The Attack on Vulnerable Women

Last year, Twilight celebrated it’s 10 year anniversary. I thought I might look upon that fact with distain, remembering stupid, teenage me who stupidly fell in love with Edward Cullen and Stephanie Meyer’s predictable prose before I saw the light and realised Twilight was a bundle of anti-feminist narratives and bad writing at it’s worst.

I was wrong. Instead, I found myself looking upon it fondly, remembering all the joy it once gave me, remembering seeing it in the cinema with friends and excitedly reading the books before going to school the next day to ask my friends if they had read them yet so we could exchange thoughts. I then recently watched Lindsey Elli’s editorial video on Twilight, titled: Dear Stephenie Meyer, i’m sorry. The video was a detailed look into the insane backlash at the Twilight franchise and it’s fans and one point Ellis brought up was the following:

“We hate Twilight, because we kind of hate teenage girls.”

The point hit hard, especially when she went into detail as to why. Ellis claimed that we hate everything teenage girls celebrate, we hate girls being vulnerable, we hate girls liking boys, we hate girls enjoying romance and in turn we hate women celebrating their sexuality. She touched on the fact that the transformers films were similar to Twilight in the sense that the films, stories and characters were shallow and it pandered to the stereotype that boys love cars in the same way that there’s a stereotype for girls to love dark and mysterious men. She brought up the valid point that the backlash for Transformers isn’t nearly as hateful and forceful as the hate for Twilight even though both franchises are largely benign, pointless and actually not nearly as bad as other franchises pandering to specific genders….. Fifty Shades I am looking at you.

We hate women who celebrate sexuality and embrace it, see examples such as Miley Cyrus, Megan Fox, Cardi B, Kim Kardashian. We hate women who embrace the all-encompassing, ‘I can’t live without him’ type of love, see Bella Swan, Juliet and pretty much 90% of women in literature that predates the 1800’s. We hate strong women who excerpt their independence such as Brie Larson, Emma Watson and lets face it, literally every single woman of colour that has dared to have an opinion. If we do not hate them, we either use them as a warning to others, write them off as annoying or unimportant or paint them with the brush of bad influences, and instead urge women to find more suitable role models such as Maya Angelou, Michelle Obama and Amal Clooney etc (all of which are fantastic role models, but that’s not to say the other women aren’t just as important.) We hate strong women, we hate vulnerable women. We hate morally ambiguous women, we hate ‘aggressive women’, we hate ‘weak’ women. We hate loud women, we hate women who stay silent. The point is, no matter what women do, we ultimately learn, through society and patriarchal values to hate everything that makes women up in ways we do not scrutinise men. We do it to each other, sometimes worse than men do.

Feminism has taken a strange turn over the last few years. We have shifted to now hating women that encompassing anything that isn’t ‘a strong independent woman of 2019 who don’t need no man.’ Hence why we hate women like Bella Swan who seemingly don’t exist outside of living for their male love interests. We shoot down women who choose to forgive cheating partners, we chide women who move from partner to partner or who air their dirty laundry for all to see. One recent example that steered away from this attitude is the characterised version of Elizabeth Schuyler in Lin Manuel-Miranda’s fantastic stage show, ‘Hamilton’. Spoilers ahead if you haven’t yet seen the play or know the story of Alexander Hamilton.

