Dr Elisabeth Shannon Terra Nova

In a show where the male characters are annoying and frustrating in their overt patriarchal masculinity, Dr Elisabeth Shannon is a wonderful breath of fresh air, a woman of colour who is intelligent and capable and a leader in her community. Stunningly beautiful, intelligent and articulate, she is passionate about her family and her work. Willing to break the law to have give birth to her youngest daughter, after two years of sole-parenting, she is also able to mastermind breaking her husband out of gaol and into the distant past so that they can live as a family again. Elisabeth is a talented doctor and a leader in her field and this is why she is recruited to go to Terra Nova and, once there, takes over the medical facilities. She is intensely loyal to her husband, but sees his faults and balances his overly masculinised approach to  parenting with her own sensible one. She does not lack courage, nor intelligence and is incredibly resourceful. She is a dedicated mother, but also a dedicated professional and articulate leader. If only women like her could lead Terra Nova!

BOOKS

Trading In Danger Elizabeth Moon In an attempt to shake up my science fiction reading I decided to randomly choose a book by a female author with a woman as its central character from the roster at Book Depository. So I choose this one. From now on, I will stick to recommendations and not go for random. This was a very ordinary book, on pretty much every level. The future it imagined was pretty pedestrian – it is hard to imagine barges still in a future which does inter-stellar travel, but there you go. It was also not well realised or depicted, and many of the details just weren’t clear. I wasn’t sure whether this was because the universe had featured in other books, but as this was supposed to be the beginning of  series, it seemed still to lack something. And the plot and characterisations were just dull. And predictable. And while it tried to make some kind of feminist statement about the central character, it was very confused. I do not think it is at all likely I will bother to read further books of the series.

MOVIES

Puss in Boots One of the entertaining characters from Shrek gets his own back story. Overall, Puss In Boots is pleasantly entertaining and reasonably engaging, without hitting any of the heights of the best of animated children’s films – like the first two Shreks. We learn about Puss’ youth and his code of honour and then there is this whole segue into Jack and the Beanstalk territory, and it is relatively well rendered and paced and the small boys enjoyed it, but ultimately relatively forgettable.

TELEVISION

The Hour Well cast and beautifully acted, this was a very enjoyable television experience. Romola Garai and Dominic West are a fabulous and sexy couple and were really well supported by a fantastic cast. While the parts of story about Cold War intrigue and the tension between the media and the political establishment are interesting, I particularly loved it the depiction of the relationship between Hector and Bel, and her position as a woman with a career in the mid 1950s. I thought the way this was developed and characterised was really well done, and not over-stated. In all, I am not sure whether the intrigue spy-story completely worked, but I didn’t think that detracted overly from the enjoyment of the whole. Well worth watching.

Felice Landry Saga of the Exiles Julian May

Felice is powerful, but childlike in her capriciousness. Mistreated badly as a child, her incredible psychic powers were forced into latency, a latency which is overcome by the new Pliocene world she finds herself in. Her small body also masked her enormous physical strength leading people to underestimate and misunderstand her, which is not a good idea when dealing with Felice . Felice does not fit into the world into which she is born and abused, and finds consolation in her psychic connection with animals and her sporting prowess. When transferred into a new and unexpected world, she finds that she still does not fit, but this time fights until she masters her power…but the cost is a further descent into insanity. A powerful athlete before she goes into Exile, Felice becomes an asset to the revolutionary Low Lives fighting against the domination of the Tanu, although they don’t entirely trust her. Felice may be amoral and disturbed, but it is not until she is tortured horrifically by the sadistic Culluket that she becomes truly psychotic. Part of her understands her own dysfunction and tries to seek help, but self-doubt in the helper, or fear of Felice’s darkness, mean this leads nowhere. And for an 18 year old bent on revenge, Felice knows how to do it effectively, engineering mass murder on an enormous scale by breaking open the Gibraltar Isthmus to let the Atlantic Ocean into the proto-Mediterranean basin destroying the Tanu capital. Felice is a young woman of power, warped by the treatment of others into a tragic character who is compelled to destruction and death – a victim and a mass murderer.

