So [...]]]> Hi everyone! It’s pretty obvious if you follow our feed that not much has been going on here lately. Real life, writer’s block, and a variety of other things have gotten in the way of the kind of writing I did here, and to be honest, I just feel like I need a change.

So The Discriminating Fangirl is going to retire. The blog will stay up so you can still hunt down old reviews while rifling through your bookshelves, but no new posts will be made here.

Thank you so much to everyone who’s kept up with the blog over the last five years! I enjoyed chatting with you, and I really appreciate your reading. :)

I am in the process of creating a new blogging space for myself, one that’s more personal, and if you’d like to check it out, follow me over to Tea & Fangirling.

If you’ve known me for any length of time, you know I, like many other fangirls, get annoyed by the idiotic, anatomy-defying, sexually objectifying way that women tend to be portrayed in [...]]]> Dropping by to point you guys at The Hawkeye Initiative, which is one of the best things I have ever seen.

If you’ve known me for any length of time, you know I, like many other fangirls, get annoyed by the idiotic, anatomy-defying, sexually objectifying way that women tend to be portrayed in comic books. I’m not saying women in comics shouldn’t be sexy at all. I just want them to be sexy in appropriate situations (which are generally not situations in which the woman is kicking some bad guy’s ass). And I really enjoy it when artists riff on those stupid poses by putting male comic book characters in the same poses. Cue The Hawkeye Initiative.

It all started when Blue, an artist on tumblr, redrew a Hawkeye & Black Widow comic book cover to be more, y’know, realistic. (Clint is, after all, the acrobat.) Then Noelle (better known as gingerhaze) picked it up, and the rest is history. Hilariously awesome history.

This one, by steamedporkbun, is my personal favorite because nutsack:

Which is a riff on this delightful masterpiece by Rob Liefeld:

The Hawkeye Initiative tumblr has TONS more that are hysterical. Check ‘em out.

Also, if you’re still with me from the days when I actually, y’know, posted here more than once every couple of months, I am currently thinking up ways to refresh TDF and get myself excited about blogging again. So stay tuned! I might actually start posting again soon! ;)

Series: Book 2 in the Razorland Trilogy
Genre(s): Young Adult/Teen, Dystopian/Post-Apocalyptic
Publisher: Feiwel and Friends
Available Formats: Hardcover, Ebook
Description: Deuce’s whole world has changed. Down below, she was considered an adult. Now, topside in a town called Salvation, she’s a brat in need of training in [...]]]> Outpost by Ann Aguirre

Series: Book 2 in the Razorland Trilogy
Genre(s): Young Adult/Teen, Dystopian/Post-Apocalyptic
Publisher: Feiwel and Friends
Available Formats: Hardcover, Ebook
Description: Deuce’s whole world has changed. Down below, she was considered an adult. Now, topside in a town called Salvation, she’s a brat in need of training in the eyes of the townsfolk. She doesn’t fit in with the other girls: Deuce only knows how to fight.

To make matters worse, her Hunter partner, Fade, keeps Deuce at a distance. Her feelings for Fade haven’t changed, but he seems not to want her around anymore. Confused and lonely, she starts looking for a way out.

Deuce signs up to serve in the summer patrols—those who make sure the planters can work the fields without danger. It should be routine, but things have been changing on the surface, just as they did below ground. The Freaks have grown smarter. They’re watching. Waiting. Planning. The monsters don’t intend to let Salvation survive, and it may take a girl like Deuce to turn back the tide.

Read my review of Outpost, Book 1 of the Razorland trilogy.

This review is based on a copy received from Amazon Vine.

TDF Pamela’s Review:

This review will contain spoilers for Enclave, the first book in the Razorland trilogy, so beware if you haven’t read it yet!

When I first started reading Outpost, I was very nearly put out by the slower pace of the story. Enclave kept me clinging to each page, but Outpost moves at a more sedate pace, at least for the first half. But as I dug deeper into Deuce’s new world, I realized that the slower pace works very well, for Deuce is dealing with a completely different set of challenges in the walled town of Salvation than she had in the tunnels or on the run.

