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I think captain marvel is an interesting one on this note. It is a problem in recent films that writers want to overpower women to make things fair, and they do a disservice to the women by doing so.

Captain marvel seems to address this directly and in a more mature way. Her character does start weak. She is shown losing repeated to her officer in physical fights and feeling inferior. Later she becomes the most powerful person the MCU has ever seen and the officer turns out to be evil.

The climax of captain marvel's character arc in her movie is him trying to bait her into fighting him on fair, unpowered terms and she basically says fuck you and blasts him with a laser. It's not explicitly a gender thing, but making a firm statement that she isn't intrinsically better than the guy without her powers but that she won't be defined by those metrics. It felt like a much better way to handle this message.

Being explicit that other people's (traditional male) competencies don't get to define your self worth.

It's a flip on the "Let's Fight Like Gentlemen" movie trope and frankly I thought it was a solid message which helped avoid this narrative pitfall even though captain marvel herself is by far the most overpowered female example of late.

A character who is put down, becomes angry, then becomes powerful and carries that anger forward. Yawn. That is the background of about half of comic characters. Compare Captain America. He was week and abused, became powerful, but actively decides not to carry baggage. It is a fish-out-of-water character that has to constantly reconcile ideology with army-inspired pragmatism and loyalty. And he has a foil (Iron Man). That's a balanced character that I can like. Captain Marvel is a hyperbolic one-sided character. Those Superman characters are doomed to be boring. Batman-like characters with complex stories are unpredictable and therefore have the potential to be interesting. Gender has nothing to do with Captain Marvel's fundamental problems.

> A character who is put down, becomes angry, then becomes powerful and carries that anger forward.

But... that's the opposite of what happens. It is addressing this exact concept and doing something different. He's literally asking to fight like a gentleman.

The dialogue in this scene is literally "can you keep your emotions in check long enough to take me on, or will it get the better of you?" And she rejects his cliche premise entirely as a false dichotomy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KK1Kv0IzUg

male centric story telling often uses combat ability as a metaphor for personal growth. Usually with literal dialogue or reflections on moral lessons used to emphasize this relationship with the tide of battle turning when the lesson is made clear.

I thought it was great to show that, while captain marvel's growth arc is not acquisition of strength but in deriving her self worth from herself rather than from her officer.

I agree it will be hard to make more captain marvel movies because there's very little that can challenge her, unless they're willing to make a movie without a significant violent conflict. Not easy.

Captain america is a great character concept too. I liked the falcon's series dissection of it. He's explicitly not a supremacist, while acknowledging the ease with which his circumstances could allow that- and do create that within other superheroes.

> male centric story telling often uses combat ability as a metaphor for personal growth

Why does this have to be male centric? Gaining strength as a metaphor and parallel to personal growth is a story as old as time, and there's a reason we all like it. It's like a meet cute in a date movie. You can have fun with the trope, but at the end of the day, something like it needs to happen to make a successful story in this genre.

> Why does this have to be male centric?

I didn't say it had to?

I'll rephrase. What makes this more central to male storytelling in particular?

Mostly just precedent. Male action heroes tend to be fighters. Even clever Odysseus just straight up murders all of this foes when he returns to Ithaca.

Female action heroes are generally few, and many of them that are, are either more tricksters or agile or just kind of oversexualized replicas of the male variety. Many of them tend to be physically weaker than their opponents even at the climax of their films and overcome it through other means whereas male action heroes will more frequently prove themselves to be superior in a pure battle of fisticuffs, sometimes even sacrificing an advantage they have so that they can "fight like a man". Consider, perhaps, Ripley from Alien and Aliens. Always underpowered. Uses a loader suit for her final confrontation.

Captain Marvel is undeniably aware of the gender connotations here. It's a pretty explicitly mentioned barrier when they discuss how women couldn't be fighter pilots. She's unusual in that she's just a powerful bruiser kind of female and is way more powerful than her foes.

Would it be entertaining to watch a bunch more female (or male) led films that take this same approach? God no. Fights are fun. If you want to subvert that for an interesting message it's got to be somewhat novel each time.

