She Should Be Strong!

Greetings, my lovely reader(s)! Allow me to tackle a rather large subject today; feminism! Wait, I forgot; I'm a nerdy blogger and the subject isn't something I feel I have the right to touch. Mayhaps I should do what I do best and rant, talk about the media and make bad jokes? That's what I'll do!

Now, I'd like to begin by saying that I love a strong female character as much as the next guy. I mean, I love them as much as I would any strong male character, 'cause it's the age of equality, right? I don't, in particular, mind damsels in distress, especially if the story was made before feminism came into fruition. The only time I really mind is if the damsel in question is SUPPOSED to be strong, but winds up needing a man to save her constantly.

With that being said, some people go a little too far with the aformentioned notion. They get pissed if the strong female character shows even the slightest sign of weakness, if someone with a dick even lends them assistence or, basically, if they're not Joan of fucking Arc. There does come a time where a strong character, man or woman, would not be doable. Allow me to list some examples that the thin-skinned folk love to bring up...

For starters, let's bring up a video game character we all should know, Princess Peach of the Mario franchise! People have always moaned about how this character is such a damsel and needs constant rescuing of a fat Italian plummer with super strength. Why, she should defend herself against the fire-breathing turtle-dragon from hell!I must ask the ranters; what the fuck do you expect? She's a goddamn Princess (and one of a bunch of midgets with mushroom heads). Her entire life has been about being pampered. Hate to break it to you, but Princesses aren't exactly trained in the art of combat. Of course, then when they make it so Princess Peach CAN fight, they whine because she attacks with frying pans and her tears. Well, maybe she should wield an AK47! That'd be more suiting, doncha think?

Or another example would be Ashley Graham of the game Resident Evil 4. She's the US President's daughter and a college girl trapped in a country infested with zombies. Luckily, her rescuer, Leon Kennedy, has already survived one zombie apocolypse and he's a highly trained fighter. But why isn't Ashley herself fighting? What a stupid damsel! RAWR!

Yes, this college-age girl with no fighting expirience whatsoever should be blowing away zombies left and right. Listen; I'm male and I'm of college age. MY untrained ass would be just as helpless as hers. One girl I met said that if she were in Ashley's shoes, she would have at least told Leon to give her a shotgun. Great idea! Give the untrained girl a weapon! That couldn't result in anything bad, like her accidently shooting him in the back. Personally, I'd leave all the weapons to the human wrecking ball called Leon.
One sexy human wrecking ball, that is.

But I digress. Most people simply hated her for the fact that rescuing a hostage ate up valuble zombie-killing time. I understand that. I'm a guy too.

One of my personal favorites is of the love interest character from the series Rurouni Kenshin (as seen in the June post), Kaoru! Now, she is a relatively competent combatant, but not on the league of the male leads, so she ends up becoming a damsel sometimes. Normally, I'd be right with the people complaining, if not for one fact; the story takes place in 19th century Japan. In case you're not familiar with your history, that's not exactly the age of equality, so she wouldn't exactly be trained as much as a man in that era. But again, I digress. I understand WHY people complain; I personally just see no need to moan about it. The author, Nobuhiro Watsuki, never hesitated to stuff a tough heroine in his previous stories, so I think it was a matter of being true to history. I dunno, just my thoughts (like all of this post).

Other examples of over-sensitivity include some webcomics I read where the author was called sexist 'cause he dared to imply two horrible things; women sometimes have sex and women sometimes die. Another guy got it worse off because he had one panel where a woman is in her skivvies and that's enough for his work to be sexist trash. ONE PANEL! It's not like her costume consists of a thong and a bikini top!

So, I think I can wrap this up. The moral? This applies to both women AND men; sometimes there's going to be helpless captees in need of saving and sometimes there's going to be warriors. Both kinds of people exist. In short, people are too quick to pull the "sexist" card. Now, to show I'm not a sexist, I'm going to get myself into a dangerous situation so I can be rescued by my warrior queen! See you next time!

Oh and I should also add that physical power doesn't make a strong character. Just being competent at what you do counts as strength or some shit like that. Just thought I'd say that.