I shall look into my experiences watching shows which their
predominately-male creators would call “feminist”, and examine the shortcomings
I have come to notice about them since my younger years.
First, I will talk about the universally beloved, pinnacle
of feminist entertainment, pop culture Joss Whedon classic, Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997-2003).
Now, I will praise Buffy for
being well-written and progressive... for its time. Take the nostalgia goggles
off and many might come to notice various problems in regards to its “feminist”
leanings. These include: the scary, entitled Nice Guy who is never called out
for his manipulations and his passive-aggressive, misogynistic
microaggressions, Xander Harris (aka one of my most hated characters in all of
fiction); the normalization of abusive behaviour (seriously, Buffy has the
worst friends ever); the absurd amount of race fail (that Robin Wood’s literal
contribution to the final season is not dying isn’t something to celebrate);
the bisexual erasure (unless one is a soulless vampire); the fat erasure
(Willow Rosenberg was originally played by Riff Regan in the unaired pilot);
the overuse of metaphors for how life sucks (pun intended) at the expense of
context and character growth; the disturbing number of female character deaths
in contrast to male (not counting the villains); the blatant Madonna/Whore
dichotomy between Buffy and Faith; the black holes of sympathy and usefulness
that are Anya Jenkins and Dawn Summers; Buffy always seeming to need the
approval and counselling of the men in her life; leading me to mention the
chauvinistic, emasculated scum Riley Finn, who is, again, never called out on
his behaviour and backwards worldviews (and I am still not convinced he is not
a robot, he is so bland); and the rape-and-abuse-apologist outlook in the last
two seasons (the Buffy/Spike catastrophe, anyone?).
Buffy is a
good show with plenty to recommend it, but to call it one of, if not the
greatest feminist television programme of all time, is telling of how low a
standard we have for representation of women in the media. Hell, the only time
the word “feminist” is even mentioned in Buffy is as a throwaway joke – “hairy-legged feminists” says
Xander in the season three prom episode, big surprise – reinforcing dated
stereotypes. It is not enough to say it is good to women because it subverts the
Smurfette Principle and (just barely) passes the Bechdel Test, when the heroine
is constantly seen suffering, where one human mistake means instant abandonment
by her ungrateful friends and family, forcing her into taking refuge in the
love and support of men, even those who are abusive to her. This gives the
unintended message to impressionable, insecure and depression-prone teenage
girls watching that no matter what they do and achieve in life, they will end
up alone, unappreciated and undervalued, and only the presence of a man, who
has your best interests at heart regardless of how he actually treats you, can
fill in that emptiness and fruitlessness of living.
Joss Whedon, who is every geek’s hero and the man widely
beloved for being a feminist whilst women who call themselves that are
ridiculed and scorned, is not immune to society’s double standards;
expectations and ideas about gender roles, deeply ingrained in all of us since
infancy, make them that much harder to recognise and combat.
I’d argue that Buffy
the Vampire Slayer has done more harm than good for feminist
television – like the Whedon idea that a girl who knows martial arts and quips
one-liners automatically makes her feminist, while the smarter male gender
still takes charge of her life – and its influences, both obvious and subtle,
are felt almost everywhere. I suppose one of the reasons it was so well
received is because there wasn’t anything like it at around 1997 onwards, and
that is where the common excuse, “There wasn’t anything better on at the time”,
comes in.
During my childhood years of seeking solace in Girl Power on
TV, I have been guilty of the same “Nothing better on then” mindset as well.
Which brings me to my first guilty displeasure, the Fox Kids cartoon, Totally
Spies! (2001-2007, 2013-2015).
