Musings on Fiction and Tropes – Page 4 – Clementine Fraser

I’ve been reading about what James Cameron said about Wonder Woman and have been following people’s reactions to it and that got me thinking (not for the first time) about what we mean by a Strong Female Character.

In case you missed it – James Cameron argued that the recent Wonder Woman movie was a ‘step backwards’ from the non sexualised Strong Female Character he argues is typified by his Sarah Connor in the Terminator movies.

Now, I loved Sarah Connor. I loved the growth in her character from the first movie where she was scared and had very little autonomy to the second movie where she was harsh, complex, bitter, frightened, and yes – kick arse. That single armed shot gun reload was a magic moment!

But I love Wonder Woman too. Yes, she wears tiny clothes and the costumes and sexualisation of female superheroes can be highly problematic. But Wonder Woman was such a beloved part of my childhood because she solved problems herself. She was humorous. She was clever and strong. She stood up for justice and truth. And – she was gloriously beautiful. Continue reading “The Strong Female Character – who is she really?” →

Musings on Fiction and Tropes

It’s a Kind of Magic

August 24, 2017January 29, 2018 Clementine Fraser

Magic seems so real when you’re a child. The world is a miraculous place where caterpillars turn into butterflies and you’re taught to wish on stars. When the world is so full of possibility, the idea of magic doesn’t seem out of place. Magic explains the world.

I can’t remember when I stopped truly believing in magic. Maybe it was when i figured out that Santa wasn’t really real, or that the wishes I made on stars actually didn’t get heard. Of course, it might have been when that picture of the witch that I saw so vividly in my head looked like a green painted mess on the paper in my art class. Whenever it was that I figured out magic had no place in our world, I definitely remember my sadness and disappointment that I could never be a magic user, or visit magic realms where I would (naturally) suddenly discover that I was a long lost saviour bursting with magic. Like I said: disappointing. My desire to see magic actually exist was, for the most part, equally satisfied and fuelled by falling into enchantments in books.

Enchantments give our world some hope that things can not just be better, easier, more fabulous, but that there is some meaning behind the meaningless. Some sparkle to be added to the banality of existence. Continue reading “It’s a Kind of Magic” →

Musings on Fiction and Tropes

Everybody wants to destroy the world – at least in fiction

August 23, 2017April 25, 2021 Clementine Fraser

Have you ever wondered what you’d do in the event of an apocalypse? We had a chat in the car the other day – in a zombie apocalypse would you rather be in the country or the city? In a house or an apartment? A car or a truck? I was amazed at the level of thought that went into the discussion. For the record, I’ve been scarred by too many horror movies set in isolated houses to want to be in a country home in the event of a zombie apocalypse! Even though I admit it’s probably better to be as far away as possible from a supply of zombie making people.

I spent much of my childhood living under the simmering threat of nuclear winter – it framed our dystopian novels and our sense of how the world would end. I’d thought that had been left behind us – post apocalyptic horrors a mere philosophical conundrum or movie plot – but current events have had me thinking about this more lately. Not so much about the zombies, i admit, but certainly the threat of nuclear war and authoritarian rule seems less unlikely than a few years ago.

We seem to love to talk about post-apocalyptic worlds in fiction. The ‘something shorted out all electrical equipment and the world has regressed to a group of powerful militias ruling everything’ as in ‘Revolution’. The super disease which spreads through communities killing millions with no discretion (not such a silly idea – Black Plague anyone? Influenza Epidemic?). The natural disaster, ice age, super storm end of the world themes a la ‘The Day after Tomorrow’, show how puny we are when faced with the power of nature.

Nuclear apocalypse was a big one when I was growing up: ‘Children of the Dust’, by Louise Lawrence was at one a gripping story I loved and a traumatic threat.

So what would we do at the end of the world?

Would we stay in tight knit and supportive communities or would we split into conflicting and hostile groups?

Who would take charge? Who would you trust? We’d need doctors. What about plumbing? There are so many things we have that rely on technology. I know teenagers who are convinced they can’t live without their phones. Heck, I know adults who get withdrawal symptoms when they leave their phone behind. Imagine a world without Google to settle arguments and without YouTube to give us video lessons on how to start fires without technology.

We’d need access to water. Food. Would farmers be the new over lords or would their lands and stock be requisitioned?

I also started thinking about refugees. If (heaven forbid) there was a nuclear conflict in the Northern Hemisphere and millions of people were driven out and down to the southern part of the globe, how many people could we take in New Zealand, for instance? We’d be pretty quickly outnumbered. How would we deal with that? What if contamination spread our way?

I love the idea of the Doomsday Vault with all the seeds ready for renewing the earth. The Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway is the best known but turns out there are four others – the Vavilov Research Institute in Russia, the National Centre for Genetic Resources in Colorado (U.S.), the Navdanya in India, and Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank Project in England. The seed banks spark beautiful imagery that reminds me of Demeter spreading seeds and walking the earth to bring Spring and new growth to the world. But then I started thinking – what if everyone near it was gone? how would we get there from New Zealand? Especially without google maps? I find it hard to get from one side of the city to another without GPS, I have a suspicion that heading up to the Arctic Circle might be a bit outside my skill set.

I think some of the attraction of post-apocalyptic fiction is that we get a chance to explore some of our greatest fears – the destruction of all that we know, and the possibility of being left alone. Characters who are placed in these conditions have to come face to face with their inner demons and, if they are to survive, conquer them.