Taking the Love out of Love Stories

I’ve been watching this meme circulate lately about the badass qualities of certain women in movies. It was created originally of course as a Twilight hating meme and has since morphed, as you can read, into a ‘Star Wars is awesome’ meme.

The text of the meme says: “When the love of Hermione’s life left her, she continued to search for the keys to destroying the world’s most powerful dark wizard. When the love of Bella’s life left her, she curled up in the fetal position, went numb for months then jumped off a cliff. [the newest addition to the meme continues saying] bitches please. When the love of Leia’s life was encased in carbonite by Boba Fett and Darth Vader and taken to Jabba the Hutt, she disguised herself as a bounty hunter and rescued him.”

What caught me off guard as I was contemplating the addition to the original meme was that I wanted to add my own little box on the end with something funny like:

“Well when (insert name here) was (doing some brave activity) she rescued… oh wait she didn’t have a love of her life because not every woman needs one to be an awesome character in a movie and have that be her central story!”

Sassy, right? But then I sat there thinking, okay, what character could I reference for this. And maybe it’s me and my lack of movie watching lately because tickets are crazy-expensive and I’ve yet to get on the Netflix train, but I couldn’t think of anyone. Moreover, even if there is one out there that I can’t think of or haven’t seen, isn’t it the least bit disturbing that even if I have seen one, it wasn’t memorable enough to warrant it sticking in my brain as being an empowering moment for women in the media?

There are definitely powerful female roles, don’t get me wrong (Harriet the Spy, Ursula, Miranda Priestly, etc.) but what they generally have in common is that they’re targeting a younger audience, these characters are eventually punished for their lack of love, they are old and secondary characters, or they are actually evil. What I’m looking for is a female protagonist who is doing what can generally be interpreted as something good and doesn’t have a love story to go along with her characters goals or motivations.

It’s moments like these that I’m glad I was raised on Buffy, Charmed, and Xena. But even in shows like that, there were episodes that made a feminist cringe. In light of Miss Representation it seems like this post might be just beating to the ground what feminists already are well aware of: that we need more varied, positive, and (I would say) more badass-sans-love-story representation in media and especially films.

In the efforts to inform women everywhere that they can be important and world-changing awesome females, I think it’s essential that we start making an effort to take the love out of the story. Not because love isn’t amazing and beautiful, but because to have that be a central theme in roles of female characters further reinforces the litany of messages women get everyday- that they are valued only for their looks, their compliance, and their ability to catch-save-and marry their man (in the heteronormative environment that is also pervasive in the media).

Anyone out there want to throw out some good movie suggestions for me that I’ve overlooked that have some awesome female characters who aren’t running around in love all time? After all, it’s impossible for me to see every movie so I’m definitely making generalizations here (an important note) and would absolutely adore to be proven wrong with a whole bunch of comments of movies that I need to watch!

Disclaimer: This post was written by a Feministing Community user and does not necessarily reflect the views of any Feministing columnist, editor, or executive director.

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