Girls can do anything boys can... except be well-written characters.

J

Jamzzzzz

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Anyone else seem to notice most female main characters in a lot of shows tend to fall into one of three unfortunate categories?

1. Valley Girl
The typical ditzy or extremely girly girl who's into fashion, make-up, and boys. Sometimes they might show some depth, but it's clear their main schtick is the ditzy girl who's all about clothes, boys, or popularity. Serena (Sailor Moon), Clover (Totally Spies), Kimiko (Xiaolin Showdown), and a lot of school comedies feature these types of leads usually.

2. Almost Mary Sue
They're skilled, gifted, and almost without flaw. They can have the "girls can do anything boys can" attitude and always try to prove themselves to the guys, but it's not necessary. The reason why their skills are so much better than most other characters is up for questioning, but usually they'll have one or two flaws just to keep them from being 100% perfect. Usually toted as role-models for girls to show them they can be extremely strong and do anything to the point of being overpowered. Applies to characters like Kim Possible (Kim Possible), Katara (Avatar), and Blossom (Powerpuff Girls)

3. I'm a Girl
This can co-exist in the previous two, but there's also characters who serve no purpose other than being a token female who's importance to the show is not as importance as her gender. This can be used as a token girl in an all or mostly male cast, a classic damsel in distress, or more rarely, as a girl who's character is measured by her figure (less common for kids shows to have characters seducing others, but it happens occosonally) Applies to characters like Supergirl (Superman: TAS), Sakura (Naruto) and a lot of other girls in action shows.

There's very few well-written female characters out there I can think of, honestly, and it puzzles me why that is. Will, from W.I.T.C.H.: The Animated Series, is, in my mind, one of, if the not the best example of a female main character who's gender is irrelevant in a kids cartoon I can think of). It can't be that hard to just write a good character, then just make them a female, can it?

I'd rather this not turn this primarily into a list thread, but if people can name a few good female main characters then it would be nice to showcase them a bit. I'd also like to discuss why these stereotypes exist so prevalently in the industry, though. Is it the writer's fault? The executive's? The network's? Where would you say the root of the problem lies?
 
This question is above my level of expertise, but I suspect that the problem stems from the numerical differences in men and women who work in the industry; there are more men involved in creating these characters and deciding how they will be portrayed than women, which can result in poor representation. I do not wish to imply that men can’t create good female characters, but I believe that it’s an accepted truth that men are more likely to rely on those archetypes that you’ve mentioned, as they have less understanding as to how a normal girl would behave.

I also suspect that political correctness comes into play, as for a long time it seemed that female characters had to be placed on a pedestal and be positive role models, as you’ve mentioned. However, more and more animated programs are taking risks with their female characters and I don’t believe that will be a problem for much longer.

I wish I had more to add to this thread, as it’s a very good thread, but I’m just a country boy from the mountains of West Virginia. As I’ve said, this question is above my level of expertise.
 
1. Some writers genuinely think that all girls are a walking talking Barbie Doll, hense the emphasis on being female.

2. They're afraid of complaints that don't cater to the girls better than guys mentality.

3. Not anything I can say on this.

But in disagreement with Number 2, I think all things considered Kim is still a decent female character. They are able to emphasis that she's into things like fashion and boys without beating us over the head 24/7. And she has a good number of flaws to keep her from becoming near Mary Sue.

But another character who's balanced would be Elisa Maza from Gargoyles. She serves a purpose in giving a human character for normalcy and giving the clan a non Gargoyle ally. Goliath and Clan save her as much as she helps them.
 
I don?t know about that. I thoroughly enjoyed ?Kim Possible? and I did find Kim to be an enjoyable character, but her ?I can do anything? motto pretty much cemented her status under the second archetype that was mentioned. She had some flaws, to be sure, but her flaws were minor at worst; Disney handled her with kid gloves, as some of the writers complained about.
 
I'll have to say Daria. She actually has a brain and uses it constantly so she defiantly doesn't fall into that valley girl category. She's sardonic, moody, outspoken, doesn't care much about her looks, and alienates herself from the idiotic people that surround her. I guess she can be viewed as a role model, but I wouldn't say a positive one, I don't think anyone wanted people to be like her all the time. Daria rarely falls into the typical teen archetype. She did once in the series tough, she pretty much steals her best friend's boyfriend right from under her nose, so she's far from perfect. Now that I think about it, her best friend Jane is exactly like Daria, but she's an artist instead of a writer like Daria, and her family is more screwed up.

