Female characters have always posed a unique challenge for writers across books, movies, and television shows. For many years, portrayals of women in the media have evolved according to shifting social norms and expectations. The “damsel in distress” trope, once a staple, has long been critiqued, and largely left the past. Today, popular media is full of strong women — women who excel in what they do, who never show weakness, who outshine the men around them. These female characters are a far cry from the meek, overtly sexualized, and one-dimensional characters of the past, and this is undoubtedly a step forward. But it isn’t good enough on its own.
This more modern approach of making strong female characters has hoodwinked many consumers of media — whether it be books, movies, or TV — into believing that they are seeing a really strong character, an empowering character. In truth, often all they are seeing is a one-dimensional robot of muscle, unfounded talent, and probably anger or some other “masculine” emotion — characters like Captain Marvel or Rey Skywalker. These are characters celebrated by female audiences for simply being female main characters, just because women have rarely seen themselves in main characters before. Critics of these characters are dismissed as sexist or misogynistic, and some are, that is inevitable. However, much of the criticism is true. Audiences want to see characters who look like them, who come from similar backgrounds, who have similar experiences and carry similar burdens. But, we are settling for surface-level diversity coupled with poor character building, when we should be expecting diverse casts of high-quality characters.
In this article, I hope to examine some of the worst tropes authors tend to fall back on when writing “strong female characters,” and to showcase how others have successfully avoided these tropes to write genuinely powerful stories of female characters.
The Mary Sue
The most infamous way writers fail to write truly strong female characters is by writing a “Mary Sue.” A Mary Sue is a female character who is just instantly good at everything she tries. And, most importantly, she is better than men at everything — without earning it. A great example of this is Rey Skywalker from the sequel trilogy of “Star Wars.” Rey was at first intriguing. She had to scrap for food and old spaceship parts in order to sustain herself. However, once she is plunged into the vast world of “Star Wars,” she should be way out of her depth. She’s lived on a desert planet for her entire life, with no idea how the outside world works. But given a spaceship unable to jump to hyperspace, she immediately finds the problem (which the owner of the ship, Han Solo, couldn’t), and fixes it. She is told about the magical Force, and on her first try, employs it perfectly to trick her captors into letting her go. Then, using the Force, she wills a lightsaber into her hand, overpowering the extremely powerful Kylo Ren, and matches him in a fight. It feels forced and ingenuine.
Another disappointing example of this Mary Sue phenomenon is how the “Harry Potter” movies approached Hermione Granger’s character. J.K. Rowling’s Hermione is a well-written, balanced character. The movies ruin this. Several times, movie-Hermione takes book-Ron’s lines, such as when she explains what “mudblood” means. In doing this, the film’s writers reinforce the idea that Hermione automatically knows everything, while, in the books, it makes more sense when Ron explains it. Ron grew up in the wizarding world; he should know the slang and culture of this world. Hermione would not have been exposed to this growing up in the “muggle” world, and by having her explain it, the writers “empower” her as the archetypal smart character at the expense of Ron’s value in being well-versed in wizarding culture. Additionally, in the third book, “The Prisoner of Azkaban,” Hermione is extremely overworked, stressed, and anxious throughout the year. She is at her most unstable and vulnerable, a state relatively rare for her character. However, in the movies, this subplot is abandoned. By ignoring this important example of vulnerability in her character, Hermione is disconnected from the audience. In order to write strong characters, their emotions must be embraced, and they must have moments of weakness. This allows them to come back stronger and more powerful in the end.
Woman in a Man’s World
One of the most common “strong female characters” is the one whose entire personality is that she is a woman in a man’s world. The main elements of her character are that she is not a man, that she is in opposition to men, and that she is held back by men. She is one-dimensional, and actually ends up being defined by the men in her world. One of the most egregious examples of this is Captain Marvel from the Marvel franchise. She takes on many of the traits of the male traits and female body trope, being sullen and relatively emotionless. She is a Mary Sue, gaining her powers by magic, and from there, already being one of the most powerful characters in the Marvel universe without struggling for it. All of this is taken a step further by her entire “thing” being that she is not a man. It was a big deal for her movie to come out; “Captain Marvel” was the first Marvel movie with a female lead. Unfortunately, that is all the writers focused on. She is being trained by a man, but the man tells her she is being “too emotional,” labeling her with the classic female stereotype when, arguably, Captain Marvel is one of the least emotional characters of the entire franchise. The writers manufactured this “struggle” because they built her character around her being a woman surrounded by men (who supposedly underestimate her). At the end of the movie, she blasts her former (male) mentor 500 yards away, proving once and for all that women can do anything they put their minds to! But is that really what we, as the audience, walk away with? No. I, as a woman, do not see myself in Captain Marvel. I do not relate to her struggle. I do not feel empowered. I don’t feel like she earned it. And, at the end of the day, empowering women at the expense of men can’t be the only way to make a woman strong.
