Hollywood's 5 Saddest Attempts at Feminism
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#2.
Catwoman (Batman Returns)
Selina Kyle is a frumpy personal assistant to Batman villain Christopher Walken. She has the misfortune of being in the wrong place at the wrong time and her boss kindly shoves her out a window for her troubles. Fortunately, she is resuscitated by a group of stray cats in an alley. At this stage, Selina is left with only one option: dress in a shiny black leather cat suit and become a super villain. Well, we suppose calling the cops or going to an emergency room were also options, but who are we to judge? Supposed to be a Role Model Because: In this film, Catwoman is a gorgeous yet cunning adversary for Batman. The character also isn't portrayed as outright evil, so much as she just abides by her own complex moral code. She eventually defeats her evil boss, who made demeaning comments about her earlier in the film.
The "You Go Girl!" Moment: "I am Catwoman. Hear me roar." The Problem: Catwoman is a prime example of the femme fatale (literally "dangerous woman") stock character. It's an archetype that goes way back to probably the first male to ever write a story right after a nasty breakup. You can see the mentality of the guy writing the femme fatale, since he has the character basically using sex as a weapon against men. Sharon Stone in Basic instinct is probably the most gratuitous example, but maybe the most famous is Cleopatra who, regardless of what actually happened, has always been fictionalized as having seduced the world with the sheer force of her boobies.
So basically the femme fatale was created by insecure males to represent the dangers of unrestrained female sexuality. In these stories she's always a corrupting influence for the male hero and is always eventually punished for it, usually with a violent death. And, sure enough, the last we see of Catwoman is her "dying" from kissing Christopher Walken with a goddamned taser in her mouth. If that's not some kind of symbolism for herpes then we don't know what is. #1.
Elizabeth Swan (Pirates of the Caribbean)
Elizabeth (Keira Knightley's character) Swan is introduced in the first movie as the governor's daughter who has a fascination with pirates and effeminate blacksmiths. Over the course of the franchise, she learns to fight, shoot, go to war, lead armies and give boring speeches. Her and her one true love, Will (Orlando Bloom), endure many obstacles in their relationship and are rewarded when they are finally united in a thirty second Easter egg after the closing credits of the final movie.
Supposed to be a Role Model Because: Elizabeth is intelligent and resourceful, and knows a lot about pirates. In between movies Will teaches her to fight and she performs marginally well against opponents with no names or dialogue. She gets elected Pirate King and captains her own ship. Also, every leading man in the series falls in love with her at some point, leaving her the epicenter of a nautically themed love quadrangle. She's everything a girl should aspire to, right?
The "You Go Girl!" Moment: Elizabeth gives a rousing speech about freedom from oppression, to a bunch of rapists, killers and thieves. She then leads her rag tag fugitive fleet into battle against the evil forces of progress who are trying to stop them from raping, killing and thieving. You go, girl! The Problem: Tokenism. She's the female pirate version of the crusty black sergeant that threatens to pull the white protagonists off the case in a buddy cop flick. Elizabeth exists for the producers to point to and say "Look how enlightened we are!" Elizabeth is the only woman in the series who isn't a gossipy chamber maid, nameless whore or crazy sea goddess. Why do all the boys want a piece of her sweet, boobless ass? Because she's literally the only woman available. It's either her or one of the members of the film's catering staff.
Not to mention that she only gets command of a ship because Chow Yun Fat mistakes her for the crazy sea goddess, and she only becomes Pirate King (And why not the Pirate Queen while we're at it?) due to some elaborate double crossing scheme by Jack Sparrow, and not any actual qualifications. She just sort of lucks her way into everything. But the final straw is the Easter egg ending. After the day is saved and the pirates have won the freedom to rape and pillage across the seven seas, Elizabeth and Will are married, but must endure a long separation due to a curse.
