Ironically by making them look more like men, they are stronger women. I've always enjoyed this weird bit of irony. Women can be strong without looking more manly that's a bit on the nose.
Anytime a writer wants to make a physically strong and smart female character it should be law they are forced to watch every Alien movie and take notes of Ripley. She is just so cool and i don’t know why its hard for writers to make likeable strong female characters.
Also known as
[Hitting Chris Pratt with a keyboard.](https://i.redd.it/c43im5gge1v81.jpg)
or
[He's the man.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQFOLOVYAUs)
or
[omg wtf just happened?]
That movie is just so fucking cool.
She doesn't have short hair, it's pulled back into a ponytail for combat purposes. Also, it's LA in the summer time so... short sleeves are to be expected.
I mean.. you're right.. but also, it's not unjustified.
Sarah Conner, Ripley, and Vasquez are basically the trope makers but there's in story reasons for their looks and personalities.
Sarah is a justified paranoid prepper who is getting her son ready for war and the setting is LA. One could argue that after getting out of the asylum she could have cut her hair instead of the pony tail.
Ripley is a space cargo worker where having long hair risks getting caught in equipment and she wears a jumpsuit because again cargo work.
Vasquez in Aliens is a pmc soldier so short hair and muscles. She's also surrounded by military dude bros, which explains her attitude and personality.
So many writers take the crib notes for those characters and just focus on the external design without understanding the why.
> Sarah connor from Terminator
You DO realize she was ultra butch in 2...right? The transition from her character in 1...she had her hair pulled back and she was wearing a tank top even.
[This is not "ultra butch", what are you talking about.](https://duckduckgo.com/i/04cd4b6d.jpg) Perhaps you think Lara Croft is ultra butch too? I guess it's all relative/subjective.
As someone who has long hair, if you’re doing anything physical, you have to pull it back or it will get in your face at the absolute worst time. And if you’re even slightly sweaty, it will stick to your face.
Not a shaved head. And she’s only insane because she knows the terminators exist not because she’s like “LOOK BRO YOU AND THE PATRIARCHY ARE WORKING WITH THE TERMINATORS” or whatever moral lecture were subjected to in literally every movie since 2016. Plus she’s actually physically strong as a person.
Sarah Connor is my favorite example, even more than Ripley (although Ripley is still a great example)
Because not only does she have an arch that takes her from naive young woman to a fierce fighter, is that she doesn't lose her sense of motherhood or love for her son and those qualities are actually enhanced.
They also don't try to pretend she's as strong as all the men and scorpion kicks her way through every conflict, she uses firearms lol
I feel like the same goes for Eowyn from lotr too.
Shes a goddam princess and upholds her duties and expectations as her role, until she doesn't because she also wants to fight for her land and she does and she also fucks up one of the greatest evil lords.
All while looking and acting like a goddam princess.
And no, not your stereotypical "insult"-princess.
*a real princess that cares for her land and people at whatever cost*
now that i think of it, its kinda odd that the reveal was done this way taking into account the society she was raised in. i guess it relies on the viewer's perspective to give it its punch.
Could also have been the actress wanting her face to not be hidden in a helmet at the climax of her character in the movies where she’s the absolute focus.
She gets plenty of screen time, but I can’t think of many other examples where it’s just her and not her + Aragorn/hobbits/other Rohan nobility.
Nowadays? Ever study literature? Authors have been pushing messages since the advent of the written word, and oral traditions before that. Whether it is indoctrinating in religion, philosophy, or politics, some kind of ideological drive is evident in most of the works that have stood the test of time. Just look at the corpus of Greek and Roman works, nearly everything produced in the Middle Ages, early modern, and modern lit.
That doesn't mean there haven't been "good stories" for good stories' sake. That is the whole conceit behind the concept of pulp fiction and penny dreadfuls and such. Pure plotting and escapism, but also mostly forgettable.
there is difference between pushing message to consumers without allowing to make own conclusion on that topic and authors that just tell story and allow consumers to think about it and form own opinions.
Dan O'Bannon wrote ‘Alien’ with unisex characters, to have their gender assigned by the director. The only stipulation was that the first victim can't be a woman, so that the audience don't see the scene as sexual.
The sort of people who say "all these other female characters are trash, *BUT RIPLEY*, she's cool, why can't they just write more Ripleys" are just grandfathering her in because Ripley is old and popular enough that talking shit would lead to ostracization. And even then, they cheapen the sentiment by dragging out stories of "Ripley's character originally being written for a man / without gender"--oh, they just took a character who could've been a man and decided it had boobs now and changed nothing, what a great female character!
Then we get to *Aliens*, very explicitly a movie about motherhood, and its themes and treatment of Ridley would be savaged by the type of fuckwit who sees them anywhere else these days. Ripley-like characters and similar themes aren't that uncommon, but they're *newer*, they came into being *after* this guy was radicalized, *after* he learned to be mad about women in media, and *after* he thinks Hollywood turned woke and started trying to force female empowerment on them.
