MovieChat Forums > Charlie's Angels (2019) Discussion > Why women are written so badly

Why women are written so badly

posted 2 years ago by avortac4 (3478)
4 replies | jump to latest

There are conflicting forces dictating how women HAVE to be written.

This means they end up invulnerable, all-knowing, superhuman Mary Sues that can do no wrong. However, at the same time, they have to be 'damsels in distress' that need rescuing, although they are the most powerful forces in existence that need men like fish need bicycles.

The problem comes from wanting to show women as POWERFUL and INDEPENDENT - but also from wanting to show men as CANNON FODDER SLAVES and WORKHORSES for women, that need to be pedestalized by men.

This means men HAVE to do the dirty and hard work in movies (almost as much as in real life), so men can never be shown to be SUPERIOR to women, they're the dirty donkeys roaming in mud. This means, they have to do a woman's bidding, and the best way to show this servitude is to make a man work very hard to rescue some 'damsel in distress' that's ungrateful and doesn't appreciate the man's efforts at all. That'll show 'im!

(Just look at Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home - Kirk brings the woman into not only space, but the future, where people are spacefaring and not bound to one planet, and how does the woman reward the brave captain for all his efforts and this AMAZING gift for which anyone should be ridiculously grateful? By giving her femininity to him? By becoming his mate and companion? By serving him in at least some way?

Well, let's just say it's pretty darn annoying how it's shown in the movie, but that's just a symptom of the sickness that plagues this world, and by extension, movies)

Women CAN'T be the worthless, expendable workhorse that saves the world and a 'man in distress' (isn't it interesting how there are million praisewords for women, like 'damsel', 'maiden', etc., but not for men?), because we are all equal. I mean, because we live in patriarchy, where men are always shown as more valuab... wait, I am sure there's a commonly known reason somewhere.

Women also CAN'T do what men do. No matter how powerful, strong, independent 'boss babe' you make a woman (and even 'Cracked' made an After Hours-video about this), she's NEVER strong enough to humbly do a man's tedious, hard work.

She can be strong enough to destroy a planet-size spaceship with a mere thought, but she can never be strong enough to TAKE a punch, especially from a man. (This is why I love old Hong Kong movies, women are TRULY equal in those movies, taking punches and kicks to the face just as much as they dish them out, and the beauty of the martial arts-motion is just sublime).

Isn't it amazing how women are never allowed to have humanizing weaknesses and such trait, but they have to be Mary Sues that could never need rescuing, while at the same time, men have to be shown as 'expendable workhorses', so the damsel in distress-trope still needs to exist, and a man's motivation for whatever he does, STILL needs to be 'rescuing a woman' anyway.

Just look at a movie like 'Cypher', or almost any movie hollywood has made the last few decades - there's always injected romance, the woman plays a 'key role', but the man still has to be the one to do all the hard and dirty work.

There's also always, ALWAYS a scene, where a man denies a woman coming wiht him, because it's too dangerous,, then woman throws a temper tantrum, and the man 'reluctantly accepts'. (The Matrix, Beverly Hills Cop, and about a billion of other movies)

No matter HOW strong a woman is, you will _NEVER_, ever see this scene genders reversed, just like for some reason, you will never see much diversity in what the main protagonist is in a JRPG - it's always a spiky-haired teen male simp with a sword and tolerance for female nagging and possibly some kind of stupid pet that orders him around as well.

I TRULY wish there was diversity in this world, but when it comes to these kind of things, there never is. Women are always shown as strong, without letting their brains splatter like men's brains are, without getting fists to the face - they are always slapped, usually with a backhand, too - and so on.

Gender is just a social construction, but men are not allowed to buy or wear colorful clothes or dresses, although women can wear -anything- they want, including bright, pink pants.

Men are not supposed to complain or talk about problems, because that's seen as 'weak, sissy, non-masculine', but women are allowed to do, be and say anything they want.

If we truly want equality, if we truly appreciate diversity, then couldn't we learn to write women characters are just 'regular dudes' that take punches in the face? Can't we let the protagonist in a JRPG be a female, a unicorn, a friggin' dolphin or unspecified, fluctuating energy cloud? Does it always have to be a spiky-haired (often red-haired, too) male teen with a sword? An OLD man would be a welcome change. Heck, I'd rather play a damn living BRICK than another spiky-haired teen male with a sword!

Diversity doesn't come from making 'period art' or dressing up as a fagina.

[–] avortac4 (3478) 2 years ago

Diversity doesn't come from making 'period art' or dressing up as a fagina.

Strength doesn't come from being a Mary Sue.

Equality doesn't come from being a damsel in distress, or making men do the hard work.

Independence doesn't come from the cliché trope of woman nagging her way into a dangerous mission, where the man then has to rescue and save her.

