The failure of feminist Hollywood

"We don't need strong female characters, we need strong characters that just so happen to be female."

We went from Spider-Man and “with great power comes great responsibility” To She-Hulk and “saving people are for narcissists, billionaires, and adult orphans” That, in itself, is a narcissistic statement

“We spent all our time making sure we could make men feel as unwelcome and unwanted as possible” “Men not wanting to watch our shows is due to prejudice”

And , "Madame Web" just drove this point home with authority.

"Do you know how often I have to control my anger while men explain my field of expertise to me?" - as she loses her temper explaining Hulk's field of expertise to him

As a woman what I find hilarious is that men have proven more capable of writing a strong female character more than these modern day female writers. All they do is insert their miserable lives into any and everything they “create.”

the entertainment industry has just got so lost with what makes "strong female characters" "strong female characters". they're now stuck printing out invincible unstoppable girlbosses who overpower foes twice their size... none of these obnoxious girlboss characters will be remembered in 40 years like Ripley and Sarah Connor and Leia etc, those old great strong female characters weren't considered strong because they are unstoppable, but THE EXACT OPPOSITE. they went up against opponents far stronger than themselves but didn't back down, their strength was in their character and will to carry on, spitting in the face of terrible odds.

How in the world did we go from Ellen Ripley and Sarah Connor to She-Hulk (really any female Marvel superhero) and Ghostbusters (2016)?

Never forget: NOBODY had a problem with "Ellen Ripley" taking the lead in "Alien". And we're talking 1979, here. And then again in "Aliens" in 1986. She was badass, and everyone loved the character. Why? Because she wasn't there to make men look stupid and inept. She was surrounded by brave, competent characters, and fought bravely WITH them. "Ripley" is the character feminists need, but don't deserve.

“Men are too masculine, that’s toxic” Proceeds to create female characters that are extremely masculine and present that as great strong women. Say what?!?

You nail it. I love the Hollywood elite who think no strong woman ever made a movie before. They clearly never watch Kathrine Hepburn, Mae West, Audrey Hepburn, or Lauren Bacall in a movie. There have been strong women characters in film throughout history. The difference is those characters were the result of talented writers who could flush out the characters strength not the hacks writing in Hollywood today.

Imagine our kids reading what stuff we were debating back in 2024. Can't imagine that being an akward conversation

I miss when female characters weren't activists for non-existent issues

Hulk: - Experimented on as a child - His father killed his mother - Turned into a monster against his will - Is a man - Captured by the government - Experimented on by the government - Involuntarily killed lot's of people without wanting to - Lived in hiding from the government for multiple years in a third-world country separated from his loved ones - Love of his life died - Unable to commit suicide because the monster within him prevents it - Got stuck on an alien planet for years - Got controlled by the monster within him while on that planet - Pressured to save the world multiple times the list goes on... She-Hulk: - Is a woman - Gets catcalled by men "I have so much more experience controlling my anger infinitely better than you!" edit 3 :if you watched the show, you will see that she is ready to kill anyone for simple reasons... she almost killed some dudes that catcalled her or 'insulted her'...

I 100% agree with you. Why can't we have good female leads that aren't some form of feminist propaganda saying,"i can do anything better than any man, without any practice." This is why I hate the Star Wars Sequels; Rey can do everything without even trying, yet it took Luke his entire life to get to that point, and they also just destroyed Luke's character (probably to promote Rey I'm sure), he was far better in Legends.

I’m addition to the other great female leads mentioned, I would add that Jodie Foster was incredible in Silence of the Lambs and Contact. Rewatched these recently and I was really blown away at how really great she was.

“I’m an expert at controlling my anger” Jen says, angrily.

"Being gay and female doesn't fix terrible writing..." Someone should tell the White House.

Thank you for an excellent article, great to see a woman setting the record straight on issues that men are becoming increasingly uncomfortable about addressing, thanks to this insanity in Hollywood and Disney.

I guess the negative reacton from unemotional female leads can come down to our social intelligence and social behaviour. Basically why Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman worked for me (even though I didn't like the film itself) is because she's a great cast for the role and she managed to make her look like she fights the central powers and Ares because she's really invested into her moral code, and her concern for the state of the humanity feels genuine. She's resourseful, skilled, physically strong and, most importantly, trustworthy, which is why we can see her as a leader, which in turn aspires us. Lack of emotions, empathy and tendency to berate others and huge emphasis of self image are basically a bunch of narcissistic traights, so we perceive these characters as insecure, insencere, passive-agressive, spiteful and unreliable which kicks our survival instincs which cause us to hate these characters.