Hollywood's Continuous Problem With Female Characters

Comments · 993

• RE

  @realjesterbell · 3 years ago · pinned

  Be sure to like and comment to booze this on the algorithm! 🎉

  151

• KE

  @keithmichael112 · 3 years ago

  A character having flaws makes me sympathize and root for them.

  1K

• AN

  @anneofthegreen2269 · 3 years ago (edited)

  "if you want your female character to be fully developed, sometimes bad things need to be her fault"- random tumblr post

  377

• GU

  @guardian7106 · 3 years ago (edited)

  one thing I also really noticed with modern female characters it’s that modern female villains are almost always treated as “sympathetic”villains that did no wrong and should be forgiven, usually being a tragic puppet for another villain (usually a man). Of course that’s not to say female villains can’t be sympathetic/tragic (I’ve made a few female villains that have tragic backstories) but modern Hollywood is more or less afraid of making female villains truly evil as if to say that women can’t be evil

  617

• VE

  @Veo87 · 2 years ago

  I&apos;m glad you used Vi as an example.<br><br>Vi from Arcane is one of those &quot;strong female characters&quot; that I think was well done. &nbsp;She&apos;s &quot;strong&quot; in the sense of being able to handle a physical fight and she&apos;s even a &quot;girlboss&quot; in a sense because she&apos;s the leader of her group. &nbsp;However, she&apos;s feels like an emotionally complex character. &nbsp;She&apos;s not some stoic woman who is independent and has no attachments. &nbsp;She&apos;s incredibly attached and motivated by love for the people she cares about. &nbsp;She&apos;s physically affectionate, motherly, and expresses all kinds of emotions. &nbsp;She gets angry and serious, but she also cries multiple times throughout the series for very understandable reasons. &nbsp;And, as you said, she has flaws too. &nbsp;The fact that I&apos;ve seen so little complains about a character like Vi shows that a lot of people don&apos;t have a problem with a female character being &quot;strong,&quot; people have a problem with characters that aren&apos;t well-written.

  161

• JI

  @jimjamjoeyjoejoe · 3 years ago

  Remember when Black Widow revealed that she couldn&apos;t become pregnant and it was a huge mental wound for her? &nbsp;There was massive backlash from a certain segment of the audience. &nbsp;I never understood this, it was something that made her very relatable as this is a very real problem some people suffer though, yes even men who can also be infertile. &nbsp;Still, it was enough to take away from the &quot;strong female&quot; image that modern characters have to be pigeon holed into.

  955

• 1G

  @1gunnerShock · 2 years ago

  Arcane is a wonderful example of writing great female characters without having to resort to belittling or bashing men

  236

• DO

  @docblade3270 · 3 years ago

  I think another main problem is that every man around the &quot;strong female character&quot; is incompetent, evil, coward or submissive! You can&apos;t be &quot;strong&quot; just because everyone is pathetic!

  465

• BE

  @bearforceone211 · 3 years ago

  When people were asking for strong female characters, they didn&apos;t mean action hero, they meant depth.<br><br><br>Plain truth is Hollywood is so afraid of that one critical voice on twitter when that critical voice is unavoidable.<br><br>They made mulan boring AF and Harley quin a girl boss (a label I feel is dated).<br><br>I don&apos;t really watch new media as its boring and predictable.

  368

• AL

  @Albert_Nada_Retro · 3 years ago (edited)

  Fun fact, they removed the romantic relationship in Mulan because of the MeToo movement. &nbsp;The irony is the Mulan director Nikki Caro allowed the women cast members of North Country to get away with sexually harassing male members of the cast and crew.

  237

• FR

  @friendshipiswiccabane · 3 years ago

  And the whole “incel” thing is a particularly horrendous word. Male loneliness (or any kind of loneliness for that matter) is not something to be mocked or made into an insult/joke.

  839

• JL

  @jlogan2228 · 3 years ago

  Belle from the 90s beauty and the beast was always my favorite &quot;strong&quot; female character: she did her own thing even though the village thought she was odd for it, she wasnt fooled or impressed by Gastons bravado, without hesitation she offers to take her fathers place imprisoned and even when the beast reveals himself she just has a moment of fear then steels herself and gives her word, THEN stands up to him for his foul temper on several occasions, and even though physically she is not powerful she is at least brave in how she at least tries to fight off the wolves at first but is realistically overwhelmed by them, THEN shows integrity and kindness to the beast by not abandoning him to die so she can return home but honors her agreement to remain at the castle and saves his life in return.

  142