Feminist adventures?

[nedjer]

So, I think they were saying that he likes multi-culturism in tasting ethnic foods, ethnic clothing & celebrations, etc, as he did not want everything to be part of one overriding culture with no distinctiveness like The Borg.

It would be pretty ghastly - something like a burger bar on every corner, 87 channels with nothing on, people drowning in spoon-fed alcohol, additives and antidepressants . . . but that's only a worst case scenario, not the kind of thing that could happen around here

 

[nedjer]

To draw from a media example:

Batgirl (Alicia Silverstone) in the Batman And Robin movie = no no. That's the more rabid feminist type. That brand of militant feminism should be discouraged.

Early feminism = giving women the vote because it's fair and wanting to end things like discrimination and sexual harassment is the right kind of feminism. this is the kind that should be encouraged. But I don't know of any women in media that would be a good example of this kind of feminism since they seem to all be of the Batgirl type in the media. At least to my knowledge.

See, this is what's complicated about feminism. Is that there are different flavors of it, from the extreme militant to the more moderate.

And your stories can reflect that. A villain could be of the more extreme rabid type.

In one episode of the Justice League animated series, Gorilla Grodd turned all humans into gorillas.

You could have a similar scenario in which a more rabid feminist sorceress decides to turn every person on the face of this planet to into a woman. Just as one example of how you could illustrate the differences in the two philosphies, and maybe even help her explore her character's motivations for being a feminist. And maybe even the other players can learn a thing or two about tolerance and respect.

the liberalising non-violent direct action of the suffragettes doesn't sit easily alongside most forms of male interventions. They broke windows, burnt the contents of mail boxes and chained themselves to public buildings. In Scotland, as elsewhere, this led to them being force fed and sexually abused by prison wardens.

guys frequently 'protest' by bombing, killing, mutilating . . . aka I'm not getting the rabid feminists. They're more likely to lay you out with a lentil bake than savage anyone.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

A feminist superhero, at some level, is someone who identifies anti-feminist enemies and shoots them with eye-lasers.

Agreed, but that seems a bit...diluted.

Wonder Woman is a feminist superhero, conceived as such.

Ohhhh, there's plenty of room for disagreement there!

There's a reason she lost her powers when bound. She was based on- visually and in terms of her powers- the light BDSM porn that was out there at the time, esp. Bettie Page. Many of her comic book covers & splash pages strongly echoed "cheescake" bondage poses found on the covers of the BDSM magazines of the day.

Her creator, William Moulton Marston, was a big-time fan of that stuff. It also featured prominently in his non-Wonder Woman works of fiction.


(He was also a major contributor to the research that led to the creation of the polygraph machine, an interest also folded into the character via her Golden Lasso.)

 

[WizarDru]

Obviously, there are lots of things to consider here. First, you want to cater to your player. After you hear more detail, you'll have a better feel for what she expects for her character. At the same time, it's a group game and you don't want to deprive the other characters of their fun or give the impression of overt favoritism of one player. Obviously, you need to know their comfort zones as well. Keep in mind that gender only plays a part in some issues: rape is a tragic happening that effects well beyond the victim. Male gamers might have a mother, sister, aunt, girlfriend or wife who has been a victim (or they themselves may have been sexually assaulted) and would be very uncomfortable or worse at such a topic.

Personally, I would never make such an occurrence a part of my games narrative unless I knew all the players were OK with it...and even then it would not be an active element 'on-camera', so to speak. It also depends on the nature of your game: a four-color punch fest shouldn't be highlighting dark personal tragedies and social issues. If your players are used to 1968 Avengers, don't suddenly drop them into 1986 West Coast Avengers.

So let's attack this from an entirely different angle. We can offer up a super-villain plot without going directly political, per se. Obvioulsy the player wants to reinforce her character concept...but she doesn't want to actually be doing social work, she wants to help women's rights using heat-vision, near invulnerability and telepathy. So let's find ways to make that happen.

How about these for a start?

DATELINE: EMPIRE CITY! City center was terrorized this afternoon by the sudden and shocking appearance of a group identifying themselves as The Savage Front. Claiming to be dedicated to returning society to the Old World Order, these madman destroyed a CIMCO gas station, sabotaged the Deacon Street Power Station and forcibly dressed several citizens, forcing the men into more formal suits and covering the women in blankets to "cover their exposed limbs and remove their sinful shapes". This bizarre cult uses some sort of magic serum to temporarily change themselves in 'Retro-Men'. They have sworn to strike next at the Modern Museum of Art, this station's broadcast center and at Billingsley College, which has just opened it's 'Sojourner Truth' exhibit in their school library.

