Speaking only about my personal experience. (Male) I can identify with some female protagonists, my favorite one being Motoko Kusanagi from Ghost in the Shell movie (the original one). I played...
Speaking only about my personal experience. (Male)
I can identify with some female protagonists, my favorite one being Motoko Kusanagi from Ghost in the Shell movie (the original one). I played several games and watched several movies with female leads, and sometimes I like to play as a female character in RPG games.
I noticed that I have an easier time relating with “tomboy” type of characters. Not necessarily in physical aspect, but personality-wise. Of the top of my head, Enough (2002) comes to mind. The lead learns to fight in order to defend herself from her husband. While she does have a tomboy image, what I remember from her was her determination and will to fight (although I must admit I do not remember a lot of the details about the movie, but it stuck with me since I was a kid)
This became even more apparent to me when I watched Turning Red, which focuses a lot on girls issues and their perspectives. I spent the entire movie unable to relate, by the end I just couldn’t figure out if it was a good movie or not. I “couldn’t” dislike or like it because I don’t think it’s fair to evaluate a movie that I could not relate to.
That also made me realize that if the game/movie is about transversal topics, that affect both sexes, I can identify with the female lead more easily, even if they themselves are not necessarily tomboy. Kill Bill is a good example, revenge is an universal concept, as well Control videogame, The Walking Dead Season 2 game (telltale) too
I find this kinda sad. Not because I think you're obligated to relate to Turning Red or even that you can control that. But most of the issues and perspectives in that movie (and in other media...
This became even more apparent to me when I watched Turning Red, which focuses a lot on girls issues and their perspectives. I spent the entire movie unable to relate, by the end I just couldn’t figure out if it was a good movie or not.
I find this kinda sad. Not because I think you're obligated to relate to Turning Red or even that you can control that. But most of the issues and perspectives in that movie (and in other media that focuses on female characters) is not gender-specific. Some are influenced by her being a girl, but they're still built on fundamental struggles with that stage of life for someone of any gender.
Similarly, the movie focuses on the main character's experiences as a Chinese-Canadian, and her struggles with her mother and other relatives are HUGELY informed by that. I'm wonderbread white but that doesn't prevent me from relating to parts of that experience that are universal or things I can empathize with and learning from the parts that aren't.
To be extra clear, I'm not blaming you for not relating to this particular movie. I just find it kind of tragic that one could not develop the ability to relate to characters who are different from you in this way (and maybe others?) and I wonder what we could do to prevent that. Women don't systematically have trouble relating to male characters, so I think there simply must be something in how we're socialized that makes men struggle so much with this even into adulthood.
I wonder how much of the inability to relate to many female characters is based in being raised without the expectation of relating to characters who are different from you in that way. When I was a kid, I read tons of books and watched tons of movies and tv shows with male and female main characters. But often only those of us raised with young girls were encouraged to read or watch the works with female main characters, even ones that are famously very well-made. No one hesitates to recommend a coming-of-age novel with a male protagonist to a girl, but I've never seen a boy recommended a coming-of-age novel with a female protagonist. I wonder if exposing young boys to works with more variety in main characters is likely to improve their ability to relate to main characters who are different from them later in life.
In Turning Red, to me, the red panda transformation and shenanigans was an obvious metaphor to puberty, and it focuses a lot from a girl perspective. It's a coming of age for a girl. The movie...
In Turning Red, to me, the red panda transformation and shenanigans was an obvious metaphor to puberty, and it focuses a lot from a girl perspective. It's a coming of age for a girl. The movie does have other themes thare are more universal (immigrant family, controlling parent, generational trauma, etc), but the puberty was the biggest focus imo.
But that's fine, I don't think a movie has to be relatable to everyone. I empathize with Mei's struggles, but I can't relate to her experience, because my experience with puberty was significantly different. But my niece loved the movie, she related to Mei. The movie is stronger for it, it has to be relatable to its target audience, not me. I'm not part of that audience. If I was given the choice to change it, I wouldn't, I would just water it down for the people that loved it.
It's just how it is, I don't think there's anything tragic about it, I love other movies and games that aren't relatable to her as well. We're all different, with different experiences and tastes. I think movies/games should set out to do what they want to do, and do it well. We have a huge pool of choices for every kind of taste, there's always something for everyone. Granted, it's not a perfect pool, there is underepresentation and other problems in several areas, but still.
To prevent confusion, for me relatability and empathy are two different things. We should all try to empathize with each other, but we don't need to relate. Empathy is what makes us understand each other, relatability is just knowing what it's like to go through similar experiences. Someone who didn't lose a family member cannot relate to the experience of someone who did, they will never know what it's like until it happens to them.
While writing this, I remembered Brooklyn 9 9. Captain Holt, while I cannot relate to him, I empathize with him. I don't know what it's like to experience discrimination in the professional world, much less because I happen to prefer the someone with a sausage between their legs, but I empathized with his struggles. It sucks to see such an amazing person being discriminated like that. But despite not being able to relate to him, he's one of my favourite characters in the show.
I agree with your last paragraph, I also believe people should be exposed to several PoV's. Empathy starts by knowing about different people, what they are a like, what they went through, etc. And it starts by letting our kids read/play/watch whatever they want, not prohibiting or judging them for liking something they aren't supposed to.
I think a difference I see here is that your description of these character struggles are very specific to the surface plot of the movie. But there are aspects of these plots that are more...
I think a difference I see here is that your description of these character struggles are very specific to the surface plot of the movie. But there are aspects of these plots that are more universal that I think can be relatable. For example, Turning Red is indeed very much about going through puberty and is very focused on that experience as a tween girl. But the emotional conflicts the character is experiencing because of that can still be relatable to a boy or man -- the fear and confusion of going through puberty as a tween is not gender-specific. Similarly, I can relate to her experiences despite not being remotely interested in boy bands growing up, and even though I don't have immigrant parents I can relate to many of the underlying emotions both she and her mom are feeling in their conflict because I have also had conflicts with my parents over differing expectations.
