Click Here for the PDF version

With Great Power: Why there should be more female villains represented in movies

I want you to imagine one of your favorite villains from any movie. I want you to think about what makes them a villain; what are their characteristics, what is it that made them so villainous, what are their motives, why are they your favorite. Now I want you to imagine your favorite villain is now a woman, because statistically speaking, your favorite villain is probably a male. Does your opinion about your favorite villain change now that you’re viewing them as female? Can you picture them acting the same way? A lot of the times, we see male villains because we attribute villainous behavior with more stereotypically masculine traits. One of the reasons that there are so few female villains is because the movie industry is finding it hard to balance what it means to be a villain with the feminine attributes that go along with being a woman. In this paper, I want to explain why there should be more female villains represented in movies today, by looking at the overall representation of women in the film industry and then more specifically, the female antagonist.

Before looking more closely at just female antagonists, it’s a good idea to look at the overall female representation in film. It’s important to understand the norm in order to see how female villains stray from it. In order to understand the gender bias that arises in the film industry, I want to introduce the Bechdel Test, originally created by cartoonist Alison Bechdel as a strip in her series “Dykes to Watch Out For.” In order for a movie to pass “The Test,” it has to satisfy only three simple criteria; there have to be two named female characters, they have to speak to each other; they have to speak about something other than a man. It seems pretty simple, but it’s surprising how many movies fail to pass this test. In the 2000s there were about 50% of films that managed to pass the test, a significant increase since the 70’s where less than 25% of movies produced were passing. However, there has been a plateau in the last 20 years, the statistic has remained that only 50% of the movies are passing the Bechdel Test. Passing the test doesn’t mean that the film is representing gender equality, or that the female characters are well-written and have importance in the plotlines, however, it does show the glaringly obvious fact that there needs to be an improvement in female representation in movies.

Looking more closely at the portrayal of females in movies, I want to refer to Laura Mulvaney’s, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” In this essay, Mulvaney uses the term “male gaze,” which has since been used to frequently describe women in films. The male gaze, as Mulvaney describes it is a projection of a male “phantasy on to the female figure which is styled accordingly.” Mulvaney states that the spectator of many films is forced to view a film through the heterosexual male point of view, therefore women characters in movies fall into being either the object of desire for the male characters within the movie or being the object of desire to the audience. Either way, the role of the female doesn’t do much in regards to the actual plot of a movie. When women appear in movies, they are too often only represented because the male characters and the male audience want their fantasy of a perfect woman to be represented. In terms of the plot of movies, women have no effect. As Mulvaney quotes in her essay, “In herself, the woman has not the slightest importance.”

It’s not hard to find instances of the male gaze in cinema; you don’t even have to go so far as to watching movies, you just have to look at the movie posters in order to get a good idea of what the male gaze is. Marcia Belsky started a social media called the “Headless Women of Hollywood,” where she wanted to show the obvious objectification of women in cinema. This decapitation of women on movie posters makes them passive objects that are only there to be looked upon by men. “Her value is that only of her sexual appeal to men, and not of her personhood.” A few examples are the 1967 movie The Graduate, where a male character is standing in the back looking upon just a woman’s leg as she appears to be getting dressed; the women-centric, 1992 film A League of Their Own, where only a pair of women’s legs are shown in a baseball uniform; in 2006, John Tucker Must Die was promoted using a poster of a woman facing away from us, barely dressed. These are just a few examples that span across decades of movie promotion. These “Headless Women of Hollywood,” have become so ingrained in our view of cinema, that we begin to ignore it, or not even notice it in the first place.

This socially constructed idea of what it means to be a perfect woman dates back to the Victorian Era. There was the idea that women were domestic beings whose sole purposes were to be homemakers and mothers. This stems from the belief that women are the weaker sex and therefore can’t take on more assertive roles her own life. Women are the gentler, kinder sex, and are held to a higher moral standard because of this. Women have to conform to these roles or else the entire society will collapse, or at least that’s what was assumed to happen at the time. Looking at Coventry Patmore’s poem “Angel in the House,” written about his wife, it’s clear that he assumed his wife to be an “angel” because she was succumbing to imposed expectations that society had of the role of women at the time. “At any time, she’s still his wife; Dearly devoted to his arms; She loves with love that cannot tire…” Unfortunately, this idea that women are morally righteous was not left behind in the Victorian Era, there is still evidence of this belief scattered throughout pop culture today. Women are still being represented through this mold of the perfect woman. This narrow definition of what it means to be a woman creates the toxic idea that “if you don’t meet a, b, and c, then you’re not a woman.” These traits exclude transwomen, women who can’t have children, women who don’t want to have children, and women who don’t get married. This is one of the main reasons that I wanted to focus my paper on the female antagonist. There should be more representation of imperfect women in cinema, because, newsflash, not all women are perfect. As Ringo states it “Sexism, as any systemic prejudice, is a clever animal, and it has co-opted the notion of ‘good representation’ to take a strangely regressive shape, insisting that it is bad for women to show women who are bad.” There seems to be this notion that if movies just include more women in their films, then they get a pat on the back because they’ve just increased their overall female representation. However, this doesn’t mean all that much if all they are producing is more women who are viewed through the male gaze. As Mulvaney puts it, women are “passive image(s) of visual perfection” to the heterosexual male.