No problem. We don't see exactly what she does for ten years, but from what we see after the closing credits, we can safely assume it was moping around waiting for Will to return and popping out his children. Oh, Hollywood. You came so close on this one. Jennifer is the chair of JordanCon, the first convention for fans of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series. For more feminism, check out the boob-aliciousThe 6 Most Gratuitously Cleavaged Women on TV or once again feel the wrath of our moral outrage in The 9 Most Racist Disney Character. |
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Interesting, but if you look at C.S. Luis's books, he is criticized for stripping his female characters of their femininity and portraying that to succeed as anything but a victim they need to adopt masculine traits.
Its a lose-lose situation.
Make a woman sexy yet bad-ass and suddenly they are merely being used as a sex symbol.
Don't make a woman sexy and put the woman as bad-ass and suddenly they are being stripped of their femininity.
Put the woman as anything except badass and they are a stereotypical victim.
I would like to know what feminists consider appropriate. I don't think they know.
I'm a little disappointing in this post. I agree with you for the most part about Eowyn, and Padme. I never seen the pirates movies (well, I have, but I didn't pay attention) so I can't comment on her. I can however point out your flaws in the assessment of River.
The reason River is so protected, isn't because shes a woman, it's because she is nuts! Had the character been cast as a guy, he would have been just as ineffective. Also the fan point of few is that river really didn't ever need protecting. She really have only been directly threatened three times in the series, and she handled her own business each time...
1: Pinned down with Kaley, killed all three of the men shooting at her, with little effort.
2: Bounty hunter sneaks onto the ship to kidnap her. After defeating most of the crew on his own he is outsmarted by River and knocked into space.
3: The reaver scene in Serenity....we know how that ended.
Despite all of this, is River even a feminist character? If you changed all the "shes" to "hes" and cut out one lude comment by Jane, River could have been played by a man. The title is "Hollywood's 5 Saddest Attempts at Feminism" but Riven wasn't an attempt at feminism. I wonder, does Cracked.com not allow you to submit lists that are smaller then four? Did you a need a fifth example so much that you needed to go after an almost completely androgynous character?
And what was with quoting the crazy from live journal. Did you look at her profile picture? Currently its a photo of the capital building with the female symbol super imposed over it. You didn't see the she was a crap filled misandronist? Don't get me wrong, I'm on the feminist wagon, but I can't stand straw feminists
(Explanation of "Straw feminist" here... http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StrawFeminist )
RexIdiotarum, I think I love you. Exactly x 1000000.
Hm... I have five sadder attempts at feminism. So bold as to actually use the term Girl Power and talk about feminism while essentially boiling down to being the next pop idol that couldn't stand a chance against Brittany or Paris, that is;
Scary Spice
Posh Spice
Baby Spice
Sporty Spice
and Ginger Spice.
*Rubs temples*
Oh, yes, because, unlike your list, none of these characters had any more substance behind them than the standard female and feminist stereotypes.
So, I've debunked your list, no One being could top the pathetic excuses for "feminist" than Spice Girls- Who actually claim to be feminists.
Otherwise, you're shooting down a lady strong enough to go and fight in a war for love, A Senator, an Villain strong enough to mess with the goddamn Batman, Elizabeth Swan, and the girl that uttered the line, "No power in the verse can stop me." after wiping out a room of baddies while looking in the other direction.
See, there's a difference between Feminism and Misandry. Feminism is the school of thought that preaches men and women are equal. Misandry is the school of thought that all men are worthless. When applied, the differences between these two are staggering, and the vast amount of self-proclaimed "Feminists" that are actually misandrists hurt people like me that tries to preach the ideas of equality between sexes under the lable of feminsism.
So, how can condemning a group of ladies for not being "Feminist enough" be considered misandristic? Well, I'll tell you what, if everyone of these ladies were in fact men, we'd praise them for their depth and courage. Defying traditions! Ha! Bold. But is that not enough for a woman? No, because women have to be better then men. -Wait what? You say having a character that not only has more hidden depth on the Serenity can also kick major ass, all because she's slightly insane? Well, of course, we're ignoring the sweet mechanic that's proven herself to be better than the male they were originally going to hire, and as a result got more life from the ship... doesn't that count? The snarky first mate who's loyalty is what keeps her on this ship, to her husband and captain, she proves herself to be the most wise crew member... but she doesn't count? Why? Oh, because they have a "glorified prostitute on board." *Sigh*
Really, because my ramblings are long, I should sum it up with one sentence; By nitpicking any female character in a story for not being the ideal form of feminism (Which seems to be between Mary Sue and God)you cheapen the meaning of Feminism itself.