I don't necessarily thing it matters whether this particular film was relatable to you, but I think the grand scheme of things, where boys and men can struggle to feel any sort of relatability with any female characters, is tragic. It feels to me like whatever socialization makes this systematically more difficult for men is cutting them off from really great, valuable experiences. That combined with the cultural and economic forces that result from this affecting which stories get told in popular media is what I think is tragic.
I think part of learning to relate to characters who are different from you is learning how to tie their more specific experiences and resulting feelings, which you might not share, to more universal human emotions and experiences that you do share. That's part of why I suspect exposure to characters who are different from you more in fiction when you're younger can help you develop this as a skill.
Ah I think I get where you're coming from. In that context, agreed, I also find it tragic. My favourite movie of all time happens to be Ghost in the Shell. If I happened to not watch it just...
Ah I think I get where you're coming from. In that context, agreed, I also find it tragic. My favourite movie of all time happens to be Ghost in the Shell. If I happened to not watch it just because the protagonist was female, at least for me it would've been a tragedy. That movie shaped how I think about life.
I just finished Brooklyn 99, and Holt is easily the most relatable character to me: he's an erudite man surrounded by people with little overlap in shared interests. (Rosa is a close second.) The...
I remembered Brooklyn 9 9. Captain Holt, while I cannot relate to him, I empathize with him
I just finished Brooklyn 99, and Holt is easily the most relatable character to me: he's an erudite man surrounded by people with little overlap in shared interests. (Rosa is a close second.) The character being gay and black, and having faced discrimination as a large component of his career, is only one facet of the character...dare I say a superficial one; it may be often brought up as background for a fictional character, but you wouldn't reduce a real person to those traits.
Similarly, the protagonist of American Fiction also resonated with me quite a lot. He's a smart, educated person grappling with the inescapable distance that brings. You could chalk the story up to being about black experiences, stereotyping in entertainment media, whatever, but at its core the film is about a character who is angry about the gulf between him and the average person, and the sort of loneliness that creates. That other people are hard to relate to, and that their taste in entertainment is often suspect at best.
Another one I'll put out there is Bocchi from the anime Bocchi the Rock. It's rare to see social anxiety handled in a way that actually gets it, and the whole concept of wanting both anonymity and to share creations, like music, at the same time was a bit close to home. It's a comedy, and while "the main character has social anxiety" is what that revolves around, it comes off as tasteful and not mean-spirited, which I can't say for the treatment of the issue by most of western media.
Generally I don't look to or expect to "relate" to any characters: they're other people, not me. I want to see what they have to say, not pretend to be them...but the ones that feel more familiar also rarely fit my outward appearance. "White and male" doesn't count for much when you also have "ancestrally Eastern European" (yay, stereotypes), atheist, zero interest in sports, intelligent and educated (yay, anti-intellectual, obnoxious portrayals), and whatnot. I simply can't relate.
I tend to have better mileage with anime, which often leans more toward female protagonists with more developed personality, and has a literary sort of style, where voice overs often give you internal monologues so you can tell what characters are thinking. It also exists outside of the American social context, and thank fuck for that.
I also grew up reading a lot of YA fantasy, which often has female protagonists and is predominantly written by women.
Holt is such a good character. As you say, he's an erudite man, and also a police officer. I don't think he ever displays the slightest bit of shame over his interests, and he also clearly loves -...
just finished Brooklyn 99, and Holt is easily the most relatable character to me: he's an erudite man surrounded by people with little overlap in shared interests. (Rosa is a close second.) The character being gay and black, and having faced discrimination as a large component of his career, is only one facet of the character...dare I say a superficial one; it may be often brought up as background for a fictional character, but you wouldn't reduce a real person to those traits.
Holt is such a good character. As you say, he's an erudite man, and also a police officer. I don't think he ever displays the slightest bit of shame over his interests, and he also clearly loves - and is great at - being a police officer. You can't reduce him to any one thing, and it's wonderful.
Bocchi was interesting. The larger category of shows it belongs to (girls in a band doing band things) isn’t usually my cup of tea, but I found it enjoyable, and to some degree the main character...
Bocchi was interesting. The larger category of shows it belongs to (girls in a band doing band things) isn’t usually my cup of tea, but I found it enjoyable, and to some degree the main character relatable despite my personal experiences with social anxiety not being anywhere near as intense.
Personally I really liked how her social anxiety was made very obviously distinct from generic shyness. Plus it's fun to have a depiction of social anxiety that makes me look like I cope super...
Personally I really liked how her social anxiety was made very obviously distinct from generic shyness. Plus it's fun to have a depiction of social anxiety that makes me look like I cope super well lol.
Two more currently airing anime characters come to mind whose social anxiety has nothing to do with generic shyness: Dot, from Pokemon Horizons, and Kiwi from Jellyfish Cannot Swim In The Night...
Two more currently airing anime characters come to mind whose social anxiety has nothing to do with generic shyness:
Dot, from Pokemon Horizons, and Kiwi from Jellyfish Cannot Swim In The Night (夜のクラゲは泳げない) . Both do live streaming with a very different and outgoing, energetic persona.
Did feeling awkward, clumsy and emotional as your body changes literal sizes not relate to "male" puberty? From watching them as a teen and now as an adult, it seemed like it wasn't that different...
Did feeling awkward, clumsy and emotional as your body changes literal sizes not relate to "male" puberty? From watching them as a teen and now as an adult, it seemed like it wasn't that different to what teen boys go through either. But that's an exterior perspective.
I did relate her experiences to mine pretty strongly but I find it odd that it's so alien feeling to guys when I also heard them complain about similar puberty experiences - just not when we were all teens together because who talks to "the opposite sex" about that.
To piggyback, I also didn’t feel particularly award, clumsy, or emotional coming of age as a guy. That might’ve been a result of some lack of self consciousness on my part, but my feelings during...
