I was just looking at these stunning pictures of Robert Downey, Jr. and had a sudden, stomach dropping moment of self-pity and jealousy. So, what, most of his thirties were lost years, filled with drugs and arrests and other mistakes and, one assumes, a good deal of emotional pain. And now, at 50, he’s on top of the world.
Anyway, it occurred to me that women don’t have this opportunity. To make mistakes early and then have a mid-life comeback. Because women, at 50, are old. Especially in an acting career. I often think about the disappearance of Kathleen Turner, a good example of how women are swept under the carpet to hide their ugly aging features after 30. There will be no coming back and people saying, Oh, her crows-feet are so sexy, love the grey in her hair, so distinguished, omg, check out the veins in her hands, unf. So women sure as shit better have their acts together and make the most of the twenty years they get, and those years are SEQUENTIAL, and there aren’t other options.
Okay guys, we need to talk about this interview. Because there’s a massive disconnect here between what I see in the fandom and how I see Steven Moffat describing the conversation about the lack of parity in men and women writing for and directing Doctor Who.
I was actually really, really happy with Moffat’s hiring choices for Series 9. This series has two women directors directing two episodes each — and no less than the series premier and finale. It also has two women writing an episode each for the show. That’s incredible. It may not be total parity, but it’s a massive improvement from where the show was and I was so, so happy it happened. And I’ve laid off criticizing the lack of women directors and writers lately because it felt like the show was making progress.
But Moffat’s tone in this interview is unbearably infuriating. Because instead of simply acknowledging the problem, highlighting his steps to fix it, and then moving on, he needs to take a step further and somehow try to portray himself as being the victim in all of this:
“The only thing I dislike about it is it’s based on an assumption that I’ve been trying to not employ women writers or directors. We’ve employed more women writers, directors, editors and producers than any other era of Doctor Who. Stop assuming that I’m a demon who’s trying to prevent it, as opposed to the man who’s done more to make it happen than anybody else.”
Just…wow.
Look, I’m not going to argue that there isn’t someone out there on the internet who hasn’t taken their criticism of Moffat too far — it’s the internet. But the vast, overwhelming majority of fans haven’t been assuming Moffat is a “demon” sitting up in his high castle keeping out women writers and directors. They’ve just been fairly pointing out that, prior to Series 9, the gender imbalance in writing and directing was appalling.
Before Series 9 started, Steven Moffat had hired absolutely no women writers for the show. That’s four seasons and two specials, for a total of 56 episodes. After Series 9, we’ll have had two women write an episode during the 69 episodes he’s overseen during his tenure as showrunner.
The numbers are slightly better for directors. In total, four women have directed nine episodes. But there were a few Series where there weren’t anywomen directors at all. When I started focusing on this issue (around the time they were announcing the Series 8 directors) there had only been one woman who had directed two episodes back in Series 5.
I want to focus on Moffat’s accomplishments in correcting that gender imbalance in Series 9 just as much as Moffat does. But I can’t fucking do that because he gets defensive and attacks his critics whenever that imbalance is brought up. And now I’ve spent most of the day after reading this interview feeling miserable and shitty because I feel like I need to defend myself against the unfair criticism that I’ve portrayed him as some sort of misogynistic asshole.
But there’s really nothing unfair or out-of-line about pointing out that this imbalance existed.
Sure, Moffat has some explanations, excuses, and justifications for that imbalance. They’re beside the point I’m trying to make, but let’s look them over really quickly. Moffat said that the imbalance is partly historical — in the past it was more of a boy’s show than a girl’s show. Now because there’s more gender balance in the fandom, he assumes more women will want to write for and direct the show and that the imbalance will start to straighten itself out. I don’t really buy this. I just think that historically, these industries are more friendly and supportive to men than to women. So fanboys who wanted to write and direct for Doctor Who were more likely to get jobs in the industry than fangirls.
Moffat also claims that women writers were more likely to turn down the opportunity to write for the show. Which, I’m sorry, but seriously? Over four seasons and 56 episodes and he couldn’t get a single woman to write a single one of those episodes because they all turned him down? Either he has absolutely the worst luck of any showrunner, or he needed to seriously re-evaluate his strategy.
