Why Modern Movies Suck - The Strong Female Character

Sarah Connor Clary Starling Buffy Summers Ellen Ripley Marion Ravenwood Princess Leia Dana Scully Samantha Carter eowin VI Aaron Sun nyota Uhura Beth Harmon Kara Thrace and Rita vertaski these are just a few examples of the many intelligent complex compassionate Brave compelling and well-written female characters that have emerged in the past 50 years of film and TV characters that have left their mark on whole generations of audiences to the point where they still resonate with people years or even decades after their creation but then there's a different kind of character a shallow trite cheaply made gratingly unpleasant facsimile of these excellent ladies of the Silver Screen a phenomenon known only as the strong female character honestly it seems like just about every character without a y chromosome these days automatically has to be labeled as strong it's one of the first words to come tumbling out of the mouths of the writers actors directors and marketing departments whenever they're asked about it and it's been overused to the point where it's become completely and totally meaningless just another expected buzzword in the endless corporate approved word salad that has to be sprinkled on every new project now [Music] in fact Emily Blunt said it better than I ever could it's the worst thing ever when you open a script and read the words strong female leads that makes me roll my eyes I'm already out I'm bored those rules are written as incredibly stoic you spend the whole time acting tough and seeing tough things oh stop it Emily I can only like you so much the thing is though she's absolutely right on this one the strong female character cliche is as Hollow simplistic and meaningless as all those soulless corporations that will happily use social movements as an excuse to sell your more useless tat that was probably made in an Indian Sweatshop but why is this happening what is it that makes a good female character different from a strong female character well let's explore this together shall we the first problem is one of Competency see one of the core elements of any character Arc is presenting them with a challenge or difficulty that they have to overcome whether it's an opponent to be defeated a goal to be reached or even a personal feeling or weakness that has to be tackleds all of this stuff requires the character to grow or change in some way to become better than who they were before they'll often be given some kind of Mentor figure to guide them on their path and they're likely going to struggle and fail along the way it's all part of the learning process and the more you see a character suffer setbacks and personal failures the more you tend to empathize with them it's basic human nature storytellers have known this for thousands of years which is why most stories tend to follow the same basic structure taking the audience on an emotional roller coaster and delivering a satisfying payoff by the ends but strong female characters don't work that way a strong female character will almost always be supremely good at whatever she does either succeeding right off the bat or teaching herself with minimal effort they're generally not allowed to have older mentors to teach them things especially not male ones because that would send out the message that women need men to help them succeed [Applause] the result is a character that doesn't really face any serious struggles or challenges or suffer major setbacks that they have to bounce back from they're almost never allowed to fail because the writers incorrectly associate failure with weakness rather than seeing it for what it actually is unnecessary part of personal growth failure itself doesn't Define the character it's how they react to it that matters and if there's no failure then there's no chance for growth and developments what strong female characters tend to focus on instead is self-actualization the idea that she already has everything she needs to succeed and all that's required is to let go of the limitations imposed on her by others the message to the audience is simple you're perfect the way you are and it's the rest of the world that has the change nice one can't see that backfiring for people when they try to apply that to their real lives take Captain Marvel forcefully removing the control chip that keeps their powers contained it's a symbolic gesture of the strong empowered woman throwing off the shackles and posed on her by his Society so that she can realize her true potential it's a nice idea that probably had the writers patting themselves on the back but the problem is that when you remove struggle failure weakness and vulnerability you don't leave the audience with a whole lot to empathize with we don't need to feel invested in whether a strong female character is going to succeed because the writers give us no reason to question or doubt it and what you end up with instead is an empty shell of a character with the superficial appearance of strength and empowerment but nothing substantial or meaningful driving it and it all just comes across as wish fulfillment the desires and angst of the writers to see their character do the things they always wish they could do and if you want an extreme example of this just watch an episode of She-Hulk which brings me along to my next Point Physical strength one of the most tedious and embarrassing aspects of modern movies is watching a hundred pound actress plowing through a series of extremely accommodating stuntmen twice her size because the writers mistakenly believe that the only way for a character to be strong is through Feats of actual dual physical strength because after all how can a woman possibly be equal to a man if she's not as physically capable as him the problem is you're always going to have a tough time selling a fight between a man and a woman on screen for obvious reasons men are generally bigger stronger and more robust with denser and heavier bones stronger muscles broader shoulders longer Limbs and Superior upper body strength add all of that stuff together and you've got a huge Advantage when it comes to the application of physical violence the