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	(Anonymous) 2004-06-19 10:53 am UTC (link)
	I think the world would be better with more ass kicking female heroes in movies and such. Of course, I'd rather look at an attractive woman than a guy any day. -Fencedude (PS: If they are lesbian then its even better!) (Reply to this)(Thread)

mariagoner
2004-06-19 11:32 pm UTC (link)

Not if those ass-kicking women end up acting like really teed off Stepford wives that have nothing better to do than woodenly kick ass and show off their tits. (Lara Croft ring a bell here?) In which case... why even bother spending millions on getting a big-name actress to fill the marquee? A blow-up doll with a flame-thrower in its snatch could work just as well.

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schoenschoen, 2004-06-20 12:22 am UTC

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judyhazeleyes, 2004-06-20 11:01 pm UTC

	ilpalazzo 2004-06-19 11:00 am UTC (link)
	wince All right, all right. I confess I see all too much merit in that wank. I saw the trailer for King Arthur before....eh, fuck it, doesn't matter....and my very first thought was "Bitch, please". Can I get cranky about cheesy T&A-fueled pseudofeminism and still enjoy the wank? Someone hold me, please. (Reply to this)(Thread)

schoenschoen
2004-06-19 11:51 am UTC (link)

*holds* Yeah, the Charlie's Angels type crap is really grating and shallow. And not at all feminist. Because, uh, if it were, they would sure as hell a lot more normal looking, instead of looking like anorexic catwalk models. (although it seems odd to me that the guy brought up the X-Men movie - that title has had ultra-strong female characters in not-very-skimpy outfits since the late 70's. Actually, Claremont's first run is a good example of how female characters in action titles *should* be written)

Although I'll probably still go and see the movie. ^^ Just... probably not in the theatres.

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mariagoner, 2004-06-19 11:37 pm UTC

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ilpalazzo, 2004-06-20 12:15 am UTC

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schoenschoen, 2004-06-20 01:04 am UTC

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mariagoner, 2004-06-20 02:23 am UTC

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dana, 2004-06-20 01:57 am UTC

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mariagoner, 2004-06-20 02:22 am UTC

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diamonde, 2004-06-20 07:29 am UTC

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serai, 2004-06-20 09:21 am UTC

	iczer6 2004-06-20 01:03 am UTC (link)
	If it makes you feel better when I saw the trailer my first words were 'Why the FUCK is Guinevere holding a bow and arrow'? (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

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rogue, 2004-06-20 04:48 am UTC

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xeno4eyes, 2004-06-21 04:07 am UTC

schoenschoen
2004-06-19 11:47 am UTC (link)

Although I think they have a point about the tiny anorexic-looking girls being bad-asses, and about Hollywood just giving T&A to draw slack-jawed mens to movie theatres, I have to say that I can't wait to see this take on the Arthur legend.

What gets me is that several people hopped on and explained that yes, she *could've* been a warrior. And people still get pissed about 'revisionist history' and crap like that. I love our current culture.

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wankprophet
2004-06-19 10:24 pm UTC (link)

The problem is, there isn't any history to speak of here. The historical "King Arthur" is something of a cypher, but connecting him with the mythical King Arthur is grasping at straws. The "true" story of King Arthur absolutely doesn't ezist. Most of the legends were created by French poets and troubadors, the rest filled in by older English legends adapted to the mythos, and then whole thing layered with Celtic heroic traditions. Then the unwieldy mass is basted in a heavy dose of Christianity (which, to be quite blunt, was always an element -- it's like Beowulf, in a way, or even Hamlet, with retconning the ethic of the past to fit the contemporary religious mindset.) So the movie may be very entertaining, but using the names "Arthur" and "Guinevere" is more of a shibboleth than anything else.