If I really wanted to try to be fair to Moffat, I could offer up some of my own explanations for this imbalance. In previous posts, I have given him credit for the fact that he is not responsible for the greater gender imbalance in the writing and directing industries in the UK. I’ve been willing to understand that when you’re busy and need to make decisions quickly, you’re going to want to go with people you know can be reliable and who you’ve worked with in the past. Or you’ll want to go to the person who is dogged, determined, and constantly asking for the opportunity — something women are less likely to do because we are conditioned against doing it.
And Moffat is not the only one who hasn’t achieved gender parity with women writers and directors. And if I’d been blogging when any of those other showrunners were in charge of Doctor Who, I’d have criticized them too. But Moffat’s the showrunner now, and now it’s his responsibility.
Even if Moffat isn’t being a “demon” and deliberately working to prevent women from writing and directing Doctor Who — something which I and the overwhelming majority of fans have never accused him of — he still hasn’t hired nearly enough women to write or direct during his tenure. That’s still on him.
I want to give him credit and praise for saying that the show should have gender parity in writers and directors. I want to give him credit and praise for making serious improvements the past two seasons. I want to keep the conversation moving forward. But I can’t do that if Moffat wants to defensively and unfairly characterize the motives and statements of the people who fairly pointed out that a massive gender imbalance did exist and still exists despite his efforts to correct it.
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Women’s anger isn’t pretty or useful to men. It prevents them from cheering their male superhero on from the peanut gallery; it makes them unattainable in a way that’s not because the hero is being admirably noble. Also, it makes their faces go all scrunchy, and we can’t have that; never forget Jessica Alba being told to “cry pretty” on the set of Rise of the Silver Surfer, or, more recently, Joss Whedon telling Elizabeth Olsen to keep her face calm during Age of Ultron’s fight scenes because an angry, combative face was unattractive.
There’s a reason women love Agent Carter, a show powered by a subtextual engine of Peggy’s grief, frustration, and rage. There’s a reason Laurel Lance never clicked as a character until her largely incoherent but still deeply satisfying Season 2 rage spiral; life has done her wrong, and she’s finally, finally hitting back. There’s a reason so many readers are proudly labeling themselves non-compliant. We so rarely get to see our own anger reflected in mass media, and when we do, it’s deeply cathartic.
I’m so ready for Jessica Jones to be furious for a whole 13 episodes of her first season. I’m hoping Karen Page gets to be as livid as Foggy was when she finds out that Matt is Daredevil. I want Sara Lance to come back from the grave as spitting mad as she was when she went in, and I want Laurel and Thea and especially poor Felicity, sadly defanged by her romantic entanglement with Oliver in Season 3, to get and stay angry with Oliver when he inevitably does something dishonest or ethically dubious. Even Supergirl – as sunshiney as Kara seems, and as I want her to be, I also want her to be allowed to get pissed when the situation warrants it. Girl’s got laser-eyes for a reason.
I’m so excited for this coming year of superhero TV to bring me Supergirl, and Jessica Jones, and Peggy Carter, and Speedy and Hawkgirl and two different Canaries. And I’m excited for the supporting stories of Iris West and Karen Page and Felicity Smoak and Caitlin Snow and Alex Danvers and Angie Martinelli.
But God, I hope they get to be angry this year. Because these women have been through enough to make them mad as hell. And I don’t want them to have to take it anymore.
I just want take a moment to appreciate the fact that Doctor Who finally got a female writer of an episode. For the first time since Season 4 (2008). Catherine Tregenna also previously wrote for Torchwood.
And I believe she and Helen Raynor are the only female writers New Who has had? And something like the fifth female Doctor Who writer ever.
(for the record, Torchwood had 5 through it’s much shorter run,)
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I didn’t realise when I was younger that women were written so badly but going further into this career I realised there are a lot of really bad characters, that it’s not common to come across females who aren’t just ‘the girlfriend.’"
“Me and Jenna were talking about it. When you get a script they always include a sentence or two about the character, something like – Jason: 36, strong, built, quick, witty and a description of his personality. There there’s his girlfriend – Sarah: hot, blonde. And that’s it! ‘Hot looking but in a cute way.’ That’s your character!
[I hope I] never have to play a character that is only there to benefit a male lead.
Ppl be like “ I want an actual male gem, not just Steven.”
Jeez, it’s like having only one character
to represent your whole gender
in a group composed all of another gender
is a bit upsetting huh?
