Oh, and one more link for today!

Because I just happened to follow this link from Twitter to this article, and DO I EVER AGREE WITH THIS OR WHAT.

This article, by Nicole Lisa at Reading, Writing and the ‘Rhythmatic of Life, is about how passive women can be on television and in movies — how they just cower in corners while the serial killer breaks down the door to get at them.

This is so true! And it drives me NUTS. About the worst offender I EVER saw was the movie “Scream”. Over and over, someone knocked the killer down — and then ran away. I kept yelling, “He’s DOWN! What do you think that chair right there is FOR? Hit him with it, you doofus!” It would have been a much shorter movie, or at least a very different movie, if anybody had had the guts and basic common sense to bash the killer’s head in when he was sprawled at their feet. I actually think male characters also showed this run-away-screaming reaction, not just the female characters, but I’m certainly not going to suffer through the movie again just to check. I do think there’s this weird omnipresent assumption these days that it’s just wrong to defend yourself against violent attack, and WHERE DID THAT RIDICULOUS IDEA EVEN COME FROM?

I would like to try a five year experiment: for five years, have every woman attacked on tv and in a movie fight back! Have them beat the tar out of their attackers at least a third of the time! And see what happens in the real world. Wouldn’t that be interesting?

Incidentally, in Nicola Griffith’s wonderful, intense book ALWAYS, there’s a woman’s self-defense class integrated into the main plotline. I really need to read that book again! Because it’s a great antidote to this awful passivity of women victims on the big screen and on tv.