Audiences Hate Bad Writing, Not Strong Women

She-Hulk Peter Pan and Wendy the rings of power Captain Marvel The Last Jedi Mulan all products featuring a female lead of significant strength or power all brutally panned by audiences why is that sexism right or maybe it's just bad character writing that's not to Discount the awfulness of any actual hatred of female characters due to their gender but it's quite apparent once you think about it that such hateful commentary only finds any significant audience if the wider less spiteful viewing public dislikes the character for their own more sensible reasons the main reason of course is that so many lead women in film and TV in the past decade are just horribly written there are plenty of exceptions of course and we'll talk about a few of those this is a problem most notable in Disney projects as you could tell from my list but since Disney owns half the world at this point it feels like a wider issue so what exactly makes these characters such bad examples of what a protagonist should be well it's hard to point to any one thing in particular particular not all the characters discussed here will share the same writing flaws they all fail in varying ways but they do have some similarities a common one is being overpowered and not really earning that power the original animated film shows mulan's struggle due to her inexperience and lack of physical prowess but she makes up for those disadvantages by using her wits thinking creatively and refusing to quit even when things seem hopeless the new Mulan is basically a superhero already due to her midichlorians and thus is automatically more skilled than everyone else there's no need for her to use her brain or develop new ways to approach problems leaving the character flat and uninteresting it's worth noting that when I say earning power that doesn't necessarily mean doing something Noble or virtuous that results in the character being given great power as is the case with someone like Captain America most superheroes do not earn their abilities in such a way their powers are forced upon them through chance or freak accident and that's fine however to then earn the power given them the hero should have to struggle in some way to grow into his or her abilities the Tobey Maguire Spider-Man movie is a classic example of this Peter Parker is given superpowers through a random spider bite but he doesn't instantly know what to do with his Newfound abilities nor even how to put them to proper use there are significant Growing Pains as he learns to be the hero he now must become a more recent example of this Trope that was done fairly well is Kate Bishop from the Hawkeye show that at least 20 people watched despite being an incredibly talented Archer and martial artist from the get-go Kate is woefully inexperienced in the world of crime fighting and has to learn how to apply her skills in each new situation relying on the mentorship of Hawkeye himself on the flip side we have characters like She-Hulk and Rey Sky patine Rey's progression through her Jedi training was basically just whatever the plot required at any given moment Jen Walters woke up as She-Hulk and immediately was in full control of her Alter Ego the central struggles that defined the characters from whom these heroin ones were derived are just Stripped Away and not replaced by anything meaningful Jen's defining character moment takes place during a group therapy session when she comes to the realization that she needs to accept that she doesn't need to be She-Hulk to find acceptance that's right the Apex of Jen's character Arc is her deciding that she can be herself this wasn't an issue by the way until after the She-Hulk Persona was present prior to her accident Jen appeared to be quite satisfied with her life for some unknown reason she only decided to get into the dating scene after spending some time as a giant green monster and then found out apparently there is no market for a reasonably attractive 30-something year old lawyer in Los Angeles I don't know about you but to me that feels a bit contrived look I'm not in the online dating scene but I have it on good authority that women tend to get significantly more attention than men do on those apps especially if they happen to be successful and not ugly does this show seriously expect me to believe that the only guy is willing to even talk to Jen Walters are total creeps and losers or alternatively men who are only charming and friendly because they have an agenda speaking of which let's talk about Disney's obsession with promoting and elevating women it's one thing to have female characters who are smart strong persistent and courageous it's quite another to Simply promote the power of women by setting them up on a pedestal that kind of treatment is nothing more than pandering and stories that contain it suffer greatly take for example the recent Peter Pan and Wendy which decided that the all-male cast of Lost Boys wasn't inclusive enough and so tossed some girls into the mix girls can be rough and tumble too you hear uh do you know why the lost boys were originally all boys it's because they fell out of their prams or strollers for you Americans and were carted off to Neverland and girls are far too clever to do such a stupid thing but apparently no one involved in the casting decision had ever read the original novel so here we are or we could talk about Captain Marvel and the thinly veiled metaphor for the patriarchy embodied in the one dude who keeps telling her to not use her true power because that's cheating or whatever and of course She-Hulk seems to be mostly made just to complain about the pig-headedness of men so I'll check over there I'm gonna go talk to it yeah nobody talks like that it should come as no surprise that these shows and movies don't just fail at writing good female characters they're terribly written across the board I'm the Spy what it's not just Rey that the audience dislikes no characters from the Disney Trilogy won the hearts of the audience remember how great of a character Nick Fury was in Captain Marvel yeah neither does anyone else elrond really stood out in the rings of power right okay he actually wasn't terrible he wasn't good but he could have been worse honestly Galadriel could have been worse too not that I think she was well written she wasn't and her introduction in the first episode is basically a how-to course on Annoying audiences we first meet her as she's being tormented by other elf children for having the audacity to think that her origami swan will float not only does this display a severe lack of understanding of what elves are in tolkien's legendarium on the writer's part it demonstrates a cheap trick that modern media likes to use in order to attempt to make the audience like a character forced sympathy the Mantra goes something like this look this character is being mistreated you must then feel bad for her and like her the correct response to that is of course why is this character being mistreated for all we know Galadriel was being a complete twerp just moments before this scene and is totally deserving of having her