The following rant was indirectly inspired by a conversation going on elsewhere in my friends list.
I have never felt particularly comfortable with feminist propaganda. It always seems to take something that was, admittedly, a little bit broken, and instead of fixing it — turning it inside out so it's broken in the opposite direction. The movie “Ever After” is a good example. My favorite Cinderella movie version is “Slipper and the Rose” (possibly in large part due to the music, but also because I fell in love with the scene where the Chancellor explains a few political realities to Cinderella.) Ever After was looking like it might be in the running, even without any singing and dancing, but it tripped at the finish line.
It had a wonderful heroine, strong, smart, spunky…
…and her love interest was totally useless.
At the end, instead of letting the Prince redeem himself by making at least one rescue, they come up with the lamest of all reasons how our heroine can manage to rescue herself yet again. Her father taught her swordplay and he was a great master. So what? He died when she was what, *eight*? He didn't have *time* to turn her into anything resembling a swordmaster herself. Why can't she be smart and spunky and let the guy who actually had the country's top fencing instructors teaching him for the past howevermany years be the one that's holds the villain at swordspoint? Why does she have to be best at *everything*? And since she is best at everything, what sort of a partnership is she going to be able to establish with the her not particularly competent prince? (And why would she want him, anyway?)
Blah.
Now for some DH and MH specific comments.
When people say that heroines should stop sitting around waiting for the heros to rescue them, I'm all for that. I'll jump on the bandwagon. Three cheers for proactive heroines!
But when they have a proactive heroine, one who genuinely drives the plot, saves the day, rescues her her beloved, the emperor, and her country, and they start going on about how that isn't good enough, that's where I jump off again. If driving the plot, saving the day and rescuing my beloved, my emperor and my country isn't good enough, this is not an adventure *I* am willing to sign up for. I *demand* the right to have someone hold my hand on occasion if I feel I need it, and if that someone is male, I refuse to apologize for that.
Yes Kiki is spunky and angsts less than Harry Potter. (Lots of people angst less than Harry Potter). And all her sister M-heroines are equally charming… equally spunky… equally…er… well, equally everything really. I find MH a very appealing character. All six or seven versions of her that I've seen. But I'm glad that there are a few other kinds of heroines out there… I like variety.
I *liked* Mulan. I don't see any problems with her character.
I just wish she hadn't got saddled with the wisecracking dragon and the very twee bug.