i can't think of any within the last 50 years. Even in the 1990's and 1980's female characters in Western media were pretty much all girl bosses.
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Does Tali from Mass Effect count? Even though she had that shotgun and could get in a cheeky line now and again, she was definitely a lot more submissive and soft spoken if you pursued a romance with her.
I was going to say Liara myself, though that probably would have only applied to the first.
Kinda funny, English voice of Liara is the English voice of Lightning, Japanese voice of Lightning is also Japanese voice of Aerith, who is the striking image of what I feel this topic is aiming for.
Tali is less submissive and more just a bottom.
This is significant because those words no longer fully overlap. Plenty of "girlbosses" in real life are 300% submissive when alone with them, but we'd not describe a single one of them as submissive because its clearly only sexual for them.
Oh they exist.
And they're usually a tool to show how evil a bad controlling male character is.
There are also soft spoken and submissive male characters.
And they're usually a tool for the awesome girl boss to beat up on to show how awesome she is. Or in rare instances, to show character growth into something more confident/competent.
Was going to say Gabrielle in Xena before they made her a girlboss, but that was just my childhood rose-tinted glasses. Even in her first episode, she yelled at her fiance "HEY JUST BECAUSE WE'RE BETROTHED DOESN'T MEAN YOU CAN BOSS ME AROUND!" That's still pretty tame compared to female characters today.
Ok this one's probably not what you're talking about either but Bridget Fonda in Single White Female was soft-spoken and feminine, to better contrast her against the psycho woman. It was a 90's movie but they still acted like 80's women.
fiance with one e? huh ok I watched the video.
Maybe Kaylee in Firefly? She's got the girl-genius cliche, but is still pretty soft-spoken and girly. Girly for a tomboy anyway.
Shes a slut and a soft-spoken girlboss
Meh, everyone Joss Whedon writes talks about the same. Speech pattern, quippy one liners, etc. When you start to notice it it REALLY drags down some of the more quotable lines.
You can swap lines between most of Whedon's characters (even between series) and they'll sound in-character coming out of the other characters.
I dunno but you're depressing me
"Submissive" characters, aren't really any good storytelling, either as men or women. Because you're removing their agency, you are making them inherently forgettable. So, there's no reason you would remember them, even if they were there. They wouldn't have an impact on the story.
However, let's just go with feminine characters, rather than "submissive' only. Submissive isn't ever going to be useful. So when can I think of the last feminine protagonist?
Mrs. Brisby in the Secret of Nihm. She's literally a dutiful wife and mother. Thrust into a "fish out of water" adventure. She requires the help of men on her adventure, but she also demonstrates an apt way of navigating her way around the social environment that these men live in, while also still getting their help, but never actually attacking them directly.
Rather than a strong, female, protagonist. She's a strong FEMINE protagonist.
...
Femi_nihm_?
...
Here's a scene where she's helping a bit of an idiot man-child to help her. She still has to confront a "Force Of Nature" threat, but the moral of this confrontation shows that her generosity and kindness (or even her motherly instinct to care for a man who is a bit childish), along with her ingenuity, is what keeps everybody safe and her objective still available.
Anyways, I think media creators have lost the understanding of what strong femininity actually looks like. Partly because I don't think feminists understand what femininity is, nor do modern people understand why femininity is useful. It's the same reason modern writers think it's hard (and boring) to make heroic characters: they are so ideologically poisoned by nihilism and cynicism that they don't even believe in the concept. Similarly, femininity is seen as worthlessness and enslavement, rather than inspirational and dutiful. I don't think calling it "submission" is a good descriptor, either. Submission is only warranted with trust. You shouldn't submit to people you can't trust. A "submissive" person, is typically prey. Now, there's strong women in modern media, but they all have a kind of "Ripley" effect. The strong women become momma bears, or cunning manipulators, or "no wrath like a woman scorned" vengeance agents in a certain time of need.
But a strong feminine protagonist, that's pretty hard to find in the past 50 years.
They're fictional characters. They don't have agency to begin with.
Okay, positivist.
Brim, of course the characters are creations of the author's agency. That's not the point. It's about perceived agency within the story.
