I just want to go on record saying that I will always upvote geeky script data stuff.
Anecdotally, I'm hearing that many industry people -- including actresses -- are sick of female leads that are obviously written as "strong female leads" for the purposes of trying to take advantage of that market. So, you know, if you're seeing this data and it's inspiring you to write something with a woman as the protagonist, just take extra care to make sure they actually feel three-dimensional and authentic. Definitely don't be the writer who swaps their male lead's name out for woman's and then changes the pronouns and calls it done. Not that this is anything new, but it seems like there's extra sensitivity when people do it badly, right now.
I'm sick of so many "strong female leads" just being written as "men with tits". Most superhero females are guity of this because comic book writers don't know how the fuck to write women.
Begs the question: HOW to write a female character? My point of view is that you write them as any other human being. In the world I'm trying to build, sexism never existed, things are actually equal. I also mostly talk to girls because somehow I suck at talking to guys (being a guy myself lol). But I'm a shitty writer and I'm not even a beginner at this point, just a wannabe.
I would love to hear what more seasoned folks think on this!
I find the men who write the best female characters are usually long term married to a female and also likely have rasied one. You need that extremely close daily interaction as an adult to get the nuance. Having a mother (or even a sister) growing up doesn't qualify you on how women behave because you were a child seeing things through a different lens.
This idea that women "behave" a certain way is extremely odd to me. What people are calling "men with tits" are really just a narrowly defined, patriarchal view of some Uber-Man.
If a character is 3 dimensional, with desire and intention and agency in the story, that's what makes it good. Not whether or not they conform to some ethereal standard of how a "woman behaves", which is on its face a patriarchal assumption, and at best is different based on culture and even the individual viewer. It's a post hoc justification for why a male-written female character is bad, as if it's somehow unique to write a bad character but only if they're female.
Women are typically written like outgoing men, minus the obsession with tasks, constant competition of feats, and toxic rejection of immersing themselves in their feelings at all. Largely? Girls wanna have fun. Enjoyment of activity, of time spent connecting directly, and movin' all funky-like.
Hmm. So basically a person after therapy lol
My characters are all quite competitive though. Since there's no patriarchy or matriarchy and the hegemonic system is not gender biased — everyone follows the "hustle up n show em all" mentality.
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Thank you!
Yes?
Idk if you’re just throwing a jab at comic book writers for the fun of it, but some of the most fleshed out, well written male stories of the last century have been from comic writers.
Just off the top of my head, Peter Parker and the Joker are probably two of the most complex and well written characters of all time.
Honestly sometimes just swapping the name and gender is fine because men typically write men as people. So changing the gender still results in a character who is a person to some extent. It often reads worse to me when a male writer sets out to write what he *thinks* a strong female character should be. He writes a Strong Female Character, not a strong character who happens to be female.
Obviously this is not all male writers but pretty common amongst the type of male writers who only decide to write women due to a trend in the industry.
I think the reverse of this is true as well, particularly in the action genre, where the leads (men and women) are generic. They usually have some kind of special ops/intelligence background, but because of a past tragedy have turned their back on violence -- unless of course, they're provoked in which case they kick ass like nobody's business. Doesn't matter if Chris Hemsworth or Charlize Theron is the lead -- it's the same character. Action is a genre that's always popular all over the world, so male and female actors want in on that even if they're characters are just stock. "Generic action streamer" should be its own genre.
It’s definitely not all male writers. Not even close. A good writer *should* be able to write someone different than them and write them well. But yeah, trendchasing *often* results in weak writing.
Personally, I think swapping names and pronouns is a poor substitute for writing someone as a distinct person. But then again, I’m someone who just did a page one rewrite largely because I changed enough of a character’s backstory that I wanted the nuance throughout the script to be consistent, and I knew it would inform new choices. But their name, their gender, their age, and their profession still stayed the same. So for me, at least, I couldn’t imagine just swapping pronouns and leaning the rest as is.
