Thursday, January 19, 2017
Creating Complex Female Characters
HowlRound: So you sit down to see a new play. The play has mostly male characters, but there’s a woman with tough features and intense eyes. You notice she has no love interest and seems uninterested in any other character. She then attacks people with swords and is super strong, end of play. You talk with your friends after and they say how happy they are to see a “strong female character.” “She hit that random dude with a sword so well! I can really relate to that as a woman," your friend says.
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This article was so funny, and perfectly articulates everything I want to say about the women who are now heroins in super hero movies or TV shows. I agree with this author so completely because guess what every time I see the girl who weights 110 pounds and spent 2 hours doing her make-up role out of a punch and still look fantastic with blood gushing down her face, then walk over to her equally attractive partner and kiss him, while they ride off into the sunset on their secret agent plane I don't feel so great about myself. The thing about this "strong female lead" stereotype is that it's just another stereotype. Instead of being eye candy and silent now we are strong but only in the ways that are still attractive. Only with a shit ton of make-up and a very tight black body suit am I able to be seen as anything other than what I was seen as 50 years ago. Is this progress? I'm not so sure. Yes women have more lines, and more visibility but we still aren't being accurately represented by the mainstream media. Human beings make mistakes, human beings role out of a punch and tend to look like they just got PUNCHED! Moreover, being a woman doesn't always mean that you have to be strong, just like it doesn't mean that for a man (despite what society tells us), by creating this strong female character we aren't helping to smash the female stereotype we are just including women in the male stereotype, which helps exactly no one. I think we are working toward the right thing, and the generation younger than me will start to see themselves as these strong women which I never got to, and that will help us transition to the next step of not just strong, but complex female characters.
This article perfectly points out the critical pitfalls that come with this concept of the "strong female character," who's here to finally put an end to the previously dainty, flawless, one dimensional female characters of the past. Except, as stated in this article, the strong female character trope has done except for creating yet another unrealistic expectation for the image of women. What's interesting to note is how somewhere within the superiority complex developed around this character archetype, maintaining the "not like other girls" reputation, we've actually created a character that is indirectly based on putting down women who align more with traditional femininity. Instead celebrating the reality that women are all different, interestingly unique individuals, these women seem to just be written with more traditionally masculine traits as if the only way for woman to perceived as strong is by exhibiting stereotypical masculine qualities. If anything, this accomplishes nothing except for receding in the progression of creating well developed female characters instead of writing women who function as almost nothing more than an accessory for their male counterparts.
I think that the term “strong female character” is part of the problem. Many authors seem to take “strong” too literally, creating characters that are physically strong, or aggressive, or strong-willed and confident. And to avoid these traits seeming too masculine, they balance out the character with female beauty ideals. They do not all have to be strong, independent females. I think that the goal should be creating strong characters, with depth, quirks, actual stage time, and a variety of motivations and relationships with other characters. A good writer should be able to create a female character with a love interest without starting a chain reaction of love interest to dependency to 2-dimensional, stereotypical female character. It shouldn’t be that difficult. I liked the author’s argument that people should be writing female characters that seem more realistic and human. I think that is a great way of approaching the simple goal of just writing some better female characters.
I think this article can basically be condensed to, “writers should write women as people.” I find it kind of sad that this point even has to be made, it feels like it should just be obvious. I really like that Weingarten stressed the fact that female characters should be flawed, because people are flawed (and, as I said, writers should write women as people). If a story just portrays two dimensional women (or a two dimensional woman) who do “strong” things but have no actual complexity, they haven’t written a that character as a person. I suppose that is fine if the goal of the play is not to tell the stories of people, but from what I’ve seen, most good plays are about the human experience in some way shape or form. I do think having realistic women in plays is important in order to create a society where the perspectives and stories of women get as much respect, value, attention as they should (which is significantly more than they currently do). I also think it is important to have flawed female characters in order to combat pressure about how women should be this ideal strong woman rather than the actual people they are. But, even if we are ignoring the societal implications of the representation of gender in plays (though I think it is vital that we don’t ignore those implications), it is still important, because in the end, if you aren’t writing believable characters (and if you aren’t writing complex female characters, then you aren’t writing believable characters) then, as far as I’m concerned, you aren’t writing a good play, or at least you are writing a play that is substantially worse than it could be.
