Day 15 - Favorite female character
Jul. 6th, 2010 09:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fabrisse5) The Women of Firefly
The show wasn't on long enough for me to pick a favorite. Each of them annoyed me at times, but each in her own way was kick-ass. They also didn't engage in petty rivalries. Kaylee and Inara had a nice sisterly rapport. This would have been "The Women of Criminal Minds" if CBS hadn't pulled its boneheaded move, and for many of the same reasons. These are women who know themselves and grab their chances.
4) Miss Parker -- The Pretender
A stylish villain is so nice to see. A woman as a stylish villain is rare. A woman who undergoes something of a hero's journey while a) being stylish and b) being a villain is even rarer. By the end of the series, she was more on the good than the bad side, but she never lost her strength or her cynical sense of humor.
3) Catherine Chandler -- Beauty and the Beast
Like Vincent, I really wish she'd had more of a sense of humor. In the first episode, she's a spoiled rich girl who's left for dead, with a slashed face, in Central Park. Vincent saves her and when she's well enough to have the bandages removed sends her back to her world. Then there's a title card that says eight months later. Her daddy's money has provided her with enough top flight plastic surgery that most of her scars don't show. But she's no longer doing corporate law in her father's firm. She hires on at the bottom rank in the DA's office and ends up doing investigative work. She leaves her jackass fiance (how much of a jackass? He's played by Ray Wise.) and takes self defense courses. She's taken a horrible experience and let it open her out to the possibilities of the world. Does it help that she owns her own condo on Central Park and doesn't have to live on her salary? Sure, but it doesn't change the fact that Catherine opens out and starts to care more about the wider world. I think she's a terrific role model.
2) Endora -- Bewitched
I debated about Endora. Those of you who know me in real life, and know the character, may think it explains a lot about me.
In some ways, Endora is a vindictive Auntie Mame. She's shown her daughter the world, and disapproves of the fact that she's chosen suburbia instead. But especially in the early seasons, before the show became quite so formulaic, Endora shows some wonderful moments of self-knowledge, too. When Samantha asks her why she's so disapproving of Sam giving up her powers to live the life Darrin wants -- I noted very young that Samantha usually said "of course I want X too" after explaining why it's good for Darrin or why Darrin's asked her to do something -- Endora replies with a speech I love:
We're quicksilver, a fleeting shadow, a distant sound.
Our home has no boundaries beyond which we cannot pass.
We live in music and the flash of color
We live on the wind and the sparkle of a star.
And Samantha, has chosen to behave like a mortal and renounce all that. It's not the power, it's the freedom and beauty that Darrin's asking her little girl to deny that Endora seems to resent.
There are so many nice moments in the first season. A little boy asking her if she's a good witch or a bad witch, and her reply of "Comme ci, comme ca." Samantha trying to figure out how to cook a chicken and Endora correcting her on the best way to do it from scratch. "I said it was a waste of time. I didn't say I didn't know how." And the moments when she was asked to interact in her daughter's world and she always rose to the occasion and charmed everyone about her.
Endora knew her own mind. She was one of the few representations of the upper class that didn't just associate class with money. Her life was an adventure she wanted to share. Bits of it were shallow, but Endora sucked the marrow out of life, and I can think of very few female characters who were allowed to do that.
1) Diana Skouris -- The 4400
When the head of the agency that's later known as NTAC on the show decides that The 4400 need to be investigated by people who are scientists as well as trained law enforcement, he makes two person teams and puts Doctor Diana Skouris, formerly of the CDC, on one with his top investigator, Tom Baldwin. They are never within the show paired romantically, a miracle on television, frankly. She develops law enforcement skills, but always remains a scientist. When one of The 4400, who's only 9, but was born in 1937 asks to go home with her, she becomes a mother. Being Maia's mother is never the be-all, end-all of who she is. She's Diana, scientist, Tom's partner and friend, Marco's friend and later lover, who also happens to be Maia's mom.
Too many women on television are one thing -- Mother or Career Woman. If she's a career woman with kids, well, then she either puts her kids first or she's a bitch. Diana puts her work as high as her family, sometimes one takes precedent over the other, but she's always struggling for the balance. She's never the perfect mother, because she came to it late with a pre-teen who's technically older than she is. There's never any doubt that as an adoptive mother she's as prepared to kill or die for her daughter as any mother who bore her children herself. However, her brain and her skills give her as much joy as her daughter does.
In a second season episode where the men at NTAC have been driven nearly mad by a 4400's ability, she stands between a threat and her daughter with her gun drawn and says, "Don't worry. Mommy's here." Damn, it's hot.
