Last week over at the New Statesman, Sophia McDougall had a long piece about how she’s sick of strong female characters.
Nowadays the princesses all know kung fu, and yet they’re still the same princesses. They’re still love interests, still the one girl in a team of five boys, and they’re all kind of the same. They march on screen, punch someone to show how they don’t take no shit, throw around a couple of one-liners or forcibly kiss someone because getting consent is for wimps, and then with ladylike discretion they back out of the narrative’s way.
McDougall also points out that men don’t have to be strong — they can be addicts like Sherlock Holmes or indecisive like Hamlet or puny like Banner. Being male makes them the center of attention, so they don’t need to constantly prove that they’re tough.
Or, to put it another way, they don’t have to constantly prove that they’re men.
McDougall doesn’t quite get to this point, but one thing that you could say is happening in films like Captain America is a disavowal of femininity. Captain America, as the weak Steve Rogers, needs the super-soldier serum in order to be a man. Peggy Carter, a woman, is in an even more agonized position. Rogers can show weakness and overcome it, but the weakness in Peggy, the femininity, is intrinsic, and has to be constantly disavowed and/or smushed. She has to be hyperbolically competent and violent or dissolve into her own amorphous femininity, like the guys turning into puddles of ichor in The Thing.
Part of what has happened in pop culture, I think, is that the focus of misogyny has shifted, at least in part, off of feminine bodies, and onto femininity. It isn’t women who are held in contempt, but the things traditionally associated with women — weakness, passivity, frivolity. But, inevitably, the things traditionally associated with women are still associated with women — which means that folks with female bodies have to disavow femininity constantly if they’re not to be tainted with it. They’re left, indeed, without much space to do anything else. Men can be weird, or geeky, or odd, or conflicted, or even weak, but women have to just spend all their time shouting at the top of their lungs that they’re not women.
In that context, it’s kind of interesting to look at Ben Hatke’s Zita The Space Girl which I read recently. Zita has at least one of the problems that McDougall highlights as causing the strong female character phenomena. There’s really only one character who’s a girl (though many of the robots and animals are of indeterminate gender.) But that doesn’t seem to translate into the kind of princess-who-knows-kung-fu nonsense that McDougall discusses. Zita doesn’t know kung fu. She is pushy (we first see her engaged in some low-key bullying of her nerdy friend Joshua) but the pushiness is figured (in this initial scene) as a character flaw — a weakness, not a strength. When they find a weird alien remote control, she insists on pushing the button, sending Joshua into the other dimension and generally messing everything up.
Don’t get me wrong; Zita is totally a hero. She’s extremely brave; she goes off into the other dimension to rescue Josh though she doesn’t have any idea what’s there. And she’s compassionate and smart and game (though not exactly feisty.) But a lot of what makes her a hero is not “strength” and “competence” (stereotypical male heroic traits) but more feminine attributes — compassion, empathy, a talent for making friends, and a capacity for self-sacrifice.
So why is Captain America so unwilling to let it’s female lead be female, while Zita the Space Girl seems happy to shuffle male and female characteristics. Why isn’t Zita afraid that its protagonist will be too feminine?
Probably a big part of the reason is that Ben Hatke is just a smarter creator and a better artist than the hive mind that put together Captain America — certainly, I would say that Zita the Space Girl is pretty much categorically better than Captain America as a work of art (not a high bar or anything, but Zita clears it.)
But I also think that part of what’s happenening in Zita, part of why she can be weak as a strength, and strong as a weakness, and not know kung fu, is that she’s a kid. Kids, even female kids, don’t have to prove their men. If they’re not fully competent and self-actualized and don’t know martial arts, that’s not because they’re victims of creeping feminiity; it just means they haven’t grown up yet. If she pouts when she’s angry at you rather than clubbing the guy she’s angry at…well, that’s not because she’s a weak woman, it’s because she’s a nine year old or whatever, and he’s way bigger than her.
What we’ve got, then, I’d argue, is a kind of tomboy-in-reverse. Once upon a time, younger female characters were given a special dispensation to take on masculine attributes; to be adventurous or daring or competent or even violent. Now, in a perfect reversal, the girl’s youth gives her a special dispensation, not to be masculine, but to be weak.
“So why is Captain America so unwilling to let it’s female lead be female…”
Presumably because she’s a spy and a soldier(?) and there have been enough helpless or merely decorative female spys/soldiers in movies to last a life time? So what you’re asking for is less violent stuff starring women?
Did you read the link?
McDougall makes a pretty good case that the hyperbolically masculine female lead is not an improvement over the wilting predecessors. She’d prefer a character who’s a character rather than a compulsive performance of gender roles, and I’d say I agree with that.
