There’s never been a better time to be part a minority in the film industry. Or so reports say. And in a sense it’s true, as the conversation about #OscarsSoWhite or about #womeninfilm has really been present on social media and has impacted “the real world”: J.J. Abrams took measures to have more diverse employees and storylines at his production company, and films like The Hunger Games have decidedly shown that women can/should lead their own films. (And it’s still strange to keep talking about women as a minority but that’s another topic altogether.)
That series of films was also often mentioned in the conversation about “strong female characters”, which is now the go-to catchphrase that’s used whenever people talk about including more women in films or TV or, in a broader, more contemporary term: in the “content”. I don’t know about you, but “strong female character” doesn’t sound like much more than a catchphrase to me. People usually mean well, (hopefully) when they use it. But it does irk me. There are a few reasons why.
1) They mean well, but…
Why would we need strong female characters? It’s because the women we’ve had on our screens have mostly been assigned traditional stereotypical female roles: mothers of a man, wives/girlfriends of a man, lovers longing for a man, etc… And so in a sense, it is indeed necessary to revert those images and provide people watching films or TV with different role models, and as opposed to traditionally fragile, sensitive, emotional characters, yes we do need strong female characters.
2) Holding one’s own
But we’ve had women in film for a long time? Bette Davis, Lauren Bacall, Katharine Hepburn, Marilyn Monroe… fair enough. Yet many were there as objects of desire for men. They were sensational, and became even more so when they held their own to men. How did they hold their own to men, you ask? Illustration:
Answer is: sex. What has passed for strength for a long time, and the most memorable female characters we’ve seen on screen have usually been extremely sexualised, a phenomenon that was then epitomised under the mantle of “femme fatale”. (It’s in French so you know it’s either about food or sex.)
Not that femme fatales can’t be interesting characters, obviously. Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct was (1) yes, extremely sexualised and (2) interesting enough on top of being extremely sexual that we were still hooked. Yet sex/sexiness was inevitable for a female character for a long, long time.
3) Strong female, you say?
Strength is a necessary feature if we want to go in the opposite directions of the stereotypes (and punch them in the face along the way). But here’s the problem with strength as a character description: it’s boring.
Strength is traditionally a male feature -expressed through power, money, resilience, character. Fitting women in men’s clothing is absolutely fine if that suits the woman wearing the clothes, but let’s not make it another stereotype. A strong female character is still about valuing and praising strength and implicitly valuing traditional manliness as the gold standard. You can try to fit women in men’s boxes, and the other way around (I, for one, liked seeing Deadpool pleasuring himself while playing with a unicorn doll). But perhaps we’d all be better off without the boxes and going beyond the essentialist stereotypes?
4) Twenty-first century heroines
The 2000’s were marked by a world phenomenon called Harry Potter. In the books and the movies, Hermione (Emma Watson) is the incarnation of the idea that when you take muscles out of the equation, i.e. judge individuals through their wit, resourcefulness, resilience and innate skills, that is to say, character, then you get a heroine who is infinitely badass and a perfect role model.
In film, Rey of Star Wars was one of the most talked about characters in recent months. Not just because she was refused a place in the Star Wars Monopoly game, but also because the biggest film of the year was headed by a young woman who was smart, resourceful, and pointedly independent – so independent, in fact much so that it felt like the writers were making a point with the subtlety of an assault tank. That was unheard of, especially in a franchise whose fandom is reputedly mostly male. And the main thing that was talked about was: why hasn’t there been such a role model before?
5) Female stories?
In order to go beyond the stereotypes and the still-too-rare role models, perhaps we need to go beyond just the “strong female character” talk and just think of featuring female characters in, quite simply, good stories. Geena Davis, who founded the Geena Davis Institute On Gender and Media, recently advised that for better representation, screenwriters should just change the character’s gender to female instead of male. Chances are, that you’ve written an interesting character as a male, who could equally be female.
