Women vs Men in fiction

[Mouse]

I didn't really know what to title this thread, or where to put it. But this is something I was chatting about with allmywires.

I was saying that I don't really like female characters in books or tv shows/films, or at least, I don't like them more than the males.

Put more simply - whenever I think of my favourite characters, they're usually male.

I can only think of Dollhouse, where the character I like the best is female. And that's Adele DeWitt. (I also love November, Whisky and Echo... although I prefer Victor and Alpha to those three).

Besides Dollhouse, there's not one thing where I'll favour a female character over a male. And that's really sad.

This isn't to say there aren't great female characters. There are. But there will usually always be a better character who's male.

I thought of His Dark Materials, where the main character's female. Lyra's a great character but is she my favourite? Nope. That'd be Balthamos. Or even Pan.

ASoIaF? Some good female characters but... favourites are Renly and Bronn.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer? Gotta be Spike.

So, thoughts? Do you have any books/tv shows/films where your favourite character is a woman? That is, you like her more than all the males.

I'd be especially interested in men's opinions!

[springs]

I've got a bit freaked out recently, as a serial writer of male pov everytime I write my main female pov I use I, all the time, and end up in first person.... I don't get keyed up about sex, but female characters I dig include: the Narnia books where Lucy, the white witch are my fav characters. (Susan doess take a lot of forgiving, though.) Lyra in HDM is much more interesting that the boy, and Mrs. Coulter is great. Haven't read it but Katniss in the hunger games seems interesting.
On a non sff front, I love Scout in the kill a mocking bird, and Scarlett in Gone with the wind. And Blanche in a hot tin roof.

PS Allmywires sets me off in all sorts of interesting directions, too; I've been humming Oasis for two days.

[Mouse]

I've never read Narnia (I know!), but in the films I'm all for Caspian (ok, ok, he's played by the lovely Ben Barnes but...), I don't like Lucy or Susan.

Mrs Coulter is good, better than Asriel... but I still prefer Balthamos.

[hopewrites]

I'm in the same boat as you Mouse, though I'm more of a fantasy than a Sci-Fi girl myself. Even in Jane Austen my fav's are of the male persuasion, and she writes wonderful females. (I never can decide if I like Darcy or Bingly more, doesnt matter to me who ends up with who... but gahh!! would I rather have someone disdainfully shy? or adorably easy? normally I just go for adorably shy.) Her males on the other hand have depth and human failings and such a poinient way of expressing (or not expressing) themselves as to win me over completely though nothing is told from their point of views.

I think Melanie Rawn is the only author I have read where I have female fav's amongst the males.


Edit: Scout was a girl? how in all the times i've read that book have i missed that vital fact?

[Mouse]

Originally Posted by hopewrites

I'm in the same boat as you Mouse, though I'm more of a fantasy than a Sci-Fi girl myself. Even in Jane Austen my fav's are of the male persuasion, and she writes wonderful females. (I never can decide if I like Darcy or Bingly more, doesnt matter to me who ends up with who... but gahh!! would I rather have someone disdainfully shy? or adorably easy? normally I just go for adorably shy.) Her males on the other hand have depth and human failings and such a poinient way of expressing (or not expressing) themselves as to win me over completely though nothing is told from their point of views.

That's exactly it. Men always seem to have more depth. Makes me more determined to write a female character to rival any male.

Originally Posted by springs1971

PS Allmywires sets me off in all sorts of interesting directions, too; I've been humming Oasis for two days.

Heh heh! She's got me into Queer as Folk. My writing time has been dramatically reduced. Mind, I returned the favour and introduced Hollyoaks.

[allmywires]

Originally Posted by Mouse

I thought of His Dark Materials, where the main character's female. Lyra's a great character but is she my favourite? Nope. That'd be Balthamos. Or even Pan.

I love Balthy! So tragic

Originally Posted by springs1971

PS Allmywires sets me off in all sorts of interesting directions, too; I've been humming Oasis for two days.

Originally Posted by Mouse

Heh heh! She's got me into Queer as Folk. My writing time has been dramatically reduced. Mind, I returned the favour and introduced Hollyoaks.

Guys, too kind, too kind. OMG STENDEN!

Actually contributing to the discussion, I've really racked my brains and have come up with a small shortlist:

1) Pelagia from Captain Corelli's Mandolin (the book, not the DREADFUL film).

2) Iris from The Blind Assassin - incidentally the two aforementioned books are two of my favourites of all time.

3) Eva from We Need To Talk About Kevin - frank and sometimes uncomfortable opinions on motherhood and parenting in general. Though I've always had a bit of a creepy soft spot for Kev.

4) Eowyn from LotR - not sure this counts as she's not exactly prominent, and is one of three 'main' female leads in the whole trilogy. But I'll forever love her for the whole slaying-the-head-nazgul-almost-entirely-out-of-the-blue. Also, most of the men in LotR (and elves and wizards and dwarves and hobbits...) are so meh. (Don't shoot me!)

