I know this is probably a common topic. For me, I’m not sure if it’s a “trope” or just totally misinformed writing, but it’s how many authors approach alcoholism. Some examples are Girl on the Train and The House Across the Lake, among HUNDREDS. If anyone else here has struggled with alcoholism, you know it’s not just "i woke up after downing an entire bottle of whiskey but was able to shower, down a cup of coffee, and solve a murder. "

  • stolethemorning@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    Yeah, I hate it when a book promotes itself as a feminist legend with a ‘strong female protagonist’ and then proceeds to make her strong in the way a man is, looks down on all feminine-coded traits and presents then as weak and useless, and finally is the epitome of a desirable woman but of course hates being so. “I must wear these tight dresses for my disguise and I look amazing and sexy in them but I’m not like the other harlot women who enjoy it”.

    Lightlark is a shining example of this (“a shining, yolky thing” lmao). Like you do you but DON’T promote the book as feminist-informed if it’s obviously not.

    • pgcd@alien.topBEnglish
      1·
      10 months ago

      Which is why Pratchett is the most feminist author outside feminist academia. His strong female protagonists are actually strong and definitely protagonists and absolutely woman-like - you’ll find very little, if any, “man in power” behavior there, and when there’s something there’s always a good reason.

      • stolethemorning@alien.topBEnglish
        1·
        10 months ago

        Thank you for sharing! I loved these bits:

        But the more I acted the Strong Female Lead, the more I became aware of the narrow specificity of the characters’ strengths — physical prowess, linear ambition, focused rationality. Masculine modalities of power.

        When we kill women in our stories, we aren’t just annihilating female gendered bodies. We are annihilating the feminine as a force wherever it resides — in women, in men, of the natural world. Because what we really mean when we say we want strong female leads is: “Give me a man but in the body of a woman I still want to see naked.”

        It’s difficult for us to imagine femininity itself — empathy, vulnerability, listening — as strong. When I look at the world our stories have helped us envision and then erect, these are the very qualities that have been vanquished in favor of an overwrought masculinity.

        I might have to watch the OA now.

      • haloarh@alien.topBEnglish
        1·
        10 months ago

        Thank you for sharing. I’ve loved Marling since the movie Another Earth (which she starred in and co-wrote), but never read this before.