To piggyback, I also didn’t feel particularly award, clumsy, or emotional coming of age as a guy. That might’ve been a result of some lack of self consciousness on my part, but my feelings during that stage of life can mostly be summed up with, “Sweet, I can grow a mustache now!”.
There were some of those feelings in my early to mid twenties though, mostly centered around transitioning from an overgrown teenager into a functional adult, but that’s an entirely different situation that’s not likely to be the subject of movies or shows.
I'd argue that it's the subject of many movies & shows. However, it's seldom treated seriously. Instead, it's rehashed stoner comedies and jokes about returning to live with your parents because...
that’s an entirely different situation that’s not likely to be the subject of movies or shows.
I'd argue that it's the subject of many movies & shows. However, it's seldom treated seriously. Instead, it's rehashed stoner comedies and jokes about returning to live with your parents because you like videogames more than earning a living. The transition is a manic effort to get one's act together to get the girl.
From my friends who were in the overgrown teen position, they didn't get their act together for some woman. Instead, some knocked up their equally immature female counterpart and then together realized, "shit, I need to at least pretend to have my act together for the kid"; others simply just got bored of that life and moved on.
The Graduate is about a man in his 20s being awkward and unsure of himself as he sleeps with an older woman. Theres also stuff like 500 Days of Summer and Garden State (a lot of indies from the...
The Graduate is about a man in his 20s being awkward and unsure of himself as he sleeps with an older woman. Theres also stuff like 500 Days of Summer and Garden State (a lot of indies from the 00s dealt with that).
Theres a lot of that. Theres also teenage coming of age stories with males like Submarine, Harold and Maude, and Moonrise Kingdom. About guys being unsure of themselves, awkward, and uncomfortable.
In a broader sense the "Chosen One" narratives may not deal explicitly with the coming of age part but usually it's included. Luke Skywalker is a whiny awkward teen turned resistance fighter pilot...
In a broader sense the "Chosen One" narratives may not deal explicitly with the coming of age part but usually it's included. Luke Skywalker is a whiny awkward teen turned resistance fighter pilot by the end of the first movie.
I can only speak for myself, but the answer was a definitive no. I went from being socially oblivious in my preteen years to someone who everyone wanted to be friendly with (even if I didn't end...
Did feeling awkward, clumsy and emotional as your body changes literal sizes not relate to "male" puberty?
I can only speak for myself, but the answer was a definitive no. I went from being socially oblivious in my preteen years to someone who everyone wanted to be friendly with (even if I didn't end up with real friends). As it turns out, "he's smart and doesn't mind if you cheat off his homework" has much greater value in middle & high school than elementary.
to be fair, I think this varies on a different axis from gender. I went through "female puberty" and my experience was mostly just being pissed off at everything all the time. And I can confirm...
to be fair, I think this varies on a different axis from gender. I went through "female puberty" and my experience was mostly just being pissed off at everything all the time.
And I can confirm that being smart but not willing to let people cheat off your homework is significantly less useful socially.
That's all fair, maybe I'm just thinking of some of the particularly tall guy friends of mine who felt like they went from short to giraffe and were also moody as shit. But it's all fair. Mine was...
That's all fair, maybe I'm just thinking of some of the particularly tall guy friends of mine who felt like they went from short to giraffe and were also moody as shit. But it's all fair.
Mine was less physical and more emotional turmoil myself.
My worst years of emotional turmoil were immediately before puberty and the back half of my 20s. Puberty through college was smooth sailing. No wonder I found angsty teen YA coming-of-age stories,...
My worst years of emotional turmoil were immediately before puberty and the back half of my 20s. Puberty through college was smooth sailing. No wonder I found angsty teen YA coming-of-age stories, no matter the protagonist's gender, unrelatable.
Ahh.....maybe that's why I couldn't relate to Turning Red at all either, despite being female and East Asian Canadian. It's [part of who I am] and lack of social awareness + subsequent lack of...
Ahh.....maybe that's why I couldn't relate to Turning Red at all either, despite being female and East Asian Canadian. It's [part of who I am] and lack of social awareness + subsequent lack of shame/embarrassment over how awkward I actually was/am.
I always had a hard time understanding why gender matters when making friends as a child to this day, and then by the time other kids hit puberty, I was among the band/honour roll geeks. The cluster of us boys and girls just continued to be friends (with a ton of them cross dating among the group).
I'm curious: thinking back as an adult, did you go through "blunder years" that are hard to emotionally look back upon, or even now you just take it all in stride without stress or embarrassment? Were the other kids charmed by your confidence and charisma?
Absolutely. They mostly happened before my teen years (think the worst of it was 4th or 5th grade). Didn't help that I was the oldest grandchild on one side (and the age gap between myself and the...
thinking back as an adult, did you go through "blunder years" that are hard to emotionally look back upon
Absolutely. They mostly happened before my teen years (think the worst of it was 4th or 5th grade). Didn't help that I was the oldest grandchild on one side (and the age gap between myself and the next-youngest cousin on the other) meant that I lacked a lot of cultural knowledge my classmates had.
Pics of myself from middle & early high may be blunder years aesthetic, but the bad times were mostly past (or still in far in the future) by then.
Honestly as a woman I think it has a lot to do that the default pov in stories tends to be male. It’s easy for me to see a male pov cause I’m inundated with it all the time and it’s considered the...
Honestly as a woman I think it has a lot to do that the default pov in stories tends to be male. It’s easy for me to see a male pov cause I’m inundated with it all the time and it’s considered the default that anyone can identify with.
But stuff coming from a girl or woman’s pov is seen as stuff for women only and stuff only women would be interested in.
I don't know what it means to identify with someone on television. They're an abstract of humanity and what's interesting is their story, whether or not it follows something related to my own life...
I don't know what it means to identify with someone on television. They're an abstract of humanity and what's interesting is their story, whether or not it follows something related to my own life is irrelevant. Rather, if something is far removed from what I know it's possible that will be a far more interesting concept to explore.
