protagonist – House of Error

Damsel in Disguise: The Strong Female Object in Resident Evil 3: Remake & The Strong Female Damsel in Rogue One

Disclaimer: No, I’m not going to talk about current events. Maybe I’ll reference them, but if you’re anything like me, all you want right now is a distraction, so let’s get right to it.

I do not consider myself a righteous man. In brutal honesty, I am a straight man who grew up in the 80’s and 90’s, and thus, I was a sexist bigot well into my 20’s. An idiot who made bad jokes until events in his life taught him to do better. As a result, I exist in a strange, semi-objective limbo. I am a straight man who often hates straight men, but I am also a feminist who occasionally hates feminists. I do not like or make jokes about women being stupid, but I also hate the extremely common “dumb husband” commercials. It’s a strange, contentious limbo I live in, but I like it because it allows me to be fair. More fair, I feel, than bigots or extreme feminists ever want me to be.

My point is . . . when I see something that I think is problematic, I usually give it time before speaking up about it, because I want to be sure I’m being fair first. I don’t want to start flame wars, and I don’t want to sound like a pandering jackass.

So, please, understand that it’s after serious consideration that I say . . .

Rogue One . . .

and the recent remake of Resident Evil 3 . . .

. . . both of which are framed as empowering for women . . .

. . . are actually pretty misogynistic.

“What the fuck even are you talking about?” you might have just asked, to which I say, “Hear me out.”

This post is split into two parts. If you’re already pissed about one of your favorite things being criticized, you can scroll down to the heading for said thing now.

For everyone else . . .

An Introduction

In the 90’s, the Tough Princess was a thing. Princess Vespa, from Space Balls, stands out as an example, but I remember seeing strong princesses everywhere, picking up weapons, refusing help. For sure, they were a step in a better direction . . . but they also needed saving just like normal princesses; if you could play as Princess Peach in one Mario game, it did not mean you wouldn’t be saving her in the next Mario game. Ultimately, it was just a half-measure–the kind I’ve grown to hate (because, as I’ve always said, the way to change a stereotype is not to put a twist on it, but to avoid using the stereotype at all).

In this way, what I’m calling the Strong Female Damsel has been around for a long time. A female character who presents as strong and independent but ultimately needs a ton of saving by men, the Strong Female Damsel is a common trope and an obviously lacking, half-hearted attempt at being progressive.

Less obvious, however, is the the Damsel’s prevalence in modern, feminist genre films and games; in an age where there’s a much more pronounced attempt to cater to and empower female audiences, it always blows my mind when I see the ideals of those audiences either undermined (with the Damsel) or flat out violated (with the Object, which I’ll define a bit later).

For now, let’s start with the Damsel:

The Strong Female Damsel in Rogue One

This is something that has bothered me since the first time I watched Rogue One, but it’s also something I haven’t written about because, again, I wanted to make sure I wasn’t being contentious for no reason.

But now, having rewatched it, let me present the actual stats:

