At Emerald City Comicon, I had the opportunity to
attend the Supernatural Fan Panel, where fans of the show discussed
trends, issues, and potential futures for the show. A common issue that
kept coming up was the inability of the show to maintain a female
character. Every major female character, to date, has been either
written out or killed off.
In
fairness to the writers, female characters have typically not been well
received by the fanbase. Hate mail, violent memes, and passionately
enraged blogs flood the internet whenever a female character interacts
with the leads on the show.
(The
exception to this rule is Charlie Bradbury whom, even Misha Collins has
suggested, avoids the ire of the fanbase because she is openly lesbian,
and therefore not perceived as a threat)
I didn’t stand up and comment during the panel for a variety of reasons, but this is the message I wished I could have conveyed:
I think we, as women, need to stop cutting off our own opportunities.
As
much as we like to think that the entertainment industry is all about
the characters and storytelling (and a portion of it is), it’s first and
foremost a business. Producers, executives and writers are not going to
invest the time, energy and funding necessary to create intelligent,
well-written female characters, unless they are seeing a return on their
investment.
It’s not just Supernatural. This is a problem that is industry-wide.
If,
week after week, showrunners receive copious complaints about female
characters, the result is going to be 1) those female characters are not
going to remain on the show much longer and 2) it’s going to be much
harder to convince the show to introduce any other females in the
future.
I’m
not suggesting that we stop providing feedback regarding our individual
fandoms. Opinions are valid, and feedback is important. But, I am
suggesting that we, as women, are more careful with the language we are
using. Saying that you dislike a character because she is shallow,
two-dimensional, and transparent in her intentions is one thing.
Pointing out that you feel that a character is an overly sexualized
stereotype, or that you disagree with the direction the writers are
taking her story is also valid.
Calling
a female character a tramp, slut or witch is not empowering, and is
self-defeatist. We need to be supporting each other as women, not
tearing each other down.
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