Though personally I think fights are more entertaining when they're not clearly aligned with any moral message. John Wick, perhaps, as a counterexample.

Replace captain marvel with a man or an alien or anything and you still got the same story. Captain marvel being a woman adds no value or difference in this story.

It certainly adds value to young girls who are otherwise told that they cannot be action heroes- a conversation which is explicitly held in the film with respect to the female fighter pilots

Captain Marvel's reference to being too emotional is a specific feminist shibboleth (https://geekfeminism.fandom.com/wiki/You%27re_being_emotiona...), which is "not explicitly a gender thing" only because that's how shibboleths work. It's absolutely a gender thing, if not explicitly one.

It's both, of course. Being too emotional is clearly a common female stereotype. The call of the antagonist is to "fight him like a man", which is a common male stereotype.

She dispels the first, but refuses to accept his premise for the latter. I think it's pretty great. It's a generalizeable message to either gender of course.

,, I think captain marvel is an interesting one on this note. It is a problem in recent films that writers want to overpower women to make things fair, and they do a disservice to the women by doing so’’

It’s about making money: social media gives young pretty women more power than any other large group of people ever in human history (especially if they give up their morals), and of course many of them want to believe that that power is not going away, and they don’t have to do anything to keep this power.

In the past 30 year old women were very responsible, but nowdays I know people who just optimize their poses on instagram to hide the weight that they gain by partying and getting drunk every night.

Of course it’s just some poeple who this kind of life, it just got much easier to do using internet, so the temptation is much stronger.

I fear you may not have realized you have already become a curmudgeonly old man

Have you seen the feminist reading of Mad Max: Fury Road?

You might find it interesting. YouTube is not loading for me, but it's called "The avenging feminine": https://www.reddit.com/r/GamerGhazi/comments/9jzuci/bringing...

My favorite part is something the essayist points out about the mothers [1] in Fury Road: They help in every fight. They shoot, they reload guns, they operate bolt cutters, they deny guns to enemies, they assist with _any_ light work that the buff action hero and heroine are too busy to do. And if there's nothing to do, they take cover without being asked.

The mothers don't start weak and become strong, the movie isn't about that. In fact I don't think anyone in the movie gains strength. Nux has a heel-face turn, but that's all I remember for character change.

Just because they're _side_ characters doesn't mean they _aren't_ characters. There's no scene (that I recall) where you have to ask, "What are the non-combatants doing right now? Standing and watching?"

And even though they're still physically weak at the end of the movie, their actions still matter. The movie doesn't imply there's anything wrong with weakness. Even if they are like pawns on a chessboard, every pawn still matters. I think that's very empowering.

[1] I think only one of them is pregnant, but they are all escaped slaves, so they're not in shape for direct combat.

Thanks, I'll definitely check that out.

Does it pass the Bechdel Test? I don't remember it well enough:

1. There are at least two women characters, with names and their own personalities (i.e., they aren't extras)

2. The women talk to each other

3. They talk to each other about something besides men.

(If you aren't familiar, an incredible number of films fail - and yes, the 'reverse Bechdel Test' (substituting men for women) is passed by almost every film.)

Yes

https://bechdeltest.com/view/6242/mad_max:_fury_road/

Also, the Bechdel Test is incredibly misleading and distracts from the actual problem IMO, which is simple underrepresentation of women in movies. If only 20% of movie characters are women, probably 4% of dialogue (20% of 20%) would end up being women talking to each other. Solve representation, not content.

It's informative to realize that a substantial portion of movies also fail a gender reversed version of the Bechdel test (though sure, smaller than the original test)... Not only does it reflect the representation in main roles, it also counts films which are about men and women interacting as fails.

> a substantial portion of movies also fail a gender reversed version of the Bechdel test

Which movies? Go down the top movies of any year and count them. It's not even close to true.

Lets see, last night while you were sending the comment I was watching "turning red" -- AFAICT it fails it: There was no scene where two men talked to each other about something other than a woman.

