Write a good hero character, then cut his cock off. You have a good female heroine. Make a character stereotypically female and strong for no reason just to appeal to feminists and you have a boring protagonist. (Star Wars VII, Star Wars Rogue One, I'm sure there are other examples). If you're going to have a female heroine (please do) please do her right. http://www.harkavagrant.com/index.php?id=311
So Starbuck from the BSG reboot. Smokes cigars, plays poker, gets tattoos, drinks too much hard liquor and punches out her superior officer. Twice the man that Han Solo ever was, despite those incovenient lumps of fat on her chest. It worked well, but I don't think I'd want all my heroines to be quite that macho.
Uhm.. on the off chance to come over strange but I actually don't know anymore where the difference between male and female lies - disregarding body parts. Sure, there are some personality traits that are more common in females than in males and vice versa, but they are certainly not set in stone.
The problem is not the oversaturation of boring female protagonists, but simply the oversaturation of boring protagonists. It's just that the emerging feminist demographic will buy anything with a female hero who can smack a dude in the face.
How about just treating every character as a developed character regardless of gender then you dont have this problem anywhere lol
Not to make this a debate on Star Wars, but just my two cents on VII. While I'm personally indifferent towards Rey and believe the protagonist could be argued into being Finn (who was by far the more interesting character) and Rey equally due to the fact they have pretty much even relevance and screen time in the movie, honestly I think it had bigger issues than a "boring protagonist." My biggest beef with the movie was simply the fact that it was horrendously predictable. I won't go into any details in case people HAVENT seen the movie. But I believe many of those who have would agree that many of the plot points where mere replications of previous movies redone in fancy cgi and with slightly different faces. That's how I feel as well. Characters just aren't developed enough to be eye catching, regardless of their assigned genders. If every character is thought of as its own distinct instrument and treated as such we wouldn't have this issue.
I think it is more that female characters are more subject to criticism for being boring as there are fewer whereas due to the large amount of male protagonists, we can just ignore one boring guy because there are many more well written ones being shown. We would be in the same situation if men were a minority in literature instead of women.
Every hero has a target audience and right now feminists are a pretty big group worth writing for. Besides, everyone needs heroes, even feminists. And that type of character isn't boring to them, or else they wouldn't watch.
My stepfather called it "the best Star Wars fanfiction he'd ever seen." Keyword; fan-fiction. So yeah, I agree with you. Very recycled.
Good point. When subjectivity is taken out of the equation, statistical popularity is what makes or breaks a story.
Eh that's debatable. I know not to long ago when there was less of an acceptance towards LGBT characters in television, I'd oft find myself watching a show simply for the one gay storyline in it. It wouldnt even necessarily be very good, it was merely all I could get my hands on so I took what I could get. Yes everyone needs heroes but if people are only putting out crappy heroes you take what you can get. Of course the argument could be made to simply not buy the books and demand better characters but that could go in many directions. 1) people simply stop publishing those books for lack of sales 2) they actually listen and try to be more selective with what's given 3) they listen but cant do anything about it because all they get are crap characters with decent storylines or 4) the people protesting get so fed up with waiting for a book with a character they actually want to read they write it themselves and either a) finish it b) realize writing a story is more difficult then they thought and back off or c) write the story but due to the lack of popularity within the genre begin the long and arduous route of self publishing and promotion. I'm no expert on any of this and I'm sure there are more contingencies that could be made than those options but to me they're the obvious and most likely for the current situation. I think while this thread is an example of beginning seeds of a form of protest it's nowhere near powerful enough on its own to truly make a difference. And also realistically unless something is BLATANTLY offensive and not just badly written people are still going to treat it as whatever. Couldn't have said it better myself
Nail. Head. I read a blog recently, by a female author no less, explaining why she prefers male MCs because she's more forgiving of flaws in men than women. She didn't mind alpha-hole stereotypical masculine men but she hated both girly girls and strong women. All the (mostly women) in the comments agreed with her. Depressing.
It's probably a good idea to simply focus on writing well-rounded characters. I do think female characters are judged more harshly though. I guess there's all that feminist baggage people tend to react negatively to ("behind every female character, there's a sinister misandrist agenda"), thus judging too quickly well put-together characters. The parameters set by activists and media critics also tend to be strict. Not too sexy. Not too thin. Not too timid. Not too helpless. Not too mary sue. It can be intimidating. I'm not sure why my good character would have a cock by default though. Then I shall depress you further. I too tend to find stories about men / centered around men more interesting. It's not like a sausage fest is automatically better, but I gravitate towards them. Girly girls disinterest me because I don't like things that are usually considered "girly". These so-called strong women sometimes irk me because they're often written by people who don't know much about stuff they think make a woman strong, like martial arts, weapons etc. Combine that with an attitude I consider bitchy (too in-your-face) and I lose interest. With male characters, I'm more fascinated than irked if he has a bad attitude. Again, it's a preference. But I still write female characters every now and then, and do my best to make them interesting and well-rounded. I sent them on a journey and watch them grow and develop. They could still read forced to someone; just writing a woman can cause that reaction in some people, but honestly, I've run out of fucks to give.
Yeah, that does depress me further. I hope people who don't like female characters examine their reasons and prejudices and try to do something about it instead of just shrugging.