The Flaws of the Modern Heroine

While watching countless YouTube videos on the modern day heroine tropes present in books, I thought I’d add my two cents on what I think might be contributing to these problematic tropes in both books and cinema.

The first and, original mistake with many female protagonists in mainstream media was that they suffered from being Mary Sues. Mary Sues are described as being idolized woman mostly present for wish fulfillment. This is quite an accurate description of what most heroines of that time were portrayed as; they were examples for girl and woman alike to look up to and to strive towards, young and beautiful.
But because of the time, a common trait that also carried over into their “personalities” was the fact that they didn’t know how to stand up for themselves and protect themselves.
They were simply beautiful props who needed men in their lives so they could fall in love and be rescued by them. Prime examples of this came in the form of Walt Disney’s animated films of the 1900s like Snow White, Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty who fits the Mary Sue description to a T as well as taking away from other personality traits that might have been worth focusing on such as Cinderella’s kindness and perseverance in the face of abuse.
Though it’s worth noting that Mary Sues have somewhat disappeared off of the screen they do reappear every now and then.
A more recent example would Twilight’s Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart). I feel obliged to mention Fifty Shades of Grey’s Anastasia Steel as well since, even though Anastasia Steel was originally created as Bella, she showcases all of Bella’s issues to an even worse extent.

The retaliation to this flaw in the portrayal of heroines in mainstream media soon yielded a new character flaw.
The solution to the Mary Sue problem seemed to be to create independent strong-willed woman who needed help from no one and though, at surface leave, this doesn’t seem to be a bad idea, many films seemed to fall into the pitfall of simply creating a man in a woman’s body, Sarah Connor and many female cop characters seem to have this problem where the writers are constantly treading on whether or not the character might as well have been a man. In the early 2000s this was a clear trend within cinema where, the moment that they wanted a woman to be strong, they would just assign her masculine traits.
A big thing that the assigning of masculine traits to a female character takes away from the female character, is their emotions. This is unfortunate because, not only do I believe woman’s abilities to feel empathy and to look at life through a sympathetic lens, are important, but the removal of these traits also have the adverse effect of casting emotional-ness as being weak and not desirable but as Isla Fisher said:

“Women should not have to adopt masculine traits in order to succeed. You should be able to stay as a woman, and in tune with your femininity, and still be equal.”

Though the “masculine woman” isn’t inherently wrong since woman like that can surely be found, it is not the only way a strong woman should be represented since the majority of men versus the majority of woman, react differently when put in the same situation.
In mainstream media’s search to right the wrong of how they were handling heroines, they tried, and in my opinion failed, to remedy the inequality prominent in the cinema of that time.
Where once, the men had been the saviors within the tale, it was now the woman saving themselves and the men in their lives, or even worse, men were portrayed as being a terrible oppressive force which needed to be avoided at all costs.
Though this reversal once again doesn’t seem to be a problem on the surface level, it still indicates an imbalance in power, an inequality which in the long run could be a problem. Ideally, men and women should be shown as able to work together and be equals, whether it’s in an everyday situation or when they’re saving each other’s lives, neither overall better than the other, both instead just having different strengths of equal value, to bring to the table.
A flaw that, in my opinion, has become prominent because of the “independent strong female character” is the lack of accountability many female protagonists get away with.
Many of the current female protagonists, act in a way that would be unacceptable or even unforgivable in regular circumstances yet it is simply swept under the rug and the audience is expected to move on from it without the protagonist, which by all other accounts is portrayed to be an angel, ever showing true remorse for their actions. Instead, they are shown in a light of being “justified” for their actions while their male counterparts are expected to apologize and grovel.
This to me sends a message of a woman being able to do no wrong, but they are human so either the protagonists need to woman up and apologize or their pride needs to be portrayed as the flaw that it is, which conveniently, it almost never is.
Moreover, owning up to the mistakes you’ve made is a very hard thing to do so when the female characters fail to do just that, it makes them appear extremely weak which is the exact opposite of the intended effect.
A prime example for me would be Sophie Devereaux (Gina Bellman) in Leverage who causes problems for her team on multiple occasions by first, running a con on her own team in the first season and then once again in season two when she’s in doubt of herself and leaves the team.
In both instances, she is called out for one, not apologizing after causing trouble and two, running away from her problems and leaving the team hanging.
In the first case, her lack of apology is just swept under the rug. In the second case, the person pointing out that she is running away is yelling when he says it so even though it’s a valid point, it is once again dismissed when she hangs up on him and he is portrayed to be in the wrong.
These types of instances within the series are particularly frustrating seeing as, in my eyes, she had a very good chance of otherwise being a fantastic representation for being a “strong female character” as she has the firm, strong yet caring personality that is often missing in “strong female characters”. Unfortunately, she has a tendency to call out her team members which makes her look like a hypocrite.
Now once again, I’m not saying that female characters can’t have flaws, in fact, as expressed earlier, I think it’s very important that female characters have flaws as it showcases their humanity but the problem here is that her pride and unwillingness to admit she’s wrong isn’t showcased as a flaw, there are no negative consequences (for her) because of her actions, its seen as acceptable.
The reason why I put so much emphasis on this is because many of the female characters currently being portrayed in Teen and Young Adult fiction also suffer from this and that sets an extremely bad example for the teenagers reading these books.
Just as Disney’s Cinderella, Snow White and Sleeping Beauty were role models for young children these Teen and Young Adult books shape the way teenagers want to be seen and how they believe they should act to accomplish that.

That being said, the films that many will agree were successful portrayals and embodiments of what powerful women truly are or strive to be are characters like Hermione Granger (Emma Watson), Anastasia (Meg Ryan), Sleeping Beauty (Lily James), Katara (Mae Whitman) and Kate Beckett (Stana Katic) as woman who find a balance between independence, comradery, strength and emotion.

In conclusion what I think is needed with the representation of strong female characters is having the male counterpart not being undermined in an effort to make the female character appear stronger. Having the woman be emotional, and strong because of and in spite of it and lastly as stated, the ability for the female character to take responsibility for her actions.