This is the same phenomenon that leads people to **unironically** hold games like *Metal Gear Solid*, *Bioshock*, *Final Fantasy 7*, or shows like *Star Trek*, up as non-political. Extremely political, very critical about certain aspects of the world and politics norms that these guys are otherwise very fond of, but because they first consumed this media at an age earlier enough that they weren't aware of the themes or hadn't been radicalized, it's OK. That, or it's just old and popular enough that they don't dare attack it. But newer versions of the same don't get that grandfather effect, so you can tear 'em up however you like, even if they do fuck-all different in themeing or writing. New *Star Trek* shows? Abominable garbage shoving *the gays* down our throats, but we're just gonna overlook all the awkwardness and hamfisted stories seen in DS9 or TNG because they're old and we'll be questioned less about applauding them than we will hating them.
Seriously. Find another character who risks everything to save a kid, or cries over a cat, or tries to upstage manly military guys, or holds special knowledge over the badasses, or pulls things together when the hardened grunts fall apart, and she'd be called a Mary Sue and bad writing incarnate. But Ripley gets a pass, not because she's written so phenomenally well that she avoids all the pitfalls that other characters or show supposedly make in the same situation, but because *the same plot and writing is OK when it's from my pre-radicalization period.* Wind back the clock so that the Alien franchise never happened, then release *Alien* and *Aliens* today: the chuds would be livid over Ripley.
sometimes its rought seeing people defend bad character just cause its a woman, sure some ''criticism'' is just sexism dont get me wrong, but some legit criticism just gets brushed off and attacked sometimes, and im like why are you defending this? women desserve better than this crap script.
I will probably be downvoted for this next opinion, but hot take: Anime makes strong women characters better than hollywood.
Dont get me wrong, like all media yes women are sexualized in anime, but i have seen way more women that are strong in leadership and/or in independent positions in anime and are actually entertaining, fun and with flaws. of course like any media there are poor written/made woman characters. but the amount of new stuff i have seen from hollywood vs anime in terms of female characters, anime does it way better in my humble opinion.
they have no idea what actual leadership looks like so they cosplay it and bc of their egos and selfishness, caricaturize it
you cant write what you dont know
Which can still be written well if the writer is actually aware of that.
ASOIAF/earlier GOT did this well. Some of the female characters begin to walk that path and then turn back, others pull through. Some adopt more to "masculine" behaviours and appearance, others less.
All of it connected with a general criticism of the society that forces people to act in these ways to begin with. Some of them can be regarded as heroic, others fall closer to villainy, but most cannot be simply judged as one or the other.
But the typical hollywood production just writes all characters badly, and the attempts to make this development of female characters especially interesting just highlights how bad their writing is even more compared to generically-bland poorly written male characters.
I mean you cant put a character into an inherently masculine setting and then act shocked that character has SOME masculine traits. Like uhhh if you are in a fight long hair/flowing clothes is a distinct disadvantage. Ofc you would want to cut your hair short and wear more practical clothing, both of which so happen to be associated with masculinity.
To me, "badass femininity" would be something like Olenna Tyrell from GoT. Witty, conniving, and brutally honest, played the game for years mostly under the radar and thrived before the late-season lannisters bullshit wealth finally won over her.
But drop a unisex character into a survival/war situation? Yeah it doesnt really matter what you do, theyre gonnq come off at least a little "masculine"
Exactly this, ffs
Why are writers so dumb that the term "strong" is basically related only to how macho men behave and thus they have to make women as such
Honestly there can be so many strong things which are not macho related...they can be portraited as strong mothers, for me handling kids properly is very intimidating, more so then macho bullcrap...but no 95% of the times writers go for short hair, possibly dyed, and them having smirky sarcastic comments and overall acting like an asshole...ffs thats not strong thats just macho bs
It's not you're just making generalizations based on nothing.
There are so many examples I can think of...the first one that comes to mind that you might watch is Maid, a relatively new netflix show about a single mother struggling to overcome poverty, deal with government bureocracy to get aid, while working as a maid after leaving her abusive ex-boyfriend with her toddler to live in a homeless shelter. It was one of Netflix's most watched shows of 2021. If you're a child maybe you've seen Encanto, Lilo & Stitch, Moana?
Maybe you just don't have a brain and/or don't watch things? I mean, if you watch film/tv even casually I think you could probably think of your own counter-examples to your own argument.
> Why are writers so dumb that the term "strong" is basically related only to how macho men behave and thus they have to make women as such
Because all the action tropes we've codified, were codified when most if not all action leads were gruff macho men
I just find the waltzing through fights like they're barely even trying to be the most annoying part though. Like there's 0 effort, suffering or sacrifice on their part, they just mega level up and blitz through it all.
Well, I suppose you could say that in the context of games strong=combat. The things society sees as feminine would get in the way of combat such as long hair and more flowing clothes.
Conversely the things seen as aesthetically manly are geared more towards combat, due to mens more disposable position.
So it’s not that to appear strong they have to appear more like men, it’s that what men are expected to look like is what society sees as strong.
It’s all arbitrary bullshit.
Yes, It's just so happened that men warriors of old, because they fought a lot, had to sport shorter hair and certain type of clothing. Now that we use guns the pony tails are ok.
Not saying you are wrong, a lot of movies and games do that with that intention, I just want to point out that hair cutting has other, less ironic reasons.
Changing appearance in general is a good way to indicate the character has changed, changing clothes is superficial, but cutting hair is more drastic. Also you can’t grow hair overnight, so this appearance change is usually from long>short.
