The problem with the damsel in distress trope isn't that she's in distress, because believe it or not, women are capable of being in distress. The problem has been that the distress has been her defining characteristic. She is defined by her suffering. It's why I always get so mad when people reduce characters like Cinderella and Snow White and Aurora to just being "damsels in distress" because yes, they are damsels in distress, but they shouldn't defined by their distress, they should be defined by their resilience and their ability to thrive the way they do despite the distress.
I agree! Firstly: Cinderella was not a damsel, she was a victim of abuse, and that's victim blaming. She couldn't have helped herself even if she tried, she was an orphan in 1800s France with NO MONEY or way of functioning. She wouldn't find a job, much less a home. She wasn't even in danger, she was being bossed around. My mom was an abuse victim and couldn't leave for a long time. She eventually left when she was able to though. Snow White was the only one consistently in danger, and even then she was 14, stop bullying her. Aurora was only in danger for 5 minutes when the spell was actually a death curse, Merryweather altered it into a coma, so she was not in danger for most of the movie. And what all three of these girls have in common is that it's never their fault! So why are people freaking over a cartoon? What's also fascinating is how people aren't freaking out over Disney characters like Wendy, who's always in danger, or Alice, who gets in danger multiple times and has sassy moments like Cinderella. Or non Disney princesses like Thumbelina, Irene from the Hungarian movie the Princess and the Goblin. It's always OFFICIAL DISNEY PRINCESSES who get bullied by SJWs, and it needs to stop. Warrior ladies are cool, but being traditionally feminine, being a "damsel", liking pink, romance, glitter, princesses, fairies, and unicorns shouldn't be being hated on. Notice how in anime, you find feminine characters still, and also find more feminine characters who are equally girly and kicking butt instead of just "tomboys" or when it comes to romance "lesbians" (which tbh is probably the only romance feminists are okay with because it has more woman). Sailor Moon (especially Usagi and Minako), Pretty Cure, Hinata Hyuuga, Kiki from Kiki's Delivery Service, Faye Valentine. They are all feminine women who also can kick butt, even if they get in danger. Why? Because unlike America, Japan doesn't treat girly girls as some awful sinful blight on society. Because they get it, not every woman has to be a tomboy (which is ironic that feminists are trying to promote masculine women when they clearly hate men). That's why I love these characters, because they can be equally feminine and masculine instead of being dismissed as "brainwashed" by the patriarchy. Damsel in distress means in actual danger of physical harm, not being under pressure or under a spell. Also, people get in danger in reality and it's gotten to the point where it feels like you have to ask "if you get in danger in reality and the person who offers help is a man or boy, you're gonna reject it and risk death or injury jsut because oh no a dude asked to help me how evil!"? See, it's dumb
@@finland4ever55 i get your point but i wouldn't really put japan or even anime as a whole as a good place or example of strong female characters or even strong feminine female characters because more often then not those characters are oversexualised even when they are minors or children and they are often the side-characters/love interest and that is often the point of them in the story to be love interests/ supporting characters to the male lead unless it's like the magical girl genre like sailor moon. and japan is also notoriously patriarchal to the point there was the scandal of universities actively tanking female students grades, the issue with sexual harassment/abuse/sexual exploitation of women and girls and gender based domestic violence that's keep very hush hush. also you need to take note that not all "strong female characters" are written by women or even feminists. So you saying that feminist only want manly strong female characters or wlw romance is not accurate. or that they aim to reject help from men. The point of feminism is to present women as human beings that are capable, intelligent and have agency to help themselves and help others. and that when they do need help they seek help not because "women are weak, stupid incompetent" and so need help from men. but seek help as a person seeking help from another person REGARDLESS of that persons gender. also you forget in a patriarchal context strength and femininity is not associated together which is why you will see strong female characters that are not written by feminists like the kill bill main character or Lara croft be masculine and sexy and not feminine and femininity being shown as a negative thing. because in a patriarchal context femininity is inferior in every way and is show as such. Which is why showing women being feminine and self sufficient, capable physically and mentally would be contradictory to a male supremacist ideal of women. however i do agree that when it comes to the mary sue types of overwritten strong female characters it is a product of feminism. but luckily we can also find that people have now moved to show complex female characters that are more real and human and in think that should be the most important goal showing women as human first and how they deal or not deal with life or situations rather then it being about "tomboy character" this or "girly character" that. I hope you get what i mean.
@@beethovensfidelio it's really important to remember that fairy tales really shouldn't count in these discussions. the Princess doesn't function like a Damsel.
the well-rounded Maiden archetype has four shadows: the Damsel, the Iron Maiden, the Shrew, and the Vixen. what we've seen a lot of is the "Iron Maiden" to compensate for a lack of strength in the "Damsel" - and yet we still perceive the "Iron Maiden" to have a weakness of a different type, right? it's so tricky to find the right balance to really satisfy the complexity of the Maiden archetype... which leads me to this: we need a diverse group of woman voices leading these productions (writers, actors, directors, etc.).
This is why I loved Roxanne in Megamind. She's a refreshing parody of the damsel in distress, calling out the cliches around her and for the first act, she has a good sense of humor and is treating her kidnapping as just another Tuesday. She doesn't become the hero, but she's still an interesting and memorable character.
Playing devil's advocate here, Roxanne's reaction during her first capture has more to do with Megamind's character than it does hers. She knows that he's not going to hurt her, so she isn't really that scared of him. In contrast, when Roxanne first encounters Titan, she recognizes the danger and reacts accordingly.
What's so crazy about this is as black women, we've never had the opportunity to be the "damsel in distress" and have been saying for a while that this "strong" trope about us, strips away our humanity.
7:50 What I love about Nala pinning Simba was that it taught Simba how to counter it. Simba learns from each time & in the climax kicks Scar before he can pin him. Without Nala, Simba would be dead.
@@RazorRex Yeah I've been a fan for years ever since they were ScreenPrism. I don't agree with all of their takes (lol) and some videos I notice aren't as informed about certain films and fandoms. But in general I think they're great for spreading media literacy.
Well, Nala would have been dead if it had not been for Simba saving her from the hyenas at the beginning of the film. My point being that they both need each other.
Please cover the "Even Bad Men Love their Mothers", where a not so pleasant villain or antagonist still has a soft spot for their mother, even protecting her from harm.
I like how Mulan's triumphant climax does not come from entirely reject her "femininity." Nor does she have to resort to "feminine wiles" to vanquish the bad guy. She fights with a sword AND a fan. She's just herself with all the complex shadings that entails.
Mulan (in the original, forget the remake) repeatedly shows that her intelligence and strategy is what makes her a valuable soldier. She *learns* to fight through training, like everyone in training, but her ability to find unique solutions to problems is what sets her apart. The moment when she realizes the puzzle with the weights can't be solved by brute strength is Mulan in a nutshell. She can't muscle her way through problems, so she uses her head instead. It's why Mulan is so epic. It shows that brute force isn't everything.
I think it's very telling when examining the scene before her final show down, the bad guy refers to her as the "Soldier from the Mountain", not "Gasp! A woman!" He takes her very seriously.
To me, a “Mary Sue” isn’t a strong, brave, and resourceful woman, but someone who’s inexplicably liked by everyone without doing anything to earn it. It’s the character shilling that’s the problem because it’s easy to constantly TELL the readers how awesome she is without actually showing you why. Bella Swan is a good example of a “Mary Sue”. Somehow Bella’s blandness is why the characters in “Twilight” love her so much! 😂
That's how I've perceived the definition of 'Mary Sue', where the entire narrative basically bends over backwards in order to frame the character in question as being 'perfect' and 'infallible'
@@christianwise637 Edward Cullen be like “You’re not like other girls, Bella. Most girls have a personality, and you don’t, which is why I love you so much”. 😝
Aw I like Bella she's a depressed, shy, introvert but she's also kinda funny and pretty brave. Homegirl went to face a vampire ALONE just to save her mom and flew halfway around the world to save a guy who she thought didn't even want her. I don't know I think she's cool tbh
As much as I dislike Bella, I would NEVER classify her as Mary Sue. She's too much of a damsel in distress. It gets tedious at times. The fact that people like her is not strange or superhuman to me. She's the POV character..There's nothing wrong with people liking a character.
This, absolutely. What male characters in general have that female characters tend to lack is VARIETY. It's true that male characters are often drawn in stereotypical ways -- it's worse today, IMO -- but because they outnumber female characters, they tend to have more varied personalities. If we look, for example, at the men of Hollywood's classic era, we see not only tough guy John Wayne but earnest idealist James Stewart, chameleon Spencer Tracy who could play pretty much anything, James Cagney the gangster and James Cagney the show-stopping song and dance man, strong but often gentle and soft-spoken Gary Cooper, tough-talking ladies' man Clark Gable, Basil Rathbone's incarnation of Sherlock Holmes. We see so many different KINDS of male leads. (Interestingly enough, the same era had Katharine Hepburn, Ginger Rogers, Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Rosalind Russell, Norma Shearer... did 1930s Hollywood offer a wider variety of images for female characters as well?) Oddly enough, the area of today's cinema where I find the most variety, and the most interesting female characters, is in animation. In 2016 Disney gave us Judy Hopps (Zootopia) and Moana, flawed heroines who make mistakes and have moments of vulnerability but triumph in the end; their mistakes make their triumph all the sweeter. 2020 gave us Wolfwalkers, whose heroines Robyn and Mebh remain brave and resourceful even when imperiled. Last year we saw two very different female leads, Raya, primarily a fighter, and Mirabel, who runs on curiosity and ingenuity. Both are flawed. Both are awesome. And I don't want to leave out The Mitchells vs. the Machines. Katie, our protagonist, is tremendously flawed and is learning throughout the whole film; we also get "Linda Mitchell, mother of two! Fear me!" Writers and directors of live-action blockbuster-type films could take a lesson from these animated films. THIS is how you write heroines the audience will love and root for.
@@kelleyceccato7025 You’re right that there’s more variety with male leads than with female leads. Male leads can be fat, skinny, muscular, short, tall, bald, hairy, old, young, ugly, or handsome. Men can either be the macho, dashing hero like Errol Flynn or John Wayne, or the “aw, shucks” everyman like Jimmy Stewart or Jack Lemmon. However, female leads are almost always conventionally attractive, a size 2, and under the age of 35. God forbid your leading lady is fat or middle-aged. 😂
This. I was an English major focused on narratology, and one of my observations was that most stories only have 2-6 characters which the audience is supposed to identify with whose story is actually being told. Everyone else is a prop just there to advance the characters’ stories and/or create cool looking scenes. And being a prop does not make one a bad character. In the original Star Wars, Luke, Leia, and maybe Han (by my general rule of thumb of someone being a character if there is one scene that advances their story instead of existing to serve the general plot or another character’s story, the newer cuts that add Jabba have Han as a character, while he was just a prop in the original) are the characters. But Ben Kenobi, Chewbacca, and Vader (who becomes a character in the later films) remain some of my favorites. The problem is when certain archetypes never get to be characters. In Sleeping Beauty, the damsel is the character while the savior/prince is the prop. As long as we have some stories like that, there is nothing wrong with having other stories where the damsel is the prop.
Weirdly enough, horror has kind of become good in terms of decent female leads with varying personalities. Happy Death Day, you’re next, the Ring, Malignant, X, Veronica, Little monsters, Neon Demon etc. They’re all movies with decent to good female leads that can vary from “badass who is absolutely done” in You’re Next to “wow, you have really fallen for the trap of the industry, haven’t you?” In Neon Demon. I cite Neon Demon because that’s a cautionary tale where the protagonist is so flawed that it literally comes back to bite her. Yeah, the genre still has a lot of trashy stuff but there’s a lot of effort and strides that have been made to make better written and more varied female characters.
The US in General has a problem with over-correction. In this case laziness is also a huge factor. Hollywood writers are just writing female action heros the same way male action heros are written.
Most writers in Hollywood are men, and sadly a lot of them don’t see women as complex human beings, but rather reductive stereotypes like the damsel in distress, the sex object, the mother, the hero’s girlfriend or wife.
A great female character no one talks about is Alita Battle Angel. She is feminine and allowed to be emotional. More importantly, she behaves like a teenage girl without being infantilized or oversexualized.
Yes! There's so much great about that movie. Including how it shows how her "father" has to learn to let her be herself so she can thrive. Talk about unending daddy dearest tropes!
@@MinecraftIsLoveMinecraftIsLife Hugo at the end of the movie... like I knew it was coming. It's one of the things from the Manga emblazoned in my brain (it's been like 2 decades since I read it) but damn if it didn't still hit hard.
The big problem with the “damsel in distress” is that this character is often just a plot device to move the story of the protagonist, not a real human being. And indeed many people a unable to show they are in distress due to societal norms/racism/sexism/and other types of discrimination. The problem is stripping people of their humanity whether that is to make them a person who always needs to be rescued or one who is not allowed to show how hurt they are by life events.
Plus, it falls into the same problems as the “women in fridges” trope. 1) whilst the damsel is the one in peril, it’s the one doing the saving that is the focus. 2) It’s mostly a problem because it’s our go-to. It’s a habit and rut writers get stuck it and we, as watchers, didn’t question.
Evie in the first Mummy movie doesn't know how to hold a gun, but she has plenty of brains and the power of language. She moves the plot, as she's the leader of the expedition, she has knowledge, she makes mistakes: she messes up when she reads from the book and awakens Imhotep, but then she's the one who destroys him also by the power of the word. I love this character. She's clumsy, a walking disaster, exquisitely feminine (like my mother), yet bold, brave and really, really intelligent.
I would say The Bride from Kill Bill doesn’t even seem indestructible. She’s a utter badass but she is shown to be in distressing situations and her revenge on her former comrades isn’t a walk in the park. Hell in the second movie she breaks down I the bathroom after Bill is dead and she’s gotten her daughter back.
Yep, I also took issue with that. Beatrix Kiddo is one of the more complex characters ever included in an action movie, regardless of gender (at least if you’ve seen part 2, I think the characterization is still there in part 1, but it is easier to miss).
About Jasmine, I'd also like to add: she's quick-thinking and smart. She figures out who "Prince Ali" really is by trapping him with a "casual" comment and she pretends to have fallen in love with Jafar under the Genie's magic to distract him (while also getting in a little dig or two: "And your beard is so...twisted.") It's ALADDIN who screws that up by freezing when he sees her kiss Jafar, even though he KNOWS it's an act, the dope.
True! Had Jeffrey Katzenberg not interfered with the film, Jasmine would’ve used the jewel from her headband to break the hour glass. At least the Aladdin TV series and its sequel “Aladdin and the king of thieves” had Jasmine doing a lot of her own action stunts.
You may be technically correct that we've overcorrected to "Stealy female badasses" but there are SO MANY male characters with just as little character. There should be more well written female leads; that doesn't stop the occasional Mary Sue from being a ton of fun in their own way.
Does not make it better, the goal should be having complex layered characters with enough variety, in-between them, everyone finds someone to identify with. Despite the attempt of making strong princesses, the only one that got me invested in any way was mulan and many of the adventures ones got me even less then the princess ones despite me being a tomboy, for they all focus way to much on defiance and rebellion over substance. Ariel is pretty much one-dimensional all I want and defiance... Those princesses are more about what they are not, then what/who they are
Genuine question but which Mary Sue is fun to watch or actually likeble? For me Mary Sue's or their male equivalent Gary Stu are bland and boring characters. If they are the strongest person ever, consider by all as the most beautiful or handsome, they are always right, they dont make any mistake... they have nothing which I can relate with them because I am not perfect and that's fine. There is something beautiful in having flaws, that's what make us human. A character needs to grow in a story if they are already perfect what is the point of the story in the first place. Is not realistic or nice how some characters are reduce to be strong all the time, the point is that we are all strong and in distress in sometimes. The key is complex characters !
Something I like about Meg from Hercules is while she is a damsel in distress and Hercules saving saving her is the thing the proves himself as a true hero and restore his godhood She not only has alot of agency She only became a damsel because she sacrificed herself by saving HIS life so he saved her in return.
I think we need more movies with characters like Elle Woods. Women who don’t feel the need to ditch the pink dress if that’s what they really want to wear. We don’t have to be masculine to be taken seriously. We can fall in love, we can ask a man for help without it being labeled as a moment of weakness. We are strong, but that doesn’t mean we can do everything on our own. I would love to see more of the girls who have traditional feminine qualities and aren’t afraid to own it 💕
I love that Elle is smart, resourceful, intelligent and kind to people. I love her transformation from being ridiculed to being admired - and not because of her great looks, but because of her accomplishments. And all the while she embraces her love of feminine things.
@@PrincessMavenKittyDarkholme People are free to be however they wish. Sometimes, I feel as though women in movies get taken seriously once they become more masculine. My issue with that is I don’t want young girls to feel as though they HAVE to be masculine to be taken seriously. Be as masculine as you want or be as feminine as you want. Anyone of any style should be taken seriously, and I just wish that we could see more variety of that in films.
@@Noseinab00k From the future: Ultimate Mary Jane Watson (no not the one from the old Ultimate Marvel Comics) is oh so becoming a damsel in distress no matter what I'm calling it. BUT, she looks and talks in a more likeable way than what Zeb Wells and Sam Raimi had done. Thanks Hickman for existing. And about Elle Woods I'm calling it the new Ultimate MJ is so becoming the Elle Woods of Marvel despite being a mommy already (sorry for the innuendo lol)
I like how you pointed out that old school disney princesses are not simply damsels but characters with outstanding qualities. When you really watch Sleeping Beauty and understand who Aurora is, you notice what a hormone-fueled class act she is. She's an inspiration 🙏
Snow white was smart. She ran away, found a random house in the woods, and managed to make a deal with the owners to live there with the cost being that she does house maintenance. Snow white has the makings of a good business woman.
Best damsel in distress movie I've seen is Ever After, with Drew Barrymore. The scene where the prince bails on his wedding to "rescue" Danielle, and when he arrives she's already free. Perfect.
