Rise of the Women?: Screening Women in Science Since 2000

I am interested in thinking about how women have been represented in recent Hollywood/American science-based fiction cinema and whether we have really moved beyond relying on stereotypes, sex, and spectacle. Female scientists are increasing in frequency in Hollywood, but they are not being given adequate representation – they are often secondary to their male partners.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

This guest post written by Amy C. Chambers originally appeared at The Science and Entertainment Laboratory and an edited version appears here as part of our theme week on Women Scientists. It is cross-posted with permission. 


One of my major issues with the most recent addition to the Planet of the Apes franchise, Dawn of the Planets of the Apes (2014), were the roles available to women – both human and ape. In an article I wrote about the film, immediately after its release, I noted that (the very few) female characters were only “represented as child bearers and care takers.” The fabulous Judy Greer, a former dancer who studied simian movement and motion-capture for months in preparation for the role, gets barely any screen-time playing the wife of Caesar (Andy Serkis). Cornelia doesn’t actually get referred to by name so you have to look to the posters or IMDb if you want to know it; interestingly her name is a reference to Cornelius the male chimpanzee from the first three Apes films released in the late-1960s and 1970s (Planet of the Apes, Beneath the Planet of the Apes, and Escape from the Planet of the Apes). The female human, Ellie (Keri Russell) is the only scientist in the film. She is revealed to have worked for the CDC as a research scientist and medic, but in the film she is only given the opportunity to use her medical skills to treat Cornelia’s post-natal complications after she births another boy for Caesar. Ellie’s medical intervention essentially diffuses male aggressiveness and reinforces lazy stereotypes. The women are background characters, barely involved, and overshadowed by their male companions.

Alien_Ellen Ripley

I am interested in thinking about how women have been represented in recent Hollywood/American science-based fiction cinema and whether we have really moved beyond relying on stereotypes, sex, and spectacle. Female scientists are increasing in frequency in Hollywood, but they are not being given adequate representation – they are often secondary to their male partners. Any discussion of women in science fiction will often look to the 80s hero, engineer Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) in Alien (1979). Ripley wields her guns, her attitude, and her brains with pride and power, and she blurs the boundaries between feminine and masculine character traits and stereotypes. She has no love interest, she doesn’t need rescuing, and makes better decisions than her male counterparts. She is a young, educated woman, a survivor, and a hero – her gender is not the most important or interesting thing about her. Ripley was originally conceived and scripted as a male character and some of her strength and progressive nature may be attributed to that. But despite the gender-swap history of character, Ripley is still one of the strongest female characters in a science-based movie. I think it is absurd that a character created before I was born is still considered the strongest female character in a science-based movie; it’s 2016, not 1986.

Female scientist characters are often defined by their relationships to men – as a daughter, a girlfriend, a wife, an assistant, or a colleague. Women are rarely presented as having achieved their scientific status and agency without the aid or inspiration of male character. For example, recent blockbuster Interstellar (2014) included two major female scientist characters Dr. Amelia Brand (Anne Hathaway) and ‘Murph’/Murphy Cooper (played as an adult by Jessica Chastain) both of whom are manipulated and inspired by their fathers. Brand is the daughter of the orchestrator of the film’s central mission, Professor Brand played by Michael Caine. But in addition to this relationship, Amelia Brand is willing to sacrifice herself, the mission, and potentially the future of humanity to be reunited with her boyfriend – Dr. Wolf Edmunds. Interstellar’s male lead ‘Coop’/Joseph Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) abandons his daughter Murph and for much of the film she is shown as a woman consumed with anger towards her father. She holds a grudge that spans decades, seemingly unable to appreciate that her father left on a mission to save humanity. Her scientific career and brilliance is apparently driven by her emotion, rather than her own ambition.

Interstellar

I have lots of issues with the Star Trek reboot, and it seems vaguely unfair to pick on just one of them. But let’s talk very briefly about Dr. Carol Marcus (Alice Eve), a Star Fleet Science Officer with a PhD in applied physics and a specialism in advanced weaponry who features in Star Trek Into Darkness (2013). Marcus is ultimately defined by her position as the daughter of Admiral Alexander Marcus – the head of Starfleet. She initially hides her true identity by using her mother’s maiden name: Wallace. Yes, Carol does indeed do some science and saves Kirk, but in one scene this potentially brilliant female scientist is simply, and frankly unnecessarily reduced to a sexual object. It’s a short scene played for laughs, but when one of only two major female characters in a huge science fiction franchise — the other being Zoë Saldana’s Uhura, now in a relationship with Spock — is shown in her underwear (for no reason) you have to wonder about how and why filmmakers incorporate female scientists, and female characters more generally, into their films. This brief sequence feels as similarly out of place as the scene at the end of Alien when Ripley strips down to her underwear. As Xan Brooks comments in an article about Ripley as a revolutionary heroine: “It is as though the makers were so alarmed by what they had unleashed that they tried to rein her back at the last minute.” It was out of place in 1979, and it is unacceptable now.

