Xena
I mentioned on Monday how I have some confusion around the narrative surrounding female protagonists. I’ve seen pushes to have them be less feminine, Mary Sues, or caricatures of the entire concept. The reason this confuses me is that I remember growing up with female badass characters who had depth. They had flaws, made mistakes, failed, and kept standing up to fight again like their male counterparts. I mean, I remember:
Ellen Ripley, Sarah Connor, Xena, Samus Aran, Princess Leia, Marion (Indiana Jones), Cheetara, She-Ra, Batgirl, Storm, Rogue, Wonder Woman, Dark Angel, Buffy, Sailor Moon (my first anime) . . . The list keeps going. These and more were some of my favorites in the 80’s and 90’s.
Then, these types of characters seemed to disappear in late 90’s or early 2000’s. They would pop up at times, but you didn’t see them very often. I kept hearing people talk about wanting to make female versions of male characters. This would happen and people would be annoyed. My confusion here was that I felt like you didn’t have to do this. Why have a female James Bond when you could just make an awesome spy movie with a female lead? Atomic Blonde, La Femme Nikita, Alias, and even Black Widow were great, but then people act like they never existed.
I’m sure someone is going to say that men don’t want to watch female-led stories. I hear that a lot, but I think that’s only because guys get told they aren’t supposed to. Growing up, I was never told that Rainbow Brite, She-Ra, and other female-led stories weren’t for me. I watched them anyway because they were fun. Yes, I know girls were told they shouldn’t go near boy shows, which is wrong. So, I wonder if the opposite was done at some point as a kind of revenge. This sucks because I like having the option to watch a show with a female badass. Can’t even remember the last time I watched a good one where the woman was designed to be more like a man. This is another reason why I gravitate to anime because they have characters like this.
This is all my opinion and perspective, which could be skewed by what I’m exposed to and how I grew up. Still, I feel like there’s a weird cycle of female badasses appearing, getting praise, disappearing, returning as badly written characters, vanishing, and then coming back as deep ones. Again, maybe I’m wrong. Honestly, I just wish they would come to stay. I mean, I want to see a show like ‘Reacher’ where the main character is a woman who can intimidate and fight while not coming off as a man with shaved legs.
Legends of Windemere 
Great post! Yeah I love the ones you mentioned. And I’ll add Emma Peel and Tara King from the British show The Avengers, since I’m old. They were feminine and great at martial arts. My friends and I wanted to be them.
I’m never in favor of women written to be men, because they are never written to be good, honorable men or even well-written villainous ones. In the first season of RoP Galadriel acted pissed off all of the time. I hated that, since she is one of my favorite characters in the books.
I have noticed that with the advent of social media and people throwing opinions around, the development of female characters seems skewed. I can’t help thinking of Disney characters, particularly the animated Mulan versus the live-action one, where she became almost superhuman.
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Fully agree on the social media effect. Criticism and negativity get attention, so people will attack if a female character is weak in anyway. Then, those who don’t know better will join in because they trust what they see online. A current example is Teela in the new He-Man movie. I saw complaints of her being a badass who steals the show from He-Man. I watched it and she was a badass who protected Prince Adam until he could transform. Didn’t steal a thing from him and maintained her own urgency.
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I also saw negative comments about Teela. 😞 I wonder if those comments kept some people from going because they assumed here’s another example of a woman taking centerstage away from the titular character.
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From what I could tell, it did cause some people to avoid the movie. One reason is because of the Kevin Smith ‘He-Man’ on Netflix. It was called He-Man, but Teela was the main character. He did a bait-and-switch with her basically being the same character type as Galadriel. Arrogant, angry, flawless, and surrounded by useless men. I think He-Man was barely in it too.
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As usual, L. Marie hit the nail on the head. I loved Emma Peel! We do have Super Girl out this year on film and Wonder Woman!
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Thank you! 😊 Yes, we have Supergirl and Wonder Woman. And we had Gamora and Nebula on Guardians of the Galaxy.
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Darn, I’d foregotten them and I love those movies.
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True. They seem to have made Supergirl a bit of an eager brawler. At least from the trailers.
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Indeed, a true badass!
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Funny I was just talking to Julian the other day about Xens’s warrior cry.
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The same sound made when certain people stub their toe on stone. 😁
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And I can’t type.
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