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[Haly]

would Utena pass this criteria?

Utena is guilty of 2 (she went to Ohtori Academy as part of the manipulations of her "prince") and 5 (she shirks conventional feminity while assuming the mantle of "prince").

 

[AntraxSuicide]

And what do you know Korra has a couple of these. What an awful character.

It always bothers me too when female characters cut their hair to show how serious they are. Like, it it's trying act like character development, but it almost never actually means anything (Like Sakura AND Ino in Naruto) You can be feminine and still an ass kicker.

And funnily enough both Korra AND Asami ended up with short hair in the last season, and then ended up in love. Which I personally think is kinda iffy because it feeds into the whole "lesbians and short hair" thing, but no one ever seems bothered by it but me.

Eh, neither of them end up with a pixie cut. Both are still rocking very feminine looks at the end.

 

[PSqueak]

Not really? He's a secondary character at best, nowhere near sharing the same importance as any of these four.

The end goal does revolve around

Spoiler

saving him, as he becomes a literal dude in distress

, but that was never the central point of the movie.

I mean, presenting him like a complete idiot who can't grasp simple things kinda counts for "Humiliating male character to make the female characters look better".

Not that i have any problem with the character, can't remember when was the last time that trope was played like that.

 

[Gallbaro]

Hail to the Queen

Spoiler

of sci-fi

Unless I completely missed the point.

 

[meltingparappa]

Hail to the Queen

Spoiler

of sci-fi

Unless I completely missed the point.

Even a fairly generous metric would still consider her a tomboy, and the two crewmates upset about the stipulation of their contract would consider her a bitchy leader.


The article is about the pervasiveness of character traits though, and not necessarily a judgment on individual examples.

 

[Morrigan Stark]

I guess Leslie Jones' character is kind of a tomboy, but not really.

I think a lot of the "cliché" characteristics (tomboy etc.) are a lot more forgivable when the character is part of a female ensemble cast instead of being the sole female character/hero. FemFreq explained it well:

When there are a variety of female roles in a single piece of media, we get a wider spectrum of personalities and character traits, which helps avoid boxing women into obnoxious and played-out stereotypes.

[...]

Erin fawns over Kevin constantly in a way that’s both amusing and kind of pathetic. On its own, this would be frustrating, but again, because Ghostbusters gives us a range of women with notably different personality types, no one character is holding all the weight for womankind, so the film has more freedom to explore comedic territory without reinforcing negative stereotypes.

So yeah, as always, context matters.

Personally, I'm so fucking sick of heroines having sexual assault be used as character building, to the point where if it comes up I'm like fuck no thanks.

Yeah, it's almost never done right too. And if it is, well, it's been done so badly in the past that I'd probably still roll my eyes at it.

Should female characters really be dinged for having romantic interests? That seems like a double standard.

It's like when people were complaining about Black Widow in Avengers 2 having a relationship with Bruce Banner. "Of course the woman is the only one with a romantic subplot!"

A) Every other Avenger has a romantic subplot either explored in their own movie (Iron Man with Pepper Potts, Cap with Agent Carter, Thor with Natalie Portman) or within Avengers 2 (Hulk, Hawkeye with his wife)

B) The one she was having a relationship with was another Avenger.

I'd actually go as far to say as its weird for a character not to have any sort of romantic interest, unless they're explicitly asexual. I get a broader complaint of shoehorning romance into movies that don't need it, and the way relationships are written can certainly be improved, but come on. You can give a female character a boyfriend.

I agree. In fact, I dare say that it should happen more, especially in games. Some folks have actually criticized Sleepy Hollow (contains spoilers for all 3 seasons) for refusing to give a real romantic interest to the female lead, Abigail Mills, haha.

For games, well, female protagonists in video games who do have romantic interests are often, well, conveniently gay. Straight protagonists (not player-created ones but pre-set characters) are rarely shown pursuing a male love interest. There was a GAF thread about this recently, here.

 

[Mephala]

6. Sex trauma as backstory
5. Must be a tomboy
4. Powers/Abilities are used to help male lead
3. Cannot be leaders without also being bitchy
2. Their stories always revolve around a guy (hero or villain)
1. They can't look cool without humiliating a guy

Is0bel and Gobbet from Shadowrun Hong Kong.
They hit none of those things. Glory from Dragonfall might hit one but its kind of minor when taking her story as a whole. That said, all SR characters has a pretty dark back story. It is just the world they live in. Given they are also criminals it isn't hard to imagine they have rough histories.
Here are two competent women who survived despite the odds and managed to scrape together a way of living and survive. Great characters from a great cast in a great game.
The plot revolving around a man is part true. The plot shifts focus a few times. You might be hunting a man or woman but you don't know the ultimate master mind until later and even then the gender of this person is hardly a concern.

Now that I think about it, one of my favourite female lead characters was actually my main character in these games. Gender had very little to do with it, it was mostly because the game treated your character well based on your abilities, skills and choices. The writing carried it and made me appreciate my character that much more.

Female MC in Persona 3 Portable.
Doesn't really hit any of those though you can choose to poke fun of male class members and what not.