Hollywood's 5 Saddest Attempts at Feminism
Hollywood has a dilemma. Its blockbusters are all written by men, but to make the real money, they have to sell some tickets to females, too. What to do? Let a woman write a blockbuster? Ha! Of course not. Just insert a feisty woman into the story who won't take any crap from men in a really formulaic way! That should please the feminists, right?
Well, when you look at the results, you see they probably shouldn't have bothered.
#5.
Eowyn (The Lord of the Rings)
Eowyn is introduced in the second film as some sort of princess. Actually, we're really not sure; we sort of drifted off when there weren't stabbings going on. But we're reasonably sure she is related to that crazy dude that was the King, and that makes her a princess in our books.
Supposed to be a Role Model Because:
In the movies we see that she's an able ruler, and a trained warrior. Eowyn is told to stay behind and help protect the women and children of Rohan while all the men go off to ride horses and stab things.
As girls are wont to do in stories like this, she instead decides to abandon her responsibilities and run off to play with the boys. She disguises herself as a dude, which we noticed is sort of the opposite of how Legolas operates.
The "You Go Girl!" Moment:
While in battle, she manages to catch the fearsome Witch King off guard and stabs him right in the fucking head. The exchange plays out something like this:
Witch King: No man can slay me! Mine is an evil laugh!
Eowyn: Behold my vagina!
Witch King: * dies *
Take that, patriarchy!
The Problem:
Aside from the fact that she ran off with the army because of her hots for Aragorn (who sadly only had eyes for the hobbits) thereby making her central motivation to get the approval of some filthy male, she rather quickly gives up her warrior woman ways and pretty much marries the first guy she sets eyes on after Aragorn gives her the "It's not you, it's me" speech.
Luckily for her, it turns out to be a poor man's Sean Bean, but it could've been the burned out husk of Denethor. We're just saying.
The lesson here, impressionable young girls, is that playing soldier is all well and good in emergencies, but you're not really complete until you land a husband. Any husband.
#4.
Padme Amidala (Star Wars Prequels)
Natalie Portman's Padme shows up in the Star Wars prequels as the Queen of some intergalactic backwater. Not only is Padme the youngest elected Queen in history (eh, we'll have to do another article on George Lucas's poor grasp of what a monarchy is) but she's a certified kicker of asses.
After three movies, we know she is stern yet beautiful, driven equally by her duty and her love for a whiney Jedi wannabe who's totally half her age.
"It's fine, we can just keep having picnics until you're old enough to drink."
Supposed to be a Role Model Because:
In The Phantom Menace we see her equally at ease arguing the finer points of Robert's Rules of Order on the Senate floor and personally leading a raid to bring down the brutal Gungun occupation of her homeland. In the second movie, we see her flying a jet and fighting off a brutal monster in some sort of alien gladiator contest. Plus, she's Princess Leia's mom, and we all know badassery is carried on the X chromosome.
The "You Go Girl!" Moment:
Anakin: You call this diplomacy?
Padme: No, aggressive negotiations!
*stuff blows up*
The Problem:
Padme does just fine as an ass kicker until she starts using her uterus. As everyone in Hollywood knows, a uterus makes women do crazy things. In movies, pregnancy makes a heroine into a useless, whining, fragile creature (ok, other than Juno).
The pregnant Padme spends most of the movie crying and wondering when Anakin will come home. After confronting her baby daddy about his experimentation with the Dark Side, she's injured and goes into labor. While giving birth to future ass kickers Leia and Luke, Padme decides to die.
Seriously, the movie makes it pretty clear: she just gives up. No serious injury, no difficult birth, no blood spurting onto the table.
What about the two children she has to live for? Nope. She'll have none of that. The uterus will not allow it.
#3.
River Tam (Firefly/Serenity)
In the Firefly universe, River is the genius kid sister of Serenity's ship's doctor, Simon. Lured away from her family at a young age with the promise of advanced schooling, River has been tortured and programmed as an assassin and possible psychic. Her abilities include mind reading, precognition, advanced weapons training and ballet.
