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I think that needs to be on a t-shirt or something.

In a recent CNN interview, the actor who played Cyclops in the X-Men movies waxes on about how a guy’s clothes should never be wearing him and how sexy his wife’s neck is, but most especially about fatherhood, role models and how sex appeal is really about confidence not age:

What does your wife find sexy on you?

A button-front shirt with [baby] spit-up on the shoulder. That means a guy is taking care of the kids and is a good father — that’s sexy to a woman. The adult version of rose petals and champagne is if I let my wife sleep in and I get up to change the baby’s diaper, feed the kids, and do the dishes…

Who inspires you?

Paul Newman. My middle name is Paul, and my grandfather once said I was going to look like Paul Newman. That stuck with me. Beyond being a good-looking guy, Newman is a great actor with a long career, and he’s got a life. He’s married with kids and lives in Connecticut, sells popcorn and marinara sauce, and gives the money to charity…

Don’t you agree that guys have it easy — they are considered “distinguished” as they grow older?

I don’t think it’s guy-specific. As women get older, they become more comfortable with themselves. Susan Sarandon is the poster woman for that. A lot of guys fantasize about being with women who are in their forties or fifties.

I like that the interviewer asked not only what Marsden found sexy, but what the woman in his life found to be sexy — turning that gaze around for the audience.

This week’s Danger Gal Friday profile is of Major Catherine Li, from Chris Moriarty’s Science Fiction novel SPIN STATE, a Philip K Dick Award and Prometheus Award nominee.

Since I’ve recently started reading the sequel, SPIN CONTROL, I realized that I never have profiled Catherine Li. Mostly this is due to the fact that this book is so dense — it’s detective noir hard science fiction with a gender and sexuality subtext — that no review or profile I write could successfully cover the scope of it. But I’ll do my best.

First off, I wasn’t kidding about this being hard science fiction. The core technology in the story centers on quantum entanglement, and Moriarty did her homework with seven pages of end notes citing scientific papers on the topic. I read this book way back in 2005, and compared it as many have to Richard Morgan’s ALTERED CARBON:

Morgan’s and Moriarty’s debut books are often compared to one another, which is why I read one after the other. UN Peacekeeper Catherine Li is a clone, and she’s covered that fact well, but maybe not well enough when she’s sent back home to solve the murder of physicist Hannah Sharifi — from the same clone bank as Li. There are definite similarities between SPIN STATE and ALTERED CARBON, but they’re vastly different books. I especially liked Moriarty’s concept of “streamspace,” effectively a virt environment like the Matrix, but one enabled by quantum entanglement. And yes, I had to read this book with a dictionary in hand, but that’s what I liked about it.

Catherine Li fits the Danger Gal profile in several different ways. First off, she breaks with many hard science fiction and detective noir stories by just being a female protagonist. She’s actually in charge of getting to the bottom of the mystery, rather than being the girl sidekick with a gun.

I don’t have the book in front of me as I write this, but I also seem to remember Li being vaguely Asian, as is Hannah Sharifi since the two of them are clones from the same source. Li’s appearance doesn’t fall in line with the typical stereotype of what’s deemed as feminine attractiveness, either, namely that she’s shaved her head. This plays well against the gender and sexuality issues in this novel encapsulated by Li’s affair with Bella, a beautiful pawn of the Syndicates and the UN, and Li’s on-going relationship with Cohen, an artificial intelligence who “shunts” into humans of both male and female genders.

So, in Li we have a protagonist who challenges gender, ethnicity, appearance, and sexuality expectations. That’s a superfecta of story elements I haven’t seen very often. (See if that word show up on Free Rice. . .)

This was a challenging read that I enjoyed. This book takes on the big Science Fiction “What if?” question on both scientific and social issues. So far I’m about a quarter into its sequel, SPIN CONTROL, and enjoying it just as much. Li and Cohen evidently show up at some point in the sequel and I’m looking forward to that. I’ve included links to two more reviews of this book, for those who want to know more.

