Errr, well I think this is kind of pointless as an article because it's full of some rather bad and biased information. P
For starters, I think the stereotypical princess tends to be a fine character in of itself. It's definatly an extreme counterpoint to "Action Grrrl", but honestly I think all the "strong and sassy" female characters have become an even more obnoxious stereotype over the years nowadays. I think there are both good and bad aspects to the traditionally more passive "princess" and the in your face "Action Girl". If anything I think the real problem is in not having all that much between the extremes, even when you have one type of character change into another it always hits one end of the scale or another.
As far as bad information goes, I will say that Princess Peach has been around quite a bit accross a lot of differant media. She's been playable in platformers and brawl, present in cartoon shows andcomics, and other things, and has been characterized quite well at times. Super Paper Mario" is hardly some kind of exception. Truthfully the biggest complaints you could make about her being a complete non-personality through the franchise would be many years ago, and when you go back that far it should noted that no characters in those games really had much in the way of personality or backstory either. Complaining about Princess Peach is simply too dated to be relevent at this point.
Now I will get to the unpopular part of my arguement. My backround and training (Criminal Justice, Casino Security, etc...) has lead me to the opinion that if your going to start talking about dangerous, and negative stereotypes for girls, I think it's the "sassy action girl" that needs to be seriously cut down, not the more passive princess who needs to be rescued.
I say this because reality is simply that girls are less capable than guys when it comes to violence. The exceptions that exist, are just that, EXCEPTIONS. While there are cases where a girl in great shape or with massively superior training can beat up a guy, but in cases of equal time put in, they wind up behind, and guys max out much higher. In a realistic "on the street" situation with normal people, girls who think they can fight guys do little more than get themselves in trouble. A lot of the more violent rapes out there (stalk girl, corner her in a stairwell, parking garage, or other location, force her down and have sex) occur because some girl thinks she's "Xena" due to a bit of working out, and some self defense classes, and some tubby dude who happens to outweigh her by 80 pounds just flat out overpowers her and does his thing. I'm a big proponent that women need to be taught to run away from guys rather than confronting them when things get dangerous, because all too often I think the whole "girl power" thing and the people who teach it, detaches women from the reality of their situation.
Now, understand that in a battlefield situation with guns (the great equalizer) this is a bit differant, which is why I have less problem with women as soldiers. My opinion when it comes to police work or security is mixed, because the idea is generally to avoid violence, and truthfully I think the differant in physical abillity in many cases means that the contiunum of force is entirely differant, guys will be more belligerant with girls, and push come to shove it's a lot sooner she's going to need something like a gun to control a really bad situation. In that case however I believe the problem is dealt with by maintaining very high standards of physical abillity for law enforcement (which become a bit higher each year in most places, as the job gets nastier), and allowing women to be cops if they can meet those standards, as opposed to lowering the bar specifically to have women in positions of authority. If you have one of those girls who is in the physical range of your average 6' athletic guy then it's less of an issue by definition, of course it's very true that most women can't meet those standards, and it takes a lot more effort on their part to get there and maintain it (but if they can do it, more power to them,they shouldn't be excluded if they can meet the standards for safety reason).
BUT at the same time, the oppression of women was NOT caused entirely by backwards social policies. Understand technology has allowed equality. In a tech level where everything is muscle driven, civilization is hardly like it is today, and power is gained and maintained by being able to swing around th biggest and heaviest pieces of metal (axes, swords, maces), then yeah... women are going to have a SERIOUS problem in any physical capacity, barring very rare exceptions, and of course societies are defined by the masses, not the rare exceptions.
The point here is that "action grrrl" is fine when it's understood to be pure fantasy for the most part, and even more unreachable for a girl than the male counterpart (which is still pretty ridiculous when you think about it realistically). I think the problem with all the characters like that is that combined with current politics, it encourages a stupid number of women to think that they can behave that way, and actually believe that the way the world operated for so long was simply due to social ignorance as opposed to anything physical.
To be honest, I think right now society has a rather strong message that it's wrong for girls to be traditionally feminine, fairly passive, etc. They need to get right out there and be in people's faces and running up to do everything. It doesn't affect everyone, but it causes a lot of problems, and truthfully I've been of the opinion that the media that sells that has causes a lot of problems, and we need a lot more in the way of middle ground.
If I had a daughter, she might grow up to be a recognizable exception, but not wanting anything bad to happen to her, I'd be somewhat wary about her growing up thinking that it was feasible for her to fight guys successfully. I wouldn't want her to wind up being one of those girls who gets raped or something, when they could have ran away, but decided instead to do the "powerful thing" and confront the guy who did it head on. Even with professional fighters size and weight matters, and I'm sorry even if he's a slob, some dude whose half again your body mass (if not more) is not someone you should be fighting no matter who you are if you can avoid it, and when you have comparitively little girls who try and throw down with guys I'd be reluctant to fight, because of TV, or some self defense/empowerment instructor told them they could... that's a problem.
I think we actually need to see less "yes you can" in video games, with all these female warriors and martial artists, and a bit more balance. Thre can always be exceptions given the fantastic nature of video gaming, but I think ultimatly we need more of a middle ground between "Princess Peach" and "Lara Croft" and that's the real issue I'm getting at, especially when you look at the central issue of "good role models" and such which is
usually at the heart of most discussions about how lame damsels in distress are.