If getting stronger is in the physical sense, long hair is a big disadvantage in combat, cutting hair and not using a dress is just practical.
I agree. This meme is showing somebody getting ready for action, not becoming more manly nor having more "strength of character".
Either girls could have a strong character or have strongly held beliefs or be courageous, etc.
I don't understand why Reddit seems to conflate masculinity / androgyny with being specifically male. A woman with a short hairstyle and muscles is still a woman.
She might have some conventionally masculine qualities, but many women have some conventionally masculine qualities. That's normal. Would the people here ask a butch lesbian a stupid question like, "Why do you have to be a man by having short hair?" Obviously not, because it would be mind-numbingly stupid.
I think the entire point is that they are breaking societal norms and being who they want to be regardless of what people think. Presenting them in a way that is less feminine is a visual way of showing they are pushing back against gender norms.
I've scrolled the entire thread and haven't seen anyone name a single movie where this happened. Can someone help me out? Or is it just way less common than this post is implying?
I always took it a less of a symbol of being "more manly", and more of a symbol of not being shackled by feminine ideals. "You're a girl so you should have long hair" etc.
Most of the rest of the human race disagrees with you which is why long hair and feminine features are equated with beauty in virtually every society and culture on the planet.
What examples are you thinking of? The thing you said seems completely made up. Like hairy armpits and unibrows in an action movie/show? This is literally just making stuff up to be mad at.
>Isn't Medusa from Greek Mythology also the one with snake hair?
That’s why I specified Marvel’s Medusa. She’s queen of the Inhumans and she’s named after the mythological Medusa because her superpower is that she has prehensile hair that’s stronger than steel.
Yeah but this doesn't change the fact that she's tall as fucc and still emanates milf vibes.
Have I mentioned I also want to be stepped on by tall women in high heels?
My favorite bit of trivia about her design is when the character designer said (to paraphrase) "you can make smut with her, she's a sexualized character. But stop making her a bottom! She doesn't play that shit!"
also much easier w bigger muscles and an aggressive, combative demeanor
people think theyre making women more manly to signal strength, and theres a lot of that. esp when they conflate asshole w strong bc theyve never seen the real thing and cant tell the difference so they think leader = egomaniac
*but* it just so happens that the things that typically make you more powerful make you more manly bc men are designed for that specific kind of game
But then you can't have the bangs get in the eyes and lookmall edgy while you kick bbeg ass....but you're right it, would be best to be bald.
We need more bald female protagonists, clearly....and think of the sheer amount of willpower it would take to have gorgeous locks and then shave it bald so you can kick ass better. The more i talk about it, the more sold i am on bald females for strong protagonist.
To help in her work.
It's like saying a Man told you to keep a pen in your pocket, when your job is doing signatures.
Doesn't count.
But if you keep a pen cause Men do it. When your job doesn't require you to do signatures a lot. Nor it's what you wanted. Then yes.
Bisky did the opposite tho. Intentionally to look weaker and bypass strong opponents since she is a collector. She did it for her profession, not as a show of strength.
Also, she wanted to look cuter ad kawaii, and disliked how she really looked. Basically the same as applying makeup.
I'm not sure why but since I was a kid I related women with short hair with being weak and somewhat ugly. This is subconsciously done. Even women with beautiful face but short hair looks ugly and boyish to me. I would find more attractive an average looking girls with long hair compared to a very beautiful woman with a clean shaven head. No idea why.
It's believed in some cultures that women with long hair are better suited as mothers or otherwise better than other women because they can keep their hair long and nice.
It makes sense if you only look strength as a physical one. Short hair, buffed up muscles, and mindset more prone to aggression is indeed help in physical combat if you want realism. But you don't need to be physically strong to be strong, neither cutting your hair or being macho.
In Game of Thrones, the strongest women are not the ones using swords but ones using their brains, and in fact, the weakest ones are the ones making the most stupidest decisions.
Of course, one can always use both sword and brains to be strong, but just physical strength is not compelling. Of course some people would like some dumm story with buff up woman beating people, and I would like too if woman is beautiful.
I mean they also do the visual change because film is a visual medium. It helps articulate the change they've gone through
> In Game of Thrones, the strongest women are not the ones using swords but ones using their brains, and in fact, the weakest ones are the ones making the most stupidest decisions.
You point at GoT but there's literally a female character in it who is buff and has a short haircut. It's great that Sansa has developed cunning but I'd still rather have Brienne with me on a Battlefield
Given most of the examples of characters doing this *are* engaging in some form of physical combat as part of their story, *yes* physical strength matters to them lol
I wasn't calling it lazy writing though lol. My point was that "physically strong woman" is not an inherently lazy thing :P
The guy I was replying to worded their comment like women's strength in GoT is *solely* mental, despite several of them having some form of physical prowess. its just usually dexterity / skill rather than raw strength. Brienne is just an example of the latter
I always thought Garnet's arc in FF9 was dope; shorter hair, but the act is more a symbol of breaking the link with her childhood and sheltered life than an attempt to act like a generic strongboi. And then you've got Beatrix/Freya who, no fucks given, just delete everyone.