So fragile, so deceivingly meager, the kernel of her identity within the brain-vault opened. Psychoenergies gushed forth in giddy torrents. The strictures, the wounds, the debris from the torturer’s work that seemed to presage madness…were swept away. A fantastic new edifice that was the unwitting legacy of the Beloved reared in glory. It expanded, it filled, it recovered and restored and reorganized as it grew. In seconds only, the mental seedling burgeoned into a mature and executive psycho-organism. She was whole. She was operant. And he had done it!

…After a time she found the well-concealed thing that would motivate Stein to help her engineer the murder of the Tanu race.

In that context and with that background it has been interesting to follow the discussions on girls’ toys and boy toys, which, while already ongoing,  has been galvanised around Lego’s introduction of its “Friends” range for girls.

I must say that I agree with many of the commentators that this Lego ad from the 1970s is a much better representation of how I would like to see Lego marketed to girls. I played with primary block colour Lego as a child and continue to be a big fan. We used Lego alongside our doll’s house, our Fisher Price toys, our blocks and my brother’s cars to build sprawling cities which were inevitably struck by natural disasters (usually floods). These were games in which my sister and brother and I participated equally (actually, to be honest, as the oldest I was the bossy one and the director of the mise-en-scene) – not games for boys or girls.

Anyway, a fabulous discussion on the Lego decision from The Age is worth a read. Lego is trying to respond to a market it sees, and it is that broader notion that toys are gendered which is increasingly problematic. Another good discussion of the general approach is here. There have been some alternative views – that little girls can under-cut stereotypes and play subversively with Barbie (and I certainly know some mothers who do that) or that constant attacks on pink or girls’ toys is another form of anti-womenness. While I see these views, it is easier for girls to be subversive if exposed to different ideas and not subsumed in princesses and hairdressing, and while there is nothing wrong with pink per se, why is it all girls can have and forbidden to boys? The fact that pink and Princesses are so confined to the world of girls leads to the denigration, and that same notion that girls are best when they are decorative and house-making. Do serious people of business wear pink? It is funny how mothers of toddler boys (including myself) often end up investing in girls’ pyjamas or shoes because their boys want some pink like their friends. At 3 and 4 children are relatively gender-blind and do not understand the binaries of society.

As I have said in another post, feminism should be about having choices, not having choices made for you. If girls (or boys) like dolls, then dolls they should have. But if they like trucks or trains they should have those also, and not be judged for it. Choice is more than everything being physically available to you – choice is about being able to do things without social approbriation. My concern is that the more girls and boys are forced in gender-based choices of toys and the like, the less choice they have as people around them expect more and more conformity. I had a chemistry set at 11 and bug catchers before then, and I would love my nieces to want the same things. If their choice is genuinely different, then that is their choice, which should also be respected and not denigrated because it is a ghetto for girls.

For Christmas this year I bought my 2 and a half year old niece a train set – not because I was trying to force non-gender specific toys on her, but because I am told she loves Thomas (personally, I’ve never really been a train person). I bought the similarly aged-daughter of a friend a Playmobil castle with a Princess and a pink unicorn, but I did buy her a Self-Rescuing Princess t-shirt to go with it. My boys have all had dolls, which they played with to a greater or lesser extent, but various teddies have been nurtured and put to bed and played with over time. They have also had tea sets and have served us endless cups of tea and muffins, and have learned to cook themselves. I was impressed this year when our 9 year old got real cooking equipment from two different sources. But they also love nerf guns and Star Wars and endless Lego and cars and all those things too. All kids can and should be allowed to be multidimensional, as the following young social theorist says:

Update: Here is a link to another fabulous article on pink-ification and Pink Stinks from The Guardian

Private Isabelle “Dizzy” Flores Starship Troopers (film)

Dizzy may have joined the military in part to be with the man she loved, but that did not mean she was not up for it. She is as capable and tough as any of her colleagues and able to roll with the punches and the jokes. With a sense of humour and an ability to hold her own, she does well Mobile Infantry, and eventually Rico is smart enought to realise what he is missing out on. Cheeky, tough and sexy, she is a woman you would want to have on your side. Her courage in battle and loyalty to her companions ensures she fights along side them, leading to her own death in combat.