Eliza, while revolutionary in some ways, is ultimately a product of her time. She is a relatively quiet woman, an obedient one, unlike her sister Angelica. Eliza strives for nothing more than to marry her husband Alexander Hamilton and be a good wife to him and a good mother to her son. The first half of the play made her almost into a Disney princess type character, singing about how she first laid eyes on Alexander and felt ‘helpless’, falling hopelessly in love with him from first laying eyes on him. When Alexander cheats on her, she does the typical “you have ruined our lives, sleep in the couch, you ain’t getting any tonight.” Despite her anger, their marriage never becomes a hateful one. Sure, she finds it hard to forgive Alexander for the death of their son, but she does, in time come to forgive him and even goes as far as to encourage him to stop working and spend more time with her etc, showing the audience that she has ultimately forgiven him, loves him and wants to make things work. At the end of the play, she is arguably presented as the hero of the play, the unproblematic fave if you will, seeing as she goes on to tell Alexander’s story and even opens up an orphanage to help children orphaned in the civil war. Considering she is a vulnerable woman and did a lot of things we chide women for doing in modern day such as taking a cheating man back and falling in love with him so quickly and seeing little else outside of her life other than her husband and child, she is never met with backlash and is instead celebrated as exactly what she is, a powerful, complex woman who isn’t perfect, but isn’t bad either. It’s interesting to see how the attitude to multi-layered ‘vulnerable’ women has shifted in some cases and not in others.

Why is Elizabeth Schuyler celebrated as a vulnerable woman who puts value into her flawed relationship but someone like Bella Swan isn’t? Is it because of sexism built into our systems, is it because people object to a modern woman behaving as such, or is it simply just because Bella Swan is a less likable, more bland character? Why do we love Disney princesses but hate women like Bella Swan and 80% of heroines in YA fiction?

I personally do see the attack on Bella as part of the bigger picture, and of how we do hate or fear vulnerability in women as much as men fear strength or independence in women, however I am also open to the fact that there are flawed literary characters that do more damage than good as well. It’s a dialogue I would love to open up with others as it’s one that does have so many different levels and factors. What do you guys think? Does this conversation really eat away at you, or do you see women like Bella Swan as more damaging than good?

Assassin’s Creed: The Franchise That Can’t Catch a Break

I, like so many others, fell in love with the Assassins Creed franchise after Assassins Creed 2 was released in 2009 on ps3. As a massive history nerd I couldn’t believe a game had come along that celebrated one of my favourite time periods, the Italian Renaissance. It’s a game that I believe will go down in history as one of the greatest games of all time, and, despite dated graphics and a slightly lagging framerate, the narrative and characters of the game still hold up to this day. One of the aspects of the game I loved was the length of the main story campaign. The story was detailed from getting to know our main character to getting to know his quickly ill-fated family and Borgia and templar villains and ultimately our main character’s journey from reckless youth to assassin master fighting for the greater good. Everything seemed so detailed and well thought out. After such a compelling game, where to go from there?

Brotherhood followed as a solid sequel to such a great game, it kept a lot of the aspects we knew and loved from the second game, including many of the characters. It also introduced the idea of the assassin order as a playable aspect of the game itself, meaning you could recruit assassins to help you in precise, targeted ways (an aspect I believe Ubisoft largely abandoned far too quickly.) Then came revelations which I thought was too rushed and felt a little lazy in its storytelling, but we’ll move on as that is more of a personal preference. Then came Assassins creed 3. While I realise I was far too harsh on the game in hindsight, after all, the villains were some of the most multi-dimensional in the series, I thought the game was a let-down compared to Black Flag. Connor was dull, incredibly so, he was such a world away from the charismatic, charming Ezio Auditore and maybe that was always the aim. Either way, I didn’t feel as absorbed in the game as a result. There were a lot of good points to AC3, the world it was set in, America during the civil war was larger than any AC world before it, the fact that you play the first 3rd of the game as the villain was incredibly cool and again, added to the complex storytelling aspects of Assassins Creed that I love so much. However, for me anyway, it lacked a certain ‘je ne sais quoi’ which I have always just put down as personal preference.

