I am so lucky and honored to have Misha Gerrick on my blog today. Congratulations, Misha! You did it!
This is actually a
post that I’ve been wanting to write for a while now. I’ve recently been
reading a lot about people — women specifically — calling for stronger female
characters.
And… well… rolling
their eyes every time some industry exec or (sorry guys) man in general points
out that there are oodles (okay I’ve
never heard a guy say “oodles”, but bear with me.) of strong female characters
out there.
Weeeeeeeeeeeeeellllll….
Yes. And most of them are in YA Dystopians of some sort. Which, of course, is a
general indication of how hungry women really are for strong female characters.
The thing is… I’ve been watching things (because I do. Much more than people
think.) and I’m just not always sure if execs get it.
I know for one fact
that South Africa’s pre-eminent film critic (who’ll remain unnamed) doesn’t.
When Charlize Theron pointed out that she loved acting in Mad Max because there are so few interesting female roles out
there, he couldn’t jump on the “oh, but there are oodles” bandwagon fast
enough.
And I don’t really
blame him. Because we live in a world where female characters act as window
dressing so often that most people can’t tell the difference. Especially the
people who get to make these calls.
They seem to look at
the YA Dystopian action girl heroes and think: “Great! So to get the female
demographic into this series with the
male demographic, we then have a hero, and put in an action girl to appeal to
the girls. She’ll be the Strong Female Character.”
A clue:
Noooooooo. *shakes
head emphatically*
A female character
isn’t strong because she can hit a guy so hard that his aunt gets dizzy.
A female character
is strong when she makes a choice to
keep going even if everything is stacked against her. A female character is
strong when she somehow keeps surviving when
people somehow in control of her life try to stamp it out of her.
It’s a woman who
escapes an abusive husband.
It’s a woman who has
no choice about living with one, but who keeps
going.
Yes, I love Katniss.
And I think it’s awesome that she’s paved a way for so many strong female
characters after her. Who can (and do) kick ass.
I just think that
there are so much more to female characters that just don’t get the attention
they deserve. So many kinds of strength that get disregarded because for some
reason, people don’t think that “gritty” characters will be liked as well. Or
because people who make these decisions deem that the more subtle sorts of strength
will be completely lost on the audience.
Personally, I’d
rather take a chance and write my strong girl who’s scared and unsure, but who
keeps on making decisions about her own life.
Instead of the
hugely confident, kick-ass girl who’s there, but seemingly only to validate the
guy in the story, and who seemingly never has a mind of her own.
Synopsis
After discovering
her parents had kept a whole world secret, Callan races to discover her past.
Not easy to do with an increasingly agitated entity living in her soul.
Going to her
long-lost elvish roots should answer all her questions. Instead, she ends up in
the middle of a nightmare.
The elves are on the
verge of an apocalyptic war. Their enemy, King Aurek of Icaimerith, will only
be appeased if Callan marries his heir. It’s either her life getting messed up,
or an entire country’s lives lost. Simple enough, right?
Wrong.
Because when the
entity wants the elves blotted out of existence, saving them gets taken to a
whole new level of complicated.
Misha Gerrick has
been creating stories long before she could write and is currently going after
her dream of making a living as a writer.
If you’d like to see
how that’s going, you can visit her on her blog, where she also discusses all things
related to writing and publishing.
Or, if you’d just
like to know what she’s reading and get updates on what she’ll be publishing
next (Sorry, no newsletter just yet.):
You can follow her
Tumblr (http://mishagerrick.tumblr.com)
You can follow her
on Twitter: @MGerrick1
And you can circle
her on Google Plus: +MGerrick
Thanks so much for hosting me, Murees. :-)
ReplyDeleteIt was my pleasure;)
DeleteAnd I also agree with you. I'd rather have my leading girl be scared and unsure, but by damn, she will think for herself and make her own decisions. Good point made, Misha. Great post.
DeleteThanks so much!
DeleteI think it's in her making those decisions that her strengths lie. :-)
"Personally, I’d rather take a chance and write my strong girl who’s scared and unsure, but who keeps on making decisions about her own life." <---LOVE.
ReplyDeleteCongrats, Misha! Can't wait to read it.
Thanks, M.J.! :-)
DeleteThe ability to keep going no matter what is what makes a woman strong. We all like to read about women we can aspire to.
ReplyDeleteI agree 100%.
DeleteThis is such a great post. So true. One thing that really struck me when I saw Garth Nix speak was when he talked about how he had come close to having the Abhorsen series made into a movie twice, but both times it fell through because of the female lead being too strong and the males not being the leads. It's really messed up how Hollywood continues to shy away from strong females. There are more out there in literature, but yeah, you have to seek them out. One of my favorites is Jacqueline/Gingembre from Gone to Soldiers by Marge Piercy, which is a pretty old novel.
ReplyDeleteI know. It is pretty sad. And I was thinking about it today. The scary thing is that most of the market for both movies AND books are FEMALES. But they're pandering to guys because they somehow think it makes business sense.
DeleteNevermind that we'd probably attract an even larger female demographic who'd pay, if they offered us the same amount of interesting characters as they offer guys who DON'T GO TO MOVIES ANYWAY. Sigh.
Great post and sounds like a great read!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Sandra. :-)
DeleteMany American actresses complain about the dearth of interesting roles available to them. We want and need strong women in our books and movies.
ReplyDeleteLove,
Janie
Couldn't agree more, Janie. Hopefully, we'll keep getting more of them as people realize that there's money to be made this way.
DeleteHow wonderful, creating stories even before you start writing them ! Now, there is a real novel writer for you, not just a writer. I am sure your carrier as a writer will shine as you will give us all a variety of pieces of literature. I wish you all the best.
ReplyDelete