In my local paper the other day, there was an article I barely glanced at, in which yet another actress who can't get any work these days is lamenting the dearth of female roles. I'm sure that's true. I'm sure there are feminist critics who could run off the numbers of disproportionate male characters, male leads and the types of roles that male and female leads get, along with all sorts of other typical drivel like Bechdel tests and male gaze and the rest.

But you know what the problem is? No one wants to watch Hollywood's version of "female" characters. Every now and then a TV show succeeds (in mean more or across the board, instead of with a niche show that only critics & TV snobs watch, like "The Big C" or "Nurse Jackie" or "United States of Tara" ) with a female lead, but no one seems to be able to hit on what made it succeed. IMO, it's generally because they are generalist in their appeal, rather than playing to the Hollywood womanist crowd.

Shut Up, Geena Davis
The whiny actress in question was Geena Davis. A lot of her CV that I can recall without checking IMDb seems to have been about girlpower crap.
- A League of Their Own: About the brief novelty of the female professional baseball league that popped up during World War Two.
- The Long Kiss Goodnight: The Bourne Identity, with a chick as the amnesiac assassin. In suburbia, rather than European capitals.
- Thelma & Louise: I still haven't seen it, but I understand it's supposed to be full of empowerment bullshit
- A TV show where she plays the first female president.
- Beetlejuice: No one even remembers her in that. She and Alec Baldwin were just the straight men for Michael Keaton & Jeffrey Jones and the Home Alone mom.

But you know what that other stuff has in common? It's specifically "chick" elements. The one thing I recall from the Mrs. President show is a review that mentioned she was an independant, rather than committing to either of the parties, because we don't want to offend anyone and alienate half the country. I hate to break it to the marketing people, but for anyone who cares enough about politics to notice, making her independant offends EVERYONE. So plainly, we're already looking at a certain lack of balls. Democrats are going to be annoyed that the show perceives them as wimps, and can't have a Strong Female President barking orders to mobilize the troops while being a liberal, and Republicans are going to be annoyed that they are expected to be suckered in by the fact that she's not a Democrat, when 98% of her policies and positions are going to be left-wing anyway. Hollywood's idea of political balance is pretty much the same as Kodos & Kang - "Abortions for some, miniature American flags for others!" They get the substance of policy, we get the image of patriotism. Thank you so much, Hollywood. Anyway, back on Davis' TV show, the one plot summary I ever saw of an episode was about her sending in the troops to some Islamic country to rescue a girl from getting circumcised. Chick shit, in other words. I only saw one scene of the whole run of West Wing, but I'm pretty sure that President Martin Sheen never deployed the Navy SEALS to put the toilet seat back up.

"The Long Kiss Goodnight" I only saw once, years ago, but I recall it was funny. That said, there were also some female-specific issues, such as her having a baby. Like that's some sort of integral part of womanhood. Male characters have babies as MacGuffins to protect (girls) or as plot hooks to get them into shennanigans (boys), or else as token immortality because they are going to die, but part of him will live on (also boys). And while "A League of Their Own" was also funny, it undermined its premise to a degree, by having Davis' character fued with her sister over stupid melodramatic crap that would have been resolved way differently in any other sports movie, with the strong implication that she threw the championship game to boost her little sister's self-esteem. You know what message a baseball fan takes away from all of that? Women ruin the game. Her weepy emotional crap motivated her to violate the integrity of competition, because her petulant shrill spoiled brat of a sister wasn't as good as she was, and spent the entire movie sulking over this, and either accusing the older sister of upstaging her or condescending to her, or else flying into a rage because for SOME REASON people preferred to keep around the pleasant, talented and attractive member of the family. The film is full of stuff with the women bumping up against sexist attitudes of the times, such as making them play in short skirts, and attend charm school, and serve the umpires tea in a promotional video, but then in their personal lives, shows multiple characters bailing on the team for a man, bringing their disruptive children on road trips, and weeping over being corrected, to the chagrin of their traditionalist manager. Said manager actually explicity contrasts the expected attitude toward criticism for male players, versus the response from his own female players, only to break down and in the last game, address the same woman in a more polite tone, for committing the same fault, despite his barely-restrained anger. In an era when black men were expected to die for their country, but not allowed to compete against other men on the ball field, white women are complaining that when they are being paid to play baseball, their manager RAISES HIS VOICE when they bungle elementary plays like throwing the ball to a cutoff man (a cutoff man is not at a base - you don't even need to be accurrate, because the cutoff man will move to catch the throw, and then throw it to the right base: missing the cutoff man is either a mental error, or an act of such catastrophic physical inepitude you should not be paid to play the game).