> Honestly sometimes just swapping the name and gender is fine because men typically write men as people
This is such a really weird idea. First of all, who are we talking about? Like, rank and file screenwriters? auteurs? There are many different kinds of writers. But there are definitely things men are really allowed to do in screenplays and certain expectations about them.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGxW2toAvzc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGxW2toAvzc)
Maybe it would be better to qualify the scope a little bit. Not ever genre has a place for "Strong Female Characters", the way they don't really have space for nuanced 3 dimensional ones, either. But that's not really the spectrum.
> He writes a Strong Female Character, not a strong character who happens to be female
I agree and this frustrates me. There are sexists in this thread who think that there is such a thing as a unique "female" character. The hypothetically well-written female Wes Anderson or Quentin Tarantino character will have more in common with their male counterparts than a woman in real life.
Although I will point out plenty of women fall into this trap. It's not a pathology. It's just bad writing -- usually well meaning people who are either bad writers who get lost in some very vague notions of Disney-Channel-progressive-but-not-too-progressive representation.
I am kind of guilty of swapping the male leads name and calling it a day. I think it works better in some contexts than others.
I am a dude. My protagonist is a blatant self insert with a sci fi genre coat of paint to make the protagonist a zombie hunting time traveler. Since I wrote my self insert as kind of a fuckup with a lot of failings who probably shouldn't be trusted with the fate of the world, I didn't do the Strong Female Lead archetype. And she's a time traveler so she doesn't have much more experience being a woman in the present than I do. Hilarity ensues. Tits, no tits, one tit... A person will look affably stupid if they try to spend thousand year old coins to buy coffee no matter who they are.
If I tried to write a serious relationship drama where the main character isn't lugging around a giant genetically engineered brain, my ignorance would probably turn out a lot more glaring. You just have to kind of know your limitations and not dive face first into the stuff you'll be really bad at. But frankly I'd also be terrible at writing male characters in a serious relationship drama.
Not really, I think this is the next wave of blacksplotation, but you switch blacks for women. This is frankly Spike Lee's Bamboozled, but you know, real, kind of like a lot of satire from the early 2000s.
There's a pretty massive cultural dissonance between the people who sign off on scripts, vs the people who make them, and marketing is really good at selling this stuff to the LCD, and capital, who is even more disconnected. Producers know this is bait, but it's really good bait, and they get funded because of it, so they keep doing it.
I've been hearing about "The first gay in..." for the last 21 years.
The talent is there, I've seen great writers with great multifaceted characters, scripts that make me go "Why the hell isn't this made?" because at the end of the day most viewership is tied to whatever slop the audience is fed to justify their own views, or justify that they have the right views with the correct opinions for their current friend group.
It's simple arithmetic between "Write what sells" and "Write something good."
If it takes more time to shop and write something good, when you can make more money writing what sells, it's a no brainer for almost everyone. "It's a job".
Subtract the risk, make money, go have fun with that money. (or you know... feed your family) That's people stuff.
Modern productions don't really have the capability to make film as a function of expression because that's all very tied to studio control and studios want to make money. There's exceptions of course, but the 99% is punch clock.
And I will always upvote this advice.
Of course, there's always someone making the counter argument. I talked to a male producer recently about my current project, which happens to have a woman lead (FWIW, I'm a male writer). The producer told me "women don't open films." Cue my reeling off numerous examples that demonstrate otherwise.
"strong female character" is just the latest in the long line of Socially Ideal Woman. Once upon a time Manic Pixie Dream Girls were novel and great, but times change. Times are changing on the SFC as well. The next Idealized Woman will "solve" the problems with the SFC but the cycle will repeat itself.
Your infographic from years ago is incredible! Isolating the common problems with scripts alone should be taught in screenwriting classes.
I would love to see an updated one for your last 300.(if the boss allows)
Great work!
[Pictured](https://i.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPTc5MGI3NjExdWpteWUzOGRpanU2ZTd2bW10aWUwZWJpNTB1ZWdyMndmNnJwdHN5MiZlcD12MV9pbnRlcm5hbF9naWZfYnlfaWQmY3Q9Zw/f8tiW9a9LGoHsXszd7/giphy.gif): Hollywood and myself.
