Emily Blunt bored with "strong female lead"

[Andrew NDB]

https://www.darkhorizons.com/blunt-b...le-lead-label/

And the She-Hulk actress agrees, too. I guess that's problematic now? Is strong male lead next on the chopping block?

[IMJ]

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

https://www.darkhorizons.com/blunt-b...le-lead-label/

And the She-Hulk actress agrees, too. I guess that's problematic now? Is strong male lead next on the chopping block?

Strong male leads were widely on the chopping block some years back now.

[Cowabung-Gal]

Anything “strong” is problematic these days. Whiny entitled weaklings run the show now.

[Sumac]

Funny thing, actually strong people are running things behind the scenes. Those weak idiots are just there for show.

[ssjup81]

You know, I think the problem with the strong female lead thing is that they're writing these women for the sake of them being women. Look at the live-action Mulan film. She has practically no flaws, but she's supposed to be a strong female lead, but it just showed to be the opposite (imo). The 1998 version of the film did a heck of a better job portraying that. She was flawed and had an actual character arc which made her stronger and more interesting. She was a strong female lead because of her character arc and overcoming her obstacles, not because she's a woman. Ripley of the Alien franchise was a strong female lead, but it didn't make the men around her incompetent to achieve that.

I'm sick of all of this stuff too. What happened to writing characters who just happen to be women as opposed to writing characters where the main trait is that they are women? The 2016 Ghostbusters film really seemed to kick off that awful trend. Hemsworth's character was an idiotic piece of eye-candy. He wouldn't know his elbow from his left eye. Janine was a strong female character in the original Ghostbusters and was a no-nonsense character. She wasn't an idiot and would tell the guys what she thought and stuff. Even in The Real Ghostbusters, Janine was still a strong character...before the stupid changes. She was a character who happened to be female, not the character of woman which automatically makes her perfect in every way and that men are evil and against her.

Sorry, just hate all the woke junk surrounding this...

[Cowabung-Gal]

Originally Posted by ssjup81

You know, I think the problem with the strong female lead thing is that they're writing these women for the sake of them being women. Look at the live-action Mulan film. She has practically no flaws, but she's supposed to be a strong female lead, but it just showed to be the opposite (imo). The 1998 version of the film did a heck of a better job portraying that. She was flawed and had an actual character arc which made her stronger and more interesting. She was a strong female lead because of her character arc and overcoming her obstacles, not because she's a woman. Ripley of the Alien franchise was a strong female lead, but it didn't make the men around her incompetent to achieve that.

I'm sick of all of this stuff too. What happened to writing characters who just happen to be women as opposed to writing characters where the main trait is that they are women? The 2016 Ghostbusters film really seemed to kick off that awful trend. Hemsworth's character was an idiotic piece of eye-candy. He wouldn't know his elbow from his left eye. Janine was a strong female character in the original Ghostbusters and was a no-nonsense character. She wasn't an idiot and would tell the guys what she thought and stuff. Even in The Real Ghostbusters, Janine was still a strong character...before the stupid changes. She was a character who happened to be female, not the character of woman which automatically makes her perfect in every way and that men are evil and against her.

Sorry, just hate all the woke junk surrounding this...

Preach, sister! You said it.

[IndigoErth]

Originally Posted by ssjup81

What happened to writing characters who just happen to be women as opposed to writing characters where the main trait is that they are women?

I keep waiting. Sadly I don't think that has ever actually been a thing yet, the angle simply changed with the times. Decades ago the main trait was often already "woman," it was just written based on other stereotyped depictions instead. (Except the character's attractiveness level, that defining character trait has rarely left the top of the list.)

The "strong character" thing is probably kind of the counter argument to how it used to be in the early days, such as being depicted as fragile weaklings who always fainted over any small hint of bulls***. Little wonder people eventually started depicting women as capable of kicking some ass, literally or figuratively.

Someday maybe someone will master simply writing a character, maybe even giving it a temporary gender neutral name, etc, without having to stereotype them either way, THEN cast someone of either gender who really nailed it in auditions. Even just once it would be interesting to see that done.

[Coola Yagami]

Originally Posted by ssjup81

I'm sick of all of this stuff too. What happened to writing characters who just happen to be women as opposed to writing characters where the main trait is that they are women? The 2016 Ghostbusters film really seemed to kick off that awful trend. Hemsworth's character was an idiotic piece of eye-candy. He wouldn't know his elbow from his left eye. Janine was a strong female character in the original Ghostbusters and was a no-nonsense character. She wasn't an idiot and would tell the guys what she thought and stuff. Even in The Real Ghostbusters, Janine was still a strong character...before the stupid changes. She was a character who happened to be female, not the character of woman which automatically makes her perfect in every way and that men are evil and against her.

Sorry, just hate all the woke junk surrounding this...

Yeah, I felt that like an insult or a 'take that' to something that never existed. Kinda like 'oh so the original Ghostbusters had 4 guys and their ditzy female secretary that they were all drooling over, so now we'll have 4 women and a ditzy male secretary that's there for them to drool over". Except Janine was never portrayed that way.

[Sumac]

What is funny is that writing character as a "strong WOMAN" (in the modern parlance) goes against idea of non-stereotyping and equality.

Not only characters end up pretty much alike, but they also, just walking stereotypes of masculine traits, to the surprise of no-one.

[Coola Yagami]

While at the same time making every male character around her stupid, incompetent or just an asshole.

[Sumac]

Originally Posted by Coola Yagami

While at the same time making every male character around her stupid, incompetent or just an asshole.

Precisely.