I actually like Mary Jane in the Raimi films she actually does have a character outside of Peter, sure she gets kidnapped a lot and needs rescuing but she's a really strong character. She dumps her hot jock boyfriend because he's a jerk and her rich boyfriend when he doesn't stand up for her and chooses Peter because he's the only one who's genuinely nice to her and encourages her to follow her dreams, unlike Harry who was embarrassed of her. She's the one who tells Peter she loves him in the first movie and then leaves her wedding for him despite him telling her they shouldn't be together. It sucks that she was kidnapped again in the third movie originally Gwen was going to be kidnapped and Mary Jane was going to be the one to go to Harry to tell him to help Peter which I honestly think is way better. Even in 3 though she dumps Peter when he starts acting like a jerk and in the end there's never any confirmation they get back together it wasn't until No Way Home that we got confirmation that they did indeed end up together.
From the future: Ultimate Mary Jane Watson (no not the one from the old Ultimate Marvel Comics) is oh so becoming a damsel in distress no matter what. I'm calling it. BUT, she looks and talks in a more likeable way than what Zeb Wells and Sam Raimi had done. Thanks Hickman for existing. And curse you Raimi and Wells for trashing MJ to the point of making the fandom be at a civil war
"Agent Carter" is my go-to example of how the love interest of a male character got way too powerful but then got corrected. In Season 1 Peggy basically saved the world all by herself, and the male characters were next to useless. Season 2, however, Peggy made mistakes, got injured, and needed her supporting cast to take down the Big Bad of the season. Season 2 portrayed Peggy far more realistically than season 1 did, and I was disappointed that the series got canceled and then retconned in "Endgame" and "Agents of SHIELD" where Peggy gets her happy ending with Steve and her love interest in her series, Sousa, weirdly ends up with Quake. (And BOY HOWDY is Quake an inconsistent character.)
What i loved the most about Agent Carter was that in season 1 she saved thousands of lives not by punching (though there was plenty of that) but explicitly by being emotional. She couldn't punch a plane out of the sky but she could tearfully remind her friends that you can't change the past, the present and future are what you make of it. She is the best developed love interest of the MCU and i stand by that 🫡
Cap's ending in Endgame made no sense, even if you only watched the movies. Doesn't fit the character. Time travel wise it's confusing. Also Steve had already accepted his role in the present, and moved on from Peggy in previous films. He even started dating Sharon Carter. It's like they just dropped things they didn't like, or retconned them instead of building on them. Real shame they never did anything with some of the stuff Agents of SHIELD set up like Ghost Rider, or the Inhumans.
It helps that “Ever After” was co-written by a woman: Susannah Grant. Susannah Grant is no stranger to writing strong female protagonists in movies like Disney’s “Pocahontas” and “Erin Brockovich”.
You know you could just have more female characters that are friends and work together of different calibers. One who’s physically strong, one’s who’s intellectually strong, and one who can’t fight but is great at support and empathy. There doesn’t have to be this one over the other. Yeah yeah “strong women bad”, “weak woman bad” but with Mary sue now being “character I don’t like” screw it, make a cast of women who develop physically and mentally with their own skill set. People are going to complain either way, but an active character will still be more useful than a passive character. You just have to be diverse with how active you make them
We can’t have that! Male writers only see women as competitors rather than cooperators. 😝 But all joking aside, I agree with you about having more female characters that work together rather than compete over a guy.
The "females of different personalities, strengths and weaknesses working together" is why I love the Sailor Scouts/Sailor Senshi of the anime Sailor Moon :)
@@meatballhead15 I was gonna say My Little Pony: FiM. But the point still stands. Mostly female ensemble casts with a variety of strengths and weaknesses is very common in children's shows and it'd be nice to see it reflected a little more in teen/adult shows.
I feel like the Mary Sue thing feels like girls wanting to be as awesome beyond belief like male heroes often have been. I mean, everybody deserves a power fantasy that speaks to them.
I mean, the label has been so misused that The Legend of Korra’s titular protagonist is somehow a Mary Sue yet also weak and useless. It’s just another load of ammunition for dudebros to fire indiscriminately.
There are two kinds of power fantasy: One is the "iconic character" that is powerful from the very beginning, such as James Bond or (the classic) Lara Croft; the other is a character that becomes powerful toward the end of the story through a character arc, such as Luke Skywalker or Ellen Ripley from Alien. The problem with Mary Sue is that her story is told in a way to promise a character arc, but the arc never happens. For example, the latest Star Wars trilogy presents itself as a myth--an origin story--but as the story progresses, it turns out that Rey is already perfect and has no need for personal growth. This mismatch between setup and payoff makes the story unsatisfying. In contrast, Lara Croft from the old Tomb Raider movies is presented as an iconic character from the very beginning, so the audience is comfortable with her being badass and perfect from the very beginning. Despite being framed as a gender issue, the problem with Mary Sue in recent movies is really due to poor storytelling technique.
This! The Mary Sue accusation is overblown and it is disappointing how many critics have fallen in line to use it. Most of the arguments I've seen proclaiming a Mary Sue take an unforgiving and unimaginative approach to analysis.
We've corrected the passive "Damsel in Distress" TOO well, that if a work stars a female Superhero, they're usually talked up and praised, with all the male characters either being unbelievably dumb or complete tools, such as "Ghostbusters 2016" or "Wonder Woman 1984."
Exactly. We can elevate women’s roles and characterizations without dumbing down men’s roles to do that. All that does is imply that women can’t be smart unless all the men around them are imbeciles, so in other words, it’s still infantilizing women
The damsel in distress is why I prefer heroic duos of male and female who can work together and off each other. Always having each others backs and covering the other's weaknesses. Plus it also makes space for badass married couples, Zoe and Wash from Firefly or Mr and Mrs Smith.
Having female characters who are allowed to be weak & emotional as a fantasy for female audiences is something I get, of course- But then I would argue overpowered ladies who can kick ass are also a power fantasy. Like, hell, we got decades of action movies with male heroes being almost super heroes regarding vulnerability- Don't misunderstand, I like me some flawed characters who aren't examples of power fantasy, but making "Mary Sues" a thing and ostracizing them then feels like such a waste, too, especially with today's culture.
Ugh can we stop bashing MCU Captain Marvel? She acted like any human would if they were abuducted, with no memories, and told by a evil sentient AI that emotions where evil. In the end, as hard as it is for some people to understand, she represented *humanity*, against an alien invasion, not just women. Emotions are a human trait, and as we’ve been shown by characters like the Hulk, being emotional and not being able to control them, isn’t just a woman thing. Her ‘getting up after being knocked down’ was just a scene where she happened to be a woman getting up, and yes as a woman sexism is one of the things she needed to get back up from. Just like Cap’s size, and lack of money, where ones that made him a target and make him have to ‘do this all day’. Everything Mary Sue about Captain Marvel in a male superhero makes him relatable. Cocky and sure of their skill? Tony. Stiff and military, but wouldn’t bat an eyelash to save someone at their own risk? Cap. A brainwashed soldier who has emotional issues and hard time assimilating back? Bucky. This is the issue with women in media. We can’t have one character that can’t be relatable to *everyone* without it being labeled. Because I am a woman, who is a veteran, I quite relate to Captain Marvel and would love if people stopped shi*ting on her as being unrelatable.
I am glad that Captain Marvel is a relatable character for you! We all need a couple characters that feel how we feel or have some familiar traits. I like Captain Marvel, I think her personality and character make perfect sense. I do wish her powers were a little more clearly defined and there were a few known limits to her abilities, otherwise we run into the Superman problem of just too impervious to harm. But that isn't her character, that is just a soft magic system, and it's just my opinion.
@@ouroborosalarichard But that's the writer's issue and apparently they corrected it before they released the film. I just don't understand how they expect this ex-military woman with amnesia, who is OP, to be.
@@ouroborosalarichard i thought the scene was fine and shouldn't have been cut because at that point in the story she WAS a villain, she was an elite member of the kree military, she was hunting innocent skrulls for extermination. It wasn't until she learned of Mar-Vell's sacrifice for them that she decided to become a hero. That was my interpretation of the movie anyway 🤷🏻♀️
I think it's interesting how for a woman to be strong, it's assumed she needs to act more stereotypical masculine, but it's very rare for a feminine man to be anything but a joke, gay, or both
Black Widow is a human being, not superhero yet somehow survives her car being blown up from the sky, falling off windows and hitting herself against fire escapes and a plane crash or whatever the hell that was at the end.
Yes. I once got disassociated during a fight with my partner and pushed him on the chest/shoulders area so hard that he almost fell backwards. When I came to my senses it seemed to me I have been acting on a sort of Black Widow badass, violence is okay and glamorous when a woman does it kind of trope stored in my subconscious. I was lucky he was capable and willing to understand all that. (He's a Gamma male, which is like an Alpha, but more evolved and sensitive; but fully able to Alpha-out in a crisis (good) or conflict (Not so good ) I was grateful he understood disassociation etc. and forgive me without rancor. (I hate when we rancor.) 😔 😊🥰😊
I love how Cinderella III: A Twist in Time adds to the Cinderella narrative, fleshing out Cinderella and the Prince. Cinderella doesn’t become a warrior or anything like that, but it amplifies her quiet strength in the face of her stepmother’s oppression, and she cleverly fights back, because she has nothing left to lose. And seeing the Prince interacting with Cinderella outside the ballroom context and with others adds a lot to him as well. The scenes with his father are memorable, especially in how they critique the original. One pokes fun at the slipper plan, like “there’s *surely more than one woman with this size shoe?” The other one was him literally jumping out the window to go after her at one point. And they really do save each other, because while he has his moment to save her, she (and her animal friends) are the only ones aware of all the magical mayhem the Stepmother and stepsisters are pulling to get to him, so she saves him too.
The Damsel in Distress hasn't always been a woman, sometimes its a kid. Dumbo, Bambi, Oliver! (or any Oliver Twist adaptations come to that) all have male damsels.
The Damsel in Distress trope already fixed as early as Paper Mario, Peach can't hope to begin fighting Bowser or resist the movements of his army, but without her, Mario would have stood no chance. She had to use guile and soft power
And especially when you add the fact that Snow White was a 14-year-old kid with no superpowers, (Katara is a Water bender, Madoka is a magical girl, Nezuko is a demon, and Maka is a soul scythe wielder), we put way too much flack on Snow White.
So many exemples of strong female characters having to be strong because they are mistreated... It is as if the strength of women only appears in reaction or resistance to the violence against them. You don't see that so often with male characters.
What sort of examples do you have in mind? I was cycling through my favorite action heroes and I'd say the majority have being horribly mistreated in common. For example, John Rambo suffers seriously from PTSD, constantly reflecting on how he was horrifically tortured in the Vietnam War. In Gladiator, Maximus is betrayed and left for dead and turned into a slave after having his wife and children murdered. In Robocop, Murphy is brutally dismembered and murdered before being turned into a cyborg. Martin Riggs becomes "the lethal weapon" after the murder of his wife leaving him suicidal with reckless disregard for his own safety. Mad Max loses his partner horribly to a fire followed by his wife and family. Kurt Sloane has his beloved brother turned paraplegic when Tong Po brutally strikes him in the back long after Sloane threw in the towel. Bruce Wayne has his family murdered by Joe Chill. John Wick is beaten nearly to death along with his beloved dog being killed. Ogami Ittō is betrayed with his family brutally assasinated by ninjas leaving him an honorless rōnin wandering around with his son, the only one who survives together with his father. Gatsu in Berserk is not only abused as an orphaned child but raped as well by the very mercenary group he follows. Conan's entire village is slaughtered along with his family while he gets turned into a slave and later gladiator. I can keep going but I'm sure you get the idea. It's a pretty common theme and source of motivation for the male hero and/or his loved ones to suffer enormous mistreatment. That becomes their source of vengeful strength against the horrible people who mistreated them. Most great action heroes and heroines carry great physical and/or emotional scars from my perspective; it's often what lets us empathize with them and root for them in spite of them resorting to such violent measures.
@@Padichat_ Cheers! I do think it's a bit heavy-handed at least to beat up and traumatize our heroes and heroines to give them a cause to resort to violent measures. I have to admit though that it's often a major source of empathy from me; I tend to root for the horribly mistreated ones.
I was just talking with my writer friends, and we agree that all types of women should be celebrated, from tough fighters to damsels. They can be both and that's okay too. Even if a female character is a damsel in distress and rescued by a man, she still has worth, as long as she has goals and an arc of her own beyond just chasing a guy. I like Sansa, Evie from The Mummy movies, and also Kiara from The Lion King 2: Simba's Pride - even if they have damsel moments, they are strong heroines. An all-action female who does nothing else but throws punches wouldn't be appealing to me - same like anyone who constantly needs saving and doesn't fight back. A female should be allowed to feel vulnerable. What I notice is many tend to label a damsel in distress 'weak' and 'useless'. It's like telling women that being in danger or needing help/support/rescue means they're worthless. If a female is in peril, it's part of her arc and growth, not someone else's, not her rescuer's. There's room for growth.
The damsel in trope can also be quite progressive for woc, especially dark skin black women cause it can show them as being worthy of being saved and protected.
A great example is Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “Cinderella” starring Brandy as Cinderella. Cinderella may need to be saved from her miserable, abusive life, but thankfully the film avoids the “white savior trope” by having her saviors be *a black fairy godmother and an Asian prince.* Also, the fairy godmother teaches Cinderella to stand up for herself and reminds Cinderella that she actually has to put in effort in winning the prince because all the fairy godmother did was get Cinderella to the ball.
But it's like, a lot of (but not all mind you) people hate things like Miss Saigon, for Kim being "saved" from the horrors of Vietnam and then being replaced with an American girl as the love interest to her boyfriend. So, maybe not.
@@finland4ever55 To be fair, “Miss Saigon” is an adaptation of the Puccini opera “Madame Butterfly”. But I agree with you about how the musical “Miss Saigon” perpetuates white saviorism.
I think Natalia from Goldeneye was an example of a damsel in distress done right. Being a civilian, she understandably was terrified of the danger, and watching the film as a kid I was always scared for her, but she found a way to survive, as an IT specialist she could bring her set of skills to the table and being outside the spy game she was very critical of Bond's ruthless ways.
In action stories, the damsel in distress can also be a kid, an animal, an old person, even a man (like Batman), etc. but the "oh she is pretty and young, she has to fullfil the damsel in distress trope everytime" is annoying. Character of any kind can be vulnerable but when autors focus on ONE type who can do nothing but this, they makes damages on how women and girls see themselves.
11:20 & 13:13 absolutely vitally important: that pain leads to "looking inwards for the courage to keep going". Another great video essay, thank you. Next step: showing tons of MALE characters that accept and embrace their experienced vulnerability and learn to ask for help.
The Take has been ahead of less nuanced feminism about the Disney Princess and her virtues and strengths. These Girls Aren't Mary Sue's at all. They're only victims who use soft power to better their lives. And not necessarily so that their main focus is to be rescued by a man. The Take elaborated on this point in their defending Cinderella video. I actually found it really moving! I took some screenshots and when you slow the action of the abuse down like that, it's really heartbreaking! And, viewed as still photos, her soft power perseverance is really lovely in a deep way. I never thought about exactly how deep the cruelty of the abuse was... -- (they ambush her and tear her beloved dress off her body!) -- ... and what fortitude and ability to establish mutual aid, friendship, and true alliances it took for her to survive it intact. Also they made the excellent point that she didn't go to the ball to meet the prince! She just wanted to go to a ball for the first time in her life... Where is the simpering young woman who only wants a man to save her in that? She wanted a day of Glamour and Beauty instead of constant servitude. How completely healthy, natural, and actually independent!
The fact that Kida from Atlantis the lost Empire has never made an appearance. To my knowledge on this channel, I find sad and abhorrent. Lol 🤣. But seriously I love this channel. Please do something acknowledging her. She's an amazing character.
I feel like the didney princesses aren’t good examples of damsels in distress tbh. Like technically that can be considered ones but being saved is such a small part of their stories and screen time.
As long as all versions of women's strength are shown I don't see a problem. The overcorection (though I don't fully agree that it happened) was probably a necessity to see that physical strength and assertiveness are things that many women must rely on to solve their problems. I don't recall any but the character based on the video game to not display real vulnerabilities. I think the protagonist from Kill Bill in particular did so as she was not only seeking revenge but also to reclaim and protect her child. This after months in a coma where she was repeatedly sexually exploited and could do nothing to save herself. We later see that she went through intense physical and psychological training in preparing to be an assassin. No Mary Sue, she had prepared for the time not only where she would be able to heartlessy murder others but would have to rely on herself to save herself. As for characters who remained love interests for leading or heroic men, that role required them to display typical female traits and vulnerabilities. Without that they would have been less likely to be seen as sexually desirable by the male characters and most audiences. They came close to the line of being supposedly masculinized but never crossed it. So I don't see an overcorrection, just a correction.
The problem with the Reverse Damsel in Distress is that it's still written by men, for men. They may portray women with physical strength but they still lack complexity and can be usually reduced to pretty women in tight black clothes.
@@beethovensfidelio Ripley in Alien wasn't so much male-coded as genderless. She would normally have been male because Male has traditionally been the default for characters whose gender is pretty much irrelevant to the plot. Making her female instead was a good finger in the eye to the habit of Male as Default, which is one of the reasons why I love her.
@@kelleyceccato7025 I actually thought Ripley was specifically feminine and strengthened by casting a woman for the role. Her distinguishing trait, after all, is that she's the last person to ever underestimate dangerous situations (the opposite of the stereotypically masculine, gung-ho type as with the case of the colonial marines who thought they could simply lock and load and be ready for anything: a disastrously "masculine" trait in this context). That was true in the first film where she was the only one insisting on following 24-hour quarantine procedure despite Captain Dallas even ordering her to let Kane inside, refusing his orders in favor of safety protocol despite protests from everyone else. It's especially true in the second film. Velasquez is the "masculine" female character IMO but portrayed briliantly by Jenette Goldstein.
