Somehow I have never heard of this. Should I ask for elaboration or let it be?

My take on Joss Whedon is that he is an advocate for active women in Sci-fi/comics, but I wouldn't say hes any more of one than George Lucas.   Whedon's tend to be *strong* women, not necessarily strong characters even.  Zoe is the one exception, certainly not Buffy, and lets not talk about what the heck went off the rails with Dollhouse. I think Lucas' treatment of Leia is just as strong, if not more so considering it's almost 2 decades earlier.   

I think the assessment of Martin's portrayal of female strength is perhaps more fair, but again they tend to be strong in the face of some form of adverse conditions or other manipulations in the books, it hasn't played that way as much in the TV show.  Though Martin is dealing with a different genera being far more Fantasy than Sci-fi.  Which I think is an important distinction.  Fantasy has always allowed for a more active role for women and has been marketed toward women as much as men.  Sci-fi/comics on the other hand tend to be much more male oriented and the female characters reflect that.  I think the same thing can be seen with video games as well.  Generally there is a marketing perception that these things don't appeal to women, so there is no effort to make them do so.

I think Sherrilyn Kenyon's books (which started out heavy on paranormal romance and have moved towards more general sci-fi/fantasy though they're still shelved with the romance novels except the kids & graphic novel versions) provide good strong female characters, They've recently been optioned for movie/TV and I'm interested to see how the translation goes.

Related to Game of thrones the series, I think the fact that they didn't do creative hiding of the male nudity was also a rather surprising choice, even on HBO.  And I think encouraging to see the quasi equal treatment. BBC recently ran an interesting article adjacent to that here http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20218094.  The fact that full frontal female nudity is not even particularly surprising when it shows up in films or TV shows while full frontal male is is another interesting split how genders are viewed. 

I'm kind of headed off on a tangent here, but I didn't want to side track the Avengers thread any further.  And with being out of town for the holiday I kind of missed jumping in on that discussion.

Since no one else has taken on this one, I will be happy to take it on, though I warn that it is a bit of a rant and might belong in the unpopular opinions thread

I think that Verhoeven treats women poorly, as the women keeping falling for the better men-Dizzy for Rico, Carmen for Zander. There is some respect given to women through the "Rodger Young's" captain, who promptly dies on the bridge. So, there is a definite mixing but not equal treatment given the at times the subversive role women take-Rico goes from rank and file to officer and must go and save the girl-not exactly feminist propaganda:

In point of fact, the original book was more pro-women than the film ended up being. I know the film is supposed to be a satire of the book, given Verhoeven's experience with fascism, but its treatment of women is not the best.

In the book, women are not featured as prominently as in the movie, but their role is treated with more reverence and respect than in the film. The captains of the staships are all female, with few exceptions, because females are stated to be better suited to the rigors of flying a starship than men. However, since this is an Army story, the Navy figures little than transportation. However, even Rico's biased perspective on the Navy still shines out praise for women, including his captain.

Verhoeven merely treats the women as set dressings, giving us the token shower scene, the 20 minute joke, and the soldier saving the damsel in distress. Sorry, the book may not be feminist propaganda, but its better than the film.

That's because naked women are universally nicer to look at than men

I've only seen the first season of Game of Thrones, but I seem to remember being amused that every episode with female full frontal nudity had male full frontal nudity. It was like someone was trying to balance it out exactly (not counting bare breasts, of which there were many). There was also one sex scene with two women and one with two men (though the circumstances were rather different and the one with women was on screen while the one with men was more implied off screen).

Oh, I don't think that's a comparable example. The original scene moves Mal's character forward because, before the scene happened, he says that Inara acts like a lady and wants people to kiss her hand, but she's just a whore. After the rape, Mal kisses her hand. It's showing how Mal has moved forward in his perception of Inara.

I didn't say it moves only the male characters forward, but I object to subjected a character to brutal rape to show that your hero is not as huge a jerk as he seemed.

But does Inara become strong AFTER the rape, or is she strong BEFORE it, because she injects herself knowing what's about to happen.  She could easily kill herself, which is something that is oft talked about as appropriate before a reaver assault.

I agree with Branco. George R.R. Martin was asked in an interview how he was able to write such interesting female characters. He responded, "Well, I've always thought of women as people."

  I think this is why The Hunger Games works.  As Suzanne Collins was not only the original author but also a major part of the screenwriting process from what I can tell. 

  I hope we're going to see more female writers break into true science fiction, hopefully in part spurred by the availability of digital publishing which allows authors who aren't normally picked up by the big presses to get their work out on Kindle and Nook and the like.

Last edited by Jen (2012-11-26 23:12:03)

And yet, Twilight.

Which, is that a commentary on the authors or the audience?
Which, is not to say that I do not understand it, but the simple comment that a mostly male audience would not find compelling women interesting is a bit of a generalization. I mean, I don't know about movies, but many novels continued forward with compelling women, specifically Robert Heinlein, just as an example that springs readily to mind, but I may be thinking of the wrong era too.
Of particular note, though i don't know the popularity of the works, but several feminist works came out of the 70's, specifically in speculative fiction.