So this blog has been dormant for several years because life happens and blogging took a way-back seat. Be assured, I’ve still been watching television like it’s my job, (regrettably, it’s not. How does one get paid for that?), especially this past year during our everlasting quarantine. I’d love to bring back the WIW blog posts, but I have a big idea that I’ve been sitting on for a few years now.
In 2019, I posed a simple question on Facebook that garnered interest from friends and colleagues from film school days, previous students of mine, pastors and people I haven’t talked with in ages. It was delightful to reconnect, but even more to see how people were/are still thinking about the problem. And the problem is that stories, tv, film, books, operas, really any narrative in history rarely expects women or female-identifying characters to be morally bankrupt people that are capable of being redeemed. Read that again and think on it for a moment. Can you think of any?
There are plenty of female protagonists in stories across the centuries, but few that put a woman in the same position as male characters: being capable of the absolute worst a person can be and still be forgiven for their terribleness. And this really bothered me for a lot of reasons, some of which I’m still struggling to identify, but the biggest may be out to prove that I, too, can be redeemed. (This may say more about me than anything else you read here.) Although most stories written throughout history have been written by men. This may be the largest contributing factor to less stories with female protagonists or antagonists. Certainly feels like there’s more to explore there.
I received a lot of answers, but many confused the word redemption with a lot of other concepts like finding independence, escaping victimization, and finding recovery/healing, or just “making it in a man’s world.” I ended up posting a follow-up question to see if it collected any new titles to explore:
To clarify the quest, I'm specifically looking for a female lead that embodies the same moral complexity as men often do in media. Redemption here is not meaning a victim finding herself (Ms. Maisel), or bucking against social norms (Mulan), but an actual moral journey (going from moral repugnance to finding redemption and/or forgiveness.)
In this series, tentatively titled Lady Parts, I’ll aim to do in-depth research on some of the stories that were offered in this discussion and some that I’ve continued to think about in seeing if any of them truly fits the bill. I know there are lady assholes out there and I want them to know they can walk into the light and be forgiven for the poison apple, for keeping an adopted daughter in a tower, or stealing someone’s voice. Hopefully we won’t only be discussing Disney tropes (it’s already been done and done. If you’re interested in reading more I can point you in the right direction.) We’ll explore the word redemption, sin and the capital C church, biblical examples, modern examples, historical expectations of women in storytelling, challenges within trying to create such a redemption story, and possible reasons why this story may not exist…yet.
This will not be a straight forward research paper, friends. Oh no. This critical essay on the lack of moral journey in female characters shall interweave with my own biographical story of trying not to be an asshole.
It’s gonna be fun! (she types, but questions it at the very same time. Is this too transparent? Will I ever finish watching Buffy? Is this going to be worth anything?)
Find out next time on Lady Parts.