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Reaching a Female Audience: The She-ra Approach

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There’s plenty of discussion in the science-based and secular humanist movements about how to get more women interested in joining and participating in atheist and skeptic organizations. As a writer and artist, an important part of my work is creating stories that are appealing to girls and young women. I thought I’d share some of my influences and the mode of operation I like to call “The She-ra Approach” when it comes to creating a female-friendly atmosphere.

The medium I work in to tell my stories is sequential art, specifically, manga—-a form of comic book storytelling originating from Japan and made popular by its animated counterpart, anime. Some of the appealing characteristics of the manga industry are the prevalence of both female readers and creators; something which sets it apart from the traditional comic book industry. I find that when American comics, movies, and animation attempt to portray positive images of women, they tend to create female characters that are quite masculine. As a young girl, I remember equating “girliness” with weakness, because most examples of strong women didn’t care about things like pretty clothes, makeup, doing your hair, and owning cute things. That is, until I came across anime, and not only discovered main characters that were girly, but that there was an entire genre devoted to female readers: shoujo.

The first anime series I became I fan of was Fushigi Yuugi by a female mangaka named Watase Yuu. The main character of the series was a cute school girl, Miaka, with brown hair and big brown eyes, just like me! She was interested in boys, clothes, and cute hairdos. She could be whiny, clumsy, and require rescue, but somehow, when it came to really important responsibilities, she came through—-she could resolve the story’s conflict without having to be “tough”. She was a different kind of heroine; one that could cry, be love-sick, and need the help of others. Even though she definitely wasn’t a perfect role model, Miaka made me feel it was okay to be girly.

Anime is one of the few forms of entertainment that has a high percentage of stories with female leading characters; Characters that seem powerful because they’ll have special powers, or can wield magic (women in Western storytelling are typically evil witches if they can use magic) but that doesn’t mean they’re necessarily good role-models for girls—far from it. There’s plenty of garbage with horrible presentations of girls and women that make the Disney princesses look like feminists.

Luckily for me, I was born in the 80s! For a short time between 1983-86 there was He-Man and The Masters of the Universe and its spin-off, She-ra: The Princess of Power. Indeed, She-ra was the female version of He-man, but here’s why that didn’t make her simply a male character in a female body—-He-man wasn’t your stereotypical macho superhero. Because of concerns by parent groups over He-man’s hyper-macho appearance and the unusual action-based content of the cartoon for the time, He-man’s personality was written to balance his appearance. He was kind, empathetic, and demonstrated emotions and affection. I always got the feeling that his only motivation for being a hero was that he genuinely cared about others. Unlike most superheroes, who seem to need a rationale for using their powers, he didn’t need a justification for doing good, such as a sense of responsibility, a cause like justice, or a motivation like revenge. Being a caring person was reason enough.

The effect this had, when it came to creating He-man’s twin sister, was that a female character was being based off a male character that had traits which would typically be characterized as feminine. The result was a pair of equals who were well balanced human beings. As a small child, I grew up with two heroes who taught me that their traits—-bravery, empathy, strength, kindness—-weren’t exclusive to one gender or the other; these were the traits of good people. Period.

Pictured: Adam being fabulous

Masters of the Universe was one of the most successful cartoon franchises of all time, pioneering the production of animated series broadcasted daily, as opposed to the standard weekly Saturday morning schedule. When Mattel decided to create a spinoff geared towards a girl audience, the writers at Filmation approached the issue of expanding the He-man universe into one which appealed more to girls in a manner which has influenced not only my childhood, but my work as a storyteller as well. Although the aesthetics of the She-ra series clearly differs from Masters of the Universe with a more stereotypical “girl look” and its pastel palette (though MotU main character, Prince Adam, was dressed in a fabulous palette of light pink and purple) the content of the series kept what made Masters of the Universe popular: magic mixed with sci-fi action.

She-ra: Princess of Power had more female characters than Masters of the Universe but what’s most important is how they presented the higher ratio of women, the key ingredient to “The She-ra Approach”. The plot never drew any attention to the fact that She-ra, or any other female character, was a woman. She-ra was amazing for many reasons, but never because she was a woman. The lesson was never “Look, girls, She-ra saved the day and she’s a girl! She can do anything a boy can, and so can you!” I grew up knowing that women and men were equals because it never occurred to me to think otherwise.

Sure, She-ra was a series that looked more “girly” than Masters of the Universe. Many of She-ra’s friends were princesses, just like her. There was more emphasis on nature and magic than there was in He-man’s world. But, unlike most of the Disney princesses, She-ra (aka Princess Adora) and her friends were princesses because they were daughters of Queens, and not because they married a prince. When it came to the battle between Princess Adora’s nature-loving rebellion and Hordak’s destructive high-tech regime, there were men and women on both sides. Good and evil, caring or oppressive, these weren’t things that had any attachment to one gender over the other.

You don’t have to go out of your way to appeal to girls. I think there’s a danger in over-thinking what changes to make in order to have something be female-friendly. You run the risk of creating something that is so stereotypically feminine that it sends the message that girls can’t handle anything remotely masculine, or trying to stay away from stereotypically feminine traits so much as to give the message that anything feminine is undesirable.

There’s a short moment in the She-ra origin story, The Secret of the Sword (a film which is also the first five episodes of the series), which I find to be a good example of achieving this balance. Glimmer, the leader of The Great Rebellion, is introduced to Prince Adam for the first time (at about the 12:30 mark). She appears to be going over plans, but when Bow appears with Adam she takes the briefest moment to show her interest in seeing this new handsome friend, then immediately switches back to leader mode to check out the commotion going on outside, and even scolding Bow for causing a ruckus. I like this tiny detail because it shows that Glimmer is a leader, but isn’t stone-cold. Taking a moment to “Ooooh” over a cute guy isn’t associated with weakness.

The success of this approach is that the core contents of what was appealing about the franchise wasn’t changed just because they wanted to expand their product to girls. Boys loved He-man because it combined sword-fighting action with magic and space ships. There was no reason to take any of those things away when making She-ra. In fact, because the series didn’t alter that winning combination, the She-ra series had a strong following of boy fans tuning into the show as well. If you make something that’s good it won’t matter if it’s meant for boys or girls. As a little girl, the dark colour palette and castles shaped like giant skulls didn’t deter me from watching He-man, and She-ra proved boys would tune in to a show with a cast of women and scenery painted with pinks and pastels. The result was a franchise that not only gave girls good female role models, but exposed boys to them as well.

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Some geeky side notes: Masters of the Universe had strong female characters as well. Teela was captain of the Royal Guard, Queen Marlena (He-man’s mom) was a talented pilot and astronaut from Earth, and The Sorceress ruled Castle Grayskull and constantly gave guidance to He-man. Before you point out that the women in both He-man and She-ra were scantily clad, it should be noted that nearly every character was. Only a few characters wore armor (like Man-at-Arms, but c’mon, that was his name!) and pantslessness was nearly universal. I can’t count how many random background characters are old men wearing tunics sans-pants. This probably was due to the characters being modeled after the template for the action figures the cartoon was based on.

Pictured: Pantsless tunics aren’t just for girls!


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