refining these impatient ores

[lotesse]

I am taking the day off. The Boy is off, and my class this morning was canceled, and amazingly enough I don't have any major deadlines to meet for the next two weeks. Of course, then it will be the end of the semester - but today is mine, at any rate, to do whatever I like with! At present that means reading fic. Later I think it will mean going to the movies. Paul, maybe, or something else. There's Metropolitan Opera this weekend, and I'm excited about that!

Watched How To Train Your Dragon again last night - I am in total imminent danger of picking it up as a new fandom. It's so many things that I liked in kidlit - moppetty little boy makes good, and the sweetness of the animal friend story. Not to mention the lovely lessons in anti-disablism and nonviolence and forgiveness and the ability to befriend those who aren't exactly like yourself. And Hiccup is a great protagonist, between the sarcasm and the quick wits and his underlying sweetness.

I would not be at all surprised to find myself writing it. Or at the very least offering for yuletide next year.

Comments

[lotesse]

No, I don't either. The common wisdom that girls will watch boy protags but boys won't watch girls still seems to be taken as such. Or - the dragon could be a girl, or the boy could have a complicated relationship with a mother or -

there are so many ways out of the imbalance, and they're all so easy. It's beyond aggravating that no one in the industry is willing to give a damn. (this is why I keep clinging to Miyazaki!)

[thistlerose]

It's so disheartening.

All the while I was enjoying the movie, I kept thinking - what if Hiccup were a girl? What if her father were upset because she wasn't a warrior like her mother had been? What if, instead of a love interest, Astrid were the BFF? (Or, what if Astrid and girl!Hiccup were attracted to each other??) I don't think the movie would have lost anything.

Miyazaki is wonderful. He gets it. And boys still want to see his movies!