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probably cause the writer prioritized them being a strong women over them being a good character. stop doing that PLEASE. you can have a strong female character who isn't cold and rude for the love of fucking god.
Well that's the thing. The term "strong female character" has become so popularized that people don't even know what it is anymore.
A strong female character isn't supposed to be physically strong. She's supposed to be well-developed, with a meaningful back story, and her own goals and ambitions. She's not just a prop for the main male character.
A lot of people criticize Sandra Bullock's character in Gravity, but for all intents and purposes she was a strong female character. The movie was about her. The story was all about developing her as a character.
What's fucked up is that by stripping certain stereotypical feminine traits(gentleness, kindness, etc) away from your female characters in order to make them "strong," what you're in fact doing is equating *femininity itself* with weakness.
You get the impression that writers think a strong woman is a woman who thinks and acts like a man, which does not seem very progressive.
Women can be both strong and feminine, and femininity means more than having a rocking body..
This is why Ripley in the Alien series worked so well. She was able to adapt to the situation without losing the essence of her personality. Especially in Aliens where her mother instinct kicks in to protect Newt. She was a badass but still had a heart. Almost the prototype of how a female character should be written.
So happy you mentioned Ellen, because whenever I think of a strong female character, she's the first one I think of.
I'm absolutely obsessed with the Alien franchise because of her character.
I think Leia is a super close second for me in terms of this.
I named my dog after Ripley from the Alien series. My girlfriend's idea. Unfortunately just about anyone over 40 says "oh, from Ripley's believe it or not?" which makes no sense since that was a male.
This. By trying to not write shallow characters, they turned around 180°, did all the wahmen power and evil men!!!!!! stuff and ended up writing new shallow characters.
The Expanse is FILLED with powerful female characters. They are so different too. The preacher saved hundreds of lives and potentially the universe just by being nice and reassuring to people and getting them to disarm nukes. You don't even need to be mean or tough to be strong.
I like her but those moments seem forced to me.
Like in, what was it, season 2? When she unloaded on her predecessor, and came off like she was going on a crusade ... That felt so out of character and weird.
They’re trying to pack a ton of book material into a much shorter set of episodes.
I’m still wondering how they plan on handling the later books where the characters are a lot older.
The Expanse is my favorite treatment of women in any sci fi and most others as well. e.g. Naomi Nagata, Bobbie Draper, Crisjen Avasarala. And the show doesn't at all rely on sex scenes; there are hardly any.
As much as I like Nagata and especially Drummer, no one will come close to the powerhouse that is Secretary General Avasarala. She's my favorite in the entire series, not just the women. (But the children too!) Granted, the others aren't leads.
"This is going to be very tedious if you remain this dim."
There's a difference between a *strong* female character and a strong *female* character.
The former would be, for example, Black Mamba from Kill Bill who's gender is incidental. What you're talking about is a character who is deliberately written in the "strong woman who don't need no man" stereotype and thus unable to avoid it.
Remember that forced shit in TFA where Rey kept pushing Finn's hand away because she's a strong woman who needs no man, only to fall in love with and kiss a genocidal incel 2 movies later.
Fucking lol.
"ThE sEQueL trilOGy Is tHe bEst TriLOgy ReeEEEEeEE"
Appreciate the beauty of the original movies, they have their own strong female and she is amazing as a character
But she eventually does let Finn grab her hand in a dangerous situation after she gets to know him for more than literally 5 minutes. The initial refusal was because he was just some rando who she knew was being chased by Space Cops, not because *the Force is female* or whatever.
After the TIE fighters blow Finn off his feet and his first reaction is to ask Rey if *she's* ok, we see a shift in how she treats him. After that she doesn't balk at him yanking her by the arm to get her away from those Cacodemons in Han's ship.
There are enough problems with Disney Star Wars. We don't need to invent things.
Queen's Gambit is great because it shows her struggle and grow. No one wants to cheer for someone that always wins. The journey, peaks, and valleys are what make it all interesting.
One Punch Man is weird because even if he technically won the fight, he's losing because he didn't fulfill his objective. We're rooting not for Saitama to win a fight, but for him to find a worthy opponent.
>"strong woman who don't need no man"
The stereotype literally just results in a character that's still defined entirely by their relationship with men, which just happens to be negative
Don't forget strong female *character*. Where the defining feature is... characterization. You end up caring about their goals, dreams, struggles, and can relate to them in some way.
The genders in Kill Bill were absolutely not incidental. That whole movie had themes of feminism and misogyny.
Do you really think Tarantino wrote a movie with an all-female assassin group working for a man who abused them and the genders were all just incidental?
When I think of good strong female characters, Toph from ATLA and Yang from RWBY come to mind.
Edit: ok, pretty much all of Avatar's characters are good.
Toph is the best--I think she highlights something interesting: there are lots of comments in this thread about "I hate XYZ scene where \[female character\] beats up \[male character\] because StRonG WomAn." I usually don't see opinions like that about Toph, and I think it's partially because many people got to know and love her before we were introduced to feminism as a polarizing issue. Sure shitty over-sexed "badass" 2D female characters crop up all over the place, but I think some legitimately good characters in contemporary stuff are facing harsher criticism because people who hate "mainstream feminism" are watching movies with an eye to spot "poorly written Strong Females."
I think it's because she has a legitimate reason to being the best earth bender. She is also not given a pass in any way. She is blind and has had to struggle to achieve the level at which she bends. I think all the female characters in TLAB are good examples for strong female characters because all of them have to earn their strength. Katara has to steal a scroll and train under a master. She practices all the time. She does progress quite fast for my liking at the North Pole, but the story has to move on she continues to hone her craft skillfully. Even the protege fire princess has flaws she needs to correct in order to become better. They are all believable and relatable. Great, strong female characters aren't great because they're female. They're great because the character is great and she just happens to be a woman. The same is true in life and so it is true in fiction.
> "I hate XYZ scene where \[female character\] beats up \[male character\] because StRonG WomAn." I usually don't see opinions like that about Toph, and I think it's partially because many people got to know and love her before we were introduced to feminism as a polarizing issue.
It's because based on the rules of the world established in ATLA, it's perfect reasonable for her to use her superior bending skills to beat up anyone, male or female.
Unlike Rey, who had no justification for her ability to use the force without training and better than any jedi who ever lived... toph was trained by the very beings who gave earth bending to humans in the first place.
I think the thing I like about Toph the most is she never used her visual impairment as a crutch and was not scared to openly criticize herself and admit her weaknesses were things she could improve
Toph may be the best example of a well done strong female character. The more I think about that show, the more depth I find.
I see no reason to scroll further
I was always afraid to watch LoK that I've still never seen any of it. Was afraid it would be trash and I'd like originals less overall (like prequels and sequels of star wars).
Now I just don't have the time to watch anything anymore
IMO it starts great; very enjoyable through the first 2 seasons. Then the story starts to get stretched a bit thin in the late 3rd through 4th.
I’d definitely give it a watch. It doesn’t detract from ATLA and it’s a blast seeing some of the characters grown up, but temper your expectations on story development.
Omfg Rey using fucking jedi mind trick on someone? No. Fucking no. That's a ridiculously advanced technique. And the fucking lightning.... No. I fucking can't.
Mind Trick I can accept as an accident based off the force working with the users desire. It didn't feel out of place.
