Boy have I been watching too many YouTube videos on this topic lately. This is a tired topic, but it’s rearing its ugly head again both because audiences are expressing their dislike for the same female characters appearing in the latest media and, particularly in the United States, the results of the latest election have crowds calling for the “death of wokeism” and its effects on story telling across all mediums.
This go course has me getting swept along with the bandwagon so I’m taking my turn to complain on the internet like everyone else. No, I don’t intend to mount any political soapbox or pump any anti-feminism fists here. I’m here to approach the topic from the viewpoint of an artist who’s more than a little frustrated with these “strong” female characters who start off with decent potential that gets wasted by episode, movie or page one of the story.
In my experience, the easy triumphs and “I get what I want” monologuing customary of the girl boss lacks any invitation for thought provoking characters or critical-thinking. Worse because well-written, strong female character have been achieved in the past that today’s representation comes off as pale imitations by comparison. Since I want female characters that will force me to put on my critical thinking cap so badly, I’ll even set rules for myself when it comes to my internet rant about this topic. What rules you may ask? Rules that require to think more critically about my examples of course! That means I’ll list the girl boss characters I really didn’t like and list the ones I did in each trope I exhibited in the thumbnail above. I’ll go a step further and avoid the usual examples I’ve seen other people cite when exploring the topic If you’re wondering which characters those are, check out the image below:
We won’t talk about these beauties. They are, in fact, well-written female characters. They are not the only well written out there but they’re the most popularly talked about, so I’ll skip them as examples. On the flip side I’ll also establish a rule that deny’s me the use of these overly-used examples for egregiously written girl boss characters:
They’ve been discussed to death and I couldn’t be happier to brush past them in my own ranting. I’ll even go the extra mile and make use of more contemporary examples with few exception rather than stick to the classic literature floatation devices I see being used a little too often for my taste. There’s mentionable good out there when it comes to the well written ladies versus the boring girl boss stencils mainstream media loves, and I’ll do my part to make sure more people are talking about them. Clear enough on the rules? Great! Let’s get started with the three repetitive roles female characters get placed in: the warrior, not like other girls and ahead of their time ruler. I’ve got a good and bad example of both in either category so we’ll arrange them as such. The obvious bad followed by the definite good.
The Female Warrior
The Bad
I know, this one’s the most recent offense that probably should have been listed above as one of the examples I can’t talk about, but give me the wiggle room here—I’ve got some good points with this one that actually have a shred of optimism. Shocking, I know.
What The Crowd Hates:
Young Galadriel is an arrogant, pompous cardboard cutout girl boss who is too different from the elder version that appears in The Lord of the Rings trilogy (played by Cate Blanchett)
Young Galadriel’s struggles are almost nonexistent and she doesn’t have any foreseeable character growth (or an arc for that matter)
Young Galadriel’s a wise-cracking, sword swinging, badass warrior while her elder counterpart is revered as a wise, god-like sorceress with an especially effeminate nature
Young Galadriel exhibits Mary sue-like tendencies not just in her combative abilities, ability to overcome or survive obstacles but also in seemingly being the object of Middle Earth’s greatest threat’s desire—a romance that did not exist in Tolkien’s original work
What I Agree On:
Young Galadriel’s character arc after two seasons has shown no progress in growth despite more than a handful of events occurring that would humble even the most arrogant of characters—it evokes the writer’s fear or unwillingness to progress the character’s arc because it would shatter the girl boss requirement that she be correct in all things and unwilling to admit defeat
The “romance” between young Galadriel and Souron manifests the uninteresting Mary Sue tendency of characters inexplicably falling in love with a character even though the couple lack chemistry
I could go on but I’ll stick to naming just the finer points. Which brings me to my possibly hot take on this character. I’ll admit, when my husband and I stared episode one of the first season, I was slow to hate on young Galadriel while avid Lord of the Rings fans were already taking their hostility to social media with a vengeance. Maybe in retrospect this was naivety on my part, but I was holding out optimistically for a subversion of expectation. As we sat through the first season with a week between each episode, I held on to the following aspects I did like about Young Galadriel.