Star Trek Into Darkness_Carol Marcus

These are just a few poor examples that caught my eye and they are based upon my own viewing, so I asked my social media hive-mind to help me with producing a list of female scientists in Hollywood films released since 2000. It was not extensive. Interestingly, I could find far more female scientists in films released during the 1990s. We will have missed some, but it should not be that difficult to come up with a list of female characters that took on prominent scientist roles in the last 5, 10, or 15 years.

Excluding Brand and Murph from Interstellar, Carol Marcus from Star Trek Into Darkness, and Ellie from Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, we came up with: evolutionary biology student Karen (Brit Marling) in I Origins (2014), archaeologist and paleontologist Dr. Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) in Prometheus (2013); medical engineer Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) in Gravity (2013), geneticist Dr. Marta Shearing (Rachel Weisz) in Bourne Legacy (2012), astrophysicist Dr. Jane Foster (Natalie Portman in Thor (2011) and Thor: The Dark World (2013), veterinarian Dr. Caroline Aranha (Freida Pinto) in Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011), xenobotanist (studying alien plant life) Dr. Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver) in Avatar (2009), genetic engineer Dr. Elsa Cast (Sarah Polley) in Splice (2009), and botanist Corazon (Michelle Yeoh) in Sunshine (2007). Of the women listed here few are, besides Elizabeth Shaw in Prometheus and Ryan Stone in Gravity, their film’s central protagonist. For example, in Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Caroline Aranha is a thinly drawn scientist character and love interest who assists Will Rodman (James Franco), and in Bourne Legacy, Marta Shearing is a brilliant but dangerous geneticist working in a secret lab who becomes a love interest and damsel in need of rescue for/by Aron Cross (Jeremy Renner).

Thor_Jane (Natalie Portman)

In Thor (2011), Jane Foster is an astrophysicist rather than a nurse, as she appeared in Marvel’s Thor comics. She is apparently given an intellectual upgrade and a sassy non-scientist female intern named Darcy (Kat Dennings). Jane was changed from a nurse to a research scientist following discussions between science advisors provided by the Science and Entertainment Exchange and the filmmakers, who wanted to update the character for a 21st-Century audience. Portman prepared for the role by reading the biographies of women scientists and was interested in creating a female scientist that could extend beyond the clichés of what a female character could be and do.

“I got to read all of these biographies of female scientists like Rosalind Franklin who actually discovered the DNA double helix but didn’t get the credit for it, the struggles they had and the way that they thought — I was like, ‘What a great opportunity, in a very big movie that is going to be seen by a lot of people, to have a woman as a scientist.’ [Jane]’s a very serious scientist. Because in the comic she’s a nurse and now they made her an astrophysicist. Really, I know it sounds silly, but it is those little things that makes girls think it’s possible. It doesn’t give them a [role] model of ‘Oh, I just have to dress cute in movies.” – Natalie Portman

Thor Jane poster

The decision to make Jane Foster an astrophysicist was motivated by a desire to incorporate references to ‘real’ science and to incorporate a female scientist who might act as inspiration for future female scientists. It is indeed great to see a major female character in a blockbuster movie franchise as a scientist. But in the presence of Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Jane just goes googly-eyed and her scientific career and research become secondary to this new love interest (who just happens to literally be a god). She accepts his framing of science as magic without questioning (as any leading scientist would) and her research seems to ultimately become about finding him after the Bifröst Bridge is destroyed at the end of the first movie. In a great scene from Thor: The Dark World (2013), Jane is on an awkward blind date that she cuts short when Darcy crashes the date with new findings and readings that had previously preceded the arrival of Thor. Jane was framed as “the woman of science” in the film’s 2010/2011 marketing campaign, but in the film itself, her scientific prowess has NO influence upon the plot. Jane’s advanced understanding of astrophysics and her research is seriously under-used and so is the character who given little chance to develop beyond being Thor’s human love interest.

For a genre that is defined by its futuristic otherworldly framework and its potential to imagine alternate societies and power relations, the cultural politics of the science fiction genre have been consistently Earthbound. Movies reflect the period in which they are created and they often present both hopes for progress as well as revealing deep-seated prejudices. Filmmakers often fail to fully realize their attempts at progress – although this can be due to a number of reasons across the production process, including interference from the studio, and in the reception of the film that is outside of the director’s control. As feminist science fiction writer and critic Joanna Russ famously noted, science fiction narratives present a type of “intergalactic suburbia,” where Western society is presented with only a few futuristic additions, tending towards showing “an idealized and simplified” past that retains traditional power relations. The world has undergone huge advances across STEM but traditional, binaristic gender relations remain in tact. Russ’s comments criticize not only gender representation but also race and class by recognizing the preservation of traditional structures in futuristic and near-future narratives.

I Origins

Is it possible to change perceptions of women in STEM through better and more pervasive representation of women in science-based popular cinema? Would more female scientists in popular cinema help to encourage young women to pursue STEM careers? Several groups are working to improve the representation of science, and women of science in the film industry. For example, The Science Entertainment Exchange “is a program of the National Academy of Sciences that connects entertainment industry professionals with top scientists and engineers to create a synergy between accurate science and engaging storylines in both film and TV.” They work to create a stronger relationship between the industry and experts in order to present a more realistic image of science and scientists, both women and men, on-screen. The Scirens promote the need for increased science literacy in the general public and consider how women can be ambassadors for this cause. One of the Scirens, Taryn O’Neill, wrote an interesting piece on this subject called “Actresses for STEM that inspired the project; it is worth a read. They have all worked to improve representation by encouraging a movement away from clichés in order to engage and retain audiences.

