An interesting issue has come up in the comments to that 101 101 post, one that I think deserves its own thread to start unpacking its stuff.
Indefatigable commenter typhonblue linked to this article from OnFiction, and elaborated on its thesis:
What the article talks about is the Actor/Observer bias. We attribute to ourselves that we respond to circumstance, to others that they respond based on their personality. For example, if we’re studying hard we say that’s because we have a test coming up; if we see someone else studying hard we say that’s because ‘they’re studious.’
How this relates to fiction is that we assume male characters respond based on circumstance(like we see ourselves) and we see female characters responding according to their personality. Female characters thus have a sense of ‘other’ that we’re observing as the audience. Male character’s don’t; we, in essence, don their skins.
I believe that’s because, unlike minorities or women, we don’t really have a belief that men have a mystique or otherness about them. They become our proxy into fictionland.
In the words of W.S. Gilbert’s Pirate King: There’s something in that.
I recall as a kid looking at the media images I grew up on and feeling a little let down that I was Normal. (Normal of course meaning straight white cis male.) I didn’t have any kind of cool gimmick like being black or Asian or a girl. The Black One was always really cool and sometimes smart too, and The Asian One (who was still The Oriental One when I was small) always knew kung fu, which was awesome, and The Girl One was always pretty, and being pretty must be fun.
Now, observers will note that that is hella fucked up (i.e. fucked up times 10^27) in its attitudes toward… well, basically everybody. This is absolutely true. Sometimes I look at how I grew up and I’m amazed I’m not even more racist than I am.
At the same time, though, my experience reflects typhonblue’s point that there is a certain hollowness in the concept of Normal, as it exists in our notion of protagonists. I’ve mused before on the phenomenon of Normal People in media and how it excludes everyone but guys who look like me, only usually less bald.
If I follow typhonblue’s theory correctly (and if I’m confused, I’m sure she’ll clarify) a Normal protagonist becomes made up of actions, while lacking any intrinsic qualities. He reacts to situations because of the situations, not because of who he is. In a certain sense, then, there IS no “who he is”. He’s just The Hero, he’s John Everyman, he’s a Normal Guy, as opposed to a person with a personality.
Now, the reflexive shallow response to this is to start listing personality traits of Normal protagonists. James Bond is horny! Marty McFly is cool! Harry Potter is a whiny little shit! But that’s kind of missing the point. Their actions aren’t dictated by their internal qualities, they’re dictated by the circumstances of the story and their reactions to those circumstances.
Seen in this light, the very ubiquity of the Normal protagonist (Which I think we can all agree is offensive and tends to erase other people’s experiences, right?) is itself a form of erasure of the experience of guys who happen to pass, superficially, for Normal. After all, we have internal drives and personality traits. I for one am horny, cool, AND a whiny little shit. So while we see ourselves superficially reflected on the screen in a way others don’t, that very reflection becomes dehumanizing in a very subtle, very odd way.
It’s certainly an interesting way of looking at the problem, and one I think is worth chewing over for a while. What do you think?
Hmmm… I was going to bring up how there are plenty of books with “everywoman” characters, making specific reference to Twilight, but I notice that Skidd beat me to it.
I can however be the first to link to The Oatmeal’s comic on Twilight, which describes the concept perfectly. (But is rather offensive, so be warned!)
It’s interesting that a movie like Salt can exist, where your typical action hero is swapped with a woman and it makes no difference whatsoever to the plot. It’s too bad Salt wasn’t actually a very good movie or I’d go all “whee!” at it. This is a little late, but I was reminded of something… in the script for the movie “Alien”, the characters are not identified by gender, and the script says that actors of any gender can be cast for any of the parts. So action movies aren’t the only genre in which this works. (Similarly, “Night… Read more »
This is fascinating, thank you.
I wonder how much of that is literally that they have limited imaginations or that they simply chose parts that they thought would not get rejected.
Eagle:
You are being unfair. One comment thread does not totally describe the opinions of all the various authors and commenters at this site of which you are one.
So I took a peek through the OP’s narrow lens, considered it, then dismissed it as, well, silly. First off, actor-observer bias is, to me, part of the conservative mindset. Where, for example, republicans blame poor people for being poor, rather that blaming poor people’s circumstances for them being poor. Secondly, just because there is a bias in people doesn’t mean all people ‘suffer’ from this bias and nor do all people suffer at equal levels. All this means is that for some people there is a tendency to think in a certain biased way. (aside: teach more critical thinking… Read more »
Whelp, as I thought.
You guys keep talking about white, straight cis male protagonists and disparage it.
I’ll just stay in my corner and keep stuff to myself from now on. Obviously this place doesn’t welcome other viewpoints after all if it doesn’t fit the standard “White men oppressive, women victims” motif.
Very interesting, AB. Thanks for that summary. That resonates more with me than the “equal and opposite suckage” claim, which seems far too simplistic.
