Subverting Gender Stereotype
After coming across the following article on the normalization of male dominance in 2012 films and reading Buzzfeed posts on age gaps in current films (which usually see older men paired with much younger women), I decided to write a post on the subversion of gender stereotype and how we were going to include it in our film.
According to Google, a stereotype is 'a thought that can be adopted about specific types of individuals or certain ways of doing things. These thoughts or beliefs may not accurately reflect reality.' There really should be an emphasis on that 'not', considering the fact that for decades women have been delegated to the roles of 'damsel in distress' or 'love interest', when in actuality they're successful business women, hard working mothers, courageous soldiers and powerful advocates for equality. Just like men can be over masculinised as brawny heroes or emotionless villains, women can suffer from a complete lack of physical and emotional strength with their only 'positive' attribute being their beauty.
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| Sigourney Weaver as Ellen Ripley (Alien) |
The film industry has attempted numerous times to correct their past mistakes, replacing Snow White and Bella Swan-esque characters for more independent, ruthless, heroic types. Buffy Summers, Princess Leia, Black Widow and Lara Croft are all examples of women subverting gender stereotypes in favour of proving that women are just as capable at saving the world as their male counterparts. However, their sexualisation (let's not forget Carrie Fisher's trademark gold bikini) can sometimes cause rifts amongst audiences who believe that just handing an attractive woman a gun, isn't enough to earn them the title of 'strong female character.' Instead, people are looking to more flawed personalities such as Ripley from Alien, Sarah Connor from The Terminator and Erin Brockovich from Erin Brockovich as more appropriate poster girls for this new craze.
John Scalzi (2011):
"She's not a sidekick, arm candy or damsel to be rescued. Starting with Alien, Ripley was a fully competent member of a crew or ensemble - not always liked and sometimes disrespected, but doing her job all the same. As each film progresses, she comes to the fore and faces challenges head-on - she's the hero of the piece, in other words (...) Ripley isn't a fantasy woman. Science fiction with hot kick ass women doing impossible things with guns and melee weapons while they spin about like a gymnast in a dryer. As fun as that is to watch, at the end of the day it's still giving women short shrift, since what they are then are idealised killer fembots rather than actual human beings. Ripley, on the other hand, is pushy, aggressive, rude, injured, suffering from post-traumatic syndrome, not wearing makeup, tired, smart, maternal, angry, empathetic and determined to save others, even at great cost of herself. All without being a skinny killbot.'
It seems that as much as physical prowess impresses, so does being relatable. If a character, male or female, can show that they're human and showcase a character arc of discovering oneself and forfeiting their own needs for others, then you have a formula that should prove satisfactory to critics and equality advocates alike.
How This Impacted Our Film:
Researching into this topic helped us make key decisions about what our characters were going to be like. Of course, anyone who had to wake up to a world full of unknowns would experience panic and terror but how they handle coping with these feelings would be integral to determine whether our characters were weak or strong. Instead, we focused on making our characters as human as possible, giving them all flaws and strengths, which would both benefit and shape them. We decided that we would not give the characters genders until we had stretched out their personalities, preferring to randomly pinpoint their sex after we'd created them, thus giving us a unique and equally intriguing group of individuals to work with.
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