"Neither Princess Nor Bride: Why Buttercup Is the Hero of Her own Story"
by Rachel Ayers
https://www.tor.com/2022/03/28/neither-princess-nor-bride-why-buttercup-is-the-hero-of-her-own-story/

"The Princess Bride is a damn near perfect movie, and contains one of
the greatest sword fights of all time, some of the best onscreen
chemistry of any love story, and a stellar blend of comedy, action, and
romance that is hard to find anywhere else. But… let’s talk about
Buttercup. The world’s most beautiful woman. But also so much more.
Although she is the titular character (even though most of the action
centers on stopping the marriage that would make her an actual Princess
Bride—more on that in a bit), she’s often overlooked in discussions
about the movie; she rarely gets the recognition she deserves for being
a well-crafted female character in a male-dominated story."

Lynn

On Thursday, 31 March 2022 at 23:56:59 UTC+1, Lynn McGuire wrote:
> "Neither Princess Nor Bride: Why Buttercup Is the Hero of Her own Story"
> by Rachel Ayers
>
> https://www.tor.com/2022/03/28/neither-princess-nor-bride-why-buttercup-is-the-hero-of-her-own-story/
>
> "The Princess Bride is a damn near perfect movie, and contains one of
> the greatest sword fights of all time, some of the best onscreen
> chemistry of any love story, and a stellar blend of comedy, action, and
> romance that is hard to find anywhere else. But… let’s talk about
> Buttercup. The world’s most beautiful woman. But also so much more.
> Although she is the titular character (even though most of the action
> centers on stopping the marriage that would make her an actual Princess
> Bride—more on that in a bit), she’s often overlooked in discussions
> about the movie; she rarely gets the recognition she deserves for being
> a well-crafted female character in a male-dominated story."

Is there a bit where she has married Humperdinck
and the kid hearing the story yells NO, so Columbo
has to change it? Or was that something else?

On 31/03/2022 17.56, Lynn McGuire wrote:
> "Neither Princess Nor Bride: Why Buttercup Is the Hero of Her own Story" by Rachel Ayers
>
> https://www.tor.com/2022/03/28/neither-princess-nor-bride-why-buttercup-is-the-hero-of-her-own-story/

That was a great review. Thanks for posting the link.

--
Michael F. Stemper
The name of the story is "A Sound of Thunder".
It was written by Ray Bradbury. You're welcome.

On Thursday, March 31, 2022 at 4:56:59 PM UTC-6, Lynn McGuire quoted, in part:
> she rarely gets the recognition she deserves for being
> a well-crafted female character in a male-dominated story."

My initial reaction to this was that if the story was so
male-dominated that her role was but a minor part,
then it's not surprising that the fact that she wasn't the
traditional passive princess of old-style stories did not
get a lot of recognition.

Then I took a look at the review, and I see it's rather more
complicated than that. While I think I did see the movie
back in the pay-TV era, I've forgotten too much of it to
intelligently criticize the review.

I presume "The Princess Bride" was a romantic adventure
which also subverted the genre.

Other than nominating Dragonslayer (1981) as an example
of that done right - and noting that I do vaguely remember
having watched and _enjoyed_ both Romancing the Stone
and Jewel of the Nile, I can't say much more.

John Savard

On Friday, April 1, 2022 at 10:40:59 AM UTC-6, Quadibloc wrote:

> Then I took a look at the review, and I see it's rather more
> complicated than that. While I think I did see the movie
> back in the pay-TV era, I've forgotten too much of it to
> intelligently criticize the review.

For some reason, when I first scanned the review, I was
hesitant to read it in its entirety. Now that I did force myself
to do so, I see that yes, it was a good movie, _and_ I'm
almost surprised that the titular character _didn't_ get
credit for being a heroine in her own right instead of being
passive.

But I'm not completely surprised. In 1987, after all,
civilization had advanced to the point where this sort
of thing could be *taken for granted*.

Of *course* a woman was going to be a character with
agency in her own right instead of just a passive trophy
of value only for her looks! Did you think we were still
in the barbaric 1950s?

So what the movie deservedly did not recieve credit
for was for being pathfinding or groundbreaking.
The idea that women are actually _people_ was actually
presented to the public... at least as far back as the
second season of _All in the Family_! And that, I see,
would be the fall of 1972, so we can ascribe a date
to that discovery.

John Savard

On Friday, April 1, 2022 at 8:00:15 AM UTC-4, Robert Carnegie wrote:

> Is there a bit where she has married Humperdinck
> and the kid hearing the story yells NO, so Columbo
> has to change it? Or was that something else?

Almost. It turns out to be a dream sequence written into the story.

On Thursday, March 31, 2022 at 5:56:59 PM UTC-5, Lynn McGuire wrote:
> "Neither Princess Nor Bride: Why Buttercup Is the Hero of Her own Story"
> by Rachel Ayers

Nothing to do with the review, but there a sort of remake of the movie during the quarantine. Various actors recreated scenes from the movie on phones or whatever with their own costumes and effects, then it was stitched together. So there were about 20 actors who portrayed Buttercup (including a few men).

It's weird and kind of funny. You can find it online.

Brian