What Happened to Strong Female Protagonists

In Part 1 of this lengthy essay, I talked about the various examples of strong female main characters in films from Gone with the Wind to Aliens. Strong women protagonists whose strength was defined by their will and survivability, more than their physical appearance. Now, I want to shift gears to the women who have those sorts of internal qualities, but also manage to evoke a physical presence on the screen as well. There are several examples of this that come to mind that do a better job of showcasing their physical strength in a fight, while still managing to be far more interesting than the female protagonist from Prey and most other modern female protagonists in action films. Spoilers ahead…

Right up there with Ellen Ripley, in terms of an action heroine who overcomes incredible odds and is transformed into an action badass over the course of two films, is Sarah Conner (Linda Hamilton) from the Terminator films. Much like Ellen Ripley, she is relatively meek and small in the beginning, while still managing to take charge when necessary. Unlike Ripley, Conner’s transformation is far more drastic.

She starts out as an average woman, terrified by this robot assassin from the future hunting her down in the first film. Up until the climax, Conner’s primary emotion is fear. It’s when Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn) gets severely injured to the point of barely being able to walk that she grabs him and yells at him, “On your feet, soldier!” Aside from her will to survive being the primary drive for her, this is the key moment in which we see the first signs of who she will become in the sequel.

In the second movie, Sarah Conner is significantly different. The experience of surviving an encounter with the terminator and the knowledge of impending Armageddon have made her paranoid to the point of being institutionalized. She spends all her time in her padded room exercising and awaiting the end of the world—Hamilton put in a lot of effort to build up her muscle mass for this role to make her character more believable. We eventually learn that, sometime between films, she became proficient with weapons and has been prepping for the day that Skynet nukes the planet. It’s entirely believable for the character to change that way, based on the events of the movies and Hamilton’s performance.

All that being said, Sarah Conner’s physical and mental transformation between films is not the only time she grows or changes as a character. In Terminator 2, when she first meets up with her son and the terminator protecting him (Arnold Schwarzenegger), she’s terrified and distrustful of the sentinel. She is also extremely upset with her son, John (Edward Furlong), for risking his life to save her when she fully understands his importance in the future of the world. Over the course of the film, we see her pragmatic paranoia tested by her son and the terminator. John reminds her of the importance of her humanity and of being a parent when she nearly assassinates the man responsible for Skynet. She also comes to trust and rely on the terminator having watched him and John bond and seen how he throws himself into harm’s way to protect him in ways that she can’t.

Linda Hamilton, despite the fact that she put on muscle for the role, is still puny in comparison to Arnold when eventually they cross paths. However, Sarah Conner still comes across as a badass woman, capable of dealing some major damage. All the sequences in which Conner has to physically fight people in the asylum show that she is resourceful and precise with her attacks. The fights aren’t choreographed to the point that she’s doing some crazy Marvel superhero flips and grapples. They’re simple, brutal brawls where the men clearly have the advantage in numbers and strength, but Conner is fast and fights dirty. The men fall down when you expect them to and it takes more than a simple punch to knock them out. When you watch those sorts of fight scenes, they feel more real because Conner is just supposed to be a regular woman who has a major drive for survival and a strong motivation to protect her son.

Naru, the scrawny protagonist in Prey, is able to twirl and jump all over guys twice her size and easily take out multiple men at once. It’s spectacular to watch, but it’s far from believable seeing a small woman like her capable of just getting away with all the damage she deals when there was nothing to establish her as a warrior who has fought other men outside her own tribe. There’s barely a struggle when she fights anyone, other than the Comanche jerk who doesn’t approve of her hunting. In the climax of her film, the Predator basically lets her jump on him and hack away with her tomahawk. He’s not impeded in any way from just grabbing her by the leg and slamming her into the ground over and over like the Hulk. She just gets to win. Compare that to what Dutch—Arnold Schwarzenegger’s character in the original Predator—went through in his final confrontation: she comes away with barely a scratch and he’s beaten to within an inch of his life.

