“Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” - Sonic the Hedgehog # 14
Robotnik hits upon a smart idea for once.
Divide and conquer is a well documented strategy that’s known to work.
What’s not so smart is targeting the physically strongest member of the team who has already kicked your ass once before.
So thinking that they are just “dumb girls”. Robotnik tricks Sally and Bunnie into a trap using a fake shopping mall……
Just go with it. Yeah, I know it’s stupid, but it’s the kind of stupid that the early comic was known for.
Things, needless to say, doesn’t go very well and Robotnik gets his ass handed to him once again, complete this time with bad puns and some “girls rule!” platitudes.
Look it’s nice to see the girls work together and share some screen time. And I love it anytime someone other than Sonic saves the day.
I also realize that a silly action/comedy comic from the early 90s isn’t the best place for biting social commentary. But….
This story fails at showcasing feminism and “girl power” the same way that a lot of modern dramas still do.
Sexism doesn’t just stem from a few chauvinist dicks. (such jerks obliviously exist, but they are the minority) Sexism, in my experience, really stems from men just being oblivious and a lack of genuine communication with the opposite sex.
It’s as if male writers have this limited check list of tropes, that they think women want to see. Without really taking the time to understand why women might want to see them. Or even bothering to, you know, just ask a woman what she considers to be a “strong” character?
Being able to “kick-ass and take names” is all well and good, but these traits don’t necessarily equate to “empowerment”.
To quote Chuck Wendig : Instead of writing “strong female characters,” try to aim for “women or girls that possess agency.”Strong is a word with an often male connotation — it carries with it a lot of baggage. And what we end up with are female characters who are physically strong and little else. Meaning, they can fight, scrap, throw punches, fire guns.But their ability to fight isn’t what makes them interesting.What makes them interesting is that they choose to fight.And it’s that word — “choose” — that matters.We focus so much on their Powers, we forget about empowering them with the ability to choose, to have wants and needs and to make decisions based on those things. (You know, like real people do.) We think of Abilities and Skills like they’re stats on a character sheet rather than thinking about what abilities women possess inside the story to affect that story. We think of Powers like She Can Fly or She Knows Kung Fu or She Has Mastered The Ancient Art Of Laser Kegels when we should be focusing on the character’s internal power, her narrativepower to push on the story, to be a well-rounded human being, no matter how vulnerable, no matter how strong.From, HOW “STRONG FEMALE CHARACTERS” STILL END UP WEAK AND POWERLESS (OR, “DO THEY PASS THE ACTION FIGURE TEST?”)
Feminism is all about choice. Your right as a human being to choose how you wish to live regardless of societal expectations. Whether you like to bake pies or enjoy karate, it doesn’t matter. As long as you choose to do those things because you, yourself wants to do them.
So, yeah….sorry if I derailed this review with a tangent. It’s just as woman seeking a career in the media industry, female representation both on screen and behind the scenes is big hot button topic for me.
Also, how is Robotnik still a threat anymore? This is the second time you’ve beat him up, Bunnie. And this time he’s been captured. So there’s no reason why you couldn’t take him back to Knothole to have him face justice for his crimes. No, really, Why!?
The rest of the comic has a “Do-it-yourself” gimmick and a story where Tails’ latent genius abilities surfaces and he gets a swelled head over it. Anyways at the end of it we get this little bit.
I need more Tails/Ant interaction in my life! Also Sally/Ant and Sonic/Ant; Oh, I just need Antoine interacting with more people in general.
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