That’s not to say that this trope of “woman in a man’s world” can’t be done well. “The Queen’s Gambit” executes it in incredible fashion. Beth Harmon is the only woman in this elite chess world; that is true and definitely important to how the story plays out. But the writers don’t shy away from showing Beth’s weaknesses, either. She struggles with substance abuse. She ruins her relationships with other people. She frustrates herself and, at times, digs herself in holes so deep we as the audience worry she won’t pull herself back up. For instance, she shows up late and hungover to the match against her biggest opponent yet (naturally, a man), and absolutely humiliates herself. However, we root for her because she is human. We, to some level, can understand what she is going through — and, the fact that she has obstacles to overcome makes us want her to overcome them. Captain Marvel doesn’t seem to have obstacles. So, when she blasts this man across the face of the earth just because she can, it doesn’t feel rewarding, it feels cheap.
Despite these literary and cinematic shortcomings, in the next part of my article, I’d like to highlight the important aspects of a strong character which are absolutely essential to writing a powerful female character, as well as some examples of what happens when characters lack these qualities.
Agency
One of the most important traits to give a strong female character is agency, meaning that she is able to make decisions that influence other characters and the story as a whole. One way to do this is to put women in positions of power. An example of this done well is Padme Amidala in the “Star Wars” prequel trilogy. Padme is independent, selfless, and empathetic. She cares about the people she serves, and risks her own life on many occasions for the common good. She, as queen of the planet Naboo, makes important political decisions and, several times, prioritizes her governmental obligations over her personal relationships. She exercises her authority decisively and effectively to carry the plot forward, facing obstacles, not without struggle, but with dignity. However, I was ultimately disappointed with where her character ended up. Through her relationship with Anakin Skywalker, Padme is reduced to a damsel in distress, and her role becomes contingent on her relationship with Anakin. By the end of Episode III, Padme dies of a “broken heart” after Anakin turns to the Dark Side and betrays everything they had fought for. Without Anakin in her life, Padme has no purpose. What happened to her independence, her pride, her responsibilities as a leader? Replaced by Anakin. Her agency takes a backseat to the agency and character arc of the man. To have a strong female character, she must maintain her agency despite and even through her relationships with other people, particularly romantic relationships with men.
Vulnerability
My next point is vulnerability. The strength and power in a female character which I have discussed above is not always a bad thing; it can be done very well. One of my favorite examples of strength done well is Vi from “Arcane,” and one of the biggest reasons for this is that despite her muscular and even stereotypically masculine appearance, she shows vulnerability and physical weakness on her journey. In the first fight the audience sees her in, she gets an ugly punch to the jaw. It’s jarring to her and us, as the audience. However, she earns our respect by fighting back. Bloody and in pain as she is, she picks herself up and fights back, ultimately winning. With this sequence, we are to understand that Vi is not strong because she was just born that way, but because she knows how to keep going despite being knocked down. A few scenes later, we get further confirmation, as we see her spending her time bloodying her knuckles against a punching bag. Vi’s strength isn’t forced. It’s earned, and it’s believable. The audience wants to see the inner struggles she fights, too, or else they can’t understand the source of her outer strength; there are none, as far as we know. Outer strength must be a manifestation of inner strength, and this is where the “Star Wars” writers fail. The audience doesn’t see Rey’s inner struggle or inner strength; we jump straight to the outer strength. And this doesn’t go for only female characters; it goes for all characters. For instance, Miles Morales in “Spiderman: Into the Spider-Verse” starts out scared, unsure of himself, and out of his depth among the other Spider-people. However, despite and through this fear, uncertainty, and rejection, Miles learns to harness his power and believe in himself, leading to the rewarding scene of him leaping off the building and successfully using his webs to swing around the city and rejoin the group, now worthy of being their equal.
Finally, it is important to ensure that female characters aren’t perfect, and this goes beyond just getting hurt, showing vulnerability, and making mistakes. This means having true character flaws. Hermione in “Harry Potter” is incredibly smart, but she can be irritating and condescending. Vi in “Arcane” can be rash and self-righteous. As mentioned, Beth in “The Queen’s Gambit” is emotionally immature and self-sabotaging. This doesn’t make them bad characters, or make us want to root for them less; it makes them real, because all of us, as the audience, also have character flaws. These characters may hold up a mirror to us to examine our own flaws and how they impact our own stories and relationships, or they may guide us in taking control of our faults and using them for good.
To conclude, we must learn to expect strong female characters from the media we consume. When we let Marvel get away with Captain Marvels, and “Star Wars” with Reys, and we celebrate these characters for simply being women, when the writers fell short in every other regard, we set a low standard as an audience. We must not hesitate to criticize the way women are written and portrayed, because many books, shows, and movies have proved that it is possible to write strong female characters. We must hold these studios and writers to a higher standard, to handle female characters with dignity and complexity, which will lead us to empowerment. When we start with empowerment — making characters strong — and try to build up from there, we lose what makes characters engaging and empowering in the first place. Also, I’ve written a much longer version of this article, so if you are interested in reading it please shoot me an email, I’d be happy to share it.