What I do see is that female characters are written badly, not exclusively but often by male writers, and that's far more jarring than the fact they're women. If a female character is written well I have little to no issues being engaged with their story. Same with male characters.
Male characters are well threaded ground at this point, so it's far easier to write a male character that isn't awful than it is to write a female character that isn't awful.
I think the problem comes from a plethora of badly written female characters constantly submissively swooning over men where it's no wonder nobody can "identify with them" as they're barely based on anything real.
But they shouldn't be harder to write because they're just people. And perhaps it's a problem with the writers not anything about the characters. (Well and the fact that a badly written woman is...
Male characters are well threaded ground at this point, so it's far easier to write a male character that isn't awful than it is to write a female character that isn't awful.
But they shouldn't be harder to write because they're just people. And perhaps it's a problem with the writers not anything about the characters.
(Well and the fact that a badly written woman is proof of "Woke™/DEI goes broke" and a badly written man is just a bad character in a bad movie.)
Speaking as a female writer, I've noticed a lot of writers seem to have a bit of a mental barrier writing the other gender. It's easier to write what's familiar, and one of the most basic facets...
Speaking as a female writer, I've noticed a lot of writers seem to have a bit of a mental barrier writing the other gender. It's easier to write what's familiar, and one of the most basic facets is gender identity. I run a fan fiction Discord server, and I remember a younger member exclusively writing gender bent versions of the protagonist because she felt more comfortable with that. (Side-note: I figured out at least two friends were trans before they came out because they'd lean towards creating and role-playing characters of the other gender.)
Even with male characters being so prevalent in media, it took a lot of conscious effort and work over years for me to feel good at creating male characters. I could easily come up with a dozen female characters easily, but when trying to create a male concept, I just hit a wall. It was frustrating and baffling because, like you said, they're just people. I had little problem writing existing male characters in fan fiction, either, which just added to my frustrations.
Some people struggle with it more than others. The main way to overcome it is just experience and conscious effort to tackle it as a weakness. Unfortunately though, with how male-driven most media is, there's less incentive and opportunity for male writers to work on it.
I think gender roles and expectations add a further layer of difficulty for male writers. Men are often told that they need to be tough, sometimes to the extent that showing any emotions makes them weak and un-manly. Women meanwhile are encouraged to embrace their emotions and think about others' comfort, sometimes above their own. Even in a non-toxic environment and household, shades of these expectations exist throughout society, so most people pick up on them to a subconscious degree.
They both have toxic aspects, but women get a slight edge in that they're taught to think more socially than men are. So combine that with how prevalent men are in media, and women have an easier time relating to men, and thus an easier time creating well-written male characters. I have no proof to back that up like studies, but after a lot of thought it just makes sense to me.
I do get the trend of writing what you know or are passionate about but it's the reason there should be more diverse writer rooms/teams/etc. and more diverse decision makers - directors,...
I do get the trend of writing what you know or are passionate about but it's the reason there should be more diverse writer rooms/teams/etc. and more diverse decision makers - directors, producers, editors, execs - and creatives in general.
Because that's how you get good representation.
Also I've had multiple trans friends go a similar route with RP characters - both LARP and TTRPG. And my non-binary self may have dabbled similarly.
I think that’s the exact problem with these people writing female characters, they should be writing them as people, but instead there being written as a woman
But they shouldn’t be hard to write because they’re just people
I think that’s the exact problem with these people writing female characters, they should be writing them as people, but instead there being written as a woman
But they aren't real though are they? They're fictional movie characters and fictional male characters are far more established than fictional female characters. When the extent of female...
But they aren't real though are they? They're fictional movie characters and fictional male characters are far more established than fictional female characters.
When the extent of female character is not much more than the aforementioned swooning mistress it'll need some time before a good female character is established. And I know we aren't there yet because we're currently in the asocial strong powerful woman phase. Very much not like an actual person either.
Now there are good female characters for sure, Ripley is an easy example, but it's not ubiquitous for writers rooms to land on a good lead yet. Nothing is worse than a decent female lead pulled into a love triangle, which becomes her entire identity from then on.
I fundamentally disagree with this entire premise to such a degree that articulating it is going to take me pages. But frankly, I think the idea that there's no model for "good female character"...
But they aren't real though are they? They're fictional movie characters and fictional male characters are far more established than fictional female characters.
When the extent of female character is not much more than the aforementioned swooning mistress it'll need some time before a good female character is established. And I know we aren't there yet because we're currently in the asocial strong powerful woman phase. Very much not like an actual person either.
Now there are good female characters for sure, Ripley is an easy example, but it's not ubiquitous for writers rooms to land on a good lead yet. Nothing is worse than a decent female lead pulled into a love triangle, which becomes her entire identity from then on.
I fundamentally disagree with this entire premise to such a degree that articulating it is going to take me pages. But frankly, I think the idea that there's no model for "good female character" but there's some ur "male character" and that there haven't been women in film for as long as there have been men, is reflective of internal individual and systemic bias. And if one of the best female characters was just written as a person and cast as woman, perhaps it's not that there's a problem with women characters. It's a problem with assumptions about them and what makes them "good".
No but I agree with you! This isn't necessarily my problem with female characters, I think this thought process about female characterization in Hollywood is incredibly pervasive with the writers...
No but I agree with you! This isn't necessarily my problem with female characters, I think this thought process about female characterization in Hollywood is incredibly pervasive with the writers to the point that the thread is lost and they can't write a decent character to save their lives.
It's easier to fall back on tropes about male roles, there exist thousands of them after all.
Oh no I get that it's systemic and all, but I don't buy that there aren't plenty of good tropes out there and I think far too many people lump female characters into a bucket based on them being a...
Oh no I get that it's systemic and all, but I don't buy that there aren't plenty of good tropes out there and I think far too many people lump female characters into a bucket based on them being a woman. There are just a lot of bad writers, few female writers, fewer female directors, and even fewer female decision makers.
