Female protagonists in Fantasy comics?

[xxcelestialangelxx]

Mine in the action category (Although im not sure what mine should categorise as?) and has a female protagonist. Mostly because im not confident writing from a male prospective. : /

http://tapastic.com/episode/67617

[KellyAngel]

I think it may come down to who is making the comic. Comics have generally been a male dominated area in the past, it still is really but it's become a lot more equal over the last few decades. At one time they were mostly made for men/boys (not saying there were no female creators/things aimed at females but they were in the minority. Also women were treated as sex objects, a woman in the fridge etc). People can find it difficult to write good female characters for a number of reasons and/or avoid doing it (again, I'm just generalising - there're are a lot of men who can make fantastic female characters, Miyazaki for example). Nowadays there are a lot more female creators and comics made for everyone, especially in webcomics where pretty much anyone is able to have an audience for their comic.

I think male leads probably out number females in pretty much any form of entertainment still to be honest though.

[Kura]

To be honest I still find more male main characters than I do females, but over the years the ratio of female leads has indeed increased. Not so much to the point where they're outnumbering them, more so that they're becoming a little more equal and a lot easier to spot I guess. Which is fine by me, I'm good with main characters of any gender. (Though I do admit it I find myself relating to male characters a lot more often than females, and that's not saying I don't relate to females characters. It's honestly a personality / character thing than gender thing)

This may or may not be related to this, but I find when speaking to writers, especially younger ones or ones recently having stepped foot into writing (be they for novels or comics) I find it very common for female writers I have talked to, express being comfortable with working with male characters or having male leads, while a lot of male authors I have talked to (not all of them, but a large majority) are uncomfortable working with female characters as leads, and not because they feel that a female character couldn't fill that roll, for the most part it is because they feel they cannot write a female character properly or correctly because they are not female and therefor do not understand how a female would work/react to a situation. It's honestly... very odd? (Perhaps this is from the 'men will never understand woman' stigma, and that's honestly a thing that both sexes have a habit of pushing) Because of that it's not uncommon to find comics written by woman that have either a male or female lead, but surprisingly uncommon to find comics with female leads written by males. So even if the ratio of female to male writers happened to be equal, the ratio of female to male main characters would still be off because of the comfort level of the writers concerning characters of the opposite gender.

[getsuart]

while a lot of male authors I have talked to (not all of them, but a large majority) are uncomfortable working with female characters as leads, and not because they feel that a female character couldn't fill that roll, for the most part it is because they feel they cannot write a female character properly or correctly because they are not female and therefor do not understand how a female would work/react to a situation. It's honestly... very odd? (Perhaps this is from the 'men will never understand woman' stigma, and that's honestly a thing that both sexes have a habit of pushing)

I'm not sure, but I think it cans be explained by the fact that girls and women can't always identify with the girls of the story they see.
When I was a very little child, I watched the show "Knight of the Zodiac" with my sister. We both identified ourselves into one boy of the group (Hyoga and Shiryu) because... There wasn't any other girl at all. Oh yes, there is Saori, but she was pretty useless (Saori is a motivator, but frankly, for a 4 years old girl watching the gold saint arc, she was just useless). So we didn't identify to Saori. It was the same when I watched Naruto (it was the beginning : Sakura was pretty useless for example) and Full Metal Alchemist as a teenager. The character was never a girl.
And because maybe more women identify themselves to male characters in their childhood, they can handle the situation easier because they saw many male character they love react, additionnally to the male people they encounter in their life.

While, when boys watched a show, they could identify himself easier with another male character. Yes, it's true that sometimes, boys watch "girls show" or like a female character more than a male one. But most of time, they go with the male characters.
And that may be one of the things about how they can't write easily with a female main character : they didn't watched/read much about interesting female characters according to their preferences. So maybe the female lead they will create will overreact, doing idiotic things or whatever.

That's half speculation here, because I think I already had this discussion with male friends or when I was in scenario class in my studies. And that's how we felt it. We were kids from the 80/90, and what we saw, read or played in our childhood influenced us a lot. But now that we grew up, we can see that a lot changed !

