Stage In The Sky

This one delves into the criticism many have voiced about the “Mary Sue” and Hollywood continually pushing the “strong female protagonists” in which most of those women act like men.

These opinions…don’t worry, they aren’t feelings that I’m super passionate about because there’s not much I can do about it. But I have held them for a long time. Even when I was in film school, my instructors used to tell me, “Rock, you have to play the game to win it.”

That being said, I refuse to stand up, applaud, and celebrate these “Strong Female Characters” as some remarkable accomplishment when I knew…those in charge of making up the rules have rigged it so these characters will win. And by “win,” I mean they’re the ones entertainment companies are choosing to promote, produce, and publish.

It’s kind of like, how a couple years back, Michael B Jordan and other Hollywood gatekeepers openly touted that they’d focus on hiring and promoting black people…because they’re black. Regardless of their reasons, I know I wouldn’t allow myself to be happy or proud over an accomplishment in which I won, not out of merit or because I was the best…but because I happened to be born with an immutable characteristic.

I touched on it in the video, but since 2012, when I switched from screenwriting to writing novels, I saw how almost every literary agent, publisher, and producer were calling for and prioritizing stories with a “Strong Female Protagonists.” It’s not like this is what the public was craving. It’s more like the Executives said, “This is what we want and we’re doing it to change the world.”

When I was in film school, I had a huge debate with my classmates about this. It was me and two other Screenwriters against about 15 Recording Arts majors. I argued that there’s a reason why words like “influence” and “persuasion” exists, while they opined that you can’t make someone do something they don’t want to do. I argued that I agreed with that, HOWEVER, you CAN influence people to do something that they originally didn’t want to do. But now they’re doing it because you were able to change their mind or show them something that enticed them to want to do it.

Music, films, books, mediums have always had a hand in shaping the way we think. Even public figures…the reason why people idolized them was based on the exploits that were shared through word-of-mouth (someone entertaining you) or literature. Think Casanova, think Jesse James, think Martin Luther, Daniel Boone, or Marco Polo.

Yes, there are companies who believe in simply entertaining the masses…and I might buy for a second that some of them don’t care about pushing some agenda. But by and large, Hollywood’s pretty obvious when it comes to their goal of CHANGING the current-day culture to their own personal ideals, as in, what they think is right or wrong, how they want you to live, and what they want you to value.

Some examples include, “The Birth of a Nation(1915),” “Rebel without a Cause,” James Bond movies, “A Fistful of Dollars,” “Shaft,” “Bonnie and Clyde,” “Jaws,” “Star Wars,” “”Blade Runner,” And for my generation coming up…”The Fast and the Furious” back in 2001 turned almost all of my high school class into Linkin Park blaring, fist-flying, street racers with neon kits, loud exhausts, decals, and racing stripes.

hahaha, I’ll never forget my senior year when a group of us were racing from school to the lake. Even the smallest, quietest, most shyest girl in our group was weaving through traffic like she had her college tuition on the line. It was incredible…that we didn’t get into any accidents.

“Nah-uh, Rock! What if these movies aren’t produced with an agenda to influence others…but they’re just sharing a culture that most didn’t know exist? It’s about the Representation!”

I think I’d buy that…if they weren’t being so heavily glamorized. Meaning…let’s say you take N.W.A and their so-called Reality Raps in which their lyrics talked about the “reality” of having to live in Compton and South Central L.A. If their music and rap didn’t glamorize the sex, violence, drugs, and immoral behavior but stressed how unappealing it is, to encourage others to do better, to either leave the hood or change it for the better to get rid of all the gang violence…I’d be on board with that.

But when music and films glamorize the behavior where the consequences are either non-existent or minimized to the point that it’s essentially telling the viewer that it’s worth it…yeah…one could argue that you’re pushing an agenda, that you’re advertising and promoting a certain lifestyle, behavior, or even a demographic.

Anyways…in my video I gave my thoughts on why some of us are fed up with the “Strong female protagonists.” I didn’t go into too much detail because I’ve seen others cover the topic way better and deeper than I have. Feel free to check them out: