Modern Female Characters and How Movies and Books are Ruining Them (We should be offended)

Modern writing is destroying female characters and we're all falling for it.

Modern writing is destroying female characters. And we're all falling for it. Okay, maybe we're not all falling for it. I know I'm not falling for it, which is why I really haven't read a good book or seen a really good movie in a very long time. And I know there's other women out there and other people in general that are not falling for this whole "girl boss" trend that has been making its way around for the past like 7 years or so. There have always been strong female characters in fiction. That is not a new development despite what many writers and movie producers like to tell us.

You can argue with me all you want, but you'd be wrong. I have receipts. And we'll get into that in a moment. First, let's talk about how Hollywood and books are trying to deceive us by writing shallow, meaningless, and one-dimensional characters. When Star Wars Force Awakens came out, there were so many people saying, "Oh, I'm so glad to finally see a strong female character in Star Wars." And honestly, I was so blown away by that statement. So incredibly blown away. I thought it was satire. I, as a former Star Wars fan, was insulted

Amidala Star Wars Phantom Menace

because, excuse me, are we forgetting Queen Amidala? The fact that she was extremely smart politically and at a very young age and in the extended lore of the Clone Wars was a pivotal part of a very intricate story that you actually don't really see in the movies. Was she generically badass like the "girl bosses" of today, wielding a sword and being an absolute physical powerhouse? No. She was intellectually smart. She was feminine. She had a strong fashion sense. We all know that. I did an entire report on her fashion sense and the costumes of Star Wars: Phantom Menace because to this day I believe that it was probably the best costumes in the Star Wars universe if not my favorite costumes of all time in any movie ever.

That's beside the point.

Leia was also a princess who became a general but but again she wasn't sorting her way

Rey Force Awakens Star Wars

through far better trained individuals like my least favorite female character from the Star Wars series, Rey. And don't come at me saying Rey was so strong. How? When? We got to see near to nothing when it came to her training and her hard work. Excuse me for nerding out for for a hot second here, but Jedi train practically from infancy to be good at what they do and as adept as they are with the Force and their combat. Whereas Rey is just a perfect example of a main character just automatically being special and gifted without having to work at it. I did the math. Approximately 1 year passes from Star Wars Episode 7 to episode 9.

And if you want to argue that Luke's arc was similar, the time frame for him was short. Yes, but people argue it's between 4 and 6 years which is at least significant.

I'll go over why this is a problem in a moment, but I have more examples, so hang tight. We saw a similar bastardized version of strength in the live action version of Mulan as well. And I think it's probably the best-worst example of how we're poorly depicting strong female characters these days because Mulan was already an established strong female. In the cartoon, she had no knowledge of being a soldier. When she disguised herself as a man to take her father's place in the army, she was afraid, conflicted, but did it from a very selfless place. Already you're setting her up to be self-sacrificing and protective despite that she is not a soldier or soldier material from day one. She had to work for her strength. Something that girls and women and people in general can very much relate to. She was also very scared and out of place and very determined. And there are a lot of lessons in that kind of character. This is something I think modern writing has lost sight of completely.

Today's modern female characters seem to be naturally powerful in one way or another, which in my opinion makes them unrelatable and flat and in many cases hateable. Not only are they the best in the room, they're lacking personality and the types of flaws and struggles that make them dynamic.

So, back to Mulan. I'm using her as an example because the shift from the old version of feminine strength to the new one is just so blatant and weird. And in the cartoon, like I said,

that was not working for her, she started playing to her actual strengths. She started strategizing, using her wits, using her smaller body, and her agility to do things that others couldn't. Throughout the movie, she did become a pretty good soldier, but her fully rounded character didn't develop until she found balance between her soldier side and the side of her that was still very feminine. And actually, the ultra masculine men that were around her the entire movie also had to adopt some feminine traits to win the final battle. There was balance, not just with her, but with all the characters. There are strengths in male and female characters and traits. And lately, this whole "girl boss" trend seems to forget that fact and also demonizes one side or the other depending on the narrative.