Most movies have most or all of their dialog about the important characters. When the important characters are disproportionately men then thats what the dialog will be about. When the subject is about the interactions of some differently gendered characters, then the dialog will often be about a different gender than the character talking.

The prior posters point was that it reflects the under-representation of women as substantial characters more than anything else-- I'd also add that it also reflect the further under-representation of women in movies that aren't about relationships. We don't need to invoke a complicated test to observe that women are underrepresented in serious roles and stereotyped into certain kinds of plots when they do have significant roles.

> the Bechdel Test is incredibly misleading and distracts from the actual problem IMO, which is simple underrepresentation of women in movies

The first question of the Bechdel Test addresses that directly: Are there at least two female characters (not extras)?

You can also note a parallel with female villains. Yeah they're bad, but you know, it's not their fault. They had such a tough life. And really are they that bad?

And don't hear me wrong. I do love fleshed out bad guys/gals. I do want deep bad characters, but when the backstory can always be summarized with "she went through tough time because of bad men, so now yeah she's kind of bad" it doesn't really count.

> You can also note a parallel with female villains. Yeah they're bad, but you know, it's not their fault. They had such a tough life. And really are they that bad?

Popular Hollywood female villains, maybe.

My favorite female villains are Granny Goodness and Amanda Waller from DC Comics.

Granny Goodness runs an orphanage for Apokolips. On the surface, she's a sweet old lady who recruits superheroines into Darkseid's machinations. But when the going gets tough, she pulls out her super-powers to punish any orphan who goes against her will.

There's no "terrible backstory" or "not her fault" going on here. Granny Goodness is 100% loyal to the "evil new gods" of Apokolips and is incredibly competent at her role in raising new villains for the evil gods.

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Amanda Waller is gonna plant a bomb in your head and force you to do what she wants. Why? Cause that's what she does. She's the official government's response to counteract the rise of superheroes / metahumans (Superman / Flash / etc. etc.), and feverishly works to blackmail any prisoner into building her super team.

>Popular Hollywood female villains, maybe.

Well, this is about "modern movies".

> Yeah they're bad, but you know, it's not their fault. They had such a tough life. And really are they that bad?

A little bit of that can make for a good villain I think. Villains who were truly victims earlier in life, or have a lot of seemingly rational rhetoric to back up their position. But usually there's a point where the audience is told that yes, they really are bad, despite their background or arguments.

Ma-Ma in Dredd or Solidus in MGS2 are examples that come to mind. Ma-Ma is a heavily scarred ex-prostitute and drug addict, but shamelessly has people tortured to death and thinks little of condemning thousands of innocents to death to protect herself. Solidus talks about taking the country back from the censorious AIs that control discourse and rig elections, but he's also a former warlord who trained child soldiers and has no remorse about it.

You're right that it's not a coincidence, but that's more a reflection of the video's author than its subject matter. I agree that the depictions of female characters in question are shallow and uninteresting, but I wonder what you're watching if you think recent blockbuster movies with male leads are much better.

Classic action movies of the 80s often had very flat good-at-everything male heroes. What weaknesses does John McClain ever show in Die Hard? Vulnerability to walking barefoot on broken glass I guess, not much.

There are obviously exceptions, but generally action movies don't have very interesting characters.

He's presented as a sad-sack alcoholic at the start of the movie!

I guess I missed the alcoholism, I don't recall that. I remember he starts the movie with a bad relationship with his wife, but that's so he can win her back in the end with his counter-terrorism prowess (lol), not with any real character development that I remember.

I feel like this is a poor example. McClain is frustrated and outmatched throughout the entire movie, and slowly is able to outmaneuver his foes through wit and determination.

I don't think gender has anything to do with it though.

> it's so important to show that with utter, relentless completeness, that they've created characters that are magical, who don't need to overcome anything, characters who matter mostly as individuals, who have no duties or responsibilities to anyone else (most certainly not to any men). They're just total kick-ass take-no-prisoners empowered women.

But what you've just described is Christopher Nolan's Batman (who loses to Bane physically early in the movie, and beats him by... physically overpowering Bane a bit later).