(07:18) Starting off almost immediately here; after Jyn watches her mother get murdered, she goes and hides in a hole. She stays there until she’s found and saved by Saw Gerrera.
(13:00) Jyn Erso, in prison, is rescued by a group of all-male Rebellion troopers. She fights them, which is cool, but still loses–because the best character in the entire movie, K-2SO, catches her.
(31:58) During the firefight on Jedha, Jyn saves a child, which is dope. She then stands in place while a tank rolls up so Cassian can first shout for her to “Get out of there!” and then shoot the gunner who might see and target her.
(32:09) A rebel on a walkway above the tank then pulls out a grenade, which he’s going to throw down into the area where Jyn is hiding, probably hurting her, but Cassian shoots him before he can throw it. The moment is complete with a little “I got your back” nod from Cassian.
(33:09) This doesn’t count as her being saved, but here, Jyn beats the shit out of some stormtroopers and it’s cool, but, weirdly, we still get the “Whoa–that girl is fighting all of them and I actually don’t need to help???” reaction from Cassian.
I’ll try to keep these sidebars to a minimum, but the framing of that moment was a little strange.
(33:40) Arguable one here: K-2SO catches a grenade that could kill all three characters in this scene, but effortlessly tosses it behind himself, saving everyone and killing a bunch of stormtroopers at the same time.
(34:40) Jyn and Cassian are apprehended by stormtroopers, but are saved by Chirrut Îmwe.
(48:20) This one is so weird.
Saw Gerrera’s rebel base is crumbing, but Jyn is in some kind of . . . trauma trance? Like, she’s so distraught by what her father said that she literally just drops to her knees and sits there . . . until Cassian comes in and literally grabs her, telling her “We gotta go. I know where your father is,” at which point she snaps out of it? It’s just a very strange moment for a protagonist. When the hologram cut, why did Jyn not turn around to Saw, and ask, “Where was this recorded? I have to find him!”?
And . . . I mean, would she have stood there, doing nothing, until the building collapsed on her?
(49:36) I have to count this one because, once again, Jyn is being literally saved by men.
To escape the fallout from the Death Star, everyone jumps into a ship piloted by K-2SO and . . . Cassian! It’s almost like this movie is about him, not Jyn.
And, to be clear, I am not arguing for self-insert levels of competency here; I think it would’ve been stupid if Jyn saved everyone, always got herself out of danger, and shoved people aside so she could fly the ship. All I’m saying is, in the past 50 minutes, she has beaten up two groups of people and been saved by men 8 times.
Absolutely nothing would’ve been wrong with her getting out in front, hopping onto the controls first, or shouting to K-2SO to get them in the air. As is, she just hops on, helps pull someone in, and looks out the window.
(1:09:04) On Eadu, there’s the group of scenes that made me realize Jyn was a damsel in the first place. The time stamp is for the exact moment, but I have to preface it so you feel how I felt the first time I watched this.
Okay. To kick us off, Jyn does find her father.
But she does not save him.
She doesn’t even engage the stormtroopers around him, even though he’s in pretty clear danger, on his knees, with an Imperial General standing over him. Instead, X-Wings show up, kill the stormtroopers, and knock everyone to the ground. Jyn only manages to shout, “Father!” before all of this happens, because her ability to create drama is more important than her ability to have agency over the plot, I guess.
Okay. That said, at 1:09:04, Jyn is kneeling over her father, who just died, and that moment is completely cut short by stormtroopers running up behind her. Again, like on Jedha, Jyn is too emotionally distraught to care about anything–she doesn’t even realize they’re there–and only survives . . . because Cassian fucking Andor saves her, complete with a scene where he has to pull her off of her father and the other male side characters have to fight off the stormtroopers chasing them, including the ex-Imperial pilot.
And this after a close up shot at 1:05:59 of Cassian Andor saying, “Jyn! No!” when he realizes she’s in danger.
(1:18:33) Okay. Just another sidebar.
Jyn gives her “rebellions are built on hope” speech, and I was totally ready to concede that she influenced the plot in a huge way by convincing the rebels to attack Scarif . . . because I totally forgot that, no, actually, she doesn’t. She does plant a seed here that eventually gets the rebels to show up and help.
But that is only because the protagonists go to Scarif anyway, which only becomes possible . . . because Cassian fucking Andor rounds up a bunch of troops willing to volunteer themselves. And I’m sure an argument could be made that Cassian only rounded up those troops because of her speech, but Cassian’s character arc was already in effect since Eadu, when he decided not to kill Jyn’s dad. I’d argue he would’ve gone to Scarif even if the council scene was just rebel leaders arguing that it was too dangerous.
(1:24:49) The Imperial shuttle the characters are flying into Scarif is about to get shot out of the air, killing everyone, bu-u-u-u-u-ut luckily, the ex-Imperial pilot and K-2SO–both male–manage to fool flight control. Phew!
Also, Jyn looks at a crystal in this scene. It’s probably meant to send over serious Force-vibes (what with “kyber crystals” being a talking point in this movie), but if the idea here is that the Force influenced flight control, through her or because of her, then that’s a pre-e-e-e-etty lame attempt at giving her agency.
Again, I’m not saying she should have every skill and save every day; it would’ve been stupid if she and she alone jumped on comms, shoving aside all the male characters (i.e. every single other person on the ship). However, it is 100% within reason to expect her to have some way to hack a new code, or some reference for gaining the current code after the years she spent fighting her way through the galaxy as a space-orphan. She could’ve taken out a custom cipher she bought somewhere and told K-2SO and the pilot the current code. Maybe they both could’ve doubted her but punched it in anyway cause they decided to believe, and when it works, they all would’ve done something together. And we would’ve gotten some Jyn Erso characterization from her lone wolf years. Aside from “she fights good sometimes.”
(1:47:11) Worst scene of the movie: K-2SO sacrifices himself to keep Jyn and Cassian safe. This happens while Cassian retrieves the data file for the Death Star and Jyn watches.
(1:50:06) Another sidebar: We have a moment where it seems like Jyn and Jyn alone is going to do something amazing. She jumps out onto the data tower to retrieve the Death Star plans, but no, forget it; Cassian jumps onto it with her. Cause of course he does.
(1:51:08) I feel like I’m losing my mind. I honestly don’t remember it being this bad. Here, there’s a scene where the Imperials get into the data vault, open a door, and Jyn’s right there where they can easily shoot her. Cassian shouts, “Jyn!” shoots at them, and stops them from killing her while she literally dangles off of the tower for suspense.
Cassian proceeds to kill all the Stormtroopers, by the way, and Jyn watches.
(1:59:10) Here, finally, the moment that got a loud, “Are you fucking serious?” from me in the theater.
Jyn Erso is finally confronting Krennic, the man who killed her mother and forced her father into slavery. The man who ruined her life.
A man who has a blaster aimed right at her . . . which means that when fucking Cassian goddamn Andor shoots him in the back, he not only absolutely robs her of catharsis, he saves Jyn again while doing it.
I mean, for fuck’s sake.
Cassian even stops her from making sure Krennic is dead. Like, “Honey, I know you’ve got your entire life’s worth of comeuppance and everything, but, like, my leg is hurt?”