~Sorry.
I wouldn't say that River Tam was supposed to be a Buffy-type girl originally. In the TV series, most of the time she is this crazy, bewildered girl, and it wasn't until near the 'end' of the series that she became quite a bit more useful (raid on Niska's place and tricking Jubal Early). But even then I thought the emphasis was more on her super genius aspect than her martial arts / physical ass-kicking skills.
The film, now, that was a different matter. If I had to guess, I would say that studio execs put pressure on Whedon to make River more "Buffy-like". That last scene where she takes out a whole army of Reavers, some of whom were armed with ranged weapons with a couple of axes was the primary reason I could never quite take the film too seriously.
But, uh. Anyway. Funny article anyways. Especially agree with #1.
Here's my question: Why do so many female characters have to be analyzed about whether or not they adhere to feminism? Did anyone get up-in-arms about Die Hard because John McClaine was the stereotypical angry, violent man?
No. Because it was f*****g awesome.
CheapJeep, humans all have testosterone and estrogen, so I have to wonder about your biological facts. If you really want to look at it biologically, men are the ones fighting because their deaths are expendable compared to women's - a significant dearth of women severely limits the population, possibly leading to that group dying out (thus making the fighting pointless to begin with).
This article made me ask who I thought were GOOD fictional (portrayed in film, of course) representatives of feminism. You know who I thought of? Scarlett O'Hara, Elizabeth Bennet, and Jane Eyre. Women who know what they want in life and fight for it, despite society trying to force them to do otherwise; who aren't always "nice"; and whose opinion of themselves matters more than others of them. Though Scarlett is the only one who cooks or cleans, they all get married and (presumably) have children, never wearing trousers or latex. Elizabeth never even has a job. But all three supercede the societal bonds of their times to be able to follow their hearts - as, one could argue, does Elizabeth SwanN.
Perhaps, as an earlier poster pointed out, the fact that the 3 successes at feminism I mentioned were written by women is relevant. But how does that explain this article, then?
Amen, CheapJeep. It's sad how people like Jennifer think that in order to be a truly liberated woman, you have to suppress anything feminine or attractive about yourself.
I wonder, what would Jennifer consider to be a good feminist role model. I theorize that it would be the sort of badass warrior woman who never wears a dress or make-up, despises the color pink, has no empathy for children or animals, would sooner kill herself than COOK or CLEAN, beats the s**t out of any man that looks at her funny, and will never ask for or need help from any menfolk, ever. Yeah, that's the kind of character whose example you want to follow. Women shouldn't be allowed to dress up and look pretty; that privilege is reserved specifically for gay and transsexual men
The entire point of feminism is to promote equality, to give women the choice to live their lives. If a women WANTS to look pretty or work at home, it doesn't mean she's a brainwashed slave of the vast and all-encompassing male hegemony. She just has different interests than the rest of you.
Frankly, all of the women on this list make much better role models than the character type I outlined above. Well, except for Padme, but that's George Lucas for you. The listing of River and Elizabeth in particular piss me off. Her insanity has nothing to do with her gender, and Jennifer forgets about all the other competent women on the ship who help her out.
As for Elizabeth? While I agree that the pirates who act like the actual pirates from history (i.e. bloodthirsty bandits on ships) are poor representatives for the cause of freedom, why is it so bad that Elizabeth falls in love? That she refuses to cheat on a man that she knows will come back as faithful to her as ever? You may begrudge her for not kicking ass any more, but the movie's over by then. There's literally no more ass left for her to kick! And do you honestly think she's done nothing but stare at the ocean and pine for ten years? She's had to raise Will Jr. all by herself, which canNOT be a walk in the park in the colonial age the Pirates movies take place in.
