Paikea, Dorothy, and Katniss—Oh, My!
It cannot be denied that females are underrepresented as main characters in the world of mainstream stories. Can we use the principles outlined in Discovering the Soul of Your Story to understand and fix that? You bet.
The Underrepresented Majority
It cannot be denied that females are underrepresented as main characters in the world of mainstream stories. A quick glance at the Oscar® nominations of the last two years (2013–2014) reveals that of the 16 films nominated for Best Picture, only two (or three, if we’re being generous) featured female main characters.
The causes of this imbalance are varied, historical, cultural, and perhaps even evolutionary—and are well worth addressing in scholarly books and college curricula. But to make significant inroads into redirecting the tide, it is necessary to go beyond scolding and to examine what makes a story slice through natural gender biases and appeal so strongly to human universals that its theme feels gender-neutral even though the skill set of its main character is clearly influenced by her chromosomal makeup.
Significant inroads to understanding and correcting the imbalance can be made by examining the human universals in story themes.
And yes, it's unfair that stories with male main characters don't seem to require the same sort of study to be considered potentially popular in the mainstream. But this article is not about what's fair and unfair. It's about understanding the role of the main character and her relationship to the story so well that you can perform a thematic sleight of hand and maximize the potential of the story to appeal to the broadest possible audience. (And it applies to stories with male main characters, too.)
Motivation in Three Movements
To understand the thematic impact of your main character and her journey in the story, it is necessary to explore her motivations and approaches to confronting the obstacles that present themselves in that journey. According to the principles presented in Discovering the Soul of Your Story, this is best done by starting with her type of intent—that is, the overarching focus of her efforts, which can be expressed in one of three ways: to gain, to regain, or to keep.
Simply put, a gain character intends to obtain something (for example, an object or condition) that she has never possessed, a regain character intends to recover something that she possessed at one time but lost or had taken away, and a keep character intends to retain something that is under threat of being lost or taken away. Of course, that's only the tip of the iceberg, but those are the three potent crystals that cause the iceberg to start growing in the first place.
To illustrate the impact of this kind of thinking, let's look at three strong female main characters each of whose journey illustrates one of the three types of intent—Paikea in Whale Rider; Dorothy Gale in The Wizard of Oz; and Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games. (These happen to all be teenagers, it's true, but the principles apply regardless of character age... which is a matter for another article.)
Paikea in Whale Rider (Gain)
In Whale Rider, the main character, Paikea, is a young Maori girl whose journey is driven by her desire to gain her proper place in the world, as leader of her tribe. To do so, she must struggle to defy the traditional/conventional views embodied in the character of her grandfather, Koro, whom she loves.
Paikea is a gain character whose treasure is a sense of being allowed to fulfill her destiny.
Because Paikea conducts her journey with honorable determination, it is easy to root for her to succeed—in part, because her success represents a blow against restrictive traditionalism and a beachhead established in favor of freedom. These are human universals that transcend her gender and age and speak to a large audience. The fact that she uses traits that can be reasonably ascribed to her age, gender, and culture to accomplish her goal simply lends richness and believability to her character; it does not require us-the-audience to identify directly with those characteristics to understand or become involved in the story.
And although the treasure that she attempts to gain is highly personal—a sense of being allowed to fulfill her destiny as custodian of the dignity of her tribe—it transcends gender by virtue of the fact that the sense of wanting to fulfill one's destiny is a human universal.
Dorothy Gale in The Wizard of Oz (Regain)
In The Wizard of Oz, the main character, Dorothy Gale, is a young Kansan whose journey is driven by her desire to regain her proper place in the world—that is, the farm and family environment from which she fled and then was magically whisked away by forces beyond her control. To return to Kansas, she must seek out a mighty wizard who might know how to help her, and then accomplish a great task that he sets for her in exchange for the help.
Dorothy is a regain character whose treasure is her proper place in world to which she belongs.
Although Dorothy is clearly in terra incognita with regard to her locale and mission, she approaches her journey with polite determination and uses her innate nice-ness to form alliances that aid in achieving her ultimate goal of returning to Kansas. And the idea of using one's innate skills to put right one's world when it is overturned—and doing so honorably—is a human universal, which is part of why the film is popular across genders, ages, and time. (The same can be said of another regain story, Back to the Future, in which the male main character, Marty McFly, finds himself thrown 30 years into the past.)
Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games (Keep)
In The Hunger Games, the main character, Katniss Everdeen, is a teenager whose journey is driven by her desire to survive (keep alive) in a brutal arena into which she is thrown by the powerful dystopian society that she inhabits. To do so, she must rely on her own physical and mental abilities and on her inner values of determination, compassion, and a sense of fairness.
Katniss is a keep character whose treasure is staying alive.
Like Paikea and Dorothy, Katniss approaches her mission with laudable honor, doing what she must do to survive while forming necessary alliances and protecting those who, like her, refuse to embrace the society that created the arena. And because she acts with selfless determination, we-the-audience are prone to root for her to succeed, in part because her success represents a flag thrust firmly into the high ground on behalf of those who believe in freedom and honorable living—which are human universals.