By my count, that is 12 times Jyn Erso’s life was saved over the course of the film. Out of those 12 times, she was saved by men 12 times. One could absolutely go through and count how many times she saved herself or others and compare. Nothing’s stopping you. But it would not change the fact that a protagonist being helped out of life-threatening danger twelve times instead of helping themselves is way too many times.

Now, of course, I am not saying that a strong female protagonist can’t be saved by a man–obviously, that’s not the case, and having female-driven stories where the men aren’t helpful at all is also something I hate.

The point I am trying to make: the strong female protagonist who constantly needs to be saved by her cast of male-only side characters . . . is not a strong female protagonist.

She is, quite literally, a Strong Female Damsel. A female protagonist who looks strong, walks strong, but is repeatedly presented in peril so that men can save her.

I’m not sure how this kind of character happens, but I have to assume it wasn’t intentional. Maybe the result of a writer’s room determined not to make Jyn a Mary Sue? Different saves from different characters in different drafts that got snowballed into the final product? I’m not sure, but the thing that’s oddly, depressingly clear: if they wanted to make her less threatening to men . . .

. . . it worked.

Have you ever wondered why none of the men who hated Rey also hated Jyn Erso? Why they loved Rogue One . . . but also never walk around wearing Jyn Erso, “I Rebel” t-shirts?

It’s because none of them actually respect her. They love the movie–the script that constantly made her need help from Cassian (who’s getting his own Disney + show, cause of course he is)–but they do not love her.

My recommendation about all of this: if you’re writing a story that you want to be progressive, with a strong female lead, please make sure that she isn’t just a damsel in disguise.

That said, okay, we’re on to something worse:

The Strong Female Object in Resident Evil 3: Remake

This one is going to be a lot quicker, because I don’t have to replay the entire game.