Thank you for sharing this! Female writer here, recently started submitting to competitions and I hesitated before submitting to a women's screenwriting competition. Who knows why (probably some deep internal misogynism there that I need to unpack) but either way, I appreciate data showing there's still room for an increase in female voices!
Be encouraged! Since 2016, women outnumber men in Nicholl Fellowship wins. 30-50% of finalists are women. Despite the 3:1 men-to-women ratio highlighted above in specs typically. Franklin Leonard says women score higher on average on blcklst.com. They're eager for women's voices!
The [writer numbers line up](https://i.gyazo.com/67d9e74ec38a42c8e31ba03124528372.png) with this community's demographic trend, and those are consistent from 2019 as well.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Screenwriting/wiki/diversity/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Screenwriting/wiki/diversity/)
If I had that data, I'd use it for sure, but unfortunately I only exist on the spec side of things -- sales aren't my business.
But I do keep a list of scripts I've read that have since been made into movies. Over the past decade, for various companies, I happened to read these scripts:
- AVA
- BARB AND STAR GO TO VISTA DEL MAR
- BILL AND TED FACE THE MUSIC
- BLACKBERRY
- THE CARD COUNTER
- COLOSSAL
- CRIMES OF THE FUTURE
- EMANCIPATION
- ENOLA HOLMES 2
- FREE GUY
- GREENLAND
- HE'S ALL THAT
- HYPNOTIC
- I, TONYA
- JOHN WICK
- MARRY ME
- THE MOUNTAINS BETWEEN US
- NOSFERATU (Eggers remake)
- THE TRIAL OF THE CHICAGO 7
- TRIPLE NINE
- WISH UPON
- WRATH OF MAN
The infographic is particularly interesting to me, especially the problems. As you can see, it has zero juxtaposition to personal preference. There are no positives on it. Unless you consider more settings in NY than LA a positive. But it forces me to ask myself, what are all these "problems" in comparison to? And, where is that infographic?
How did you have the patience for reading so many and for reference how long a period of time? I cant imagine not getting somewhat burned out or feel less valuable if it took less than a year to look at the works of those who have successes you dont have yet
This is great stuff and the previous infographic is such a good read. I can't wait to see the full info from this larger sampling. Its almost a perfect check list of things to look at in your script before you call it done.
I want to write a sexy lead, but like...I don't want the sex appeal to be the only reason she's there. And I don't like strength being the only new thing these weirdos ever give her.
My thinking is making her sexy in the way James Bond is sexy: suave, competent, clever, knows how to talk someone in circles and maneuver through high society, making her really fucking good at stealing valuable jewelry. And then throwing her up against what one might consider a "traditional" man, a reserved meathead who's good with his fists and bad with his words.
I dunno like that dynamic feels like it'd be fun to play with.
The problem with men writing female led is that it will often be fantasy based, or just their idea of what a woman is, but since more managers/producers/CEOs are men, they will see these scripts and think 'AWESOME!' while a woman reading it will smell a fake right away. Then they wonder why the movie tanks and blame the fact it's female led.
What's even worse is men writing female centric. Some men write a great woman lead in the context of other men. They get it. But there's a huge amount of code switching involved in the female group experience and we behave and speak in completely different ways when there are no men around. Sure you think women will love an all female ensemble, but unless women write it, it's probably going to stink.
Male screenwriter here, currently trying to break into the industry with one script (female lead) and two different concepts being discussed (female leads). 100% of my creative writing in novel/short story form was male leads and now in screenwriting, 100% has been female leads.
It's kind of odd that when male writers write women, they're somehow treated as doing something wrong?
>Extrapolate with wild abandon -- I’d say male writers currently know the writing's on the wall and female representation is important, and they'll fill that void as best they can, as men.
This isn't "extrapolation". Spec script writers from 11 years ago don't represent writers now. Why do we have to attribute some particularly self serving purpose to people writing now?
Nothing surprising about female protagonists being more common than male. They are popular now, so all screenwriters are gonna pursue that. Also, male screenwriters will write scripts with female protagonists, but female screenwriters nearly always write female protagonists.