AC2: The game that inspired an iconic franchise

By the time Black Flag was released in 2013, it became apparent that Assassins Creed franchise was now a divisive series. Some loved the series, some saw it as Ubisoft doing what it does best, repeating formulas they know work, others saw it as dead in the water. I ignored the critiques and set out to enjoy Black Flag myself and boy did I love it! It’s still my most loved entry to the AC universe and despite me being biased on account of me loving anything pirate related (Captain Hook was my first love, don’t @ me) I still believe it’s one of the best AC games for a number of reasons. Edward was a rogue. A self-serving, quick-witted Welshman who fell into the order as opposed to previous protagonists that had joined out of wanting to avenge their fallen loved ones or the idea that it was for the greater good. Black Flag introduced naval battles and unique game elements like hunting sharks and whales and diving for deep sea treasure (ok how can anyone not find that cool??) It wasn’t just a good AC game, it was a bloody brilliant pirate game. Some didn’t like the entry because they believed it wasn’t true to an AC game, which is true, kind of. It is true that I can’t really remember any of the templar assassinations and perhaps a focus on stealth wasn’t quite as important as it had been in previous games. However, the lack of memorable templars I think, was the entire point of that game and the golden age of piracy in general. Pirates were the OG rebels, well, maybe not the OG OG’s but they were certainly high up there on the list. They were given plenty of opportunities to be forgiven for their crimes by the English but they chose to literally say “nah, we good, we kind of like this whole pillaging and plundering these rich folks with wigs, thanks for the offer though.” It therefore makes sense that the villains in Black Flag have less of a focus on templars and more of a focus on the pirates themselves. They were their own downfall. The story of Black Flag was as complex and full of feels as it was utterly heartbreaking. Honestly, I could write a whole piece on Black Flag alone, hell, I might, but my point is, I can see the criticisms of Black Flag and why people started to turn on the franchise and see it as losing it’s steam at that point. However, I personally disagree and I think it’s unfair to say that, while it might have steered away from the AC formula, it’s hard to argue that it isn’t a damn good game in it’s own right.

After a couple of half arsed entries on the ps3 after that, AC fans were left to excitedly imagine what AC would look like on the next-gen gaming devices, and that led to the hot mess and ultimately what many consider the death of AC, Unity. Ah Unity, I remember your release date fondly, watching how every other NPC had the same hair colour, style, coat, movements, watching Arno flap his arms mid-air as he fell from the buildings into un-rendered blank space. Trying not to laugh as a serious death scene took place and the only features showing on screen were floating eyes, teeth and hair so long it would make Rapunzel jealous. I, like so many found the game virtually impossible to play upon release date. However, rather than spending days complaining, sending mean tweets to Ubisoft, making a sacrifice to the gods to make the game developers pay, I simply waited out the storm and returned to Black Flag and AC2 after Ubisoft reassured us that they were working on improvements. Did it suck that I couldn’t play it upon release? Yes. Was it wrong they released the game knowing there were so many elements they weren’t prepared for with it being next-gen software, hell yes. Did I let it ruin my love for the franchise? Personally, no. Once Unity was (partly) fixed, I actually thought it was a pretty solid addition to the franchise too. The murder mysteries were cool, the graphics were amazing, re-creating Paris during the revolution was a HUGE endeavour and I think Ubisoft did it justice. Unity was simply Ubisoft’s Icarus, they grew too ambitious before they could realise, realistically what they could manage. Unity I believed, was a learning curve.

Just one of many Unity glitches/examples of pure nightmare fuel

It was at this point, people’s general view of AC was that the franchise had grown stale. While I greatly enjoyed Syndicate, it was a safe bet and unforuntely didn’t make the numbers Ubisoft hoped for. I didn’t even think to purchase the chronicles game, nor did I purchase the remastered versions of Rogue or AC3. Because the numbers were not doing well, Ubisoft did what any company would do when money is drying up, they reimagined the series entirely. Not a bad idea in my opinion, providing it’s not like Disney’s ‘reimagining’ of things which is essentially just an excuse to put out the same thing but with live action because, hey, we could pay writers to write new stuff but give the people what they grew up with and love right?…….. Right?

