When it comes to analyzing media, I take female protagonists very seriously. Not just because they get judged by harsher standards than their male counterparts but also because so many female empowerment stories end up undermining their own agenda by portraying the story or the characters incorrectly. For example, drawing attention to the fact that the protagonist is a girl struggling to survival in "Man's World" actually reinforces the stereotype of female inferiority by implying that your girl is an exception to the standard and not the rule itself. Lowering the competence of the male characters (Kim Possible, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Steven Universe) also breaks the message by basically implying that women can't be competent unless the men aren't and diminishes the worth on both sides.
But there's one other barrier to true empowerment in stories. And it is that barrier that I shall highlight here.
The lack of struggle.
One of my favorite movie quotes comes from Rocky Balboa when he talks about how, "You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain't about how hard you hit. It's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward; how much you can take and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done!"
And later on in the movie, that same drive to survive is put to the test when Rocky takes a heavy blow during his match.
And it disappoints me greatly to say this but I have yet to see that same drive and determination to succeed from a female main protagonist. Let me be clear, it's not because of any weakness on their part.
It's because despite how far they've come, most writers are too afraid to put their girls through the wringer.
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Let me use a recent example: Rey from the Sequel Trilogy of Star Wars. She has two movies under her belt and is barely worse for the wear. Almost all of her struggles throughout the two movies are entirely mental (coming to terms with her situation, stop doubting herself, accept her lot in life and move forward); and while those conflicts are perfectly legitimate for a story, the actual tension is undermined by the fact that despite several lightsaber duels, staff fights, Stormtrooper brawls, and space battles under her belt, the only injury she sustains throughout the two films...is a single scratch on her shoulder.
One...scratch.
Ugh.
This wouldn't be so bad except for the fact that that rule doesn't apply to any of the other main characters. Finn gets his spine slashed and put in a coma. Poe gets tortured by Kylo Ren complete with blood. Kylo himself gets a nasty scar across his face. Yet all that happens to them and Rey just gets a single scratch?
That's not empowering. That's downright insulting. The movies expect us to believe the characters are all on equal footing, but the blatant favoritism of the plot says otherwise.
Now don't get me wrong, I love Rey as a character. But that just makes this shortcoming even harder to point out.
And she's not the only example.
Hunger Games: Katniss gets stuck by mutant wasps. Stings are gone in the next scene.
Avengers: Compared to the other characters, Black Widow's only visible injury is a bleeding lip.
Doctor Who: Martha Jones spends an entire year in a post-apocalyptic wasteland and comes back without so much as a hair out of place.
This blatant double-standard is very irritating because it serves as false empowerment. Strength and achievement without legitimate struggle and suffering isn't real achievement at all.
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All of this leads me to a couple of pieces of art I'd like to showcase here to display how this artist gets right what so many others get wrong.
This comic is called Mias and Elle and is currently being produced by the Deviantartist StressedJenny.
Within the comic, a girl named Elle finds herself kidnapped by a mysterious sorcerer and transported to another world altogether. She tries to fight him verbally and physically every step of the way, but finds herself hampered by the fact that he has both magical powers and knowledge of how the alternate world works while she has neither. As such, he easily counters or sidesteps most of her attempts to escape. To her credit, she does adapt quickly to her new situation, even saving her kidnapper's life when they're attacked by a rival sorcerer. And after several failed attempts to escape (the last of which led to that trickle of blood on her forehead), she manages to finally evade him and we reach that point above.
By this point, after having her head wound amplified by her fall, she briefly breaks down crying after seeing the blood on her hand (and I don't blame her. Getting hit in the head hard enough to bleed when she was already hurt would put her through a LOT of pain especially on top of everything ELSE that's happened to her which includes almost dying twice). At this point, she's scared, lost, hurt, and I'm pretty sure her thought process is "I just want to go Home!"
It's a sad reminder that despite her capability, she's completely out of her depth and in dangerous territory. And because of that, it adds a lot more to her character. Something you don't see in characters like Katniss, Rey, or Buffy.
This is REAL empowerment because it incorporates mental AND physical weakness to play off of her previously displayed skill. Instead of strength alone, we get strength AND fallibility. Something that every protagonist both male and female desperately needs.
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