the rare pirate

rainbow-femme

So whenever i would watch movies and see The Badass Female Character fighting in various ways, something about it always bugged me. I just assumed it was internalized misogyny that made me dislike characters like black widow and Tauriel and tried to make myself like them.

Then I was rewatching Mad Max Fury Road the other day and I noticed that nothing bothered me about watching Furiosa fight and I realized the problem wasn’t watching women fight in movies that got on my nerves.

Watching the stereotypical Badass Female Character she always has these effortless moves and a cocky, sexy smirk on her face as everything is easy. Watching Furiosa, she grunted and bared her teeth. Her fighting was hard and it took effort and it hurt like fighting is supposed to. For once her fighting style wasn’t supposed to seduce the audience it was to be effective.

I wasn’t disliking these characters because they were women I was disliking that their fighting was meant to remind me they were women. High heels and shapely outfits and not showing effort or discomfort because it’s more attractive to effortlessly lift a long leather clad leg over your head rather than rugby tackle someone.

It’s the same with the Wonder Woman movie too. Fighting is hard and it takes effort, blocking bombs and bullets with a shield makes her grimace and bare her teeth with the effort it takes. She’s not flip kicking bombs she’s yelling and straining, not because she’s weak or bad at fighting but because that’s what it would be like.

I really hope we’re moving into an era of women having fighting styles designed for realism and not how hot it looks for the men in the audience.

astronomic-explorer

narramin

what a fucking power move

pomrania

[Image description: photo of some text (source not given) about Caesar’s last words. Transcription follows.]

Suetonius adds that, according to some reports, he said in Greek: “Kai su, teknon” (which Shakespeare turned into the Latin “Et tu Brute?”). It literally means “You too, child,” but what Caesar may have intended by the words isn’t clear. Tempest cites “an important article” by James Russell (1980) “that has often been overlooked”. Russell points out that the words kai su often appear on curse tablets, and suggests that Caesar’s putative last words were not “the emotional parting declaration of a betrayed man to one he had treated like a son” but more along the lines of “See you in hell, punk.”

[End description.]

honorthegods

I like the curse formula better than the outrage version. Trying to track down Russell’s article. So far, this is the best I’ve been able to do:

Russell, J. (1980), ‘Julius Caesar’s Last Words: A Reinterpretation’, in B. Marshall (ed.), Vindex Humanitatis. Essays in Honour of John Huntly Bishop. Armidale, 123-128.

See, that’s what the app is perfect for.