Our idea here is to present villains who list women's rights as but one of their many offenses. I kind of envision them as villains who change into all sorts of silly or themed villains, like a Cro-Magnon, a Knight, a Gentleman, a barbarian and so forth. They aren't inherently EVIL, so much as massively misguided, perhaps. Some of them may be more sympathetic while others are reprehensible in the extreme. This presents a chance to reform some of them, while still having the problem solved with punches.

NEWSFLASH: EMPIRE CITY! Citizens were stunned today by the sudden and violent appearance of a being claiming to be Dionysus. This cell-phone video shows the at-first harmless looking man walking naked through Clements Park, demanding something in what we believe to be some version of Greek or Latin. As his patience clearly runs out with the taunts of passers-by and onlookers, this man somehow incites several of the women in his immediate presence into berserk rages, attacking everyone in the crowd but him and this pregnant women and some nearby children. We're going to have to cut the video here, I'm afraid. At least two of the women bite and then...I'm sorry, according to our reports they actually ATE some of their victims flesh before they ceased attacking. The women are now all in custody and have identified the man, who disappeared shortly after, as the Greek God Dionysus or the Roman God Bacchus. They claim they are know Maenads and they will help him find his mother. It is unclear if they are being controlled and if so, how they can be restored to normal. Authorities are warning any citizens who encounter this man to avoid him at all costs and to not anger or interfere with him in any way, but to contact authorities IMMEDIATELY. This has been a FMN special report.

The approach here is meant to combine several different ideas that can be used in several ways. Dionysus/Bacchus, like most of the Greco-Roman Pantheon, has a pretty tortured family life. Whether this villain is the actual deity or just a crazy guy who's developed superpowers (who may believe he's the real McCoy), you can use his story to push a superhero story. Dionysus' mother was killed before he was born by gazing directly upon Zeus. Why? Because she was impregnated by a mortal man and then so shamed and unable to admit the truth publicly, so she lied and said that Zeus did it. Zeus was totally not cool with that and appeared in all his glory and accidentally killed her. Realizing that was a dick move, he removed the unborn Dionysus from her body and planted him inside his leg. Don't look at me like that, it's the legend. Annnyhow...its implied, I think, that King Penthius was responsible.

Dionysus eventually rescues his mom from the afterlife. Other versions of his tale have him as the son of Jupiter, but we're using the play The Bacchae as our inspiration, here. Dionysus has the ability to make people freak out and lose their inhibitions....but he also has the ability to possess his followers and a special subset of his followers become the Meanad, rabid female warrior worshippers who go nuts and kill animals and sometimes people and eat them in tribute. So you've got insta-villains right there, with Dionysus as their leader. Further, you've got lots of angles to play this: his mom, Semele, might be here and he's trying to find her. Or he's trying to enact revenge on someone he thinks is responsible...maybe rich industrialist Alexandros Zeus, shipping magnate. Perhaps he's trying to recreate the Bachhanilia, mad that people have forgotten how to truly PAR-TAY. Even if it's against their will.

I'm sure there are plenty of other avenues that would probably satisfy the dual goals of satisfying this player's desire to feel like she can positively impact the lives of women and all of the players desires to PUNCH THE LIVING HELL OUT OF A DUDE.

 

[WizarDru]

Her creator, William Moulton Marston, was a big-time fan of that stuff. It also featured prominently in his non-Wonder Woman works of fiction.

Oh, no question that Marston let his....preferences...into his work. He was invovled in a polyamorous relationship when he created Wonder Woman and attributed qualities to both of them. But at the same time, he also had some liberal ideas about the character. She rarely lived up to them by modern standards, but for 1940 she was pretty liberated. Marston intended her to be a role model, even if he couches it in some serious off-hand complimentary ways.

Given that his (primary?) wife was a law professor who supported him as often as not who told her children "Angel child, never, never be beholden to any man, ever.", I'm guessing he didn't have a problem with strong women. Quite the opposite, given what we assume his kinks to be.

 

[Kaodi]

The Borg were a cyborg race from Star Trek: The Next Generation. They assimilated other races into the Borg Collective, where the other races lost their distinctiveness upon being assimilated by the Borg. All of the Borg were basically the same - thought the same as part of a hive mind, acted with one purpose as part of the Borg Collective, and even looked pretty much the same. No individuality at all - no freedom, no self-determination, no free will. All of those things are irrelevant.

