What Exactly is a "Strong Female Character"?

In the 1970s, Secret deodorant debuted the slogan “Strong enough for a man, but made for a woman.” This questionable line implores women to borrow masculine strength in order to meet their needs. It puts a barrier between strength and womanhood as though the two do not quite go together.  

In the language of marketing, “strong” means lot more than how much you can bench press. It indicates strength of character: resilience, endurance, power, conviction. Not everybody cares about physical strength, but to be “strong” in the colloquial sense is universally admirable.

The term “strong female character” gets thrown around a lot in the entertainment world. Any substantive woman’s role qualifies for the SFC label. But what exactly does the word suggest when appended to a lady onscreen? No one ever talks about “strong male characters.” Ostensibly because society thinks of strength as implicit to malenes. So strength, a universally admirable trait, is characteristic of all men, and some women. What is this quality that we demand of one gender and witthold from the other?

In the 1990s and early 2000s, SFC was nearly synonymous with “gun-toting Barbie doll”. Action movies were full of ass-kicking sex bombs embodied by the likes of Milla Jovovitch and Angelina Jolie. These women existed in a cultural purgatory between masturbatory object and feminist icon. They were skilled fighters, capable of physically overpowering their male opponents. They were usually witty, resourceful, and uber-competent. They were also designed to fulfill male fantasies. Among the most famous of this SFC type was a trio of lethal beauties who belonged, in a sense, to their male employer: Charlie’s Angels. This archetype was the opposite of Secret deodorant: strong enough for a woman, but made for a man.

The heydey of the ass-kicking sex bomb has since given way to a more complex descendent: the troubled heroine. The woman whose turbulent past and/or personality disorders almost prevent her from achieving her objective.

The ancient world produced epic heroes with tragic flaws. Today, instead of epics, there are franchises. There are phenomenally successful book series adapted into high-grossing trilogies. In this mold are The Hunger Games and The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo whose female leads possess the demigodlike combination of grit, smarts, and exceptional skill necessary to overcome unthinkable odds. These SFCs are not just strong, they’re epic hero strong.

But most people, let’s face it, are not epic hero strong. How can strength be calibrated outside of the action oeuvre? To answer that, one may consult the wisdom of the Netflix cue, where the term “strong female lead” can be tacked on to virtually any other subgenre according to viewer preference.

Amidst the lists of “quirky Independent movies,” “romantic workplace comedies” and “visually striking dramas” we find a staggering variety of women at the helm. They are doctors, librarians, prostitutes, socialites, and prison inmates. They are gay and straight, liberal and conservative, of every age and race, on every rung of the socio-economic ladder. They are love-starved executives, pregnant teens, medieval peasants, and Queen Elizabeth. So what do all these strong female leads have in common? They’re all the main character of a movie or TV show, and…that’s about it.

Recent popular shows Scandal, Homeland, Breaking Bad and Mad Men all have engaging, enigmatic protagonists. They are exceptional in some ways, profoundly flawed in others. It is their weakness as much as their strength that makes them so compelling to watch. And while Olivia Pope and Carrie Mathison are regularly deemed SFCs, it’s hard to imagine anyone calling Walter White or Don Draper a “strong male lead.” Or counting it among their virtues that they can carry a whole television show. This double standard suggests that while any man can be the main character, only an exceptional woman can take the lead. Nobody wins.

The tacit expectation is unfair to men. Not all men wish to adhere to mainstream culture’s notions of masculine strength. Then again, if strength were indiscriminantly awarded to every person on the planet, the concept would lose its meaning. Everyone has the potential to be strong, and whether they are realizing that potential should be considered on a case-by-case basis.

Joss Whedon, who has long been praised for his SFC-heavy projects, said in 2007 that equality should be regarded “like gravity.” A basic fact of existence. Many creators, both male and female, continue to work to improve how women are represented in popular culture. There is every reason to look forward to more movies and shows featuring increasingly complex, interesting roles for people of all genders. As for now, it’s time to retire the phrase “strong female character.” Women will do just fine without it.