I have several takes with this topic. First Evie from The Munmy doesn't belong in the montage of classic damsels in distress. She gets rescued but like mulan and jasmine she rescues the male characters as well. She starts off as the naive intellectual with no fight training but manages to use her intelligence to ultimately defeat imhotep. I feel like the take on female action heroes being too super to be relatable is a matter of opinion. Some viewers want their female heroes to have so many emotive moments that those moments might overshadow the action scenes of an action film so they might as well put thise charscters in suspense thrillers. Lara Croft, the angels, the bride and many early 2000s female action heroes has their own vulnerability levels that should be respected. Yes the bride recovers from being in a coma for years very quickly but she never feels too invulnerable. She gets cut, punched and kicked and still always feels like she won't win unless she can turn the tide or get lucky. There are women in reality who are stern and don't always emote but that doesn't mean they can't nor does it mean thry shouldn't get represented on screen becomes some people cobsider them robotic. Lady Jessica and other Bene Gesserit from Dune are pretty stern and regal throught the film but that doesn't make them any less relatable. I think some people need to hold space for multiple versions of strong female characters and the amount of emotion they show on screen cause too msny people want a highly trained warrior who goes through the emotional gambit Brie Larsson's character in room. And that is a hard to balance on screen so let's not toss a character into the unrelateable super hero category just because she doesn't have a deep cry moment.
It's worth noting that in the silent film era, there were many popular female-starring adventure/ detective serials whose heroines were very capable. There's a fascinating article titled "The Myth of the Damsel on the Railroad Tracks" by Eric Grundhauser debunking the popularity of the video clip that has entered the modern consciousness.
I am not sure Cinderella is a damsel in distress due to the fact that her enemies are females (step mother and sisters) and it was not a man that came to Cinderella’s rescue but the fairy godmother, who is the hero or heroine (however you want to put it) of the story. Cinderella was not seeking a Prince or a husband she just wanted an off day, her step sisters and mothers went to ball seeking a man. Cinderella can also be seen as how toxic feminity can bring out the worst in women. Cinderella dress and slippers matched her character, which is what made her stand out from all the other gold diggers. Cinderella also displays what qualities a man should look for in a woman. The story is a classic and has many layers 👠 👸🏽 👗
I agree with most of what you say but for a couple things: Firstly, the fairy godmother does help Cinderella but I also think Cinderella saves herself by escaping her imprisonment using her wit as well as the help of her friends. And, I do think that the prince is saving her (by that I mean, in taking her way from such terrible circumstances and unlike some people, I don't find that a problem). And secondly, I may be misinterpreting your comment (so correct me if I am wrong) but I dislike your implication that Cinderella is/may not be a damsel-in-distress simply because of the sex of her enemies. Yes, in many of the stories featuring the damsel-in-distress, the people putting her in danger are typically males but it doesn't change the fact that Lady Tremaine and her daughter still pose a threat to Cinderella. Though, I do believe male villains are more dangerous just by virtue of their physical strength, by saying this: "I am not sure Cinderella is a damsel in distress due to the fact that her enemies are females", I do think this statement kind of downplays the seriousness of cruel, malicious women such as Lady Tremaine and how deadly they can actually be/are to other people (including both men and women).
Unlike Snow White and Sleeping Beauty who needed men to come to their rescue, which is what defines a Damsel in Distress, Cinderella Knight and Shining Armor was the fairy godmother, as for the stepmother and daughters who cruelty towards Cinderella could be taken as the damsel in distress theme could be taken differently depending on who you ask. I think Frollo is one of the worst Disney villains, is Quasimodo considered a Damsel in Distress since both are males and based on Frollo’s abuse towards the disabled Quasimodo. In Sleepy Beauty, it’s not until Belle kisses Beast that the spell is broken, but Beast is not labeled a Damsel in Distress and not to mention when the male Gaston abuses the male LeFou character, who is depicted as homosexual, LeFou is not labeled as a Damsel in Distress. Damsel in Distress phrase is only labeled on men who abuse women and the same woman requires a man to rescue her, Lifetime Channel (Television for Women) is guilty of this trope.
@@kadesmith3054 You are right that the label damsel-in-distress would not apply to Quasimodo, the Beast and LeFou as they are not female. However, you've kind of just contradicted yourself. First, you consider Snow White and Aurora to be damsels-in-distress as they need the help of men but in the next breath, you state this; "Damsel in Distress phrase is only labeled on men who abuse women and the same woman requires a man to rescue her". This is contradictory is because you still consider Snow White and Aurora to be damsels-in-distresses, even though their abusers are women. In fact, most people still consider the traditional, feminine Disney princesses such as Snow White, Cinderella, and Aurora to be damsels-in-distresses, so that disproves your statement that the label can only be applied to females who are abused by men.
@@Belle_isle899 A damsel in distress has always been classified as a woman that needs a man to come her rescue, so my point in the examples I’m making is that if gender does matter whether it’s male-male, female-female, male-female or female-male then should the phrase only apply to females in need of a male hero or should it apply in all cases, same thing with the MeToo Movement, if a man sexually assaults or harasses a woman he is a predator but if a woman sexually assaults a woman or another man, she is not labeled a predator. In the case of misogyny, why is it when a woman are abrasive or sexually promiscuous, she is called a bitch or hoe, but if a man shares any of these characters he is labeled as neither.
@@kadesmith3054 Firstly, there are male equivalents to the terms bitch and hoe. For men who are "abrasive", he would be called a jack***, douchebag, jerk, a**hole etc. For men who are "promiscuous", I have heard terms manwhore, playboy, whoremonger, f***boy, womanizer etc to describe these types of men. Secondly, I've never actually denied the damsel-in-distress trope has always been about women needing men to rescue them. I was not arguing with you on that. What I took issue with was that you implied Cinderella was not being damsel-in-distress BECAUSE of the gender of her enemies. When it comes to the damsel-in-distress trope, for the man to save her, the woman has to be in sort of trouble and to reiterate, it does not matter the gender of the person/people placing her danger. She's still a damsel-in-distress, whether her enemies are women or not. THIS is what I was trying to say in my first comment. Thirdly, it makes no sense to apply the label damsel-in-distress to men because the term damsel is gendered in the first place. Damsel means a young unmarried woman (usually of noble birth), which is why (I think) the women the hero saves in the stories almost always ends up with him. On the other hand, the word predator is not. You can generally use the word for both genders. Although, I do ABSOLUTELY agree with you, women who commit SAs must also be labelled as a predator, rapist etc. I HATE it when people try to downplay the seriousness of SAs (or any kind of assault frankly) by women or don't properly report how it is, especially if the victim is male and especially if the assault occurred while they were underage.
There is intersectionality to consider with this topic as was said at the end. Black women have been deemed perfectly capable of handling everything for years, even being associated with being like men. There are not ENOUGH feminine representations of Black women. They all have to be badass, independent, never receive a MALE love interest, be the "tree among flowers" in Queer relationships, and have to be the cold emotionless one that picks up the pieces. This has led to Black women not being taken seriously when they are real victims and DESERVE to be saved or rescued, especially by those in authority like firefighters and police officers. The response is slow and no one sympathizes, yet women of color are the most victimized.
I'm crazy in love with Charlize Theron's character in Atomic blonde. She fights hard, gets hardly beaten, but still she's awesome ❤ imho she's the perfect shift from the iron lady trope and helpless female trope from the spy movies
This discussion kinda hilights why I love grrm writing and the character of Brienne of tarth so much. Many focus on the dichotomy of typical Princess sansa and tomboy Arya, but Brienne is the more interesting character in that regard. She has the rare luck of having the physical strangth to not be in the damsel role. She can protect herself and others, but she has still many princessy inner qualities. Way to much compassion for her situation, being quite naive. Having fallen in love with her Prince after just one dance.... Brienne is vulnerable to no ends. While her action go contrary to what is expected of her, she does not do it out of sheer defiance like it often comes across with the "adventurous" Disney princesses. It is just who she is and she tries to make the most out of it. She is not super dark edgy, no she is well rounded and she does not critique classical femininity at all, despite it not applying to her. She admires Catlyns motherinstincs ind hopes to protect the damsel in distress, no grudge there no nolg behavior
In a weird way, I just saw the title of this episode and I didn’t need to watch it. The entire episode unfolded within my mind in five seconds. If you’re a woman you know exactly what this is. We didn’t need to watch this to know what it was going to say. And that makes me really depressed about society.
The Mary Sue has been leaking in a little too much.. she's extremely beautiful, highly intelligent, unbelievably OP in every art of fighting, has no weakness, gifted with leadership, can't be outdone... it's nauseating at this point.. Or she's just completely helpless and hopelessly annoying... Can we at least have a medium?
‘Heartstopper’ for me was also a ‘Damsel in Distress’ Story for all the characters in varying degrees where they’re trapped in their castles and then escape it eventually.
I always feel like peoples need to correct this specific trope ignored the problem that lead to it in the first place. I even don’t think it’s entirely fair to include the raimi Spider-Man movies in it because all of the important people in Peter’s life needed to be rescued by Spider-Man. Spider-Man was a character drama rather than an action movie so all of the agency comes from the decisions characters make in their personal lives, not how much they contribute to action scenes. MJ was captured more (which is worth criticizing) but beyond the familiar trope, this was happening because their relationship was more closely tied to his double life than the other characters so there was character development being accomplished beyond her being a “prize” to win.
You make good points but there is something I would like to add: male movie characters are far less criticized for being overpowered. The male term for "Mary Sue" is far less prevalent. Yes, Charlie's Angels might not be the most complex characters, but they (along with Mulan) are the first female characters I remember from my childhood who inspired me BECAUSE they could handle themselves physically. Yes, Cartoon Mulan's struggles make her so much more appealing and relatable than her live action 2020 counterpart. But I would argue that women need overpowered female characters the same way men do with male ones. You are right that overcoming struggle makes female characters more resilient, but this is done wrong more often than it is done right (i.e. rape as plot device/device for character development). Sometimes it soothes the soul to see women being unapologetically kick-ass without any trauma behind it.
Sometimes the people who regularly throw around the Mary Sue comment briefly acknowledge a male character is a Mary Sue, by their standards, and just keep complaining about the woman/minority. It's so dishonest, haha.
This! Growing up I was a "tomboy" type of gal so I was constantly irritated by the typical portrayal of girls and women in fiction and absolutely loved the so-called "strong female characters" because I like escapism and fantasy as much as guys do. It shouldn't be seen as bad to sometimes have these types of female characters because male characters are *still* being portrayed that way, and with far less or even no criticism, as if it's somehow normal with men but not with women. There should be room for all types of female characters--we just need writers (sadly, still mostly male) to write them better.
I absolutely disagree with you. I like the super powerful women in movies, because there's also super powerful men. And I don't agree about Uma Thurman's character in Kill Bill being indestructible. The woman goes through hell and back during the entire damn movie. Like... did we watch the same movie? Either way, I personally, like my women strong, and even a bit evil at times. Evil women are honestly one of my favorites to watch in movies or series. Sometimes their motives are insane, but also very relatable. Well, for me personally.
I also have a problem with corset tight-lacing scenes. back in the 18th and 19th centuries, tight-lacing was incredibly uncommon, and in Elizabethan through early 19th century corsets (or stays) tight-lacing wasn't even possible. That being said, I don't think that's the main problem. Tight-lacing scenes are a staple in period dramas and have been for the majority of film history. Not only do I think it's lazy writing, but I also think it to be incredibly misogynistic that we are making profits off of women's suffering. Why are we all getting excited about women suffering for the gratification of men?
That's a good point, although I know that in Titanic the brutal tightlacing scene is meant to be a symbol of roses oppression . But if it's not historically accurate? I'd say artistic license in the case of Rose's mother visibly, deliberately constricting and confining her. In body as in Soul. 😥😟😔😥😟💔🥀
@@Peecamarke I'm no historian but I'm pretty sure that fainting spells are a symptom of tuberculosis, and illness which was highly romanticised at the time. Another reason doctors may have blamed corsets for fainting was because it was a common belief then that a woman's uterus was suspended by little strings and that if it tilted too much, it would cause hysteria, a symptom many of them thought was fainting. It was believed that "wandering womb" could be caused by wearing high heels, physical activities, riding on trains (probably due to the speed at which they travelled) wearing a corset, etc. which we know now to be medically inaccurate.
I know everyone knows they're supposed to hate it like Amy Schumer but I liked Captain Marvel. In any case, I really don't think there's been any "overcorrect" or proliferation of the Mary Sue. Male characters in media are Often written as what, if they were female, would be Deemed "Mary Sues". Superman, as we see him in the first movie is largely Rey from TLJ. The issue that people have with the strong female character in fiction is the same issue that they have with black and brown people in a lot of fantasy. It's "nOt ReAlIsTiC" to the point that it needs to be OVER Justified🤷🏾♂️
If it tampers with the storytelling, it deserves to be called out. Don't remember much of Superman's 1st movie, but CM def did messed with the Infinity Saga.
I think the difference between Rey and Superman is that she breaks the in-universe rules while he doesn’t. In both the original and prequel trilogies it’s shown that natural talent/power/potential aren’t enough to overcome an opponent with more training/skill/experience. That’s why Luke lost to Vader in their first fight and Anakin lost to Dooku in Episode II and Obi Won in Episode III. In all those cases the more experienced fighter managed to outperform and outskill the younger, and potentially more powerful, fighter. Luke and Anakin eventually beat Vader and Dooku, respectively, but only after gaining more experience/skill and by using the dark side (an in-universe power boost). But in TFA, despite her lack of experience with the force and lightsaber combat, Rey manages to beat Kylo in every encounter they have, the interrogation scene, when both are trying to force pull Anakin’s lightsaber, and during their lightsaber battle. At least from my perspective, the “overcompensation” (which isn’t just a problem with female characters) is an issue when it doesn’t correctly follow the story structure. Looking at Captain Marvel as an example, it makes sense for Carol to be as powerful as she is since she gained her power from an infinity stone, which the story has repeatedly shown to be extremely powerful. The same logic applies to Wanda. Another example is Avatar, the women are among the most powerful characters and the audiences is ok with it, since it fits with the shows internal logic (Korra is the avatar, Toph learned from the originals benders, Katara trained to gain power, Azula is a prodigy, etc). More recently in Prey… SPOLIERS…, throughout the movie we see Naru progressively gaining the knowledge, skill, and equipment to kill the predator, so when she finally does kills it, it’s extremely satisfying. Unlike Ray beating Kylo in Episode VII which simply seems contrived and forced.
@@MrStefanops On Captain Marvel, it is a problem since she got the powers through an accident. It's never a hindrance and a blessing. The powers aren't part of her, it's just a tool she uses. This prevents a character development and also minimalize any threat. Neither the Skrulls or Krees are match to her. It didn't stop there. Her powers got so much more it eclipses the threat of Thanos and all the heroes in the Portal scene, making them all irrelevant to her. Yes, Thanos punched her with the Power Stone but if she was there all along in the Avengers HQ, she could destroy the Sanctuary 2 before Thanos even beams out of it.
Just a note: NO ONE complains about male characters being too strong or powerful and not vulnerable enough. Only when women on screen are badasses is there suddenly an issue.
I am a woman. The only time strong female characters are an issue is if the writing of the plot was just bad. Having female protagonists doesn't compensate for lackluster dialogue.
Half true, there's definitely double standards, but 1. there has been a bit more criticism of those male roles being toxic or not being fleshed out or emotional enough. And 2. With women I think it just has to make sense. Normal Women being able to easily win a physical fight against a man double their size doesn't exactly seem likely nor does it resonate with me (as a woman). That's not a power fantasy for me, that's just ... insulting to normal women who could never ever achieve that or who weren't able to successfully fight an attacker irl. I'm all for making women as badass as possible, but show her struggle to get there too, because that what it would be, and make her have emotions. It's okay to be stoic, but it's boring to watch and just so overused by now (for male and female protagonists).
Also the being saved/redemption/coming home story is very important and resonant bc as humans we all feel our lack and deep spiritual need to be made well and find home and peace. I think this speaks to our need for connection to our creator and why we continue to love salvation stories
I think the problem with the trope is actually the expectation of sexual gratitude. I'd love to see a story where the hero rescues the damsel and then she walks away, like you know, she'd do in real life.
There’s Disney’s “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” where Esmeralda goes to Phoebus instead of Quasimodo, even though one would expect Esmeralda to hook up with Quasimodo after he rescued her from Frollo.
While trying to erase the Damsel-in-Distress, we encourage the idea that anyone who is a victim of circumstance is weak. Black women especially aren't allowed to be portrayed as victims. We are constantly seen as "strong" and it has real world affects on black women in the real world.
Ideas for a companion video to help round out this topic: - The sexism behind the internet's rejection of "Mary Sues", sometimes characters are strong and that's okay - The history of "Gary Sues", and how they perpetuate toxic masculinity. Why don't we criticize them the same as we do women (ex: Hercules, Maverick, Iron Man)? - A general defense of bada$$es in cinema, what characters got some undeserved backlash that were actually super cool?
In top gun 2, maverick can fly a fighter jet up to more than 10x the speed of sound. The character must be in his late 50s or early 60s. It’s unrealistic, yet no one complains.
Giving this video a major side-eye, not only for the click bait title, but also for the fact that men have been Gary Sue's since the start of time. But women are Mary Sue's and all of a sudden there's a "problem" with women stepping into these shoes? Sounds sus. Link me when men get the same video. Edit: Giving this video even more side-eye as they defend the princess damsel trope as being "more complex" and basically "people not giving her enough credit." Where's the same energy for these Mary Sue's and the "strong" women you're saying we've over corrected?