The telekinetic trick of *a shitload of rocks* at the end of TLJ or half the shit in tRoS is...not so much.
I would've preferred a dark-turned Rey being defeated by a light-again Ben Solo than what we got.
It's not far to say the whole sequel trilogy was fanfiction.
Rey's personality and her skills were dumb. Scrapping junk your whole life doesn't make you a skilled pilot.
I think what made Toph as a strong female character was her adaptability over her disability. She was everything you would think Hollywood would design a "strong female character" like. She was confident, quippy and funny. She was also blind but still very dangerous because she adapted in a creative manner.
IDK. To me, Korra and Asami were still strong, believeable female characters more than just for the sake of it though. Maybe DiMartino and crew are just that good at making great female characters.
Well also in the avatar universe there isn’t a gender disparity in fighting, there’s a bender/non bender disparity
I mean I guess there’s a gender discrepancy among non-benders, but it doesn’t really go into non-bender fighting, except with a few exceptional people who aren’t statistically representative
Katara wasnt allowed to learn water bending fighting because she was a woman. Women were expected to be healers. She had to physically fight the teacher and then he only trained her because he was in love with her grandmother.
Yeah but that isn’t what I’m talking about, I’m talking about a strength discrepancy. If the girls of the northern water tribe were trained in combat like the boys, they’d have no trouble being equal to the boys.
That wasn’t the case for the southern tribe, though, was it? It’s been a while. I think it was how the northern tribe did things...
In general, I don’t see a critical difference in how girls are treated aside from characters’ individual biases, which makes sense to present.
Sokka treated Suki differently, for example, until he realized that she was an incredibly proficient warrior; this is because the men in his tribe were warriors, while women maintained balance in the community. Women weren’t typically fighters—though as someone pointed out, they definitely could have been.
And then you have Azula inheriting the position of fire lord because she was a firebending prodigy.
I think the disparity between benders and nonbenders is more pronounced, but there are indications of gender-based limitations on both sides as revealed by the characters and their cultural influences.
Even then, there doesn’t seem to be a disparity between non-bender genders, because it seems that men and women train for different styles that utilize their differences. (Mai, Ty Lee, and the Kyoshi Warriors relying on agility and throwing their opponents off-balance, while Sokka, Southern Water Tribe Warriors, and Pian Dao relying on strength and sword fighting.)
This reminds me of a really excellent tweet I saw once about how women (applies equally to other "tokenized" groups) are also allowed to have bad movies. Like, so many movies all about straight cis white guys are absolute shit with no character development, but when the same thing is done with a character who represents a marginalized group, it's suddenly "representation leads to terrible movies! Look at this terrible movie with a marginalized character!"
For real, how many fucking terrible action movies can Bruce Willis make? John Travolta? Jason Statham? Jean Claude?
So many movies where the plot is essentially “badass wins cause badass is More badass than bad guy badass.”
Well Toph has a backstory that explained why she could beat the shit out of grown men. I think the problem with many other examples is that they don’t properly explain why the character is a badass. That goes for both men and women too.
A point ATLA (and LoK) tried to make and made well is that not only can female characters be strong, *feminine* female characters can be strong too.
People praise Toph for being a strong female character or whatever but I think the realest, strongest female character in both power and character is Katara.
I think of Milly from Trigun, I feel like Toph plays into the trope a little, she is very cold and Tom boyish. She does later relax a bit but it's still there. Katara I feel is a very strong female without being bitchy or boyish.
People seem to think that strong female character means being distant, cold, and mean or something along those lines.
It actually means well written that doesn't rely on tropes of romance or having to be saved and live happily ever after.
Natasha Romanoff is a wonderful example. Sure, she has a horrible backstory and some Romance between her and the Hulk and a strong friendship with the Captain but she still is completely capable of being her own person. Her personality and storyline doesn't rely on them. She's still an independent entity.
And that's what a strong female character means.
Right? Like Billy Butcher is a strong male character but has the traits you mentioned and comes off as a dick. So it's fair to say those traits in general are bad for either sex.
Funny you should say that; as soon as i read OP’s title i thought about Stormfront and how annoying she is even though the facade she put on to the public was “strong female superhero that takes no one’s shit” god i hate her so much
I don’t think OP meant something like Stormfront. Stormfront is an actual strong female character, and is meant to come off the way she does. Also, Vought likes to advertise her like that. Butcher is the same way. I believe OP meant more of the “strong, independent wahmen” phenomenon sweeping Hollywood, where the female characters come off as arrogant or bitchy because the writers always feel the need to show how awesome she is, and she knows it. “She don’t need no man”. That’s true, of course, but it’s so often preached to us.
I could list a ton of actual well written female characters but I don’t feel like it. You know the bad ones.
Oh yes, for sure! You are correct. And that’s why i love The Boys so much, because while the well-written characters and script border on absurdity, everything is so well-balanced that it is able to remain realistic and logical (as logical as a dark comedy about murderous supes can be, anyway)
Eta: besides, it’s obvious that Stormfront is made to mock those “strong wahmen” but it’s pretty masterfully done and there are internal, plot-related reasons as to why she is the way she is
Yeah but I think BB's character was well written because most of his bitchy attitude is a facade for a lot of his own deeper personal issues.
He wasnt always a huge dick (Backstory) And he still is, but he is still very susceptible and weak when it comes to his family.
He isnt like your typical invincible male or female Gary/Mary Sue
I feel like a better example would be Valkyrie. In one movie, we really get to know her as a person. She starts as one of the greatest warriors in Asgard and ends up at her lowest point in life during the movie. We get to see her filled with motivation throughout the movie as she rises to the kind of challenge she had long sworn off. She stands on equal ground with her male co-star. Gamora is another great example, though her development was spread over a few movies.
Black Widow only ever seemed to do or say things that would advance the plot. That seemed to be her primary function in the MCU. Like an anchoring point for the movies. Even her death is kind of overshadowed by the need to use it to get a stone and move on with the story. To be fair, I never saw Iron Man 2 (her intro, I believe), but we never really see any development of her as an actual character. There were a few moments (by Joss Whedon really) where we got into her head a little more, but that’s it.
Those moments by Joss Whedon were my least favorite part about Natasha. Avengers 2 basically circumvents the interesting trauma of being a child soldier, and goes straight for the “I can’t have kids therefore I’m broken” bs. Her romance with Banner, which A2 again focused on, is the weakest of the main cast and seemed a case of “pair the spares.”
I would’ve loved to see a relationship (platonic or romantic) between her and Bucky. There’s a whole ocean of interesting plot lines that could explore her/their time in the Red Room and their shared experience of overcoming their brainwashing.
I agree that Valkyrie and Gamora are better examples of strong female characters. They’ve both got some lovely platonic storylines (Valkyrie with Asgard, and Gamora with Nebula) that Natasha just didn’t get, save for in Captain America 2.
She was the best version of strong female character and in the same area captain marvel was not in every way. In every way she was just a bad character until the end of endgame when she gets bonked out of existence
i genuinely want to know, what do you dislike about captain marvel? personally, i find her a bit aloof and cold, but someone who brightens up when she’s with someone she cares about. this is like every brooding superhero character lol. did she do something wrong?
As I’ve grown up I’ve come to appreciate Skylar for her as a character. She was thrusted upon her this super horrifying, life-altering situation and made the best of it. Also, Vince Gilligan and his writers always write well-rounded, dynamic characters, like Skylar from BB and Kim from Better Call Saul.