A study published in 2005 by Jocelyn Steinke looked at female scientist representation between 1991 and 2001. She found that about 30% of scientists in the movies released in her survey time-frame were female and that those women tended to be sane, eschewing the “mad evil scientist” stereotype, and tended to avoid questionable scientific experiments. Although in more recent cinema, Elsa in Splice and Marta in Bourne Legacy do use science in an ethically problematic fashion, with Elsa splicing together the DNA of different animals to create new hybrids for medical use, and Marta experimenting upon and maintaining genetically altered super assassins. Despite these two recent examples, women scientists on-screen are generally positive figures. At least until you consider how restrictively they are packaged – as Eva Flicker notes in her Public Understanding of Science article “Between Brains and Breasts“:

“[The female scientist] is remarkably beautiful and, compared with her qualifications, unbelievably young. She has a model’s body – thin, athletic, perfect – is dressed provocatively and is sometimes ‘distorted’ by wearing glasses.”

Arrow_Felicity Smoak

An interesting example of this from recent TV is computer scientist Felicity Smoak in Arrow (2012-) – she wears glasses in the lab and removes them when she goes undercover as ‘the beautiful woman’ allowing her to slip into venues unnoticed. She’s more than just a bit of sci-candy as her abilities are integral to the mixed gender team she works with, but it is intriguing that she still falls into a visual classification that can be applied to the representation of female scientists since the 1930s. Although arguably, female scientists and highly-intelligent female characters should be allowed to be both beautiful and brainy, shifting away from the idea that beauty and brains are mutually exclusive, Hollywood is still offering a restricted image of the gifted woman. Science can be as the European Commission  recently campaigned ‘a girl thing!’ – but there must be scope to communicate the notion that science is for everyone regardless of gender, race, sexual orientation, age, disability, or class (Alice Bell wrote a brilliant response to the European Commission campaign).

Some major future-dystopia film franchises have shown the potential for multifaceted female characters. The Hunger Games and Divergent do provide smart female protagonists: Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) and Tris (Shalene Woodley). But these women are fighters and leaders, not women of STEM. Both of these franchises are based upon young adult (YA) novels and therefore do not necessarily work well as comparisons to the adult science-based narratives I have been discussing. The rules are different for YA adaptations; since the immense success of The Twilight Saga teenage girls have become a major market for Hollywood and films are made to specifically cater for this influential and profitable group. The problem seems to be adult women. The idea that women, and perhaps even some men, might want to see a film with a female lead and a cast with more than a few token women is seeming incomprehensible for contemporary Hollywood. The desire for big opening weekends and early high profits has possibly created a culture of stereotypical gender representation, and a tired narrative cinema that relies upon reboots, sequels, and reaffirming traditional structures. Rise of the women? Not really.


See also at Bitch Flicks: Women in Science in the Marvel Cinematic UniverseThe Women of ‘Interstellar’‘Dawn of the Planet of the Apes’: My Dear Forgotten Cornelia; Does Uhura’s Empowerment Negate Sexism in ‘Star Trek Into Darkness’?Did Gender Alter the Tone of the ‘Alien’ Series?The Women of ‘Thor: The Dark World’; ‘Star Trek Into Darkness’: Where Are the Women?


Amy C. Chambers is a postdoctoral researcher at Newcastle University in the UK researching the intersection of science and entertainment media. Her newest project explores the representation and the projected futures of women within scientific cultures in science fiction. She blogs about her research and interests at the Science and Entertainment Laboratory and The Unsettling Scientific Stories Project, and you can follow her on Twitter at @AmyCChambers.

Superheroines Week: The Roundup

Check out all of the posts from our Superheroines Theme Week here.

BF Superheroines Week Roundup

How the X-Men Films Failed Iconic Black Female Superhero Storm by Sara Century

To me, this is where the X-Men films utterly fail Storm as a character. While her comic form is definitely a sympathetic and understanding person, more importantly, she is a warrior trained in hand-to-hand combat, an orphan, a divorcee, a Black woman in a leadership role on a team of mostly white men, a wife, a mentor, and an activist.


‘Supergirl’ and Room for the Non-Brooding Superhero by Allyson Johnson

There is an indisputable charm to Kara’s strong will that can go toe to toe with the might of her fist. Here is a young woman that believes so strongly in her fellow being that she tries talking to many of the baddies of the week rather than immediately resorting to fighting. Her kindhearted and giving spirit is ultimately what sets her apart from the other heroes that have populated television and movies for the last few years…


Catwoman, Elektra, and the Death of the Cinema Superheroine by Heather Davidson

Now, don’t get me wrong – neither Catwoman nor Elektra are by any means good movies. The first is silly, the second dull, and both are confusing and ugly, with little interest in their source material and an odd propensity to give characters magical powers. They deserved to fail – but they didn’t deserve to take an entire gender down with them.