Off the Shelf Review by Paul Witcover
Eagle Review by Russ Allbery

I rarely dish about celebrities, but since I’ve talked about parenting issues a few times this story seemed apropos. The Hollywood Rag celebrity blog recently quoted some anonymous source as reporting to Time and InStyle of the Pitt-Jolie partnership that:

“Brad gets up really early with the children. He changes diapers and gets Zahara and Shiloh fed and dressed for the day. He takes this responsibility very seriously.

“While Angie was busy filming Brad was superdad. He got into the routine of getting up with all the kids, getting the Corn Flakes for breakfast and getting them prepped for school. When Brad dresses the kids, he lets them pick whatever they want to wear, even if it’s weird or mismatched.”

So, doing what mothers have been doing for generations makes Brad Pitt “superdad.”

I know quite a few dads who do all these same things, my own husband included, which I think is one of the sexiest things on the planet. Let’s not label them superdads, though. Instead, let’s celebrate the few couples who equitably split parenting roles between them and not along traditional gender roles. I have nothing against traditional gender roles so long as those involved actively choose that, but let’s also not overly praise men for doing things women have been doing all along with hardly more praise than flowers once a year on Mother’s Day.

Let’s just all grow up and do what needs to be done, regardless of gender.

Content is light all over the internet this week, and Danger Gal HQ is no exception.

I’m not being a total slacker, though, because I do have a Danger Gal recommendation for this week, albeit a bit different than usual.

I’d like to nominate every freaking female character in Suzanne Brockmann’s INTO THE STORM. How do I love these characters, let me count the ways:

• Alyssa Locke (who really deserves, and will get, her very own post), former FBI sharpshooter and current employee of Troubleshooters, Inc.
• Lindsey Fontaine, former LAPD police officer and current employee of Troubleshooters, Inc.
• Sophia Ghaffari, reputed “Mata Hari” spy in the Middle East, but really a tortured woman who’s trying to put her life back together. Despite some horrible experiences, she helped save members of Troubleshooters, Inc. in another book, but shows up again in this one. Current employee of Troubleshooters, Inc.
• Tess Bailey, CommSpec extraordinaire
• And, yes, even Tracey Shapiro, who discovers what she’s made of during the course of this story.
• Finally, Number Five (Beth Foster). Number Five is alive and she’s going to kick your a$$ if you mess with her. She’s also former U.S. Army.

I have to go re-read this book now. Wonder Woman has nothing on these ladies.

This week’s Danger Gal Friday profile is on Skye Brown, also known as Mariah Quinn in Marianne Mancusi’s MOONGAZER.

I’ve already profiled one heroine from a book in the Shomi line (Eve Kenin’s DRIVEN), and you can bet on more in the future. Pretty much anything in this line, which publishes books with female protagonists who challenge feminine stereotypes, has jumped to the top of my to-be-read list. MOONGAZER does not disappoint as it fluidly combines both SciFi/Fantasy and Romance. Even Mrs. Giggles loved it, which is quite a feat.

Skye Brown is a MMORPG designer, knee-deep in her creation when she’s yanked out of what she thinks is the real world to, well, the actual post-apocalyptic real world now called Terra. Dawn is the transhuman boyfriend of her alter ego, Mariah Quinn. I’m quickly becoming enamored of stories where female characters discover, or re-discover in this case, their Danger Gal sides instead of existing in that state from the beginning of a novel.

Quinn forsook a life among the Terran ruling elite called the Circle of Eight to lead a revolution among the downtrodden of Terra, the Dark Siders. While researching Moongazing, a virtual reality billed as an escape to “Earth” where everything is still green and the air is still breathable, Mariah becomes addicted and loses herself in it. Once freed from Moongazing, she’s lost all memory of being Mariah and now believes she’s game designer Skye Brown.