This article addressed such a touchy topic with an impressive political accurateness without dissolving the topic into dried out slice of bread. The author illustrated her point with evidence without out right placing the blame on those who have unintentionally created the problem. The sass and attitude conveyed her irritation without turning her into a femi-nazi. While a hardcore feminist may not be the evil it has street cred for it does drive away the audience. Even if a hardcore feminist is what the world needs to get it to change, what the author is trying to confront isn’t an easy subject. Tuning down the intensity of her writing with levity definitely helped make the article more approachable to a larger audience, most importantly including the completely clueless part. Overall the article pointed out things the average woman is sick and tired about but it definitely does a good job in opening other’s eyes with it’s reasonable request for a divergence from the “strong female character”
I really appreciated what this article said regarding strong female characters. There has been an impressive amount of progress that has been made moving away from the stereotypical damsel in distress, but there is still a long way to go. Instead of creating natural female characters, writers began to create a far fetched idea of what women are. And while I am sure that there are many women in this world who can pull out a sword and use it perfectly, I personally have never seen this in action. I think writers need to focus more on strong female characters that are very present in today's society. There needs to be female characters that women can relate to more before writers begin to touch the other end of the spectrum. By skipping this very important step, audiences just go from one extreme of women to another. There need to be more natural, flawed, strong women before most strong female leads are beyond what most people experience.
I could not agree with this article more. I am so tired of writers thinking that female characters can only exist on the two extremes. They are either completely helpless and in love with the main male character or they are strong and tough and not interested in any romance ever. Why can we not have someone in between? Why can we not have, god forbid, a lesbian character? Why can we not have an accurate depiction of how a lot of women actually are? Yes there are definitely a percentage of women that fit those two extremes, but I would wager that the vast majority of women fall somewhere in between. I wish writers could kind get the idea out of their collective head that the word strong does not have to mean masculine or muscular. That's one meaning of the word strong, but in this context strong can just mean not totally helpless. Overall, I definitely appreciated this article and how well written it was. The author definitely said what I think most women are thinking in a way that was both not aggressive and not boring.
Finally an article which articulates everything I have ever tried to say about the state of women characters in film. I am so tired of the repeated image of the “Strong” woman who goes to battle. There is nothing wrong with portraying a woman who is willing and capable to stand up for her self – but you do that character a great injustice if you blatantly fail to portray complexity in her life. Just to clarify – “complexity” does not mean that she is a physically strong and courageous character who also knits. Its means that she has a backstory. She has a life outside of the fighting. She has hopes and dreams and past failings and reasons for all of her actions. I absolutely love superhero movies – and yet this is the genre which fails the female character the most. Black Widow – in the comics – has an incredible backstory and is a dynamic character. However, in the avenger’s films, she is reduces to little more than a strong fighter. Supergirl is perhaps the only complex female superhero currently onscreen (she has a TV series). She is also the only woman in a superhero film/show that I have encountered who is unapologetically feminine. The representation of women in entertainment is something that desperately needs to be improved upon.
I think Weingarten about this rise of the so-called “strong, female character.” I can’t help but notice that this rise correlates with that type of woman becoming the stereotype for what is most desirable to men. Men no longer want the dainty, pretty girl, she is too “girly” too “high-maintenance.” They want the girl who is ballsy, outspoken, and “not like other girls.” We live in a society where “you’re not like other girls” is supposed to be a compliment. What the hell do you think is wrong with other girls? Why is it a good thing not to be like the entire REST of my gender? So to put a cold, strong, intimidating woman in a tight jumpsuit and sell it as a female role model is lacking in a lot of ways. However, I think that saying that she writes human women so therefore a lot of her plays don’t pass the Bechdel test is kind of a cop out. I think that we can tell interesting, touching, human stories about women and love that include them talking about other things besides men. Today in class we were discussing how the historical role of men, in wars, in positions of power, tips the scale in terms of the gender imbalance in storytelling. While I think this is a valid issue and concern to bring up, I again think it is kind of a cop out. They say the winners write the history books, which means the stories of men have been told over and over and over and over. If you want to create something new and original, tell the story of what women were doing at that time, it’s not like women didn’t exist before the 20th century. My grandmother flew planes in WWII, she was part of a group called the Spitfire Women and she mainly went out into the battle field and flew damaged planes back to the base. As far as I know, in the entire anthology of WWII movies there isn’t one about that group. I am hopeful that the tremendous success of Hidden Figures will spark a realization in the world of historical films/plays that women weren’t always just secretaries or heiresses before the 20th century. Overall, I believe Weingarten makes a really valid point about the subversion of what it means to be a strong woman in pop culture. But I don’t she, or we as a society, have pushed past all the conventions of storytelling that keep us from portraying real, relatable, human women on stage or screen.
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