7 ms·

I hate Strong Female Characters

41 points by jamesjyu 13y ago

hcarvalhoalves 13y ago
We have not achieved gender-role balance, we just attributed to women all the qualities a capitalistic, highly-competitive society values in traditional men roles.
- InclinedPlane 13y ago
  Not even that.
- lostlogin 13y ago
  Yes, but with significantly less pay. New Zealand is doing comparatively well -and pays its females approximately 10% less than its males. Pretty pathetic stuff. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_pay_gap http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_pay_gap
D9u 13y ago
That the article deals with fictional characters doesn't lend it much credence in my view. Does the author "hate" Grace Hopper as well?
- kiba 13y ago
  The whole article is about fictional characters, not real life female heroes.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
tokipin 13y ago
I used to think all the fuss about women being treated differently was in large part an exaggeration in this day and age. But then a few months ago I woke up from a dream vision of Storm (from the X-Men movies) being 'strong'. Weird because I've never even seen the movies. But the "strength" was forced and farcical in the absence of actual depth of character. What struck me was that that was a fairly subtle observation, nevermind examples of e.g. discrimination that is much more obvious. So that vision raised the question of what else had eluded my perception, and made clear that there is still a lot of progress to be made.
- Tichy 13y ago
  I don't understand what you are saying. Do you mean while Storm is "strong", she has no depth, whereas male X-Men character are both strong and having depth? Or what is the problem (apart from judging society by a Hollywood movie about superheroes)?
  - tokipin 13y ago
    It was a vision of a movie scene where the posturing and ambient styling made it clear that the movie-makers were emphasizing the "strength" of this female character, because "a strong woman is always cool." Something along those lines.
    - Tichy 13y ago
      You mean they were actually enforcing the stereotype of weak women by emphasizing the exceptionality of strong women?
      - rustynails 13y ago
        Storm was a terribly written character. Giving her strong power and little personality was a token "female" hero with little thought. It was just plain "crap story telling". As someone else said, there are only a few xmen characters with depth - wolverine being one.
      - tokipin 13y ago
        Yes. I don't think I broke it down that precisely but that's probably what it boils down to.
- saraid216 13y ago
  I don't understand what you mean by Storm being strong or not strong. She's a claustrophobic mutant with massive self-esteem issues that have to be overcome in order to provide effective team leadership. The thing about Storm's story is that it's unexceptional amongst the X-Men. The essential narrative of X-Men is "teenagers have growing pains", so self-esteem issues are the stories' bread and butter. The other essential narrative, that of fearing and Othering a group for ambiguously poor reasons, is one which Storm could provide an interesting voice for if any of her writers weren't busy making her the token black girl. The dialogue between Xavier and Magneto is reminiscent MLK Jr. versus Malcolm X (not exactly, of course, but I'd be unsurprised if this was a direct inspiration).
dragontamer 13y ago
Maybe its the stuff that I watch, but I've just finished reviewing "Neon Genesis Evangelion" where Ritsuko describes the super-computer system that runs Nerv. The three computers are dubbed "Three Magi" (and named after the Biblical characters), and the whole base refers to their judgement in all things. The three computers were designed after Dr. Naoko Akagi's personality (Ritsuko's mother): * She as a Scientist * She as a Mother * She as a Woman It was Caspar, the supercomputer built after Dr. Naoko's personality as a "Woman" who defeated the 11th angel (with assistance of Dr. Ritsuko, the current maintainer of the supercomputers). ------------- In more recent games, Portal and Portal 2 are famous for the female character and female villain. GladOS, the evil supercomputer, is more than just cunning, she is meticulous, calculating, scientific. She is driven by experimentation and wants nothing more than to discover more about science. --------------- Saber, of the Fate series, is gender-crossed King Author who magically has teleported to the modern era. (In Fate series, King Author was always female, but history books have rewritten that fact). Cheezy, I know, but she's a great character. She is chivalrous, honorable, and a "fair fighter" above all. Though the series, she contemplates her miscalculations at the end of her reign. She was forced to kill her own child (Moldred), and her last memories of the era was her left dying on the battlefield (before magic teleported her into the modern era). Ironic, because Saber is originally from a Japanese Visual Novel H-Game. But her character is deep, beyond just "strong". Granted, she is very very "strong". She is arguably the most powerful Servant who was summoned in the 5th War, and certainly stronger than the "Master" who summoned her. But her character goes far far deeper than just "I'm stronger than you". Although, her interactions in the 4th War (Fate/Zero) were definitely better written. As Saber, the honorable king of knights, is forced to fight along side Kiritsugu (who is willing to use underhanded techniques, including ones that may kill and maim innocent bystanders). ------------ People tell me Laura Croft was a good character in the recent game. I haven't gone through it yet though, so I can't comment on it. ----------- I mean, yeah, fiction is filled with crappy _male_ heroes who are nothing but "strong". The article brings up Superman, and also brings up Buffy. (I argue Xena, Warrior Princess, is a better 90s example of a poorly written "strong" female character however). These are all shallow characters, be they female or male. It simply isn't fair to compare Sherlock Holmes against such crappy characters. But entertainment is about finding and highlighting the best characters across all genres of fiction. It seems to me that the one who wrote this article just isn't familiar with any stories with interesting and unique female characters. To which I respond: he's certainly not watching / reading the same stuff I've been seeing.