By virtue of her success in keeping alive, Katniss upsets the political apple cart of the society that sought to destroy her. But doing so is never her intent in the story; she's simply trying to keep alive and to keep her principles of honorable behavior intact against the temptation to abandon them for the sake of her survival.
Looking Forward
The gender inequity among mainstream main characters is not likely to end in the near future. But that doesn't mean its foundations can't be whittled away at and weakened and its stereotypes can't be x-rayed and exposed for what they are.
Doing so requires not only diligent dedication but a deep understanding of character motivations and how they relate to human universals that transcend gender, age, culture, and time. And the idea that any character arc can be considered a manifestation of one of three types of intent—to gain, regain, or keep—helps the writer to probe the depths of her story and develop that understanding.
For More Information
For details regarding the concepts and terms used in this article, refer to the Discovering the Soul of Your Story overview video and the glossary.
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Interesting stats, Roger. More grist: The sexism is more than just a financial issue. And where there’s prejudice, there’s blindness, which leads to missed financial opportunities. I believe there is a huge, under-served, and often ignored audience for women main characters and their stories. Somewhere between chick flicks and art films lies a largely unexplored land of smart, entertaining, universally appealing stories that we’re not being offered for reasons that go beyond the financial. (It seems to me that when they do get made, they do well–much to everyone’s shock and amazement.) They know what appeals to the audience they’ve got; they have no idea about the audience they don’t have (and how much money that audience represents). A cynic might argue that they don’t care, but I have faith in the industry’s acquisitiveness–we just need more women writers, producers and directors to show the way. And we need many more enlightened males, in those roles, and in society in general.
I hear you, Dianne and Roger. I still maintain that sexism in Hollywood mostly boils down to money. Yes, more films with strong lead female characters would be made if more green-lighters in Hollywood were women, and the reason that a paucity of such decision-makers exists can be laid at the feet of old-fashioned misogyny. As for Dianne’s point that, “[s]omewhere between chick flicks and art films lies a largely unexplored land of smart, entertaining, universally appealing stories that we’re not being offered for reasons that go beyond the financial,” I must demur. Producers will bankroll anything they think will make an acceptable profit over what they invest in it. That’s why a handful of “smart, entertaining, universally appealing stories” do reach the screen, because their creators figured out how to make them affordably given their expected return. From what I have learned about Hollywood—Roger, you’ve taken Dov Simens’s course, so you know that this is his opinion, too—whether a film gets made or not always comes down to money. That said, Dianne, I couldn’t agree with you more that we need more “women writers, producers and directors”. Amen to that. Roger, there is a trend of late to cast women as action heroes: think of Angelina Jolie’s turn as a Russian double agent in SALT and Jennifer Lawrence in The Hunger Games, among others. Their success should bode well for women actors looking for blockbuster leading roles, and this trend only cements my argument. The Hunger Games books sold big, and so the film industry saw gold, just as it did with the Harry Potter series. SALT was originally written for Tom Cruise who bowed out because he thought his character resembled his Mission: Impossible persona. It was a female executive who recommended Jolie to the director after the project had already traveled a long road in development. Point for you, Dianne. My contention is that if the action/adventure/scifi blockbusters with lead females start tanking at the box office, that’ll be the end of the trend. Back to testosterone and steroids and hot babes clinging to heroic he-men.
What follows is only tangentially a DSYS observation. In my opinion, the reason that more women don’t receive roles as main characters is simple. To reinterpret James Carville’s bon mot uttered during Bill Clinton’s first run at the presidency: “It’s the money, stupid.” In Hollywood, everything comes down to money. How does this play in terms of gender in the movies? Okay, which films make the most moolah? Big budget action-oriented blockbusters. Who wants to see those movies? Boys and young men. Who do boys and young men identify with? Strong vicariously fantasy-fulfilling men. Women in such movies exist as sex objects for the men who get to do all the cool stuff, you know, blow up sh**, kill a horde of bad guys, and have sex with gorgeous females who are largely extraneous to the story. Women could easily play the main characters in the genre (case in point, Katniss Everdeen). All the screenwriters (who are men, mostly) would have to do is write Mattie instead of Matt and make a few adjustments here or there. But casting a woman as an action hero wouldn’t be a guarantee that women would flock to see it, and men might be put off or intimidated by a ball-busting smart lady who kicks a bunch of male a**es. Women like what many men disdain as “chick flicks”, relationship movies or romantic comedies or family dramas or other sensitive, intelligent, low budget fare with high artistic qualities but inadequate box office draw. Hollywood is sexist for only one reason. (See above.)
I understand the sentiment, Will, but I think the issue is more complex than that.
Of the ten top domestic-grossing films in 2013 (according to http://www.boxofficemojo.com) only three fit the stereotype rock-em-sock-em action-adventure with a male main character: “Iron Man 3,” “Man of Steel,” and “Fast & Furious 6.” Four are family films: “Frozen,” “Despicable Me 2,” “Monsters University,” and “Oz, The Great and Powerful.” The list rounds out with “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire” (in the top spot), “Gravity,” and “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.”
Of the seven top-grossing films that don’t fit the action-adventure stereotype, three have female main characters. More grist for this mill.