Eventually I gave up on the Mary Sue test, the Sexy Lamp test et al and invented a new one I like to call the “Fuck It” Test: can your female character be said to have had a positive effect on anyone, anywhere? If so, she’s a good female character, fuck it.
Representation does matter, obviously, but at the same time I don’t think trying to remove someone’s – anyone’s – favourite character under the guise of ‘she’s just a sexy lamp! Find a better role model!’ or whatnot is going to help. If a particular character has a good effect on someone, who am I, or anyone, to take that off them?
Eventually I gave up on the Mary Sue test, the Sexy Lamp test et al and invented a new one I like to call the “Fuck It” Test: can your female character be said to have had a positive effect on anyone, anywhere? If so, she’s a good female character, fuck it.
If a female character kicks ass, she’s overpowered. If a female character can’t defend herself, she’s unnecessary. If a female character acts nice, she’s boring. If a female character acts mean, she’s a bitch. If a female character shows no emotion, she’s heartless. If a female character shows emotion, she’s weak. What can a female character do without being criticized mercilessly?
oh my god yes of course. SHE, the fictional character almost always written by cishet white men, should try being WELL-WRITTEN!!!!!! god it’s so obvious now!!!! this whole time we were focusing on systematic and internalized misogyny creating unachievably high standards for women while we simultaneously give men a free pass on everything under the sun WHEN IN FACT it was just the character’s fault for not being written better!!!!!!!! whew i’m glad we cleared that up
I’ve seen this argument a lot and I’ve never quite understood it. Madame Kovarian isn’t sexy, she’s a cruel vicious fanatic who never once does, says or wears anything sexy. Miss Delphox is a servile clone. Miss Kizlet is a little girl in the body of an adult being controlled by the Great Intelligence, and she likewise (thankfully) never does anything sexy. And (apart from River, sort of) none of them are strong women at all? Just cruel, unpleasant, one-episode villains. I don’t even know why River’s there – she fits into the pattern of ‘woman wearing black’, but that’s because she was dressed like Kovarian (the eyepatch and all) for Plot Reasons.
I don’t get what that image is saying – I honestly, geniunely don’t. Of Steven Moffat’s female villains, a lot of them wear black? Is that the argument? All of them are sexy (except they’re really not, for the previous reasons) – is that the argument? They’re all -apart from River, and presumably whoever the ‘real’ little-girl Miss Kizlet is- cruel and sadistic? Well, that one’s true.
There’s not enough variety in the female villains, I think that’s probably it? Well, this image leaves some of them – Missy, Gillyflower, Karabroxos – out. And River’s not a villain! She’s a bit snarky and trigger-happy and (sigh) keeps having the word ‘psychopath’ used in relation to her for some ungodly reason – but once she’s broken her conditioning she’s a perfectly good person, certainly nothing like Kovarian.
You absolutely could make the argument that there’s perhaps not a lot of variety in the costumes– for a start I do think Delphox’s/Karabraxos’s borrowed a lot from Kovarian’s, probably literally (I’ve been looking at screencaps and it looks like Karabroxos’s jacket is a modified version of hers) – but you’d need to take that up with Barbara Kidd and Howard Burden. And even then, Tasha’s space princess look is nothing like Kovarian’s futuristic business suit or Kizlet’s very basic modern-day look.
I mean I think a fairer version of the image would look like this-
But even that’s barely scratching the surface, especially when it comes to River.
We DO need criticism of female characters but we also need support
And you can’t give real criticism if you’re blinded by your biases, if a character trait you’d love on a male character is a dealbreaker for a female one
If a character is never JUST a love interest or JUST there for sex appeal as a man, then spend a few minutes thinking about it before you put that label on a female character (why is Tauriel JUST a love interest for Kili instead of Kili being JUST a love interest for her?)
Accept that you’re coming from a place of bias too and figure out what those are.
OKAY CHAPS LET’S TALK ABOUT LADY CHARACTERS WHO ARE WRITTEN BY DUDES
(We’re usually talking straight white cis dudes)
Because normally the thing goes, you have a character who is a good person! She’s kind! Principled! Intelligent! But then suddenly she strips to her undies (see: Carol Marcus) or falls head over heels in love (see: Martha Jones) or is rescued from something (see: Mako Mori, who’ve I’ve just met, hello Mako) and you’re suddenly like WELL THIS CANNOT BE RIGHT A TRUE FEMINIST CHARACTER WOULD NOT DO THAT, OH GOD THE MAN WRITING HER FUCKED UP AND NOW I CAN’T LIKE HER, SCREW YOU MALE WRITER YOU RUINED MY NICE THING (an allegory: that time your brother stole your favourite doll when you were eight and returned her with mangled hair and no shoes.)
But CONSIDER THE FOLLOWING!