Mariah/Skye retains her sword-fighting abilities, but no memories of her former soulmate, Dawn, a man who thinks Mariah betrayed them all, and for good reason. Skye’s second chance at life, an opportunity to wipe the slate clean both with the Dark Siders and with Dawn, is compelling. She’s able to keep the best of Mariah and discard the lesser qualities. Dawn falls in love with her all over again.

MOONGAZER was escapist fun, with a heroine who learned to dig down deep and find a strength she didn’t know she had. There are some similarities between MOONGAZER and The Matrix, all good ones. Like Neo, Skye leaves a pretty virtual world for a dark actual one, but finds a real purpose. It was fun to see this popular hero-type flipped to be female.

This week’s Danger Gal Friday profile is on Lt. (jg) Naval Reservist Helo Pilot Teri Howe from Suzanne Brockmann’s Out of Control.

Recently, the debate over “forced seduction” scenarios in the Romance genre has surfaced again after statements made by Julie Bindel in an article for The Guardian. Since this subtype of the Romance genre isn’t the topic of this blog, I won’t go into the details here. Dear Author and SBTB both have great discussions going on right now on this issue, so head over there if you want to know more about it. Also, author Louise Allen has written a rebuttal, having been personally mentioned by Bindel.

While this particular Romance subtype isn’t what I personally like to read, it’s lazy to judge a whole genre based on an unrepresentative sampling — and a misrepresentation of that sampling to boot. In the discussion over at SBTB, several commenters asked for recommendations on books that didn’t deal with “forced seduction,” with Alpha heroes who didn’t display the difficult personality traits of the heroes in this subtype. A whole bunch of authors were mentioned, Suzanne Brockmann being one of them. I’ve loved Brockmann’s entire SEAL and Troubleshooters series, and thought Lt. (jg) Teri Howe would be a good character to profile in light of this discussion, due not only to her Danger Gal status, but also to her particular inner conflict. Spoilers do follow, so if you haven’t read this book proceed at your own risk.

What I like about Teri Howe is that we get to see her rise to the status of Danger Gal. From the get-go, Howe has the Danger Gal skill and determination: she’s a pilot who can fly anything from a prop to a small jet to a helicopter, and she graduated from MIT. From Howe’s accounts of her childhood, it’s a safe bet she financed her own college education. Her real passion in life is flying, and I’ve met more than a few pilots who’d fit that description, so this bit of characterization rang true for me. There’s a reason Flying magazine has a bumper sticker that says “I’d rather be flying.”

The backcover summary describes Howe as “one of the best helicopter pilots in the naval reserves . . . tough, dedicated, and highly-skilled,” but as reviewer Kate Nepveu summarizes: “[Howe is] a great pilot but less assertive when off-duty; through her friendship and then love with Senior Chief Stan Wolchonok, she grows into an all-around kickass person.”

On more than one occasion, Wolchonok assumes a certain kind of behavior from Howe based on his experiences with her as a pilot. He comments to himself and others the high respect he has for her as a pilot and a person. He’s stymied when someone so cool under pressure in the cockpit can cave completely when faced with a sexual harassment situation. He builds a trust with Howe by keeping his own libido in check and she finally confirms his suspicions of childhood sexual abuse. Wolchonok helps Howe to transfer the skills she already has in other areas of her life to deal with this problem. Once she begins to master standing up for herself and going after what she wants, Howe decides she wants Wolchonok and pursues him; something he never thought was possible.

Some might say that Wolchonok swept in and solved Howe’s problem for her by removing her from a stressful situation, but all he did was give her the reprieve Howe needed to access the skills she already had in order to solve the problem herself. Wolchonok is a virile Alpha hero who is the heroine’s biggest fan and would never dream of treating her poorly. He helps the heroine see who she really is and to embrace it. At the end of the book Lt. Teri Howe has transitioned to a full-fledged Danger Gal, with kiss-ass skills and the attitude to go with it.