Deuce, Fade, Tegan, and Stalker reached Salvation at the end of Enclave, and Outpost starts by establishing Deuce’s sense of alienation in this very strange, traditional place. According to the author’s note at the end, Salvation is based on the idea that people in this post-apocalyptic world tried to restart civilization based on something like Amish ideals; isolation, self-reliance, and piety. Obviously, this is very different from the kill-or-be-killed existence that Deuce and her companions were used to. Tegan immediately tries to fit into her new role in Salvation, and Fade is quiet as ever. Stalker hovers at the edges, and Deuce… Deuce feels wasted having to sit in school and learn useless things about the past.

The major theme in this book is reconciliation of the old Deuce and the new Deuce; is she a Huntress, or is she a girl? The first half of the book deals with Deuce slowly realizing that there are two sides, and the second half deals with her attempts to combine those two sides into her view of herself. The self-discovery in the first half of the book works well at the slower pace, and in the second half, she’s forced to face those two aspects of her personality head-on in a fight to save Salvation from encroaching hordes of Freaks, the humanoid but mutated creatures that are slowly becoming more and more human-like to the horror of Deuce and the people of Salvation.

As Deuce gets to know and learns to love some of the people in Salvation–Longshot, the man who rescued the four of them in the wild; Mama Oaks and Edmund, her foster parents; Tegan; and most of all Fade–you grow to love them, too. When she misses Fade’s touch, I ached along with her. I wanted to bury my face in Mama Oaks’s apron and cry with Deuce. So it’s just as heartbreaking for the reader when terrible things happen to these people.

The love triangle between Deuce, Fade, and Stalker is still an element in the plot, but there are enough monkey wrenches thrown into Deuce’s life to keep things from becoming stagnant and clichéd like many teen novel love triangles. Stalker puts me on edge, so I’m definitely hoping Deuce stays on track with her feelings for the more stable but damaged Fade. (Okay, got my romantic subplot obsession out of the way.)

Like Enclave, Outpost ends on an almost-cliffhanger that will lead directly into the final novel in the trilogy, tentatively titled Horde according to Ms. Aguirre’s website. I personally can’t wait to see what happens next in this beautifully developed post-apocalyptic world.

Buy It Now:

There are a few reasons why I’ve fallen off of the blogging bandwagon of late, some of them legitimate and some of them stemming [...]]]>

“Tapping a Pencil” by Rennet Stowe on flickr

There are a few reasons why I’ve fallen off of the blogging bandwagon of late, some of them legitimate and some of them stemming from laziness and distraction.

1. I’ve been having health issues. As of yet I don’t have a diagnosis, but I have some kind of autoimmune disorder that causes painful swelling in my fingers along with a lot of fatigue and just general crappy feels. And then, I had the joy this summer of being hospitalized for an intestinal obstruction, so that kind of blew my plans from a few months ago of starting to blog again.

2. I haven’t been reading many books this year. I have no idea what my deal is, but I’ve read seven books so far this year. Usually I’ve read thirty or forty by August.

3. I’ve also gotten sucked back into my first love, online fandom. The Avengers did a number on me, and so while I haven’t been reading books or writing blog posts, I have been reading and writing fanfiction, beta reading other people’s work, and generally fangirling all over the place over Hawkeye and Black Widow.

4. I’m using up my internal writing budget writing other things. That aforementioned fanfic in particular, but I’ve also been working on original fiction. It’s like I have a gas tank for writing inside of me, and once I blow through that fuel, I don’t have the energy or the attention to write anything else. The size of this fuel tank is probably related to the aforementioned autoimmune disorder.

5. General ennui and a little bit of depression. The health stuff has been frustrating, particularly because I can’t get a diagnosis, and that frustration along with the symptoms have kicked me into a bit of a funk. It’s really hard to kick-start your self-motivation when you’re depressed, and I’ve had a lot of trouble motivating myself to do things other than reblog stuff on Tumblr lately.

So, that’s why I haven’t been posting here. But I really want to get back on track, and I do have a couple of book reviews that are sadly overdue that I’m hoping to finish very soon.

