About "Only" Representations of Women In Pop Culture

When it comes to women in pop culture, it's often hard to find the right balance. There are so few female characters being written into the media that we consume that inadvertently, each individual female character becomes an avatar for every other woman in that universe. She's the only one, therefore she's every one. But eradicating the smurfette principle altogether isn't all that difficult. There's an easy fix:

If you don’t want your female character to represent all women, then she can’t be the only woman around. If you want your female character to make stereotypical mistakes and avoid accusations of misogyny, then you have to have other female characters around not making those mistakes.

It's such a simple idea, and yet so many pop culture products still seem to struggle with it. And the curious thing is that it applies to all underrepresented groups in fiction. When you have several different variations of the way that men are allowed to exist in your universe and only one way that women are allowed to exist, criticisms will necessarily fall on that character, because she is now tasked with being everything to everyone looking to see themselves in that piece of media.

It's reflective of the backlash to the characterization of Black Widow in 2015's Avengers: Age of Ultron, and the implication that she was was also a "monster" because she was infertile. While Black Widow's feelings about her forced sterilization and her guilt over her time as a spy are valid and reasonable, they become the representative way that all women in that universe are meant to view romance and fertility because she is the only female Avenger, and the most significant female character in the film and the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Another example is the discussion surrounding Claire Dearing in 2015's Jurassic Park and the fact that she wore high heels throughout the entire film, despite being chased by (literal) dinosaurs. In the context of the film, the fact that nothing is said of her trekking through the jungle and running from a T-Rex in 5 inch heels makes her character seems silly and prideful. And that doesn't take into account the shaming that she endured throughout the film for not being able to relate well to her two young nephews, or to make a relationship work with the cocky hero. It's implied that Claire, is silly, prideful, frigid and a terrible mother, and no other significant female characters exist in the film to individualize that supposition. Contrast this with the Ilsa Faust character in Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation. While running away from a gunman across a rooftop with hero Ethan Hunt, she specifically asks him to help her get her heels off so that their getaway is not compromised.

In the end, it all comes down to the danger of a single story. As author Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche said in her famous Ted Talk, the problem isn't that stereotypes are not true, but rather that they are not the whole truth, and they don't give us a full picture of the complexities of the people around us. When you only have one of something, or in this case, someone, everything about them becomes the default of their kind, simply by virtue of being alone. It's why diversity in media is important from the top come down. When you have more than one female character, each of them becomes an individual with their own quirks and personalities that stand apart from other women. The weight of expectation is lifted, and it allows for some of them to fail, or be clichés, because there are other characters that can contradict that characterization.

A great example? Last year, two shows starring black women were cancelled: Minority Report and Extant. And while I will miss both of those shows, I'm not worried about seeing myself onscreen, because other, complex black women still exist on television on Scandal, Sleepy Hollow, How to Get Away With Murder, Empire and Blackish. Because neither of these characters is the only one, we're able to get diverse representations of black women, from severely damaged lawyers with compromised ethics, to FBI agents battling the paranormal, to loud, brash music executives who just want to leave their mark on the world.

None of them is telling the only story.

Best of BattyMamzelle: Top 5 Essays of 2015

Third time's a charm! As I'm stepping into 2016, I want to take some time to look back at what I produced last year, and to take stock of the issues that matter to me. I didn't do nearly as much writing as I would have liked last year because I was back on a 9-5 schedule, but I still manage to produce essays that I'm proud of, two of which helped me get that Bitch Media Fellowship! So here they are in descending order: the 5 essays I'm most proud of writing this year.

5. #ShameOnShonda Is Bullshit: On Black Women, Mental Health And Intersectionality

"In this episode, Shonda presents these two women, these two mothers and contrasts the way their mental well-being and mental health is approached. The black mother, who had been exhibiting signs that something might be medically wrong for some time, was treated to scorn, disdain and judgement, even by the doctors who were supposed to be treating her. The white mother, who had just received devastating news about her unborn child, was immediately coddled to the point of condescension in the rush to ensure that she was okay."

4. Rape, Consent and Race in Marvel's #JessicaJones

"On the other hand, the treatment of people of colour in Jessica Jones is often anti-intersectional and openly anti-black. Vulture's year end "Best of Television" list cites the show as demonstrating "a racially diverse cast, heavy on women," a construction that belies that for many people, diversity means "add black men and stir." To me, it is borderline disrespectful to call the show racially diverse when the only significant, named woman of colour character is dead before the narrative begins and never speaks a word, while the black male characters are all subjected to incredible violence in service of the white female protagonist. This force frames feminist representation as the representation of white women and yet again, erases women of colour from our popular narratives."

3. Viola Davis, Cultivation Theory and the 2015 #Emmy Awards

"And these women? These beautiful dark-skinned women with broad noses and big lips and kinky hair? It wasn't them. It was strategically not meant to be them. They were purposefully removed from the definition of womanhood much less anything else. So these wins? These statues? This acknowledgement of talent? It matters. It shows that when you even the playing field just a little bit; when you actually allow people of colour to compete with whiteness by creating opportunities for them to show what they can do? They win."

2. How To Be A Bad Bitch Who Recognizes The Intersections Of Amber Rose's Feminism

"Why is it so hard for us to imagine that this book may not be for us? That is speaks to an experience than many of us may never have? We who are lucky enough to be safe and warm with access to education and employment we enjoy? Why doesn't it occur to us that all those women that we look down on need someone to look to, to help them navigate the realities that many of us refuse to even acknowledge exist? Is it really still this difficult to understand that different women are empowered by different things and that everyone's feminism is different? Why are we so determined to find ways to create a hierarchy within the movement that values some women over others?"

1. I'm Sick To Death Of Talking About Rape Tropes In Fiction

"What did that scene add that we didn't already know? Did the writers think that cutting Theon's penis off was too subtle to indicate Ramsay's sadism? Did they think the brutal murder of her mother and brother were not strong enough motivators for Sansa to want revenge against the Boltons? Could they not conceive of a single other way in which Theon might be able to mentally recenter himself? What about this particular rape scene added such probative narrative value that it had to be transposed from one character to another even as the original victim is excised from the story? All it was is more rape on a show already replete with rape, for the sake of having rape. None of this is new information."

***** ***** *****

Last year, I hoped to spend time getting my voice heard online and I think I succeed. I was quoted in the LA Times, I was a guest on the Black Girl Dangerous Podcast, I was republished at Bitch Flicks, and by some miracle I  received the Bitch Media Writer's Fellowship. For 2016, I hope to finish up grad school, write amazing things under the tutelage of the Bitch Media editors, and to get to New York to meet all the amazing writers I've learned so much from online. Here's to a productive new year.