4 / 98
Mar 2019

Well, Is not my intention to hate on a specific movie/book/series so I will speak in general. I want to comment on a recent trend to market entertainment as "the most revolutionary property ever seen" just because of the fact that it has a female lead or an all-female cast. The biggest problem is that none of those properties live up to the expectations by being boring, poorly written or just "meh". None of them have been unique or revolutionary at all.

Also, why claim they are the ones who are "inventing" the strong female lead saying things like "It was about time we have a strong woman".
Were they in a coma when these Queenes took over the world?

Plus the hundreds of animes/mangas that have an all-female cast, video games that have female-centric universes and all those female characters who show strength by being hardworking, compassionate, empathetic...I mean not everyone has to be a warrior to be strong.

I don't get this marketing tactic, at all. Also, if you give a negative review to a female-lead property you are immediately labeled as misogynistic. What?

Have you noticed this trend?
Celebrate your favorite badass women in the comments!

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There are 97 replies with an estimated read time of 28 minutes.

I AGREE
I hate how politicized some current movies have been. Some do fly under the radar though and have decent examples of good female leads. Like there was no hubbub at all over Alita (aside from her eyes thing), I also appreciate how non-sexualized Alita is.

As for examples in the past that are forgotten in talks:
Mulan!
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Nani and Lilo (forget Elsa and Anna, this was the first hard-hitting sister relationship)
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God, I loveee Lilo and Stitch. My ma and I were watching it together a few months ago and I still teared up. Great movie!

Anddddd as a residential weeb, I have to bring up the lovely Hana from Wolf Children. Watching her push past her struggles when it comes to raising peculiar children is always so touching to see. Hell, I forced my mom to watch it and she was moved by Hana's efforts. xD

Wait shit this movie isn't recent―

I was watching Mulan yesterday!!! It is such a great character, we get to see her train to become a warrior and how she failed at many tasks before mastering her skills. I often see movies in which the female protagonist is a common woman, but instantly becomes a pro with the sword just because she has to have a badass moment.

@spicy_sweets that's adorable!! I love that kind of strength, is very relatable and heartwarming to see.

Well you already put Ripley in there, cause honestly she is one of my favorite action movie characters (still not a fan of the unnecessary panty scene, but it was like the 70's) I get what people mean about not having enough like "strong" women in movies, they are kind of under represented, and when they are they're usually sexualized in some way, hell even Mulan (my second favorite Disney movie) has to get naked at one point in the film. However with these new revolutionary strong female role model films claiming to be 'strong' like Cpt. Marvel, Wonder woman, or Ghost Busters 2016 when all of them are poorly written, uninteresting and honestly don't really show women at their strongest because two of those films the girls are just born/given invincibility and the other one is hardly worth caring about because no one can shut-up for more than a minute.

One of my favorite female movies is called Linda, Linda, Linda it's about a group of girls who start a school rock band, no one in this movie is trying to be impowering for women they're just a group of girls living out the last couple days of school and worried about the future, that movie feels more real to me and impactful because there's fear, sadness, anger, and joy that resonates through out the movie, and I won't lie having covers of the Blue Hearts is a catchy song. I also really like the live adaptation of Nana two women who are struggling with their own lives and growing up for the first time, is it cheesy, yes, is it still good when Nana stands up for her friend... Nana... Yes, that's more strong than punching a bunch of CGI monsters any day.

I absolutely love the Mahou Shoujo series (except when it's made into a joke, or tries to be super edgy) Precure being one of my highest praised series. I find them more empowering to women than Wonder Woman movie where she solves her problems by punching a guy really really hard (admitedly I stopped watching it as soon as it got to the last fight). It's not like there aren't 'strong' female lead roles, it's just people are glorifying the worst schlock garbage as being high quality message for womens rights. Make a good movie first before you make that claim.

Hate me all you want for saying this, but honestly I would much rather consider Million Dollar Baby girl a ground-breaking film than Hunger Games, Twilight, or 50 Shades of Grey. I want to see real actual strong women in movies again please.

Hana felt more real than any Hollywood action movie starring a real woman any day. She also has super Mom powers.

I've got quite a few which really deserve more love.

  • Gunnm (Alita Battle Angel) the manga which came out years before the movie.
  • Jem and the Holograms which dealt with real life relatable issues.
  • Anne Lewis who was Robocop's partner who might I add never acted as his loved interest. They rocked keeping it platonic. I consider her as an equal protagonist to Robocop.
  • Mulan. Enough said.
  • All four ladies from Golden Girls. You don't need to be a superhero or a young doe to rock or be strong.
  • Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman who made the Victorian age cool way before Murdoch did.
  • The girls of Full House were compelling and complex who showed growth.