Well said! 👏 If men can have power fantasies, why not women as well? I get that the concern of “Mary Sues” is about positive discrimination where women aren’t allowed to be flawed therefore they have to work twice as hard for the half the work a man does. HOWEVER, “Mary Sue” is too often used to demonize women who are strong, competent, fast learners, quick-witted, independent, and resourceful. You know, the kind of traits that are praised in male characters like James Bond, Superman, Conan the Barbarian, MacGyver, and Harry Potter.
Honestly a bit surprised that Katniss ended up the borderline Mary Sue category. Didn’t she have major flaws in social skills that regularly hindered her and often forced her to rely on characters who were more skilled than her in that field? Also didn’t she have multiple C-PTSD symptoms from all the hardship she faced?
Katniss is a flawed and complex character, but tradfem fans like the The Take always attack her and call her a Sue/"man-with-boobs" since she's not this icon of femininity like their faves.
I understand this point. Nevertheless, now we are saying that it’s been over done and she’s become a Mary Sue? Is Bond a Mary Sue? Is Indiana Jones a Mary Sue? Is Superman a Mary Sue? I’m tired of over thinking this stuff. We don’t want them to be like the male heroes; we don’t want them to be weak, we don’t want them to be too strong. 🙄 These are fake stories folks. Can we just enjoy these films and shows?
By this point accusing people of subpar writting is not enough. They must spout Mary Sue like broken records. Moral of the story kids: never be lapdogs of youtube reviewers
I have no objection to "girl power" feminism per se. What annoys me is more specific type of overcorrection I encountered in popular culture in the '90s. Namely, because the damsel-in-distress had so often been blonde and beautiful, a backlash gained momentum whereby the action heroines were disproportionately blonde and beautiful, and dark-haired and/or homely or even plain girls had fewer chances to be heroines as a result. (Joss Whedon even admitted that he made Buffy Summers blonde and beautiful because in "classic" horror movies that type of character was often the first to be killed by the villain, while a more ordinary girl - or a man - was the one who defeated the villain.) And when the invincible blonde beauty is also a happy-go-lucky airhead who should have been killed many times over by the time the movie ends, the trope gets even more annoying. All depictions - yes, even the farcical ones - have their place, but there should always be a balance to the portrayals. It's very discouraging that we go through these cycles in which every female or minority protagonist is practically a cookie-cutter cutout. I think it should be pointed out, though, that the fact that a filmmaker or TV writer depicts a damsel-in-distress is not necessarily proof that he thinks women are like that in real life, or that he would never consider depicting a "girlboss" character. The trope is often thrown in there simply for comedy, precisely BECAUSE it's so stereotyped and clichéd. Even the fact that it's so offensive and "politically incorrect" can add to the humor, because things that make people uncomfortable tend to be automatically funny.
@@Carabas72 Andrew Garfield was the better Spider-Man and Emma Stone’s Gwen was way better than MJ. Unfortunately I still hate the Amazing Spider-Man 2.
The whole concept of a Mary Sue is based on sexism. The only people using that term (up until now apparently) are anti-sjw reactionaries to whom every prominent female character is a Mary Sue. The action genre is defined by Gary Sue's, perfect men who are smarter stronger, funnier better looking more perfect in every way than all the men around them, yet no one takes issue with that. When it's a woman who's perfect then suddenly it's a problem, she's unrelatable, unlikable and overpowered. Why is that? Why can't female characters be as much a power fantasy as male characters? Who complaints about Iron Man being too smart, too rich, too witty, too lucky all the while being arrogant and cocky? No one, cause as a man, that's considered charming. Captain Marvel is an issue cause without a penis, all her powers make her unlikable? This is just another way how there's a double standard for women. The whole idea of a Mary Sue needs to be abolished. Not only are most characters branded Mary Sues not really one and the ones that are, have every right to be as overly perfect as the male characters.
THIS. Why is it that there's a problem when women are Mary Sue's when men have been Gary Sue's from the start of time with no problem? Sounds fishy and makes me side eye this video...
True! When you get to the details of average viewers' arguments, so many of the Mary Sue accusations I've seen amounted to complaints that the character didn't replicate the exact same path as another existing character. It is so willfully ignorant and lacking imagination. Critics can always tear down a movie, bc "the rules" don't necessarily make a film good so much as you can identify "recommended/established" structure in an average good film. You can also miss reasonable inclusions and variations on established tropes, if you let yourself.
Also… the prince from Snow White didn’t even want to save her. He thought she was dead. He kissed her out of mournful respect… it just happened to be the right thing to break the spell.
Who the hell has the thought process of see random corpse in glass coffin, must kiss it. Most people would wonder why it was there and what happened to her.
This was a really interesting video essay! I do feel like we’ve gone too far the opposite way sometimes. Ray is a good example of that. I wouldn’t put Evee from The Mummy into a “damsel” category though. She’s incredibly capable and her smarts saves them all including the hero.
I agree but i do take issue with this backlash against these physically strong female characters. As far as I see it, that's also another form of bashing female characters. First it was because they were too weak and then because they are too strong "to be relatable". Those strong women exist in a world where them being that strong is not out of the ordinary or far-fetch and actually need to be that strong in order to be part of the action. Do I want characters that are both strong and also not defined by just their strength, of course. And most of us want it too but I usually don't hear this complaint for the many male action characters unless it's Superman so this fixation on female characters now being "too strong" also needs to be looked at closer.
I don't think it's so much a gender issue though as a casting/physical issue. For example, I've yet to see a single person complain about the great portrayal of Mother Russia in Kickass 2, played by the great Olga Kurkulina, as being too strong even though she's the most badass, ridiculously overpowered character in the entire film. After all, just look at her! She's over 6 feet tall and covered head to toe in thick muscles with a bigger-than-life screen presence and the ability to deliver humorous one-liners with a deep voice that are as memorable in her delivery as Arnold Schwarzenneger's best. Most beloved male action stars playing overpowered characters usually have some combination of an impressive physique, superb athletic prowess with superb choreography/stunts, and/or a bigger-than-life screen presence/charisma which has nothing to do with their acting ability. Such is the case of Arnie, Sly, JCVD, Chuck Norris, Bruce Lee, Jet Li, Donnie Yen, Jackie Chan, Mel Gibson, Jason Statham, Dolph Lundgren, etc. These aren't ordinary male actors; every fiber of their being screams "action star" and that's why they can get away with overpowered roles like a John Rambo or Jack Slater. It's not because they are men; it's because they scream extraordinary men just from a glance with their physical qualities: even the way they speak and the sound of their voice. Olga Kurkulina has that natural-born action star quality to her, but she only really got that one major role as Mother Russia in one film. So too did some other great actresses have this quality like Kathy Long or Cynthia Rothrock in their prime along with Lucy Lawless as Xena (maybe not the most physical, but she had that natural screen presence/charisma), but Hollywood has generally been reluctant to cast such natural-born action women in major ass-kicking roles, instead opting to cast women like Brie Larson, Daisy Ridley, Halle Berry, Tatiana Maslany, or Scarlett Johansson who have about as much of an "action legend" quality to them as Daniel Radcliffe or Timothee Chalamet. So I think it's a casting issue. For example, if they cast a man who was 5'4 and 125lbs as Detective John Kimble in Kindergarten Cop and expected us to just buy immediately that he's the most badass cop ever, that just wouldn't work. For such a role, we needed an actor like Arnie. It's not a gender issue because the vast majority of men wouldn't work in that role either.
@@darkengine5931 completely disagree with your assessment that it's not a gender issue. Those man became those "action stars" because they were built up and marketed to us that way and we didn't do much questioning and that's because we rarely question if a man is fit enough for a role. We just expect that if they were cast in that role that they will at least be good enough for actions scenes. If any of those less traditionally masculine actors that you named decide tomorrow that they want to be action stars, we will just be in awe in a few months at how great their physical transformation was. And let's not limit this to characters who need to be physically fit for action roles, this is an industry wide issue that is steeped in gender issues.
@@CaraMarie13 I don't know. Can you think of a Dwayne Johnson or John Cena being able to deliver a "Hey Benny, SCROOOOOOOO YOUUUU!" line in a way as memorable as Arnie? John Cena and Dwayne Johnson are arleady ridiculously fit like Arnie, and Dwayne Johnson is arguably a much superior actor, but I don't think they have that natural charisma. Most of what I'm talking about is charisma rather than physique. Consider Keanu Reeves as an example. He's never been *that* fit. Compare Speed 1 starring Keanu and Speed 2 starring Jason Patric. Both films had very tense plots, decent scripts, and Jason Patric was also quite fit in Speed 2 and arguably a superior actor. But he's not Keanu Reeves! He just doesn't have that Keanu "surfer-dude" charisma that sets Keanu so apart and makes him a living icon and walking meme. The most action-packed films are usually light on drama and dialogue and character development so I think it's usually crucial for entertainment value that the action star is already quite a character from the start. Naturally being such a memorable and charismatic character is generally something an actor can't develop no matter how much time they spend in the gym or how well-directed or well-written the film is. Physical training could have made a younger Al Pacino look physically fit for an ass-kicking role and able to do his own action-packed choreography, but no amount of acting school could make John Cena as charismatic as Al Pacino. Same with Lucy Lawless when she portrayed Xena for an actress example. Try to get many other actresses to portray Xena and they just don't have that very unique charisma that Lucy Lawless has able to deliver one-liners in such a memorable way like, "If you people don't pray to the gods, now would be a good time to start." She was absolutely superior to Hercules played by Kevin Sorbo in spite of Kevin Sorbo being much taller and fitter because Sorbo just lacks that action star charisma (they tried to launch action films starring him like Kull and they just flopped).
We get overpowered male characters all the time and it's never a problem. Let us have power fantasies too, it's telling that people know all about "mary sues" but don't even know the male equivalent of that trope, and don't ever criticise it.
Captain Marvel suffered from the same problem as Commando. "It's gonna be super easy, barely an inconvenience." The only difference is humor shaped Commando while for Captain Marvel it did not. I think a great way to do any character is what I call the Die Hard-Buffy approach. They are scared, vulnerable to mistakes, and out of their depth despite their skills going in.
How come whenever it’s a female character good writing is paramount? There are tons of one dimensional wish fulfillment male characters out there, all the same shade of one personality. People don’t freak out about the Gary Sue, yet for some reason whenever there is a poorly written female character out there people go nuts.
We wouldn’t be so concerned about representation of female characters if male writers knew how to write them well, but sadly they don’t. There’s plenty of variety with male characters but not so much with female characters.
I play a character in my group’s D&D campaign that is often the damsel in distress. Despite constantly being in danger, she tries to have hope and actually works with the guys in the party to make the perfect team. What she lacks in strength or dexterity she makes up for in her charisma, wisdom and intelligence. When she encounters the BBEG she tries to negotiate or deceive him. When she’s in distress, she relies on her party members while also devising plans of her own. One time my character was attacked by a werewolf in the courtyard of her own castle and while one of her vampire friends came to her rescue, she was also preparing for a fight by holding the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind, a powerful magic item that can destroy undead like vampires and werewolves. After the situation deescalated, she ordered the werewolf to be locked in the castle dungeon until she could figure out what to do next. In another part of the campaign my character was helping the guys get through some emotional trauma and repressed memories. Long story short, it’s ok for female characters, even princesses, to be in distress as long as they aren’t flat characters. They need their own personality, motivations etc.
I'd recommend the Trope Talk video on Damsel in Distress. As Red points out, nowadays people write their characters as too self-suficient, especially females, which gets kinda boring. Characters helping each other out, rescuing each other, is actually very compelling.
I've always thought that it was interesting/frustrating that often "strong" female leads that are badass are basically just women acting like male heros with no emotions or vulnerability. Like being masculine is the only way to be strong and independent. I really liked the movie Prey because, although she is physically tough and badass, it's her inner strength, agility, patience, and wit that truly make her strong. Classically feminine traits can be just as badass as classically masculine traits.
It doesn’t help that Ellen Ripley who is considered to be one of the earliest examples of a badass heroine in cinema was originally written to be a GUY. It’s also kind of sexist and transphobic to assume that if a woman is strong, brave, or intelligent that she must secretly be a man. 🙄
When I was a seven year old boy, I knew my Mum wasn't like the damsel in distresses from screen. I owe a lot of my knowledge to women & it is thanks to that knowledge I am mentally stronger. What testifies your intelligence is how often you make the right move while factoring in the weight of your circumstance. If despite your being at almost breaking point you still work your way around the problem that testifies of a very high level person & it speaks louder than fighting ferociously. Both men & women have the potential to being physically & mentally strong both those areas of strength come out differently for both genders & that's the beauty behind it. You can't say there is a better gender because a certain amount of women or men are doing this job got a certain IQ score, can lift thing amount of kilos & can fight with this much force. The consequence of freewill is that you can't weigh in circumstances & say this person should behave like this because of how they were made. You can set them on a path & send certain conditioning needed for them to stay on that path, but they can leave the path because its their freewill. Therefore there will be uneven numbers therefore you can't use that to say males or females are better because of this.
It’s only not okay when men expect women to be the damsels in distress and throw a fit when they aren’t the ones to save them, and if god forbid the damsel saves herself, or when the only way she is saved is when a man comes to save her, for the sole purpose of marrying her or falling in love with her, or with some innate expectation that she will love him and marry him in return for him saving her
@@jasonvargas7564 At least Disney’s “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” averts it by having Quasimodo NOT hook up with Esmeralda after saving her from Frollo.
@@ouroborosalarichard careful now, in this day and age, your assumptions of a man’s name and woman’s name will get you cancelled 😉 I also don’t see how that has anything to do with what we’re discussing? I am a person, giving my response to another person. I didn’t belittle OP or try to discredit them on the basis of their perceived gender so don’t even go there. And every fairy tale and the classical Disney movies always has a dashing, handsome, brave prince, rescuing a damsel in distress from a dragon or a monster or imprisonment or a death like sleep, where only a true love’s kiss will save the damsel. Or Shrek, where the brave knight was to rescue the princess by defeating the dragon, and yadda yadda yadda the princess or damsel falls madly in love with the knight and they get married and live happily ever after. It’s a tale as old as time.
Great video, with some glaring omissions. Sarah Connor and Ellen Ripley deserve a mention at the very least. Also, I don't think Beatrix Kiddo is a good example of the Mary Sue trope in the slightest. The first film is intentionally cartoonish in her depiction, specifically to contrast the complexities introduced in the second film.
In conclusion: please give all your characters actual personalities
Yes! Both men and women! Another reason stranger things is so stinken awesome
I thought that was writing stories 101
@@arianawendymangagirl - Some idiots in their minds thinks it's a stupid idea... 😤🙄😒
Exactly.
@@CM-pf1xc Good point. I hear the show is good in that respect!
The problem with the damsel in distress trope isn't that she's in distress, because believe it or not, women are capable of being in distress. The problem has been that the distress has been her defining characteristic. She is defined by her suffering. It's why I always get so mad when people reduce characters like Cinderella and Snow White and Aurora to just being "damsels in distress" because yes, they are damsels in distress, but they shouldn't defined by their distress, they should be defined by their resilience and their ability to thrive the way they do despite the distress.
To be fair, Aurora is pretty underwritten.
At least Snow White and Cinderella have more defining traits.
I agree!
Firstly: Cinderella was not a damsel, she was a victim of abuse, and that's victim blaming. She couldn't have helped herself even if she tried, she was an orphan in 1800s France with NO MONEY or way of functioning. She wouldn't find a job, much less a home. She wasn't even in danger, she was being bossed around. My mom was an abuse victim and couldn't leave for a long time. She eventually left when she was able to though. Snow White was the only one consistently in danger, and even then she was 14, stop bullying her. Aurora was only in danger for 5 minutes when the spell was actually a death curse, Merryweather altered it into a coma, so she was not in danger for most of the movie. And what all three of these girls have in common is that it's never their fault! So why are people freaking over a cartoon?
What's also fascinating is how people aren't freaking out over Disney characters like Wendy, who's always in danger, or Alice, who gets in danger multiple times and has sassy moments like Cinderella. Or non Disney princesses like Thumbelina, Irene from the Hungarian movie the Princess and the Goblin. It's always OFFICIAL DISNEY PRINCESSES who get bullied by SJWs, and it needs to stop. Warrior ladies are cool, but being traditionally feminine, being a "damsel", liking pink, romance, glitter, princesses, fairies, and unicorns shouldn't be being hated on. Notice how in anime, you find feminine characters still, and also find more feminine characters who are equally girly and kicking butt instead of just "tomboys" or when it comes to romance "lesbians" (which tbh is probably the only romance feminists are okay with because it has more woman). Sailor Moon (especially Usagi and Minako), Pretty Cure, Hinata Hyuuga, Kiki from Kiki's Delivery Service, Faye Valentine. They are all feminine women who also can kick butt, even if they get in danger. Why? Because unlike America, Japan doesn't treat girly girls as some awful sinful blight on society. Because they get it, not every woman has to be a tomboy (which is ironic that feminists are trying to promote masculine women when they clearly hate men). That's why I love these characters, because they can be equally feminine and masculine instead of being dismissed as "brainwashed" by the patriarchy.
Damsel in distress means in actual danger of physical harm, not being under pressure or under a spell.
