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Dr. Temperance Brennan: I’ve never gotten a B and I never will.
Special Agent Seeley Booth: That’s my girl.

By far, the character of Dr. Temperence Brennan is quite a step forward for female characters and Danger Gals everywhere for several reasons:

(1) Brennan doesn’t need a man for anything. If she can power a cell phone with the horn of her car (”Aliens in a Spaceship“), then I’m sure she can open a jar without manly muscles or change a flat tire.

(2) She’s highly intelligent and never hides the fact to make others feel better about themselves, something many girls and women do to make the men in their lives feel more intelligent.

(3) The show subverts the typical emotions=female and logic=male by attributing intuition to Booth and logic to Bones. In this show, Brennan is an atheist and Booth is the good Catholic boy who believes in God.

(4) Physically, Brennan can defend herself within reasonable expectations. Also, she continues to use her intelligence to not get herself into physical situations where she must be rescued.

Emily Deschanel who portrays Bones in the series has compared Brennan to a cracked egg:

“She’s very flawed in odd ways, but there’s something admirable, I think, in her attempt to move forward and put herself back together, like Humpty Dumpty.”

I don’t know that I’d call Brennan flawed so much as just someone who missed out on cultural and generational touchpoints. First she missed out on life due to being in the foster care system and then she missed out on other touchpoints by being more involved in academics than socializing.

Brennan is constantly learning, constantly observing. She may not know how to stereotypically act “like a girl’ — and SBG over at The Hathor Legacy has pointed out that trying to act like a stereotypical “girl” doesn’t get Brennan anywhere — but she has healthy interactions with other people. Her brain has only made her more endearing to those friends and lovers in her life. Certainly her intelligence hasn’t intimidated Booth, although they share issues of primacy in their respective areas of expertise.

Carly at Empowerment4Women points out about Brennan and the show:

A show about a woman doctor (Dr. Temperance Brennan, played by Emily Deschanel) whose main priority is her career but who also has a heart and a connection to her friends and family. But guess what? She doesn’t have children and doesn’t want any children. And she still, somehow, isn’t made out to be some sort of heartless villain. And did I mention that her boss (Tamara Taylor as Dr. Camille Saroyan) isn’t interested in spreading her gene pool either?

I suspect that if the series runs long enough the writers will bring up this issue again simply for the mileage they can get from Brennan’s childhood. However, even should Brennan decide to procreate at some point, it won’t be about completing herself as a woman or about being valuable to society because of her reproductive ability. It will be a choice Brennan makes, a path she decides to take for her life.

[Just for my bud Leslie]

Danger Gal Friday will resume this Friday, so please stay tuned. Life stuff just got in the way last week for me. Also, I’ll soon be posting on my reaction to the Battlestar Galactica season finale this past Sunday.

In the meantime, talk amongst yourselves about the strange hexagonal shape hovering over Saturn right now.

Dr. Joan Bushwell over at Bushwell’s Chimpanzee Refuge has graciously nominated me for a Thinking Blogger Award.

The goal of the meme is to point out blogs that provide informative and interesting content.

The rules of the meme are simple, to quote the Thinking Blog website:

1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think,
2. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme,
3. Optional: Proudly display the ‘Thinking Blogger Award’ with a link to your post

So, here goes it. Five Blogs That Make Me Think:

• John Hawk’s Anthropology Blog
  Be prepared to read about anything from Australopithecines to Darth Tater to the Geico cavemen TV pilot.
• Neurophilosopher’s Blog
  Anything you ever wanted to know about the brain. And occasionally cephalopods.
• Pop Culture Heroines
  They’re “dedicated to the promotion of strong female characters in popular culture” and they’re doing a great job of it.
• Inky Circus
  Pure science nerd girl fun. Check out their Inkling Magazine for more fun that requires a brain too.
• Feminist SF — The Blog!
  They’ll make you think about how women are portrayed in entertainment media.

“No.” He wrapped a curl around his finger. “This is exactly how I want you.”

My critique partner Leslie Dicken’s new book has been released and is available online at Triskelion Publishing. Check out the plot summary:

A Reserved Lord. After the death of his wife and father, the Earl of Markham has spent the last five years fiercely guarding his emotions from involvement, including getting too close to his son. Then a blackmail threat shatters his impassive world. To ensure his son’s inheritance, Markham must woo and marry a headstrong commoner with a heart as wild and free as the English countryside she loves. Though wrong for him in every way, he discovers seducing her awakens more than just his colorless world. Soon, the battle to protect his son’s future becomes a fight for his own heart.

A Spirited Commoner. After a tragedy destroyed Lizzie Parker’s dreams, she wants no part of venturing far from home. She is content with her life of her garden, her village, and possibly, her father’s curate. Sent from her ideal world to London and the glittering Season, Lizzie does whatever possible to vex the man who once broke her heart. But she never expects his kisses to tame her resistance. And each time his touch arouses her senses, she is less and less sure of just where she belongs.

