The Last Jedi Mulan All products featuring a female Le She-Hulk Peter Pan and Wendy The Rings of Power Captain Marvel The Last Jedi Mulan all products featuring a female lead of significant strength or power all brutally panned by audiences. Why is that sexism right? Or maybe it's just bad character writing that's not to Discount the awfulness of any actual female characters due to their gender. But it's quite apparent once you think about it that such hateful commentary only finds any significant audience. If the wider, less spiteful viewing.

what mean? don't watch this. I There are some topics you have to avoid when it's out of bad faith and you can see it. We haven't seen the video yet. We don't know what it's about, right? The video makes good points.

Then we could give them value based on their actual Uh merits. Otherwise not, we're going to give it a chance. Public dislikes the character for their own more sensible reason. If it's Intel bait, we'll call for Intel bait and the video will go down in In in that regard and so be it.

The main reason, of course, is that so many lead women in film and TV in the past decade are just horribly written. There are plenty of exceptions, of course, and we'll talk about a few of those. This is a problem most notable in Disney projects as you could tell from my list, but since Disney owns half the world of this point, it feels like a wider issue. So what exactly makes these characters such bad examples of what a protagonist should be? Well, it's hard to point to any one thing in particular.

Not all the characters discussed here will share the same writing flaws. They all fail in varying ways, but they do have some similarities. A common one is being overpowered and not really earning that power. The original animated film shows Mulan's struggle due to her inexperience and lack of physical prowess, but she makes up for those disadvantages by using her wits, thinking creatively, and refusing to quit even when things seem hopeless.

The new Mulan is basically a superhero already due to her Mic Chlorians, and thus is automatically more skilled than everyone else. There's no need need for her to use her brain or develop new ways to approach problems, leaving the character flat and uninteresting. I'm kind of point I think you. There are a lot of writings and stories where this happens to also male protagonists, so so far this doesn't really apply to anything because they can that can also be duplicated and also does duplicate onto male um, prote.

It's worth noting that when I say earning power, that doesn't necessarily mean doing something Noble or virtuous that results in the character being given great power. As is the case with someone like Captain America most superheroes do not earn their abilities in such a way. Their powers are forced upon them through chance or freak accident, and that's fine. However, to then earn the power given them, the hero should have to struggle in some way to grow into his or her abilities.

The Toby McGuire Spider-Man movie is a classic example of this. Peter Parker is given superpowers through a random spider bite, but he doesn't instantly know what to do with his new found abilities nor even how to put them to proper use. There are significant Growing Pains as he learns to be the hero he now must become. A more recent example of this Trope that was done fairly well is Kate Bishop from the Hawkeye show that at least 20 people watched despite being an incredibly talented Archer and martial artist from the get-go Kate is woefully inexperienced in the world of crime fighting and has to learn how to apply her skills in each new situation, relying on the mentorship of Hawkeye himself.

On the flip side, we have characters like She-Hulk and Ray Skatin Ray's progression through her training was basically just whatever the plot required at any given moment. Jen Walthers woke up as She-Hulk and immediately was in full control of her. Alter Ego The central struggles that defined the characters from whom these heroins were derived are just Stripped Away and not replaced by anything meaningful. Jen's defining character moment takes place during a group therapy session when she comes to the realization that she needs to accept that she doesn't need to be sheho to find acceptance.

That's right, the Apex of Jen's character Arc is her her deciding that she can be herself. This wasn't an issue, by the way, until after the She-Hulk Persona was present prior to her accident. Jen appeared to be quite satisfied with her life for some unknown reason. she only decided to get into the dating scene after spending some time as a giant green monster and then found out apparently there's no market for a reasonably attractive 30s something year-old lawyer in Los Angeles I Don't know about you, but to me, that feels a bit contrived.

Look: I'm not in the online dating, but I Have it on good authority that women tend to get significantly more attention than men do on those apps, especially if they happen to be successful and not ugly. This Okay, this is all true, but some, um, I have to play advoc on this one. I Think there it's It's such a kind of a useless weak point. doesn't really go, doesn't really go anywhere I Get it.

It's shitty writing a little bit, but sometime I think it doesn't. It's kind of. I Don't think this really gets anywhere. Does this show seriously? Expect me to believe that the only guys willing to even talk to Jen Walters are total creeps and losers.

or alternatively, men who are only charming and friendly because they have an agenda? Speaking of which, let's talk about Disney's obsession with promoting and elevating women. It's one thing to have female characters who are smart, strong, persistent, and courageous. It's quite another to Simply promote the power of women by setting them up on a pedestal. That kind of treatment is nothing more than pandering and stories that contain it suffer greatly.

Take for example the recent Peter, Pan and Wendy which decided that the all male cast of Lost Boys wasn't inclusive enough and so tossed some girls into the mix. Girls can be rough and tumble too you. He, uh, do you know why the lost boys were originally all boys? It's because they fell out of their prams or strollers for you Americans and were carded off to Neverland And girls are far too clever to do such a stupid thing. But apparently no one involved in the casting decision had ever read the original novel.

