Cedars, Spring 2021

Spring 2020 13 By Breanna Beers T he mere inclusion of a female protagonist was once considered box office suicide, especially for major franchises with predominantly male fanbases. Movies like “The Hunger Games,” “Divergent,” and “Captain Marvel” have repeatedly disproven that theory, driven in part by the rise of modern mainstream feminism in the early 2010s. Accordingly, we’ve seen more and more movies with women in the center of the poster. However, while increased representation is a wonderful start, Hollywood remains a male-dominated industry. Women, while increasingly represented, remain represented primarily from a male perspective. More women are being given stories, but most of them are not female-driven stories. Instead, we see new archetypes being carved out as contemporary stereotypes to replace the outdated ones. The shimmering cocktail dress has been swapped for black leather pants. I’m talking, of course, about the strong female character, or SFC. Always on the defensive, she stands alone and a little apart from the group. She’s the one woman in a team of men but smarter and tougher than any of them, and she’s ready to prove it. If someone so much as dares a kind word, she’ll knock them out for their brazen flirtation. Needless to say, she’s “not your typical damsel in distress.” Congratulations, Hollywood, on moving past Disney’s “Snow White.” Here’s your gold star and suffragette sash. Of course, I’m not the first to notice this trend. As novelist Sophia McDougall wrote for New Statesman way back in 2013, “Nowadays the princesses all know kung fu, and yet they’re still the same princesses. They’re still love interests, still the one girl in a team of five boys, and they’re all kind of the same.” As McDougall points out, the popularization of feminism created the SFC, but the more I see this trope played out, the more I’m convinced that the SFC actually works against the goals of feminism. Now, since feminism is a term that’s nebulously defined, inevitably controversial and inherently political, allow me to clarify. Throughout this article, I’ll be using the word in its most basic sense: advocacy for the Feminism in Film Why Hollywood’s empowerment narrative falls flat