I've just had an idea

[avevale_intelligencer]

This is a shout out to all my fellow feminist blokes, all the allies among the two-lumps-and-a-sponge-finger clan who are serious about wanting a better deal for women, socially, economically, and (in this case) culturally. Gather round, lads, gather round. You too, Humble Bellows. I've had an idea.

You know how there's a flap on about female characters in video games and why there are so few that are playable and serious, and how video game companies like Ubisoft are whining that they would make female characters but it's all hard and stuff? You know how we keep seeing articles about how the harder the cultural push for believable female characters with agency in films and tv shows, the more the industry seems to push back, and how they're still making films that don't pass the trivial Bechdel Test? You know why they're still getting away with that?

Because nobody ever complains about the male characters.

Seriously. You can write a film or a game in which the most outrageously unrealistic guys do the most ridiculous things, and nobody will utter a peep. Everyone complains that female characters do too little or have too little definition. Report to studio boss runs "More complaints about female characters." Studio boss issues decree: "Lay off the female characters. They cause complaints." (Seriously, ladies, that is how we think. For given values of the word.)

Nobody complains that the male characters in movies and games and tv shows are ridiculously overdrawn, carry far too much of the plot and do things that no self-respecting coward in the audience would ever dream of. Nobody complains that there are no scenes in which two named male characters talk together about a female character who is more important than they. Nobody complains about male characters at all. Women roll their eyes and think about something else, men sit there lost in a happy dream of "duh yeah...'f I was Superman I'd be just like dat, yeah." No you wouldn't. Nobody would. If you were in the shoes of Tom Cruise or Vin Diesel or Shia LeWhatnot or whoever, and it was real, you'd quake like a jelly and take to your heels. So would I. So would any man with sense.

I'm quite serious about this. Someone told me recently that the way to level the seesaw is to clear the shit off the lower end, not pile more shit on the end that's up. Well, guess what. It isn't working. Efforts to make our culture more accepting of female characters are meeting with determined and increasing resistance. So, okay, let's start piling crap on our end as well, and when we've got it level that way, we can see about removing some of the crap from both ends at the same time. Let's Get It Level First.

Next time you review a film or a game or a tv show, look really closely at the male characters. Are they believable? Do they have depth, or just quirks off a tick list? Do they have motivations, or just the writer's hand up their thingy? Do they respond to extreme situations the way a normal man would?And do they honour and respect their female counterparts, if any?

If not...say so. Loudly and clearly.

Let's start complaining about the guys. It's the only way we'll ever make them listen.

Thanks for reading.

Comments

[janewilliams20.livejournal.com]

That's a really interesting idea. Good luck with it!

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

It's an interesting thought, but I see an issue with it.

I think (but have not done research) that people people generally *want* their heroes to be larger-than-life. We see lots of ordinary people in ordinary circumstances every day, people who back down from a challenge, or people who do the bare minimum to get by. Star Wars would have been exceedingly dull if Luke Skywalker had decided to just stay on the moisture farm and go into the family business. If Boudica had just stayed quiet and done nothing, nobody would even remember her name (and she'd make an AWESOME subject for a film, so long as Frank Miller wasn't doing it).

And that is, I think, where your proposal falls down.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

People here including women? Heroes meaning both sexes?

There's a difference between staying quiet and doing nothing and not hogging the action. But if you disagree with my proposal, presumably you have a better idea?

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

People always include women, and yes, in this case "heroes" to include any gender that you happen to think of (I'm not fond of the convention in English that the male term is the one used for a mixed group, but that's the language we have).

I'm not saying that I have a better proposal other than actively making the other characters more heroic. I'm just pointing out what I think is a flaw in yours -- you're asking for heroic characters to be more ordinary, but one of the things that makes them heroic is that they're NOT ordinary and they DON'T behave as ordinary people would (to pick two examples in video games, I suspect that most people would, if stuck in ANY of the Ages in the Myst series, curl up into a gibbering ball -- the only reason the we (as the Stranger) don't is that we're well aware that it's NOT real. Most real human beings in Chell's place would be dead, killed either by GLaDOS or Wheatley.)

People are not, I submit, going to be nearly as interested in your heroes if you make them less heroic.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

Would you like to read the post again, with specific reference to what I am actually suggesting? (Hint: I'm not addressing screenwriters, producers, directors, or anyone involved in the film, tv or video game industry.)

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

You are actually suggesting, as far as I'm reading, that people complain about the male characters being too heroic (I also don't believe that women "roll their eyes and think about something else" -- not based on the women I know, at least.

I simply do not think that people are going to complain that their heroes are too heroic -- that's what people want in their heroes. (Heck, it's certainly not what I want in a heroic figure)

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

I'm suggesting that people complain about the male characters. Being too heroic is just one possible point of contention, and to my mind an important one, since only by the male characters sacrificing some of their agency can female characters lay claim to any of it. But if you think it's not going to work, then that's your opinion and I respect it. Presumably you can have no objection to my suggesting it at least.

If you think it's actually wrong to suggest that people complain that male characters dominate the screen and the story at the expense of female characters, that's another matter, and I have several friends who might well be very interested in your reasons...

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

I have no objection at all to you suggesting it. It may even work.

And I certainly don't think that it's wrong to suggest that people complain that male characters dominate the screen; I think you're aware that I agree with that.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

I certainly believe so--but agency in any given story is rather a zero-sum game, both in terms of available action and of audience attention. If the female characters are to have more agency, the male characters must cede some of theirs. If the female characters are to seem stronger and more defined, the male characters must be to that extent diminished. If that makes them seem less larger than life, then that's the way it has to be, and if complaining about the women not getting enough isn't working--as it manifestly isn't--then I suggest complaining that the men are getting too much.

In the story I'm writing at the moment I have six main characters, equally balanced as to gender, and I'm constantly trying to avoid falling into the habit patterns I picked up from the stories I've loved all my life. Strong man comforts weak woman. Admiring woman is admiring. Male hero has brilliant idea while female hero makes everyone tea. It's not as easy to balance everything out as it might seem, and in the process the male characters are inevitably made less than the larger-than-life heroes they could be. Everyone is subject to the redistribution of heroism, and the result has fewer stand-out characters. That's just the way it has to be, though, in films and tv and games as well as in books, if female characters are ever going to get a fair crack of the whip.

[wolfette]

Nobody complains that there are no scenes in which two named male characters talk together about a female character who is more important than they.

Hmm, how about Lara Croft's staff? (butler and pet geek)

:-)

The Tomb Raider movies fail the Bechdel Test every time - and yet the lead character is female - and strong. Go figure!

[batyatoon]

"Strong lead female character" is a great thing, but when strong lead female character is the only female character, she turns into an exceptional case: she can be the lead because she's Not Like Other Women.

Singleton female characters who never have anything to do with any other women are not necessarily flawed in themselves, but are unarguably in a flawed story.