But, first, a definition: the Strong Female Object is a female protagonist who is presented as strong, decisive, and capable, but who is clandestinely fetishized in spite of that. Almost like the artists behind the character knew that she needed to be strong . . . but just couldn’t help sexualizing her because she was so hot. It doesn’t matter that it completely undermines the strength they felt obligated to give her–there just needed to be a scene where she got deepthroated by tentacles.

Resident Evil 3: Remake is the entire reason I made this classification, because it is absolutely obnoxious in that game and, having loved Jill since the very first RE in 1996, I hated it.

Really quickly, we’re going to run down some events that happen in the game, with links if I have them:

The game opens up with a nightmare sequence where Jill, in pajamas for no reason whatsoever (she wakes up afterward in her normal clothes), starts turning into a zombie. In the nightmare, she’s in her bathroom, where there’s a loaded gun on the sink. She picks it up, wincing as she puts it to her head and pulls the trigger.
What a great start for a strong female protagonist.
I already hated it.
In her apartment, you can find a note from Brad, talking about how Jill has been suspended by the chief of police. The note was slipped to a pizza deliver guy, so in the postscript, Brad says, “Enjoy the extra large Mega Meat Supreme! It’s on me and the guys.”
*sigh*
Yes. Of course. The “extra large Mega Meat” from Brad and “the guys.” Because “extra large” is totally a normal size for a pizza pie to be.
When you first meet up with Carlos Oliviera, he is unrealistically, relentlessly flirtatious in the middle of a zombie outbreak. It’s posed as gross, which would make it fine . . .
. . . if Carlos hadn’t been as gross in the original game. Not sure why they broke this dynamic when it was already fixed, but okay.
Here’s a link to a group of male let’s players laughing at an absolutely bizarre poster you find on a door (which happens in the first 20 seconds of this video).
One of those let’s players, Alex Faciane, calls it “egregious,” and yep.
Now, hey, maybe this is a reference to the enormous boxes you find in safe rooms in-game. Considering how things are going so far though, I highly doubt it.
And here is the moment that made me want to write about this game in the first place.
Everything that came before this was a little weird but passable.
Not this though.
I’ve linked to a video of the Game Grumps getting to the moment because one of them, Arin, outright says, “This is for the fetishists,” because, yeah, it is that bad (although if you want to skip ahead, the actual moment happens at 32:06 [and if you’d rather not watch it, just skip right over this link]): https://youtu.be/VEqmgvWCdvQ?t=1848.
In case you did skip, tentacle stuff happens. And, while it’s not super gratuitous in the cutscene that introduces the tentacle monsters to you, it is really bad when they catch you in-game. You lose control and the camera focuses on the action for wa-a-a-a-ay too long.
I tried to return the game at this point, because, already, it was clear that shit wasn’t right. Initially, I was excited that Jill didn’t have her impractical, miniskirt and tube top outfit from the original, but the tentacle monsters made it clear that, somehow, the remake was actually less respectful to her.
And that lack of respect is made clearer as the game progresses, and you “get to play” Carlos for long sections of it, a thing literally no one asked for. As if the game couldn’t continue being just Jill’s story, it’s now Carlos and Jill’s, with over an hour cut out for Carlos-time. And, to be clear, that’s beefcake, remake Carlos who is a super jacked commando, totally different from Carlos in the original: a young guy who Jill literally slaps in the face at one point to make him come to his senses.
To top it off, (spoilers) Jill gets infected with the T-Virus at one point. And guess who brings her to a hospital and runs around it for an hour looking for a cure?
No, not Cassian Andor. Carlos. Carlos literally saves Jill when she’s in distress.
Cause of course he does.
The moment that made me second-angriest: we “get to” see a nightmare Jill is having, where Carlos is infected and she has to shoot him . . . but she just can’t bring herself to do it. Because, even though he was a relentless fucking horndog at first . . . Jill now cares for him so much that she can’t kill him, even if doing so means saving her own life.
Typical tsundere bullshit.

That dream sequence perfectly sums up what’s going on here. The “extra large Mega Meat Supreme” from “the guys,” the ad for an “Enormous Box,” the tentacle monsters, and Carlos being initially gross but ultimately so important to Jill that she’d rather die than hurt him–it all feeds into Jill being a sexual object for male gazers, chuckling to each other behind her back.

