Re: Contact's Arroway character (was Re: My Review A.I. the Movie )

From: Samantha Atkins (samantha@objectent.com)
Date: Sat Mar 09 2002 - 04:53:01 MST


Amara Graps wrote:

>
> Carl Sagan went to extremes, in my opinion, to build that movie
> character, so I give him (and the others) a huge amount of credit to
> have produced even what he did produce, that is: a smart female
> scientist character. I don't know of any other movie to have such
> realism for that role. The people involved: he, Ann Druyan (his
> wife), Linda Obst (film producer), Lucy Fisher and Courtney Valenti
> (executive producers), and of course, Jodie Foster, did it right, in
> my opinion. Do you really think that a Dagny Taggart approach would
> have worked?

What is the harping on Dagny Taggart about. I thought it was
just in passing until I read...

>It's a fact of
> life, that women scientists work in male dominated fields, and have
> their own approaches, compromises, and solutions to their work
> environemnt. Huge decisions and compromises are necessary in order
> to balance family life and work life as well. A black-and-white
> Dagny Taggert in those situations would probably end up committing
> suicide in real life.

Really? I don't think so. Nor do I think that we today need
kowtow to anyone in scientific and engineering fields. It is
true that an overly male energy pervades a lot of the
professional world but I don't think that means that we have to
compromise that much in order to do our work as we believe it
should be done. Dagny Taggart was far more complex than "black
and white" for whatever that is worth and is the least likely
fictional person to commit suicide.

- samantha



This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 09:12:52 MST