This observation dovetails pretty interestingly with Captain Awkward’s Feministe post about doing exercises in casting with her film students. She has them look at headshots and then brainstorm about roles: for white men, they have no trouble coming up with an entire history, job, role, genre, time, place, and costume. They will often identify him without prompting as “the main character.” Makes sense, it’s easy to project onto a face that says “normal” or “default” in our society, and that plays into everything typhonblue was talking about. Captain Awkward then goes on to talk about how limited the students’ imaginations… Read more »
Yeah, and what about those straight, white female leads who are strong at the expense of any supporting male characters? Usually there’s the default for the supporting males though: Imbecilic, evil, bumbling, ignorant, or comic relife. Then they’re chewed out by every female character without a means to defend themselves. Talk all you want about it, and I hate to continue parroting, but I find it marginizling and an erasure of my experiences with popular media from the other side always focusing on the straight, white male characters. All I’m saying is maybe we should discuss both things? Or is… Read more »
doubletrack: “@AB: That sounds like something I’d like to read about. Do you have a link to the theory?” No, it’s from one of my books. You can try searching for it on the net, but it’s pretty simple: Status is decided by who is considered powerful, competent etc. Usually, that’s men over women, rich people over poor people, adults over both children and old people, people who’re perceived as able-bodied and able-minded over people who’re not, ethnic groups that are considered successful over those who are not, and so on. Relationship with mainstream society is decided by who is… Read more »
Skidd: I also wanna comment on the villains bit: I always found it rather interesting for something like, say, Captain Planet — very sure to indicate that heroes are of all races and genders, and then the villains are all white and entirely male save for one female, and she’s the only “attractive” one. Nobody fights for more women and people of color to be portrayed as villains, of course. In my experience (meaning what I’ve seen and read) you have something of a point. Its usually the complaint that female PoC villians are unfair representations or are simply sexist/racist… Read more »
Also, if this is true (conforming to your gender role gets rewarded, men more than women; lack of conformity is punished, again men more than women), it’s another example of Ozy’s equal suckitude for everyone, because it means that:
1) We, as a culture, think Being A Woman Sucks; and
2) Therefore men should have less freedom than women to traverse gender roles.
@Motley “I think conforming to your gender role gets rewarded, men more than women; lack of conformity is punished, again men more than women.”
Agreed. And I think femmephobia helps to explain this.
@AB: That sounds like something I’d like to read about. Do you have a link to the theory?
Motley:
“In short(ish)–I think conforming to your gender role gets rewarded, men more than women; lack of conformity is punished, again men more than women.”
This has been my experience too. It’s one of the reasons I’ve found Glick and Fiske’s theory of three basic forms of prejudice to be so useful. Distinguishing between high status vs. low status, and a perceived cooperative vs. a perceived competitive relation to mainstream society., is a lot more precise than than just talking about who’s marginalised and who isn’t.
@saratoday, fair enough. All I remember is the FutureDrugs part where the guy mourns his son with a pronounced lack of affect.
And how when the precrime program turns out to be targeting him (or whatever?) he doesn’t even get to have a decent existential crisis about it!
@ Ozy, Fanny– Same conclusion here but i’ve taken a little further as, men have their own set of privileges, and so does women. So equal suckage and equal privileges but only related to the specific traditional gender role Personally, I’m not at all convinced that the privileges and drawbacks are equal–both genders are given privileges based on conformity to the ideal for their gender, but I’m comfortable saying that the rewards for being a perfectly gender-conforming man are largely better than for being a perfectly gender-conforming woman. (And there are drawbacks to gender conformity, but I think these, too,… Read more »
Ahem. I would like to nominate Tally Youngblood (The Uglies) as female lead developed role in storytelling.
There are literally dozens of recent novels and books that depict female leads who are fully developed.
The thing is – developed characters (male or female) don’t make for blockbusting movie scripts. If the story is one that Hollywood thinks would make a blockbuster, you can be sure the male characters will be simplified and overmasculinized and the female characters will be masculized (to appease the Feminists) and given bigger boobs (to appease everyone else.)
Skidd: “I also wanna comment on the villains bit: I always found it rather interesting for something like, say, Captain Planet — very sure to indicate that heroes are of all races and genders, and then the villains are all white and entirely male save for one female, and she’s the only “attractive” one. Nobody fights for more women and people of color to be portrayed as villains, of course.” I don’t think that’s true. A lot of people want a better representation in general, but naturally, the most focus is on what is seen as the most important role,… Read more »
@Ozy.
Hehehee. Evil is an equal opportunity occupation! 😀
@f
I think you’re confusing Minority Report with another movie. In M.R. Cruise and his wife had a son who disappeared. He is still upset years later and it is his grief that drives him to help develop the Pre-Crime program.
Just FYI.
“It’s an interesting theory, but I’m curious who the “we” is in that sentence.”
Bingo, fannie. and that seesm deserving of its own post too!
I don’t think that “we” menas only the male readers. I think that a literature with that kind of cast of characters is going to form readers, male or female, that conform to that cultural structure. It is not only going to cheat those readers, but it is going to deform them. Male or female.
Skidd: I do! I do! Pick me! 🙂
Fannie: Well, every one I’ve encountered so far, anyway. 😛 The Patriarchy Sucks For Everyone, News At Eleven.
“Female characters thus have a sense of ‘other’ that we’re observing as the audience. Male character’s don’t; we, in essence, don their skins.” It’s an interesting theory, but I’m curious who the “we” is in that sentence. For me, I’m not sure a character’s gender has much relevance as to whether or not I see hir as a potential avatar of myself in the story. Similiar to what another commenter said, whether or not I can “don the skin” of a character is highly dependent upon the genre. ozy said: “What I’ve found, as I’ve started to explore gender egalitarianism,… Read more »
Yeah, I can only think of two specifically female Heroic mimes: Chell of Portal and Samus of Metroid. And still some people aren’t aware Samus is a girl. I don’t think any of the pokemon girls count, since you can pick either gender. (Technically MAYBE Ammy of Okami is, but not only is she a wolf, but she’s portrayed as pretty gender neutral [peeing technique lifts leg like a male dog, she has male gaze sometimes…]) But the relevant TV Tropes link: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AudienceSurrogate It’s interesting to note that there ARE instances of female audience surrogate here, but it’s for things… Read more »