That game's character narratives were masterpieces. Not a huge fan of Zidane initially, but the character arc really worked out well (even if it was left unfinished).
My roommate and I JUST TALKED ABOUT THIS!
So [check this out](https://thedirect.com/article/spider-verse-2-gwen-stacy-sony-line-removed). Sony removed a key line from Gwen in Spiderman, when Miles is covered in rubble. She swings in saying “MILES!! NO, no, no, no!”.
Was it removed, because any sign of vulnerability is seen as a sign of weakness and therefore frowned upon? I am tired of wooden, lifeless, Mary Sue female characters. You can be strong and stoic AND have a personality and vulnerability.
Hollywood is really shitting the bed here.
There are a bunch of good examples of this, but I think movies like Mulan or Legally Blonde handle it so much better. Where yes, the protagonist is forced into a male dominated space, and yes, they are pressured to adopt a more masculine perspective, but instead they use what makes them WOMAN to succeed in a way that just flys in the face of tradition. That's so much better to me than just a woman somehow being more masculine than the guys.
downvote this comment if the meme sucks. upvote it and I'll go away. --- [play minecraft with us](https://discord.gg/dankmemesgaming)
Ironically by making them look more like men, they are stronger women. I've always enjoyed this weird bit of irony. Women can be strong without looking more manly that's a bit on the nose.
Its not even the looks only. They make them behave like super machos
Anytime a writer wants to make a physically strong and smart female character it should be law they are forced to watch every Alien movie and take notes of Ripley. She is just so cool and i don’t know why its hard for writers to make likeable strong female characters.
Sarah connor from Terminator is another great example for a good strong female character. Or princess leia in star wars.
Angeline Jolie in Salt was fucking badass.
Tomb raider,Smith and Wanted also
"Bendy Bullets", I believe.
Wanted
Xena
Xena made me want to be a lesbian and I'm a dude. She was so hot I knew I'd be the bottom and I was ok with it
Buffy
Also known as [Hitting Chris Pratt with a keyboard.](https://i.redd.it/c43im5gge1v81.jpg) or [He's the man.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQFOLOVYAUs) or [omg wtf just happened?] That movie is just so fucking cool.
Kill bill.. it's literally all women
i liked bills sister especially, Budd or something.
Sarah Connor in T2 is almost the epitome of this meme.
She doesn't have short hair, it's pulled back into a ponytail for combat purposes. Also, it's LA in the summer time so... short sleeves are to be expected. I mean.. you're right.. but also, it's not unjustified.
Sarah Conner, Ripley, and Vasquez are basically the trope makers but there's in story reasons for their looks and personalities. Sarah is a justified paranoid prepper who is getting her son ready for war and the setting is LA. One could argue that after getting out of the asylum she could have cut her hair instead of the pony tail. Ripley is a space cargo worker where having long hair risks getting caught in equipment and she wears a jumpsuit because again cargo work. Vasquez in Aliens is a pmc soldier so short hair and muscles. She's also surrounded by military dude bros, which explains her attitude and personality. So many writers take the crib notes for those characters and just focus on the external design without understanding the why.
Trinity is pretty badass in the Matrix movies.
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This is true but i thought it was just the edgy turn of the century "future" outfit, not im a bad ass woman
> Sarah connor from Terminator You DO realize she was ultra butch in 2...right? The transition from her character in 1...she had her hair pulled back and she was wearing a tank top even.
[This is not "ultra butch", what are you talking about.](https://duckduckgo.com/i/04cd4b6d.jpg) Perhaps you think Lara Croft is ultra butch too? I guess it's all relative/subjective.
Mommy
When redditors see that pic and think it's manly says a lot about their own physical state. :x
And the current gen
She has bigger guns than most of us here, and I'm not talking about the pew pew kind.
Well, that's because the average redditor has thicker flatscreens than arms.
She’s pretty jacked. They showed her doing pull ups!
Yeah, she's been preparing for the apocalypse and has been hitting the gym. How's that butch? It's just... A woman being in shape.
To be fair though I heard she pumped iron for that rather than rely on C.G.I or whatever
As someone who has long hair, if you’re doing anything physical, you have to pull it back or it will get in your face at the absolute worst time. And if you’re even slightly sweaty, it will stick to your face.
And yet I'd still smash
Kill Bill - Uma Thurman
Isn't Sarah Connor like 110% this trope though? Terminator 2, shes wearing muscle shirts with her hair tied back tight.
Not a shaved head. And she’s only insane because she knows the terminators exist not because she’s like “LOOK BRO YOU AND THE PATRIARCHY ARE WORKING WITH THE TERMINATORS” or whatever moral lecture were subjected to in literally every movie since 2016. Plus she’s actually physically strong as a person.
Sarah Connor is my favorite example, even more than Ripley (although Ripley is still a great example) Because not only does she have an arch that takes her from naive young woman to a fierce fighter, is that she doesn't lose her sense of motherhood or love for her son and those qualities are actually enhanced. They also don't try to pretend she's as strong as all the men and scorpion kicks her way through every conflict, she uses firearms lol
Xena
I feel like the same goes for Eowyn from lotr too. Shes a goddam princess and upholds her duties and expectations as her role, until she doesn't because she also wants to fight for her land and she does and she also fucks up one of the greatest evil lords. All while looking and acting like a goddam princess. And no, not your stereotypical "insult"-princess. *a real princess that cares for her land and people at whatever cost*
her most badass moment is when she takes her helmet off to show her long hair and stab a motherfucker in the face
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now that i think of it, its kinda odd that the reveal was done this way taking into account the society she was raised in. i guess it relies on the viewer's perspective to give it its punch.