problem is that this reality doesn't gel too well with the modern Hollywood ideology that men and women are exactly the same at everything so how do they get around it you might ask do they carefully structure and choreograph male female fight scenes to have the woman make clever use of her environment the element of surprise or improvised weapons to even the odds do they hire large physically imposing actresses who actually look like they could take on a fully grown man or do they say [ __ ] it we'll just pretend that size and strength doesn't matter anymore I think you know the answer already like in this scene from the woman King where a 57 year old five foot five inch Viola Davis takes on a 29 year old six foot tall man who's built like a heavyweight boxer he's literally half her age and twice her size a single one of these Haymaker punches would probably shatter most of the bones in her face fracture her skull and cause severe brain injuries and yeah there she is tanking them like she's Rocky Balboa nobody is buying this because they know that an actual fight like this would be over in about four seconds but if you want an extremely rare example of how stuff like this would actually go down check out this scene from sicario where main character Kate punches a CIA officer full in the face as hard as she can and it barely even phases him then he promptly knocks her on her ass in response this is what actually tends to happen when you try to take down someone who's bigger and stronger and tougher than you and the thing is all of this stuff misses the point the actual physical strength isn't what makes a character strong someone who chooses to fight even if they're at a massive disadvantage is actually a lot braver and more compelling than some overpowered superhuman who dominates everything around them like in this scene from Lord of the Rings where eowin makes a stand against one of the most powerful and terrifying enemies in all of Middle Earth you can see how frightened and Tiny she is compared to him she's basically a fly that he could easily SWAT away and the fact that she doesn't just break and run speaks volumes about her strength of character which is a lot more important than the strength of her muscles the point I'm making here is that all of these attempts to push female characters as the physical equals of men comes across more like envious wish fulfillment or spiteful Revenge fantasies rather than believable character traits that fit naturally into a well-rounded story more often than not it's the writers pushing their own desires and personal ideology into the script rather than trying to tell a compelling story that resonates with audiences now none of this is to say that it's impossible for a woman to beat a man in a fight of course it is the differences between them aren't that huge but it has to be carefully thought out and implemented to make it look believable on screen Sarah Connor was an awesome Kick-Ass fighter in Terminator 2 but the film never tries to pretend that she's bigger or stronger than the men around her instead she uses weapons the environment surprise ambushes threats and hostage taken to even the odds and it works you believe that she could actually accomplish the things she does and the natural result is that you buy into her character more one other weird aspect of the strong female character is their General lack of human personality traits and redeeming qualities instead of being altruistic or compassionate or protective or vulnerable or quirky they're almost always written as stoic emotionally closed off blunt dismissive prickly domineering or aggressive the very same masculine traits that the writers seem to find so toxic and unacceptable in men they very rarely have any kind of romantic interest in men and are carefully written and dressed to avoid even the barest hint of sensuality or attractiveness either way it all just smacks of over compensation a kind of knee-jerk reaction to all those overly emotional easily frightened damsels in distress from previous generations of movies a desire to break away from the tropes of women as caring compassionate maternal characters or overly sexualized fantasy figures fair enough there's absolutely nothing wrong with branching out and exploring different ideas the problem is that if you take all those feminine elements away and replace them with nothing but the most stereotypical of male traits then all you really end up with are women awkwardly pretending to be men like galadrio from rings of power always trying to talk tough stamp down her Authority demand and respect and showing off it doesn't ring true because it's not how women tend to act in the real world audiencies know it and if Emily Blunt's comments are innocent to go by the actress he's trying to play these roles know it too again none of this is to say that you can't have assertive and authoritative female characters who speak their minds and fight their own corner but you have to give them more than just the superficial facade of toughness just like her making them more physically powerful 4 diminishes their bravery and removing their challenges weaknesses and failures eats away at their relatability so removing their emotional complexity and vulnerability makes them less likable and the end result of all this is characters that are weirdly Bland sterile sexless emotionless joyless arrogant condescending and unappealing people might not always be able to put into words what exactly is missing from them but they know instinctively that what they're being shown just doesn't feel right and it doesn't connect with them and the more Hollywood tries to force these characters on us the more people are rejecting them it's kind of ironic when you think about it that the strong female character should ultimately turn out to be their biggest weakness anyway that's all I've got for today go away now

Channel: The Critical Drinker

Views: 3,382,077

Keywords: disney, captain marvel, brie larson, rey skywalker, kathleen kennedy, feminism, feminist, critical drinker, review, funny, best, marvel, lucasfilm

Id: xPE7-PRL0M8

Length: 11min 17sec (677 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 10 2023