Three Dancing Nymphs and a Reclining Cupid in a Landscape, by Antonio Zucchi
We love them, we hate them, we love to hate them, and we hate to love them. Throughout the ages, audiences, regardless of their gender, have always had a complicated relationship with female characters that demonstrate complexity. For a long time, women’s roles in the media were that of a love interest, victim, or villain. Whether she was the girl the guy gets at the end of the story, an angry woman taunting others until the hero defeats her, or a mischievous siren seducing men into submission, the role always came with a set list of characteristics and traits. Generations of women have felt the impact of these stories. So, no wonder when the audiences were finally presented with more complicated portrayals of womanhood, they had no idea what to do with them.
I Googled ‘complex female character’ to see what the internet thinks this definition really means. Throughout many lists, one name kept popping up: Amy Dunne from Gone Girl. This name made me think of two things. One, many female characters we deem complex just subvert the outdated ideas of women in film, TV and literature. Amy Dunne’s ‘cool girl monologue’ perfectly demonstrates how an age-old trope was used to manipulate and deceive. Perhaps the only thing this trope was good for was to show us how harmful it can be for both men and women to create boxes and checklists for each other. Beyond the cunning nature of her crime and the use of men’s expectations and ideas of women against them, I am not sure what other complexities Amy Dunne presented. What was so hard for the audiences to reconcile with when it came to her character? Honestly, I have no idea. The second thing I thought of is that we still have some work to do as far as truly complex and unpredictable characters go.
When creating a character, we give them a list of qualities, ideas, and values. Then, if she is lucky enough to get more screen time, we throw in a little backstory. Most of the time, at least in older content, we don’t get a chance to learn about the female character’s motivations; we are simply left assuming. When looking at movies where two people of the opposite gender are given the same amount of screen time, we never seem to wonder what the male characters’ goals and motivations are since we are served them on a silver platter. Knowing that I now urge you to go back to your favourite movies with male and female characters as leads and ask the following question: What does the journey of the woman tell us about her? What are her strengths and weaknesses? Where does she shine, and more importantly, where does she fall short? Even if the complexity of women on screen has progressed over the years, one thing remains a mystery: the woman’s ordinary human flaws. If a woman succeeds, she’s just doing what she was always meant to do, and if she succeeds at the expense of others (especially the story’s male characters), she is immediately labelled a villain. If a woman fails or is failed by other main characters, she takes it silently with a tear slowly falling down her well-contoured cheek, or, in the more recent adaptations of the conflict, she falls into a rage, truly showing her anger and frustration. Although I consider the portrayal of female rage a step forward, there are so many nuanced moments between these extremes that are yet to be explored. I don’t know about you, but when I get angry, sad or frustrated, my two immediate reactions are not always to cry in silence or scream as loud as I can.
It feels like these associations were created and popularised so viewers could draw clear conclusions about the characters and focus on the plot instead. That is why audiences often try to simplify the actions of even the most complicated characters. Nowadays, we see more content prioritising character development over plot. The plot becomes the background, and human feelings and reactions come to the forefront. And none of them are simple.
When we see a female character who is truly complicated, we seem to have two main reactions, either to label them as ‘bitchy’ and ‘annoying’ or make thirst edits of them on TikTok. Both reactions don’t include us diving into who the character really is. Shiv Roy was either praised or persecuted for her often morally ambiguous actions. Yet, while her male counterparts were judged by their actions as people, she was often judged by her actions as a woman. Perhaps the discomfort the audience feels towards the complex female characters is rooted in their actions matching those of the complex male characters. If that is the case, we should look no further than the character of Harper Stern in the show The Industry. Harper, in all her mischievous complexities, has been labelled sociopathic and cruel, and while all those things might be true, her character seemed way harder for people to reconcile with than, for example, Eric, whose behaviour was similar to Harper’s. Perhaps the reason a lot of male viewers have an issue with characters like Harper and Shiv is that they simply do not expect to be faced with multilayered and emotionally enigmatic women when watching shows marketed toward their interests. I would imagine that if some guy with little emotional intelligence, especially when it comes to understanding female emotions, tunes into a show expecting to watch dudes talk about finance or billion-dollar companies and encounters a complex and imperfect woman who does not necessarily fit the tropes he is used to seeing he would simply not know what to do with her. So, instead of spending his time breaking down the character and trying to understand her, he would rather put a familiar label on her and move on.