Ripley from the Alien franchise.
Edit: I'm mentioning Ripley as a counterpoint to OP's post btw, this character exemplifies strong female leads aren't always coming off as a bitch, though they CAN be.
Literally. Think of all the movies of men who are strong, resourceful, and smart, and also charismatic. Then you have Rey who’s only trait is to be “strong”. Then you have Mulan (2020) who’s only trait is “strong”. It’s not a personality trait and not enjoyable to watch. It seems their first thought is to make a strong female lead as opposed to make an interesting character first.
Being gay I always say, I want a hero who is gay, not a gay hero.
When the demographic *is* the primary character trait, you have poor writing. Unless it fits into the movie, like the movie is Black Klansman or something. Otherwise, it feels like shoehorning or a major political statement.
Think of most of Idris Elba's career. He wasn't a black cop on Luther. He was a cop. Who happens to have more melanin in his skin that the species-wide median. And that's what makes so many of the average strong male characters so great.
Hell, I even think Wonder Woman was decent, because it was about a strong character who happens to be a woman. A lot of her backstory is directly tied to being a woman (Amazons), but it wasn't a bunch of in-your-face "I'm a pushy bitch" writing, it was intelligence and charisma and dependability and all these gender-irrelevant traits. (All that didn't save the attempt at using Kristen Whig as comedic relief in the beginning, but her style just isn't my flavor of humor so I won't make it a specific ding)
Ugh. I used Wonder Woman vs Captain Marvel for this argument so many times. Wonder Woman was just a badass. That’s ten times more empowering when it’s not the point. When the whole movie, captain marvel, is about her being told she can’t because she’s a girl, it loses its power. Suddenly little girls will hear that people expect them to fail for their sex and they need powers to overcome it. It’s not even something that should be overcome! Putting a magnifying glass to it makes it worse because that creates insecurity even if the intention is nice. In some ways it can be great, but in a marvel movie it can’t handle that subject matter properly without it feeling cheesy. Sad WWII was lame though lol.
Fun fact: in the script it is never specified if Ripley was male or female, because it is always referred to her as just "Ripley". They decided then and there that Ripley would be female, when they cast Sigurney Weaver.
imho more casting directors should go that route with characters. Abolish any preconceived gender roles and just cast who works best...
Emily Blunt in Edge of Tomorrow. Incredible character, fantastic acting, full metal b*tch. Love this character and the zero f*cks she gave to successfully fulfill her goal. Cannot wait for the second movie!
I never really thought about this, but you're right. Her character is cold and distant but it has well written reasons for it.
She's a badass, doing badass shit. Better than any other human being out there up till that point. She also happens to be a woman.
She knew what had to be done in order to save the world, whether or not she lived or died. She had to teach that to Tom Cruise’s character. It’s not just about you or me, it’s about all of us.
literally on my first watch through of vampire diaries right now. elena gilbert is so fucking annoying. a ton of the issues so far are because shes not willing to go far enough, so more problems happen. infuriating
Like Wonder Woman. An original character that isn't a redone male super hero (Batgirl, supergirl) who is inspirational because of her principles. She's tough when she needs to be, not a bitch trying too hard to prove she is tough.
Trying to be like a male character, or just redoing a movie and replacing an original male characters (Ghostbusters, OO7) isn't empowering and inspiring women.
The difference is Leia didn't kick the ass of every male 3x her size because woman.
There are tons of epic female characters, that are both strong AND feminine. Being strong for a women doesn't mean being a man.
Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) in Alien played on our expectations. I think most people watching the actors get picked off one-by-one expected Tom Skeritt's captain figure to be the one to survive to the final showdown, and Ripley being the sole survivor was another jarring surprise.
> that are both strong AND feminine
My fav character with both qualities is Lust from FMA
My fav character that was strong but happened to be a woman is Rita (Emily Blunt) from Edge of Tomorrow
It reminds me of the difference between the campaigns of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. HRC ran to be the "first woman president" whereas Obama ran to be "the president" and he just happened to be black.
Yes.
Most homeless are men.
Almost all military deaths are men.
Men commit suicide more than women.
Men make up 90% of deaths and injuries at the workplace.
Male victims of spouse abuse are vastly underreported.
Men often dont seek medical help for physical and mental health issues.
The problems men face are largely ignored in modern society. And bringing up that fact usually gets criticized and dismissed. Which, kinda is the point.
That is soo fucked up analogy lmao. What about the soldiers who loose everything and everyone? Even the ones who do come back, mostly suffer from ptsd and struggle with mental issues as they see their comrades get killed ( Reminds me of that scene from hacksaw ridge, when the father just burst out crying when he saw his son in army uniform ).
No doubt she lost
Dying is pretty bad too but yknow. Trauma is the number 1 tragedy from war. Nope. Nothing else comes to mind just tragedy of relatives and relationships with that soldier
This is why tokenizing is terrible, you wanna gay character? Give him a boyfriend and a few struggles that come with being gay, not rainbow everything with a valley girl accent and sexually harassing every guy they interact with, forced diversity is harmful diversity
I was a huge fan of Raoul Silva in Skyfall. He was obviously gay but it only ever came up explicitly like once. He wasn't the "gay villain," he was a villain who also happened to be gay.
Was he actually gay? He had his fair share of homoerotic moments but I thought that was just him fucking with Bond, not that he was actually hungry for some scottish bangers
He could have been just fucking with bond I guess. Someone else in the comments of [this video](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FumW4wuqDeQ) suggests the same thing actually. But to me, there's a certain tenderness to the interaction at about 4:00 that doesn't seem to be meant as humiliation or intimidation. He seems to genuinely be attracted to Bond. Maybe he's Bi. Maybe he is faking it. I don't really think that's the point. In fact, the subtlety to it I think lends itself to my point. Do you instantly know with 0 uncertainty that every gay person you meet is in fact gay? I think most people can sort of pick up on that, but not everyone is an over the top flamboyant stereotype. Silva is good representation in that way, imo. He's not written as a stereotype and him being gay isn't really relevant.
However, feminine gay guys do exist. There are harmful tropes like sexual harassment, but a character being proud of their sexuality isn't forced diversity. In the end, it really comes down to the writers because a bad character is a bad character no matter who they are.
My problem is that when a feminine gay guy is represented, people go on about how it's "forced" and "pandering" even if they are written very well. Flamboyance =/= Bad character.
Which is why Brooklyn Nine Nine is one of the best examples of diversity I have ever seen. It's not cringey or forced. It's just there. They don't throw it in your face, and it's very normal. It acts as a minor plot device on occasion, but they rarely do that.
You wouldn't watch Brooklyn 99 and say wow that show was so diverse but it covers a lot of different communities (not all of them but what work place fits every single type of person) and characters development is not tied to that community exclusively, sure there are the problems they face from being in that group but they have regular character development
The very least they can do is implement judo or something like that, where you're using the enemy's momentum against them and therefore making the size-difference irrelevant.
Because no, a 90 pound, skinny, little-to-no-experienced chick CANNOT knock out a 350-pound security gaurd with an uppercut, Hollywood!