All is not lost for young Jennifer, however. If the reader ignores the horrendous leaps of logic she takes in making her point, neglecting to research her source material and using raving lunatics as a source, the article is actually pretty funny. You might have a future at Cracked, Jennifer, but you'll have to get your ass in gear if you want to meet the high standards that we expect from our Cracked Top # articles.
Don't love, don't give, don't forgive, only use. This is the female, let alone feminist warcry throughout the ages. Strange how they should take umbrage at that being the male one as well.
They are not as good as men as warriors, carrying about 20lbs of fat and 25% less cardio capability than we do with no testosterone to build muscle and half the adrenal capability to turbocharge the system.
Furthermore, they DO have a sex drive which DOES distracts them from the essentially focussed task of killing.
Males realize that to be -that good- is to wipe the floor with all before them in a competition which is utterly without mercy or softness and for which they secretly spend their lives dreaming of 'just one chance', without a woman to say it's okay.
It is not to respect women nor to subordinate their wills that men do not include them in their combat games but rather to preserve the concentration by which they must render everything 'objectively' (literally the part of the brain which recognized things as things, not people), not as an item of independent correlative value.
Point blank ladies: If you want equality, get used to being treated like bleep. Just like we treat all the other _guys_ when it comes down to us vs. everything. It applies as much to the big screen (butchered face, sliced open bleeps, gored belly, there's a 'real woman' in combat) as it does to the office environment. And your insistence on things being any other way destroys the mindset by which we are -at our best- when we compete, ruthlessly. Without you.
I'm confused about the Batman one. It says Catwoman died because she kissed Christopher Walken, but didn't she kill him? Don't you mean died from kissing Batman? Tell me if i'm wrong, i've never seen the movie.
While it pains me to expose how sad and meaningless my life is: the majority of Eowyn's lines were in fact written by Phillipa Boyens and Fran Walsh which means that she out of all your list of characters was the result of TWO woman. Granted, Tolkien, a man, wrote the book...but this article is referring to Hollywood after all.
Honestly, I don't think Eowyn should be counted as Hollywood's sad attempt as much as Tolkien's sad attempt. Walsh and Boyens made the character a lot more feminist in the movie, in the novel she fights in one battle for about half a second (Merry does most of the work to be honest) before injuring her arm and deciding to quit, while in the hospital she gives up trying to live ala Padme until Aragorn works his magic. And at long last she realises that her life has been meaningless, that woman were put on this world to make babies, hooks up with Faramir and becomes a nurse. Hell, if that wasn't bad enough Gandalf, Aragorn and Eomer talk s**t about her while she lies comatose next to them.
While we're on the subject...
Several episodes of "Firefly" were also written by women, including the before mentioned "puked on her brothers bed" one.
That said, great article. Hell, I'm just glad to see the Firefly nod (although that article you mention wouldn't happen to be "The Rapist view..." one that everyone keeps bringing up)? Because honestly that chick is nuts!
That was probably the most pathetic thing I've ever written in my...Today. Maybe...
Anyone ever notice the similarities between River and the Mamelukes from the Persian Empire? I'm not going to go into an in depth comparison, but you should wikipedia "Mameluke" if you are interested.
then again EVERY batman movie makes women out to be nothing but a damn distraction for batman to have his ass handed to him or have to make some fucked up choice between his girl and his friend... and then even when some girl starts to work her way in they just blow her ass up anyway. and you wanna know why!? Because Batman is the mother f*****g s**t and no one else compares...
"Batman Returns" is indeed a lousy feminist movie, and not just because Catwoman is a "femme fatale." The 1992 sequel is basically a 118-minute-long "up yours" to women in general. EVERY female character in the movie - from the blonde who gets felt up by The Penguin at the rally to the circus floozies in his gang to the fur-lined bimbo who gets knocked off the building - are all evil, corrupt, weak, or - in Selina Kyle's case, f***ing insane. It's the only Batman movie without a single positive female character. Its producers seem to be terrified of the idea of women having power - which is very strange, because one of those producers was a woman.
