July 15th, 2007 by screenwriterguy
Last month I posted a comedy monologue for women I had written on a lark. I was surprised by the immediate reaction it received. I wound up talking to several female friends with acting backgrounds who agreed wholeheartedly that it’s tough to find good comedic material for women. The screenwriterguy.com stats seem to back up what my friends said, as a steady stream of hits have come through from people searching for female monologues. This morning I was surprised to see that the monologue post had pushed to the top position of most-read posts on the site. The whole thing has left me thinking about the delicate art of writing female roles. As part of my meditation on the subject, I decided to create this list of Top Ten Strongest Female TV Characters.
The subject of strongest female characters begs definition. I’ve learned that it’s a far more complicated issue than one might think. A member of my old comedy troupe once expressed disappointment in the roles she had been playing in a show. She felt that she was constantly the mom, the girlfriend… rarely the funny person. (It’s a far deeper issue than I have time for in this explanation, and it’s a question with which I’ve heard many sketch troupes wrestle. Let me quickly invite you to think about how many female players there were on Kids in the Hall or in the Monty Python crew.) Anyway, long after this member of our troupe had forgotten the conversation, we were casting a show and I went (probably a little too far) out of my way to make sure she had nothing but strong characters to play. She was the funny person to someone else’s straight man. Her characters had authority and status. I casually asked later about how this new show felt, and I was shocked to hear her explain that her favorite moment was a number in which she was a back-up singer: “It’s the first time in the show I feel sexy,” she said. Clearly I had something to learn about what defined a good female role.
So when I list strong female characters, my goal is not entirely about feminist ideals or girl power, but to find writing that creates a distinct, defined character. She must be more than a foil to the male lead. Her femininity should not be her defining characteristic, and yet it must be intrinsic to her identity. Succinctly, what roles would the female actor just love to sink her teeth into? What roles would be really fun to play? Further, Xena the Warrior Princess doesn’t count as a strong woman just because she’s a woman who’s strong. And while Mary Tyler Moore was a masterfully written and groundbreaking show, Mary’s significance had as much to do with her situation as with any specialness to her character. Like any character in any story, our strongest female TV characters should help us understand a corner of the human condition, the only restriction being that the understanding come from a woman’s perspective. Here’s my list:
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Buffy and Sydney–Yes, there’s a certain originality to the female butt-kicker. Not often do we meet a woman we expect to take down all comers, mano-a-mano.However, the quality that earns these heroines a place on the chart is how little they actually want their gifts. Both Buffy and Sydney gained specialness and destiny from forces beyond their control. While each has a champion’s heart and cannot help but use her skills when called upon, each express a need to live a normal life as a normal girl. It is in this duality that the depth of their characters lies. The action scenes are fun, but if you want to see when Sarah Michelle Gellar and Jennifer Garner truly shine as actors, look for the moments when they cry over a lost love or struggle against an authority figure. That’s the part that truly makes them strong female characters. |
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Samantha Stephens–Plenty has been written about the metaphor present in Bewitched. A patriarchal male refuses to allow his wife to utilize her power and ability. There’s certainly something to that idea, but to me it’s the subsequent thought that’s more interesting: how Samantha continuously walks the line between obeying the rules of the house to which she has agreed, and yet… not. In what episode does Samantha actually not use witchcraft? She loves and respects her husband, and truly wishes to live in the mortal world, but with all those magical relatives popping in all the time… |
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AllyMcBeal–This may be something of an on-the-nose selection, but Ally nonetheless qualifies as a strong female character. At least in the early seasons, Ally’s desire to balance career, biological clock, and true romance afforded her a realistic complexity. While Ally’s quirks provided uniqueness, she also embodied a universal conundrum faced by modern women. Most days she fought the good fight, but sometimes she walked home sad in the snow to Vonda Shepherd music. Either way, even us guys could sympathize with her quest for happiness–as long as happiness meant having it all. |