alan_cx 13y ago
I have always thought that a lot of so called strong female characters in TV and movies are essentially, to a greater and lesser degree, a male submissive fantasy, and nothing to do with feminism or equal status. The trick to getting it right might well be to just let decent female writers write female characters. Heh, at least then if we still get the same, it their fault!!!!
- kiba 13y ago
  There was one anime that I watch that was an adaptation of a low-fantasy medieval novel written by a female author. The protagonist and her love interest were in a role reversal. She was the warrior, and the male was the doctor/caretaker. However, the rest of the setting follows traditional gender roles, although nobody seems to think it's particularly strange that the protagonist was a female warrior.
- lostlogin 13y ago
  >it's their fault! Females can be their own worst enemies. My wife was recently asked at a job interview when she planned on having children. This is against the law here in New Zealand. The person who asked was female and the males in the room visibly squirmed as it was asked.
  - rustynails 13y ago
    No offense, the men were thinking it. If the project had a hard deadline in a few years, any respective employer would think through this option. Failure to do so (under certain circumstances) could cost you dearly. This is despite "what the law allows you to say".
    - saraid216 13y ago
      I like how you immediately made up a bunch of circumstances to justify it.
    - lostlogin 13y ago
      It was an entry level teaching job and 2 of the people at the interview apologised after the interview. Call is arse covering maybe, but my wife believed that the others in the room were angry at the question being asked. It was 100% the situation that was being thought of when the law was written. She would have written to the human rights commission about the situation if it wouldn't have immediately tarred her as a trouble maker early in her career. And so the situation is allowed to continue.
Tycho 13y ago
The SFC is a bit bland, but not as annoying as the 'hotshot.' You know, the incredibly attractive yet unattached 30-something career woman who just happens to be the best damn pilot/hacker/narco/sniper/pathologist/demolition-expert on the team, and a convenient love interest for the maverick male lead.
- mixmastamyk 13y ago
  They simply don't appear to exist in the US (especially the west) but I've met a few in Europe, South America.
rayiner 13y ago
Hollywood writes strong female characters because it can't write realistic women characters (something like 90% of produced scripts are written by men). All it can do is caricatures: Bella from twilight on one hand and the Kung-Fu princess on the other. It's just the flip side of this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bechdel_test; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bechdel_test; http://www.filmschoolrejects.com/features/10-famous-films-that-surprisingly-fail-the-bechdel-test.php; http://www.filmschoolrejects.com/features/10-famous-films-th... http://thehathorlegacy.com/why-film-schools-teach-screenwriters-not-to-pass-the-bechdel-test/ http://thehathorlegacy.com/why-film-schools-teach-screenwrit.... One of the shows I really like is Orange and Black. By setting the show in a women's prison, the writers are forced to develop a range of female characters who don't just sit around talking about men. Tilda Swinton's character in Michael Clsyton is also great. So is the female Israeli soldier in World War Z.
- Tichy 13y ago
  Bella from Twilight was written by a woman, and consumed mostly by women.
  - Amadou 13y ago
    Seems to me that Bella, and Twilight in general, are very anti-feminist. She's only strong when it is a plot-point to get herself into trouble where she can be rescued by a man. The movies struck me as the worst sort of teenage princess fantasy.
    - Tichy 13y ago
      Of course, but the claim was heroines are only shallow because they are written by men. Also Bella's case might indicate that it's simply not worth it for Hollywood to create deeper characters, because the shallow ones sell better.
- dylangs1030 13y ago
  Orange is the New Black is awesome. Highly recommend.
Tichy 13y ago
Edit: Downvotes for what? Is it really enough to select a few movie posters with more men than women on it to confirm a theory? How many thousands of movies are there? Does this analysis really hold any water at all? I seem to remember movies with all kinds of female characters. So I suspect that article just picks some unfavorable movies and makes a fuss. Apart from that, there may be real world reasons for less women being "heroes", that is, putting themselves into the line of fire. The simple reason being that they don't have to.
- saraid216 13y ago
  > I seem to remember movies with all kinds of female characters. I'd challenge you to provide an equal number of counterexamples, then. > Downvotes for what? Your last paragraph is blatant sexism, fyi.
