The Top 5 Female Character Stereotypes & 1 Tip To Avoid Them

From: http://www.londonscreenwritersfestival.com/the-top-5-female-character-stereotypes-1-tip-to-avoid-them/

By Lucy V Hay

Strong female characters. Everyone wants one, it seems. Until you write one of these:

1. A Kickass Hottie
2. A [Negative Adjective*] female
3. A depressed and/or absent mother
4. A “tart with a heart”
5. A facilitator of the lead male’s emotions

NEWSFLASH: All of these female characters are BORING. Why? Because that’s all we ever seem to get as script readers, filmmakers or consumers, that’s why!

I’ve said it before at my site Bang2write multiple times, but I’ll say it again here: human beings prize novelty.  That’s just the way it is. As a writer and/or filmmaker you can fight that – and lose – or you can start thinking about how your characters are DIFFERENT to “all the rest”.

But stop right there!

Don’t kneejerk and go to the OPPOSITE end of the scale, either. That’s how we ended up in this mess in the first place, with “strong female characters” ending up invariably just “men, with boobs” or as a plot device for a male character’s justifications – or worse, gratification – as he does all the cool stuff going for **that goal** … of his.

But this is just it. To stand out?  You don’t want a “great female character” … You want a great character, who happens to be female.

But how to do this? Answer: Stop seeing your character as FEMALE FIRST. The best female characterisation comes down to this:

Personality first; gender second.

Gender is (usually) an important part of a person. But it’s not everything about that person. Yet it’s personality, not gender, that should act as the catalyst for that characters’ desires/goals, as well as their actions in driving the story forward. Writers seem to get this when they write their male characters, but very often end up writing “the girl character” in their screenplays. You know, the one that’s defined by her “femaleness”. Ack.

But guess what – it’s not even just the male writers who do this, either. Female writers do it too. In ten years of script editing, I have seen NO correlation between gender of the writer and “good” or “bad” female characters in their work. Writers make the same mistakes, whether they are male or female themselves … But by that same token, ANY writer has every chance of writing a well-drawn, authentic character regardless of their own gender. Well, d

uh.

Truly great female characterisation is rarely about role reversals for the sake of it, or going all out to be supposedly “ground breaking”. The best female characterisation I have read in screenplays or seen on screen is left of the middle: those great female characters are whole & rounded, no matter what their ambitions are; what they do for a job; who they spend their time with; what level of education they have; where they’ve traveled or whatever else you want to write into their character bios.

But equally, don’t strive to make all female characters ACTUALLY “good”, either. This is patronizing and ultimately foolhardy, since drama is conflict. There’s a strong chance you won’t want your female characters to behave logically or well all the time, else there will be no movie. That’s not to say every female character needs to be ditsy or a seductress with an Evil Plan, but she does need to feel authentic and “real”. Do you or the women in your life behave perfectly, 24/7? I know I don’t.

And forget “female empowerment”. Personally, I think resting the whole cause on the shoulders of one screenplay or a single movie is unrealistic. I think it’s better to think of female empowerment as a cumulative build up: a “drip, drip” effect, if you like. Movie making is a business first, art second. So let’s support the movement by getting behind female filmmakers and consuming movies with those great characters **who happen to be female** in them.

So, think again about those “usual” characters I mention at the beginning of this post … Maybe your female character *is* able to kick ass; maybe she has a tragic backstory; maybe she ignores or disappoints her children; maybe she’s a stripper or sex worker; maybe she is able to tap into the lead male’s psyche … whatever. Just make sure that’s not ALL she does.

Put your female characters under the micro

scope and think left of the middle. Take an element of your character and twist it; give us details of WHO she is and WHY – don’t reduce her to a single role function. In short:

Don’t be the “usual”. Don’t be boring.

UPDATE - Rhainna Pratchet, tasked with rebooting Lara Croft added “With the reimagining of Lara Croft we were attempting to bring more texture and depth to her character by exploring a period of her life that players hadn’t experienced before. We know that Lara Croft is brave, resourceful and resilient, but we wanted to show where that came from and how it evolved, and let players be part of that journey. It wasn’t a story about being female, it was a story about being human and the enduring nature of the human spirit in the face of adversity.”

BIO: Lucy V Hay is a script editor, novelist and blogger who helps writers via herBang2write consultancy. Lucy is one of the organisers of London Screenwriters’ Festival and also the Associate Producer of Brit Thriller DEVIATION that features a female protagonist.

*Usually depressed and responsible for the death of someone else (usually a sister), the negative adjective used most often to describe female character archetype number 2) is “guilt ridden”.