Supposed to be a Role Model Because:
Since Firefly was created by Joss "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" Whedon, it's pretty much assumed that all the female characters will be ground breaking paragons of feminist virtue. Maybe this is because Whedon genuinely respects strong female characters, or maybe he's intimidated by a cult fanbase that demands every show of his have another Buffy in it.
River, with her acrobatic fighting moves and penchant for exsanguinations, would seem to be a perfect fit.
The "You Go Girl!" Moment:
After her brother is gunned down by bad guys, River proclaims "My turn", then proceeds to gleefully and gracefully mow down every last one of them with a mother fucking sickle.
The Problem:
Despite River's inherent ass-kicking abilities, she rarely uses them to the benefit of the crew. The character has been driven insane by her experiences, and therefore she spends most of her time saying crazy things and throwing up in her brother's bed.
In fact, protecting River forms the backbone of no less than five out of thirteen episodes, plus the theatrical movie. That's an awful lot of rescuing for a feminist hero.
Many fans noticed this, too, and expressed their outrage on their Livejournals:
"... I'm not sure that I will recover from the shock of watching the malicious way in which Joss stripped his female characters of their integrity, the pleasure he seemed to take from showing potentially powerful women bashed, the way he gleefully demonized female power and selfhood and smashed women into little bits, male fists in women's faces, male voices drowning out our words."
Holy crap! They make it sound like the movie includes a 20-minute montage of Whedon pimp-slapping every female on the set.
It would have been better to pick on Arwen from LOTR. Her active part was written in for the movie, in the book, all she does is be the object of desire for Aragorn, and the reason he has to regain the throne of Gondor so he can win her (or rather, win her father's (Elrond's) approval.
ReplyEowyn was in the books. Yes, she has the hots for Aragorn. But she's in the last battle in the books for the very reason you stated, no man could slay the leader of the Nazgul (they were all kings).
And she married Faramir (at least in the books, she's standing next to him in the scene of the wedding of Aragorn and Arwen in the movie) who was played by David Wenham. Sean Bean played Boromir (his brother) , and he died in the first movie.
I know I'm being a geek about it, but Cracked is supposed to be geeky, and at least know something about the movie and the underlying books when you pick on something.
I really don't see where you're coming from with River, like a lot of the people reading this. She'd be driven insane, and retreated to the mentality of a child, which is the worst thing to be in a group of fugitives (who, by the way, all needed to be pulled from danger on more than one occasion). River happens to be in trouble the most not just because of her naivete, but because she's the most valuable capture aboard.
ReplyAnd, even if River could be argued to be one of the weaker females, so what? All 4 main females are well-rounded, well-written characters (even if they aren't physically powerful, which is a common complaint about 'strong women' in genres like this). Just because one isn't quite as strong as another doesn't mean it's a badly-constructed character.
Here's a quote from the writer of the livejournal referenced in #3:
Reply"Now, that comment right there indicates to me that our dear Mr. Whedon is a porn user. And that it is highly likely that his pornography of choice is Hustler, given that he seems to think it funny to trivialise the sexual abuse of children. How many times has Joss wanked to our degradation in Hustler while chuckling away at Chester the Molester cartoons? I actually really want to know the answer to this question. Joss continues his race hatred by putting this ‘joke’ in the mouth of a Black man."
The comment that set her off? "If you take sexual advantage of her, you’re going to burn in a very special level of hell. A level they reserve for child molesters and people who talk at the theater."
Good to see our writers backing up their arguments with such objective, reasonable sources!
As you probably could have predicted when you wrote this article, I object to River being included on this list. There's a simple reason, it's that a key part of her character is the fact that she's batshit crazy. It's rather hard to be a strong, competent woman when your mind's been hatefucked by a bunch of mad scientists.
ReplyBesides, there are other characters to make up for it. Even the high-end prostitute shows off a healthy dose of badassery.
