Women Are Calling Out Overused Female Tropes And Characters That Scream, “I Was Written By A Man”

"It seems like she was just there to be eye candy and not really have much of a character."

Have you ever been watching a female character in a TV show or movie and could just feel in your bones that not a single woman was included in the writing room? Yeah, let's talk about that.

NBC

Redditor u/mikess314 asked, "What movie featuring female characters was clearly made without a single woman being involved?" Naturally, people had a lot to say. Here are some of the best answers:

Submissions have also been sourced from this similar thread.

Note: This post contains mentions of rape.

1. "Any female character described as the 'cool girl'."

20thcentfox / 20th Century Fox Licensing/Merchandising / Everett Collection

"Fuck that! She is interested in 'male things' the perfect amount, while still maintaining the ~perfect~ amount of femininity. She never gets mad and is never too clingy. Watch the cool girl monologue from Gone Girl, she explains it perfectly."

—u/whateveridontcareeeo

2. "Books where women are incredibly aware of what their boobs are doing and how they feel all the time."

Do you ever get so scared your boobs start twitching? from menwritingwomen

—u/localgyro

"They almost always bring up the nipples or breast size in the first few chapters."

—u/dry_cardigan_contest

3. "When Jennifer Lawrence dyes her hair platinum blonde with boxed hair dye in Red Sparrow. As any fake blonde will tell you, it’s a really time consuming and tricky process. Not something you do in 10 minutes in a bathroom."

Photo Credit: Murray Close / 20th Century Fox Licensing/Merchandising / Everett Collection

—u/allfurcoatnoknickers

"Not only does it come out perfectly, but then she goes swimming in a chlorinated pool the very next scene."

—u/LostTheWayILikeIt

4. "Any birth scene where the mother is just a little sweaty but totally glowing and happy and wide awake after a 20-hour labor, and looks like she was never pregnant at all as soon as they leave the hospital."

Mishatc / Getty Images/iStockphoto

—u/CantBHavinWithThis

5. "The first few Avengers movies with Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow. It seems like she was just there to be eye candy and not really have much of a character."

Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection

"She has hinted a bit at this, that she put her foot down on a scene where they had her in a cute tennis outfit for no reason. It was nice to see them give her more of a character throughout the series."

—u/BankerBabe420

6. "The 'frigid, stuck up corporate woman taken down a peg by rough and tumble guy with big heart and then falls in love with him' trope in Jurassic World. Please, stop it."

Chuck Zlotnick/©Universal Pictures / courtesy Everett Collection

—u/baitnnswitch

7. "Harley Quinn’s dumb outfit in Suicide Squad. Who would dress like that for anything physical? Those short shorts would ride up your butt and you’d break your ankle in the stilettos."

Clay Enos / Claudette Barius / © Warner Bros. / courtesy Everett Collection

"There’s a huge difference with the outfits in Birds of Prey, which was written, directed, and produced by women. High rise denim shorts, sports bra, and a chunky wedge (or trainers, I think?) is a way better outfit for causing mayhem."

—u/allfurcoatnoknickers

8. "All the girls in Spring Breakers. There’s something unsettling about a middle aged guy writing through the eyes of college girls."

Annapurna Pictures / courtesy Everett Collection

"Vanessa Hudgen’s character literally says, 'Seeing all this money makes my pussy wet.'"

—u/ioaki

9. "Books where the female characters never interact with each other, or it’s always negative/catty/competitive."

NBC

—u/xivora

10. "Megan Fox in theTransformers movies. Michael Bay basically told her to act hot, but then tried to say it was feminist because she…knew about cars?"

Paramount / ©Paramount/Courtesy Everett Collection

—u/Marriane_Deer

11. "Any movie with a birth scene in which the vagina is treated like an orifice capable of stretching powers even Elasti-Girl from The Incredibles would envy."

HBO

"Pelvises NEVER fracture under the strain of childbirth and a vagina is basically just an unbreakable, un-rippable elastic hole that can accommodate ANYTHING going in or out of it, right?

—u/CantBHavinWithThis

12. "This line from a John Updike book about a lady taking so long to pee, because the pee gets lost in her confusing lady maze inside."

John Updike / Goodreads / Via goodreads.com

—u/king-of-new_york

In case you're curious, the book is The Witches of Eastwick.

13. And finally, "The episode of Game of Thrones where Gilly decides to take Sam's virginity five seconds after he saves her from being raped."

HBO

"The writers decided that Sam deserved a 'prize' for his heroic acts, and so they wrote in Gilly's vagina as the prize without putting any thought into what an actual victim would do in that situation.

It's especially bad, because in a previous season there was a well-written scene where a female character specifically states that 'A woman who has just escaped a rape won't want to have sex immediately after. You should have known you were being set up because of that.' So not only where there no women involved in the new scene, there was no one who bothered to read what was actually written in previous seasons."

—u/gummybearsbouncing

Now it's your turn! Do you have an example of a female character that was very obviously written without any women in the room? If so, tell us about them in the comments below!