I don’t have the comic on hand to reference… but I think there’s a suggestion in the back or the forward that Ben Hawke modeled Zita on his daughters or something….
Ok here’s a link to an interview:
“Q: Were your wife and four daughters the inspiration for writing the Zita books? And if so, in what ways?
BH: As a character, Zita took years to develop. Also, she’s originally the creation of my wife, Anna.
When I first met this adorable girl in college she showed me some comic strips she had drawn in high school. They featured a futuristic character called Zita the Space Girl. I started developing the character, mostly as a way to impress her. This girl eventually married me, so it’s still the best thing comics has ever done for me…. Well, I already mentioned how my wife is the original creator of Zita, but she’s also a big influence on Zita’s character…
My daughters also find their way into the mix. They tend to influence the books in different ways. My eldest girl, Angelica (10), has even made coloring suggestions that have ended up being better than what I was doing at the time. ”
http://authorof.blogspot.com/2013/02/ben-hatke-and-his-hero-for-all-ages.html
There’s definitely a limit to the cultural criticism you are trying to do, in that your comparing a committee written, formulaic piece of Hollywood dreck to a piece of art created by real human beings.
It might be more fruitful to compare Zita to similar personal works. I’m not sure what… Girl Genius is made by a husband and wife team, as is The Uniques and Bandette….
Yeah, but she uses a lot of superhero and some fantasy examples. Male parts are written badly in superhero movies and female parts even worse. I mean, superhero comics suck when they try to make fully rounded human beings so they need to get that part right first. Why bring up Sherlock Holmes or Hamlet in relation to that pile of dung?
Why not look in the direction of that other popular genre – cop dramas. Are any of the female characters in the following worthy of mention? Prime Suspect, the Danish version of The Killing, Southland, Continuum (mainly SF) etc.
I won’t mention Top of the Lake because it was frighteningly incompetent and irritating to boot. It was co-written and directed by Jane Campion.
Sophia McDougall seems to be under the impression that Captain America is somehow an interesting, well written character. or not a compulsive performer of gender roles. (It’s about a weak guy “maning up” and compulsively performing gender roles after joining the army)
Maybe she only thinks that because he’s the point of view character in his story, and she’s confused that for being interesting, or well written, or not a one dimensional cliche?
I’d agree that Cap is not very well written (that movie is horrible.) I think she’s correct though, broadly, that “strong female character” is a ubiquitous and limiting meme…even more limiting than the badly written limiting male roles.
And I think that part of being a personal work is that Zita finds a way around that…in part by taking advantage of a broader range of possibilities available for younger characters.
I’d agree that Cap is not very well written (that movie is horrible.) I think she’s correct though, broadly, that “strong female character” is a ubiquitous and limiting meme…even more limiting than the badly written limiting male roles.
And I think that part of being a personal work is that Zita finds a way around that…in part by taking advantage of a broader range of possibilities available for younger characters.
“in part by taking advantage of a broader range of possibilities available for younger characters.”
Well when you compare Zita to Captain America the implication seems to be that an indie creator with 5 daughters must see the “possibilities” of gender the same as a giant Hollywood studio. Or Zita’s publisher is as conservative as Marvel Studios or something?
One comment online I saw about Zita was that a parent liked it because unlike Brave and its ilk, nobody made a big deal about the fact that the hero was a girl.
(Incidentally there’s a second female character- a sort of pirate queen- introduced in the second book )
“Well when you compare Zita to Captain America the implication seems to be that an indie creator with 5 daughters must see the “possibilities” of gender the same as a giant Hollywood studio. Or Zita’s publisher is as conservative as Marvel Studios or something?”
I did mention in the piece that part of the improvement could be chalked up to individual creative differences. Still, they both do exist in the same culture more or less. I don’t think it’s crazy to try to think about why one is successful and one not in terms of the choices made, as well as in terms of the means of production.
This is the first time I’ve ever commented (I’m Jacob Canfield’s fiancée, so I’m here all the time silently reading), but I mostly just want to say thanks for the link to the fantastic McDougall piece and for your response, too. I’ve been waiting for something like this for a long time but could never find the words myself.
