RISE OF THE MARY SUE
What happened to the hero’s journey?
ELLEN RIPLEY HAS BECOME an iconic female figure in the male-dominated genre of science fiction/action/horror since her first appearance in 1979. A few sho years later, Linda Hamilton’s po rayal of Sarah Connor in 1984’s
The Terminator felt like a game changer. She wasn’t a scientist or an astronaut like the female leads of most sci-fi films; she wasn’t even a science officer like Ripley, she was just an average waitress trying to get by in life. By the time James Cameron directed Aliens in 1985, Ripley travels to an uncommunicative extraterrestrial colony with the Colonial Marines and in bonding with a child lone survivor, motherhood instincts encourage her to develop the skillsets to mount a defence against a terrible xenomorph threat. Cameron would go on to direct 1991’s Terminator 2: Judgment Day, which also was his female protagonist transformed from ’80s girl-next-door to ’90s military badass because she was on a mission to protect her young son.
In recent years, this archetype which po rays a female protagonist having to undergo and overcome her trials has given way to a new kind of second-wave feminism: the Mary Sue, a type of fictional character, who is po rayed as unrealistically free of weaknesses. She is fully formed and pe ect in every day, and requires no training or even mentorship from anything or anyone; and it’s dead boring. (Not to mention problematic because now my daughters believe that to be an awesome female hero, they need to know how to do everything pe ectly, but I digress).
In Joseph Campbell’s The Hero With A Thousand Faces, the hero exists before his present story begins, oblivious of the adventures to come when he receives a call to leave his everyday life. In discerning to leave what he knows for the great unknown, there is trepidation but a mentor figure gives him guidance and practical training where he then prepares to cross the threshold. Out of his comfo zone, the hero endures trials, meets allies and enemies, and has his preconceived notions and beliefs tested. Eventually, he’s called upon to face down his biggest fears in order to transcend an ordeal along the journey. He is eventually rewarded with either great power or a singular a efact, and must choose to use those newfound powers for a higher cause. Sometimes, heroes fail and are forced to confront their inner demons but once again, drawing upon those experiences, they overcome self-doubt and take the fight to a once-impossible enemy once again and this time, they triumph, and then return home with new perspectives and newfound wisdom.
If the new slate of Disney shows suggest, these lessons are no longer necessary. Rey Palpatine in Star Wars can do everything and fly every ship. She-Hulk (p. 16) can do everything He-Hulk does but be er and more impo antly, sans training. It’s a potent contrast to the notion that there is value in the journey rather than the destination, more egregiously, in haste to express that men and women are equal, second-wave feminists forget to address “complementarity” – that the genders are indeed equal and complementary with our different a ributes. Today’s fiction ignores “E Pluribus Unum”, meaning “out of the many, one”. Femininity is its own super-power, it doesn’t have to be “replacement masculinity”. When we learn to incorporate the best of women and men, overcoming all our individual weakness, we can truly be powe ul in union.