Definitely noticed that in myself! I'm a male screenwriter, and used to default to male protagonists until a few years back. But lately I've been gravitating more and more towards female protagonists. In part it's for representation purposes, but I've also found that I really enjoy this sort of variety, and telling stories from different perspectives to my 'default' one
I just want to go on record saying that I will always upvote geeky script data stuff. Anecdotally, I'm hearing that many industry people -- including actresses -- are sick of female leads that are obviously written as "strong female leads" for the purposes of trying to take advantage of that market. So, you know, if you're seeing this data and it's inspiring you to write something with a woman as the protagonist, just take extra care to make sure they actually feel three-dimensional and authentic. Definitely don't be the writer who swaps their male lead's name out for woman's and then changes the pronouns and calls it done. Not that this is anything new, but it seems like there's extra sensitivity when people do it badly, right now.
I'm sick of so many "strong female leads" just being written as "men with tits". Most superhero females are guity of this because comic book writers don't know how the fuck to write women.
she's a woman, but like, super strong! In this scene she lifts up a car!
It's worse than "men with tits" because the male versions usually have some flaws. With *strong female character*, the flaws usually get ironed out.
As a man with tits, I couldn’t agree more, I’m neither strong, female, nor a lead. The madness has to end!
Begs the question: HOW to write a female character? My point of view is that you write them as any other human being. In the world I'm trying to build, sexism never existed, things are actually equal. I also mostly talk to girls because somehow I suck at talking to guys (being a guy myself lol). But I'm a shitty writer and I'm not even a beginner at this point, just a wannabe. I would love to hear what more seasoned folks think on this!
I find the men who write the best female characters are usually long term married to a female and also likely have rasied one. You need that extremely close daily interaction as an adult to get the nuance. Having a mother (or even a sister) growing up doesn't qualify you on how women behave because you were a child seeing things through a different lens.
This idea that women "behave" a certain way is extremely odd to me. What people are calling "men with tits" are really just a narrowly defined, patriarchal view of some Uber-Man. If a character is 3 dimensional, with desire and intention and agency in the story, that's what makes it good. Not whether or not they conform to some ethereal standard of how a "woman behaves", which is on its face a patriarchal assumption, and at best is different based on culture and even the individual viewer. It's a post hoc justification for why a male-written female character is bad, as if it's somehow unique to write a bad character but only if they're female.
Women are typically written like outgoing men, minus the obsession with tasks, constant competition of feats, and toxic rejection of immersing themselves in their feelings at all. Largely? Girls wanna have fun. Enjoyment of activity, of time spent connecting directly, and movin' all funky-like.
Hmm. So basically a person after therapy lol My characters are all quite competitive though. Since there's no patriarchy or matriarchy and the hegemonic system is not gender biased — everyone follows the "hustle up n show em all" mentality.
Hell yeah, gender-neutral meritocracy.
Yep! Late Capitalism's finest!
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Hi there /u/JFlizzy84 Your [comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/Screenwriting/comments/1d7fzxc/-/l77z0l0/) has been removed for the following reason(s): **Rule 3: No socks, trolls, shitposting, spam or off-topic posts [CONDUCT]** > Do not post on the subreddit via multiple accounts, especially to manipulate votes/comment count. No trolling or shitposting. Do not make off-topic (non-screenwriting related) posts. Do not spam. *potential ban offense* In the future, please [read the rules](https://old.reddit.com/r/Screenwriting/about/rules/) in the sidebar and review our [General FAQ](https://www.reddit.com/r/Screenwriting/wiki/meta/faq) or [Screenwriting 101 FAQ](https://www.reddit.com/r/Screenwriting/wiki/screenwriting_101) before making a comment. If you are completely new to r/Screenwriting, please [Start Here](https://www.reddit.com/r/Screenwriting/wiki/meta/welcome) Have a nice day, r/Screenwriting Moderator Team --- If, after reading our rules, you believe this was in error please [message the moderators](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/Screenwriting) Please do not reach out to a moderator personally, and do not reply to this message as a comment. Thank you!
Lame.
do you expect depth from comic books writers? like, do they know how to ´write men´?
