my new heroine...

My newest girlcrush is on the fabulous Eliza Gauger. You may be wondering a)who she is and b)why. Well, aside from her all around geek godess credentials (she blogs! She plays videogames! She makes comics!), and the fact that she's a kick-ass artist she also said this:

"As for "hot people," I am tired of pretty, in-shape, unclothed heroes. Pretty people tax the credibility budget, which is the finite amount of willing suspension of disbelief that can be expended by the audience before they start going "that's ridiculous." Look at Aliens. Or any Cameron film from that era. If he had attractive women in his movies, and he did, they weren't "women" in the way that movies define women: harpies, hags, or idiots. Scifi ditto. Ripley was not wearing any fucking mascara. She was a CHARACTER, she wasn't a GIRL. Ditto for everyone else. They were people before they were badasses, or killers, or idiots. This is not a luxury in sci fi. It is a necessity. Cookie cutter characters are unbelievable, and in a wider context of unbelievable things happening (aliens, lasers, spaceships, all imaginary), it is vitally important for as much of the rest of the package to be well-developed and believable. Otherwise, you squander your credibility (remember the budget) on things like how does the heroine keep her lip gloss so fresh in the middle of a reactor meltdown, or why our hero is standing in the middle of a bare hallway while shooting, instead of taking cover like the soldier he is supposed to be. This also applies to costumes. Case in point, Kate Beckinsale is not going to kill any werewolves while wearing a boned corset, no matter how badly fit it may be."

This woman fucking rules. The mini-interview is over at [io9], my newest internet addiction.