Jesus christ a male writer/director can't win. If the female character is feminine and protected the writer gets blasted for being a typical misogynist who doesn't value female character's strengths, and if he shows a strong woman who actually takes some blows then he's a misogynist who likes hitting women. What the hell do they want?
ReplyWhere does it say women taking blows in movies is bad? Certainly not in this article.
"In movies, pregnancy makes a heroine into a useless, whining, fragile creature (ok, other than Juno)."
ReplyYou said that to be ironic, right?
The author apparently has little knowledge of history: firstly there have been elected monarch such as the Holy Roman Emperor or King of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, secondly having half the pirates in POC being women would have been clearly pandering as female pirates were rare (equality means we shouldnt have to pander to each other in a ridiculous fashion no?), thirdly the LOTR thing was completely messed up as anyone whose read the books will know plus the whole fight with the Witch King was messed up generally in the film.
ReplyOverall a bad article by someone with far too much anger, both genders have sterotypes in films most men and women understand this but you could just as easily rail against male media sterotypes such as the action film one of the guy whose willing to slaughter great numbers of people without a second thought.
Dude, it's not 'half the pirates must be women, any sense of accuracy be damned!', it's '...So. Giggling piece of ass, nameless victim, magical thing, or Elizabeth.' No wise old women with good advice, no sensible housewives in the background getting on with it, nothing. There were things to be besides whore, serving wench, respectable wife, and flippin' pirate.
anikan was not half padmes age she was 14 he was 10 when they met
ReplyWhen I think 'strong female character' from Firefly/Serenity, I think ZOE. River was the disturbed young girl they were sheltering from the beginning. You're looking at the wrong female from that series.
ReplyNot to mention they weren't "protecting River" in all those episodes. They were *all* fugitives. River was driven insane by what amounts to physical and mental torture. She was badass just by not killing herself.
And Kaylee could fix s**t by giving it a stern look. She went on to be a doctor in the Pegusus galaxy (wait wrong show).
Not only that, but there's one "feminist" critique of Whedon that drives me nuts. Yeah, he does a lot of problematic stuff, but I don't think he has so many women get punched because it turns him on. It's because most of them are empowered enough to actually be *dangerous*. You can't just slap her because she's a girl, because the girl is f*****g Zoe or Buffy or whoever.
Lolz, stupid Americans. Padme looks like the ruler of an enlightened place. In enlightened places people can drink much sooner... unlike you hypocrites who would rather make your children lawbreakers than seem as less than the most uptight and Victorian people on the planet.
ReplyKinda minor point there, but yeah I think Padmé was supposed to be 19, in most countries it would be legal for her to drink (it's usually 18, sometimes 16)
Well this is sure an incredibly poorly researched article. :/
ReplyYou have completely forgotten Annamaria played by Zoe Saldana in the first Pirates movie. She was a female pirate and strong enough to captain the ship when Captain Jack was being held captive.
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesYes, Annamaria was awesome, but the point is for sad attempts at feminism, not good ones. I honestly think they did a pretty good job with her, so why would they include her as a /bad/ example?
Because the author says Swan is the only female who isnt a chambermaid or whatnot so it means that shes either desperate for examples or didnt watch the film. Also think about the time period and context it was extremely rare for women to be on a pirate ship at all never mind as combatants though there are examples of it.
It's easy to forget Annamaria *because she disappears*! It's actually a point for the prosecution.
So, by this article's logic the ideal feminist symbol is one who spends the movie's runtime punching dudes in the face, turning down sex, ignoring any romance and dressing like a man. Actually, it's a damn good thing that there's no Hollywood movies made by feminists because that sounds f*****g BORING.
ReplyWay to completely miscomprehend!
I wanna see a movie where a woman has sex with three different men without being slut-shamed for it, is an effective combatant without her tits hanging out, and gets to have a happy ending that has nothing to do with marriage or children.
If you judge Eowyn just on the films, she does come off as a bit of a characiture... but so do several other characters. As cheesy as the whole, "I am no man" thing came off, the only way around it was to make a massive change to a rather important part of the book.
