TV, the new bastion for strong female characters

[Smeatza]

No, just no.

You can cherry pick a bunch of HBO series that are well written and reach the conclusion that TV is progressive when it comes to gender roles and gender role issues.

Or you can look at the whole picture and see that television, in general, is less progressive with gender role issues than every single other type of media that exists.

 

[miketehmage]

I think Game of Thrones does this extremely well, there are multiple strong female characters. The most obvious one I guess would be Daenerys Targaryen who has been through some brilliant character development and is now, I would say, one of the strongest contenders for the throne. And there are multiple other examples of strong female characters in that series.

However I haven't noticed a HUGE change in TV overall, but I do think Game of Thrones has done particularly well at this.

 

[Strazdas]

More like TV, the new bastion for decent characters and developed plots (as opposed to large budget explosions serving as plot).

 

[Zeckt]

I have noticed a trend that it is really hard to make a strong female character actually have a sense of humor and therefore worthwhile in my opinion. I get pretty bored of characters that go on about how great they are while having dry humor, male and female both. But female especially.

 

[Galletea]

Strong women in the media are almost always portrayed as over-feminist bitches. When writers stop trying to force women into their stories, and just let them be cool characters, then there will be an improvement.

 

[A Weakgeek]

Brienne being a knight more skilled in fighting than golden boy Jamie

As a Jamie fanboy I have to stop you right there. Brienne is NOT more skilled than Jamie. The only reason he got his ass whooped at the bridge was because he was in chains, and even then he held out a long time.

 

[AgedGrunt]

Strong women in the media are almost always portrayed as over-feminist bitches. When writers stop trying to force women into their stories, and just let them be cool characters, then there will be an improvement.

It's noticeable when female characters wear their gender on their sleeves, but regardless of how one is cast, I think the best improvement is none, especially not listening to what idealists say are "problems" with art. I wasn't aware we needed to police our world's creative works until I discovered a certain ideologue here.

 

[gamernerdtg2]

Moira Queen on Arrow. She's a beautiful woman, she's very feminine, but she's also very powerful. She doesn't flaunt her power in a physical way like say, Lara Croft, or Sarah Connor, but she's just as powerful. She's also not the stereotypically evil type of woman. She's not a *****. She thinks she's doing everything that she does for the good of her family.

I think Arrow is going to make some serious waves!

 

[Legion]

Brienne being a knight more skilled in fighting than golden boy Jamie

As a Jamie fanboy I have to stop you right there. Brienne is NOT more skilled than Jamie. The only reason he got his ass whooped at the bridge was because he was in chains, and even then he held out a long time.

Not forgetting that he had also been in captivity for months, and wouldn't exactly be well fed.

Brienne is awesome, but it is made very clear in the book that she would not be a match for Jamie on even footing. He is supposed to be one of the most skilled swordsman in the seven kingdoms, which is why his "incident" is so damaging to him. The surprise at being beaten was that he was expecting her to be a pushover, whereas she is also very skilled.

 

[Miyenne]

I never even thought about it growing up. As a little girl I loved my "boy" shows; my favourite toys were TMNT. I never made the distinction that the women were weak and the men strong, I just saw characters I liked and didn't like.

I loved Xena, but she was just a strong hero that wasn't perfect who happened to have boobs. As a kid gender differences (and race and sexual orientation, but this conversation isn't about those) never even crossed my mind. It was a non-issue.

Why are people going on and on about these things? If I saw a hero I liked I put myself in their shoes no matter their gender or anything else, I still do with my overactive imagination.

I don't watch much tv now, but there are a few shows I stick to. I like Elementary. Watson's a good character, intelligent and doesn't follow Sherlock blindly, she questions every move he makes and if she doesn't agree she doesn't get involved. The show's not fantastic, but I like it enough to pvr it.

I like Castle too, although Beckett annoys me. I don't think it's a gender issue, I just don't like her. I just watch mainly for Nathan.

Thrones, of course. But show Dany isn't quite the same as book Dany. And George makes all his characters flawed and weak and stupid; including Dany. I love Emilia Clark, but show Dany kinda irritates me, they gloss over her naivete too much.

I just don't get why these things are issues in the first place.

 

[Galletea]

Strong women in the media are almost always portrayed as over-feminist bitches. When writers stop trying to force women into their stories, and just let them be cool characters, then there will be an improvement.

It's noticeable when female characters wear their gender on their sleeves, but regardless of how one is cast, I think the best improvement is none, especially not listening to what idealists say are "problems" with art. I wasn't aware we needed to police our world's creative works until I discovered a certain ideologue here.

As far as I'm concerned it isn't an issue of policing creative works, it is simple an issue of these creative works containing lame characters. I don't want to censor things, far from it. I'm just tired of women characters that 'wear their gender on their sleeves' as you so eloquently put it. It seems there are two female character types and both are pushing their femininity in your face, whether it's a weak hide-behind-the-hero type or the I-don't-need-men type and I find both incredibly irksome.