The modern "superhero" genre is completely devoid of modern responsibilities. This wasn't true before... in the 70s, you had Clark who had to be a responsible person (show up to his job, write articles, etc. etc.). Despite being a magical alien from a futuristic society, Clark Kent had a number of "human" scenes, interacting with his boss, showing off responsible uses of his powers (ex: the Robbery scene, he manages to protect Lois Lane and the Robber, by pretending to be weak. Catching the bullet and pretending to go unconscious from fright).

Today, Christopher Nolan's Batman (who is considered well written), leaves his company to go off on a Ninja-adventure. Leaves all the decision-making to a rival group of executives, and then magically takes back over the company despite his multi-year absence after siphoning funds to a secretive and poorly managed research-and-development corner of the company. And somehow the people who ran the company during his absence are the antagonists who need to be disposed of by the end of the 1st movie.

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Don't get me wrong, Nolan's Batman is really interesting and fun to watch. But he's fun to watch BECAUSE he's an amoral asshole with crap moral lessons.

Iron-man is another movie character who has this effect as well. Assholes who magically get their way are often interesting to watch.

I wouldn't want any children following in the "lessons" of Nolan's Batman or 2008+ era Iron Man. They're awful moral characters.

Ray (Star Wars, episodes 7-9) is positively a saint in comparison.

I upvoted both you and Buldak because I'm certain there's something to what you're saying. Few things are monocausal or completely explained by one factor. And surely these modern filmmaking tropes feedback on themselves and reinforce prevailing styles. Mine isn't any kind of grand unifying theory. I just think it's a factor.

There's a little bit of gender role in there:

Male assholes (ex: Rick from Rick and Morty, Nolan's Batman, Downy's Iron Man) are fun and interesting to watch. Female assholes are much, much harder to write (Amanda Waller, Suicide Squad, seems to be the best written one in recent films?)

I guess there's explicitly "female" movies, like "Devil Wears Prada" where that kind of behavior is more acceptable (Miranda Priestly plays the role of asshole boss).

But maybe the "formula" for what audiences accept just hasn't really been figured out yet for female characters. You certainly can't just take male-oriented tropes and try to apply them to female-oriented characters.

Yeah, I think this is a pretty interesting response. That double standard feels to me like a plausible explanation for why some female characters are written differently.

> You certainly can't just take male-oriented tropes and try to apply them to female-oriented characters.

Why do you say that? People don't, but they can. I've seen plenty of plays written for male leads but acted by females (e.g., Hamlet).

This comment made me replay 2021 cruella in my head a bit.. the successful female asshole is successful since she does not play fair.. the younger female gets to be an asshole cuz she is poor / parents taken away (?) She then becomes a different asshole caring for only herself and single success, which her long time friends dislike.. then she gets to be a more sinister asshole because she has proof her victims have been more sinister (?)

the female lead was the same as devil wears prada right? so the typecast / emotional prejudice was already embedded..

I can see how this stuff is hard to write, once of the suicide squads tried so hard it should of just made up new characters imho.

but then this particular formula seems so easy to write - main characters get to do really bad things to people cuz those people did really bad things.

I guess this is the main appeal of spiderman type projects - they limit the bad things done to bad people (?)

I put question marks because my study and recollection of these things is of a real interest, but not well versed research / knowledge. I'm sure there is much more.

Frankly I've been disappointed in what movies/media/tv shows / social sharing - all this stuff has been teaching for lessons for a long time, I can't think of much that is done well for non-awful lessons I guess.

I tend to think the iron man movie are all trash. However I don't think they follow this pattern as you say.

By the third movie he's literally having anxiety panic attacks. He's fearful that spidey, whom he brought to the big leagues, will get hurt and it'll be on his conscious. He's afraid and guilty of the collateral damage he's spawned into the world but intializing super hero culture.

Execution of those movies aside I thought his character development arc was pretty good.

