Your point about women on an uneven field reminds me of a conversation between two warrior women in the Emberverse by S. M. Stirling. They’re discussing training and the more experienced woman tells the other one to stop fighting like a man. When the less experienced woman says “But I’m fighting men, shouldn’t I fight like them?” “No. You are a woman, you are smaller and weaker than them. You must be faster and cheat more.”
@@KatesRealTakes Same. Stirling has several warrior women in that series and they are all in the extremely fast, skilled, and “cheat” constantly. It’s how they win.
Love this and what’s wild me about this as a man myself if put in a scenario where they had to fight not only does it not make sense for a woman to fight like a man against man but your also fight in the man’s favor fighting in the same way his average opponents fight so he’s used to his opponent trying to over power or fight head on so when women fight differently and use strategy it’s believable when they win as the man may not except it or try control the fight to go his way but the woman won’t allow it keeping her advantages whether it’s environment, or a weapon
Unfortunately, women are also slower than men. I suppose women that train for speed can move faster than men who don't, but men who train to fight are going to beat the fastest women. Believable would be fighting women and avoiding men unless they have a significant tactical advantage. Like catching a male target by surprise. Now adding super powers changes all of this. They can also have a woman convincingly beat up a much smaller man, but that might look distasteful on camera. Unless the audience really hates that guy.
Sarah Conner's mental hospital escape in Terminator 2 is the best scene on showing how a woman could take out a bunch of men. She didn't just fight them head on but constantly used strategy to take them out. Surprised you didn't bring up Ripley in at least the first two Aliens movies.
@@KipIngram Ellen Ripley was written as a male character, so that would undermine the message that male and female action heroes would need to be written differently. However, I think there's an explanation why it's still a good representation of a strong female lead. And it's in the agency of the hero. If you take a bunch of action movies - or any movies, really - simply sexswapping the hero to heroine or vice versa wouldn't really work, because men and women tend to choose different approaches to challenges before them. Having John McClane from _Die Hard_ be Jane McClane instead would make the character less believable, because John has a fair bit of agency on what he chooses to do. Ellen Ripley really doesn't have any options what else to do in any situation. Except maybe not go back for the cat. In a situation, men and women can make the same choice, and the key factor in making it believable is whether doing it is the most viable option regardless of whether the hero is male or female. The more chances the hero/heroine gets/has (to act like the sex opposite to them), the less it works, making the characters feel like fake representation. But when the characters actually have agency, yes, male and female heroes should be written differently.
@TheRawrnstuff Ripley wasn’t mentioned because 1) I’ve never seen Alien and 2) I don’t believe that a character that has been written in a way that it could be played as either male or female is very compelling. I don’t think such a character is a good example of how to write a good *female* action lead, if being female had little to no impact on the character.
@@KatesRealTakes She basically goes purely on maternal instincts in the second movie in order to protect Newt. She didn't do it for glory or to end the threat, she purely did it for the child. Not sure how that is not a good example of a female protagonist in a sci-fi thriller.
But that’s in the second, where they *did* write her as a female character. I’m sure that’s a better example than the first where the character could be swapped out as either male or female with no consequence
I'm still waiting to see some more believable MALE action leads 😂 These dudes just show up and can fight 20 other guys, without breaking a sweat, using drugs, or pulling a muscle. At least we saw Bruce Lee stretch before fights.
Thank you for talking about Naytiri. Despite whatever we think is wrong with the Avatar franchise, Naytiri's characterization was balanced. In the first film she was definitely in her Fey phase. She was a hunter, seemed to love it, didn't like being in an arranged engagement (altho that is typical common now), and ended up picking her own man that also chooses her. She was very emotional but not at all in an immature way. She's honest and wild. I wish I had her courage and openness.
This is a great video. One of my favorite level the playing field fights was in True Romance with Patricia Arquette and James Gandollfini. It was brutal but the way she took him out was awesome. I also love Ripley vs the Alien Xenomorph Queen in Aliens. Great fight. I'm glad I watched this video. Keep up the good work. About to hit subscribe now.
Amazing video! Structurally speaking, this is actually one of the better video essays I have seen. Every point makes sense and the transitions between them are seamless. It's great to get a recap at the end, it really helps. You even cut to yourself speaking to the camera at just the right time. You definitely deserve all the support you get, and I'll subscribe for sure :)
She was excellent in Red Sparrow. Strong female lead who uses her unique abilities as a woman to do a lot of damage. Great film that never received the recognition it deserves.
Yep. Other than a single 1:1 fight with knives in Season One, they never show her straight up brawling. It also helps that the actress Amanda Tappjng is a tall woman. She is 5 foot 9 in real life.
5foot 9is not tall It's just slightly above average! 6foot 1* & above is tall! 6foot2 in my opinion, but considering national average & continental averages.
Unofficial number 6: don't make your male characters intentionally weak to make female characters artificially stronger. Just saying lol. Emily Blunt has been playing my favorite female characters lately in Edge of Tomorrow, Looper and A Quite Place.
Awesome video! I'm a 5'3" female, former police and army; men and women ARE different, but using our strengths together is what makes a team great. Also, a tiny woman with heart is a lot better backup than a big dude who freezes when a fight starts. Sorry to correct you, but Top Gun/Maverick is about a Navy unit. Not sure about the stats these days, but the Navy always used to have more planes than the Air Force.
@threearrows2248 When did the Navy have more aircraft than the Air Force? WW2? Back then the Air Force didnt exist, but no country can come anywhere near to the number of planes the Air Force has. Heavy lift/cargo, reconnaissance, nuclear and conventional bombers, interceptors, fighters, strike, etc, etc. The Navy has the largest "naval" air force. In other words, largest air force for a naval force. But the Air Force has waaay more aircraft than the Navy. Not even close. By some estimates its double to triple the number.
The Navy having more aircraft than the Air Force is a common misconception The USAF has about 5300 aircraft, the USN has about 4200. when you break it down to strictly combat jets, the USAF has 1409 while the USN has 1002.
My favorite is Buffy Summers (the Vampire Slayer). Buffy had the playing field more than leveled by supernatural gifts. But she remains believable with hyper feminine attributes. She doesn't want this job. She is a girly-girl. She has a really soft personality, and is led by her heart. Over the space of the show you watch her personality inevitably harden, but she laments this and considered it to be a loss. The telling statement in what was originally intended to be the final episode (before the show was extended) followed an onlooker saying "But you're just a girl", to which she responds with sadness: "That's what I keep telling myself". It's a heart-wrenching moment, which highlights the slow death of her child-like innocence over the previous 5 seasons. She didn't want this responsibility, but had learned that whenever she abandoned it, someone got hurt. She doesn't want to fight. She has to fight. The theme of the final episode was centered around a cryptic prophecy of sorts that "Death is your gift". She rejected this immediately and hated it, as the idea that she was just some killing machine horrified her, as she wanted very much to remain the small warm sunnyside girl that she grew up as, and not some heartless killing machine. But in the end she learned that this prophecy referred to self sacrifice, that by accepting her own sacrifice, she could give the gift of survival and life to others. Once she finally accepted the inevitability of her own death, her story arc was completed. Because previous to this, she had always hoped that somehow she could return to the life of being a normal girl. You see this in intermediary episodes such as Anne (season 3 episode 1), where she hoped that by leaving behind her responsibilities she could continue life as an average girl. But she came to eventually realize there was no escape from her responsibilities, and she was destined to sacrifice herself for the good of many. It was a terrible journey to get to that mental place, but she got there. And she arrived: fully female. She is by far my favorite female action character of all time.
The three things about the fights, and make it legit is firstly the woman has to use weapons to achieve a force parity against men. The woman trying to match men directly in strength gets her clobbered. 3. The merciless, professional, assassin uses nasty, dirty, mean tricks to win.
@@_Woo All that is fine but we need to allow actresses to have more opportunity to battle each other. When done right, they are very memorable. Regina King vs Zazie Beetz in 'The Harder They Fall' alone is a great recent example.
Hong Kong films have had strong female characters dating back to at least the 1970s. There are tons and tons of HK films where men and women both are written well and most of the women just like the men do a lot of their own stunts.
great vid and i totally agree with everything u said here, im very surprised u didnt include the original modern day strong female lead of Sigourney Weavers Ripley in Alien 1979, the latest crop of female leads all seem to be cardboard cutouts to me, very little substance, its all agendas and narratives now and good story telling is getting sacrificed cos of it imo, hopefully now that a little sanity has returned to the powers in charge we can get back to character that are interesting and worth getting invested in rather than arbitrary reasons like colour, sex, religion, orientation etc, this is my first vid of urs that iv seen but i found it to be very well thought out, great reasoning behind the pros and cons of specific characters and not just another clickbait kneejerk title to get views and comments, keep up the good work o7
YES! I am so glad that you've done this video. Your videos are so fun because you talk about a lot of interesting stuff and you're compelling. You bring up stuff that I think sometimes, but don't know how to verbalize in a coherent way, but you can! Thanks for your service, lol. And I'm so glad you brought up Rey, I was waiting for that! How she was written has issues, haha.