I’m also brainstorming ways of making TDF even bigger and better, so stay tuned. And thank you to everyone who’s stuck around during my radio silence!

She usually is, of course, what with being one of top favorite female characters in literary history. I fell in love with her when I first read Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s “A Scandal in Bohemia” (which can be read in its entirety here) [...]]]>

Art by Sidney Paget

She usually is, of course, what with being one of top favorite female characters in literary history. I fell in love with her when I first read Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s “A Scandal in Bohemia” (which can be read in its entirety here) several summers ago and much like Sherlock Holmes, she is always The Woman to me.

Therefore, it is repeatedly disappointing that I have yet to see a film or television adaptation of “A Scandal in Bohemia” or Irene Adler that exhibits her full agency, her intelligence, her refusal to play by strict gender roles, and of course, her fierce independence.

Like most fangirlish Americans, I’ve been watching and re-watching the BBC production of Sherlock on PBS and with the premiere of “A Scandal in Belgravia” a few weeks ago, Irene Adler and our reactions to her have been dancing around my head. I was originally put off by this episode for several reasons, the most overt being that my beloved Irene Adler was updated into a dominatrix.

Let me be perfectly clear here: there is nothing wrong with being a dominatrix or working in the sex industry. Indeed, I wish our taboos regarding it were lessened if only for the protection and respect of those involved. My concern did not lie in the fact that a dominatrix was a central character in this episode but the fact that, for whatever reason, Steven Moffat felt compelled to overtly sexualize the most important female character in the Sherlock Holmes canon (outside of dear Mrs. Hudson). Why does woman = sex? Why does woman = body? Why does woman = this scene below?

Again, a woman exhibiting and owning her sexuality is awesome. That is why I was so torn about Lara Pulver’s Irene Adler. On the one hand, she is self-aware, knows how to get what she wants, and intelligent enough to outwit Sherlock Holmes a few times. On the other hand, she manipulates by using her body predominantly, she works, not for herself as in the original story, but for another man, Moriarty, and she ultimately does not beat Sherlock Holmes at his own game. In fact, she is saved by Sherlock, which downplays her capabilities and her “Ha, ha you can’t catch me” attitude that I so love in “A Scandal in Bohemia.”

In the recent renditions of Irene Adler, she is typically in a pseudo-sexual relationship with Sherlock Holmes, or at least, a sexually manipulative one. Take Rachel McAdams as Irene Adler in the Guy Ritchie Sherlock Holmes films. She flirts with Sherlock, plays with his apparent lack of sexuality, but all for Moriarty. In the first film, it is clear that Irene truly has no real agency of her own. She is not the free woman who outsmarts Sherlock Holmes to achieve her own ends that she is in the Conan Doyle story.

Turning back to the original story, Irene is a rather complex character and one that, by superficial reading, would seem an odd choice to be so beloved by a feminist such as myself. After all, this is a female character that has only three direct lines of dialogue in the only story that she features in, the most famous being: “Good-night, Mister Sherlock Holmes” (259).

Furthermore, all that the reader is given to understand this woman is through men’s eyes. The King that she so entranced into stupidly taking a photograph with her regards her as having, “… a soul of steel. She has the face of the most beautiful of women, and the mind of the most resolute of men” (247-48).

John Watson, ever the traditional Victorian romantic, regards her as a kind, graceful “beautiful creature” (257). Superficial, but Watson never actually interacts with her.

Sherlock, meanwhile, is the only one who clearly grasps how intelligent and cunning Irene is; he acknowledges that she is above their level. She changes his perception of women (which had always been rather mocking and belittling) and, as Watson recounts in the famous opening of the story, “To Sherlock Holmes she is always the woman. I have seldom heard him mention her under any other name. In his eyes she eclipses and predominates the whole of her sex. It was not that he felt any emotion akin to love for Irene Adler. …And yet there was but one woman to him, and that woman was the late Irene Adler, of dubious and questionable memory” (239).

