We Could Be Heroes
Sep. 26th, 2006 11:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
40cakesI've been watching so much good sci-fi lately, I'd forgotten how sci-fi can also be shit.
From a Feminist perspective, let's look at our cast of characters. A nurse and his politician brother, a genius genetics professor and his genius father, a tortured artist, a nerdy salaryman, and the big bad evil man from the 1950's. All male characters. Here are our female characters:
A porn star
A cheerleader
Wowee. Well, maybe I'm not fair. I did leave out the cold aloof mother, the mom more attentive to her pets than her children, the redneck friend of the porn star, and the love interest of the nurse AND the tortured artist. How forgetful of me.
In a speech, Joss Whedon once said he writes strong female characters because no one else does. I never really felt what he meant by that until I watched Heroes.
In other news, the writing and characterization was just plain boring. The nurse character feels like a bunch of old men in a room gathered around and said, "Hey that Garden State movie was popular - let's make a character like that." He's a skinny little indie guy whose brother is pressuring him to "get a real job" (because nursing is up there with counter work at McDonald's), and who dreams of flying. Aw shucks.
A genius geneticist from India emigrates to America to continue his research and...become a taxi driver. No, I don't get that either. After his murder, his son comes to Brooklyn to investigate his death and read over his research, to the point of continuing his father's work...including driving a taxi.
A high school cheerleader learns that she is indestructible. We're introduced to her by a scene of her friend videotaping her jumping off a silo, and then her resetting horribly disturbed shoulder and telling the camera, "That was attempt 6." What were attempts 1-5? How did she discover she had advanced healing? Did she try to kill herself in an Evanescence-fueled moment of low self-esteem, which she doesn't seem to have? Why is her friend taping this, at her consent, when she doesn't want anyone to know? WHAT THE FUCK?!
And the porn star. Oh, they made sure we got a good, long look at what she does. And what she does is have a poorly run porn website where she can only cater to one person at a time, doing what must be a very very long striptease at $39.99/20 minutes. No wonder she has to borrow from the mob. Lady, just go be a stripper already. Fuck. She has some sort of Hulk power or something. Between her and Wolverine the Cheerleader, and Salaryman's reference to X-Men 138 and Kitty Pryde, I wonder if this is a tie-in with Marvel, or if Marvel is under the GE family.
The only character I cared about was the damn salaryman. Really. He was a funny, decent character, and you could figure out how he discovered his powers, and the banter between he and his friend was hilarious (nice artistic touch in the subtitling, too!). I'll even pretend they didn't name him "Hiro". (You stupid fucks.)
I promise at least one post today will not be me bitching. Really.
From a Feminist perspective, let's look at our cast of characters. A nurse and his politician brother, a genius genetics professor and his genius father, a tortured artist, a nerdy salaryman, and the big bad evil man from the 1950's. All male characters. Here are our female characters:
A porn star
A cheerleader
Wowee. Well, maybe I'm not fair. I did leave out the cold aloof mother, the mom more attentive to her pets than her children, the redneck friend of the porn star, and the love interest of the nurse AND the tortured artist. How forgetful of me.
In a speech, Joss Whedon once said he writes strong female characters because no one else does. I never really felt what he meant by that until I watched Heroes.
In other news, the writing and characterization was just plain boring. The nurse character feels like a bunch of old men in a room gathered around and said, "Hey that Garden State movie was popular - let's make a character like that." He's a skinny little indie guy whose brother is pressuring him to "get a real job" (because nursing is up there with counter work at McDonald's), and who dreams of flying. Aw shucks.
A genius geneticist from India emigrates to America to continue his research and...become a taxi driver. No, I don't get that either. After his murder, his son comes to Brooklyn to investigate his death and read over his research, to the point of continuing his father's work...including driving a taxi.
A high school cheerleader learns that she is indestructible. We're introduced to her by a scene of her friend videotaping her jumping off a silo, and then her resetting horribly disturbed shoulder and telling the camera, "That was attempt 6." What were attempts 1-5? How did she discover she had advanced healing? Did she try to kill herself in an Evanescence-fueled moment of low self-esteem, which she doesn't seem to have? Why is her friend taping this, at her consent, when she doesn't want anyone to know? WHAT THE FUCK?!
And the porn star. Oh, they made sure we got a good, long look at what she does. And what she does is have a poorly run porn website where she can only cater to one person at a time, doing what must be a very very long striptease at $39.99/20 minutes. No wonder she has to borrow from the mob. Lady, just go be a stripper already. Fuck. She has some sort of Hulk power or something. Between her and Wolverine the Cheerleader, and Salaryman's reference to X-Men 138 and Kitty Pryde, I wonder if this is a tie-in with Marvel, or if Marvel is under the GE family.
The only character I cared about was the damn salaryman. Really. He was a funny, decent character, and you could figure out how he discovered his powers, and the banter between he and his friend was hilarious (nice artistic touch in the subtitling, too!). I'll even pretend they didn't name him "Hiro". (You stupid fucks.)
I promise at least one post today will not be me bitching. Really.