Also, people get in danger in reality and it's gotten to the point where it feels like you have to ask "if you get in danger in reality and the person who offers help is a man or boy, you're gonna reject it and risk death or injury jsut because oh no a dude asked to help me how evil!"? See, it's dumb
@@finland4ever55 i get your point but i wouldn't really put japan or even anime as a whole as a good place or example of strong female characters or even strong feminine female characters because more often then not those characters are oversexualised even when they are minors or children and they are often the side-characters/love interest and that is often the point of them in the story to be love interests/ supporting characters to the male lead unless it's like the magical girl genre like sailor moon. and japan is also notoriously patriarchal to the point there was the scandal of universities actively tanking female students grades, the issue with sexual harassment/abuse/sexual exploitation of women and girls and gender based domestic violence that's keep very hush hush.
also you need to take note that not all "strong female characters" are written by women or even feminists. So you saying that feminist only want manly strong female characters or wlw romance is not accurate. or that they aim to reject help from men. The point of feminism is to present women as human beings that are capable, intelligent and have agency to help themselves and help others. and that when they do need help they seek help not because "women are weak, stupid incompetent" and so need help from men. but seek help as a person seeking help from another person REGARDLESS of that persons gender.
also you forget in a patriarchal context strength and femininity is not associated together which is why you will see strong female characters that are not written by feminists like the kill bill main character or Lara croft be masculine and sexy and not feminine and femininity being shown as a negative thing. because in a patriarchal context femininity is inferior in every way and is show as such. Which is why showing women being feminine and self sufficient, capable physically and mentally would be contradictory to a male supremacist ideal of women. however i do agree that when it comes to the mary sue types of overwritten strong female characters it is a product of feminism. but luckily we can also find that people have now moved to show complex female characters that are more real and human and in think that should be the most important goal showing women as human first and how they deal or not deal with life or situations rather then it being about "tomboy character" this or "girly character" that. I hope you get what i mean.
@@beethovensfidelio it's really important to remember that fairy tales really shouldn't count in these discussions. the Princess doesn't function like a Damsel.
the well-rounded Maiden archetype has four shadows: the Damsel, the Iron Maiden, the Shrew, and the Vixen. what we've seen a lot of is the "Iron Maiden" to compensate for a lack of strength in the "Damsel" - and yet we still perceive the "Iron Maiden" to have a weakness of a different type, right? it's so tricky to find the right balance to really satisfy the complexity of the Maiden archetype... which leads me to this: we need a diverse group of woman voices leading these productions (writers, actors, directors, etc.).
This is why I loved Roxanne in Megamind. She's a refreshing parody of the damsel in distress, calling out the cliches around her and for the first act, she has a good sense of humor and is treating her kidnapping as just another Tuesday. She doesn't become the hero, but she's still an interesting and memorable character.
"Girls! You're both pretty. Can I go home now?"
Agreed Roxanne Richie is such a criminally underrated character, just like the movie itself is criminally underrated.
this all circles back to megamind doing literally everything right and being an absolute cinematic masterpiece
@@marcellacassab4331 It isn’t underrated anymore, so that’s not exactly true.
Playing devil's advocate here, Roxanne's reaction during her first capture has more to do with Megamind's character than it does hers. She knows that he's not going to hurt her, so she isn't really that scared of him. In contrast, when Roxanne first encounters Titan, she recognizes the danger and reacts accordingly.
What's so crazy about this is as black women, we've never had the opportunity to be the "damsel in distress" and have been saying for a while that this "strong" trope about us, strips away our humanity.
Black women have been damseled by the White Savior trope way too often though.
Yup. It would be nice to see a Black damsel for once.
I know bout you, but I like the strong black women trop. We are our own super heros.
How did you feel about The Woman King coming up
@@Janon743 Can't wait. I love watching women kick ass.
7:50 What I love about Nala pinning Simba was that it taught Simba how to counter it. Simba learns from each time & in the climax kicks Scar before he can pin him. Without Nala, Simba would be dead.
Oh hi! Didn't know you watched the take.
Never realized that until now. Excellent analysis.
@@RazorRex Yeah I've been a fan for years ever since they were ScreenPrism. I don't agree with all of their takes (lol) and some videos I notice aren't as informed about certain films and fandoms. But in general I think they're great for spreading media literacy.
Exactly! I always loved that since I was a kid! EEP! :)
Well, Nala would have been dead if it had not been for Simba saving her from the hyenas at the beginning of the film. My point being that they both need each other.
Please cover the "Even Bad Men Love their Mothers", where a not so pleasant villain or antagonist still has a soft spot for their mother, even protecting her from harm.
Ooo good one!
Wilson Fisk
Tuco Salamanca
Norman Bates
Peter Dinkelage in I Care A Lot.
I like how Mulan's triumphant climax does not come from entirely reject her "femininity." Nor does she have to resort to "feminine wiles" to vanquish the bad guy. She fights with a sword AND a fan. She's just herself with all the complex shadings that entails.
True!
Not to mention that she wears a long dress!
And a Butt ton of Fireworks.
Mulan (in the original, forget the remake) repeatedly shows that her intelligence and strategy is what makes her a valuable soldier. She *learns* to fight through training, like everyone in training, but her ability to find unique solutions to problems is what sets her apart. The moment when she realizes the puzzle with the weights can't be solved by brute strength is Mulan in a nutshell. She can't muscle her way through problems, so she uses her head instead. It's why Mulan is so epic. It shows that brute force isn't everything.
Well said!!!
I think it's very telling when examining the scene before her final show down, the bad guy refers to her as the "Soldier from the Mountain", not "Gasp! A woman!" He takes her very seriously.
To me, a “Mary Sue” isn’t a strong, brave, and resourceful woman, but someone who’s inexplicably liked by everyone without doing anything to earn it.
It’s the character shilling that’s the problem because it’s easy to constantly TELL the readers how awesome she is without actually showing you why.
Bella Swan is a good example of a “Mary Sue”.
Somehow Bella’s blandness is why the characters in “Twilight” love her so much! 😂
I swear the author deliberately made her bland so the reader could project their personality onto her
That's how I've perceived the definition of 'Mary Sue', where the entire narrative basically bends over backwards in order to frame the character in question as being 'perfect' and 'infallible'
@@christianwise637 Edward Cullen be like “You’re not like other girls, Bella. Most girls have a personality, and you don’t, which is why I love you so much”. 😝
Aw I like Bella she's a depressed, shy, introvert but she's also kinda funny and pretty brave. Homegirl went to face a vampire ALONE just to save her mom and flew halfway around the world to save a guy who she thought didn't even want her. I don't know I think she's cool tbh
As much as I dislike Bella, I would NEVER classify her as Mary Sue.
She's too much of a damsel in distress. It gets tedious at times.
The fact that people like her is not strange or superhuman to me. She's the POV character..There's nothing wrong with people liking a character.
Neither tropes are inherently bad, what's wrong is when we as a collective expect all women to behave a certain way. This also goes go men of course.
This, absolutely. What male characters in general have that female characters tend to lack is VARIETY. It's true that male characters are often drawn in stereotypical ways -- it's worse today, IMO -- but because they outnumber female characters, they tend to have more varied personalities. If we look, for example, at the men of Hollywood's classic era, we see not only tough guy John Wayne but earnest idealist James Stewart, chameleon Spencer Tracy who could play pretty much anything, James Cagney the gangster and James Cagney the show-stopping song and dance man, strong but often gentle and soft-spoken Gary Cooper, tough-talking ladies' man Clark Gable, Basil Rathbone's incarnation of Sherlock Holmes. We see so many different KINDS of male leads. (Interestingly enough, the same era had Katharine Hepburn, Ginger Rogers, Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Rosalind Russell, Norma Shearer... did 1930s Hollywood offer a wider variety of images for female characters as well?)
Oddly enough, the area of today's cinema where I find the most variety, and the most interesting female characters, is in animation. In 2016 Disney gave us Judy Hopps (Zootopia) and Moana, flawed heroines who make mistakes and have moments of vulnerability but triumph in the end; their mistakes make their triumph all the sweeter. 2020 gave us Wolfwalkers, whose heroines Robyn and Mebh remain brave and resourceful even when imperiled. Last year we saw two very different female leads, Raya, primarily a fighter, and Mirabel, who runs on curiosity and ingenuity. Both are flawed. Both are awesome. And I don't want to leave out The Mitchells vs. the Machines. Katie, our protagonist, is tremendously flawed and is learning throughout the whole film; we also get "Linda Mitchell, mother of two! Fear me!"
Writers and directors of live-action blockbuster-type films could take a lesson from these animated films. THIS is how you write heroines the audience will love and root for.
@@kelleyceccato7025 You’re right that there’s more variety with male leads than with female leads.
Male leads can be fat, skinny, muscular, short, tall, bald, hairy, old, young, ugly, or handsome.
Men can either be the macho, dashing hero like Errol Flynn or John Wayne, or the “aw, shucks” everyman like Jimmy Stewart or Jack Lemmon.
However, female leads are almost always conventionally attractive, a size 2, and under the age of 35.
God forbid your leading lady is fat or middle-aged. 😂
@@beethovensfidelio Exactly. I can't imagine Disney doing a Beauty and the Beast where the man and woman switch roles.
This. I was an English major focused on narratology, and one of my observations was that most stories only have 2-6 characters which the audience is supposed to identify with whose story is actually being told. Everyone else is a prop just there to advance the characters’ stories and/or create cool looking scenes. And being a prop does not make one a bad character. In the original Star Wars, Luke, Leia, and maybe Han (by my general rule of thumb of someone being a character if there is one scene that advances their story instead of existing to serve the general plot or another character’s story, the newer cuts that add Jabba have Han as a character, while he was just a prop in the original) are the characters. But Ben Kenobi, Chewbacca, and Vader (who becomes a character in the later films) remain some of my favorites. The problem is when certain archetypes never get to be characters. In Sleeping Beauty, the damsel is the character while the savior/prince is the prop. As long as we have some stories like that, there is nothing wrong with having other stories where the damsel is the prop.
Weirdly enough, horror has kind of become good in terms of decent female leads with varying personalities.
Happy Death Day, you’re next, the Ring, Malignant, X, Veronica, Little monsters, Neon Demon etc. They’re all movies with decent to good female leads that can vary from “badass who is absolutely done” in You’re Next to “wow, you have really fallen for the trap of the industry, haven’t you?” In Neon Demon. I cite Neon Demon because that’s a cautionary tale where the protagonist is so flawed that it literally comes back to bite her.
Yeah, the genre still has a lot of trashy stuff but there’s a lot of effort and strides that have been made to make better written and more varied female characters.
The US in General has a problem with over-correction. In this case laziness is also a huge factor. Hollywood writers are just writing female action heros the same way male action heros are written.
Most writers in Hollywood are men, and sadly a lot of them don’t see women as complex human beings, but rather reductive stereotypes like the damsel in distress, the sex object, the mother, the hero’s girlfriend or wife.
Yup.
A great female character no one talks about is Alita Battle Angel.
She is feminine and allowed to be emotional. More importantly, she behaves like a teenage girl without being infantilized or oversexualized.
YES
It was a good movie. I really liked the action scenes.
Yes! There's so much great about that movie. Including how it shows how her "father" has to learn to let her be herself so she can thrive. Talk about unending daddy dearest tropes!
@@MinecraftIsLoveMinecraftIsLife Hugo at the end of the movie... like I knew it was coming. It's one of the things from the Manga emblazoned in my brain (it's been like 2 decades since I read it) but damn if it didn't still hit hard.
She's still a BSY though
The big problem with the “damsel in distress” is that this character is often just a plot device to move the story of the protagonist, not a real human being. And indeed many people a unable to show they are in distress due to societal norms/racism/sexism/and other types of discrimination. The problem is stripping people of their humanity whether that is to make them a person who always needs to be rescued or one who is not allowed to show how hurt they are by life events.
Plus, it falls into the same problems as the “women in fridges” trope.
1) whilst the damsel is the one in peril, it’s the one doing the saving that is the focus.
2) It’s mostly a problem because it’s our go-to. It’s a habit and rut writers get stuck it and we, as watchers, didn’t question.
Evie in the first Mummy movie doesn't know how to hold a gun, but she has plenty of brains and the power of language. She moves the plot, as she's the leader of the expedition, she has knowledge, she makes mistakes: she messes up when she reads from the book and awakens Imhotep, but then she's the one who destroys him also by the power of the word. I love this character. She's clumsy, a walking disaster, exquisitely feminine (like my mother), yet bold, brave and really, really intelligent.
I would say The Bride from Kill Bill doesn’t even seem indestructible. She’s a utter badass but she is shown to be in distressing situations and her revenge on her former comrades isn’t a walk in the park.
Hell in the second movie she breaks down I the bathroom after Bill is dead and she’s gotten her daughter back.
Her story literally starts with being defeated and falling into a coma for years.
Yep, I also took issue with that. Beatrix Kiddo is one of the more complex characters ever included in an action movie, regardless of gender (at least if you’ve seen part 2, I think the characterization is still there in part 1, but it is easier to miss).
About Jasmine, I'd also like to add: she's quick-thinking and smart. She figures out who "Prince Ali" really is by trapping him with a "casual" comment and she pretends to have fallen in love with Jafar under the Genie's magic to distract him (while also getting in a little dig or two: "And your beard is so...twisted.") It's ALADDIN who screws that up by freezing when he sees her kiss Jafar, even though he KNOWS it's an act, the dope.
True!
Had Jeffrey Katzenberg not interfered with the film, Jasmine would’ve used the jewel from her headband to break the hour glass.
At least the Aladdin TV series and its sequel “Aladdin and the king of thieves” had Jasmine doing a lot of her own action stunts.
Aladdin was/is a knucklehead. But it worked in the context of the story.
You may be technically correct that we've overcorrected to "Stealy female badasses" but there are SO MANY male characters with just as little character. There should be more well written female leads; that doesn't stop the occasional Mary Sue from being a ton of fun in their own way.
Does not make it better, the goal should be having complex layered characters with enough variety, in-between them, everyone finds someone to identify with.
Despite the attempt of making strong princesses, the only one that got me invested in any way was mulan and many of the adventures ones got me even less then the princess ones despite me being a tomboy, for they all focus way to much on defiance and rebellion over substance.
Ariel is pretty much one-dimensional all I want and defiance... Those princesses are more about what they are not, then what/who they are
@@SingingSealRiana How is Ariel one dimensional?
Genuine question but which Mary Sue is fun to watch or actually likeble? For me Mary Sue's or their male equivalent Gary Stu are bland and boring characters. If they are the strongest person ever, consider by all as the most beautiful or handsome, they are always right, they dont make any mistake... they have nothing which I can relate with them because I am not perfect and that's fine. There is something beautiful in having flaws, that's what make us human. A character needs to grow in a story if they are already perfect what is the point of the story in the first place. Is not realistic or nice how some characters are reduce to be strong all the time, the point is that we are all strong and in distress in sometimes. The key is complex characters !
@@treatpeoplewithkindness2955 No one ever criticises gary stus, while calling mary sue every woman with an ounce of power
@@treatpeoplewithkindness2955 John Wick Is terribly Gary Stu and very fun to watch.
Something I like about Meg from Hercules is while she is a damsel in distress and Hercules saving saving her is the thing the proves himself as a true hero and restore his godhood She not only has alot of agency She only became a damsel because she sacrificed herself by saving HIS life so he saved her in return.
I think we need more movies with characters like Elle Woods. Women who don’t feel the need to ditch the pink dress if that’s what they really want to wear. We don’t have to be masculine to be taken seriously. We can fall in love, we can ask a man for help without it being labeled as a moment of weakness. We are strong, but that doesn’t mean we can do everything on our own. I would love to see more of the girls who have traditional feminine qualities and aren’t afraid to own it 💕
I think it helps that both “Legally Blonde” and the direct to video “Barbie” movies were written by WOMEN.
I love that Elle is smart, resourceful, intelligent and kind to people. I love her transformation from being ridiculed to being admired - and not because of her great looks, but because of her accomplishments. And all the while she embraces her love of feminine things.
How is it bad to be masculine
@@PrincessMavenKittyDarkholme People are free to be however they wish. Sometimes, I feel as though women in movies get taken seriously once they become more masculine. My issue with that is I don’t want young girls to feel as though they HAVE to be masculine to be taken seriously. Be as masculine as you want or be as feminine as you want. Anyone of any style should be taken seriously, and I just wish that we could see more variety of that in films.
@@Noseinab00k From the future: Ultimate Mary Jane Watson (no not the one from the old Ultimate Marvel Comics) is oh so becoming a damsel in distress no matter what I'm calling it. BUT, she looks and talks in a more likeable way than what Zeb Wells and Sam Raimi had done. Thanks Hickman for existing. And about Elle Woods I'm calling it the new Ultimate MJ is so becoming the Elle Woods of Marvel despite being a mommy already (sorry for the innuendo lol)
I like how you pointed out that old school disney princesses are not simply damsels but characters with outstanding qualities. When you really watch Sleeping Beauty and understand who Aurora is, you notice what a hormone-fueled class act she is. She's an inspiration 🙏
Snow white was smart. She ran away, found a random house in the woods, and managed to make a deal with the owners to live there with the cost being that she does house maintenance. Snow white has the makings of a good business woman.
What does hormone fueled mean?
Best damsel in distress movie I've seen is Ever After, with Drew Barrymore. The scene where the prince bails on his wedding to "rescue" Danielle, and when he arrives she's already free. Perfect.
I actually like Mary Jane in the Raimi films she actually does have a character outside of Peter, sure she gets kidnapped a lot and needs rescuing but she's a really strong character. She dumps her hot jock boyfriend because he's a jerk and her rich boyfriend when he doesn't stand up for her and chooses Peter because he's the only one who's genuinely nice to her and encourages her to follow her dreams, unlike Harry who was embarrassed of her. She's the one who tells Peter she loves him in the first movie and then leaves her wedding for him despite him telling her they shouldn't be together. It sucks that she was kidnapped again in the third movie originally Gwen was going to be kidnapped and Mary Jane was going to be the one to go to Harry to tell him to help Peter which I honestly think is way better. Even in 3 though she dumps Peter when he starts acting like a jerk and in the end there's never any confirmation they get back together it wasn't until No Way Home that we got confirmation that they did indeed end up together.
From the future: Ultimate Mary Jane Watson (no not the one from the old Ultimate Marvel Comics) is oh so becoming a damsel in distress no matter what. I'm calling it. BUT, she looks and talks in a more likeable way than what Zeb Wells and Sam Raimi had done. Thanks Hickman for existing. And curse you Raimi and Wells for trashing MJ to the point of making the fandom be at a civil war
"Agent Carter" is my go-to example of how the love interest of a male character got way too powerful but then got corrected. In Season 1 Peggy basically saved the world all by herself, and the male characters were next to useless. Season 2, however, Peggy made mistakes, got injured, and needed her supporting cast to take down the Big Bad of the season. Season 2 portrayed Peggy far more realistically than season 1 did, and I was disappointed that the series got canceled and then retconned in "Endgame" and "Agents of SHIELD" where Peggy gets her happy ending with Steve and her love interest in her series, Sousa, weirdly ends up with Quake. (And BOY HOWDY is Quake an inconsistent character.)
