‘Strong female lead’ is degrading to women
Hollywood needs to focus on realistic roles
The message seems to have gotten muddled.
As #MeToo and Time’s Up have worked to move culture forward with goals of making workplaces safer for women and closing the pay gap, a curious thing has happened in Hollywood.
Good news first: Screenwriters are learning that not all women are downer wives, hot girlfriends or shrews. But in a knee-jerk reaction, Hollywood is trying to make up for lost ground, trumpeting every female character as a “strong female lead,” someone who’s a perfect blend of resolve, intellect and conviction in a man’s world. It’s not only grating, it’s ... weak. “Every time someone writes that I play ‘strong women,’ what they’re implying is that most women aren’t,” Jessica Chastain tweeted last year while promoting “Molly’s Game.” “How about I just play well written parts?”
We’re on board for mischievous, multidimensional, maddening. Give us messy, give us miserable, give us monstrous. Don’t try to fake us out with the notion that female strength is a fad.
What screenwriters and filmmakers often lose sight of is nuance: Women at the center of their own stories who contain multitudes. What makes someone bad? What makes them good? And aren’t most people ( women and men) an ever-shifting balance of both?
It’s why I’ve been insistent about getting my circle to watch BBC America’s “Killing Eve.” Sandra Oh’s spy, Eve Polastri, is constantly evolving in her pursuit of a Russian serial killer. She’s sharp, gets in too deep with her target and takes her partner for granted.
There are bright spots on the silver screen, too. Evangeline Lilly finally gets a superhero suit in “Ant-Man and the Wasp” (out Friday). But I was happier to see how much depth her Hope Van Dyne has, from her knowledge of quantum physics to the pain she displays remembering a sweet childhood.
But the wins make the errors all the more glaring. Look at “Ocean’s 8.”
The script was maddeningly undercooked. I left the theater far more interested in Mindy Kaling as a millennial jeweler and Awkwafina’s huckster than Cate Blanchett and Sandra Bullock. Not that I blamed those actresses: Their characters were one-dimensional stereotypes, and I didn’t buy it.
So we celebrate the wins; the projects that put forth the real in a world that defaults to the male gaze. In “Blockers,” teen girls debated the future of their virgin status and took on their parents without a hint of Valley Girl whining.
“I often felt like (Valley Girl speech) is when men are writing women, because that’s how they hear young women,” director Kay Cannon said.
Charlize Theron, in a script by Diablo Cody, took on the complexities of being an overwhelmed mom in “Tully.”
“I’ve seen a lot of depictions of, like, the control-freak mom. I think that’s been played for laughs a lot,” Cody said.
The key is ditching buzzwords and delivering realistic, complex women to actual, multifaceted audiences made up of 50 percent women. We don’t need a Netflix queue labeled “Strong Female Roles” (please point me to a queue of “Strong Male Roles.” I haven’t seen it).
We need an influx of women we relate to. Just save us the strong spiel.
What screenwriters and filmmakers often lose sight of is nuance: What makes someone bad? What makes them good? And aren’t most people an ever-shifting balance of both?