Last night, I was just making mention of how much it bothered me that little boys get all sorts of cool movies about the boy getting to be the super adventure hero and how girls get films about wanting to be princesses.
Then today I saw this:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2009/06/dear_pixar_from_all_the_girls.html?sc=fb&cc=fp
Maybe most little girls don’t want to be action heroes…but is it because they really don’t want to be, or because there aren’t many examples in movies? There are probably at least ten movies about a boy who wakes up to find he is really King Arthur, but there are hardly any such movies for girls, especially in that genre. Females can be helpful/intelligent/alluring sidekicks, but never the main show.
What’s with that? If a girl doesn’t see examples of women standing up for themselves or making important choices, why WOULD they be any good at video games or anything else.
What I am saying as this pertains to LARP…..think about Xena, She-Ra, and all of those other “I’m so cool but I’m also a princess or I only have power because a man close to me is important” kind of ‘role models’ out there for girls. You can do better, and if you choose not to play ‘the game’ at a LARP, you can accept the social consequences and do something else.
Play the game–don’t let it play you.
(and also beware of using cut tags on WordPress. They seem to eliminate text.)
One of the things I’ve found in many of the LARPs I play is that most of the women seem to be healers, or some kind of “background” character.
When a woman comes in and starts dominating the battlefield, the guys take notice. They become important to the story, they stand out because they aren’t “the norm.”
As a guy, I’d love to see more ladies stand up and stop letting the game play them.
Maybe for once I’d like to be a healer….
Love your insight! It would be cool to see a guy healer out there, definitely!
In the system I play in (Lorien Trust in the UK) there seem to be a lot of strong female characters around. After reading your piece and the series in Cerise, I wonder whether there’s something about US larp culture in particular which leans towards traditional gender roles more than your European kin. Has anyone out there tried out larp both sides of the pond?