A tsundere for Carlos to win over.

Only, not just a tsundere. A protagonist that needed to be strong, made by men who are probably wondering what color panties she’s wearing. A hot, smart, capable woman . . . who’s just so hot that, I mean . . .

“. . . what do her pajamas look like?”

“What kind of dude is she into?”

“Big dudes like Chris?”

“Nemesis hasn’t killed her, so, like, he’s gotta have a crush on her, right?”

“Do you think she’ll bang Carlos?”

All of these questions coming with the one, absolutely intended hook: “Do you think Carlos will win her over?”

None of these questions were there in the original. None of them needed to be in the remake.

But, unfortunately, the people in charge made Jill Valentine look stronger . . . while forcing her into the role of the hot object, lusted over, grossly hit on, and ultimately liking it.

I can’t suggest that someone writing a Strong Female Object takes them out of their story, because that suggestion would fall on completely deaf ears–writing the Object is intentional. However, I have to acknowledge that there are people who love stories with Strong Female Objects (like Heavy Metal) and take influence from them.

So, with that in mind, I’ll say this: In the same way ethnic characters in media need to be protagonists (not side-characters or villains), the Strong Female Protagonist needs to be a protagonist, not a perpetual damsel, and not the sexualized object of a determined male gaze.

~~~

This turned into a novella of 3,500+ words, and if you sat through the whole thing, thank you so much.

I’m just not a frequent uploader, but I felt pretty strongly about this one (especially because it’s May the 4th and I just stumbled on one of the RE3 videos I linked [with Arin from the Game Grumps saying the one moment was for the fetishists]).

I do have other posts that I’ve found on here, some of which I’ve soured on (arguments that I don’t feel strongly about anymore), but others of which hold up. I’m in the process of editing them, and I’ll be posting them in the coming weeks.

Until then, please stay safe. And, as always, write well.

The Weird, Casual Sexism of Nerddom – Part 2: The Free Female Protagonist

So, here we are; the final part of my series about sexism in nerddom. We’re going to wrap up with a look at nerd narrative. I feel like nerd culture is at a point where it’s floundering for a firm grasp on portraying women. People are trying, but they’re also still ascribing to old standards and clinging to old stereotypes, making progress really slow and making what I think of as the “Free Female Protagonist” ridiculously rare. Defining that Free Female Protagonist, as I see her, is what I’m going to try to do here. Fair warning: I’m going to do it in a round-about way, mimicking how I came to the idea. More fair warning: in order to do this, I am also going to sound like a petty bastard quite a bit… Let’s get started!

The Not-So-Obvious, Narrative Kind of Sexism

I hate River Song.

I understand it’s a point of contention for Whovians, and I’d also like to point out immediately that I have enjoyed a lot of Steven Moffat’s work and respect him a lot as a writer. However, I’ve never liked River Song. And, initially, it was because of massively ham-fisted character bias; Moffat clearly loved her so much that he wrote a scene in which she made a Dalek beg for mercy. Maybe character bias is just my pet peeve (it is one of the 3 Great Fiction Sins), but that’s not the only reason I disliked River.

And I didn’t realize it until I was at a friend’s place a few years back, watching an episode with her. An episode that cold-opened with a long, panning body shot of her set to sexy music.

Now, unfortunately, I’m horrible at talking and I was a total idiot a few years ago. So, instead of trying to figure out why that intro was weird to me, I blurted out, “She’s not that attractive,” literally the first observation in a series that would ultimately lead to a non-offensive point.

My friend, very naturally, got offended for Alex Kingston. I tried to explain that she isn’t ugly—clearly she isn’t—but that it was weird that they were doing a long shot of her from toe to head with sultry saxophone. Not because Alex Kingston isn’t sultry sax worthy, but because…

… was that even the appeal of River Song???

At that point, what I understood about River came from “Silence in the Library” and “Forest of the Dead.” And what I took from those episodes was, “She’s extremely witty.” “She takes charge in difficult situations, which is awesome.” “She knows the Doctor really well and is also a time traveler—very intriguing.”

