Female friendships.

[kiki_eng]

sinesofinsanity prompted me to write on this, and since she's a genfic person I went looking for stuff to rec her.

I didn't find a lot of female friendship fanworks when I went looking through my bookmarks. Part of this has to do with how female friendships are represented in the media. Too often there is no female character at all. Sometimes there is one female character. Female friendship doesn't get depicted where women do not exist. We live in a world where the Bechdel, or Bechdel-Wallace Test exists, where two women existing, talking to each other, about something other than a man, is actually remarkable.

I have a lot of fanworks bookmarked that have their focus on a single woman, or are femslash. When I went looking for more fanworks - since sines is a gen-reader and clearly interested in this theme - I ran across a lot that straddled a place between friendship and femslash, where you could choose not to view something through a queer lens. There was stuff about Xena and Gabrielle in that pile, and while those two do have a great and epic friendship they also have a great and epic queer subtext acknowledged by their actresses. While I personally feel like friendship is an important part of a romantic or sexual relationship, and that there's a richness and complexity to those relationships, there's also a richness and complexity to friendship full-stop and grouping people like Xena and Gabrielle in a list of examples of female friendship feels a whole lot like queer erasure. So, when I reference fanworks in this I am leaving the femslashy out.

One of the films I want to talk about is The First Wives Club - Goldie Hawn, Bette Midler, Diane Keaton. It's a comedy that came out in 1996 about a group of college friends reuniting years later after the death of their friend. Once they sit down and really talk to each other they realise that for all that they took very different paths their lives have some striking similarities, and they're at a similar place in their lives. Each of them is in a place where society no longer considers them beautiful (because we all know that female beauty has a best before date*), and they're separating from their husbands. People write about how romantic relationships can destroy friendships, not in a big and dramatic way, but because you prioritise and devote so much time to one relationship you lose others. The women in the films lose their romantic relationships, rekindle their friendship, and face down the world. They look out for other women.

I feel like female friendship can be tied up in that support, that it can have a lot to do with that - feminism and the patriarchy and so on. I think that the friendships that we have with each other, not just women as depicted in the media but ourselves in our day to day lives, are part of that larger culture that we all exist in. The friendships women have with each other are response and reaction to their culture; our friendships are part of our culture.

thingswithwings has a vid about women in comedy and female friendship, and she created the vid with an awareness of that larger context, which she touches on a bit in her notes, and also as a celebration of these women:

OK by thingswithwings
Community/Parks and Recreation/multifandom | 4:03 | Song: "OK" by Holly Conlan
Summary: Here's the thing about comedy.

It's great and I really love it. It's a vid about women in comedy, when we are so often told that women aren't funny (that we're not worth listening to), and all these things that these women in comedy are and are to each other, and it is, yeah, a great friendship vid.

So is this next vid:

Come 'Round for Tea by garrideb
Marvel Comics | 2:03 | Song: "Baltic Sea" by The Social Services (edited)
Summary: A celebration of female friendship in Marvel comics, because even super-heroines need friends!

I am in love with what garrideb did with the text bubbles in this. It is one of the best comics vids I have ever seen because of it. It also captures a lot of how I feel about female friendship in my own life, including the hearts on everything; I love my friends. I love how this vid is just one giant yep, tea, conversation, friends, friends, friends. They are so important.

I think representing female friendship means so much, because we do get told that we're not important and oftentimes when two women are represented it's in the context of being each other's competition, which is awful and so damaging. I have so much affection for every woman who's just like, nope, not doing it. Sisters. We are best as allies, all of us, men included. Friendship and understanding and taking care of each other is so important.

Dark Angel was so great for that with Max and Original Cindy.

(untitled Original Cindy & Max gifset) by besidethewall
Dark Angel | Original Cindy & Max Guevara | 5 gifs

I love their relationship so much and Original Cindy is such an amazing human being and she is so incredibly solidly, beautifully, in Max's corner. It's fantastic. Trish Walker in Jessica Jones is the same. She is very much given the opportunity to walk away from a messy situation and so completely does not take it; she fights to stay in her best friend's life.