Out of Control is a great example of how the Romance genre can’t be boiled down to its stereotypes of sheik billionaires, savage Highlanders and secret babies. It’s about ::wait for it:: the power of love, most often Romantic love, but specifically regarding how that connection can change a person to live up to their full potential as a human being. I know what you’re thinking, savvy SF reader: sappy, sappy, sappy. But it’s not. Love, affection and sex — which can be primal and gritty as well as roses and chocolate — are some of the most fundamental qualities we human beings yearn for and it belongs as part of a multi-dimensional character in any genre. The Romance genre, though, to quote commenter Poison Ivy over at SBTB, is “an apotheosis of an intimate relationship.” Just like all books, Romance reflects and shapes its readership. This one reflects a woman dealing with deep emotional pain, who with help from a strong man not afraid to show his nurturing side, learns to stand up for herself in all areas of her life.

Other reviews of this book:
All About Romance
The Romance Reader

“Someone’s got to save our skins!” (Princess Leia Organa, Star Wars: A New Hope)

I really can’t believe that it’s taken me this long to profile Princess Leia as a Danger Gal Friday. When Star Wars came out I was knee-deep in pixies and dragons and unicorns. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I still enjoy reading about pixies and dragons and unicorns. But Princess Leia Organa was the first princess I’d encountered who was a damsel but not in distress. Not to mention that Han Solo so ousted Princess Aurora’s (Sleeping Beauty) Prince Philip as my McDreamy. So much has been said already about what a watershed moment the original Star Wars trilogy was for the boys growing up in that generation, but less has been said about the girls. There are fewer of us, and my tastes in Science Fiction have changed since then, but the few female characters have matched the positive impact that Princess Leia had on how women are portrayed in Science Fiction and leadership roles in general for fiction. Along with watching the original Star Trek episodes at this time, Star Wars kicked off my interest in Science Fiction because there was as character I could identify with.

The only thing I would have changed about Princess Leia is to give her a lightsaber, and I’m still disappointed that there was no female Jedi as a main character in the Star Wars prequels. There are female Jedi, however, and characters in some of the books/comics (Mara Jade comes to mind immediately, but she’s a future Danger Gal post), but I’m still disappointed.
Deb Taylor at Mookychick summarized Princess Leia Organa beautifully:

Princess Leia was a strong and fearless character, who stood by her beliefs and fought for them. Whether it was saving the galaxy or the man she loved. She was more than willing to risk her own life for the struggle and never demanded that others do the same. Though she appreciated it when they did.

An important facet of Princess Leia’s story is that she not only had a career, but was at the top of the heap in her chosen profession, and she also didn’t have to sacrifice her love life for it. She fell in love with a rogue who decided to fly the straight and narrow path after experiencing her and Luke’s examples. She didn’t take a bad boy and change him, he chose to change himself.

Not only does Leia take charge, but people follow her commands. She also rescues the heroes several times over. She doesn’t fall prey to the SF stereotype of a scantily clad female until Return of the Jedi – and even then she’s saving all the guys, not to mention strangling her monster captor with her own shackles. Princess Leia challenges the stereotypical spacebabe when as a chatteled half-naked female turns the tables by slaying the monster herself. (Meanwhile, the guys are trying not to fall into a giant vagina dentata, but that’s a discussion for another time.)

No character is perfect, but a perfect character is boring. Real people are torn between social, political and religious issues and are not totally consistent in their opinions on those issues. Some have found fault with ways Leia could have subverted traditional feminine roles further and we should examine those. Mariana at Gatochy’s Blog makes a very good point about female Jedi in general and Leia in particular:

The Star Wars trilogy is generally great in keeping women in their place, because have you noticed how there’s not one. Single. Female. Jedi? Not one? Not ever? Puppets, yes. Samuel L. Jackson, sure, in the movies that followed. But women can’t handle that kind of power. And that’s where Princess Leia comes in: to show us how even if you do supposedly have the Force in you you simply can make no use of it unless you’re a man; and that even if you do hold a position of great power because it was handed down to you on a silver platter, if you’re a woman, you’re bound to be hopeless at it. In fact, you will notice it’s her twin brother, who she didn’t even know she had, who saves the universe, not her.

