Strong Female Characters

There’s been a problem writers have had since basically the very beginning: writing a strong female character. For some reason, people really struggle with writing a believable female. No matter what the era has been, no matter what standards are set up for the author, no matter what gender the author is... female characters are hard to write. Perhaps it’s because girls are so much more complex and difficult to capture than males? Maybe because they’re so much more varied? It’s hard to say. Honestly, I think it’s something deeper than any of the reasons I just listed and it’s a real mystery.

Of course, in my opinion, one of the biggest problems is that through the years, the idea of what a woman is and “should be” has changed a lot. Authors have written the “ideal woman” of their time, they’ve written rebellious women, they’ve written “perfect” women, etc. One must take into consideration societal pressures put on the writer. 

I was recently thinking about this after I saw the new live action Mulan. There were several things off about the film, but one thing that really stood out to me was how they portrayed Mulan herself. You could definitely see today’s societal values reflected in how she was written... and it made her extremely uninteresting which in turn ruined the movie. 

The key to a good story is to have a compelling character with real goals and flaws. In general, by the end of the story, they will either overcome their flaws and achieve their goals or they will fail and lose everything because they couldn’t overcome their flaws (obviously there’s other scenarios, but these are the most common: comedy and tragedy, if you will). This applies to either male or female.

Most recently, I’ve seen this formula failing especially with female characters because the writers refuse to give them  any significant if even any flaws. Mulan is an example of this. From the beginning, she just was already a gifted warrior and didn’t really have to work up to anything for the final climax. She wasn’t timid or awkward, she fit in with all the men easily despite never interacting with any before. The movie tried to make this big moment of her being the first one to the top of the mountain (a big training exercise they’d been working on throughout the film). However, it didn’t feel as big as it should have because she didn’t make it through hard work-- trying and failing, then getting better the more she did it-- she just suddenly got there because of her great abilities she was born with. Pfft! 

It’s extremely unrealistic and uninteresting to make your characters like this because people want to relate to the characters. As much as we don’t like to admit it, everyone fails and everyone has flaws. The key to a strong character isn’t to make them incredibly awesome from the beginning, it’s to give them some sort of a flaw (the bigger/harder, the better) and show them improving and overcoming it. THAT is the meaning
of strength. It’s easy if you’re just born with natural gifts and talents, you can basically just coast through life. However, it’s unrealistic. More likely, you have something wrong and it’s easy to just ignore it or stand still. We might not realize it, but the reason we enjoy famous stories like Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Harry Potter, etc. is because they all follow this formula: creating compelling characters with real flaws and then overcoming them.

So now we come back to my original point: strong female characters. There is a lot of pressure nowadays to create strong female role models. Now especially the movie business is falling into the trap of “Mary Sues”-- which is creating the ideal perfect character with no flaws whatsoever. I already talked about the problem with Mulan. Rey from Star Wars is another one that comes to mind. Just because they have goals or minor, temporary difficulties doesn’t excuse them. 

Of course, I have no influence on these big conglomerate businesses who are forced to listen to the public and make these dumb choices for fear of losing money. 

But, just to wrap up, I wanted to take a look at some strong female characters that came to mind and why...

ELIZABETH BENNET from Pride and Prejudice

I know. Sort of a cliche pick, but it’s true. Elizabeth is such a great character! Despite taking place in the 1800s, people still acted the same as they do now: stuck up, petty, and fake. However, Elizabeth’s time was even more rigid than now with all sorts of societal expectations and norms and Elizabeth is great because while she respects most of the rules of normal society, she questions some of the ridiculous stuff like the division of the rich from the poor, for example. She also doesn’t really care what people think of her and is sort of cheeky about it when stuck up people try to make her feel dumb. 

Her fatal flaw, obviously since it’s in the title, is her prejudice. She overcomes this in the end by realizing she is not as good a judge of character as she originally thought and eventually sees Mr. Darcy in a different light. 

ELLE WOODS from Legally Blonde

I love Elle Woods because she is true to herself through the whole film. She fights everyone’s vision of her-- a dumb blonde bimbo-- and proves she has what it takes to be a great lawyer. However, she still uses what she has to be useful in court (like hair care and fashion); things a typical lawyer wouldn’t focus on. I also like that Elle is written 100% as a girly-girl (even an extreme girly-girl), something that is often frowned upon today. But she is still admired for her fighting spirit and great intelligence. 

Her great flaw is being blinded by her love for her ex-boyfriend, so much so that she follows him to Harvard even though he’s a total a douchebag and obviously will never take her back. In the end, she overcomes this by realizing she can move past him and make something more of her life than just chasing a boy.

HERMINONE GRANGER from the Harry Potter books

I’m talking about the book version and not the movies. Though the movies are fine, they kind of turn her into this amazing goddess who can do no wrong (again, falling into that trap of trying too hard to make this perfect role model). In the books, she’s the most common, nerdy, even irritating girl. She’s one of the most realistic female characters written recently, I think. She’s awesome not because she’s some boss fighter or anything (though she is that), she has her one most standout strength which is being incredibly studious and smart, but then she has other strengths and weaknesses like any other human. 

She has several flaws, but one of her biggest ones is being bossy. Since she’s not the main character, her overcoming this doesn’t have a huge impact on the overall story, but she does learn to relax more the older and more mature she gets.

KATARA from Avatar: the Last Airbender

I’d say Katara is the most boss on this list since she is an actual warrior/fighter. Some of her fights shows that she is quick to think on her feet (in particular, I think of her final battle with Azula. I never would have thought of that). She also taught herself how to waterbend before ever finding a proper master. After learning properly, she reaches master-level bending quickly; the show isn’t exactly clear on how long it was, but we can assume it was only a couple days, probably no longer than a week. Of course, she is much more than her waterbending. She is brave and kind hearted as well as motherly. After her mother died, she basically raised her older brother herself. In today’s world, motherhood is looked on as a weak job for women so it’s nice to see a good character in a position as a mother (even if she isn’t actually a mother). 

Like Hermione, she has several flaws. However, her fatal flaw, I’d say, is letting her emotions cloud her judgement. I think by the end of the show, she has more control over this-- being more level-headed and not getting so upset all the time. However, I wouldn't say she  completely mastered it because she is still very emotional and passionate. Rather, I think she turned this flaw into a strength since it's just part of who she is.

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

PRINCESS LEIA from the Star Wars franchise 

LESLIE KNOPE from Parks and Recreation

TOPH from Avatar: The Last Airbender