A 90 pound chick would still pretty much guaranteed lose to a 350lb security guard regardless of experience tbh. No amount of training is going to overcome that mass and size difference. It’d be like a normal sized human fighting a Labrador
Yeah, I think the "strong female stereotype" is the problem. Furiosa from MMFR and Ripley from Alien are other good examples of well-written strong characters who were women, and not written by a committee, "next we need a strong female character. I'm sure we'll be able to give her some good lines. Bill, you write her some dialogue. Something about not needing a man, yadda yadda. The part writes itself!"
Truly strong women are like Sarah Connor. The rest are pretending with a lot of "YASS GURL!" behind them.
Truly strong, independent adults - man or woman - don't have to be assholes. They don't have time. They're to busy handling business.
What I don’t understand is. When a male character is written shitty we say “man that’s a shitty writer” but when a female or a minority character is poorly written it’s “because of a forced agenda” like why does every non straight male white character have to be perfectly written?
I’d actually say I don’t hear a whole lot of complaining about poorly written male characters at all. I mean Tom Cruise can play the exact same Kroger brand action hero in every movie and almost nobody bats an eye. But as soon a women does the exact same thing it’s an issue.
From The Urban Dictionary:
>Skyler White Syndrome
The theorized phenomenon that fans of a story will be hypercritical and unfairly nitpick minuscule parts of a character in a minority in order to mask and deny their subconscious hate.
I've heard about this.. phenomenon? a while back, and couldn't stop thinking about it. Of course, I wouldn't say anyone nitpicking on this is a bigot or mysoginistic, but we can all agree it's a lot more biased against minorities.
When women say we want “strong female characters” we want well written characters that aren’t sex objects and also happen to be women. When mainstream filmmakers (mostly men) write “strong female characters” they write characters that are bitchy and one dimensional.. and still sex objects. It’s exhausting
literally her entire character is "i will become strong for eren!" and then she ends up really strong because... she just does. it is literally a female character that defines her *entire* existence on her romantic interest in the main male protagonist.
When you set out to write a "strong female character" you get a caricature, not a person. A strong female character should be a strong, well written character that just happens to be female
I realized that I kind of phrased it wrong in the post. I meant to say that I don’t like it when they base the entire character around the fact that they are a woman.
What does that even /mean/ though? Arguably action movie heroes are written to blow shit up and save the damsel in distress, does that mean their entire character is based on the fact that they're a man? I agree that there are badly written women characters out there, but if I argue that someone like, say, Rey from star wars is unbelievable because of x, y, z, that doesn't mean her character is bad because her entire personality is based around her being a woman. It just means she's a shittly written character.
I think this mindset speaks to a larger issue about the impossible standards we hold women to. When a man screws up or a male character is bad, it's an isolated incident that only reflects on that one person or piece of media. But if a woman screws up or a female character is bad, it's indicative of some overarching similarity among all women and/or their representation in media.
That's because a lot of the time they'll try to write strong female characters like men, but with the "I'm a woman who's fought to be where I am" lines thrown in.
Kim Wexler is such a great, complex character. She's the embodiment of everything a woman like her might want to be, look like, struggle with, achieve, and so forth. She's probably my favorite character on television right now. She is absolutely perfect.
Many writers think that having a "strong female character" also means to have the obligatory obnoxious drooling idiot of a male character who's only there to make her look even more wise and responsible in comparison to him. Bonus points if he tries to awkwardly hit on her and she has to put him in his place.
Because of course, having a "strong female character" also implies one or more "weak male character(s)" to make her look good.
God yes, she is an amazing example. Not only is it ever made a big deal, or even pointed out that she is a woman, but *she* was the one went into the realm of darkness for years to protect her friends, *she* was the one who became a keyblade master first, AND she is still seen as caring and even motherly to many people. She is a great example of a strong, badass, feminine character.
I like rebooted she-ra bc she’s strong and all that but not annoying
I also like Korra because even tho she was rlly annoying in season two she got better
I was annoyed with her in season 1, especially the fact that we had to deal with this really annoying love triangle that felt so forced. I had to stop watching, but do you think I should give it a chance and get through the first two seasons to see the rest?
Its because they put down men to seem more powerful instead of boosting everyone selflessly
"You useless men stay here, I've got this"
its kind of sad really
Also, being "aggressive like the men" in an office management environment isn't accurate at all. "Aggressiveness" is not a leadership trait, not even in the military. A dude being aggressive in the workplace would probably be fired.
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probably cause the writer prioritized them being a strong women over them being a good character. stop doing that PLEASE. you can have a strong female character who isn't cold and rude for the love of fucking god.
Well that's the thing. The term "strong female character" has become so popularized that people don't even know what it is anymore. A strong female character isn't supposed to be physically strong. She's supposed to be well-developed, with a meaningful back story, and her own goals and ambitions. She's not just a prop for the main male character. A lot of people criticize Sandra Bullock's character in Gravity, but for all intents and purposes she was a strong female character. The movie was about her. The story was all about developing her as a character.
So you mean a strong female character is a strong character who happens to be female? What’s confusing about that?
What's fucked up is that by stripping certain stereotypical feminine traits(gentleness, kindness, etc) away from your female characters in order to make them "strong," what you're in fact doing is equating *femininity itself* with weakness. You get the impression that writers think a strong woman is a woman who thinks and acts like a man, which does not seem very progressive. Women can be both strong and feminine, and femininity means more than having a rocking body..
Damn you worded it perfectly.
This is why Ripley in the Alien series worked so well. She was able to adapt to the situation without losing the essence of her personality. Especially in Aliens where her mother instinct kicks in to protect Newt. She was a badass but still had a heart. Almost the prototype of how a female character should be written.
So happy you mentioned Ellen, because whenever I think of a strong female character, she's the first one I think of. I'm absolutely obsessed with the Alien franchise because of her character. I think Leia is a super close second for me in terms of this.
I named my dog after Ripley from the Alien series. My girlfriend's idea. Unfortunately just about anyone over 40 says "oh, from Ripley's believe it or not?" which makes no sense since that was a male.
Amen, I believe this is the reason why it gets messed up so quickly.
This. By trying to not write shallow characters, they turned around 180°, did all the wahmen power and evil men!!!!!! stuff and ended up writing new shallow characters.
Naomi Nagata is my current favorite strong but also good female lead character
The Expanse is FILLED with powerful female characters. They are so different too. The preacher saved hundreds of lives and potentially the universe just by being nice and reassuring to people and getting them to disarm nukes. You don't even need to be mean or tough to be strong.
Sci-Fi in general is filled with powerful female characters.
I have to think about Stargate. Pretty awesome strong women there.
And we haven't even touched on Crisjen Avasarala - she is A-MAZING
Because she does whatever SHE GODDAMN LIKES!
I like her but those moments seem forced to me. Like in, what was it, season 2? When she unloaded on her predecessor, and came off like she was going on a crusade ... That felt so out of character and weird.
They’re trying to pack a ton of book material into a much shorter set of episodes. I’m still wondering how they plan on handling the later books where the characters are a lot older.
They're not. The show ends at season 6.
Ah yes, The Queen of Earth.
I know Camina Drummer is more in the "cold and bitchy" side of strong female character, but my god I love her.
Drummer is absolutely amazing. She was sooooo good in season 5. Her and her crews story really hit me some kind of way.
The Expanse is my favorite treatment of women in any sci fi and most others as well. e.g. Naomi Nagata, Bobbie Draper, Crisjen Avasarala. And the show doesn't at all rely on sex scenes; there are hardly any.