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schoenschoen, 2004-06-20 12:26 am UTC

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reinhardt, 2004-06-20 07:15 am UTC

	mariagoner 2004-06-19 11:39 pm UTC (link)
	I think people have a right to get upset about the historical underpinnings of this movie. If the movie came right out and admitted its history was fluff and made up, fine. But when I went to the Harry Potter movie and saw the preview for King Arthur, and the narration was jabbering on about it being the real, true story of King Arthur. WTF?! (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

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schoenschoen, 2004-06-20 12:12 am UTC

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ladylisse, 2004-06-20 03:56 am UTC

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littlest_lurker, 2004-06-20 04:10 am UTC

roz_mcclure
2004-06-19 02:10 pm UTC (link)

While there are some valid points being raised (the costume as genuine Pictish representation, for example) I do have to love the girl who cries:

People do bring up valid points; not much was known about Guinevere, she is cast as a Pict, etc., but having read books such as The Once and Future King and The Mists of Avalon, I cannot but be disappointed over this new 2004 version of Queen Guinevere.

Because if Marion Zimmer Bradley says it, it must be true!

("T.H. White: Hey, Five Hundred Years of British Literature Can't Be Wrong!")

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rhi_silverflame
2004-06-19 08:57 pm UTC (link)

One wonders if she's read Alice Borchardt's The Dragon Queen.

(I have, and I want my time back, goddammit. I should've known it was a bad sign when the highest praise on the inside of the cover was from Anne Rice, who's her sister.)

I mean, I've read Mists of Avalon and The Once and Future King among other Arthurian stories in which Guinevere gets to be more than a cipher (though I do profess a certain bizarre attachment to Stephen Lawhead's Pendragon Cycle despite the overt Christianity), but um . . . I'm not really much for letting the 20th-century interpretations fully define my characters for me, y'know?

*headdesk*

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dae, 2004-06-20 08:41 pm UTC

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vixen, 2004-06-21 01:02 am UTC

arielchan
2004-06-19 04:02 pm UTC (link)

*sigh* I had to explain this to my mother the first time we saw the trailer.

I'm really looking forward to this movie. A few years ago, I read every Arthurian novel/story I could get my hands on, and I saw a lot of different version of the legend, as well as different versions of Guinivere, but I can't recall ever seeing her as a warrior.

(Wait. I take that back. I seem to think there was a youth novel out there in which Guinivere was a warrior and was either pretending to be Arthur or gave Arthur Excalibur or something like that...)

Plus, Kiera Knightly kicks butt.

~*Ariel*~

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(Anonymous)
2004-06-19 06:34 pm UTC (link)

You may be thinking of Jane Yolen's short story in which Guenevere gets Arthur's sword from him. (I want to say it's in the Here There Be Wizards anthology, but I'm not sure).

And then there's always Rosalind Miles's godawful Guenevere (Queen of the Summerlands is the title of the first one, I think, but it's been a year and a half) trilogy that tries to be The Mists of Avalon and fails miserably... if there are any good warrior!Guenevere stories, I have yet to find them. I'll stick to T.H. White's "Morte d'Arthur For Dummies And Small Children."

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arielchan, 2004-06-20 06:12 am UTC

	iczer6 2004-06-19 08:41 pm UTC (link)
	You wouldn't believe that a stick-thin man could do that much damage, so why a stick-thin woman? This person doesn't watch anime does he? Anime Fandom: Where the girls are girly, the boys are even girlier, and both groups can hand you your ass on a plate. Icz (Reply to this)(Thread)

	mariagoner 2004-06-19 11:41 pm UTC (link)
	Heeeee! Mind you, though, anime does look pretty silly when it's translated to the real world. Though Sailor Mercury managed that transaction better than most. ;) (Reply to this)(Parent)

diamonde
2004-06-20 07:58 am UTC (link)

There's more to being plausibly violent than size, that's for sure. When I was in grade five, the tiniest boy in our year was a pleasant, generous little soul who could and would beat the crap out of someone a foot taller than he was. They usually started it, but he always finished it. And you believed it, because he walked around with total confidence and never backed down or shut up if it was something he thought was important.

They could cast a six-foot-four woman with arms like tree-trunks and if she dithered and stumbled and whimpered I still wouldn't bloody believe it. Eek! Wail! Help! Scary! Oh, I shall pick up a stick and wave it ineffectually! Whereas, say, Mary Jane in the comics was a model but she smiled and made out like she totally believed that the supervillain disguised as her husband was the real thing and waited until he left the room so she could get a baseball bat out of the closet. Then proceeded to hit him with it repeatedly. None of that 'save me, somebody, omg I shall be ravaged' indescisive shit, she just figured she'd hit him in the head with something hard.

