Women in Media (3/4)

I've talked before, twice actually, about how seriously I take the portrayal of women in media. The first entry talked about how rare it is to find a female protagonist that has to legitimately struggle to earn her stripes. That's because men are generic and expendable while women are considered special and precious just by virtue of being a woman. As such while men have to be put through the wringer and claw their way to the top to be perceived as heroic, a woman simply has to exist. Not actually DO anything.

    My second entry talked about the portrayal of female characters in media and how many restrictions they continually have placed on them. They can't be sleazy, they can't be criminals, and they can't be dumb. Because according to society, every woman in every work of media ever represents every woman everywhere, so they cannot be written as anything that might be perceived as offensive. Female protagonists are to be flawless, impeccable, able to do anything, and BORING. Female villains must be innocent, redeemable, without reproach, and cherished by all on both sides.

    So bearing all those facts in mind, what is the result?

    Not good, guys. Not good.

    For one thing, women don't get as much variety in their characters as men do. Let's look at the MCU for example. You have Tony Stark (arrogant a-hole who gets force-fed a slice of humble pie), Star-Lord (a hotshot hero for hire who's biggest challenge is growing up), Thor (arrogant warrior turned into caring protector and then freshly crowned ruler), Scott Lang (reformed criminal in a world full of supers that wants to redeem himself), T'Challa (a man torn between his home and the rest of the world), and Steve Rogers (paragon of virtue who ends up a man out of time struggling to survive in a world where those virtues are frowned upon). There are others too, but we'd be here all day.

    What about the women? Well, let's see. We have Hope Van Dyne, Gamora, Nebula, Wanda, Natasha, Pepper, Peggy, Jane, Valkyrie, Okoye, Shuri, and Sif. What do we have to work with? Of the group, only Hope, Gamora, Wanda, Valkyrie and Nebula undergo any sort of character arc. Gamora and Nebula rekindle their relationship with each other, and the former finds love and a family. Hope rekindles her relationship with her father. Wanda goes from bad guy to good guy and then learns to not let other people fearing her stop her from doing what's right (even though her transition is slightly undermined by something I'll mention in a second). Valkyrie goes from drowning in drinks and misery over her failure to stop Hela and the deaths of her friends to valiantly supporting Asgard's new king against Hela a second time. Black Window doesn't have any character arc. Her dark past is frequently alluded to but never actually seen and the one moment of weakness she had in Age of Ultron over her forced sterilization got the movie bashed by feminists. Peggy, Jane, and Pepper are mainly love interests with Pepper barely managing to squeak higher due to running more of Stark Industries than Tony does (due to insistence by her actress). Sif basically gets shunted off to the side and forgotten about (and killed by the Snap to boot).

    Notice something? Unlike the male characters, who all undergo some kind of transition in their characterization, most of the women only transition in terms of their relationship to someone else, not for themselves. The only one to actually overcome a flaw in her own right is Valkyrie overcoming her grief and survivor's guilt to get back in the fight. Among our mentioned girls, she has the best arc. Which is kind of like being the tallest dwarf. Wanda's arc could have been great having her atone for her actions, but the fact that she never faces any sort of punishment for her role in Ultron's creation and destructive plan and gets to join the Avengers instead makes her come off as a Karma Houdini. Civil War tries to fix this by putting her at fault for more deaths and showing her torn up about it but no one holds her at fault for what happened. So while it helps somewhat, her transition still rings a bit hollow.

    While the men have a large variety of flaws to overcome, tragedies to suffer, and character arcs to undergo, the female characters don't. They're either straight (wo)men playing off of a goofy male protagonist, love interests, or good fighters without much characterization beyond that. No real flaws, no personal conflicts to overcome, no moments of absolute weakness.

    So I repeat my previous question: what is the result? What effect does this have on the women watching?

    Let's see. Women get held to unrealistically high standards. They feel like they're not allowed to have any flaws at all and find themselves forced to worship at the alter of absolute perfection. Then when they inevitably fail, they'll berate themselves and internalize everything because they believe they're not supposed to be this way and something is wrong with them. The men get to go off and have a good time, growing, changing, and evolving. The women stay behind, nag them to do what they're supposed to be doing and clean up after them. Because a woman is everyone's mother. So not only will women think that they're not allowed to be flawed, but they'll also think they're supposed to be responsible for EVERYTHING because they can't rely on men for anything. Is it any wonder so many girls in relationships end up with a martyr complex? They must sacrifice everything for the sake of others; because since the men are complete idiots, everything rests on their shoulders. So, more perfectionism, more pressure, and no pleasure. Just burnout, exhaustion, and mental misery.

    Here's my final point. Despite all of the rights that women currently have, actual human culture has not advanced a step beyond the 1950s.

    Women are still perceived, even/especially by other women, only in relation to other people and not as individuals in their own right. So long as female characters are held to a different standard than male characters (whether that standard is how to treat them, how they're supposed to act, how they're portrayed by the narrative itself, or an unequal share of responsibility [happy wife, happy life]), men and women will never truly be equal. But with a few exceptions, mainstream media either props up women for their political value or puts them on pedestals to be admired from afar like a statue in a museum. Admired but never interacted with. Any sort of deviation from these two options, from air conditioning to armpit hair (not kidding here), is sexist and must be destroyed.

    This all paints a pretty bleak picture.