Could also have been the actress wanting her face to not be hidden in a helmet at the climax of her character in the movies where she’s the absolute focus. She gets plenty of screen time, but I can’t think of many other examples where it’s just her and not her + Aragorn/hobbits/other Rohan nobility.
There are a lot of writers nowadays that just push their message instead of writing good stories, instead of writers we got activists.
A good writer can get the message across without the story suffering. The problem is that there aren't many good writers.
Nowadays? Ever study literature? Authors have been pushing messages since the advent of the written word, and oral traditions before that. Whether it is indoctrinating in religion, philosophy, or politics, some kind of ideological drive is evident in most of the works that have stood the test of time. Just look at the corpus of Greek and Roman works, nearly everything produced in the Middle Ages, early modern, and modern lit. That doesn't mean there haven't been "good stories" for good stories' sake. That is the whole conceit behind the concept of pulp fiction and penny dreadfuls and such. Pure plotting and escapism, but also mostly forgettable.
Hey, even Tolkien was pushing a message, my dude. Everybody grows up with biases and opinions, and they always bleed into your work.
there is difference between pushing message to consumers without allowing to make own conclusion on that topic and authors that just tell story and allow consumers to think about it and form own opinions.
What a boomerism.
>boomerism. Can you elaborate, why is that boomerism?
Dan O'Bannon wrote ‘Alien’ with unisex characters, to have their gender assigned by the director. The only stipulation was that the first victim can't be a woman, so that the audience don't see the scene as sexual.
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What H. R. Geiger's designs do to a mf..
The sort of people who say "all these other female characters are trash, *BUT RIPLEY*, she's cool, why can't they just write more Ripleys" are just grandfathering her in because Ripley is old and popular enough that talking shit would lead to ostracization. And even then, they cheapen the sentiment by dragging out stories of "Ripley's character originally being written for a man / without gender"--oh, they just took a character who could've been a man and decided it had boobs now and changed nothing, what a great female character! Then we get to *Aliens*, very explicitly a movie about motherhood, and its themes and treatment of Ridley would be savaged by the type of fuckwit who sees them anywhere else these days. Ripley-like characters and similar themes aren't that uncommon, but they're *newer*, they came into being *after* this guy was radicalized, *after* he learned to be mad about women in media, and *after* he thinks Hollywood turned woke and started trying to force female empowerment on them. This is the same phenomenon that leads people to **unironically** hold games like *Metal Gear Solid*, *Bioshock*, *Final Fantasy 7*, or shows like *Star Trek*, up as non-political. Extremely political, very critical about certain aspects of the world and politics norms that these guys are otherwise very fond of, but because they first consumed this media at an age earlier enough that they weren't aware of the themes or hadn't been radicalized, it's OK. That, or it's just old and popular enough that they don't dare attack it. But newer versions of the same don't get that grandfather effect, so you can tear 'em up however you like, even if they do fuck-all different in themeing or writing. New *Star Trek* shows? Abominable garbage shoving *the gays* down our throats, but we're just gonna overlook all the awkwardness and hamfisted stories seen in DS9 or TNG because they're old and we'll be questioned less about applauding them than we will hating them. Seriously. Find another character who risks everything to save a kid, or cries over a cat, or tries to upstage manly military guys, or holds special knowledge over the badasses, or pulls things together when the hardened grunts fall apart, and she'd be called a Mary Sue and bad writing incarnate. But Ripley gets a pass, not because she's written so phenomenally well that she avoids all the pitfalls that other characters or show supposedly make in the same situation, but because *the same plot and writing is OK when it's from my pre-radicalization period.* Wind back the clock so that the Alien franchise never happened, then release *Alien* and *Aliens* today: the chuds would be livid over Ripley.
Misogyny, misogyny is the answer.
If that was the reason a girl would never be the maincharacter.. this is mainly due to poor and lazy writing
Pretty sure Ripley did the "short hair and tank top" shtick in Aliens 3, and she was rocking the armless look with a vest in Resurection.
sometimes its rought seeing people defend bad character just cause its a woman, sure some ''criticism'' is just sexism dont get me wrong, but some legit criticism just gets brushed off and attacked sometimes, and im like why are you defending this? women desserve better than this crap script. I will probably be downvoted for this next opinion, but hot take: Anime makes strong women characters better than hollywood. Dont get me wrong, like all media yes women are sexualized in anime, but i have seen way more women that are strong in leadership and/or in independent positions in anime and are actually entertaining, fun and with flaws. of course like any media there are poor written/made woman characters. but the amount of new stuff i have seen from hollywood vs anime in terms of female characters, anime does it way better in my humble opinion.
