What it comes down to is a lack of effort.
This is being passed around the internet. While a wonderful post, it’s not offering any new idea. The argument that so-called strong female characters often turn out to be hollow sexual objects has been kicked around the internet for longer than I’ve been writing; and it’s a well-known writing rule that flaws are what make a character compelling to readers.
But certain writers still don’t seem to understand this when it comes to female characters so these posts continue to be written and passed around. The notability of any such post isn’t that the idea is new, but that it needs to be stated in a new way to get the idea across to writers. This post offers a new mantra–”We need WEAK female characters”–that will be repeated for some time by bloggers but likely won’t penetrate the skulls of the majority of writers.
Which is strange, because certainly any professional writer should know that delicately balanced defects are what make the character compelling. That’s how they get their jobs as fiction writers, they write something compelling. Unfortunately, they only seem to know this when it comes to male characters.
I strongly suspect it has to do with the demographics of the writers themselves. It’s easier to pour yourself into a character that matches your experience and etch out the faultlines and blemishes on the soul of that character, often without even noticing. It’s subtle because it’s natural. That’s you, that’s people like you. Sure, the character’s past is different. The writer may never have been a test pilot, but the writer can place himself in the position of the character and imagine what he would be like as a test pilot. How he would react if he found himself suddenly in outer space.
But when it comes to character that’s distinguished from the writer by certain categories–a character who is from another race and culture, a character of the opposite gender, there can be a barrier. And unless the writer makes an effort to find a place of common experience, a way to pour a touch of themselves into the character and communicate that to some common experience in the reader, the character falls flat. They never come to life.
What stands in the way for female characters is when writers approach women not as someone like them–not as a person who started out like them but faced a different set of circumstances–but as a bit of window dressing. These allegedly strong female characters are background to the real action in the story–what goes on in the male lead’s life. These allegedly strange female characters are just part of the setting.
And until such writers can be convinced to think of female characters as extensions of themselves in the story–until they can channel a small piece of their own personality into those characters–it’ll all seem forced. No matter how many articles on “strong” and “weak” characters we pass around.
August 29th, 2008 at 5:51 pm
Which is strange, because certainly any professional writer should know that delicately balanced defects are what make the character compelling. That’s how they get their jobs as fiction writers, they write something compelling. Unfortunately, they only seem to know this when it comes to male characters.
Or, in the case of writers like Chuck Austen, Ron Zimmerman and Reginald Hudlin, they don’t know it at all, regardless of the characters’ genders, which is why all their heroes are glorified Mary Sues/Marty Stus, and all the other characters exist only to glorify their awesome.
August 30th, 2008 at 4:59 am
That’s another problem entirely, Kirk. Let’s concentrate on the people who show some promise.
August 30th, 2008 at 9:39 am
“I strongly suspect it has to do with the demographics of the writers themselves. It’s easier to pour yourself into a character that matches your experience and etch out the faultlines and blemishes on the soul of that character, often without even noticing.”
Perhaps that is why so many find the works of Alan Moore and Grant Morrison so compelling—the stories are being told by people who have experiences that most of us would never have. Same with Hunter S Thompson and Papa Hemingway.
August 30th, 2008 at 10:29 am
Hey Lisa,
Are these blogs edited before going online? There are a few typos in your post, and your second to last paragraph reads a bit odd in the end.
Now on-topic, What the original poster and you seem to forget is that the movies that she has problems with are big budget blockbusters, specifically the Transformers, Star Wars, Indiana Jones and James Bond franchises. Asking fair, balanced and respectful representation in these movies is like asking your puppy not to piss on your rug. Sure, it would be grand if they listened, but it’s just not in their nature.
In the original blog the author makes a tremendous list of great female roles, and yes there are hundreds of other great movies with awesome female characters too. It’s not as if I am asking her to be happy with that list. I just want to point out the fact that there ARE alternatives from the Hollywood schlop that she has problems with.
It also seems to me that she may be doing the right thing already. That is, not watching a movie like transformers until a year or two after it comes out, but going to see Kill Bill or Deathproof in theaters and buying DVDs of films like Lady Snowblood or Sympathy for Lady Vengeance.
