Friday Links Has Pink Polka Dots
Thanks to Charles Tan for putting up my guest post, “Oops I got History in my Fantasy (again).”
Voyager also put up a Flappers With Swords post of mine: Food For Thought in Fantasy Fiction.
The Mary Sue interviews Rachel Weil, the creator of Femicom, a web museum of “girly games” which seeks to archive and provoke discussion about those most-derided computer games: the ones with all the pink. It’s a great, crunchy discussion about how products “aimed at women” can simultaneously alienate male and female gamers, but also how the gaming community is so quick to disassociate itself with games thought of as feminine.
Mamaguilt, which I think is my new favourite blog title, has started a ‘Sheroes’ page to inspire us with amazing female heroes whenever the internet gets us down. Wonderful stuff, and I love some of her choices. Mary Beard for the win!
Karen Healey talks about Why I Write Diversity, and it’s an important post which I will probably need to link people back to many times in my future life. *bookmarks*
Peter M Ball talks about social media, and asks how important it is to harness the ‘niche’. No, I didn’t just link to him cos he said my blog was “a thing of fannish beauty…”
Malinda Lo talks about the invisibility of queer women in recent discussions about the importance of gay (male) characters on TV.
Abigail Nussbaum looks at the ethics of making television shows about horses which might endanger the animals, and transitions from this into considering the ethics of what very young actresses are asked to do in HBO’s Game of Thrones. Thought provoking stuff.
Some Avengers commentary: Indiewire looks at the awesomeness of Black Widow (or more to the point, the unusually good representation of a female action hero in a movie like this), and the way that her characters has been dismissed and ignored in a great deal of the mainstream film coverage.
Elsewhere, a group interview with the Avengers cast takes on the necessity to include more women in future Avengers movies (yes please) and the portrayal of women in action movies generally. The comments by Johanssen, Jackson & Whedon are particularly interesting – I love that Johanssen is so outspoken about the kinds of issues actresses usually face in stories based on comic books, and also that Samuel L Jackson starts out mocking the whole women/superheroes issue but once he realises he is coming across as an ass, redeems himself thoroughly with a declaration about Geena Davis in The Long Kiss Goodnight…
Sean the Blogonaut talks about being an isolated fan, and how changing technology has had such a positive effect on his own fannish activities, over at David McDonald’s blog.
A really nice piece by Marie Brennan about Katniss as an epic character.