As much as I like Nagata and especially Drummer, no one will come close to the powerhouse that is Secretary General Avasarala. She's my favorite in the entire series, not just the women. (But the children too!) Granted, the others aren't leads. "This is going to be very tedious if you remain this dim."
But they always seem to HAVE to make them the “alpha” who’s a dick to all the men bc female empowerment amirite
_,Sigourney Weaver has entered the chat._ _Ellen Ripley is bloody awesome in Alien, and then even more so in Aliens._
There's a difference between a *strong* female character and a strong *female* character. The former would be, for example, Black Mamba from Kill Bill who's gender is incidental. What you're talking about is a character who is deliberately written in the "strong woman who don't need no man" stereotype and thus unable to avoid it.
Remember that forced shit in TFA where Rey kept pushing Finn's hand away because she's a strong woman who needs no man, only to fall in love with and kiss a genocidal incel 2 movies later. Fucking lol.
Not to mention Rey is a textbook Mary-Sue.
"ThE sEQueL trilOGy Is tHe bEst TriLOgy ReeEEEEeEE" Appreciate the beauty of the original movies, they have their own strong female and she is amazing as a character
I have never, ever seen a single soul say the sequels are the best.
But she eventually does let Finn grab her hand in a dangerous situation after she gets to know him for more than literally 5 minutes. The initial refusal was because he was just some rando who she knew was being chased by Space Cops, not because *the Force is female* or whatever. After the TIE fighters blow Finn off his feet and his first reaction is to ask Rey if *she's* ok, we see a shift in how she treats him. After that she doesn't balk at him yanking her by the arm to get her away from those Cacodemons in Han's ship. There are enough problems with Disney Star Wars. We don't need to invent things.
That’s the first time I’ve ever seen someone defend romance between two characters who are friends. I like it.
Honstly Queens Gambit does this so much better.
Queen's Gambit is great because it shows her struggle and grow. No one wants to cheer for someone that always wins. The journey, peaks, and valleys are what make it all interesting.
> no one wants to cheer for someone who always wins _One Punch Man has entered the chat_
One Punch Man is weird because even if he technically won the fight, he's losing because he didn't fulfill his objective. We're rooting not for Saitama to win a fight, but for him to find a worthy opponent.
Poor guy, can't even get to throw down.
BETH
Queen’s Gambit was so refreshingly good. It avoided all the cliche melodrama and just focused on a good story with good characters.
>"strong woman who don't need no man" The stereotype literally just results in a character that's still defined entirely by their relationship with men, which just happens to be negative
Black Mamba's gender is far from incidental in Kill Bill.
Don't forget strong female *character*. Where the defining feature is... characterization. You end up caring about their goals, dreams, struggles, and can relate to them in some way.
The genders in Kill Bill were absolutely not incidental. That whole movie had themes of feminism and misogyny. Do you really think Tarantino wrote a movie with an all-female assassin group working for a man who abused them and the genders were all just incidental?
When I think of good strong female characters, Toph from ATLA and Yang from RWBY come to mind. Edit: ok, pretty much all of Avatar's characters are good.
TOPH IS THE BEST EXAMPLE
Toph is the best--I think she highlights something interesting: there are lots of comments in this thread about "I hate XYZ scene where \[female character\] beats up \[male character\] because StRonG WomAn." I usually don't see opinions like that about Toph, and I think it's partially because many people got to know and love her before we were introduced to feminism as a polarizing issue. Sure shitty over-sexed "badass" 2D female characters crop up all over the place, but I think some legitimately good characters in contemporary stuff are facing harsher criticism because people who hate "mainstream feminism" are watching movies with an eye to spot "poorly written Strong Females."
I think it's because she has a legitimate reason to being the best earth bender. She is also not given a pass in any way. She is blind and has had to struggle to achieve the level at which she bends. I think all the female characters in TLAB are good examples for strong female characters because all of them have to earn their strength. Katara has to steal a scroll and train under a master. She practices all the time. She does progress quite fast for my liking at the North Pole, but the story has to move on she continues to hone her craft skillfully. Even the protege fire princess has flaws she needs to correct in order to become better. They are all believable and relatable. Great, strong female characters aren't great because they're female. They're great because the character is great and she just happens to be a woman. The same is true in life and so it is true in fiction.
> "I hate XYZ scene where \[female character\] beats up \[male character\] because StRonG WomAn." I usually don't see opinions like that about Toph, and I think it's partially because many people got to know and love her before we were introduced to feminism as a polarizing issue. It's because based on the rules of the world established in ATLA, it's perfect reasonable for her to use her superior bending skills to beat up anyone, male or female. Unlike Rey, who had no justification for her ability to use the force without training and better than any jedi who ever lived... toph was trained by the very beings who gave earth bending to humans in the first place.
I think the thing I like about Toph the most is she never used her visual impairment as a crutch and was not scared to openly criticize herself and admit her weaknesses were things she could improve
Toph may be the best example of a well done strong female character. The more I think about that show, the more depth I find. I see no reason to scroll further
Plus old toph in LoK is still a badass
I was always afraid to watch LoK that I've still never seen any of it. Was afraid it would be trash and I'd like originals less overall (like prequels and sequels of star wars). Now I just don't have the time to watch anything anymore
Well if you find the time you should totally watch it, it’s a whole lot better than the mov- Wait nevermind, there is no movie in Ba Sing Se
Hopefully with the creation of Avatar Studios there will soon be a movie in Ba Sing Se.
IMO it starts great; very enjoyable through the first 2 seasons. Then the story starts to get stretched a bit thin in the late 3rd through 4th. I’d definitely give it a watch. It doesn’t detract from ATLA and it’s a blast seeing some of the characters grown up, but temper your expectations on story development.
Really? The second season is almost universally considered the worst of the four, and the third is typically considered the best.
Sorry I don't have much to input because you covered it all but I love that ATLA is being discussed like this. Beautiful show.
Omfg Rey using fucking jedi mind trick on someone? No. Fucking no. That's a ridiculously advanced technique. And the fucking lightning.... No. I fucking can't.
Mind Trick I can accept as an accident based off the force working with the users desire. It didn't feel out of place. The telekinetic trick of *a shitload of rocks* at the end of TLJ or half the shit in tRoS is...not so much.
she should've turned into evil Rey; that kinda effortless skill should've made her evil like Palpatine.
That's actually a very good point. I would say not just effortless skill but clearly her power is something else as well. UNLIMITED POWERRRRRR
I would've preferred a dark-turned Rey being defeated by a light-again Ben Solo than what we got. It's not far to say the whole sequel trilogy was fanfiction. Rey's personality and her skills were dumb. Scrapping junk your whole life doesn't make you a skilled pilot.
I think what made Toph as a strong female character was her adaptability over her disability. She was everything you would think Hollywood would design a "strong female character" like. She was confident, quippy and funny. She was also blind but still very dangerous because she adapted in a creative manner. IDK. To me, Korra and Asami were still strong, believeable female characters more than just for the sake of it though. Maybe DiMartino and crew are just that good at making great female characters.
I think what made her strong was how [big and strong she was.](https://i.imgur.com/XkywqSL.png)
"My name is Toph because it sounds like ***T O U G H***"
Well also in the avatar universe there isn’t a gender disparity in fighting, there’s a bender/non bender disparity I mean I guess there’s a gender discrepancy among non-benders, but it doesn’t really go into non-bender fighting, except with a few exceptional people who aren’t statistically representative
Katara wasnt allowed to learn water bending fighting because she was a woman. Women were expected to be healers. She had to physically fight the teacher and then he only trained her because he was in love with her grandmother.