ReplyThe pathetic attempt at feminism in LOTR was Arwen. The whole, "Look at me, I am woman with sword!" dramatic chase was done by a male character. Arwen mostly stood around and looked pretty in the books. She certainly didn't have an acts of badassery.
was this article supposed to be a joke in some way? 'cause I didn't really get it.
ReplyOh god.
Reply Hide All See All 4 Replies1. Eowyn shouldn't be judged based on the movies. They cut out a lot of information about her character (and not because she's a woman, and who cares, but because the movies were already OVER THREE f*****g HOURS LONG. They cut out a LOT of stuff about everyone. Eowyn and Faramir's relationship is actually covered in the books, rather than the brief glance they gave it in the movies because it happens after the climax and they're trying to finish it up more quickly than they did in the books.) However, even in the movie it's made very clear that Eowyn goes to war because she feels she has just as much reason to as any of the men. This idea is shown in both Eowyn and Merry - one is excluded because she's a woman, the other because he's very small. It wasn't supposed to be for feminists, if Merry, a male, is another example of the same thing.
2. River Tam was never intended to be a feminist role model. She's a child, much younger than the rest of the characters, and is a victim of severe abuse. This abuse includes making her capable of kicking serious ass, but it's still not treated as good. Occasionally helpful, but really horrendous in its roots. She's broken; she's traumatized; she's not a strong character. You could look to Kaylee, who likes frilly dresses, is scared of gunfights, and is a genius mechanic. Or Zoe, a tough veteran who eventually ends up married. She's physically strong, carries emotional scars from a horrific war, and is very committed to her husband without 'submitting' to him. Then there's Inara, a sex worker who is often sought out for counsel by the whole crew. She's a sexually empowered woman in a real way, rather than a male fantasy way - she is in no way slutty. She has no interest in sex without connection, her clothes cover her body rather than constantly advertising her profession, and she's very talented. Why harp on the fact that River is traumatized, when the other female characters in the show (half the main cast) are all legitimately good examples of equals to men who can still be feminine when they want to?
3. There are a lot of problems with Elizabeth Swann. Why mention that at the end, she isn't shown having much of a life on her own? It's irrelevant. The climax is over, and they're trying to tie up loose ends. They don't show what Will does when they're apart, either. So they just show them meeting up, to end the movie on a happy note and show the viewers that despite the separation, Elizabeth was strong enough to deal with that sort of distance and inability to communicate, rather than finding herself another man to help her raise her child.
It's pretty clear that you're desperately looking for the faults rather than the strengths, since several of these 'faults' are irrelevant, and others can actually make the opposite point. It's one thing to have an unpopular opinion; it's another to fail to properly research your points.
um, why are dismissing these very real claims. And it wasn't a book vs movie comparison. It was women portrayed in the media critique.
You're too defensive to take seriously.
cerrasponda: And you only address one tiny part of RachelBee's argument when refuting her. Way to show her.
cerrasponda: Everything RachelBee said was quite correct and valid.
About Eowyn, I might be wrong, but, in the book, when Faramir proposes doesn't she say something like "you've tamed this wild maiden"? Now why would the Alpha Ringwraith-slashing BAMF that she is ever say that. Why, Tolkein? :( Again, might be wrong, but wasn't the war still going on? Or had the ring already been destroyed? :/
If you want a strong, confident and competent female main character, look no farther than "Fargo." Frances McDormand plays Marge Gunderson, and shows her to be a strong, smart, no-nonsense cop who isn't portrayed as a harpy or a sex object; instead, she's a caring wife and a good cop, who remains a consummate professional through the whole film, then goes home to a happy marriage. It may not be Hollywood, but it was nice to see.
ReplyWelp. . . I've done my bit to honor my liberal college education. Time to return to reading the plethora of articles on Cracked featuring pictures of boobs.
Reply"What's that? Hollywood is portraying a female character with FLAWS instead of placing her on a pedestal above men? The director is clearly a misogynistic pig who rapes his wife whenever he's not cheating on her with Asian hookers!"