Want a little taste before buying it? Read an excerpt over at Leslie’s web site.

“Get away from her, you bitch!” — Ellen Ripley, Aliens

I haven’t written about Ripley yet because, well, the Alien has always freaked me out, big time. That monster scared the crap out of me for years. Still, Ellen Ripley certainly deserves her spot as a Danger Gal.

I think Marlee MacLeod in her article She’s All Man: Ripley, Feminism and Gender over at Dual Lens makes some salient points.

So I should explain how she opened the door for heroines who followed, right? No Ellen Ripley=no Lara Croft, no Xena, no other ass-kicking fantasy heroines (although maybe that “no Xena” thing wouldn’t be so bad). Easy.

Except, it’s just the first Alien film I’m talking about here, and try as I might, I can’t find a positive feminist message anywhere in it.

MacLeod goes on to say that there’s no room for any feminine sensibilities in the Alien movies and she’s right. This saga is about defense and protection and infiltration from within. I do think that by seeing a woman in this kind of role, even if she didn’t have a nurturing side, opened the minds of Hollywood and audiences to seeing women in roles other than maiden, wife, mother and harlot. For once we saw a woman angry, and she wasn’t scorned and she wasn’t insane or hysterical. She was righteous and dangerous.

Todd Gilchrist in his article Boxed In: Feminism in Flux at FilmStew, sees a very different Ripley:

Ellen Ripley was neither ‘a man with boobs’ nor a simpering mass of post-period hormones. Alternately maternal and authoritative, rugged and vulnerable, distant and alluring, Weaver set the standard by which all action heroines should be judged.

Certainly Ripley’s motherly relationship with Newt has to count for something toward a feminine aspect. My take on Ripley is that in the first film she was indeed mostly androgynous. The film was subversive in that the alien procreated by impregnating anyone, including men. As far as being a feminist heroine, I think Ripley is an example of a culture processing the pendulum swing of how to define female characters. Previous to Ripley we were mostly offered women defined by their sex (or their attitude toward it), whereas Ripley is in many ways defined by her lack of it.

It’s easier in a TV series to show the depth of a character, to round her out with scenes of many aspects of her life. Movies, on the other hand, are more akin to a short story rather than a novel, and we get to see only a moment of time in character’s life. Ripley did pave the way for future feminist heroines by not being seen first as a woman, but as simply someone trying to survive and eliminate a dangerous threat to humankind.

[Just for you my bud, Wassup B.]

“It’s always easier to kill someone else’s darlings than it is to kill your own.” — Stephen King, On Writing

Salon’s Heather Havrilesky is freaking out over Starbuck’s “death” on Battlestar Galactica in the I Like to Watch column:

So why kill off one of the only brazen, swaggering female characters on TV? Why? Why Starbuck? Why now? Someone please explain to me why Starbuck needs to kick the bucket at this point. Sure, there’s all this talk of her destiny from Leoben, the abusive daddy of the Cylon species. But is Starbuck really the appropriate character to transform into a mystical figure in colonial mythology?

The fact that she’s reacting so strongly to this plot turn, not to mention all the other fans who are losing it, is the perfect reason for the writers to have turned the story this way.

Did anyone believe for a second that Meredith Grey was actually going to kick the bucket on Grey’s Anatomy? No, she’s the freaking main character, for goodness sake. The three-part episode was just an opportunity for all of the other characters to emote. Next season I think they should really and truly kill off an intern to keep the audience on its toes.

I guess there were fans who thought Buffy was really dead after her swan dive, but even though that show had an ensemble cast, bottom line it was about Buffy. If the series had just been titled Vampire Slayer, then they could have brought in a new character, but it wasn’t. Kind of ruined the suspense for me.

It is a fine line to walk, though, between keeping your audience guessing and just plain old pissing them off. They could in fact kill off Starbuck and have an intact cast, but I think it’s too early in the arc of the show to do that. Plus, it would drive a lot of fans away.

So, I repeat. Starbuck is not dead. She’s going to return flying a ship left behind by the Lost Tribe. That’s her “special destiny,” the whole raison d’etre for her profound piloting ability. It could be the purpose of the beacon in the first place since it didn’t seem to point to anything else in particular. Did I miss something, or was everyone still wondering which way did they go, George? What clue to a possible heading to take did the beacon give them?

Do you think Sam will still be mourning Kara when she returns, or do you think he will have moved on? Do you think Apollo and Dee will still be together? In the meantime, we get to see all the characters grieve and we’ll see them rejoice (maybe) when she returns. It’s that pendulum swing of emotion that creates drama.

So just keep freaking out. It’s telling the writers they’ve done a good job.

Starbuck is not dead.