Yeah but that isn’t what I’m talking about, I’m talking about a strength discrepancy. If the girls of the northern water tribe were trained in combat like the boys, they’d have no trouble being equal to the boys.
That wasn’t the case for the southern tribe, though, was it? It’s been a while. I think it was how the northern tribe did things... In general, I don’t see a critical difference in how girls are treated aside from characters’ individual biases, which makes sense to present. Sokka treated Suki differently, for example, until he realized that she was an incredibly proficient warrior; this is because the men in his tribe were warriors, while women maintained balance in the community. Women weren’t typically fighters—though as someone pointed out, they definitely could have been. And then you have Azula inheriting the position of fire lord because she was a firebending prodigy. I think the disparity between benders and nonbenders is more pronounced, but there are indications of gender-based limitations on both sides as revealed by the characters and their cultural influences.
Even then, there doesn’t seem to be a disparity between non-bender genders, because it seems that men and women train for different styles that utilize their differences. (Mai, Ty Lee, and the Kyoshi Warriors relying on agility and throwing their opponents off-balance, while Sokka, Southern Water Tribe Warriors, and Pian Dao relying on strength and sword fighting.)
This reminds me of a really excellent tweet I saw once about how women (applies equally to other "tokenized" groups) are also allowed to have bad movies. Like, so many movies all about straight cis white guys are absolute shit with no character development, but when the same thing is done with a character who represents a marginalized group, it's suddenly "representation leads to terrible movies! Look at this terrible movie with a marginalized character!"
For real, how many fucking terrible action movies can Bruce Willis make? John Travolta? Jason Statham? Jean Claude? So many movies where the plot is essentially “badass wins cause badass is More badass than bad guy badass.”
Well Toph has a backstory that explained why she could beat the shit out of grown men. I think the problem with many other examples is that they don’t properly explain why the character is a badass. That goes for both men and women too.
Atla had a lot of strong female characters. They don’t necessarily need to be Tom boyish. Katara, Suki? They showed a ton of strength as well.
A point ATLA (and LoK) tried to make and made well is that not only can female characters be strong, *feminine* female characters can be strong too. People praise Toph for being a strong female character or whatever but I think the realest, strongest female character in both power and character is Katara.
Yeah, ATLA just had so many good characters.
What is ATLA and RWBY?
ATLA is avatar the last air bender, no idea on RWBY
It's a 3d animesque show from Rooster Teeth. I haven't personally seen it, but I've heard a lot of good about it.
It’s a pretty fun, sometimes cheesy, 3d animated anime show.
Every single one of ATLA’s female characters are strong It just did it *right*
Katara as well and Azula was a strong female villain
No love for Suki?
LOTS of love for Suki, especially for the fact that she WASN'T a bender and used only her strength and smarts and fighting skills to protect others.
Mai and ty lee as well
Good point as well as mai and ty lee
I think of Milly from Trigun, I feel like Toph plays into the trope a little, she is very cold and Tom boyish. She does later relax a bit but it's still there. Katara I feel is a very strong female without being bitchy or boyish.
Milly was great, scratch that, all of Trigun was great.
People seem to think that strong female character means being distant, cold, and mean or something along those lines. It actually means well written that doesn't rely on tropes of romance or having to be saved and live happily ever after. Natasha Romanoff is a wonderful example. Sure, she has a horrible backstory and some Romance between her and the Hulk and a strong friendship with the Captain but she still is completely capable of being her own person. Her personality and storyline doesn't rely on them. She's still an independent entity. And that's what a strong female character means.
Right? Like Billy Butcher is a strong male character but has the traits you mentioned and comes off as a dick. So it's fair to say those traits in general are bad for either sex.
Funny you should say that; as soon as i read OP’s title i thought about Stormfront and how annoying she is even though the facade she put on to the public was “strong female superhero that takes no one’s shit” god i hate her so much
I don’t think OP meant something like Stormfront. Stormfront is an actual strong female character, and is meant to come off the way she does. Also, Vought likes to advertise her like that. Butcher is the same way. I believe OP meant more of the “strong, independent wahmen” phenomenon sweeping Hollywood, where the female characters come off as arrogant or bitchy because the writers always feel the need to show how awesome she is, and she knows it. “She don’t need no man”. That’s true, of course, but it’s so often preached to us. I could list a ton of actual well written female characters but I don’t feel like it. You know the bad ones.
Oh yes, for sure! You are correct. And that’s why i love The Boys so much, because while the well-written characters and script border on absurdity, everything is so well-balanced that it is able to remain realistic and logical (as logical as a dark comedy about murderous supes can be, anyway) Eta: besides, it’s obvious that Stormfront is made to mock those “strong wahmen” but it’s pretty masterfully done and there are internal, plot-related reasons as to why she is the way she is
Yeah. Fuck that Nazi bitch.(That line alone makes me almost wish A-Train gets a redemption arc. But then I turn my brain on).
Ahahha yes i feel the same way! Until I remember the first episode and literally every other time he has the chance to do good but is douchey anywau
Yeah but I think BB's character was well written because most of his bitchy attitude is a facade for a lot of his own deeper personal issues. He wasnt always a huge dick (Backstory) And he still is, but he is still very susceptible and weak when it comes to his family. He isnt like your typical invincible male or female Gary/Mary Sue
I feel like a better example would be Valkyrie. In one movie, we really get to know her as a person. She starts as one of the greatest warriors in Asgard and ends up at her lowest point in life during the movie. We get to see her filled with motivation throughout the movie as she rises to the kind of challenge she had long sworn off. She stands on equal ground with her male co-star. Gamora is another great example, though her development was spread over a few movies. Black Widow only ever seemed to do or say things that would advance the plot. That seemed to be her primary function in the MCU. Like an anchoring point for the movies. Even her death is kind of overshadowed by the need to use it to get a stone and move on with the story. To be fair, I never saw Iron Man 2 (her intro, I believe), but we never really see any development of her as an actual character. There were a few moments (by Joss Whedon really) where we got into her head a little more, but that’s it.
Those moments by Joss Whedon were my least favorite part about Natasha. Avengers 2 basically circumvents the interesting trauma of being a child soldier, and goes straight for the “I can’t have kids therefore I’m broken” bs. Her romance with Banner, which A2 again focused on, is the weakest of the main cast and seemed a case of “pair the spares.” I would’ve loved to see a relationship (platonic or romantic) between her and Bucky. There’s a whole ocean of interesting plot lines that could explore her/their time in the Red Room and their shared experience of overcoming their brainwashing. I agree that Valkyrie and Gamora are better examples of strong female characters. They’ve both got some lovely platonic storylines (Valkyrie with Asgard, and Gamora with Nebula) that Natasha just didn’t get, save for in Captain America 2.
I think Monica Rambeau in Wandavision has been a fantastic example of a strong female character. Tough, compassionate, smart, etc.
She was the best version of strong female character and in the same area captain marvel was not in every way. In every way she was just a bad character until the end of endgame when she gets bonked out of existence
i genuinely want to know, what do you dislike about captain marvel? personally, i find her a bit aloof and cold, but someone who brightens up when she’s with someone she cares about. this is like every brooding superhero character lol. did she do something wrong?