Men are portrayed this way all the time. Why would portraying women this way get so much attention and concern?

showcasing female heroes as displaying exaggerated masculine abilities (in a sexualized female body) is belittling to actual feminine virtues

Who cares what you think - or what I think? Who are you or anyone to define what these women do or want - and then weakly try to appeal to authority by assigning your opinions the words "actual feminine virtues"? Many men used to define those 'virtues' as not working, voting, having an opinion, and as being obedient, sexy, and sexually available to them (but not to other men!) - how convenient!

> sexualized female body

So? Does it intimidate you? Should they hide or show their bodies based on what you prefer, or on what you think is right? Who the f- are you (or I) to have an opinion on what they should do. Should I have an opinion on what you do?

Meanwhile, women fight wars, run countries and corporations. They don't post much on Hacker News - look at this discussion of men saying what women should do, just like the old days. I wonder why we don't see more women here?

re-framing traditional feminine virtues (those things that most women are good at and enjoy, and which make families stronger and society flourish) as worth less than traditional masculine virtues is offensive to a lot of people, and is itself an appeal to an extremist ideology

> re-framing traditional feminine virtues (those things that most women are good at and enjoy, and which make families stronger and society flourish) as worth less than traditional masculine virtues is offensive to a lot of people, and is itself an appeal to an extremist ideology

Which people? And so what if they are offended? These women should change what they do because you don't like it? Again, who are you (or I) or these putative offended people to tell these women what to do?

> traditional feminine virtues

Which don't exist, except in the minds of the people who want to control what other people do.

> worth less than traditional masculine virtues

Who compared anything between whatever you think masculine and feminine are?

> an appeal to an extremist ideology

So women working, getting educations, living independently of men, living their lives they way they please - that is extremist?

> So? Does it intimidate you? Should they hide or show their bodies based on what you prefer, or on what you think is right?

Millions of years of evolution went in to get them that body, and similar number of years of evolution for me to have that reaction seeing that body.

No, I am not going to join in the collective delusion that this stuff isn't real, or socially created or can be turned off at will.

Right, though I think I'd maybe use the term "values" rather than "virtues." The underlying message of these movies is that everyone---women included---should be judged by masculine standards (plus a traditional notion of female beauty). But a pseudo-feminism that imagines a world where women succeed only through a combination of feats of strength and hotness is not feminism in any meaningful sense and serves to maintain male primacy. Changing out women for men in the same old stories is not the answer; the answer is to change the stories to put feminine values on par with masculine values. That doesn't mean we can't have kick-ass women heroes, it just means that kick-ass heroes shouldn't be our only benchmark.

> change the stories to put feminine values on par with masculine values

That's important too - and male characters should have those values - but no reason we can't do both.

Stop trying to put women in whatever box you like. They can have whatever values/virtues/etc that they please. Women serve regularly in militaries around the world, for example, and have for awhile. What do say to women who are fighter pilots?

They can have whatever values/virtues/etc that they please

Sure---but how society responds to a woman's choice is a collective act that she has little control over. Nothing in my comment suggested putting women in a box, exactly the opposite. It's a spectrum, where not all men adopt masculine values and not all women adopt feminine ones. There are women who relate more to what are thought of as masculine values, like fighter pilots, and it's great that society is increasingly accepting of them. But just saying women can join the men's club is not real social change. Real social change is respecting values that are not typically associated with men. Values revolving around love and human relationships, for instance, rather than violence and mechanics.

Ask yourself why the military came to mind as an exemplary set of values for the modern woman. I'd suggest that it is because you regard military service as a desirable epitome of masculinity, and if women can achieve that same peak, then they can be regarded as equals in society. But to your own point about choice, even if no women choose to join the military, we should have female heroes who are regarded on par with any male war hero.

>this particular approach to featuring women is ham-fisted and risible and probably counterproductive, in the end.

Counterproductive in what way? I agree with you (and the linked video) that the approach is boring. But I also think it's effective.

Deserves top comment

What's the point of the third paragraph? To protect yourself from criticism?

From a certain kind of boring, predictable, repetitive criticism that's unresponsive to any of the actual points I made in my comment, yes. It either worked or I was too pessimistic, because the responses so far have been substantive and interesting!

And I was downvoted for asking the question.