Totally Spies! is
sort of like a proto-Kim Possible,
only starring three girl protagonists, Sam, Clover and Alex, all skinny and
pretty. And only full of pandering, shameful gender stereotyping, non-existent
character development, and lazy, predictable writing safe for children. It is Charlie’s Angels for middle
schoolers. It was one of the first anime-influenced animations to air on
European and North American television, and it does it pretty badly, and
practically every single episode follows the same formula. But hey it’s
feminist because it stars three girl protagonists who kick butt and solve
mysteries that even a toddler could figure out. Even if was intended to be a
spy and/or exploitation film parody or homage, it is never as self-aware as it
desperately needs to be. It’s sexist, it’s stupid, and it tries too hard to be
hip and current; it has not aged well. I knew all this even when I was a kid,
yet I watched it religiously, because there was a shortage of girl power at that
time, and my standards were not nearly as high as they are now. Questioning
tastes aside, every episode was a guilty pleasure for me then.
There is only one episode of Totally Spies! that I legitimately hate, and it is called “W.O.W. (Women of Wrestling)” from season
two. Basically it is about a tribe of women, dating back to a vague ancient
time period, called “the Sisterhood”, whose goal is to kill all the men of the
world and “weak females”. These women resemble butch lesbian stereotypes, and
they dress in gladiator battle armour. They use magical mind control powers to
“awaken” the decedents of the Sisterhood of the past, turning them into
violent, man-hating savages. The decedents are stereotypically non-feminine
girls and women who like things such as sports, wrestling, science and
technology, and anything where they can be considered leaders and be taken
seriously in male-dominated fields. See the problem already? Even setting aside
all the plot holes (how can the Sisterhood have children if they want to kill
all men? Are they rapists too? And why are some Sisters immortal and others
not?). It doesn’t matter if the writers did not intend for it, the implication
is still there: That strong, independent women who are into non-conventional
girly activities – as a hobby or career – or who are feminist in any way, are
secretly man-hating monsters who wish to murder all of penis kind. Meanwhile
women who are girly and therefore “weak” – who like pink and are frightened
easily by confrontation – are the “good” females, because they are simple for
men to deal with. They are subservient, and most likely will never stand up for
themselves or be difficult by not conforming to traditional gender roles.
Feminist women should be feared and oppressed at any cost, or it is anarchy,
even the end of the human race. Millions of kids watched Totally Spies! on Fox Kids,
including this episode, so it is grossly irresponsible that something like this
wasn’t considered a terrible message, and was allowed to ever air.
It is really bad for women’s representation. It isn’t
limited to children’s programming either. We now come to my second teenhood
guilty displeasure, Charmed (1998-2006).
Charmed also
stars three females – who are, say it with me now, skinny and/or attractively
curvy – kicking butt and saving the world on a regular basis. They are witches
too, which appealed to me greatly. But for its witchcraft and Wiccan influences
and semi-positive portrayal of sisterhood, it is clear that Charmed only existed to ride the
successful coattails of Buffy and
possibly Sabrina the Teenage Witch;
it even plagiarized certain storylines from Buffy,
such as the heroic human/vampire/demon forbidden love ending in tragedy.
Charmed only
got worse and worse as its inexplicable eight seasons went on with seemingly no
end in sight, ripping off better fantasy franchises (Harry Potter, too – there is suddenly an unnamed “Magic School” in
season six which has apparently been around for as long as Atlantis has), with
so many tonal changes that it doesn’t know if it wants to be Sex and the City with supernatural
elements thrown in, or a lighter Buffy with
no direction in its writing.
Oh, and Charmed is
one of the most sexist TV shows to ever air in the 21st century. The three
witch sisters, Piper, Phoebe and Paige (replacing Prue, who is killed off at
the end of season three allegedly because Shannen Doherty was difficult to work
with) – the Charmed Ones, the most powerful magicians ever – are mostly useless
and frustratingly self-absorbed, with character development being reserved for
male leads such as Leo Wyatt, the Charmed Ones’ whitelighter or “guardian
angel”, and Piper’s beau. The sisters’ lives revolve entirely around men, and
they talk about men constantly. There was an almost compulsive need for the
writers to pair each of them up with a man, any man, with babies expecting to
come of it, as much as the male producers had a compulsion to put these female
protagonists in fanservice clothing in every episode post-season four. This
show is set in a universe where literally every myth and fairy tale and fantasy
creature is true, but heteronormalcy reigns supreme.