As much as I want to bash emotionally immature dudes, I must be fair and mention my own shortcomings. When I hear criticisms of these same female characters, no matter how true they might be, I often feel the need to immediately jump to their defence simply because women in media have been so misrepresented I can’t handle the idea of one being criticised. I often feel silly defending the obvious flaws of these characters or saying, ‘Hear me out’ when I know there is nothing much to hear out. In doing so, I am also taking away from the legitimacy of their character since the only reason I am defending their actions more than those of male characters is because they are women. For me, truly admitting the negative actions of these characters might also lead to understanding them and perhaps even seeing myself in some of their more questionable characteristics. Who would want to go down that rabbit hole?
I will not even begin to talk about how female characters are viewed differently based on their ethnic background, social status and physical appearance. When the viewers see a ‘conventionally attractive’ (whatever that means) woman of a high social standing doing devious and problematic things, they immediately soften to her actions, as if looking hot or being rich allows her more flaws (we even apply pretty privilege to fictional characters, wow). The same goes for women of colour on screen whenever they allow themselves a bit of complexity. I bring you back to Harper Stern of The Industry, who was persecuted for her, yes, admittedly horrible actions without the viewers giving her the courtesy of understanding her background and the way she views herself in a space dominated by people different from her. This problem also exists for male characters; however, sometimes their actions are still fairly judged and questioned separately from their physical appearance and background. For any character, the lack of consideration for these external variables takes away from the matter at hand, their feelings and motivations.
As I dive deeper into all the issues of seeing a complex woman on screen, I also begin to question what truly is a complex character. I have seen many male and female characters who have developed over the run of a series or movie franchise and have become more layered as time passed just because we had time to get to know them. So, does a character just need time to become complex? Or is the place from which they start as important? Does complexity stem from a viewer’s struggle to fully understand them, or from the character’s unapologetically human nature that defies conventional tropes?
If the reason for the character’s complexity is their displays of the more ugly and unpolished parts of humanity, then judging them might come naturally. We would most certainly not look kindly on a person who behaves that way in real life, the same way we would not be looked upon kindly if we behaved that way. Nevertheless, many conditions and circumstances for female characters in film or TV are just over-dramatised versions of issues we face in real life. So, instead of judging their actions immediately, we must break down who the characters are as people (well, fictional people) and ask ourselves – What would we do? Because as much as we would like to think we would be the best versions of ourselves in the face of a crisis, that is not always the case. Yet, instead of analysing the very real human characteristics and reactions these women represent, we use labels. Oh well, I guess labels are easier to digest.
One good thing I can say about the recent increase in complex female characters on both the big and small screen is that despite being misunderstood, they are still slowly moving the discussion away from traditional archetypes. The characters are no longer viewed as just love interests, just women who only care about work or just manic pixie dream girls who are there to help move the plot and create adventurous scenes that will serve as material for hundreds of video edits on social media. To the credit of some of the past characters written with these archetypes in mind, they still managed to sneak some complexity past the stereotypical tropes. For example, legendary manic pixie dream girls Summer from 500 Days of Summer and Clementine from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind showed us their multifaceted personalities. The issue is that we were still not given enough important scenes to fully experience these women’s convoluted nature. So we are left with characters who were maybe not envisioned to be complex or revolutionary but are now being broken down and studied to show how deep they were while building a hypothesis on what we could have seen if the films just let us see more. In the case of Summer, initially presented as an adventurous and free-spirited woman who shakes up the unfortunate protagonist’s life, the girl who was supposed to be a means to an end and help the protagonist’s journey by rejecting him, is now praised as a liberator of women stuck in unwanted situationships who bravely said she didn’t want to be unhappy instead of tiptoeing around, frightened to hurt the person who she knows is not right for her anyway.
The characters evolve, their complexities evolve with them, and it becomes harder and harder to distinguish what a truly complex female character is in the sea of inverted tropes and ironic stereotypes. Perhaps the real complexity of each character lies in all the different ways they can be approached, broken down, and studied. After all, here I am discussing and debating the audience’s and my approach towards them for over 1000 words without uncovering one specific characteristic that defines their complexity. Regardless of the definitions, each woman on screen brings with herself new and exciting aspects of humanity that push us to explore more of their depth and our own. All we need to do in order to create more space for these characters is judge them based on their personality, not just their gender.