Why is What Makes a "Strong" Female Protagonist SO Complicated?

@Misty 's here! ABORT! ABORT ABORT!

[insert gif of someone hitting a big red button saying MISTY IN THREAD and alarms going off and people retreating and stuff]

 

Slightly womanly, because it shows she's got more emotional range. Most male characters are bubblegum and guns, which range of smugness or not caring.

 

Funny, I just watched the LEGO Movie last night, so with that part at least I can see this article is reaching.
She's degraded to a constant nag? She's the first person to actually trust Emmett. She has no purpose to the story? She literally instigates a universe wide revolution. The joke about Emmett tuning her out? It's a joke about exposition dumps. Asking permission to dump her old boyfriend? What? No, she turns to him and says "Look babe, there's something I have to tell you" and Batman says he understands.
I dunno about the award bit, honestly. I mean, if you want to frame it like that, then I guess. Kinda don't like the idea that two people getting together is a 'reward' for someone but eh
Though the ending of the movie completely subverts anything you can say about it, since it changes everything.

 

Interviewer to Joss Whedon: Why do you write strong female characters?
Joss Whedon's reply: Because you're still asking me that question.


Honestly, it shouldn't be anything complex. Compelling and great male characters are around all the time (though I'm getting tired of the ~deep tortured character with a terrible past~), but the media industry in general is plagued by people who instead of writing female characters as human beings, use general tropes and clichés that have been there for dozens of years.

 

That's true for both sexes though, like the tortured past thing you just mentioned. It kinda seems like there's just extra sensitivity when a trope is used with a female character, which is a problem because, well
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TropesAreTools
I think that's why there's this impossible standard for a 'strong female character'
people are terrified of the use of tropes, but persistent ones exist for both sides of this argument, and they're viewed as objectively bad. There's a level of scrutiny here that's honestly probably not helping. Rather than look at, say, Wyldstyle being the most competent character, having a solid character arc, having leadership skills or whatever other positive traits that might be good to share with a young girl, we look at "oh my god, she ends up with a man at the end, what a sexist character"
Like my 5 year old niece loves Wyldstyle, she loves how she's strong and "has really pretty hair" :P it's an overall positive influence and because of characters like her she's not growing up thinking that action is just for boys, but at the sign of any tropes we have to throw up red flags and say it's all awful?
that kinda went all over the place, I hope that actually made sense

 

I want people to keep in mind when insulting these characters that this is something true: A lot of people connect with these characters. Now obviously obligatory fem side kick no one cares about. But in video games, people care about Peach, Lara Croft, Samus, Cortana, Sylvia etc. Women especially. Even if it's truly because there's nothing else, it says a lot about their roles when they have very strong fan followings when these people could just dedicate their lives to The Boss. I just wanted to say this because I noticed a lot of people were speaking broadly and condemning female characters as a whole rather than citing examples of bad. I think if a character has a lot of fans, it means they did something right. Whether we like those characters or not is an entirely different thing.

Black Widow is the victim of at least three syndromes mentioned in this thread. Trinity syndrome, sex appeal, and sidekick. Do I think that devalues her personally? No, but I'm saying other people probably will.[DOUBLEPOST=1403031160][/DOUBLEPOST]WHY'S THIS GUY WHO LIKES SUDA CHARACTERS TALKING ABOUT WOMEN IN MEDIA

OUTRAGEOUS

LISSEN DAWG....

Spoiler: Shion

 

Thought this was funny considering the topic:

 

Aoife Wilson, a video game journalist for Official Xbox Magazine, was on a British programme called How Video Games Changed The World. The topic of female characters came up and she talked about Lara Croft and how she loved her when she was young. She didn't notice she was considered sexy or the breasts were big, she loved seeing a woman in a game.
That was a big step back then, inclusion of a female protagonist. That was 18 years ago and I'd like to think we'd be more willing to change things even further now for the better than just accept the current situation. Apparently though, apathy is still rampant in many gamer's eyes, or worse, reverting back to how old games were.

I actually can't wait to see what the aftermath of a confirmed and seriously characterised transgender main character will be like and how gamers will react. Hell, I suppose I should say even just a gay character too, can't even think of any like that.

 

BUT HATOK, THOSE AREN'T MAINSTREAM AAA VIDEO GAMES

EDIT: Does anyone remember the era of video games when there was no DLC, there were no patches, updates, or any fixes? I do, here's a treasure from that time



You can be a mother who owns her own farm and runs the town. Or not. It's your call.

 

i do.
because im still in it.

 

The real problem? Our society is sexist and biased, this creates TWO DIFFERENT PROBLEMS:
1) Sexist people that cannot cope with a "physically strong woman", we all know that Woman are on average weaker than man, yet that doesn't mean that one woman could not be stronger than MOST man, even if the "strongest man alive is stronger than the strongest woman"... these people would say "She does not appears like a woman and could be replaced by a man" (like this was a problem, we are all humans in the end all or most roles should be interchangeable)
This typical person is more likely to like characters like the "new Lara Croft" that was indeed weaker than the man in the island and had to use other resources to surpass them, But would not like characters like the ones that Michelle Rodriguez makes , or Brianne of Tarth from game of thrones (because they punch like a man!)

2) Feminists that think that everything made should be a political propaganda of women's strengths (not saying that all feminists are like this, or this is a bad thing per se) , they will not like if women are depicted as sexual objects even if they are objectified by their own choice , you know "The **** walk" , was about this! Men and Women alike sometimes devalue women that dresses like a "****" , as if they were less important, or that they were destroying the "feminist struggle and bending over for man, when in truth women should act as they like even if they want to be "****s".

Sure one could argue that those "sexual objectified women" from games are made by man, and not have this behaviour by choice.. but we have to agree that there are woman that like to dress like that in the real world.

 

Gosh there's so much I could say to this thread but

Spamzone

so I'll just stick to this:

I appreciate this. I would also add that this in no way means we should not strive for more complex, interesting characters of all kinds going forward, but judgements never did nothin' but hurt nobody, y'all. Respect the past, build towards the future.

 

Have to echo the argument you expect at you, with a bit of flavor: the problem is that these girls who are slutty (Why is that censored? Are we slut shaming as a website?) in games/films/what have you are made for the benefit of the males who play the game and not the females who play them. Intent affects execution and execution affects reception—you can't ignore any of these factors but there is some causality between them. If you make female characters to entertain a male audience you will alienate the female audience 99% of the time.

Contrast a work that has a female protagonist to a work that is marketed to females. Some common examples are chick flicks like The Notebook, Twilight, and so on versus action films. Films marketed to females contain all kinds of stereotypes but still we do not see as much upset about them as things made for males. I believe that the intent affects the execution which affects the reception in good examples as well as bad regardless of the objective criteria it fulfills. Adding more diverse characters does nothing if you are still writing them for a different audience.

 

Basically I'm with what some people have said in this thread. I personally see a part of the issue being little to no female developers working on the main scripting and character developing/designing. We may be somewhat improving in terms of actual representation for films, video games, etc., but I guess to really write a believable, "strong" female character is to have an actual female create them.

 

not even kinda an excuse

 

When I came back and this was still not a musclegirl thread, I died again.

 

I mean

It kinda is

We are encouraged not to take anything too seriously here

...Come to think of it I wonder if anybody's actually read the rules of the Spamzone since like '09

 

I read them when I joined, but it turns out they're all wrong.