Anime/manga prove this wrong yearly for you. Most male characters in romcoms/SoL shows are submissive to a point where its a meme and yet people remember them. Gojo from Dress Up Darling earlier this year is a walking sub in every sense and he is a literal Gary Stu for the author to fawn over with her self insert. Shinji Ikari is the walking poster child for submissive character traits, and his weak nature is what drives the entire plot. Heck his lack of desire to take any agency is a constant conflict.
Japanese media as a whole is filled with examples of notable characters who are submissive beyond belief to a point where it barely feels realistic to our non-Collectivist mindsets. Osamu Dasai is one of their most famous writers ever and his autobiography is built on "I am physically unable to refuse any question given to me, I am too frightened."
Your point about submission and its inherently negative connotation being intertwined with femininity is very valid, but you shouldn't make Absolute Statements because a single example otherwise renders them invalid and wrong. If you meant this to only apply to Western works, you should specify because it sounds like you are making a very definitive universal statement outside the scope of OP's question.
In fairness, he said western media, but fine.
I would say that the eastern, submissive, asian, male thing is a strange cultural icon in japan, and I'm not sure why.
To be honest, whenever I see those characters, I find them actively repulsive, which is probably a cultural bias in the west.
He did, but you were speaking definitively as "submissive characters can never" which makes it sound universally applied regardless.
Also while I don't find them to be good characters and am pretty repulsed by them myself, they do impact the story and aren't inherently forgettable.
I could probably find some examples in Western media but, as OP pointed out, they are far rarer so the list to find and pick from is much smaller.
Slight disagree there, there's nothing narratively wrong with submissive characters. They aren't dynamic characters in and of themselves, but they do have an impact; as assets and obstacles for the more dynamic characters to navigate around. They're like the action equivalent of the comedy straight man.
Plus unless they're submissive to a fault, in which case they're bad writing for just being one dimensional not necessarily for being submissive, there's always interest to be had in placing them in rare situations where they would be spurred to action despite their typical inclination.
But you're not wrong that submissive characters aren't going to be the first names you remember in a story, they'll only stand out on a deeper look at the story.
I don't know that I've really ever seen submissive characters be written in the kind of nuance you've described.
At best they might be love interests, or a character that learns to become assertive, but then that's not the same thing as the femininity I was referring to earlier. The submission is seen as a masculine failing in that case. It could be done well in how you describe it, but I've never seen it done well.
They tend to have more use in the big space operas or fantasy epics. Anywhere you need someone who just does their job to make the wheels of the world(s) turn.
They're hard to think of easily because written well you don't usually think about their relative submissiveness first. The readiest example of one I can think of is Grey Worm from GoT, just because his slave conditioning took the submissiveness to an such an extreme it's hard to miss.
Chloe Sevigny in American Psycho.
Literally, the only person he doesn't kill that he originally intended to, because she is submissive, docile, and kind of pathetic, but also the only person who cares about him but not in a materialistic way.
That's true, but she's still an object of his affection (and is an intentional critique against modern materialism among the elites versus traditional femininity)
That is true, but we also see the opposite of this with a character like the bloody mute in The Apostle, who was a male, and submissive to the will of the patriarchs to protect and guard the [spoiler]. He was shown no affection, had no affection, but was an interesting character because of his willingness to submit to carrying out his role at all costs.
But that also leads to an interesting juxtaposition in storytelling related to this...
Right, but you can still tell very interesting stories around these characters whether trust is involved or not.
A few good examples of this is Sarah-Sofie Boussnina's character in The Absent One, she was submissive to someone she loved, willing to do heinous and depraved acts on his behalf, because she trusted him, even though he did not actually care about her. Her character was quite fascinating for two-thirds of the film up until the final act, which became ridiculous as they wanted to turn her into a girlboss out for revenge. But before then, there are definitely women like that in real life.
Patricia Arquette's character in The Indian Runner perfectly encapsulates a realistic portrayal of someone willing to be submissive for what she thought was love, even though it was to a completely unhinged character played by Viggo Mortensen. And in many ways, the logical conclusion of that relationship, had he stuck around, would have been similar to what happened in the film Kalifornia, where Juliette Lewis' character was completely submissive to Brad Pitt's character up to a point where, yes, she became prey (which ironically, was when she stopped being submissive to him).
But how the story resolves or how it unfolds involving these submissive characters is completely dependent on the intentionality of the writers.
