Yeah, it's one of those things that honestly really should have been chopped up into two charts at very least. I'd still not be real happy with some of their choices, but the wide range of awesome female characters they have in their failed female stereotypical characters chart is just a whole world of no. I certainly can't think of any reason for some of those characters to flunk being a strong female character unless "can carry her own story" means "must be a protagonist", which kind of puts an ickier spin on the whole thing. Only one woman at a time can be a Strong Female Character is not a good message.
And the top line is so vague as to be completely useless. I can't honestly say I know what "carry her own story" could mean if it's not that they're a protagonist. I can't actually think of any characters who couldn't carry their own story if the story were written about them by a decent author, no matter how flat and poorly developed, because writing a story about them would require fleshing them out unless they were already the protagonist of the story. And "not representing an idea" is just...I can't think of many characters who are inherently limited to being just an idea, and those who are are generally in canons where everyone's basically an idea, so I'm not sure what point that actually makes besides "female characters are held to a higher standard than male characters." The whole top line basically comes off as a mess of "I'm going to say things that sound good without ever bothering to elaborate on it."
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2010-10-13 08:11 pm (UTC)And the top line is so vague as to be completely useless. I can't honestly say I know what "carry her own story" could mean if it's not that they're a protagonist. I can't actually think of any characters who couldn't carry their own story if the story were written about them by a decent author, no matter how flat and poorly developed, because writing a story about them would require fleshing them out unless they were already the protagonist of the story. And "not representing an idea" is just...I can't think of many characters who are inherently limited to being just an idea, and those who are are generally in canons where everyone's basically an idea, so I'm not sure what point that actually makes besides "female characters are held to a higher standard than male characters." The whole top line basically comes off as a mess of "I'm going to say things that sound good without ever bothering to elaborate on it."