I wonder
what
that’s like
no really
can you
even imagine
what this lack of representation
MUST
FEEL
LIKE
This
post
isn’t
long
enough
none of the listed shows are named after the one female character, either
it’s actually physically impossible for me to not reblog this post.
I want to say I’ve reblogged this before, but I’m reblogging again for the brilliant addition of, “None of the listed shows are named after the one female character, either” because FUCKING THANK YOU.
Mad Max: Fury Road has already inspired some of the most intense fandom I’ve seen, and been part of, in years. I think it’s partially due to the sheer intensity of the sensory and emotional experience the movie delivers. But let’s be honest. A lot of it is due to Furiosa.
The character has already inspired an outpouring of fan art and cosplay. Even among movie fans who aren’t part of those scenes, people who love her REALLY love her. (And I wholeheartedly include myself in this category.) I can’t remember the last time that multiple, grown-ass adults on my Facebook feed had profile pictures referencing a movie character. Several of them–men and women–have this one:
Why has Furiosa inspired so much passion? I think a lot of it has to do with the way she blows a giant flaming hole in the standard images for women in action films.
While recent years have given us some fantastic action heroines, they tend to be confined within a few set tropes, with remarkably little variation.
Of course, by far the most common trope for women in action is still to be the person being rescued–to be the prize the protagonist, usually a man, gets at the end of the journey. There are whole franchises built around this concept. I think we can all agree that’s boring and not worthy of a blog post.
But even among women characters who have agency in action movies–as protagonists or as villains–there are still some basic patterns that recur again and again. In particular, there are three basic templates that a large majority of female action characters fall into. The point is not that these tropes, in and of themselves, are wrong. It’s that they’re often all there is.
1. The Girl Hero
This is the default trope for YA. Katniss in The Hunger Games, Tris in Divergent…you’ve seen it many times.
Katniss Everdeen, The Hunger Games
The Girl Hero is virginal (often unusually non-sexual for a teenager). She’s usually small or skinny, sometimes for a logical reason (Katniss grew up starving), sometimes not so much. She seems like an underdog, but proves to be surprisingly good at violence and/or have some unique skill, and through her bravery and grit takes on foes much bigger than she is.
Tris, Divergent
It should be said that plenty of male YA characters share these characteristics–Harry Potter is also small and skinny, a novice in the world of magic, but unusually skilled at a few things. He doesn’t win his battles through physical strength, but through cleverness and bravery. And there’s an understandable appeal in having a scrawny underdog, of any gender, turn out to be a hero, especially in a book or movie geared toward young people. But with a few exceptions (see: Tamora Pierce) the Girl Hero with these qualities is THE template for young women in action/fantasy/sci-fi/speculative fiction.
2. The Sexpot
When the Girl Hero grows up, she can be properly objectified as a different trope, the Sexpot.
Lara Croft: poster girl for this trope
You’ve all seen this trope in the many, many superhero and comic book movies that are currently squirting out of the studio pipeline. She’s that one token woman on the team with four guys.
Yeah, that one.
The Sexpot gets to fight–and sometimes even gets artfully bloody and dirty–but she has to do it in a latex suit and while appearing cool and sleek and having a good hair day. (She has long hair, so she can flip it, and so we’re extra sure she’s a girl.) Her fight style is extra bendy and flippy and maybe when we break out the slow motion. She may use her sexiness as a weapon (a la Black Widow) or it may be just a bonus quality. She can be powerful, but only if we can look at her conventionally attractive body move around in tight clothing while it’s happening.
3. The Ice Queen
The Ice Queen is almost always the trope for female villains. She sits at the top of some kind of power structure–a state or a criminal enterprise–issuing commands to her minions but rarely doing the violence herself. She’s probably got a sharp suit or a uniform and a severe haircut.
Delacourt, the villain of Elysium.
She’s allowed to be older than 35.
President Coin, Mockingjay
The Ice Queen has institutional power but rarely fights; physicality is the low pursuit of men in her world. She may be smart, crafty and manipulative, but she will not punch you in the face. She’ll snap her fingers and get someone else to do it, although she may sit on the edge of her desk to watch.
Jeanine, the villain of Divergent
Maya, Zero Dark Thirty–an Ice Queen protagonist, sort of
The point here is not that there’s no variation on these themes. And there have been iconic female action characters who stood totally outside them before. Alien’s Ellen Ripley and Linda Hamilton as the original Sarah Connor in Terminator 2, doing pull-ups on her mental hospital bed frame, come to mind as the most obvious.