Let's Stay Together?

The love stories we grew up with were validated by conflict. The prince fights for the princess. He’s never spoken to her, but we can see how much he loves her because of how much he’s willing to endure – enchanted forests! Evil witches! Fire breathing dragons! – to win her hand. Maybe the two lovers come from families that have sworn eternal enmity to one another. Maybe one of them is in a coma. The formula is the same; two people who barely know each other are so convinced that they’re meant to be together that they’re willing to move heaven and earth to make it happen. When they unite (finally, triumphantly) it is understood that their conflict quota is met and they’re life from here on out will be smooth sailing. This implicit understanding is encapsulated in the classic narrative bookend “happily ever after”.

            Modern love, as we’ve hopefully all noticed, is different. Romantic partners are not preternaturally certain of their match (at least not after the initial infatuation wears off) and the obstacles are subtler. The setbacks preventing “happily ever after” have turned inward. Instead of doing battle with a fire breathing dragon, we must confront the past traumas that made it hard to trust people. Instead of a spell cast by an evil witch, we struggle with temptation and fidelity. The star-crossed lovers of lore were uncomplicated archetypes whose only flaw was the fact that by no fault of their own they were in a complicated situation. The lovers in today’s parables have accumulated the burdens of a life lived, and any relationships they embark on are inevitably impacted by that. Today’s romcom characters, like their Haagen Dazs spooning audience, must navigate the internal obstacle course of a fully realized human being.

            Nobody’s perfect. Everyone has faults and baggage that can make it unpleasant to be in a relationship with them. Some couples find ways to overcome those setbacks and forge a happy life together. Other couples cannot In the latter case, the couple eventually comes to terms with the fact it’s not going to work, and break up. They’re sad for a while, but enjoy a higher quality of life as individuals in the long term. It’s a happy ending. Yet, as viewers of romantic movies we tend to attach the same feeling to these modern lovers as we did to their fairytale counterparts. We view all the neuroses and incompatibilities as so many miniature dragons, trying (and ultimately failing) to obstruct the course of true love. In other words, no matter how unhappy we’ve seen them make each other, we still want the crazy kids to work it out.            

            It would seem that modern viewers don’t know when to fold ‘em, and don’t want to know. We prefer to be pelted with parables about how love conquers all. Why is it still so important to see everyone happily matched at the end? If the relationship was not overtly abusive, we want these crazy kids to work it out. Even if they fight constantly, even if their entire courtship was based on a lie.

            This latter situation occurs at a startling rate in romantic movies. We meet a couple whose chemistry is tainted by the fact that one is actively deceiving the other with a massive, elaborate lie. Generally the liar is either misrepresenting his or her own identity or harboring a secret ulterior motive behind the courtship. Does love always shine through, thus negating this ulterior motive? Sure. But the fact remains that you’re sleeping with someone capable of lying to your face for an extended period of time. Never Been Kissed, 10 Things I Hate About You, She’s All That, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, Ever After, Maid in Manhatten, Just Go With It, 40 Days and 40 Nights, and many other romcom standards feature such a theme. Generally, the lie is revealed at the three quarters mark (with almost mathematical precision), which leaves about fifteen minutes for the liar to convince the wounded love interest to forgive them. Such behavior should be considered a major liability. But in movies, it’s merely a twist in the third act, gathering momentum for a big dramatic finish.

            Then there’s the matter of two people who simply don’t make each other happy anymore. These are situations that most people have encountered at one time or another, and are ultimately glad to have moved away from. And yet we still Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind handles the problem in a unique way by showing us – via the targeted memories of Jim Carrey’s Joel – a relationship in reverse. The relationship went south, so when viewed backwards it appears to get better and better. The constant fights and bad behavior that summoned the end are the first to go. By the conclusion, with the happy memories fresh in our minds, we hope that the central pair will reunite. Just like Joel and Clementine we’ve already forgotten that the relationship ended for a reason. 

