Women of the Year: A Retrospective 2024

This post comes a little later than usual, as I feel like I’ve been running behind on practically everything for an entire year. Still, I always get there eventually, and so here is my retrospective on the female characters of 2024: not the twelve I selected as Woman of the Month, but the ones I discovered, enjoyed or was impressed with over the course of the entire year, who didn’t get the chance to be spotlighted. 

Looking back, we actually had a pretty good stretch of female characters throughout pop culture in 2024. The problem is, I didn’t watch any of shows or films in which they appeared. Tired of committing to new projects only for them to get cancelled almost immediately, I stared watching (or rewatching) media that I knew wouldn’t disappoint me.

As such, a lot of the women featured below are from stories that aired or were published some time ago. Two inclusions have admittedly more to do with how the characters are presented in their given narratives rather than the characters themselves, as I’ve noticed some interesting changes in how women are being portrayed across fiction recently, brought on by authors becoming more self-aware about certain gender-specific clichés and tropes (though this isn’t always a good thing).

In any case, you get to read my half-formed thoughts on the subject. I’ve tried to keep my stream-of-consciousness blathering under control, but no promises.

Lucilla from Gladiator and Gladiator 2

Lucilla is an interesting character in two regards. Firstly, that Connie Nielson joins the ever-growing number of actresses over fifty who have reprised a role several decades after the character’s original appearance (if there’s any worthwhile justification for all those legacyquels to exist, it’s got to be this).  

Secondly, that for all our discourse about how women must have agency and purpose and plot relevance within any given story in order to be considered a worthwhile female lead, Lucilla proves that this isn’t strictly true. Obviously it’s nice when they do possess all those things, but such attributes aren’t essential when it comes to the more important narrative task of being compelling.

In this case, the whole point of Lucilla is that she isn’t domineering or assertive or a take-charge girlboss. To openly be any of those things would get her immediately killed. Because she’s trapped within extremely dangerous political and personal circumstances, her singular goal throughout the film is simply one of survival – for herself and her young son. It is how she handles this situation that makes her so interesting.

Throughout the film she’s very much a Woman Wearing the Queenly Mask, who must appear composed and reserved at all times in order to assuage any suspicion directed toward her. It’s a great performance by Connie Nielson, for you can always tell when she’s relaxed or when she’s on high alert. She never changes her posture or tone, but you can see the difference in her eyes.

She must hide her grief over her father’s death, coddle her unstable brother’s ego, conceal her emotions when she sees Maximus is still alive – and it would take extraordinary strength of character to master perfect composure; absolute control at all times. 

And even though she tries to bring Commodus down by setting up the meeting between Maximus and Senator Gracchus, I think people forget that she ultimately does crack in order to save Lucius. Her loyalty to Rome, her father and her former lover never supersedes her instincts as a mother.

When I watch Gladiator II, I plan to return to this entry and adjust it. What’s she been up to since then?

April O’Neil from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

It didn’t strike me until about halfway through Mutant Mayhem that April O’Neil was something of an unsung feminist icon of my childhood. It’s such a boy-centric franchise, and yet – there’s April, an intrepid reporter very much in the vein of Lois Lane, who chases down stories, investigates leads, and covers for her four best friends, who just happen to be mutated turtles that can do ninja.

My April was the one that appeared in the nineties afterschool cartoon, and I have such vivid memories of a scene in which Bebop and Rocksteady chase her through a wax museum, catching her when she’s startled by a life-sized wax figure. One of them laughs: “caught by a dummy!” and she shoots back: “what, you or him?” Suffice to say, I was very impressed by this comeback as a kid.

She’s gone through a lot of incarnations since then, and the 2023 version voiced by Ayo Edebiri isn’t even the first time she’s been Black. Across the decades, April has had anything from cropped hair to pigtails, been a red-head or a brunette, appeared in animation and live-action, and been depicted as a teenager, a young adult, an intern, or a grown career woman. The only thing you can count on is that she’ll be wearing exactly one very bright yellow article of clothing.

This take on April makes her a highschooler with an interest in journalism – except that she can’t step in front of a camera without projectile vomiting. And yes, we get to see this happen in graphic detail. In a nice twist on expectations, April’s big moment at the film’s climax, in which she broadcasts a news story in defence of her new friends, isn’t to prove she can do the job without vomiting, but to demonstrate that she’ll do it regardless of any potential embarrassment. She still ends up puking on live television, but she stepped up when her friends needed her, vomit be damned. That’s what makes her a hero.

Avatar Yangchen from Avatar: The Last Airbender

This franchise is always a reliable source of great female characters, and this year brought to a conclusion the duology of YA novels that focused on Yangchen, the airbending Avatar that preceded Aang in the Avatar cycle – though they were separated by three other individuals: Roku, Kyoshi and Kuruk. For my money, both were excellent books, which captured the beauty and richness of this particular world, and brought to life plenty of interesting, vivid characters – not least Yangchen herself.

She only appears briefly in the original animated series, firstly in a seconds-long flashback, and then in one of the final episodes as a spirit guide, though she’s also had a few cameos in graphic novels and webseries since then. But it wasn’t until The Dawn of Yangchen and The Legacy of Yangchen that we really got the chance to learn more about her during the time in which she lived, and they make for an eye-opening read. To take a venerated character and reveal their feet of clay is always a risky move, but for what it’s worth, I think I think F.C. Yee pulled it off (it helped that Yangchen was rather thinly sketched before this point).

By Aang’s time Yangchen is revered as a masterful diplomat, whereas the books introduce her at the start of her career as Avatar, facing a number of obstacles she cannot simply burn, wash or blow away. The antagonists of her duology are a host of criminals, schemers, spies and unscrupulous businessmen, and in order to defeat them on their own turf, Yangchen has to learn to think and act like them.

