Real Female Protagonists Wanted, Inquire Within

This was spurred by a thread on Aimee Salter’s, Seeking The Write Life, I read a day ago at this link. Go ahead, read it and then come back. Okay. Now my two bits. Oh and if you read the comments, you have seen this already, just skip ahead to the Postscript (the P.S.) at the bottom. For those of you who were less dutiful, please continue.

“Laura Croft/Buffy Summers” Syndrome is a condition I have noticed in almost all female protagonists in the last twenty years in all forms of media not just in YA literature. LC/BS Syndrome has infiltrated movies and television as well, likely as a response to the previous hundreds of years of literature where women have been needing to be rescued to be viable in any kind of tale.

I do not have a problem with LC/BS Syndrome in and of itself. Women can be physically nearly as strong like men, fight as well as men and be as viable as main protagonists as any man. Yes, I said nearly as strong physically because pound for pound they are not. Not withstanding, women have lots of other capabilities that men are often less capable of developing and as such I consider them to be abilities that compensate for the minor difference in raw physical strength.

The problem lies in the way they have become these super-beings. They have done it by “becoming” men; solving problems the way men have done in literature. Women have different skills, different ways of thinking and solve problems in ways that men rarely do. I am saddened to see how things have turned out for women and finding this transition into “male archetypes” to be a lessening of the innate (and in my opinion, superior) capabilities of women’s considerable intuitive intellect.

I have seen this show up in the real world where women wear men’s suits trying to compete with men in the workplace only to find out men resent women trying to become men because, well, they aren’t men. Writers need to let female protagonist utilize ALL of the skills available to them, particularly those skills that are more suited to the female mindset. Women do not need to be men to be excellent protagonists. Women need to solve problems to be protagonists. Let them be the best women they can be, not second-class men.

And don’t get it twisted. I enjoyed Buffy, Serenity, Farscape, Battlestar Galactica, all with amazing women doing awesome stuff only men used to get to do. But almost all of these characters fell out of their true potential as female characters.

To point at a character who has maintained some level of “female-ness” I show the character of Olivia Dunham (Anna Torv) from the TV show Fringe. She is a strong FBI Agent who takes no prisoners, fights well, shoots well, and is not to be taken lightly with any physical confrontation. But she does not win them all. And I respect writers who recognize she shouldn’t. Especially against much bigger physical opponents. But where Olivia shines is her very human, very female intuition which she uses to solve problems and arrive at solutions that the male characters may also arrive at using very linear-male problem-solving techniques. They do not underestimate her, they do not relegate her to a secondary position and often it is her intuitive, nurturing nature that brings a very different point of view to the Fringe Universe.

What we need are writers who are able to appreciate men and women as distinct and interesting beings who can develop skills from both sides of the physical and mental spectrum. This takes some skill to develop and often my personal belief is that protagonists who are strongly one way or the other reflect their author’s personal idiosyncracises more than any other single element of the character’s development.

Just my two bits. Your mileage may vary.

Thaddeus
@ebonstorm

P. S. There are plenty of female characters who also reflect my idea of the ideal female characters, who do not become caricatures. Strangely enough, three of the four I am thinking of are FBI Agents. Clarice Starling (Jodi Foster) of Silence of the Lambs, Dana Sculley (Gillian Anderson) of the X-files, and the last is from a much lamented (from my point of view) Farscape, in which two of the female characters, Aeryn Sun (Claudia Black) and Zhaan (Virginia Hey) were physically awesome, mentally superior and yet still manged to be wonderful women with all that entails. Emotionally sensitive, sensual and aware of their power over men, and occasionally needed to be rescued with they got in over their heads, just the same way the male leads who showed comraderie, nurturing, love and supporting roles during the course of the show without being characterized as weak or feminine. Perhaps it is just the double standard rearing its ugly head again.

If you want to see a list of Sci-Fi’s list of awesome female protagonists (which also happens to agree with my picks) check out Sci-Fi’s TV’s Most Memorable Female Characters.

One day we will allow women to do the things that men do the same way men are allowed to do the things women do without any consequence or for that matter with anyone noticing anything at all.