            I don’t think that this desire can simply be attributed to lingering conservatism. Often, the couples in question are childless and unmarried. So this isn’t about the preserving the sanctity of vows made before God, this isn’t about protecting the nuclear family unit. This is about love overcoming all obstacles. Would we like to imagine these couples ten years in the future, happily reproducing in the suburbs? Sure. But in the meantime, we’re happy to see the credits roll on them making out in public. I think the real reason is more personal than social. We see own relationships validated in the ultimate success of these fictional ones. As if our own decisions to stay in tumultuous relationships are less regrettable if the comely denizens of romcom world are able to work it out.

            But the truth is, a relationship doesn’t need to last forever to be worthwhile, even iconic. Anyone who doubts this sentiment need look no further than Annie Hall. Annie Hall is the ancestor to a thousand lesser comedies about two people trying to find a way to make their respective quirks fit together. They break up, they get back together, and ultimately they break up again. Woody Allen announces that the relationship has ended in an open monologue delivered directly to the camera. It’s like a Romeo & Juliet prologue for our times, setting the tone and alerting us from the get-go that although we don’t have a happily ever after waiting for us, we’re still in for a great show. The fact that Annie and Alvy can’t make it last does not detract from the sweetness and poignancy of their earlier scenes together.

            Allen makes use of a mechanism that has since become cliché – the flashback montage. Moments in the relationship, frozen in time, rosily rendered. But in the movies spawned by Allen’s classic the montage is typically used to justify two incompatible people running back into each other’s arms. In Annie Hall it is simply a bittersweet interlude. All relationships have their lovely memories: their first kisses, their lobsters-on-the-loose moments. There was something there that kept it going past the first date. It doesn’t mean that it’s going to take us to the finish line and it doesn’t have to. There’s nothing wrong with two people making a healthy choice to cut their losses and always remember the good times. We need more happy endings like that.

When does film become pornography and why do we still care?

Creation and masturbation. Human beings have been engaging in both activities so liberally and for so long that you’d think we’d have a really clear understanding of both by now. And yet, the debate between what is “art” and what is “pornography” continues to confound. In fact, the debate over the two mediums’ respective definitions, morals, and merits is so scattered you’d think they were both just invented last week. 

            A common objective of art (as embodied by film) is to portray the human experience truthfully. In order to be truthful, the artist must be uninhibited and unafraid. And what is more truthful than the human body performing the act of love? There is no activity that so thoroughly evinces all that is animal and all that is ethereal in humankind. For years film directors striving for a truly unflinching look at raw humanity seek to portray the deed in increasingly graphic and at times unsettling ways. Yet if they get a little too truthful, they risk the red stamp of PORNOGRAPHY and all the negative associations therein. It’s a delicate balancing act, and the question is raised every time a sexual explicit movie hits theaters: where do you really draw the line between art and porn?

            Does it have something to do with the experience of the performers? Anti-porn activists paint an ugly picture of exploitation and abuse on porn sets. Many believe that porn stars (in particular although not exclusively the females) are coming out of desperate circumstances, or being forced against their will, or otherwise unfairly coerced. While this is certainly the case for some, there are more than enough positive personal accounts to show that it is not universal.

            And just as the label “porn” doesn’t guarantee that performers are being exploited, the label “art” doesn’t guarantee that they’re not. Nothing says Film (with a capital F) like winning the Palm D’Or at Cannes. The honor this year went to Abdellatif Kechiche’s  Blue is the Warmest Color, which featured a lengthy lesbian sex scene. One of the lead actresses, Lea Seydoux, later said that she felt “humiliated” and “like a prostitute” while the scene was being filmed.

