Marcia

[zevie]

I'm so glad you're tackling this.

I think a lot of people don't like Marcia because she wasn't "strong"; Cherry yells at Dally, she throws a coke in his face, she says she could fall in love with him, she identifies with dreaming-sunset-watching Ponyboy and Marcia...um, sits there? But, you know what, she gets a coke, and flirts with a cute, funny boy, and no crazy blond comes on to her, so, maybe she's a little smarter than Cherry, huh?

I think I liked her more in the book...she seemed a little smoother. Nothing against the actress, but Marcia giggles a lot in the movie. It's annoying.

Pony likens Bob to Steve and Soda to Randy at one point (a small point, maybe). Marcia is Sandy's Soc equivalent by that. This doesn't really mean anything, I just thought it was funny, because Sandy is also underdeveloped a lot of the time, though she's more present.

I love your story idea mars. Do it...you know you waaanna.

[fairlane]

www.fanfiction.net/s/1814152/1/

I remember reading this ages ago, the formating makes it a bit painful to look at but it's good.

[Nittanylizard]

Her character doesn't do much in the movie, so I can see where artemis is coming from. In the book, though, we get everything through Ponyboy's eyes, and since he's so stuck on what Cherry is saying and doing there isn't much room for noticing what Marcia is doing.

I never thought too much about her, but my feel of the character (other than that she's just there to be somebody for Cherry to be at the movies with) is that she's kind of low-key and less passionate than Cherry. She doesn't feel the need to jump in and comment when her friend is doing okay, maybe because she's not unaccustomed to seeing Cherry get in heated arguments.

I've got Marcia in one of the fics I'm writing now. It's pretty much everything from Bob's point of view, starting about six months before the book, so I've had to think more about her character recently as I'm trying to figure her out.

[akanechan]

Well, my wife friend Chitose and I are woking on a Marcia fic ourselves for our joint account. It's merely Femslash humor, because there's no silliness in the femslash world, even less femslash in Outsiders fanfiction <.< As for the plot-sharing thing, it'll be a surprise.

I think a lot of people don't like Marcia because she wasn't "strong"; Cherry yells at Dally, she throws a coke in his face, she says she could fall in love with him, she identifies with dreaming-sunset-watching Ponyboy and Marcia...um, sits there? But, you know what, she gets a coke, and flirts with a cute, funny boy, and no crazy blond comes on to her, so, maybe she's a little smarter than Cherry, huh?

I can't agree more!

[Ryker]

I like Marcia more than Cherry, though I do she should of done something while Dally was harrasing Cherry. I like the idea of Marcia/Two-Bit pairing, though I guess a lot of Fanficcers would deem it unrealistic cause she's a Soc and he not... Blah blah blah.

I think I liked her more in the book...she seemed a little smoother. Nothing against the actress, but Marcia giggles a lot in the movie. It's annoying.

I found that annoying too.

[EmilineHarris]

I'm not sure who posted it on LiveJournal awhile back (I think it might have been latch22), but there was a series of videos over on YouTube dedicated to a theater version of The Outsiders.

A traveling troupe of actors portraying all of the main Outsiders characters except for Steve (Where is the Steve love?!), documented their time together and posted some rehearsals, behind the scenes stuff, and overall goofing around as they crossed the country putting on shows. In this treatment of the story, they actually took some liberty and developed (at least from what I could tell) a little Two-bit/Marcia romance. I don't know why, but that whole concept really intrigues me. She and Two-bit just fell into a pretty natural and friendly conversation with each other... Why wouldn't they get along as a couple if the class issue wasn't in the way?

Sure, Marcia may come across as wooden and pointless (especially in the movie), but I think she deserves her place in the book. If Ponyboy had been paying more attention, he might have noticed that Socs, just like the greasers, come in different degrees. Marcia may be Cherry's friend, but I agree with Mars and think she is a little bit more of an "outsider." Maybe she is more middle class than the rest and doesn't want to be ostracized on that fact alone. If that's the case, she's probably walking a fine line every day...

Anyway, for those of you that are interested, check out some of the YouTube videos about the traveling "Outsiders" group. I warn you now that they are quite addicting... I found myself watching and waiting for little glimpses of the stage show... And Two-Bit was a cutey! I also think the actress playing Marcia puts a real familiar, goofy spin on the character. She makes Marcia seem like the friend everyone would want to have and hang out with. But see for yourself.

Here's episode one: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qat3G7k84QU

[latch22]

Oh! I remember those. Yeah, it was me. I'm glad that they caught on. It is kind of addictive. I wish they had shown more of the rehearsals and actual shows, but, hey.

I haven't read this entire thread, and so somebody may have already mentioned this, but one thing to consider is that she just didn't catch Pony's attention. He was concentrating on other things, so he didn't say much about her. That said, of course she ended up lifeless, uninteresting, and thrown in simply so Cherry wouldn't be alone.

Admittedly, though, she never much interested me. Now, however...

[BlindedxxFalcon]

nittanylizard said:

Her character doesn't do much in the movie, so I can see where artemis is coming from. In the book, though, we get everything through Ponyboy's eyes, and since he's so stuck on what Cherry is saying and doing there isn't much room for noticing what Marcia is doing.

Good point. I totally agree with that!

[saintmilly]

I know this is a late reply, but I always saw her more as a middle class type, rather than the conventional Soc that Cherry was; that's a possibility why Pony wasn't interested in her, because she was a "nobody". Plus, he'd never had a conversation with a Soc in a friendly way before, so maybe Pony wanted to see how they acted on a personal level, rather than middle class people.

Does that make sense to anyone else?

*P.S. First post for me! Yay!

[Tensleep]

I like this idea of Marcia as a "nobody". Ponyboy does seem to be drawn to the extremes of the social spectrum, even though he admits that he and his group of friends aren't all that extreme. Interesting observation.

[saintmilly]

Thanks Tens, I'm proud of myself right now. ;D

Poor girl. She probably felt overshadowed by Cherry all the time. (I got that much from the link to the fanfic posted)