Amid the bad, sexist writing, there is one particular
episode which stands above all the others, and that is the infamous “Once in a Blue Moon”. In season seven –
in my opinion the worst, messiest season, and that is saying a lot – it is
revealed that the Charmed Ones are werewolves. Not witches cursed to become
werewolves, but who naturally transform whenever there is a blue moon. And they
are not just any werewolves. They are... I cannot believe I’m about to type
this... PMS werewolves. Throughout the episode the sisters are irritable
because they’re all on their period, and by the power of a blue moon they turn
into horribly-rendered CGI wolves at night, attacking whoever pissed them off
that day. There’s more! After this big revelation, it is never mentioned again
in subsequent episodes. Even for Charmed,
where continuity goes to die on holiday, this is a whole new below-the-barrel,
negative level of incompetence. It is a special kind of bad, like discovering a
new species of bad. My brain still can’t grasp how this episode got made; not
even the most obscure fanfiction in the deepest, darkest lost corner of the
internet would have anything this terrible. Somebody got paid to write this.
Somebody gave it the greenlight. People actually thought it okay to spend
thousands of dollars to make this, and have their names attached to it. All for
a one-off joke about women on their time of the month.
“Once in a Blue Moon”
represents every flaw of Charmed:
the misogyny (internalized or otherwise; it was written by two women, Debra
J. Fisher & Erica Messer!), the complete lack of care for story
and the characters, and for continuity. Bad special effects were the least of
the episode’s problems. Its forty-minute runtime might as well have had nothing
but a letter displayed to the audience, saying, “We give up”, signed by
everyone on the production team; it would have been less offensive than what we
got.
A CW Charmed reboot
is apparently going to happen, as if this corpse of a franchise hasn’t been
reanimated enough. I can only hope that it doesn’t make PMS werewolves canon.
If you had any doubt about the low standards we generally
hold for female representation in television, look no further than Charmed. Like Totally Spies! and to an extent Buffy, I really only watched it in my youth because “There was
nothing better on at the time”, and that isn’t a vote of confidence. This kind
of attitude hurts feminism in every medium, and halts progression. We can do
better.
Other live-action “feminist” shows I’ve only recently come
across are Xena: Warrior Princess (1995-2001)
and Veronica Mars (2004-2007).
Each has its strengths and problems when subverting gender stereotypes –
unlike Totally Spies! and Charmed, they at least seem to be making
an effort. The four shows aired around the same time, the late-nineties-to-mid
2000s. But I have to point out the problematic elements of the “better” cult
classics, as the first step towards progress is improving on the flaws of the
past.
Xena, in its six
seasons, has quite a great number of strong, complex female characters, but it
uses the dreadful, inherently misogynistic Mystical Pregnancy trope twice, and
similar to Buffy it reinforces a
rape-and-abuse apologist agenda in the form of the “bad boy”, Ares. In spite of
this, however, Xena’s strengths
are in its campy fun and action – something that girls do love as much as boys,
no matter what executives tell everyone – and I have a soft spot for it.
Veronica Mars, on
the other hand, I have grown to dislike the more I think about it. Its Buffy influence definitely shows despite
not belonging to the supernatural genre. It rears its ugly head in terms of
racial stereotyping and tokenism in Wallace and Weevil (the blonde white title
character is the hero at the expense of these poor sidekicks), the “strong,
independent female lead” is still saved by men (who take up about 75% of the
main cast) in episode climaxes, the normalization of abuse is present to the
point where nearly every character could be considered a sociopath, and the rape
of the female protagonist, which occurs before the events of first episode, is
just a plot device to go with the other mysteries of the series. Any
psychological trauma Veronica suffers is barely given any screen time, if at
all. It doesn’t really affect her life in any way. And the reveal of who
date-raped her is retconned at the end of season two, purely for shock value
and for added weight on how evil the villain is, as if mass murder wasn’t
enough. This is beyond careless and insulting. More so is the mess that
is Veronica Mars season
three, where Straw Feminists are presented as antagonists (giving the
impression that Veronica isn’t or doesn’t consider herself to be a feminist.
