Female Protagonists on the Hero's Journey

That fact that there's a separate "hero's journey" for women is laughable. I read the chart and it reads like something you would find on Pinterest. Why can't a hero's journey be a character's journey?

 

That's what I said about my writing, It's the Characters Journey.

 

The violence was initiated by the violent person and I served in the military and am by no means a pacifist.
But I just checked and I have no credentials to back up my misstep so I will withdraw my statement and apologize.

 

My bad! Just skimmed through the thread. I'll make sure to read through next time.

 

No problem, I I was just showing that I agreed with you.

 

This is from Nina Munteanu's blog: https://www.scribophile.com/blog/female-heroes-in-literature-pop-culture/

 

Luke from the orig. trig., versus Rey from Force Awakens. Luke: classic, perfect example of heroe's journey, amazing hero, though a bit whiny. Rey: Ermagerd, OP, Mary Sue, bland antifeminism! But they're both given pretty much the same treatment in the movies.

Just think. If I wrote: "Anderson walked into the room, heels sounding off against the hardwood. The men gathered 'round expectantly. "Alright, boys. Lets do this." Whether you want it to or not, your perception of that scene and expectation of what's happening is going to be different depending on whether you read Anderson as a man or a woman. A girl can giggle a lot and like scented candles and she's seen as cute whereas a guy that does the same is weak strange. A guy can swear and make rude gestures and be seen as funny, whereas a a girl is not funny, trying too hard, and just plain crass. That's not saying our super manly protags can't like scented candles and our super female protags can't swear and be funny, but we have to frame how we write these characters differently because different assumptions are made by the reader. It's like how you can write a hero and a villain and they can be pretty much the same character, but when the hero does something, he does it for good, because the reader makes that assumption based on the fact that he's the hero of the story, whereas the villain can do the same thing, but because we know he's evil, we instinctively assume they're doing it for some nefarious purpose. It's story telling tropes, but applied to gender.

Edited because autocorrect changed antifeminism to antisemitism.

 

Thanks for explaining that. I'ma disagree with you about Rey because I love Rey, but I get your point

Not related to your post: I'm just putting it here so I'm not posting too often in this thread. This blog post clued me into how sexism manifests in stories with female protagonists:

https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/heros-journey-vs-heroines-journey-rewriting-privilege/

 

Well, that's certainly not true of the Wonder Woman movie, where compassion is explicitly what saves the day.

I also expect one could list plenty of male side characters who exist to enable MMC (Orpheus, Ron Weasely, I don't know shit about Spiderman but at least in Homecoming his best friend and even Tony Stark enabled Peter, Jimmy Olsen often acts as Superman's sidekick). It's more a case of having a dearth of FMCs in the assumed genres in general, I'd say. Of course your main character is going to be more developed and the star of the show. The issue is when the main character is always a dude.

And I've always had quite a bit of disdain for the notion that compassion et al are inherently feminine qualities that must have been shed from female characters who aren't defined by them, and 'weaken' male characters who possess them.

 

Great points, thanks.

 

I"m not sure who this Nina Munteanu, nor do I care to know. But that small snippet your shared, i'm already not very impressed with her writing, and to reiterate what Izzy was saying, there is plenty of examples of Men being compassionate, which I think will transition into a rant I've been thinking since seeing this thread.

Using Miss Nina here, (shame she she shares the name of one of my Characters. ), she seems to be focusing on a single trait and that's the issue I have with this thread in general.. Man or Woman., as with real life, are not made up of singular traits but multiply traits that make up their being. When I write, I don't think of my Characters as Oh He's a man, he must have these traits... or She's a woman so she must have these traits, they have traits that are natural to them or develop over time. To me they are Kristol, Samuel, Richard,... etc.

Hopefully I don't come off to dumb in my rant.

 

At John-Wayne, not at all. I think organic character design from open-hearted / creative people with good intentions should come out better than any character made by assigning traits from lists.

 

Yet many more are pretty sattisfied by Bella being saved by a sparkly vampire, or Scarlett being overpowered by Rhett, or the whole romance genre You are picking out one specific opinion and making it appear like that's what everybody thinks (most viewers don't care any further than if the movie is enjoyable or not)

Then halfway through the post you veer off into a completely different direction with that "Heroine's Journey" chart. That chart is something that will definitely leave some women unsatisfied. And that's a different group of unsatisfied women from the one that's criticizing female heroes in pop culture. So, the chart doesn't support your original argument

Wonder Woman specifically has a problem with being too generic. She's exactly the same person as the many animated female heroines in the recent years (Brave, Frozen, Mulan, etc), even her facial expressions are the same. She's also created in a way that will be satisfactory for male audiences. That wild long hair, for example. Ask any woman in real life if they will be doing any intense physical activity with their hair flying around like that

Another thing is that arguments involving genders have become hot lately and everybody is looking to get on the band wagon. Everything becomes an issue of gender even when it actually isn't

That's an American thing

That argument has already been argued Someone needs to adjust their calendar. It's not the 1950s anymore. Again, you are selectively choosing one particular viewpoint. Some people will always have an opinion that's different from the opinion of another group of people. "Men are violent and women are motherly" is quickly becoming really dated

Outside the US they are mostly seen as children's entertainment on par with the Teletubbies

I feel the same way about Twinkies!