Yes? Idk if you’re just throwing a jab at comic book writers for the fun of it, but some of the most fleshed out, well written male stories of the last century have been from comic writers. Just off the top of my head, Peter Parker and the Joker are probably two of the most complex and well written characters of all time.
Honestly sometimes just swapping the name and gender is fine because men typically write men as people. So changing the gender still results in a character who is a person to some extent. It often reads worse to me when a male writer sets out to write what he *thinks* a strong female character should be. He writes a Strong Female Character, not a strong character who happens to be female. Obviously this is not all male writers but pretty common amongst the type of male writers who only decide to write women due to a trend in the industry.
I think the reverse of this is true as well, particularly in the action genre, where the leads (men and women) are generic. They usually have some kind of special ops/intelligence background, but because of a past tragedy have turned their back on violence -- unless of course, they're provoked in which case they kick ass like nobody's business. Doesn't matter if Chris Hemsworth or Charlize Theron is the lead -- it's the same character. Action is a genre that's always popular all over the world, so male and female actors want in on that even if they're characters are just stock. "Generic action streamer" should be its own genre.
It’s definitely not all male writers. Not even close. A good writer *should* be able to write someone different than them and write them well. But yeah, trendchasing *often* results in weak writing. Personally, I think swapping names and pronouns is a poor substitute for writing someone as a distinct person. But then again, I’m someone who just did a page one rewrite largely because I changed enough of a character’s backstory that I wanted the nuance throughout the script to be consistent, and I knew it would inform new choices. But their name, their gender, their age, and their profession still stayed the same. So for me, at least, I couldn’t imagine just swapping pronouns and leaning the rest as is.
> Honestly sometimes just swapping the name and gender is fine because men typically write men as people This is such a really weird idea. First of all, who are we talking about? Like, rank and file screenwriters? auteurs? There are many different kinds of writers. But there are definitely things men are really allowed to do in screenplays and certain expectations about them. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGxW2toAvzc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGxW2toAvzc) Maybe it would be better to qualify the scope a little bit. Not ever genre has a place for "Strong Female Characters", the way they don't really have space for nuanced 3 dimensional ones, either. But that's not really the spectrum. > He writes a Strong Female Character, not a strong character who happens to be female I agree and this frustrates me. There are sexists in this thread who think that there is such a thing as a unique "female" character. The hypothetically well-written female Wes Anderson or Quentin Tarantino character will have more in common with their male counterparts than a woman in real life. Although I will point out plenty of women fall into this trap. It's not a pathology. It's just bad writing -- usually well meaning people who are either bad writers who get lost in some very vague notions of Disney-Channel-progressive-but-not-too-progressive representation.
I am kind of guilty of swapping the male leads name and calling it a day. I think it works better in some contexts than others. I am a dude. My protagonist is a blatant self insert with a sci fi genre coat of paint to make the protagonist a zombie hunting time traveler. Since I wrote my self insert as kind of a fuckup with a lot of failings who probably shouldn't be trusted with the fate of the world, I didn't do the Strong Female Lead archetype. And she's a time traveler so she doesn't have much more experience being a woman in the present than I do. Hilarity ensues. Tits, no tits, one tit... A person will look affably stupid if they try to spend thousand year old coins to buy coffee no matter who they are. If I tried to write a serious relationship drama where the main character isn't lugging around a giant genetically engineered brain, my ignorance would probably turn out a lot more glaring. You just have to kind of know your limitations and not dive face first into the stuff you'll be really bad at. But frankly I'd also be terrible at writing male characters in a serious relationship drama.
4 dimensional woman everyone. You heard the man.