F.C. Yee deserves a lot of credit for designing a female character who in many ways has no significant inner flaws to overcome, and so is instead forced to grapple with the compromises and impossible decisions that arise from espionage and politicking. Think double-agents, spy-networks, information gathering, subterfuge – it all sounds fun, but it takes a heavy toll on an Air Nomad whose culture raised her to be open, honest and peace-loving.

Yangchen’s inner struggle is therefore to reconcile her definition of right and wrong with the duties required of her as the Avatar. Though she’s wise and self-sacrificing, she still proves willing to use manipulation, deceit and extortion when necessary – and this has far-reaching consequences, with both Kyoshi and Kuruk having to grapple with the spiritual fallout of her decisions generations later.

In an elegant way, Yangchen’s story manages to tie in with her words to Aang at the conclusion of the original series, when she tells him: “you must sacrifice your own spiritual needs for the world.” This duology provides context to that statement, and in retrospect, also a remarkable amount of insight into how she went about her duties as the Avatar, as well as providing a crucial contrast with Aang himself.

At the end of the day, Yangchen compromised her beliefs; Aang didn’t.

Barbara Havers from The Inspector Lynley Mysteries

I have a weakness for female characters with tough, hardened exteriors hiding soft, vulnerable centres, and that’s Barbara Havers to a T. Played by a scruffy, diminutive Sharon Small, she manages to thread the difficult needle of a character who is not hugely likeable (prickly, defensive, can’t get out of her own way) but also committed to her job and the justice that it serves.

There’s also a surprisingly complex psychology at work here – as it happens, I’ve read A Great Deliverance by Elizabeth George, the first book in the series upon which the three-part premiere of this show is based on, and it depicts a fraught family life in which Barbara’s parents seemingly hold her responsible for the death of their son, only for the final chapters to reveal that the shrine to him in their household was actually erected by Barbara, who can’t let go of his memory – and won’t let her parents either. To quote the book:

“They were supposed to be there for him. He was their son! They were supposed to love him and they didn’t. He was sick for four years, the last year in hospital. They wouldn’t even go to see him! They said they couldn’t bear it, that it hurt too much. But I went. I went every day. And he asked for them. He asked why Mum and Dad wouldn’t come to see him... I swore that I would never let them forget what they’d done. I asked his teachers for the letters. I framed the death certificate. I made the shrine, I kept them in the house. I closed the doors and the windows. And every single day I made sure they had to sit there and stare at Tony. I drove them mad! I wanted to do it! I destroyed them.”

This is brushed over a little in the show, which instead choses to concentrate on Barbara’s difficulties with her mother (who suffers from Alzheimer's disease) but it retains the chip on her shoulder when it comes to how she deals with the class differences between herself and Inspector Thomas Lynley, her new partner.

Barbara may have very little tact or decorum, but her character development is marked by gaining more confidence in herself, and as the working-class girl in the partnership, she often has better insight than Lynley into where certain victims and/or suspects are coming from. Unassuming, hard-working, straight-talking – I’ll always be mildly aggravated that the show was called Inspector Lynley and not (for example) Lynley and Havers, as the whole thing is very much a double-act.

In any case, I’m looking forward to seeing how Sofia Barclay will handle the role in the upcoming reboot.

Jo Harding from Twister

Ah, the nineties action girl. She’s no-nonsense. She’s emotionally unavailable. She’s wearing a white tank top. All jokes aside, Jo is actually a pretty great female lead, from the fact that her mostly-male subordinates have no issues taking orders from her, to the fact that she’s the one hanging onto the remnants of her broken marriage (usually it’s the male half of the equation that’s still clinging to the past and dragging his feet on signing the divorce papers). It’s also a very physical role, with no small amount of driving, running, jumping, diving and getting extremely dirty.

In my opinion, she edges out Bill Paxton as the film’s protagonist, simply because she’s a) introduced as a child in a flashback sequence well before he is, and b) goes through the most dramatic trajectory regarding her emotional arc. Having been severely traumatized as a child when an F5 tornado kills her father, the experience becomes the impetus for her storm-chasing career as an adult, attempting to utilize new technology in her mission to learn more about tornadoes and how they form.  

That’s a solid psychological and emotional core for a character in a mindless action movie: if Jo can understand the tornadoes, if she can control them – then no one else has to go through what she did as a little girl. And ultimately she faces her grief and fear, achieving the results she’s been working so hard towards for so long.

Aside from the fact she’s motivated by the loss of her father, it’s an arc that doesn’t really hinge on a male character. The whole romantic subplot with Bill is precisely that: a subplot. For the most part, we’re simply watching an intelligent scientist work towards fulfilling her lifelong ambition, and if she just happens to repair her marriage in the wreckage left behind by a half-dozen tornadoes, then that’s just an added bonus!

(As an aside, I also give the film credit for not making the Romantic False Lead/Disposable Fiancée a heinous bitch, which is usually the case when dealing with these sorts of movies. Instead, Melissa gets to bow out gracefully, and I love that one of her final lines is hoping that Jo’s aunt is okay. According to actress Helen Hunt, she requested that the script tone down the cattiness between Jo and Melissa, and it makes for a stronger, more poignant film. Because that’s what happens when women are written as characters and not props).

Vasya from the Winternight trilogy

Image source

There is a quote from the movie Brave in which King Fergus impersonates his teenage daughter Merida by putting on a high pitched voice and declaring: “I don't want to get married! I want to stay single and let my hair flow in the wind as I ride through the glen, firing arrows into the sunset!”

That mentality is almost the staple of princesses these days: for centuries it used to be rare that such a girl was anything other than a demure damsel in distress who was essentially just a prize for the hero to win (a generalization of course; there’s always room for some nuance). Today, the exact opposite is true: not only will she be armed to the teeth with weapons, but she definitely wants more (to quote another Disney Princess) than this provincial life. It’s become the new cliché.

And yet, do we really want to go back to the days of passive, static female characters who just wait around to be rescued? Of course not.

The trick is finding the balance, for if it’s not done correctly, it leads to all sorts of problems, whether it’s an accidental “not like the other girls” vibe, or the sense that your protagonist has an amorphous longing for something that’s never properly defined (making her wishy-washy). Even the quote from Brave is clearly poking fun at Merida’s vague “anything but this” mentality.

Then you have to take into account the fact that yearning for love isn’t an inherently feminine trait that needs to be denigrated, or that grabbing a sword and riding off to battle doesn’t become cool just because a girl is doing it. Sooner or later, everyone who joins the army has to realize that war is horrific.

Such is the complexity of writing a female character who exists outside the box. She has to want more, or else there’d be no story, but she has to be a realistic depiction of a girl living in her own time period. You can’t completely discount the possibility of love and romance as a goal worth fighting for, but you can’t have her settle for marriage and motherhood right off the bat. There needs to be a degree of “wanting more than this provincial life,” but not in a way that makes her obnoxious. She can’t be dismissive of other women, even though she overtly rejects the gendered expectations that’ve been laid upon them all...

Easy, right? The reason I’ve gone into this excessive detail is because Katherine Arden’s Vasya successfully negotiates this difficult narrative territory. She’s an example of a rebellious princess who ignores gender roles and strikes out on her own, but not in a way that criticizes women who aren’t prepared to do the same (and have far less choice in the matter than Vasya does). Neither does the story make it easy for Vasya to “follow her heart,” as living outside of patriarchal norms means that Vasya has to fend for herself. Since society regards her as an aberration, it isn’t going to provide her with food, shelter, warmth or companionship. Arden ensures that Vasya’s choices come at a very great physical and emotional price.  

And because of all this, Vasya comes across as a three-dimensional character who learns and grows and struggles, as opposed to a generic take on “just believe in yourself and you can do anything” girl power. Growing up as the black sheep in the family of a nobleman living on an isolated country estate, Vasya has a loving family, but not one that can fully understand where she’s coming from. She’s inherited a degree of magical gifts from her matrilineal line that manifest in unexpected ways. She adores horses and being out in nature (of course), but as she grows into a young woman, her transgressions become more serious in the eyes of her community.

When she rejects her suitors, she faces ostracization. When she steps out of line, there are very real consequences. She feels the sting of disapproval, and the guilt that comes when her actions have unforeseen effects on other people, and pays for every choice she makes with her own blood, sweat and tears. She may have the soul of a Disney princess that “wants more,” but the narrative makes her work for her dream every step of the way. It’s great.

And sure, there’s room for easy wish-fulfilment in fantasy fiction, but this isn’t one of those stories. 

Princess Elodie from Damsel

I was on the fence about this one, since at first glance Elodie is a standard, by-the-books YA heroine – or is she? Damsel is a movie of typical Netflix quality, but there are some interesting wrinkles in the way its protagonist is presented. If this was made back in the eighties, she’d probably be depicted as a spoiled brat who grows into a wiser, kinder, more conscientious person. These days, the story starts with her already being her best self, shown cutting up firewood for her freezing subjects during a particularly difficult winter.

Looking back at that quote from Brave, it’s clear that it’s meant to be a little tongue-in-cheek, mocking Merida’s clichéd desire for “freedom” and her refusal to acquiesce to an arranged marriage. But Elodie is different – when her father floats the possibility of marriage in an alliance that will help her kingdom’s fortunes, Elodie accepts the decision as part of her duty to her people.

But how self-sacrificial does a girl actually have to be? When it turns out she’s a literal sacrifice to a dragon living on the outskirts of her new husband’s realm, her survival instincts kick in.

The second half of the film is Elodie matching wits against a dragon, and the story doesn’t stint when it comes to portraying the pain and suffering she undergoes before the inevitable truth about the whole situation emerges – at which point she’s able to forge an alliance and pull a Daenerys to secure her life and liberty.

It’s an odd little film in that some of its subversions (the princess uses a sword!) have since become clichés, while some of its innovations are a little more... well, innovative (the princess agrees to an arranged marriage, her stepmother isn’t wicked, her survival rests in part on the deaths of all the princesses that came before her, who left pertinent information in their wake).

It also provides an interesting contrast to 2022’s The Princess, in which the titular character rejects an arranged marriage and subsequently has to single-handedly fight the consequences that follow (her groom-to-be attacks the kingdom). Here, Elodie accepts her duty and tries to make the relationship work for the good of her people – though ultimately, that doesn’t do her any good either.

Situated somewhere between Vasya and Elodie and Merida’s quote about “staying single and wanting to let my hair flow in the wind as I ride through the glen!” is interesting narrative territory where female characters can inhabit some qualities of traditional femininity, while rejecting others. In the grand scheme of women-led stories, it’s intriguing to watch various writers carefully wend their way through this terrain.

Silna from The Terror

Amidst the sea of testosterone that featured in The Terror, one significant feminine presence stands out: that of Silna, the Netsilik woman who becomes an unlikely ally to the stranded crews of The Erebus and The Terror, by virtue of her being the only person in the vicinity who has any idea what the hell is going on.

In its entirety, the miniseries is a damning portrayal of British Imperialism, and so Silna exists as living representation of what’s at risk from the encroachment of colonialization – not only her life, but her language, culture and belief system. Much of her story can only be inferred, but when we first see her, it’s apparent she’s in training to become the next shaman of her people, being out on the ice with her father as part of this ongoing initiation. When he is mortally injured by the English, Silna is prematurely forced to take responsibility for what’s known as the Tuunbaq, a terrifying spirit-creature that starts to slaughter the Englishmen in vengeance for their accidental murder (and far more disrespectful “burial”) of its shaman.

This puts her in the interesting position of viewing the Englishmen as her enemies, but also feeling a duty of care toward them. At first glance, her motivation is a bit opaque. Having been captured and threatened by these men, why is she deciding to stick around and help them?