Much like Dutch from Predator, Sarah Conner gets severely injured by the end of Terminator 2. She gets shot and stabbed multiple times. In the climactic finale, she can barely walk as she pumps the shotgun with one arm and fires it into the T-1000 terminator. Yet, it’s an iconic moment because the struggle and the motivation of Connor increase the tension of the scene exponentially. Every time I watch it, I am rooting for her. With each pump and blast of the shotgun, sending the villain backward toward his doom, the scene gets more and more intense. Linda Hamilton’s expression is that of someone who is exhausted, but determined to protect her son at any cost. Her driving motivation is right in front of her, pushing her forward when her body is ready to give out, and we as the audience can’t help but hope for her to finally send the terminator over the edge to its end with one last gunshot.

In Prey, there’s never a scene like that for Naru. She has her big fight with the Predator, sure, but it never had the same tension or drive that T2 had. Her motivation was never that interesting and didn’t change, nor was she ever in any real danger. If anything, the scene in which her brother sacrifices himself has more impact. It’s still not even that emotional, because we barely spent enough time with him in the film to get to know him. Even Naru doesn’t seem too bothered by her brother’s death after the scene is over.

The death of her sibling should be a moment that truly breaks her and changes her as a character. This is the turning point of the film in which we transition to the final act: her brother and all the other hunters in her tribe are dead and only she and the Predator remain. This is an opportunity to alter her path as a character, help her mature, and make her motivation something more meaningful. However, her goal of hunting the Predator was already established by this point, and there is nothing said or implied that it has changed in any significant way. She doesn’t say that this is about revenge. She doesn’t say this is about protecting her tribe now that all the men have been killed off. She doesn’t break down and cry about her brother’s death or about how her motivations have been detrimental in some way. Instead, she monologues about how the Predator does not see her as a threat, further hammering home the message of the film. Naru is basically the same person as she was at the beginning of the movie.

There’s a film in which this sort of breakdown actually takes place, which I think adds to the strength of the protagonist. When I first started writing this article, I was tempted at the start to talk about how well-written female protagonists seemed rare in the past 10 years. All of the female heroines I’ve been describing in this 2-part essay have come from movies that were made before the year 2012, after all. However, there was a movie that came out in the last decade—before everyone in Hollywood lost their minds about a certain thing that happened in 2016—that I continue to use as a shining example of a modern female protagonist done well. I’m, of course, talking about Mad Max: Fury Road.

The main character, Furiosa (Charlize Theron) is quickly established as someone who distrusts others and is perfectly capable of handling herself without coming across as invincible or flawless. When Max (Tom Hardy) first encounters her, the two attack each other in a dramatic brawl. She loses the fight with Max, but still demonstrates how she’s a merciless killer in the scenes leading up to it and during the fight itself. In a harrowing scene that follows, she has to learn to trust and rely on him, even though they were enemies just minutes prior. It’s a small amount of growth and change, and it still comes across as a temporary alliance at best. However, it sets the stage for the rest of the movie to show that she’s willing to give Max a chance and trust him. Likewise, he does the same and both are able to have their moments of strength and weakness without being detrimental to one another.

Later on in the film, we find out the motivation that has been driving her this whole time and why she was willing to risk everything to take the wives of Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne) away. She promised them “the green place” from her childhood. It was something of a utopian oasis in the apocalyptic future. However, meeting people from her old tribe reveals that it has long since been destroyed. The revelation crushes her spirits. It breaks her down in an overdramatic fashion, but it shows the humanity in her and that the driving force/motivation has been stolen from her. Grieving and hopeless, she sets out with the rest of the women in search of anything until Max convinces her that she has a better shot of getting what she wants by heading back to where she started and overtaking Immortan Joe’s domain.

Based on how determined Furiosa has been this whole time to succeed, we as the audience understand that only the destruction of her home and her key motivation to push on would be something that would break her down in that way. For the whole movie up to this point, Furiosa and the others have been running away. Now that they have nothing, they turn around for a big fight to claim the place for their own. You can thematically interpret this however you want, but it doesn’t change the fact that this moment was a key pivot point for Furiosa. We can see that even she is not sure of the decision but understands it as a pragmatic choice. The whole final conflict shows a tired and emotionally weakened woman, despite her determination—which is a testament to Theron’s acting. If she had not had that breakdown moment and the realization that she had nothing left to hope for, she probably wouldn’t go back.