I knew I would like Irene upon reading this opening. For the first time, I had a central female character that was not a romantic interest nor was perceived as such. For the central male character, she was an equal, a testament to his own shortcomings and fallibility. Sherlock does not love or feel any sexual attraction to Irene but respects and admires her. It is the perfect relationship.

But I truly fell in love with her around the same time Sherlock became thoroughly impressed with her; her taunting letter to Sherlock is a thing of beauty and demonstrates Irene’s resourcefulness, her intelligence and her ability to manipulate gender roles in order to get what she wants and outsmart even the greatest detective of all time.

What’s more, she does all this for herself. As stated earlier, she is not working for anyone else and therefore, she is not at the mercy of any other man. Indeed, all Irene wants is to marry the man she loves, Godfrey Norton, who is almost always overlooked in contemporary adaptations of “A Scandal in Bohemia.” Someone online once referred to Irene as Godfrey’s White Knight, and I adore that image because it’s so true. She loves, marries and protects Godfrey by realizing Sherlock’s plan and runs off with her new husband and the incriminating photograph before she can be stopped. She is awesome.

Therefore, I found the latest Irene Adler terribly lacking. I know quite a number of reviews have derided the ending of “A Scandal in Belgravia” for portraying Irene as a damsel in distress that needed rescuing from Sherlock. I, again, have mixed feelings over this scene. While she is literally rescued from a beheading (rather harsh, no?) by Sherlock, I did sense that this scene was meant to portray them as having a somewhat vague relationship of equality. Sherlock uses her to solve the main mystery of the episode and then, out of respect and admiration, rescues her when she is in trouble. Nonetheless, I do see why this would not sit well with fans of Irene and to be honest, I don’t really blame them.

What really offended me, however, was Moffat’s insistence of making Irene fall in love with Sherlock. I cannot reiterate enough that Irene has absolutely no romantic interest in Sherlock Holmes in the original story, and Sherlock certainly has none for her either. I therefore respectfully disagree with Benedict Cumberbatch, who plays Sherlock Holmes so brilliantly on the show. In a recent interview with Michael Ausiello, Cumberbatch claimed, “But the thing about [Irene] that is very obvious when you read [the 1891 short story by Arthur Conan Doyle in which the character is first introduced] is Sherlock definitely does fall for her and he does lose his cool; he’s no longer the logical machine. He fell for her charms.” Benedict, I love you but no, he did not. Romance belittles their relationship of mutual respect and veneration. Sherlock and Irene recognize that they are the same sort of person and are equally adept at deduction and slight-of-hand, nothing more. I adore it.

At the end of the day, there will probably never be an adaptation of Irene Adler that is as dynamic, complex and cunning as Conan Doyle’s original. We live in a society where romance and sex sells and therefore, Irene must be forced to exhibit these tropes rather than rise above them. The 1984 series The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes starring Jeremy Brett as the great detective probably had the closest portrayal of Irene Adler to her literary counterpart. Sadly, I often felt that this episode also relied on subtle melodrama, though it’s still worth checking out. I really wish I could have loved the latest Irene in Sherlock as earnestly as I do the original, as this could have a chance to really delve into the agency of one of the greatest female characters of all time. Rather, I simply felt cold.

Luckily, I always have the original to revisit, which I do often whenever I need a quick feminist pick-me-up.

Notes
Ausiello, Michael. “Eye on Emmy: Benedict Cumberbatch on Playing Sherlock at 50, His Mad Men Envy and That ‘Mortifying’ Downton Abbey ‘PR Disaster’.” TVLine.com. 14 June 2012.

Conan Doyle, Sir Arthur. “A Scandal in Bohemia.” Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Novels and Stories Volume I. 239-63. New York: Bantam Classic, 2003.

And thanks to everyone for entering!

In the epic action-adventure Snow White and the Huntsman, Kristen Stewart (Twilight) plays the only person in the land fairer than the evil queen (Oscar® [...]]]> The giveaway has ended. Thanks for entering!

Snow White and the Huntsman comes out June 1, and The Discriminating Fangirl is hosting a giveaway!