Thus came Origins, an AC game that predates all other creed storylines and was set in ancient Egypt. I thought it was a brave decision, having a series that relies heavily on history is harder to pull off when you choose a time period that we have very little evidence to show anything of true accuracy. They also removed the easy combat ‘button mash’ system and made enemies harder to kill with stronger AI. Again, this was something that fans had been begging Ubisoft for, for literally years so kudos to the studios for listening. While Origins was huge and truly different to anything AC had done before, again, similar to AC3, I found the storyline dull. I honestly can’t even remember what happened, I found the main character dull and while I did love hippos and crocodiles chasing me, it’s not an AC game I found compelling enough to return to. Now Ubisoft had another problem on their hands, now fans were turning to them and saying “Ubisoft, what the heck was that? Because that sure as heck was not an AC game.” Ubisoft understood they needed to change in order to move with the times but how do you move forward with such a beloved franchise that was so divisive? How do you move forward with a game that while so massively loved, was repetitive and that would be the thing that would ultimately cause it’s death in the long-run?

Ubisoft again did what they thought was best. They created their largest, most ambitious game yet. Odyssey. I was so excited for this one, on account of me being obsessed with everything Greek mythology related. Odyssey came out and I was blown away. The graphics were amazing, I didn’t experience any glitches. The world was huge and vast and beautiful to look at and interact with, the characters were complex and interesting. The combat system kept me even more engrossed in the world on account of having to level up my character to be able to keep up with certain enemies. The side quests were so detailed it rivalled The Witcher 3. For me, similar to Black Flag, it wasn’t just a good AC game, it was one of the strongest RPG games I’ve ever played. Oh, and don’t even get me started on the DLC with the Greek Gods because holy hell am I pleased about that. Despite me thinking Odyssey was a damn good game and truly a reflection of how much hard work goes into the writing and making of a next-gen game, a lot of people really hated this entry. Those who don’t play the games anymore I find, either believe Unity was the death of AC or Origins/Odyssey is. With the latter, it’s because they believe it is completely lacking of everything that made an AC game. There is no AC order anymore as such, it’s now just main characters really fighting for their own personal missions or because hey, there’s nothing else to do but swim away from sharks or sleep with every living thing (it was Ancient Greece, it was the done thing.) Juno and the Roman gods have taken a step back and I didn’t find the pieces of Eden or templar narrative that strong anymore. Stealth is no longer truly a focus given the cool weapons you can now get that do a lot of damage. Eagle vision is not what it once was, the villains are now not always these powerful, well-known figures in history we learned about in our textbooks. Yes, i’ll agree that a lot of traditional AC elements no longer play a part in the franchise. However, I can’t help but feel that Ubisoft can’t win whatever it does with this series. If it sticks to the OG formula, fans will eventually claim it’s stale and dull (if they don’t already.) Some say the series died with Ezio and if that’s the case, well, there’s no pleasing those fans. If they go on with the formula they have created with Origins and Odyssey fans will complain that it’s nothing like the OG formulas and therefore it’s not a good AC game.

Odyssey is a RPG lovers fantasy come true and Kassandra is a bisexual woman’s dream

So where do we go from here? Will Ubisoft eventually let the franchise die? Will they go on reimagining it in new and inventive ways? Who knows? I for one can’t wait to see the next entry into the franchise, which is largely rumoured to be Vikings related. One thing I am thankful for, and I think ALL gamers should be thankful for, is that when Ubisoft decided on moving the franchise forward, they lovingly decided to give us the biggest, most ambitious games of the series so far and did not decide to cruelly offer some sort of ‘buy to play’ structure, which will by the way, be the death of gaming if companies all decide to adopt this structure. Whether you are a current fan of the series, or chose to drop off after one of the previous entries, AC fans can all agree that the series has brought us lots of joy at one point or another and that’s a wonderful thing, for nostalgic purposes if nothing else.

Why HBO’s ‘Girls’ Is Still Genius

Just before the airing of it’s third season, the hype for HBO’s girls not only began to disappear but people seemed to turn on the show. Many stated the show had run it’s course, it wasn’t funny, it wasn’t realistic and the characters were no longer likeable, often because they were not portrayed as ‘realistic’.

