Talkmeme Day 1 - Mako & Maria

[tielan]

alphaflyer (Happy Birthday!) asked: Mako Mori or Maria Hill? And if you can't choose -- why should we love them both?

Seriously, you're asking me to choose between a non-sexualised Asian heroine and a woman who isn't coded 'female' but isn't villainised.

No choosing. ALL THE LOVE FOR ALL THE FEMALE CHARACTERS ALL THE TIME.

Why?

Well, you should love them both because neither woman is the kind that is commonly seen in canon nor hailed in fandom.

Asian women are 'the prize' in most media, and if Mako isn't coded as the hero, neither is she coded as Raleigh's prize. A sidekick, perhaps? (Although she actually achieves both her explicitly-stated goal and completes her emotional arc; while Raleigh completes his emotional arc, his goal is implicit, not explicit. If we take Pentecost's challenge to Raleigh that actually gets him back in the Jaeger program, he technically fails that – after all, he doesn't actually 'die in a Jaeger'. But. Anyway.)

Mako's is depicted with a lot of depth (for an Asian female character). Her dreams are stated, her strength and ingenuity a major part of the dynamics in the movie. Yet her faults and failings are also on display in the movie. She's allowed to be emotional over those failures, but that's not where she remains or ends up.

She's respectful, but not complaisant or a pushover. She's confident, but she doesn't need to "compare dick sizes". And even when her heart is breaking, she will do what needs to be done because the world is bigger than her pain.

I find that infinitely admirable, and really beautifully done.

So, yeah, you should love Mako Mori. (And by 'love', I mean 'write fic/write meta/draw art/make gifs/don't remove her agency/don't desexualise her/centre your PR universe around her' because, hello, MAKO MORI.)

--

I suspect I love Maria Hill for all the reasons that the bulk of fandom initially didn't like her or didn't notice her.

She's not coded as 'female' when she turns up in Avengers: she wears a uniform all the way through, garners no sexual/romantic interest from any of the male characters, and is, in every scene she's in, more functional than decorative.

She's unsympathetic to the 'heroes', even a little snarky. When she turns up in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D, she's keeping secrets from Coulson. When she turns up in Cap 2, she's keeping secrets from Natasha and Steve. She challenges her boss' methods and priorities, and blackmails her boss' bosses.

She isn't 'nice'.

Are there really that many 'not nice' women in media – who are on the heroes' side but not romantic interests or comic relief, and who aren't outright villains – that we can afford to overlook or dismiss a woman who doesn't soften herself for very much at all? (Yes, I know: with Avengers: Civil War on the books, the chances that Maria won't end up a villain grows increasing small.)

Even if you don't like Maria as a character in the MCU, you should love Maria Hill as a character type because she's one more wedge in the door of female representation that it's in the interests of all women to shove wide open: a woman who isn't sugar and spice and all things nice but who's still a heroic ally.

teal deer: They're both non-standard female characters. Even if they're not a fan's individual catnip, they're characters to promote and laud for being outside the 'standard female character box', which certainly needs stretching.

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Comments

[monanotlisa]

This is a great talkmeme entry; I love how you outline how special they are through a place in the narrative beyond the usual tropes.

[tielan]

Thanks. :)