Hey, remember when I said I was trying not to restate
things others have already said? Well, that’s even harder on the subject of Feminism
and women in the media. There isn’t a lot of things I can say that haven’t
already been said. Heck, this isn’t even a subject I can claim to understand
fully.
I do, however, have an observation to share.
The stories I’ve written over the years always have
female protagonists. I just like female protagonists for some reason. It wasn’t
until recently that I started to become afraid of stepping on toes with my protagonists.
They were always what you might call an “action girl”. They were physically adept
and were kind of stand-offish. I realized recently that a lot of female
characters are like this, particularly in action movies.
I once heard another observation that the film industry,
worrying that their female characters were too bubbly and damsel-in-distress-y,
pulled a complete 180 and made female characters cold and no-nonsense. The more
I look around, the more I see how true that is. It seems like there’s no in between
when it comes to those characters. You either have a happy-go-lucky weak girl,
or a strong and capable but cold girl. I find that really weird.
I can’t say why that is or how, but it’s something I’ve
noticed. This is another entry where I’d really like to hear some input in the
matter. I know this entry is short, but I’m mainly trying to drum up some discussion.
Any ideas?
I'm with you all the way on these schemas of female characters. They can't be a strong person and be charismatic at the same time. I think the film industry feels obligated to keep some sort of balance in characters. Male characters tend to have schemas like this: they're either an all-bark-no-bite comic relief, or they're really smart, really strong, and really good-looking. It's "just how things are", and to be honest, I don't like it that way.
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