Growing up reading and watching classic Disney movies like Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and Snow White, I remembered the females in the movies were damsels in distress. It seems that long ago the female was seen as that vulnerable character who awaits in a tower or cottage surrounded by solitude waiting for her prince charming to save her.
Now a days there seems to be a "woman movement" in films. Recent ones that come to mind are Sucker Punch and Hanna, both movies follow a dangerous heroine on a journey. In Sucker Punch a young girl is sent to a mental asylum by her step father, while in the asylum she searches for a way of escape with the help of other girl inmates. Hanna follows a teenage girl who was raised away from society by her father to become the perfect assassin. Both movies have the teenage girl as the heroine on a dangerous journey to figure out some sort of truth . Because these 2 movies showcase the female in the role of dominance, I think it conveys the equality that both male and females can be the hero. Maybe the rise in female heroines is a new wave of story lines stepping outside the literary norm or maybe its a statement that females don't have to be that vulnerable character locked away to be saved by a prince to live happily ever after.
From first glance these movies kind of give off the idea that females can be strong, independent people. Other TV shows that come to mind are Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Nikita. It seems as though now in modern pop culture we are seeing more and more female dominance in media typically movies or tv series. I think this modern era is giving movies or tv shows a more realistic side of portraying women as they aren't all vulnerable or damsels all the time. Rachel McAdams' character in the 2009 Sherlock Holmes, Irene Adler, is Holmes lover who in one scene is strapped to a conveyor belt in a slaughterhouse and saved from being sawed in two by a chainsaw. Yet in another scene she isn't the helpless damsel, instead she is able rob 2 men who tried to rob her. This kind of situation can also be seen in the Scooby Doo tv show with Daphne falling through trap doors and such countless times but at the same time being a wisecrack heroine such as opening locks with strange items from her purse. I guess having that female protagonist is giving females a new outlook on life.
To what extent are females considered damsels in distress in movies or stories (are females completely helpless in more modern movies and stories)?Do you think the rise in heroines are replacing the more dominant male heroes making them the "damsels in distress" or will the heroine still be considered the damsel?
Excellenct posting to get your peers thinking about female archetypes.
ReplyDeleteYou bring up a valid question when you ask if heroines will continue to also embody some aspects of the damsel in distress. I think this is the case. We are fearful of women who appear to lack sterotypical female qualities. If our heroine is too strong, she lacks the vermisimilitude that we demand to fully buy commit to the story and character--to see her oneself; however, we also demand this of our male heros. Who would Spiderman be without the vulnerability of Peter Parker who lives with the guilt of his grandfather's death? We demand that our heroes, of both sexes, possess weaknesses just as we do.
I'm wondering if we are starting to see more female anti-heroes?
to see her in oneself--correction
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