The show wasn't on long enough for me to pick a favorite. Each of them annoyed me at times, but each in her own way was kick-ass. They also didn't engage in petty rivalries. Kaylee and Inara had a nice sisterly rapport. This would have been "The Women of Criminal Minds" if CBS hadn't pulled its boneheaded move, and for many of the same reasons. These are women who know themselves and grab their chances.
4) Miss Parker -- The Pretender
A stylish villain is so nice to see. A woman as a stylish villain is rare. A woman who undergoes something of a hero's journey while a) being stylish and b) being a villain is even rarer. By the end of the series, she was more on the good than the bad side, but she never lost her strength or her cynical sense of humor.
3) Catherine Chandler -- Beauty and the Beast
Like Vincent, I really wish she'd had more of a sense of humor. In the first episode, she's a spoiled rich girl who's left for dead, with a slashed face, in Central Park. Vincent saves her and when she's well enough to have the bandages removed sends her back to her world. Then there's a title card that says eight months later. Her daddy's money has provided her with enough top flight plastic surgery that most of her scars don't show. But she's no longer doing corporate law in her father's firm. She hires on at the bottom rank in the DA's office and ends up doing investigative work. She leaves her jackass fiance (how much of a jackass? He's played by Ray Wise.) and takes self defense courses. She's taken a horrible experience and let it open her out to the possibilities of the world. Does it help that she owns her own condo on Central Park and doesn't have to live on her salary? Sure, but it doesn't change the fact that Catherine opens out and starts to care more about the wider world. I think she's a terrific role model.
2) Endora -- Bewitched
I debated about Endora. Those of you who know me in real life, and know the character, may think it explains a lot about me.
In some ways, Endora is a vindictive Auntie Mame. She's shown her daughter the world, and disapproves of the fact that she's chosen suburbia instead. But especially in the early seasons, before the show became quite so formulaic, Endora shows some wonderful moments of self-knowledge, too. When Samantha asks her why she's so disapproving of Sam giving up her powers to live the life Darrin wants -- I noted very young that Samantha usually said "of course I want X too" after explaining why it's good for Darrin or why Darrin's asked her to do something -- Endora replies with a speech I love:
We're quicksilver, a fleeting shadow, a distant sound.
Our home has no boundaries beyond which we cannot pass.
We live in music and the flash of color
We live on the wind and the sparkle of a star.
And Samantha, has chosen to behave like a mortal and renounce all that. It's not the power, it's the freedom and beauty that Darrin's asking her little girl to deny that Endora seems to resent.
There are so many nice moments in the first season. A little boy asking her if she's a good witch or a bad witch, and her reply of "Comme ci, comme ca." Samantha trying to figure out how to cook a chicken and Endora correcting her on the best way to do it from scratch. "I said it was a waste of time. I didn't say I didn't know how." And the moments when she was asked to interact in her daughter's world and she always rose to the occasion and charmed everyone about her.
Endora knew her own mind. She was one of the few representations of the upper class that didn't just associate class with money. Her life was an adventure she wanted to share. Bits of it were shallow, but Endora sucked the marrow out of life, and I can think of very few female characters who were allowed to do that.
1) Diana Skouris -- The 4400
When the head of the agency that's later known as NTAC on the show decides that The 4400 need to be investigated by people who are scientists as well as trained law enforcement, he makes two person teams and puts Doctor Diana Skouris, formerly of the CDC, on one with his top investigator, Tom Baldwin. They are never within the show paired romantically, a miracle on television, frankly. She develops law enforcement skills, but always remains a scientist. When one of The 4400, who's only 9, but was born in 1937 asks to go home with her, she becomes a mother. Being Maia's mother is never the be-all, end-all of who she is. She's Diana, scientist, Tom's partner and friend, Marco's friend and later lover, who also happens to be Maia's mom.
Too many women on television are one thing -- Mother or Career Woman. If she's a career woman with kids, well, then she either puts her kids first or she's a bitch. Diana puts her work as high as her family, sometimes one takes precedent over the other, but she's always struggling for the balance. She's never the perfect mother, because she came to it late with a pre-teen who's technically older than she is. There's never any doubt that as an adoptive mother she's as prepared to kill or die for her daughter as any mother who bore her children herself. However, her brain and her skills give her as much joy as her daughter does.
In a second season episode where the men at NTAC have been driven nearly mad by a 4400's ability, she stands between a threat and her daughter with her gun drawn and says, "Don't worry. Mommy's here." Damn, it's hot.
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no subject
Date: 2010-07-07 03:39 pm (UTC)And Endora. I *love* Endora. And Serena. When Serena showed up, I thought, "What the hell happened with Samantha?" ;)
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From:(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2010-07-08 05:48 pm (UTC)I wish I'd seen that first season; I would have had a better appreciaton of her. I was a Samantha fan; I liked the love and loyalty with which she juggled all the competing claims on her. I didn't realize at the time that that's precisely the traditional female role.
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