  - Tichy 13y ago
    "provide an equal number of counterexamples, then." Equal number to what? What is the number we are looking at - did anybody even count anything here? I already mentioned several female action heroes in other comments, like Underworld, Resident Evil, Buffy, Dark Angel, Aliens, Aeon Flux, Nikita. If you only count movies that are actually worthwhile, the comparison to male hero movies is not bad (I can only compare to mostly worthwhile movies). Also some things don't make sense, as somebody pointed out, WW2 didn't have that many female soldiers, so why would you expect 50% of WW2 movies to be about female soldiers? You could go on and complain that there are too many WW2 movies, but that is hardly convincing as a feminist issue. "Your last paragraph is blatant sexism, fyi." It's not actually. Would "women have boobs" also be a controversial statement? It is very obvious that it is easier for women to reproduce than for men, and it is statistically proven. Just because you can't see it (like boobs hanging off a person) doesn't mean some difference does not exist. Men get to do the life threatening jobs because men are more expendable. Women are the limiting factor in reproduction (only about one baby can be produced every nine months per woman). It doesn't mean that women can't do life threatening jobs, just that there is a reason they usually don't have to. If it is sexist to assume that there are differences between men and women, then maybe it was sexist. Then I'd have to say I'd rather be sexist and stick to science than give up logic for ideology. Edit: I wonder what is the feminist explanation for less women doing risky jobs? The patriarchy doesn't want women to be cannon fodder because they could start believing they can be aggressive and revolt against men? Or really just the media - if more female warrior movies were being made, women would be flocking to the military by the millions?
geoka9 13y ago
> What do I want instead of a Strong Female Character? I want a male:female character ratio of 1:1 instead of 3:1 on our screens. It's going to be hard. What are the highest grossing movies? Fantasy/sci-fi and crime thrillers? That means you will have to put up with all the just ratio movies being fantasy, because it's hard to come up with a typical convincing crime thriller plot where there are as many women as men. Realistic films try to portray the reality. If producers start following a feminist agenda, they'll have to sacrifice that. For example, are there many female undercover police officers? Are there many notorious female gangsters? What about bank robbers?
- oinksoft 13y ago
  Are there many notorious female gangsters? Far fewer than their male counterparts, but there are some pretty nefarious ones, like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griselda_Blanco https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griselda_Blanco
- saraid216 13y ago
  > Realistic films try to portray the reality. Heh. No, they don't. We call it fiction because it's fictional. What you're really saying is that, as a culture, we're incapable of believing something if it doesn't conform to certain expectations. Which, yes, includes being unable to believe that women might be undercover cops, might be notorious gangsters, might be bank robbers. Funny story: that's exactly the problem.
  - geoka9 13y ago
    > Which, yes, includes being unable to believe that women might be undercover cops, might be notorious gangsters, might be bank robbers. Really, are there many prototypes in real life? I suspect there may be enough to inspire a handful of movies, but after that it will become obvious that it's a niche film.
    - saraid216 13y ago
      Why do you need prototypes? Do you personally know any undercover cops, notorious gangsters, or bank robbers? Is there something particularly gendered about these roles that requires a man to play them?
lotharbot 13y ago
Strong female characters in fiction are often neither genuinely female, nor genuinely strong -- it's as though "strongfemale" is its own type of being. It's a character with a mostly-male personality, lots of curves revealed by a tight-fitting outfit, and the only bit of feminine personality that comes through is a flighty, childish crush on one of the male leads. I know plenty of genuinely strong women. My wife, my mother in law, the principal at my son's school, and so on. These are people who can handle tough situations, who show genuine leadership qualities, and so on. I've also been delighted by a few strong female characters in modern media -- Shu Lien in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon; half of the main characters on My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic; Zoey from Firefly; Delenn, Ivanova, and Lyta from Babylon 5. One thing they all have in common is that they have real, feminine personalities and real strength that doesn't overshadow their personalities.
- dragontamer 13y ago
  Agreed. The internet community has dubbed these the "Faux Action Girls": http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FauxActionGirl http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FauxActionGirl "Faux Action Girls" generally stop fighting when their wrists are grabbed, or when they get into the famous "Long-Hair Choke Hold" (erm... since when is hair a weak-point of the human body??). I can come up with tons and tons of examples of "Faux action girls", but there are indeed plenty of genuine heroines. Samus Aran (before the crappy game Metroid: Other M) was a true female Action heroine. She was rarely sexualized and got shit done. Its only in the modern era (ironically, after year 2000 or so) when she began to be sexualized with her Zero-suit and crappy love stories --- Uggghhh... Metroid Other M :-(