There’s nothing like a bug hunt to get your juices flowing!

A link for your viewing pleasure, if you happen to like Daleks.

BOOKS

By Light Alone Adam Robert I finished this book about three weeks ago now and I am still not entirely sure what I think about it. Its premise – that the world has been radically divided between rich and poor following the invention of some sort of biological-nano-technology which turns hair into a photosynthesising mechanism allowing people to live on sunlight alone is interesting, but it is not entirely clear how the world became quite so radically divided. I don’t demand that everything is explained, but I was a little unconvinced that the premise led to the world. Putting that aside, the book seems to be permeated by a deep disgust of humanity and particularly men. At both ends of the spectrum, without  the need for work, Robert seems to envisage men doing nothing but indulging themselves, while women work on. I think it is this contemptuous view of people which ultimately made the book a bit hard at times. I think the second half is more interesting than the first, as one gets to see and understand a little more of the world, and Issa’s character has a strength which is heartening. For all that though, I am still not sure.

MOVIES

Contagion I liked this film. I liked the characterisations, I liked the little vignettes, I liked the developing drama. I particularly liked the music which really underscored the action. I thought the envisaging of the world where these things happened, how it is the panic and reactions that cause the problems, well beyond the disease itself, was well done. I liked how the film used elements and tropes of disaster films and played them down and gave them a more subtle treatment, while not feeling the need be too clever. There was probably a subplot too many, with maybe the Hong Kong/China one being the most superfluous, although it did have a point to make. And the film did peter out a little bit at the end as I have heard others criticise, however thought that was not out-of-line with the film. Overall though, it kep me engaged, it was well directed and acted and scripted and filmed, and is certainly more interesting and thoughtful than your average big ticket movie.

TELEVISION

Walking Dead Season 2.1 If the characters would talk less this would have been an awesome season. It is a bit like watching films scripted by George Lucas – the story itself it quite interesting, but the dialogue makes you want to punch someone. Admittedly, the final two or three episodes suffer less on this score and the final sequence of the mid-season finale is quite stunning. Characters develop quite significantly in these episodes, particularly Shane, Andrea and Daryl and the texture of the plot becomes quite interesting. They still don’t really know what to do with T-Dog who has virtually no role in the action, but at least Glenn stereotypical Asian-ness gets played off a little when he gets referred to as Short Round, before moving into a more interesting position in the drama. It is Shane though who makes one nervous, and he is powerfully played by Jon Bernthal. Maybe it helps that he has the fewest painful monologues as well. Worth sticking with, even if at times the dialogue makes you want to stick out your eye.

Private Elizabeth (Dodger) Durman

I like to think of Babylon 5’s  Dodger as one the best female science fiction TV characters that never was.  She appears in exactly two episodes of Babylon 5 and in the second one she’s dead.  Private Elizabeth Durman, or ‘Dodger’, makes her entrance in the Season 2 episode, ‘GROPOS’, which stands for Ground Pounders – B5 slang for the twenty-second century ground troops who briefly stop over at Babylon 5, much to the consternation of the more decorous Earth Force Officers who staff the station.

While at the station, Dodger takes a fancy to Security Chief Michael Garibaldi, but when he mistakes her as looking for a relationship and implicitly accuses her of complicating his life, Dodger takes him down with a great speech that demolishes his assumptions about what she wanted from him.  They patch it up before the end of the episode, but Dodger is sadly killed in action along with most of the other Ground Pounders.  The episode feels designed to make a point about the tragedy and waste of war, and is a lesson in the importance of seizing the day because you never know how long you’re going to be around to enjoy it.  But Dodger is such a strong character that Neil Gaiman resurrects her in the episode he wrote for Season 5, ‘Day of Dead’, when an alien ritual gives some of the characters the chance to talk with dead people from their past.  Garibaldi’s encounter is with Dodger, who remains just as awesome post-mortem.

Despite her character’s short life-span, I think Dodger deserves recognition for her role in the development of female characters in science fiction TV.  She’s not unlike Battlestar Galactica’s Starbuck, only without the neuroses and self-loathing.  There’s nothing apologetic or self-pitying about Dodger: she’s totally herself, at ease with her sexuality, has a great sense of humour and is full of life, even after death.