Wouldn’t that be nice.

Superhero Diversity: Coming whether you like it or not

Newsrama.com posed the following blog that related to my topic of superheroic identity, diversity and equal treatment in the mainstream comic universes. After having it pointed out to me, I felt the need to address it just a bit more. Here is a taste of the article.

SUPERHERO DIVERSITY

By Vaneta Rogers
posted: 13 January 2011 04:23 pm ET

There’s no question the world of superhero comics is more diverse than it was 20 years ago, but the effort hasn’t been without struggle.

And despite the best effort of creators and publishers, the most popular characters continue to be a slate of white men.

The best example of the phenomenon is the upcoming Avengers film, where Black Widow will be the one white female Avenger in a team dominated by white male heroes like Thor, Iron Man, Hawkeye, Hulk and Captain America.

But it’s not just an Avengers problem. “If you look at all DC’s major characters, the big seven of the Justice League, they’re all white men with the exception of Wonder Woman, who’s a white gal,” said Judd Winick, who writes for DC Comics. “We don’t really have many people of color who are considered a major character.”

You can read the rest of the article here. I will wait till you get back.

How did we get here?

A young friend of mine asked me “Why are we still having this conversation?” To be honest I had not planned on answering, I felt I made my feeling clear in my earlier post. But I decided that I would try and strip out the vitriol and answer it differently today. So here goes: Why ARE we still having this conversation about diversity in Comics in the year 2011? 135 years after the end of Slavery in the South and 400 years after the arrival of the first African in chains we are still questioning the poor representation of people of color in the mythic realms of superheroes in spandex. We are still talking about it because:

It is more relevant now than ever.

That is why we are still talking about this because the mainstream comic industry is still wrestling with it. They realize their industry is still poorly reflecting an increasing colorful and diverse world. But their readership mostly comprised of white males who buy the bulk of the comics in the US today, would prefer that nothing ever changes. And the industry does not want to do anything that might jeopardize their current income stream.

The reality is this:

The industry will have to take a hit to get ahead. One step back on income while they retool their lineups and as newer readers embrace the lineup, the old guard will have to get in step or find another form of entertainment where the myth of white superiority is still happily being promoted, for the time being. Eventually even that will change, and they will have to let someone else live to the end of the movie. Will Smith has championed that cause in his own movies. We can have and do have potential motivations that are different than expected and that we can bring our own vibrant and energetic nature to the comic industry and the big screen.

BRAVE NEW <economic> WORLD

The Comic Industry is like any other business, they are looking ahead to the future and seeing India and China with their rich cultural heritages and realizing they have no boats in the water in which to move into those markets. Their parent companies are already realizing they will have to do better about embracing diversity if they want to be able to maintain their roles as trend-setters and leaders in this Brave New Economic World (BNEW).

What this really means for smaller agencies like independent writers and artists is those mainstream providers are seeking creative talent that can move interesting and powerful characters of color. But this is a moving target, so creating one’s one characters and even companies may be a great move right now, and nurturing that talent is also paramount but I suspect for a percentage of the best and brightest, an opportunity to migrate, translate or inculcate your work into the mainstream universe is nearer than you think.

Brother, you should do for self…

And before anyone attacks me with the standard litany of ‘we don’t need anything from them‘ and ‘we can do it without their help‘, I will agree with you, wholeheartedly. And I recommend we get started immediately to provide positive images of heroes for our children and people who want to see a more diverse view of heroes of color. I posit you this: The comic industry’s success has been fueled by their translation of their heroes from their books to the movie industry. And while the technology is still evolving, it has begun to be good enough to allow characters from the 1940s onward to begin their potential migration to the big screen.

In Summary:

It is in Big Comics best interest to find new talent and nurture it. They may not like it. They may not want it. They may not quite even realize it yet, but as the demographics of the nation continue to evolve, they will have to get into the myth-making business for a more diverse population, or eventually as their markets age out, or lose interest, they may find themselves becoming extinct due to a lack of a new emergent market to move into.