Most writers these days do not have the intention to display these characters as having good traits while being submissive, even though ironically Sevigny's character in American Pyscho was the only character who was not reprehensibly amoral/immoral, and could be considered the only "good" person in the film.
It's entirely possible to write good, submissive characters with strong traits and qualities, without them being prey (like Boussnina's character in The Absent One), but that's not really something they are interested in. And sadly, most Westerners have become accustomed to thinking that submissiveness, femininity, and being docile are negative traits due to cultural programming.
I don't think The Bloody Mute character (from how you describe it) is a character in a normal story. Hell, that might not even be a submissive, but a martyr, like Christ. I think that's a whole different concept than submission.
As you describe Boussnina's character, well, I think you disproved your own point. It didn't actually try to espouse the concept of submission, but destroy it with a girl boss ending.
that we agree on, but it's why I'd prefer a focus on femininity rather than "submission" because of it's intense negative connotation. it also really doesn't fit because submission is what would happen at the end of the story. It's what happens when the woman can finally, safely, trust her man. It's post conflict.
Nah, definitely not a martyr. He kills to protect, and does the beck and call of the patriarchs for protection purposes. A total submissive. I was interested in his backstory, but sadly the movie never explored that aspect of the character.
Yes, and no... her being a submissive is showcased in flashbacks to her past, and a tragic event that eventually led to her not being submissive anymore, which is what then led to the ridiculous girlboss ending. However, the broader point was that the character was completely interesting before she became the girlboss; so the movie had a good hook with the audience trying to figure out what happened -- and in that regard, the writing was well done because it showed how a submissive person could do heinous things for what they believed to be love.
The girlboss revenge nonsense was just tacked on to be progressive, and while I haven't looked, I'm pretty sure most people who would be critical of the film probably also found the third act to be overdone and ridiculous.
That actually reminds me of the ending of the film Martyrs, which does hook into that point... but not in a copacetic way. And yes, Zardoz also follows a similar concept, of the woman becoming submissive post-conflict.
But, it can also work very well for maintaining interest and being a positive character trait in dire circumstances during the conflict it self. A good example is Lane Carroll in The Crazies (the original from George Romero), who basically left all the decision making up to Will MacMillan's character, and essentially submitted to every decision he made. In this way, her character made sense and became endearing because she was doing what was required to survive, trusting her life in the hands of someone else. But it made sense, because without him, she was not going to make it (spoiler: she still didn't make it, but she wouldn't have come as far as she did without being as submissive as she was to MacMillan's character).
I can't go into it any further because I didn't see any of these movies. I can't counter, nor add to, your points.
shut up faggot
Little House on the Prairie?
It premiered just over 50 years ago. That's crazy.
Damn, guess that makes me old.
I feel you. I remember Little House being a regular on the re-run channels along with Andy Griffith, Leave it to Beaver, Perry Mason, Green Acres, and The Beverly Hillbillies.
Sansa's not a good example. She ends up being portrayed as a vengeful mastermind who outsmarts Petyr Baelish. She's portrayed as meek and girly and naive at first, but by the end of the show she's very much a girlboss.
To be fair, she goes through some fucked up stuff. She gets raped by a dog in the books by the way. She earned her crazy bitch card.
I googled soft spoken shy characters, and that Redhead chick from the office showed up as did Willow from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Erin from The Office was cute and meek.
Her character though was more portrayed as a babe-in-the-woods simpleton to be mocked than a true submissive woman.
Ha! - I just posted Willow's GF from Buffy before I saw your comment, she was even quieter than Willow
that fire keeper chick that you can revive in the first Dark Souls
touche
No that's French.
no, this is Patrick
Gay and Black, not just French!
Not very many.
Ariel in The Little Mermaid (1989) is maybe the only actual traditional feminine character I can think of. Her special power is she's marriage material.
Rita in Groundhog Day (1993). Although she's literally the boss Phil loves her because she's chaste and sweet.
Some indie films like Buffalo '66 (1998) and Secretary (2002) have women that are certainly not feminist icons. Sera in Leaving Las Vegas (1995). But you wouldn't want to marry them.
Angie MacDowell in Groundhog Day is more akin to The Taming of The Shrew than a fair maiden.