When I went to see Deadpool, there were three trailers before the movie (and two or three times that of advertising): all ready-to-consume blockbusters that displayed insanely top-notch craft in the middle of loudness and visual bombasticness. I got so bored and annoyed I almost walked out of the cinema before I remembered there was actually a movie afterwards. The point is: strength is boring. It’s flawless. It’s one dimensional. Yes Erin Brockovich is strong and badass but she has moments of weaknesses that make her more human and relatable.
What makes a character interesting is that they want something, and that they have flaws that make the road to their objective more complicated. It’s not that they’re strong or weak, male or female. That’s up to the writers: give me a complex character who can’t get out of my head.
PS: Helen McCrory agrees.
About Baptiste Charles
Baptiste is a writer hailing from the part of France where it is always sunny. After a stint in politics and earning his Master's Degree in Management, he was a marketing intern for the 23rd Raindance Film Festival in 2015, then joined the team permanently in 2016 as the Registrar of the MA in Filmmaking. He is passionate about diversity in film, which he researches and writes about extensively. He is the producer of the hit webseries "Netflix & Kill" and the multi-award-winning short film "Alder", as well as a writer for stage and screen. His short film "U Up?" is currently in pre-production.
Heroin is a drug, heroine is a woman 😀 Also, I definitely need more strong female characters in all movies that I pay to see. That any feature-length film made in 2016 could fail the Bechdel Test is inexcusable.
Maybe it's time to write "weak male characters" that would be more honest and refreshing.
When I'm using the term 'strong female characters', I'm not referring to physically or mentally strong characters. For me, it's more about strongly written female characters. Women on screen who have fully developed characters and stories associated with them as opposed to being a one dimensional plot point.
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Agreed!! "Strong female roles" Yaaawn. I hated Star Wars – contrived female role refusing to hold hands or accept help because that makes her "strong". Running around lot, fighting people, hair up, trousers on. I want a woman who finds strength in weakness, is falling apart, can't cope, falls in love with the wrong people, contemplates murder, drinks too much, suffers from depression, loves her husband and doesn't cheat, hates her husband and does cheat, is a failure in the boardroom, is bigger than a size 8. Not a slip of a thing with model looks and a model figure fighting everything and not falling in love to prove that we can write roles for women. ;D
Very well said!
Hit the nail on the head Francesco 😀
The term "strong" makes it confusing, it may sound more precise to use the expression "well defined", "multi-layered" or "multi-dimensional"..
Thank you Vanessa. It has become a trope, the women that is stronger than a man. Rather than her being a strong person, she has to be physically stronger. Women can be strong in character, strong in their beliefs, they can be weak too. I was bored with Rey in Star Wars because I thought the character was boring. Princess Leia was a diplomat who cared that her planet was destroyed. Consider the real world. Hilary Clinton and Margaret Thatcher are/were both strong women. They don't need to beat up men, shoot guns, have no emotion or love no one but themselves. They are smart because of their mind. Why can't we have a woman as strong as a Frank Underwood in House of Cards?
Cody Knotts Claire Underwood is, more or less.
I think the people who poop out Hollywood garbage lack souls. They have formulae and nothing to say. That's why they are proud to call their excrement "entertainment" rather than "art." They hate the "a" word and don't even understand its meaning.
Who really gives a fuck what they churn out?
As a woman I have to say I’m sick and tired of every film, series always making women the saviors and men portrayed as weak idiots. I love that my man is strong! I raised 2 strong boys that turned into great men. Wish they would let men keep theirs balls and get back to reality.
I find that the “strong female protagonists” tend to be poorly done. They all seem to be attempting to prove their strength rather than just being strong. They seem like a scared little girl pretending to be a male stereotype. Seriously whats with the trend of only “strong female protagonists” why not have a mix of male ones too? People like to see themselves in the protagonist and strictly female ones only appeal to half the audience.
Who said strength is flawless?
I hate female lead characters and I’m a female. They are boring and predictable. Producers know the way to lose ton’s of money is to have a lead female actress.