I think the comparison is totally legitimate (quality of the Captain America movie aside), because the Strong Female Character is so pervasive in children’s media (even Brave, which is often touted as an example, was about a strong, loud girl, and the others seem to be about loudness in general) and in a lot of indie comics too. The big studios use it, but that doesn’t mean that Zita isn’t an anomaly among comics and among children’s books. That kids movies and books often aren’t really about kid characters is a problem in itself, but just because McDougall uses Captain America as an example doesn’t mean that this a mainstream, Amanda Conner only problem. Even The Nao of Brown—a comic whose horrors I plan to detail in full before long—which is about an ostensibly weak female character, relies on the same overwritten screaming-match tropes that are so often used to cover up shallowness in a female character through strength and volume. And while I really don’t care to research this, the number of webcomics featuring “not your typical damsel in distress” must be well above horrifying levels. You’ve certainly seen at least one Project Wonderful ad to that effect, and Womanthology had its share of those stories. So I’m glad Noah is pointing out here that this isn’t a problem for the mainstream. It’s a problem for lazy writers just as much as it is for critical thinkers, and for conservatives and progressives alike, so I think it’s unfortunately here to stay. It’s also put down roots in day-to-day life, where “strong woman” has become the prescriptive model du jour for a lot of young feminists, and it’s great to see people thinking critically about that. Thanks again.
Hey Emily! Thanks for commenting! I just realized thinking about Brave that I have another piece along somewhat similar lines over here.
“Even The Nao of Brown—a comic whose horrors I plan to detail in full before long”
Please, please, please do this.
As Emily points really pernicious thing is the way “strong woman” is used to praise what really is just garbage. Nobody lauds The Avengers for its portrayal of Captain America a “strong man.” Not to get too far into the obvious, this is because a) people assume a male superhero will be strong, and b) the whole endeavor is so throw-away that hey, what’s the point. But the Black Widow kicks some guys and Joss Whedon gets patted on the back for his thoughtful representation. Meanwhile, Scarlett Johansen get interviewed about her diet and exercise plan, and how she’s feeling after her divorce with Green Lantern.
And as Noah points out, strong becomes the marked case for women, which reinforces its unmarked status for men.
I don’t know that I exactly managed to say that…but I wish I had….
It’s funny, I was just reading something earlier this week that mostly repeated, uncritically, the same old platitudes about strong female characters…
I don’t think so, Jones. I don’t say anything about “strong female characters,” and I vote for Oracle (who’s in a wheelchair and is a super librarian) and Empowered (who isn’t a strong female character at all), and also Sailor Moon…and for that matter, Anne Hathaway’s Catwoman, who I think is a pretty nuanced character as these things go, and not one crippled by the need to be excessively strong (she’s flawed and vulnerable — moreso than Captain America, for example). I’ve got She-Hulk in there and other standard superheroes…but I’m listing female superheroes, you know?
I mean, I know the urge to point out hypocrisy is almost irresisitible, whether it’s there or not, but come on. I put a female superhero list in Esquire including Oracle and Sailor Moon and Empowered. Give me a fucking break.
Also, I suggest looking to Elric as a model for Katana (which would hardly result in a female character without weaknesses), I include Dazzler because that would be a trashy mess, I include Buffy (who is pretty problematic in many ways, but is not invulnerable, and is mentioned as a positive in the original article I think).
Katana’s really an interesting exception to the strong female character thing. As I mentioned way back when, she was almost completely unsexualized. She was brutal and vicious, but she also had a tragic backstory involving her husband and kids, and her maternal feelings for her partner Halo were played up. She also did the Wolverine thing where she was trying to restrain her bloodlust. She was pretty interesting all around, I think.
Would this be the same or related to the wry humour female characters in some feminist leaning cartoons/comics? A sort of character who is mostly there to deflate and correct other characters and situations.
These characters have often irritated me, one of those things I feel like I’ve seen a lot but cant name any examples and don’t know any example well enough to confidently criticize.
Does this ring any bells? Plain looking, wry cynical young female characters?
I recall a similar discussion about the film The Last Seduction (I’ve never seen the film) when some were complaining it was just a woman acting like a male asshole and that it wasn’t progressive at all.
The Last Seduction is a noir; she doesn’t act like a male asshole. She acts like a standard issue bitch who uses her sexuality to destroy men. I think it’s a stretch to say that that’s progressive. The femme fatale is a misogynist archetype — though one that I think a fair number of women can find enjoyable just because it’s fun to see the woman get to be evil and manipulative and powerful (in a similar way, I think strong female characters like Merida can be a relief after a steady diet of nothing but wilting flowers.)
Does Alan Moore get feminist credit for showing her vulnerability and crippling Batgirl, then?
Also, if you want to see what happens to Sherlock Holmes within a superheroic/action environment, watch one of the Robert Downey, Jr. movies. Being strong is about all that counts. His great reasoning ability is mostly reduced to planning out fighting maneuvers.
Is Last Seduction any good at all?
Not really, Red Rock West is pretty good, though.