(untitled Trish Walker & Jessica Jones gifset) by jessica-jones
Jessica Jones | Trish Walker & Jessica Jones | 8 gifs
It’s by far the most complex and interesting and special friendship between two women that I’ve seen in a movie or television. – Krysten Ritter

I love how real those two are. I don't really have words for all of that. I like Jessica Jones a lot, I feel like it is a solidly good thing, especially in its representation of women.

The Bletchley Circle is another name that I'm going to toss out whenever someone mentions wanting to watch something with women in it; it's so good. Ladies doing math together in post-war Britain to solve crime, basically, and all of this really fascinating social stuff embedded in that. All four of them are pretty different people who worked together as code-breakers during the war and their relationships are really great.

If you're into the women detecting things there's also The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency and Rosemary & Thyme, I mean, since we've a theme going now. In the first a woman opens her own detective agency in Botswana. She hires an adorable assistant and they drink a lot of tea and she takes a bunch of cases. In the second two women gardeners team up and garden around Britain together, mostly shamelessly pursuing any chance whatsoever to solve crimes; they are on the case, will find their man, and also get your roses sorted out.

The Middleman is also a series I've been reccing people recently, that's mostly pretty light-hearted and features a solid female friendship, as exhibited here:

Afterlife by sanguinity
The Middleman | 3:23 | Song: "Afterlife" by Ingrid Michaelson
Summary: Art school was simple; real life is scary.

That vid does such a good job of showing women being there for each other and encouraging each other; it's really great. One of this year's yuletide stories does a stellar job of that, too:

Going Dark by killer_quean and Ruby_Powell
Slings & Arrows | PG-13 | 2,206 words
Summary: Maria's personal notes from the production of DIEFENBAKER! A Canadian Musical, by Darren Nichols and Richard Smith-Jones.

It is a hysterical epistolary fic, set post-canon with Maria in the shit show that is Richard Smith-Jones and Darren Nichols' New Burbage Festival, drinking heavily and increasingly fed up with their crap.

...weirdly the next fic I want to rec also includes livestock:

Cheating the Other Guy by sholio
Stargate: Atlantis | PG | 2,000 words
Summary: Sam and Teyla find themselves in a Western. Sort of. And Teyla seems to have accidentally sold her teammates to buy a ranch, but who can blame her.

It's got a kind of similar sentiment behind it to Going Dark. It is mostly Sam and Teyla hanging out on a ranch; it's pretty great.

The community that that fic was written for has a hilarious name, kinda - galpalficathon - if they were running that today it would be, like, femslashers ficcing kinda angrily, OH REALLY THEY ARE MARRIED TO EACH OTHER AND YOU ARE CALLING THEM GALPALS, SHOVE YOUR JUVENILE SLEEP-OVER FANTASY UP YOUR ASS AND STOP FUCKING ERASING QUEERS. (See a previous paragraph about the lack of femslash in this entry.) The associations with that phrase have changed a fair bit over the years, I think.

Last Cinderella is a romcom that's pretty ridiculous, and so tropey. It's about three women in their late 30s finding romance or sorting out their lives/love lives. It focuses on Sakura and there's this whole love triangle with her and two men and blah blah blah hetero romance plot I found compelling because of kinks. Her friendship with these two women is really important in her life, and they sort of remind me of the women in Sex and the City, which pretty much matches the plot description of Last Cinderella, except for a couple tweaks, actually. Both shows have some solid female friendship things in them that I really like, women sitting around together and talking and drinking and eating. I feel that's so important.

Representation is so important, and sometimes where that isn't so much people who write women together will write women who never had any screen-time together:

Dexterity by leupagus, screamlet, waldorph
Star Trek | PG-13 | 7,910 words
Summary: Detailing one of Amanda Grayson's first diplomatic assignments, which happens to be on the USS Kelvin.

Winona Kirk is one of my favourite things to come out of a fandom and I love the relationship that she and Amanda strike up in this fic; it's them kicking ass, basically, as Winona swears and fucks people liberally and Amanda really handles a diplomatic situation. I love how different they are on the surface and how in sync they are about getting stuff done.

Ladies working together is one of my favourite things. Women helping each other is great.

