about lizzie fighting monsters

[jlh]

I was just reminded of zombies (can we be done with them already? Also all non-food uses of the phrase "om nom nom" and possibly even the food related ones, because it isn't a funny phrase and never was, and repetition just makes it worse?) Anyway, news of this zombie Pride and Prejudice seems to be filling my flist with glee, but it fills me with massive DO NOT WANT. True, I don't care about zombies, but it isn't even that; in the past when I've wanted to point to a book that is awesome even if it doesn't have much of a plot, I've pointed to P&P. The squeeing over the zombie P&P implies to me that all things are better with the addition of an adventure plot. And that makes me sad.

It's sort of like the whole "we like women who kick ass" trope. Women who kick ass are great, it's true, but so are women who don't. Which is why, while I'm excited about the Glorious Revolution vid (and think you all should watch it) it was the One Girl Revolution vid that made me cry.

I think scientists and pilots and explorers and warriors are great, but my own heroes are writers and historians and musicians and artists and diplomats and people standing on their own two hands going crazy and mostly people just trying to live in this life and not make so many compromises that they lose themselves. I'm reluctant to say these things, even about the zombie P&P, because I don't want to offend anyone who does prefer those things, and I can't get rid of the second-wave feminist niggling in the back of my mind that says, "but there ARE enough women writers and there AREN'T enough women pilots and so you should care more about THAT!" But you know, this is part of that whole project of saying what I think a little more often, even if no one else agrees.

In similar news, apparently I am not old for liking the Oscars after all: cranky old television critics hated it and wanted Fred Astaire to be there.

Comments

[wordplay.livejournal.com]

implies to me that all things are better with the addition of an adventure plot. And that makes me sad.

Um, yeah, no - for me, P&P&Z is a novelty. It's like Garbage Pail Kids - amusing that somebody went there, and then it's over. There is no expression of preference, no interpretation that we're "fixing" the original.

[vermilionsun.livejournal.com]

Yes, exactly. I don't think P&P can possibly be improved on. However, the addition of zombies promises to be hilarious! It's something Other, not something Instead or Better.

[lillijulianne.livejournal.com]

i'm tired of the zombie meme too, but then i'm tired of talk like a pirate. i don't mind if people enjoy it- there are things that never get old for me and i'm sure others would as soon i let 'em die- but i'm with you.

and i'm even more with you on the women thing. i read something somewhere not long ago- in a book review in the times, maybe?- that made a very interesting point: a writer dealing with a female-to-male transsexual noted that one of the givens was a significant increase in sex drive. the critic observed that in such a medical context it IS a given- an exponential increase in testosterone increases sex drive, qed- but if such a generalization is made outside this narrow context, it becomes controversial.

so it is with risk/aggression/competitiveness, and i think the problem is the same. all these things are a continuum. there are other components. there have been times and there are places where NO woman is supposed to display these "masculine" traits and behaviors, just as there have been times and there are places where ALL men are supposed to display them, or be socially penalized. clearly this is wrong. but care should be taken not to let the pendulum swing too far in the opposite direction,

and it's here that feminist ideas can fall into the hands of those who use them to promote something as sexist and more insidious than rigid gender-role stereotyping: the preference for the "masculine" default everywhere. NO ONE should be sedentary or gentle or retiring. ugh. i'm thinking of walker percy's "the thanatos syndrome" and the use made of it in
"listening to prozac"- i loved that writer's observation that since the 1960s a certain style of female personality- gentle, retiring, steadfast, emotional, loyal, nurturing- had ceased to be celebrated. once imposed on "nonconforming" women who chafed under its restraint, by the 80s it had itself become the handicap in need of adjustment,

i think that now, of all times, the holes in this strain of thinking should be apparent. sharks and cowboys and, er, mavericks have had their way for almost 30 years and look where it got us. if we have no balance, if the "feminine" is devalued in men OR women, welcome to the jungle. it would be far better to acknowledge that more women fall to one end of the continuum than do men and vice versa while staunchly defending the fact that there's no moral or normative component in that distribution, that it's good and fine and splendid for any individual to depart from it. fine that more men will always want to be pilots AND fine for a woman to be one too. fine that more women will always want to be preschool teachers AND fine for a man to be one too.

(if we could do THAT, it might even be possible to do something really radical: break the moral taboo against nurturing talented people who are never going to have the push and drive to promote themselves.)

[mahoni.livejournal.com]

The way I feel about Pride and Prejudice With Zombies is that the person who wrote it totally doesn't get why that book appeals to me, and I totally don't get why zombies appeal to him.** It's a funny concept, and I know a bunch of people on my flist who probably would love it, but after I get past the 'haha zombies what' I'm like '...but, um, NO.'


** Although I do wonder if it's not so much zombies, or improving P&P, so much as it is fun with cognitive dissonance. Which I do get, despite the fact that I still don't want to read P&P With Zombies.

[jlh.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's pretty much where I am. It just feels like an invasion of everything I don't like into everything I do like, and the realization of that makes me feel uncomfortably girly—you know, the opposite of those people who get excited when some online bot decides that their blog has been written by a male.

[zorb]

What's exciting to me about P&P&Z is that it's published crackfic, which IMO makes it more tribute than the pale imitation of the "serious" sequels. Like all crackfic, it depends on the source being what it is for its own life.

Unfortunately, I think you're stuck with the zombies through the summer due to Half-Blood Prince (but they looked really cool in the previews at least).

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

The explorer/adventurer thing sort of reminds me of my feelings about tomboys in the 70s. Because it was a time where the tomboy was a trope just starting to get pushed and what annoyed me about it was it seemed like it always implied that there were the girlie girls, and then there were the girls who liked sports and were often literally mistaken for boys. And that was hard for me who was neither. I *did* have plenty of stereotypical boy interests, they just weren't sports. (Which probably says something about what boys were being told to be too, of course.)

But while I do think it's fine to have more kick ass women absolutely I think it's also important to remember that "strong female character" doesn't always have to be that. And that in fact you can have a girl who kicks ass and still isn't really a strong character, you know? I mean, by the more important definition of "strong."

I just watched "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore" this weekend and feel like she should be added to these videos.:-D

[jlh.livejournal.com]

I was thinking that if I had vid skills I would make an old movie vid! (Of course, if I had vid skills I would also make a vid of the Avatar finale to "Take Back the City" by Snow Patrol, but hopefully I can get Ali to do that one!)

Yeah, the 70s were a very second-wave time, of course, and even if I'm more of a third-wave girl, I can't help but react in an uncomfortable second-wave way to all the posturing of girls rejecting girly things. Don't we all have both girly and nongirly things we like, and doesn't third-wave mean we can do all of it? Hence the Debbie.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

It's funny to be thinking about this after reading this New Yorker article that's out this week--it's about the radical lesbian feminists of the 70s.

[ali-wildgoose.livejournal.com]

I really really REALLY hate Zombies >_>