It’s like the writers forgot that she has amazing hacking skills.
What i loved the most about Agent Carter was that in season 1 she saved thousands of lives not by punching (though there was plenty of that) but explicitly by being emotional. She couldn't punch a plane out of the sky but she could tearfully remind her friends that you can't change the past, the present and future are what you make of it. She is the best developed love interest of the MCU and i stand by that 🫡
Cap's ending in Endgame made no sense, even if you only watched the movies. Doesn't fit the character. Time travel wise it's confusing. Also Steve had already accepted his role in the present, and moved on from Peggy in previous films. He even started dating Sharon Carter. It's like they just dropped things they didn't like, or retconned them instead of building on them. Real shame they never did anything with some of the stuff Agents of SHIELD set up like Ghost Rider, or the Inhumans.
Can we talk about how great Ever After was at towing this line really well??? 😂
It helps that “Ever After” was co-written by a woman: Susannah Grant.
Susannah Grant is no stranger to writing strong female protagonists in movies like Disney’s “Pocahontas” and “Erin Brockovich”.
It really does. I love that movie.
You know you could just have more female characters that are friends and work together of different calibers. One who’s physically strong, one’s who’s intellectually strong, and one who can’t fight but is great at support and empathy. There doesn’t have to be this one over the other. Yeah yeah “strong women bad”, “weak woman bad” but with Mary sue now being “character I don’t like” screw it, make a cast of women who develop physically and mentally with their own skill set. People are going to complain either way, but an active character will still be more useful than a passive character. You just have to be diverse with how active you make them
We can’t have that! Male writers only see women as competitors rather than cooperators. 😝
But all joking aside, I agree with you about having more female characters that work together rather than compete over a guy.
The "females of different personalities, strengths and weaknesses working together" is why I love the Sailor Scouts/Sailor Senshi of the anime Sailor Moon :)
@@meatballhead15
I was gonna say My Little Pony: FiM. But the point still stands. Mostly female ensemble casts with a variety of strengths and weaknesses is very common in children's shows and it'd be nice to see it reflected a little more in teen/adult shows.
I feel like the Mary Sue thing feels like girls wanting to be as awesome beyond belief like male heroes often have been. I mean, everybody deserves a power fantasy that speaks to them.
I mean, the label has been so misused that The Legend of Korra’s titular protagonist is somehow a Mary Sue yet also weak and useless. It’s just another load of ammunition for dudebros to fire indiscriminately.
Exactly!
There are two kinds of power fantasy: One is the "iconic character" that is powerful from the very beginning, such as James Bond or (the classic) Lara Croft; the other is a character that becomes powerful toward the end of the story through a character arc, such as Luke Skywalker or Ellen Ripley from Alien.
The problem with Mary Sue is that her story is told in a way to promise a character arc, but the arc never happens. For example, the latest Star Wars trilogy presents itself as a myth--an origin story--but as the story progresses, it turns out that Rey is already perfect and has no need for personal growth. This mismatch between setup and payoff makes the story unsatisfying.
In contrast, Lara Croft from the old Tomb Raider movies is presented as an iconic character from the very beginning, so the audience is comfortable with her being badass and perfect from the very beginning.
Despite being framed as a gender issue, the problem with Mary Sue in recent movies is really due to poor storytelling technique.
This! The Mary Sue accusation is overblown and it is disappointing how many critics have fallen in line to use it. Most of the arguments I've seen proclaiming a Mary Sue take an unforgiving and unimaginative approach to analysis.
THANK YOU for saying this! Perfectly sums up what I was thinking, guys have male power fantasies why can’t women?
We've corrected the passive "Damsel in Distress" TOO well, that if a work stars a female Superhero, they're usually talked up and praised, with all the male characters either being unbelievably dumb or complete tools, such as "Ghostbusters 2016" or "Wonder Woman 1984."
Can’t guys be useless comic relief too?
@@matt0044 they can, but not all of them. It’s unrealistic and also damaging
Argh WW 84 was cringe but the fact that she technically raped a man with no consequences is quite creepy.
Same shit in Bridgerton
Exactly. We can elevate women’s roles and characterizations without dumbing down men’s roles to do that.
All that does is imply that women can’t be smart unless all the men around them are imbeciles, so in other words, it’s still infantilizing women
Also Ant-Man and the Wasp
When talking about emotional strength, I feel the Secret of NIMH needs to be mentioned.
There’s also physical strength since Mrs. Brisby has to rely on herself to get out of the birdcage she’s captured in.
While I agree, that film scared the bejeezus out of me when I was a child, thus ruining any good message it might have had for me.
The damsel in distress is why I prefer heroic duos of male and female who can work together and off each other. Always having each others backs and covering the other's weaknesses. Plus it also makes space for badass married couples, Zoe and Wash from Firefly or Mr and Mrs Smith.
I’m a sucker for battle couples!
Maybe the live action remake will make Ariel and Eric a battle couple.
Battle couples are amazing
I grew up with movies that made pretty clear that if a man saves your ass, he owns it.
Yikes! Thank goodness Disney’s “Hunchback of Notre Dame” avoids that by having Quasimodo NOT hook up with Esmeralda after rescuing her from Frollo.
Having female characters who are allowed to be weak & emotional as a fantasy for female audiences is something I get, of course-
But then I would argue overpowered ladies who can kick ass are also a power fantasy.
Like, hell, we got decades of action movies with male heroes being almost super heroes regarding vulnerability-
Don't misunderstand, I like me some flawed characters who aren't examples of power fantasy, but making "Mary Sues" a thing and ostracizing them then feels like such a waste, too, especially with today's culture.
Ugh can we stop bashing MCU Captain Marvel? She acted like any human would if they were abuducted, with no memories, and told by a evil sentient AI that emotions where evil. In the end, as hard as it is for some people to understand, she represented *humanity*, against an alien invasion, not just women. Emotions are a human trait, and as we’ve been shown by characters like the Hulk, being emotional and not being able to control them, isn’t just a woman thing. Her ‘getting up after being knocked down’ was just a scene where she happened to be a woman getting up, and yes as a woman sexism is one of the things she needed to get back up from. Just like Cap’s size, and lack of money, where ones that made him a target and make him have to ‘do this all day’.
Everything Mary Sue about Captain Marvel in a male superhero makes him relatable. Cocky and sure of their skill? Tony. Stiff and military, but wouldn’t bat an eyelash to save someone at their own risk? Cap. A brainwashed soldier who has emotional issues and hard time assimilating back? Bucky. This is the issue with women in media. We can’t have one character that can’t be relatable to *everyone* without it being labeled. Because I am a woman, who is a veteran, I quite relate to Captain Marvel and would love if people stopped shi*ting on her as being unrelatable.
Thank you!
I am glad that Captain Marvel is a relatable character for you! We all need a couple characters that feel how we feel or have some familiar traits.
I like Captain Marvel, I think her personality and character make perfect sense. I do wish her powers were a little more clearly defined and there were a few known limits to her abilities, otherwise we run into the Superman problem of just too impervious to harm.
But that isn't her character, that is just a soft magic system, and it's just my opinion.
There was an absolutely huge backlash for the movie, even before it came out. When i watched it, it was a meh movie. I then moved on with my life.
@@ouroborosalarichard But that's the writer's issue and apparently they corrected it before they released the film. I just don't understand how they expect this ex-military woman with amnesia, who is OP, to be.
@@ouroborosalarichard i thought the scene was fine and shouldn't have been cut because at that point in the story she WAS a villain, she was an elite member of the kree military, she was hunting innocent skrulls for extermination. It wasn't until she learned of Mar-Vell's sacrifice for them that she decided to become a hero. That was my interpretation of the movie anyway 🤷🏻♀️
I thought G.I. Jane was badass, the film actually showed her struggle and get stronger overtime.
I think it's interesting how for a woman to be strong, it's assumed she needs to act more stereotypical masculine, but it's very rare for a feminine man to be anything but a joke, gay, or both
Black Widow is a human being, not superhero yet somehow survives her car being blown up from the sky, falling off windows and hitting herself against fire escapes and a plane crash or whatever the hell that was at the end.
Yes. I once got disassociated during a fight with my partner and pushed him on the chest/shoulders area so hard that he almost fell backwards. When I came to my senses it seemed to me I have been acting on a sort of Black Widow badass, violence is okay and glamorous when a woman does it kind of trope stored in my subconscious. I was lucky he was capable and willing to understand all that.
(He's a Gamma male, which is like an Alpha, but more evolved and sensitive;
but fully able to Alpha-out in a crisis (good) or conflict (Not so good )
I was grateful he understood disassociation etc. and forgive me without rancor. (I hate when we rancor.) 😔
😊🥰😊
I love how Cinderella III: A Twist in Time adds to the Cinderella narrative, fleshing out Cinderella and the Prince. Cinderella doesn’t become a warrior or anything like that, but it amplifies her quiet strength in the face of her stepmother’s oppression, and she cleverly fights back, because she has nothing left to lose. And seeing the Prince interacting with Cinderella outside the ballroom context and with others adds a lot to him as well. The scenes with his father are memorable, especially in how they critique the original. One pokes fun at the slipper plan, like “there’s *surely more than one woman with this size shoe?” The other one was him literally jumping out the window to go after her at one point. And they really do save each other, because while he has his moment to save her, she (and her animal friends) are the only ones aware of all the magical mayhem the Stepmother and stepsisters are pulling to get to him, so she saves him too.
The Damsel in Distress hasn't always been a woman, sometimes its a kid. Dumbo, Bambi, Oliver! (or any Oliver Twist adaptations come to that) all have male damsels.
The Damsel in Distress trope already fixed as early as Paper Mario, Peach can't hope to begin fighting Bowser or resist the movements of his army, but without her, Mario would have stood no chance. She had to use guile and soft power
And especially when you add the fact that Snow White was a 14-year-old kid with no superpowers, (Katara is a Water bender, Madoka is a magical girl, Nezuko is a demon, and Maka is a soul scythe wielder), we put way too much flack on Snow White.
It doesn’t help that Snow White was seven years old in the fairy tale.
Her body may have aged in the Disney film, but not her mind.
She gets kissed by a pedo
So many exemples of strong female characters having to be strong because they are mistreated...
It is as if the strength of women only appears in reaction or resistance to the violence against them. You don't see that so often with male characters.
What sort of examples do you have in mind? I was cycling through my favorite action heroes and I'd say the majority have being horribly mistreated in common.
For example, John Rambo suffers seriously from PTSD, constantly reflecting on how he was horrifically tortured in the Vietnam War. In Gladiator, Maximus is betrayed and left for dead and turned into a slave after having his wife and children murdered. In Robocop, Murphy is brutally dismembered and murdered before being turned into a cyborg. Martin Riggs becomes "the lethal weapon" after the murder of his wife leaving him suicidal with reckless disregard for his own safety. Mad Max loses his partner horribly to a fire followed by his wife and family. Kurt Sloane has his beloved brother turned paraplegic when Tong Po brutally strikes him in the back long after Sloane threw in the towel. Bruce Wayne has his family murdered by Joe Chill. John Wick is beaten nearly to death along with his beloved dog being killed. Ogami Ittō is betrayed with his family brutally assasinated by ninjas leaving him an honorless rōnin wandering around with his son, the only one who survives together with his father. Gatsu in Berserk is not only abused as an orphaned child but raped as well by the very mercenary group he follows. Conan's entire village is slaughtered along with his family while he gets turned into a slave and later gladiator.
I can keep going but I'm sure you get the idea. It's a pretty common theme and source of motivation for the male hero and/or his loved ones to suffer enormous mistreatment. That becomes their source of vengeful strength against the horrible people who mistreated them. Most great action heroes and heroines carry great physical and/or emotional scars from my perspective; it's often what lets us empathize with them and root for them in spite of them resorting to such violent measures.
@@darkengine5931 Good point! Thank you for your comprehensive answer.
@@Padichat_ Cheers! I do think it's a bit heavy-handed at least to beat up and traumatize our heroes and heroines to give them a cause to resort to violent measures. I have to admit though that it's often a major source of empathy from me; I tend to root for the horribly mistreated ones.
Leia was NEVER a damsel in distress; she kicked Jabba's @** by choking him to death with her slave chain. I call that poetic justice.
I was just talking with my writer friends, and we agree that all types of women should be celebrated, from tough fighters to damsels. They can be both and that's okay too. Even if a female character is a damsel in distress and rescued by a man, she still has worth, as long as she has goals and an arc of her own beyond just chasing a guy. I like Sansa, Evie from The Mummy movies, and also Kiara from The Lion King 2: Simba's Pride - even if they have damsel moments, they are strong heroines. An all-action female who does nothing else but throws punches wouldn't be appealing to me - same like anyone who constantly needs saving and doesn't fight back. A female should be allowed to feel vulnerable. What I notice is many tend to label a damsel in distress 'weak' and 'useless'. It's like telling women that being in danger or needing help/support/rescue means they're worthless. If a female is in peril, it's part of her arc and growth, not someone else's, not her rescuer's. There's room for growth.
The damsel in trope can also be quite progressive for woc, especially dark skin black women cause it can show them as being worthy of being saved and protected.
Yes!!
A great example is Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “Cinderella” starring Brandy as Cinderella.
Cinderella may need to be saved from her miserable, abusive life, but thankfully the film avoids the “white savior trope” by having her saviors be *a black fairy godmother and an Asian prince.*
Also, the fairy godmother teaches Cinderella to stand up for herself and reminds Cinderella that she actually has to put in effort in winning the prince because all the fairy godmother did was get Cinderella to the ball.
100% agree!
But it's like, a lot of (but not all mind you) people hate things like Miss Saigon, for Kim being "saved" from the horrors of Vietnam and then being replaced with an American girl as the love interest to her boyfriend. So, maybe not.
@@finland4ever55 To be fair, “Miss Saigon” is an adaptation of the Puccini opera “Madame Butterfly”.
But I agree with you about how the musical “Miss Saigon” perpetuates white saviorism.
I think Natalia from Goldeneye was an example of a damsel in distress done right. Being a civilian, she understandably was terrified of the danger, and watching the film as a kid I was always scared for her, but she found a way to survive, as an IT specialist she could bring her set of skills to the table and being outside the spy game she was very critical of Bond's ruthless ways.
In action stories, the damsel in distress can also be a kid, an animal, an old person, even a man (like Batman), etc. but the "oh she is pretty and young, she has to fullfil the damsel in distress trope everytime" is annoying. Character of any kind can be vulnerable but when autors focus on ONE type who can do nothing but this, they makes damages on how women and girls see themselves.
I don’t know about Damsels in Distress but being tied to the train tracks always reminds me of ‘Stuart Little’ and ‘Tom and Jerry’.
11:20 & 13:13 absolutely vitally important: that pain leads to "looking inwards for the courage to keep going".
Another great video essay, thank you.
Next step: showing tons of MALE characters that accept and embrace their experienced vulnerability and learn to ask for help.
The Take has been ahead of less nuanced feminism about the Disney Princess and her virtues and strengths.
These Girls Aren't Mary Sue's at all. They're only victims who use soft power to better their lives. And not necessarily so that their main focus is to be rescued by a man.
The Take elaborated on this point in their defending Cinderella video.
I actually found it really moving! I took some screenshots and when you slow the action of the abuse down like that, it's really heartbreaking! And, viewed as still photos, her soft power perseverance is really lovely in a deep way.
I never thought about exactly how deep the cruelty of the abuse was...
-- (they ambush her and tear her beloved dress off her body!) --
... and what fortitude and ability to establish mutual aid, friendship, and true alliances it took for her to survive it intact.
Also they made the excellent point that she didn't go to the ball to meet the prince! She just wanted to go to a ball for the first time in her life...
Where is the simpering young woman who only wants a man to save her in that? She wanted a day of Glamour and Beauty instead of constant servitude.
How completely healthy, natural, and actually independent!
The fact that Kida from Atlantis the lost Empire has never made an appearance. To my knowledge on this channel, I find sad and abhorrent. Lol 🤣. But seriously I love this channel. Please do something acknowledging her. She's an amazing character.
I feel like the didney princesses aren’t good examples of damsels in distress tbh. Like technically that can be considered ones but being saved is such a small part of their stories and screen time.
It’s more apparent with the earlier princesses, but over time it’s gotten less prominent but I don’t know if that’s saying much.
As long as all versions of women's strength are shown I don't see a problem. The overcorection (though I don't fully agree that it happened) was probably a necessity to see that physical strength and assertiveness are things that many women must rely on to solve their problems. I don't recall any but the character based on the video game to not display real vulnerabilities. I think the protagonist from Kill Bill in particular did so as she was not only seeking revenge but also to reclaim and protect her child. This after months in a coma where she was repeatedly sexually exploited and could do nothing to save herself. We later see that she went through intense physical and psychological training in preparing to be an assassin. No Mary Sue, she had prepared for the time not only where she would be able to heartlessy murder others but would have to rely on herself to save herself.
As for characters who remained love interests for leading or heroic men, that role required them to display typical female traits and vulnerabilities. Without that they would have been less likely to be seen as sexually desirable by the male characters and most audiences. They came close to the line of being supposedly masculinized but never crossed it.
So I don't see an overcorrection, just a correction.
Princess Leah, She got damseled and killed Jaba. I think that pretty much a damsel done right.
The problem with the Reverse Damsel in Distress is that it's still written by men, for men. They may portray women with physical strength but they still lack complexity and can be usually reduced to pretty women in tight black clothes.
And they're usually just male coded characters but played by women
@@athenajaxon2397 Like Ellen Ripley?