Thank you for giving solid points and examples. And examples that stretch back a decade. I've grown so tired of hearing "finally a strong female lead", when we've had them since long before
One of the best female action leads i’ve ever seen is Maggie Q’s Nikita from the tv show NIKITA (2010). Nikita is a woman who was taken from prison and turned into an assassin/seductress against her will. The show recognizes that Nikita (as a woman) is weaker than her opponents, so in combat, she is seen using an opponents momentum against them or using her whole body against them (not unlike Ilsa). It’s a Bonus that the show never has the need to remind you that she is a woman or a person of color. The show treats her as just a character and she is a really great character. Fantastic Show! Bad pilot episode tho lol
If you like that, you will like the show it was based on, 'La Femme Nikita' from 1990 with Peta Wilson in the main role. And you will definitely like the movie of the same name by Luc Besson and Anne Paillaud as Nikita that it was based on. Just rewatched the restaurant fight scene and it still holds up. Funny details like pulling an extra magazine for the gun out from between the front of her cocktail dress and being afraid to die as the bad guys load up a grenade to kill her in her hidey-hole in the kitchen add to the humanity of the character.
The way you articulated each of your points was spot on to how most audience members feel, and brilliantly laid out more ways to do what Hollywood won't. As lovers of storytelling, we need to stop lowering our expectations for films, books, and TV, and start holding them to a higher standard so they can adapt and thrive. I love to write and it helps when people share their thoughts on topics like these. Keep it up and have fun, this video was awesome!
@@shadowone01x99, in the case of John Wick, it is implied that he has years of survived experience. He does not just pick up a gun for the first time and take out a seasoned professional (I'm looking at Rey in "The Force Awakens.").
@LeeCarlson No amount of "years of survived experience* can explain the stupidity of ALL the TRAINED assassins in the world never target headshots ONLY Wick. No amount of any of that can explain why he uses the same EXACT 5 or 6 combat maneuvers REPEATEDLY on All those assassin's and it ALWAYS works. Is he the only person among those assassins who know Judo? How TF does he fall from a skyscraper building and walk away? 🤣🤣🤣 ... Straight up GARY SUE. Lol Edit: FARCE Awakens triilogy was trash. The entire plot was dumb AF and made even worse by #Reylo.
Great analysis and presentation. Men (and women) LOVE great female action leads WHEN they’re written well. That is no less true for male action leads (see John Wick vs. any more-recent Steven Seagal ‘character’). We like good characters and ‘good characters’ are NOT perfect. They all struggle and have to overcome. Thank you for making it all much clearer.
Hence why female action leads are inherently more interesting. There is a built in disadvantage. Of course the problem is the writers need to be clever enough to find innovative solutions to work around the physical limitations of the character and sadly clever writers are in short supply.
You'd be surprised how many online roaches get triggered when they see a female lead. Look at Asmongold and Endymion crying on social media about the lead in Ghost of Yotei.
@@S_raBabsolutely and what I love is that she’s not a woman acting more masculine. She’s acting like a survivalist. Sarah trained herself to survive for Judgement Day and to prepare John. Despite that survivalist mindset she was still a mother torn between her duty as a parent and her duty to the future of mankind by molding John into the leader he is destined to be.
I can't even explain how much i love and appreciate this video 👏🏽. I'm a huge fan of female action characters. It really sucks when they turn them into these "mary-sue" figures who can do almost anything because they're just that good. Or even worse, when they make all the male characters dumb to make her seem smart and powerful. You really did good with this video 🌷
Arcane : Strong Women, Strong Men, great Black characters , great White characters , great LGBT characters, great Straight characters, Family, Sister, Brother, Friendship = Absolute Masterpiece of a show
I'm not pro gay, but..... arcane was an amazing experience; every character was written to be actual people firstly, and then made to portray what they were from the beginning. The story was made to actually make sense. Fantastic, and a great way to open dialog for all kinds of people.
Black Widow is a character who was trained in the red room (both in the comics and the MCU). That why she's so skilled, she was trained as an assasin( The red room is a organization that trains womem to ☠️ you know). Wich leads her to trauma, cuz she wanted a normal childhood at the end of the day, and regrets cuz of the lives she had taken in her hands by the control of the red room. The reason why they don't mention it in iron man 2 is cuz that was her intro in the Marvel cinematic universe. My spelling is horrible I know.
Oh very Interesting. I’ve never seen Alien, although I don’t know if a character that has been written in a way that it could be played as either male or female is very compelling to me. I don’t think such a character is a good example of how to write a good *female* action lead, if being female had no impact on the character.
Alien is not an action movie. It's a sci-fi horror thriller. And with Alien: Romulus, you learn that Ripley doesn't even defeat the Xenomorph. While Ripley survives, she doesn't defeat her enemy, she merely survives. Action heroes need to win, not just live.
I don't think that example has ever held water under close scrutiny. If you ask people to quote something Ripley said in a movie today they will almost certainly cite a line from the 1986 sequel Aliens, not the original 1979 film Alien. In the original film Ripley is the twist sole survivor of a horror film set in against a science fiction backdrop. They even went so far as to cast more well known (at the time) actors in supporting roles in order to mislead the audience and obfuscate the true leading actor of the film. It only works because there is almost nothing to the character in the first place, because had film makers put more focus on the character of Ripley in the original film it would've given the twist away. Most of what we do know about Ripley (and what I imagine people strongly resonate with) is established in Aliens, where her identity as a woman and a mother is more fully explored indepth.
Great video, very well put together and I love the points you bring up! My only note would be that I think it is possible to make a good female action lead that wants to fight or wants to be more physically capable, but it is more difficult to make that character likable/believable. An example I would give is Ahsoka from The Clone Wars, she very much wants to be capable and wants to fight (especially early on) but through the course of the show she gets burned by that want and realizes that she needs to take a more balanced approach. She never stops wanting to be a warrior (or in this case Jedi) but she learns to fight for things bigger than herself and goes from selfish to selfless in her arc. But anyway I especially agree with your first two points and wish more stories would use those methods.
One on the ‘powers’ end of the spectrum that was really nice in-universe I think was Terminator 3. We see a ‘woman’ half Arnold’s size tossing him around but it makes sense in the universe and the almost comical reality of it is played so straight it actually makes it a pretty interesting narrative through line
But even she gets tossed around by Arnold. Some of her abilities come from adapting (her body turning around after being pinned by Arnold, or carrying him like a log because she distracted him).
What a well made and thought out analysis. I appreciated all the clips you used for illustration and that you balanced both sides of your argument. Nice work 👍👍
This video just came up for and I really liked it. I follow several content creators who cover TV, movies and games. Some of this kind of writing is simply poor writing but lately, it is motivated by ideology. It's so refreshing to hear it being called out but also presented without having to be vitriolic. There are so many good comments already so I will try and keep my points brief. Both Sarah Connor and Ellen Ripley, they survived their first movies. Both were surrounded by competent men but survived through determination. As you pointed out Sarah Connor was shown doing pullups, she clearly had a physical presence but her exploits between movies was also explained through dialogue. Ellen Ripley became badass during the movie with motherhood as a strong motivation. That's something that not enough people mention as strength is often seen as a male trait and determination is ignored. Again, as you pointed out they earned their strength. James Cameron's Avatar was also a great example. I was almost 40 before watching Avatar: The Last Airbender and fell in love with all the characters, not just the female ones. Sokka quickly learned how flawed his sexism was but because the live-action ignored it it will never have the chance to have it come full circle. The group sometimes underestimated his contribution because he was a non-bender. My last example was a brief action scene for two non-action characters from Star Trek: TNG. I can't take credit for this breakdown I'm just repeating it. Two characters have to survive exposure to vacuum for a brief time. Geordie was slightly younger and nearer his prime age but it was Beverly who saved the day. This wasn't a case of 'let the women be the hero' there were reasons. Even though Geordie was fit and healthy, Beverly was a singer and a dancer, both of which you use your lungs for.
Can I just take a moment to appreciate the video❤? You're a beginner TH-camr with a small channel, and even tho the scrip wasn't perfect with lots of repeating words with camera quality that not so great, you still managed to make an incredible engaging and insightful video about a controversial topic that needs to be addressed, props 🙌👍
Excellent Video. I'd add that if any of your "rules" need to be broken, make sure that it makes sense and that there is some in-lore explanation for it.
Such a great video! One of my favorite female lead movies is G. I. Jane. I'm prior military and sadly everything she went through is literally the story of most female soldiers. Anyways, I enjoy your content
I’m surprised Blue Eye Samurai wasn’t included as an example of an excellent female lead! The protagonist is such a strong character-an outcast who chooses to live outside the norms of her society, which is made even harder by the fact that she’s a Japanese woman with blue eyes in a super homogeneous culture. On top of that, she’s always using society’s expectations about women, especially how her male enemies underestimate her, to her advantage.
I've done this in my "Jane" novels. Jane started off as a farm girl but went on to be a Space Fleet officer. She now uses dirty fighting, fast reactions and creative interpretations of the regulations.
Captain marvel was a USA military airforce pilot. And you see her training with Rog. Black window was trained in the red room as a spy and asisintion .also she had a surum to highted her speed , stanimar and strength.which she has now in the comics. Mulan film .she had to train with the soldiers. In the cartoon version. You see her training. But not do much in the live film. But in the beginning. We know her dad taught her and in most kung fu films . They have a thing called chi.Before that film. 3 films before it. So why bother showing her training. It's like the spiderman , batman and fantastic four. Tv and movies. We see how the got there powers .but I do agree that in a lot of strong female movies. That they have the female qualities. Then all of sudden. Ther they can take out a man or a group of men in a fight. Then again mostly in B movies 😎👍
Glorious video! I'm curious though: why can't female characters enjoy battle? Why can't they want to fight? I can think of plenty male characters who have enjoyed fighting & it didn't hurt the story/character/motivations. Why should female character never enjoy fighting? Why should it always take a toll?
