We need to address how media, and media critics, portray female characters poorly. What can be done about it? What are examples of media works that portray complex female characters well? What are writing tips for people trying to write complex female characters? Why do media critics hate on women?
Its just something I noticed.
Male writers drop the ball with female characters all the time.
Theyāll give the men all the good lines but women get weak roles and no sense of humor.
When we complain they then make a female character who has too many boyfriends and too much ego and too much power but no resourcefulness, or sheās super powerful but still needs a man to save her, and of course they make her complain about everything and fight with everyone who helps her.
I could go on and on.
A lot of people are incapable of viewing female characters as anything other than an innocent saint or a portrait of pure evil.
Arguably the best characters are morally ambiguous ones who live in the gray area between good and evil, but women are much less often afforded that distinction than their male counterparts.
Iām been having a huge problem connecting to media.
The only women around are very young or very old and their main defining feature is usually motherhood.
If a woman my age exists who isnāt a mom sheās usually either obsessed with men or desperate to have a baby (or will be once the right dude comes along).
Fanfiction has great female characters , but you keep running into people who will only write a complex woman whoās tied to a male main character.
Michael Burnham from Star Trek: Discovery . POC Female Protagonist. You probably have heard or seen a lot of hatred against.
Korra from The Legend Of Korra. Sequel Series to ATLA. POC Female Protagonist. Despite losing fights and suffering extreme trauma and making mistakes, critics passionately bash the show, calling her a Mary-Sue, and accusing the show of being Protagonist-Centered Morality.
A lot of the time if there is a military high ranking female character or just female leader that is masculine or butch she will be the villain to be defeated by the traditionally feminine or at least more feminine heroine/love interest of the hero.
I hate this because it basically implies that a woman can only be good if sheās conventionally attractive or a love interest.
Itās saying being butch is bad/evil.
Even movies trying to be feminist, like āContactā which I had to watch for homework?
With Jodie Foster from the 1990s told the brilliant, focused woman scientist to not be so āconfrontationalā (as two male characters stole credit for her work right after they stole her funding) and to be happy with āsmall moves.ā
They continued to pat her on the head and tell her to be quiet through the whole movie.
The one time she even spoke to another woman was to ask where she could find a really pretty dress. This was supposed to show growth in her character arc.
If I recall correctly, one of the playable characters in the next release of the grand theft auto series is gonna be a women.
People online were flipping out over this saying they are being too āwokeā, among other things.
Its funny to me because there has been 5 gta games with only male protagonists, and now thereās 1 female in it and suddenly its a problem.
Its like these people think there are only 2 genders in games, male and woke.
Heck, people love basic trope laden protagonistsā¦.. until they are women.
People love unreasonably over powered characters that are loved or feared in equal measure by the entire castā¦.. until its a woman.
Then all of a sudden, sheās a Mary-Sue and the show/game/book is āProtagonist-Centered Moralityā
Some characters who are torn apart for their initial naĆÆvetĆ© like Sansa Stark or Usagi Tsukino (Sailor Moon) are immediately written off as stupid girl characters.
Never mind that one becomes a political powerhouse and the other routinely saves the world.
People just write their characters off as too āgirlyā or āannoyingā before they even have the chance to redeem themselves in their stories.
Feels like at itās core, people donāt like women trying to build self confidence and play out power fantasies.
The only difference with the original Mary Sue was that she was imagining being liked by everyone, which was every womanās dream back then and to a certain extent, now.
The power was being well liked, and that made her annoyingly boring because there was no struggle for her.
Men think struggle is needed, even in fantasies and dreams, but it isnāt.
The term Mary-Sue gained a new popularity by shaming female characters (such as Rey, Galadriel, Captain Marvel,ā¦). I am not saying the term is not used towards male characters as well, but it is more rare, and it is rarely as violent as when it is used to characterize a female character.
More importantly it is used against female characters unevenly compared to male characters, its accepted as a genre trope for a male character to be extremely capable or to acrue experience and ability rapidly throughout the narrative.
But when itās a woman suddenly ārealismā must apply, a real person doesnāt simply gain strength and talent through endless perfectly leveled hardship.
In simpler terms, Batman can launch a thug across the room with a single punch and itās awesome, Black Widow, however, is breaking the laws of physics when she does her famous around the neck takedown.
Neither are realistic, arguably any grown man launching another grown man bodily through the air with a casual punch is less realistic than a woman pulling off a skilled takedown, but the unequal application of standards says all that needs to be said about the critic.
Writing a āmary sueā to be male often results in a praised character that people donāt really worry about. Like Goku or Kirito.
People are fine with it. Enjoy it. And thereās massive amounts of rather popular fanfiction taking random male characters in series and sue-ifying them, making them the protagonist over the actual main characters, and slapping in poorly developed romance arcs.
Itās āmary sueā 101, but hardly anyone talks about them in that light.
Meanwhile a woman shows a level of competence similar to another character in the same series (e.g. Rey to Luke or Anakin) and the accusations are everywhere.
Calling these characters one-dimensional is one of the dog-whistles of the modern [whatever]-gate colony creature.
