-for the worse.
Female characters are a hot topic right now; in both the video game community and outside of it, it's spread immensely from some woman with amazing earrings (don't deny it.) rambling for a few minutes every week about under-representation of women in video games and some forms of media, to..
Well, the entire Internet. I think the Wikipedia page for "Gamergate", or the Anita Sarkeesian controversy, are now longer than the History of Yarn page, which is quite an accomplishment. Maybe. And at the core of this ridiculous maelstrom there exists one problem: female characters. In general, not just pertaining to games.
Everywhere you look, you see those amazing earrings. Within their curved, beautiful contours, you see the abyss.
It seems like everyone who isn't part of Gamergate, against Gamergate, or is forming their own group has been living under a rock, or have never played video games, or gone onto any video games journalism sights, for the past few years.
And as such, I feel that it's only fair for me to subject you all to my views on the subject of "good" female characters in recent fiction, not just video games. It's become something of a hard subject to talk about, and one must tiptoe carefully around "political correctness" or "sexism" in these sort of discussions.
But here, I just want to spark a discussion about female characters we love, from action girls to distressed damsels, from sexy to not sexy, and perhaps to learn what we love about these characters could be applicable to learning how to write better female characters in the future.
Or something.
So here they are, in no particular order.
[HEADING=2]#1 Dubois, from Madagascar 3[/HEADING]
Thispiece of crap intelligent, welcoming discussion was created mostly in response to my opinion of Dubois's character. Say what you will about Madagascar, Pixar at large, or even animation as a whole, but Dubois is pretty damn awesome.
One thing I hate with western animation (animuu is not exempt from this) is that its female characters tend to have bland, wooden, dead expressions. I can think of less aversions to this rule than I can think unironic portrayals. I'm reminded of a rather unfortunate quote by a Disney animator a few months back regarding the limited animation of Anna and Elsa's faces of Frozen, as well as why they look, sort of, fucking identical.
?Historically speaking, animating female characters are really, really difficult, because they have to go through these range of emotions, but you have to keep them pretty and they?re very sensitive to ? you can get them off a model very quickly. So, having a film with two hero female characters was really tough, and having them both in the scene and look very different if they?re echoing the same expression; that Elsa looking angry looks different from Anna being angry.?
-From Cartoonbrew.com
In other words, if we actually use squash and stretch, facial animation, and dare let the audience see their laugh lines, then they're automatically ugly, and women can't be ugly. This quote makes me cringe. So. Much.
As you can see, Dubois doesn't follow "how to animate female characters", or at least what this animator learned. Her facial expressions are incredibly vibrant, she's not... "pretty" (maybe) and best of all, she's a cartoon.
Her body is cartoonish. Her face is cartoonish. She noticeably breaks, just like the rest of the characters, for sake of expression and emotive movement, and completely averts the tiny-mouthed, huge-eyed, massive-cranium baby face that Disney immediately goes for when drawing a girl who's pretty, cute, and really really boring.
The only exceptions to this rule in Disney's canon I can think of are Jane from Tarzan, Esmerelda from The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and Nani from Lilo and Stitch, none of whom were rendered in Disney's go-to style.
It's also undeniable that she's really badass. If wrestling a lion while falling from several hundred meters from the sky while trying to saw its head off with your make-up running (im so sorry) doesn't make you a total badass, then nothing will. She's stoic, badass, reminds me of Edith Piaf - which is more than enough to qualify for this list - and arguably the best part of her entire movie.
[HEADING=2]#2 Taarna, from Heavy Metal[/HEADING]
This one might seem odd, especially considering the last entry. After all, Heavy Metal is remembered for boobs and gore. But Taarna is cool.
Taarna is from the last part of Heavy Metal. The bit that I don't remember. Well, I don't remember any of Heavy Metal; just a rotoscoped car, some amazing chins, and boobs. Lots of boobs.
Anyway, she turns out to be the little girl who is also the walking narrative device (who she shares a joint place with, by virtue of. Sort of being the, ugh, same) from the start, who ends up destroying the Big Bad other narrative device with the power of awesome, or sex appeal, or a burning house, or something. And then she gets on her Griffon-bug thing, and flies away to commit more good deeds across the cosmos, or something.
Heavy Metal is really stupid.
Out of Taarna's segment - which is when the movie's otherwise gorgeous animation finally tapers its last cough of bloody lung chunks - she is the most interesting part of it. She never says a word. She never talks directly to anybody. But she's always got a stern, determined, amazing expression on her face, even while mowing down crowds of alien dickheads. You can tell just by her face, her walk, everything about her, that she was specifically designed to be a woman with a mission.