I couldn’t agree more (and I’ve made a similar complaint in the past), and there are many problems with other female characters in Star Wars as well. However, for the time she was written, this was a great step forward. Princess Leia became a template for later heroines and we continue to build on this new archetype in fits in starts, one step forward and sometimes four steps backward. Part of the motivation for me writing this blog is to highlight the great and not-so-great qualities in characters like Princess Leia so that we can discard the old, useless and degrading qualities of female stereotypes.

When as a kid in the 1970s I played Star Wars in the backyard, my version of Princess Leia indeed had a lightsaber and was a powerful Jedi. After she defeated the bad guy, she rode off into the sunset (the Tatooine binary star, mind you) in her landspeeder (or dragon or unicorn, sometimes) with Han Solo.

And, yes, she was driving.

Did anyone notice that I thought yesterday was Monday? It’s been that kind of week. While I may not be making much sense these past few days, many other people are, so here’s some linkitude to amuse you while I get my act back together.

The Book Bitches are grousing about the results of the AAR’s Top 100 Romances Poll. Unlike my friend Leslie Dicken, I’ve read about 40 of the books on this list. Also unlike the Book Bitches, I enjoyed Brockmann’s Out of Control, but it took too long to get to that story. I felt the Alyssa/Sam storyline had been dragged out for too long and by the time their book came out I wasn’t so into them as I had been at one point. Having said that, even books Brockmann writes on an off-day I know are going to be a great way to spend a few hours. It’s a real shame no Science Fiction Romance showed up on that list, though, not even Catherine Asaro. Linnea Sinclair has done a fine job of rounding up the thoughts of the people in her readers’ group about what they look for in SFR.

Pyr editor Lou Anders over at Bowing to the Future is covering the state of speculative fiction magazines. He links to a discussion over at Windupstories.com about how to market Science Fiction/Fantasy to teenage girls and there’s some interesting conversation in the comments. As as little girl, sure I loved rainbows and unicorns and dragons. It all came to a screeching halt when I discovered Princess Leia, though, and I wanted a lightsaber. So I guess I’m sort of the “full body armor with a spatter of blood on her faceplate” type. Maybe. Except that as a teen I was reading Arthur C. Clarke not Madeline L’Engle. I remember watching the original Star Trek with my Dad and being amazed that not only had he seen all of the episodes already, but that he could remember what each one was about. My Mom liked it too, so Science Fiction was a family pastime. I’m the big reader in my family, but we always experienced SF movies and TV together. I’m equally anticipating both Enchanted and the Sarah Connor Chronicles coming out. Really, Prince Phillip was the original McDreamy.

If I had half a brain this week, I’d tie the SF for teenage girls thing into the recent trend of special marketing to women in general. This is the tendency to make something pink and/or slap Hello Kitty or rhinestones onto something and market it as “for women.” In general, I’d rather companies just make their products better to fit a broader audience than come up with something special for a segment of it. Don’t listen to me, though, since I’m writing this while listening to my pink iPod. The iPod was actually a gift, but even so all the other colors were just not appealing. So we come back to just making the base product a better product. Gee, maybe that nap earlier did help my sleep-deprived brain?

My friend Kaigou has a fantastic article on the dynamics of the street in her article Dear Urban Fantasy Author.

Salon Magazine reviews the new Beowulf movie and outlines why it falls so far short of what it could have been, a story akin to The Lord of the Rings. Article author Gary Kamiya taps into the liminal aspects of LOTR and Beowulf, how both stand at the threshold of a time between Paganism and Christianity.

I’m grousing online about a recent MacWorld article comparing various blog software platforms like WordPress, TypePad and Blogger. Catch me in the comments.

