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Evidence for a paradigm shift? or: Are bad girls better characters?
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I think bad girls (and guys) are always more compelling characters. That's exactly the problem with antagonists: they will take over the novel world given half a chance. We love people (in fiction!) who do the things we wouldn't do in real life.That the standards of the past have changed so much in the last fifty years just amplifies the problem. But the success of Becky Sharp and Scarlett O'Hara suggests that the response you note is not unique to the present.
I am less sure about the guys. Matter of fact, I wonder whether the same readers would not have loudly protested if we had a guy behaving against the other sex like our Vixen does, i.e. like a male chauvinist pig. Are female characters (today) allowed to do things that male characters aren't?You are right about taking over the novel world, though. Our little villainess was originally meant to be a minor detraction from the main plot that would quickly be disposed of. But she has this habit to usurp every story she is in and kick the other characters around. My wife is very fond of her.
I remember watching old Flash Gordon serials on TV as a teenager, and being disgusted with the weak, helpless "good girl", who got the hero. The villainess, Princess Aura, wasn't great, but she was at least interesting: cunning, assertive and fought back rather than fainting when she was in danger.I think that for a long time, "bad girls" were the only girls with power, even if they were defeated in the end. I'm glad things have changed!
Have they? The power-girls are still bad, I take it. They are only usurping the roles as protagonists these days.
Since this is a historical group, let's take examples from history. Was Boudicca a bad girl or were the Romans the bad ones? I think it's the judgement of history that the Romans were way out of line. So kick butt Boudicca is portrayed sympathetically in recent novels even though she was defeated. The same goes for Zenobia. These are my two favorite power girls in history and neither were evil.
Well, in Boudicca's case burning down various cities and butchering their civilian inhabitants is not entirely compatible with "neither were evil", even though she may have had a cause to defend.
Since the winners write the history, those on the loosing side who fought back will always be vilified, regardless of gender.Having said that, I believe women who fight (or simply refuse to conform to assigned roles) will always be vilified more--or else written out of history completely. The Native American leader Tecumsa (sp?) was greatly admired by his enemies while still alive; same with the Red Baron in WWI. I can't think of a female equivalent to either of them. I'm pleased that Boudicca and Zenobia are getting make-overs today, and I hope the trend continues.
Switching to the history of fiction, I remember hearing that in the 1930s and 40s, romance novel heroines could never be divorced: virgins and widows only. Divorced women were only allowed in as villainesses. I think that says a lot about how little a woman's actual behavior and true self mattered, and how much society's perception did.
What about Helen, from the Trojan War? People tend to overlook that she was actually Helen of Sparta, a community that habitually trained its women in martial arts. Now, if this lass wouldn't have agreed to go with that pretty dumbshell Paris by her own will, she would have folded him up and sent him home neatly wrapped in a box. ;-)
Codex wrote: "What about Helen, from the Trojan War? People tend to overlook that she was actually Helen of Sparta, a community that habitually trained its women in martial arts. Now, if this lass wouldn't have ..."I suspect that Homer used a lot of imagination to fill in the blanks of the Greek legends he had to work with. He probably missed that little tidbit (which would have made a great story in itself, but eliminated the need for a war). We'll just have to assume that Helen fell for the jerk and ran off with him willingly.
Someone should write an alternative story to the Iliad where Helen is kidnapped and, as you put it so well, "folded him up and sent him home ... in a box." (Nice phrase!)
I will definitely read that version of the Iliad, Al!I remember reading the story in High School English, and from that version, I always thought Paris had kidnapped Helen (I later realized that Aphrodite's help in that matter meant a love spell, so not as bad as I first thought). But I also remember how much I hated the way Helen was blamed for the whole thing.
Maybe not. In Sparta, many older or less capable husbands would tolerate their wifes to enjoy a more vigorous partner in bed. It was a sort of eugenics programme. Maybe the whole affair was then, after all, Menelaus' own fault. Though Helen was certainly not supposed to run away with that dude. But then, Spartan women had all freedom to divorce and remarry, which seems to have escaped Menelaus' attention. Note as well that Spartan women were wont to actively running the city since the men were always off for war. There is this famous anecdote in which the queen of Sparta is asked why Sparta is the only city in which women were governing men. The queen answered: "That's because only Spartan women produce real men."
Now imagine Helen finding it doesn't work the same way in Troy. What a potential for a story still to be written!
A subplot in our "Romanike" series concerns a young man who is standing between two girls: a cunning vixen who is "prowling on him" (as he puts it) for her own purposes and a gentle sweetheart who is righteous and innocent and content with looking up to him. Our hero is obviously in romantic love with the Sweetheart. Yet, during an online group reading, female readers began to advocate that the Vixen should get the hero because she was a much better match for him and because the Sweetheart was so "good and dull" that she only sufficed for a little affair but never for marriage.
I wonder whether this is evidence for a paradigm shift in literature. Has the ancient automatism by which the good girl gets the guy lost its grip? The Vixen treats the Hero rather disrespectfully throughout, yet one reader in particular defended her and claimed the Hero had deserved everything she did to him (and, she wished, that she would have had the courage to act in the same manner once, in a similar situation). While, I daresay, if the gender roles had been reversed, a male character acting like the Vixen would appear simply like a chauvinistic pig. I wonder: Have selfish anti-social girls become the role model of today? And what does that tell us about the condition of our society? What do you folks think?