Top 10 Superheroines Who Deserve Their Own Movies by Amanda Rodriguez

So few superheroines are given their own movies. I’m officially declaring that it’s high time we had more superhero movies starring women. The first in a series of posts, I’m starting with a list of my top 10 picks for super babes who deserve their own flicks.


Why Scarlet Witch May Be the Future of Women in the Marvel Cinematic Universe by Maddie Webb

Having a superhero grapple with the right use of their power is hardly a new theme and it’s central to the broader narrative of Captain America: Civil War. But allowing a female superhero to tackle the same dilemma on a deeply personal level feels quietly subversive. …Women superheroes can be inhumanly powerful without being reduced to a boringly infallible female badass caricature.


Elektra in Daredevil: Violence, White Masculinity, and Asian Stereotypes by Kelly Kanayama

And then there’s Elektra Natchios, half-Asian, half-white, sexual, violent, dangerous, and in some ways, the most problematic character on the show. … Yet there is something strangely compelling about Elektra, not as an extension of the show’s tired prejudices against Asian people, but as a woman who despite her questionable origins transcends the limiting Strong Female Character trope. …Her presence in and of itself disrupts the masculine hegemony of violence in the show.


Daisy Johnson, Superheroine of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. — And Why She Matters by Lee Jutton

What makes Daisy special among superheroes is that she embodies all of these tropes as the centerpiece of a network television series — and is also a woman. Not only that, she is a mixed-race woman — and not a token one, but one surrounded by other women, of various ages, races and backgrounds.


Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the Humanization of the Superheroine by Kaitlyn Soligan

Often carrying the burden of representation in a genre overrun with male characters, superheroines were strong or weak, clear-headed or in constant need of saving, but rarely complex or allowed complicated internal lives, and even more rarely truly relatable. Buffy changed all that.


Supergirl’s Feminism and Why the Series Works by Dennis R. Upkins

Even with her powers, Kara is the underdog who has to evolve to overcome insurmountable odds, thus making her relatable to viewers. With the series being entitled Supergirl, it shouldn’t be a surprise that feminism is a prevalent theme. What is a pleasant surprise is how well the series tackles it.


Barbarella and the “Savagery” of Futuristic Sexual Politics by Olga Tchepikova

One version of Barbarella draws her as a progressive, sex-positive, and role model-worthy character that saves the universe. … Barbarella the character might be the worst example of a superheroine by many of our contemporary expectations for a female lead not least because of the ambiguous dynamics of her (sexual) agency. … ‘Barbarella’ as a film remains a superheroine movie with a mission: save the future of sexual politics.


How Hawkgirl Saved Me by Maggie Slutzker

This is about my favorite chess-playing, mace-wielding, war-crying, winged superheroine role model: Shayera Hol. … Hawkgirl taught me to be observant. She taught me that it’s possible to come through trying times. She taught me that being able to think was just as important as being able to fight, and that good and evil aren’t always absolutes.


Why Black Widow Is the “Realest” Superheroine of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (Yes, Even After All Those Tropes) by Kayleigh Watson 

It is this factor alone why Black Widow is so important. She is the longest standing female protagonist within the Marvel film franchise, having starred in Iron Man 2, The Avengers, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Avengers: Age of Ultron and most recently, Captain America: Civil War. She was the only female Avenger in both Avengers films (until Scarlet Witch switched sides at the end of Age of Ultron), and as such was subject to being the onscreen vessel of female representation in a superhero super-team otherwise occupied by straight white men.


How Does Vixen Collide with Race, Gender, a Black Sense of Home, and the Video Vixen? by Tara Betts

…There is more to be said about how essentializing African identities around myth, folklore, the continent, and animals can impose limits on how Black people, particularly Black women, can be written, and how those Black characters are experienced in a more accessible, mainstream outlet. In other words, even Black superhero characters, carry the burden of limitations if the racial stereotypes outweigh the plot and character development. In this case, Vixen has room for more episodes, a potential live-action series, and delving deeper into a host of issues on identity, power, and defining home.


Brown Girls Can Be Heroes Too: Why We Need a Ms. Marvel Movie by Bhavna Vasnani

I’d internalized the rather damaging notion that only white girls deserve to have their stories told. Only white girls can slay the patriarchy without breaking a nail. Only white girls get to be the heroes, and get to be heroes of their own stories. And the rest of us? We don’t matter. … It’s important for young South Asian girls to see that just because they’re South Asian doesn’t mean that they have to be relegated to the sidelines, to being the sidekick, to being the brainy Indian doctor, and so on. They can be superheroes too.


Stop the Fridging: The Invisible Feminism of Arrow by Becky Kukla

So while Arrow seems pretty reluctant to move away from the traditional stance on women existing to be love interests and to be rescued, the individual female characters themselves sometimes show some hints of progressiveness… if only they’d be allowed to live long enough!


Show Me a (Woman) Villain by Mary Iannone

We all recognize the gross disparity of women superheroes, in the Marvel canon and beyond. But I would argue that the cinematic landscape is even less primed to allow women supervillains. … Women are generally presented as easily manipulated and too emotional to be true villains. It is yet another characterization of the “soft” woman, dictated by her emotions, propelled by a propensity to nurture rather than destroy. But we need stories of women who hunger for power, who are willingly selfish, and who stick to their principles, no matter the cost. … No more scenes of men talking women into saving the world. Let them try their best to destroy it.