... by certain people with a certain mindset Or, it may be that you are thinking of a particular female character, who is bitchy, while ignoring others who are not. It also depends on how the character is created by their writers, or directors, or even the actors who play them...

Someboy wrote it in a blog post, therefore it's universal truth? If somebody thinks a heroine is a character who is always "striving for equality and normality" they need to read more.

 

Challenge accepted

Diana's story in Wonder Woman is about trying to save the world, but realizing that the world doesn't want to be saved. She's told over and over again "there's nothing you can do" about the pain and suffering she's witnessing, and even when she stands up and says she's going to do it anyway, she finds that the core of the problem is more than. She does an incredible amount of good for the people that she's able to do good for, but she has to learn that she can't save everyone.

Anna's story in Frozen (her being the main character ) is about trying to reconnect with a sister who's been estranged from her for close to their entire lives, with Anna never even being told why, and when Anna learns that her sister is afraid of herself for being a monster, Anna has to show her sister "you deserve a happy life with other people as much as anybody else does"

Merida's story in Brave is about her hating the rules that are imposed and about her frustration with her mother for imposing them – opposite her mother's love of the rules and frustration with Merida for breaking them – but then both mother and daughter learn to respect each other despite their opposing temperaments, and they both learn to be more pragmatic about which rules matter and which ones don't.

Mulan is about her trying to kill the two birds of 1) living a more fulfilling and accomplished life than just being a living dress-up doll for a man to marry, and 2) protecting her old and infirm father from having to serve a military tour that he wouldn't survive.

 

Well, we do have a glut of Straight White Western Guy Stories, which are just as identity-heavy. I just don't notice them as much because I am a straight white Western guy. If the default in media was gay black women saving the day all the time, I probably would notice the difference, and maybe get accused of "identity politics" when I asked where all the straight white guy heroes were at.

Even if (like every other stance on anything) some people take it to silly extremes, I can understand aasking "Hey, can I see someone like me be the cool lead character once in a while, rather than the sacrificial mentor, cackling villain, love interest or comedy sidekick?" It's a reasonable question to ask--and while asking for changes to the status quo is indeed "political", so is insisting the status quo be preserved.

 

Thanks for sharing. For the record, I'm not making much of an argument, from the meandering shit of my first post. I'm just gathering opinions so I can work out how I'm going to talk about this stuff later on. I've already read Joseph Campbell's books on the topic. I just wanted to draw out any newer opinions on it, since I was pretty shocked by all the gender specific stuff I found.

Sorry to those who found this thread insulting or irritating. I'll play it cool for a couple months

I'm pretty happy to hear the views this board circulates. It's on a higher level than other groups I've found.

 

I agree.

If representation in media was as without value as some people say, it would be given when asked. "I want an old black lesbian superhero." "Okay." The fact that there is resistance to giving up slots of representation shows that there is value someone wants to hold on to.

Even though I'm a straight white guy, I have a dog in the representation fight. I'm in an interracial marriage and have a kid on the way.

 

Unfortunately, identitarian politics is world wide and there are plenty of countries as bad or worse than the U.S. in this regard. England is putting people in prison because they post something that makes people unhappy on social media.

 

No, not really, because the heroes in those stories were not picked specifically because they are straight, white or male. Identitarian politics insists that instead of finding the best character for the job, or the best actor or actress for the job, that they have to fulfill some identitarian niche first and foremost. That they are hired because they are black or gay or female or transgender, not because they were the best person for the job. Race and gender and all of the rest shouldn't matter at all, but to the far left, that's all that matters. I couldn't care less about the race, sex or orientation of anyone I watch in any movie or on TV. There are some places where it makes sense to hire a certain gender or a certain race actor because of the role, but for the overwhelming majority, it shouldn't matter.

It's unfortunate that, to a lot of people, that's all they care about.

