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.
Thank you-totally agree with number 1-plus Elizabeth swan was annoying as hell in that last movie!
ReplyRiver Tam is NOT a sad attempt at feminism! Actually I would, more accurately, call her the LEAST feminist character in the show. Zoe is a really strong and independent woman, who doesn't take s**t from anybody but her own captain, which is rule 1 in the military. Kaylee is warm and kind, and might be kinda boyish in the sense that she is more capable with machines than anybody else, and that she is a total nympho, but she is a really good character and many girls see themselves in her. Inara is a spacewhore, but she is smart, sophisticated, reasonable and more refined and respected than anybody else on the show, because spacewhores in the Firefly 'verse, are educated and a really, really respected profession.
ReplyIn other words, Firefly sports a bunch of different characters who represent a variety of realistic women, and thats what feminism is all about right? Portraying how real life women are, despite the common "female character mould".
Um wait. Since when Tim Burton's catwoman is supposed to be a role model?
ReplyNot a bad list, but I disagree about Eowyn. It's not like she decided to trade her dress for chainmail the minute she fell in love with Aragorn - that she wanted to go to battle and lead an exciting life was a part of her character before she met him. And considering every other important person in her life had the habit of riding off to war, it'd be hard to see the man she fell in love with do the same and not want to follow. She mightn't be a perfect suffragette, but I wouldn't exactly call her one of Hollywood's "saddest attempts" at feminism, I'm sure there are better examples.
Replyb***h more, feminazis. b***h more.
Replythough i will agree with the portrayal of eowyn or whatever her name is in the LOTR movies. but really, people, River?! What an amazing character. And yes, she has mental problems, it's one of the crux points of the show. Need every female character displayed in popular entertainment be running over with competence and sass? can't River just be who she is? Need she be what you, feminists, view acceptable in order to be a round character? shame on you, feminists, shame on you.
"It's either her or you, Bloom."
ReplyThis was an hilarious article. Please write more of they.
After reading the above referenced LJ dissertation.....OMG! Did she even watch the same show I did?!?!
Replyi am far more offended by movies painting a picture of an ideal woman as a woman who acts more like a man. don't get me wrong, diversity is great, but there shouldn't be anything wrong with being a traditional woman who likes cooking and ponies, and a woman shouldn't have to act like a man to gain respect. people went crazy for megan fox in transformers because OMG a hot girl who fixes cars! who gives a crap about the details of her personality, just make her do something a man would usually do and she will be deemed unique and progressive. and kill bill (while a great movie) has fans who not only were inspired by her slaughtering her enemies, they were even turned on by it. no matter what gender you are into, you should not be attracted to someone violent, even if you think their actions are totally justified. even if you aren't violent, you can still be rude and pass as an independent woman. remember anastasia? she has no manners and even complains that "men are such babies", and this is supposed to be a good thing? we should not be encouraging men or women to be rude and psychotic. that is not progressive, and being kind does not make you pathetic.
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesAgreed. But the message from those kinds of roles is that women can also be disgusting and psychotic, its not just a club for men. If women want to be vile serial killers then they should be allowed to... serve maximum sentences.
f**k everyone.
I started noticing that Wheadon actually hates 'pretty' women. He likes them scruffy or scruffy by proxy (this Cordelia progressing from the 'evil cheerleader' in Buffy to having a rubbish bin apartment in Angel). Pretty, girly women who are not fully into male things are evil backstabbing bitches. Because feminism is all about deciding that women are good if they behave one certain way!
Oops constructicon, didn't mean to thumbs-down you; I totally agree.
River Tam is NOT a sad attempt at feminism! She is being constantly protected and taken care of because she has gone through torture and experiments. They removed the part of her brain that censors fear, so she can't function normally because she's so messed up and unpredictable. She is one of Joss's many amazing female characters and is in no way a lame attempt at feminism. River Tam kicks butt!
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesIf she can't understand fear then how is it she runs screaming from things like Shepard's hair? How can she have nightmares if fear is now an alien emotion? I understand that the whole series isn't all that thought through but at least explain this one thing. Please.
