Feminist Fantasy: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

[[File:xena 4723.jpg|link=Xena: Warrior Princess|frame|Grrl Power.]]

 

We all know that [[Most Writers Are Male]]. Something like eighty percent of media aimed at children have male main characters, whereas [[Captain Obvious|half the population is female.]] Chances are, any summer blockbuster you can name revolves around a male or men in general. Men save the world, women are their [[Love Interests]]. Men are heroes, women are damsels. Stories about women are for women, stories about men are for general consumption.

 

 

They're often fantasy and science fiction, genres that have revolved around men for a really, really long time. Why? Because sometimes we like seeing a woman save the world from aliens, heaven forbid. Or maybe we like to have the ever-present but oft-ignored gender inequalities in a [[Standard Fantasy Setting]] pointed out. Or just maybe we want to read a story that isn't about a [[Five-Man Band]] in the absolute strictest sense.

Contrast [[Reactionary Fantasy]].

 

== Anime and Manga ==

* [[Magical Girl]] shows with the added kick of portraying femininity as an object of power rather than weakness. That is to say rather than simply having action girls who are essentially just gender inverted action men magical girls instead tend to have girly powers and weapons that are just as effective if not more so.

* Pick any work by ''[[Hayao Miyazaki]]'', '''''any''''' work.

* ''[[Saiunkoku Monogatari]]'' is a story about the aspiration of the female protagonist to be a government official in a male-dominated [[Fantasy Counterpart Culture]] of [[Imperial China]] and how she is working hard through skill and determination to achieve those dreams.

 

* Several superheroines headline their own comic books, including [[Wonder Woman]], [[Batgirl]], [[Supergirl]], [[Power Girl]], [[Birds of Prey]] (a rare all-girl team book), [[Ms. Marvel]], [[She Hulk]], [[Black Widow]], and [[Spider-Woman]]. Some have more feminist themes than others (Wonder Woman and Power Girl especially), but most have at least a few in order to distinguish them from their [[Spear Counterpart]]s. ''[[Wonder Woman]]'' was created with this in mind.

** [[Ms. Marvel]] was intended to be explicitly feminist.

* The Daughters of the Dragon mini series staring Misty Knight and Colleen Wing.

* ''[[Y: The Last Man]]'' explores the fate of the last surviving human male after a disease kills the rest of the gender. Hence the world is exclusively populated by women, allowing for the exploration of a range of gender-based ideas and assumptions, and women form almost all the characters.

 

== Fan Works ==

* Although ''[[With Strings Attached]]'' is about [[The Beatles (band)|The Beatles]] and hence has four male main characters, the world they're sent to has complete equality of the sexes. In fact, ''all'' of the leaders they meet on the worlds they visit are female: Grynun, Kerrun, Aurion, {{spoiler|Brox (sort of)}}, Amelia, and the queen of the Warrior Women. And the female Shag is the leader of the Fans and the instigator of the entire adventure.

** Notably, the world that Jeft put together himself is male-centric.

 

== Film ==

* Disney animated films have been more proactive with their female characters starting with ''[[The Little Mermaid]]'', but the most extensive example of this trope is undoubtedly ''[[The Princess and the Frog]]''. The princess movies seem to be getting more and more feminist, as well as self-aware, with every passing year.

* ''[[Ever After (film)|Ever After]]'' is pretty much just a feminist retelling of "[[Cinderella (novel)|Cinderella]]". With shaky nods to French history.

 

== Literature ==

* ''[[Dreamsnake]]'' (a post-apocalyptic story in which the protagonist's talent is healing, not fighting, but she's definitely active center of the story), and other books by Vonda N. McIntyre.

* [[Sheri S. Tepper]]’s ''True Game'' trilogy; in this setting, where magic combines with technology, there are many strong women characters, and the second and third parts are told from women’s point of view. Tepper writes more science fiction than fantasy, but always focusing on women.

* The Dragonsword Trilogy (a 1980s American woman is taken to another world and becomes a warrior) and other books by Gael Baudino.