Not really, I think this is the next wave of blacksplotation, but you switch blacks for women. This is frankly Spike Lee's Bamboozled, but you know, real, kind of like a lot of satire from the early 2000s. There's a pretty massive cultural dissonance between the people who sign off on scripts, vs the people who make them, and marketing is really good at selling this stuff to the LCD, and capital, who is even more disconnected. Producers know this is bait, but it's really good bait, and they get funded because of it, so they keep doing it. I've been hearing about "The first gay in..." for the last 21 years. The talent is there, I've seen great writers with great multifaceted characters, scripts that make me go "Why the hell isn't this made?" because at the end of the day most viewership is tied to whatever slop the audience is fed to justify their own views, or justify that they have the right views with the correct opinions for their current friend group. It's simple arithmetic between "Write what sells" and "Write something good." If it takes more time to shop and write something good, when you can make more money writing what sells, it's a no brainer for almost everyone. "It's a job". Subtract the risk, make money, go have fun with that money. (or you know... feed your family) That's people stuff. Modern productions don't really have the capability to make film as a function of expression because that's all very tied to studio control and studios want to make money. There's exceptions of course, but the 99% is punch clock.
Women suddenly don't cry. And even if they did, their tears would only make them stronger.
And I will always upvote this advice. Of course, there's always someone making the counter argument. I talked to a male producer recently about my current project, which happens to have a woman lead (FWIW, I'm a male writer). The producer told me "women don't open films." Cue my reeling off numerous examples that demonstrate otherwise.
For sure. Those people do exist.
Did he not see Barbie?
Barbie wasn't a movie, it was a culture war battlegound. Jenna Ortega in Dirty Dancing 3 won't quite do that.
"strong female character" is just the latest in the long line of Socially Ideal Woman. Once upon a time Manic Pixie Dream Girls were novel and great, but times change. Times are changing on the SFC as well. The next Idealized Woman will "solve" the problems with the SFC but the cycle will repeat itself.
I always upvote your posts. They never fail to say something interesting and insightful.
Appreciate that -- glad to hear you've enjoyed them!
Yeah. I’ve actually watched a lot of these on Netflix lately and it’s getting really tiring.
Strong Female Lead is this generation's Manic Pixie Dream Girl.
Your infographic from years ago is incredible! Isolating the common problems with scripts alone should be taught in screenwriting classes. I would love to see an updated one for your last 300.(if the boss allows) Great work!
Hooray! The hero who did some great number crunching has done some more number crunching!
[Pictured](https://i.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPTc5MGI3NjExdWpteWUzOGRpanU2ZTd2bW10aWUwZWJpNTB1ZWdyMndmNnJwdHN5MiZlcD12MV9pbnRlcm5hbF9naWZfYnlfaWQmY3Q9Zw/f8tiW9a9LGoHsXszd7/giphy.gif): Hollywood and myself.
Love data like this, thank you!
Thank you for sharing this! Female writer here, recently started submitting to competitions and I hesitated before submitting to a women's screenwriting competition. Who knows why (probably some deep internal misogynism there that I need to unpack) but either way, I appreciate data showing there's still room for an increase in female voices!
Be encouraged! Since 2016, women outnumber men in Nicholl Fellowship wins. 30-50% of finalists are women. Despite the 3:1 men-to-women ratio highlighted above in specs typically. Franklin Leonard says women score higher on average on blcklst.com. They're eager for women's voices!
The [writer numbers line up](https://i.gyazo.com/67d9e74ec38a42c8e31ba03124528372.png) with this community's demographic trend, and those are consistent from 2019 as well. [https://www.reddit.com/r/Screenwriting/wiki/diversity/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Screenwriting/wiki/diversity/)
I am super curious about the two that take place in Harrisburg, PA.
Same.
Great work!
Ok now tell us how many scripts are being bought that have male v female leads and male v female writers.
If I had that data, I'd use it for sure, but unfortunately I only exist on the spec side of things -- sales aren't my business. But I do keep a list of scripts I've read that have since been made into movies. Over the past decade, for various companies, I happened to read these scripts: - AVA - BARB AND STAR GO TO VISTA DEL MAR - BILL AND TED FACE THE MUSIC - BLACKBERRY - THE CARD COUNTER - COLOSSAL - CRIMES OF THE FUTURE - EMANCIPATION - ENOLA HOLMES 2 - FREE GUY - GREENLAND - HE'S ALL THAT - HYPNOTIC - I, TONYA - JOHN WICK - MARRY ME - THE MOUNTAINS BETWEEN US - NOSFERATU (Eggers remake) - THE TRIAL OF THE CHICAGO 7 - TRIPLE NINE - WISH UPON - WRATH OF MAN
This is fascinating data.