If a writer dares to depict a woman as villainous, then she must still be forced to confine to typical female stereotypes. There are typically two troupes that female villains fall under, the femme fatale, or the grotesque witch. The femme fatale is typically a seductress who charms men and lures them in usually to perform a dangerous task or to kill them. Some of the more famous femme fatales are Catwomam from the Batman franchise, Mrs. Robinson from The Graduate, Jane Smith from Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Catherine Tramell from Basic Instinct, and Ava from Ex Machina. Opposing the femme fatale is the ugly witch. This trope comes directly from the idea that beauty is good and evil makes you ugly. This character is easily found in many classic Disney films like Ursula from The Little Mermaid, the fates from Hercules, and Yzma from Emperor’s New Grooves. Speaking in more general terms, female villains either use their femininity to seduce men, or they are so far from the typical beauty standards that they couldn’t possibly be a threat to the fragile feminine standards that we love to place on female roles. As Elise Ringo explains in her article “Villainesses Required: Why the Dark Side Needs More Women,” “Badness is a result of either underperforming or overperforming this deeply-entrenched femininity.” There’s not just a lack of representation when it comes to female villains, but also a lack of diversity when it comes to the parts that they play in the story.

There should be gender equality on both sides of the morality line. Villains, in general, have a huge impact on the plot of a film. Their characters are what drive the protagonists of the story, and therefore they drive the story overall. In addition to that, villains are more interesting characters. There are many roles that different villains can take in a movie, so why are female villains restricted? Female villains don’t typically get the backstory that many male villains do. They don’t get to play with moral ambiguity; women characters are either “good” or “bad. They also don’t get sympathy from the spectator. There are ways in which female villains can be represented where they aren’t restricted by gender stereotypes, but still remain feminine. Being villainous doesn’t mean that a woman has to give up her feminine traits for more masculine traits.

Cersei Lannister is a villainous character whose moral compass doesn’t exactly point North. From the very first episode of Game of Thrones, with her intimate relations with her brother and plotting the murder of a child, it is clear that Cersei is not going to be the hero of the story. However, the character of Cersei has a sophisticated character development throughout the series that shows her strengths and weaknesses. Cersei’s main goal throughout the entire series is power. She’ll do whatever it takes to gain control and stay in control. At first, she very much remains within the gender stereotypes, in her marriage with Robert Baratheon, she tries to play the role of a wife. When she defies him, she gets slapped and ridiculed and is simply dismissed. However, Cersei is not one to be underestimated. When her husband dies (with the strong speculation that Cersei had a hand in his death), she begins to see her way to the top. Now that her son is in control of the seven kingdoms, and she is, for the most part, in control of her son, she is now the underlying leader of everything. She tries to keep this hold on her kingdom throughout the rest of the series, with many challenges and complications along the way.

Cersei’s desire for power directly opposes the idea that women play a passive role in their own stories. Although she’s not exactly as physically active, she doesn’t ever really physically fight anyone, she’s a master manipulator. Her interference has lead to the death of many characters, and she is arguably the one to blame for the start of the main conflict throughout the whole series, the battle for control of the Iron Throne. Cersei is intimidating; she knows what she wants and goes after it, using those around her like puppets to do her dirty work for her. Without Cersei, the whole series wouldn’t be as interesting. She helps move the story along just as much, if not more, than her male counterparts on screen.

Even though Cersei is this power-hungry ruler, she is still feminine. Not only does she always look nice, with her long braided hair (at least in the beginning) and her elegant dresses, but she also cares for her children more than anything. This dynamic makes Cersei’s character so much more interesting. It’s rarely seen that a mother in a story is often the antagonist as well. Typically when there is a mother figure in the story, their love for their children is often corrupted, but Cersei’s love towards her children is pure, which completely juxtaposes pretty much all her other character traits. Even the other characters in the story don’t deny that Cersei’s love for her children is more powerful than her drive to gain power. The deaths of her children throughout the show, tragically effect Cersei, making the audience sympathize with her. Her emotional turmoil is clearly shown and you can’t help but feel bad for her when she’s crying, holding her dead son’s body. This motherly love is something that isn’t shown too often alongside a female antagonist. The only other ones that I can think of are Mother Gothel from Tangled, but she never really loved Rapunzel only the power in her hair, and the Other Mother from Coraline, but she only pretended to love Coraline in order to try and capture her soul. Cersei shows that you can be feminine and powerful at the same time. One does not have to sacrifice one’s femininity in order to be a threat.