 

I've always been of the opinion that gender does not matter when it comes to how your character goes through their story. I mean, you could make it a big point that "this character is female and she's a hero and that's pretty great", but, honestly, that's no different than "this character is a hero and that's great". To me, a character's gender is just another characteristic that's about as important as what color their hair is. I mean, it's not like your female protagonist can't pick up a pistol or something because she's a girl, that'd be ridiculous.

Female heroes are the same as male heroes, they're both heroes. I don't get why, on that chart, the very first point is "separation from the feminine" or something along those lines. Take Bayonetta for example, she's a female protagonist who embraces her feminine side whilst killing the hell out of demons. Honestly, if you follow that chart, I think you'll get a story that's very silly. "separation from the feminine", "meet orcs and dragons", "descent to the goddess", "urge to reconnect with the feminine", "heal the mother-daughter relationship", "integration of the masculine and feminine". This "Heroine's Journey" looks like it was written by someone who has no idea what the Hero's Journey is supposed to do for a character. A character that goes through the Hero's Journey starts off average, but, in order to complete the journey, comes out better than they were before because they had to. This "Heroine's Journey" does not necessitate the character's growth. This "journey" can easily be completed by someone who had their hand held the entire time, and didn't do a damn thing to become better than they were before. This "journey" was written by a person who thinks that women have to go through different trials than men, but that's not the case at all.

Also, can we just acknowledge how anti-deviance this "journey" is? No, seriously, literally every part of it is planned out down to what they do at that point. The original has things like "trials/hardships" and "rebirth" and "awakening". Very open-ended statements, right? Well, this new "journey" has points like "healing the mother/daughter relationship" and "awakening to the feeling of death" and "urge to reconnect with the feminine". This new "journey" has almost no room for doing your own thing if you choose to follow it.

This isn't a "heroine's journey", this is the plot of some foolish writer's story.

Damn, I kind of got upset on this one, huh? It just really sticks in my craw when people try to assume that men and women can't be the same because they have different private parts. I mean, Lara Croft treasure hunts, and she doesn't have to like, hunt for ancient glitter or something like that, she hunts the normal treasure stuff, because she's a "Treasure Hunter", not a "Treasure Huntress" or something silly like that.

Oh, and something else, one of the first things you mentioned was that many women were dissatisfied with many modern female heroes. I think I know why. I believe it's because too many people write female heroes by putting the "female" part first, and not the fact that they're a hero first, and a gender second. A lot of Hollywood writers try to write female heroes as heroes because they're females who do the same things that men do, when they should be writing them as heroes because they do heroic things!

 

Yep, this is true.

Whenever I want an emotionally powerful movie, I just turn on Iron Man.

 

So last night I spent some time outlining a story that would follow that proposed heroine's journey, for kicks, and after about ten five minutes, only out of doggedness. I've not hidden my disdain for the concept in general, so I am clearly and openly biased against it, but man -- I got about halfway through before giving up. It's insipid. As @LastMindToSanity just pointed out, it only allows for a very specific plot/arc that requires you to be heavily invested in your mc's gender and her relationship to it, and as for the rest? Eh. Irrelevant, apparently. Like I said before, I'm not a fan of the hero's journey either, but it is at least quite open to interpretation.

I write my characters in a fairly genderless way, the only real exceptions being transgender characters whose gender / the fact that they're trans is relevant to the plot in some way. Not even those characters -- for whom gender (and specifically femininity!) and their relationships to it is a key part of their arcs -- could be interpreted as following the heroine's journey.

Guess I'm writing characters who'll be unsatisfying to female readers across the board. Whoops! So much for all my little words

 

You say it shouldn't matter and I here's the thing, I agree with that, but it does matter in a negative way--if not to audiences, then to people inside the entertainment industry. I can't look at both the industry and themes of mainstream popular entertainment without saying yeah, there's a slant there (the gender pay gap being the most obvious and provable symptom).

I'm not going to claim I know exactly where that imbalance comes from, because it's a frustrating and nebulous thing with no obvious cause. Could be big financial stakes making producers conservative and scared to break from the norm, Weinstein-esque sleazebags with disporportionate influence, etc--but it's there, it's pervasive, and it's holding people back.

Identity politics and a push for inclusion has risen in prominence because this stuff isn't correcting itself naturally, or is only doing so very slowly. I agree it can risk poor casting choices being made or awkward tokenism, but I can also see the argument that it's about counteracting an existing imbalance, and giving people a chance who would normally be held back unfairly. And sometimes, actively pushing for inclusion and non-standard themes / settings / leads leads to mould-breaking successes like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Avatar: The Last Airbender or Black Panther that couldn't have had the same impact if they'd stuck to the standard "safe" casting and setting choices.

And again, saying there's no problem to correct is a valid opinion, but it's every bit as political as the opposite stance. If we're inventing awkward words, I'll call that statusquoitarian politics.