They nailed it. This is a pretty bad movie, but Taarna is the one thing they really, really got right.
And that is why Taarna is awesome, even if she comes from a stripperific wank-fest. Namely, Heavy Metal.
[HEADING=2]#3 Rose Lalonde, from Homestuck[/HEADING]
So, Homestuck. It exists. That's pretty undeniable.
What is it? What's it about? Where can I find it? How much for a gram? Will the mystery ever be torn of its gambit accoutrement, and the truth finally ascertained? Or will this metaphor just get longer and longer and less and less funny?
Yes.
If you don't know what Homestuck is, um, go knock yourself out. Just try to ignore all the gore and porn while you find the website's link.
No, onto the whatever.
It's hard to say who my favourite character from Homestuck is, let alone my favoured character of a female persausion. So I'm just going to get it over with and say they all sort of suck equally. Or are awesome equally. Pardon me while I get my flameshield. Then again, for whatever reason, I imagine that his is the kind of forum that would condemn Homestuck to the Hell from whence it came, so I'll get this over with.
In Homestuck, Rose's arc revolves around her unwillingness to become a pawn; she doesn't know what she's trying to avert her becoming a pawn of, but she would rather be a long wolf than become whatever it is she doesn't want to become. It's also about the POWER OF FRIENDSHIP or something.
And then she disappears for a few hundred pages, and comes back a writhing pot seeping with uncontrollable rage.
Female characters are a hot topic right now; in both the video game community and outside of it, it's spread immensely from some woman with amazing earrings (don't deny it.) rambling for a few minutes every week about under-representation of women in video games and some forms of media, to..
Well, the entire Internet. I think the Wikipedia page for "Gamergate", or the Anita Sarkeesian controversy, are now longer than the History of Yarn page, which is quite an accomplishment. Maybe. And at the core of this ridiculous maelstrom there exists one problem: female characters. In general, not just pertaining to games.
Everywhere you look, you see those amazing earrings. Within their curved, beautiful contours, you see the abyss.
It seems like everyone who isn't part of Gamergate, against Gamergate, or is forming their own group has been living under a rock, or have never played video games, or gone onto any video games journalism sights, for the past few years.
And as such, I feel that it's only fair for me to subject you all to my views on the subject of "good" female characters in recent fiction, not just video games. It's become something of a hard subject to talk about, and one must tiptoe carefully around "political correctness" or "sexism" in these sort of discussions.
But here, I just want to spark a discussion about female characters we love, from action girls to distressed damsels, from sexy to not sexy, and perhaps to learn what we love about these characters could be applicable to learning how to write better female characters in the future.
Or something.
So here they are, in no particular order.
[HEADING=2]#1 Dubois, from Madagascar 3[/HEADING]
This
One thing I hate with western animation (animuu is not exempt from this) is that its female characters tend to have bland, wooden, dead expressions. I can think of less aversions to this rule than I can think unironic portrayals. I'm reminded of a rather unfortunate quote by a Disney animator a few months back regarding the limited animation of Anna and Elsa's faces of Frozen, as well as why they look, sort of, fucking identical.
?Historically speaking, animating female characters are really, really difficult, because they have to go through these range of emotions, but you have to keep them pretty and they?re very sensitive to ? you can get them off a model very quickly. So, having a film with two hero female characters was really tough, and having them both in the scene and look very different if they?re echoing the same expression; that Elsa looking angry looks different from Anna being angry.?
-From Cartoonbrew.com
In other words, if we actually use squash and stretch, facial animation, and dare let the audience see their laugh lines, then they're automatically ugly, and women can't be ugly. This quote makes me cringe. So. Much.
As you can see, Dubois doesn't follow "how to animate female characters", or at least what this animator learned. Her facial expressions are incredibly vibrant, she's not... "pretty" (maybe) and best of all, she's a cartoon.
Her body is cartoonish. Her face is cartoonish. She noticeably breaks, just like the rest of the characters, for sake of expression and emotive movement, and completely averts the tiny-mouthed, huge-eyed, massive-cranium baby face that Disney immediately goes for when drawing a girl who's pretty, cute, and really really boring.
The only exceptions to this rule in Disney's canon I can think of are Jane from Tarzan, Esmerelda from The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and Nani from Lilo and Stitch, none of whom were rendered in Disney's go-to style.
