I used to think this as well, until someone pointed out to me that they are not so independent that they don't still need a MAN to think for them, act for them, and tell them what to do (oh, and give em a good slap across the face while we're at it) when the **** really hits the fan.
Oh, you mean Dwight slapping Gail in The Big Fat Kill. Always a favorite in this arguement. I wonder why? Maybe because it's the only one where the arguement works? Seriously, find me another example of the protagionist doing something like that, and I might get behind you.
Also, in that scene, you also have to remember: Dwight, while temporarily gaining control, wasn't really in control at all. If Gail didn't like him as much as she did, she would either pumped him full of lead or had Miho draw and quarter him.
As for "thinking for them," I don't think it was that they weren't thinking, they were just sure of their ability to keep the mob and cops out.
That only required the Ephors to do. But instead, he makes the Ephors the keepers of the Delphi Oracle, disregarding the Pythia (who BTW was a woman), then he makes the Ephors lepers and inbreds who spend their days raping her. For what? It was entirely unnessecary, and the only reason I can fathom that he wrote it like that was to maintain the general theme in his work.
To show how evil and corrupt they are when compared to the Spartans. Yeah, it was to maintain the general theme, but hell, just about every author, when telling the story, has done something like that to keep the general theme.
Thing to think about with 300: It's told almost entirely in the point of view not just by a grand storyteller, but a SPARTAN storyteller. He's probably going to exacturate things to make the story seem more grand. An interesting thing I heard about it in a featurette of Spartan history on the 300 DVD, according to the historians shown, that battle was practically a myth before it even became history.
That's one part of it, but there is definitely a theme in the text that she is a woman trying to act like a man to make it in a man's world, but she is still too much of a woman for any of the men to take her seriously ("Cute gun").
Well, doesn't that happen? I'm not saying it to condone it or anything, so don't start insulting me for it, but it's understandable that it's part of her character a bit. You also have to remember that both Gordon and Batman are old men from the '40s, and it's pretty much set in the '80s, when women just started to gain positions in such jobs.
Let's start with Carrie at twelve years old (or maybe thirteen? I can't remember how old she was in DKR) in her Robin outfit (see: kinky underware) wrapping herself around a NAKED Bruce in the middle of the Batcave. Granted, for the most part, you are right about DKR. However, by DKSA it is implicit that she is sleeping with him and just about every scene with her is innuendo. Let's remember that she's sixteen at most and all the men making sexual advances on her in this book are well into their sixties. Not cool.
First off, yeah, it was 13.
Second, odd that people always scream out that Bruce was obviously banging Carrie because of that costume, but people will venomously screech at you if you say Bruce was obviously banging Dick or Jason because of wearing that very same costume.
Third, WHERE is all these sexual advances? Seriously, I'm typing with one hand and peering through my copy of DKSA in the other, and I'm not seeing any.
I will, but I have other stuff to get through first, and Miller doesn't excite me as much as he used to.
I'm just saying, don't finish the book on him saying his a mysoginistic pig until you've read them.
They all deal in the sex-trade. This is typical of Miller's view (which he often re-affirms in his books) that the only job a woman can perform better than a man is in selling sex (or flaunting sex). Often, Miller won't write the woman overtly as a prostitute or stripper, he'll just make her use her sexuality in order to get what she wants from a male character, which is pretty much the same thing. If he does write a woman in any other job, (Yindel for example) he immediately casts her as out of place, she doesn't belong and has to prove herself more than any other male character. The end message is always that women have no place doing a man's job, and the only time they're any match for a man is when they're using their bodies to manipulate them.
Okay, something that's been eating at me: What's causing people to believe that Yindel was written to be "out of place?" Besides the dubious reasons why she was hired, she was shown to be a competant police commishionner who at least got verbal respect from her force.
Also, you have to remember one thing about Miller when it comes to his work: his major inspiration was film noir and pulp novels. He drew from the likes of Chandler and Spillane, who's women were either angels on cracked pavements, or seductive and manipulating.
(because I assume thats what Miller thinks is what women wants... case in point: his failed marriage to Lynn Varley).
Took out most of this part 'cause I already talked about that with Sandman--this thing is getting way too long as it is--but I wouldn't go as far as to assume what the man's private life is like, espicially when your insinuating that he would beat her from it.
The problem with his historical inconsistencies in 300 isn't that they're innocent mistakes (in which case I'm pretty sure nobody would have that much of a problem with it), its that he'll re-write history in order to accommodate some homophobic slur he wanted to throw in. Miller was WELL aware that the Spartans themselves were 'boy-lovers' and bisexual, but as a writer he's so uncomfortable with the idea of a homosexual hero, that he re-writes history to accommodate it (and in the process makes sure he insults some homosexuals along the way, because it wouldn't be a Miller novel without some Bigotry).
First off, I'm pretty sure Miller said in the beginning he wasn't going to write it as a historical document, but as a myth. Like I said to Sandman above--it's a Spartan storyteller who will gladly embellish some details to make the story grander and the Spartans more badass.
Besides, unless I have something terribly mistaken--Spartans never really wrote about their own culture or their history. The only civilizations that wrote about them were city-states that were Sparta's rivals. It's possible that they were "boy-lovers" and I think Miller laid enough in just the Spartan culture to imply that the Spartans might have had other relations (also I don't remember them making homophobic remarks, just Anthenians and their 'boy-lovers').
It's essentially about a young black woman named Martha Washington who effectively saves the United States from corrupt polticitions. There are many sequels to it, the most recent and final one, "Martha Washington Dies" just coming out last month, and it's been said that the entire saga will be put into one big hardcover next year.