They know that theyāll get savaged if they come out and say theyāre mad because this character is a woman, so they couch everything in these subjective terms. Sheās one-dimensional. Sheās flat. Sheās badly written. Sheās a mary sue. I just couldnāt relate to her.
You can argue with them, you can point out that, say, in Star Wars, that Reyās ability to handle weapons intentionally established in the early scenes of TFA, that we see the setup for the skills sheās going to display later in the movie/series, and that her first win is against a badly wounded Sith apprentice. By contrast, Luke successfully fights his way through a huge space station against professional soldiers, then hops into a starfighter heās never flown before, outflies a bunch of experienced pilots, and pulls off a physically impossible shot to save the day.
But sure. Rey is the one who strains credulity.
You can point all that out, but none of it matters. Theyāre not arguing in good faith. Theyāre just mad that thereās a girl, and know better than to say that out loud.
He pulls off the shot because he has a throwaway line about murdering animals the size of a camel for fun in his civilian craft that just so happens to have controls similar to the military superiority fighter because they were manufactured by the same company. Because that doesnāt strain credibility. Also guess which parts were filled in later by novel writers who were like, āholy **** that makes no sense at allā
Sailor Moon and Sansa Stark are two female characters that start out as whiney cry-baby girlie girls who evolve into political powerhouses and heroes in their own right. But most people write their characters off immediately, because theyāre disgusted by their girlish-ness.
While our media gives male characters a chance to grow, female characters are generally written off unless they either show masculine traits, or are used for fan service. Itās why women in movies and TV are usually a kickass tomboy or a girlfriend character.
So anyway, I guess my point is that there are amazing kickass women characters who are well-written and evolve and grow, but their growth tends to be written off as frivolous and not as cool as their dude counterparts.
Imagine an anime where the woman is the main character and sheās strong, smart, and not sexualized ?
How about Guardian of the Spirit (seirei no moribito in Japanese)? The MC is a mercenary woman who fights with a spear. Sheās a complex character, maybe somewhat emotionally stunted because of growing up on the road. She meets a wonderful, compassionate male healer and I love how they break stereotypical gender roles. Thereās also a complete badass old lady with magical powers and a temper. One of my favourite characters in any genre.
But Iād like to add SuleMio to the list.
Some people did not like that Gundam had its first female protagonist last year, or that sheās engaged to another girl, or that they have a romantic moment where Miorine makes Suletta āpromise to be with me foreverā.
Itās my first Gundam show and I was nowhere near the fandom, but even I heard the howls of rage from the otakus over that show while it was airing.
ā I highly recommend reading Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson.
Strong female main character with a supportive cast of male characters.
His Skyward series is also good for this.
Ā Sanderson is great but there are some female fantasy writers that do this even better IMO. NK Jemisin has tons of great female characters.
Tamsyn Muirās Locked Tomb series has a majority female cast and Iād say 4 or 5 of them are in the top ten most interesting and complex female characters Iāve read. ā
You heard ofĀ The Bechdel test: Two women have to talk about something other than a man. There is no time window.
It came up in a 1985 comic Dykes To Watch Out For and although it is not a great indicator of more feminist content, itās a wonder much media fails to pass that test.
Arcane? That is a wild crazy masterpiece with awesomely complex awesome characters. Itās animated, yeah, so what? But I mean, to say āitās animatedā is a heavyĀ understatement. Have you seen Jinx? Have you seen her portrayal of psychosis and godknows what else was happening in her head? No one in history came even close to that.
Queenās Gambit? Anya Taylor-Joy brought Beth Harmon flawlessly through immense complexity of the character
Mare of Easttown - Kate Winslet there is, I kid you not, the best acting I have ever seen. Her character is going through complex situations and emotions and learning to deal with her human side. Bryan Cranston raised the bar ridiculously high with Walter White, but Kate Winslet pushed it further up, set explosives on it, and walked away like a badass without looking at the explosion. No one is topping that anytime soon.
Iām sure there are more examples. But what I love about these, and a big part of what makes them perfect is that they are their own characters and arenāt defined by men around them. Their greatn
I wish female characters were given better in terms of development and characterization. Honestly, I feel like a lot of people hate female characters simply because most male dominated media does such a poor job of writing women, and those characters arenāt given the same excuses as poorly written male characters.
Anyway, yeah, sorry for my rant. Having grown up on Anime, Harry Potter, Star Wars, you name it?
I later in life realized what was missing, what is needed, and really needed to hear other peopleās input on this stuff.
I never understood the need for every main character to be only a cishet white guy. I had already come up with several characters of my own, all of them LGBTQIA+, and half of them women, and several also POC. But myĀ writing and art skills are poor so I canāt visualize them properlyā¦
We need more female authors, and we need to promote the ones that are out there more!
(there are plenty of really, really good female authors, in all genres, but often they get less attention, because, well, misogyny)
Edit: If you want an example of how the double-standard towards women and LGBT is applied? Go watch RWBY or Legend of Korra. Both involve a deconstruction of tropes.
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