So here we are or we could talk about Captain Marvel and the thin L veiled metaphor for the patriarchy embodied in the one dude chat. inclusivity is a good thing. Okay, that flat out you should it as a concept. I'm not trying to be over Progressive Listen to my this what my taken inclusivity is inherently a good thing.

The real problem is inclusivity for the sake of inclusivity. If it doesn't fit And it and and and it's it's not, doesn't construct anything that is better or needed at that point. Well then then then you're working backwards. then it's It's the opposite.

It's it's not as good as not inclusive. Does that make sense? Who keeps telling her to not use her true power because that's cheating or whatever? And of course, Shehulk seems to be mostly made just to complain about the pigheadedness of men. There's a hot chick over there I'm going to go talk to it. Yeah, nobody talks like that.

It should come as no surprise that these shows and movies don't just fail at writing good female characters. They're terribly written across the board. I'm the SP All here comes the unhinged take that will get be canceled. Here it comes.

So Guy makes a book about, um, the the S as those boys, right? the found boy Squad Okay, and in the book, there's there's 12 dudes that are in a cave because they're all they they M gold. Okay, you adapted to a movie right and then and then out of the blue. even though it you have. um, one guy, one white guy, one black guy, one one female, one uh, one black female one Asian one one female Asian It's like, okay, okay, dude, like, okay, Dude.

like we get it. Like inclusion for the sake of inclusion doesn't really. If there isn't, especially when there's a set precedent, it, it's it's a disaster. What? It's not just Ray that the audience dislikes No characters from the Disney Trilogy won the hearts of the audience.

Remember how great of a character Nick Fury was in Captain Marvel Yeah, Neither does anyone else Elon really stood out in the rings of Power, right? Okay, he actually wasn't terrible. He wasn't good, but he could have been worse. Honestly, Gadriel could have been worse too. Not that I think she was well written.

She wasn't and her introduction in the first episode is basically a how-to course on Annoying Audiences first meet her as she's being tormented by other Elf children for having the audacity to think that her origami swan will float. Not only does this display a severe lack of understanding of what elves are in Tolken legendarium, on the writer's part, it demonstrates a cheap trick that modern media likes to use in order to attempt to make the audience like a character forced sympathy. The Mantra goes something like this: look: this character is being mistreated. You must then feel bad for her and like her.

The correct response to that is, of course, why is this character being mistreated For all we know, Gadriel was being a complete twerp just moments before this scene and is totally deserving of having her boat sunk. There's no narrative reason that the show gives for Gladel to be tormented here. it's just an attempt at manipulating the audience into feeling bad for the poor, helpless victim and thus hopefully liking her. Contrast that with Arcane in the plight of Vin and powder.

The show opens with an it's a normal thing that they do for guys and girls I don't think that supplies to girls I Don't think that point was very more very fantastic actually. tragic scene and it doesn't stoop to the pointed Petty Tactics of Rings of Power Gadriel lives in Valinor, a place of transcendent peace. and Harmony so the writer contrived an inane attempt at sympathy Arcane is set largely in a brutal slum of a city, but it gives its main character a Plucky Relentless attitude that rejects the victimhood status which so many other modern properties confer upon their hair. Okay, okay, true.

I I actually agree with this with 100% But At the at the same time though, it's very common in anime to have um, training Arc development arcs. But yeah, that's true because if you're a victim, how can anyone hate you? Well, it's pretty easy when you're incredibly smug and don't give a rat's ass about the safety of your troops. The Me against the world vibes from Gadriel in the first episode are just so tired and overdone, we know she's going to be right about. Sauron Al Also also very forced and also rushed.

super rushed I Think that character I I don't know what the is about just spawns in and she's like the ultra group leader Chad Lord Juicer he's like, okay, got it still being around because of course she is. She can take down the Ice Trol single-handedly because of course she can. However, that on its own would not necessarily be bad writing because that is what the show call her is quite old and thus an experienced Warrior I'm willing to accept that this character has spent centuries in combat and thus is highly skilled and capable of such. Feats What makes this scene so absurd is that all the other elves around her these Warriors handpicked to exterminate Sauron and the remnants of his army are completely and totally helpless and helpless to the point that they might as well be a different species than their leader.

It's totally fine to have protagonists who are supremely skilled, but it's a really poor choice to have the supporting characters be complete buffoons in order to Showcase that skill, which is what Lord of the Rings actually excelled at. In the other movies where all the characters were all doing a job and even the ones that are unskilled would have value in their unskill. Whether it's distracting, a mistake that adds value, everybody's doing something. Gadriel might as well just be out there on her own.

Really, most of the examples I've listed tend to just do things solo. It is up to them and them alone to win the day. As in Captain Marvel and Mulan All they really need to do is seize the power that is already within them to throw off the shackles others would impose upon them. And victory is theirs.

The dramatic shift between victimhood and total power is what these movies believe to be meaningful character work, but it's really just a violent swing from one extreme to the the other, and neither end of the spectrum is healthy. There's a huge difference between having agency and being World conquering forces of nature that only needed to shrug off the hands holding them down. If you're going to write the hero of a story, a central character who ultimately is able to conquer the evil he or she faces, you need to make them earn it. That protagonist needs to struggle or even suffer, as they obtain the strength necessary to win the day.

