Wednesday, May 14, 2014

The other observation I had watching HUNGER GAMES:  CATCHING FIRE was that women make much more interesting action heroes than, say, men. Why:

Women are allowed to be really upset. They can still shoot the bad guys full of arrows. Katniss Everdeen spends a lot of time being really really upset. And then she shoots some people full of arrows, and then she blows a lot of stuff up.

Women heroes can kick bad guys in the balls. They can be really, really effective spies. But, then:

I mean, theoretically, guy action heroes could have feelings. But most of them are all, yippee kay yay, mother f***ers:

I much prefer writing female action heroes, frankly. More interesting for me as a writer.

It's not like this in every culture. The French Canadian show 19-2 has cops who talk about their feelings. 

But, in English, it seems like it is very unmanly to have feelings, unless your buddy has just had his head blown off, in which it's okay, so long as you then go into a rage and make them pay.

So, there you go.

9:40 PM

2 Comments:

The reason it seems unmanly to have feelings is because it is. Now quit your whining.

OK, seriously, perhaps as a writer you could challenge yourself to create male characters that satisfy the superficial expectations of masculinity while also making themselves vulnerable. I'm sure that's easier said than done.

By  David, at 8:03 AM  

A man who becomes crabby and hard to get along with because of trauma might work. I'm thinking of Karl Urban's work in Almost Human.

By  1LLoyd, at 3:30 PM  

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