Audiences Hate Bad Writing, Not Strong Women

I have to watch for reference, thank you

Ooooo I gotta watch this and I’ll tell you what I think.

I feel like this video sort of ignores that some of these projects are headed by people (usually men) who suck at writing women in their male dominated stories and no one really notices because the character have hardly any screen time. JJ Abrams sucks at writing women, so why hire him to reboot Star Wars with a female lead? And when the film sucks, people end up blaming the actress who is trying her hardest to work with the awful script she is given and no one bats an eye at Abrams.

I agree with the topic of this video but don't really like the narrator's approach to the topic.

Even with the Last Jedi, the parts with Rey and Luke were the only enjoyable parts for me because they did get into the depth of both characters. The parts of the film that annoyed me the most was them trying to flesh out Poe as a character and his whole conflict with the purple hair lady wasn't interesting at all. Yet I hear people rarely bring up that Poe is not a good character at all. He's so much worse than Rey.

To sum it up, I agree with everything in this video. Characters need flaws and it’s okay to make them powerful and experienced but they need to earn it.

As a woman myself, I can’t relate to these characters at all and I don’t like this recent trend. It’s just gotten really annoying for me. What I learned from all of this is how not to write your characters in general. Not necessarily just if you’re writing a female character but all different kinds of characters. I think all of us can learn from these things and hopefully (probably not) maybe Disney.

the Last Jedi is top 5 mainline Starwars film and I will fight you for it.

There’s plenty of things characters can face with. The possibilities are endless in that aspect.

Honestly I have no idea.

Honestly I think that’s all he was in there for and not just Poe but Finn too. Finn had so much potential. At the moment I don’t wanna talk about Star Wars anymore. I just can’t even…

I don't entirely agree with the point at the end of the video that "self acceptance" is a bad moral to preach, nor that good characters need to constantly put others before themselves. It is important to be able to accept yourself as you are, and not feel forced to conform to what other people tell you to be... but self acceptance doesn't mean you don't ever have to improve yourself, or that everyone else is an idiot, or that you can't accept help from others. It's all about balance.

Anyway, the dirty secret of writing strong female characters (or characters of any gender): it's really not that different from writing strong male characters. Obviously there will be some things that women tend to experience that men don't, just the same as POCs or any other type of character, but by and large, people are people.

Okay so just the title made me gawk but then I decided to give it a fighting chance and watch/listen but again a few minutes in and I'm wincing again. I'm also not digging his tone but I feel like that's just a thing for commentary videos like this so I'll let that slide but only just barely

I wanna note before continuing that I'd really like to see a female perspective on the subject or just wider commentary from folks from a wider variety of backgrounds coz I feel like I always see way more dude critiquing female characters and some of the flaws that are pointed out are the very same things that guy characters get applauded for time and again (but maybe that's just me idk)

I'll also add that I haven't seen much of any of the titles the guy mentions outside of isolated clips either praising or critiquing their respective piece of media so I'll be speaking as an outsider at best on that front.

Jumping in to the actual video I can say there are instances where bad writing has ruined a character but there's also a hell of a lot of butthurt men who just enjoy whining about strong female characters in their male dominated media and no one can really deny that as fact. Star Wars, LotR, Marvel and DC are mostly and mainly marketed to a male audience so it's expected that the minute a strong woman is added to the mix a certain demographic is gonna pitch a fit (it's probably a science in itself these days)

That said I feel like some of the instances mentioned in the analysis can be fixed with basic logic or an altered perspective. For instance I haven't watched She-Hulk but looking at whats there I immediately thought "maybe the reason the woman has a different level of control versus her male counterpart is a matter of logic vs emotions". Like looking at the clips he's chosen it does give a vibe of bitching about the patriarchy (which lets be honest i'd say it's a little warranted men can and have been a pita and not every guy is introspective enough to note his own flaws or listen to others when they're pointed out) but specifically with regards to level of control we see Bruce react emotionally with the Hulk, his other form being a byproduct of or coming out with strong and generally negative emotions whereas She-Hulk seems to be a logical thing, she can think focus and take on the form or put it away without the added need for emotional cool down like Bruce (or wind up when they've needed him to change [not counting i guess the avenger's "i'm always angry" bit unless that was like a "turning point" for his character {it's been a while i forgot i'm not a marvel/dc girlie])

Swiveling back with Mulan i really thought it would've been a retelling of the same animated film but given all the drama surrounding it i just didn't want to support or acknowledge it in general. Obviously the animated og is a fine example of strong lady: she has logic where brawn doesn't l\ie but still builds up her strength to become a good warrior, something that's equally present in media with male leads so i see no need for beef there but again that's just the og not the new one so i wont speak on that.

Like overall I do think there's something to be said about overall writing quality but I'm gonna raise eyebrows if a person only has a problem with the female lead than any other character in a piece of media coz if that alone is the issue it seems sus. Yes it's possible a person is just really trash at writing female leads and yes it's possible some folks are just really bad writers but when I look at other media I've watched it just seems more like an audience issue than the work itself.

Edit: Another thing that came to mind is the sort of reverse instance where strong guys get turned into weaklings and suddenly there's a lot of hate there so I really wanna put those two discussions side by side and see what's up. Yes it's a lil off the original topic but I feel like it has some relevance to the conversation about strong men vs strong women versus weak men vs weak women. Like there's something there but I can't quite put my finger on what

The biggest problem is you can't just write a character like a man and turn it female. I'm sick of 115 lb woman beating the crap out of 235 lb men. That will NEVER happen in real life. There is a reason we have weight classes in combat sports. A 115 man against a 235 man has no chance, what do you think a woman has? Last Jedi was hot garbage. Actually all the sequels were. And it wasn't just because Rey is an awful character, it because the writers had no idea what they were doing. Rian Johnson in the behind the scenes laughed about how annoyed people will be at him. That is not how you make a movie. And "strong" female doesn't mean dude personality in a females body. Captain Marvel was a straight up sociopath. Which would be fine if she wasn't the the hero of a superhero movie. Finally you don't make a woman strong by making the men weak around them. Luke, Indiana Jones, He-man cartoon, Han Solo ,etc were made weak to show off the new strong female. It comes off as cheap and insulting to fans.

i think the common mistake is that they either make the "strong female"'s only defining trait to be strong or they make them preachy jerks.

Yeah, I saw that too. The big problem with modern strong women is that they can't be human. It takes strength to ask for help, to love, to admit you're scared and to accept that sometimes, you're not the person for the job.

I really miss the days when female characters were not these cold emotionless robots who surround themselves with weak men, and were instead these women who truly could stand on their own two feet, but were also kind, fun, had friends and were not ashamed to fall in love with a great person who can be an equal partner.

Heck, Princess Peach from the video games is better written and stronger than these Disney female characters. Princess Peach had moments where she felt genuine compassion for Bowser and even showed him kindness. She was even compassionate and sweet to his son Bowser Jr. because she saw that he wasn't a bad kid, he just really wanted a mother and saw one in her. It takes strength to recognize that someone who has made mistakes and does wrong still has good in them and doesn't kick them when they're down.