 

That's exactly the opposite of what's happening:

25-30% of Americans are straight white men, which means that 25-30% of the best people for the job are straight white men
70-75% of us are literally anything else, which means that 70-75% of the best people for the job are literally anything else

The left is trying to make a meritocracy by creating opportunities for people whose capabilities are being ignored by the conservative Identity Politics. I don't have a problem with straight white men – I myself am two out of three – I just don't think that this numerical minority should be getting so much special treatment at the expense of everybody else.

In a meritocracy

• 25-30% of the best people for the job being straight white men would mean that 25-30% of the people getting the job would be straight white men
• 70-75% of the best people for the job being anything else would mean that 70-75% of the people getting the job would be literally anything else.

In reality, over 50% of major (both leading and secondary) characters have been given to straight white male actors.

At best, this covers:

• 25-30%: the best person for the job was a straight white man, and he was hired
• 20-25%: the best person for the job was literally anybody else, but a straight white man was hired instead
• 50%: the best person for the job was literally anybody else, and that person was hired

When 70-75% of the best people for the job of playing a leading/secondary character were literally anything other than straight white men, but when only 50% of the people actually getting the job are anything else, a non-(straight white man)'s chance of getting the job is only about 65-70% of what it would've been in a meritocracy

When 50% of the people getting the job are straight white men, but when only 25-30% of the best people for the job are straight white men, a straight white man who gets the job only has a 50-60% chance of having been the best person for the job.​

And given that major characters who are literally anything else tend to be secondary characters instead of main characters, the math for the main characters is even worse than this. If 75% of leading characters are given straight white male actors, then the breakdown is

• 25-30%: the best person for the job was a straight white man, and he was hired
• 40-45%: the best person for the job was literally anybody else, but a straight white man was hired instead
• 25%: the best person for the job was literally anybody else, and that person was hired

When 70-75% of the best people for the job of playing a leading character are literally anything other than straight white men, but when only 25% of the people actually getting the job are anything else, then a non-(straight white man)'s chance of getting the job is only about 35% of what it would've been in a meritocracy.

When 75% of the people getting the job are straight white men, but when only 25-30% of the best people for the job are straight white men, a straight white man who gets the job only has a 35-40% chance of having been the best person for the job.​

No need: giving less-suited straight white men the jobs of people who would be better suited to the job – but who are not straight white men – already has a word, and it's called Identity Politics.

 

Let me preface this by telling you that I'm not advocating or defending anything but my view on why things are how they are; I'm not trying to say this is wrong or right, it's not a political statement, I'm merely making an observation.

There is a simple reason why the "hero's journey" is often seen as a male fantasy, instead of a female one, and it's baffling to me that nobody has had the insight - or, most likely, the balls - to point this out. The answer is quite simply evolution and the human condition.

The heroes journey is, at it's core, about acquiring power: there's a weak man, who through many trials grows into a strong man. Why this journey is often made by a man instead of a woman seems obvious to me: due to how inherently disposable a man is, the story is more striking and impressive than if it were a woman in the same situation, since a woman is inherently more valuable than a man - this is simple science, and even if you don't know the first thing about evolution, you can read a few history books and reach the same conclusion; this leads to the story of the man acquiring power to be more impactful, since the stakes are automatically higher, because if he fails the journey, he'll either be where he was before it started - just another disposable man with little to no prospects of an improved life - or worst; if a woman fails the same journey, on the other hand, she'll still very likely be sheltered by society, due to her biology (provided she gets to come back home). In short, there is simply more at stake when a man is put into the protagonist spot-light, than when a woman gets the same treatment, and I personally believe that, more than a socially enforced hatred or disdain for women, this is why most epics and fantastic stories of old have male protagonists.

Ignoring these trends and why they exist, and dismissing them as silly products of the past, is often what leads to, ironically, vapid, "strong female who-need-no-man" types, which may feel completely out of place in a story, or even a setting, and which may ruin otherwise great art completely.

On a more opinionated note, I believe there are many kinds of stories that lend themselves better to a female protagonist, and these aren't the same stories that lend themselves well to male protagonists since, trigger warning here, females and males are different. The reason why we don't have better female protagonists now-a-days is because we suck at coming up with stories tailored for women, since most of our examples come from stories tailored for men. Your way of viewing things with "why can't the hero's journey be about women as well" is, I think, the worst possible way of seeing things, and will only lead to sub-par art which seeks to break convention for the sake of breaking convention. We have a better understanding of women ever since we realized they're people too, so lets actually use that understanding instead of slapping breasts and a vagina on Conan, please.