Ideally, they would find such strength through meaningful relationships or by learning from those wiser or more experienced than them. Recent examples of this done at least fairly well: Raski a supremely skilled Soldier having to work together with Tom Cruz's character whose name I forget to gradually establish a plan to win the war VI being motivated by love for her sister, relying on others in her fight badly missing the guidance of her father figure Kate Bishop being chat guys I really hate to be Intel okay, like incel bait type okay because I think I think the actual the actual incel dog like um, narrative is really bad to have, right? but at the same time, hold up. This is not nuclear take, it's pretty. it's pretty PR explosive.

But the problem overall is that with with a big rise of over or forced inclusivity, it creates a big viewer exhaustion. So where people see a lot of characters that don't fit because a lot of people are trying this, the force inclusion see how it's going to play out right. And since there's a lot back to back to back to back to back, well people can now make a natural conclusion that normally an incel would have. But the take is correct.

So it's like people say, well, you're an incel Well Normally you would be if there was an ability to the density of it. but now there is a good point. So like you're kind of almost like giving. that's like incel fuel.

So it's I Don't know that's being mentored. She realizes how ill-prepared she is for the world she has stumbled into. There are plenty of other examples of female protagonists who match that description, but I Wanted to point out some from within the last decade to emphasize the point that audiences do not by and large, just hate any strong woman on screen right now. just the ones whose character arcs are flatter than the state of Kansas.

And here's a really good example of this one. Arang is only one show. people care equally about all the characters male or female, a lower interest anime. People have interest in all the characters legitimately, and because they all have a good story that that is worth listening to.

That's it. Just that's just it. Characters who need only achieve self-actualization are not only boring and lack meaningful character work, they teach us awful lessons. The idea that all that is needed for success is to seize the strength and power already within you is a harmful notion that discredits the value of relationships, personal growth, and humility.

You are sufficient. These stories tell their audiences you don't need to change. Our heroes are supposed to inspire us, either by their ability to grow beyond their own flaws and failures or despite being Paragons of virtue and goodness still having to struggle against overwhelming odds and having to use their wits to be creative to trust their team to win the day. Indeed, some of the most admirable characters in fiction.

ones who do not suffer all that much personal growth due to having already attained great virtue, find themselves insufficient. This is most clear in Tolkien's work, where characters such as Fair Theoden and Aragorn Great Men Who suffer little, if any inner turmoil at at least in the books are not able to win the day, but rather can only play their part in the war that will Define the future of Middle Earth. They teach us the message We need to hear the message that Disney and Holly would want to keep from our ears. And that is.

you are not enough, but you still can do great things. They may not bring you glory, they may even bring you pain and suffering. But if you put the good of others before your own needs and wants, you will find true. And Lasting happiness.

So many modern heroins fail to win the love of the audience because they take shortcuts to power, they are elevated by the story rather than having to climb up their own character. Arc They are shallow character molds created largely to prove a point or push an agenda. And perhaps most importantly, they tend to care for themselves, their own success, their own ideas of what it means to be fulfilled Hollywood and Disney in particular seem to want so bad. CH You know what's crazy though.

Look how much people enjoyed um the Queen's Gambit You know it's not superhero movie. The the character has almost superpower abilities which I She's very smart. She's very good at the game, but she gets that through a lot of hardship. She does a lot of things to get there a lot of struggle right? um, socially, medically, uh, childhood wise.

she has all the problems and that's why the character is so great when it becomes the the Uh at the top. Badly to provide us with examples of powerful women, but they fail to understand what makes for a good example or role model. The heroins they prop up are too often shallow, unlikable, and exhibit many of the traits such as arrogance and abrasiveness that their creators find abhorent. Also, their visualization of psycho stimulants was fantastic.

I Really enjoyed that they did really good with it. Protagonists: How is this fixed? Simple create characters to tell a story. Not to prove a point either show flawed characters who have to grow and change to heal their inner wounds and overcome their shortcomings or give us Paragons of virtue who have to struggle, sacrifice and suffer due to the evil they face. But most importantly, write characters whose defining moments do not come as they realize their own worth and value that they themselves are I guess I this in the past multiple times my high school um uh passage I was probably at school and they they quite forc me to do psych vs and I was like a a guinea pig of psycho stems.

I I had every brand possible of it. any brand you've heard of them. I've tried it from the minimum dosage to the maximum. All of it I' I've tried all efficient but rather as they decide to take selfless action for the good of others I can't carry it for you, but I can't carry you well.

Those are all my rambling thoughts on the matter. I Hope we see lots more characters like VI Kim Wexler Rita Raski and Evelyn from The Quiet Place movies. I Just realized two of those characters are played by Emily Blunt No surprise there considering her publicly stated thoughts on the strong female lead. Trope Anyhow, let me know your thoughts and opinions and I will see you in the next one.

Thank you so much for watching! Did you watch Oppenheimer yet? No no um bro tried it all dude Rin Conserta beant adall um V I' I've seen it all.