  - lotharbot 13y ago
    The negative type I was referencing would more appropriately be called "Action Faux Girl" -- plenty of in-combat competence, but the only thing that identifies the character as female is her large bust. Her personality and dialog sounds like it was written by a man, possibly as a target for his own adolescent fantasies.
    - 13y ago
IvyMike 13y ago
I wonder what McDougall thinks of Elementary, the Sherlock Holmes show where Watson is played by Lucy Liu. The show still has some of the problems McDougall mentions, but it's the most interesting and complex version of Watson I've seen. (SPOILERS: Anyone who watched the entire season knows that there's more to be said regarding female characters, but there's no way to discuss it without ruining a major plot point.)
saraid216 13y ago
A little more of the same thing: http://feministing.com/2013/08/20/the-skyler-white-problem-can-we-accept-complex-female-characters/ http://feministing.com/2013/08/20/the-skyler-white-problem-c...
- Tichy 13y ago
  Funny sentence in the first paragraph: "I agree that female characters in pop fiction rarely get to be full, complex people". Maybe she shouldn't be reading so much pop fiction if she craves complex characters...
Amadou 13y ago
So, off the top of my head I can think of these female lead roles who are 'strong' and a whole lot more, including sometimes vulnerable, weak, contradictory and even capricious: Carrie from Homeland // Sookie from True Blood // Sonya from The Bridge // Sarah from The Killing // Jackie from Nurse Jackie // Tara from United States of Tara All of those are TV shows, not movies. But I think that is just my own bias, I have a hard time remembering characters in movies because I only get ~90 minutes of exposure, compared to 450-1000 minutes a year with TV. One point in support of the argument though -- Sucker Punch which was primarily a female cast, had to cut the most pivotal scene in the entire movie where the lead choses sex & death of her mental self rather than fighting because, despite not being explicit, it was the difference between a PG-13 and an R rating.
- Tichy 13y ago
  Jodie Foster, Sigourney Weaver, Merryl Streep come to mind - are they the wrong kind of strong? Miss Maple was a famous literary detective.
  - rustynails 13y ago
    Great list. Add Judi Dench, Renee Zellweger, Cate Blanchett, Helen Mirren, Maggie Smith, the list is quite big... As I mentioned in another post, you see what you want to see ("victim mentality").
- saraid216 13y ago
  TV shows, I've noticed, tend to be better about issues than movies. I think this has to do with the lack of a 2-hour window to do everything in. If you do something well enough, you can always put off bigger events until next season. But straight up development as a movie sequel hook is much harder to sell.
rustynails 13y ago
Where do I begin? Great and terrible article. Riddled with victim mentality (bad), but desire to improve story telling of movies with a very narrow focus (somewhat good). Here's an example of victim mentality, but not from the author's perspective. - why are the villains in movies often English or German. Discrimination! - why don't we have Australian heroes in movies? Australian actors are forced to change their accents and nationalities... It's disgusting... It's xenophobic! Now take those examples with a grain of salt. I don't have a victim mentality that insists on x% of movie heroes being Australian ... It's superficial and mandates others on what they must think. I remember a gay author who was told to add more straight characters - the one story of his that I heard kept on referring to a straight dog.. When I asked my gay friend about the importance of a "straight" dog, he explained the back story of the mandate... The dark side to political correctness. Here's where I partially agree with the author. Black Widow and the other "Rambo in slacks" were pathetic characters by Joss Whedon - some of the worst I've ever seen. Arrogant, rude, completely self-absorbed and able to take down 20 "baddies" at the same time with their bare hands. Remember Stallone as Rambo? Well, Joss Whedon thinks that adding slacks makes Rambo a better character... Yeah, right. But rather than see "sexism" and "insistence of 50% female leads", I see "crap writing", "area for improvement" and "lost opportunity". Let the writers decide what gender a character is... But highlight opportunities for thinking out of the box (go Aussie heroes ;) Having said all of that, I'm a huge fan of Legend of Korra. Korra is a believable heroine who retains her femininity and humility: brilliant writing. Lin Bei Fong: a tough as nails woman that shows compassion and vulnerability. Many writers and directors could learn a think or two from Di Martino and Koneitzko (the Korra writers). One of my other heroes is JK Rowling. In her Potterverse, she chose to have a balance of 50% male/female characters that were fairly well balanced. It worked very well and did not detract from the story. If anything, it added credibility. It was important (at least to me) that the characters made sense, more than what their gender was. In summary, the referenced article is a thinly veilled feminist (sexist) piece that dictates too much and is too narrowly focused (aka feminism). I agree that female characters are usually poorly written and I love when I see female characters written well. Then again, I'd also love to see corporate bankers held accountable, NSA snooping to be reigned in and sexism (from feminists or otherwise) being denounced ... I have my doubts that any of these wishes will come true.