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Veronica Mars–She’s a taser-packing smart-girl crime solver. For one so young, she carries emotional damage aplenty. And while she works her way through most situations with banter-y bravado, in a field typically occupied by men, at no point does Veronica feel remotely tomboy-ish. She emits her own style, flirting and flouncing if she so chooses, outwitting and evading if she doesn’t. The most interesting aspect of her nature is her interaction with the men in her life: Duncan, Logan, Wallace, and especially father Keith. We see her mistrust, but also her desire to be truly loved. It’s beautiful and sad to watch Veronica and Keith keeping things from each other, each hoping to protect the other, only to damage situations worse.Veronica is a big ball of vulnerability and skill, not afraid to use her feminine wiles, but never willing to let them outshine her cleverness. |
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Dianne Chambers–Aficionado of high culture, she nonetheless spends her days in a salt-of-the-earth bar. Overly educated, she nonetheless works as a waitress. Though on one hand she feels he’s below her station, she nonetheless feels an animal attraction for a washed-up baseball player. Dianne is an exercise in dichotomy. Still, there’s amazing clarity to her character. You absolutely know the viewpoint that will inform the next lines from her mouth. |
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Lindsay/Georgia/Jane–Three short-lived shows–Freaks and Geeks, Dead Like Me, and Wonderfalls–each made a brilliant effort to bring us a young female protagonist struggling to find her place in life (or death, as the case may be.) Unlike the other two shows, Dead Like Me saw two seasons. Sadly, it almost immediately lost the magic it built in the pilot. The other two stayed truer, but neither saw a full season. In any event, I personally love writing that successfully pulls off the very thing everyone tells you not to do in your writing: building an interesting protagonist with ambiguous goals. All Lindsay, Georgia, or Jane wanted was to know what they should want. Trauma left each of these disaffected ingenues seeking purpose and identity in a way that speaks to younger generations as characters on television rarely do. |
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Lucy Ricardo–In an era when homemaker was essentially the only option for a female sitcom character, I Love Lucy turned that role into so much more. In creating a dizzy character desperate to live in her husband’s world, creators of this show opened magnificent possibilities to show off a comedic legend. Lucy’s desire for acclaim and her fear of upsetting Ricky were driving forces in her life, matched with a natural ability to make any situation much worse before it got better. |
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Lois–While she may be defined by her “momness,” Lois (Wilkerson) takes Mother to whole new levels. The absolute alpha-female of her household, parenting is an art of war to her. Perhaps her attitude is because of how difficult her boys are, and perhaps her boys are difficult because of her attitude. As the only female in a house of boys, we can sense Lois’s underlying desperation for a moment’s peace, but at no point do we doubt her absolute skill to command and conquer her household. |
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Joy Turner–I had an immediate instinct that Joy didn’t belong on a list of strongest female characters. After all, she’s hardly a role model. And when you’re considering well-drawn characters, Joy’s trashy, slutty nature makes her seem at first like too easy a joke. But I realized that excluding Joy would make me guilty of the same sin I disdain so much in others: refusing to recognize the artistic merit of comedy. And the more I thought about her, the higher she went on my list. Her hedonistic, brash, ignorant side provides the show a window through which to mock the worst qualities in some Americans. But a strong bond with her husband (her new one, anyway) and her underlying drive to protect her children add just enough depth for her to stay likeable. And unlike in so much of comedy, Joy is a female character with as many or more of the punchlines than her male counterparts. |
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Willow Rosenberg–No character has ever explored so complex an arc as Willow’s over the seven seasons of Buffy. From adorable nerd, to socially competent groupie, to budding witch, to burgeoning lesbian, to content romantic partner, to power-hungry sorceress, to unstoppable vengence-driven killer, to all-powerful goddess? Show me any other show, any other character, male or female, with a journey to rival Willow’s. I dare you. AND, every last growth in Willow’s personality was motivated and logical. I heard an NPR interview with Joss Whedon in which he confessed that while he loved all of the characters on Buffy, Allyson Hannigan always delighted him with her delivery, and so Willow was one of his favorite characters to write for. Well, having a powerhouse writer like Whedon decide you’re his favorite has it’s perks, because Hannigan was lucky and skilled enough to play a part that would be the high point of any actor’s career. |
Posted in Top 10 Lists, My Writing, TV Shows, Character |
Jul 22nd 2007 at 1:43 pm
Oh dear. Your list is interesting, but when I think of strong female roles on television, I always think of it in light of what I want my nieces to look up to and emulate. Although I LOVE Lucy Ricardo, I wouldn’t want my nieces to grow up like her. (They can grow up to be another Lucille Ball, yes, but please, not Lucy Ricardo.)