What I'd Been Optimistic About:
The actress actually did look like a young Cate Blanchett (I still stand by this, don’t hate me fore it)
The wise and soft spoken Galadriel from the movies starting out as a feisty, tough young girl has the potential for a great story about the journey of a woman learning the importance of humility and wisdom
The layer of psychological thriller that exists in the Lord of the Rings series will be interesting in a character like young Galadriel. She’s set to also become victim to a ring of power that will forever affect the foundation of her character like it did to Bilbo, Frodo and Smiegol—A.K.A. Gollum in The Hobbit and trilogy
Sad to say, her looking like a young Cate Blanchett is the only point from my list that I got to keep. The bottom line for me is, young Galadriel starting off dangerously near girl boss territory was forgivable so long as she went through a dramatic change that would inevitably transform her into the character we know from future events of the story. Fast forward to season two and I’m glancing at my watch each episode waiting for young Galadriel to experience some kind of corruption, hardship or uncertainty once her ring of power comes into play. It’s particularly painful to witness this delay our girl boss heroine mildly inconvenienced by her ring while elsewhere in the world, other character are already succumbing to Dr. Jeckal and Mr. Hyde levels of change mere moments after putting theirs on. Wasted potential, wasted opportunity to watch a psychological thriller in high fantasy unfold and just utter disappointment.
The Good
I know, I know. This one’s self-indulgent and not as contemporary, but still valid. Besides it felt like it would have been cheating if I put Ellen Ripley here from the Alien series because that’s another strong female lead that gets referenced to death. Beatrix Kiddo gets forgiven here for the unrealistic combat ability both because the character is sympathetic one that goes through immense struggle and because the film as a whole caters to a heroin in a Japanese-style drama that gives much less care to realism and more to a stylistic, action-heavy revenge story. And dare I say it, we have true mom fiction here, people!
What the Crowd Likes:
Beatrix is a strong and resilient character that demonstrates determination for revenge that defy’s the damsel in distress trope
Beatrix’s backstory is a compelling one that offers her sympathy from a deeply personal betrayal that offers the audience an understanding of her motivations
While Beatrix has been cast as the heroin of a revenge story, she is not portrayed as evil or villainous in any way because of how she struggles with the consequences of her actions along the way
What I like:
Beatrix’s empowering journey of overcoming her own trauma while in the pursuit of revenge
The very prevalent struggle Beatrix goes through grappling with being both a highly trained assassin and mother when her pregnancy and (later) daughter come into play
Beatrix is a great, and one of the few, examples I’ve seen of the warrior woman’s identity also making room for her feminine side of being both the antagonist’s (Bill’s) ex-lover and a mother reclaiming her stolen child
Beatrix Kiddo makes up one-third of the girl boss characters I wish had become templates for these tropes—the other two being Elle Woods from Legally Blonde, though this would erase the “Not Like Other Girls” trope all together and Lucilla from Gladiator as the “Ahead of Her Time Royal.” Sadly, this didn’t become the case so I’m left to reminisce over Beatrix being the last warrior woman trope I really liked—hence the one exception I’m making in terms of contemporary examples.
Not Like Other Girls
Yes, Arya Stark is one of the characters of this show I have a problem with. To some this may be shocking because she’s a fan favorite. To me, she was a just short of an eye-roll “not like other girls” girl who’s entire personality revolved around weapons, not being a lady and an absolute refusal from the writing department to develop her character any further.
What the crowd hates (yes they exist):
Clichéd “not like other girls” trope of a girl who is practically allergic to femininity
Early on Arya becomes a Mary Sue in the show as the writers’ unwillingness to sacrifice the immensely popular character results in her surviving impossible odds and being capable of achieving impossible kills with a sword too small to be capable of the deed
Arya is one of the only characters in the show to not experience any growth as a character, remaining the same from beginning to end
What I Agree on:
The most poignant to me is Arya’s lack of growth, she begins and ends as the same girl we meet but with a slightly more edgy look and a cringe-worthy superiority complex to match
Arya as a Mary sue is glaring in many seasons across the show from surviving being plunged into a disease-ridden river with an open wound to running men three times her size through with her petite sword that shouldn’t be capable of the kills she’s managing
Arya demonstrates a complete lack of loyalty when it comes to any character she interacts with despite her claiming the opposite through dialogue, a glaring problem typical of poorly written girl bosses who tend to forget the morals and values they claim to have when it suits them
What I'd Been Optimistic About:
A story where an obvious “not like other girls” tomboy at odds with her sister eventually realized deep and meaningful reconciliation—the thematic importance of sisterhood
A subversion of expectation of the rogue tomboy developing a unique relationship with their own femininity and dodge the cliché of tomboys completely lack femininity
The potential of the assassin character coming from humble beginnings could offer a unique perspective on their journey towards revenge and grappling with the consequences of taking life even from one’s enemies
And tragically…I got none of these. Well, I got very poorly written versions of these. Like with young Galadriel, the potential with Arya’s character was there but ultimately poorly written execution cuts off that potential at the knees. Nowadays there are few disappointments worse than watching a potentially compelling female character be reduced to the mainstream girl boss checklist Hollywood and television seem to covet. Ever since the Twilight book (and film) series, and main stream media that clung to the curtails of its success, the “not like other girls” trope quickly became the most hated of the girl boss tropes, particularly when it came to romance. The “not like other girls” girl seemingly becomes the object of an attractive man’s desire without any effort on their part or chemistry and are considered so unique that no other woman can compare. Unfortunately, the same romantic cliche ends up happening to Arya as well with her...friend? Boyfriend? With Gendry Baratheon. Cold, witty remarks, an edgy stare, one night of intimacy together and then their relationship dissolves completely because Arya falling in love with a man and marrying him isn’t on the girl boss checklist.
The bottom line, Arya Stark’s a pretty textbook badly written “not like other girls.” Now, our next example is one of the few “not like other girls” trope I’ve seen done right.
The Good
Yes, we’re dealing with The Witcher next with Yennefer because there’s actually some legs to stand on—and the clever combination of Yennefer literally not being like other girls mixed in with assuming the role of the story’s femme fatal is what solidifies her as cleverly written. No, this isn’t cheating on my part. The “not like other girls” trope has been done to death and this is a very clever way Andrzej Sapkowski, author of The Witcher series, managed to both pull off the trope and combine it with another existing one. Not to mention expectations get subverted here.
What The Crowd likes:
Multifaceted, flawed character with a compelling backstory and an interesting character arc
Inspiring tale of overcoming trauma, self-discovery and the struggle for fierce independence
Yennefer's character development allows for her to step into the role of a strong female lead without sacrificing the softer sides of a well written female character (motherhood, sexuality, facade versus true identity, etc.)
What I Like:
Yennefer starting out the story with a deformity and through magic transforms herself into a beauty, which comes with the consequences of her character struggling with her own identity
The not like other girls and the femme fatale trope are combined into one interesting character
Yennefer’s struggles are both internal and external and her victories are hard earned
Yennefer’s near betrayal of adopted daughter Ciri leads to regrets that deeply affect her over the course of the story—a rare exploration of aggression between two beloved female characters
What more can be said? A complex character, a refreshing subversion of expectation and a thought provoking character I can easily get behind.
The "Ahead of Her Time" Royal
The Bad
I’ll admit it. It’s not fair for me to use this example because I dropped this show at episode one but I’m going to do it anyway. I also did not read the source material. Rest assured, I did my research and read synopses of what happened in the rest of the seasons so far before I actually wrote this section of the post. You’re welcome. Also I’m using the fact that Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon are two separate shows even if they belong to the same series. On a side note, this show’s about what I expected: a terrible handful of narcissistic characters who make their own problems and are pretty much the fantasy version of Keeping Up With The Kardashians. Safe to say I didn’t like this one.
