Tocky on 12/1/2012 at 04:25
I don't think the women are poorly characterized. They clique up and have their dramas vis a vie men as in life. There was the scene where Andrea was testing her new found macho gun nut skills and overstepped in the mistaken impression that men never consider the possibility of fallability and that rang true. I found a lot of the things the women did rang true. In what way were the women falsely portrayed? Carol was a beaten down archtype but certainly nothing untrue. Lori... oh Lori if only your type was false. Yeah. I have known these women.
Thirith on 13/1/2012 at 13:02
Quote Posted by Tocky
I don't think the women are poorly characterized. They clique up and have their dramas vis a vie men as in life. There was the scene where Andrea was testing her new found macho gun nut skills and overstepped in the mistaken impression that men never consider the possibility of fallability and that rang true. I found a lot of the things the women did rang true. In what way were the women falsely portrayed? Carol was a beaten down archtype but certainly nothing untrue. Lori... oh Lori if only your type was false. Yeah. I have known these women.
It's a thin line, but IMO most of the female characters in the series are *only* the clichés they embody and nothing else, and it's practically always a variation on the incompetent, hormonal, irrational woman. Do such women exist? Yes, doubtlessly, but we've seen these types done pretty much exactly this way on TV before, many times, and
The Walking Dead doesn't bring much to the table with these characters beyond the tired clichés. By comparison, the male characters are also not all that original, but there's still something more there that makes them more rounded, complex or simply enjoyable to watch. Whereas the majority of scenes with Andrea, Lori and Carol were repetitive, predictable and boring. I don't think it's a surprise that these three characters are the most disliked in the series (most discussions I've seen online along the lines of "I wish character X would get eaten by zombies" list these three), and I don't think that's intended by the writers either.
SubJeff on 13/1/2012 at 14:33
Well to be fair, in that situation it is men that would tend to take control and make the big decisions so in many ways it's true to life. Andrea is the most likeable because she actually wants to get involved. Of all the women in the main group you'd want her on your team, no? Or maybe I'm "getting in to it", because I'm liking the characters largely based on the pragmatism they display, and by that count Darly is up there.
30 Rock season 6 has started. I'm on it.
Thirith on 13/1/2012 at 15:02
Quote Posted by Subjective Effect
Well to be fair, in that situation it is men that would tend to take control and make the big decisions so in many ways it's true to life. Andrea is the most likeable because she actually wants to get involved. Of all the women in the main group you'd want her on your team, no? Or maybe I'm "getting in to it", because I'm liking the characters largely based on the pragmatism they display, and by that count Darly is up there.
On that level (are the characters competent?) I'm not sure Andrea would be that great to have on my team, because she lets her need to prove herself override her actual usefulness. Shooting Daryl wasn't pragmatic behaviour (there were several armed men closer to him than she was, so there's no actual need for her to shoot what she thinks is a walker at that distance. But for her aim Daryl would be dead meat.
My beef with the female characters isn't whether they're credible or whether their behaviour makes sense in the situation the series depicts: it's that they're written in a lazy, boring way. The series doesn't make it interesting to watch the scenes with the women. (IMO Maggie fares best, although I admit it might in part just be me thinking that she's the only one of them that I'd actually spend some quality post-apocalyptic time with.) I understand why those scenes are there, but by and large they're scenes I've seen in other films or series without bringing much that is new or interesting to the table.
P.S.: Just to make this clear: I don't think the series is crap due to how the women are written - since I'm the one arguing that the women characters are badly written, my point may come across as more vehement than it is. I think it's a pretty good series, but it's got a couple of weaknesses, namely the writing in general and the female characters in particular, but it's the pacing this season that I consider to be the bigger problem and something they need to improve IMO. Then again, there are so many series with lazy writing that keep getting renewed (e.g.
House,
Dexter), I guess that writing quality isn't what makes or breaks a series in terms of getting/losing viewers.
Yakoob on 15/1/2012 at 03:54
I started on Entourage, which is quite fitting considering I am coming back to LA doing the film shtick. The first episode kinda left me thinking it's just gonna be a show about four douchy spoiled guys banging girls and going to parties, and while it is that in many parts, it actually turns out to have some more palpable conflicts setting up for the protagonists, and the characters are proving increasingly more fleshed out and interesting. Continuing...
Fafhrd on 15/1/2012 at 05:08
Don't bother, Yakoob. Entourage is fucking terrible. The only half hour HBO series worth watching are Bored to Death and (depending on your tolerance for Danny McBride) Eastbound and Down.
icemann on 15/1/2012 at 07:24
Over the last few weeks been watching the first season of Melroes Place (to give me and the girlfriend something to watch). As far as soaps go, they don't make em like that anymore. Great show.
And moved onto season 6 of Star Trek Voyager.
