I watch a lot of television, read a lot of books, and buy a lot of comics. I am a huge consumer of media of all types. And, like many consumers of media, I'm looking for characters I can relate to. For me, yes, that usually means the females* (although not always). And yeah, it bothers me that in a narrative with eight males and one female, it's frequently the female who will be the target of violence or killed off to make a point.
Now, I'm not saying that female characters should have a "get out of mortal injury free" card, nor that they should be immortal. But there's "everyone in this story gets the crap kicked out of them on a regular basis, it was Karen's turn," and then there's "mysteriously, every male character survives the explosion unscathed, again, but Karen is in the hospital, again." Or, even worse, "all the guys are fine, Karen's dead, meet Katie." Karen, in this scenario, was probably a replacement for Kelly, who replaced Kendra back in season one. And the beat rolls on.
I am not saying that all things must have absolute gender equality. Big Bang Theory was a primarily male cast for the first several seasons, and that was fine. H2O: Just Add Water was a primarily female cast for its entire run, and that was fine, too. Sometimes, there are situations where it makes sense for it to be mostly one gender or the other. But this is a "sometimes" thing, not a "four times out of five" thing. If there's no pressing reason for a character to be one gender or the other, why not try striking a balance? One of the only things that's ever disappointed me about Leverage is the way that the "evil doubles" of all the main characters have been male. Male thief, male hitter, male hacker, male mastermind. When your core cast is so well-balanced, why not make your Mirror Universe equally well-balanced?
(Yes, we have seen another female grifter, but as she was brought in to essentially be a replacement Sophie while Gina Bellman was pregnant, she's a bit of a different duck, and she wasn't brought in when they needed an alternate team. Which is too bad, because she's awesome.)
And now to the event that caused me to start thinking these things so critically:
Once upon a time there was a show, and it was made for me. It could not have been better tailored to my tastes if the producers had been bugging my phone. I loved it without reservation, even though the cast was almost purely male, and I defended it from accusations of misogyny. It was my show.
Time passed, and more female characters were introduced. They didn't become core cast, but that was okay; there were natural limits on the number of core cast members, and I was happy with the expanded universe. It made things more realistic. And then things started getting bad in that expanded universe. How could they make us, the viewers, understand how bad things were?
By killing all the female characters who had appeared in more than one episode, naturally. And by doing it in a way that was meant to be "heroic," but involved them failing to navigate a scenario that left the male characters entirely untouched.
I cried until I was sick after that episode. I turned off the show. I never went back. Literally never; I haven't watched so much as a preview since that narrative decision was made. Was I overreacting? Maybe. But there is so much media out there these days, so many stories, that once you make me cry for reasons that are not "this is so moving and tragic," but are instead, "this is so unfair and infuriating," we're over, you and I.
And that, right there, is when a story loses me. When they use the female characters as a shortcut to emotional anguish; when they kill or maim the women because that's easier than setting up a genuinely and realistically painful scenario. Especially since we almost always start out with a severe gender imbalance in genre or action shows, and that means that killing the token woman can leave us with an all-male cast.
Bones, which I adore, has a rotating cast of interns, only one of whom is female. When they had to kill an intern last season, it wasn't her. I cried like a baby over the death they chose; the intern they killed was my second favorite among the available choices. But it didn't make me angry the way it would have if they'd chosen Daisy. Why? Because killing the woman is so often viewed as the "cheap and easy" choice that I wouldn't have been able to focus on the tragedy through my anger.
Again, I am not saying "never kill the woman." Veronica Mars is one of my favorite shows ever, and they started off by killing Lilly Kane. NCIS, which I also adore, killed off a central female character very early in their run. But both shows killed their characters in a way that made sense for the show, and did not reduce her to an emotional red stamp. "We need this to hurt, so kill the girl." You need to kill the character, not "kill the girl." If you can do that, you'll keep me. If you can't, you'll lose me. And I am not the only one you'll lose.
I find it a little fascinating that women make up such a large percentage of the audience for these stories, but we're still the ones who die when the monster comes, to prove that the threat is real. I'd like to see it change.
And I still miss Lilly.
(*I don't say "women" because I watch a lot of science fiction, and a lot of cartoons and teen dramas. So "girls" is often accurate, as is "blue lizard people of the egg-laying gender.")
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February 1 2012, 17:07:42 UTC 5 years ago
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February 1 2012, 17:08:10 UTC 5 years ago
Although I love what that actress is doing on Rizzoli and Isles.
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February 1 2012, 17:08:00 UTC 5 years ago
However, I have to admit for me, Big Bang Theory is not one of those shows where the male-centered casting was even remotely OK. In fact, the show's handling of women broke it for me from day one despite the fact that I hugely respect the college who consults for the show.