Essentially, what I took from those episodes is that she was a character… who had a lot of appeal that wasn’t centered around her being a sex object. And, of course, River could be sexy as well—River could be whatever she wanted to be. But River wasn’t calling the shots and neither was Alex Kingston (as far as I know). As far as I know, Steven Moffat was calling the shots. And the shots he decided to call that day were, “She’s a sex object.”

An extremely stereotypical sex object.

And that’s when I started to hate River Song. This must sound incredibly nitpicky, but, in my eyes, this was the start of River Song not being an actual character. This was the start of her being what I think of as a Catch All—a non-character who does everything that’s right and great and awesome by the sheer will of the writer… possibly because the writer doesn’t know how to make said character a person. This kind of character is everywhere (the perfect badass, cart-wheeling with guns blazing in both hands right before defusing the bomb with “00:01” left on the counter) and side-stepping a rant about how much I hate Catch Alls, I’ll get to the point; River isn’t that bad, but she was still suddenly thin and obvious.”I bet River knows how to hack / program / work this thing no one else understands.” “I bet that—unless it’s time for the Doctor to figure things out—River will.” “I bet River can kill a Dalek, single-handedly, without breaking a sweat.” And, for me, that all started with her, on top of everything else, also having to be a femme fatale, one of the many stereotypes I hate.

But I didn’t convey this well at all to my friend years ago and kept quiet about it for the time it took to casually figure it out.

But then, this graphic happened:

I know. It’s not finite evidence that I was right about her being a Catch All—this graphic highlights a completely different set of flaws with the majority of Moffat’s run. But those flaws came as absolutely no surprise to me; this graphic, linked to me years later, only pointed out other reasons I didn’t like River without realizing. All she cared about was the Doctor, much like Amy; for a supposedly strong, independent female character, most of her screen time was spent fawning over him. And she did this despite their love not being well conveyed at all; she loves the Doctor not for a concrete experience that we’re shown (as we actually are with Amy)—she loves the Doctor because we’re told she loves the Doctor and that he loves her. And all of this resonated with my notion of her as a non-character—a talking plot device.

But it took forever for me to see it because she’s one of countless female non-characters who exist throughout all of fiction. I’m talking about nerdy things and fantasy because it’s what I do, but the fact remains that there are go-to, male-centric ideas about / approaches to female characters that persist—and result in strange, subtly off characters like River. Women will cling to men in a story and never interact with other women. Often there aren’t many named women in a story, and if there are, they will, like River Song and Amy Pond, be fixated with a single male character. The Bechdel test highlights these standards very, very clearly. If you don’t know about it, you should check it out and you should absolutely take the test for all of your writing (even beyond sexism, it’s just an awesome reviewing tool for your work). Subjecting some of your favorite stories to the test will also be eye-opening.

But all I’ve done so far is tell you what the Free Female Protagonist isn’t. And, I’m sorry, but I want to reinforce that more to make my point clear. So one more stop into the world of comics to talk about the idea that …

Women in Comics Are Strong Because They’re Like Men

It started with Captain Marvel.

There was absolutely nothing wrong with Carol Danvers taking the mantel of Captain Marvel; arguably (to the very casual comic reader’s eye), she is more popular than Mar-Vell by far. I’m sure that an avid reader already has a list of reasons why I’m wrong, but I’ve seen a ton of Carol Danvers everywhere and almost no Mar-Vell in my time with comics. Besides, “captain” is a title and there’s no reason a woman can’t be a captain. So I was all for it. I’ve always loved Carol Danvers. Again, I’m not an avid comic reader, but she’s always been one of my favorite Avengers.

And then “Thor” happened.

Now… I am not upset at all that the new Thor is a woman—I think that’s awesome actually.

But I do think that it’s weird that the new Thor’s name… is Thor. Because “Thor” isn’t a title. If she was the new Captain America—cool. That makes sense. But “Thor”… is Thor’s name… Why do I not know the name of new Thor?