I feel like I've been rambling with this for a while and have mostly said what I have intended to. This is slightly off-topic, but if you've made it this far, you might also be interested to know that there's a recent attempt to start up a kind of genfic hub on tumblr - you can read a bit about it here. It looks interesting, in some ways I like, and some I don't, but I feel like gen fic recs are few and far between, so it looks like it could be a pretty good thing. ...and yep, that's all I got, or maybe more accurately, this is as long as I am willing to make this entry.

sinesofinsanity: ♥

*I recommend reading Naomi Wolf's The Beauty Myth

Comments

[akamine_chan]

I think representing female friendship means so much, because we do get told that we're not important and oftentimes when two women are represented it's in the context of being each other's competition, which is awful and so damaging.

This. I hate this so much. Not only because of the way it's represented in media, but also because it carries over into RL, where women will be hostile to other women because they've been told, over and over, that other women are competition.

Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries has excellent Phryne and Dot friendship, and I'm sure there are some good fics at the AO3 for their friendship.

[kiki_eng]

One of my favorite things about Teen Wolf was Lydia Martin, kind of because of that damaging trope, because I feel like she is that character who is set up to rule the school and be awful to everyone - that caricature of a girl that some real girls will aspire to because she's beautiful and powerful and if they have to make the choice between being the bully and the bullied, they know what they're going for - they're going to win. ...and then they made her real. Powerful, and vulnerable, and smart, and loyal, and brave, and afraid.

I think there's a thing where we're supposed to see other women as evil bitches and I feel like that character took that apart. I love that, because, yes, we need to be holding each other's hands when we face down the creepy uncle and supporting each other as we hone our weapons skills. *nods*

Ah! Phryne is a great lady detective thing! I forgot about her when I was writing this post since I've only seen an episode or two. Thanks for bringing her up!

[goodbyebird]

Great list!

[kiki_eng]

Thanks.

[lightbird]

Hi! I was linked here via runpunkrun's post. Great post and I really appreciate you gathering these recs in one place.

Also, The First Wives Club is really under-appreciated. The three leading women are amazing and Stockard Channing's short scene at the beginning is both stunning and heartbreaking.

[kiki_eng]

Thanks! :)

I love so many things that The First Wives Club chooses to be. I think it popped up on Netflix when a friend and I were looking for something and I was like:
Yessss.
You haven't seen it?
We are fixing that. We are fixing that right now.

People should watch it, is how I feel.

[glitteryv]

Part of this has to do with how female friendships are represented in the media. Too often there is no female character at all. Sometimes there is one female character. Female friendship doesn't get depicted where women do not exist.

THIS. SO MUCH IT HURTS.

Over the years, I've realized that my patience for lack of female presence and female & female friendships is one of the reasons why I've not gotten into some media and their respective fandoms.

This is a fabulous list, bb! I'm totes ready to check out all your recs.

Off the top of my head, aside from Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries (which I know Aka already recced), I'd like to suggest Rosemary and Thyme. It's older ladies becoming besties and solving crimes. Their personal relationship is so great that I tended to resent whenever the show felt it necessary to throw in a romantic angle into either of the protagonists lives. Oh, also Jessica Jones has Jessica and Trish as one of Jessica's most important relationships.

As for movies, Legally Blonde, Josie and the Pussycats, Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion, All About My Mother, and The Heat are the ones that come immediately to mind. Although they all do have romantic subplots, the main relationships in all of them are female friendships.

For comics, I can rec: A-Force, Rat Queens, Jem and the Hollograms, and LumberJanes.

[kiki_eng]

Thanks for the recs!

I am actually not familiar with All About My Mother at all, so will have to check it out. (Also: yesssss Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion.)

[glitteryv]

YW!

All About My Mother is a Spanish movie by Pedro Almodovar. It's about a middle-aged woman named Manuela who works as as nurse at a hospital. Following a personal tragedy, Manuela starts to get herself back together with the help of other women (including a transgender woman played by an actual transgender actress).

It's a dramatic film that centers around female friendships. It's probably my favourite Almodovar film of all time

Warning for parent grieving their child and drug abuse themes.

I have to say that Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion is one of those rare films that has actually held up really well. I love it to bits!

[kiki_eng]

That sounds awesome. Thanks for telling me about it. :)