I think this is an interesting topic and while there are always exceptions and some generalization here, I do think there is some truth to it that generally women have less of a problem of...
While Streep said she found it easy to see herself in male lead characters, such as those of Robert De Niro and Christopher Walken in her personal breakthrough film The Deer Hunter, it was “the hardest thing” for a male to identify with a female lead actor.
I think this is an interesting topic and while there are always exceptions and some generalization here, I do think there is some truth to it that generally women have less of a problem of identifying with male characters than the other way around. Just looking at my own list of watched movies, and there is a huge overweight of movies with male leads and directed by men. There is some chicken and egg problem as well, as you generally have to actively seek out movies with more prominent female roles on or off the camera, whereas most list of "great movies in history" are filled with male heavy films.
It makes very little difference to me what gender someone is. I can see myself in all sorts of characters, because character is about, well, character. Characters tend to be in my head as aspects...
It makes very little difference to me what gender someone is. I can see myself in all sorts of characters, because character is about, well, character. Characters tend to be in my head as aspects of humanity rather than specifically male or female. I didn't have a problem seeing myself in Andy in The Devil Wears Prada, Miranda rather less so - at least at first. She's a more complex character than she initially appears, of course. It is an excellent film.
In a broader sense I increasingly feel like I don't understand gender very well. Very often when people say X is male and Y is female it makes no sense to me. Almost always they seem to be talking about people traits, and I don't understand why they would be gender specific.
I think perspective taking is a skill and one that needs to be nurtured and developed like any skill. I like Daniel Kahneman's description of novels as a perspective taking technology when...
I think perspective taking is a skill and one that needs to be nurtured and developed like any skill. I like Daniel Kahneman's description of novels as a perspective taking technology when referring to the impacts of the printing press.
I don't have data, and I'm leery of using intuition on things like this, but there is probably some truth in the statement if for no other reason than for a long time there were so few women leads. I don't think that women necessarily identify with every role a leading man has played. In fact, I'm sure there are many types of films and portrayals of characters that women have a hard time understanding unless they have nurtured that perspective taking skill. But there were just so many movies with male leads in all genres, that as a numbers game of course there were more opportunities for women to identify with male leads.
Like she mentioned in the article, there was a particular role that caused men to identify with her portrayal. So I think this is a sign that most people have underdeveloped perspective taking skills, and that limits the type of portrayals they can identify with. I think as we are starting to see more women produced films and women led films, we are seeing that short coming in men's, as an aggregate, perspective taking. Of course, women in Hollywood have been seeing that shortcoming all along in the form of productions not being greenlit because the male executives couldn't take those perspectives. Now it's just coming out more publicly as those movies are being made.
It is very much a numbers game where prominent female leads are generally rarer in mainstream cinema. Just taking the IMDB top list and I have to go all the way to 23 for Jodie Foster in The...
It is very much a numbers game where prominent female leads are generally rarer in mainstream cinema. Just taking the IMDB top list and I have to go all the way to 23 for Jodie Foster in The Silence of the Lambs. Though one could make a point for Louise Fletcher as Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest at 18.
And it is of course not a requirement to identify with a character to enjoy the film. What is important is well written interesting characters. Like I don't think many identify with Nurse Ratched, but there is no denying she is a well played and interesting female character. But still, for any great character a female actress gets to make, a top male actor will have several high profile roles on their CV simply because more movies are written with a male protagonist in mind.
Speaking only about my personal experience. (Male)
I can identify with some female protagonists, my favorite one being Motoko Kusanagi from Ghost in the Shell movie (the original one). I played several games and watched several movies with female leads, and sometimes I like to play as a female character in RPG games.
I noticed that I have an easier time relating with “tomboy” type of characters. Not necessarily in physical aspect, but personality-wise. Of the top of my head, Enough (2002) comes to mind. The lead learns to fight in order to defend herself from her husband. While she does have a tomboy image, what I remember from her was her determination and will to fight (although I must admit I do not remember a lot of the details about the movie, but it stuck with me since I was a kid)
This became even more apparent to me when I watched Turning Red, which focuses a lot on girls issues and their perspectives. I spent the entire movie unable to relate, by the end I just couldn’t figure out if it was a good movie or not. I “couldn’t” dislike or like it because I don’t think it’s fair to evaluate a movie that I could not relate to.
That also made me realize that if the game/movie is about transversal topics, that affect both sexes, I can identify with the female lead more easily, even if they themselves are not necessarily tomboy. Kill Bill is a good example, revenge is an universal concept, as well Control videogame, The Walking Dead Season 2 game (telltale) too
I find this kinda sad. Not because I think you're obligated to relate to Turning Red or even that you can control that. But most of the issues and perspectives in that movie (and in other media that focuses on female characters) is not gender-specific. Some are influenced by her being a girl, but they're still built on fundamental struggles with that stage of life for someone of any gender.
Similarly, the movie focuses on the main character's experiences as a Chinese-Canadian, and her struggles with her mother and other relatives are HUGELY informed by that. I'm wonderbread white but that doesn't prevent me from relating to parts of that experience that are universal or things I can empathize with and learning from the parts that aren't.
To be extra clear, I'm not blaming you for not relating to this particular movie. I just find it kind of tragic that one could not develop the ability to relate to characters who are different from you in this way (and maybe others?) and I wonder what we could do to prevent that. Women don't systematically have trouble relating to male characters, so I think there simply must be something in how we're socialized that makes men struggle so much with this even into adulthood.
I wonder how much of the inability to relate to many female characters is based in being raised without the expectation of relating to characters who are different from you in that way. When I was a kid, I read tons of books and watched tons of movies and tv shows with male and female main characters. But often only those of us raised with young girls were encouraged to read or watch the works with female main characters, even ones that are famously very well-made. No one hesitates to recommend a coming-of-age novel with a male protagonist to a girl, but I've never seen a boy recommended a coming-of-age novel with a female protagonist. I wonder if exposing young boys to works with more variety in main characters is likely to improve their ability to relate to main characters who are different from them later in life.
