Analysing media representations of women forces us to confront a stark reality about gender in film. Despite decades of feminist progress, female characters remain diminished, peripheral, and often defined entirely by the men around them. This phenomenon is best understood by the term âSmurfette Principleâ, coined by Katha Pollitt in 1991. This refers to the tendency for a narrative to exclude women, offering female representation in a single female character amongst a cast of men. The result is an epidemic of lone female characters in contemporary media, with diminished portrayals of female friendships and relationships that are not male-centred.
Naturally, storytelling in films and media revolves around repeating common tropes, repetitively mirroring series against each other. We often find films sharing similarities in their structure due to this, however, overreliance on this trope in particular is largely troublesome for gender representation. With little screentime and even less importance in the plot, women fade into the background, becoming tokenised characters whose role is to support the well-liked significant main male character. The Smurfette Principle here, based on Smurfette, the only female in a franchise of predominantly male characters, evidently depicts feminine representation to be shadowed by androcentric storylines.
Itâs in franchises like these that women are reduced to a role constrained by their gender: namely, an idiotic side character utilised as a punching bag for comic relief, or a mindless but hot love interest that the male leads lust after. Itâs a disappointing result weâve landed on after countless waves of feminist revolutions, but it is precisely through this cinematic lens that we can observe gender representation in the media and question just how far weâve truly progressed.
The lone female trope covers a multitude of heavily stereotyped traits, exaggerated femininity, or the opposite on the scale, a diminished understanding of their feminine identity, commonly associated with younger girls. In Stranger Things season 1, we can observe this through the character of Eleven, who is the sole female character amongst a cast full of boys. Whilst not necessarily problematic alone, this trope is heightened by her portrayal as being fundamentally naive, male-centred and socially clueless. Even with the introduction of another powerful female lead âMad Maxâ in season 2, came abrupt rivalry and resentment over a boy. Despite their potential which developed into fruition in the later series, these characters embody the frustrating trope which centres womenâs identity as comprising the girl among boys. Their presence is rooted in their connection to the boys around them, and their screentime is solely consumed by this narrative, leaving little character development besides their romantic relationships. Interestingly, Eleven is conveniently portrayed to learn about her own personal identity through her role as a girlfriend, reinforcing the negative stereotype that womenâs identity, especially in film, is relational rather than autonomous. I mean, Eleven literally possesses superpowers and yet most of the second series revolves around this childish jealousy surrounding a boy? Itâs an incredibly frustrating narrative, which tethers female plotlines to men completely unnecessarily.
Though this trope is nothing if not disappointingly stereotypical. In the opposite direction, women can be instead depicted with almost hyperbolic femininity. This characterisation conveys womenâs main characteristics to solely revolve around their feminine identity reduces women to a caricature of their sex. Often this hyper femininity is coupled with the hot idiot trope: female characters who have a pretty face and nothing beyond that. Dialogue is rare, and intelligence even rarer. The woman is simply visual appeal and lacks any form of emotional substance. Most commonly trademarked by the woman riddled with struggle in a painful scene where the woman turns to her male characters for help, since she herself is cinematically constrained to be useless in this trope.
As women, the stark representation forces us to try relating to these highly unrelatable caricatures. It awkwardly tries to encapsulate all female archetypes into one lone woman, resulting in a confusing mix of hyperfeminine or overtly masculine traits. The results here is a caricature of women rather than a relatable character, leaving audiences struggling to connect. Turning women into tropes reduces their connection to real women, making them seem wildly disconnected, assisting a culture which normalises negative stereotypical views of women, rather than viewing them as complex, autonomous individuals. This trope is only more heightened by the one woman per franchise trope, which narrows representation and confines female characterâs to these flat stereotypes. Itâs clear a solution to this issue would be to offer another female character to audiences, yet that frustratingly seems all too much effort for some directors.
However, this is not always the case. A hopeful response to this epidemic has been adopted by many directors. A gender inversion of the trope allows an all-female cast to flourish in Oceans 8 and the 2016 version of Ghostbusters. Iâd argue that whilst it is good to see these acts of change are a great step in the right direction, it isnât the lone female trope itself that is the issue, but rather the over reliance on unhelpful stereotypes that come with it. Women can flourish standalone, being powerful and strong representations often showing up their male counterparts in terms of competence and character. It is when these women are instead reduced to stereotypes which mock their gender and subjugate them to outdated narratives, diminishing their identity to use the characters as means for others.
All in all, the trope is clearly problematic, with these depictions not just diminishing character arcs but more importantly, reinforcing outdated narratives about gender roles which we need to succeed. âSorry, we already cast a womanâ may be sarcastic, but it reflects a persistent industry logic: that representation is fulfilled once a single female character is in the cast. If storytelling thrives on tropes then it is certainly time for a new one: women with depth who exist beyond the subplots of their gender.