 

[Legion]

I never even thought about it growing up. As a little girl I loved my "boy" shows; my favourite toys were TMNT. I never made the distinction that the women were weak and the men strong, I just saw characters I liked and didn't like.

I loved Xena, but she was just a strong hero that wasn't perfect who happened to have boobs. As a kid gender differences (and race and sexual orintation, but this conversation isn't about those) never even crossed my mind. It was a non-issue.

Why are people going on and on about these things? If I saw a hero I liked I put myself in their shoes no matter their gender or anything else, I still do with my overactive imagination.

That is, in essence what I have been trying to get at. By looking at characters based upon their gender, rather than how good they are as a character, people are just making things a much bigger deal than they need to be.

I don't watch much tv now, but there are a few shows I stick to.

Spoiler: I like Elementary, although I'm not sure about...

making Moriarty a woman. It seems weird to me, even if she's a 'strong female'.

Hey, come on now, spoiler tags please. That hasn't been revealed on the UK showing of it yet. It's best to tag things like that until a sufficient amount of time has passed, so people won't have surprises ruined.

I just don't get why these things are issues in the first place.

What I don't get is why it wasn't such an issue a year ago. Before Anita Sarkeesian, the Hitman trailer and the Lara Croft "rape" discussion, gender was never considered something worth getting so worked up about, not by the site creators, not by these sites in general, not by the content creators and not by the forum members.

Now all of a sudden it's a huge issue everywhere and people are pretending like they have always felt that it was an important matter, despite practically nobody discussing it as little as a year ago.

It feels like a school fad/craze where "everybody is doing it" and people want to be seen to be the one who got into it first, or the one who cares about it the most.

It seems there are two female character types and both are pushing their femininity in your face, whether it's a weak hide-behind-the-hero type or the I-don't-need-men type and I find both incredibly irksome.

I agree. Personally my favourite kind are the ones who are very confident in their femininity, but don't feel the need to make a big deal out of it. Characters such as Motoko Kusanagi from Ghost in the Shell who while being tough and intelligent, doesn't feel the need to have the snarky "I'm a tough woman" attitude, nor does she feel the need to use her sexuality to get ahead. She has sexuality, but it doesn't define her.

Although there is also the other arch-type, most commonly seen in comedy shows. The "mother". Not in the sense of having children, but when the main cast of males are basically "man-children" and she is the weary, sarcastic one rolling her eyes at their stupidity, getting the laughs by making them look like idiots (Penny from The Big Bang Theory being a recent example).

That one irks me too.

 

[Miyenne]

Hey, come on now, spoiler tags please. That hasn't been revealed on the UK showing of it yet. It's best to tag things like that until a sufficient amount of time has passed, so people won't have surprises ruined.

Ooops, apologies, I didn't know. I just took that out of my post.

 

[SadakoMoose]

The "inherently good thing" is that the general perception of what is considered a "men's show" is changing. That you can create a show, aimed at men, that doesn't end up in just a muscle contest. That the other half of the worlds population is still treated with the same respect that men are.

I never grew up thinking TV needed to balance gender; the thought irks me. In my experience, shows dominated by males didn't really disrespect females or end up "in just a muscle contest". Maybe I've been watching the wrong stuff.

Spoiler: Example Shows

Boy Meets World - Topanga starts as adorably weird, but is morally and intellectually superior throughout the series. Cory is actually a jerk to her at first. Minkus was a genius, but cast as the stereotypical nerd and didn't last. Cory, Shawn and Eric ranged from arrogant to impossibly bone-headed in order to learn a lesson about life. A lot of other minor male characters had glaring deficiencies.

Step-by-Step - Lots of strong female characters. JT was thick-headed, Mark was a nerd and Cody was the original dudebro.

Fresh Prince... - Phil and Vivian were both strong, and while it was dominated by Will Smith, he was the furthest thing from perfect. Hillary may have been a ditz, but then there's Carlton.

The Simpsons - Marge and Lisa are held back by pathologically stupid family. It was literally stated that the Simpson "dumb" gene only affects men.

Smallville - Lana, Lois, Chloe?

Supernatural - It's the Dean and Sam show, but there are often-featured females that don't play to weak stereotypes. Dean is full of flaws.

[Insert Crime Drama] - Haven't seen one without strong, intellectual females, and they lead.

Not saying everything is peachy and this is some wacky feminist ideology; I despise TBBT for playing to stereotypes, especially Penny. Pro-wrestling is obscenely sexist. But the idea of creating characters with politically correct attributes should gross people out. This one is "the gay one" and so on.

So while I see where we're coming from in all of this, I would resist changes to art that want to satisfy some sort of social contract protecting the work from criticism. You can't expect equilibrium in life, so why insist on modeling it? This is not to forget there are many other factors that go into media production, such as marketing.

In sum, I'm all for diverse content, but this big picture idea that we're trying to re-condition media makes my skin crawl. If you're going to create something, don't do it for appeasement.