boat sunk there's no narrative reason that the show gives for collateral to be tormented here it's just an attempt at manipulating the audience into feeling bad for the poor helpless victim and thus hopefully liking her contrast that with Arcane in the plight of Vin and powder the show opens with an actually tragic scene and it doesn't stoop to the pointed Petty tactics of rings of power Galadriel lives in valinor a place of transcendent peace and Harmony so the writers contrived in inane attempt at sympathy Arcane is set largely in a brutal slum of a city but it gives its main character a Plucky Relentless attitude that rejects the victimhood status which so many other are modern properties confer upon their heroines because if you're a victim how can anyone hate you well it's pretty easy when you're incredibly smug and don't give a rat's ass about the safety of your troops the me against the world vibes from Galadriel in the first episode are just so tired and overdone we know she's going to be right about Sauron still being around because of course she is she can take down the ice troll single-handedly because of course she can however that on its own would not necessarily be bad writing Galadriel because that is what the show calls her is quite old and thus an experienced Warrior I am willing to accept that this character has spent centuries in combat and thus is highly skilled and capable of such Feats what makes this scene so absurd is that all the other elves around her these Warriors hand-picked to exterminate Sauron and the remnants of his armies are completely and totally hapless and helpless to the point that they might as well be a different species than their leader it's totally fine to have protagonists who are supremely skilled but it's a really poor choice to have the supporting characters be complete buffoons in order to Showcase that skill Galadriel might as well just be out there on her own really most of the examples I've listed tend to just do things solo it is up to them and them alone to win the day as in Captain Marvel and Mulan all they really need to do is seize the power that is already within them to throw off the shackles others would impose upon them and victory is theirs the dramatic shift between victimhood and total power is what these movies believe to be meaningful character work but it's really just a violent swing from one extreme to the other and neither end of the spectrum is healthy there's a huge difference between having agency and being World conquering forces of nature that only needed to shrug off the hands holding them down if you're going to write the hero of a story a central character who ultimately is able to conquer the evil he or she faces you need to make them earn it that protagonist needs to struggle or even suffer as they obtain the strength necessary to win the day ideally they would find such strength through meaningful relationships or by learning from those wiser or more experienced than them recent examples of this done at least fairly well Rita vertaski a supremely skilled Soldier having to work together with Tom Cruise's character whose name I forget to gradually establish a plan to win the war by being motivated by love for her sister relying on others in her fight badly missing the guidance of her father figure Kate Bishop being mentored by Hawkeye as she realizes how ill-prepared she is for the world she has stumbled into there are plenty of other examples of female protagonists who match that description but I wanted to point out some from within the last decade to emphasize the point that audiences do not by and large just hate any strong woman on screen right now just the ones whose character arcs are flatter than the state of Kansas characters who need only achieve self-actualization are not only boring and lack meaningful character work they teach us awful lessons the idea that all that is needed for success is to seize the strength and power already within you is a harm powerful notion that discredits the value of relationships personal growth and humility you are sufficient these stories tell their audiences you don't need to change our heroes are supposed to inspire us either by their ability to grow beyond their own flaws and failures or despite being Paragons of virtue and goodness still having to struggle against overwhelming odds and having to use their wits to be creative to trust their team to win the day indeed some of the most admirable characters in fiction ones who do not suffer all that much personal growth due to having already attained great virtue find themselves insufficient this is most clear in tolkien's work where characters such as faramir Theoden and Aragorn Great Men Who suffer little if any inner turmoil at least in the books are not able to win the day but rather can only play their part in the war that will Define the future of Middle Earth they teach us the message we need to hear the message that Disney and Hollywood want to keep from our ears that is is you are not enough but you still can do great things they may not bring you glory they may even bring you pain and suffering but if you put the good of others before your own needs and wants you will find true and Lasting happiness so many modern heroines fail to win the love of the audience because they take shortcuts to power they are elevated by the story rather than having to climb up their own character Arc they are shallow character molds created largely to prove a point or push an agenda and perhaps most importantly they tend to care for themselves their own success their own ideas of what it means to be fulfilled Hollywood and Disney in particular seem to want so badly to provide us with examples of powerful women but they fail to understand what makes for a good example or role model the heroines they prop up are too often shallow unlikable and exhibit many of the traits such as arrogance and abrasiveness that their creators find abhorrent and male protagonists how is this fixed simple create characters to tell a story not to prove a point either show flawed characters who have to grow and change to heal their inner wounds and overcome their shortcomings or give us Paragons of virtue who have to struggle sacrifice and suffer due to the evil they face but most importantly write characters whose defining moments do not come as they realize their own worth and value that they themselves are sufficient but rather as they decide to take selfless action for the good of others I can't carry it for you but I can't carry you well those are all my rambling thoughts on the matter I hope we see lots more characters like by Kim Wexler Rita vertaski and Evelyn from The Quiet Place movies I just realized two of those characters are played by Emily Blunt no surprise they are considering her publicly stated thoughts on the strong female lead Trope anyhow let me know your thoughts and opinions and I will see you in the next one thank you so much for watching

Channel: Master Samwise

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Id: YmWgp4K9XuU

Length: 13min 1sec (781 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 15 2023