–Are you getting sexism all up in your sexism? Ever said, for example, ‘so-and-so writer has turned X into a SLUT! She was a great character and now she’s all SLUTTY!“ Then you may be down with a case of Internalised Misogyny, my friend. It’s okay, most of us have done it. (Damn the patriarchy.) Because ‘slut’ is a word designed exclusively to shame women for having sex. Do not shame a character for having sex, folks, as women can have sex with whomever they like, provided all parties are consenting, and in a SHOCK TWIST she may not actually be having sex or dressing sexily for the benefit of a man
–Are you judging a female character far more harshly than you would judge a male one? When Black Widow wears her skintight outfit, they obviously just put her in it to make her eye candy! When Hawkeye wears his almost identical outfit, he’s just wearing it cos it’s easy to move in, dur!
–Are you remembering that white narratives aren’t the only narratives?/BE INTERSECTIONAL PLZ: Women of colour didn’t always get to be damsels in distress. Or get to be in relationships with white men (see: Uhura and Spock.) In fact I am white, so you probably shouldn’t be listening to me on this one, go do some further reading. (AND LISTEN WHEN PEOPLE CORRECT YOU FOR THE LOVE OF PETE AND BEAR IN MIND THEY MAY HAVE GOOD REASONS FOR NOT DOING IT POLITELY MMMKAY)
-Are you absolutely sure you’re not getting sexism all up in your sexism? Is Mako Mori – orphaned and seeking to eradicate what orphaned her – a Mary Sue while Batman is not? Is Carol Marcus a one dimensional sex kitten for ending up in her underwear but Jack Harkness is still a multifaceted character despite ending up in his more than once? Is
[insert VIRTUALLY ANY FEMALE CHARACTER HERE]
a Manic Pixie Dream Girl
while the Doctor, who fits the trope perfectly, is somehow getting away
with his manicpixiedreamness? QUESTION IT. QUESTION IT EPICLY
HAVE YOU CONSIDERED ALL THIS IF SO WELL DONE. Now the most important part: YOU CAN
HAVE NICE THINGS! See, that male writer guy wrote a female character
and maybe he messed up on a few things but once a writer releases a
story into the wild and it hits the eyes/ears/computer of someone
wanting to hear it that character can be YOURS, kids. Carol, Martha,
Mako, Black Widow, Uhura, LADIES OF ALL KINDS ARE JUST COOL AND DESERVE
OUR LOVE GUYS. (A continuing allegory: your pain in the ass brother
gives back your doll and you’re like YEAH OKAY MY BRO CUT OFF HER HAIR
AND KINDA MESSED HER UP BUT SHE’S STILL MY FAVOURITE DOLL AND ISN’T SHE FABULOUS.)
here’s
to the ladies who get pushed aside, who aren’t wielding swords and
words and even femininity like weapons of war, who are rarely the
protagonists and even more rarely the antagonists and even more rarely
noticed at all. here’s to the girls that fandom prefers to ignore, who
aren’t celebrated like their equally excellent peers but sit on the
sidelines, who can also be selfish or petty or mean but also kind and
quiet and understanding. here’s to the girls who believe in fairy tales
and freedom and watching from the sidelines, who endure abuse and worse
as patriarchal narratives see them as plot instead of characters, foils
instead of people. here’s to the ladies who are called “whiny” and
“passive” and “boring” for watching the story play out and getting swept
up in it because they don’t have the ability or even the drive to be
the ones calling the shots. here’s to the rival love interests, to the
observant children, to the women killed off before they have a chance to
shine. here’s to the ones reviled for loving someone they shouldn’t or
sacrificing more than they should. here’s to the ladies out there who
are never called special or stanned or remembered by more than a few.
here’s to the ladies who are rarely your favorites but who have stories- all rich, most untold- all the same.
I was feeling bored (and down) so I did an EXPERIMENT. Type ‘[female character] is’ into Google, see what you get in the drop-down box, and then do the same thing with a counterpart male character (same fandom + same alliance/same role, that sort of thing).
As you can see, ladies get negative words coming up a LOT, and they are very frequently either ‘hot’ or ‘ugly’. Much less of any of that for the blokes. They usually get something related to their identity or role in the story (like ‘Clark Kent is dead’ or ‘Ron Weasley is Dumbledore’). And very little comment on their appearance.
Of the 12 female characters I searched for, 8 of them have ‘annoying’ as something they apparently are. None of the men do. Make of that what you will…
[Two notes 1) I’m a very casual and frequently confused viewer of GoT who hasn’t seen Series Three, so I have no idea if Sansa and Robb are still even on the same side, I just know they’re brother and sister 2) I’m really sorry there aren’t any more women of colour or LGBT women on here, can anyone give any suggestions?]