I think you can say any Miyazaki film have competent and strong women. Except maybe Ponyo, but that's debateable.

I might think BNHA it's given a little too much credit than it is, but I admit I like the female characters portrayed there.

But please take your time to appreciate her:

She might not be the most attractive character according to our beauty standard that prefers slim women. She might not be a powerful and badass lady in the world where people have cool superpowers, and her life is not perfect as where the hell is her husband so she needs to raise her son alone. She might have made mistakes and even gave up in his son's dream. She is very caring and supporting his son in every way she can nevertheless, even making a special hero suit for him.

Sometimes a side female character from another franchise is more well-written than those "badass" main female characters.

I think what women need is not a protagonist that kicks ass and saves the day, but someone with actual problem and personality they can connect to and learn that strength can be found everywhere including their feminity. I want female lead that can be vulnerable, can make mistake, can lose, can be rendered helpless too; only for them to find a way to grow out of it and be a better person.

YES! As a woman myself, I personally hate being pandered to and being treated like some kind of child who needs to be empowered. Even if there weren't great female characters before this recent, silly trend (which there totally were), there's no reason why a woman can't look up to a cool or interesting male character.

That being said, here are two female characters that come to mind off the top of my head!

Scarlett O'Hara!

Scarlett is so wonderful because she's still incredibly likable despite being thoroughly unpleasant and flawed a lot of the time. She fights tooth and nail to keep her family afloat, and even though she was horribly jealous of Miss Melanie, she dragged her and her baby across the country through rain and sunshine!

And Xelha from the obscure, but amazing videogame, Baten Kaitos!
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Like in most JRPGs, the female protagonist is just as important as the male one, and the romance in this game is like, super cute and well done :thumbsup: I really don't wanna spoil the game, but she goes on this massive and crazy quest to save the world (she's really the one who pushes the reluctant main character to help her) but she also has a more secretive goal of wanting to like, save the main character's soul which is incredibly romantic. Not to mention the main character is down for the count for a long bit of the game and she literally gets to take over. It's just great! :blush:

It's because it generates discussion about the product. Good or bad discussion is still discussion, it keeps your product relevant and keeps it on people's minds. it's the same reason corporations are now tweeting like depressed teenagers and getting into fake drama with other corporations. it's all just for revenue, they could care less whether or not the product is ACTUALLY groundbreaking.

Yessss queen I love to share this beauty with people.

Shes from a comic called Empowered you can read for free here or buy recent volumes on dark horse http://www.empoweredcomic.com/comic/volume-1-page-11

I love this girl, lots of deep conversations with confidence issues in this story! (some convos that are very inspiring for my own writing) Also the world building and writing is spot on for a superhero world.

Oh WHOOPS I missed the bit in the opening post about movies being marketed in such a way.
I was more focused on the consumers themselves fanatically bolstering or dragging down a 'feminist' movie despite how average or slightly above average the movie is and are only valuing/devaluing said movie for the female lead and its 'empowerment agenda'. :sweat_smile:

Yes, I agree, with this so much! They are so afraid of making women vulnerable that they have to make them awesome from the beginning and it seems so inauthentic.

I think the sexualization is a very interesting topic too. I don't think that just because the girl gets naked it is instantly fan-service or sexual. For example, Sailor Moon gets naked A LOT, but is a way to show purity and how she fights with her whole body and soul.
Also, I'm not bothered by skimpy clothes, women had to fight their right to wear swimsuits and miniskirts in public because we own our body and our sexuality. A sexy costume can also be empowering. I'm not saying that there are not outfits that are clearly disrespectful and nonsensical for the sake of having a "hot chick" in the team, but I don't think sexy costumes are all bad.

I love what you wrote :heart: I think that everyday women get overlooked a lot because we give them for granted. So often I see a lot of people (and even women) looking down on housewives or women that don't have a professional career but at the end of the day rising human beings is the toughest job in the world.

I LOVE Baten Kaitos! omg...not going to spoiler or anything, but I felt so betrayed by a certain character when that plot twist came!

I want to throw Kamikaze Girls into the mix! Of course, I'm biased because I like wearing stuff from Baby the Stars Shine Bright :stuck_out_tongue: