It seems kind of counter-intuitive that Ripley's on there when she was, like, the subject of the original Bechdel test cartoon.

I think that this chart illustrates a real problem, but does kind of a bad job of it. Ah, the hazards of infographics!

Haha, I love that Michelle Rodriguez is her own category. That part's accurate at least.

I'm honestly not sure how taking a female character and reducing her down to one attribute for the purposes of a flowchart is any kind of a good argument for why there aren't more complex/non-stereotypical female characters.

Maybe I'm missing something, but I think it's the chart that's kind of problematic here.

The chart isn't the problem. The fact that these characters CAN be so easily thrown onto a flow chart with only a very small selection of primary paths is what is sad. If you'll notice, there are no examples on the top right. THAT would be a strong female character, if they answered those questions. Yet we have few to no roles that embody all of those things. And that's a shame.

I hate it when something this cool has a big ole flaw. Mom, from Futurama, has three sons and certainly qualifies as an Evil Matriarch, though whether she can compete with Lucille Bluth I will leave to others to decide.

No I won't. Lucille wins by a mile.

I agree with the chart itself being a problem. This chart is so nuanced, with such things delineating the difference as between--and this is one particularly problematic "choice" that the chart poses--what makes a woman a "dead slut" or a "rape avenger," etc. When you have this many "stereotypes" for women to fall into, the categories become characteristics. In many ways, the chart is conflating archetypes and stereotypes, and that's a problem. Stereotypes (by which I believe the author meant tropes), and especially not archetypes, are not necessarily bad things in television. Yes, there are characters who fit nicely into a box, but many of the characters used as examples could fit into many proposed boxes and more. (And don't let me get started on the very idea of labeling Yoko Ono and Michelle Rodriguez--REAL PEOPLE--as stereotypes. Isn't that the very thing we're supposed to be fighting? The idea that real women CAN be put into boxes?) And besides the examples, I think what the author of this article is really saying is: there is no way to have a strong female character. Because according to this chart, you will always fail.

Okay, I know it's crass but I got a chuckle out of "Fridge Stuffing"

The problem is, according to this chart, it is impossible to make a strong female character. Pretty much every character ever could fall into one of these.

I love this chart!

Yes, it's true that most strong, kick-ass female characters could be fit into one of these categories, and that the diversity of female archetypes is dazzling.

But that just serves to further underscore the dizzying number of ways in which writers create female characters who fail to meet the basic criteria of...

-being able to carry their own story
-being three-dimensional
-not representing an idea
-having flaws
-surviving to the end

Yes, someone who meets all these criteria could have the characteristics of (for example) an evil matriarch or a badass waif. Yes, it would be hard to write a female character who didn't look at least a bit like one of these stereotypes. But that's really not the point of the chart.

If, for example, River Tam were rewritten to meet all the above criteria, all the wan expressions and action sequences wouldn't make her a "badass waif"--rather, she would be a strong female character.

And those really are rare.

How about listing some strong female characters in film or TV? I'll start.

-Buffy (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
-Temperence Brennan (Bones)
-Divya Katdare (Royal Pains)
-Erica Evans (V)

And...I'm actually out of ideas. But I also don't watch much TV, or many movies. Your turn!!

I think the underlying problem with this chart is that it assumes that any one of the myriad of characteristics present automatically exclude a female role from being "strong" (whatever that means anyway). I mean seriously, what's left after all of these qualities are taken out of the equation? Not to mention the fact that the "Does she have any flaws" bubble basically negates the whole thing - what is considered a "flaw" anyway? Seems like most of the villians have a flaw of one sort or another.

It also seems to me that a similar diagram could be made for male characters as well.

Wow, that chart is offensive on so many levels. First level: All non-protagonist female characters who don't manage to straddle the line between too perfect and too flawed are inherently failed characters. Second level: Wow, way to not recognize the different ways WOC get recognized in television. Putting Uhura down as a useless token girl is seriously offensive, and the error runs throughout the thing. There really should be separate areas for WOC tropes. Three: Why are there real people in there? I don't care that they frequently get characterized as such, that's still incredibly rude. Hasn't Yoko Ono gotten enough shit for daring to marry a famous musician already?

And four: Half those examples are basically dismissing strong and well-rounded female characters as weak and poorly written. Azula's not strong and three dimensional? I'll grant she got some bad writing at the end of the series, but seriously? No. Eve isn't strong and as well developed as Wall-E? Usagi is apparently too weak to be a strong female character despite being the protagonist? I mean, I'll grant that she's not my type and I can see why she might be knocked off, but I'm really not fond of knocking off protagonists for being too ditzy and lazy while they still have the strength and courage to save the world their own way despite peer pressure. Hit-Girl isn't strong because...I guess because she's ten? River's not strong because...I guess she's not the protagonist and she's been driven insane through torture? Zoe isn't strong because, well, the only reason I can think of is because she's not a protagonist.

I'll spare you going through the rest of the characters. But dismissing every single female character except for one or two who somehow manage to balance the tightrope between too perfect and too weak as too flawed to be worth liking, while being totally okay with male characters of a similar quality is something I see a lot, and I'm sick of it.

The measure of a good character is not whether she fits some sort of arbitrary categorization and jumps the hoops you want her to jump, but whether she's a fully developed person, with hopes and dreams of her own. Protagonists who are flawed in just the right proportions are not the only ones who can manage that by any means.

I don't really see why Lucca from Chrono Trigger is on there as not being a strong character. She's her own individual, doing what she wants regardless of the people around her putting down her interests. She's the forefront inventor of her time, and is the one who pretty much figures out most of your time traveling issues. She isn't a token love interest, and her biggest problem is blaming herself for an accident that took her mother's legs.

I think, especially considering the time it came out and being a JRPG, Chrono Trigger's female leads rather broke the mold of the female characters typical to the genre.

Also, Doroth Zbornak, a wet blanket? Really? The idea behind the chart is a good one. The execution really brings it down, though.

Okay, what confuses me is why a strong character cannot represent an idea? And if she does, she's a villain? Or am I missing the point?

Really disappointing to see this site accepting the chart without critiquing it.

Here's some good critique for those interested:

http://dagas-isa.dreamwidth.org/317520.html
http://mekosuchinae.livejournal.com/212487.html
http://community.livejournal.com/deadbrowalking/468021.html
http://havocthecat.dreamwidth.org/1032609.html
http://bossymarmalade.dreamwidth.org/508138.html

I like the chart, but as people have said above it includes several characters in the bottom half who meet the top critera for "strong female character" and so shouldn't be in the bottom half. Ones who I think qualify:

(this is assuming "can she carry her own story" doesn't mean "is she the protagonist" but "is she a sufficiently well developed and interesting character that she could be a protagonist of something")

- zoe
- river
- miss piggy
- eve

I'm not familiar with a lot of the other specific examples, so if others have ones they'd add I'd like to see them. (Or if you disagree with the four above.)

I enjoy bright graphics as well as the next person, but I think think oversimplifying the issue to this degree is counter-productive. It comes off as more of a joke to me, like something lighthearted I'd see in a magazine. So we're either taking a joke and treating it too seriously, or they're taking something serious and treating it to lightly (unintentionally).

As has been brought up a few times, there's a lot of fantastic characters that appear on the list not because of poor or misogynistic writing, but because they're not a main character. In fact, some I'd argue with outright, like Ripley (as has been brought up several times).

I think, more than anything, this brings up the argument of whether you think using tropes are okay. You find them in media and you find them in writing (Back to the beginning) and while they can be used out of laziness by poor writers, they have their practical purpose for good writers as well. A trope carries weight in an instant, which is helpful for creating an attachment to a character very quickly. Sit in a script writing class, and you'll quickly realize it's very formulaic and it's *for a reason*. If you break the formula it makes a discomfort in the audience, sometimes with an imperceptible "why". Now of course this knowledge can be used to the directors advantage, but it should be for specific purpose. As they say, "You have to know the rules, before you can break them."

One flaw of the chart is that rather then testing its hypothesis, it starts with the assumption that it's right. Take some actual characters. To get it to fit and NOT end up at "strong female character", you have to ignore certain parts of the character, or bend parts of the story to match. Try running a couple of actual characters through the chart and you see this quickly.

Really, what this has done is take archetypes (that they stole from tvtropes) and declared them to be stereotypes.

I still don't understand what a "flaw" is in the context of this chart. I'm assuming it's not a character flaw, as there are many flawed characters used as examples. Can someone explain it to me?

I think there's a lot of confusion here due to the fact that strong has different meanings, as an adjective, depending on which noun it is applied to in the phrase "strong female character". If "strong" is modifying "female" (which I don't think is the intent), then we're just looking for examples of women to look up to in media. That's actually become fairly easy to find, and many of the examples fit that definition. If "strong" is modifying "character" (which I DO think is the intent), then we're looking for well-developed characters. And, though I disagree with some of their choices on the chart, a lot of those "strong female" characters are incredibly poorly developed. They don't have backstory, personalities beyond a few key characteristics, and they mainly serve to enhance the story of the main (usually male) protagonist. I believe that the chart is critiquing the idea that there are very few well-developed female characters in film and TV.

Sure, the chart has its flaws, but I looked at it as a joke rather than a serious piece of commentary. I think the point is that there aren't enough well-developed, interesting female characters in the media.

As for the characters used to illustrate each trope, I think they're only meant to be illustrative examples, but don't necessarily have to fit perfectly. The characters mentioned could still be fairly interesting, it's just that they aren't as well-developed as they could be.

I like it.

Using the same logic this chart uses, I can get probably any man through the chart and into a one of these female pigeon holes. My first try was one of the most well-known, strongest male characters of them all--Superman. I'm going to go back and try some others.

I know this has little to nothing to do with men, but what's the point of this flowchart if men can't be considered strong characters either?

I feel the two biggest flaws of the chart are:
1st) some poorly chosen examples
and
2nd) the implication that those examples are not and never can be "strong female characters".

Apart from that it certainly has a point.

Is the idea here that Lady Macbeth is two-dimensional, or that she couldn't carry her own story? And is that Patricia Heaton? "Overthinking it" is not the charge I would wish to levy.

You provided viewers with valuable sources that they can utilize to advance their own knowledge.

The level of creative thinking you made use of in your post went over, making it stand out from others.