As you can no doubt see from the picture above, we’re attacking the girl boss poster child herself, Rhaenyra Targaryen. Maybe this listing surprises you, maybe it doesn’t. The show at its debut was a hit, but even then I quickly found I hadn’t been alone in thinking otherwise. I pride myself on my optimism and willingness to give characters a chance but the second I heard Rhaenyra whine about not wanting to be a mother, travel the world on dragon-back and only eat cake I was rolling my eyes picturing the feminist girl boss checklist checking off every box. From what I researched for this section of the post, her character somehow got worse than I expected. Let’s get into it.
What the Crowd Hates:
Rhaenyra exhibits a confused character arc that begins as a free spirit uninterested in responsibility to a princess desperate to claim their birthright following a time skip that quite literally skips the development from one phase to the other
Rhaenyra proves frustrating to audience members as a character because her motivations and actions often seem at odds with one another narratively
Rhaenyra seemingly lacks the knowledge or skills necessary to rule as queen despite her primary motivations being to claim her birthright
The show leaves out much of Rhaenyra’s character development present in the source material which makes the show’s version jarring for audiences
What I Agree On:
Rhaenyra’s alleged character development in the show happens mostly off screen (during a time skip) leaving the viewer with a confusingly established character whose flaws are so minimized they seem nonexistent
The writers demonstrate a complete lack in confidence in allowing Rhaenyra to possess meaningful flaws or suffer consequences that would change the audience’s perceptions of Rhaenyra’s likability versus that of her rival to the throne, Aegon.
House of the Dragon debuted in the height of the girl boss presence in modern mainstream media—female protagonists are virtuous and male characters impeding the progress of their journey are automatically one-dimensional antagonists
Oddly enough, when this show was first announced I was pulled back to a scene from the earlier seasons of Game of Thrones that was making its rounds on the internet where the literal demise of Rhaenyra Targaryen was spoiled by none other than Geoffrey Baratheon. Here’s the scene if you want to see it for yourself here: [X]. Watching this inevitably unfold, and other events established by its predecessor.
What I'd Been Optimistic About:
Rhaenyra growing from being a product of her upbringing (a spoiled princess from a tyrannical family) to a determined princess desperate to reform her house on how they rule—way too late
Boy oh boy does Rhaenyra have a LIST of issues with her character alone that I couldn't possibly cover in this post alone. For those who already know about this girl boss’ track record in the show, I’m not talking about her actions specifically but the egregious example she offers of the “ahead of her time” trope. My biggest problem with this trope is the progressive royal, when written poorly, comes off as an out of touch character who doesn’t seem to understand how their own world works because they are driven by very modern ideas in a world where their desires should be considered both impossible and unobtainable without overwhelming sacrifice and struggle. The show establishes, like its predecessor, that women do not rule as the heir to the throne, albeit in far more rigid terms. Like in times true to our world’s history, the son is the heir to the throne. It’s a fantasy world, but this fantasy world is both establishing the fact that women don’t rule alone on the throne and that this takes place in prequel territory where the efforts to change such viewpoints through the efforts of the future Daenerys Targaryen (and other female characters) haven’t occurred here. Despite this, Rhaenyra's character lacks both the knowledge and skill to reign as a queen.
The Good
We’ve already struck at Game of Thrones once on this list and it’d be lazy of me to strike at it a second time. Believe you me, when I first drafted my list for contenders for the “ahead of her time” royal, Cersei Lannister and Daenerys Targaryen were at the top of the list. I’ve already used a Game of Thrones character so it’s time to deal with the consequences of my actions. For the record, I have not seen Gladiator II yet, but I am aware Lucilla appears in it. Here’s the second exception I’m technically not making with the convenience of a newly existing sequel making the Gladiator series a contemporary choice.