I wondered about that too. I'm sick of *every* female lead being carbon copy fighting machine of each other, but there should be room for those types of characters as well (but obviously, well written)
I feel like your proposal that female characters should "have to fight not want to fight" is a little reductive. A good counter example is Arya Stark from Game of Thrones, a character primarily motivated by pride, self identity, & revenge. Arya had many opportunities to head towards safety but instead she walks a path that would make her a better fighter. She takes great pride in her skills and satisfaction in enacting vengeance. What makes her character work is that they showed that her quest for vengence stems from the trauma of seeing her family killed and then disillusioning her of the end result of such quests by those around her seeing where her self destructive path would lead her. And her epilogue has her sailing of to adventure in the great unknown, still choosing the action hero lifestyle over safety & security. To suggest that a motivation for violence based in some kind of pleasure is unrealistic for women pretty much disqualifies any female revenge narrative. And in terms of realism, try telling all the female MMA fighters and boxers that combat being fun makes them a bad person. Everything else i agree with.
I want more female superheroes because I want something unbelievable. My only problem is that they don't struggle to win. If they fix that, then it would be perfect.
@@ErikKemeeyKUVBBSJessica Jones was so good! I really enjoyed it after initially thinking it wouldn’t be my taste. I hope they integrate the actress into the MCU.
I like how in Wheel of Time even the magic that men and women can use is as different as they are. It'll be interesting to see how much the TV series follows the books in this regard.
"Person of Interest" is a great show with the largest ensemble of well written female characters I can think of. "The Long Kiss Goodnight" and the original "La Femme Nikita" have awesome female action leads. "True Romance" features the most epic, realistic big man vs small woman situation that I've ever seen on screen.
With Captain Marvel, her whole thing was learning who she was. It was never about earning her strength. She got it from a freaking explosion. She was overpowered from the start, and she was unknowingly holding herself back through the lies she was told.
Sadly it was not a compelling way to invest on the character because she didnt earn her power nor 'struggle' with her power. The smug and emotionless face of the actress didn't help either
Yeah the problem with this is it's a very boring arc. It's internal only and kind of bullshit tbh, which is why it fell so flat. Motivators like wanting a different life, wanting to get or protect something you love, wanting to change and being blocked by factors both internal and external, these are arcs that are compelling because they show genuine struggle.
@@bosoerjadi2838 wrong. I can say spiderman earned his power in the end of the first movie. At first he thought it was fun and all. Until when uncle ben died is when he realized that the power that he was given holds a huge responsibility to make a difference in his environment. And in the end, he saved everyone, and now must continue to help others in need
I never understood why they would remove obstacles from female protagonist in movies when overcoming obstacles is what makes women attractive and powerful.
Few movie characters are more iconic than Sigourney Weaver's Ripley in the Alien films which started in 1979. Ripley has become the epitome of a strong woman in film.
Noteworthy here because the Ripley character was originally simply written as Ripley with no notes indicating the character would be a woman. So it can work, but it's context specific: she's a working class woman working on a ship made up of mostly male crew when some crazy shit goes down.
I will recommend a couple of good female action examples here from TV: - Lagertha from Vikings. Really quite a dangerous warrior, takes her shieldmaiden role to heart and is still believable as the wife of a warrior and mother of another one. She can probably kill most of the average warrior men, but against the very best it is still likely a losing battle for her; still, those who figure she is an easy mark end up regretting that mistake. - Detective Sergeant Antigone "Ani" Bezzerides from True Detective season 2. She's pretty dangerous, being an accomplished cop, but when asked why she is always packing a knife and is *very* proficient at using it, she states her reasons plainly: getting into a fight with men generally means taking on someone who is likely to be much larger and stronger than she is, and having worse outcomes if she loses that fight; therefore, she considers the knife an equalizer that can save her life in the most dangerous of situations.
Lagertha also had serious flaws, including being a big ol’ hypocrite on subjects like SA against women vs men. For me that rings very true for most women, in twisted funny way.
Lagertha was a real person as well, Shield-Maidens did exist, but they were definitely a rarity back then due to various factors, but occasionally they pop up in the sagas. Not all Scandinavians went on raids, most were farmers, traders and shipwrights. The Northwomen knew how to use spears, bows, etc. for hunting and protecting their family and homesteads. The first few episodes of Vikings encapsulate this, with Lagertha specifically.
I will throw in one counter-critique of Captain Marvel's attitude towards war that the presenter asserts here: "The woman, if realistic, does not want to fight and kill, but does so out of necessity." Since when? Understand that unlike some of them, Carol Danvers comes into this as someone who already volunteered for the military, and is a fighter pilot already, so it is understandible she has that fighter pilot personality (and if that matters more than her being a woman): be a real aggressive go-getter that is absolutely comfortable killing people in the air or on the ground. So while that might not be normal for most civilian women, for someone who has willingly volunteered for a combat position and spent years working at it, a certain amount of enthusiasm for combat and killing the enemy is normal and necessary. She's not malicious, but war is her chosen career, and unlike some of these others, she is suddenly very powerful in her own right, so if she comes off as not really having any restraint in using it, why is that weird? Perhaps the film could have done a better job of making that clear, but then what would that mean for all the "emotional" blah blah blah of the plot? They would have to choose some other emotional strings to tug at.
Agreed. They say so in the movie. She's a soldier. She's also insanely overpowered. She needed to "find herself" because she had amnesia and was being manipulated by her supposed comrades and leader. She was literally being held back by the central intelligence.
I think the issue with Captian marvel is less her desire to kill or anything is she just a bland character , Once you throw in super powers then , yeah that goes out the widow . but it less about the ability to fight and can you make a entertaining funny character . The issue with Captin marvel is they just have this bland female empowerment character and forget to write an personality . Like nothing in marvel is believable rofl when you got character like thanos , xD. not dealing with normal human beings anymore . But I am entertained by thor thor is a god but he's funny
@@stealthbrandon Well, the story was certainly in need of improvement. not the best, not the worst, pretty "mid". I did not regret watching it, but would not make effort to watch it again.
I would argue that both male and female soldier characters who show no emotions around the mental toll of their jobs are boring and, as a military member myself, unrealistic. You might put on a brave front and be really good at compartmentalizing, that is absolutely a requirement to not fall apart when people are shooting at you, but everyone feels something. They didn't show that at all with Carol, she was just flat. It was boring. The other way I'd fix that movie, apart from giving Carol access to the normal range of human emotions, would be to demand Marvel/Disney stop being wimps and let her admit her feelings for Maria. Heck even if, or maybe even *especially* if Maria didn't feel the same way, to have that undercurrent of longing and loss, of protectiveness and fear? That would have been so much more satisfying as a character arc than her boring "believe in your OP self lol" non-arc
I think you're wrong that a woman will usually lose in physical combat. It's a case of "Work smarter, not harder." In WWII the Zero fighter was a much better overall fighter than what the Americans had (the F4F Wildcat). The Zero was faster and more maneuverable than the Wildcat. However, the Wildcat could usually win if the fought to their plane's strengths and did not allow the Zero pilot to exploit the strengths of the Zero. In a dogfight the Zero is going to win, but head on the Wildcat could win the fight. The Wildcat was very durable, meaning it had to suffer quite a bit more damage before it was destroyed. The Zero was not very durable. As the planes were coming head to head and start shooting, the Zero will almost always lose. I had a female friend when I was 14. Some guy tried to SA her and ended up in the hospital because my friend beat him nearly to death. He was a full grown man, and she was a small for her age teenager. She was also equal to a black-belt in Karate. I saw equal because you had to be 16 to have the belt and she was 14 at the time. She told me later that she had hurt him a lot worse than she'd had to because she was really really angry at the guy He deserved it too. He'd been a serial rapist and had assaulted 6 other young girls.
I have been a writer for many, many years. I responded to that trailer the same way you did. I was saddened with the She-Hulk because Tatiana Malsany is such an incredible actress and her talent was wasted due to some pandering agendas. I enjoy seeing powerful women on the big and small screen but you covered many projects that I struggled with for the reasons you outlined so well. Check out the story a Virginia Hall, she was the most important spy in WWII, not only was she a woman but she had an accident and lost the bottom half on one of her legs BEFORE she became a spy.
Thanks for your video, you are spot on with so much of it. It makes it hard for me as a viewer of movies to be engaged in them when my personal representation in film is so poorly written or in some cases objectified. In fact, I also feel like a lot of the problems with female hero presentation is also an issue with male hero presentation. Hollywood has a bad habit of skipping over what humanizes the characters (needed to make them relatable and interesting) and they give in to the "power fantasy" or "mary sue" aspects where their heroes as written are infallible or can always come back from anything. It lowers the stakes and causes their movies to fall back on spectacle. Many of the characters discussed in your video come from books or comics and in those mediums those characters often have significantly more complex and interesting back stories. Captain Marvel (formerly Ms Marvel) has a weird twisted and not always great background but aspects of it are fantastic and very interesting - it's a reason she's been a hero in the comics for decades and the movie either glossed over a lot of that or skipped it entirely. Hollywood just needs to have better writing, better directing, and less interference from Execs/producers
The thing that always eked me about Captain Marvel in her training fight is that she beaten because she just tries to brute force a win. She doesn't think or strategies. She wakes her mentor up, challenges him to a fight, losses and then uses powers he doesn't have to hit him. Then at the end of the movie she does it again when he wants a fair fight. To keep it would have been better if she did fight him and won without her powers. She'd come to the fight with a new frame of mind. She'd win this time because she wouldn't be forcing it, she'd let him make the mistakes and then uses those mistakes to win.
