#Idpickyoufirst - Why We Should Stop Hating on Female Characters
So I donât really want to consider myself an expert on feminism. Iâm not. Iâm just a 21 year old female who tends to align herself kinda left of center when it comes to social issues, but something that Iâve heard a lot of talk about in feminist theory, and I think it should be applied to media as well.Â
So when my modmates and I talk about media in terms of feminism (which, in my hippy dippy mod full of media makers is a pretty common occurrence), one of the biggest things we talk about is female friendships. Are women pitted against each other? Do the women in it like each other, find ways to empower each other, and support each other? Or does the underlying message seem to be that other women are enemies, especially when it comes to men.
Anyway, thatâs another topic for another blog post. Right now, I want to talk about how this idea and the idea of supporting the women in your life (you know, in that scary world of ârealityâ, whatever that means) intersect. Because most people, at least in the lefty hippy dippy circles I tend to run in, seem to understand them separately, but they donât really understand them together.
I propose that we, as a feminist and fandom community, start treating our female characters how we want to be treated. Whenever I see a character in a fandom getting a lot of hate, 9 times out of 10 that character is female (note: not a real statistic. Iâm just hyperbolizing the fact thatâs itâs common). Why is it that people who proclaim themselves to be feminist take such pleasure in tearing female characters down? Why donât we lift those characters up in a similar fashion to our mothers, sisters, and friends?
Feminism means something different to everyone, even if the basic idea is the same, and weâve come a long way since the days not too long ago when we werenât allowed to vote, but looking ahead, letâs stop putting down female characters because they donât fit our idea of what a âstrong female characterâ should be. In fact, can we just get rid of the term âstrong female characterâ altogether? Strength is important, yes, but strength can and does mean different things to everyone, just like feminism. The term Iâm choosing to use instead is âdynamic female characterâ. This, to me, implies one simple thing: that sheâs three-dimensional, that sheâs allowed room to live, that sheâs allowed to have flaws. There are plenty of female characters in our media today that I donât like as people. That doesnât mean I donât appreciate them as characters, and I think thatâs a really important distinction we as viewers need to start making.
We are in a unique position with our access to technology. Networks and producers have to listen to their viewerships. They are more responsible for maintaining contact with fandom than they ever have been before. So letâs stop asking them for âStrong Female Charactersâ and start asking them for women as real and alive and imperfect as every male they show us. I think theyâve got the âgun-slinging, badass, invincible ladyâ trope down. Letâs challenge them to write us now, and just like our definitions of feminism or strength, that in itself will give them a billion new voices to work with.
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idpickyoufirst replied to your post:The thing that annoys me most about 50 Shades of...
HOW ABOUT THAT BEAUTIFUL VERSION OF CRAZY IN LOVE BY BEYONCE THEY USE IN THE TRAILER SMH THIS TRASH MOVIE DOESNT DESERVE IT
I'd forgotten about that! This soundtrack should simply be different versions of Never Gonna Give You Up, sung by the top 12 worst reality show contestants, played on a kazoo.
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first day of the semester selfies. bad news: i spent $25 worth of cab fare bc my transportation closed for the day because of the snow. good news: i was rly feelin the whole oversized sweater/legging/messy hot look today