raised: fleeing and fighting for her life.

Now, she's like a child again when she comes to the present but at the same time a badass young lady, who's been raised in an eternal war. This is why she and X-23 connect with each other: they've been raised in horrible situations and, once out of it, don't know how to act. And the pressure's on for Hope. The X-Men have lost many on their quest to protect Hope: Caliban, Nightcrawler, Ariel, and more that I can't think of, I'm sure. Wolverine summed it up perfectly: "She better be worth it." The mutant race have been split on the necessity of Hope: she's had many killed when the mutant race is nearly extinct, so why are the X-Men risking so much for most likely just another mutant...and others have exactly what she was named HOPE. So far she's gotten into a fight with Moonstar, which was great, and is about to team-up with Rogue in badassery.

Typically we don't see allusions to female messiahs. There have only been male messiahs in literature. It's about time someone stepped it up. If she is somehow the one to revive the mutant gene, then the X-Men's deaths are not for nothing. But if she somehow becomes just an uber-powerful mutant. Could she save them all or destroy them all? This is yet another difference between Hope and other literary messiahs. She's multi-faceted, not directly a savior and perfect person. She's a rollercoaster of emotions, understandably. I'm anxious to see how this turns out!

Feminist Feature: The Avengers!

Remember my post on the X-Men being feminist? Well, despite Marvel's amazing female characters, they are largely invisible, especially in the upcoming Avengers. Of three core teams: Avengers, New Avengers, and Secret Avengers, we have approximately one female per team right now with five members released, but the Secret cast is still shadows (but one seems to be female).



Ms. Marvel is shown on the New Avengers cover for June, but the first five team members were revealed to be Wolverine, Spider-Man, Thing, Luke Cage, and Jessica Jones/Jewel. I love this team. I really do. But I want more females. Is Ms. Marvel really going to be on it? Why not have Jewel and Spider-Woman be on the same team? They're supposed to be friends from Jessica's days as a P.I. And Carol is supposed to be Jessica's best friend.


And Spider-Woman is part of the adjectiveless Avengers team. I love her like crazy, especially after the series she just had, which got cut to be a mini. So she's on a team with Thor, Iron Man, and Captain America. So the three biggest names of the Avengers will completely overpower her or bring her up in status. We'll see how this plays out. But there are plenty of female Avengers, and I think we could have more on a team. I know. We should just care about good characters. And I do. But you can turn a crappy character into a good character (usually) if given to a different writer. I love Bendis's writing, and I think his women are fantastic, but I wish he'd write more of them to maybe help being in even more female fans and show equality among the sexes. It's ridiculous!

Once this will happen, maybe more races will be represented in the Avengers. Like Wolverine, Storm could totally be on the Avengers. Or sexuality differences. Bring Wiccan and Hulkling to the forefront. Integrate the Young Avengers into the Avengers, and maybe we'd get them some more respect. I still love the Avengers, and I'm all for good characters, no matter what, but I think it'd be nice to have some diversity to draw in readers and help some people who need to relate to something.

Feminist Feature: Bobby's Top Feminist TV Shows

5. Sactuary

Dr. Helen Magnus, played by Amanda Tapping, is a genius, developed over a hundred years. She is an activist for abnormals, but if need be, she will kill a dangerous abnormal. She is an abnormal herself, created by a serum of pure vampire blood, giving her the power of longevity. Not to mention there’s badasses Kate Freelander and Ashley Magnus.


4. Veronica Mars

Veronica Mars starred Kristen Bell as a teen sleuth. Once popular and now a social outcast after being raped and distancing herself from anyone she trusted. It didn't help that her father is also a private detective who was once a police chief who was wrongly accused of wrongly arresting someone and lost the favor of the town who turned to the current chief of police goofball. Veronica develops a friendship with other outcasts, who help her in her cases, no questions asked. Because they trust her. The less they know, the less danger they're in. Veronica is an independent woman, who rushes into danger without fearing it. She's witty and bitterly sarcastic. Her technologically-savvy friend Mac is also a feminist icon, paving her own way, being a crazy-awesome hacker and computer wiz.


3. Xena: Warrior Princess

The one that started a feminist revolution on television in the 90s as a spin-off of Hercules: The Legendary Journey. It was an inspiration to women everywhere, and a lesbian icon, especially in its last season, when Xena and her traveling scholarly (turned sidekick warrior) companion Gabrielle became a bit closer in their relationship. By closer I mean sexual stimulating in a way. Lots of kissing and feeling between the two. I didn't get to see much of the final season due to the unfortunate circumstance of not being able to receive the channel.


2. The Legend of the Seeker

Read past posts of my love for this under-rated, under-watched show.


1. Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel

The female roles in these two shows are outstanding. Joss Whedon loves his strong women, which he credits to his mother...Willow being an uber-witch, Buffy and Faith (and many, many others now) being vampire slayers (only can a woman chosen for that role), Tara being another powerful witch and Willow's gay lover, Fred becoming the crazy-powerful smurfish Illyria, the independent, strong detective Kate, the once-ditzy-turned-powerful-and-helpful Cordelia, Anya being a once-powerful demon, Lilah, and Angel's love from long ago Darla, who sired him. There's no shortage of strong women in Whedon's shows, and it continued with Firefly/Serenity and Dollhouse. And in comics with Astonishing X-Men, Buffy Season 8, and Runaways. Next up for Whedon: Wonder Woman movie!


Honorable Mentions: Dollhouse, Firefly, and Wonder Woman


I don't count Charlie's Angels because of the highly sexualized and objectified women on it.

Feminist Feature: Feminist Films

I've rated MY top five feminist films, not in really any order.

5. Lord of the Rings
The few women in these films make them feminist. Galadriel is possibly the most powerful non-evil being in middle-earth. She's incredibly wise (not to mention creepy). Arwen's an all-around awesome character. She is willing to defy her father's will and sacrifice her immortality for a life with Aragorn. And Eowyn is....argh! Eowyn is so awesome, you guys! Her biggest fear is to be caged. She can fight (and fight well). She's brave, and she does what men do (and at one point even what they can't do...destroy the Witch-King!!! BADASS!!!!!). She's just amazing.

4. Drag Me to Hell
A business woman tries to get ahead in the corporate world, and in doing so, she ends up being cursed when she denies a loan which she really wants to approve. Strong female characters are the lead and pivotal roles. Gypsies, goats, saliva, and fire also make big appearances.

3. Bend It Like Beckham
It's been a while since I've seen this film, but a film about two 18-year-old girls who defy their parents wishes of becoming domestic to go for their dreams of being soccer players.

2. She's the Man
I love this movie like crazy. The fact that Viola, played by Amanda Bynes, goes to the lengths of pretending to be her brother to play sports and to show the guys that ladies can play just as well as the guys is something that makes this truly feminist.

1. Mists of Avalon
In Mists, the focus is Morgaine, who is raised in Avalon, where women are taught the ways of the goddess, to be self-sufficient, to develop their gifts from the goddess, and even to fight. The Lady of the Lake, Vivianne, needs to man in her life. She is the instrument of the mother goddess. Only men of Avalon blood are permitted to set foot on its soil. Again the focus is on the women as the main source of power (often conflicting with each other), which leads to them intervening with fate and saving the old religion while the new one begins to spread.

Honorable mention: 9 to 5. DOLLY!

What are yours?