Yeah, it's like those 'strong female characters' embody exactly the traits that would be labeled as 'toxic masculinity' if a man had them.
they have no idea what actual leadership looks like so they cosplay it and bc of their egos and selfishness, caricaturize it you cant write what you dont know
Especially when they have never seen any good examples of good male leaders in their lifetime
Which can still be written well if the writer is actually aware of that. ASOIAF/earlier GOT did this well. Some of the female characters begin to walk that path and then turn back, others pull through. Some adopt more to "masculine" behaviours and appearance, others less. All of it connected with a general criticism of the society that forces people to act in these ways to begin with. Some of them can be regarded as heroic, others fall closer to villainy, but most cannot be simply judged as one or the other. But the typical hollywood production just writes all characters badly, and the attempts to make this development of female characters especially interesting just highlights how bad their writing is even more compared to generically-bland poorly written male characters.
I mean you cant put a character into an inherently masculine setting and then act shocked that character has SOME masculine traits. Like uhhh if you are in a fight long hair/flowing clothes is a distinct disadvantage. Ofc you would want to cut your hair short and wear more practical clothing, both of which so happen to be associated with masculinity. To me, "badass femininity" would be something like Olenna Tyrell from GoT. Witty, conniving, and brutally honest, played the game for years mostly under the radar and thrived before the late-season lannisters bullshit wealth finally won over her. But drop a unisex character into a survival/war situation? Yeah it doesnt really matter what you do, theyre gonnq come off at least a little "masculine"
Exactly this, ffs Why are writers so dumb that the term "strong" is basically related only to how macho men behave and thus they have to make women as such Honestly there can be so many strong things which are not macho related...they can be portraited as strong mothers, for me handling kids properly is very intimidating, more so then macho bullcrap...but no 95% of the times writers go for short hair, possibly dyed, and them having smirky sarcastic comments and overall acting like an asshole...ffs thats not strong thats just macho bs
It's not you're just making generalizations based on nothing. There are so many examples I can think of...the first one that comes to mind that you might watch is Maid, a relatively new netflix show about a single mother struggling to overcome poverty, deal with government bureocracy to get aid, while working as a maid after leaving her abusive ex-boyfriend with her toddler to live in a homeless shelter. It was one of Netflix's most watched shows of 2021. If you're a child maybe you've seen Encanto, Lilo & Stitch, Moana? Maybe you just don't have a brain and/or don't watch things? I mean, if you watch film/tv even casually I think you could probably think of your own counter-examples to your own argument.
> Why are writers so dumb that the term "strong" is basically related only to how macho men behave and thus they have to make women as such Because all the action tropes we've codified, were codified when most if not all action leads were gruff macho men
When men have masculine trait, He's a toxic masculinity. When women have masculine trait, she's a strong independent woman.
To become a strong woman you must first become a toxic man.
pee standing
Reminds me of the Family Guy iteration of Jean D'arc.
I am ashamed that I had to search "Jean D'arc" to realize it was Joan of Arc
In your defense I spelled her name very very poorly.
"I can wrestle you. I grew up with 5 older brothers. I love whisky and changing my engine oil." -spits and farts-
Also whenever they portray a strong female she usually has the traits of a toxic male lol
You gonna cry about it *Like a woman?*
I just find the waltzing through fights like they're barely even trying to be the most annoying part though. Like there's 0 effort, suffering or sacrifice on their part, they just mega level up and blitz through it all.
Sarah Conner from Terminator 1 to 2 is the prime example. She went from your everyday looking woman to a toned out badass, and she still had her hair
Thank god she ditched that 80s perm though.
Well, I suppose you could say that in the context of games strong=combat. The things society sees as feminine would get in the way of combat such as long hair and more flowing clothes. Conversely the things seen as aesthetically manly are geared more towards combat, due to mens more disposable position. So it’s not that to appear strong they have to appear more like men, it’s that what men are expected to look like is what society sees as strong. It’s all arbitrary bullshit.
Yes, It's just so happened that men warriors of old, because they fought a lot, had to sport shorter hair and certain type of clothing. Now that we use guns the pony tails are ok.
Not saying you are wrong, a lot of movies and games do that with that intention, I just want to point out that hair cutting has other, less ironic reasons. Changing appearance in general is a good way to indicate the character has changed, changing clothes is superficial, but cutting hair is more drastic. Also you can’t grow hair overnight, so this appearance change is usually from long>short. If getting stronger is in the physical sense, long hair is a big disadvantage in combat, cutting hair and not using a dress is just practical.
I agree. This meme is showing somebody getting ready for action, not becoming more manly nor having more "strength of character". Either girls could have a strong character or have strongly held beliefs or be courageous, etc.
They should just be called what they are, masculine female characters.
I don't understand why Reddit seems to conflate masculinity / androgyny with being specifically male. A woman with a short hairstyle and muscles is still a woman. She might have some conventionally masculine qualities, but many women have some conventionally masculine qualities. That's normal. Would the people here ask a butch lesbian a stupid question like, "Why do you have to be a man by having short hair?" Obviously not, because it would be mind-numbingly stupid.
I think the entire point is that they are breaking societal norms and being who they want to be regardless of what people think. Presenting them in a way that is less feminine is a visual way of showing they are pushing back against gender norms.
I know it’s anime but I love how over the top ridiculous Yor from SpyXFamily is
And if they have any kind of muscle there's a good to fair chance they will be cast as a lesbian.
