posted by
thefairymelusine at 02:47am on 08/12/2010 under ellen ripley is awesome, feminism, sady doyle, whedon
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I love Sady Doyle to pieces. She published a piece of mine just before Freddie<BONERS>gate at Tiger Beatdown, and she is all kinds of awesome. I often disagree with her, but fairly regularly she writes a piece that breaks my heart and heals it at the same time
"Ellen Ripley Saved My Life" is one of those pieces. See, that worst month of my life may well be now, and reading something that grasps all the things that succeed and fail in three series that are important to me, was what I needed. I'd forgotten the end to River Tam's story until I read that piece. I'd blanked it out. That possibly says interesting things about my subconscious.
More discussion will be under the cut, because there are some spoilers, admittedly for long since released or finished sequels, but before that a few quotes:
(On River Tam as a Strong Woman Heroine) "To be a woman, and strong, is to be pathologized. Your voice is rendered unlistenable by virtue of its truth. But all of these other women spend a lot of time yelling about how you have to believe them, about how they're! Not! Crazy! And River… well, River's ill."
"There's one version of the story that goes: There is someone out there. Someone good and wise and kind. And when you are in danger, when you need him most, he will always come to save you. It's a good story. But there's another story, too, that I think is important.
"Ellen Ripley Saved My Life" is one of those pieces. See, that worst month of my life may well be now, and reading something that grasps all the things that succeed and fail in three series that are important to me, was what I needed. I'd forgotten the end to River Tam's story until I read that piece. I'd blanked it out. That possibly says interesting things about my subconscious.
More discussion will be under the cut, because there are some spoilers, admittedly for long since released or finished sequels, but before that a few quotes:
(On River Tam as a Strong Woman Heroine) "To be a woman, and strong, is to be pathologized. Your voice is rendered unlistenable by virtue of its truth. But all of these other women spend a lot of time yelling about how you have to believe them, about how they're! Not! Crazy! And River… well, River's ill."
"There's one version of the story that goes: There is someone out there. Someone good and wise and kind. And when you are in danger, when you need him most, he will always come to save you. It's a good story. But there's another story, too, that I think is important.
Because: What if no one is coming to save you? Sometimes, nobody is coming. And who didn't come to save you, and when? What happened, on the day that you were not saved? That was the day that you saved yourself."
( Whedon, strong women, and saving yourself )
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