 

Here’s the thing though, the characters were never meant to be very likeable in the first place. Alright so Marnie’s character was meant to be sympathetic, she didn’t know to break up with her boring boyfriend, she felt bad for it, lost her job, gotten hurt by the intolerable Booth Jonathan and Shoshanna was meant to be lovable and hapless, but people started to say the third season showed a darker side of the characters. I see this as yet another poignant turn for the show, one that makes it even more realistic. The more we get to know people the more we see that they are not as amazing as we originally thought, this is the case for our four heroines Hannah, Jessa, Marnie and Shoshanna. They are meant to be real people, the actresses themselves say their characters were based on a lot of personal truths for them.

 

The two characters people who are not fans of the show have a hard time liking are Hannah and Jessa. Hannah is the opinionated, often delusional and hypocritical main character. I love Hannah, and why do I love Hannah? Because she’s real, and because as a writer, there are so many little things she does that make her so realistic and not far off people I know, including myself.  She is seen by her friends as being self-involved and dramatic. We as an audience get to see the more vulnerable side of Hannah, her anxiety, her volatile relationship with boyfriend Adam, perhaps the more sympathetic sides of her are meant for the audience alone, and the Hannah she channels out to her friends, is a fairly one dimensional Hannah. Again this is a realistic trait of many people, sometimes those who have been hurt or are clever enough, only show certain sides of our personalities at the risk of telling the wrong people too much.

The stars show off their real love for each other on the red carpet

Then there is the issue of Jessa. Jessa is the perfect example of a quirky art student who is like human tumbleweed, floating around from place to place and people to people, often causing chaos in her wake. In the first season and second season alone we saw her seduce her ex because, hey, she could, Get married, divorce, admit her addiction to Heroin and show Hannah her rocky relationship with her father. Jessa is an example of someone most people dislike, someone who is so focused on being quirky and avoiding stereotypes, it comes across as attention seeking and often like Hannah, selfish. The one thing that makes Jessa rope you in, is her unpredictability. She doesn’t care what she does, or says, so you find yourself reluctantly wanting to see what she does next. Not the nicest character no, but realistic, and I think everyone has a friend like Jessa, that we just can’t let go of.

 

Shoshanna is fairly harmless, a little whiny, a little jumpy and one could argue how she treated boyfriend Ray was unfair, but really Shoshanna is like any young woman who finds herself no longer a virgin in the busiest city in the world, realizing settling down with a man who has little ambition is not an ideal situation. Cheating aside, Shoshanna would be incredibly unrealistic if she behaved in any other way. Marnie, In my opinion is the least likeable character due to her general lack of personality. Her constant want for on/off boyfriend Charlie annoys me just as much as when she quickly pushes him away again. Though again this is a realistic portrayal of a young girl going through relationship troubles, I just found her story-lines mostly consisting of how she felt about the men in her life tedious. However Marnie is far from an unrealistic character, sticking to the general theme of realness the show has that makes it so wonderful.

 

As far as humor goes, this show was never going to be a laugh out loud slapstick comedy. It was never meant to be, what makes it so amusing is it’s relatable factor. Those moments in the show you find yourself saying “Oh Yeah, I totally do that” or “OMG my best friend is exactly like that”. That kind of humor never really goes out of style, because something new will always arise audiences can relate to. If you’re no longer a young twenty something living in the city, struggling to get by, I can see how this show has no appeal but if you fit into the target demographic, Girls may be one of the most genius shows around.

 

Curves, Models and Media, Oh My

So in this day and age it would seem that the acceptance of curves and slightly larger figures has grown over the years slightly, but has it really? Are we really moving forward when it comes to body acceptance, or are we as close to accepting alternative body shapes as we are to ending world hunger? When it comes to personal opinion and individual tastes, there seems to have been a change. Men seem to be more into girls with curves than ever, but this doesn’t change girls acceptance of fat and half of this is down to the media. Shocker? No, highly doubtful.