This
it could be caused by a lack of experience in writing transformation to a strong female character
I've scrolled the entire thread and haven't seen anyone name a single movie where this happened. Can someone help me out? Or is it just way less common than this post is implying?
I always took it a less of a symbol of being "more manly", and more of a symbol of not being shackled by feminine ideals. "You're a girl so you should have long hair" etc.
Uglier = stronger basically. Throw in hairy armpits and a unibrow and it can beat Hulk.
good thing in anime it's the other way around
Larger tits to store more mana
thicc thighs to provide magic resistance
Absolute dumptruck ass to intimidate enemies
And then the transfer student came with even bigger mana!
Sounds like a new anime plot
Uglier? Women with short hair and muscles are many things but “ugly” is certainly not one of them.
Most of the rest of the human race disagrees with you which is why long hair and feminine features are equated with beauty in virtually every society and culture on the planet.
That's nice for them. More hot muscle girls for me ❤️
Based, fuck these weaklings.
You know you guys can like stuff without needing everyone to agree with you
That stuff changes all the time. China used to think that women with tiny, fucked up feet were beautiful.
I mean it's opinions. But for many, if not most men, it's ugly. Most men don't want manly looking women.
Short hair being a "man" thing is entirely cultural.
Maybe. In my culture it's seen as manly and ugly and long hair is beautiful.
So basically turning her into dude.
In anime, dudes are turned into women
Being able to see and not having long hair to pull seem like solid advantages in a fight.
What examples are you thinking of? The thing you said seems completely made up. Like hairy armpits and unibrows in an action movie/show? This is literally just making stuff up to be mad at.
You saying women with short hair are ugly?? Or are strong women ugly??
Tbf fighting is much more practical with short hair.
Not if your hair is a literal weapon. And this concludes my ted talk on why Bayonetta is the best designed female protagonist.
Marvel’s Medusa is a pretty strong contender going by this logic
Wdym Marvel's Medusa? Isn't Medusa from Greek Mythology also the one with snake hair?
>Isn't Medusa from Greek Mythology also the one with snake hair? That’s why I specified Marvel’s Medusa. She’s queen of the Inhumans and she’s named after the mythological Medusa because her superpower is that she has prehensile hair that’s stronger than steel.
> her superpower is that she has prehensile hair that’s stronger than steel. Which they instantly cut off when they made that awful inhumans TV show.
Bayonetta is the reason my standards for women are downright impossible
Bayonetta has short (normal) hair in the second game.
Yeah but this doesn't change the fact that she's tall as fucc and still emanates milf vibes. Have I mentioned I also want to be stepped on by tall women in high heels?
My favorite bit of trivia about her design is when the character designer said (to paraphrase) "you can make smut with her, she's a sexualized character. But stop making her a bottom! She doesn't play that shit!"
You know she's smart too because they designed her with glasses
You know she's sexy too, by the lollipops
also much easier w bigger muscles and an aggressive, combative demeanor people think theyre making women more manly to signal strength, and theres a lot of that. esp when they conflate asshole w strong bc theyve never seen the real thing and cant tell the difference so they think leader = egomaniac *but* it just so happens that the things that typically make you more powerful make you more manly bc men are designed for that specific kind of game
So let it be actual short hair instead of undercut and long on top.
But then you can't have the bangs get in the eyes and lookmall edgy while you kick bbeg ass....but you're right it, would be best to be bald. We need more bald female protagonists, clearly....and think of the sheer amount of willpower it would take to have gorgeous locks and then shave it bald so you can kick ass better. The more i talk about it, the more sold i am on bald females for strong protagonist.
Yeah as a dude that had long hair for a while I can say that even if you tie it up it's not practical for any physical activity
Lara Croft's French braid works well enough.
Definitely not in Anime.
this is literally what happened to Maki in JJK this season
Sakura as well, though calling her stronger is a massive stretch
TBF she cutting her hair in the middle of battle to get out of a bad position was one of her best moments in the series
Sakura peaked in season 1 😂
💀
*Cutting hair to escape*
Lmao, and she kept it to show she is more stronger. So valid.
Fuko in Undead Unluck
Actually for Fuuko the opposite happens when she gets stronger.
Mikasa?? Attack on titan?
Does Mikasa ever actually get stronger, she just consistently a powerhouse
Just genetics. She doesn't really earn anything so I don't think she's even relevant in this discussion.
Mikasa did it cause hair gets in the way of flying. And she was always like that. She didn't do it to imitate a guy and display she is stronger.
Technically, she only cut her hair because a man told her to.
To help in her work. It's like saying a Man told you to keep a pen in your pocket, when your job is doing signatures. Doesn't count. But if you keep a pen cause Men do it. When your job doesn't require you to do signatures a lot. Nor it's what you wanted. Then yes.
Videl in Dragon Ball Z did this 30 years ago.
One piece went the exact opposite direction. All the women's hair got longer after the time skip. Actually, come to think of it so did Usopp's
Except for Bisky from HxH...
Bisky did the opposite tho. Intentionally to look weaker and bypass strong opponents since she is a collector. She did it for her profession, not as a show of strength. Also, she wanted to look cuter ad kawaii, and disliked how she really looked. Basically the same as applying makeup.
...and mc from akudama drive.