            While the actresses in Blue may have been uncomfortable, they were not required to perform literal sex acts on one another. So can the line been drawn when actual sex is being had? In 2006 director John Cameron Mitchell released Shortbus. Shortbus, like many films before it, is about people coping with alienation and looking for love in New York City. Except in Shortbus, when the characters have sex, the actors are really having sex. Mitchell explained this decision by asserting that sex was “too interesting to leave to porn.” In response to the inevitable accusation that he had a porno on his hands, Mitchell argued that the primary purpose of porn was sexual arousal, whereas Shortbus “de-eroticized” the act so as to focus on the emotions and ideas behind it. One may be tempted to think that Shortbus was merely a pit stop on the road to full-on porn for Mitchell. But his next major project was the adaptation of Pulitzer-winning play Rabbit Hole with Nicole Kidman, so evidently not.

            So if we’re seeing real penetration, real orgasms, and it’s still not porn, then when does it become porn? Is it porn when there’s no story? Well, plenty of pornos have stories. At least enough of one to set the scene and establish the characters. These stories tend to be ludicrous, unrealistic, and thrown together at the last minute, but if that’s the only criteria then Adam Sandler has been enjoying an illustrious career in pornography for the last ten years.

            As the line continues to blur, directors find new ways to depict sex while dodging the “porn” label. Lars Von Trier has taken the ambiguity to science fiction-like lengths in his upcoming Nymphomaniac. To shoot the movie’s graphic scenes, he first had the big name actors simulate the sex. He then had body doubles actually have sex with each other. The movies release has been substantially delayed due to the painstaking process of superimposing the doubles’ bits onto the movie stars’ bodies using CGI. In keeping with Mitchell’s distinction, Nymphomaniac is not intended exclusively to arouse. It uses sex as a means of examining philosophical quandaries, mysteries of the human condition, and other such art house maxi-themes. Still, it was important to Von Trier to get as close as possible to the real thing.

            Ultimately, it would seem that whether something is art or porn is in the eye (or the pants), of the beholder. Of course this is hardly a clear delineation. The existence of sexual fetishes means that something that registers as completely unsexual to the general public may be highly arousing to someone out there. Furthermore, many movie scenes are remembered for scenes that featured arousing material. We’ve been so long debating where precisely to put the line between art and pornography perhaps its time to abandon the line altogether.

why does the world need child stars?

Fairytales are all about making dreams come true. They're also full of evildoers who kidnap and exploit the young. These villains are often motivated by a desire to consume the pure life force embodied by the child or youth, thus cheating their own mortality. Other stories speak of the societal benefits of child sacrifice. The virgins fed to the Minotaur of Ancient Athens. More recently, the dystopian “tribute” system at the center of Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games series.

            Doesn’t this sacrificial business hit a tweeny bit close to home? Modern America is obsessed with youth. Young celebrities are made, marketed, and ravenously descended upon. Their faces flood pop culture and entire lines of clothing, cosmetics, and other commodities are made in their name. They are milked for all they’re worth and then - when thoroughly drained of appeal - they are discarded and replaced with a newer model. The majority of child stars who fail to remain cute or transition to more mature success in their early twenties fall into the cavern between stardom and normalcy. Robbed of their formative years, they lack the skills to live an ordinary adult life and often find themselves on a downward spiral that can prove dismal and (too often) deadly. They may not be fed to a monster or forced to fight to the death, but it still sounds like a sacrifice to me.

            Why do we do this? The life-sucking witches of lore crave the beauty and zest of their victims. As though the blithe loveliness of youth can be absorbed through osmosis. The real world counterpart to this theme is understandable. As George Bernard Shaw said “Youth is wasted on the young”. Wouldn’t it be great if just a little of the magic stuff could be shared with those who really appreciate it? It is natural to be charmed by a talented young person, and to feel revived by their insouciance. But do we really have to act so shocked, so personally slighted when they grow up? Every year we bringin a bright-eyed new all-singing, all-dancing crop of innocents, and every year at least one former member of that cohort enters rehab.

            How many muffin-faced tributes have to overdose before we start to accept blame? Rather than address the problem, we prefer to lazily point fingers whenever a Mouseketeer does anything remotely controversial. 

