RE: The Amazing Shrinking Women…Roles [From Squeetus.com]

Shannon Hale, a well-known author of ten novels, posted an interesting article on her blog earlier today which brings up some points that have long been debated regarding the disappearance (or actually, lack of appearance) of strong female leads and characters in books and film. Shannon notes in her post:

Here are a few of the highest grossing animated movies of all time:

Ice Age
Toy Story
Madagascar
Shrek
Finding Nemo
Up
Kung Fu Panda
Monsters, Inc.
Cars
Ratatouille

[...] look at their male:female ratios. It’s kind of shocking what we just accept as normal. Can you imagine a reverse? An Ice Age-type movie where every character (except one who dies at the beginning) is female? The same goes for Up. [...] [L]ook at the ratio overall of named characters – I count it 10:2. Imagine a movie with 10 girls and 2 boys! [...] I think in part this goes back to the “girls aren’t funny” belief. [Read the full post]

Hit him with an oar and we will laugh

I commented on her blog, but figured as most of my blog readers are also writers, it would be of interest, so I’ll paraphrase my response here. What Shannon says is very true  –  strong female lead characters, and even minor roles, are lacking in modern media. But unfortunately, it will be a long time before anything is done about it.

To account for the lack of minor female characters, I think a lot of this stems from the ‘girls aren’t funny’ aspect that Shannon mentioned, which is sadly held by most media. For example: it’s totally acceptable in film to see men slip on banana peels, run into walls, knock their heads on drawers and get punched and beaten comically. Take most father figures in Disney movies.

But for some reason, if you replace this comic-relief male character with a woman, it’s uncomfortable and doesn’t come across as funny at all. Imagine watching a female character (even in an animated film) being punched, whacked with an oar, hitting her head on furniture, or getting her teeth knocked in accordion-style. All of this happens to male characters in Disney films and it’s hilarious. But by nature of our society, it’s just not funny the other way around — unless the female character is portrayed as horrendously ugly, stupidly masculine, or outrageously annoying, in which case it’s suddenly acceptable again, but uncomfortable even then.

The same goes for female leads. I’ve said this in blogs before, but there is a reason why in toy stores, there are 2 or 3 ‘pink aisles’, surrounded by a dozen or more ‘blue’ aisles. In this society girls will play with toys for boys, but boys just won’t play with toys for girls. It doesn’t mean this is right: it just means that this is the way our society is built.

It’s really a question of sales. If that’s ‘just the way things are’, what company will spend millions of dollars to try to change it? Corporations and movie studios are not built to change a society. They are built to make money. Changing society does not make them more money. They don’t care what they have to do to sell stuff: they just sell it. It is for this reason Kim Kardashian is suddenly selling salads for Carl’s Jr.

Take a look at all the big film franchises: Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, Transformers, Star Wars, The Matrix, etc. Even the Twilight films, despite the main character being Bella, are almost entirely centered on Edward and Jacob. Now look at the franchises with female leads: Lemony Snicket (somewhat a female lead)? Catwoman (totally failed)? I can’t even think of any franchise that actually made money that doesn’t have a male center character. Look at the list and be shocked.

As writers, I think we know and recognize this imbalance, but we also know that it is impossible for us to change an entire society. It’s too deeply entrenched in ‘the way things are’. So it does come down to money, unfortunately. If people don’t want to read/watch it, we can’t write it, because we can’t sell it. Most writers don’t  get paid 6- or 7-figures a book, and thus don’t have the freedom of trying to be different. And so we begrudgingly go on following the norms, because we really need groceries this week.

(Added: I think it needs to be pointed out that this blog post isn’t meant to show a sign of defeat in the industry. There are many authors like Tamora Pierce who write AMAZING novels with lead female characters (I grew up reading these books by her). I’m just trying to point out just how ridiculously imbalanced this is, but how it should not be seen entirely as the fault of the writer, because writers are really only creating stories that readers will read. If no one or few people will read it, no matter how good the book is, the author is regarded as a failure, because the publishing industry is driven on sales. If we don’t sell enough books, then publishers stop publishing us. Until this society changes, authors and producers will just keep on making films catering to what the public wants, and very rarely step outside those boundaries. It is basically a giant monster that keeps feeding itself and getting bigger, and that no one really has the power to kill.)

I welcome comments below, especially from other writers who recognize this trend, or have ideas on how we can improve.