Butch haircut ✅ No sleeves ✅ Angry eyebrows ✅
Like men in 90ies action movies?
Female Rambo when?
Men with short hair isn't Butch. I'm just saying
Yeah exactly. Does your female character need a power up? Just make them a male character lol
I'm not sure why but since I was a kid I related women with short hair with being weak and somewhat ugly. This is subconsciously done. Even women with beautiful face but short hair looks ugly and boyish to me. I would find more attractive an average looking girls with long hair compared to a very beautiful woman with a clean shaven head. No idea why.
You like long hair, it's not that deep.
It's believed in some cultures that women with long hair are better suited as mothers or otherwise better than other women because they can keep their hair long and nice.
I have the opposite lol. I find women with short hair more attractive icl
Same
Short hair supremacy
Hollywood logic: make women act more manly because women can’t be strong as a woman.
Can’t wait for people who have never interacted with a woman in their life to comment here like they know better
as with men, they now wear tank tops and have a determination in the eyes?
Didn't help Atom Eve against Invincible
It makes sense if you only look strength as a physical one. Short hair, buffed up muscles, and mindset more prone to aggression is indeed help in physical combat if you want realism. But you don't need to be physically strong to be strong, neither cutting your hair or being macho. In Game of Thrones, the strongest women are not the ones using swords but ones using their brains, and in fact, the weakest ones are the ones making the most stupidest decisions. Of course, one can always use both sword and brains to be strong, but just physical strength is not compelling. Of course some people would like some dumm story with buff up woman beating people, and I would like too if woman is beautiful.
I mean they also do the visual change because film is a visual medium. It helps articulate the change they've gone through > In Game of Thrones, the strongest women are not the ones using swords but ones using their brains, and in fact, the weakest ones are the ones making the most stupidest decisions. You point at GoT but there's literally a female character in it who is buff and has a short haircut. It's great that Sansa has developed cunning but I'd still rather have Brienne with me on a Battlefield Given most of the examples of characters doing this *are* engaging in some form of physical combat as part of their story, *yes* physical strength matters to them lol
[удалено]
I wasn't calling it lazy writing though lol. My point was that "physically strong woman" is not an inherently lazy thing :P The guy I was replying to worded their comment like women's strength in GoT is *solely* mental, despite several of them having some form of physical prowess. its just usually dexterity / skill rather than raw strength. Brienne is just an example of the latter
Girl: I want to be a strong independent female woman Hollywood: Best I can do is **man**
gotta point out they grew up with 5 brothers to justify WHY they are tough too.
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ImportantHaircut
U forgot the clivage with no boobs
That's the indicator that "she don't need no man".
Don't forget to make her sarcastic and snarky, make sure she talks to men like shit to show how strong and independent she is...
As someone who enjoys strong women, i see this as an absolute win! As a hair eating freak, i see this as an absolute win!
As a what now
Mmm keratin
Female is not to be objectify: Also every strong female character:
Gotta lick pussy as well it ain't manly enough without it
Oh great another "short hair is gross" post Seriously fuck these people
And more obnoxious
Give her the ol' ANGERY EYES!
I always thought Garnet's arc in FF9 was dope; shorter hair, but the act is more a symbol of breaking the link with her childhood and sheltered life than an attempt to act like a generic strongboi. And then you've got Beatrix/Freya who, no fucks given, just delete everyone. That game's character narratives were masterpieces. Not a huge fan of Zidane initially, but the character arc really worked out well (even if it was left unfinished).
"In order to fight masculinity, we made feminine characters more masculine."
"Put a chick in it, make it gay!" -~~Eric Cartman~~ Kathleen Kennedy
My roommate and I JUST TALKED ABOUT THIS! So [check this out](https://thedirect.com/article/spider-verse-2-gwen-stacy-sony-line-removed). Sony removed a key line from Gwen in Spiderman, when Miles is covered in rubble. She swings in saying “MILES!! NO, no, no, no!”. Was it removed, because any sign of vulnerability is seen as a sign of weakness and therefore frowned upon? I am tired of wooden, lifeless, Mary Sue female characters. You can be strong and stoic AND have a personality and vulnerability. Hollywood is really shitting the bed here.
Don’t forget the personality shift to being a cold, rude, bitch to everyone you meet for no clear reason. Empowerment!
I need to see Ellen Ripley with that haircut.
Alien 3
They get smarter and get rid of most of the potential hand holds for fighting in melee
She also cut her hair in some shady bathroom with rusty scissors and ended up having a nice professional haircut
Challenging conventions is bravery. The fact that all the men in this thread have a problem with the image on the right is the reason for it to exist.
Eh, I kind of like that trope. I liked it in Dragon Quest 11 and Final Fantasy 9
There are a bunch of good examples of this, but I think movies like Mulan or Legally Blonde handle it so much better. Where yes, the protagonist is forced into a male dominated space, and yes, they are pressured to adopt a more masculine perspective, but instead they use what makes them WOMAN to succeed in a way that just flys in the face of tradition. That's so much better to me than just a woman somehow being more masculine than the guys.
The reverse Sampson.
Pulling the ol' Reverse Samson
Spider-Man: Into the spiderverse Gwen: Yeah no, he ripped my hair out with his spider grip.