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[elle_white]

mekosuchinae linked to a particularly awful and fail-filled female character flow chart that was completely counterproductive and missed the point. www.overthinkingit.com/2010/10/11/female-character-flowchart/

My instinctive reaction to this was, "can we please stop putting down female characters in the name of feminism." Things like this are one of many

Comments

[printfogey]

That post and chart just strike me as extremely misguided and wrong-headed to me - maybe we should be glad the writer chose such obviously unsuitable - as in, so many actually good, strong female characters - as examples for the "bad" tropes in question. Fundamentally, the writer does not seem to get what tropes are, and that Tropes Are Not Bad.

She writes:

Note to writers: The "Mama Bear" and "Vanilla Action Girl" do not count as "strong female characters."

And I wonder - why the hell not? Not that I can really say much about "Vanilla Action Girl" as I don't get what it's supposed to mean - "Vanilla" just implies "standard, decent, bland" to me (except according to the flow chart, it's what all feminine, offensive, healthy team fighters of a certain age turn out to be, if female, which isn't saying much at all).

But I know what the "Mama Bear" trope is. Unlike the article writer, I don't think a character who you can apply that quote to must be a bad stereotype. If the trope is all there is to the character, well yes, it's

[elle_white]

The writer truly didn't seem to understand that are not inherently bad. Because a certain trope can be assigned to a character, it doesn't necessarily mean they're defined by that trope.

Someone explained to me that a Vanilla Action Girl is a female character who fights without a purpose. They are generic action girls because they supposedly have nothing motivating them to fight in the first place.

[astridv]

Someone explained to me that a Vanilla Action Girl is a female character who fights without a purpose.

*snort* I read that someone ran Riza Hawkeye through that thing and ended up at vanilla action girl. Knowing what vanilla action girl means makes it even funnier. (Well, not ha-ha funny...)

That chart sure is enraging and all kinds of wrong, but I gotta appreciate how it graphically disproves the very point they're trying to make... the very stupid, misguided, faux-feminist, absolutely counterprodactive rethoric we've had thrown in our faces for years. A picture says more than thousand words. ;)

What really bugs me is that when one ventures away from LJ there are people actually endorsing this piece of garbage as a guide to writing three-dimensional characters. /o\