Women: What are some good movies/shows for portraying women?

The 2019 version of Little Women comes to mind for me. I usually don't like movies like that, chick-flicks I guess? But I did like that one. Possibly because I have never related so much to a fictional character than I did to Jo March, but all the girls felt really well-rounded to me.

 

I like Juno (2007). The main character and then the woman who is adopted her baby. Both are strong female characters but their "weak" characteristics are still shown. Both characters seek out comfort (even if it's a bad idea), both have made mistakes, both openly cry, both show pain involved with the inability to achieve motherhood (in different ways).

 

I would look for the works of female directors and producers, particularly in movies that stress interpersonal relationships rather than car crashes and gunfire.

Not to say that women can't direct action movies. Kathryn Bigelow doesn't have to answer to anybody in that regard. And Patty Jenkins did a bang-up job with Wonder Woman. In fact, Gal Gadot's performance in the title role was a good example of a woman as an action hero...independent, uncaring of the feelings of the men around her who want her to do their bidding, yet emotionally responsive to children and people in pain. She is her own woman.

 

Yes! I really love the part where she's talking to her mother about how women are so much more than beauty and have their own minds and ambitions but she's still lonely.

 

Try The Handmaid's Tale. Elisabeth Moss is superb as June, and June is an amazing character. If you want to portray a strong female character then she would be my go to. Serena too for someone who's conflicted, weak and strong at the same time. Both actresses do an outstanding job and I personally think those two characters provide a great insight to female strength in adverse situations.

 

Yes, you can learn from watching movies as long as those movie portray that person correctly. You'll learn far more observing the real women in your life that watching movies. And what you'll learn is the same as I did. There really is NO correct or incorrect way of portraying men and female because they are all different. Just by thinking 'I'm portraying a female' is going to put you in a female stereotype. What you need to think is 'I'm portraying a human being'.

I've seen people complain that a female character was too manly. She was basically a man in a woman's skin and not feminine enough. I know women like that. My aunt is like that. No one is exactly alike and I don't think their are personality trends for women and for men. I know quite a few men are are more emotional than the women they are with. Concentrate on portraying a human being and the events in their life that changed them because that's what defines them, not really their gender. But if you really feel you need to do a women study, go for the women in real life around you. Because some of the stereotypes do exist and some people so fit into them. I don't watch Chick Flicks at all. But maybe Clarice Starling in Silence of the Lambs. Margo Channing in All About Eve (this really looks heavily at insecurities but a man could just as easily feel the same way in the same position).

 

Oh, another thing to keep in mind is that it's not just the character but also how certain people might react to women differently than men. Of course this depends on the story and, as always, the individual characters but there are lots of studies which have been done and anecdotes out there you can use for some ideas.

For instance in the criminal justice system there have been studies about how women who commit crimes like murder are sometimes put into the Madonna / whore complex - they are either seen as an innocent victim in a bad situation or seen as absolutely evil as women are 'supposed' to be maternal and caring, so it's seen as worse when they contravene this than when men do. Again, this is a complete generalisation and does not at all apply to every case and everyone but is interesting to think about.

 

Perfect! Now I have a reason to watch that again!

W-w-w-what?!?!
T-talk to real women?!

Honestly I was really thinking along the lines of "in general," so I could improve the quality of any woman character. Whether we're talking about a main character or some background extra; if a character exists in a story then they deserve to be written correctly. Honestly, it's the ones who are not main characters that need more of this quality writing. Any character that is featured prominently enough, and given enough opportunities to showcase the decisions they make and their history and etcetera, will seemed fleshed-out enough to be able to justify why they are the way they are. It's all the secondary characters where we can't give the full backstory that need to feel particularly realistic. If they aren't, then they reflect on the others and make them seem worse.

I do have a few characters in mind for stories I'm writing, but honestly when I posted this I was really just thinking that the portrayal of women in my private little world is rather slanted to the archetypes that appeal to men, and I should should introduce my private little world to some less-slanted depictions, even if they aren't the kind of movies/shows I would normally watch. Perhaps especially from the kind of shows I don't normally watch.