41 points by jamesjyu 13y ago

We have not achieved gender-role balance, we just attributed to women all the qualities a capitalistic, highly-competitive society values in traditional men roles.

InclinedPlane 13y ago
Not even that.
lostlogin 13y ago
Yes, but with significantly less pay. New Zealand is doing comparatively well -and pays its females approximately 10% less than its males. Pretty pathetic stuff. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_pay_gap http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_pay_gap

D9u 13y ago

That the article deals with fictional characters doesn't lend it much credence in my view. Does the author "hate" Grace Hopper as well?

kiba 13y ago
The whole article is about fictional characters, not real life female heroes.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]

tokipin 13y ago

I used to think all the fuss about women being treated differently was in large part an exaggeration in this day and age. But then a few months ago I woke up from a dream vision of Storm (from the X-Men movies) being 'strong'. Weird because I've never even seen the movies. But the "strength" was forced and farcical in the absence of actual depth of character. What struck me was that that was a fairly subtle observation, nevermind examples of e.g. discrimination that is much more obvious. So that vision raised the question of what else had eluded my perception, and made clear that there is still a lot of progress to be made.

Tichy 13y ago
I don't understand what you are saying. Do you mean while Storm is "strong", she has no depth, whereas male X-Men character are both strong and having depth? Or what is the problem (apart from judging society by a Hollywood movie about superheroes)?
- tokipin 13y ago
  It was a vision of a movie scene where the posturing and ambient styling made it clear that the movie-makers were emphasizing the "strength" of this female character, because "a strong woman is always cool." Something along those lines.
  - Tichy 13y ago
    You mean they were actually enforcing the stereotype of weak women by emphasizing the exceptionality of strong women?
    - rustynails 13y ago
      Storm was a terribly written character. Giving her strong power and little personality was a token "female" hero with little thought. It was just plain "crap story telling". As someone else said, there are only a few xmen characters with depth - wolverine being one.
    - tokipin 13y ago
      Yes. I don't think I broke it down that precisely but that's probably what it boils down to.
saraid216 13y ago
I don't understand what you mean by Storm being strong or not strong. She's a claustrophobic mutant with massive self-esteem issues that have to be overcome in order to provide effective team leadership. The thing about Storm's story is that it's unexceptional amongst the X-Men. The essential narrative of X-Men is "teenagers have growing pains", so self-esteem issues are the stories' bread and butter. The other essential narrative, that of fearing and Othering a group for ambiguously poor reasons, is one which Storm could provide an interesting voice for if any of her writers weren't busy making her the token black girl. The dialogue between Xavier and Magneto is reminiscent MLK Jr. versus Malcolm X (not exactly, of course, but I'd be unsurprised if this was a direct inspiration).

dragontamer 13y ago

Maybe its the stuff that I watch, but I've just finished reviewing "Neon Genesis Evangelion" where Ritsuko describes the super-computer system that runs Nerv. The three computers are dubbed "Three Magi" (and named after the Biblical characters), and the whole base refers to their judgement in all things. The three computers were designed after Dr. Naoko Akagi's personality (Ritsuko's mother): * She as a Scientist * She as a Mother * She as a Woman It was Caspar, the supercomputer built after Dr. Naoko's personality as a "Woman" who defeated the 11th angel (with assistance of Dr. Ritsuko, the current maintainer of the supercomputers). ------------- In more recent games, Portal and Portal 2 are famous for the female character and female villain. GladOS, the evil supercomputer, is more than just cunning, she is meticulous, calculating, scientific. She is driven by experimentation and wants nothing more than to discover more about science. --------------- Saber, of the Fate series, is gender-crossed King Author who magically has teleported to the modern era. (In Fate series, King Author was always female, but history books have rewritten that fact). Cheezy, I know, but she's a great character. She is chivalrous, honorable, and a "fair fighter" above all. Though the series, she contemplates her miscalculations at the end of her reign. She was forced to kill her own child (Moldred), and her last memories of the era was her left dying on the battlefield (before magic teleported her into the modern era). Ironic, because Saber is originally from a Japanese Visual Novel H-Game. But her character is deep, beyond just "strong". Granted, she is very very "strong". She is arguably the most powerful Servant who was summoned in the 5th War, and certainly stronger than the "Master" who summoned her. But her character goes far far deeper than just "I'm stronger than you". Although, her interactions in the 4th War (Fate/Zero) were definitely better written. As Saber, the honorable king of knights, is forced to fight along side Kiritsugu (who is willing to use underhanded techniques, including ones that may kill and maim innocent bystanders). ------------ People tell me Laura Croft was a good character in the recent game. I haven't gone through it yet though, so I can't comment on it. ----------- I mean, yeah, fiction is filled with crappy _male_ heroes who are nothing but "strong". The article brings up Superman, and also brings up Buffy. (I argue Xena, Warrior Princess, is a better 90s example of a poorly written "strong" female character however). These are all shallow characters, be they female or male. It simply isn't fair to compare Sherlock Holmes against such crappy characters. But entertainment is about finding and highlighting the best characters across all genres of fiction. It seems to me that the one who wrote this article just isn't familiar with any stories with interesting and unique female characters. To which I respond: he's certainly not watching / reading the same stuff I've been seeing.

