I thought about this last night while still basking in my Post-NaNo glow. I was imagining that I would get up this morning, tidy things up, and send my novel off to be published (no query, agent, editor, or any of that malarkey needed). Then I'd start spending the six figure advance I'll get for my next best-seller, which features a fairly strong heroine who has to learn to admit a couple of weaknesses to find her HEA.
I was also wandering back and forth between Smilla's Sense of Snow
And G.I.Jane
Okay. Brief reviews here:
Smilla: Good book, mediocre movie. Julia Ormond spent the whole movie walking around looking pretty and miserable. And okay, she was miserable. But she made me miserable, too, and by the time she finally decided to get busy with Gabriel Byrne, I was like, "Run, Gabe, Run! She's cute but she's gonna bring you down!"
Gabriel Byrne, however, was pretty hot as the somewhat backwards neighbor/hero. Again...the book was better.
G.I.Jane:
Not a big Demi Moore fan. I hated her when she had big hair on General Hospital, and then when she married my boyfriend Bruce Willis, I really hated her. Naming a kid Rumer? That was the end. And she spends most of this movie delivering her lines with this dorky half smile that makes me wonder if she knew how bad she was and was trying not to laugh. BUT! It was all worth it, because, as she reluctantly led her team through SERE training, she got to beat the hell out of Viggo Mortensen (with her hands tied behind her back, no less) and deliver that most excellent line, in which she tells Master Chief Viggo to put her male appendage where his mouth is. Which totally rocks the whole movie.
( how 'bout that mustache!?)The politics of women in combat, ehh. I'm Switzerland. And the movie dates itself when Demi must defend herself against allegations of homosexual fraternization (she gets all defensive and says her "good name" is being destroyed--I am NOT Switzerland on the issue of DADT, but whatever).
Anyway. I'm all about a strong female character, but only if she has to find her strength and deal with character flaws. Didn't see Smilla cheer up, but then I kind of bailed on the movie before the credits rolled because the "S$^# My D*#@" scene was coming in G.I.Jane. And G.I. Jane? I don't know. She was strong to begin with, had alot of attitude, she worked out alot, got stronger, got more attitude. Ehh.
Anyway, the comment lines are open here. What makes a strong heroine believable? What cracks does she need to have that let us move into her skin?
funny enough i like to write about absolute wimps who become ballsy in the end. Maybe because that is how i am in real life, I know when to flutter my eyelashes and be a complete airhead(it works on the IT dept.)
ReplyDeleteI also know when to charge, its like a jekyll and Hyde transformation.