Batgirl / Oracle: A Superheroine with a Disability and Representation by Adam Sherman

There aren’t a lot of superheroes with disabilities; many of the ones who do gain powers from their disabilities. … Barbara Gordon as Oracle is a more accurate and positive representation of people with disabilities. She’s way more real because despite the fact that she sometimes needs the help of more able-bodied people, like a real person living with paralysis from the waist down, she still lives a positive and active life.


Where Are All the Superheroines Who Are Getting Too Old For This Shit? Ageism and Superhero Movies by Celey Schumer

Even in the rare superhero films with more gender-balanced casts, the age gap between male and female performers can be seen time and time again. Men are allowed to age, to become grizzled, world-weary with experience, or stew for years on a plot of vengeance. … Their women counterparts, however, must remain lithe, “hot,” and never over the age of 40.

Go ahead, try and find a superheroine or female supervillain over 40. I’ll wait. Great. Now that we’re all done pointing at Halle Berry as Storm — who was 46 at the release of X-Men: Days of Future Past — and Famke Janssen as Jean Grey/Phoenix — who was 41 at the release of X-Men: The Last Stand — let’s look at the bigger picture.


Scarlet Witch and Kitty Pryde: Erased Jewish Superheroines by Sophie Hall

While Black Widow’s portrayal remains true to her comic book origin, Scarlet Witch’s does not, as her comic book counterpart is Romani and Jewish. … Not only is erasing Judaism a disservice to both Scarlet Witch and Captain America, it’s also disrespectful to the Jewish writers who invested so much in making a statement about Jewish resistance in their artistic expression. …

In the comics, Kitty Pryde is a feisty, spirited, and proudly Jewish member of the X-Men. …The filmmakers missed out on a more poignant story. Kitty Pryde would have faced what her ancestors faced generations ago; where they were targeted for their religion, Kitty was now being targeted for her mutation.


Superheroines of Color and Empowerment in Fantasy on TV by Constance Gibbs

It’s a rare sight to see women of color as superheroes, but rarest, probably, on television. … Superheroines are important. The desire for women to be seen as heroes, as strong, as capable, as desired, as everything transcends race. But when women of color are constantly told they have to wait or aren’t given the same chances, it does the same thing as when it’s men vs. women. …

Why can’t we have a Black or Asian or Latina or Arab or Native heroine acting as a universal hero for all girls of all races? Why must white continue to be the universal standard and everyone else is relegated to a niche audience? People of color want the empowerment fantasy too.


Stop the Fridging: The Invisible Feminism of ‘Arrow’

So while ‘Arrow’ seems pretty reluctant to move away from the traditional stance on women existing to be love interests and to be rescued, the individual female characters themselves sometimes show some hints of progressiveness… if only they’d be allowed to live long enough!

Arrow TV series

This guest post written by Becky Kukla appears as part of our theme week on Superheroines. | Spoilers ahead for seasons 1-3.


Is TV series Arrow feminist? Being brutally honest, it almost certainly is not. Does Arrow have characters with feminist undertones, or female characters with more depth than meets the eye? Well, that’s where it gets more interesting.

The premise of Arrow reads incredibly similarly to that of Batman; rich and spoiled son of millionaire family undergoes a grueling, life-changing event which forces him to become a ‘good guy’ (unlike the playboy he was once) to save his city. Pre-Arrow Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell) is a cheater, drug-taker, party-goer, and generally not a great guy. He is the epitome of the whole silver spoon thing, and not only this but he treats everyone in his life terribly. His parents (as he later learns) are both semi-responsible for a plot to destroy the poorest parts of Starling City, and this becomes his motivation to try and right the wrongs that his father (and his mother) did. It’s also clear that pre-Arrow Oliver didn’t have a lot of respect for women — cheating on his then girlfriend Laurel, with her sister Sara — and consequently almost getting himself and Sara killed in the boating accident that left him stranded on an island.

So where am I going with this? All things considered — Arrow is clearly not going to win any feminist awards any time soon. This is mostly because pretty much every single female character in the show is either related to Oliver (Moira, Thea) or has been romantically involved with him in some way (Helena, Laurel, Sara, Felicity, Shado, and Isabel have all had romantic relations with Oliver to some degree). The show also has a worrying trend of having its villains use the women characters as some sort of bait. I’m only on season three, but poor Laurel has been kidnapped 4 times since the show started! However, the representation of female heroism in Arrow starts to get a little more interesting from the end of season 1 with the introduction of at least 3 superheroine-type characters. Oliver also regularly comes into contact with supervillains, many of whom are women.

So while Arrow seems pretty reluctant to move away from the traditional stance on women existing to be love interests and to be rescued, the individual female characters themselves sometimes show some hints of progressiveness… if only they’d be allowed to live long enough!