It's also undeniable that she's really badass. If wrestling a lion while falling from several hundred meters from the sky while trying to saw its head off with your make-up running (im so sorry) doesn't make you a total badass, then nothing will. She's stoic, badass, reminds me of Edith Piaf - which is more than enough to qualify for this list - and arguably the best part of her entire movie.
[HEADING=2]#2 Taarna, from Heavy Metal[/HEADING]
This one might seem odd, especially considering the last entry. After all, Heavy Metal is remembered for boobs and gore. But Taarna is cool.
Taarna is from the last part of Heavy Metal. The bit that I don't remember. Well, I don't remember any of Heavy Metal; just a rotoscoped car, some amazing chins, and boobs. Lots of boobs.
Anyway, she turns out to be the little girl who is also the walking narrative device (who she shares a joint place with, by virtue of. Sort of being the, ugh, same) from the start, who ends up destroying the Big Bad other narrative device with the power of awesome, or sex appeal, or a burning house, or something. And then she gets on her Griffon-bug thing, and flies away to commit more good deeds across the cosmos, or something.
Heavy Metal is really stupid.
Out of Taarna's segment - which is when the movie's otherwise gorgeous animation finally tapers its last cough of bloody lung chunks - she is the most interesting part of it. She never says a word. She never talks directly to anybody. But she's always got a stern, determined, amazing expression on her face, even while mowing down crowds of alien dickheads. You can tell just by her face, her walk, everything about her, that she was specifically designed to be a woman with a mission.
They nailed it. This is a pretty bad movie, but Taarna is the one thing they really, really got right.
And that is why Taarna is awesome, even if she comes from a stripperific wank-fest. Namely, Heavy Metal.
[HEADING=2]#3 Rose Lalonde, from Homestuck[/HEADING]
So, Homestuck. It exists. That's pretty undeniable.
What is it? What's it about? Where can I find it? How much for a gram? Will the mystery ever be torn of its gambit accoutrement, and the truth finally ascertained? Or will this metaphor just get longer and longer and less and less funny?
Yes.
If you don't know what Homestuck is, um, go knock yourself out. Just try to ignore all the gore and porn while you find the website's link.
No, onto the whatever.
It's hard to say who my favourite character from Homestuck is, let alone my favoured character of a female persausion. So I'm just going to get it over with and say they all sort of suck equally. Or are awesome equally. Pardon me while I get my flameshield. Then again, for whatever reason, I imagine that his is the kind of forum that would condemn Homestuck to the Hell from whence it came, so I'll get this over with.
In Homestuck, Rose's arc revolves around her unwillingness to become a pawn; she doesn't know what she's trying to avert her becoming a pawn of, but she would rather be a long wolf than become whatever it is she doesn't want to become. It's also about the POWER OF FRIENDSHIP or something.
And then she disappears for a few hundred pages, and comes back a writhing pot seeping with uncontrollable rage.
And also her girlfriend is a vampire. Because lesbian vampires.[/spoilers]
It starts getting weird pretty early on, and frankly, I don't even want to start decoding the gargantuan mess that is Homestuck's plot. You can do that yourself.
The reason why I like Rose out of thefour like, a million main characters is that I simply find her the most interesting. Like Dubois and Taarna, she's incredibly badass, and is one of the more violence-attuned characters in the story, though she doesn't really advance the plot too much. She mostly stays by the sidelines, not doing much, and only getting down to the dirty when she needs to.
So, without getting involved in the massive, fleshy, teratomous tumour on the Internet that is Homestuck, I'm just going to say that is my favourite character, is awesome both as a character, female character, and a "badass gritty "cool" girl" character, and actually does stuff in the story.
Runner-ups:
Tank Girl of... Tank Girl, for obvious reasons
Rose's Mom, in all of her alcoholic glory
Parasoul of Skullgirls
Casca of Berserk
It starts getting weird pretty early on, and frankly, I don't even want to start decoding the gargantuan mess that is Homestuck's plot. You can do that yourself.
The reason why I like Rose out of the
So, without getting involved in the massive, fleshy, teratomous tumour on the Internet that is Homestuck, I'm just going to say that is my favourite character, is awesome both as a character, female character, and a "badass gritty "cool" girl" character, and actually does stuff in the story.
Runner-ups:
Tank Girl of... Tank Girl, for obvious reasons
Rose's Mom, in all of her alcoholic glory
Parasoul of Skullgirls
Casca of Berserk