What the Crowd Likes:
Sympathetic character with a complicated past that jeopardizes her present, forcing her into action to overthrow the tyrannical Emperor and brother Commodus
Lucilla’s motivation puts on display an empowering story of a mother working to protect her son
While Lucilla’s motivation to protect her son is considered good and honorable, she takes accountability for the wrongs she’s committed against Maximus in pursuit of her goal
What I Like:
Lucilla’s character exhibiting both a strong, well written queen and mother who is noble and honorable in her relationships throughout the film
Lucilla is quick to take accountability when she’s done wrong to Maximus and other choices she made despite the justification of doing so all to protect her child
Lucilla both recognizing her brother becoming more and more unhinged and taking up the mantle to overthrow Emperor Commodus through means obtainable by the skillset she possesses is both empowering and interesting to watch unfold
No, Lucilla is not the main character of the film she appears in but like with Kill Bill, it’s been a while since I’ve been impressed with an “ahead of her time” royal. Also similarly to Beatrix Kiddo, we have another character who is also a mother. I bring up this fact because it also seems in today’s trends of strong female leads, there’s a notable lack of interest or discomfort with a strong female character also being a mother. I’m curious to see what Gladiator II brings for the character and if the lingering girl boss trends have affected the writing returning to this character years later or not. The main character Lucilla may not be, but the impact of her role leaves her memorable and a fan favorite when discussing the film’s story.
So Where Does That Leave Us?
It’s hardly profound at this point for me to say that the girl boss trope in today’s mainstream media is a mess. A check-listed, lazy mess that precede projects decades older that got strongly written women right. Is it because of the tight deadlines to produce books, films or shows that cheapens the quality? Is this the repetitive, Michael Bay-style of laziness of creating the same project and expecting automatic success? Or has mainstream media simply been too involved in woke culture for the past several decades? All great questions and most likely it’s a little of everything. Thankfully, it’s clear that I’m far from the hundredth person expressing their distaste for the lazy writing and demand for better, quality entertainment.
I’m certainly not alone in sighing at these tropes pandering viewers with laughable “lessons” teaching anyone that strong women only have determination and not emotions. Lack of conviction means being wrong. If your female character isn’t rebelling against something then they’re not feminist! The list goes on and on but we’ve got to cut my complaining somewhere. So instead of ending this with the same complaints everyone else on the internet has summarized, here are some ideas I wish we could explore when it comes to well written female characters in any narrative.
Female on female aggression or violence because “woke feminism” falls apart when it has to choose a side between two female characters—usually the “villainous” female is the one “brainwashed by patriarchy values” or is “jealous of the goodly protagonist”
Female characters being team players amidst their male counterparts and conflicts not remaining limited to sexism and the oppressive patriarchy
Female characters actually being in love with their partners (no love triangles, soul mates, the capability of saying no to anyone who tries to come between them, etc)
Stories that include strong family unites—husband and wife united, interpersonal relationships amidst all family members withstanding the pressures of the outside world, trust in family, etc
I haven’t lost hope in seeing fiction explore these ideas because of the examples shown above. A Quiet Place, The Hunger Games: A Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes and the most recent rendition of Dune (Part I and Part II) each offered a refreshing return to thought provoking, well written female characters that embodied every one of these tropes. I’m sure there are more examples of what I’ve listed above in media I’ve yet to see but at this moment I clearly haven’t seen everything. The lazy writing of the girl boss character has plagued us for some time now, but amidst all of the internet rants complaining about the topic and how these stories are performing in sales at the box office lately, I sense a change in the air. Will that mean we’re done with these poor examples of female characters by next year? No. Trends like these taper off slowly, but taper off they will when the public has clearly had enough and that seems to be gaining its own traction.
Whether we’re in for a long wait still, or the end of lazy girl boss writing is coming to us sooner than we think, I’ll never stop looking for the ones worth cheering for.
Until next time, from the Writing Nook!
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