In Turning Red, to me, the red panda transformation and shenanigans was an obvious metaphor to puberty, and it focuses a lot from a girl perspective. It's a coming of age for a girl. The movie does have other themes thare are more universal (immigrant family, controlling parent, generational trauma, etc), but the puberty was the biggest focus imo.
But that's fine, I don't think a movie has to be relatable to everyone. I empathize with Mei's struggles, but I can't relate to her experience, because my experience with puberty was significantly different. But my niece loved the movie, she related to Mei. The movie is stronger for it, it has to be relatable to its target audience, not me. I'm not part of that audience. If I was given the choice to change it, I wouldn't, I would just water it down for the people that loved it.
It's just how it is, I don't think there's anything tragic about it, I love other movies and games that aren't relatable to her as well. We're all different, with different experiences and tastes. I think movies/games should set out to do what they want to do, and do it well. We have a huge pool of choices for every kind of taste, there's always something for everyone. Granted, it's not a perfect pool, there is underepresentation and other problems in several areas, but still.
To prevent confusion, for me relatability and empathy are two different things. We should all try to empathize with each other, but we don't need to relate. Empathy is what makes us understand each other, relatability is just knowing what it's like to go through similar experiences. Someone who didn't lose a family member cannot relate to the experience of someone who did, they will never know what it's like until it happens to them.
While writing this, I remembered Brooklyn 9 9. Captain Holt, while I cannot relate to him, I empathize with him. I don't know what it's like to experience discrimination in the professional world, much less because I happen to prefer the someone with a sausage between their legs, but I empathized with his struggles. It sucks to see such an amazing person being discriminated like that. But despite not being able to relate to him, he's one of my favourite characters in the show.
I agree with your last paragraph, I also believe people should be exposed to several PoV's. Empathy starts by knowing about different people, what they are a like, what they went through, etc. And it starts by letting our kids read/play/watch whatever they want, not prohibiting or judging them for liking something they aren't supposed to.
I think a difference I see here is that your description of these character struggles are very specific to the surface plot of the movie. But there are aspects of these plots that are more universal that I think can be relatable. For example, Turning Red is indeed very much about going through puberty and is very focused on that experience as a tween girl. But the emotional conflicts the character is experiencing because of that can still be relatable to a boy or man -- the fear and confusion of going through puberty as a tween is not gender-specific. Similarly, I can relate to her experiences despite not being remotely interested in boy bands growing up, and even though I don't have immigrant parents I can relate to many of the underlying emotions both she and her mom are feeling in their conflict because I have also had conflicts with my parents over differing expectations.
I don't necessarily thing it matters whether this particular film was relatable to you, but I think the grand scheme of things, where boys and men can struggle to feel any sort of relatability with any female characters, is tragic. It feels to me like whatever socialization makes this systematically more difficult for men is cutting them off from really great, valuable experiences. That combined with the cultural and economic forces that result from this affecting which stories get told in popular media is what I think is tragic.
I think part of learning to relate to characters who are different from you is learning how to tie their more specific experiences and resulting feelings, which you might not share, to more universal human emotions and experiences that you do share. That's part of why I suspect exposure to characters who are different from you more in fiction when you're younger can help you develop this as a skill.
Ah I think I get where you're coming from. In that context, agreed, I also find it tragic. My favourite movie of all time happens to be Ghost in the Shell. If I happened to not watch it just because the protagonist was female, at least for me it would've been a tragedy. That movie shaped how I think about life.
It's one I've seen recommended all over but haven't gotten around to, so maybe I'll use this conversation to remember to put it on my watchlist.
I just finished Brooklyn 99, and Holt is easily the most relatable character to me: he's an erudite man surrounded by people with little overlap in shared interests. (Rosa is a close second.) The character being gay and black, and having faced discrimination as a large component of his career, is only one facet of the character...dare I say a superficial one; it may be often brought up as background for a fictional character, but you wouldn't reduce a real person to those traits.
Similarly, the protagonist of American Fiction also resonated with me quite a lot. He's a smart, educated person grappling with the inescapable distance that brings. You could chalk the story up to being about black experiences, stereotyping in entertainment media, whatever, but at its core the film is about a character who is angry about the gulf between him and the average person, and the sort of loneliness that creates. That other people are hard to relate to, and that their taste in entertainment is often suspect at best.
Another one I'll put out there is Bocchi from the anime Bocchi the Rock. It's rare to see social anxiety handled in a way that actually gets it, and the whole concept of wanting both anonymity and to share creations, like music, at the same time was a bit close to home. It's a comedy, and while "the main character has social anxiety" is what that revolves around, it comes off as tasteful and not mean-spirited, which I can't say for the treatment of the issue by most of western media.
Generally I don't look to or expect to "relate" to any characters: they're other people, not me. I want to see what they have to say, not pretend to be them...but the ones that feel more familiar also rarely fit my outward appearance. "White and male" doesn't count for much when you also have "ancestrally Eastern European" (yay, stereotypes), atheist, zero interest in sports, intelligent and educated (yay, anti-intellectual, obnoxious portrayals), and whatnot. I simply can't relate.
I tend to have better mileage with anime, which often leans more toward female protagonists with more developed personality, and has a literary sort of style, where voice overs often give you internal monologues so you can tell what characters are thinking. It also exists outside of the American social context, and thank fuck for that.
I also grew up reading a lot of YA fantasy, which often has female protagonists and is predominantly written by women.
Holt is such a good character. As you say, he's an erudite man, and also a police officer. I don't think he ever displays the slightest bit of shame over his interests, and he also clearly loves - and is great at - being a police officer. You can't reduce him to any one thing, and it's wonderful.
Bocchi was interesting. The larger category of shows it belongs to (girls in a band doing band things) isn’t usually my cup of tea, but I found it enjoyable, and to some degree the main character relatable despite my personal experiences with social anxiety not being anywhere near as intense.