Come on, Jeff, everyone knows what the Borg in and of themselvesare, hehehe...

So, I think they were saying that he likes multi-culturism in tasting ethnic foods, ethnic clothing & celebrations, etc, as he did not want everything to be part of one overriding culture with no distinctiveness like The Borg.

I think what we are getting down to is more like it... If you look at Canada vs. the US, Canada is referred to as being a multicultural country and the US as more of a melting pot. This is not a perfect way to differentiate them of course, but I digress... Critics of how multiculturalism is used sometimes point out food, clothing and celebrations are in someways the most superfluous parts of a culture. The US has all of those things yet there is still a large belief that people are supposed to adopt not just American cultural offerings but the American way of thinking; immigrants are expected to act like Americans. This is not so much the case in Canada, though up here we struggle with where to draw the lines... Neither of these cases are like the Borg... though in some ways rural areas can be close to this Borgishness...

 

[pawsplay]

Ohhhh, there's plenty of room for disagreement there!

There's a reason she lost her powers when bound.

Yeah. Because it's thematic that when a powerful woman is subjugated by a male-dominated society she has literally "lost her powers." It metaphorically represents the direness of the feminist struggle.

She was based on- visually and in terms of her powers- the light BDSM porn that was out there at the time, esp. Bettie Page. Many of her comic book covers & splash pages strongly echoed "cheescake" bondage poses found on the covers of the BDSM magazines of the day.

So feminists can't like BDSM?

Her creator, William Moulton Marston, was a big-time fan of that stuff. It also featured prominently in his non-Wonder Woman works of fiction.

(He was also a major contributor to the research that led to the creation of the polygraph machine, an interest also folded into the character via her Golden Lasso.)

First, the fact that you refer to it "that stuff" suggests to me you may not have a lot of deep personal experience with people who are into "that stuff" and it may be inadvisable to jump to conclusions about what BDSM means to the participants.

So, going back to WW specificlaly. Wonder Woman was intended as a role model for girls, as suggested by William Marston's wife.

"Not even girls want to be girls so long as our feminine archetype lacks force, strength, and power. Not wanting to be girls, they don't want to be tender, submissive, peace-loving as good women are. Women's strong qualities have become despised because of their weakness. The obvious remedy is to create a feminine character with all the strength of Superman plus all the allure of a good and beautiful woman." - Marston, on Wonder Woman

Considering Wonder Woman was created in 1941 and the same themes continue to be a struggle for woman liberation today, I am satisfied Wonder Woman qualifies as a feminist creation.

Mind you, things took an odd turn, when due to editorial policies, Wonder Woman was only allowed as a guest in the JSA comic, as she already had her own title; as a result she appeared primarily as the group's secretary. So without any intention of doing so, some ofher early appearances were incongruent with the character's archetype.

Since that time, Wonder Woman remains a popular and inspiring hero. One of my old friends, a staunch, self-described feminist, was definitely an admirer.

 

[nedjer]

immigrants are expected to act like Americans . . . Neither of these cases are like the Borg... .

One of these cases sounds a lot less Borg than the other. But then I've always thought the Borg were meant to be about globalisation?

 

[nedjer]

Respect to Wonder Woman, but she's not exactly up there with Daisy Duke.

 

[NewJeffCT]

The US has all of those things yet there is still a large belief that people are supposed to adopt not just American cultural offerings but the American way of thinking; immigrants are expected to act like Americans. This is not so much the case in Canada, though up here we struggle with where to draw the lines... Neither of these cases are like the Borg... though in some ways rural areas can be close to this Borgishness...

There really is no over-arching culture in the US, however, like there are in many European & Asian countries. I think it's still too young of a country to have developed some sort of unique identifier based on culture. (you can probably say the same about Canada.) I mean, despite the Northeast being the oldest part of the US in terms of statehood, you can still find very strong ethnic cultural groups in many of the urban areas - Italian, Chinese, Irish, Polish, Russian, Korean, Indian, etc You can still go to Chinatown in Manhattan or Flushing and find a lot of Chinese who barely speak English and who look upon non-Chinese as "laowai" or, outsiders.

I think Hollywood sometimes does a good job of exporting an image of the US, but a lot of times maybe not.