Shado on Arrow

Shado

Chronologically, the first superheroine to appear in Arrow is Shado (Celina Jade). Technically, she isn’t actually a superheroine, but she is certainly super and saves Oliver’s life several times on the island so I think it’s safe to put in the category of superheroine. Shado is the daughter of Yao Fai — the man who first rescues Oliver when he is dying on the island. Her main reason for existence seems to be to ensure that her father toes the line, otherwise she will be killed. However, Shado quickly reveals that she is every bit as tough as her father when it comes to fighting — and single handedly rescues Slade and Oliver from certain death. She then goes on to teach Ollie pretty much everything he knows, including the whole slapping the water thing, and generally being useful with a bow and arrow. Shado is tough and strong, she’s obviously had some intense training and she’s a pretty cool character in general. That is, until two things happen. First, Oliver falls in love with her. We can understand this from Oliver’s perspective — at this point, he still behaves somewhat like the playboy he once was and in general terms, Shado is the only woman he has been in contact with in a long while. The issue is that 1) Shado falls for him (he’s a spoiled brat, ammiright!?) and that Slade also falls for Shado. Instead of seeing Shado as the strong and tough woman that she is, she becomes steadily reduced to the crux of an odd love triangle with one immature playboy and a man old enough to be her father.

Shado is also brutally murdered when Ivan forces Oliver to choose between saving her or Sara. This is the first of many ‘choose between two women you love’ scenarios that are set up for Oliver throughout the series, and this one is quite possibly the worst. Oliver doesn’t so much as choose Shado, but the whole event sends Slade spiraling into revenge city where he blames Oliver for the murder of the ‘love of his life.’ Reality check here; Shado is only the love of his life because Slade literally knew no other women. And also, she didn’t even love him back. Either way, Shado’s death is the sole reason for pretty much all of the events in the second season — so I guess it might be the most successful fridging of all time?

Fridging itself is boring, old, and a great waste of time but it feels even worse when you have a really wonderful female character with huge potential, who is killed only to further the storyline of a male character. It also doesn’t help that Shado was also murdered so that Sara (another superheroine type) could live. Which brings me to…

The Canary on Arrow

Sara (The Canary)

Sara (Caity Lotz), sister of Laurel and part-time lover of Oliver, was presumed dead along with Oliver when their boat sank off the coast of the island. Imagine everyone’s surprise when it turns out (like Oliver) Sara actually survived and is back in Starling City, also fighting crime. Imagine our even greater surprise when Sara turns out to be a fighting machine, fresh from The League of Assasins. Surprise!

Our first actual introduction to the new and improved Sara 2.0, is as her alter ego (fondly named The Canary). She saves a woman from a group of menacing looking men in a dark alleyway. I don’t believe this is by accident. Sara also takes care of Sin, Roy’s friend from The Glades, and it’s this protection of the women around her that make Sara an almost-feminist superheroine. As soon as her and Oliver are reunited in Starling City, it becomes immediately clear that Sara has been through a bit of a wringer – possibly even more so than Oliver. Sara (at some point in the last five years) was taken in by The League of Assassins and is riddled with guilt and anger about some of the things she was made to do whilst under their command. Sara wants to let her parents and Laurel know she is alive, but she is consumed by the things she has done to survive and is convinced she isn’t worthy of love from anyone — even her own family.

As we see in flashbacks, Sara was incredibly savvy to survive her ordeal aboard what was essentially an illegal prison ship. She knew how to play the game, and waited patiently for an opportunity to escape. Though her and Oliver reunited on the island, Sara has clearly changed and is prepared to do whatever is necessary to survive. The Sara that returns to Starling City five years later is equally prepared to do what is necessary – and this causes friction with Oliver’s sudden ‘no killing’ rule. Similarly to how Oliver’s family are often used as bait to coax him into situations as the Arrow, Sara’s family are also kidnapped and used as bait when The League of Assassins try to force Sara to rejoin them. Of course, it is the women members of Sara’s family that are kidnapped (her mother and Laurel).

Sadly, Sara’s story comes to an incredibly abrupt and untimely end. She makes it a few minutes into season 3 before she is killed, as witnessed by Laurel. For a character who had so much potential, and a captivating backstory — her demise was a little more than cold on behalf of the writers.

Felicity Smoak on Arrow

Felicity Smoak

Ah, Felicity Smoak . Poor, lovely Felicity. Oddball, geeky Felicity (played by Emily Bett Rickards) who somehow went from obscure computer girl to the object of Oliver’s affections within about thirty seconds at the end of season 2. Felicity is employed at Queen Consolidated (Oliver’s family’s company), and consequently joins team Arrow when Oliver realizes a) how smart she is and b) that she knows too much to not be on the team. If Diggle, Roy, and Oliver are the brawn of the group then Felicity is certainly the brain. She is proficient at hacking, tracking, and generally getting into other people’s computers or CCTV cameras when she shouldn’t be.

Something really odd happens to Felicity between working in the IT department in the basement of QC, and becoming part of team Arrow. It has a lot to do with the way she dresses. When Felicity is at QC, she dresses… well for work. She looks comfortable, she is wearing flats and she looks smart but not overdressed. As soon as Felicity begins working with Team Arrow, she is suddenly turning up to their basement lair in five inch heels and a dress suitable for a nightclub scenario. You could argue she is trying to blend in (the lair is situated underneath Oliver’s nightclub) but I can’t help thinking it’s more to do with Felicity (as the only recurring woman in Team Arrow) needing to be eye candy. Eye candy, which coincidentally ends up on Oliver’s arm. Which in itself isn’t inherently an issue, but Felicity’s character then became far less about her abilities and talents in the IT department — and far more about her relationship with Oliver. Apparently, as a woman, you cannot have both a career and a boyfriend.