Katie Sackoff has a six-year contract for Battlestar Galactica, and I don’t for a second believe Ron Moore when he implies in the “Maelstrom” episode podcast that they killed off a major character on a whim. Dramatic TV series writers usually have an overall idea of the major character arcs, and a death this major would have been thought out. Also, while the new series writers thankfully have not treated the original series as if it were canon, they have stayed true to some important generalities.

So, Starbuck’s fate is tied up with the Star Child and the Ship of Lights. There, I said it. Now don’t groan. The Star Child and Ship of Lights of the classic series were incredibly cheesy, but the writers of the re-imagined series have done a good job of taking the cheese out of the ideas from the classic series and I think they’ll continue to do that.

Sackoff has said that Starbuck, “as we know her, is dead.” This is good. I love this character, love her frakked up life, but it’s going to get boring really fast if a world-class frak-up is what she continues to be indefinitely.

So, what do I think is going to happen? Well, first off, the Cylons knew no more about the mandala than the Colonials did, so I don’t think that Starbuck is a Cylon (but you never know). The Sacred Scrolls mention the Temple of Five and the priests who served “The One Whose Name Cannot Be Spoken.” Of all the people who looked at the mandala, including Tyrol whose parents were clergy, only Helo recognized it and that from Kara’s apartment not from some other ancient source.

Rather, I think Starbuck has some connection to the Lost Tribe who left the mandala behind as a beacon. There has been speculation that Hera is in fact fulfilling the role of the Starchild and I think that could possibly be true. So, let’s look a little bit at why the writers have injected all the Aurora imagery into the story at this point. (more…)

“Come home with your shield or on it.”

Plutarch attributes this quote to a Spartan mother speaking to her son in his Moralia from the section called Sayings of Spartan Women. The meaning is that if he were to come home from battle without his shield, then he would have discarded it as he fled in cowardice. Spartan shields were large enough that they could be used as stretchers for the wounded or dead.

The movie 300 is about the Battle of Thermopylae, which occurred in 480 BC. While this movie is based on a thrilling comic book version of history and its intent was never to be directly historical, I hope it prompts viewers to learn more about the ancient world. I took the movie for what it is: “barbarians at the gate” bloody battle gory escapist fun.

I have a keen interest in barbarians and for me this is pretty much defined as anything pre-Christian or anything non-Christian in the time of early Christianity. In storytelling barbarians are the subversive ones, the ones who are outside of civilization and often turn out to be not as barbaric as originally painted to be. Don’t misunderstand me. I don’t buy into “noble savage” romanticism. I just have a fundamental problem with authority.

In the Classical Greek world, the Spartans were singular in the organization of their society and culture and I would make comparisons to how they were discussed to how the Romans often pointed out how different the Celts were. In fact, we often romanticize Spartans similarly to how we romanticize the Scots on the fringe of the civilized world.

So it seems fitting that a Scotman was cast in the role of the Spartan King Leonidas and I should admit now that I’m also a Gerry Butler fan. I would have seen 300 for the barbarian spectacle alone, but put Butler in the mix in that kind of physical shape and I was eager to see this movie. I think he did a great job in this role. I can think of few other actors who would have made the kind of physical commitment Butler did, could exude his level of charisma and intensity and could also have carried off that apple scene. (Christian Bale, perhaps)

Still, there are a few points I want to make about the movie. Spoilers ensure. Stop reading now if you don’t want to know. (more…)

“Always keep your bowler on in time of stress and watch out for diabolical masterminds.” — Emma Peel to John Steed in The Forget-Me-Knot

It really would be a travesty to discuss kick-ass heroines without bringing up Emma Peel from The Avengers. To quote the Z.Z. von Schnerk character from one of The Avengers episodes, Emma Peel is:

“. . . a woman of courage, beauty and of action. A woman who could become desperate yet remain strong, become confused yet remain intelligent, who could fight back yet remain feminine.”

Emma Peel paved the way for so many of today’s strong heroines in movies, TV shows and books. Unlike so many female characters before and after her, Peel was admired because she could show weakness without being considered a weak character and could be rescued as well as do the rescuing.

Even more interesting, according to Francis Hui, Rigg and Steed used to write their own witty dialogue. As a married woman, Mrs. Peel came across as sexually experienced and was yet not defined solely by her sexuality. Becca at Pop Culture Heroines points out that Peel was “a force to be reckoned with; smart, beautiful and capable.” What more could a girl ask for?

The Center for the Advancement of Women has launched a campaign called “Ann Coulter Does Not Speak for Me.”

The only way this could be better is if it were a “Wack-a-Coulter” instead.

Coulter is so oblivious that she doesn’t even realize that if it weren’t for Feminism in the first place she’d have no voice with which to abuse people.

On this same topic, check out what Salon’s Lynn Harris has to say in their Broadsheet column.

Also, Andrew Sullivan has an eloquent response to Coulter, though when in a separate post he calls into question whether she’s a person I think he’s stooping to her level.

The Right is imploding and it’s going to be one heck of a show.