This video is really helpful if you’re writing strong/badass female leads as well. I slightly disagree with #5. I think you can have moments like that, where a woman enjoys being powerful and violent and it doesn’t need to come from a selfless/guilty place. Having a character that has those traits doesn’t make them a bad female lead. But balance is definitely key when it comes to that
Enjoyed your video. Subscribed ✨ P.S. I like your voice - You sound like Zosia Mamet (Shoshana from the show Girls). I sound like a cartoon chipmunk 🐿️🙄😜
Excellent critique Kate. A great example of a deadly female character is Maras (Anya) from Will Jordan's: Ryan Drake novels. She is highly trained, ruthless and has a bottomless bag of nasty tricks😆
Best femal action lead in my opinion was Buffy. What made her work was her humanity and vulnerablility. She kicked ass and saved the world but had every day problems and insecurities. Like spiderman before her she was a normal teen in maby ways just trying to navigate rhe world through trial and error.
The criticism here works for all characters. You're 100% correct with this on the specific topic of female lead action figures but earning your skills is true for all.
If you love this you should read the lightbringer series. They have this elite magic warrior unit called the black guard that have both men and women. In book two there’s a focus on this group as half the characters are going through the try out process and the female characters are being trained and their female elders tell them the same shit and more.
You make excellent points. Modern female action leads that break from the points you have made are actually written more as the villain. The villain doesn't reach their position in the film they are already established where they are because they are the obstacle to overcome not someone to be understood. Jason in Friday the 13th, Darth Vader, or any other main villain not meant to be sympathized with are written counter to your points. They are meant to be feared. When they are directed towards your points to flesh them out it usually leads to a redemption arc because a connection has been created with the audience. To me the female action leads are written more in line with villains than with heroes making them unlikeable. They are too hard to connect with unless you are of a specific mindset that makes a person feel victimized be it by reality like from an abusive situation or convinced of it by social or political ideology. Then they feel connected because they see power as a quick fix means of escape from their own situation. To them those abilities on screen would save them and they enjoy seeing someone doing what they have thought about in their heads. Basically the hero acts as dream fulfillment. That's my opinion anyway.
"Believable" when we're talking about John Wick? Idk if the issue is that men and women are different as much as we can't seem to imagine a world where we don't care. What is frustrating is movies where the woman is absurdly strong or talented (like John Wick is an absurdly strong and talented man) is when they take so much time to say "oh aren't you shocked that she's strong" rather than just making a world where a strong woman is not a shock...
I don’t think the John Wick movies and character are very believable, and I don’t know if Ballerina will be either, I just liked the line they had in the trailer. I don’t think ignoring reality where women are weaker than men is the best way to create these characters and these stories. Especially when most of the stories I’ve talked about are based on the real world. I think it’s best to acknowledge this reality and work with it.
@KatesRealTakes I think that makes sense for a "realism" approach, but most action movies are not really "realistic" when it comes to their male characters. If John Wick and Jason Bourne, much less Sci Fi or Fantasy male characters ask us to suspend our disbelief when watching them overcome ridiculous feats, I don't think that's really what goes into making a female character believable. The story that I think perfectly encapsulates this is not the obvious ones that are derided on the internet, but an anime called "Hells Paradise." The author makes it so obvious in the first episode that the female samurai is undoubtedly and believable strong, maybe the only character who can beat the protagonist. Yet this falls flat with every successive episode. The author repeatedly tells us to believe women can be strong rather than showing us his belief. I think physically strong women are believable when the writers, directors, and actors show they believe it instead of telling us we should. Yes, in the real world, women are *on average* physically weaker than men, but in a story we are always asked to suspend our disbelief. The question is whether the author can successfully weave a narrative where we believe them.
Thank you I’ve been say this stuff for years. I’m not against female action leads. i just want them to be written well,not constantly telling me how great they are, or having every man in a 10 foot range turn into a complete idiot to make her seem smarter.
One that doesn't get talked about enough is Alicia Vikander in Tomb Raider. People have mixed feelings about the movie itself but her performance and how physically (literally) threw herself into that role was very impressive. She looked incredibly fit and I thought all her stunts and action scenes looked very believable in terms of wether that character could actually do these things.
Great video, you shared a lot of great examples to support your points. I am surprised you didn't drop Ripley in as another example of a heroine forced to step into a heroic, action role that didn't enjoy it. She just did what had to be done.
I've never seen your content before, but I love your take on this, and I wish more women could acknowledge it without seeing it as offensive. I'm an author. I write in the sci-fi/action (space opera) genre. I LOVE to utilize female characters, but they're never portrayed as being the same as the men. It's not realistic or natural feeling. I make sure to level the playing field, and my ladies are generally well trained with weapons, as well as having dialogue to mention prior training. Nothing annoys me more than seeing ANY character acting more trained or skilled than they should be. it's just more common to see in modern female led content. I will drop a follow for you.
@vanguardraidcommand2285 u said it annoys you when u see a female character acting more trained or skilled like I don't see where it is common especialy it is common for a sci fi fantasy or superhero setting , I think it is probably the well written character u want,
@KafuKemeh-c3d No. I said I don't like ANY characters (male or female) acting like they are more trained than they actually are. It's just MORE common in female led shows. That's what I said. Rey from the Star Wars sequels is the perfect example. She didn't even know what the force was when we first meet her, but then she's using jedi mind tricks (without every having been told of them or shown how to do it), and then using a force pull during her final fight with Kylo (even though she was never shown how to do that either). She then beats Kylo Ren in the duel (even though it's literally her first time dueling, and he's a trained duelist). It's this kind of thing that isn't believable. It's what breaks the enjoyment for most viewers. All they had to do to fix this was have her start as a force sensitive person who KNEW she had the force from the start, but she was just untrained and undisciplined. Then, it would have been more logical that she develops her skills at a faster rate because she's semi-practiced. They could have also made her wield a double-sided lightsaber, since from the start, she uses her staff as a 2-handed weapon, and THAT would have fit her trained combat style. Bam! More believable with next to no effort. The writers and directors were just lazy or stupid... or both. It's why it felt believable when Luke had his hand cut off and he failed in his battle with Vader. His training wasn't enough yet. Characters can't just start from nothing and win against trained villains.
Your point about women on an uneven field reminds me of a conversation between two warrior women in the Emberverse by S. M. Stirling.
They’re discussing training and the more experienced woman tells the other one to stop fighting like a man.
When the less experienced woman says
“But I’m fighting men, shouldn’t I fight like them?”
“No. You are a woman, you are smaller and weaker than them. You must be faster and cheat more.”
I love that!
@@KatesRealTakes Same.
Stirling has several warrior women in that series and they are all in the extremely fast, skilled, and “cheat” constantly. It’s how they win.
Love this and what’s wild me about this as a man myself if put in a scenario where they had to fight not only does it not make sense for a woman to fight like a man against man but your also fight in the man’s favor fighting in the same way his average opponents fight so he’s used to his opponent trying to over power or fight head on so when women fight differently and use strategy it’s believable when they win as the man may not except it or try control the fight to go his way but the woman won’t allow it keeping her advantages whether it’s environment, or a weapon
Just faster, cheating they already do
Unfortunately, women are also slower than men. I suppose women that train for speed can move faster than men who don't, but men who train to fight are going to beat the fastest women. Believable would be fighting women and avoiding men unless they have a significant tactical advantage. Like catching a male target by surprise. Now adding super powers changes all of this. They can also have a woman convincingly beat up a much smaller man, but that might look distasteful on camera. Unless the audience really hates that guy.
Sarah Conner's mental hospital escape in Terminator 2 is the best scene on showing how a woman could take out a bunch of men. She didn't just fight them head on but constantly used strategy to take them out.
Surprised you didn't bring up Ripley in at least the first two Aliens movies.
Yeah, if you don't talk about Ellen Ripley you haven't talked about strong female leads at all. It's the archetype.
@@KipIngram Ellen Ripley was written as a male character, so that would undermine the message that male and female action heroes would need to be written differently.
However, I think there's an explanation why it's still a good representation of a strong female lead. And it's in the agency of the hero.
If you take a bunch of action movies - or any movies, really - simply sexswapping the hero to heroine or vice versa wouldn't really work, because men and women tend to choose different approaches to challenges before them. Having John McClane from _Die Hard_ be Jane McClane instead would make the character less believable, because John has a fair bit of agency on what he chooses to do. Ellen Ripley really doesn't have any options what else to do in any situation. Except maybe not go back for the cat.
In a situation, men and women can make the same choice, and the key factor in making it believable is whether doing it is the most viable option regardless of whether the hero is male or female. The more chances the hero/heroine gets/has (to act like the sex opposite to them), the less it works, making the characters feel like fake representation.
But when the characters actually have agency, yes, male and female heroes should be written differently.
@TheRawrnstuff Ripley wasn’t mentioned because 1) I’ve never seen Alien and 2) I don’t believe that a character that has been written in a way that it could be played as either male or female is very compelling. I don’t think such a character is a good example of how to write a good *female* action lead, if being female had little to no impact on the character.
@@KatesRealTakes She basically goes purely on maternal instincts in the second movie in order to protect Newt. She didn't do it for glory or to end the threat, she purely did it for the child. Not sure how that is not a good example of a female protagonist in a sci-fi thriller.
But that’s in the second, where they *did* write her as a female character. I’m sure that’s a better example than the first where the character could be swapped out as either male or female with no consequence
This is a phenomenal take. Great work!
Trinity in the Matrix series is a great example of a believable female action lead, as well as Selene in the Underworld films. Awesome video!
Or "The Lady" from "The Quick & the Dead."
I'm glad that you touched on the need to make protagonists likable. That's been missing lately in movies, television, and books.
I'm still waiting to see some more believable MALE action leads 😂
These dudes just show up and can fight 20 other guys, without breaking a sweat, using drugs, or pulling a muscle. At least we saw Bruce Lee stretch before fights.