For starters, I think the stereotypical princess tends to be a fine character in of itself. It's definatly an extreme counterpoint to "Action Grrrl", but honestly I think all the "strong and sassy" female characters have become an even more obnoxious stereotype over the years nowadays. I think there are both good and bad aspects to the traditionally more passive "princess" and the in your face "Action Girl". If anything I think the real problem is in not having all that much between the extremes, even when you have one type of character change into another it always hits one end of the scale or another.
As far as bad information goes, I will say that Princess Peach has been around quite a bit accross a lot of differant media. She's been playable in platformers and brawl, present in cartoon shows andcomics, and other things, and has been characterized quite well at times. Super Paper Mario" is hardly some kind of exception. Truthfully the biggest complaints you could make about her being a complete non-personality through the franchise would be many years ago, and when you go back that far it should noted that no characters in those games really had much in the way of personality or backstory either. Complaining about Princess Peach is simply too dated to be relevent at this point.
Now I will get to the unpopular part of my arguement. My backround and training (Criminal Justice, Casino Security, etc...) has lead me to the opinion that if your going to start talking about dangerous, and negative stereotypes for girls, I think it's the "sassy action girl" that needs to be seriously cut down, not the more passive princess who needs to be rescued.
I say this because reality is simply that girls are less capable than guys when it comes to violence. The exceptions that exist, are just that, EXCEPTIONS. While there are cases where a girl in great shape or with massively superior training can beat up a guy, but in cases of equal time put in, they wind up behind, and guys max out much higher. In a realistic "on the street" situation with normal people, girls who think they can fight guys do little more than get themselves in trouble. A lot of the more violent rapes out there (stalk girl, corner her in a stairwell, parking garage, or other location, force her down and have sex) occur because some girl thinks she's "Xena" due to a bit of working out, and some self defense classes, and some tubby dude who happens to outweigh her by 80 pounds just flat out overpowers her and does his thing. I'm a big proponent that women need to be taught to run away from guys rather than confronting them when things get dangerous, because all too often I think the whole "girl power" thing and the people who teach it, detaches women from the reality of their situation.
Now, understand that in a battlefield situation with guns (the great equalizer) this is a bit differant, which is why I have less problem with women as soldiers. My opinion when it comes to police work or security is mixed, because the idea is generally to avoid violence, and truthfully I think the differant in physical abillity in many cases means that the contiunum of force is entirely differant, guys will be more belligerant with girls, and push come to shove it's a lot sooner she's going to need something like a gun to control a really bad situation. In that case however I believe the problem is dealt with by maintaining very high standards of physical abillity for law enforcement (which become a bit higher each year in most places, as the job gets nastier), and allowing women to be cops if they can meet those standards, as opposed to lowering the bar specifically to have women in positions of authority. If you have one of those girls who is in the physical range of your average 6' athletic guy then it's less of an issue by definition, of course it's very true that most women can't meet those standards, and it takes a lot more effort on their part to get there and maintain it (but if they can do it, more power to them,they shouldn't be excluded if they can meet the standards for safety reason).
BUT at the same time, the oppression of women was NOT caused entirely by backwards social policies. Understand technology has allowed equality. In a tech level where everything is muscle driven, civilization is hardly like it is today, and power is gained and maintained by being able to swing around th biggest and heaviest pieces of metal (axes, swords, maces), then yeah... women are going to have a SERIOUS problem in any physical capacity, barring very rare exceptions, and of course societies are defined by the masses, not the rare exceptions.
The point here is that "action grrrl" is fine when it's understood to be pure fantasy for the most part, and even more unreachable for a girl than the male counterpart (which is still pretty ridiculous when you think about it realistically). I think the problem with all the characters like that is that combined with current politics, it encourages a stupid number of women to think that they can behave that way, and actually believe that the way the world operated for so long was simply due to social ignorance as opposed to anything physical.
To be honest, I think right now society has a rather strong message that it's wrong for girls to be traditionally feminine, fairly passive, etc. They need to get right out there and be in people's faces and running up to do everything. It doesn't affect everyone, but it causes a lot of problems, and truthfully I've been of the opinion that the media that sells that has causes a lot of problems, and we need a lot more in the way of middle ground.
If I had a daughter, she might grow up to be a recognizable exception, but not wanting anything bad to happen to her, I'd be somewhat wary about her growing up thinking that it was feasible for her to fight guys successfully. I wouldn't want her to wind up being one of those girls who gets raped or something, when they could have ran away, but decided instead to do the "powerful thing" and confront the guy who did it head on. Even with professional fighters size and weight matters, and I'm sorry even if he's a slob, some dude whose half again your body mass (if not more) is not someone you should be fighting no matter who you are if you can avoid it, and when you have comparitively little girls who try and throw down with guys I'd be reluctant to fight, because of TV, or some self defense/empowerment instructor told them they could... that's a problem.
I think we actually need to see less "yes you can" in video games, with all these female warriors and martial artists, and a bit more balance. Thre can always be exceptions given the fantastic nature of video gaming, but I think ultimatly we need more of a middle ground between "Princess Peach" and "Lara Croft" and that's the real issue I'm getting at, especially when you look at the central issue of "good role models" and such which is
usually at the heart of most discussions about how lame damsels in distress are.
