Dat Flowchart
Four other people on your f-list have probably linked this by now, but I'm stepping up to bat anyway.
This is a flow chart for determining whether female characters are well-written/worthwhile or not. Now I will tell you why this chart is bad.
I appreciate the sentiment that writers ought to stop fucking over their female characters. I can totally get on board with that and I understand that people are tired of seeing the same stereotypes repeated ad nauseum. On the other hand, female characters are poorly written a lot less often than the internet claims! The internet would have you believe that every lady character ever written with the possible exception of Toph Bei Fong is terrible terrible terrible. This is just plain untrue.
Lady characters aren't perfect or where I'd like them to be, but they are a lot better than a lot of people - and this flowchart - gives them credit for. Lots of people say they just plain don't like female characters because they aren't as well-written or something, which is some seriously egregious bullshit and often reliant on self-fulfilling prophecies and prejudices. This is pretty evident in the flowchart, I think - the first question is, "Can she carry her own story?"
What does that even mean? Does it mean "Is she the protagonist of the story she's in?" I don't see any other reasonable interpretation because... a lot of the women on here can carry their own story. Let's take Faye Valentine, for instance, since I think it's the most obvious example: she is a badass bounty hunter with amnesia trying to find her true identity. I am pretty sure that story has been told with a male protagonist thirty seven million billion times, and ergo, there can be no argument that she could, in fact, carry her own story (though it might not be a very fun or original one). ETA: Wait, is that Sarah Connor on there? Doesn't she ALREADY carry her own story? Wat?
So basically, what the creators of this flowchart are saying is either that everyone in an ensemble cast doesn't count (absurd) or that all of these women cannot possibly carry any kind of story all on their own (equally ridiculous). This is dismissal out of hand. How many of these women would pass when you remove that qualifier or alter it? What happens when you consider context? How many male character counterparts would fail when put through at the same criteria? Mario is certainly no more 3 dimensional and story-oriented than Peach.
It would be nice to see someone put together one of these for male characters, because it would almost definitely be just as exhaustive.
ETA: Ran some characters through this thing. I have to suppose they can't carry their own story to get anything but strong female character or fridge stuffing, and the results I get half the time are pretty ridiculous (Franzy is totes not a henchlady, Fuu gets, variously, a Team Mom, Bossy Girl or Damsel in Distress...)
LinksLinksLinks on this subject.
This is a flow chart for determining whether female characters are well-written/worthwhile or not. Now I will tell you why this chart is bad.
I appreciate the sentiment that writers ought to stop fucking over their female characters. I can totally get on board with that and I understand that people are tired of seeing the same stereotypes repeated ad nauseum. On the other hand, female characters are poorly written a lot less often than the internet claims! The internet would have you believe that every lady character ever written with the possible exception of Toph Bei Fong is terrible terrible terrible. This is just plain untrue.
Lady characters aren't perfect or where I'd like them to be, but they are a lot better than a lot of people - and this flowchart - gives them credit for. Lots of people say they just plain don't like female characters because they aren't as well-written or something, which is some seriously egregious bullshit and often reliant on self-fulfilling prophecies and prejudices. This is pretty evident in the flowchart, I think - the first question is, "Can she carry her own story?"
What does that even mean? Does it mean "Is she the protagonist of the story she's in?" I don't see any other reasonable interpretation because... a lot of the women on here can carry their own story. Let's take Faye Valentine, for instance, since I think it's the most obvious example: she is a badass bounty hunter with amnesia trying to find her true identity. I am pretty sure that story has been told with a male protagonist thirty seven million billion times, and ergo, there can be no argument that she could, in fact, carry her own story (though it might not be a very fun or original one). ETA: Wait, is that Sarah Connor on there? Doesn't she ALREADY carry her own story? Wat?
So basically, what the creators of this flowchart are saying is either that everyone in an ensemble cast doesn't count (absurd) or that all of these women cannot possibly carry any kind of story all on their own (equally ridiculous). This is dismissal out of hand. How many of these women would pass when you remove that qualifier or alter it? What happens when you consider context? How many male character counterparts would fail when put through at the same criteria? Mario is certainly no more 3 dimensional and story-oriented than Peach.
It would be nice to see someone put together one of these for male characters, because it would almost definitely be just as exhaustive.
ETA: Ran some characters through this thing. I have to suppose they can't carry their own story to get anything but strong female character or fridge stuffing, and the results I get half the time are pretty ridiculous (Franzy is totes not a henchlady, Fuu gets, variously, a Team Mom, Bossy Girl or Damsel in Distress...)
LinksLinksLinks on this subject.