Yeah fair point 😂
Thank you for talking about Naytiri.
Despite whatever we think is wrong with the Avatar franchise, Naytiri's characterization was balanced. In the first film she was definitely in her Fey phase. She was a hunter, seemed to love it, didn't like being in an arranged engagement (altho that is typical common now), and ended up picking her own man that also chooses her. She was very emotional but not at all in an immature way. She's honest and wild. I wish I had her courage and openness.
This is a great video. One of my favorite level the playing field fights was in True Romance with Patricia Arquette and James Gandollfini. It was brutal but the way she took him out was awesome. I also love Ripley vs the Alien Xenomorph Queen in Aliens. Great fight. I'm glad I watched this video. Keep up the good work. About to hit subscribe now.
Thanks so much!
Yes! Was thinking about that scene. It's a brutal and realistic fight. Amazing movie.
Amazing video! Structurally speaking, this is actually one of the better video essays I have seen. Every point makes sense and the transitions between them are seamless. It's great to get a recap at the end, it really helps. You even cut to yourself speaking to the camera at just the right time. You definitely deserve all the support you get, and I'll subscribe for sure :)
Thanks so much! Very kind of you to say :)
I remember when the Hunger Games girl said she was proud to be the first Women in an action movie, she must not have watched Kill Bill and Aliens
Ah yes, Jennifer Lawrence, the trailblazer leading the charge from the back - behind all the other previous female action heroes.
Marvellous! 😂😂
Don't pretend that you don't know that her name is Jennifer Lawrence.
@@jesseowenvillamor6348 maybe he doesn't? what's wrong with that?
She was excellent in Red Sparrow. Strong female lead who uses her unique abilities as a woman to do a lot of damage. Great film that never received the recognition it deserves.
@@S_raB Never even received great marketing
Samantha Carter from SG1. She's a trained US Air Force officer and a good shot but she is far from invincible.
Yep. Other than a single 1:1 fight with knives in Season One, they never show her straight up brawling.
It also helps that the actress Amanda Tappjng is a tall woman. She is 5 foot 9 in real life.
Amanda Tapping had Brad Wright rewrite how the character was originally supposed to have been portrayed because hated the original character concept.
5foot 9is not tall
It's just slightly above average!
6foot 1* & above is tall!
6foot2 in my opinion, but considering national average & continental averages.
Unofficial number 6: don't make your male characters intentionally weak to make female characters artificially stronger. Just saying lol. Emily Blunt has been playing my favorite female characters lately in Edge of Tomorrow, Looper and A Quite Place.
Agreed! It is frustrating when the male characters are made somewhat dumber or weaker just to make the women look better. That’s just bad writing
Awesome video! I'm a 5'3" female, former police and army; men and women ARE different, but using our strengths together is what makes a team great. Also, a tiny woman with heart is a lot better backup than a big dude who freezes when a fight starts.
Sorry to correct you, but Top Gun/Maverick is about a Navy unit. Not sure about the stats these days, but the Navy always used to have more planes than the Air Force.
Right right it was the Navy, that’s my bad lol
@threearrows2248 When did the Navy have more aircraft than the Air Force? WW2? Back then the Air Force didnt exist, but no country can come anywhere near to the number of planes the Air Force has. Heavy lift/cargo, reconnaissance, nuclear and conventional bombers, interceptors, fighters, strike, etc, etc. The Navy has the largest "naval" air force. In other words, largest air force for a naval force. But the Air Force has waaay more aircraft than the Navy. Not even close. By some estimates its double to triple the number.
The Navy having more aircraft than the Air Force is a common misconception The USAF has about 5300 aircraft, the USN has about 4200. when you break it down to strictly combat jets, the USAF has 1409 while the USN has 1002.
It's more of, the largest airforce in the world is the US Airforce. The second largest is the US Navy.
@@hr1meg the question is - how many ships have the Airforce.
My favorite is Buffy Summers (the Vampire Slayer).
Buffy had the playing field more than leveled by supernatural gifts. But she remains believable with hyper feminine attributes. She doesn't want this job. She is a girly-girl. She has a really soft personality, and is led by her heart. Over the space of the show you watch her personality inevitably harden, but she laments this and considered it to be a loss. The telling statement in what was originally intended to be the final episode (before the show was extended) followed an onlooker saying "But you're just a girl", to which she responds with sadness: "That's what I keep telling myself". It's a heart-wrenching moment, which highlights the slow death of her child-like innocence over the previous 5 seasons. She didn't want this responsibility, but had learned that whenever she abandoned it, someone got hurt. She doesn't want to fight. She has to fight.
The theme of the final episode was centered around a cryptic prophecy of sorts that "Death is your gift". She rejected this immediately and hated it, as the idea that she was just some killing machine horrified her, as she wanted very much to remain the small warm sunnyside girl that she grew up as, and not some heartless killing machine. But in the end she learned that this prophecy referred to self sacrifice, that by accepting her own sacrifice, she could give the gift of survival and life to others. Once she finally accepted the inevitability of her own death, her story arc was completed. Because previous to this, she had always hoped that somehow she could return to the life of being a normal girl. You see this in intermediary episodes such as Anne (season 3 episode 1), where she hoped that by leaving behind her responsibilities she could continue life as an average girl. But she came to eventually realize there was no escape from her responsibilities, and she was destined to sacrifice herself for the good of many. It was a terrible journey to get to that mental place, but she got there. And she arrived: fully female.
She is by far my favorite female action character of all time.
atomic blonde shows a great fight for men vs woman
Loved that fight. also an epic fight that few people saw was Gina Carano vs Michael Fassbender in Haywire.
The three things about the fights, and make it legit is firstly the woman has to use weapons to achieve a force parity against men. The woman trying to match men directly in strength gets her clobbered. 3. The merciless, professional, assassin uses nasty, dirty, mean tricks to win.
@@_Woo All that is fine but we need to allow actresses to have more opportunity to battle each other. When done right, they are very memorable. Regina King vs Zazie Beetz in 'The Harder They Fall' alone is a great recent example.
@@VDOTU5 It's not an either or situation.
Eh..
Hong Kong films have had strong female characters dating back to at least the 1970s. There are tons and tons of HK films where men and women both are written well and most of the women just like the men do a lot of their own stunts.
great vid and i totally agree with everything u said here, im very surprised u didnt include the original modern day strong female lead of Sigourney Weavers Ripley in Alien 1979, the latest crop of female leads all seem to be cardboard cutouts to me, very little substance, its all agendas and narratives now and good story telling is getting sacrificed cos of it imo, hopefully now that a little sanity has returned to the powers in charge we can get back to character that are interesting and worth getting invested in rather than arbitrary reasons like colour, sex, religion, orientation etc, this is my first vid of urs that iv seen but i found it to be very well thought out, great reasoning behind the pros and cons of specific characters and not just another clickbait kneejerk title to get views and comments, keep up the good work o7
YES! I am so glad that you've done this video. Your videos are so fun because you talk about a lot of interesting stuff and you're compelling. You bring up stuff that I think sometimes, but don't know how to verbalize in a coherent way, but you can! Thanks for your service, lol. And I'm so glad you brought up Rey, I was waiting for that! How she was written has issues, haha.
Thank you thank you! I was pretty happy with this video, glad you liked it too!
You nailed this. Really well said and in depth.
Thank you for giving solid points and examples. And examples that stretch back a decade. I've grown so tired of hearing "finally a strong female lead", when we've had them since long before
--- EXCELLENT WORK and PRESENTATION . . . your perceptive analyses persuaded me to subscribe. I look forward to your next critical works.
Thanks!
this has been a hot topic for years.. to me this is the best take so far, well done
One of the best female action leads i’ve ever seen is Maggie Q’s Nikita from the tv show NIKITA (2010).
Nikita is a woman who was taken from prison and turned into an assassin/seductress against her will. The show recognizes that Nikita (as a woman) is weaker than her opponents, so in combat, she is seen using an opponents momentum against them or using her whole body against them (not unlike Ilsa).
It’s a Bonus that the show never has the need to remind you that she is a woman or a person of color. The show treats her as just a character and she is a really great character.
Fantastic Show! Bad pilot episode tho lol
If you like that, you will like the show it was based on, 'La Femme Nikita' from 1990 with Peta Wilson in the main role. And you will definitely like the movie of the same name by Luc Besson and Anne Paillaud as Nikita that it was based on.
Just rewatched the restaurant fight scene and it still holds up. Funny details like pulling an extra magazine for the gun out from between the front of her cocktail dress and being afraid to die as the bad guys load up a grenade to kill her in her hidey-hole in the kitchen add to the humanity of the character.
@ Oh I LOVE Le Femme Nikita TOO!! Both the movie and tv show were GAS!! That restaurant scene from the movie was iconic
The way you articulated each of your points was spot on to how most audience members feel, and brilliantly laid out more ways to do what Hollywood won't. As lovers of storytelling, we need to stop lowering our expectations for films, books, and TV, and start holding them to a higher standard so they can adapt and thrive. I love to write and it helps when people share their thoughts on topics like these. Keep it up and have fun, this video was awesome!
Ooo I found a new little channel, your early work is much better than my first few videos were. Keep rocking little bro!!
Don't make your female characters "Mary Sue."
Gary Sue John Wick says hello. 😂😂😂😂
@@shadowone01x99, in the case of John Wick, it is implied that he has years of survived experience. He does not just pick up a gun for the first time and take out a seasoned professional (I'm looking at Rey in "The Force Awakens.").