Naru in Prey does not have a moment like this. I mentioned how her brother dies and that she’s sad for that scene, but that is where it ends. It’s the person whom the film shows us as the person closest to her and he is brutally killed in front of her. She is sad at that moment, but there is nothing that happens later to show that the loss of her brother is still eating at her. After the battle is over and the Predator is slain, Prey opts for the female-empowerment message in the final scene. She drops the Predator’s head in front of her tribe and just smiles at the young girls in the crowd for one last hit of #girlpower. Even if the filmmakers had done the bare minimum in the final scene and shown some real emotion or regret in her, my opinion of Prey would greatly improve. Instead of having her stand in front of her tribe, smiling with pride as she holds the Predator’s head, they could have had her drop it and walk past them only to break down and cry in her tent. Yes, she’s proven herself as a hunter, but her brother and half of her tribe is still dead. That is how a real person would act having overcome an obstacle with such drastic costs. It doesn’t diminish her accomplishment, but it shows that she grieves the loss of her brother and kinsmen and perhaps even regrets her original motivation, seeing it as an immature goal. This would at least make her seem a little more human in this moment of weakness, which is really a moment of strength.

Turning back to Furiosa, the difficulty of her journey does not end with her crushing realization. The battle back to Immortan Joe’s palace is long and intense. As I mentioned, Furiosa is a determined individual, but we can see that she’s exhausted and that the realization has still shaken her. Things get even worse for Furiosa when she is severely injured in the process of saving Max from certain death. Despite her injuries, she delivers the killing blow to Joe before collapsing in her truck and requiring a blood transfusion from Max. These two started out as distrustful enemies of each other, but through their journey together, they have both saved each other’s lives and now share a bond through blood. The action, the danger, the growth of both characters, and the monumental struggles of her journey make it a satisfying one when she ultimately succeeds.

Succeeding when there is no challenge is not as rewarding as when the odds are stacked against you. Unlike how Furiosa is in the beginning, she ultimately relies on others to succeed and we as the audience can tell just from the action on the screen that she would surely fail if she didn’t grow. That’s why Furiosa’s struggles, both internal and external, are more meaningful and interesting than Naru’s. I won’t pretend that Furiosa is some complex character who undergoes significant character growth or change in the face of adversity—she’s no Scarlet O’Hara. But the change and the weakness in her are enough to make her character more interesting, to make her story more compelling, and to give her decisions more tension than Naru’s. If your character does not have any flaws, they’re neither believable or interesting.

Naru’s only flaw is that she’s not as strong as the Predator. However, no one is, so it’s not a flaw that really matters or makes her unique. Lack of strength isn’t a problem though, because she’s able to take multiple human enemies out with ease and even manages to do serious damage to the Predator without too much effort. The Predator, a creature who manages to knock out a grizzly and split it open over his head, who is able to withstand tons of damage from spears and gunfire, is unable to repel a 120-pound woman’s assault. I’m all for taking the aspect that he’s too hulking and slow to match her speed, or that she can use a stealthy strategy with traps, but the final climax of Prey has moments in which she would have lost immediately if she didn’t have her plot armor. Instead, she barely struggles against him at all.

If you look at all the examples I’ve provided, hopefully, it makes sense why I personally find Naru to be such a lame, detrimental protagonist to Prey. She didn’t need to be as tough as Furiosa to accomplish her goal in a believable fashion. She did not need to go through the drastic changes in personality of Sarah Conner or Scarlett O’Hara. She didn’t need to be given a distinctly female characteristic of maternal instinct like Ellen Ripley. All Naru needed to be was flawed in a small way and given room to grow. She needed to be allowed to be weak so she could become strong. It would be even better if her male counterparts were allowed to compliment and help her in the ways that Hicks did for Ripley and Max did for Furiosa. Instead, we’re left with a heroine that doesn’t need help and who is so self-absorbed with her girl-power goals that she doesn’t give a crap that people close to her are dead at the end of her movie. She has no journey, no compelling personality, and no real challenge that she struggles to overcome. She just wins and, as a result, she’s boring as hell.

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