http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2013/01/unbreakable.html

sexism in SF

TRX
January 4, 2013
73:
@37:
And then we have Alien/Aliens which at its base was a feminist series, with feminist themes, and a female main character.
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I was an adult when those came out, and I don't remember it that way. I specifically remember reviewers denigrating Ripley as "a guy with tits" and a "cardboard character" obviously cast as female for the cheesecake factor. My impression was that if Ripley didn't break down crying or start looking for some man to defend her, her character was so unrealistic it simply Did Not Compute.

Maybe people see it differently at this end of a 30-year telescope, but then, I didn't see any "feminist" about the movie or the character.


TRX
January 4, 2013
75:
@53:
he not only gets the crap kicked out of him, he usually looses, and yet we love him anyway!
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That's why one of the few TV shows I like is "The Rockford Files" from the 1970s. Garner's character prevailed more by guile than fisticuffs. And it's hard to be a macho poseur when you have to bum money from your Dad to take a girl out on a date...


TRX
January 4, 2013
78:
Violence is a very useful tool, when applied appropriately. However, it's such a useful tool, it has the problem of, "when your only solution is a hammer, all your problems look like nails."

Some of my favorite novels are from Dick Francis, who made a habit of setting his characters up in situations where the normal (fictional, anyway) response to a situation would involve hitting or shooting someone, but having them solve the problem some other way. Once I finally caught on to the common thread in his novels, I began calling it "situational judo."

Writing something like that is probably more difficult than it looks...


TRX
January 5, 2013
122:
@118:
He's a Vietnam vet, with some of the rather common psychological problems, he gets abused by small-torn law enforcement,
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I present: "The Born Losers", from 1967, long before Rambo. There were a number of increasingly-bad sequels as Tom Laughlin basically lost his mind, but for some reason they're much more popular than the original movie.


TRX
January 6, 2013
170:
@138:
A number of reviewers, employed reviewers for major news services not random bloggers, have included in their reviews things that make it clear they either didn't watch or didn't get it if they did.
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I noticed that about "Gran Torino." I was wondering if some of the reviews were leaking across from some alternate universe.

A great number of people evidently thought they were going to see a geriatric Dirty Harry cleaning out the 'hood, and were greatly confused when they saw an intensely Catholic movie about faith and redemption...


TRX
January 10, 2013
244:
> Thirteenth Floor

You might like the original novel, Daniel Galouye's "Simulacron-3" from 1964.

Galouye's description of what we now call "virtual reality" and what it might be commercially useful for was very good, decent story too. When I re-read it a few years ago, I was hard put to remember it had been written in 1964.