And that is in a movie written and directed by women! The biggest stars were all women (at the time the film came out, Tom Hanks had not yet won any Oscars, and was known as a film comedian, whereas Madonna was still selling hit albums, and Geena Davis was still in movies), and their portrayal of women who are supposed to be just as good as men, is full of women demanding coddling and special treatment, and sniggering at males who are demeaned in petty ways, after having earlier slighted female characters somehow. Tom Hanks was not immediately awestruck by these paragons of feminine athleticism, so his players applaud & cheer his ejection from a game, for arguing on their behalf, no less.

People who liked that movie weren't saying "Yeah, you tell 'em, girls!", they were laughing at Tom Hanks' profanity and Jon Lovitz's insults, and all the jokes about how mannish Rosie O'Donnell was or how slutty Madonna was, or how ugly another player was (but she finds a man, so it's okay).

...and Alison Bechdel, while we're at it
Commentors like to bring up the Bechdel Test, but comparing movies by different filmmakers on such a simplistic method is a bit unfair. I have an idea, lets take movies in the same genre, by the same creative people. George Lucas. The Star Wars franchise. You know which movies in that franchise fail the Bechdel test? All three of the original trilogy. You know which one passes? The Phantom Menace. Feminist-acceptable movies SUCK! Period. QED.

People are not entirely stupid. They know when they are being blatantly manipulated or having messages shoved down their throat, and will put up with a surprising amount of crap, as long as they are being entertained. But there are also expectations and formulas that filmmakers must adhere to in order to keep the audience's attention and let them know what is going on. We need little cues and shorthand stuff because 90 minutes is not enough time to really get to know someone. That means you need to get the patterns and rhythms right in order to ease the audience into the story. I kind of think that minimizing the presence of women in a story is one of the ways you do that.

See, men and women are different. We are socialized in a million little ways we don't even notice, to treat men and women differently. There are things you just don't say or do around women. There subtle conventions you adhere to, even if the supposedly implicit sexual or anti-feminist underpinings of those actions would not remotely occur to you to apply to the woman in question. It goes for both genders, too. Apparently, some feminists are in favor of gender-segregated schooling, because girls don't try as hard when they are in school with boys. I went to a coed high school as a freshman, and transferred to an all boys school the next, and even at that age, the difference in atmosphere was noticable, and a lot more conducive to scholastic pursuits (not to mention athletic - that all-boys high school currently has the number one football team in the nation).

Like it or not, the presence of the opposite sex alters the behavior, attention and perceptions of people. Having two women talking about something other than the male characters is, at a certain psychological level, somewhat akin to walking through the ladies room. Your male audience simply does not feel welcome. I think that takes them out of the film experience. Someone noted that Guardians of the Galaxy passed the test by having two female characters discuss a mission, but they were made up to look like aliens and wearing pants and were combat troops. Their femininity was not a thing. Another famous action movie franchise that passes is the Alien films. But Ripley and Lambert don't talk about babies or shopping or girl power or their careers, either. They just talk about the same sort of stuff the male crew members do. In the second film, they deleted a scene where Ripley is told about her daughter's death of old age, while she was adrift in space. Some might argue this was a mistake, because the loss of that scene undercuts her motivation for the final act, where she goes back into the colony to chase down a child, even confronting the biggest Alien she's ever scene. It undermines the symbolism of contrasting mother figures and all the rest of it. And that's probably true, BUT why would they do that, after going through all that trouble to write and film it, unless, watching the movie as a whole, with that scene intact, brought up too much femininity? Which is fine and has its place, but that place is not selling tickets to young men. Women are just not going to say to one another, "Oh, hey, you should go see that Alien movie - there's some really nice maternal energy there," when the rest of the movie is up to its ass in gunfights and creature effects and crude macho posturing. But young men, who might otherwise love it, might be put off, in ways they could not articulate or notice.