This is a really good point to consider.
But at the same time, it kind-of limits me. Most of what I write are in fantasy settings or otherwise fictional cultures. I could devise any kind of culture I need to justify the way a character behaves, but this means I really need to get those innate and universal qualities right.

Mmm, I haven't watched that much Voyager since the days when it was new. Good times, good times...

I am so glad someone brought this up, because this was mentioned in the original conversation I had that led me to post this thread. He described Little Women as a great example of the more universal and true behaviors of women. I was really hoping to see if someone else would affirm this.
He also mentioned ones like Anne of Green Gables.

I haven't seen that movie since it came out. I recall really disliking the woman who was adopting the baby by the end. But it is probably worth re-watching in a different light.

It's fair advice, but at this point in my life I simply don't have those opportunities anymore. If nothing else, there's this lockdown business that's basically cut off all my social interaction. So watching some good and honest movies is one of the best things I can do to expand my views right now.

 

You can build a fantasy world at least partially from elements of real places you know. If done well, this can lend a gritty realism and sincerity. My example is Lankhmar, which is the name of a city and the continent it exists on. Any idea what real place that could be based on? If you said New York you'd be right. And it's mixed with Ancient Rome. The series is Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser (which as far as I know nobody else around here is familiar with), written by Fritz Lieber, originally published in pulp magazines ranging from the 30's up through the 80's. Lieber lived in New York, and so was able to write skillfully about it's stinking streets, dark alleys and sketchy politics. This gave it all a great quality, and he then blended in what his research told him about Rome in the days of Empire.

 

I would read Little Women rather than watching the 2019 film if I were you. The story was altered for the director's beliefs, and isn't really a reflection of the book.

 

You aren't the only one, although it's been ages since I've thought of it. I seem to recall them twisting a magic map into a Mobius strip once and not understanding the concept, leading to my dad ripping up a newspaper and showing me.

 

I would like to respectfully disagree. Women and men will have inherent differences in behaviour and thought; not reflecting social stereotypes but more underlying, core differences.

Write a man heading home at night on an unlit street in a sketchy area. Then write a woman doing the same. Will they act and think similar?

 

I think that depends on the man and the woman. I partially agree with you, but always with my usual caveat in mind, that there are very feminine men and very masculine women. I've known women who would be totally fearless in that situation, and men who would refuse to walk there. However, if we're talking strictly about masculine men and feminine women, then I would agree with you.

 

Just in general; women will of course have a different approach to such a walk.

And from here on, you'll see what I mean. I understand many fantasy/sci-fi worlds now frequently feature women in arms and armies (Warcraft universe, Elder Scrolls universe, Fallout universe, star-wars universe, etc.) taking very little regard to consider the possible consequences. The prospect of becoming a PoW will bring /vastly/ different thoughts to a man compared to a woman. This isn't an isolated fantasy-debate; it's a valid debate being discussed by militaries across the world (Israel and the US being only two examples).

You can either provide some lengthy explanations to knock out these core differences & then maintain an egalitarian world, or you can incorporate these elements of real life into your world. However, leaving the questions unanswered /and/ pushing egalitarianism will perk some brows from the side of more realism-adherent readers.

Note; quite a few worlds disperse the physical differences as part of reduced sexual dimorphism. Not contesting this; that's a valid explanation/answer to at least one question. Not the Warcraft universe; can't really comprehend how they have mixed-sex militaries with such ridiculous physical differences.

 

Sorry to say it, but I highly doubt watching movies is going to solve your problem. If you really can't write female characters with any substance, I think that's more of a problem with the way you view women than anything else. Have you never cared enough to actually get to know a woman? Are you actually confused on what makes a woman more than a stereotype? Steal bits and pieces of real women you've had interactions with to build up your characters if you have to. But come on, this is a bit ridiculous and somewhat offensive. That probably wasn't your intention, and I don't mean to come across as harsh as I probably am. But we're talking about people and we live in the real world with both men and women. If you don't have the knowhow to translate women into fleshed out characters, but you have no problem doing it with your male characters, it probably means you need to think about why that is. No movie is going to make you think, 'Now, I know women.' Women are people, and if that's not something you can understand without movie suggestions, there is a problem that I believe stretches beyond the characters you are trying to create.