 

It’s no secret that the media radiates sex, glamour, romance and money and in all positive media, there seems to be no room for girls above a size six, which leaves us wondering, what about the rest of us? It also leaves us feeling unloved and unwanted in the world of fame and glitz. How is a woman ever meant to feel sexy when a size fourteen is either frowned upon, overlooked or stared at until something skinnier and sexier comes along?

 

The media may have started to include decent sized women in fashion and fame, we now have celebrities like Kim Kardashian and Christina Hendricks celebrated for their curvy figures, but even these ladies are photo shopped to the extreme. Ever noticed how these girls never have ANY cellulite whatsoever, even though people who are ridiculously skinny often do? Photo shop is the end of every single realistic expectation of women. These plus size models used on websites to show off curvy clothes lines are not plus sized at all. Most of them are skinny models with their heads imposed on bigger bodies, and even then the bodies are made to look flawless with the help of photo shop.

 

There is nothing worse than cellulite, and what would be pretty about looking at the newest Dior fall line with rolls of fat on the models? We can all appreciate the beauty in seemingly flawless bodies but the media use it far too much to get their points across. We have cellulite, we have pores, and we have those annoying little birthmarks that can’t be covered up despite how much expensive foundation we use. These are facts of life, but the media seem to cover these up with a glittering designer paintbrush and lay the cover up on thick.

 

Fashion is a rollercoaster, forever changing, evolving and sometimes even involves going back to go forward. New models come along every year and make old “undesirable” body features suddenly the hottest things on the planet. Large foreheads, gaps in teeth and thanks to the beautiful Cara Delevingne thick, bushy eyebrows are what young girls are now desperate to have, even magazine articles have started advertising products that make your eyebrows bushier! Though all these weird and wonderful traits are there to stay and have made a positive impact on the world of fashion, one thing still struggles to break into the fashion industry and stay on top, and that is curves.

 

Someone online who remained anonymous submitted a comment online about larger models saying “plus size models would be more popular if they didn’t look so plain and boring”. Opinions like this make us stop and think “was this person’s opinion formed on their own, or did the media help influence it?” We look at half these skinny models and think not only are some of them plain, but some of them are even quite strange looking. Don’t get me wrong, that’s a good thing, it supports the idea that everyone is beautiful in their own way, but why is it ok for these models to be “plain” or “odd looking” to then be labelled unusually beautiful because they look good skinny in the newest clothes and the curvy models with the same “unique” features are not given good credit?

 

Sometimes magazines or clothes brands will do special features involving “curvy” models. In 2009 Harper’s bazaar featured a spread on then plus size model Crystal Renn naked with no photo shop used. The model had her fair share of cellulite as well as her breasts not looking as large and perky as they would look in the usual photographs taken of her. Saying that, recent photo shoots of the model now show she has joined the army of the modelling undead and is now skinnier than ever. H&M recently launched a new series of posters involving plus sized models with midriffs and back fat (though they still look beautiful). Beyoncé was also featured and apparently ordered the company to fix the photos to show a clear representation of the singers curves when altered photos of the singer looking thinner than she actually is were released.

 

Though these features are good examples of how the fashion industry and the media have made some progress, the fact that these features were given so much publicity could be the very reason why curves haven’t been as accepted as they should be. If curves were as acceptable as bony figures are, they wouldn’t receive as much publicity, why are these features even given a different spotlight from everything else? We should be at a point with the media now that people wouldn’t look twice at a billboard showing the newest Vivienne Westwood dress on a size 14 model.

 

Real may not be as beautiful as visible hipbones and a thigh gap but it’s real and surely in the world of fashion and media, we could find a balance between reality, fantasy, the desired but unrealistic body image, and the bodies that most people have. Making all body shapes the norm in both the media and real life should not be a huge undertaking for the world but still we continue to move on at a painfully slow pace when it comes to true acceptance of the body, and in particular, the female form.