ReplyGod, you're stupid. Characters with real flaws are actually interesting, they're not props, sex dolls, or slobbering masochist wet dreams. Hollywood is not good at this.
I'm a woman. And an equalist. I only say this because the attitude of this article is the exact reason why I refuse to identify as feminist.
Reply Hide All See All 7 RepliesApart from completely misinterpreting the reasons behind why many of these women do the things they do (for fuck's sake, read the books before you b***h about Eowyn going to war because she wubs Aragorn so much, or how she “settled” for Faramir) this article seems to say; It's bad to be girly.
God forbid you want to be caring, or that you're JUST as emotional as weepy emo Anakin despite being pregnant and having to deal with hormones and the shitstorm that is your life, and most of all, how dare you like flowers and the colour pink? What are you? A GIRL!?
Catwoman is my favourite antihero because she's smart enough to know that a lot of villians are dumb enough to fall for the femme-fatale schtick. Joss Whedon isn't a rapist btw, and River is allowed to freak the f**k out. Turning herself into a MAN isn't always the best course an action chick can take.
In fact, saying that the manly solutions to problems are the only ones worth considering is very, very sexist.
Fail.
Everything I wanted to say, you said better. This article could have been great, but its clearly ridiculous.
I think the issue here is that these roles turn up so much. It's okay to be feminine, but it's also okay not to be. I'm pretty sure the author is trying to say that Hollywood should make these women characters in THEIR OWN RIGHT, and that they should be 'masculine' or 'feminine' according to how they feel.
Not sure about the whole River Tam thing. She's supposed to be the broken bird.
You make some good points, but for crying out loud, be consistent with your self-censoring. You blanked out your use of b***h and 1 f-bomb, but not the other f-bomb. Or better yet, drop the cursing. You'll come across as far more intelligent.
Seriously, you know nothing about feminism. Feminism is "equalist" which isn't even a thing. If you knew about the history of the feminist movement you'd understand that critique and calling out of stereotypes and tropes in media is a helpful tool in up rooting old sexism, which still exists.
You obviously missed the entire point of this article. It's not that women can't have flaws, it's that they can be whoever they want, but for some reason male creators keep writing the same tired crap.
Ifyou really want to defend them based on being "equal" you should do more research about how unequal representation in hollywood really is.
they didn't say manly solutions aren't the only thing that should be considered. In fact being "manly" isn't really a "feminist" statement. Just taking on the mantle of the patriarchy doesn't speak out against the oppression of femininity. So maybe you should read this again.
Women enjoy women characters of all types. When they randomly die or are ineffectual due to some fault of the writer, they become less inspirational. The women on this list are prime examples of how male writers allow women to succeed in limited accepted ways by still keeping them less than the men they are acting next to.
Seriously, the tone you got from this article is the projected loathing you have for feminist things. If you examined your bias, you'd realize you were actually a feminist. Don't let other people tell you how to feel about things, that's part of being feminist. Equality for all regardless of gender.
@cerrasponda: "calling out of stereotypes and tropes in media is a helpful tool in up rooting old sexism" - well, not in movies about pirates where every man is either a rapist cutthroat, a blindly loyal defender of brithish patriachy or a double-crossing selfish trickster.
Actually, I think calling out of stereotypes in any fantasy-setting-movie is kind of pointless for anything other than comedy - which this article is. I don't get all the discussion under cracked articles that feature "men-women stuff".
On another note, when I was 12, I HATED the way kids were portrayed in movies, some where WAY too mature, some too stupid and some an even worse mix of both. But I let go... movie characters sometimes need to behave strange to keep the sory going on, blame the scriptwriter or the director for being bad or uninspired but not for being sexist... people LOVE stereotypes
Dude, no. Amidala does not get a pass. In a world where they can do cybernetics and s**t, there's pretty much no reason to die in childbirth. Set up, within the damn movie, SHE CHOOSES TO DIE. Leaving her two helpless newborn babies all alone in a hostile universe, all because her boyfriend was mean to her. Selfish, cowardly cow.