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mariagoner, 2004-06-20 07:53 pm UTC

judyhazeleyes
2004-06-19 08:46 pm UTC (link)

I think "You had me, and then you lost me" is the quote this wank immediately brings to mind.

Every time I find myself someone I think I might agree with, they take this great careening turn off Logic Street (isn't she a bit thin/underdressed to be in battle?) onto Sweeping Generalization Alley (women in leading/heroic roles weaken the movie's credibility). If anyone should dare to follow them, they immediately veer onto Fukukthnxdie Crescent (self-explanitory), which - guess what? - is actually a roundabout. So a potentially interesting conversation ends up circling and circling around pointless insults until I'm praying for a big ten-car pileup.

Not to mention OMGWTF Avenue - "But seriously, why do all these movies coming out today have women in them? I'm so sick of seeing women everywhere I go! You can't look at a movie poster without seeing a WOMAN on it! Sometimes they even get second or third billing - oh the humanity! How can we escape the women?!" Almost too amused to be frightened - almost.

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	phyll 2004-06-20 08:44 am UTC (link)
	No kidding. The most frustrating thing about that wank is that, unlike on most IMDB boards, many of the people seem to be making valid points until they veer off into the likes of "OMG NO MORE WOMEN!" and "SHITSTICK!!!" My brain, it aches. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	minion_of_truth 2004-06-20 08:52 am UTC (link)
	You make me laugh! Well summarized. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

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judyhazeleyes, 2004-06-20 10:42 pm UTC

	rhi_silverflame 2004-06-19 09:01 pm UTC (link)
	Much as I find Keira Knightley easy on the eyes, I'm mainly going to see that movie 'cause of Ioan Gruffudd. ^_^ MY STRATE IZ PASTEDE ON YAY! (Reply to this)(Thread)

	judyhazeleyes 2004-06-19 09:38 pm UTC (link)
	ioan gruffudd? is suddenly interested my gaye iz half-pastede on oops. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

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rhi_silverflame, 2004-06-19 09:47 pm UTC

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littlest_lurker, 2004-06-20 01:15 am UTC

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rhi_silverflame, 2004-06-20 02:17 am UTC

	visp 2004-06-19 09:26 pm UTC (link)
	Well, I do have to air my one little pet peeve, bikinis are not battle wear! Either get naked and paint yourself blue, or wear armor. Isn't there a Pratchett quote about this? (Reply to this)(Thread)

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mastervex, 2004-06-19 10:37 pm UTC

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mariagoner, 2004-06-19 11:42 pm UTC

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minion_of_truth, 2004-06-20 09:21 am UTC

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visp, 2004-06-21 07:57 am UTC

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minion_of_truth, 2004-06-21 08:00 am UTC

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visp, 2004-06-20 08:24 pm UTC

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calluna, 2004-06-21 12:40 am UTC

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visp, 2004-06-21 07:18 am UTC

Speaking of Pratchett... - wolfie_thu, 2004-06-20 03:55 am UTC

	kijikun 2004-06-20 12:23 am UTC (link)
	Bwahhaa I have been waiting for just such a wank so I could use my Ceidrwyn icon. (Reply to this)

	phyll 2004-06-20 08:45 am UTC (link)
	I just think it's vaguely hysterical that people are wanking about historical accuracy in a Jerry Bruckheimer movie. (Reply to this)

	serai 2004-06-20 09:10 am UTC (link)
	whether or not the correct word is 'heros' or 'heroes' Neither. It's gyros! (Reply to this)(Thread)

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mariagoner, 2004-06-20 07:55 pm UTC

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crickets, 2004-06-20 11:43 pm UTC

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serai, 2004-06-21 06:24 am UTC

ataniell93
2004-06-21 05:04 am UTC (link)

This is so funny. The REAL historical justification for King Arthur?

I told my thesis advisor back in 1985 that I was interested in King Arthur and he was nice enough not to laugh at me, but he did explain that the only primary source evidence for a King named Arthur in the period in which it could have happened was a single line in Nennius, and all of the extant versions of Nennius are at least 200 years later than the period in which it could have happened.

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