August 30th, 2008 at 10:52 am
“Now on-topic, What the original poster and you seem to forget is that the movies that she has problems with are big budget blockbusters, specifically the Transformers, Star Wars, Indiana Jones and James Bond franchises. Asking fair, balanced and respectful representation in these movies is like asking your puppy not to piss on your rug. Sure, it would be grand if they listened, but it’s just not in their nature:
Honestly, I can disprove that concept with ONE movie. Terminator 2: Judgement Day. So studios CAN make giant blockbuster’s with strong female leads…
August 30th, 2008 at 5:09 pm
Maybe more female creators could write and draw the stories and characters that they want to see, instead of waiting for the guys to “get it right”? Forgive the cliche but if you want something done right…
The original blog made some good points and others that I completely disagree with. Like dismissing the “nice guys finish last” syndrome as strictly male fantasy where the “nice guys” are actually jerks too. Well, I’ve seen this topic discussed by other women and some of the explanations they offer acknowledge that the phenomenon does exist, and that “nice” is still perceived as “weakness” by some, including women.
August 30th, 2008 at 5:16 pm
No Ripley love in the Alien movies? It may be an exception but it’s a rather big one. It’s not just a question of character but the plots in those movies routinely subvert the rules of action movies that the original blog outlines.
August 31st, 2008 at 12:55 am
It may be worth pointing out that of the major offender movies listed, none of them have what I would consider legitimate strong male leads either. I mean Sam Witwicky, seriously?
August 31st, 2008 at 2:53 am
But Sam was allowed to be weak and geeky and sort of goofy, while the Megan Fox character had to be HOT AND SEXY all the time. Obviously Shia LaBeouf has become a bit of a hearthrob in his own right, but his performance doesn’t emphasize that in the way that hers does.
August 31st, 2008 at 4:30 am
And why were all the live action Transformers male? And not wearing pants? I hadn’t seen this kind of crazy nudity in a mainstream movie since Chewbacca walked around flashing his hairy junk in a galaxy far, far away.
I’m sure that Michael Bay will take these suggestions under advisement and add the complexity and nuance that people will undoubtedly demand in Transformers 2 by including Arcee. :p
August 31st, 2008 at 9:31 am
RE: LurkerWithout
Yup, I was almost going to say that the original blogger dismantles her own argument by mentioning T2 and a few other great movies like Kill Bill (did she really forget Aliens in her list?)
But I wanted to keep in mind that stuff like T2 is an intelligent movie while the major franchises that she and I have mentioned are well, as ideologically complex as He-Man.
August 31st, 2008 at 10:16 am
The original poster you keep mentioning is mlawski.
The person who wrote this column is Lisa Fortuner.
In the interest of having less confusion, please try to mention them by their names.
Also, it shows a bit more respect if you use their name instead of saying he or she or original poster.
August 31st, 2008 at 2:30 pm
I don’t see how mentioning a few examples of films that got it right dismantles one’s entire argument. If anything mlawski is saying that interesting and well-drawn female characters like Sarah Connor and the Bride should be more common. After all, at most you’re dealing with four movies with those characters.
August 31st, 2008 at 4:47 pm
But in terms of characterization, does putting an M16 or a katana sword in the hands of a female lead automatically make them 3-dimensional or even “strong”?
I think that’s one of the things that mlawski was getting at.
August 31st, 2008 at 4:58 pm
“Also, it shows a bit more respect if you use their name instead of saying he or she or original poster.”
I hope that you’ll extend me the same respect and dignity in using my full name in referring to my posts;)
August 31st, 2008 at 6:06 pm
Farty McPoopyPants—You didn’t post, so I couldn’t mention you. Unless this is, of course, a confession on your part of having multiple screen names in order to post here. I only use one.
As I was responding to detourne_me and my post was immediately after the post I was referring to, I didn’t consider it necessary to use his/her name in my post, but you, Farty McPoopyPants, indeed have a point.
And while your name is Farty McPoopypants, had you ever considered putting the ‘Mc’ in front of the first name, becoming McFarty Poopypants? Sorta rolls off the tongue a little better that way, IMHO.
September 1st, 2008 at 11:54 am
IMO it’s just an extremely sloppy use of the term “strong” which only confuses things even more and is likely to give us still more soppy damsels and eyelash-batting cheerleaders and uninvolved mannequins if anyone takes it seriously as advice.
CJ Cherryh did a much better job addressing the characterization problem over ten years ago, and TV Tropes recently encapsulated the problem of weak female characters falsely advertised as “strong” under the header of “Faux Action Girl”…
(Ironically enough I’m currently rereading an old Alistair Maclane thriller and I think it passes the Bechdel-Wallace test - two named female characters who are friends talking about how to thwart the bad guys’ plot, one of whom has already managed to get a clue out so far. And they’re both secretaries - which is the source of the older one’s abilities to thwart the baddies: shorthand as a secret power.)