Honorable mention to Katniss + Johanna from The Hunger Games trilogy (far too YA to be real favourites, but with more than a hint of badassary) Debbie from QaF, Hermione, Prof McGonagall and Mrs Weasley in HP (but Lord Voldy will always be my favourite bad guy) and Grace from Waking the Dead.

I could probably think of a ton more now, but I think that's enough to be going with.

[hopewrites]

Hermione reminds me of my mom

[allmywires]

Originally Posted by springs1971

And Blanche in a hot tin roof.

Maggie in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof or Blanche from Streetcar? Blanche is a bit of a wet blanket imo but Maggie is a good shout. (I do prefer Brick to her, though, damn his tortured soul.)

[springs]

gahhh, typing too fast; Maggie. I like brick, too, though.

Is this the problem; we don't have enough tortured soul females? Do we need a byronic heroine?

[allmywires]

Originally Posted by springs1971

Is this the problem; we don't have enough tortured soul females? Do we need a byronic heroine?

Well.. *clears throat*

I like the idea of a tortured heroine, and internal issues are what make characters so compelling. But for a female audience, and here I'm hugely generalising, isn't a complex, tortured male exactly what we want? He's soft inside with a rough outer shell that the right gal (or guy ) can slip right under and change everything. I suppose that's an extension of a One Great Love - this tortured guy will ONLY love this one girl, because she's the only one that really understands him.

Whereas - again with the generalisations - men don't want their women to be a tough nut waiting to be cracked by the right guy. They want her to be able to handle herself, whether that manifest itself in fighting skills or a quick intellect, but not to the point where she's completely inaccessible. She'll have at least one Typical Female trait - her weakness will be love, or her biological clock will be ticking, or Daddy Issues etc etc. Without any of these traditional heroine traits she's no longer desirable.

/pop psychology

[clovis-man]

Read some of the Company novels by Kage Baker or almost any SF book by Nancy Kress for some strong female characters. C.J. Cherryh has some pretty feisty ones in her large output as well, both human and alien.

And how could you not like Ripley in (at least) the first two Alien films?

[Abernovo]

Okay, Mouse, this man's opinion.

I'm not the most macho bloke, so I don't know how typical this is, but I actually like a lot of female characters, even identify more with some of them than I do with some of the male characters. That said, the characters I like the most are those that aren't one or the other gender stereotype.

So, in Firefly, for example, I quite like Kaylee and Zoe, although I have to admit I think Wash is brilliant for the realisation of his character.

In classic SF, it's sometimes a bit difficult to find really well written female characters, although Asimov's Susan Calvin stood out to me as a kid. I also found Teela Brown from Niven's Ringworld much more interesting than the main character of Louis Wu, which was why I found it annoying that she was underutilised in the novel (for my taste).

Recently, I've been reading Kat Richardson's Greywalker novels. Whilst I'm not as fond of the last couple of books, the central character is a strong female PI, possibly in the VI Warshawski mould, but with a supernatural twist. I don't think a good female character has to be tortured (although who among us doesn't like torturing characters in our own writing? ), I do want them to be layered and reasonably complex.

As an aside, I'll add that Queer as Folk remains one of my most enjoyed shows in recent years. I wish I'd bought the DVDs back in Britain, but too late now. Oh, for some strange reason, it took me ages to realise that Littlefinger in GoT was played by Adrian Gillen from QaF. D'oh!

[Mouse]

But this is it, I'm not saying there aren't any good female characters, and that's not what I'm getting at with this thread - we have a few threads for strong female characters and I'm usually right there reeling off a list... My point is, whenever I think of a favourite character, nine times out of ten, it'll be a man.

Aber, Zoe in Firefly is a brilliant character, but are you saying you like her more than Wash? (Kaylee irks me a little, though she gets kudos for 'shiny.')

I'll give you the Teela Brown one (even though I've no clue who that is!) as you're saying you prefer her to the male character.

(I'm watching the American QaF - is matey in the UK version?)

AMW - get out of my head!!

springs- tortured is good, but I'd be happy with funny too. How many funny women do we get? Not enough.

[Abernovo]

Zoe and Wash are probably about equal for me, but then I see them as a double act in many ways. For me, it's not so much about favourite characters as most interesting, which is probably close to the same thing.

Margarethe in Heinlein's Job is much more nuanced and likeable than the main character of Alex, for example. Even though she's intended as a foil to Alex, she's a much more interesting character in the book. I sometimes feel the same way about Rachael in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, in that her story almost raises more questions for me than Deckard's does, despite not being the central character.

Matey is in the UK version of QaF - late 90s, Manchester-based. I didn't realise there was a US version.

[Mouse]

Yeah, favourite/interesting sort of the same thing.