I didn’t come here expecting to set up housekeeping. I’m a Ground Pounder.  I’m cleaning latrines one day, the next I might be up to my hips in blood hoping that I don’t hear the round that takes me out. You got it? In between I like to see what I can get to remind myself that I’m alive.  Right, it’s not romance, but it’s all I got time for.  I’m so sorry it’s not enough for you.

I called Qantas and booked the tickets.

I used my Frequent Flyer points to book the tickets.

They were booked using my Frequent Flyer Profile with my email address.

I paid the taxes using my credit card.

I have the superior Frequent Flyer status level.

Yet.

Yet, when the email came confirming the tickets, tickets I had booked using my Frequent Flyer points, using my credit card, using my email address

the email was addressed to my partner.

My male partner.

Why?

Is it because men are still considered more important? Is it because men are still considered to come first in a relationship?

Or perhaps I am just a paranoid feminist.

What do you think?

BOOKS

Chasm City Alastair Reynolds  This book has reinforced and totally confirmed me as a complete Alastair Reynolds fan. A stand-alone book set in the universe of the Revelation Space trilogy, it is engrossing and compelling. It draws on the fictional world of those books, but is easily accessible read alone, or could be read as a precursor. It took me a couple of chapters to really get engaged, but after that it was absolutely page turning. It explores very cleverly concepts of identity and memory, as well as privilege and boredom, madness, ambition and redemption. The writing is really taut and the characterisations completely engaging. It isn’t always an easy read, but it certainly is a compelling one. The idea of psychotic dolphins driven to madness and giant goldfish held for ever in some kind of stasis are amongst the fascinating science fiction images the novel generates. And the intelligence behind the writing is palpable. For any thinking science fiction fan, it is an absolute must-read.

TELEVISION

Rome Season 2 ep 1-8 [Some spoilers] Like the first season, this season is wildly uneven. I am yet to watch the final two episodes, but up until that point there have been episodes which have been totally engrossing and ones which were almost unwatchable. The bout of rape and torture across a couple of early episodes was frankly gratuitous and it took me a while to come back to it after that. I think it is sad they changed the Octavian actor – the earlier Octavian was one of my favourite characters, but his replacement is very unlikable. Which leaves one with few characters to actually like. It is slightly disturbing when you find Mark Antony one of the most attractive of the people you are viewing. It was nice to have actual battle scenes which were quite impressive, and the scene where Pullo kills Cicero is an absolute classic. However, it is a watch-with-caution affair, and I can’t say I’ll be rushing to a repeat viewing.

The Slap  ep 1-4 This is well-made, believably scripted drama, to a point. It has been well-casted, and the performances are terrific. However, and it is a big however, it feels all a bit stereotyped. Violent Greek man echoing his violent father; career woman who never wanted babies gets pregnant and dilemma ensues; hippie parents lax with discipline; young girl with father issues fixated on older man; over-bearing Greek mother, blah blah blah. The over-determination of the characters makes it feel all a bit contrived. It veers from feeling intensely real in parts, to some stereotyped display of archetypes in others. And again with the unlikeable characters. If the situation wasn’t so over-determined, it might feel a bit more convincing. And yet, somehow it remains quite compelling, particularly as I am interested to see how it will resolve itself. I will admit I have read the book. I don’t think though that the series has encouraged me to remedy this.

ART

The Big Draw National Portrait Gallery This was not so much an exhibition as an interactive day of activities. We took small boys along to check it out. We participated in three activities – building 3D “drawings” using cornstarch foam pieces, drawing to music and making a collaborative drawing with coloured dots. These were all fun, well-organised and had people to assist and lots of equipment available. Interestingly, there were almost as many adults and children building sculptures (see mine below) and the drawing to music was actually dominated by adults who actually had some talent (unlike myself).

While the activities were well organised, less good was signage or direction to other activities. I knew that according to the brochure there were other activities in other areas, but without helpful signs one felt a bit unsure about where to go. In the end we headed home after a couple of hours filled with these three activities, but I hope that if the Portrait Gallery does this next year (which I hope it does) it might be a little more directive about where one can (and should) go!