Oh, I disagree; I thought Last Seduction was quite enjoyable; cleverly plotted, and Linda Fiorentino (sp?) is great. Red Rock West was okay, though not nearly as memorable.
McDougall’s point is that strong/weak as a heuristic doesn’t tell you all that much; you need to look at the narrative. In the case of the Killing Joke, Barbara Gordon is crippled and then brutally sexualized almost as an afterthought to her dad’s psychodrama. Shooting and sexually abusing a woman is interesting/important only insofar as it contributes to the trauma of some guy standing nearby. It’s hard to read that as particularly feminist.
Though the way Gordon ended up as Oracle, one of the only disabled superheroes (Daredevil kind of doesn’t count), and leading an all woman team — that ended up being a fairly feminist arc. Not really Alan Moore’s fault there though….
The problem with the “strong female character” isn’t that she’s insufficiently weak, or that she isn’t weak in the way that a male counterpart is weak (drug addled, neurotic, whatever). The problem is that the word is used to praise what is actually a perpetuation of a world view that oppresses men and women alike; namely, that strength means acting like a kick-ass-and-take-names man. And while there’s a lot of different takes on the project of feminism (or a lot of “feminisms”), I can’t think of any predicated on the notion that what we need is more women occupying the tired old social roles currently occupied (in large measure) by guys. This is what makes feminism such a difficult project. It isn’t about women’s ability to insinuate themselves into the current hierarchy, it’s about getting rid of a hierarchy built on gender inequities and replacing it with something more equitable.
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Nate A. : Exactly.
I have seen this trend also, so I totally agree that in many genre stories these days, yes even cop dramas, the women have to act like men. Or put another way, everyone has to be tough. “Toughness” though is a stereotypically masculine trait. So while these stories can say “look, we have female characters” and “look, women can be tough too” when it comes down to it, the stories are championing masculinity and demonizing femininity and so aren’t as feminist as they pretend to be. This is “the dominant gender schema” as posited by Aaron Devor. Society values masculine traits and so the values of the society are inherently sexist. Yet the demonizing of femininity also tends to be part of the process young men go through to prove their masculinity. So it makes sense that superhero books, which are steeped in masculine maturation fantasies, have this element.
On another note, my nine-year-old daughter read Zita and she really didn’t like it that much. She liked Bone a lot more. This doesn’t negate your argument, though.
Nate: “And while there’s a lot of different takes on the project of feminism (or a lot of ‘feminisms’), I can’t think of any predicated on the notion that what we need is more women occupying the tired old social roles currently occupied (in large measure) by guys.”
I was just writing a blog entry using Janet Radcliffe Richards’ The Skeptical Feminist:
“Egalitarian feminism […] is a movement to end the arbitrarily disadvantageous treatment of women against whatever background it occurs. It therefore has a feminist justification, but has nothing to do with women’s special approaches to anything: men can in theory be just as good egalitarian feminists as can women.”
So she allows for feminist fascists and bigots along with rationalists, logicians and action heroes. There’s nothing about “feminism” that inherently contradicts any of these tired old social roles.
Believe it or not, I agree with Charles on this one, I think. There’s definitely a strand of feminism (probably the most popular one outside the academy) which advocates mostly for keeping everything the same except for letting women do the same things men do, pretty much.
Ha! Yep. It’s why so many resist being called feminist these days — the association of feminism with the ‘get more radical for tenure’ variety.
Actually I’ve seen it work the other way a lot too; folks who have other major problems with the way society works (like a lot of black women) resist being associated with feminism because they see it as not being radical enough, or as just being about getting middle-class white women the same benefits as middle-class white men.
From my perspective, both the more radical and more pop branches of feminism are in fact feminism, and have some things of value to offer. But obviously lots of people disagree with me.
That’s true, too.
I guess I should add for clarification that Richards doesn’t advocate for keeping everything the same, only that feminism isn’t part of her acceptance or rejection of the status quo EXCEPT for where it arbitrarily disadvantages women. She would reject totalitarianism, I suspect, even if led by a female tyrant.
Charles:
I’m not super clear on how that quote allows for feminist fascists… I don’t know Richards’s work, though, so I’ll take your word for it that she does. I know that liberal egalitarian feminism stresses the capacity to freely occupy existing social and institutional roles (which is pretty much in line with the “outside the academy” view Noah cites), but I always thought there was an assumption of overturning the patriarchy built into that. But I suspect your point holds regardless, so I stand corrected.
Nate,
That’s what’s meant by “background.” I support the gay right to marriage, even though I’m opposed to government being involved in marriage. Thus, I support equality regardless of the background. A radical take might suggest something like marriage itself is anti-gay.