I believe Daria is a well written character and a well written show overall, although I might be biased, it is my favorite show of course. ;)
 
I'm going to have to blame the writers here. The "almost Mary-Sue" stereotype is often blamed on political correctness, but when you consider just how old it is (in terms of cartoons, it goes back at least as far as The Flintstones), I'd say it's probably just down to writers with a tendency to forgo creating a new, interesting character in favour of lazily rehashing a decades-old concept which might have been subversive when it first surfaced, but is now just old hat.

These old tropes can sit festering in cartoons for ages. I remember reading a blog post a while back taking aim at an unnamed cartoon where a father was wearing a tie during a family meal. When cartoons first started that stuff they were parodying contemporary sitcoms; nowadays it's still going on because the crew behind the cartoon are just rehashing what came before instead of drawing from reality (as the blogger put it, the parody has become the paradigm).
 
While Ron Stoppable 'Can't do anything.' Thusly throwing him into the goofy guy category. :sweat:

Rose from American Dragon:Jake Long at first seems to be a normal school girl,but turns out to be a ninja dragon slayer.And this is only because she was taken from her family.She's a very attractive blonde but with a good head on her shoulders and has a good humor to her.Unique,in other words.
 
As an aspiring cartoon writer who's been a long-time advocate of gender balance in animation and a crusader for more prominent roles for female protagonists, I think there are a number of factors as to why female roles in animated series have been kind of stagnant overall:

Part of the problem lies behind the cameras; simply put, the majority of cartoon writers are men, and writers can only write what they know, so most cartoons end up having a male outlook by default. There are of course some notable female animation writers, like Sue Rose or Sherri Stoner or Deanna Oliver, but for the most part, it's mostly guys. If there were more women writers, chances are there'd be more female cartoon stars and a wider diversity among them.

Another factor is the 2-headed monster known as Political Correctness. On the one hand (or head), PC-ness is good because it lessens the chances of females getting relegated to damsel-in-distress roles and the like, but on the other, it kicks open the door for the dreaded "Miss Perfect" archetype that is so common among female characters nowadays. Writers and producers are so afraid of potentially offending women and girls that they dare not knock them in any way or portray them as anything less than perfect, in other words, portraying them as people. This is where PC goes too far; there's no crime in showing female characters who are lazy or greedy or vain or cowardly or frivilous--females are people, and they're just as diverse personality-wise as males.

The third factor is the simple desire to not make waves. As we know, most Suits are basically xenophobes who fear what they don't fully understand, so rather than take a chance with something strange, new and innovative, they'd rather stay over top of their comfortable saftey net of the aforementioned female archetypes: the Valley Girl, Miss Perfect, the token female.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure how to turn this around, but I do believe it can be turned around. We could be seeing many variations of female characters in animation, if they were only given a chance.
 
There's another unfortunate archetype in terms of female characters:

4. The 'I Love/Hate You' Girl
You've all seen this one. Don't deny it. That (usually emotionally troubled) girl who treats the main (male) character like the floor around a blind man's urinal. Yet, the girl seems to, deep down inside, like-like the character. She just doesn't tell him because...well, the people who ship these couples invent any number of nonsensical reasons: 'she doesn't have her emotions figured out yet' or 'they're meant to be'. If there was a vomiting emoticon available at this site, I'd be using it right now.

Egregious examples include Helga (Hey Arnold!), Cindy (Jimmy Neutron), Trixie (Fairly Oddparents) and Maurecia (Wayside).

Also, I think you're really stretching listing Kimiko as the quote-unquote 'valley girl'. She's got her stuff together...and being the Dragon of Fire, she'd better have it together. I think you're thrown off by the fact that her look changed in every episode.
 
Another example of this type is Sissy on Johnny Test.

The "Miss Perfect" example that Silverstar brought up makes me think how adult woman characters (mothers especially) are typically treated in cartoon and in media in general. Often, adult women are portrayed as being fare of face and full of grace, nice things to be, I suppose, but unfortunately, they are usually relegated to background roles. The fathers and the kids will go off and have lots of adventures, while the mother will either stay home and prepare dinner or she will go away to work or on a trip or will otherwise leave just before all the wackiness ensues, and will return only after order has been restored to the proceedings. I have nothing against Crazy Dumb Dad characters, provided that they are not overdone, but I'd like to see a Crazy Mom once in a while, just to be different and to relieve the tedium. Heck, I'd settle for mom character who's allowed to solve mysteries or go on globetrotting adventures instead of staying home and taking care of the house while the rest of her family goes off to save the world (although it looks like we just be getting that on Cartoon Network's upcoming Secret Saturdays).

Also, as we know, female characters just can't win when it comes to action. If a female character is very pacifistic, she dismissed by fans as being a wimp, but if a female character is too aggressive and kicks too much butt, it's not long before that female character is described as being the magic B word or as the magic L word. It's tricky, but a female action hero has to be both brash and soft. She has to kick azz one minute and gush over one of her hunkish teammates the next. She can't be a helpless moron, but at the same time, she can't be Conan the Barbarian in a bra.
 