Well, as the shaman it’s her job to heal the disruption that has caused the Tuunbaq to act this way, which means it’s in her best interests for the Englishmen to survive long enough to leave. She also knows that conflict with the men endangers the Tuunbaq itself (it’s powerful, but not immortal) and it’s clear that her continued presence among the English acts as a deterrent. It won’t attack the encampment while she’s there.  

And it’s also because at the end of the day, she’s a good person. In the actress’s own words:

She got very scared of these men, but she feels like she has some responsibility to guard them despite some of the men's ignorant behaviour. The Tuunbaq is on the loose, and she knows nobody else will have a sliver of a chance to rectify what went wrong if she doesn't try.

In many ways, she’s the most tragic figure in a tableau of tragic figures, a woman who has to rely solely on herself long before she’s ready for it. Across the course of the miniseries, she witnesses the deaths of men she cares about, cuts out her own tongue, and ultimately disappears into the great white, having failed in her duty to care for the Tuunbaq and so being exiled from her people forever.

It’s not a happy story for anyone involved, but Silna stands as a lasting reminder (and warning) of what happens when men who assume they know everything refuse to listen to the women who actually do.

Portia from The Merchant of Venice

Across a whole month of Shakespeare, I obviously had to pick a Shakespearean heroine for this list, and for a playwright living in the sixteenth century, hr provides us with a surprisingly good selection. Viola, Juliet, Rosalind, Beatrice... but in this case, Portia was the standout. She’s something that’s rare even today: a female character with autonomy. She is wealthy, owns her own estate, is an object of desire (“in Belmont is a lady richly left, and she is fair”) and, like Olivia in Twelfth Night, beset with unwanted suitors.

My one regret of how her story unfolds is that the courtship test that will determine who she marries is of her father’s, not her own, design. Any hopefuls must choose between one of three caskets: gold, silver or iron, in the hopes of finding Portia’s picture therein and so claiming her hand (and substantial inheritance). She doesn’t even get to discreetly slip a clue to the man she wants to succeed.

No, Portia comes into her own only in the second half of the play, in which she and her handmaiden Nerissa don the apparel of men (on their joint-wedding day!) and head into the courtrooms of Venice to defend their husbands’ friend Antonio. This is the point of the story in which the two subplots abruptly collide: the fairy tale ambiance of Portia’s tale with the tragedy of Shylock’s.

These days it’s nigh-impossible not to feel sorry for Shylock, even though we’re meant to be in Portia’s corner as she makes her famous plea for mercy (“the quality of mercy is not strained, it droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath”) and then wins the case by discovering a loophole in Shylock’s bond stipulations. The contract allows him to remove a pound of flesh from Antonio, and no more. If just a single drop of blood is spilt, then his lands and goods are forfeit.

She has one last trick up her sleeve: she talks her husband (who doesn’t see through her disguise) to reward her with the gift of a ring – the one his new wife has just given him, with the promise that he’ll never part with it. He reluctantly concedes, giving her the opportunity to playact the furious betrayed wife when he returns to Belmont without it. What her motivation is in this moment is up for interpretation. Does she do it for fun? As a test? To punish him for remarking during the trial that he’d happily sacrifice his wife for the sake of his friend?

In any case, what makes Portia stand out among Shakespeare’s heroines is the amount of power and control she wields throughout the play. The suitors come at her bidding and are subject to her test. She enters the courtroom as though she has every right to be there (albeit in disguise) and ends up winning the case. Finally, the trick she plays with her ring is a power-play seemingly done simply for her own amusement/curiosity/emotional reimbursement.

She may recite a pretty little speech about submitting to her husband during their wedding feast, but it’s pretty obvious that she’s going to continue running the show at Belmont.

Anne Boleyn from The Tudors

Plenty of actresses have portrayed Anne Boleyn across the years, but none quite like Natalie Dormer. Is she the definitive portrayal? Maybe, which is all the more impressive since The Tudors was very much a glossy, anachronistic melodrama.

In her first proper appearance, her father says of her: “There’s something deep and dangerous in you, Anne. Those eyes of yours are like dark hooks for the soul.” It’s true, there’s something truly compelling about her face, her expressions, her smile. So often a film or show will ask us to believe that a man becomes utterly obsessed with a woman, and most of the time your suspension of disbelief has to carry you through, but in this case it makes perfect sense, because we’re just as captivated as Henry is. If they had gone with a more generically attractive actress, it wouldn’t have worked, but Dormer’s unusual face and distinctive little half-smile (which might be down to Bell’s Palsy, but don’t quote me on that as I couldn’t find confirmation) is what makes her stand out.

This is also a self-aware version of Anne, who knows full well that the King’s affection may be fleeting, and so is required to tread carefully in her seduction of him (unlike her sister, who capitulates too quickly). She plays coy, and keeps him guessing, and holds out for the status of wife rather than mistress. These tactics work... up to a point.

Once they’re married, the power dynamics shift. No longer an object of desire that must be attained at all costs, she’s now the dutiful wife who must secure her position by providing a male heir. More than that, Anne must keep her husband sexually interested in her – though sustaining passion in a man surrounded by any number of beautiful women is an uphill struggle, and Anne’s attempts to remain seductive and stir up jealousy only exhausts him mentally and emotionally.

The duties of a wife are very different from those of a mistress, and it’s only a matter of time before Henry starts to long for something pure. That’s the trap of the Madonna/Whore dichotomy: eventually men will want the opposite of what you’re trying to embody. You can’t be the virtuous wife and the sexy temptress at the same time.

Not helping is Anne’s own jealousy, increasing paranoia, and inability to provide a son. That last one more than anything is what spells her doom (for naturally it’s she, not Henry, who is to blame for her miscarriages) and her fall from grace is as sudden as it is inevitable. Watching it all collapse around her is difficult to watch, and I couldn’t even tell myself “it’s just fiction,” because of course it isn’t. On the 19th May 1536, Anne Boleyn was executed. Henry married Jane Seymour on the 30th of that same month.

To watch Anne’s story unfold on The Tudors is to see a remarkable rise and fall, as well bearing witness to how she (like most of Henry’s wives) was chewed up and spat out once she no longer served a purpose. To her father, she and her sister were weapons, deployed just like soldiers in order to acquire him status and power. To Henry, the relationship was based on unspent lust, and once that was gone, so too was the basis of their love story.

So often portrayed as the seductive “other woman,” who supplanted Catherine of Aragon, and who was replaced in her turn by the virginal good-girl Jane Seymour, this portrayal of the historical Anne did an exceptional job in depicting her as a woman, with her own dreams, foibles, faith, and political ambitions. She just couldn’t overcome the world in which she lived.

Koten and Tichina from Star Wars Visions

Disney’s ongoing attempts to wring a franchise out of Star Wars has yielded some less-than-impressive fruit... but every now and then you’ll find something delectable. Star Wars Visions is an anthology series of short films from animation studios around the world, and along with some fun stories and gorgeous artistry, there is a surplus of female characters.

I have no idea if that’s studio mandated or just a coincidence, but amidst the array are two that stand out. Koten and Tichina, the protagonists of “In The Stars,” are two sisters whose planet has come under Imperial control. Their presence has led to a shortage of clean drinking water, which furthermore cuts the girls off from their cultural heritage – namely the technique of spraying water and pollen onto rocks to record their handprints and family stories.

Older sister Koten naturally feels responsible for the safety of her little sister Tichina, resenting that their mother died trying to defend the planet from the Empire, while the more intuitive Tichina is a firm believer in the power of the Force, and her ability to harness it.

I usually find precocious kid characters that get into trouble after disobeying the reasonable instructions of their elders to be horribly obnoxious, but Tichina’s steadfast faith in their mother’s gift goes a long way toward redeeming her, and the inevitable “big sister is followed into danger by little sister who immediately gets captured” device pays off in a wonderful way when it unlocks Koten’s latent abilities.

This short film is a gem, and that it centres around two sisters that are so vividly brought to life despite its short runtime is pretty impressive.

Honourable Mentions:

Rebecca from Ivanhoe

Rebecca was a shoe-in for this list, being one of the most memorable and beloved female characters in all of English literature (which is impressive considering she’s Jewish and was first written in 1819) but I have so much more to say about her and her counterpart Rowena that they’re going to get their own forthcoming post. 

It was in February of last year that I was reminded of the two characters after watching Xiao Qiao and Sun Shangxiang in Red Cliff, who (like Rowena and Rebecca) are the only noteworthy women in the entire story, are complete opposites in terms of personality and social class, and who share only one significant scene together – which incredibly, doesn’t pit them against one another.

It’s so often the case that whenever two women exist in a male-centric story, they’ll not only be written at odds with each other, but held up in deliberate contrast – usually in the context of a love triangle or the Madonna/Whore archetypes, with one implicitly (or explicitly) portrayed “better” than the other.

Neither Red Cliff nor Ivanhoe did that with their female leads... but of course, that’s where fandom comes in. Fandom loves to create a dichotomy and hate one half of it and never is this more true than when female characters are involved. For one woman to be beloved, the other must be despised. It’s practically the rule of storytelling, one which is demonstrated in William Makepeace Thackery’s Rebecca and Rowena, a parody sequel that delves deeper into the contrast between the two women – not only in the book, but in the eyes of the readership.

That the original text largely defies this is fascinating, though it also can’t be denied that Rebecca is an infinitely more compelling character than Rowena (or even Ivanhoe himself, for that matter). Falling in love with the titular character after she nurses him back to health, then held captive by a Knight Templar who wants her to submit to his sexual advances, the whole thing turns into a battle of wills in which Rebecca has nothing but her integrity and faith to protect her.

Another irritating thing about fandom is that it would no doubt expect her to either convert to Christianity in order to marry Ivanhoe, or sacrifice all of her integrity in order to shack up with Brian de Bois-Guilbert, even though the whole point of her character is that she can’t have the former, and steadfastly refuses the latter. She has a moral compass that can’t be broken, and she never wavers from her internal sense of right and wrong.

As stated, there’s a lot more to say about her, all of which will be said in due course...

Jen from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

Jen veers a little too far into anti-heroine territory to be anything but an honourable mention, but I rewatched Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon recently and she is such a good character. In many ways she’s a deconstruction of a Mary Sue: she’s not only beautiful and wealthy and highly regarded, but – more pertinently – preternaturally good at wuxia fighting, surpassing even her own master.

But for all that skill and talent, the most she can think of do with her gift is start bar brawls and steal famous artefacts for fun. Likewise, her immense privilege has left her as something of a spoiled brat who thinks only of her own gratification. But imagine for a moment what it would be like to be endowed with what are essentially superhero powers, ones that are even better than the mentor who taught them to you in the first place. It would be terrifying as well as isolating, and at one point Jen articulates this explicitly.

This scenario does so much to inform her behaviour. Not helping is that said mentor is an embittered old woman with her own set of grievances, and who has tried to shape Jen much as Miss Havisham did Estella: as an object of vengeance. Likewise, the one place where Jen could have learned to use her powers responsibly – Wutan Mountain – doesn’t permit women to enter.

It would seem that all of society has helped hone this weapon, and then gets very upset when she turns herself on them all. This is clearly not a young woman who is going to just get married and settle down – what a laughable prospect when you can overpower anyone in a fight and defy gravity itself. But then... what does she want?

That’s what I enjoy most about the film and Jen’s dynamics with the likes of Mu Bai, Shu Lien and Lo. In many ways, the central conflict is between the Id and the Ego, personified in the characters themselves. But you can understand Jen, and grasp where she’s coming from: an ultra-powered young woman who lives in a gilded cage – both powerful and yet without agency, cossetted and yet disregarded, unfettered and yet completely shackled. It’s a fascinating set up, and so makes for a fantastic character.

The Nineties Action Girl

I’ve always been interested in tracing the stages of feminism through the portrayal of fictional female characters across the decades, and the nineties was an interesting time for its evolution, bringing us what can only be called the Nineties Action Girl.

With the movement very much in its rebellious tomboy “not like the other girls” era, writers were aware that female characters had to be the diametric opposite of the demure and graceful maidens of the past. Instead, they had to be outspoken, active, self-sufficient, and dare I say it – “feisty.”

Obviously, there were plenty of female characters that didn’t fall into this category, largely ones that were written with a degree of nuance and care (Buffy Summers and Dana Scully come to mind). If something is well-written, it’s well-written forever. But it’s in the not-very-good stuff that you can really see what’s going on in the cultural zeitgeist – at least in broad strokes.

And the Nineties Action Girl popped up a lot in 2024, embodied mostly in the likes of Helaine in the Diadem books, Marion in The New Adventures of Robin Hood, and even Rowena in the 1997 Ivanhoe miniseries. Many others spring to mind: Maeve in Sinbad, Sonya in Mortal Combat, Princess Calla in The Gummi Bears, Dierdre in The Knights of Tir Na Nog, Eleanor in Covington Cross, and any number of women in your average Hercules or Xena Warrior Princess episode.

They are all a part of a time in which writing “strong female characters” was the intention, even though not everyone was entirely sure how to go about doing it. However, there were some clear marks that were easy to hit:

Firstly, she had to disdain all things feminine. She was a tomboy who could handle herself with a sword, hated embroidery and other girly pursuits, and is a terrible cook. There’s very much a “not like the other girls” vibe going on with her, maybe not explicitly, but it’ll be rare for her to have any other female friends – at most, there’ll be a harried nurse or governess of some kind who is forever trying (and failing) to make her behave like a lady.

But most of the time she’ll be the only significant female character in the whole story, with a scene that depicts her looking bored to death among women engaging in more traditionally female-coded activities.

Despite all this, she’ll be an absolute stunner, with gorgeous glossy hair and flattering outfits, and though she may spend some time disguised as a boy, she’s definitely not fooling anyone. Neither is she above using her sexuality (which might just be heavy flirting in age-appropriate shows) to get what she wants, which will be depicted as funny, but also empowering.

She’ll make exasperated comments like: “men are so obvious!” or “men are so easy!” with an eye-roll or a hair-flick, and be outspoken and headstrong to the point of obnoxiousness (but because we’ve got our nostalgia goggles strapped on, we’ll now find it delightful and charming).

She might be emotionally closed and stand-offish, assertive and stubborn, determined to prove she’s just as good as the boys by demanding total independence and never accepting help. Open a door or pull out a chair for her at your own peril. Never offer her a hand if she’s doing something physical – you’ll probably lose it. Her general attitude toward other people can be summed up in Sonya’s introductory line in Mortal Combat: “I trust one person in this world and you’re looking at her.”

Another favourite Character Establishing sequence will involve her practicing with weapons (often to the disapproval of onlookers) or arguing with her father figure about an impending arranged marriage.

Even if she’s not a warrior, you can be certain of her being a horse girl and accomplished rider. If she has a boy’s name and is interested in boyish pursuits, it’ll be 100% because: “my father wanted a son.” Fandom will invariably use the word “badass” to describe her.

Of course, there’s not a single female character in the world that will tick all these boxes, but as a whole they paint a picture of the baseline heroine in this specific time and place. You can even see how the ideal flowed into the women of the early 2000s: Marian was the Nightwatchman on the BBC’s Robin Hood, Peter Jackson’s Eowyn in The Two Towers was given a scene in which she serves Aragorn terrible stew, and the emotional barriers of Starbuck and Aeryn Sun (both quintessential tough girls) in Battlestar Galactica and Farscape speak for themselves.

Perhaps I’m generalizing, perhaps I’m creating patterns that don’t exist – but for me at least, the nineties had a very specific type of female protagonist in some of its less exalted projects that more vividly capture where we were on the spectrum of representation than more nuanced (and better written) projects did.

***

As I mentioned above the cut, 2024 was actually a pretty solid year for female characters in mainstream shows and films. Along with Connie Nielson in Gladiator 2, Winona Ryder also returned to a decades-old role, reprising the character of Lydia Deetz for the Beetlejuice sequel. Elsewhere, Cailee Spaeny headlined the latest Alien movie, which was apparently not that bad, while Lupita Nyong’o had a great year, starring in the likes of A Quiet Place: Day One and The Wild Robot.

McKenna Grace as Phoebe Spengler was apparently the stealth protagonist of Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, Anya Taylor-Joy took on the mantle of a young Imperator Furiosa, Zendaya as Chani in Dune went through some interesting tweaks to her character, Moana returned in a big-screen sequel, and Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande embraced the roles of Elphaba and Glinda in the long-overdue filmic adaptation of Wicked.

And perhaps this shouldn’t count, but after hearing so much about how terrible it is, I kinda want to see Dakota Johnson as Cassandra Web in Madame Web.

There were also a ton of notable female characters over on the small screen: Rhaenyra and Alicent on House of the Dragon, Annabelle Chase in Percy Jackson, all the Bene Gesserit sisters in Dune: Prophecy, and Ruby Sunday, the new companion on Doctor Who. Michael Burnham’s story wrapped up in Star Trek: Discovery, Penelope Featherington finally got her day in the sun on Bridgerton, and we even saw more of Orphan Black in a sequel series (though it fell to the usual one-season curse that’s so prevalent these days).

The only problem? I didn’t watch any of it.

Well, I’ve since caught up on Bridgerton, but at the end of 2023 I was so overwhelmed by big IPs and regurgitated blockbusters, that I decided 2024 was going to be a time in which I watched things that didn’t come with so much franchise baggage. As a result, many of the female characters I encountered this year came from media that aired ten to twenty years ago.

I had some very thematic viewing throughout the months of last year, which yielded some great heroines, whether it was the teen comedy (Isis from Bring It On, Olive from Easy A, Kat and Bianca from 10 Things), the Shakespeare play (Beatrice, Cleopatra, Portia), or the historical epic (I won’t list any since quite a lot of these ladies made the Woman of the Month posts).

You wouldn’t think any of these specific genres would be bastions of strong female characters, but sometimes they can surprise you.

There was also some ongoing viewing that spread out across several months, namely The Dark Crystal franchise, Plantagenet and Tudor history, and of course, The Babysitters Club. In all three cases, the subject matter was intensely female-centric.

This was completely unsurprising for The Babysitters Club, but when it comes to The Dark Crystal, we have J. M. Lee, the author commissioned for writing the YA prequel novels which then became the inspiration for the Netflix show (which adapted his material in broad strokes) to thank for establishing Gelfling society as a matriarchy. Immediately, the potential opened up for a vast range of female characters in leadership roles, not to mention an expanded role for Naia, the Drenchen Gelfling who appeared only briefly in The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance, but is the main character of the books upon which it’s based.

As for the multitude of period dramas that were set roughly between 1455 to 1603 (that is, the start of the War of the Roses to the death of Queen Elizabeth), I ended up feeling mildly astonished that so many of them focused on women: Elizabeth Woodville, Margaret Beauford, Anne Neville, Elizabeth of York, Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, the rest of Henry VIII’s wives, Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth, and Mary Queen of Scots. This is no doubt because so many of them were adaptations of Phillipa Gregory’s female-centric (though historically dubious) source material, but also because the women who lived during this period were fascinating figures in and of themselves.

I’m hoping to continue with more across 2025: the Helen Mirren biopic series on Queen Elizabeth I, the Shardlake mysteries, and maybe even The Other Boleyn Girl. Just for the sake of completion.

I finished up Legend of the Seeker this year, over a decade after its final episode aired, which meant saying goodbye to Kahlan and Cara (and Zed and Richard, obviously) which is a damn shame. Even over a decade later, it’s clear there should have been a series three. Likewise, I finished up with season four of Xena Warrior Princess, and finally came to King’s Quest VI: The Perils of Rosella, which I’d been looking forward to for a long time, having featured one of the icons of my childhood and the first playable female character in a computer game.

I also wended my way through the first season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which will always have a special place in my heart even though it’s considered one of the weaker seasons (I’d beg to differ, but never mind). Seeing everyone at the beginning of their journey, so young and untested, was a little bittersweet in some respects, but I’m ready to embark upon season two – and track down more of the paperback tie-in novels.

Speaking of vampires, October ended up being a vampire-themed month, and unfortunately, female characters don’t do so well in that genre – at least not in the material I ended up watching. They’re often either victims or villains, with a heavy emphasis on serving the male gaze – though there were exceptions. The highlights were finally reading Carmilla by Sheridan le Fanu (though even that was more of a curiosity piece than a genuinely good work of literature, being as weird as it is short), and watching Alisha Weir put on a fantastic performance as Abigail, a little girl vampire who lures her father’s enemies to a luxurious mansion for the sole purpose of slaughtering them at her leisure.

The Princess and Damsel ended up being a perfect double-feature for a very specific type of modern princess story, and The Bonfire of Destiny boasted three great female protagonists in a show that depicted them finding their... well, destinies, in the wake of the devastating 1897 fire at a charity bazaar in Paris.

In watching Disney’s Sleeping Beauty I was reminded of just how wonderful Flora, Fauna and Merryweather are (and that people always forget they’re the true heroes of the film), and I finally got through the stories of Julia Childs and Freydis in Julia and Vikings: Valhalla respectively – though I’ll always be annoyed that there was clearly more to go in both cases.

It wasn’t all sunshine and roses. I haven’t yet finished up with Arcane, but it looks as though the writers fail Mel Medara quite badly, and Amandla Stenburg’s journey as Osha in The Acolyte was annoyingly cut short before I even got a chance to get acquainted with her. It would appear that Bluey has come to a conclusion as well, which means saying farewell to the titular character and her little sister Bingo – though I seriously doubt we’ve seen the last of them given the popularity of the show.

Books also provided a surplus of great female characters. I finally finished up my Slavic fantasy reading challenge, which bore all sorts of delicious fruit, from Vasya (discussed above), to the likes of Inej Ghafa, Nina Zenik and Zoya Nazyalensky across the Six of Crows and Prince of Scars duologies to many, many depictions of Baba Yaga. Over in the Avatar: The Last Airbender franchise, I read graphic novels starring June and Azula, as well as the two excellent Yangchen YA novels, which do a fantastic job of bringing that particular Avatar’s life and times to the page.

Liz Flanagan’s Wildsmith books and Skye McKenna’s Hedgewitch series had simpatico when it came to “young girls with magical powers trying to make their way in a dangerous world” tales, while Marjorie Liu’s Monstress graphic novels are still going strong (surely they’ll be starting to wrap up soon though, right?) I met Philip Reeve’s wonderful heroine Utterly Dark in the trilogy of the same name, Phil Hicke’s Aveline Jones (also featuring in a trilogy named after her), and the broken female protagonists of Gillian Flynn’s repertoire: Camille Preaker, Libby Day, and the terrifying Amy Dunne.

Then of course, there were plenty of girl detectives. To say they’re “girl” detectives isn’t a pejorative, but a genre description: literature is filled with young women cracking cases across different time periods (in fact, there might well be more in the genre than boys): Aggie Morton and Enola Holmes, Connie Carew and Isobel Petty, Her Majesty's League of Remarkable Young Ladies and The Scandalous Sisterhood of Prickwillow Place, as well as the unisex members of The After School Detective Club.