Girl Power?
On a sort of related note, I'd like to bring up another show, that seemed popular among more than one gender, heavily featured female characters, and was often cited, praised or highlighted for the strength of such characters or endorsing empowerment of the same. It is fairly obvious that such was the creator's intention, both in the work itself, and confirmed by the creator himself. I am referring to "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" by Joss Whedon. But you know what? It was kind of a mess. It was his first show, and of the four he's done, I think it was the third best. The worse show was another with a female lead and grappled with issues about empowerment and identity as well. The two shows with male leads were much more creatively successful, in my opinion, and also featured significant female characters, who, again, in my opinion, were much better "strong female characters" while being more personally appealing and traditionally admirable.

Now, "Buffy" had as its hook, the conceit of various horror monsters who were analogies for the trials and pangs of adolesence. An invisible girl was super-lonely and no one paid attention to her. The werewolf story was about adolescent machismo. Dr Jeckel & Mr Hyde were an abusive boyfriend. The creature(s) from the black lagoon were a result of the pressure of high school sports. Frankenstein was about trying to live up to idealized high school roles. It goes on and on. But one reason the show was popular with critics, is that most critics (like drama geeks) were probably weenies and losers who got beat up a lot, and thought high school was the worst thing ever, and highly enjoyed the cathartic experience of watching this little girl beat up and kill the anthropomorphisations of their adolescent traumas. What I'm getting at, is the show was not about growing up or development, it was about wish fulfilment and gratification of immature perspectives.

So from the perspective of telling the story of a strong woman, or setting up a female role model, "Buffy" was not exactly building on a firm foundation. By most people's definition, a hero has to go up against greater opposition, and more powerful adversaries. A hero has to put others first or make some sort of sacrifice. Spider Man and Batman and Superman all have to put up with people dismissing or sniggering at them as useless or hapless. Buffy, on the other hand, got handed power she hadn't earned, and a lot of it. The show, on more than one occasion, made a point of demonstrating that she was significantly stronger than the vampires she was supposed to slay, and it was implied that natural combat skills came with her powers. So her "fight" was relatively easy. Her friends know who she is from day one, and fall all over themselves trying to help her. She has a mentor to explain everything and do anything actually resembling work involved in battling supernatural menaces, and in the early seasons, she mostly mocks him for it. She spends her whole time in high school wanting to play and engage in frivolous activities, instead of eliminating threats to human life. Now there is a place for the story of a realistic attitude for a modern young slacker who doesn't want to get off his ass and be a hero, despite being given all the power in the world, but if you are trying, as Joss Whedon claimed he was, to tell a story about a strong female hero, you probably should not mix those two concepts up. For one thing, while giving her immense superpowers gets you around the plot hole of how someone so clearly uninterested in being a hero survives battles, it undermines the idea of female equality. Buffy ends up objectively inferior to the various un-powered male characters in her orbit. Xander tries to fight evil, lacking anything near her innate defenses or assurances of survival. Riley had to train and practice to a degree Buffy could not imagine, to be as good at fighting vampires as he is shown to be. Now, if you were making some sort of Robert Jordan-esque point of skewering sexism by showing a situation where the power is reversed, again, "Buffy" has a good setup. But "X is the hero by virtue of innate superior strength" is probably not a road a feminist wants his audience going down.

Arguably the high point of the show was the latter half of season 2, after Buffy's love interest gets turned into her vampire arch-enemy. After he first goes evil and she foils his plot to destroy the world, they face off and he taunts her with her feelings for his old, good self, and how she lacks the ability to kill him. She kicks him in the crotch and delivers a snappy one liner and walks out. Yay! Girl power! She put that jerk male in his place! You GO, girlfrenn! (the real-life analogy in that story was men turning into jerks after having sex ) Except, over the next several episodes, that same villain whom she could not bring herself to kill for her tender womanly feelings, is explicitly shown murdering other people, mostly innocent or nice. It is not done in any fashion implying blame on Buffy, but rather to highlight how evil he is, and how this must be so bad for her. When a particular date approaches on which the evil ex-boyfriend has a history of committing atrocities, the plot revolves around how they are going to protect the girl with superhuman strength, who heals fast, with absolutely no concern for the tons of other people he murders. In that same episode, he brandishes a human heart from a fresh kill.