About the film

Synopsis:

In the epic action-adventure Snow White and the Huntsman, Kristen Stewart (Twilight) plays the only person in the land fairer than the evil queen (Oscar® winner Charlize Theron) who is out to destroy her. But what the wicked ruler never imagined is that the young woman threatening her reign has been training in the art of war with a huntsman (Chris Hemsworth, Thor) who was dispatched to kill her. Sam Claflin (Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides) joins the cast as the prince long enchanted by Snow White’s beauty and power.

The breathtaking new vision of the legendary tale is from Joe Roth, the producer of Alice in Wonderland, producer Sam Mercer (The Sixth Sense) and acclaimed commercial director and state-of-the-art visualist Rupert Sanders.

Cast: Kristen Stewart, Charlize Theron, Chris Hemsworth, Sam Claflin, Ian McShane, Bob Hoskins, Ray Winstone, Nick Frost, Toby Jones

Watch the Trailer!

Follow the Film!

Website: http://www.snowwhiteandthehuntsman.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/snowwhite #SWATH
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/snowwhiteandthehuntsman
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/SnowWhiteHuntsman
Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/swathmovie

The Giveaway

Two (2) winners will receive a SWATH Prize Pack:

• T-Shirt
• Nail Polish
• Lip Gloss
• Necklace
• Cell Phone Mirror
• Sling Bag

Details

The contest is open to entrants with a U.S. mailing address only. The giveaway starts today (Monday, May 21, 2012) and will run until Monday, June 4, 2012. The winner will be chosen randomly and contacted by email on June 5. If the winner does not respond by June 8, a new winner will be chosen. Prize pack valued at $40 per pack. Prizing courtesy of Universal Pictures.

One entry per person/email. Multiple entries will be discarded.

[Editor's Note: Beware some very minor spoilers for the movie.]

Here’s the thing, the first time I saw Marvel’s The Avengers, I [...]]]> Marvel’s The Avengers (2012)
Director: Joss Whedon
Writer: Joss Whedon, Zak Penn
Cast: Robert Downey, Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johanson, Samuel L. Jackson

[Editor's Note: Beware some very minor spoilers for the movie.]

Here’s the thing, the first time I saw Marvel’s The Avengers, I declared to some skeptical friends that it was the greatest super hero movie I’ve ever seen. They, who did not see the film yet, argued for The Dark Knight, which I still maintain is not a super hero movie but a crime movie that happens to star comic book characters. Said friends saw Marvel’s The Avengers and relented, saying it was extremely good.

After a second and careful viewing, I have to say it is a nearly perfect movie: solid storyline, great pacing, awesome and not overbearing action sequences, fantastic chemistry between the many larger-than-life characters, plenty of Joss Whedon humor and a beloved character’s death. Also, everyone in this movie is gorgeous.

Seriously, this may be the best looking cast I have ever seen and if I can be superficial here for a moment: that is awesome.

A lot has been said about this movie and the female gaze, a concept that has been steadily gaining traction in feminist and gender studies. I have written about the male gaze in comics before, and since this is a concept that was founded in cinema studies, it makes sense to apply it to Marvel’s The Avengers. The male gaze, or the gaze in general, is ultimately about power and dominance. Whoever holds the gaze (typically, heterosexual men) exhibits agency and dominance over the sexualized object (women). In cinema, and as I argue, in life, women are viewed merely by their bodies and as sexual objects for their male counterparts. Think of the common advertisements, posters, magazine covers, music videos, etc. and you can see the male gaze in action.

Now, as I said earlier, this film stars a handful of some terribly good-looking people, most of which are men. Black Widow is the one female Avenger and she is incredibly sexy. She is portrayed that way for the audience from her skin-tight cat suit, to her perfect eye make-up and even to her interrogation scene in the beginning of the film in which she is referred to as a “pretty face.” Nonetheless, I found Black Widow a thoroughly enjoyable and engrossing character. She manipulated her sexuality and her femininity for her own gains. In a fabulous face-off sequence with Loki, she uses his assumptions of how a woman feels and reacts to endangered loved ones to get information. She is not just a pretty face and never does the audience feel that she is trying to compensate for her womanhood. She is a world-class assassin; that’s it.