@@beethovensfidelio Ripley in Alien wasn't so much male-coded as genderless. She would normally have been male because Male has traditionally been the default for characters whose gender is pretty much irrelevant to the plot. Making her female instead was a good finger in the eye to the habit of Male as Default, which is one of the reasons why I love her.
@@kelleyceccato7025 I actually thought Ripley was specifically feminine and strengthened by casting a woman for the role. Her distinguishing trait, after all, is that she's the last person to ever underestimate dangerous situations (the opposite of the stereotypically masculine, gung-ho type as with the case of the colonial marines who thought they could simply lock and load and be ready for anything: a disastrously "masculine" trait in this context).
That was true in the first film where she was the only one insisting on following 24-hour quarantine procedure despite Captain Dallas even ordering her to let Kane inside, refusing his orders in favor of safety protocol despite protests from everyone else. It's especially true in the second film.
Velasquez is the "masculine" female character IMO but portrayed briliantly by Jenette Goldstein.
I have several takes with this topic. First Evie from The Munmy doesn't belong in the montage of classic damsels in distress. She gets rescued but like mulan and jasmine she rescues the male characters as well. She starts off as the naive intellectual with no fight training but manages to use her intelligence to ultimately defeat imhotep. I feel like the take on female action heroes being too super to be relatable is a matter of opinion. Some viewers want their female heroes to have so many emotive moments that those moments might overshadow the action scenes of an action film so they might as well put thise charscters in suspense thrillers. Lara Croft, the angels, the bride and many early 2000s female action heroes has their own vulnerability levels that should be respected. Yes the bride recovers from being in a coma for years very quickly but she never feels too invulnerable. She gets cut, punched and kicked and still always feels like she won't win unless she can turn the tide or get lucky. There are women in reality who are stern and don't always emote but that doesn't mean they can't nor does it mean thry shouldn't get represented on screen becomes some people cobsider them robotic. Lady Jessica and other Bene Gesserit from Dune are pretty stern and regal throught the film but that doesn't make them any less relatable. I think some people need to hold space for multiple versions of strong female characters and the amount of emotion they show on screen cause too msny people want a highly trained warrior who goes through the emotional gambit Brie Larsson's character in room. And that is a hard to balance on screen so let's not toss a character into the unrelateable super hero category just because she doesn't have a deep cry moment.
It's worth noting that in the silent film era, there were many popular female-starring adventure/ detective serials whose heroines were very capable.
There's a fascinating article titled "The Myth of the Damsel on the Railroad Tracks" by Eric Grundhauser debunking the popularity of the video clip that has entered the modern consciousness.
I am not sure Cinderella is a damsel in distress due to the fact that her enemies are females (step mother and sisters) and it was not a man that came to Cinderella’s rescue but the fairy godmother, who is the hero or heroine (however you want to put it) of the story. Cinderella was not seeking a Prince or a husband she just wanted an off day, her step sisters and mothers went to ball seeking a man. Cinderella can also be seen as how toxic feminity can bring out the worst in women. Cinderella dress and slippers matched her character, which is what made her stand out from all the other gold diggers. Cinderella also displays what qualities a man should look for in a woman.
The story is a classic and has many layers 👠 👸🏽 👗
I agree with most of what you say but for a couple things:
Firstly, the fairy godmother does help Cinderella but I also think Cinderella saves herself by escaping her imprisonment using her wit as well as the help of her friends. And, I do think that the prince is saving her (by that I mean, in taking her way from such terrible circumstances and unlike some people, I don't find that a problem).
And secondly, I may be misinterpreting your comment (so correct me if I am wrong) but I dislike your implication that Cinderella is/may not be a damsel-in-distress simply because of the sex of her enemies. Yes, in many of the stories featuring the damsel-in-distress, the people putting her in danger are typically males but it doesn't change the fact that Lady Tremaine and her daughter still pose a threat to Cinderella.
Though, I do believe male villains are more dangerous just by virtue of their physical strength, by saying this: "I am not sure Cinderella is a damsel in distress due to the fact that her enemies are females", I do think this statement kind of downplays the seriousness of cruel, malicious women such as Lady Tremaine and how deadly they can actually be/are to other people (including both men and women).
Unlike Snow White and Sleeping Beauty who needed men to come to their rescue, which is what defines a Damsel in Distress, Cinderella Knight and Shining Armor was the fairy godmother, as for the stepmother and daughters who cruelty towards Cinderella could be taken as the damsel in distress theme could be taken differently depending on who you ask. I think Frollo is one of the worst Disney villains, is Quasimodo considered a Damsel in Distress since both are males and based on Frollo’s abuse towards the disabled Quasimodo. In Sleepy Beauty, it’s not until Belle kisses Beast that the spell is broken, but Beast is not labeled a Damsel in Distress and not to mention when the male Gaston abuses the male LeFou character, who is depicted as homosexual, LeFou is not labeled as a Damsel in Distress. Damsel in Distress phrase is only labeled on men who abuse women and the same woman requires a man to rescue her, Lifetime Channel (Television for Women) is guilty of this trope.
@@kadesmith3054 You are right that the label damsel-in-distress would not apply to Quasimodo, the Beast and LeFou as they are not female.
However, you've kind of just contradicted yourself. First, you consider Snow White and Aurora to be damsels-in-distress as they need the help of men but in the next breath, you state this; "Damsel in Distress phrase is only labeled on men who abuse women and the same woman requires a man to rescue her".
This is contradictory is because you still consider Snow White and Aurora to be damsels-in-distresses, even though their abusers are women.
In fact, most people still consider the traditional, feminine Disney princesses such as Snow White, Cinderella, and Aurora to be damsels-in-distresses, so that disproves your statement that the label can only be applied to females who are abused by men.
@@Belle_isle899 A damsel in distress has always been classified as a woman that needs a man to come her rescue, so my point in the examples I’m making is that if gender does matter whether it’s male-male, female-female, male-female or female-male then should the phrase only apply to females in need of a male hero or should it apply in all cases, same thing with the MeToo Movement, if a man sexually assaults or harasses a woman he is a predator but if a woman sexually assaults a woman or another man, she is not labeled a predator. In the case of misogyny, why is it when a woman are abrasive or sexually promiscuous, she is called a bitch or hoe, but if a man shares any of these characters he is labeled as neither.
@@kadesmith3054 Firstly, there are male equivalents to the terms bitch and hoe. For men who are "abrasive", he would be called a jack***, douchebag, jerk, a**hole etc. For men who are "promiscuous", I have heard terms manwhore, playboy, whoremonger, f***boy, womanizer etc to describe these types of men.
Secondly, I've never actually denied the damsel-in-distress trope has always been about women needing men to rescue them. I was not arguing with you on that. What I took issue with was that you implied Cinderella was not being damsel-in-distress BECAUSE of the gender of her enemies.
When it comes to the damsel-in-distress trope, for the man to save her, the woman has to be in sort of trouble and to reiterate, it does not matter the gender of the person/people placing her danger. She's still a damsel-in-distress, whether her enemies are women or not. THIS is what I was trying to say in my first comment.
Thirdly, it makes no sense to apply the label damsel-in-distress to men because the term damsel is gendered in the first place. Damsel means a young unmarried woman (usually of noble birth), which is why (I think) the women the hero saves in the stories almost always ends up with him.
On the other hand, the word predator is not. You can generally use the word for both genders. Although, I do ABSOLUTELY agree with you, women who commit SAs must also be labelled as a predator, rapist etc. I HATE it when people try to downplay the seriousness of SAs (or any kind of assault frankly) by women or don't properly report how it is, especially if the victim is male and especially if the assault occurred while they were underage.
There is intersectionality to consider with this topic as was said at the end. Black women have been deemed perfectly capable of handling everything for years, even being associated with being like men. There are not ENOUGH feminine representations of Black women. They all have to be badass, independent, never receive a MALE love interest, be the "tree among flowers" in Queer relationships, and have to be the cold emotionless one that picks up the pieces. This has led to Black women not being taken seriously when they are real victims and DESERVE to be saved or rescued, especially by those in authority like firefighters and police officers. The response is slow and no one sympathizes, yet women of color are the most victimized.
Being non-neurotypical, I am emotionally very vulnerable. However, I have never been saved by romantic love, but by friends and family.
I'm crazy in love with Charlize Theron's character in Atomic blonde. She fights hard, gets hardly beaten, but still she's awesome ❤ imho she's the perfect shift from the iron lady trope and helpless female trope from the spy movies
This discussion kinda hilights why I love grrm writing and the character of Brienne of tarth so much. Many focus on the dichotomy of typical Princess sansa and tomboy Arya, but Brienne is the more interesting character in that regard. She has the rare luck of having the physical strangth to not be in the damsel role. She can protect herself and others, but she has still many princessy inner qualities. Way to much compassion for her situation, being quite naive. Having fallen in love with her Prince after just one dance.... Brienne is vulnerable to no ends. While her action go contrary to what is expected of her, she does not do it out of sheer defiance like it often comes across with the "adventurous" Disney princesses. It is just who she is and she tries to make the most out of it. She is not super dark edgy, no she is well rounded and she does not critique classical femininity at all, despite it not applying to her. She admires Catlyns motherinstincs ind hopes to protect the damsel in distress, no grudge there no nolg behavior
In a weird way, I just saw the title of this episode and I didn’t need to watch it. The entire episode unfolded within my mind in five seconds. If you’re a woman you know exactly what this is. We didn’t need to watch this to know what it was going to say. And that makes me really depressed about society.
The Mary Sue has been leaking in a little too much.. she's extremely beautiful, highly intelligent, unbelievably OP in every art of fighting, has no weakness, gifted with leadership, can't be outdone... it's nauseating at this point..
Or she's just completely helpless and hopelessly annoying...
Can we at least have a medium?
The problem with the many sue is that it's just as offensive as the damsel in distress 😅
@@tobiaslawrence8928 I agree!
The trope would be a lot more interesting if we had some more men distress as well. Men can be in distress too, just look at Private Ryan!
True, although it’s interesting how it’s other MEN who save Private Ryan.
I mean, James bond was a damsel many times. Men need saving all the time yet no one calls them weak
‘Heartstopper’ for me was also a ‘Damsel in Distress’ Story for all the characters in varying degrees where they’re trapped in their castles and then escape it eventually.
I like ripely from the Aliens movie series because she shows how a female character can be in distress but can also conquer that distress
My favorite damsel in distress part was in mickey mouse 3 musketeers movie where Minnie and Daisy are tied up and locked in the birdcage
I always feel like peoples need to correct this specific trope ignored the problem that lead to it in the first place. I even don’t think it’s entirely fair to include the raimi Spider-Man movies in it because all of the important people in Peter’s life needed to be rescued by Spider-Man. Spider-Man was a character drama rather than an action movie so all of the agency comes from the decisions characters make in their personal lives, not how much they contribute to action scenes. MJ was captured more (which is worth criticizing) but beyond the familiar trope, this was happening because their relationship was more closely tied to his double life than the other characters so there was character development being accomplished beyond her being a “prize” to win.
You make good points but there is something I would like to add: male movie characters are far less criticized for being overpowered. The male term for "Mary Sue" is far less prevalent. Yes, Charlie's Angels might not be the most complex characters, but they (along with Mulan) are the first female characters I remember from my childhood who inspired me BECAUSE they could handle themselves physically. Yes, Cartoon Mulan's struggles make her so much more appealing and relatable than her live action 2020 counterpart. But I would argue that women need overpowered female characters the same way men do with male ones.
You are right that overcoming struggle makes female characters more resilient, but this is done wrong more often than it is done right (i.e. rape as plot device/device for character development). Sometimes it soothes the soul to see women being unapologetically kick-ass without any trauma behind it.
Sometimes the people who regularly throw around the Mary Sue comment briefly acknowledge a male character is a Mary Sue, by their standards, and just keep complaining about the woman/minority. It's so dishonest, haha.
Like most things, male oriented lies… lol
This! Growing up I was a "tomboy" type of gal so I was constantly irritated by the typical portrayal of girls and women in fiction and absolutely loved the so-called "strong female characters" because I like escapism and fantasy as much as guys do. It shouldn't be seen as bad to sometimes have these types of female characters because male characters are *still* being portrayed that way, and with far less or even no criticism, as if it's somehow normal with men but not with women. There should be room for all types of female characters--we just need writers (sadly, still mostly male) to write them better.
See usually male characters are not Mary sues due to having character flaws. Batman and James Bond or Rambo are not infallible.
I absolutely disagree with you. I like the super powerful women in movies, because there's also super powerful men. And I don't agree about Uma Thurman's character in Kill Bill being indestructible. The woman goes through hell and back during the entire damn movie. Like... did we watch the same movie? Either way, I personally, like my women strong, and even a bit evil at times. Evil women are honestly one of my favorites to watch in movies or series. Sometimes their motives are insane, but also very relatable. Well, for me personally.
I also have a problem with corset tight-lacing scenes. back in the 18th and 19th centuries, tight-lacing was incredibly uncommon, and in Elizabethan through early 19th century corsets (or stays) tight-lacing wasn't even possible. That being said, I don't think that's the main problem. Tight-lacing scenes are a staple in period dramas and have been for the majority of film history. Not only do I think it's lazy writing, but I also think it to be incredibly misogynistic that we are making profits off of women's suffering. Why are we all getting excited about women suffering for the gratification of men?
That's a good point, although I know that in Titanic the brutal tightlacing scene is meant to be a symbol of roses oppression .
But if it's not historically accurate? I'd say artistic license in the case of Rose's mother visibly, deliberately constricting and confining her. In body as in Soul. 😥😟😔😥😟💔🥀
Isn’t tight lacing the cause for what male doctors diagnosed as “feinting” spells because it was so common?
@@Peecamarke I'm no historian but I'm pretty sure that fainting spells are a symptom of tuberculosis, and illness which was highly romanticised at the time. Another reason doctors may have blamed corsets for fainting was because it was a common belief then that a woman's uterus was suspended by little strings and that if it tilted too much, it would cause hysteria, a symptom many of them thought was fainting. It was believed that "wandering womb" could be caused by wearing high heels, physical activities, riding on trains (probably due to the speed at which they travelled) wearing a corset, etc. which we know now to be medically inaccurate.
I know everyone knows they're supposed to hate it like Amy Schumer but I liked Captain Marvel. In any case, I really don't think there's been any "overcorrect" or proliferation of the Mary Sue. Male characters in media are Often written as what, if they were female, would be Deemed "Mary Sues". Superman, as we see him in the first movie is largely Rey from TLJ. The issue that people have with the strong female character in fiction is the same issue that they have with black and brown people in a lot of fantasy. It's "nOt ReAlIsTiC" to the point that it needs to be OVER Justified🤷🏾♂️
Word!
Yeah, it’s weird that in a FANTASY movie, a woman being stronger than a man is seen as less believable than dragons and elves. 😂
If it tampers with the storytelling, it deserves to be called out. Don't remember much of Superman's 1st movie, but CM def did messed with the Infinity Saga.
I think the difference between Rey and Superman is that she breaks the in-universe rules while he doesn’t. In both the original and prequel trilogies it’s shown that natural talent/power/potential aren’t enough to overcome an opponent with more training/skill/experience. That’s why Luke lost to Vader in their first fight and Anakin lost to Dooku in Episode II and Obi Won in Episode III. In all those cases the more experienced fighter managed to outperform and outskill the younger, and potentially more powerful, fighter. Luke and Anakin eventually beat Vader and Dooku, respectively, but only after gaining more experience/skill and by using the dark side (an in-universe power boost). But in TFA, despite her lack of experience with the force and lightsaber combat, Rey manages to beat Kylo in every encounter they have, the interrogation scene, when both are trying to force pull Anakin’s lightsaber, and during their lightsaber battle.
At least from my perspective, the “overcompensation” (which isn’t just a problem with female characters) is an issue when it doesn’t correctly follow the story structure. Looking at Captain Marvel as an example, it makes sense for Carol to be as powerful as she is since she gained her power from an infinity stone, which the story has repeatedly shown to be extremely powerful. The same logic applies to Wanda.
Another example is Avatar, the women are among the most powerful characters and the audiences is ok with it, since it fits with the shows internal logic (Korra is the avatar, Toph learned from the originals benders, Katara trained to gain power, Azula is a prodigy, etc).
More recently in Prey… SPOLIERS…, throughout the movie we see Naru progressively gaining the knowledge, skill, and equipment to kill the predator, so when she finally does kills it, it’s extremely satisfying. Unlike Ray beating Kylo in Episode VII which simply seems contrived and forced.
@@MrStefanops On Captain Marvel, it is a problem since she got the powers through an accident. It's never a hindrance and a blessing. The powers aren't part of her, it's just a tool she uses. This prevents a character development and also minimalize any threat. Neither the Skrulls or Krees are match to her.
It didn't stop there. Her powers got so much more it eclipses the threat of Thanos and all the heroes in the Portal scene, making them all irrelevant to her. Yes, Thanos punched her with the Power Stone but if she was there all along in the Avengers HQ, she could destroy the Sanctuary 2 before Thanos even beams out of it.
Just a note: NO ONE complains about male characters being too strong or powerful and not vulnerable enough. Only when women on screen are badasses is there suddenly an issue.
No the problem is the "strong" women never has any problems. Classic male superhero leads still had problems
I am a woman. The only time strong female characters are an issue is if the writing of the plot was just bad. Having female protagonists doesn't compensate for lackluster dialogue.
Half true, there's definitely double standards, but 1. there has been a bit more criticism of those male roles being toxic or not being fleshed out or emotional enough. And 2. With women I think it just has to make sense. Normal Women being able to easily win a physical fight against a man double their size doesn't exactly seem likely nor does it resonate with me (as a woman). That's not a power fantasy for me, that's just ... insulting to normal women who could never ever achieve that or who weren't able to successfully fight an attacker irl. I'm all for making women as badass as possible, but show her struggle to get there too, because that what it would be, and make her have emotions. It's okay to be stoic, but it's boring to watch and just so overused by now (for male and female protagonists).