But it’s striking how often the women that do exist in the thriller, action, sci-fi and speculative fiction film universe fall into one of these three boxes. Which is why any character who doesn’t map onto one of these templates is so exciting.
Here’s Furiosa.
She fights a hell of a lot. She does not flip her hair.
She’s intensely physical, but you never get the sense that her fights are choreographed to perform her sexuality for you. They’re choreographed for her to fucking win.
When Max shows up, they have a knock-down, drag-out fight with each other. Max doesn’t pull any punches. Why? Because he makes no assumptions that she’d be less lethal to him than a man. They beat the shit out of each other in a big, messy, grunty, scrabbly fight.
For significant portions of the movie, Furiosa is driving a truck, which means Charlize Theron is essentially acting from the biceps up. You literally cannot look at her boobs. You have to look at her face.
She gets to be dirty. Really really dirty. This picture alone highlights how weird it is that all the other women above are so clean.
She gets to be ugly and make weird faces in the middle of fighting.
She gets to yell and be angry the way one might be in the middle of a nonstop road battle when you’re full of adrenaline because you’re fighting for your life.
In short, she gets to look like an actual person who is actually fighting, instead of a statue that can do a back walkover with the help of a wire rig.
So it’s hardly surprising that she’s racked up a lot of fans. She takes all the images of clean, pretty, carefully sexualized women we’re used to seeing, even in action, rips them to shreds, sets them on fire and then drives over them with an 18-wheeler.
This is all even more remarkable given that Furiosa is played by an actress who is very feminine-presenting in her everyday life. Charlize Theron is one of the very few actresses who’s been allowed to pick roles where she radically changes her gender presentation.
Here she is in Aeon Flux, playing about the most Sexpot-y character imaginable:
Here she is in Monster:
I think there are a lot more actresses out there who could take on these kinds of transformations, radically altering the way they look, move, and perform their gender, the way male stars do all the time. But the equivalent depth and diversity of roles for women just doesn’t exist in Hollywood right now.
Furiosa’s popularity shows how starved we are for images of women who are actually powerful and physical in the same ways that men get to be in blockbuster after blockbuster after blockbuster. It’s not that all the images of women in action have to look like this–it’s just that we hardly ever see a female fighter who looks this way. Furiosa reminds us that there is so much more out there than we’re getting in terms of what women can do and look like on screen.
The numbers are, to say the least, damning. A few highlights (lowlights?) from the study:
• In the top 100 films of 2014, female teenagers — 13-to-20-year-olds — were equally as likely to be shown in “sexy attire,” as in, with exposed skin, and were equally as likely to be referenced as attractive by another character in the movie, as women aged 21-to-39.
• Of the 30,835 speaking characters evaluated in all 700 films, only 30 percent were female.
• In 2014, zero female actors over 45 performed a lead or co-lead role. Only three of the female actors in lead or co-lead roles weren’t white. None was lesbian or bisexual.
• Some more zeros for you: Of the top 100 films of 2014, 17 had no black speaking characters. More than 40 had no Asian speaking characters.
• In 2014, out of 4,610 speaking characters, only ten were gay. And out of that year’s top 100 films, 86 had no LGBT characters at all.
• Off-screen is not much better: Out of the 779 directors responsible for the 700 top grossing films in the study, 28 were women, 45 were black, and 19 were Asian. Women of color fared the worst, with three black female directors and a single female Asian director since 2007. The numbers for writer and producers follow similar patterns.
When there are enough women in your cast, not every woman has to represent all women and they can have individual flaws and strengths.
When there are enough women, some can fall apart and others can hold things together.
When there are enough women, you can literally name a character Cheedo The Fragile without making a statement about feminine fragility.
When there are enough women, you know the action movie doesn’t have to preserve the one woman in order to ensure you have one woman left in your cast at the end, so women might die, just like men, and the stakes are high and real and the plot is not predictable.
When there are enough women, you can cast women with different ages and looks and body types based on what makes sense for the story – beautiful women who were selected for beauty by a character who valued women’s bodies more than their whole selves, wiry muscular women of middle and older age, built to survive, mothers who were used for the things that come with their fertility and have the fat to show for it, old fragile women who took care of others while rarely stepping outside, disabled women affected by their environment and experiences.
When there are enough women, the world feels real.