Worst of all, even the hero of the story is a total pig. Batman tries to "save" Selina from becoming a murderer, which is completely hypocritical. (He felt sorry for Penguin, too; why didn't he try to save HIM? Fact is, all Batsy was concerned about was getting into Selina's panties.)
All in all, "Batman Returns" teaches us that women are silly, stupid children who need men to take care of them so that they don't get themselves killed or go postal. It's my second-favorite Bat-movie, but even I have to admit it that it's sexist to the max.
I only read the River part, because I'm a Whedon-fan. And something I love in his work is that no ones perfect. He doesn't write about heroes or icons, saints or superpeople without flaws. That would be unrealistic and not really portaying humanity. River is insane, because she had experiments done on her. Who would not be crazy? I don't understand why people have to go "Willow, Buffy, River are such bad rolemodels, Joss really dropped the ball". Joss didn't create robots, he created humans.
"That's an awful lot of rescuing for a feminist hero." Has Joss ever claimed that his characters are suppose to be "feminist heros"? Jesus Christ, she's just a girl who has had a very tough time. Give her a break.
how did ripley from alien not get in?
The first two were actually pretty funny, but the last three... did you run out of ideas? I mean, I might be wrong, but I'm sure Catwoman was NEVER meant to be a Role Model to... anyone.
And I'm not sure if you read the article you linked to for River Tam, but it wasn't based in fact. Or logic. Or rationality. But neither was what you wrote, so I guess that makes sense.
And no one really cares about any character in Pirates other than Jack Sparrow.
The first two were actually pretty funny, but the last three... did you run out of ideas? I mean, I might be wrong, but I'm sure Catwoman was NEVER meant to be a Role Model to... anyone.
And I'm not sure if you read the article you linked to for River Tam, but it wasn't based in fact. Or logic. Or rationality. But neither was what you wrote, so I guess that makes sense.
And no one really cares about any character in Pirates other than Jack Sparrow.
Poor man's Sean Bean!! Best (nerdy) line ever!
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There are more forms of femininity than big boobs and nail polish, and that's one of the things few people realize, from straw feminists to game makers and Hollywood producers. Now, I cannot speak for everyone, but much of my life and jobs have dealt with issues of gender, so I've been interested in gender expression, gender roles, and defiance of them.
So, the way I see it is that Femininity focuses on social, emotional, and aesthetic aspects. Masculinity, on the other hand, focuses on the individual, logical, and competitive aspects.
Please note that I, in no way, believe that Femininity is exclusive to woman or that Masculinity is exclusive to Men. That'd be extremely hypocritical of me. Instead, I believe that because these are dynamic to an individual and not a bolean figure for either sex, it's impossible to pull off a character that solely expresses Feminine Traits or Masculine Traits without looking like a joke. Or an FPS Mute Space Marine Protagonist. Because Masterchief doesn't have blood, he has Testosterone.
So, in a modern world where anyone who claims to be a Feminist, myself included, gets strange looks and openly mocked for "Staw Feminists'" beliefs, it kills me a little to see this. I'd rather see feminists openly proclaim praise for a character that shows that there are okay with themselves and their expressions.
Case in Point: Kalie from Firefly. I love Kalie because she's a woman who's a total nerd but has a pretty feminine side in a way that doesn't devolve her down to her body. She's shown that she knew more about how the Firefly model's engine runs than the original male mech they were going to hire, ((She seemed more into Serenity's engine than the guy she was with.)) she's surprisingly open about her sexuality, and, again, a total nerd. As far as her feminine side goes, she likes dresses, has a cute crush on the doctor, and, unlike the rest of the crew, isn't a total psychopath. But here's the point, she seems very comfortable and happy in expressing herself as both masculine and mechanically inclined and feminine in her clothing style and general mannerisms.
My ideal protagonist that fits the ideals of feminism would be an independant and strong willed character that does what she feels will make her happy despite what anyone tells her Misogynists and Misandrists aside.
~ Recommended Reading Whipping Girl - Julia Serano, you always find the most enlightened concepts of a debate from people who've embraced both sides and saw both strengths and weaknesses. In the case of Feminism, look for Transgendered people.