alan_cx 13y ago

I have always thought that a lot of so called strong female characters in TV and movies are essentially, to a greater and lesser degree, a male submissive fantasy, and nothing to do with feminism or equal status. The trick to getting it right might well be to just let decent female writers write female characters. Heh, at least then if we still get the same, it their fault!!!!

kiba 13y ago
There was one anime that I watch that was an adaptation of a low-fantasy medieval novel written by a female author. The protagonist and her love interest were in a role reversal. She was the warrior, and the male was the doctor/caretaker. However, the rest of the setting follows traditional gender roles, although nobody seems to think it's particularly strange that the protagonist was a female warrior.
lostlogin 13y ago
>it's their fault! Females can be their own worst enemies. My wife was recently asked at a job interview when she planned on having children. This is against the law here in New Zealand. The person who asked was female and the males in the room visibly squirmed as it was asked.
- rustynails 13y ago
  No offense, the men were thinking it. If the project had a hard deadline in a few years, any respective employer would think through this option. Failure to do so (under certain circumstances) could cost you dearly. This is despite "what the law allows you to say".
  - saraid216 13y ago
    I like how you immediately made up a bunch of circumstances to justify it.
  - lostlogin 13y ago
    It was an entry level teaching job and 2 of the people at the interview apologised after the interview. Call is arse covering maybe, but my wife believed that the others in the room were angry at the question being asked. It was 100% the situation that was being thought of when the law was written. She would have written to the human rights commission about the situation if it wouldn't have immediately tarred her as a trouble maker early in her career. And so the situation is allowed to continue.

Tycho 13y ago

The SFC is a bit bland, but not as annoying as the 'hotshot.' You know, the incredibly attractive yet unattached 30-something career woman who just happens to be the best damn pilot/hacker/narco/sniper/pathologist/demolition-expert on the team, and a convenient love interest for the maverick male lead.

mixmastamyk 13y ago
They simply don't appear to exist in the US (especially the west) but I've met a few in Europe, South America.

rayiner 13y ago

Hollywood writes strong female characters because it can't write realistic women characters (something like 90% of produced scripts are written by men). All it can do is caricatures: Bella from twilight on one hand and the Kung-Fu princess on the other. It's just the flip side of this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bechdel_test; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bechdel_test; http://www.filmschoolrejects.com/features/10-famous-films-that-surprisingly-fail-the-bechdel-test.php; http://www.filmschoolrejects.com/features/10-famous-films-th... http://thehathorlegacy.com/why-film-schools-teach-screenwriters-not-to-pass-the-bechdel-test/ http://thehathorlegacy.com/why-film-schools-teach-screenwrit.... One of the shows I really like is Orange and Black. By setting the show in a women's prison, the writers are forced to develop a range of female characters who don't just sit around talking about men. Tilda Swinton's character in Michael Clsyton is also great. So is the female Israeli soldier in World War Z.

Tichy 13y ago
Bella from Twilight was written by a woman, and consumed mostly by women.
- Amadou 13y ago
  Seems to me that Bella, and Twilight in general, are very anti-feminist. She's only strong when it is a plot-point to get herself into trouble where she can be rescued by a man. The movies struck me as the worst sort of teenage princess fantasy.
  - Tichy 13y ago
    Of course, but the claim was heroines are only shallow because they are written by men. Also Bella's case might indicate that it's simply not worth it for Hollywood to create deeper characters, because the shallow ones sell better.
dylangs1030 13y ago
Orange is the New Black is awesome. Highly recommend.