What!?). While a serial-rapist is on the loose at Veronica’s college, the Straw
Feminists lie about one rape – possibly more; thanks for bringing up a sinister
implication and then never ever following up on it! – in order to get back at
the fraternity house, which is filled with brainless, scarily misogynistic,
interchangeable frat boys, just as the Straw Feminists are interchangeable.
This reinforces the dangerous myth that women lie about rape to destroy the
lives of poor innocent men, which has real-life consequences in courtrooms –
and especially in college campuses – in a society that already sees women as
petty and as liars. That is helping rape culture.
Acknowledging that a problem exists is a step in the right
direction, but to portray it badly, to even glorify such a sensitive, real
subject matter with no thought to trigger warnings, can do just as much damage.
For its feminist praises, Veronica
Mars suffers from being needlessly mean-spirited and unpleasant, and
it is not something I would recommend to anyone who has been raped or sexually
assaulted, and I would put my foot down on season three.
What would I wholeheartedly recommend then? Ironically, a
show from the seventies, deep into the Second-wave feminism movement: the Lynda
Carter Wonder Woman series
(1975-1979). It is cheesy and harmless to its core, the least likely to offend
anyone, and most outstanding for its time is that the superheroine Wonder Woman
is seen as an equal to men, by men. People love her for being a hero, for
saving the day at the end of every episode, and that is enough. She is also an
action heroine who teaches compassion and female companionship. For a good,
healthy time, go watch Wonder Woman,
and see just how many chances TV was willing to make way back when (look how
long it has taken for the most famous female superhero in pop culture to get
her own movie).
This brings me to the current trend of feminist programming
in the 2010s, and how it has improved. I will admit that I don’t watch much
television anymore – books have taken up most of my time, and nothing holds my
interest nowadays, not after the overlong disasters, Smallville (2001-2011), Heroes (2006-2010), and Doctor Who (2005-present). Television seems been-there-done-that
to my matured self, and the medium is still male dominated, and double
standards and sexist tropes can never seem to die already, even with Agent Carter(2015-2016), Jessica Jones (2015-present), Supergirl (2015-present), Orphan Black (2013-present), and
Shonda Rhimes. But I still watch a few cartoons.
I only saw the first seasons of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (2010-present) and Star vs. the Forces of Evil (2015-present),
and neither piqued my interest enough to continue watching in spite of
containing the right amount of girl power and female-friendliness I loved in
childhood. I cannot say I have simply, finally grown out of a phase, since I
consider one recent anime, Puella
Magi Madoka Magica, to be one of the best series I’ve ever seen, for its
realistic subversion of the Magical Girl genre, its art style, its deep,
disturbing themes, questions, and a fantastic female cast assemble. Girls are
real human beings in this anime – my favourite is the tragic, selfish Homura
Akemi – written with Miyazaki-level exceptionalism. Another honourable mention
is Bob’s Burgers (2011-present)
and its wide range of female characters who are funny as well as human and
relatable. There is no resorting to easy sexist non-jokes in this sitcom. But
it is ongoing at the time of this writing, and given how long-running sitcoms
usually end up, I am not optimistic about where it will eventually go.
One “female-centred” cartoon I have completed is The Legend of Korra (2012-2014), an
action-fantasy Nickelodeon show featuring a female protagonist of colour that
is the sequel series to Avatar: The
Last Airbender. Korra is a “kick-butt”, impulsive, aggressive and
well-rounded heroine who does grow and develop over the course of four seasons
(the less said about season two, the better). While not always
competently-written, she’s a perfect contrast to Aang, the previous Avatar and
hero. It is here that I am reminded of how often a female can only be seen in a
starring role if she is spun-off from the franchise of an already-existing male
lead – look no further than the term Distaff Counterpart, and superhero movies
for examples of this marketing trend. As if male audiences will only want to
see women be a hero in her own story – to be worthy to exist on her own – if
she’s already familiar with a popular male character, as a relative or love
interest or some other connection.