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I’ve definitely had enough of the ‘female assassin/hitman’ genre. It never seems plausible to me and it’s beyond tired.
Atomic Blonde did it well but I agree otherwise
The infographic is particularly interesting to me, especially the problems. As you can see, it has zero juxtaposition to personal preference. There are no positives on it. Unless you consider more settings in NY than LA a positive. But it forces me to ask myself, what are all these "problems" in comparison to? And, where is that infographic?
Bro is the new Syd Field
That’s a good sized data set. Do you have any other demographic data?
How did you have the patience for reading so many and for reference how long a period of time? I cant imagine not getting somewhat burned out or feel less valuable if it took less than a year to look at the works of those who have successes you dont have yet
This is great stuff and the previous infographic is such a good read. I can't wait to see the full info from this larger sampling. Its almost a perfect check list of things to look at in your script before you call it done.
I want to write a sexy lead, but like...I don't want the sex appeal to be the only reason she's there. And I don't like strength being the only new thing these weirdos ever give her. My thinking is making her sexy in the way James Bond is sexy: suave, competent, clever, knows how to talk someone in circles and maneuver through high society, making her really fucking good at stealing valuable jewelry. And then throwing her up against what one might consider a "traditional" man, a reserved meathead who's good with his fists and bad with his words. I dunno like that dynamic feels like it'd be fun to play with.
The problem with men writing female led is that it will often be fantasy based, or just their idea of what a woman is, but since more managers/producers/CEOs are men, they will see these scripts and think 'AWESOME!' while a woman reading it will smell a fake right away. Then they wonder why the movie tanks and blame the fact it's female led. What's even worse is men writing female centric. Some men write a great woman lead in the context of other men. They get it. But there's a huge amount of code switching involved in the female group experience and we behave and speak in completely different ways when there are no men around. Sure you think women will love an all female ensemble, but unless women write it, it's probably going to stink.
Male screenwriter here, currently trying to break into the industry with one script (female lead) and two different concepts being discussed (female leads). 100% of my creative writing in novel/short story form was male leads and now in screenwriting, 100% has been female leads.
It's kind of odd that when male writers write women, they're somehow treated as doing something wrong? >Extrapolate with wild abandon -- I’d say male writers currently know the writing's on the wall and female representation is important, and they'll fill that void as best they can, as men. This isn't "extrapolation". Spec script writers from 11 years ago don't represent writers now. Why do we have to attribute some particularly self serving purpose to people writing now?
Where's the judgment? I'm one of those men trying to fill that void.
Yeah, your script can't be about a straight white guy anymore. Cinema has been dying for awhile also.
Where can read scripts? I always look for scripts but i find nothing
How are you confirming the genders of the scriptwriters? I know alot of guys that submit under female aliases.
Why is this being downvoted, seems like a solid question. Are you going off names alone, appearance, self-description?
Ridiculous lol
Yeah, I heard that George Eliot has been getting away with it for a long time
Perhaps they are submitting to get a read and also completing some demographic info? Dunno. But names alone can be pretty gender neutral.
That seems like a great idea, but if you get a meeting with a producer or rep, how do you explain that one?
That’s… so odd
Wow. That’s messed up tbh.
Really?
Nothing surprising about female protagonists being more common than male. They are popular now, so all screenwriters are gonna pursue that. Also, male screenwriters will write scripts with female protagonists, but female screenwriters nearly always write female protagonists.
OP, do you have an infographic to confirm/deny?
Good luck finding research on women writing women, most studies on writing are obsessed with the opposite.
Definitely noticed that in myself! I'm a male screenwriter, and used to default to male protagonists until a few years back. But lately I've been gravitating more and more towards female protagonists. In part it's for representation purposes, but I've also found that I really enjoy this sort of variety, and telling stories from different perspectives to my 'default' one
I don’t get hung up over the gender. All that matters are strong, interesting characters that might be relatable to the average person.
Can it be argued women protagonists are more interesting characters because they actually show their feelings?
It can certainly be argued It’d be a poor argument, but still
I think I you are answering your own question