MrsLovett says she can't censor fear...not that she doesn't understand it..it's amplified.
Arsen_E, as River says herself in the series last episode, "She understands, she doesn't comprehend.
So two of the five would have been great triumphs for the character if she didn't end up married? Listen marriage is a tragedy whether it happens to a man or a woman.
ReplyRiver Tam is not being protected all the time BECAUSE SHE IS A WOMAN.
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesShe's being protected because she's crazy and evidently rendered unable to take care of herself because of all the ungodly experimenting those scientist did on her.
However, despite what the crew thinks, she turns out to be quite capable of helping herself and the others... and, let's face it, she kicks more ass than the other 8 crew members piled together.
The "my turn" speech you sneakily just hinted at wasn't something lame like: "You guys shot at us, now it's my turn!", it was something like: "Simon [her brother], all my life you watched over me and took care of me... my turn!" A completely different thing. It also happens at the end of the story, when she overcomes her condition and stops needing to be rescued (it's not the other way around, like the article suggests).
Also, copypasting the craziest fan comment you could find from some Firefly boards on the internet doesn't make your argument valid.
PS: five minutes footage of Whedon pimp-slapping every woman on the set would have been freaking hilarious. :P
Yea that was my first thought, River isn't any less of a feminist hero because she's been mentally abused and lost her sanity. A Beautiful Mind wasn't trying to emasculate John Nash and show how he needed to be taken care of all the time to make him less of a masculine hero. He was just actually insane.
Couldn't agree with you more, upon seeing River named as a problem hero for girls I cocked my head to the side like a dog hearing it's owner's voice on the answering machine.
Yeah she needs to be protected but she also protects everyone else at various points ("no power in the verse can stop me" anyone?) All of Joss' female characters are strong but have their weak moments JUST LIKE REAL WOMEN. Kaylee has a job that a dumbass guy couldn't handle and knows her way around the verse. But she get's scared and wounded just like any other person. Zoe is a take no s**t kinda gal, badass, knows what she wants...but she's still a crew member and will take orders LIKE A CREW MEMBER OF ANY SEX WOULD. Inara was a space hooker sure but in the future of space hookery the gals picked who they wanted and were trained to be smart, sexy, and deadly if needed. She gets what she wants because SHE wants it. So basically all of his women characters are like humans usually are: perfectly flawed. And so endith my rant lol
Ok, digit7766, I just had to thumbs up your comment solely for the phrase 'In the future of space hookery'. God bless you.
Oh goodness, I haven't even read the comments yet, but there's a word with the ending 'ism' in the title, and it's even more frightening because it's of the 'femin' variety. Feminism seems to be what's cool among young ladies these days, and anti-feminism seems to be what's cool among young 'realists' (as they likely view themselves) these days. This makes me believe the comments are going to be a mishmosh of crazy. I'm going to take a look right now...
ReplyOk, alright. Not quite as bad as I thought it might be. Only one outrageously over-the-top stupid comment (Shout out to ironman13 way down there for his astonishingly idiotic comment about women in the military! Whoo!), so...um...good job guys I guess. You make me proud.
Is there a variety of 'ism' entitled 'masculanism'? I'm confused...
Eh, examples like number one seem less like an attempt at feminism and more like they're giving her the hokey advertisement/movie treatment, for lack of a better method of referencing such a phenomenon; the males in question are (for the most part), portrayed as the lovable, simple, jolly fellows who often know how to get technical things done, but lack complex thinking skills (kind of like how we all used to view tech students...), where as the female plays the role of a sophisticated woman who the males often discount, and she lets them do so because she's confident in her superior guile. Of course then she ends up at some point displaying her abilities and/or complex intellect to the surprise of the males who are forced to realize the females' potential.
ReplyThat's usually not it though, as males don't like the idea women could live without them any women like the idea that males could live without them, so in movies a lead male has to come through and somehow demonstrate that the female needs him too.