Also the being saved/redemption/coming home story is very important and resonant bc as humans we all feel our lack and deep spiritual need to be made well and find home and peace. I think this speaks to our need for connection to our creator and why we continue to love salvation stories
I think the problem with the trope is actually the expectation of sexual gratitude. I'd love to see a story where the hero rescues the damsel and then she walks away, like you know, she'd do in real life.
There’s Disney’s “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” where Esmeralda goes to Phoebus instead of Quasimodo, even though one would expect Esmeralda to hook up with Quasimodo after he rescued her from Frollo.
While trying to erase the Damsel-in-Distress, we encourage the idea that anyone who is a victim of circumstance is weak. Black women especially aren't allowed to be portrayed as victims. We are constantly seen as "strong" and it has real world affects on black women in the real world.
The last sentence is the most powerful - and important part. "Help each other."
Ideas for a companion video to help round out this topic:
- The sexism behind the internet's rejection of "Mary Sues", sometimes characters are strong and that's okay
- The history of "Gary Sues", and how they perpetuate toxic masculinity. Why don't we criticize them the same as we do women (ex: Hercules, Maverick, Iron Man)?
- A general defense of bada$$es in cinema, what characters got some undeserved backlash that were actually super cool?
In top gun 2, maverick can fly a fighter jet up to more than 10x the speed of sound. The character must be in his late 50s or early 60s. It’s unrealistic, yet no one complains.
Giving this video a major side-eye, not only for the click bait title, but also for the fact that men have been Gary Sue's since the start of time. But women are Mary Sue's and all of a sudden there's a "problem" with women stepping into these shoes? Sounds sus. Link me when men get the same video.
Edit: Giving this video even more side-eye as they defend the princess damsel trope as being "more complex" and basically "people not giving her enough credit." Where's the same energy for these Mary Sue's and the "strong" women you're saying we've over corrected?
Well said! 👏
If men can have power fantasies, why not women as well?
I get that the concern of “Mary Sues” is about positive discrimination where women aren’t allowed to be flawed therefore they have to work twice as hard for the half the work a man does.
HOWEVER, “Mary Sue” is too often used to demonize women who are strong, competent, fast learners, quick-witted, independent, and resourceful.
You know, the kind of traits that are praised in male characters like James Bond, Superman, Conan the Barbarian, MacGyver, and Harry Potter.
Agreed! 👏
Honestly a bit surprised that Katniss ended up the borderline Mary Sue category. Didn’t she have major flaws in social skills that regularly hindered her and often forced her to rely on characters who were more skilled than her in that field? Also didn’t she have multiple C-PTSD symptoms from all the hardship she faced?
Katniss is a flawed and complex character, but tradfem fans like the The Take always attack her and call her a Sue/"man-with-boobs" since she's not this icon of femininity like their faves.
I understand this point. Nevertheless, now we are saying that it’s been over done and she’s become a Mary Sue? Is Bond a Mary Sue? Is Indiana Jones a Mary Sue? Is Superman a Mary Sue? I’m tired of over thinking this stuff. We don’t want them to be like the male heroes; we don’t want them to be weak, we don’t want them to be too strong. 🙄 These are fake stories folks. Can we just enjoy these films and shows?
By this point accusing people of subpar writting is not enough. They must spout Mary Sue like broken records. Moral of the story kids: never be lapdogs of youtube reviewers
I have no objection to "girl power" feminism per se. What annoys me is more specific type of overcorrection I encountered in popular culture in the '90s. Namely, because the damsel-in-distress had so often been blonde and beautiful, a backlash gained momentum whereby the action heroines were disproportionately blonde and beautiful, and dark-haired and/or homely or even plain girls had fewer chances to be heroines as a result. (Joss Whedon even admitted that he made Buffy Summers blonde and beautiful because in "classic" horror movies that type of character was often the first to be killed by the villain, while a more ordinary girl - or a man - was the one who defeated the villain.) And when the invincible blonde beauty is also a happy-go-lucky airhead who should have been killed many times over by the time the movie ends, the trope gets even more annoying. All depictions - yes, even the farcical ones - have their place, but there should always be a balance to the portrayals. It's very discouraging that we go through these cycles in which every female or minority protagonist is practically a cookie-cutter cutout.
I think it should be pointed out, though, that the fact that a filmmaker or TV writer depicts a damsel-in-distress is not necessarily proof that he thinks women are like that in real life, or that he would never consider depicting a "girlboss" character. The trope is often thrown in there simply for comedy, precisely BECAUSE it's so stereotyped and clichéd. Even the fact that it's so offensive and "politically incorrect" can add to the humor, because things that make people uncomfortable tend to be automatically funny.
Weird how when captain marvel came the take was singing its praises but now shes an overcorrection. Imagine being this unprincipled
Denzel Washington is joining the MCU.
Expect an official announcement soon.
This is major!
I love how I’m getting the exclusive here unless you’re joking.
Lol no
I ain’t going to lie, as much as I liked the Raimi films, MJ was not a likable character
And neither was Peter IMO. Too whiny and not funny enough.
@@Carabas72 Andrew Garfield was the better Spider-Man and Emma Stone’s Gwen was way better than MJ. Unfortunately I still hate the Amazing Spider-Man 2.
The whole concept of a Mary Sue is based on sexism. The only people using that term (up until now apparently) are anti-sjw reactionaries to whom every prominent female character is a Mary Sue.
The action genre is defined by Gary Sue's, perfect men who are smarter stronger, funnier better looking more perfect in every way than all the men around them, yet no one takes issue with that.
When it's a woman who's perfect then suddenly it's a problem, she's unrelatable, unlikable and overpowered.
Why is that? Why can't female characters be as much a power fantasy as male characters?
Who complaints about Iron Man being too smart, too rich, too witty, too lucky all the while being arrogant and cocky?
No one, cause as a man, that's considered charming.
Captain Marvel is an issue cause without a penis, all her powers make her unlikable?
This is just another way how there's a double standard for women.
The whole idea of a Mary Sue needs to be abolished. Not only are most characters branded Mary Sues not really one and the ones that are, have every right to be as overly perfect as the male characters.
THIS. Why is it that there's a problem when women are Mary Sue's when men have been Gary Sue's from the start of time with no problem? Sounds fishy and makes me side eye this video...
Actually, I don’t care for Iron Man either.
@@josepharmstrong1788 "Actually" 😂
100% in agreement. This video is way off.
True! When you get to the details of average viewers' arguments, so many of the Mary Sue accusations I've seen amounted to complaints that the character didn't replicate the exact same path as another existing character. It is so willfully ignorant and lacking imagination.
Critics can always tear down a movie, bc "the rules" don't necessarily make a film good so much as you can identify "recommended/established" structure in an average good film. You can also miss reasonable inclusions and variations on established tropes, if you let yourself.
Also… the prince from Snow White didn’t even want to save her.
He thought she was dead. He kissed her out of mournful respect… it just happened to be the right thing to break the spell.
Wasn’t she just 14? He thought she was a dead, pale 14 year old. Did he even know her before he kissed her?
The Prince in Snow White didn't kiss her at all. That's a Disney invention.
@@TalentCaldwell It’s worse in the fairy tale where it’s stated that Snow White is SEVEN years old. 🤮
He kissed an underage dead girl’s corpse on the lips as a sign of respect? Nah, he’s all sorts of psycho
Who the hell has the thought process of see random corpse in glass coffin, must kiss it. Most people would wonder why it was there and what happened to her.
This was a really interesting video essay!
I do feel like we’ve gone too far the opposite way sometimes. Ray is a good example of that. I wouldn’t put Evee from The Mummy into a “damsel” category though.
She’s incredibly capable and her smarts saves them all including the hero.
I agree but i do take issue with this backlash against these physically strong female characters. As far as I see it, that's also another form of bashing female characters. First it was because they were too weak and then because they are too strong "to be relatable". Those strong women exist in a world where them being that strong is not out of the ordinary or far-fetch and actually need to be that strong in order to be part of the action. Do I want characters that are both strong and also not defined by just their strength, of course. And most of us want it too but I usually don't hear this complaint for the many male action characters unless it's Superman so this fixation on female characters now being "too strong" also needs to be looked at closer.
I don't think it's so much a gender issue though as a casting/physical issue.
For example, I've yet to see a single person complain about the great portrayal of Mother Russia in Kickass 2, played by the great Olga Kurkulina, as being too strong even though she's the most badass, ridiculously overpowered character in the entire film. After all, just look at her! She's over 6 feet tall and covered head to toe in thick muscles with a bigger-than-life screen presence and the ability to deliver humorous one-liners with a deep voice that are as memorable in her delivery as Arnold Schwarzenneger's best.
Most beloved male action stars playing overpowered characters usually have some combination of an impressive physique, superb athletic prowess with superb choreography/stunts, and/or a bigger-than-life screen presence/charisma which has nothing to do with their acting ability. Such is the case of Arnie, Sly, JCVD, Chuck Norris, Bruce Lee, Jet Li, Donnie Yen, Jackie Chan, Mel Gibson, Jason Statham, Dolph Lundgren, etc. These aren't ordinary male actors; every fiber of their being screams "action star" and that's why they can get away with overpowered roles like a John Rambo or Jack Slater. It's not because they are men; it's because they scream extraordinary men just from a glance with their physical qualities: even the way they speak and the sound of their voice.
Olga Kurkulina has that natural-born action star quality to her, but she only really got that one major role as Mother Russia in one film. So too did some other great actresses have this quality like Kathy Long or Cynthia Rothrock in their prime along with Lucy Lawless as Xena (maybe not the most physical, but she had that natural screen presence/charisma), but Hollywood has generally been reluctant to cast such natural-born action women in major ass-kicking roles, instead opting to cast women like Brie Larson, Daisy Ridley, Halle Berry, Tatiana Maslany, or Scarlett Johansson who have about as much of an "action legend" quality to them as Daniel Radcliffe or Timothee Chalamet.
So I think it's a casting issue. For example, if they cast a man who was 5'4 and 125lbs as Detective John Kimble in Kindergarten Cop and expected us to just buy immediately that he's the most badass cop ever, that just wouldn't work. For such a role, we needed an actor like Arnie. It's not a gender issue because the vast majority of men wouldn't work in that role either.
@@darkengine5931 completely disagree with your assessment that it's not a gender issue. Those man became those "action stars" because they were built up and marketed to us that way and we didn't do much questioning and that's because we rarely question if a man is fit enough for a role. We just expect that if they were cast in that role that they will at least be good enough for actions scenes. If any of those less traditionally masculine actors that you named decide tomorrow that they want to be action stars, we will just be in awe in a few months at how great their physical transformation was. And let's not limit this to characters who need to be physically fit for action roles, this is an industry wide issue that is steeped in gender issues.
@@CaraMarie13 I don't know. Can you think of a Dwayne Johnson or John Cena being able to deliver a "Hey Benny, SCROOOOOOOO YOUUUU!" line in a way as memorable as Arnie? John Cena and Dwayne Johnson are arleady ridiculously fit like Arnie, and Dwayne Johnson is arguably a much superior actor, but I don't think they have that natural charisma.
Most of what I'm talking about is charisma rather than physique. Consider Keanu Reeves as an example. He's never been *that* fit. Compare Speed 1 starring Keanu and Speed 2 starring Jason Patric. Both films had very tense plots, decent scripts, and Jason Patric was also quite fit in Speed 2 and arguably a superior actor. But he's not Keanu Reeves! He just doesn't have that Keanu "surfer-dude" charisma that sets Keanu so apart and makes him a living icon and walking meme.
The most action-packed films are usually light on drama and dialogue and character development so I think it's usually crucial for entertainment value that the action star is already quite a character from the start. Naturally being such a memorable and charismatic character is generally something an actor can't develop no matter how much time they spend in the gym or how well-directed or well-written the film is. Physical training could have made a younger Al Pacino look physically fit for an ass-kicking role and able to do his own action-packed choreography, but no amount of acting school could make John Cena as charismatic as Al Pacino.
Same with Lucy Lawless when she portrayed Xena for an actress example. Try to get many other actresses to portray Xena and they just don't have that very unique charisma that Lucy Lawless has able to deliver one-liners in such a memorable way like, "If you people don't pray to the gods, now would be a good time to start." She was absolutely superior to Hercules played by Kevin Sorbo in spite of Kevin Sorbo being much taller and fitter because Sorbo just lacks that action star charisma (they tried to launch action films starring him like Kull and they just flopped).
“In the very next scene” not exactly, 4 years or so passed
We get overpowered male characters all the time and it's never a problem. Let us have power fantasies too, it's telling that people know all about "mary sues" but don't even know the male equivalent of that trope, and don't ever criticise it.
Like who?
They do, it's called a Gary Stue.
,,Narzeczona dla księcia" to jeden z moich ulubionych filmów
Captain Marvel suffered from the same problem as Commando. "It's gonna be super easy, barely an inconvenience." The only difference is humor shaped Commando while for Captain Marvel it did not. I think a great way to do any character is what I call the Die Hard-Buffy approach. They are scared, vulnerable to mistakes, and out of their depth despite their skills going in.
How come whenever it’s a female character good writing is paramount? There are tons of one dimensional wish fulfillment male characters out there, all the same shade of one personality. People don’t freak out about the Gary Sue, yet for some reason whenever there is a poorly written female character out there people go nuts.
We wouldn’t be so concerned about representation of female characters if male writers knew how to write them well, but sadly they don’t.
There’s plenty of variety with male characters but not so much with female characters.
I play a character in my group’s D&D campaign that is often the damsel in distress. Despite constantly being in danger, she tries to have hope and actually works with the guys in the party to make the perfect team. What she lacks in strength or dexterity she makes up for in her charisma, wisdom and intelligence. When she encounters the BBEG she tries to negotiate or deceive him. When she’s in distress, she relies on her party members while also devising plans of her own. One time my character was attacked by a werewolf in the courtyard of her own castle and while one of her vampire friends came to her rescue, she was also preparing for a fight by holding the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind, a powerful magic item that can destroy undead like vampires and werewolves. After the situation deescalated, she ordered the werewolf to be locked in the castle dungeon until she could figure out what to do next. In another part of the campaign my character was helping the guys get through some emotional trauma and repressed memories. Long story short, it’s ok for female characters, even princesses, to be in distress as long as they aren’t flat characters. They need their own personality, motivations etc.
I'd recommend the Trope Talk video on Damsel in Distress. As Red points out, nowadays people write their characters as too self-suficient, especially females, which gets kinda boring. Characters helping each other out, rescuing each other, is actually very compelling.
A picture of Katniss as a Mary Sue even though her being vulnerable is one of the most important things of the story?
I've always thought that it was interesting/frustrating that often "strong" female leads that are badass are basically just women acting like male heros with no emotions or vulnerability. Like being masculine is the only way to be strong and independent. I really liked the movie Prey because, although she is physically tough and badass, it's her inner strength, agility, patience, and wit that truly make her strong. Classically feminine traits can be just as badass as classically masculine traits.
It doesn’t help that Ellen Ripley who is considered to be one of the earliest examples of a badass heroine in cinema was originally written to be a GUY.
It’s also kind of sexist and transphobic to assume that if a woman is strong, brave, or intelligent that she must secretly be a man. 🙄
great stance 🤘🏼
When I was a seven year old boy, I knew my Mum wasn't like the damsel in distresses from screen.
I owe a lot of my knowledge to women & it is thanks to that knowledge I am mentally stronger.
What testifies your intelligence is how often you make the right move while factoring in the weight of your circumstance.
If despite your being at almost breaking point you still work your way around the problem that testifies of a very high level person & it speaks louder than fighting ferociously.
Both men & women have the potential to being physically & mentally strong both those areas of strength come out differently for both genders & that's the beauty behind it.
You can't say there is a better gender because a certain amount of women or men are doing this job got a certain IQ score, can lift thing amount of kilos & can fight with this much force.
The consequence of freewill is that you can't weigh in circumstances & say this person should behave like this because of how they were made.
You can set them on a path & send certain conditioning needed for them to stay on that path, but they can leave the path because its their freewill.
Therefore there will be uneven numbers therefore you can't use that to say males or females are better because of this.
The damsel in distress was created to convince men young men especially that they have a duty to uphold
Especially when these young men should die at the frontlines in a war while thinking that they would protecting the "girl at home".
Just want to say that not all women are strong, some are damsels in distress and that is okay.
It’s only not okay when men expect women to be the damsels in distress and throw a fit when they aren’t the ones to save them, and if god forbid the damsel saves herself, or when the only way she is saved is when a man comes to save her, for the sole purpose of marrying her or falling in love with her, or with some innate expectation that she will love him and marry him in return for him saving her
@@jasonvargas7564
It was not that long ago when women were more passive than nowdays
@@jasonvargas7564 At least Disney’s “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” averts it by having Quasimodo NOT hook up with Esmeralda after saving her from Frollo.
@@ouroborosalarichard careful now, in this day and age, your assumptions of a man’s name and woman’s name will get you cancelled 😉 I also don’t see how that has anything to do with what we’re discussing? I am a person, giving my response to another person. I didn’t belittle OP or try to discredit them on the basis of their perceived gender so don’t even go there.
And every fairy tale and the classical Disney movies always has a dashing, handsome, brave prince, rescuing a damsel in distress from a dragon or a monster or imprisonment or a death like sleep, where only a true love’s kiss will save the damsel. Or Shrek, where the brave knight was to rescue the princess by defeating the dragon, and yadda yadda yadda the princess or damsel falls madly in love with the knight and they get married and live happily ever after. It’s a tale as old as time.
Great video, with some glaring omissions. Sarah Connor and Ellen Ripley deserve a mention at the very least. Also, I don't think Beatrix Kiddo is a good example of the Mary Sue trope in the slightest. The first film is intentionally cartoonish in her depiction, specifically to contrast the complexities introduced in the second film.