Something For The Girls

I watch an awful lot of old TV shows from the 1960s and 70s with the kids. Partly this is because I refuse to fork out for the extortion racket that is Sky TV. The other reason is that a lot of old TV is actually very good family entertainment – even by modern TV production standards. Since we have had the Horror Channel on Freeview we have been able to pick up on quite a few old favourites on the daytime TV schedule (the later evening slots being most definitely not family friendly!) The latest favourite, at least with one member of the household, is the 1970s American TV adaptation of Wonder Woman.

I can remember watching Wonder Woman back in the 1970s when it was first shown on British television (I think it was BBC1). Aside from being escapist family entertainment I can recall that it was one of the few action fantasy series that really appealed to my mother. Watching it now is quite interesting as it is remarkably camp in a way I just wouldn’t have appreciated when it was first shown. Now it looks like what I imagine a U-rated Russ Meyer movie might have looked like. However, it is my daughter who really seems to enjoy it; possibly because rather than the female lead being the damsel in distress, Wonder Woman gets to take charge and duff up Nazis.

I think there is a theme here. We watched several episodes of another old favourite series of mine, The Avengers (as in the classic 1960s British adventure series and not the bollocks modern comic book films). Here it is the character of Emma Peel who appeals to my daughter. Now I suspect that the original casting was designed more in the “Something for the dads” mould (and I can never get over just how pretty Diana Rigg was back then) but the character is very assertive and really knows how to look after herself – even if her martial arts skills look much more teatime telly friendly than Enter The Dragon kung-fu on speed.

I think the link here is that for the most part action and fantasy adventure series are not aimed at the young women in the audience. The female characters tend to be selected either as an adornment to attract the lustful male audience or even worse as a mere MacGuffin to give the butch male lead something to lust after. Often when female characters are introduced as all-action heroines, the roles are badly written with the female lead merely being a muscle-bound action-man in a sports bra.

Occasionally sci-fi and fantasy writers do get it right. I asked my daughter who her favourite Doctor Who girl was and it turned out to be Leela, played by Louise Jameson, who was a primitive woman from a jungle planet but who was very independent spirited and knew how to look after herself (in fact the Doctor spent half his time saving the monsters from her). There are other examples in mainstream cinema: Sigourney Weaver creates a complex and convincing heroine in the character of Ripley from the Alien films – particularly in the director’s cut of the second film, “Aliens”, which adds depth and complexity to the character.

More recently I was very impressed by Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss in the Hunger Games films which again managed to portray a complex heroine rather than shoehorning a male role into a dress. Also, the only good thing about the recent Mad Max film was Charlize Theron’s performance as a women taking control of her destiny and, in other films, Jodie Foster is always worth watching regardless of which side of the camera she is on. I suppose there are many other examples out there but I do wish that makers of film and television action adventures would forget about their demographics and think about providing something positive for the girls.