And then of course, there’s more fantastic women to be found across Philip Reeve’s Mortal Engine books: Hester Shaw! Fever Crumb! Anna Fang! Tamzin Pook! I’ve still got A Darkling Plain and some supplementary materials to go, but he really does excel at complicated, difficult, unforgettable heroines.

***

Moving away from media, I have to admit that I missed a lot of the fandom discourse going on in the world last year – mostly through choice, since it’s pretty exhausting out there. However, a few things managed to sneak past the safety barriers I’ve raised around my brain.

I did hear that there had been a change to the backstory of the bride in Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion ride. In years past, this character was identified as Constance Hatchaway, an axe murderer who dispatched several of her husbands, Lizzie Borden-style. The new take actually harkens back to an even older incarnation of the figure, one dating back to the earliest days of the attraction, in which she’s depicted with a glowing red heart and a melancholy air, suggesting that she died of a broken heart. Perhaps her husband died tragically on her wedding day, or maybe she was left at the altar, à la Miss Havisham.

According to Disney Imagineer Kim Irvine, the change was made for several reasons, one of which has to do with modern sensitivities. To quote: “The bride that used to be in there was an axe murderer, and in this day and age we have to be really careful about the sensitivities of people. We were celebrating someone chopping off her husband’s heads, and it was a weird story.”

To be clear, I have no strong feelings on this bride or why she’s a ghost, though the quote struck me as a little odd. Were people really going to complain about something like this? More amusingly, the internet seemed a little stumped as to whether or not deem this change as “woke” or “anti-woke,” since the character has gone from an unrepentant murderer to a tragic widow; a proactive villain to a passive victim. Cue plenty of sarcastic: “God forbid women do anything,” comments.

Still, the change piqued my interest, as did the question of which incarnation of the character was objectively better from a storytelling or “politically correct” perspective. You can’t help but compare her to the famous red-head in The Pirates of the Caribbean ride, who went from a woman being auctioned off at a slave market, to a pirate with her own pistol and three-cornered hat – though in that case, no one can really argue that the update wasn’t an improvement.

***

We lost a lot of talent in 2024, from the tragic early death of Liam Payne to the passing of James Earl Jones at the grand old age of ninety-three. It’s always difficult to talk about the death of celebrities, since we know them only second-hand, and can never feel the loss as keenly as their families and close friends. However, their talent does touch our lives in a myriad of ways.

To me, Shannon Doherty will always bring back memories of watching Charmed during my early adolescence, and the way Prue Halliwell was such a quintessential eldest sister. Shelley Duvall is perhaps best known for her role in The Shining, though I have been picking my way through Faerie Tale Theatre, the passion-project that she hosted (and occasionally starred in) for the better part of the last ten years. Perhaps this is the impetus I need to get back to it.

And of course, the glorious Maggie Smith. Where to even start? For my generation, she’ll probably be best known as the stern Mrs Medlock in The Secret Garden, but for my younger sister, she’ll forever be Professor McGonagall in the Harry Potter films. She was consistently the best part of Downton Abbey as Lady Violet Crawley, but I’ve also seen and loved her in Sister Act, Death on the Nile, Gosford Park, Keeping Mum, The Lady in the Van – even Hook as the elderly Wendy.

Still, her passing made me realize that I’ve barely scratched the surface of her life’s work. She won Oscars for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and California Suite, so those films seem a natural place to start.

***

And finally, when it comes to my general feelings on the subject of female characters across 2024, I did pick up on something that’s admittedly more of an impression than an indisputable fact, one that is rather neatly summed up in this post.

To quote the original statement and the tagged reply:

been stewing on an analytical approach to fiction which I call "is this book afraid of me?" and in order to answer this question you determine how hard the book is trying to make sure you don't come after the writer on twitter

It does seem that there is a certain self-consciousness to the way female characters (and perhaps stories in general) are written these days, and I suppose bloggers like me are partly to blame given how we have a tendency to over-analysis everything. Heck, my entries on Vasya and Elodie are more about how they’re written than on the characters themselves.

They have to be perfect to avoid criticism, but they also have to possess carefully engineered flaws that are “relatable.” They have to be empowering but also realistic, and their every problematic decision or action must be carefully pointed out to the reader as something that’s Not Good. I’ve been hearing that many books contain over-explained passages about what is right and wrong that are seemingly only there in order to pre-emptively confront bad faith readers, which only leads to a hyper-sensitivity on both ends and robs the story of any degree of ambiguity or freedom of interpretation.

As I said, I haven’t experienced this firsthand, but I have noticed a lot more discussion on the subject. It’s long been a source of irony in my life that some of my favourite female characters were written by men: Sabriel, Hester Shaw, Lyra Silvertongue, Alice in Wonderland, and these days more and more female characters, especially in YA books, come across as little more than blank slates for the reader to project themselves onto.

It leads me to wonder (and I’m just spit-balling here) if male authors feel as though they can write more freely. They seem to be less online than women writers, and many are too old to even care about the dreaded discourse, which gives them a degree of freedom and the mental space required to explore their own opinions, not to mention considerably less pressure to do anything other than simply write what they like without worrying about society’s current hang-ups.

They’re not as concerned over how people will respond to them, whereas women in general come in for a lot more criticism anyway – especially from female-dominated fandoms. We’re our own worst enemy!

This is all very vague and probably a subject worthy of more time than I have available to give it, but like I said, it’s just an impression that I’ve picked up on this year. It’s a terrible shame to have to write under such conditions, and the pressure of it seem to be manifesting in the quality of the books currently being published. May it pass quickly and painlessly, though like so many things that seems too much to hope for these days...

***

What’s on the horizon for 2025? Umm, I’m not entirely sure, since – like I’ve said multiple times now – I’ve been limiting my internet usage. I do know that we’re getting a new Lois Lane in James Gunn’s take on the Superman mythos, the second half of the Wicked adaptation, and... another Bridget Jones film? Sorry, I really haven’t been plugged in.