The portrayal of women throughout cinema and storytelling has come a long way, and as a writer and cinephile, I have observed this throughout movies and stories. From the beginning of time, stories have been told of adventures, love, and friendship, and provided a critical lesson or understanding of a theme. Women in stories have limited roles or archetypes, and the only ones that were common back in ancient times were the love interest, the mother, the warrior, the sexy one, or the comedic one. In comparison to the multiple male archetypes, women are less unassuming. Now don’t get me wrong, it can be difficult to write women with complex character archetypes, but in recent years, writers have been shifting from one archetype to the other.
Within the past decade, film production companies have started to see potential in female-led films, though these are met with mixed results. An example is negative responses from internet platforms where certain groups complain about women portrayed as the main characters. Despite this, more women-led movies have been produced. However, a complete turn has changed how movies portray women, and unfortunately not for the better. The change is in action/superhero movies, where the themes of misogyny against women have become a character trait rather than an obstacle, which creates bland female protagonists. For example, I watched Captain Marvel (2019) and found Brie Larson’s character bland and only amusing during the final battle against the villains. Aside from the story structure, Marvel made the hero’s character traits vague and focused too much on how misogyny is their fatal weakness rather than their human weakness.
However, there is an example where a female-led movie has its protagonist undergo complex character development, and this is in DC’s Wonder Woman (2017). In the portrayal of this iconic superhero, Gal Gadot’s character explores the unknown world with a mission to save it from an evil god. Throughout her journey, Diana learns about the will of humanity and how it affects both sides of a war. She sees the horrors of it all and yet chooses to do her best to save humanity as best as she can.
The issue with the resurgence of female main characters in media is how there is an unnecessary use of female empowerment as the only theme of the movie. Don’t get me wrong, representation of women doing amazing things does matter, but it shouldn’t be the primary theme or the protagonist’s only character trait.
The recent release of Madame Web (2024), which audiences have declared was not a fantastic movie, shows the same formula that Captain Marvel and several movies have repeated once again. And with movies that tend only to please the woke culture, it’s uncertain that Hollywood and other studios would focus on making quality films with complex female characters that can provide a good story.