* The works of [[Ptitlepfvyhx 76|Robin McKinley]], including such fairy tale retellings as ''[[Deerskin]]'' and ''[[Beauty a Retelling of Beauty And The Beast|Beauty]]'', and secondary world fantasy ''[[The Blue Sword]]'' and its sequels.

* ''[[The Beyonders]]'' is an unusual variation. The primary viewpoint character/protagonist, Jason, is male. However, the secondary protagonist, Rachael, is female, and she's ''very'' [[Genre Savvy]] about the gender inequalities inherent in a [[Standard Fantasy Setting]] (or any adventure story, really) and is not only highly displeased with them, she's intent on [[Defied Trope|defying]] them. After "taking a cliff"—I.E., a huge risk—for her friends, she earns their respect massively.

** A similar theme exists in the author's previous series, ''[[Fablehaven]].'' The one of the main heroes is a girl named Kendra, and one of her allies is an elderly gentleman, Coulter Dixon, who will not willingly put a woman in danger or ask for one's help on a dangerous mission. This frustrates Kendra to no end, but as the series wears on, Coulter lightens up after seeing what Kendra (and her [[Badass Grandma]] Ruth) can do.

* ''[[Feminist Fairy Tales]]'', by Barbara G. Walker, tries to do this with her revision of traditional fairy tales into female starred ones.

 

* ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'', and really, a fair number of [[Joss Whedon]] works.

** Buffy is [[Real Women Never Wear Dresses|allowed to like shoes]]. She actually seems to cling to 'bimbo' character furniture as a sort of reprieve from her real life, which is actually a pretty complex design choice.

* When Haim Saban brought over ''[[Super Sentai]]'' and adapted it into ''[[Power Rangers]],'' his wife Cheryl had the idea of creating a better gender balance by turning the [[She's a Man In Japan|male]] Yellow Ranger into a female. It also had its female rangers fighting right alongside their male allies (with very little of that "get everyone to safety while the men fight" stuff) and actually had the female rangers take out monsters all by themselves.

* In ''[[Firefly]]'', we get Zoe (the former military officer who often leads the group into the heists), Kaylee (the cheerful mechanic who is wicked good at her job), Inara (the only one on the ship running a reputable business which is, granted, being a [[Hooker with a Heart of Gold|Companion]], but still treated in a serious manner) and River (a psychic girl who fights her insanity to protect her friends and her brother).

 

== Tabletop Games ==

* ''[[Blue Rose]]'' is designed to emulate Feminist Fantasy of the sort published by [[Tamora Pierce]].

 

== Video Games ==

* ''[[Final Fantasy X]]'' has aspects of this. While most of the focus is on [[Decoy Protagonist]] Tidus and his relationship with his new friend Wakka and enigmatic mentor Auron, they are actually mostly just some dumb muscle, who do a rather poor job of being Yuna's bodyguard. But as the story progresses, it becomes more and more apparent that Yuna and her guardian Lulu are actually on a quest to save the world and are pretty much pulling all of the weight, while the men are too preoccupied with their own petty problems to really grasp what's all going on right next to them. Auron seems to be aware, but consciously chooses to let the women run the show while interferes as little as possible. While Yuna falling in love with a man is what eventually makes all the difference, it's not that she leaves the role of being the hero who saves the world to him, but rather that she decides to get what she wants for a change, and not simply doing what is taught and expected by tradition. Which happens to be represented by a council of old men.

** ''[[Final Fantasy XIII]]'' has an overall equal ratio of capable men to women, but the women in particular have a more active role to the story in taking mentorship (Lightning) and protectorate (Lightning again, and Fang even more so) roles, {{spoiler|not to mention that the plot was instigated by Serah and Cocoon was eventually saved through Fang and Vanille's sacrifice}}.

 

== Western Animation ==

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Action Girl]]

[[Category:Gender and Sexuality Tropes]]

[[Category:Alliterative Trope Titles]]