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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Gradine" data-source="post: 5249515" data-attributes="member: 57112">Too tired to effectively respond to your points; all good ones. "Sacrificial Lamb", in retrospect, was a poor choice of term given the context (it had been a long time since I've seen the movie.) One of the tricky aspects of feminism is that "traditional femininity", whatever that might entail, is still a legitimate choice (simply not a legitimate assumption).Art and other forms of popular media is tricky because, as I've mentioned in other contexts, there is no such thing as a common vocabulary. This is especially truly visually. What's demeaning to one person might feel quite positive to another. What's most important (and what many people, I feel, lose sight of), is that whatever is true to a person is true to that person. If someone says "that's offensive to me", you can't argue with that. It exists, the person exists, and it offends them. None of those things can be refuted. It's very easy to call a person too sensitive without having a clue as to what their life's experiences have been like. The better road is often the more difficult one.What does that mean for art? Very little, I suppose. Art doesn't exactly have to please. D&D, on the other hand, does have a fanbase, and it is a base that it definitely must please. This means avoiding obvious pitfalls that could serve to alienate large swaths gamers, such as whitewashing or "damsels in distress." This might have been a poor choice of words on Wik's part, and I and others have definitely latched on to it. But I think WotC recognizes these pitfalls and generally does do a good job of avoiding them. This leaves whole new pitfalls for them, though. Like halos. God damn halos.That said, there are definitely messages that are presented (intentional or not) that deserve to be called out. This leads to debate that can be healthy so long as everyone remains respectful. Given that a general lack of basic respect for others (or at least others who are different) is the one of major causes of said reprehensible messages, this doesn't always (or usually) go so well.The Buffy and Sookie argument is interesting, however. Both definitely have their strong moments and their weak moments. The major difference between the two is dependence. Sookie is generally an extremely independent person. She looks out for others, but isn't used to relying on others. Buffy, on the other hand, relies on others like it's going out of style. Both of these are usually represented as strong points. Buffy's usually portrayed most negatively when she tries to strike it out on her own. This could also be said for most of Angel's cast members (working together and relying on others is actually a huge theme in Whedon's works). Sookie doesn't hold the Idiot Ball nearly as often, though she's a bit more of a Mary Sue in that her bad ideas usually work out well in the end anyway. Both are definitely strong women though.</blockquote>

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