Katniss
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The Heroine’s Journey
What do Jane Eyre, Catherine Linton, and Katniss Everdeen have in common? “They can’t be pinned down. They are dazzlingly complex,” says Samantha Ellis, author of How to Be a Heroine, over at the BBC. Great heroines are fiercely passionate, Ellis…
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The Slow Fall of the Hot Heroine
If nothing else, it’s the opinion of other women that encroaches on mine. Resemblances spark my joy; differences become character flaws.
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The Saturday Rumpus Essay: Kill Bob
Kill Bill is revolutionary because it disrupts both content and genre, beautifully showcasing what these superhero-action stories so consistently overlook, while embodying the success of what the genre could achieve.
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Are YA Dystopian Novels Breeding Conservatives?
The Harry Potter series might have been helping make young kids more open and accepting of diversity, but a new crop of young adult novels might be push kids in the opposite direction of the political spectrum. Heroines like Katniss…
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Carrie and the “Strong Female Character”
“The “strong female character” who comes closest to equaling Carrie’s volume of carnage is arguably the Bride. But before she turns the House of Blue Leaves into a crimson slip-and-slide, she is battered in flashback after flashback…Before she gets to…
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What We Hunger For
I am always interested in the representations of strength in women, where that strength comes from, how it is called upon when it is needed most, and what it costs for a woman to be strong.