#shemake

Hello. As a lady artist who also identifies as a feminist, I am all for female leads in media, but after seeing the wave of she-makes, I have come to realize that I am against them because of my feminist side.

If you don’t know what a she-make is, it is a reboot or a remake of a media where the only significant different between it and the original is that the lead character undergoes as male-to-female gender swap. I don’t mind it when spin-offs or sequels have female leads or when a gender neutral mantle is passed onto a female lead because the content is different with a new female character being her true self or if she’s an existing character, for us to see her take the lead. This is why I liked The Next Karate Kid, Terminator Dark Fate, Masters of the Universe: Revelations, the new Star Wars trilogy, the heroine Iron Heart and Captain Marvel.

However, she-makes are not fresh, they do not showcase the female lead as her true self and they discard existing good female characters from the original male lead version. One good example of everything wrong with she-makes is the underrated film Overboard which in many ways, the true lead was the female character the whole time. This film tells the story of a spoiled rich woman-child who gets amnesia and is tricked into believing that she is a middle class woman, married and a stay at home mother of three sons. At the beginning of the movie, this woman is cruel, whiny, sadistic and appreciates nothing around her. She even destroys the equipment of a worker out out of anger. However, her amnesiac experience changes her into a person who finds joy in responsibility, caring for others and not over indulging. She also realizes that the thing that was truly missing in her life was a family and doing things herself.

When you stop and look at it, this movie is already pro-woman and pro-feminist as it is by reminding us what it means to be a woman of quality. And no, I don’t mean you have to be married with kids. It shows us that a woman of quality isn’t one with lots of money, does anything she wants and refuses to grow up. It is a woman who embraces responsibility, finds joy in selflessness and loves other people. After all, feminism means a woman is able to become a better person, admit to her mistakes and own responsibility. It is not just women kicking butt.

The she-make eliminates all of this beautiful character growth by swapping the roles so that the spoiled rich adult-child is the man and the struggling blue collar worker who tricks him is the woman. The female lead is reduced to another stock character and while she does learn a lesson in honesty and falls in love, her character doesn’t really grow beyond that. She is no longer complex, multi-dimensional or equal parts right and wrong. She is a female character who makes us think she is progressive because she is a working single mom who deserves better than the hand life gave her, but in reality, she is a “poor me” and “I’m right even when I’m wrong” character. I do not like that and do not call that feminist at all. And I must be frank when I say that the story of a spoiled rich man being humbled has been done to death. For that, the original version of Overboard was much more progressive in every respect.

Now, to be fair, not all remakes or reboots that had female leads instead of male ones are bad. In fact, some are even better like the movie-verse Transformers Bumblebee which gave us Charlie captured our hearts. However, they work not simply because the leads are ladies. They work because the media was not concerned with the lead’s gender at all. It was concerned with one thing and one thing only: making a great movie/cartoon/show/etc  with an equally great lead. THIS is how you do feminist writing right. Not with she-makes that reinforce the false and outdated concept that women have to copy men to be interesting, but by just making a great story and allowing the leading lady to be her true self warts and all. Women don’t need to copy men in order to be strong, like what they like, be independent, save the day and have aspirations beyond romance.

For the record, I also feel the same way about he-makes which are the flipside (remakes or reboots where the only significant difference is that the lead undergoes a female-to-male gender swap). A man doesn’t need to copy women in order to be sensitive, emotionally mature, share his feelings, kind and be open to non-violent solutions.