This week’s Danger Gal profile is on Bree “Banzai” Maguire from Susan Grant’s novel The Legend of Banzai Maguire.

Lately I’ve been profiling great characters from movies and TV, but I’ve been ignoring some of my favorite novels. Recent conversations about the state of Science Fiction Romance/Futuristics/Romantic Science Fiction/Speculative Romance over at Linnea Sinclair’s group blog (here and here) and the eHarlequin Susan Grant Otherworldly Men forum discussion have reminded me about how some of my favorite books fall into this category. It also describes well what I write.

This is a challenging fusion of subgenres to write, but when done well the sum is better than its parts. These recent discussions outline the challenges in detail, and if you read Romance but don’t mind seeing a SciFi movie once in a while, or read Science Fiction and are looking for characters with a lot of depth and range of human emotion that includes love, then check out the links above. My only point to add is that the Romance and Science Fiction genres are not mutually exclusive. The division is not binary, but really a spectrum of emphasis as the two genres merge. This variety I think in part explains why we’ve got at least four names to describe these types of books: We’re really trying to describe where the emphasis is, on Romance, Science Fiction, or a true integration of the two.

But I’m supposed to be talking about Banzai Maguire. Publishers Weekly has predicted that:

“[T]he ‘action romance’ niche is small but growing, and high-caliber tales like this one will ensure that it continues to do so. A national advertising campaign should put Banzai on many romance readers’ wish lists, but the book also holds crossover appeal for sci-fi/fantasy fans.”

Grant herself points out characteristics of Banzai that also hold true for many other books in this category:

“The Legend of Banzai Maguire doesn’t follow the traditional plot-structure of most romance books. You don’t meet the hero in the first chapters; there are two men for whom the heroine might fall; and the book is most definitely the ‘heroine’s story.’ With boot-shaking excitement and genuine mortal terror, I’m waiting to see what reader reaction will be for this ‘genre-mutt!’”

For these reasons, I’d place The Legend of Banzai Maguire as more Science Fiction than Romance, but the Romance elements are woven tightly into the story, provide a depth it wouldn’t have if removed, and made me care even more about the characters.

So, like all the other Danger Gal Friday’s I’ve profiled, how does Banzai Maguire break stereotypes? First, her profession. Banzai is a U.S.A.F. pilot on a routine mission when she’s shot down and frozen in stasis for 170 years. Grant’s military and airline pilot experience lend a big dose of credibility to this aspect of the story. Banzai finds herself stuck in a sadly familiar misogynistic situation when a high-powered man in a tech-savvy but primitive world finds her interesting enough to want her as a favored concubine. Banzai finds a way out and as one reviewer described, she is “a strong, quick-witted heroine who can get herself out of her own jam, thank you very much (unless she’s stuck in suspended animation).”

Banzai doesn’t have to resort to using her feminine wiles to escape and even rescues U.C.E. SEAL commander Ty Armstrong, the man who set out to free her himself but was captured in the process. Armstrong is a Maguire history buff, infatuated with her disappearance as many have been with Amelia Earhart’s. At first, Armstrong has difficulty seeing the woman behind the legend, but once Ty works past this attitude and he realizes they have common goals, he falls for her.

At the end of the novel, which is the first installment of the 2176 series bookended by Grant, Banzai and Ty are a team out to uncover the ways the U.C.E. maintains its benevolent dictatorship with others who feel as they do. Banzai leaves a potential life of luxury as a world leader’s favored concubine for a much harder life to fight against tyranny.

I enjoyed the Sleeping Beauty twist when Ty revives Banzai from stasis, but wasn’t thrilled with the “mad scientist” angle as the cause. I would have preferred Banzai’s cockpit to have some kind of built-in stasis mechanism that initiated but malfunctioned. This didn’t detract from the novel overall, however, and The Legend of Banzai Maguire is a fine example of the meshing of Science Fiction with Romance, and with a kick-ass heroine to boot.

