Comments for Jim C. Hines

Comment on Strong Women Characters by Liz

Liz — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 03:12:34 +0000

sometimes I wonder about all I missed by not watching Buffy…
@Lynda: Avatar: The Last Airbender is one of my favs!! I’m real excited about the rewatch at tor.com starting this Monday. Though, the movie has me a little nervous, I’m not a big fan of m. night s.
One important facet of strong female characters so far only barely touched upon is thought process. I understand that it is hard to get inside someone else’s head especially when that person doesn’t exist and is the opposite gender to yourself. I have read some really bad ones in my time, and it ruined the entire book. If she thinks like a man, then she really is just a ‘man with boobs’. That, as a reader, I find totally unacceptable. To leave you on a happy note: I think that Talia is a really good example of a strong female character. She is capable of awesome butt-kicking action, but has an inner vulnerability and is often wary or confused of her own emotions. That last bit makes her totally relatable, and one of my favorite characters.

Comment on Strong Women Characters by Lynda

Lynda — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 21:18:52 +0000

The huge race fail aside, it will be interesting to see how The Last Airbender they translates strong female characters like Katara for the movie. Even though the t.v. was for kids and was kinda cheesy it did a lot of things right especially with the female characters imo.

Comment on Strong Women Characters by Jim C. Hines

Jim C. Hines — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 19:51:40 +0000

Thanks. I don’t think the double-standard she talks about is in any way limited to the Romance genre, or to fiction in general…

Comment on Strong Women Characters by Jim C. Hines

Jim C. Hines — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 19:49:55 +0000

I think Buffy (the show) did a lot of things right. It wasn’t perfect, and like I said above I think Whedon sometimes gets more credit than maybe he should, but I really do like the range of female characters in that show. Firefly too, for that matter.

Comment on Strong Women Characters by Jim C. Hines

Jim C. Hines — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 19:48:32 +0000

I don’t know that Joss Whedon is as strongly feminist as he gets credit for, but I’ve enjoyed most of his work, with the exception of Dollhouse. I liked Buffy and the range of female characters in that show. Likewise with Firefly.

Dr. Horrible … in part because of the format, it felt like she had less time to *be* a character, and she was there primarily to be wooed by the guys and then for the shocking Whedon-style ending.

Comment on Strong Women Characters by Sewicked

Sewicked — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 16:15:35 +0000

To use another Media example, look at the Buffy tv show, which had a range of strong female characters.

There’s Buffy; strong, socially secure, and great at kicking ass. There’s her friend, Willow; smart, responsible, and clever. Both have weaknesses; Buffy has problems being close to people, with her slayer duties and can be a little shallow while Willow has issues with stage fright and self-confidence. Cordelia, often seen as Buffy’s rival is smart but hides it to be more ’socially acceptable.’ All three women grow over the course of the series; Buffy gets better at letting people get close to her; Willow gains self-confidence and Cordelia learns to do what she wants to do instead of letting her ‘popular image’ rule her decisions.

Less seen but also strong was Buffy’s mom. She’s a divorced mother trying to raise her daughter and suddenly finds out that daughter has been keeping a secret from her; a big one. There’s Faith; strong but not quite strong enough (spoiler alert), because she did become a villain after all.

Comment on Strong Women Characters by Jason

Jason — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 15:59:34 +0000

Ok.. first of all, I think the article just points out what we all knew to begin with.. Transformers was a crappy, badly written movie for the masses. It was made simply for big robots and boobs. I mean the fact that the Transformers are secondary characters in their own movie tells you something.

I also find it insanely funny that the writer LOVED Rachel Dawes, a character created SOLELY as a love interest to Bruce Wayne. She was flat and boring. Of course she’s not going to whip out ninja moves, she’s the girl next door damsel in distress just like Mary Jane in the Spider-Man movies. They’re both crappy characters.

Comment on Strong Women Characters by Kristen Painter

Kristen Painter — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 15:55:47 +0000

You should read this post: http://www.murdershewrites.com/2010/03/09/is-there-a-double-standard-in-romance/

Comment on Strong Women Characters by ZombieJoe

ZombieJoe — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 15:33:48 +0000

Interesting subject. And I am all for the creation of actual characters in movies, television and books. But then that brings up a question on my part.

Josh Wheaton has been praised for his strong female characters. What are your opinions of the likes of Buffy, Willow, Zoe or River? If you are familiar with Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog, did you think that Penny was a strong female character?

Comment on Reporting Rape by Jim C. Hines

Jim C. Hines — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 13:27:50 +0000

That’s interesting. We were trained differently, using rape as a broad term for sexual assault. Not to force anyone to report, but we found that often people were reluctant to label their attack, and there’s a tendency to talk around it. Saying something like “You seem to be really upset, and from what you’re describing, it sounds like you were raped,” often appeared to help people label it and talk more openly. Like it made it safe to actually say the word, if that makes sense?

I think part of it comes from rape myths, from the idea that a “real rape” involves strangers and weapons and so on. So if the experience didn’t match the media-fueled idea, people would be very hesitant to identify it as rape.

Not that there’s any one right way to do this stuff. And I definitely agree about respecting choices and the need to reclaim that control. I don’t think the details are as important as just having someone whose willing to listen, who believes you, and who doesn’t blame you for what happens.