Sophia Amoruso - Girl Boss

But before we dive deeper into the meat of this discussion, where did the term "girl boss" even come from? The term "girl boss" was coined in 2014 by Sophia Amoruso, founder of Nasty Gal, which is just an online fashion retailer. #girlboss is a memoir illustrating her rise from high school dropout to a millionaire and emphasizes breaking the rules and finding success through unconventional means. Hollywood and other entertainment venues like books took the concept to an extreme and turned it into something arguably toxic and frankly kind of obnoxious. Now, the term "girl boss" refers to a woman who is so outrageously better than everyone around her, and she knows it. And she tends to step on others and disregard those around her for the sake of winning, which in my opinion is just so incredibly bitter and unattractive and doesn't prove that character is better, but instead proves writers are just self-inserting and making unbelievable characters that are too good for the rest of the cast to project their anger at the world.

There, I said it.

I said it. Hate me if you want. I don't care. I'm in my late 30s. I'm gonna say my piece. But when all is said and done, that is an opinion you're entitled to yours as well. And when I say self-inserting, I don't mean that in the sense that these characters are like the writers, but more a projection of their feelings and desire to be better. Again, that is an opinion.

In the newest Mulan movie, Mulan does not have to work for her power and her strength. It just is much like it just is with Rey in the last Star Wars trilogy. Rather than Rey spending a lifetime honing her skills like most masters have to. She becomes one of the greatest Jedi of all time over a very short period with near to none of the struggle being shown on screen. If there was struggle at all, we don't know. And with Mulan, she's no longer a woman who had to learn or adapt or find balance before she could know her strength. She was a woman so unlike the average woman, aka you and me.

Are we seeing are we seeing the message that's actually being sent here? That she just surpassed everyone that she met, everybody, even her family. She was the best for no reason. She was just 100% "girl boss." And in fact, she did not enlist in the army to save her father, but instead enlisted because she thought she was better than everyone and needed to prove that and rub it in everyone's faces, making her selfish and irritating. So now all of us very average women are stuck looking at a character and thinking, "Wow, I am not like that and I will never be anything like that. I am not the main character." It separates us from the story and the characters.

This kind of frustrating writing is not movie specific. It has trickled down into the book world. And I dare say it is even more frustrating in the book world for someone like me who loves to read and hasn't read an outstanding book in a very long time. In fact, I've gotten to the point where if I see a book has gone viral on TikTok, I won't even touch it because nine times out of ten, it's very repetitive and formulaic or an exact copy of the last book that went viral on TikTok, which I mean, if your favorite food is lasagna, I guess eat lasagna every day, by all means, but not me, okay? I want I want sushi. I want fried chicken.

But all books nowadays seem to be the female main character has a potty mouth. She likes to man spread when she sits. She wears leather pants and has a dagger on her thigh. She doesn't need best friends because she's strong and independent and everyone just slows her down. She's probably short, very petite, and yet very strong in a fight somehow. She sleeps around because she's confident in her sexuality. (That in itself is not a problem. I'm just saying that it's becoming extremely predictable.) And she's just naturally gifted in some way that makes her the most powerful ever. And she's usually confrontational or sassy for little to no reason. I guess to show readers that she's rebellious and emits strong female energy. So disagree if you want, that's fine. But when did being sassy and defiant for no reason, swearing a lot, adopting typically masculine traits and putting a dagger on your thigh start meaning you're a strong female character?

I miss the glory days where being a strong woman didn't mean you abandon your femininity, take up a sword, and adopt an obnoxious stance on "I don't need no man" mentality. When eventually a lot of these characters do in fact end up falling in love with the ultra alpha man who's probably a big guy with dark hair. He's probably broody, has a lot of tattoos, aka a shadow daddy. I will talk about my stance on shadow daddies in another video. So, you do need a man. He just has to be a carbon copy of every other man in current literature.

This whole supposedly feminine outlook about modern characters just irritates me. In my humble opinion, femininity does not have one color. It's many colors, many shapes, many sizes. And the literary world appears to be forgetting that and getting to the point where it's almost shaming the image of a feminine woman with outdated feminine values.