 

@Lazaares Ok, if you're talking about physical differences, that's a different matter. Not completely though—there are many wimpy men and some women are strong as oxes. I'm pretty big and in decent shape, I could take some of the guys on the board, and quite a few of the women (if I were willing to fight them) but I wouldn't care to tangle with @Lifeline or @Kallisto , who I believe are both trained martial artists.

But again, I do agree with parts of what you've said.

 

I think you're missing something though. Th other day I posted some info about white matter and gray matter in the brain. Let me see if I can find that again. Here it is:

Male brains utilize nearly seven times more gray matter for activity while female brains utilize nearly ten times more white matter. What does this mean?

Gray matter areas of the brain are localized. They are information- and action-processing centers in specific splotches in a specific area of the brain. This can translate to a kind of tunnel vision when they are doing something. Once they are deeply engaged in a task or game, they may not demonstrate much sensitivity to other people or their surroundings.

White matter is the networking grid that connects the brain’s gray matter and other processing centers with one another. This profound brain-processing difference is probably one reason you may have noticed that girls tend to more quickly transition between tasks than boys do. The gray-white matter difference may explain why, in adulthood, females are great multi-taskers, while men excel in highly task-focused projects.
Source
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This means there's a big difference in the way men and women think, which to me suggests that it's not necessarily easy for a man to accurately write a woman or vice versa, or maybe to really understand each other completely. If someone thinks differently than you do, how are you going to understand them fully?

Example—women are far better with emotions and connection than men. Women can spend all day talking about emotions, and often want to, but men just don't have the mental equipment for it, they literally see emotions in much more simplistic terms. Let me use the example of a physicist and a bricklayer. Would the bricklayer be able to convincingly write about a physicist, including his knowledge spelled out explicitly in the story? Of course not. And I'll bet the physicist would have a lot of trouble convincingly writing about bricklaying.

Of course, men who are extremely sensitive and in touch with their emotions can come much closer, I don't know if they have more white matter or not. And women who are tough and aggressive can write men pretty well. Again, I don't know if they have more gray matter. If they do, it might still not be as much as most men.

 

@Xoic -- I'm not saying there aren't differences, but there is a problem if someone is clueless on how to approach and develop characters of the opposite sex. And I absolutely hate when writers think movies are going to help them with something like this. Read a book. Understand the world. Those things might help beyond writing. And the way I see it, this is an issue that goes beyond writing. It's a little troubling and sad.

 

Books are just as likely to commit the same mistakes as movies. Both are written by humans.

God save us from anyone taking clue about female portrayal from John Norman.

Mind, in my opinion the attitude that "just switch pronouns" or "just write a character" is as clueless in an approach as is missing the point of female/male characters.

 

@Lazaares how does Cris Cyborg fit into your view of women?



And how does Michael Serra fit into your view of men?

 

I never said anything was a matter of swapping pronouns or that you shouldn't approach writing females differently than male characters. I think the problem here is that the females aren't really characters so much which the OP admits.

As far as movies, we are writers. We specialize in the written word. Even for people writing movies, reading the screenplays is sort of a must. Reading is such an important part of writing and there really aren't substitutes for that. But I'm not even recommending books here. I don't see this as a writing issue. In my opinion, the OP's problem isn't going to likely be solved by example. I think it's going to require a shift in thinking and a better understanding of the human condition.

 

I didn't say anything like that either. My viewpoint is quite a bit more nuanced than that. And I do agree with you as long as we're talking about masculine men and feminine women, but there are many exceptions.

 

I don't think that matters if you are not able to describe in which way a woman's train of thought and action differs from a man's and the statistic of this. There might be statistics, psychological or even more relevant to this matter sociological, I'm not saying that there's no distinction, but as a female human myself, with mostly male friends, find this distinction difficult or rather unconnected to the white matter- grey matter percentages in each brain. I mean... so what? How does this help you write a specified sex? It's no superhuman powers and overall there's not so much of a difference according to the outcomes between sexes. Processing information. It's a minor detail and quite abstract. It's all speculation so far not upon the mechanics but upon how the mechanics work. At least that's how I see it.