February 1 2012, 17:10:03 UTC 5 years ago
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February 1 2012, 17:10:26 UTC 5 years ago Edited: February 1 2012, 17:10:44 UTC
the older i get, the more sensitive i am to the fate/role of the female characters in my media. (which is probably why i love Fringe and Being Human and Babylon 5 and Farscape. when Farscape killed off one of their main female characters - well, two actually - it didnt feel gratuitious or forced).
February 1 2012, 17:16:07 UTC 5 years ago
And agreed on Fringe. I've had some issues with Being Human, but they're getting a bit better.
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February 1 2012, 17:11:33 UTC 5 years ago
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February 1 2012, 17:22:15 UTC 5 years ago
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February 1 2012, 17:29:20 UTC 5 years ago
I never went back.
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February 1 2012, 17:34:34 UTC 5 years ago
I don't know. It hurt but didn't wreck me the way, say, Lian Harper getting fridged did (I don't want to read another word by Robinson, and you're talking to someone who LOVED Starman.) I think I just have less tolerance for it in comics becuase it just won't go away. (The Legion of Kyle's Dead Girlfriends is long standing gallows humor in my house.)
February 1 2012, 17:46:10 UTC 5 years ago
February 1 2012, 17:48:59 UTC 5 years ago
...and without disagreeing with your premises at all, I would point out that the hitter Elliot faced in the "Two Live Crew Job" was a woman (Israeli ex-Mossad) and I think we all agree she ought to come back someday. I'm tempted to comment on John Rodgers blog about why all the "Crime World" counterparts (aside from Tara) seem to be men. Certainly they switch genders when it comes to the Villian fairly regularly. Hmmm...now I'm tempted to make a chart (must! resist!)
February 1 2012, 17:55:37 UTC 5 years ago
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February 1 2012, 18:03:19 UTC 5 years ago
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February 1 2012, 18:00:36 UTC 5 years ago
The reason they "chose" to kill that intern was so the actor could go work on Alphas
February 1 2012, 18:03:40 UTC 5 years ago
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February 1 2012, 18:06:36 UTC 5 years ago
I couldn't deal. No.
February 1 2012, 18:12:18 UTC 5 years ago
I don't know what I can do about it...but I am so damned sick of women/girls/females of non-human or alien species being disposable. I'm also damned sick of wives or girlfriends dying horribly to give her husband or boyfriend a reason to go after the villains/monsters/evil aliens/whatever. I'm tired of HER death only being important because--or if--it fuels HIS pain.
February 1 2012, 18:21:31 UTC 5 years ago
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February 1 2012, 18:14:27 UTC 5 years ago
The sidelining of female characters has been a dealbreaker for me for a lot of fandoms, actually. A few months after the Star Trek reboot came out, I found myself looking at a picture of the cast and going, wait a minute, and the enthusiasm never came back. (And then I went and watched some episodes of Samantha Carter blowing up a sun to make myself feel better.)
I also have to say that, at least in my experience, "kids' shows" are much better about this, and are often awesome. As any good nerdy significantly-older sister should, I've been trying to encourage my little sister's tastes in awesome female characters, and it's been surprisingly easy.
February 1 2012, 18:22:31 UTC 5 years ago
February 1 2012, 18:15:20 UTC 5 years ago
Ccccz
February 1 2012, 18:22:41 UTC 5 years ago
February 1 2012, 18:20:04 UTC 5 years ago
With Leverage, I liked the Jeri Ryan character- they brought her back in the latest season too, just not for as an additional team.
February 1 2012, 18:23:49 UTC 5 years ago
Grr.
February 1 2012, 18:23:32 UTC 5 years ago
I left too, and never went back. Partly because watching hurt too much, but also because of fandom's reaction - but that's a whole other story.
Sometimes it's hard to like fantasy and action, because it lends itself so well to gender imbalance and sexism.
Also, Kate!!! I still miss her. But I <3 Abby and Ziva.
February 1 2012, 18:24:27 UTC 5 years ago
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February 1 2012, 18:36:47 UTC 5 years ago
Totally on a tangent:
February 1 2012, 18:48:08 UTC 5 years ago
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February 1 2012, 19:16:36 UTC 5 years ago
February 1 2012, 19:01:57 UTC 5 years ago
I've never stopped watching the show, because I still love it and I still enjoy it, despite the penchant for killing off the female characters. It makes me laugh and has brought me to tears many times over, but I still adore it. I'm sure I'm in the minority on that. ^_^
February 1 2012, 19:16:52 UTC 5 years ago
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February 1 2012, 19:21:16 UTC 5 years ago
Agreed, re: Tara.
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February 1 2012, 19:20:37 UTC 5 years ago
February 1 2012, 19:21:57 UTC 5 years ago
Assholes.
February 1 2012, 19:40:16 UTC 5 years ago
But I'm not sure I really want to put up with the rotating carousel of disposable female characters.
(I know exactly what you mean, though - DC comics and I have had several fallings-out over pretty much the same thing.)
February 2 2012, 02:25:33 UTC 5 years ago
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