Example, myself and my cousins used to be inseparable. I remember when we were discussing our dreams and our aspirations and I always wanted to be like an author, a fashion designer, an actor, a business owner. I had so many ideas and my younger cousin had the dream of being a mother, a housewife. And back then I admittedly looked down on that. I was young and I thought, "Wow, so you have no ambition. You just want to get married and call it good. You want to put yourself in that prison of being a housewife." Now that I'm older, I respect that that was her dream and that she knew what she wanted. And you know what? Good for her because now she has a wonderful husband. She has two adorable sons and she has a beautiful house and it's all she ever wanted. And I applaud her. That, however, would never fly in a fictional world these days because god forbid she wanted marriage and peace and love. These days that is basically frowned upon and automatically makes people perceive you as weak and uninteresting. Like the newest live action adaptation of Cinderella.

She just wanted to be a fashion designer and all but ignored the prince and only went to the ball to show off her amazing fashion, which honestly wasn't amazing if you ask me. I honestly don't know what's wrong with the costume side of Hollywood, but no one can design a good costume to save their lives these days. And it's very frustrating. As somebody who went to school for costume design, I'm just like, how hard is it? How hard is it to be creative?

I'm kidding. That was rude.

Anyway, she just went to this ball to canoodle with high society. If you want to write that story, write it. But don't call it Cinderella. Because the Cinderella I grew up with was an emotionally strong woman who managed to remain kind and true to herself despite her abusive family and tragedies and then found love unexpectedly in the prince and lived happily ever after. Good for her. She didn't hurt anyone on her way to happiness. She had no intention to hurt anyone on her way h way to happiness. She didn't step on anyone or lose sight of herself despite the hardships that she faced. That is a strong female character, stronger, I might argue, than many dagger wielding characters we find in fiction these days because she actually overcame something. She had personality and grace and didn't turn into an obnoxious brat along the way.

These days, I feel like the formula is first give the character something that makes them a victim.

I might get flack for this.

Galadriel Rings of Power

In the case of Gladriel from Rings of Power, she was bullied when she was a kid, and we're supposed to feel sorry for her because she's a victim, and you can't hate the victim. I don't know why people think giving characters a little tragedy as children automatically means that they're well-rounded. I mean, yeah, giving them a tragic backstory can give them motivation for some of their future actions, but people are using it so wrong these days. So, from then on, she is everything. She is better than everyone. She's a better fighter. She's always right. It's her against the world and everyone else is just kind of in the way of her being the main character.

This is TV show Galadriel, by the way, and has little to nothing to do with the actual books.

See, the problem is modern female characters. There's no depth. They're just all identical. I read Fourth Wing a while back and I thought Violet was insufferable. Like beyond insufferable. Not because she had certain traits that annoyed me, although there were many, but because she was flat, flatter than my bottom after I've been sitting at my computer for 12 hours straight. She was petite. She was beautiful. She was a center of attention without trying. She had special hair just because. She got the biggest dragon just because. She got a second dragon just because. She was a lightning wielder, the most powerful of them all just because. But wait, she has a disability. So, I guess that makes her a dynamic character by today's logic because people can relate to that. So, there's no need for all that other stuff to make her interesting.

If you've seen my Fourth Wing rant, you understand how much I actually despise that book. I am tempted to say I've never read anything worse. But if I continued reading booktok recommendations, I am sure that would change very quickly.

When I get on these rants, it just escalates. I can't help it. There's a certain point where something just takes over and I am just I'm on a roll and you're all here for the ride. I mean, if you're still here, if you're still watching this, great. I hope you're having fun. I'm just getting irritated.

So, like I said earlier, female main characters in modern writing are strong. They are, you know, but are they? They are powerful, but for no other reason than they just are. Their strengths, abilities, skills, and powers are not earned, and so they can't be appreciated by the characters or by us, the readers. This whole idea that a strong female main character means that they're just all powerful and can do no wrong separates them so completely from the people consuming their story that they just fall flat and end up being extremely disappointing, to me at least.

Maybe I'm a psycho and I'm seeing things that aren't there. Who knows? I don't want a woman that is strong because she's a woman. I want a woman who is strong because she tried. Because she's been through it. Because she's persevered. She's earned her strength and proven herself. Why? Because it gives her layers. It makes her an onion. Because those layers make characters interesting to read about. Onions are interesting to read about. Why is that lost? Why has that become such a hard and foreign concept for people to grasp these days?

Let's circle back to Disney because they've been on an absolute roll lately by remaking classics in the worst way possible. When they released the live action Snow White, many people were kind of up in arms because it was so far from the original story that it was practically a completely different movie. And even people who worked on the film expressed certain hatred for the original story, mostly because Snow White fell in love with a prince and God forbid.