Meanwhile, a lot of comments, often bemusedly and very often sexistly, have been made about the hotness of the male Avengers. The latest issue of People Magazine features this photo-shoot:

Also jokes abound about Captain America and Hawkeye’s tight costumes and of course, Loki’s legions of fangirls. In fact, this is one of the first action movies that I can recall that I’ve noticed this profound attention paid to the fact that women (my God, WOMEN!) want to see and enjoy it. Most of the people I have talked to and discussed Marvel’s The Avengers with have been women and they all love it and want to see it again.

So where does that leave us? Is it equality to switch the gaze around so that women possess it? What does it mean to objectify the male body rather than the female in a big budget popular film? Was that even the film’s intention or are we simply protecting onto it as a society?

Ultimately, I wish more than anything that the mere fact that women would want to see a super hero movie were not considered surprising or alarming. There have been plenty of sexist and demeaning responses to Marvel’s The Avengers and its female audience. It’s as if the kneejerk reaction to seeing women line up to see an action comic book movie and being genuinely excited for it is too much to comprehend. Therefore, they MUST be in it for the eye-candy. What else could explain it? Women don’t read or care about comic books but they sure do love muscles.

I am angered by this sentiment and the fact that so many of these responses try to backpedal by claiming to be tongue-in-cheek. No, that is not a free pass to dismiss women. In fact, by focusing so much on how female audience members are objectifying the male characters only, these women are reduced to one-dimensional sexual beings.

The gaze in general, whether male or female, is troublesome. Furthermore, it is difficult to shed because of how it is shoved down our throats in society. We see here with interviews that part of the marketing of the Marvel’s The Avengers seemed to focus on the gaze and sexual objectification, rather than the strengths of the film itself.

Of course, I am happy to see a film in which it is not only the female characters that are wearing those skin-tight, kind of nonsensical outfits. I also like talking about which Avenger I would most like to date (Coulson, in case you were wondering, though technically he isn’t an Avenger) with friends but that is only a portion of why I love Marvel’s The Avengers.

I love it simply because it’s a great film. I love it because I love comic books and this did justice to some of my favorite characters. Like the millions of others who have also seen and enjoyed Marvel’s The Avengers, I love it because it was everything I could want in a super hero movie. The attractiveness of the actors is merely an afterthought.

Seriously, writer? Instead of writing an intelligent guide to the movies for people who aren’t [...]]]> If there’s anything that’ll spur me to get back to my blogging, it’s fangirl feminist rage. And in today’s edition, we have an absolutely boneheaded, sexist piece of crap in the form of Moviefone’s “Girl’s Guide to the Avengers”.

Seriously, writer? Instead of writing an intelligent guide to the movies for people who aren’t already fans, you write this? Using idiotic, sexist stereotypes? Sorry. Even as a humorous piece, it fails horribly.

A quick note: Moviefone has now added a disclaimer at the top of the article in an attempt to address criticism. I still think the whole thing is a hot sexist mess.

Let’s do a quick rundown of the most egregious bullshit:

As your boyfriend probably told you, “The Avengers” is hitting theaters this Friday. And you, dutiful girlfriend, are attending. But you hate action movies and you’ve never even read a comic book. (Of course, that’s not a slight against the girls who actually do read comic books — i.e. real fans, actual people with varied interests — but for this, let’s just go with the stock view of ladies, ladies!)

That little “Oops, I didn’t mean to offend girls who like superheroes!” line really isn’t helping, since you’re still writing an article entirely based around the idea that women don’t like icky boy things, so here’s how you can please your boyfriend (which is obviously a woman’s only goal in life). Psh.

Including cocktail introductions a la “Bridget Jones’s Diary” and boyfriend impressing tidbits, below is everything you need to know about “The Avengers.”

…Seriously?

What NOT to say:
“Do you think Scarlett Johansson is pretty?”
“Oh, so it’s like the ‘New Years Eve’ of superhero movies?”
“Who could concentrate on the story with all those biceps?”
“Boys are so weird.”

