Feisty, independent and a scardey-cat

Pretty much every time I see a new heroine emerge on a movie or TV series these days, I notice the same kind of buzzwords creeping in - she’s feisty, she’s independent, she does thing on her own terms…

I read interviews with the actress, all of which confirm that her character is indeed feisty, independent and likes to do things on her own terms. It’s a good thing, we’re all reminded, to be your own person (honestly, there’s a certificate you can get and everything), to take no crap from anybody and not to be afraid of getting in people’s faces. The last one is particularly perplexing - why exactly do I need or want this person in my face again? Last time I checked, my face needed space.

I’m over-egging it here, I know, but there is a definite cultural phenomenon here - and one that sometimes overwhelms subtler stuff that might actually do the same job better.

I guess it’s like the big speech bit in a blockbuster movie, when the hero or heroine rallies a stout-hearted bunch of followers with some rousing words about freedom and honour and the spirit of whatever… Often, these are the bits that feel a little forced, or even a little annoying. They only work when you really believe the truth behind them, rather than feeling it’s just a handy way of getting people stirred up for a big fight with lots of swordplay and explosions.

Often enough, you find the truth of the heroic cause through fairly small things - a sudden moment of understanding or empathy between two characters, perhaps, or the heroine’s dawning realisation that every damn thing she does is going to have consequences… and that some of them are going to hurt much more than she realised. They’re moments of guilt and uncertainty, doubt and fear…

Whatever it is that sets our heroine on her cause, however brash of vibrant her style, it is often something far more fragile that draws us into her story.

How do you find the strength to carry on when you’ve just had to send the tortured vampire-boy of your dreams into hell, just at the moment he gets his soul back? How do you carry on working for an organisation that you know is evil, knowing that the man you work with thinks he’s one of the good guys?

I love the fun of a good bit of kick-ass vampire slaying as much as the next person. I think daring escapes and leap-of-faith stunts across flaming gorges are really cool, and I love it when the heroine decides it’s time to ditch the touchy-feely nonsense and kick some alien butt.

“Get away from her, you bitch!” - damn right, Ripley.

But I care more about that stuff when I know what it means to the heroine, when I feel what she’s been through to get there.

In the final season of Buffy, there’s a lovely exchange between Xander and Dawn, who’s just discovered that she’s not potential slayer material after all. It’s a quiet moment for all the non-heroes out there who find themselves having to get on with stuff anyway, without any special powers to help bolster their resolve.

This is us, the audience, the people in scaredy-cat land, where a lonesome ride home in a train carriage can be far more terrifying, dispiriting or even soul-destroying than any vampire monster.

This is us, finding our way through a world that all-too-often conspires to make us vulnerable.

This is us, wondering from each day to the next just how much of a distance we should keep to protect ourselves from the unspoken terror around us.

In this world, vulnerability is not really a sign of weakness at all. To allow ourselves to be vulnerable, to risk empathy with others, to reveal some part of ourselves and share what we have learned with those we care about - these are the qualities that pass for courage in the world that most of us live in.

This is for all the heroines I have known, real and imaginary, who have conquered such fears.

John is the writer behind Matterings where he writes about stuff.