The central plot of the film is that the clod Bill Murray has to repeat hundreds of attempts to win her over through repetition and ruse because any small error leads to the day ending in getting slapped and rejected.
Maggie Gyllenhaal is a submissive in a sexual sense to James Spader in 2002's Secretary. But she's also a mentally ill psycho.
She cuts herself. She purposely tries to antagonize her boss to receive BDSM punishment. She's also awful and dismissive to her wholesome beta bf.
The point of Groundhog Day is the the man has to better himself to get the girl. Phil's repetition and attempts all fail, then he gives up and says he'll be the best man he can be and that's when he's worthy.
There's really nothing about Rita (Andie MacDowell) that isn't marriage material other than the actress.
Secretary, Leaving las Vegas, Buffalo '66 is a counterpoint to the idea that it's only positive portrayals (girl boss, mary sue) that are in cinema for major characters.
I agree that Andie* in the film is marriage material.
But there's not much about her that's submissive.
She's Murray's producer boss & rolls her eyes at the beginning in how much of a pain in the ass it is having to manage the "talent" that is Phil (Murray).
She's chaste in the sense that she plays hard to get & makes Murray work for it.
But if anything, it's the narcissistic asshole Murray that has to "submit" to MacDowell in the end by changing his ways to become more of her ideal man to get the girl.
Oh ok I took the original question to be basically why aren't there any feminine role models, like the opposite side of the coin of the often noticed no masculine role models.
Already too few of those, so narrowing it down even further seems unnecessary.
You're still missing the point of Groundhog Day. Phil doesn't "submit", it's a story of self improvement. He's not even trying after Rita in the end (Rita: "why weren't you like this last night, you just fell asleep"), he's just enjoying life and making the best of things. But to your point, to "But why are you still here?" she says "you said 'stay' so I stayed".
The movie takes place over something like 50 years according to the writer with Murray reliving the same day over.
I do buy the overall self-improvement narrative in Groundhog Day.
But the central plot is the exact opposite of "just be yourself" and "enjoy life". The movie was 50 years of grind for Phil.
And none of that works, because that's all superficial crap. What does he do on his last day?
All for the joy of helping others, not with any expectation or transaction in mind. None of that was about the girl, he even rejects her coffee date. It's a Grinch's heart growing 3 sizes movie not The 50-year Simp.
can't really think of anything other than Gothic where all the women were either housewives or slaves
in RECENT years? probably nothing, i think Witcher 3 had the last decent looking women, they were soft-spoken but not submissive
submissive women in gaming hasn't been a thing in like 20 something years
Ellie, Keri Russell's character in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, is pretty soft spoken and somewhat submissive. What's more, she's shown to be caring and compassionate, a motherly, caregiving figure. Come to think of it, that trilogy of movies is actually surprisingly well written with good messaging about sons and fathers, legacy, brotherhood, and stoicism.
Hawkeye's wife in Avengers: Age of Ultron was pretty much the quintessential tradwife.
That's all I can come up with, though.
It's a stretch I suppose.
But it could be argued she's nagging him offscreen to leave his superhero adventures & obligations behind for good to be just another beta retired stay-at-home dad.
The daughter in Incredibles was pretty timid.
That was the point though wasn't it? An awkward teenage girl gets the power to literally disappear, which is what all of them dream of having.
It is. Didn't say it wasn't. Timidity and coming out of ones shell is an easy character development trope, but it is development nonetheless. OP was pointing out that too much media generally tends to skip this process and pump out females at their most strongest state from the get go, which leads to a boring character.
I pointed out one that had development. The Incredibles is a good movie. The second one... well, that one gets a little weird.
She was also a child. At least in the first one.
The reading assignment merely asked for female examples. Age was not a provided factor to consider.
Please stop upvoting the troll, faggots.
You’re not much better.
Nobody upvotes me by accident.
...Fluttershy from ponies? Of course, the joke with her is that she makes bears and dragons and chaos gods heel when she puts her foot down, so even then, she can't be all soft and sweet
its interesting that probably a large portion of those MLP people most likely became trannies.
Media that's aimed at kids while being interesting enough to develop a periphery demographic is a prime target for lefties. They're drawn to them from both personal interest and to find fresh meat to infest with their ideology. It's sad, more than anything else. Just another reminder that nothing is sacred for kids or families anymore.