So, as with the above baseball movie, a work ostenisbly about how woman are equally deserving as men, while preaching a message of equality and female strength, implicitly endorses different standards for females who undertake traditionally male roles. It would be like a Batman movie where they learn that the Joker has come to town, and Alfred and Robin and Commissioner Gordon's first (and only) concern is "How can we protect Batman from that lunatic?"

Later, Buffy is inspired to hunt down and kill her ex-lover, turned nemesis, and spends several episodes obsessively fixated on that goal. The impetus for this change, is he murdered a friend. One of the stereotypical differences between men and women is that while men will fight and die for abstract causes or blind and remote loyalties, women fight for home and hearth and family, and more viciously then men, because it's personal. That's pretty much the thesis of Rudyard Kipling's poem, "The Female of the Species" which explicitly states when a woman DOES fight, it is for something as important as the survival of her family, she has less restraint and less mercy than a man, that she takes it personal and stops at nothing to eliminate any threat to her child or home, and is crueler than men for the same reason. The conclusion of the poem suggests that this why they should be excluded from politics, not because they are too gentle, but because they are not accustomed to the limits men understand in impersonal conflicts for abstract causes. And that is how Buffy is motivated. When strangers, or one-episode guest stars are slain off-camera, it's no big deal. It's when you touch a member of her inner circle, her family (the show, on many occasions, explicitly refers to the supporting cast as her "family" ), then the Momma Bear comes roaring out to savage the bad guy.

What it boils down to is that point about unspoken rules and understandings about gender. Even when Joss Whedon is explicitly trying NOT to do so, he still falls into the old stereotypical generalization about the genders. By contrast, his other show, set in the same universe as Buffy, but with a male lead, features a protagonist who is not looking to ward off persistant threats, whose power level is a mere nuisance compared to his. Rather that character is striving for an abstract goal, for an ideal of redemption. Unlike Buffy, his power is a two-edged sword that could endanger the people he cares about. He too gathers a "family" of close friends and allies in his fight, but he does not become the caretaker of a pack of nerds and losers, he accumulates a coterie of experts, geniuses and champions. His entourage is not constantly singing his praises, they snark at him, mock his personal foibles and have a realistic assessment of his character and flaws. The first episode introduces a nemesis he will be fighting all the way through to the last scene, who does not represent annoyances magnified out of proportion by adolescent over-reaction, but the very concept of worldly power, and its attendant corruption and venality.

Whedon's male protagonists have as character flaws vanity, pettiness, selfishness and overconfidence. Those are not the kind of things that are traditional "flaws" of male heroes (usually stuff like pride or temper, that still make you look badass when succumbing to them). His female protagonist on the other hand is shallow and un-intellectual (though she does really well on the SATS), neither of which diminishes her traditional feminine appeal. Probably the only reason her token flaws didn't include the usual standby of clumsinss was because the show is about her engaging in hand-to-hand combat.

By contrast, on "Firefly" Whedon's female characters are perfectly normal people, with normal and realistic qualities and strengths. Each of the four main female characters in some way typifies a female role or archetype, without that role defining her. To call Zoe a housewife, Inara a prostitute, Kaylee a shy nervous young girl with a crush on a boy, and River a childlike, victimized waif, would all be precise descriptions and not remotely accurrate as to the depths or most significant details about their characters. Zoe is a former soldier, and cool, level-headed and in control, rather than a raging emotional bundle of PMS fury. She never flinches from danger, and is always loyal, but generally goes into that danger and lives up to that loyalty with a practical and realistic assessment of it, rather than blindly diving in, and her loyalty does preclude questioning or constructive criticism. Her snark is generally aimed at puncturing self-aggrandizement, rather than braggadocio, as most "feminist" works try to pass off as humor. Inara might be a prostitute, but is socially superior to just about all the male characters, is far more sophisticated and poised, and leaves her sex life within strictly defined boundaries. Kaylee's manner is of a wide-eyed innocent, but is earthy, comfortable with her sexuality, technically competent and confident in her knowledge and abilities. Her being flustered by a male love interest is not really stereotypical girlyness, because it is almost exactly the way a farmboy would act around a polished, educated and attractive debutante. And while River is initially presented as a traumatized and mentally unstable object to be cared for, it is always apparent that there is potential for a lot more, which is eventually realized by her demonstrating superior intelligence and combat skills to anyone else in the group.