Yes, because every girl going to see The Avengers is a giggling twit who’s obsessed with being pretty, watching inane rom coms, and who never got over high school. That’s insulting both to fangirls AND to girls who dig rom coms, because it’s a nasty, idiotic sterotype that downplays womens’ intelligence and their taste in films. If girls like it, it must be fluff. Bullshit.

I’m not going to touch the biceps comment because I have plans to see the movie twice thanks to said biceps (as well as Ms. Johansson’s ass-kicking AND attractiveness, so there). Criticizing that would be hypocritical of me. ;)

What to say:
“Thank GOD someone did the Hulk correctly.”
“I can’t wait for ‘Thor 2.’”
“Joss Whedon is the man.”
“Yeah, you’re definitely Iron Man. If he were buffer.”

See, these are logical suggestions (except for the last one. seriously.), and you know what, Moviefone? There will be many a woman coming out of The Avengers saying exactly these things.

But you know what else? They’ll be saying them because they used their brains and their enjoyment of superhero action movies to come to those conclusions. They’re not saying them because they want to impress a boyfriend.

You would think at some point that people who write about entertainment would clue into the fact that girls do, in fact, enjoy genres that they seem to think are boys-only. I mean, we fangirls rant about this shit all the time. Could someone pick up a clue?

Here, I’ll put it in big letters so anyone still holding onto that dumbass, outdated, sexist notion will understand it better:

WOMEN LIKE ALL KINDS OF THINGS.

There’s not a contract that we sign at birth stating that we can only like stuff with glitter and princesses and romance. Guess what? We DO like stuff with glitter and princesses and romance, and we also like stuff with badass superheroes, aliens, and ass-kicking. So stop writing about genre films as if women haven’t the faintest clue that superheroes exist, and they need a cutesy little nudge in the right direction so they can please their boyfriends. Stop perpetuating the misogynistic stereotype, okay?

Actually, you know what? After all that ranting, I think I can let Black Widow best express my disdain for that article:

Edited to Add: GirlFridayK on twitter encouraged me to add this, and I think it makes sense.

If you haven’t been reading TDF, you might not know that I’m a big fan of both superhero genre stuff AND romance genre stuff. Those two interests are not mutually exclusive, as you probably already know if you’re reading this post. So really, I found that article doubly offensive. I don’t like being talked down to. It makes me angry, and this makes me angry on many levels: as a comic book fan, as someone who likes “girly” things, and as a woman who is sick and tired of being talked down to as a woman. So, yeah.

Also, my husband wouldn’t have even noticed The Avengers coming out if it weren’t for me. So stick that in your stereotyping pipe and smoke it.

In the final pre-Avengers podcast series, Pamela and Amanda talk about their unexpected Bruce Banner feels and how he could make an excellent baker if he put all of his anger into cupcake making. Pamela also brings up the awesomeness of Miss Marvel and the hope that Marvel doesn’t throw in [...]]]>

Episode 6

In the final pre-Avengers podcast series, Pamela and Amanda talk about their unexpected Bruce Banner feels and how he could make an excellent baker if he put all of his anger into cupcake making. Pamela also brings up the awesomeness of Miss Marvel and the hope that Marvel doesn’t throw in every Avengers-related character from the comics in the movie sequel(s). This episode is something of a two-fer as the fangirls also talk about Captain America at length. Amanda is glad that the writers made Cap a little less cheesy and a little more feely in this adaptation while Pamela flails over the retro-futurism aspects of the film. Consider yourselves warned for spoilers for both films. Next week, Pamela and Amanda will be meeting up in Seattle to see the movie and attempt to record their flail for your listening pleasure.
Date: 27 April 2012
Length: 00:34:14
Download: Episode 6 (mp3; 31 mb) Please right-click and save!

Mentioned Linkage:
Miss Marvel (Carol Danvers)
Marvel Ultimate Alliance
The Rocketeer
Flash Gordon

Intro Music:
“Heroes Under Pressure (Queen & David Bowie VS David Bowie)” Mashup by Rillen Rudi