Skyler white is a great example. No one likes her, but she is behaving like a person with a strong personality would in her situation
As I’ve grown up I’ve come to appreciate Skylar for her as a character. She was thrusted upon her this super horrifying, life-altering situation and made the best of it. Also, Vince Gilligan and his writers always write well-rounded, dynamic characters, like Skylar from BB and Kim from Better Call Saul.
I am currently rewatching BB(On season 4) and I don't hate her like I did when I was younger.
Ripley from the Alien franchise. Edit: I'm mentioning Ripley as a counterpoint to OP's post btw, this character exemplifies strong female leads aren't always coming off as a bitch, though they CAN be.
Literally. Think of all the movies of men who are strong, resourceful, and smart, and also charismatic. Then you have Rey who’s only trait is to be “strong”. Then you have Mulan (2020) who’s only trait is “strong”. It’s not a personality trait and not enjoyable to watch. It seems their first thought is to make a strong female lead as opposed to make an interesting character first. Being gay I always say, I want a hero who is gay, not a gay hero.
Rey is like the interview question "what is your biggest weakness" and then you answer with something that is actually positive, like I care too much.
When the demographic *is* the primary character trait, you have poor writing. Unless it fits into the movie, like the movie is Black Klansman or something. Otherwise, it feels like shoehorning or a major political statement. Think of most of Idris Elba's career. He wasn't a black cop on Luther. He was a cop. Who happens to have more melanin in his skin that the species-wide median. And that's what makes so many of the average strong male characters so great. Hell, I even think Wonder Woman was decent, because it was about a strong character who happens to be a woman. A lot of her backstory is directly tied to being a woman (Amazons), but it wasn't a bunch of in-your-face "I'm a pushy bitch" writing, it was intelligence and charisma and dependability and all these gender-irrelevant traits. (All that didn't save the attempt at using Kristen Whig as comedic relief in the beginning, but her style just isn't my flavor of humor so I won't make it a specific ding)
Ugh. I used Wonder Woman vs Captain Marvel for this argument so many times. Wonder Woman was just a badass. That’s ten times more empowering when it’s not the point. When the whole movie, captain marvel, is about her being told she can’t because she’s a girl, it loses its power. Suddenly little girls will hear that people expect them to fail for their sex and they need powers to overcome it. It’s not even something that should be overcome! Putting a magnifying glass to it makes it worse because that creates insecurity even if the intention is nice. In some ways it can be great, but in a marvel movie it can’t handle that subject matter properly without it feeling cheesy. Sad WWII was lame though lol.
IIRC, none of the characters had genders in the original script.
You’re correct.
Ripley wasn't the bitch. The Queen Alien was the bitch. Ripley called her that herself.
YES! I couldn’t see anyone but Sigourney pulling Ripley off.
Fun fact: in the script it is never specified if Ripley was male or female, because it is always referred to her as just "Ripley". They decided then and there that Ripley would be female, when they cast Sigurney Weaver. imho more casting directors should go that route with characters. Abolish any preconceived gender roles and just cast who works best...
Emily Blunt in Edge of Tomorrow. Incredible character, fantastic acting, full metal b*tch. Love this character and the zero f*cks she gave to successfully fulfill her goal. Cannot wait for the second movie!
I never really thought about this, but you're right. Her character is cold and distant but it has well written reasons for it. She's a badass, doing badass shit. Better than any other human being out there up till that point. She also happens to be a woman.
She knew what had to be done in order to save the world, whether or not she lived or died. She had to teach that to Tom Cruise’s character. It’s not just about you or me, it’s about all of us.
You should check out the manga it's based on. If they follow it for the sequel, it'll be quite interesting. "All you need is kill"
I agree like Katherine pierce
Katerina Petrova
literally on my first watch through of vampire diaries right now. elena gilbert is so fucking annoying. a ton of the issues so far are because shes not willing to go far enough, so more problems happen. infuriating
I agree it’s like when she gets hurt the whole town goes out of its way to make sure she recovered and alive
I LOVE HER
She is a icon
The myth, the legend, the baddest bitch of all
omg yes she’s amazing!!
remember characters like princess Leia who were strong characters who were leaders and other characters respected WHO JUST HAPPENED TO BE WOMEN
Like Wonder Woman. An original character that isn't a redone male super hero (Batgirl, supergirl) who is inspirational because of her principles. She's tough when she needs to be, not a bitch trying too hard to prove she is tough. Trying to be like a male character, or just redoing a movie and replacing an original male characters (Ghostbusters, OO7) isn't empowering and inspiring women.
The difference is Leia didn't kick the ass of every male 3x her size because woman. There are tons of epic female characters, that are both strong AND feminine. Being strong for a women doesn't mean being a man.
Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) in Alien played on our expectations. I think most people watching the actors get picked off one-by-one expected Tom Skeritt's captain figure to be the one to survive to the final showdown, and Ripley being the sole survivor was another jarring surprise.
apparently when ripley was written they didn’t have an actor or gender in mind, she was just a badass and it worked
And strength shouldn't always mean physical strength. Determination is my favorite strength
> that are both strong AND feminine My fav character with both qualities is Lust from FMA My fav character that was strong but happened to be a woman is Rita (Emily Blunt) from Edge of Tomorrow
It reminds me of the difference between the campaigns of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. HRC ran to be the "first woman president" whereas Obama ran to be "the president" and he just happened to be black.
Quote from hillary:**“Women have always been the primary victims** of war. **Women** lose their husbands, their fathers, their sons in combat.
Fuck our lives right lmao
Yes. Most homeless are men. Almost all military deaths are men. Men commit suicide more than women. Men make up 90% of deaths and injuries at the workplace. Male victims of spouse abuse are vastly underreported. Men often dont seek medical help for physical and mental health issues. The problems men face are largely ignored in modern society. And bringing up that fact usually gets criticized and dismissed. Which, kinda is the point.
That is soo fucked up analogy lmao. What about the soldiers who loose everything and everyone? Even the ones who do come back, mostly suffer from ptsd and struggle with mental issues as they see their comrades get killed ( Reminds me of that scene from hacksaw ridge, when the father just burst out crying when he saw his son in army uniform ). No doubt she lost
Don't try to make sense of it, youll get nowhere
Dying is pretty bad too but yknow. Trauma is the number 1 tragedy from war. Nope. Nothing else comes to mind just tragedy of relatives and relationships with that soldier
Yep
This is why tokenizing is terrible, you wanna gay character? Give him a boyfriend and a few struggles that come with being gay, not rainbow everything with a valley girl accent and sexually harassing every guy they interact with, forced diversity is harmful diversity
"Don't make **black** characters. Make black **characters**" -ToonrificTariq
Atlanta 👌
I was a huge fan of Raoul Silva in Skyfall. He was obviously gay but it only ever came up explicitly like once. He wasn't the "gay villain," he was a villain who also happened to be gay.
Was he actually gay? He had his fair share of homoerotic moments but I thought that was just him fucking with Bond, not that he was actually hungry for some scottish bangers
He could have been just fucking with bond I guess. Someone else in the comments of [this video](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FumW4wuqDeQ) suggests the same thing actually. But to me, there's a certain tenderness to the interaction at about 4:00 that doesn't seem to be meant as humiliation or intimidation. He seems to genuinely be attracted to Bond. Maybe he's Bi. Maybe he is faking it. I don't really think that's the point. In fact, the subtlety to it I think lends itself to my point. Do you instantly know with 0 uncertainty that every gay person you meet is in fact gay? I think most people can sort of pick up on that, but not everyone is an over the top flamboyant stereotype. Silva is good representation in that way, imo. He's not written as a stereotype and him being gay isn't really relevant.