I am only on the third season of Arrow but I’ve heard rumors that not many good things happen beyond that. Moira’s death at the end of the second season seemed to serve only to motivate both Oliver and Thea onward, which is just truly original use of fridging by the show’s writers. I guess the saddest thing about it is that Arrow has (or had) some truly unique and interesting female characters, but refused to do anything worthwhile with them.


Becky Kukla lives in London, works in documentary production/distribution to pay the bills and writes things about feminism, film and TV online in her spare time. You can find more of her work at her blog, femphile or on her twitter @kuklamoo.

Call For Writers: Superheroines

Despite industry claims that no one will pay and audiences aren’t interested in seeing a superheroine-led film, the dazzling success of series like ‘The Hunger Games’ and ‘Divergent’ prove that the world is ready for women to take charge and lead. While we’re seeing movement in response to growing demand for female superhero representation, there is still a long way to go before we reach parity.

Call-for-Writers-e13859437405011

Our theme week for May 2016 will be Superheroines.

There has been such a resounding call for superheroine leads on the silver screen that both DC and Marvel finally caved to give us, respectively, a 2017 release of Wonder Woman and a 2019 release of Captain Marvel. On the small screen, CBS — which co-owns The CW, home to Arrow and The Flash — released Supergirl in 2015, and it’s a hit. Not only that, but the gritty Netflix original anti-superheroine series Jessica Jones has also gained incredible popularity, acclaim, and even serious critical analysis for its representations of race and rape culture. Despite industry claims that no one will pay and audiences aren’t interested in seeing a superheroine-led film, the dazzling success of series like The Hunger Games and Divergent prove that the world is ready for women to take charge and lead. While we’re seeing movement in response to growing demand for female superhero representation, there is still a long way to go before we reach parity.

Why is superheroine parity so important? The documentary Wonder Women: The Untold Story of American Superheroines tells us that superheroines give little girls and even adult women the invaluable ability to envision themselves as heroines and champions. All women deserve a role model who represents attributes like strength, kindness, righteousness, and teamwork.

In fact, Gloria Steinem views superheroines in our culture as critical:
“Girls actually need superheroes much more than boys when you come right down to it because 90% of violence in the world is against females. Certainly women need protectors even more, and what’s revolutionary, of course, is to have a female protector not a male protector.”

Tell us about your favorite superheroines. What are your favorite superheroine representations? Show us how film and TV have gotten superheroines wrong and right. Which superheroine deserves her own franchise?

We’d like to avoid as much overlap as possible for this theme, so get your proposals in early if you know which topic you’d like to write about. We accept both original pieces and cross-posts, and we respond to queries within a week.

Most of our pieces are between 1,000 and 2,000 words, and include links and images. Please send your piece as a Microsoft Word document to btchflcks[at]gmail[dot]com, including links to all images, and include a 2- to 3-sentence bio.

If you have written for us before, please indicate that in your proposal, and if not, send a writing sample if possible.

Please be familiar with our publication and look over recent and popular posts to get an idea of Bitch Flicks’ style and purpose. We encourage writers to use our search function to see if your topic has been written about before, and link when appropriate (hyperlinks to sources are welcome, as well).

The final due date for these submissions is Friday, May 20, 2016 by midnight Eastern Time.

Here are some articles we’ve published on superheroines:
Wonder Women and Why We Need Superheroines
Top 10 Superheroes Who Are Better As Superheroines
Supergirl Premiere: The Enemy of My Enemy Is Super
Do Black Widow and Scarlet Witch Bring Female Power to Avengers: Age of Ultron?
Top 10 Superheroine Movies That Need a Reboot
Big Hero 6: Woman Up
Wonder Woman Short Fan Film Reminds Us to Want this Blockbuster
Top 10 Superheroines Who Deserve Their Own Movies
Avengers: Age of Ultron‘s Black Widow Blunders
Jessica Jones, The Kilgrave Mirror and the Distancing Effect of Negative Masculinity
Supergirl, “Fight or Flight”: No One Puts Kara in a Refrigerator
The Superman Exists and She is American: Scarlett Johansson in Lucy
The Feminism of Sailor Moon
The Avengers: Strong Female Characters and Failing the Bechdel Test
“Did I Step on Your Moment?” The Seductive and Psychological Violence of Female Superheroes
Rape, Consent and Race in Marvel’s Jessica Jones
She-Ra: Kinda, Sorta Accidentally Feministy
Jessica Jones: A Discomforting Yet Real Portrayal of Abuse

‘Supergirl’ Premiere: The Enemy of My Enemy Is Super

So instead of being a little irritated by the way the show constantly winks at the audience in signaling its mildly feminist and corrective agenda, I begin to see that aspect of it, not as a wink at me and other fair-minded folks, and not as pandering, but as a “nanny-nanny boo-boo” at anyone small-minded and hateful enough to be put out because there’s a superhero show on TV that is actually pro-woman and pro-girl and wears that on its sleeve.

