I hear of Mary Sue everywhere...

[rj_anderson]

With all this talk about Mary Sues, I've been struck by a new thought.

Some people have mentioned seeing MS characters in published fiction -- Anita Blake is frequently mentioned, and of course there are other plausible candidates like Amelia Peabody, Mary Russell, and Anne of Green Gables (come on -- she's a spunky orphan with a tragic past, an unusual hair colour, and she wins the heart of everybody she meets! How can she not be a Mary Sue?*).

However, I haven't heard anybody mention an even more serious and irritating problem -- Mary Sues in real life!

Think about it. Alexander the Great? So a Gary Stu. Elizabeth Taylor? I mean, she has violet eyes**! And let's not even get started on Gwyneth Paltrow...

But that's just a tiny sample. So step right up, folks! Nominate your favorite RL Mary Sues and Gary Stus. We might even start a new genre -- RPMS fic!

--
*This is, by the way, mostly facetious. I like Anne just fine.
**Yes, I do know they aren't really violet. Tell that to the press, though.

Comments

[shellebelle93.livejournal.com]

Gwyneth Paltrow.


Come on, *you* don't think she's unreal?




(actually, I like her. but she's too pretty to be real sometimes...)

[drmm.livejournal.com]

Leonardo Dicaprio. He has blonde hair, blue eyes and a weird name. How more Gary Stu can you get.

[peacockharpy.livejournal.com]

Most figure skaters. Especially the ones from former Soviet countries who rose above their challenges to take the gold. Classic Mary Sue/Gary Stu. :)

- Darice

[ex-ajhalluk585.livejournal.com]

Actually, I was going to say in response to your earlier post that I wonder more people haven't commented about how sexist the whole idea of a Mary Sue is. I mean, as I believe I've commented earlier, I think the whole concept lacks any validity because of the total lack of a consensus about what a Mary Sue is (it's all too frequently used as shorthand for "any female OC" and, indeed, I was congratulated recently for not making the original female OC in The Mark of The Beast a Mary Sue, which I found rather disturbing because she's a serial killer). It also lacks validity because it means the critic is presuming what the author's motives were in creating a particular character, which must be definition be obscure, rather than looking critically at the character and seeing whether the character works or not. But the sexism comes in because male authors are not presumed to be creating Mary Sues, even if the characters they create have all the flaws attributed, classically, to Mary Sues - David Weber's Honor Harrington springs resolutely to mind as having every attribute of a Mary Sue except that of being written by a woman, whereas Hermione has comparatively few such attributes but is frequently been referred to as Rowling's Mary Sue.

[brightfame.livejournal.com]

It feels a bit wrong to say this, but my tongue in cheek nomination goes to...

Princess Diana.

More seriously, I think people went off the rails when they took the idea of Mary Sue out of fanfic and started splashing it all over. Charles Dickens wouldn't have had any luck with those hypercritical readers.

Any female character I write, people who don't know me assume she must be a MS. Ironically, I'm usually standing in the shoes of one of the male characters.

[lizbee.livejournal.com]

Not only is Miranda Otto a blatant Mary Sue (auburn hair? Green eyes? The daughter of a legendary Australian actor? Rises to international fame playing a feisty, sword-weilding princess?), but she is clearly a rip-off of that other blatant Mary Sue, Cate Blanchett.

And don't even get me started on Nicole Kidman...

[bookaholicgirl.livejournal.com]

Hmm...I'm finding myself wondering if Emily Starr is more of a Mary Sue than Anne Shirley. Emily has the black hair and violet eyes that Anne dreams of, is a writer (and a good one!). Not only does she end up with Teddy, who is also a fellow artist, Dean Priest falls for her as well, plus various other smitten swains in the Blair Water vicinity. Although, Emily does have her faults (the Murray pride and all that). So perhaps she doesn't quite fit the pattern.

(And this was also mildy facetious, although I believe that Emily is the most autobiographical of all of LMM's characters.)

Real-life Mary Sues...I've been sitting here trying to think of one, but my mind does not seem to be working in that direction. If I think of one, I'll come back and post it.

[ex-ajhalluk585.livejournal.com]

JK Rowling. Obviously. I mean, from the moment you start at "blonde, blue-eyed, self-made millionairess, who once had to write in cafes to save the heating bills...." there is simply no answer to it.

Anne, yes, but Amelia?

[thegreenquill.livejournal.com]

ooooo, Amelia Peabody has some Mary Sueisms, but is she really a Mary Sue? Sure she always knows what to say and likes to hit people with her parasol, but she has her flaws as well.

Personally, I think she and Mary Russel should go out for tea. They could really get along well.

thegreenquill

ps. love the Irina/Snape icon. I have a Syd/Snape one.