I Need a Hero(ine)
Hurray - the backlash has started against 'the string of recent romantic comedies portraying woman as ditzy and needy'. Kira Cochrane's article in the Guardian at the weekend singled out 'Bride Wars', 'He's Just Not That Into You' and 'Confessions of a Shopaholic'. I met Sophie Kinsella at a reading last year. She's the top selling female UK writer in the genre in the US, and has achieved huge sales both sides of the Atlantic. When you meet her you can see why - she's smart, witty, charming, elegant - the pole opposite of her character Becky Bloomwood.
So why are tales like this so popular? In the article the film critic of Rolling Stone magazine Peter Travers described 'He's Just Not That Into You' as 'a women-bashing tract disguised as a chick flick.' Kevin Maher in the Times said 'the so-called chick flick has become home to the worst kind of regressive pre-feminist stereotype'. Cochrane took a group of teenage girls to the movies and showed them classics like 'His Girl Friday', 'The Philadelphia Story', 'Annie Hall' and Nora Ephron's 'When Harry Met Sally'. I don't know about you but these are the kind of heroines - and heroes - I love. Strong, accomplished, sexy - and importantly - equal. I love men (that came out wrong, but you know what I mean ...), and I hope that comes through in my male characters. Masculine/feminine - why isn't this balance being portrayed as equal and complimentary? I write with a poster of 'The Big Sleep' over my desk. Bogart and Bacall, Hepburn and Tracy - the energy of these partnerships is what I have in mind when I'm writing my lead characters. Do you want to watch/read about silly girls - or real men and women with sizzling chemistry and dialogue that sends sparks?
70% of women work - so why are career women portrayed so badly now? Is it that only 15% of the top film execs and writers are women? Is this why we're being fed these stereotypes? 'Mama Mia' with the incomparable Meryl Streep was warm, uplifting, non-judgemental - and the writer, producer and director were all women. Every woman, from teenagers to ninety year olds, that I've spoken to loved it - even my mother bought the DVD after going to the cinema. Interestingly, the teenage girls wrote off today's rom-coms as 'predictable, cliched and exaggerated' - they don't watch them, they prefer horror.
TODAY'S PROMPT: Where have all the real women and men gone? Which characters from recent books and films have you identified with? Are you concerned about the stereotypes being fed to our daughters (we're moving into Hannah Montana and High School Musical territory at 7, and I'm already missing 'Charlie and Lola' ...)? Whatever genre you are writing in, human relationships are at the heart - what kind of heroes and heroines do you enjoy reading and writing about?
