All I see on network are female characters created the way men think they are, rather than the way they really are. And it's not like I'm saying only women can create female characters. That's obviously bullshit. But why are so many of the female characters created by men just exactly the same? Where are the male writers who can create those wonderful female characters? And where are the FEMALE writers? Nobody seems able to grasp or understand the myriad internal lives of women. Instead, they graft quirks onto them, quirks that usually involve their wombs in some way, and always end with the unimpeachable fact that these women are FUCKING BEAUTIFUL. I just don't buy these women. At all. But the problem is that if you're pitching a realistic female character, you're talking to executives or producers who have come to believe in the quirky ball-buster who's just looking for the right guy. Women don't have to be whores or former strippers. Their hurdles don't all have to be sexual.
And because these people are the gatekeepers, a real, honest portrayal of a female character is going to have a tough time getting on TeeVee.
The whole piece is definitely worth a read, and a further muse. I've got an original sample for a series I had in development a few years back that I still send out with a young, female protagonist. I tried my damnedest at the time to make the character as complex and non-stereotypical as possible. At the time I guess I wasn't quite over my dating actresses phase, and suffered through a lot of moaning about "the wife and girlfriend parts."
Then I went and did Across The River To Motor City, whose central relationship was between a man and his adult daughter.
One of the pilots I have on the go right now features a female protagonist, who I'm really trying to invent out of whole cloth as a flawed construct that doesn't rely too heavily on traditional female tropes. I draw most of the time on the wealth of strong female role models I've seen up close -- sisters, my mother, grandmother, and several of the teachers I had along the way, too. And yeah, I shamelessly steal from female friends and former girlfriends -- I'd like to think only the good parts -- but it is a tightrope. And I definitely find myself writing those characters with more -- awareness -- than the instinctual way I write other kinds of stories.
This devolution of the female leading role is kind of puzzling, since, of course, during the same time frame the viewership of TV has continued to skew ever more female. It makes you wonder who these stock characters are trying to please. The female audience is the bedrock of TV. The data I've seen says they're more reliable than male viewers, more apt to try something new, and since they aren't afraid of scenes where two people have a conversation for thirty-two seconds without something blowing up, they tend to be more cost effective to reach, as well.
What's even more puzzling is the fact that here in Canada, we have female network executives at the top of all the networks and close at hand in all the commissioning suites, but I'm not sure we're doing any better creating vibrant, three-dimensional female characters or stories. And we certainly also suffer many of the same overarching prejudices about women in the writing room.
We also do the "false reverse" a lot. You know this -- it's when you just flip it, and make the woman the aggressor -- put her in the traditional "male" role in the scene. Flipping a stereotype papers it over -- it doesn't really solve anything. Giving the role of sexual aggressor, tough girl, what have you usually just buys you comparisons to the Magical Negro. It doesn't solve anything.
I've been watching back a bit of the last season of Battlestar Galactica on DVD, and for whatever reason, even before Kay's article, what's getting me this time is the interesting work from all the female performers -- the incomparable Mary McDonnell, of course, but also Katee Sackhoff's Starbuck, Grace Park's different iterations of Number Eight and the extremely welcome return of Kate Vernon as Ellen Tigh.
Then there's Stargate. Caught an old rerun of SG-1 the other day and there was Amanda Tapping, doing solid genre work that managed to never skimp on the heroics or the humanity. Why are our popcorn shows doing a better job of writing females than a lot of serious dramas or highbrow comedies? I mean, has a woman on Entourage ever had anything to do?
Makes you wonder what Ronald Moore has figured out that so many others don't.
Makes you wonder if we'll get over whatever it is before our audience leak turns into a deluge.
Of course, not to play Devil's Advocate or anything, but somebody's watching all those Lifetime Movies. And it aint me or the guys I play poker with.
No solutions here from me, necessarily. Just things that make you 'hmm' on a Monday morning.
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