The point I am getting at with this over-enumeration of Joss Whedon's character is that I believe the shortcomings of "Buffy" are not a flaw of the creator, but in the material he attempted to present. Joss Whedon is capable of portraying well-rounded & heroic characters is a modern fantasy/horror setting. He is capable depicting of women who defy traditional dramatic conventions while being relatable people, and genuinely competent, not "awesome because the script says so". However, Hollywood's idea of a "strong female character" who wins all the fights, and kicks men in the balls when they objectify her, is NOT a winning formula. A good show can distract you with enough other stuff, like action and horror and humor and wish fulfilment and vicarious hindsight revenge against childhood slights and Charisma Carpenter in tight clothing to make you ignore the flaws in the central premise and characterization.

And so...?
The problem with depicting strong women on TV or in movies is that the sort of victories which can be visually or verbally depicted in an hour or two are all victories in the sort of arena in which, in the real world, men tend to win. Physical combat and feats of action. Achieving quick and shallow goals. Acquiring toys. To have women win in the sort of stories we are used to seeing, would strain plausibility. To show the sort of story in which women can realistically win, would rub our drama-watching brains in the wrong way, because it would buck those narrative formulae to which we are accustomed. Variety might be the spice of life, but like all spices, excess renders it unconsumable.

So what do women do? They can't play strong women, they have to play strong people. I mentioned above Star Wars in relation to the Bechdel test. I think the original trilogy was successful in its handling of its female character, because the emphasis was on the second word. Leia was not bitch throughout New Hope because she was a woman, hear her roar. She was affecting an indignant and superior attitude with Vader, because she was playing innocent and aggrieved. She was snippy with Han and Luke, because she was expecting a rescue operation (as a VIP, not a damsel in distress) led and carried out by a legendary war hero who had her father's respect, and presumably an understanding of her family's importance. What she got was a couple of idiots winging it by the seat of their pants, pinned down by stormtroopers a few feet beyond her cell. And the rest of the time, she had normal reactions, whether exhuberant, bemused or focused on reasonable priorities. Her feelings or acknowledgement of her contributions never came into it. There were no specially contrived situations set up for her to shine, which, by their very nature, only highlighted that she needed a special set up. She was just one of the group. Aunt Beru was a normal maternal figure. Mon Mothma was a very limited authority figure. Jabba's dancer was a typical victim of a typical villain. She wasn't a statement about exploitation or domestic abuse.

On the other hand, in the prequels, Padme entered the movies with an identity beyond anything established by her character on the screen - she was Luke's mom, and destined to be Annakin's wife, or at least sexual partner. In the second movie, where she really started doing stuff, her role was mostly romantic partner. Her action scenes were obviously shoehorned in there to give her something to do. The danger in the beginning was there to force a plot point where she and Annakin were alone together a lot, so as to expedite their falling in love. Han's & Leia's romance involved finding things in common while they were doing stuff that had to be done. They had to hide from the Empire, because their ship was broken, and they were in close proximity fixing it. The battle on Hoth was not an excuse for them to head out on a romantic asteroid getaway. Leia's snark at Han was not about being nasty to him, it was about their circumstances, and his handling of them. "Would it help if I got out and pushed?" "I am not a committee!" Almost every word exchanged between them in scenes that did not feature kissing could have been between two people of the same gender, who reluctantly admired each other but resented it due to discordant perspectives. Like Stonebridge and Scott on "Strike Back". Whereas every line of dialogue Padme and Anakin exchange could ONLY be spoken between a man and woman with a romantic/sexual interest in one another. Even the forced, awkward flirting was still blatantly and obviously flirting. Leia is a character who is a gutsy political leader opposed to tyranny, and happens to be female. Padme is a female character who happens to be a gutsy political leader opposed to tyranny.