I recall critics complaining about the blatant feminism propaganda in Robin Hood Prince of Thieves.
The rot goes deep.
Not related, but the scene at the end where Alan Rickman's Sheriff of Nottingham is trying to casually rape Maid Marian in front of the Bishop to consummate the marriage in real time is probably not something we'll see again.
Well yeah. Alan Rickman is dead.
Lol. I thought of that interpretation as well.
I guess Rickman was Prince John as well, not the Sheriff.
That was something. Lots of kids went to see that movie at the time and none of us batted an eye. lol
Who’s the last bitch James Bond backhanded? I think it was pretty much downhill after that…
Probably Sean Connery's palliative care nurse.
The point of media is to tell interesting stories.
You're asking why uninteresting characters aren't part of media that people pay for?
Gee.. I fuckin' wonder.
EDIT: Go read Pride and Prejudice then you fucking faggots.
I thought, aw come on, I can think of plenty! But then every example that popped into my head was from anime/manga.
I bought and played Dragon Quest 11 for the first time recently.
I would say that Serena qualifies as a submissive and feminine woman.
Absolutely. But DQ is Japanese.
I know as a teen growing up that my fantasy was Michelle Pfeiffer as Catwoman. Because she was all timid when she wasn't Catwoman and then sexy AF when she was.
I bet I can come up with 10 post 2000s but that requires some brain juice.
Some I can think of is Cheryl from Archer, that Annie from Community, April from Parks and Rec.
I would look into female sidekicks to a stronger stronk woman character. I'd imagine She-Hulk, She-Thor, and Wonder Woman would have a few of them in the comics up until around mid 2010s.
And then there are your punching bags, the victims and single mothers in film and tv. One I can think off on top of my head is the chick from Drive, I'm sure there are dozens if I look into it.
It's there, but the whole women in refrigerator piece really made it so writers has to put some agency into female characters rather then just being acted upon lest they get viewed as an enemy of wama'am.
Carey Mulligan in Drive with Ryan Gosling is a pretty decent example of a submissive character.
I can't remember many specifics about her character other than her beauty and her mousiness.
Perhaps the only counterargument was that she was a little too chummy with Gosling's character when her husband Oscar Isaacs was in jail.
that movie was just being honest.
Damn, I really should watch that movie again, and Nightcrawler, feel like those two would go good back to back.
Loved Nightcrawler as well.
Gyllenhaal played a great sociopath.
That one music video where Gyllenhaal played a crazed serial killer felt oddly realistic too. That man does unhinged characters very well.
Never seen it before.
Nice to see soy die.
OP never mention the female character had to be... not a crazy violent sadomasochist pyromaniac nutcase. I didn't watch the later seasons but didn't she roll over for most people in the show? You can be a submissive, meek and also a crazy bitch.
From what I remember of my Star Wars novels, I'd probably go with Winter, Cray or Cilgahl (though the latter is Mon Calamari).
I see a lot who are side characters, which makes sense. Soft spoken submissive characters wouldn't ever have a major role.
You clearly haven't watched much western medi...this is erroneous if you include the 80s and early 90s.
2000s yes.
Tess in Dick Tracy.
Willow's lesbian girlfriend in Buffy
Not really a traditional woman but Rose from 2 and a half men was submissive and soft spoken
Dexters sister in the show Dexter. I was shocked by how non feminist she was written. Just written as an attractive, pleasant woman at least to my memory.
My other thought is moneypenny from the good bond movies( 80s and earlier).
Alexis Castle (Molly C Quinn) from the TV show Castle. And even this example doesn’t fit vey well. She was outgoing & more of a people pleaser. But she was not a girl boss or pain in the ass either.
Moms and grandmas as supporting cast like Sookie's grandma from True Blood or Forrest Gump's mom fit the bill but probably aren't what you're looking for. Roseanne wasn't a girlboss but they killed her on her own show over politics. Willow and Tara on Buffy were both pleasant except for the arc where Willow tried to destroy the world with Satanic hellfire. They're out there.
She went from housewife to harpie over the series. They made her smarter and Homer dumber.
You’re an idiot and I don’t see how you’re still around other than we have incompetent mods.