Since when was that a sign of weakness, for one. And for two, why are female characters nowadays stepping on the ones around them and putting out their flames so that they can shine? When did it become a trend for female characters to reject romance and femininity, and that we all have to hate men? That men are just stealing our wind.

I'm about to piss a lot of people off right now, so turn away if you are sensitive. I love men. I have been with my fiance for almost 13 years now, and I am so deeply in love with him. He believes in me more than I believe in myself. He teases me. He pushes me. He supports me. And I also have a lot of male friends who I also adore and I want the world for. I love men in my romance books as well. I love romance. I write romance. I read it and I read for the male main characters as much as I do for the female main characters. I don't think that you have to tone down the males in a book or a story to make the female shine. And if that's what you have to do, then that's just really poor writing. If you had to take from the male main character or even the side characters to give to the female main character, then you're doing something wrong. And in my opinion, that says that you don't think women can shine on their own. that you don't think a woman can be main character material unless you dumb down the rest of the cast. I don't like that message and you shouldn't like that message either.

I honestly it's it's kind of insulting. Like you're insulting yourself. You're making fun of yourself by writing female main characters that way. I'm talking to all the authors out there who do this to make their female main characters the best. You're you're doing it wrong. Like I said with the old Mulan in the end, there was no message that said, "Oh, femininity wins." The message was that femininity and masculinity combined was the strength because in the end all the big tough guys had to tap into their feminine side to get the job done and to like infiltrate the palace and save the emperor. That's an example of side characters having their own journey to become stronger alongside the female main character or the main character in general which essentially elevates everybody. That's not degrading or hating on the other characters to make Mulan shine. She shined because she was a good character. She didn't rely on her victimhood to be likable. She persevered and she endured and she earned her strength. Something our modern world of writing, whether it's movie writing or book writing, is severely lacking. And it is put me in one of the longest reading slumps that I have ever been in.

And is it sucks down here, okay, in reading slump hell. I'm done with it. I'd like to claw my way out.

When it comes to Marvel, which is almost as bad as Disney, the "girl boss" mentality has taken over like the plague. Killing dynamic characters and replacing them with flat, deflated, cold, boring versions of something that could have been great. Female main characters can be strong without being the best and never having to struggle. Take Sansa for instance from Game of Thrones. Throughout eight seasons, she went from being a naive little girl with a fantastical view of the world and after enduring some of the worst cruelties that the world had to offer. She slowly learned from everyone around her and became perhaps one of the strongest female characters in the entire show. Not because she wielded a sword and degraded the people around her, but because she adapted and she learned and she dragged herself through life while still remaining feminine and using the resources available to her to eventually become queen against literally all odds.

Arya is equally strong in a different way and adapted to her surroundings and circumstances and still despite being extremely well-trained displayed moments of vulnerability and humanity. They weren't the best just because someone lazily wrote them that way. They didn't have to steal from other characters to shine. They shined all on their own. Stop writing the same characters over and over again and calling them strong female characters. There is power in being a woman, in accepting your strengths and your vulnerabilities and making mistakes and learning from them, in having weaknesses and overcoming them. Female main characters don't have to be perfect. And when they are perfect, they're unrealistic and unrelatable.

Especially with book talk being such a big community now, I I feel like we've been dumbed down by this idea of rapid consumption and fleeting satisfaction. We stopped thinking about the stories we read and just started looking for the next best thing to obsess over. Books these days are what I like to call popular because they're popular. And in that, the truly magical layered onion of well-written and diverse books are being buried. These wonderful, complex, interesting female characters I crave are lost in a sea of books that are all the same stories reskinned. Barely reskinned because let's be honest, these days all the book covers look exactly the same. I mean, when I see girls cosplaying the female main characters of the most popular romantasy books, I literally cannot tell which book they're from unless I look at the hair because all the female main characters are a carbon copy of the last one. And sometimes the hair doesn't even help me. And same goes for a lot of the male main characters these days as well. Dark hair, tall, brooding, all in black with tattoos. All the same.

I think I have ranted for long enough. I hope you all get my point. Until next time, book lovers!

#Femalecharacters #romantasy #books #indieauthor #Badwriting