Tropes- Action Girl

Action Girls are a trope I am half and half on. On one hand, it's a step up from the wimpy woman in distressed trope. While on the other, if you don't play you cards right you might up with something you don't want or she'll lack any girlish traits. Action girls sometimes lack any quirks that make them stand out from each other as well.

However, when action girls  (like any other character) are characterized right, it can make them one of a kind. An action girl with flaws and quirks who both loses and wins is a better role model then one who wins all the time. A good example of flawed and kick butt action girls can be found in the shorts by Ms. Faust for DC Nation below.

Note: My favorite one is the third one.



So, who is your favorite action girl of all time? I have to say mine is Kim Possible.    Have a great rest of the day.

Tropes- Cannie Catastrophe

My family and I were watching Marley and Me awhile ago and I have to say it's a cute movie. I'm not going to give away any spoilers, but it follows a formula that pops up a lot in dog-related media. Dogs are a big part of pop culture even Tv Tropes has a whole page deciated to them and their cannie cousins. However, Marley and Me follows a sterotype that I'm not sure is on the above mention Tv Trope page.

This sterotype is what I like to call "Cannie Catastrophe" is related to the trope Killer Rabbit and can sometimes overlap with the trope of Pet Monstrosity. It follows this basic formula:

• A character gets a dog for whatever reason
• Said dog turns out to a HUGE handful than most dogs (see list below for examples)
• Reason for the dog's bad behavior can range from acting out to having otherworldly origins (extraterrestrial, supernatural, etc)

Here's a list of movies that contain this trope:

Lilo and Stitch (extraterrestrial)

Snow Dogs

The above mention Marley and Me

Your milage may vary about the Beethoven movies and Marduke.

So, can you think of any movies using this trope? I love to see what you say in the comments section.

Have a great Tuesday.

A Change of Plans

Hello, my loyal readers.

I have good news and bad news. The good news is I decided to bring back my blog. The bad news is that while I no longer have a great amount of math classes (switched majors), this semester has been very rough. I missed you all and I can't wait to start posting again.

Have a great week everyone.

Year of the Dragon

Happy year of the dragon, everyone. I'm sorry to say that this is my last post. Last semester really ate up a lot of my time for blogging (and sadly all of NaNoWriMo). This upcoming semester (which starts January 10) is compose mostly of math classes. Math is my weakest subject, so most of my free time while be given to tutoring. Am I annoyed? You bet your sweet tea I am, but there's nothing I can do. I can't keep saying that I'm back and then disappear for weeks, even months at a time; because of school and other things that pop up at the last mintue. I will continue writing, just not on this blog. Thanks for sticking by me for the last year.


Best Wishes and happy New Year,

Melody

The Problem with Pink and the Blue blues

As I began to scan my brain for new ideas for National Novel Writing Month; I can help but notice that I have this one habit: I count my characters to make sure that the genders are equal. I want to make sure that for every well-developed character I have that is male; than there is a well-developed female character to balance it out.

 I think this habit is a leftover from my childhood, where I first encourage the plague among feminists (including myself): The Smurfette Principle.

What is the Smurfette Principle you may ask? Well, think about the Smurfs for a few mintues. All the guys running around with just one female (my sister said that the Creators added another female Smurf  later, but two females does not make a population make). What makes it sad is that this isn't the only show that suffers from this "disease."

Besides an extremely uneven popluation, symptoms of The Smurfette Principle (or TSP for short) include:

•  Unfortunate Implications
• The annoyence of Feminists everywhere (including yours truly)
• The female character is more likely to be a distressed damsel or fake action girl, or worse, the chick.
• Pink is a common color to show the character in question is female (unless said character is a evil ) This trend has died out over the years though.
• The female character is not the main character or important to the plot (beside being the love-interest or only female member).
• For the gender-flipped version of this trope see the one guy.

So, now that you know most of the basic symptoms, can you think of any books , tv shows (besides the Smurfs), or movies that use TSP or it's male counterpart? Leave your answers in the comment section, I would love to hear from you. :)

For more information on TSP, check out this video  (I have to warn you that the video is more P-13).

No Longer A Tiger

I'mmmm baaack! I'm sorry I have not posted in months, but ALOT  has been going on  between my last post and now. First,  I am sad to report that I transfer from Clemson to a smaller college (though one with my major of Agriculture) that is closer to where I live. For legal reasons I can not explain what exactly happen at Clemson that made me want to transfer, but it was a mistake picking a school so far from home anyway.


On an unrelated, Novemeber is going to exiciting month: National Novel Writing Month starts next week; my dad's birthday is also next week (the 5th to be exact); my birthday is a week after his (the 15th); and don't get me started on Thanksgiving.

So, I have to ask, is anyone else doing NaNoWriMo this year? What's your goal: 50K? More? Less?


Have great weekend everyone. ;)


P.S. I'm thinking about upgrading the blog a bit.

After- July Jitters

Silly me, I let August creep up on me without saying how Orientation went. I can define it in three words: Overwhelming yet insightful.  The staff and students guides were really warm and friendly, though I am ashamed to admit that the long car ride down there left me a bit "crabby".

 

 I can't wait until we start classes, all of my course are pretty fun (especially the one on bug mythology), though  my field of study, Conservation Biology, did not have many students enrolled in it. The other freshmen and I had to sleep in the dorms (orientation lasted for two days), but for some reason I did not have a roommate (I'm still not sure if I should count this as a good thing or bad thing).  I have to admit that the huge campus left me a bit shaken. The After-July-pre-college jitters are starting to claw at me which is the reason you have not heard from me in a while.

On more ligther note, I owe a BIG THANKS to Miss Coppel for giving me the Creative Blog Award.

*Cue ego expanding to the size of Texas.

Isn't it pretty?