Tichy 13y ago

Edit: Downvotes for what? Is it really enough to select a few movie posters with more men than women on it to confirm a theory? How many thousands of movies are there? Does this analysis really hold any water at all? I seem to remember movies with all kinds of female characters. So I suspect that article just picks some unfavorable movies and makes a fuss. Apart from that, there may be real world reasons for less women being "heroes", that is, putting themselves into the line of fire. The simple reason being that they don't have to.

saraid216 13y ago
> I seem to remember movies with all kinds of female characters. I'd challenge you to provide an equal number of counterexamples, then. > Downvotes for what? Your last paragraph is blatant sexism, fyi.
- Tichy 13y ago
  "provide an equal number of counterexamples, then." Equal number to what? What is the number we are looking at - did anybody even count anything here? I already mentioned several female action heroes in other comments, like Underworld, Resident Evil, Buffy, Dark Angel, Aliens, Aeon Flux, Nikita. If you only count movies that are actually worthwhile, the comparison to male hero movies is not bad (I can only compare to mostly worthwhile movies). Also some things don't make sense, as somebody pointed out, WW2 didn't have that many female soldiers, so why would you expect 50% of WW2 movies to be about female soldiers? You could go on and complain that there are too many WW2 movies, but that is hardly convincing as a feminist issue. "Your last paragraph is blatant sexism, fyi." It's not actually. Would "women have boobs" also be a controversial statement? It is very obvious that it is easier for women to reproduce than for men, and it is statistically proven. Just because you can't see it (like boobs hanging off a person) doesn't mean some difference does not exist. Men get to do the life threatening jobs because men are more expendable. Women are the limiting factor in reproduction (only about one baby can be produced every nine months per woman). It doesn't mean that women can't do life threatening jobs, just that there is a reason they usually don't have to. If it is sexist to assume that there are differences between men and women, then maybe it was sexist. Then I'd have to say I'd rather be sexist and stick to science than give up logic for ideology. Edit: I wonder what is the feminist explanation for less women doing risky jobs? The patriarchy doesn't want women to be cannon fodder because they could start believing they can be aggressive and revolt against men? Or really just the media - if more female warrior movies were being made, women would be flocking to the military by the millions?

geoka9 13y ago

> What do I want instead of a Strong Female Character? I want a male:female character ratio of 1:1 instead of 3:1 on our screens. It's going to be hard. What are the highest grossing movies? Fantasy/sci-fi and crime thrillers? That means you will have to put up with all the just ratio movies being fantasy, because it's hard to come up with a typical convincing crime thriller plot where there are as many women as men. Realistic films try to portray the reality. If producers start following a feminist agenda, they'll have to sacrifice that. For example, are there many female undercover police officers? Are there many notorious female gangsters? What about bank robbers?

oinksoft 13y ago
Are there many notorious female gangsters? Far fewer than their male counterparts, but there are some pretty nefarious ones, like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griselda_Blanco https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griselda_Blanco
saraid216 13y ago
> Realistic films try to portray the reality. Heh. No, they don't. We call it fiction because it's fictional. What you're really saying is that, as a culture, we're incapable of believing something if it doesn't conform to certain expectations. Which, yes, includes being unable to believe that women might be undercover cops, might be notorious gangsters, might be bank robbers. Funny story: that's exactly the problem.
- geoka9 13y ago
  > Which, yes, includes being unable to believe that women might be undercover cops, might be notorious gangsters, might be bank robbers. Really, are there many prototypes in real life? I suspect there may be enough to inspire a handful of movies, but after that it will become obvious that it's a niche film.
  - saraid216 13y ago
    Why do you need prototypes? Do you personally know any undercover cops, notorious gangsters, or bank robbers? Is there something particularly gendered about these roles that requires a man to play them?

lotharbot 13y ago

Strong female characters in fiction are often neither genuinely female, nor genuinely strong -- it's as though "strongfemale" is its own type of being. It's a character with a mostly-male personality, lots of curves revealed by a tight-fitting outfit, and the only bit of feminine personality that comes through is a flighty, childish crush on one of the male leads. I know plenty of genuinely strong women. My wife, my mother in law, the principal at my son's school, and so on. These are people who can handle tough situations, who show genuine leadership qualities, and so on. I've also been delighted by a few strong female characters in modern media -- Shu Lien in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon; half of the main characters on My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic; Zoey from Firefly; Delenn, Ivanova, and Lyta from Babylon 5. One thing they all have in common is that they have real, feminine personalities and real strength that doesn't overshadow their personalities.

dragontamer 13y ago
Agreed. The internet community has dubbed these the "Faux Action Girls": http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FauxActionGirl http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FauxActionGirl "Faux Action Girls" generally stop fighting when their wrists are grabbed, or when they get into the famous "Long-Hair Choke Hold" (erm... since when is hair a weak-point of the human body??). I can come up with tons and tons of examples of "Faux action girls", but there are indeed plenty of genuine heroines. Samus Aran (before the crappy game Metroid: Other M) was a true female Action heroine. She was rarely sexualized and got shit done. Its only in the modern era (ironically, after year 2000 or so) when she began to be sexualized with her Zero-suit and crappy love stories --- Uggghhh... Metroid Other M :-(
- lotharbot 13y ago
  The negative type I was referencing would more appropriately be called "Action Faux Girl" -- plenty of in-combat competence, but the only thing that identifies the character as female is her large bust. Her personality and dialog sounds like it was written by a man, possibly as a target for his own adolescent fantasies.
  - 13y ago