This week’s Danger Gal profile is on Vickie Nelson, from LifetimeTV’s show Blood Ties portrayed by actress Christina Cox. Nelson is a cop turned private investigator who solves supernatural cases after witnessing one herself.

I only recently heard about the Blood Ties series, based on Tanya Huff’s Blood Books, and I’m very glad that I did. It’s refreshing to find a TV show that really and truly casts its female lead as the main character and the two male leads as sidekicks, albeit very interesting sidekicks, one of them a vampire. More than that, Vickie isn’t a damsel in distress needing rescued by Henry and Mike in every episode. In a SciFi.com interview, Cox makes this very point:

Very often female characters, even leads on series, are these secondary characters that are really there to reflect the opinions and actions of the male lead.

This is refreshingly not the case with Blood Ties.

Some of the early episodes verged over into monster-of-the-week territory, but that’s to be expected until the show’s premise grows enough so that conflict can emerge from character instead of just plot. The series turned a corner in this regard at episodes six (”Loved Hurts”) and seven (”Heart of Ice”) and then again at the mid-season finale (”Norman”).

The writers have created a show where the plot conflicts are resolved through the characters’ team effort, which is unique. Case in point at the end of the second episode when Vickie is bound as a demon sacrifice; Vickie and Henry defeat the demon together — Henry by reciting the incantation and Vicki by breaking the demon circle with her foot. Another example is episode eight “Heart of Fire,” when Mike breaks in to rescue Vickie from a starving and deranged Henry and offers himself as Henry’s dinner. It’s Vickie who reaches through Henry’s delirium to convince him to back off before he kills Mike. And it’s Henry who listens to her.

Blood Ties also breaks with stereotypes by casting an actress with some actual muscle to play a very physical role. Seeing an actress or actor with zero muscle pretending to bring someone down really knocks me right out of my suspension of disbelief. According to IMDB, Cox is “proficient in boxing, Muay Thai kickboxing and has extensive training in stage combat, period weaponry and firearms.” It shows. Vickie, who is going blind and can’t carry a gun, arms herself with a telescoping baton that she uses in a stick-fighting technique right out of the History Channel’s Human Weapon show.

This physical proficiency and strength adds to Vickie’s character, and both Henry and Mike regard it as an attractive aspect of her. They find her mental and physical strength to be sexy, something that had to be intentional by the writers. In that same interview, Cox relates her personal pitfalls about playing physically strong female characters:

Part of it was just that I’ve always been annoyed that women who are perceived as strong, they are somehow masculine, and that female strength doesn’t seem to stand on its own. They have to be butch in some way in order to be strong enough to compete in a man’s world.

I did The Chronicles of Riddick, and there were requests and discussions about giving me a butch cut and essentially dressing me like a guy, and I said, “This is not Vasquez from Aliens. She is not Vasquez.” That character was a great sci-fi character, but this is a woman whose strength comes from who she is as a woman, and it’s not about her wanting or needing to be a guy. She is actually tough enough on her own, from a female point of view, to do the job without having to strap her boobs down or shave her head. That makes me sad, that we feel like we have to emulate men in order to be strong. Vicki is really sexual. She’s really feminine. She’s really sensitive, and that’s why she has to put that cover up, because she gets her tender little heart wounded too easily. So she’s trying to muscle through a very difficult world and a very difficult job and stay alive. And I mean that on an emotional and a literal level.

The show also cast Vickie’s assistant as female, a character victimized by a stalker in the pilot who turns that experience around into helping Vickie. Also, it’s refreshing to see an older female character in Dr. Sagara.

Vickie Nelson isn’t just strong of body and purpose, she is strong enough to resist a vampire’s mind control, something that keeps Henry coming back again and again. Blood Ties has created a multi-dimensional female lead character who breaks stereotypes, maintains her femininity and has a sense of humor to boot. I really hope Lifetime TV picks this show up for a second season.

Blood Ties airs on LifetimeTV at 11pm EST.