““The Hunger Games,” Hollywood, and Fighting F*ck Toys”
I’ve never heard of Caroline Heldman until recently, but her blog is now on my to-read list. This post, forwarded to me by a talented young writer Gyan Alexander, drills down to the heart of why Hollywood does a poor job making movies with strong female leads:
“The Hunger Games” is Hollywood’s wake-up call that female action hero movies can be successful if the protagonist is portrayed as a complex subject instead of a hyper-sexualized fighting fuck toy (FFT).
Fighting fuck toys are hyper-sexualized female protagonists who are able to “kick ass” (and kill) with the best of them. The FFT appears empowered, but her very existence serves the pleasure of the heterosexual male viewer. In short, the FFT takes female agency, weds it to normalized male violence, and appropriates it for the male gaze.
From an ethical standpoint, Hollywood executives should be concerned about the damage girls and women sustain growing up in a society with ubiquitous images of sex objects, but they’re not. From a business standpoint, Hollywood executives should be concerned about the money they could be making with better female action heroes, but so far, they seem pretty clueless.
Hollywood rolls out FFTs every few years that generally don’t perform well at the box office (think Lara Croft, Elektra, Cat Woman, Sucker Punch), leading executives to wrongly conclude that female action leads aren’t bankable. The problem isn’t their sex. The problem is their portrayal as sex objects, and objects aren’t convincing protagonists. Subjects “act” while objects are “acted upon,” so reducing a female action hero to an object, even sporadically, diminishes her ability to believably carry a storyline. The FFT might have an enviable swagger and do cool stunts, but she’s ultimately a bit of a joke [emphasis added].
“Objects aren’t convincing protagonists.” Damn straight! Protagonists almost by their very definition have multiple layers to their psyche, enabling us as writers to peel them away over the course of 100+ pages, exploring their metamorphosis process which lies at the core of basically every movie. To make a Protagonist an object not only diminishes them, it undercuts one of the primary purposes of this character: to create a compelling conduit for the script reader into the story. We need to be interested in a Protagonist, we need to feel like there’s something significant going on in their lives in order to drawn in. By contrast a “Fighting Fuck Toy” is pretty much what you get.
Moreover this is a principle from Screenwriting 101: A Protagonist must be active, not passive. As Heldman points out, subjects “act,” objects are “acted upon.” So again, a poor option for a viable Protagonist.
Heldman draws a distinction to The Hunger Games:
“Hunger’s” success is partially based on the wide appeal of its teenage hero, Katniss Everdeen, who makes it through the movie without a single scene of sexual objectification (despite opportunities to work this into the story). Katniss is a believable, reluctant hero. She succeeds where other female heroes have failed because she isn’t a FFT.
Precisely. Katniss is a fully formed, multilayered Protagonist, not reduced to an object or the object of romantic or sexual desire.
Hopefully the success of The Hunger Games will spawn more movies with strong female leads. But let’s not stop there. Why not better, more complex Protagonists [as well as other characters] in general? They not only make for better movies, they can translate into better business.
Look at the success of Bridesmaids, an R-rated comedy starring women that has generated $288M in box office revenues worldwide. It’s entertaining, it’s funny, it’s got great set pieces, yes, yes, yes. But one of the big reasons the movie worked for me is that the Protagonist Annie Walker has some depth to her. This is not just a big, dumb comedy, but one with a lot of thought and care put into the characters, especially Annie.
In fact, it’s interesting to look at her metamorphosis as going from what she perceives will bring her happiness, by acting like a ‘fuck toy’ with ‘dream’ lover Ted (Jon Hamm), all of that based on an engrained, romanticized view of life and love, to an authentic version of Annie, through whose negative experiences helping to plan her friend’s wedding comes to realize that life can be shitty and relationships can be messy, but you know what, love can exist plenty fine amidst all that, enabling her to end up with a non-dreamy guy who does truly adore her Officer Nathan Rhodes (Chris O’Dowd).
So in effect, movies like Bridesmaids are a counteraction against the “damage” Heldman suggests happens to “girls and women… growing up in a society with ubiquitous images of sex objects.” Annie starts out as an object. She becomes a subject.
Okay, I’m on my high horse now. I’m going to follow up this post with two from the archives about writing profound individuals. Look for those next.
For more of the post by Caroline Heldman, go here. While you’re there, bookmark her site.
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