And, immediately, I know that this also sounds super nitpicky, because this is a step better than “She-Hulk” and “Ms. Marvel.” And maybe she does have a name. And maybe (hopefully) her name will be plastered on the cover of her new series and not… Thor’s name. But I can’t help assuming that won’t happen. From a business standpoint, I’m sure there’s a depressing, sexist branding conflict there; “But people won’t read a comic about girl Thor unless she’s heavily related to Thor!” At best, I’m assuming she’ll just take over in Journey into Mystery, which doesn’t make things much better.

And that’s the entire problem I’m getting at: the “new Thor” is still not where we need to be because she’s so heavily tied to Thor. Maybe that sounds odd, but my point is that there is still, and always has been, another way to write a female mainstream superhero.

Make a mainstream, female super hero who is completely independent of a male super hero.

I will not make the argument that this undoes the progress that Carol Danvers makes as Captain Marvel—to me, that still works and is awesome. However, it seems like Marvel is searching for their Wonder Woman (the closest to an exception that I can think of)… and missing the fact that Wonder Woman is named Wonder Woman and not “new Superman.”

But I think that this is part of a strange suite of choices that comic writers seem to make every time they try to establish a strong female lead. Does she have a male super hero’s name (Thor)? Is she being related to a male super hero in any way (She-Hulk, Batwoman)? Is she scantily clad? I’m absolutely sure there are exceptions and I’m not sure that all of those choices are consistent.

But I’m also absolutely sure that, outside of (possibly) Wonder Woman, there is no completely independent, non-male reliant, big name, super hero comic female lead who is not doing time as a sex object. I don’t want to undermine the progress that has been made, but it’s time for the jump; it’s time to try to make a new, actually independent female super hero. Not new Thor. Not Star Duchess (it sounded funnier than Star Lady).

In short, it’s time for people to just try writing…

The Free Female Protagonist

What she isn’t:

A non-character who does everything right.
A scantily clad sex object (unless she’s honestly a character who wants to be sexy—she should be able to choose, after all).
Attached to a male character who is established as stronger.
Named after a male character.
Obsessed with a male character.

What she is:

A woman. A woman written by a comfortable, brave writer.

Let’s have Madame Galaxy—a lame name off the top of my head. Let’s have a super hero with no ties to anyone and her own origin. Let’s not start her first issue by having her shouting about how she’s just as strong as a male super hero because that would immediately be awkward floundering; let’s just have her be a woman and awesome and let that be enough. Let’s embrace her relationship issues instead of glossing over them because she’s a human who will undoubtedly have relationship issues (especially if she’s straight because comic writers and artists clearly aren’t afraid to show women waking up next to / making out with other women—that’s very obvious at this point). And let’s flirt with the idea of maybe—maybe somewhere down the line having Madame Galaxy heading her own team of other super heroes with absolutely no male supervisors or Super- / Bat-peers to help her.

That is all I want. And it doesn’t seem like it’s happening enough. Thus, this article.

I want to see just Wonder Woman leading the Justice League. I cannot tell you why—I just think it would be awesome.

I want to see more characters like Korra from the Legend of Korra, who stands firm as one of my favorite protagonists of all time at this point.

And, whether my kids are boys or girls, I want them to have a collection of obvious female role models to look up to in nerd culture—without having to seek them out. And without having to lose them the way I lost Samus.

That is never going to happen if we don’t start writing those characters ourselves. So, to you, reading this, fight those standards. Start with the Bechdel test. Don’t settle for being typical and comfortable; write women who are not damsels. Not femme fatales. Not bewbs in armorkinis. And don’t avoid writing them because damsels, femme fatales, and women who like armorkinis can’t or don’t exist or shouldn’t have their stories told for some reason. Try to avoid writing them because women are always more beautifully complicated and real than need, sex, and metal tits.

~~~

Well, that was a monster of a post. You can totally look forward to me kicking back for a short while. I will keep focusing on writing, but my next post is going to be a status update on my projects, centering around that totally full Progress Bar you might have noticed at the top of my page. I’ll talk about that and what comes next in the middle of the month! Until then, thank you for the read.

And, as always, write well.