gender portrayal Quotes

Oftentimes in films, the female character, if she's not the protagonist - and often, even if she is - feels like an imitation of what a woman is.

I've played women since I was a kid and I've always enjoyed it.

As a young woman, I was disturbed by the fact that there was no imagery that truly expressed the experience of a young woman and the challenges and turbulence we go through. All we had were teenage magazines like 'Cosmopolitan,' which are very one-sided and show an objectified view of women.

At the end of the day I have many answers for it. It has to do with my mom, who was an extraordinary woman, and a great feminist. It has to do with the people in my life. It has to do with a lot of different things, but -- I don't know! Because I'm not just writing from the female characters for other people. I have a desire to see them in our culture -- that was not met for most of my childhood. Except occasionally by James Cameron. [From the 2011 San Diego Comic Con, in response to being asked why he writes strong female characters.]

Ordinarily, I develop videogames with female characters that aren't girlfriends, bimbos and sidekicks.

People will say to me, ‘You’ve played so many strong women,’ and I’ll say, ‘Have you ever said to a man, “You’ve played so many strong men?”’ No! Because the expectation is [men] are varied. Why can’t we have that expectation about women?

I really loved ["The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P" by Adelle Waldman]. It's having a really hot moment. Unlike many hot books, it's actually really wonderful. I tend to have that reaction: I don't want to read it if everyone thinks it's cool. It was a really interesting insight into being young and male. Now that made me feel really thankful for my boyfriend and really thankful because he wasn't like that protagonist, but I know so many people who are like that protagonist.

You could fire a machine gun randomly through the pages of Lord of the Rings and never hit any women.

For me, I believe that just seeing women be strong and tough is not answering the question of what a female hero looks like. Women have their own set of skills that are worth exploring and seeing on screen.

The female experience is different from that of the male, and if, as a male writer, you cannot accept that basic premise, then you will never, ever, be able to write women well.

Most of the women I saw on TV didn't seem like people I actually knew. They felt like ideas of what women are.

Women are really complex and totally enigmatic. Humans are really complex, but in film, we've only ever seen that with men. We've seen antiheroes time and again with male characters.

I was frustrated in general with the way women are always portrayed. And it's always through a man's eyes.

I find it's bizarre that science fiction is the one branch of television to push the idea of strong female characters. And I only call it bizarre because strong women aren't fiction.

I can say that if you're a writer who happens to be a woman, you'll get a book cover that depicts a woman with no head, or a woman turning away, or a pair of high heels. You have to fight to not get stuck with these covers. In the U.S. women are chick-lit writers unless they prove otherwise, and that's frustrating.

It starts with the writing. We have to think of all these characters - we have to treat them all equally. We have to think of them as having an interior life and having motivations. When I'm drawing female characters, I'm looking for that. I'm looking for subtext. I'm looking for ways to make the reader relate to them in a way that goes beyond the pure aesthetic value. You know, just drawing an attractive woman really gets kind of boring after a while.

I don't know why he [Darren Star] is so good at writing for women. Maybe he just likes women. I'm not quite sure what the magic recipe is, other than he just knows how to entertain an audience, and he knows when to be gooey and sweet, and when to be provocative and naughty.

The fictional narratives that television, film, and the news provide for girls and young women are appalling.

Part of the problem is that many directors treat female characters too often as precious. Or they want to live in a fantasy world where they just do spinning hook kicks and knock out guys who are six foot four, and that doesn't work either.

One of the things we learn in movies directed by men is what the 'fantasy woman' is. What we learn in movies directed by women is what real women are about. I don't think that men see things wrong and women right, just that we do see things differently.

The male image has been so pulled down by situation comedy in the last 15 years, it is frightening. I don't like what has happened to the American male.

For a man it's not easy to play a woman onscreen. You have to wax your body. You dress up a lot to be able to do justice to the portrayal.

Young girls need to see women who are strong and vulnerable and complex onscreen.

It's a fact, the majority of films in Hollywood are from the male perspective. And the female characters, very rarely do they get to speak to another female character in a movie, and when they do it's usually about a guy, not anything else. So they're very male-centric, Hollywood films, in general. So I think it's incredible that Ned Benson, when I said I'd love to know where she goes, says okay, I'm going to write another film from the female perspective.

The characters I've always been drawn to are real and flawed. That's not how women have always been portrayed.