I’m afraid that very few of your characters match the ones I think of as strong, without giving up their femininity.
Sally Rogers (from The Dick Van Dyke Show). Perhaps this show was a little before your time. She’s the one I wanted to emulate when I was growing up. She was smart and funny, and could more than hold her own against the gang of guys she worked with. She was also one of the few independent, working, single women on television at the time. Many people tout Mary Richards from The Mary Tyler Moore Show as an admirable example, but I always thought she was a touch too whiney, and could be quite a push-over.
Murphy Brown.
She ruled the universe she inhabited, and was fearless. (It should be noted that Murphy Brown actually did play a backup singer to Aretha Franklin in an episode. Too bad she couldn’t sing.)
Shirley Schmidt (Boston Legal).
Another strong woman character, and coincidentally played by the same actress who played Murphy Brown, Candice Bergen. Shirley also holds her own against some pretty powerful characters. Indeed, Boston Legal was suffering a serious chromosonal and sanity imbalance until she showed up and gave some gravitas to the lunacy at the law firm.
Superintendant Jane Tennison (Prime Suspect).
Is there anyone who deals with the good ol’ boy network better than Jane Tennison? Or with nasty, gritty big city crimes? She makes Brenda Leigh Johnston seem like a mere dabbler in a cozy police procedural.
The entire female cast of characters on Farscape.
Scifi usually is laughably pathetic when it comes to women characters. I don’t know if it’s because most scifi writers (and producers) are socially inept, or if it’s simply the product of the masculine power structure in the studio system, or both. Whatever it is, it induces in me much eye-rolling and gnashing of teeth. It’s also one of the reasons why many women don’t care much for scifi. (There are others, but that’s for a later discussion.) However, Farscape’s women are radically different. They’re all strong and tough, and none of them have surrendered their feminity in order to be tough. Particularly fascinating is the masculine/feminine role reversal between the two leads. How they do this without either of them becoming wimpy or some sort of androgynous caricature is a mystery. (Probably, it has something to do with the sizzling chemistry between them. Really, it just burns up the screen.) These women are the only scifi women I’ve ever watched who I admired. I don’t know what this show did to break that mold, but finally there was a scifi show that I could enjoy watching.
Grace Kelly (Grace Under Fire).
Grace fought her battles against her white trash background with…as it says in the title…um, grace. Her life was a mess, but she faced her challenges with humor and worked through whatever roadblocks came her way. And unlike Roseanne, Grace did not flame out in a run of insanity — even if Brett Butler, the actress who played her did.
I agree with you about Veronica Mars, though. And Lois Wilkerson. And strongly disagree with you about Diane Chambers, who I thought was just about as stupid as stupid could be. Even Edith Bunker was smarter than Diane.
Jul 22nd 2007 at 2:50 pm
Wow, grapeshot, great feedback. Thanks!
You are very right that my list doesn’t serve as a strong group of role models. But, as I set up at the top of my post, I was considering roles that are well written and that women would enjoy playing. I suppose my post title is misleading, but “ScreenwriterGuy’s Top Ten Female Characters Who Are Powerful Yet Still Feminine, in a Way That Is Well Written and That Actresses Would Kill to Play” was too many words.
For example, you held up Edith Bunker as an example of a character who belongs nowhere on the list of strong female characters, as she isn’t the brightest. But I very much considered her for this list, as her character is well developed and has a uniqueness. I know that she will struggle to be the peacemaker, she’ll kowtow and enable for Archie, but that when he goes way past the line she’ll stand up to him. Ultimately I decided that too much of who Edith is comes from playing against Archie and didn’t include her, but she IS the kind of person I was thinking about for my list. A strong woman she is not; a strong character she is.
Your suggestions are definitely much more in line with women I would respect and want to invite over for a dinner party. (Although no way is Chiana invited. She’s ANNOYING!)
Meanwhile, you are SO, SO RIGHT about Sally Rogers. I didn’t think of her, but she definitely qualifies. You are the winner of this week’s Proved-ScreenwriterGuy-Wrong Award. (Feel privileged. It’s not given out often.)
Thanks again for the feedback, and consider your blog subscribed to.
Aug 20th 2008 at 9:04 pm
I agreed with most of your pics but I cant believe you didnt include Julia Louis-Dreyfuss Elaine character from Seinfeld