IvyMike 13y ago

I wonder what McDougall thinks of Elementary, the Sherlock Holmes show where Watson is played by Lucy Liu. The show still has some of the problems McDougall mentions, but it's the most interesting and complex version of Watson I've seen. (SPOILERS: Anyone who watched the entire season knows that there's more to be said regarding female characters, but there's no way to discuss it without ruining a major plot point.)

saraid216 13y ago

A little more of the same thing: http://feministing.com/2013/08/20/the-skyler-white-problem-can-we-accept-complex-female-characters/ http://feministing.com/2013/08/20/the-skyler-white-problem-c...

Tichy 13y ago
Funny sentence in the first paragraph: "I agree that female characters in pop fiction rarely get to be full, complex people". Maybe she shouldn't be reading so much pop fiction if she craves complex characters...

Amadou 13y ago

So, off the top of my head I can think of these female lead roles who are 'strong' and a whole lot more, including sometimes vulnerable, weak, contradictory and even capricious: Carrie from Homeland // Sookie from True Blood // Sonya from The Bridge // Sarah from The Killing // Jackie from Nurse Jackie // Tara from United States of Tara All of those are TV shows, not movies. But I think that is just my own bias, I have a hard time remembering characters in movies because I only get ~90 minutes of exposure, compared to 450-1000 minutes a year with TV. One point in support of the argument though -- Sucker Punch which was primarily a female cast, had to cut the most pivotal scene in the entire movie where the lead choses sex & death of her mental self rather than fighting because, despite not being explicit, it was the difference between a PG-13 and an R rating.

Tichy 13y ago
Jodie Foster, Sigourney Weaver, Merryl Streep come to mind - are they the wrong kind of strong? Miss Maple was a famous literary detective.
- rustynails 13y ago
  Great list. Add Judi Dench, Renee Zellweger, Cate Blanchett, Helen Mirren, Maggie Smith, the list is quite big... As I mentioned in another post, you see what you want to see ("victim mentality").
saraid216 13y ago
TV shows, I've noticed, tend to be better about issues than movies. I think this has to do with the lack of a 2-hour window to do everything in. If you do something well enough, you can always put off bigger events until next season. But straight up development as a movie sequel hook is much harder to sell.

rustynails 13y ago

Where do I begin? Great and terrible article. Riddled with victim mentality (bad), but desire to improve story telling of movies with a very narrow focus (somewhat good). Here's an example of victim mentality, but not from the author's perspective. - why are the villains in movies often English or German. Discrimination! - why don't we have Australian heroes in movies? Australian actors are forced to change their accents and nationalities... It's disgusting... It's xenophobic! Now take those examples with a grain of salt. I don't have a victim mentality that insists on x% of movie heroes being Australian ... It's superficial and mandates others on what they must think. I remember a gay author who was told to add more straight characters - the one story of his that I heard kept on referring to a straight dog.. When I asked my gay friend about the importance of a "straight" dog, he explained the back story of the mandate... The dark side to political correctness. Here's where I partially agree with the author. Black Widow and the other "Rambo in slacks" were pathetic characters by Joss Whedon - some of the worst I've ever seen. Arrogant, rude, completely self-absorbed and able to take down 20 "baddies" at the same time with their bare hands. Remember Stallone as Rambo? Well, Joss Whedon thinks that adding slacks makes Rambo a better character... Yeah, right. But rather than see "sexism" and "insistence of 50% female leads", I see "crap writing", "area for improvement" and "lost opportunity". Let the writers decide what gender a character is... But highlight opportunities for thinking out of the box (go Aussie heroes ;) Having said all of that, I'm a huge fan of Legend of Korra. Korra is a believable heroine who retains her femininity and humility: brilliant writing. Lin Bei Fong: a tough as nails woman that shows compassion and vulnerability. Many writers and directors could learn a think or two from Di Martino and Koneitzko (the Korra writers). One of my other heroes is JK Rowling. In her Potterverse, she chose to have a balance of 50% male/female characters that were fairly well balanced. It worked very well and did not detract from the story. If anything, it added credibility. It was important (at least to me) that the characters made sense, more than what their gender was. In summary, the referenced article is a thinly veilled feminist (sexist) piece that dictates too much and is too narrowly focused (aka feminism). I agree that female characters are usually poorly written and I love when I see female characters written well. Then again, I'd also love to see corporate bankers held accountable, NSA snooping to be reigned in and sexism (from feminists or otherwise) being denounced ... I have my doubts that any of these wishes will come true.