I believe that nowadays everybody knows about the "general" differences. Does it really need saying? Will it even be realistic? Depends on the individual and I believe that that's the truth. To be honest I've never read a book or seen a movie in which I admired: "Oh, women are not like that!" or "Women are exactly like that, amen!" Not one. It's irrelevant. Who am I to judge? I've seen movies and read books with interesting women characters though, just as I've read with men's. Simple as that!

My advice would be, don't over analyse these differences, because there are indeed differences but they're not universal and they're not so.. pf.. how can I say this now... They're not so distinctive. If you wish to find distinctiveness just google it and I promise you'll find a lot of it, better verbalised than here. There's a lot of material to obsess about, but I doubt this would be helpful.

Just think of a woman as an individual in a story, with ovaries and coming upon a problem that needs solving. That's about it. You already know the rest, I mean...

 

You're right, the part of the article I posted left a lot out. Also, I mostly agree with you. But I do want to post some more information from the article that I should have posted before—it explains why the difference isn't just abstract or all that minor:

Additionally, before boys or girls are born, their brains developed with different hemispheric divisions of labor. The right and left hemispheres of the male and female brains are not set up exactly the same way. For instance, females tend to have verbal centers on both sides of the brain, while males tend to have verbal centers on only the left hemisphere. This is a significant difference. Girls tend to use more words when discussing or describing incidence, story, person, object, feeling, or place. Males not only have fewer verbal centers in general but also, often, have less connectivity between their word centers and their memories or feelings. When it comes to discussing feelings and emotions and senses together, girls tend to have an advantage, and they tend to have more interest in talking about these things.


Blood Flow and Brain Activity

While we are on the subject of emotional processing, another difference worth looking closely at is the activity difference between male and female brains. The female brain, in part thanks to far more natural blood flow throughout the brain at any given moment (more white matter processing), and because of a higher degree of blood flow in a concentration part of the brain called the cingulate gyrus, will often ruminate on and revisit emotional memories more than the male brain.

Males, in general, are designed a bit differently. Males tend, after reflecting more briefly on an emotive memory, to analyze it somewhat, then move onto the next task. During this process, they may also choose to change course and do something active and unrelated to feelings rather than analyze their feelings at all. Thus, observers may mistakenly believe that boys avoid feelings in comparison to girls or move to problem-solving too quickly.​

But there I go again, hyperfocusing on the task at hand to the exclusion of all else! So male of me!! But I do want to say (agreeing with you @Malisky ) that often women seem very much like men in most regards. But when a woman is really talking about emotions and wanting me to do the same, I feel like she has an amazing ability to understand them and think about them and talk about them in ways that leave me completely in the dust. To me emotions are very simple and I don't have the level of interest many women do in discussing or analyzing them. It's as if I'm looking into a dark box with a few vague shapes in it, but she can see it all in bright light and great detail.

 

I never defined any "view" or "expectation" on women. However, I will note here that Cris Cyborg is from the heaviest female bracket in MMA. There's six male categories above hers in weight. There is a reason why she isn't facing off MMA fighters like the Colossus or Martyn Ford.

East Germany pumped their female athletes with testosterone to have them win medals; to the point some of them had irreversible changes to their sexual characteristics.

Even putting a woman with her physique into a fantasy war setting would maintain the same questions & differences. Not all too different to Brienne from GoT - who faces the very PoW concern & issue I have raised right above, which is properly addressed by the author and is part of the story.

My original reply where I criticised that point was to @cosmic lights.

Truly, I would look for portrayals of women where they aren't deprived of their sexuality or characteristics but still aren't over-sexualized and are placed in a position where they can influence the plot & play a major part in the story. Unfortunately, that's pretty rare (*cough* Nolan). Ellen Ripley's been mentioned as a good example, Sarah Connor fills those boots too along with Furiosa in Mad Max: Fury Road.

I personally enjoy more feminine characters that are in power far more and think they can provide better lessons about portrayal / character. Olenna Tyrell must be mentioned here whom I consider the strongest portrayal in recent shows. Her very presence radiates power through brilliant writing, acting and screenwriting, without putting her into a male action hero's boots. I especially liked her few scenes with Tywin.

Spoiler: Season 7 spoiler, I guess

And my man, the moment she pretty much admit to having murdered the king with a smile. That's heavy.