@LeeCarlson No amount of "years of survived experience* can explain the stupidity of ALL the TRAINED assassins in the world never target headshots ONLY Wick. No amount of any of that can explain why he uses the same EXACT 5 or 6 combat maneuvers REPEATEDLY on All those assassin's and it ALWAYS works. Is he the only person among those assassins who know Judo? How TF does he fall from a skyscraper building and walk away? 🤣🤣🤣 ... Straight up GARY SUE. Lol
Edit: FARCE Awakens triilogy was trash. The entire plot was dumb AF and made even worse by #Reylo.
@@LeeCarlson And John Wick gets BEAT UP. He's still getting shot, stabbed and he's often a razorblade thin away from dying.
@@LeeCarlson so what about the woman in the new mad Max movie?
Great analysis and presentation. Men (and women) LOVE great female action leads WHEN they’re written well. That is no less true for male action leads (see John Wick vs. any more-recent Steven Seagal ‘character’). We like good characters and ‘good characters’ are NOT perfect. They all struggle and have to overcome. Thank you for making it all much clearer.
Hence why female action leads are inherently more interesting. There is a built in disadvantage.
Of course the problem is the writers need to be clever enough to find innovative solutions to work around the physical limitations of the character and sadly clever writers are in short supply.
You'd be surprised how many online roaches get triggered when they see a female lead. Look at Asmongold and Endymion crying on social media about the lead in Ghost of Yotei.
Aliens made female action leads 'believable'. Also, The Long Kiss Goodnight with Geena Davis deserves recognition here.
Yo Geena Davis was amazing in that movie
Oh I love that movie and her. She’s great.
Cutthroat island was one of my favorite Geena Davis movies
Another is terminator 2. Linda Hamilton in that film was IMO the best female lead in action film ever.
@@S_raBabsolutely and what I love is that she’s not a woman acting more masculine. She’s acting like a survivalist. Sarah trained herself to survive for Judgement Day and to prepare John. Despite that survivalist mindset she was still a mother torn between her duty as a parent and her duty to the future of mankind by molding John into the leader he is destined to be.
I can't even explain how much i love and appreciate this video 👏🏽. I'm a huge fan of female action characters. It really sucks when they turn them into these "mary-sue" figures who can do almost anything because they're just that good. Or even worse, when they make all the male characters dumb to make her seem smart and powerful. You really did good with this video 🌷
Arcane : Strong Women, Strong Men, great Black characters , great White characters , great LGBT characters, great Straight characters, Family, Sister, Brother, Friendship = Absolute Masterpiece of a show
I'm not pro gay, but..... arcane was an amazing experience; every character was written to be actual people firstly, and then made to portray what they were from the beginning. The story was made to actually make sense. Fantastic, and a great way to open dialog for all kinds of people.
I disagree for s2
@@ValyrianPrinceWhat was your problem with season 2?
This is a breath of fresh air. Very level headed and mature perspective. 💐
Great vid. You have explained to me what I could not figure out for myself before. Thank you!
12:44 An action lead does not need their reason to fight to be selfless, consider John Wick for example.
Black Widow is a character who was trained in the red room (both in the comics and the MCU). That why she's so skilled, she was trained as an assasin( The red room is a organization that trains womem to ☠️ you know). Wich leads her to trauma, cuz she wanted a normal childhood at the end of the day, and regrets cuz of the lives she had taken in her hands by the control of the red room. The reason why they don't mention it in iron man 2 is cuz that was her intro in the Marvel cinematic universe. My spelling is horrible I know.
One that DID just swap from male to female and still worked was the original Alien movie. The Ripley character was originally going to be male.
Oh very Interesting. I’ve never seen Alien, although I don’t know if a character that has been written in a way that it could be played as either male or female is very compelling to me. I don’t think such a character is a good example of how to write a good *female* action lead, if being female had no impact on the character.
Alien does actually have much action on the part of people. Ripley mainly runs away and hides, so sex makes little difference.
I think that is part of it. Without technological assistance, no human can take a xenomorph in a straight-up fight.
Alien is not an action movie. It's a sci-fi horror thriller. And with Alien: Romulus, you learn that Ripley doesn't even defeat the Xenomorph. While Ripley survives, she doesn't defeat her enemy, she merely survives. Action heroes need to win, not just live.
I don't think that example has ever held water under close scrutiny. If you ask people to quote something Ripley said in a movie today they will almost certainly cite a line from the 1986 sequel Aliens, not the original 1979 film Alien. In the original film Ripley is the twist sole survivor of a horror film set in against a science fiction backdrop. They even went so far as to cast more well known (at the time) actors in supporting roles in order to mislead the audience and obfuscate the true leading actor of the film. It only works because there is almost nothing to the character in the first place, because had film makers put more focus on the character of Ripley in the original film it would've given the twist away. Most of what we do know about Ripley (and what I imagine people strongly resonate with) is established in Aliens, where her identity as a woman and a mother is more fully explored indepth.
Great observation. Absolutely correct. Great and different in ways, stronger/weaker and amazing and better in different ways.
Great video, and great points that I would love to see in more movies, games and other forms of entertainment today😊🙏
Great video, very well put together and I love the points you bring up! My only note would be that I think it is possible to make a good female action lead that wants to fight or wants to be more physically capable, but it is more difficult to make that character likable/believable. An example I would give is Ahsoka from The Clone Wars, she very much wants to be capable and wants to fight (especially early on) but through the course of the show she gets burned by that want and realizes that she needs to take a more balanced approach. She never stops wanting to be a warrior (or in this case Jedi) but she learns to fight for things bigger than herself and goes from selfish to selfless in her arc. But anyway I especially agree with your first two points and wish more stories would use those methods.
Great video! Great insight! You have another fan!
Great talk. I also thought the intro to Ballerina was spot on.
One on the ‘powers’ end of the spectrum that was really nice in-universe I think was Terminator 3. We see a ‘woman’ half Arnold’s size tossing him around but it makes sense in the universe and the almost comical reality of it is played so straight it actually makes it a pretty interesting narrative through line
That woman was an advanced terminator compared to Arnold's model. It just looked like a woman.
Same with Summer Glau in the Sarah Conner Chronicles.
@ exactly that’s why I actually think it was a good example. Had the double effect of having an in universe explanation and being kinda funny
But even she gets tossed around by Arnold. Some of her abilities come from adapting (her body turning around after being pinned by Arnold, or carrying him like a log because she distracted him).
What a well made and thought out analysis. I appreciated all the clips you used for illustration and that you balanced both sides of your argument. Nice work 👍👍
This video just came up for and I really liked it. I follow several content creators who cover TV, movies and games. Some of this kind of writing is simply poor writing but lately, it is motivated by ideology. It's so refreshing to hear it being called out but also presented without having to be vitriolic.
There are so many good comments already so I will try and keep my points brief. Both Sarah Connor and Ellen Ripley, they survived their first movies. Both were surrounded by competent men but survived through determination. As you pointed out Sarah Connor was shown doing pullups, she clearly had a physical presence but her exploits between movies was also explained through dialogue. Ellen Ripley became badass during the movie with motherhood as a strong motivation. That's something that not enough people mention as strength is often seen as a male trait and determination is ignored. Again, as you pointed out they earned their strength.
James Cameron's Avatar was also a great example. I was almost 40 before watching Avatar: The Last Airbender and fell in love with all the characters, not just the female ones. Sokka quickly learned how flawed his sexism was but because the live-action ignored it it will never have the chance to have it come full circle. The group sometimes underestimated his contribution because he was a non-bender.
My last example was a brief action scene for two non-action characters from Star Trek: TNG. I can't take credit for this breakdown I'm just repeating it. Two characters have to survive exposure to vacuum for a brief time. Geordie was slightly younger and nearer his prime age but it was Beverly who saved the day. This wasn't a case of 'let the women be the hero' there were reasons. Even though Geordie was fit and healthy, Beverly was a singer and a dancer, both of which you use your lungs for.
486 subs only? Damn girl,keep going, I enjoy this video
Subscribed at 75 subscribers. Hope you go far, as your takes are kategorically interesting!
Good one 😂 and thank you thank you!
Can I just take a moment to appreciate the video❤? You're a beginner TH-camr with a small channel, and even tho the scrip wasn't perfect with lots of repeating words with camera quality that not so great, you still managed to make an incredible engaging and insightful video about a controversial topic that needs to be addressed, props 🙌👍
Excellent Video. I'd add that if any of your "rules" need to be broken, make sure that it makes sense and that there is some in-lore explanation for it.
Such a great video! One of my favorite female lead movies is G. I. Jane. I'm prior military and sadly everything she went through is literally the story of most female soldiers. Anyways, I enjoy your content
This was a great video!! And discussion! Please keep making vids! 💕✨
I love your hair in this video! Lots of good points in there, too!
Thank you!
I've watched dozens of videos about how to write female characters and female leads, this is by far the best one. It's the most clear and exhaustive
I’m surprised Blue Eye Samurai wasn’t included as an example of an excellent female lead! The protagonist is such a strong character-an outcast who chooses to live outside the norms of her society, which is made even harder by the fact that she’s a Japanese woman with blue eyes in a super homogeneous culture. On top of that, she’s always using society’s expectations about women, especially how her male enemies underestimate her, to her advantage.
Sadly, nobody watched it.
@ That’s living under a rock? Of course that’s going to happen.
I've done this in my "Jane" novels. Jane started off as a farm girl but went on to be a Space Fleet officer.
She now uses dirty fighting, fast reactions and creative interpretations of the regulations.