Nickelodeon executives were initially reluctant to
greenlight The Legend of Korra because
it features a girl protagonist, and therefore it would not be successful. This
is the network that aired The Wild
Thornberrys (1998-2004) and As
Told By Ginger (2000-2006). They were proven wrong as young boys
watching it said they thought Korra was awesome. This didn’t stop them from
treating their highest-rated show at the time terribly with slot changes, and
then taking it out of syndication because of internet viewings of Korra, as if they wanted it to fail
because the main character is a girl. Boys do want to see the other half of the
human race represented, if only more chances and risks are taken by retrograde,
narrow-minded and sexist studios.
That is not to say that Korra doesn’t have problems in-show. It does – many of them.
Korra, like so many female main leads in stories but especially in YA fiction,
is an object of the dreaded love triangle, as if romance with a boy should be
her main goal above any ambition; to be a possession in the male power fantasy.
She has badly-written romance troubles with the boring Mako, who, common in
male leads, is never called out on his atrocious treatment of women, like his
apathetic and careless behaviour towards them should be considered normal just
because he’s a guy and so he knows best. Other guys, like Bolin, also have male
entitlement issues that are not addressed, and the “crazy ex-girlfriend” cliché
is alive and kicking in season two, in the police officer Lin Beifong with the
wise, mature Tenzin, and Korra’s possessive, jilted cousin Eska.
But the writers eventually learned from their mistakes by
seasons three and four. Korra has agency and choice, even going through
post-traumatic stress disorder after the events of season three. She has female
friends, most notably her future girlfriend Asami Sato, Mako’s other former
love interest. This relationship – perhaps the best resolution to a love
triangle I have ever seen – is a groundbreaking event in children’s television,
in featuring two women walking into the metaphorical sunset together, holding
hands and looking into each other’s eyes, at the end of the final episode. We
still had to rely on the creators’ confirmation that they are indeed lovers,
since we’ve got a long way to go towards open LBGTQ representation in media
aimed at families.
Jump ahead and we have Steven Universe (2013-present), which while having a male
protagonist, features such a diverse cast of females – who take up much more
screen time than males - it is revolutionary. Not only does it give a giant
green intergalactic middle finger to the Smurfette Principle and pass the
Bechdel Test with ease, the Crystal Gems – Garnet, Amythest and Pearl – plus
other Gems and some human girls, are widely varied in personality, talents,
interests, colour, race, shape, size, and even sexual orientation. Steven
himself is a far cry from a typical masculine hero – he is allowed to cry, and
express his emotions healthily, which is such an important message to convey to
children. It is obvious how self-aware Rebecca Sugar and the rest of the production
team are, and they do not care for convention or what is considered “normal” –
everything in life from gender to family life is so fascinatingly complex that
just showing only one way of it is dishonest, and can lead to short-minded
thinking and prejudice in children, all throughout adulthood.
Steven Universe unapologetically
makes it pretty clear that the all-female alien race of Gems is not straight.
They express different kinds of love towards one another, and even kiss
onscreen on more than one occasion. There is a reason for why this cartoon is
so beloved by the fandom (guys and girls and non-binary), and why it is truly
revolutionary and not to be dismissed as a kid’s show – it represents and
explores sexuality and sexual awakening as normal, a part of growing up, in its
own beautiful way. So I am ashamed for my country of the UK for censoring an
episode, “We Need to Talk”, that
contains a dance and almost-kiss between Pearl and Rose Quartz, Steven’s
mother. Yet a heterosexual kiss is seen as more acceptable and somehow less
sexually-explicit. This erasure, like practically every erasure of marginalized
groups in society, is false, repulsive and hypocritical. It contradicts the
human experience and traces back to the double standards we still adhere to.
Steven Universe is
lots of things, including a step in an honestly positive direction. It is
progress for other shows to follow when we need it now more than ever.
Join me in my final part of this piece, as I wrap up the
conclusion of my thoughts on the supposed decline of the Smurfette Principle in
our contemporary age, and what the future holds.
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