I was reading a Newsweek article, I'm trying to wean myself off Newsweek because it has definitely drifted into the irrelevant and superficial category. Not to mention that it's likely to go under soon. The subject matter of the article got me to thinking about the representation of women in kids films. I often don't think about these things because as a young man it doesn't register with me as an issue as much, though sometimes it does. This got me to thinking about the kinds of female characters that are portrayed within fiction. The article talks about women in kids movies but I think there is certainly a large selection of bad female characters in films for adults. In addition, the image of women in novels has a less than stellar collection as well. Within my educational required readings there was a decided lack of strong female characters. I think Hester Prynne was the only one I can remember in my required reading.
This post isn't meant to display how bad my education was, what I wanted to discuss was how guys talk about these kinds of things. Often times the remarks made in response to these kinds of articles, from men, are dismissive. They wonder why this is a big deal, why we should care about cartoons being role models, etc. etc. I think this is sort of dim view because there are a plethora of male characters that have a variety of strengths ranging from brawn to brains to idealism, there's hardly a lack and male characters run the gamut. Female characters are less ranging in their breadth or numbering or the role they play. It's much the same problem I have with white people talking about the issues of black characters. Being a white male, I have a large swath of media to draw upon that portrays my demographic in a wide variety positive ways. There's a heroic white male character for every occasion. I can name a white male character who is intelligent, moral, physically gifted, and a leader of men: Doc Savage, The Man of Bronze. Could I do the same for a female character? A minority character? Yes, Black Panther, but he also happens to be a comic book character so I'm unsure of the quality of that example. (I'm aware that Doc Savage is not exactly fine literature, he is a character out of pulp fiction which may or may not be a step above comics.)
Really, what I think should be considered with regards to female characters in movies is the fact that there seems to be a limited variety of roles, especially with regards to kids movies. The female character is typically the reward for the male character for doing something heroic, her job is to be attractive and attainable. There is nothing wrong with female characters being feminine, my understanding of feminism is that women should behave in the manner of their choosing without society defining their role or chastising them for behaving outside the parameters it sets. The problem comes from the fact that a lot of these movies have only narrow roles for their female characters. These characters don't have choices and never seem to stray too far from the parameters set by convention. Male characters never seem to find themselves in this position. I can't think of a movie I saw when I was a kid where the male character's role was to be attractive and attainable only. Not to say that such movies don't exist, I can just name ones that feature female characters more easily.
*Fixed the post a little because it needed it.
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