And that's pretty close to how the best genre shows and movies did it. Veronica Mars is one that comes to mind. You could have changed her gender, and left most of the plot the same. Veronica's flaw and faults were not stereotypical female stuff and not trying-too-hard-to-be-male either. She was vindictive, obsessive, unscrupulous and willing to use people. She occasionally defended herself with a taser, but she didn't pick physical fights in which her victories would be obviously plot-mandated, but she came out looking smarter and more in control because she didn't get attacked, or need to use violence.

Another show that featured a female lead in a action/male-oriented type role was "Alias" with Jennifer Garner. While, due to her playing a Hollywood version of a spy, there were lots of male-gaze oriented outfits, as a character, she was just like a normal person, not a Hollywood woman. The reason I say this was because my brother & sister and I saw, on the same evening, episodes from the first season of "Alias," and of "Smallville". Both shows were about a tall, brown-haired protagonist, capable of larger-than-life feats. Both characters had a black best friend of the same gender. Both characters had a blonde reporter friend of the opposite gender, who had an unrequited crush on the lead. Both shows would also feature a clash between father figures for the loyalty or affection of the lead. Both shows had the ultimate villain in an initially friendly role with benevolent interests in the protagonist. Now, of course, these were very different shows, by different people on different networks and studios. But the point is, the female hero was, in many ways, written as a male hero would have been.

"Alias" might have received praise for its strong female character, or it might have been dismissed as pulp TV stuff. I don't know, not having paid much attention at the time, but either assessment would have had some merit.

On the other hand, "Buffy," hailed by some as a feminist work, expressly intended to be feminist on some levels by its creator, who consciously attempted to write about female empowerment...really missed the mark if you get right down to it. Every woman who did anything useful on the show had supernatural powers, while most of the small number of male characters (Xander, Giles, Riley, Andrew)did not, and those who did were all adversarial at one point on another (Angel, Spike, Oz) suggesting women need special help. The finale laid on the empowerment themes with a bulldozer, but a careful examination of the plot shows that female empowerment had nothing to do with the solution or defeat of the enemy, despite the characters claiming it did, and praising the brilliance of the plan. Sure, a bunch of girls got superpowers, but they were losing the fight, until the deus ex machina blew up the enemy and the girls used their new powers to run to safety really fast. The magical thing that defeated the ultimate villain was a McGuffin provided by the villains of Joss Whedon's other show, who sent it to the heroine, told her which male to give it to, and then, all by itself, blew up, which she had no way of knowing would even happen. Someone else swooped in save the young feminist icon. It came in the form of a male love interest she greeted with a passionate kiss. It was carried out by a male love interest she professed her love for as he died. Buffy's little empowerment show was just the distraction one villain used to eliminate his villainous competition. She could have slept in that day, and woken up to find her problem solved with absolutely no contribution on her part.

When Joss Whedon writes women like normal people, he gets a great, if unappreciated, story. When he sets out to write a Strong Female Character, he gets an inconsistent sack of stereotypes. When he sets out to write a story of female empowerment, even his creativity is unable to conceive of a way to apply that to dealing with a practical threat. Female empowerment is end, not a solution, however much people might wish otherwise, and by its own nature, is distinctly uninteresting to the demographic (young, male) that spends more time and money on power-fantasy entertainment.

I'm pretty sure the next Captain America property, about the snotty British chick from his first movie, is going to suck. Winter Soldier did not prove that Captain America movies are a magical gold mine. It showed what happened when the female characters are people who carry guns and deal with the same issues as men, rather than women's issues, girl power, or putting male villains in their places. Natasha Romanov would not feel the need to hit a soldier because he made some smarmy remarks about a foreign officer being placed above him, and if she WAS going to hit a soldier, she would not order him to lean into her punch and hold still. If anything she'd be more likely to offer him a free shot. But the former is exactly how Agent Carter deals with adversity - abusing the soldiers she is supposed to be leading. When she finds a man with whom she has explicitly denied and refused a relationship kissing another woman, she whips out a gun to shoot his shield in a room full of experimental devices that could be adversely affected by a riccochet. Assuming the Black Widow would be sufficiently nonplussed by such an experience, everything about her in three movies so far suggests she'd deal with it a little more appropriately or creatively. But which one gets her own TV show? And obviously anyone who points out that she's a shrill, insecure bitch, has problems with strong women.