Captain marvel was a USA military airforce pilot. And you see her training with Rog. Black window was trained in the red room as a spy and asisintion .also she had a surum to highted her speed , stanimar and strength.which she has now in the comics. Mulan film .she had to train with the soldiers. In the cartoon version. You see her training. But not do much in the live film. But in the beginning. We know her dad taught her and in most kung fu films . They have a thing called chi.Before that film. 3 films before it. So why bother showing her training. It's like the spiderman , batman and fantastic four. Tv and movies. We see how the got there powers .but I do agree that in a lot of strong female movies. That they have the female qualities. Then all of sudden. Ther they can take out a man or a group of men in a fight. Then again mostly in B movies 😎👍
Glorious video! I'm curious though: why can't female characters enjoy battle? Why can't they want to fight? I can think of plenty male characters who have enjoyed fighting & it didn't hurt the story/character/motivations. Why should female character never enjoy fighting? Why should it always take a toll?
I wondered about that too. I'm sick of *every* female lead being carbon copy fighting machine of each other, but there should be room for those types of characters as well (but obviously, well written)
I feel like your proposal that female characters should "have to fight not want to fight" is a little reductive. A good counter example is Arya Stark from Game of Thrones, a character primarily motivated by pride, self identity, & revenge. Arya had many opportunities to head towards safety but instead she walks a path that would make her a better fighter. She takes great pride in her skills and satisfaction in enacting vengeance. What makes her character work is that they showed that her quest for vengence stems from the trauma of seeing her family killed and then disillusioning her of the end result of such quests by those around her seeing where her self destructive path would lead her. And her epilogue has her sailing of to adventure in the great unknown, still choosing the action hero lifestyle over safety & security.
To suggest that a motivation for violence based in some kind of pleasure is unrealistic for women pretty much disqualifies any female revenge narrative. And in terms of realism, try telling all the female MMA fighters and boxers that combat being fun makes them a bad person.
Everything else i agree with.
I want more female superheroes because I want something unbelievable. My only problem is that they don't struggle to win. If they fix that, then it would be perfect.
When does this happen?
Have u watched shows like Jessica Jones
@ErikKemeeyKUVBBS That show was good! We need more of that. My only complaint is the inconsistent power levels.
@@ErikKemeeyKUVBBSJessica Jones was so good! I really enjoyed it after initially thinking it wouldn’t be my taste. I hope they integrate the actress into the MCU.
Wanda struggles emotionally, but even in the comics she was always op.
I like how in Wheel of Time even the magic that men and women can use is as different as they are. It'll be interesting to see how much the TV series follows the books in this regard.
"Person of Interest" is a great show with the largest ensemble of well written female characters I can think of.
"The Long Kiss Goodnight" and the original "La Femme Nikita" have awesome female action leads.
"True Romance" features the most epic, realistic big man vs small woman situation that I've ever seen on screen.
With Captain Marvel, her whole thing was learning who she was. It was never about earning her strength. She got it from a freaking explosion. She was overpowered from the start, and she was unknowingly holding herself back through the lies she was told.
Sadly it was not a compelling way to invest on the character because she didnt earn her power nor 'struggle' with her power. The smug and emotionless face of the actress didn't help either
Yeah the problem with this is it's a very boring arc. It's internal only and kind of bullshit tbh, which is why it fell so flat.
Motivators like wanting a different life, wanting to get or protect something you love, wanting to change and being blocked by factors both internal and external, these are arcs that are compelling because they show genuine struggle.
On the other hand, Spiderman and Superman also didn't earn their powers.
@@bosoerjadi2838 wrong. I can say spiderman earned his power in the end of the first movie. At first he thought it was fun and all. Until when uncle ben died is when he realized that the power that he was given holds a huge responsibility to make a difference in his environment. And in the end, he saved everyone, and now must continue to help others in need
the hair is awesome!
lol thank you!!
Very insightful, I am glad that I've found this video.
I kind of have an example of #5 not being the case. Vasquez in "Aliens" seemed to enjoy fighting a lot. But this is a great video I 100% agree with.
I don't know if the is a simple formula to writing female or male characters tho
Believable + spectacular = profit
@fast1nakus not a for sure thing sometimes can have loss.
@nameless.thelivingdock5711 Only death is a sure thing. Everything else is various forms of maybe.
La Femme Nikita. The original french version.
Unlike the reboot from 2010, which is a complete and utter **********.
My family loved that show. So good!!
No man is so good without training
No woman is so good without training
I never understood why they would remove obstacles from female protagonist in movies when overcoming obstacles is what makes women attractive and powerful.
Few movie characters are more iconic than Sigourney Weaver's Ripley in the Alien films which started in 1979. Ripley has become the epitome of a strong woman in film.
Yeah it's probably also one of the strongest performance by a woman in a horror sci-fi action movie, so good that she was Oscar nominated for Aliens.
Noteworthy here because the Ripley character was originally simply written as Ripley with no notes indicating the character would be a woman. So it can work, but it's context specific: she's a working class woman working on a ship made up of mostly male crew when some crazy shit goes down.
I will recommend a couple of good female action examples here from TV:
- Lagertha from Vikings. Really quite a dangerous warrior, takes her shieldmaiden role to heart and is still believable as the wife of a warrior and mother of another one. She can probably kill most of the average warrior men, but against the very best it is still likely a losing battle for her; still, those who figure she is an easy mark end up regretting that mistake.
- Detective Sergeant Antigone "Ani" Bezzerides from True Detective season 2. She's pretty dangerous, being an accomplished cop, but when asked why she is always packing a knife and is *very* proficient at using it, she states her reasons plainly: getting into a fight with men generally means taking on someone who is likely to be much larger and stronger than she is, and having worse outcomes if she loses that fight; therefore, she considers the knife an equalizer that can save her life in the most dangerous of situations.
Lagertha also had serious flaws, including being a big ol’ hypocrite on subjects like SA against women vs men. For me that rings very true for most women, in twisted funny way.
Lagertha was a real person as well, Shield-Maidens did exist, but they were definitely a rarity back then due to various factors, but occasionally they pop up in the sagas. Not all Scandinavians went on raids, most were farmers, traders and shipwrights. The Northwomen knew how to use spears, bows, etc. for hunting and protecting their family and homesteads. The first few episodes of Vikings encapsulate this, with Lagertha specifically.
I will throw in one counter-critique of Captain Marvel's attitude towards war that the presenter asserts here: "The woman, if realistic, does not want to fight and kill, but does so out of necessity." Since when?
Understand that unlike some of them, Carol Danvers comes into this as someone who already volunteered for the military, and is a fighter pilot already, so it is understandible she has that fighter pilot personality (and if that matters more than her being a woman): be a real aggressive go-getter that is absolutely comfortable killing people in the air or on the ground. So while that might not be normal for most civilian women, for someone who has willingly volunteered for a combat position and spent years working at it, a certain amount of enthusiasm for combat and killing the enemy is normal and necessary. She's not malicious, but war is her chosen career, and unlike some of these others, she is suddenly very powerful in her own right, so if she comes off as not really having any restraint in using it, why is that weird?
Perhaps the film could have done a better job of making that clear, but then what would that mean for all the "emotional" blah blah blah of the plot? They would have to choose some other emotional strings to tug at.
Agreed. They say so in the movie. She's a soldier. She's also insanely overpowered. She needed to "find herself" because she had amnesia and was being manipulated by her supposed comrades and leader. She was literally being held back by the central intelligence.
I came to find this comment 😊
I think the issue with Captian marvel is less her desire to kill or anything is she just a bland character , Once you throw in super powers then , yeah that goes out the widow . but it less about the ability to fight and can you make a entertaining funny character . The issue with Captin marvel is they just have this bland female empowerment character and forget to write an personality . Like nothing in marvel is believable rofl when you got character like thanos , xD. not dealing with normal human beings anymore . But I am entertained by thor thor is a god but he's funny
@@stealthbrandon Well, the story was certainly in need of improvement. not the best, not the worst, pretty "mid". I did not regret watching it, but would not make effort to watch it again.
I would argue that both male and female soldier characters who show no emotions around the mental toll of their jobs are boring and, as a military member myself, unrealistic. You might put on a brave front and be really good at compartmentalizing, that is absolutely a requirement to not fall apart when people are shooting at you, but everyone feels something. They didn't show that at all with Carol, she was just flat. It was boring.
The other way I'd fix that movie, apart from giving Carol access to the normal range of human emotions, would be to demand Marvel/Disney stop being wimps and let her admit her feelings for Maria. Heck even if, or maybe even *especially* if Maria didn't feel the same way, to have that undercurrent of longing and loss, of protectiveness and fear? That would have been so much more satisfying as a character arc than her boring "believe in your OP self lol" non-arc
Sarah Connor, Ellen Ripley, follow those blueprints.
I think another good example is the what if animation series where the king of wakanda but his wife the queen is the general of wakanda army
I think you're wrong that a woman will usually lose in physical combat. It's a case of "Work smarter, not harder."
In WWII the Zero fighter was a much better overall fighter than what the Americans had (the F4F Wildcat). The Zero was faster and more maneuverable than the Wildcat. However, the Wildcat could usually win if the fought to their plane's strengths and did not allow the Zero pilot to exploit the strengths of the Zero.
In a dogfight the Zero is going to win, but head on the Wildcat could win the fight. The Wildcat was very durable, meaning it had to suffer quite a bit more damage before it was destroyed. The Zero was not very durable. As the planes were coming head to head and start shooting, the Zero will almost always lose.
I had a female friend when I was 14. Some guy tried to SA her and ended up in the hospital because my friend beat him nearly to death.
He was a full grown man, and she was a small for her age teenager. She was also equal to a black-belt in Karate. I saw equal because you had to be 16 to have the belt and she was 14 at the time.
