Sci-fi Films Should Re-Evaluate Female Characters


With the end of 2015 only a couple months away, the inevitable annual roundups will soon be splashed across every newsfeed and timeline. Best albums, movies, celebrity break-ups and buzzwords of the year will be ranked from best to worst, by top 10 and in no particular order. One of the inevitable buzzwords that will no doubt be mentioned again this year will be “feminism.” Feminism has been on all our minds as injustices among the sexes have continued to escalate while being placed under intense scrutiny. With the advent of social media and digital sharing, we are now, more than ever, acutely aware to the degree with which the inequalities of our nation continue to be perpetuated every day.

Among these inequalities, the media’s stereotypical depiction of male dominance in cinema continues to be a vital issue. It’s very easy to say that Hollywood perpetuates the use of white leading men in films while giving little to no roles to women (white or otherwise) year after year. According to the New York Film Academy, only around 30 percent of speaking roles in the top 500 U.S. films belong to women.

Additionally, it’s almost universally acknowledged that female directors in science fiction are virtually non-existent, and female writers are often cast into the shadows. Case in point: Nicole Perlman was part of Marvel’s now-disbanded Writers Program and personally re-discovered and nursed the Guardians of the Galaxy property to maturation before it was taken away and handed to a man to be re-written.

On the story side, women characters are also often merely supplements to men (case in point: Zoe Saldana’s female alien character amongst three males in the aforementioned Guardians) or even just used as decoration, as in the case of Alice Eve — and her superfluous underwear scene — as the decorative Lt. Carol Marcus in J.J. Abrams’s Star Trek: Into Darkness, released in 2013. However, there are some futuristic films this year that will hopefully gain traction in the sci-fi world.

The 5th Wave is an upcoming female-led drama flick starring Chloë Grace Moretz. Moretz plays a young woman who must survive an alien invasion that carries out its attack on humans in stages, or waves. Not only will the film hopefully open up the sci-fi genre to a wider audience, but it will also continue to set an example that female-led movies can not only be produced but can also break the box office. Furthermore, USC alumna Victoria Aveyard’s science-fiction novel Red Queen is not only being adapted into a film but will also be helmed by actress-turned-director Elizabeth Banks.

Of course, Jennifer Lawrence’s The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 will undoubtedly shatter holiday box office records. However, neither The Hunger Games franchise nor its similarly successful counterpart Divergent (starring Shailene Woodley) satisfy the argument that science fiction has made room for strong women. On the contrary, they actually appear to perpetuate a unique stereotype of their own. Both films feature an extremely similar female lead in a dilapidated, dystopian future. It seems the studios suggest that the only world that could possibly have a woman at its center is a completely nonexistent reality, wherein the current rules and establishment of our patriarchal society have completely dissolved into ruin. Only then, it seems, could women have the power to strike out against the status quo. Furthermore, by the continued creation and emphasis on these similar plotlines and cinematic conventions, the studios continue to perpetuate that this is the only type of female-led film that can survive the box office. Neither of these conclusions are acceptable nor true.

In the late ’90s, Robert Zemeckis graced the cinematic landscape with the Jodie Foster science fiction film Contact, which not only featured a strong female lead but was also firmly rooted in a reality we could recognize: the mid ’90s, replete with plaid shirts and Bill Clinton. In addition to often being the smartest woman in the room, Foster’s Eleanor Arroway chose her diligent work over the charming Palmer Joss (Matthew McConaughey) even after spending a night with him. After losing her research grant and having to decide between staying in the town she met Palmer in or leaving and pursuing other financial options, Eleanor leaves him without even saying goodbye. Furthermore, when given the chance to live the rest of her life in peace or venture deep into the far recesses of space with no guarantee that she will return alive, Eleanor chooses the latter, ultimately deciding her pursuit of knowledge is more important than a normal life on Earth. Her choice is not only radical for a human being, but it is also infinitely more radical for a woman — when we, as an audience, have time and time again been told that the number one priority in a woman’s life should be the pursuit of a man. If Zemeckis can do it in the ’90s, there’s room for a similar movie now.

As we begin to look to fall movies, it’s important to realize that female Hollywood characters represent so much more than their storyline. As moviegoers, it’s our responsibility to consider how women in films can be more than a one-note, archetypal character.

Minnie Schedeen is a junior majoring in critical studies. Her column, “Film Fatale,” runs every other Tuesday.