(that's not really linked to the female protagonists in fantasy comics, but... I thought it would be interesting to talk about it too !)

[alakotila]

I am finding this hard to believe, honestly. I am curious if you mean books or comics or …?

The default character is male. Usually a white, straight, cisgender male (in America). We seem to think that everyone can identify with this character and have been conditioned to think as such for a very long time. There have been so many kinds of male leads that we think this character is versatile. The roles women fill have not yet shown many of us that women are just as versatile. The idea that women aren't as "cool" or "interesting" (have heard this!) as male leads is a misconception that I think a lot of people are trying to erase precisely by having female leads that break the molds of what women are supposed to be like. Think about some of the somewhat recent TV shows popping up with prominent female support characters or even female leads -- Continuum, the 100, etc.

Books, shows, games, movies, etc with female leads are "for girls," and boys are discouraged from consuming such things. Meanwhile, little girls grow up reading media that does not always reflect themselves (and if it does, it is not always positive or empowering). It is for this reason that I think more women have a higher sense of comfort in using male leads (as Kura pointed out). We grew up reading books about everyone and may even think the male character is a safer choice that will offer us more options. But a man who was discouraged from reading books by women or with female leads while growing up may not have any sense of comfort with writing women. This probably spawns the idea that we write characters like ourselves. My characters are not me.

We can learn empathy through reading, and having media that does not have diverse characters is a huge drawback. Previously, a lot of characters got slammed into special categories, so a fantasy with a gay lead would be considered "LGBT" or "Special Interest" rather than "fantasy." And fantasy with female leads? Perhaps you were never been exposed to it until now.

That's changing. Genre readers need diversity, too. If it seems there is a lot more equality and diversity in protagonists (fantasy and not), then that can only be a good thing! It is also very likely that at least half of all webcomics are done by women (though I don't have numbers, it is just based on my experience), and it may be something you are picking up on. I have seen more female leads in webcomics than I have in a lot of other areas (television, games, etc).

I think characters are for exploring, for asking questions, and obviously … for telling a story. I do have a male main lead in a fantasy, simply because when I created characters they were almost always men. In fact, a main woman did not show up until chapter four! Out of all characters introduced so far, only two are women. Eight are men. There is diversity in other ways, but I find the ratio of men to women unfortunate when I examine it now. I didn't know I did that default character thing until I learned about it well into the first year of the comic, and … I don't regret having a male character. But I do know that I will be working hard to make my female characters just as interesting, real, and complex as the males.

[scythe]

To be honest though, all that 'identifying with the character' is bullshit, right? Especially if we're implying that women/girls can only identify with female characters and men/boys can only identify with male characters.

I mean, when did this become a thing, needing to 'identify' with characters? Surely, the point of a story is to see life from someone else's point of view, hopefully someone as different from you as possible, especially when it comes to fantasy stories.

I would never worry about the ratio of male to female characters unless it was a dishonest representation of reality. For example, if my story was set in a public school, it wouldn't ring true if there weren't any girls. But to have a spaceship of 20 males with just a few or no females seems perfectly reasonable. However, I'm starting to hear accounts of people complaining when there aren't enough black or LGBT folks in stories about medieval England. And that's just nonsense.

[michaelson]

Whenever I hear a writer say they don't feel comfortable writing female protagonists because they're not female, I immediately die a little on the inside. I feel like writers like that have no place writing fantasy then, I mean, they're not living in a fantasy world, what do they know about writing fantasy?

[Kura]

That can be very subjective to be honest, personally I think identifying with a character and diversity is more important for younger audiences. Children don't actively go seeking for someone to identify with and they seem to do it more without realizing. I have two nieces for example. They both like the Disney princesses. One has two white parents, the other is mixed. The first can't decide if she likes Bell, Cinderella, Rapunzel or the girls from Frozen (their names escape me) the best. The other, absolutely in love with Tiana, and there's no question about it, she likes the other princess too but Tiana is her main girl. Are either of these children actively and knowingly attaching themselves to characters that match their skin tone? No, it just happens, kids see themselves and attach themselves to characters they love, and a lot of the time the more they can relate to a character, be it through skin tone or character back story the more they are going to attach themselves to it.

