h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Regarding Trillian/women in hitch hikers, Does she not provide a point of friction between the interested male parties also? I'm sure there's some jealousy in there somewhere... And men seem to equate 'getting the woman' with 'being capable' or 'being less than'... I'm fairly sure I remember feeling that Dent feels more out of his depth because Trillian doesn't really notice him except when he's at his worst...

>The "characters" are there just to get all the jokes in.< RF

I'm in complete agreement with RF. It has nothing to do with characterisation in the normal sense of the term. It's all about the jokes and the humour, which could be termed 'male' in some ways, though I dislike such simplistic labels to things. As a woman myself, the humour appeals to me immensely. And it it can hardly be said that the 'bumbling' hero is exactly bigging up men. No I think you shouldn't think of the characters in a conventional sense.

>"And I always find women very mysterious anyway - I never know what they want. And I always get very nervous about writing one as I think I'll do something terribly wrong. You read other male accounts of women and you think, `He's got them wrong!' and I feel very nervous about going into that area."<

I didn't know that quote from DNA. But I applaud his honesty. There's nothing worse than a male writer making a complete balls up of women.

And I think the same applies to Monty Python, Vicky. It's *all* about the surreal humour.

You should forget that stuff about 'women' sometimes. You know I'm very sensitive to misogyny too. But sometimes you just have to realise that's completely irrelevant in certain contexts.

I certainly find a certain humour in men *admitting* they dont get women, playing or writing women to the best of their ability and in thir perceptions. Just watch children playing 'mum and dad' and you'll see what I mean

I'm just as likely to be laughing with as at, but that's where it comes from. If it's offensive to you, you're taking it WAY too personally, surely?

I mean, dont get me wrong, there's plenty of chauvanists around, but in the most part, a person simply being innocent of certain facts is to be educated (perhaps) but there's no point in getting annoyed at them, it achieves nothing and shows that with your knowledge you have not learned tolerance. If you dont learn tolerance with wisdom, is it truly wisdom?

"Since the main thing you've found is the absence of women, why not talk about that? You know why he's done it, but what effect do you think it has on the book? Vicky's said she thinks it takes away from it, but do you, and why (or why not)? There's all good stuff you can discuss there."

BouncyBit pre-empted me. I'll just add that the only other (presumably) female character I can think of in early Hitch-Hiker is the 'triple-breasted whore of Eroticon V'.

I once went to fantasy author George R R Martin's reading, Q&A and signing. An audience member asked him how he goes about writing women. He thought for a long time, starting to talk a couple of times before stopping himself before a whole word was out. Then he said "That's a really good question," before pausing for a long time again. Finally, satisfied with his answer, he spoke: "I think that I don't really write 'female characters', I just write people." He went on to expand on it, but I think his real point was that the similarities are too big for the differences to be a major obstacle.

thank you so much for your help!

here in austria we need to write some kind of paper (about 15 pages) for each subject that we wanna graduate in. obviously I chose H2G2 for my English class

I've read through all of your helpful replies and come up with this:

Trillian is one of the very few women in Adams’s books. She is also the only female protagonist in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Adams stated himself, that he always felt a little nervous about creating female characters. He generally found women very mysterious and was afraid of getting something terribly wrong when he was writing about them.
The lack of women in the book could never be seen as sexist. After all, Arthur, Ford and Zaphod don’t really give the impression of heroes either. Arthur is constantly lost and wallowing in self-pity, Ford would rather go to a party than save a planet and Zaphod is a fraud. Actually, one gets the impression that Trillian is the most competent and clever character, seeing that she has a degree in maths and astrophysics and that she seems to be the only one capable of working the Heart of Gold.
As a matter of fact there is not much importance attached to gender in the novel. Personally, I don’t mind the absence of women in the book. It let Adams concentrate more on the humorous aspect of the story rather than creating a romantic atmosphere between his characters, which wouldn’t fit the story’s concept.


now I still need to add a bit of my own opinion about the book and then I'm done

thx a lot again!!!

I do so love a happy ending!

I have noticed that there is a strong female audience for the Hitchhiker's Guide. Its generally well known (along with 42 jokes), and doesn't seem to carry the same stigma that liking other science fiction would.