Are women just bored of the rings?

[Elf Witch]

Wow what a great post. Actually she's nuts over Orlando Bloom but she was saying the back off for Arwen. We are both rather dewy eyed over the Aragorn and Arwen love story.

Me I am Jerry Doyle as Garibaldi B5 fan.

I agree with everything you said about marketing fantasy with elements of romance as romance novel. I have read some decent novels that got stuck in romance and I have had trouble getting friends to read them because they don't read romance.

When I was growing up I drove my mpther crazy because while I loved Gone with the Wind and old Cary Grant films I also had a thing for WW 2 movies and westerns as well as gods forbid SF.

I refuse to label myself or deny myself I read everything from hardcore SF to fantasy to gothics and romances and mysteries. I love Steel Magnolia's, LOTR and Kung Fu movies.

 

[KaCee]

I refuse to label myself or deny myself I read everything from hardcore SF to fantasy to gothics and romances and mysteries. I love Steel Magnolia's, LOTR and Kung Fu movies.

Me too. I like a good story with good character development and a rich plot. I read some romances because I considered it unfair to judge against them sight unseen. Unfortunately, all my suspicions were confirmed after going through several selections. I don't like barfing from beaucoup de fromage.

But a good love story can still take my breath away. I was actually less dewey about Arwen and Aragorn and moreso for Sam and Rosie. Their "romance" was much lighter, but still fraught with peril between Sam's dangerous journey and his previous inability to express his feelings.

Nothing beats what Marcus Cole did for Susan Ivanova on B5, though. *melty sigh*

I wish there were more stories that had love as something other than the backdrop for an action hero, or as something boring and predictable. That's why Kay's books are so AWESOME. I strive with every word I write to be half the writer that he is!

 

[fusangite]

Somehow people have got the ridiculous idea that for a movie to be great, it must be equally appealing to everyone. What a load of crap. Movies that get awards are often movies that are deliberately inaccessible to those who don't have a particular cultural or literary background. And we're fine with that; a movie can be a "great movie" even if it makes itself deliberately unappealing to a majority of the population.

So what if LOTR appeals more to men than to women? I don't understand why anyone feels the need to argue about it. It seems like a self-evident truth. There are all kinds of movies that are unappealing to me that I can credit as good or great films.

In my view, in order to reach for greatness, most movies have to sharpen and hone their message and symbol system in a way that deliberately selects a certain kind of audience. Frankly, I would have been happier with LOTR if it had been even more skewed towards the male geek demographic by following the books more closely.

Teflon Billy is right when he says that a bunch of annecdotal evidence that some women liked the movie in no way contradicts the contention of the article's author. The author is not stating that every single woman on the face of the earth will be uninterested in fantasy war movies but that most women will be less interested than men. It's a sound observation.

The sad thing is that in today's society, while columns like the one that started this thread can be published in the New York Times, there is precious little room for a column by me explaining why Mona Lisa Smile is sexist and, for me, as boring as whale excrement.

 

[Shadowdancer]

I, as both a female and a writer with a cross-genre book, am sick to death of being told whether I ought to like something or not based on my genitals. Leave my good bits out of this! My vagina holds no bearing on the books I choose or those I leave aside. I mean, if I let my vagina choose my reading material, the covers would get all sticky, wouldn’t they?

So, I guess that was your Vagina Monologue.

Sorry, couldn't resist.

 

[Shadowdancer]

Further evidence that the NYT columnist was full of it is the fact that "Mona Lisa Smile" starring Julia Roberts -- a chick flick if there ever was one -- was the only other movie to open last weekend in wide release. And it only grossed $11.5 million, the lowest opening weekend for any movie with Julia Roberts in a lead role since "Mary Reilly" in 1996.

The studio specifically released that weekend the same weekend as RotK as counter-programming, hoping to attract female moviegoers who didn't want to go to RotK. Guess what? It looks like the female moviegoers were going to see RotK, or at least more female moviegoers went to see RotK.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

*Shrug* I've given up on arguing with people on whether or not to like LotR. They either like it or they don't -- and I have no idea what it has to do with one's genitals, either (yep, got it, lots of battles, minimal female roles, etc, etc).

Anecdotally -- this is hardly a relevant sample -- I've yet to meet a woman who didn't like the trilogy, though I've met men who didn't like it. My wife, both my mothers, and both my sisters are big fans, for example. Go figure.

 

[Storm Raven]

You're right, I forgot about Bombadil's girlfriend.

That actually brings the tally to four. Which is wrong. There are five. Who can name all five? I can, but that would be cheating.

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

That actually brings the tally to four. Which is wrong. There are five. Who can name all five? I can, but that would be cheating.

All I can think you're talking about is Eowyn, Arwen(in the books? Not really...but I'm trying to get five here!!), Galadrial, Bombadil's girl(can't remember her name), and Rosie(pushing it on this one...I'm just trying to get five! )

 

[Storm Raven]

All I can think you're talking about is Eowyn, Arwen(in the books? Not really...but I'm trying to get five here!!), Galadrial, Bombadil's girl(can't remember her name), and Rosie(pushing it on this one...I'm just trying to get five! )

That's the five. All of them have lines in the book (which differentiates them from a handful of other female characters who are mentioned, but don't have any actual "screen time". Galadriel and Eowyn are the biggest female parts. Goldberry is Bombadil's spouse, Arwen shows up in the Rivendell scenes, and again when Aragorn ascends to kinghood. Rosie has some lines during and after the scouring.

And I missed one last character: Lobeila Sackville-Baggins. So that's six.

They mostly aren't big parts, but the books are about a war. How many female parts did The Big Red One, Saving Private Ryan, or The Great Escape have? Is there a real need to manufacture additional female characters in a story where they would be out of place given the culture of the time period portrayed? Female characters generally show up where they would in a "dark ages" setting, and generally don't where they wouldn't.

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

That's the five.

Woo! Got it! Though I knew I was was forgetting something...the Sackville-Baggins were definatly a memorable part of the early sections of the book...and I forgot them! Arrrgh!