To be fair, pro wrestling on the whole is not all that sexist (or homophobic or racist). If we only look at the WWE, then yes, sexism is major problem as lady wrestlers are rarely ever recruited to that company for their ability or athletic prowess than they are for looks. Even then, they aren't referred to as lady wrestlers, but instead as "Divas", effectively ghettoizing women's wrestling even further.
However, this does not by any means say that great, non-sexualized, ladies wrestling does not exist
Case in point, my ideal woman, Meiko Satomura:
More stuff like this, in which the ladies are treated as serious athletes, is available to watch and most unexpectedly usually comes from Japan or Mexico. The popular stereotypes about Japanese misogyny and Mexican machismo fall apart at that point.
Anyway, I just wish that pro wrestling on the whole got a better shake as far as it's reputation goes. Very little of it resembles what they do in the WWE, and it's unfortunate that the WWE has such a large media presence because it ends up coloring the mainstream perception of the sport negatively.

 

[Something Amyss]

Me too. Mind you, he has a very devoted fanbase, and at least knows enough to go through the motions sometimes. The bar isn't set terribly high.

You've probably hit the nail on the head there, that one doesn't need to do much to stand out in the field. Still, to paraphrase Ralph Wiggum, this logic makes my head sad.

Wowow. Where did that stat (or even the idea it's close to that) come from? I doubt that 90% of the shows are aimed at men. Maybe 90% of the shows you watch, but that's something totally different.

This could be a long one.

*deep breath*

Okay, where did I get the idea? The TV listings. The marketing for programming. The common logic of Hollywood and cable in general. I know you've just tried to peg it as maybe it's what I watch, but I doubt even fifty percent of the programming I personally watch is aired for a male audience. Maybe fifty.

To quote myself:

You can repeat yourself all you want. There's truth to the fact that a male-heavy community might have issues with sample bias or confirmation bias, but that doesn't itself make the world balanced by default. The male 18 to (I think) 34 demographic is the coveted market for media, but especially media that relies heavily on advertising. This is sort of likethat dude from unskewed deciding that all the political polls were "teh bias" so he "unskewed" them all while he mocked guys like Nate Silver. It turned out that Silver was right within a reasonable margin of error because he used actual statistical models and the "teh bias" guy was wrong because...Well, because he chose to claim statistics were "teh bias."

I don't have any actual numbers, but the notion of male-dominated media requires one only look at programming lineups. Men are the dominant targeted group in the lion's share of instances. This extends beyond the programming anyone here watches.

And one could also say that men who do like romance are kinda screwed.

I think maninahat makes a decent point, but I'm actually going to agree with you here. Romances are targeted predominantly at women in the same way most television is targeted at men. That makes men a secondary audience in this instance. I'm also amused at that; complaints when a group that's constantly catered to is treated like a minority look ridiculous.

However, the question was why fewer "guy" shows is a good thing, and so I addressed it from the angle of the predominance of gender-specific shows. It really wasn't relevant to bring up men who like romance at the time, but if you really want to go down that road then men who like romance will ALSO benefit from fewer guy-oriented, guy-targeted shows.

Warning: I'm about to drop the 'F' bomb here

This works in much the same way that feminism can benefit men. The challenging of gender roles means that males who perform typically feminine jobs or enjoy typically feminine things will be less marginalised and ridiculed. Watching something romantic shouldn't have to be a guilty pleasure for a man. Conversely, though, women are pretty much expected to also be interested in male media or to shut up about it.

If you change the standards, this sort of thing is unnecessary.

So yeah, I fail to see how this makes less male-specific programming anything but a good thing. Maybe we'll get to see some romance for guys. Or some actual shows with strong female characters, rather than Buffy's daddy issues or a bunch of sex dolls who spend half the show with no agency.

But I fear that's a long way off. I've seen large whine-fests from guys simply because a tampon commercial was inserted into their manly programming. Oh, the humanity!

 

[Something Amyss]

More stuff like this, in which the ladies are treated as serious athletes, is available to watch and most unexpectedly usually comes from Japan or Mexico.

Which is why when you said "WWE," You probably should have said "American Wrestling." Even Canadia and Great Britistan do this, so it's not only not just WWE, it's not just the US. And yes, I know that some promotions are better, but better doesn't mean good.

The popular stereotypes about Japanese misogyny and Mexican machismo fall apart at that point.

Queen is popular in Iran, but they still kill homosexuals. The idea that portrayal in media is the same as the cultural behaviour is ridiculous. Japan also features a lot of homosexuals and transsexuals, but they are a homophobic and transphobic culture too. That would be like pretending America is accepting of gays because gay media is fairly prevalent.

...Except we know better. Because things on TV aren't real.

 

[Ryotknife]

New bastion? TV has had strong female roles since...Seinfield. At least during my lifetime. In fact typically there are more strong female roles (especially in comedies, sitcoms, and reality TV which is all the rage in the US) than male ones. It is only when you start going into Sci-fi that it semi-approaches a sausagefest, and even then there are plenty of examples.