fiction's fearless females

Fiction’s Fearless Females: Dana Scully

Kalie Zamierowski, , , , , , 1 Comment

By: Nancy of Graphic Novelty²

In celebration of Women’s History Month, I have joined up with some other amazing bloggers to celebrate! This is the fifth year that I have participated in this series with Michael of My Comic Relief, Kalie of Just Dread-full, and Jeff of The Imperial Talker and this year I choose FBI Special Agent Dana Scully, MD, of The X-Files fame. This iconic role began in 1993 and spanned eleven seasons and two movies over the course of twenty-five years before ending (for good?) in 2018.

While most of my entries (Captain Kathryn Janeway, Lieutenant Nyota Uhura, Doctor Beverly Crusher and Counselor Deanna Troi) have revolved around Star Trek, this year I added Dana Scully to my roster, which also included Sarah Connor from the Terminator movies. All of these women are fearless in one way or another, but let’s dive into why Scully stands out!

The X-Files became a breakout science-fiction hit on the Fox Network. The show became must-watch tv for a legion of fans before shows were on demand and could be watched whenever you wanted. I distinctly remember watching the first season while I was in college, crowded into a room with my friends. I found this young professional woman an inspiration as I was on the cusp of entering the workforce myself.

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Fiction’s Fearless Females: Dana Scully

Red’s Retaliation: The Untethering of a Subterranean Revolutionary – Fiction’s Fearless Females

Kalie Zamierowski, , , , , , 2 Comments

               Dear readers, gather around the campfire—okay, or the computer screen—as I regale you with a story.  Throughout time, we’ve been entertained with tales of heroes—the Mighty Achilles, Sir Gawain, Beowulf…Spiderman, Superman, Antman, Xena the Warrior Princess…and the list goes on.  I’m here today, however, to discuss a different hero—a single woman who, at a young age, was relegated to a cold, imprisoning underground lair not by any evil villain, but by her own image, staring back at her in a funhouse mirror.  For years, the subterranean woman lived among her subterranean people, a group of have-nots who were tethered to those in the world above, who “lived the lives” of those above ground, albeit without all the artifacts and accoutrements associated with living.  Angry at her fate, this young woman grew up and devised a plan, inspired by the image on a t-shirt, that could be executed with a mere lighter and a few pairs of scissors.  The woman planned not just to take over a city, a state, or a nation, but, with the help of the others who lived with her underground, to take over the world, to re-populate the world above ground with her enslaved, tethered people.  She did not want fame, power, or fortune—merely justice and the warm light of the sun, for herself and those she lived among.  Thus, with nothing but cunning brilliance, a few dull sheers, an eccentric family, and some kickass dance moves, a young woman and her family entered the “ordinary world,” intent on inhabiting it by dominating it.

Editorial use only. No book cover usage. Mandatory Credit: Photo by Universal/ILM/Kobal/Shutterstock (10162635c) Lupita Nyong’o as Adelaide Wilson/Red ‘Us’ Film – 2019 A family’s serenity turns to chaos when a group of doppelgängers begins to terrorize them.
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Red’s Retaliation: The Untethering of a Subterranean Revolutionary – Fiction’s Fearless Females

Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy – Fiction’s Fearless Females

Kalie Zamierowski, , , , Leave a comment

By: Michael Miller at MyComicRelief.wordpress.com

JustDread-full’s Note: Every year, a handful of bloggers and I celebrate International Women’s Day by blogging about fearless women in fictional stories during the month of March. Traditionally, I’ve only featured my contribution to the blogathon on my blog, mostly because my blog tends to have a narrow focus. But, “tends to” is the operative phrase, here: I realized that I’ve posted about music, politics, and non-horror books in the past, so why not feature excellent, thoughtful, thematic content by other blogs on my own blog, even if the content isn’t directly related to the horror genre? So, this month, you’ll see a lot of posts from other bloggers about fearless women in fiction, starting with a post from an awesome writer, and one of my best friends, Michael Miller. Enjoy his post, and get ready for more features about fearless women throughout the month!

It’s International Women’s Day and for the fourth year in a row I’ve teamed up with some fellow bloggers – Kalie of Just Dread-full, Jeff of The Imperial Talker, and Nancy and Kathleen of Graphic Novelty2 – to celebrate some of our favorite female characters in all of fiction.  This year I was having trouble deciding on who to write about.  I wanted to rewatch Harley Quinn on HBO Max and read Tee Franklin’s Harley Quinn the Animated Series: The Eat. BANG! Kill. Tour but should I write about Harley Quinn or Poison Ivy?  Then it hit me!  The entire show (and comic which serves as Season 2.5) is anchored in their relationship.  I would be hard pressed to write about one without writing about the other.  Plus, for a series celebrating “fearlessness,” it’s within their friendship where Harley and Ivy find and demonstrate the most incredible courage.  Standing beside each other, they (ultimately) own and face their greatest fears.  So I’m writing about Harley and Ivy and the type of friendship we should all be so lucky to have.

Given the focus of this piece it’ll have major spoilers for S1&2 of Harley Quinn as well as light spoilers for Tee Franklin’s (as brilliant as it is beautiful) Harley Quinn the Animated Series: The Eat. BANG! Kill. Tour.

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Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy – Fiction’s Fearless Females

Norma Bates: Fiction’s Fearless Females

Kalie Zamierowski, , , , , , , , 4 Comments

One thing worth noting about the horror genre is that it produces images that resist quick mental erasure.  From the statuesque model who turns into a decrepit, decaying old woman in the infamous shower scene of The Shining to the bloody womb hanging limply outside the skin of Nola Carveth in The Brood, horror does nothing if not supply us with grotesque images of often monstrous women.  Psycho’s Norma Bates, then, is no exception.  In Hitchcock’s original film, Psycho, we see Norma not as a mommy so much as a stereotypical mummy; all that is left of her is a skeletal, eyeless frame and some tousled hair pulled back in a bun. We hear her character, and therefore understand her character, only through Marion Crane’s ears as the delusional Norman voices her from afar in the antiquated Victorian house on the hill outside Bates Motel.  But Norma is a famous mummy, and a famous mommy, to be sure, one who lingers in the mind of the viewer long after the theater lights go on, and one who has lingered in the cultural imagination now for sixty-one years and counting.  Significantly, Norma Bates didn’t get to speak for herself until 2013, when the hit TV show Bates Motel rescued and re-invented her character through Vera Farmiga’s portrayal of her as Norman’s mildly cooky but vivacious and loving mom.  As a woman who navigates an excruciating past, a corrupt, drug-infested city, and a psychotic son with surprising sangfroid, Norma Bates in Bates Motel is who I choose to feature this year for the annual Fiction’s Fearless Females blogathon. 

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Norma Bates: Fiction’s Fearless Females