I hate Strong Female Characters

[Recursion]

Sherlock Holmes gets to be brilliant, solitary, abrasive, Bohemian, whimsical, brave, sad, manipulative, neurotic, vain, untidy, fastidious, artistic, courteous, rude, a polymath genius. Female characters get to be Strong.

http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2013/08/i-hate-strong-female-characters

Are our best-loved male heroes Strong Male Characters? Is, say, Sherlock Holmes strong? In one sense, yes, of course. He faces danger and death in order to pursue justice. On the other hand, his physical strength is often unreliable – strong enough to bend an iron poker when on form, he nevertheless frequently has to rely on Watson to clobber his assailants, at least once because he’s neglected himself into a condition where he can’t even try to fight back. His mental and emotional resources also fluctuate. An addict and a depressive, he claims even his crime-fighting is a form of self-medication. Viewed this way, his willingness to place himself in physical danger might not be “strength” at all – it might be another form of self-destructiveness. Or on the other hand, perhaps his vulnerabilities make him all the stronger, as he succeeds in surviving and flourishing in spite of threats located within as well without.

Is Sherlock Holmes strong? It’s not just that the answer is “of course”, it’s that it’s the wrong question.

What happens when one tries to fit other iconic male heroes into an imaginary “Strong Male Character” box? A few fit reasonably well, but many look cramped and bewildered in there. They’re not used to this kind of confinement, poor things. They’re used to being interesting across more than one axis and in more than two dimensions.

...

Chuck Wendig argues here that we shouldn’t understand “strong” as meaning, well, “strong”, but rather as something like “well-written”. But I simply don’t think it’s true that the majority of writers or readers are reading the term that way. How else to explain the fact that when the screenwriters of The Lord of the Rings decided to (clumsily) expand Arwen’s role from the books, they had her wander on screen, put a sword to her boyfriend’s throat and boast about how she’d sneaked up on him? (It took Liv Tyler to realise later “you don’t have to put a sword in her hand to make her strong”). Why else did Paul Feig, as Carina Chicano notes here, have to justify the fact that Bridesmaids hinges on a complex, interesting female character who appeared rather weak?

Personally, I wasted a lot of ink in my writing trying to make sure the female characters were "strong" before I realized it was getting in the way of making them, you know, actual characters in the story.

[abelenkpe]

2. Miyazaki has some great female characters in his films

American animated films....no one has ever come close.

Interesting article

[Recursion]

3. I spent my early adolescence in love with Nausicaa

I love all of his characters, come to think of it.

[bemildred]

4. There are lot of good female protagonists these days, but it's recent, since the 80s or so.

I make a point of looking for it. Sometimes you have to look at translated work, US stuff tends to be commercial. Hint: read female authors, like Atwood, Silko, McCaffery, Roy.

[TheJames]

5. "The Gate to Women's Country" by Sheri Tepper, & most of her others. n/t

[MyshkinCommaPrince]

6. They're coming to get you, Barbra....

'Personally, I wasted a lot of ink in my writing trying to make sure the female characters were "strong" before I realized it was getting in the way of making them, you know, actual characters in the story. '

I think of the 1968 and 1990 versions of Night of the Living Dead. The character of Barbra (or Barbara... the spelling seems to vary, even in official documents about the films) in the 1968 original was criticized for having spent most of the story in a state of emotional breakdown. The 1990 remake turned the character into an action movie heroine. While either character could be valid in a story, I think the original is more honest and human, representing a better character for the story. I would have reacted just like she did, or worse, in such a situation. Not every character should be treated as an expression of some ideal or belief. I wish we could let fictional characters be what they need to be for a story, rather than treating them so often as emblems.

[mainer]

7. Stupid article. Author obviously doesn't read very much

because literature today has plenty of complex, interesting female characters. Somehow this author gets hung up on old movies and old books that tell us exactly how currently poorly read she is.