So yeah though I don't think stories HAVE to be diverse, and I certainly don't think stories should forced to be diverse and go out of their way to represent every single group of people (that would be impossible anyway), I do think diversity is important for kids and is much appreciated by them, even when I was a kid growing up I would like series and characters that didn't match my race nor skin tone just fine, but as soon as that one character that came up that I could relate to showed up, be it through skin tone or personality, I was absolutely in love with the character (not romantically) it was more, "I know what this character is going through, I feel your feelings, I understand you, if you knew me you would understand me. I bet we would get along... I hope I'm as cool as you when I grow up..." I loved that feeling, I think all kids should at least find that one character (even if it is only one) they can make them feel that way with because it's just a really great feeling.

[scythe]

Fair point. My daughter does this as well. And I remember doing it too now. I was always a Donatello kid, because he loved science and making things. Although, continuing on from that, while reading Harry Potter I felt the most kinship with Hermione rather than Harry (and especially not Ron), despite being a 34 year old male. So while I do recognise the importance of sympathising with certain characters more than others, to me, that comes down more to personality and actions rather than anything else.

[scythe]

George R. R. Martin would certainly have a lot to answer for if he felt he had to identify with a character to write them.

[ratique]

To be honest though, all that 'identifying with the character' is bullshit, right? Especially if we're implying that women/girls can only identify with female characters and men/boys can only identify with male characters.

I disagree to a certain point. Just from my own experience I tend to be more interested in media with a female main character. They are hard to find and are often not up to my quality standards - but when the story is good I am the happiest booger on the planet.

Does that mean I am not able to identify with a male character? Of course not. Every normal human being is able to identify with any good character, no matter how they look like. But if you have two books with the same story, one with a male and one with a female lead, I will definitely read the latter.

I have had a similar discussion with my husband once, who did not understand why women have issues with the lack of females in the media. I on the other hand could not understand how he did not see the problem. The difference: He, being a somewhat white male, never experienced a lack of role models. Therefore this issue is of no great importance to him. Which is understandable.

[jjfresh]

I was gonna say.... Fantasy is very broad. Fantasy in romance is disproportionately female but for clear reasons. Fantasy in action (Naruto, Bleach, One Piece, etc) is disproportionately male for also clear reasons. For whom is this story for? Who is the audience? Fantasy is very broad. Honestly, when I think of fantasy, I think of shounen which is majority male (but well, it's right in the name).

I've paid attention to that. For me, I choose base on what "seems" right for me. I came up with one story that has a male lead and another that I've been working on that has a female lead. It just makes sense to me.

[scythe]

DC Comics recent decision to pull the variant cover showing Batgirl in a harrowing situation is case in point why a lot of writers feel wary about writing female characters. Apparently there are just certain portrayals that are 'off limits' to female characters.

This leads to self-censorship and male dominant storylines. Because why not just have male characters? At least then, no one will try to get your art banned if you have the audacity to place them in bad situations?

[ratique]

It is a sad double standard for sure. DC and Marvel are under a watchful eye ever since the movies and TV shows made it big. Women are asking to be represented with interesting storylines but then art gets "censored" because of some public outcry. Something tells me that most people who are upset about certain covers have never read the comic that belongs to it.

The American culture does not seem to be used to female heroes, neither as consumer or as creators. It will take some time. (Some Mangaka have been successfully at it for years, being able to over-sexualize women while also making them the greatest heroes of all time. It's a fine line and depends on the type of reader you are targeting.)

Btw, while researching this Batgirl Cover Variant story I came across this article, which explains some of the reasons why it upset some readers. It's an interesting read although I don't agree with everything. http://www.themarysue.com/batgirl-variant-cover-problem/