Personally I really liked how her social anxiety was made very obviously distinct from generic shyness. Plus it's fun to have a depiction of social anxiety that makes me look like I cope super well lol.
Two more currently airing anime characters come to mind whose social anxiety has nothing to do with generic shyness:
Dot, from Pokemon Horizons, and Kiwi from Jellyfish Cannot Swim In The Night (夜のクラゲは泳げない) . Both do live streaming with a very different and outgoing, energetic persona.
Did feeling awkward, clumsy and emotional as your body changes literal sizes not relate to "male" puberty? From watching them as a teen and now as an adult, it seemed like it wasn't that different to what teen boys go through either. But that's an exterior perspective.
I did relate her experiences to mine pretty strongly but I find it odd that it's so alien feeling to guys when I also heard them complain about similar puberty experiences - just not when we were all teens together because who talks to "the opposite sex" about that.
Not to mine. To be clear, in both comments I was talking about my personal experience, I didn't mean to speak on behalf of one entire sex
To piggyback, I also didn’t feel particularly award, clumsy, or emotional coming of age as a guy. That might’ve been a result of some lack of self consciousness on my part, but my feelings during that stage of life can mostly be summed up with, “Sweet, I can grow a mustache now!”.
There were some of those feelings in my early to mid twenties though, mostly centered around transitioning from an overgrown teenager into a functional adult, but that’s an entirely different situation that’s not likely to be the subject of movies or shows.
I'd argue that it's the subject of many movies & shows. However, it's seldom treated seriously. Instead, it's rehashed stoner comedies and jokes about returning to live with your parents because you like videogames more than earning a living. The transition is a manic effort to get one's act together to get the girl.
From my friends who were in the overgrown teen position, they didn't get their act together for some woman. Instead, some knocked up their equally immature female counterpart and then together realized, "shit, I need to at least pretend to have my act together for the kid"; others simply just got bored of that life and moved on.
The Graduate is about a man in his 20s being awkward and unsure of himself as he sleeps with an older woman. Theres also stuff like 500 Days of Summer and Garden State (a lot of indies from the 00s dealt with that).
Theres a lot of that. Theres also teenage coming of age stories with males like Submarine, Harold and Maude, and Moonrise Kingdom. About guys being unsure of themselves, awkward, and uncomfortable.
In a broader sense the "Chosen One" narratives may not deal explicitly with the coming of age part but usually it's included. Luke Skywalker is a whiny awkward teen turned resistance fighter pilot by the end of the first movie.
No that's fair, I just only have generalizations and observations of testosterone based puberty to go from so it was a general and genuine question.
I can only speak for myself, but the answer was a definitive no. I went from being socially oblivious in my preteen years to someone who everyone wanted to be friendly with (even if I didn't end up with real friends). As it turns out, "he's smart and doesn't mind if you cheat off his homework" has much greater value in middle & high school than elementary.
to be fair, I think this varies on a different axis from gender. I went through "female puberty" and my experience was mostly just being pissed off at everything all the time.
And I can confirm that being smart but not willing to let people cheat off your homework is significantly less useful socially.
That's all fair, maybe I'm just thinking of some of the particularly tall guy friends of mine who felt like they went from short to giraffe and were also moody as shit. But it's all fair.
Mine was less physical and more emotional turmoil myself.
My worst years of emotional turmoil were immediately before puberty and the back half of my 20s. Puberty through college was smooth sailing. No wonder I found angsty teen YA coming-of-age stories, no matter the protagonist's gender, unrelatable.
Ahh.....maybe that's why I couldn't relate to Turning Red at all either, despite being female and East Asian Canadian. It's [part of who I am] and lack of social awareness + subsequent lack of shame/embarrassment over how awkward I actually was/am.
I always had a hard time understanding why gender matters when making friends
as a childto this day, and then by the time other kids hit puberty, I was among the band/honour roll geeks. The cluster of us boys and girls just continued to be friends (with a ton of them cross dating among the group).I'm curious: thinking back as an adult, did you go through "blunder years" that are hard to emotionally look back upon, or even now you just take it all in stride without stress or embarrassment? Were the other kids charmed by your confidence and charisma?
Absolutely. They mostly happened before my teen years (think the worst of it was 4th or 5th grade). Didn't help that I was the oldest grandchild on one side (and the age gap between myself and the next-youngest cousin on the other) meant that I lacked a lot of cultural knowledge my classmates had.
Pics of myself from middle & early high may be blunder years aesthetic, but the bad times were mostly past (or still in far in the future) by then.
Honestly as a woman I think it has a lot to do that the default pov in stories tends to be male. It’s easy for me to see a male pov cause I’m inundated with it all the time and it’s considered the default that anyone can identify with.
But stuff coming from a girl or woman’s pov is seen as stuff for women only and stuff only women would be interested in.
I don't know what it means to identify with someone on television. They're an abstract of humanity and what's interesting is their story, whether or not it follows something related to my own life is irrelevant. Rather, if something is far removed from what I know it's possible that will be a far more interesting concept to explore.
What I do see is that female characters are written badly, not exclusively but often by male writers, and that's far more jarring than the fact they're women. If a female character is written well I have little to no issues being engaged with their story. Same with male characters.
Male characters are well threaded ground at this point, so it's far easier to write a male character that isn't awful than it is to write a female character that isn't awful.
I think the problem comes from a plethora of badly written female characters constantly submissively swooning over men where it's no wonder nobody can "identify with them" as they're barely based on anything real.
But they shouldn't be harder to write because they're just people. And perhaps it's a problem with the writers not anything about the characters.
(Well and the fact that a badly written woman is proof of "Woke™/DEI goes broke" and a badly written man is just a bad character in a bad movie.)