Another example to look at is O-Ren Ishii from the movie Kill Bill Vol. 1 directed by Quentin Tarantino. She differs from the traditional female portrayal across cinema in many ways, not only does she challenge typical female tropes but also typical villainous female tropes. O-Ren Ishii, ever since she was little, acts on her own accord. When she was a child, she witnessed her parents get brutally murdered in their bedroom while she was hiding under a bed. She sought revenge and ended up killing the man who murdered her parents and quickly discovered that she had a knack for it. She became one of the deadliest assassins in the world. She works her way to become head of the Yakuza and the Crazy 88’s. Overall, she is a force to be reckoned with. She is made to be the antagonist of the film because we are viewing the movie from the eyes of the unnamed “bride,” who was attacked on her wedding day by the Deadly Viper Assassination squad that O-Ren was also apart of. We follow the bride as she seeks revenge against those who were there on her wedding day.

Why choose O-ren Ishii? What makes her different? Well one of the first things that you can tell just from the information that I have already given you, is that she gets a backstory and a pretty dramatic one at that. Typically, villains don’t really get too much of a backstory, they simply exist in the cinematic universe to make the hero of the story, well, heroic. They exist to establish the moral guidelines of the movie; they let the audience know who is right and who is wrong. Giving a villain a backstory runs the risk of the audience sympathizing with the villain, causing the moral lines to be skewed. This is the case with O-Ren Ishii. We learn about her past in great detail and we know why she did the things she did. We get to understand her motives, which seem justified. As audience members, we begin to sympathize with O-Ren Ishii and come to admire her character. Some of the most dynamic villains of all time are given extensive backgrounds, playing with the idea of what is right and what is wrong. We begin to understand them to be villains because of the characters the film chooses to follow and which character is viewed as the protagonist. Had this been a movie about O-Ren Ishii, there could easily be an understanding as to her being the hero in her own story.

Even though O-Ren is terrifying, she still manages to remain feminine. She doesn’t have to abandon all of her feminine traits in order to become the leader of two criminal powerhouses in Japan. She still wears her beautiful kimonos and has her hair done up and neat at all times. Even during her final battle with the bride, she remains elegant with her fighting style. She can be feminine and a boss at the same time.

O-Ren challenges typical gender roles by having control over her own narrative. Too often women’s stories are only driven through the men in the movie, however with O-Ren, although initially motivated because of a man killing her parents, she begins to realize her own strength and uses it to gain control in every aspect of her life. There’s no denying that she is the leader of the room. One of her most famous scenes is when she is conversing with other members of the Yakuza, and one of the men questions whether she should be in charge, due to her Chinese and American heritage. With ease, she decapitates the man and delivers her famous speech “The price you pay for bringing up either my Chinese or American heritage as a negative is… I collect your fucking head. Just like this fucker here. Now, if any of you sons of bitches got anything else to say, now’s the fucking time!” Any time that she is challenged throughout the movie, she comes out on top. It’s only when she faces the bride that she falls. This kind of control of a scene is not typical in the portrayal of females on screen. Even female villains don’t get the same amount of power that O-Ren Ishii has in this movie. The magnitude is apparent and refreshing.

There has been some progression in the representation of females in movies in recent years, but this advancement has been slow-moving. Cersei Lannister and O-Ren Ishii are just a few examples of strong female characters that have moved into the spotlight; there has been a surge of female superheroes being represented alongside their male counterparts, as well as starring in their own movies as the title character. However, according to Dr. Martha M. Lauzen’s “It’s a Man’s (Celluloid) World: Portrayal of Female Character’s in the Top Grossing Films of 2018,” she shares how 35% of speaking characters in 2018 were women. This is only a 1% increase from the previous year. At this rate, it will take us about three more decades to get female characters who speak with the same frequency as their male counterparts. So the question then becomes, why is it taking so long to get equal representation? There have been movies in the past that have challenged the typical gender roles before. There’s Thelma and Louise (1991), Foxy Brown (1974), The Women (1939), The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928), and many more. From just a few examples, we can see that writers and directors have been challenging societal norms ever since cinema became an artistic platform that can be used as a form of expression.  We need to keep putting more characters like O-Ren and Cersei into the spotlight to try and change the statistics that don’t seem to want to advance. We have to get rid of the idea that if we include a strong female character in a movie every once and awhile, we’ve then filled the quota for the decade and get to revert back to the imposed roles that society dictates. One solution would be to get more women involved in the film industry. Part of the reason that there are so many films that are shown through the male point of view, is because it’s men who are directing and producing the majority of movies. We can make real progress if we are willing to stray from the norm and give women more of a voice in the movie industry.

Accurate female representation in movies is important because what we see on-screen reflects the society that we live in. If we are choosing to only show women in typical female tropes, then women in society believe that they should fall into these categories as well. In this paper, I am only suggesting one solution to this problem, that solution being the inclusion of more villainous characters that are female. I think that the portrayal of women is too one-sided, it’s too “good.” There should be more representation of women who aren’t perfect, who make mistakes, and stray from the norm. Women aren’t just expected to fit these societal norms but are punished when they stray from them. The addition of more female villains in movies seems to be a good balance to the perfect cookie-cutter female characters that we still see all too often.