Good writing doesn't come from ruining the potential of a premise or story by injecting romance into it (and thus pandering to female audience).

I don't need to see 'masculine stories', I would settle for 'interesting human stories' that do not pander to anyone and that do not bend to any agenda, political or otherwise. Just an interesting story that needs to be told, because it's a really good one.

Do women really need to see 'strong, independent women' in cinema?

Why can't a strong woman ever be strong in a feminine way? Think about an ultra-feminine woman - her strength would be that she can manipulate men, bend them to her will, wrap men around her little finger, so to speak. Femme fatale is an old trope, but it hasn't been used to its full potential, because there's always hollyweird agenda in the way.

I think 'Critical Drinker' once mentioned something like this, when he described what Black Widow did in some movie I haven't seen.

Movies always underestimate women's feminine power, that gives them so many perks and such high social status. Even average woman sits higher above even relatively accomplished, hard-working men than a male CEO would be above women. Women are basically celebrities just by the virtue of having a fjayna between their big toes.

There are zillions of women's organizations, agendas, 'women this' and 'women that', and blaming and accusing men, insulting and hating men is normal, accepted and even encouraged. NO ONE has ever received a ban, a warning or any kind of problem because they hate men or insulted men, on ANY social platform, including youtube.

[–] avortac4 (3478) 2 years ago

This means, these platforms have an agenda that holds women to be SO WEAK, they can't even take 'wrong words' without fainting in their fainting divan.

Is this strong and independent? Shutting up men doesn't prove women are strong, it only proves someone thinks women are incredibly weak.

So why can't they write women as well as some male characters? How many 'incredibly well-written, classic female characters' come to mind, when you think about movies and TV shows and other stories?

I actually LOVE strong women in stories. I can't get enough of watching Cynthia Khan, Michelle Yeoh or Moon Lee (who can also sing and dance).

I guess the problem is that hollyweird doesn't understand what makes a character strong. Mz Marvel is a good example of this.

My point is, women can easily be 'physically' and 'powerfully' strong in movies, but why can't they ever be strong in a more subtle way and use their femininity to get what they want, just like they do in real life? One small example is when a woman shows a henchman her boobies, and that creates the possibility for an escape or something (Austin Powers 2, for example - not gonna bother writing the whole name of that movie).

Hollyweird trying to make women into men with boobies also destroys immersion. A woman never HAS to do the things men have to, because a woman has OPTIONS men doesn't. An attractive, young woman with great body would never have to punch some guard, when she could seduce him. She would never have to climb down a sewer to fix a pipe, when she can EASILY get a man to do that for her. She would never have to go the 'man-route', because it's just so much easier and more convenient to use the TREMENDOUS social-sexual power women so routinely use in real life.

Any semi-attractive woman has about 1 billion simps hovering around her that she can send to do her bidding - she can never suffer from loneliness.

[–] avortac4 (3478) 2 years ago

This kind of 'hiding woman's real power' problem is also evident when they depict a rich man being 'lonely' and eating dinner in his big, old, cold mansion all alone.. so.. alone.

Come on! Rich people have the equivalent of simps hovering around them as well. They don't have (but could) to use some kind of escort service to have company for any purpose, dinner or otherwise. They would have 20 000 emails every day asking for this or that, money, their company and so on. They would have thousands of invitations to all kinds of parties and places.

People gravitate towards wealth and beauty, femininity and money, power in any useful form and things they lust for.

Watching a silly movie like 'The Game' or one of those Bill Murray movies where some rich guy is just SOOOO lonely just makes me groan out of destruction of suspension of disbelief.

This kind of tropes come about because of an agenda - no honest writer would ever write something like this.

All these massive speeches about equality and the insanity about the privileged people based on their perversions are not going to change these stupid tropes. We will always see them in movies over and over again, because agenda. We can never see a woman take a fist to the face, especially from a man's strong punch. We can never see the scene genders reversed, a man is never shown as valuable enough to be the 'damsel in distress' that an expendable, workhorse-woman would save.

A woman dying gives a man the motivation to explode villages (Rambo: First Blood Part II), but a dying man is not going to even make a woman sneeze.

This means, motivation is simple to write for a male protagonist, but impossible for a female one. She has to save the Universe or the world, but she can't go just rescue some ... MAN.

Equality? No such thing in movies.. we never see a HUMAN character regardless of gender - every character is fully based on their gender, which dictates their values, their motivations and their value.

[–] [deleted] 2 years ago

"(Just look at Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home - Kirk brings the woman into not only space, but the future, where people are spacefaring and not bound to one planet, and how does the woman reward the brave captain for all his efforts and this AMAZING gift for which anyone should be ridiculously grateful? By giving her femininity to him? By becoming his mate and companion? By serving him in at least some way?"

No, no and no. Why should she??

1. Kirk needed her, not the other way around.
2. She was practically a stowaway.