Peter Prasad's Blog: Expletives Deleted - Posts Tagged "gurl-posse-kidnap"
WILD, a review of female characters
How Likable Do Your Female Characters Need To Be?
This question fascinates me. So I was reading Time’s review of Reese Witherspoon’s new movie WILD. The headline said the lead character isn’t nice or wholesome and that’s what makes the movie great. As a writer, I read on.
“She's foul-mouthed, unfaithful, abrasive and irresponsible — which is what makes her the most unexpectedly great protagonist in years,” said the review. Wow, Hollywood shifted from fantasy to realism for a week in mid-December and, yes, I’ll be buying a ticket.
Every book or movie has a chance to redefine its genre, at least throw some serious moral directive one way or another. For every Captain Jack Sparrow, there’s a Mata Hari, the archetype femme fatale, out there waiting to be inked. The real question is how likable do female characters need to be? I remember watching Beaver’s mother June Cleaver on TV in the early 1960s to establish a point of embarkation. We’ve come a long way, writers.
Here’s more that resonated with me from the review. For WILD to work as confessional memoir, honesty must trump likability. Empathy for the character results from her wholeness, not her wholesomeness. We have to buy into her journey and participate in her process as she cleans up her ugly bits, and thus we experience some purification too. Ah, catharsis!
The reviewer says Reese’s character heals her own wounds through self-acceptance. The review concludes, “And if audiences hope to see more fully formed female characters onscreen, it is we who must take her as she is — all the way to the box office, and in droves.”
WILD is a movie I will take my daughters to see. I sense I may soon be bold enough to craft wildly entertaining, beyond the pale and slightly over the edge characters in my next book. No one wants to read safe, sane dreck any longer.
If you’d like to stumble through a gritty, thrilling growth experience with one of my female characters, check out GURL-POSSE KIDNAP. OnYa, dear readers & writers!
http://www.amazon.com/Gurl-Posse-Kidn...
This question fascinates me. So I was reading Time’s review of Reese Witherspoon’s new movie WILD. The headline said the lead character isn’t nice or wholesome and that’s what makes the movie great. As a writer, I read on.
“She's foul-mouthed, unfaithful, abrasive and irresponsible — which is what makes her the most unexpectedly great protagonist in years,” said the review. Wow, Hollywood shifted from fantasy to realism for a week in mid-December and, yes, I’ll be buying a ticket.
Every book or movie has a chance to redefine its genre, at least throw some serious moral directive one way or another. For every Captain Jack Sparrow, there’s a Mata Hari, the archetype femme fatale, out there waiting to be inked. The real question is how likable do female characters need to be? I remember watching Beaver’s mother June Cleaver on TV in the early 1960s to establish a point of embarkation. We’ve come a long way, writers.
Here’s more that resonated with me from the review. For WILD to work as confessional memoir, honesty must trump likability. Empathy for the character results from her wholeness, not her wholesomeness. We have to buy into her journey and participate in her process as she cleans up her ugly bits, and thus we experience some purification too. Ah, catharsis!
The reviewer says Reese’s character heals her own wounds through self-acceptance. The review concludes, “And if audiences hope to see more fully formed female characters onscreen, it is we who must take her as she is — all the way to the box office, and in droves.”
WILD is a movie I will take my daughters to see. I sense I may soon be bold enough to craft wildly entertaining, beyond the pale and slightly over the edge characters in my next book. No one wants to read safe, sane dreck any longer.
If you’d like to stumble through a gritty, thrilling growth experience with one of my female characters, check out GURL-POSSE KIDNAP. OnYa, dear readers & writers!
http://www.amazon.com/Gurl-Posse-Kidn...
Expletives Deleted
We like to write and read and muse awhile and smile. My pal Prasad comes to mutter too. Together we turn words into the arc of a rainbow. Insight Lite, you see?
- Peter Prasad's profile
- 59 followers