That all sounds very convoluted, but it's the safe way to do things. That way neither gender gets the shaft and the least number of people get offended. Again, whether it's in ads, movies, or tv, that sort of dynamic is common. Of course ads are too short to fit quite that much in, so they seemingly vary in the way they treat the genders based upon what demographic they're targeting...actually, that's a lie, either way they seem to treat women like they're males' mothers.
It's just that if they're targeting women, they treat it like the woman in question is simply a benevolent, wise caretaker for their incredibly dull, childlike significant other, and if they're targeting men they treat women as these harpy bitches who just nag and whine and constantly act like worrywarts, and the men just quietly sit with a smile on their face trying to appease the beast so it'll leave them alone, since in that universe women only think they know what they're talking about. In either case I feel the need to punch everyone in the ad.
Anyways though, I have to ask though, when it comes to the notion of 'feminism'...shit, what ever happened to just promoting fairness for everyone? Why do we have to have 'feminism' or 'anti-feminism' (I don't want to call it sexism, since that's not what I mean, but I'm not sure what else to call those who respond aggressively to the notion of calling something sexist) or w/e? What's the matter with just being a supporter of human equality and tolerance in general? Why do we always have to be taking sides?
So there. That's my two cents. And yes, it is somewhat long, but I would feel bad if I didn't remind everyone that every time someone types the phrase (acronym? idk) TL;DR, someone drowns a puppy. You wouldn't want that to happen to a poor little puppy, would you? Oh, and If you're the kind of sick degenerate who's into that sort of thing, in your case when you type TL;DR someone decides not to drown a puppy, you horrible bastard.
Kittens will get it instead if you're a cat person though, just fyi. Maybe both puppies and kittens, depending on what mood the gods of the internet are in.
TLSHWMTR: Too Long, Shouldn't Have Wasted My Time Reading.
I agreed with some of the points made, I didn't really care about the others... until you got to Catwoman. Do not ever, EVER call Michelle Pfeiffer's Catwoman a "sad attempt at feminism" ever again. I will find you, corner you in a dark alley and punch you in the throat.
ReplyIf you want to complain about a poorly made Catwoman, complain about the Halle Barry one, because Michelle Pfeiffer is a goddamn boss.
And besides, you talk as if she's the only Catwoman who used her sexuality to get her way. News flash, lady: EVERY incarnation of Catwoman does that. If you're going to complain about one, complain about all of them, at the very least.
Calm down buddy.
Hollywood's bad with feminism? I don't think you needed to write a whole article about that, since its pretty obvious.
ReplyYour writing wasn't bad though, I just don't care to read more Cracked articles beating a dead horse.
If only this article were written later, then it could have included Sucker Punch.
Replyabout Elizabeth SwanN and how "she just sort of lucks her way into everything", well, that was the whole point of those movies. All the characters, Sparrow especially, blunder their way haphazardly from one situation to the next. I agree she should've been styled Queen though..
ReplyPeople in movies blunder into things when writers can't think of a reasonable explanation to segue from one thing to the next.
LoTR and Firefly (and Natalie Portman and Keira Knightly)? My mind can't compute all this hate of things I love so I'm going to assume it's sarcasm...
ReplyI didn't agree with every point raised by this article, but I thought it was well written and enjoyable to read. :)
ReplyHow is it possible to so completely misread Eowyns character? Yeah she had a thing for Aragorn, but that wasn't why she pretended to be a guy... She was frustrated that she had to watch Theoden (her father figure) descend into old age, and she was expected to care for him while Theodred and Eomer had all the glory.
Replyedit: I do agree though that her "romance" with Faramir was kind of lame.
that romance actually makes much more sense in the books and anyway, it's not really fair to blame hollywood for something tolkien wrote, now is it?
I gave this a pass because he said "Hollywood" cause in the books Eowyn is a lot more deep. She doesn't follow the army to chase Aragorn she does it because she too wants to be able to fight to protect the world and for all the reasons pongjinn
listed. oh and the movie simply didn't have the time or the need to go through the story of how Faramir and Eowyn got together. So LOTR is on this list for the MOVIE not the book.