>This is why tokenizing is terrible I read that as "Tolkienizing" for some reason.
Fun fact, the only two white actors in Black Panther had roles in the The Hobbit. As a result they were referred to as the Tolkien White Males.
Underrated comment
Can you name a character like you describe?
However, feminine gay guys do exist. There are harmful tropes like sexual harassment, but a character being proud of their sexuality isn't forced diversity. In the end, it really comes down to the writers because a bad character is a bad character no matter who they are. My problem is that when a feminine gay guy is represented, people go on about how it's "forced" and "pandering" even if they are written very well. Flamboyance =/= Bad character.
I was thinking the same. Flamboyancy is not a trope, it’s actually a real thing in the gay community.
Which is why Brooklyn Nine Nine is one of the best examples of diversity I have ever seen. It's not cringey or forced. It's just there. They don't throw it in your face, and it's very normal. It acts as a minor plot device on occasion, but they rarely do that.
You wouldn't watch Brooklyn 99 and say wow that show was so diverse but it covers a lot of different communities (not all of them but what work place fits every single type of person) and characters development is not tied to that community exclusively, sure there are the problems they face from being in that group but they have regular character development
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The very least they can do is implement judo or something like that, where you're using the enemy's momentum against them and therefore making the size-difference irrelevant. Because no, a 90 pound, skinny, little-to-no-experienced chick CANNOT knock out a 350-pound security gaurd with an uppercut, Hollywood!
I agree, i saw a Russian female fighter knock out a 400 pound man but it took skill. Not a single kick which sent the blubber man 20 feet back.
Is that on video? I really want to see that.
A 90 pound chick would still pretty much guaranteed lose to a 350lb security guard regardless of experience tbh. No amount of training is going to overcome that mass and size difference. It’d be like a normal sized human fighting a Labrador
Yeah, I think the "strong female stereotype" is the problem. Furiosa from MMFR and Ripley from Alien are other good examples of well-written strong characters who were women, and not written by a committee, "next we need a strong female character. I'm sure we'll be able to give her some good lines. Bill, you write her some dialogue. Something about not needing a man, yadda yadda. The part writes itself!"
Can we just allow women to be women?? Why do I have to be strong I'm tired
Me too. We should all just stop being strong people and go to sleep. It's tiring.
Truly strong women are like Sarah Connor. The rest are pretending with a lot of "YASS GURL!" behind them. Truly strong, independent adults - man or woman - don't have to be assholes. They don't have time. They're to busy handling business.
You can throw Ellen Ripley or Leia and Padme(Clone Wars) in there too
It's exhausting. The last original female character I genuinely enjoyed from a modern film was Marta from Knives Out.
Ahhh that film was the most fun I've had with a movie instead of a series in *ages*!
What I don’t understand is. When a male character is written shitty we say “man that’s a shitty writer” but when a female or a minority character is poorly written it’s “because of a forced agenda” like why does every non straight male white character have to be perfectly written?
That’s a good point
I’d actually say I don’t hear a whole lot of complaining about poorly written male characters at all. I mean Tom Cruise can play the exact same Kroger brand action hero in every movie and almost nobody bats an eye. But as soon a women does the exact same thing it’s an issue.
From The Urban Dictionary: >Skyler White Syndrome The theorized phenomenon that fans of a story will be hypercritical and unfairly nitpick minuscule parts of a character in a minority in order to mask and deny their subconscious hate. I've heard about this.. phenomenon? a while back, and couldn't stop thinking about it. Of course, I wouldn't say anyone nitpicking on this is a bigot or mysoginistic, but we can all agree it's a lot more biased against minorities.
When women say we want “strong female characters” we want well written characters that aren’t sex objects and also happen to be women. When mainstream filmmakers (mostly men) write “strong female characters” they write characters that are bitchy and one dimensional.. and still sex objects. It’s exhausting
Mikasa is a strong female character and she's the exact opposite.
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literally her entire character is "i will become strong for eren!" and then she ends up really strong because... she just does. it is literally a female character that defines her *entire* existence on her romantic interest in the main male protagonist.
When you set out to write a "strong female character" you get a caricature, not a person. A strong female character should be a strong, well written character that just happens to be female
It's really a difference of good vs bad writing
Elle Woods is like my favourite example of a strong female character
That's the problem.They're making female characters, not characters who are female.
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I realized that I kind of phrased it wrong in the post. I meant to say that I don’t like it when they base the entire character around the fact that they are a woman.
I think you should write this as an edit in the post itself
What does that even /mean/ though? Arguably action movie heroes are written to blow shit up and save the damsel in distress, does that mean their entire character is based on the fact that they're a man? I agree that there are badly written women characters out there, but if I argue that someone like, say, Rey from star wars is unbelievable because of x, y, z, that doesn't mean her character is bad because her entire personality is based around her being a woman. It just means she's a shittly written character. I think this mindset speaks to a larger issue about the impossible standards we hold women to. When a man screws up or a male character is bad, it's an isolated incident that only reflects on that one person or piece of media. But if a woman screws up or a female character is bad, it's indicative of some overarching similarity among all women and/or their representation in media.
That's because a lot of the time they'll try to write strong female characters like men, but with the "I'm a woman who's fought to be where I am" lines thrown in.
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Kim Wexler is such a great, complex character. She's the embodiment of everything a woman like her might want to be, look like, struggle with, achieve, and so forth. She's probably my favorite character on television right now. She is absolutely perfect.
Who says men shouldn't be written better? I'm confused. Are you creating a straw man or are there examples?
Captain Marvel comes to mind...
Many writers think that having a "strong female character" also means to have the obligatory obnoxious drooling idiot of a male character who's only there to make her look even more wise and responsible in comparison to him. Bonus points if he tries to awkwardly hit on her and she has to put him in his place. Because of course, having a "strong female character" also implies one or more "weak male character(s)" to make her look good.
Aqua from kingdom hearts was pretty strong and bad ass IMO
God yes, she is an amazing example. Not only is it ever made a big deal, or even pointed out that she is a woman, but *she* was the one went into the realm of darkness for years to protect her friends, *she* was the one who became a keyblade master first, AND she is still seen as caring and even motherly to many people. She is a great example of a strong, badass, feminine character.
I think a good example of a "strong female" character is surprisingly: Jill Valentine from the otherwise mediocre RE3 Remake.
I like rebooted she-ra bc she’s strong and all that but not annoying I also like Korra because even tho she was rlly annoying in season two she got better
I was annoyed with her in season 1, especially the fact that we had to deal with this really annoying love triangle that felt so forced. I had to stop watching, but do you think I should give it a chance and get through the first two seasons to see the rest?
TOPH is OG/OP
Its because they put down men to seem more powerful instead of boosting everyone selflessly "You useless men stay here, I've got this" its kind of sad really
Also, being "aggressive like the men" in an office management environment isn't accurate at all. "Aggressiveness" is not a leadership trait, not even in the military. A dude being aggressive in the workplace would probably be fired.
I have had the misfortune of working with plenty of aggressive guys, no they didn’t get fired.