Speaking as a female writer, I've noticed a lot of writers seem to have a bit of a mental barrier writing the other gender. It's easier to write what's familiar, and one of the most basic facets is gender identity. I run a fan fiction Discord server, and I remember a younger member exclusively writing gender bent versions of the protagonist because she felt more comfortable with that. (Side-note: I figured out at least two friends were trans before they came out because they'd lean towards creating and role-playing characters of the other gender.)
Even with male characters being so prevalent in media, it took a lot of conscious effort and work over years for me to feel good at creating male characters. I could easily come up with a dozen female characters easily, but when trying to create a male concept, I just hit a wall. It was frustrating and baffling because, like you said, they're just people. I had little problem writing existing male characters in fan fiction, either, which just added to my frustrations.
Some people struggle with it more than others. The main way to overcome it is just experience and conscious effort to tackle it as a weakness. Unfortunately though, with how male-driven most media is, there's less incentive and opportunity for male writers to work on it.
I think gender roles and expectations add a further layer of difficulty for male writers. Men are often told that they need to be tough, sometimes to the extent that showing any emotions makes them weak and un-manly. Women meanwhile are encouraged to embrace their emotions and think about others' comfort, sometimes above their own. Even in a non-toxic environment and household, shades of these expectations exist throughout society, so most people pick up on them to a subconscious degree.
They both have toxic aspects, but women get a slight edge in that they're taught to think more socially than men are. So combine that with how prevalent men are in media, and women have an easier time relating to men, and thus an easier time creating well-written male characters. I have no proof to back that up like studies, but after a lot of thought it just makes sense to me.
I do get the trend of writing what you know or are passionate about but it's the reason there should be more diverse writer rooms/teams/etc. and more diverse decision makers - directors, producers, editors, execs - and creatives in general.
Because that's how you get good representation.
Also I've had multiple trans friends go a similar route with RP characters - both LARP and TTRPG. And my non-binary self may have dabbled similarly.
I think that’s the exact problem with these people writing female characters, they should be writing them as people, but instead there being written as a woman
Exactly
But they aren't real though are they? They're fictional movie characters and fictional male characters are far more established than fictional female characters.
When the extent of female character is not much more than the aforementioned swooning mistress it'll need some time before a good female character is established. And I know we aren't there yet because we're currently in the asocial strong powerful woman phase. Very much not like an actual person either.
Now there are good female characters for sure, Ripley is an easy example, but it's not ubiquitous for writers rooms to land on a good lead yet. Nothing is worse than a decent female lead pulled into a love triangle, which becomes her entire identity from then on.
I fundamentally disagree with this entire premise to such a degree that articulating it is going to take me pages. But frankly, I think the idea that there's no model for "good female character" but there's some ur "male character" and that there haven't been women in film for as long as there have been men, is reflective of internal individual and systemic bias. And if one of the best female characters was just written as a person and cast as woman, perhaps it's not that there's a problem with women characters. It's a problem with assumptions about them and what makes them "good".
No but I agree with you! This isn't necessarily my problem with female characters, I think this thought process about female characterization in Hollywood is incredibly pervasive with the writers to the point that the thread is lost and they can't write a decent character to save their lives.
It's easier to fall back on tropes about male roles, there exist thousands of them after all.
Oh no I get that it's systemic and all, but I don't buy that there aren't plenty of good tropes out there and I think far too many people lump female characters into a bucket based on them being a woman. There are just a lot of bad writers, few female writers, fewer female directors, and even fewer female decision makers.
I think this is an interesting topic and while there are always exceptions and some generalization here, I do think there is some truth to it that generally women have less of a problem of identifying with male characters than the other way around. Just looking at my own list of watched movies, and there is a huge overweight of movies with male leads and directed by men. There is some chicken and egg problem as well, as you generally have to actively seek out movies with more prominent female roles on or off the camera, whereas most list of "great movies in history" are filled with male heavy films.
It makes very little difference to me what gender someone is. I can see myself in all sorts of characters, because character is about, well, character. Characters tend to be in my head as aspects of humanity rather than specifically male or female. I didn't have a problem seeing myself in Andy in The Devil Wears Prada, Miranda rather less so - at least at first. She's a more complex character than she initially appears, of course. It is an excellent film.
In a broader sense I increasingly feel like I don't understand gender very well. Very often when people say X is male and Y is female it makes no sense to me. Almost always they seem to be talking about people traits, and I don't understand why they would be gender specific.
Also, am not a Hollywood exec.
I think perspective taking is a skill and one that needs to be nurtured and developed like any skill. I like Daniel Kahneman's description of novels as a perspective taking technology when referring to the impacts of the printing press.
I don't have data, and I'm leery of using intuition on things like this, but there is probably some truth in the statement if for no other reason than for a long time there were so few women leads. I don't think that women necessarily identify with every role a leading man has played. In fact, I'm sure there are many types of films and portrayals of characters that women have a hard time understanding unless they have nurtured that perspective taking skill. But there were just so many movies with male leads in all genres, that as a numbers game of course there were more opportunities for women to identify with male leads.
Like she mentioned in the article, there was a particular role that caused men to identify with her portrayal. So I think this is a sign that most people have underdeveloped perspective taking skills, and that limits the type of portrayals they can identify with. I think as we are starting to see more women produced films and women led films, we are seeing that short coming in men's, as an aggregate, perspective taking. Of course, women in Hollywood have been seeing that shortcoming all along in the form of productions not being greenlit because the male executives couldn't take those perspectives. Now it's just coming out more publicly as those movies are being made.
It is very much a numbers game where prominent female leads are generally rarer in mainstream cinema. Just taking the IMDB top list and I have to go all the way to 23 for Jodie Foster in The Silence of the Lambs. Though one could make a point for Louise Fletcher as Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest at 18.
And it is of course not a requirement to identify with a character to enjoy the film. What is important is well written interesting characters. Like I don't think many identify with Nurse Ratched, but there is no denying she is a well played and interesting female character. But still, for any great character a female actress gets to make, a top male actor will have several high profile roles on their CV simply because more movies are written with a male protagonist in mind.