The Joan of Arc Curse

 

           There is a bizarre trend happening in Hollywood in recent years - a trend of made-up young females dressed in fitted, gleaming armour and swinging a sword, just so the trailers to their films can assure audiences that they are 'new', 'dark, 'innovative', and star a 'strong' woman as their protagonist. Gag me with a spoon!

          Actually, on second thought, no spoon is needed. I'm already gagging. Not only is this trend annoying in that it is used to excuse lazy writing and re-hashed plots, but I find it rather offensive. As a woman, I am offended by these films. It has nothing to do with their protagonists riding into battle and fighting to overcome physical obstacles as well as emotional ones. Heck, my favorite Lord of the Rings character that isn't a hobbit is Eowyn. But the White Lady of Rohan is, sadly, a rarity in the midst of her trope.

         I like to call this the 'Joan of Arc Curse' and basically it shows up in any story (usually a re-adaptation of a fairy tale) where the female protagonist is fitted out in chain-mail and armor (or, in the case of Eragon, leather) and sent off to cheerfully kick butt and be a 'badass' and is never assigned another character trait. Or at least not a trait that we can actually believe belongs to her character.

        And don't even get me started on the 'chosen one' story that has been beaten into the dust, brought back to life, beaten into the dust again, and then doomed to Purgatory for all of eternity so it can be stomped some more. Often this will be combined with the Joan of Arc Curse to create one big seething (and yet somehow bland) mess of a story that tries to trick you into believing that it's saying more that it really is while it offers nothing new or interesting to stop your brain from disintegrating.

      As a woman, I am offended by this. I am offended that media seems to be having a variation on the Virgin-Whore Complex recently. Let's call it the Badass-Pansy Complex, shall we? The idea that a woman can't be 'strong' and can't be interesting unless she has hidden Kung Fu skills or extreme brilliance or a mean right hook. She always has to come out on top and all characters who dislike her are either the villains or proved wrong in the end and she has to have her pie and eat it too by being such a tough cookie and yet have other characters base their entire lives around her destiny. Writing 101, guys, in the world of fanfiction that's called a Mary-Sue and it is the most despised of all creations. So why are you letting it get by in 'original' works?

          I am sick and tired of the 'strong' female character who can swing a sword and save the day with a witty quip (though the wit is optional) and yet, under the surface, she is about as interesting as glue. And not glitter glue either...the type of dull, boring glue you buy at the discount shop on sale.

            Now I have nothing against a woman going into battle and performing the same feats that a male character would be given. Indeed, we need more female leads in film and television that are competent and allowed the same flaws their male counterparts are given without being patted on the head and called 'quirky' or snarled at and called 'bitchy'. But why oh why is it that the moment a scene is written where your protagonist goes through a tragedy and then dons armor to take care of it via battle the rest of her character development stops? A woman shouldn't be limited by whether she's a 'strong, badass female character' or not. Who's to say what makes someone strong anyway? Strength comes in many forms...and not all of them involve swordplay.

        And of course I have to bring up the whole 'chosen one' story thing again, since the two films that really sparked my ire in recent movie seasons (Alice in Wonderland and Snow White and The Huntsman, respectively) both utilize that story device. What do I say? Harry Potter did it better. Yes, yes I know that he's a male protagonist and that you could cry this opinion just an example of my gender bias showing through (Did I mention, though, that I too am a woman?), but that story honestly did it better. It managed to show the ugly side of being chosen to fulfill a prophecy. And not the 'noble suffering' type either. The ugly, nasty, wearying, dragging, paparazzi-studded, filthy, treacherous side to being 'the chosen one'. All of these new prophecy stories don't do that. Yes the protagonist might have trials to go through, but they're presented more as obligatory trials by fire rather than true suffering. That's not interesting and if you're going to do a much-rehashed idea like a prophesied 'chosen one', you really need to be original!

       So yes, I am very weary of the woman in armor trope that filmmakers use to pat themselves on the back and reassure everyone that they have a progressive girl here. No. Just no. You're actually making things worse whenever you insist that women must be 'badass' and 'strong' in order to be good characters. It's just exchanging one narrow definition of femininity for another, actually. It used to be that women were the love interests, primarily, and just there as eye-candy for the dashing hero to save and the villain to threaten. (This is the common choice, not the rule...) Now they have to be 'not your typical damsel in distress' or else feminists are all up in arms about them. And feminism is important. I firmly believe it is wrong for a man to get better treatment simple because he happened to be born with different plumbing. I just don't like what the media has managed to twist the ideals into.

       Why can't we have some more women like Eowyn or girls like Mulan? Disney, for all its other faults concerning the princesses, has given us one of the best girls-in-armour stories to date with the (cleaned up) version of the Chinese girl who ran away and fought against the Huns in her father's place. Now there is an interesting motivation - love for another person instead of ANOTHER bloody prophecy story. Come on, Hollywood! You can be better than this!