Supergirl poster

Alright, let’s get this plot stuff out of the way. Kara Zor-El, eventually known as Supergirl, is Superman’s older cousin, who was sent to Earth before the destruction of Krypton, along with Supes, to keep an eye on him. She got pulled into some kind of intergalactic time warp (It’s just a jump to the left, etc) and ended up reaching the earth a couple dozen years younger than him. So Superman gave her to Mr. and Mrs. Danvers (one-time Kryptonians Dean Cain and Helen Slater, for those paying attention) and their daughter Alex (Chyler Lee).

supergirl cat

Kara grows up trying to fit in, to be as “normal” as possible, because the world already has Superman, and he doesn’t need her anymore. She grows up and moves to National City, which is basically DC. She gets a mundane job as an assistant to demanding media mogul Cat Grant (Calista Flockhart, clearly having fun). Her nerdy, chisel-jawed co-worker Winn (Jeremy Jordan) has a crush on her, but Kara has the hots for the super-hunky new Black photographer Cat’s hired. You know, Jimmy Olsen (Mehcad Brooks). Only this hunky version insists on being called James. He’s from Metropolis and talks about his relationship with Superman the way someone who’s never actually met Superman would, so I was surprised to learn by the end of the episode that they actually are pretty tight.

supergirl kara and jimmy

Kara is doing a good job of stifling her superpoweredness until Alex (now her roommate) is on a flight to Geneva that loses one of its engines. Kara thinks about it for a moment, then flies off to carry the plane to safety, rescuing everyone on board. It kind of makes you wonder how many planes she let crash before that one, though.

Now that Kara has outed herself as a superhero, it turns out that Alex works for a secret government agency, the Department of Extranormal Operations, or the DEO. Her boss is the alien-hating Hank Henshaw (David Harewood). Naturally, Kara’s a little miffed that Alex has kept this a secret from her for many years. You’d think with the super-hearing and seeing through walls and everything, Kara’s not the type of roommate you could keep that kind of secret from, but well, I guess Kara just trusted Alex.

supergirl DEO

Kara doesn’t heed Alex’s warnings to keep her head down, and she ends up getting beaten up by Vartox (Owain Yeoman), a misogynistic alien dude. (“On my planet, women kneel before men!” “This isn’t your planet!”)

Oh, that time-warp thing I mis-described above was actually the Phantom Zone, where Krypton sent its prisoners, so when Kara passed through, some prison ship latched onto her escape pod; I am not well-versed in this universe, as you may have noticed. In any case, the prison ship crashed on Earth, too, and so I guess they’ve all been biding their time and waiting for Kara to be old enough to give them a fair fight when they try to murder her. Because it turns out Kara’s mom back on Krypton was some kind of badass judge who sent all these prisoners to the Phantom Zone. This all makes sense, right? Well, maybe just enough sense that the show is kind of fun to watch, in a way I haven’t found with Arrow, or The Flash, or Gotham, though of course that last one’s not supposed to be fun. At least, I hope not.

supergirl fight

Melissa Benoist stars as Kara/Supergirl, and she’s terrific. Adorable. She brings the same kind of goofy, naively enthusiastic charm to the role that Christopher Reeve brought to those old Superman movies. She would be the best, most fun thing about the show if it weren’t for this other thing.

You see, my original plan was to write a mostly positive review of the series premiere of Supergirl but with a few caveats. Plotting, for example, is not its strong suit. Some of the expository stuff is clunky. It’s inordinately self-congratulatory about being a feminist show. The CGI effects are cheap-looking and unconvincing.

supergirl pizza

Wait, what’s up with slipping that one bit there into a list of otherwise mostly innocuous (but still super-insightful) criticisms? The part about it being self-congratulatory. Make no mistake, Supergirl is high on its own supply (of feminism, laced with color-blind casting). But it didn’t take me too long to realize that A) I kind of enjoyed that “in your face” aspect of the show, complete with its questioning both Supergirl’s moniker (“Shouldn’t we call her ‘Superwoman’?) and the comic’s midriff-baring costume (“I wouldn’t wear this to the beach”), its name-slamming Bill O’Reilly and climaxing with Supergirl vanquishing an intergalactic MRA douche-bro, using his own ignorant underestimation of her abilities. And B) Any brief, unwise perusal of “user reviews” or really just comments anywhere the show is being discussed online indicates that it’s kind of a necessary pre-emptive corrective to the kind of vitriol awaiting any kind of mild display of feminism in popular culture. So instead of being a little irritated by the way the show constantly winks at the audience in signaling its mildly feminist and corrective agenda, I begin to see that aspect of it, not as a wink at me and other fair-minded folks, and not as pandering, but as a “nanny-nanny boo-boo” at anyone small-minded and hateful enough to be put out because there’s a superhero show on TV that is actually pro-woman and pro-girl and wears that on its sleeve.

So sure, Supergirl is a bit corny and kind of sloppy, but it’s also considerable fun, especially if you enjoy the silly schadenfreude of it all.