Friday, December 2, 2011

Charlies Angels Sets Trend: Different Feminist Approach?

In most television shows that consist primarily of three or more female characters, the personalities of these characters interestingly don't resemble each other. One female character may be intelligent and strategic, one may be tough and aggressive, and the other may reflect more feminine characteristics such as beauty and fashion. I find it interesting that girls are portrayed as being able to have any given personality, but in terms of men, if they aren't always masculine it just doesn't make the cut. Furthermore, the basis of these type shows consists around "fighting" or investigating crime, which is usually understood in society as "man" like actions. In this case, why wouldn't all the characters have man-like characteristics?



The better question is why do male characters in super hero standard only express violence primarily to resolve conflict? It could be argued that a growing feminist idea is that men may only be usefull through aggressive means. Charlie's Angels is an excellent example, along with what I recognize as the cartoon version of this series, the Power Puff Girls. Both shows consist of three female based characters that are distinct from each other in persona, but work together to save their home town from crime and bad guys. The super hero has commonly been expressed through male characters like Super Man, Batman, the Green Lantern, Spider Man, etc. However, these heroes focus is always on their ability to fight and make dangerous feats in order to save the day. It's rare that male super heroes are seen as significant through making strategic decisions or for their blatant intelligence. Also, I myself cannot recall any movie or show where three or more male super heroes are high-lighted for anything besides their masculinity and ability to beat someone up. 


In Charlies Angels, the idea of the "Angels" is that with only three of them, they are able to fight crime in mutiple ways and not just violence. Is this phenomenon reserved for women? Moreover, is this barrier between "brains over bronze" becoming silently evident through the media? Charlies Angels is one of the earliest examples to use and could very well have been the start of this trend, or ideology. Of course this is just an idea. After all it does makes sense that three more sources of brain power and physical enforcement is better than just one, no matter if your a male or female. The set of Charlie's Angels just has a different feel of dominance than uses more than just the strength of your body, and almost limits the male super hero to just that.

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