Additionally I think it's harder to use female characters for comedic purposes than it is for male characters. I think a lot of people don't feel comfortable banging around a girl character and making her an object of physical comedy the same way they do with a boy character. I'm seeing a slight trend in the opposite direction these days (The Mighty B for example) but I think for the time being things aren't going to change all that drastically.
 
Quotes for truth.

Quite frankly, as a female myself, I'm more insulted when I see the Miss Mary Sue-esque characters in cartoons. It's incredibly patronizing to me and is almost borderline insulting. Yeah, she's smart, has good looks and can fight with the boys. YAWN.

Don't get me started on how sexist most anime is (mostly due in part to how overly sexist Japanese culture is), though that's best saved for another thread and another forum.

I want to see more 'goofy girls' that are like the stupid man foil in physical comedy... it's not misogynistic, IMHO, because it's not targeting her just because she's a girl. (If they want a female character to be 'like one of the boys', don't make her somehow immune to physical contact in a battlefield or in a comedy situation. I can't count the times I and my friends have bumped things, had stuff fall on us and whatnot) I want to see more comedic female characters. Total Drama Island is a good example of having various female characters on every end of the spectrum... let's see more of that. =/
 
Word. Especially the last part. This is precisely what I'd like to see; more women and girls treated as people with flaws and not just as being too boringly sensible to take part in any fun or as too perfect Mary Sues.
 
Another good example of a more 'gender-balanced' series is Disney's Yin Yang Yo! I know this show gets a lot of hate from folks, but one thing it does right is that for the most part it doesn't play favorites amongst its' 2 leads. Yin (the girl rabbit) is portrayed as being just as flawed and imperfect as Yang (the boy rabbit), and in the fight sequences, both characters receive the same amount of bumps, scrapes and bruises. (The only questionable thing YYY has done, IMO, is giving Yang an ongoing quest arc all to hismself which excludes his sister, and without giving Yin an equivalent story arc, but I digress). One reason I like Yin and Yang as a duo is because they're not just "smart perfect girl/dumb incompetent guy"; Yin and Yang are like the Anti-Cosmo & Wanda.

Mek's post embodies what I'd personally like to see more of: girl characters who are capable of getting their hands dirty, of having objects fall on their heads, of occasionally looking silly, jerky and weird and not being right 100% of the time, and not always coming out of every skirmish unscathed and smelling like a rose. And no, I'm not advocating violence directed against women, only that they be allowed the same flaws and foibles that are allowed to male characters.
 
I think Kamiya Kaoru from Rurouni Kenshin doesn't fall in either categories you said. She can be naive, but not a Valley Girl. She knows her way around a sword, but everyone around is far stronger than her, so she's not a Sue. The only thing I can see is, the "I'm a girl" part, but RK is a romance story, so it evens out a bit.



:)She does smack Kenshin around, but rare, and she does show her feelings out rather quickly.:)



Well, I have to say it's the writer's fault, but to be honest, pratically every character made is some sort of a stereotype. I mean, Luffy is pretty similar to Goku.

What the writers should, and often do, is make those stereotyped characters as well rounded as possible, so even though they have that annoying trait, they're still likable.

Yeah, Sakura does start off as "I'm a girl." but Masashi Kishimoto does expand on that,maybe not as much, but in Shippuden she does become a mini Tsunade. That's pretty good for an expansion on a character.
 
Granted, Kimiko's not as bad as other examples, but they do make it a point to show her gossiping on her cellphone often and changing her hair/clothes every episode. I think the creator mentioned somewhere she was suppose to be a Kogal (the show sort of revolved around stereotypes for the characters, but I still liked it). Though I will admit it was pretty creative for her to change her hair and stuff every episode.

Ah, that's true. Granted, I think she was a little "Valley Girl" in the first few episodes (I remember her gushing over some teen pop singer) but that mellowed out pretty quickly as the show went on (I believe it was just there to show she's a "normal girl" outside of her Huntsgirl persona). By the end of the first season and throughout the second, though, she was a fairly well developed character.
 
If you know Anna Faris the actress, I think it would behoove animation writers to actually use characters she's played as an example. Yeah, they're mostly goofy and take pratfalls, but they do have personalities, and aren't too far girly or too far pissy about everything either.
 
The easily part to that is have the female be able to pull her own weight with the team she is with. It's a balance issue with the character personality and abilities. Gwen from Ben 10: Alien Force is a good example of how to do a female lead character right. :cool:
 
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