            But corporations like Disney and Nickelodeon aren’t trying to be controversial. They’re going for mass appeal. With that in mind they have cultivated a kind of junior sexuality. A way for, in particular, young girls to be physically alluring without being overtly provocative. When Miley Cyrus and Selena Gomez (and Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera before them) were way underage, they were dressed up in variations on the classic abbreviated schoolgirl’s uniform that attracted attention without screaming SEX. All of these starlets eventually reached a point where it was time to graduate from junior sex appeal. And they all did so, each receiving various amounts of public abuse. The public enjoyed adoring them as cutie pie puppets, but it really enjoyed castigating them as women attempting to claim ownership of their sexuality.

            Encouraging a young female star’s junior sex appeal and then shunning her for getting raunchier with age is hypocritical, but it’s not the worst of it. The worst cases occur when a once-promising individual appears to have been permanently warped by growing up in the spotlight. Who don’t just go through a phase but are legitimately driven insane by spending their most volatile formative years in the twilight zone of fame. Those who never manage to live a normal life or, due to the habits born out of perpetual discomfort, are robbed of their life altogether.

            Some do manage to emerge from the gamut of vehicular manslaughter, and psychological breakdowns unscathed, but even the survivors seldom amount to much. Most fade into obscurity, unable to shake the dubious label of “child star” and we can only hope that their parents invested their earnings responsibly during their moment in the limelight. For every one Justin Timberlake there are a dozen degenerates and a hundred nobodies. And those who don’t make it are left with an unfair legacy, forever remembered as their most awkward selves. If my diaries and actions and fashion choices from my teenage years were somehow made public, I’d be a laughing stock. It may not make headlines, but it’s a humiliation not easily scrubbed off.  

            So in many if not most cases, the effects of child stardom are negative. Which leads me to my titular question. Is it possible to simply abandon the practice altogether? Surely the commercial and entertainment value of these doomed youngsters does not outweigh the toll it takes on their lives as adults? 

            Unless…the fact that they’re doomed is half the fun. Unless their downfall is built into their entertainment value as a grotesque second act. In our world of screens and short attention spans, the goal of the entertainment industry is to keep us from looking away and if there’s one thing we can’t look away from it’s a train wreck. Perhaps we aren’t so different from the fictional child-sacrificing societies, and stardom is merely the ceremony before the slaughter.

            Amanda Bynes and Lindsay Lohan sold tabloids and kept paparazzi in business with their prolonged public breakdowns. And theirs’ was hardly the first generation to implode. By the time their prepubescent selves were brought onto the scene it was well known that child stars had a tendency to go red giant before their time. And yet we persist.  

            Pop stardom is a strange and powerful thing. It has bested some of the greatest creative minds of the last century. Young celebrities are lavished with luxuries, special treatment, and adoration. So it seems odd to liken their situation to child abuse, although it can produce similar effects. The tiny percent of young people who become wildly famous are disproportionately disposed towards mental illness, substance abuse, and other destructive behavior. In headlines, the phrases “overdose” and “child star” fit together as snugly as “Middle East” and “unrest”.            

            The fairytale takes a dark turn, and I wonder if the entertainment executives who first made dreams come true feel some tinge of responsibility. If so, judging by the continued output of juvenile megastars, they either don’t care or they’re doing it on purpose.

            The bad news is that as a generally myopic and youth-obsessed culture we are complicit in this. The good news is that also gives us some control. If we stop buying it, it will eventually go off the shelves. We should stop insisting, as a society, that pop stars start out so impossibly young. We should insist that children be entertained by cartoons, adults, puppets, the outdoors, whatever. Something that does not promote the idol worship of their own peers. Even if they do provide a public service by entertaining us, it’s not worth it. Because the truth is that youth is not wasted on the young. Youth belongs to the young, a fact refuted only by those who refused to accept wisdom as a fair exchange. So rather than prey on the innocent in hopes of retrieving something that is no longer ours, let’s exercise our wisdom, and let the young enjoy their youth.