She told me later that she had hurt him a lot worse than she'd had to because she was really really angry at the guy He deserved it too. He'd been a serial rapist and had assaulted 6 other young girls.
I have been a writer for many, many years. I responded to that trailer the same way you did. I was saddened with the She-Hulk because Tatiana Malsany is such an incredible actress and her talent was wasted due to some pandering agendas. I enjoy seeing powerful women on the big and small screen but you covered many projects that I struggled with for the reasons you outlined so well.
Check out the story a Virginia Hall, she was the most important spy in WWII, not only was she a woman but she had an accident and lost the bottom half on one of her legs BEFORE she became a spy.
Thanks for your video, you are spot on with so much of it. It makes it hard for me as a viewer of movies to be engaged in them when my personal representation in film is so poorly written or in some cases objectified. In fact, I also feel like a lot of the problems with female hero presentation is also an issue with male hero presentation. Hollywood has a bad habit of skipping over what humanizes the characters (needed to make them relatable and interesting) and they give in to the "power fantasy" or "mary sue" aspects where their heroes as written are infallible or can always come back from anything. It lowers the stakes and causes their movies to fall back on spectacle. Many of the characters discussed in your video come from books or comics and in those mediums those characters often have significantly more complex and interesting back stories. Captain Marvel (formerly Ms Marvel) has a weird twisted and not always great background but aspects of it are fantastic and very interesting - it's a reason she's been a hero in the comics for decades and the movie either glossed over a lot of that or skipped it entirely. Hollywood just needs to have better writing, better directing, and less interference from Execs/producers
Loved this video!
Spot on. These are great tips.
The thing that always eked me about Captain Marvel in her training fight is that she beaten because she just tries to brute force a win. She doesn't think or strategies. She wakes her mentor up, challenges him to a fight, losses and then uses powers he doesn't have to hit him. Then at the end of the movie she does it again when he wants a fair fight. To keep it would have been better if she did fight him and won without her powers. She'd come to the fight with a new frame of mind. She'd win this time because she wouldn't be forcing it, she'd let him make the mistakes and then uses those mistakes to win.
This video is really helpful if you’re writing strong/badass female leads as well. I slightly disagree with #5. I think you can have moments like that, where a woman enjoys being powerful and violent and it doesn’t need to come from a selfless/guilty place. Having a character that has those traits doesn’t make them a bad female lead. But balance is definitely key when it comes to that
Very well said! ❤
Very knowledgeable Thnx...
Enjoyed your video. Subscribed ✨
P.S. I like your voice - You sound like Zosia Mamet (Shoshana from the show Girls). I sound like a cartoon chipmunk 🐿️🙄😜
Thanks! I also feel like my voice sounds like a chipmunk 😂
Your Favourit female spy are assain movie recomendation plz🎬🎬🎬
Is Agent Carter 🕵️♀️🕵️♀️🕵️♀️ Good
Videos like this and the new movie coming makes me hope that "the nature is healing" lol.
Excellent critique Kate. A great example of a deadly female character is Maras (Anya) from Will Jordan's: Ryan Drake novels. She is highly trained, ruthless and has a bottomless bag of nasty tricks😆
Make your last statement count. Make it the thing you want people to remember. That's how you write a conclusion. Good work 👍
Wow🔥🔥🔥🔥 this needs to be required viewing for all Hollywood writers!!! 😮
Best femal action lead in my opinion was Buffy. What made her work was her humanity and vulnerablility. She kicked ass and saved the world but had every day problems and insecurities. Like spiderman before her she was a normal teen in maby ways just trying to navigate rhe world through trial and error.
The criticism here works for all characters.
You're 100% correct with this on the specific topic of female lead action figures but earning your skills is true for all.
*Thank You & Great Video!!! 😊👍🏾*
*PS: 59Oth Subscriber!!! 🤙🏾*
Yay thank you! Lucky number 590!
@@KatesRealTakes
*You’re very welcome & your Lucky Number or in general a Lucky Number?*
If you love this you should read the lightbringer series.
They have this elite magic warrior unit called the black guard that have both men and women.
In book two there’s a focus on this group as half the characters are going through the try out process and the female characters are being trained and their female elders tell them the same shit and more.
You make excellent points. Modern female action leads that break from the points you have made are actually written more as the villain. The villain doesn't reach their position in the film they are already established where they are because they are the obstacle to overcome not someone to be understood. Jason in Friday the 13th, Darth Vader, or any other main villain not meant to be sympathized with are written counter to your points. They are meant to be feared. When they are directed towards your points to flesh them out it usually leads to a redemption arc because a connection has been created with the audience.
To me the female action leads are written more in line with villains than with heroes making them unlikeable. They are too hard to connect with unless you are of a specific mindset that makes a person feel victimized be it by reality like from an abusive situation or convinced of it by social or political ideology. Then they feel connected because they see power as a quick fix means of escape from their own situation. To them those abilities on screen would save them and they enjoy seeing someone doing what they have thought about in their heads. Basically the hero acts as dream fulfillment.
That's my opinion anyway.
"Believable" when we're talking about John Wick? Idk if the issue is that men and women are different as much as we can't seem to imagine a world where we don't care.
What is frustrating is movies where the woman is absurdly strong or talented (like John Wick is an absurdly strong and talented man) is when they take so much time to say "oh aren't you shocked that she's strong" rather than just making a world where a strong woman is not a shock...
I don’t think the John Wick movies and character are very believable, and I don’t know if Ballerina will be either, I just liked the line they had in the trailer.
I don’t think ignoring reality where women are weaker than men is the best way to create these characters and these stories. Especially when most of the stories I’ve talked about are based on the real world. I think it’s best to acknowledge this reality and work with it.
@KatesRealTakes I think that makes sense for a "realism" approach, but most action movies are not really "realistic" when it comes to their male characters.
If John Wick and Jason Bourne, much less Sci Fi or Fantasy male characters ask us to suspend our disbelief when watching them overcome ridiculous feats, I don't think that's really what goes into making a female character believable.
The story that I think perfectly encapsulates this is not the obvious ones that are derided on the internet, but an anime called "Hells Paradise." The author makes it so obvious in the first episode that the female samurai is undoubtedly and believable strong, maybe the only character who can beat the protagonist. Yet this falls flat with every successive episode. The author repeatedly tells us to believe women can be strong rather than showing us his belief.
I think physically strong women are believable when the writers, directors, and actors show they believe it instead of telling us we should. Yes, in the real world, women are *on average* physically weaker than men, but in a story we are always asked to suspend our disbelief. The question is whether the author can successfully weave a narrative where we believe them.
@@mikegriffonll3
go watch "kill bill" , it is literally female john wick.
nobody called a mary sue.
Thank you I’ve been say this stuff for years. I’m not against female action leads. i just want them to be written well,not constantly telling me how great they are, or having every man in a 10 foot range turn into a complete idiot to make her seem smarter.
I could have sworn Ballerina was supposed to be about Paloma from the 007 movie what happened? Or am I remembering that wrong?
One that doesn't get talked about enough is Alicia Vikander in Tomb Raider.
People have mixed feelings about the movie itself but her performance and how physically (literally) threw herself into that role was very impressive.
She looked incredibly fit and I thought all her stunts and action scenes looked very believable in terms of wether that character could actually do these things.
Awesome take! Really cool video :)
Great video, you shared a lot of great examples to support your points.
I am surprised you didn't drop Ripley in as another example of a heroine forced to step into a heroic, action role that didn't enjoy it. She just did what had to be done.
Go and watch Kill Bill man
I've never seen your content before, but I love your take on this, and I wish more women could acknowledge it without seeing it as offensive.
I'm an author. I write in the sci-fi/action (space opera) genre. I LOVE to utilize female characters, but they're never portrayed as being the same as the men. It's not realistic or natural feeling. I make sure to level the playing field, and my ladies are generally well trained with weapons, as well as having dialogue to mention prior training.
Nothing annoys me more than seeing ANY character acting more trained or skilled than they should be. it's just more common to see in modern female led content.
I will drop a follow for you.
How are they not portrayed on the same level as men if they didn't undergo training?
@KafuKemeh-c3d what? Can you rephrase that question to make more sense?
@vanguardraidcommand2285 u said it annoys you when u see a female character acting more trained or skilled like I don't see where it is common especialy it is common for a sci fi fantasy or superhero setting , I think it is probably the well written character u want,
@KafuKemeh-c3d No. I said I don't like ANY characters (male or female) acting like they are more trained than they actually are. It's just MORE common in female led shows. That's what I said.
Rey from the Star Wars sequels is the perfect example. She didn't even know what the force was when we first meet her, but then she's using jedi mind tricks (without every having been told of them or shown how to do it), and then using a force pull during her final fight with Kylo (even though she was never shown how to do that either). She then beats Kylo Ren in the duel (even though it's literally her first time dueling, and he's a trained duelist). It's this kind of thing that isn't believable. It's what breaks the enjoyment for most viewers.
All they had to do to fix this was have her start as a force sensitive person who KNEW she had the force from the start, but she was just untrained and undisciplined. Then, it would have been more logical that she develops her skills at a faster rate because she's semi-practiced. They could have also made her wield a double-sided lightsaber, since from the start, she uses her staff as a 2-handed weapon, and THAT would have fit her trained combat style. Bam! More believable with next to no effort. The writers and directors were just lazy or stupid... or both.
It's why it felt believable when Luke had his hand cut off and he failed in his battle with Vader. His training wasn't enough yet. Characters can't just start from nothing and win against trained villains.
@vanguardraidcommand2285 I agree!!
Atomic blonde too, she gets her ass kicked but she’s smarter and thats how she wins.