Lucky shot
for a mutation
Yeah
I survived you
We survived you
Me and my sisters together
That line from the show Orphan Black was a call out to all the science fiction shows and movies in current times
The show's writers are referring to the fact that women have cemented their place in sci-fi and they aren't going anywhere
Orphan Black has never been afraid to speak lines both within and outside of its world
Orphan Black is evolution
In Hollywood sci-fi
Science fiction has always been a critique on modern society
Movies and shows within the genre generally take place in a future near or far in order to provide commentary on our experiences
in the present
Through the genre we can analyze the flaws and successes of our current civilization
But it took decades for the genre to land in a world where women get treated with the same gravitas and complexity
as the hundreds of male characters before them
Why is that?
To understand how long this has been an issue we've got to go back in time
When sci-fi started to be treated with blockbuster potential
Women were reduced to merely production design
2001: A Space Odyssey, the quintessential classic sci-fi film
is a movie that attempts to portray a realistic future with
easily accessible space travel
Unfortunately, it does not have meaningful female characters
When we do see women they work in service to the male characters or are sitting politely without significantly affecting the plot.
By 1968, the year of 2001's release
America had accepted women's ability in the workforce
thanks to their contributions during World War II and the post-war effort
Why didn't 2001, a movie set 33 years in the future
take the logical leap forward to portray more women in space?
And 2001 didn't stand alone with this issue
Women are virtually non-existent in films of the era, including Soylent Green and Westworld
Failing to predict a logical future from the times they were created
But Hollywood execs soon began to realize that women are dynamic and complex characters
Women started to see their roles adapt into something more meaningful
And were able to get roles with more substance, but still little agency
You're braver than I thought
Periodically they were integral to the plot
But the majority of their existence was to assist the male heroes, either as one-note plot devices, or as developed characters
who cede the final success story to their male counterparts
In Back to the Future our main female character is the promiscuous future mother of our main character, played for laughs
Oh, I guess they call you Cal, huh?
In Blade Runner the woman finds out she's not even real
On the other end of the spectrum this era did give us the
poignant characters of Lieutenant Uhura in Star Trek and Princess Leia in the original Star Wars
I recognized your foul stench when I was brought on board
But they were sideshows
Primarily outside the main plot driven by the male characters
Princess Leia kick-starts the plot of Star Wars: A New Hope with her message for Obi-Wan
...this droid safely delivered to him on Alderaan. This is our most desperate hour.
But it's ultimately so that Luke can save the day during the final battle over the Death Star
There are a choice few pieces of Cinema that deviated from the trend carving their own split path on the
evolutionary tree
The prime example of a strong female lead in science fiction is Ellen Ripley from the Alien franchise
Ripley's character was the first honest opportunity to see a leading star in a big-budget science fiction movie
played by a woman
She was rebellious, inspiring, and meaningful in a genre dominated by men
However, Ripley was a rarity
The exception to the rules
Famously, Ripley's role was originally written for a male actor
The casting director working with Ridley Scott brought in Sigourney Weaver to audition along with the many men on Scott's list
Ridley Scott was blown away by Weaver's performance over the men
And the rest is sci-fi history
The basic simple act of changing the pronouns in the screenplay was such a novel and groundbreaking occurrence
that Alien is widely considered the feminist sci-fi movie of the 70s
But therein lies a core complication
Ripley wasn't written as a woman
And it can be argued that as a result she is reduced to a generic action hero stereotype
And while the film is now considered a classic, it was initially panned by critics
worrying Hollywood bigwigs about betting on more movies featuring strong female leads
Is that acceptable to you?
The Terminator and T2
The first two movies in The Terminator series
are key examples of two types of female sci-fi characters
The Sideshow dragged along by the plot
And the masculinized leading woman
In The Terminator we meet Sarah Connor
A damsel in distress who needs to be saved and protected
She then becomes a sexual object for Kyle Reese
And then has to continue to survive knowing that her main value is being the birth mother of John Connor
The leader of the resistance
The plot is literally incubated in her
That drastically changes when T2 rolls around
Sarah's character has become so grizzled, so hardened, so angry
that she's essentially a different character
Ready
While she cares for and protects her son John
the motivation comes from a sense of duty to the savior of humanity, more than a sense of motherly affection
The movie hands all of the meaningful emotional moments to the Terminator's and John's scenes
painting Sarah as a crazed guardian who's willing to kill innocent lives for the sake of humanity
And while yes, it was progress
It hadn't hit the full macro-evolution point that Sarah Manning speaks to in Orphan Black
A new era had to be welcomed
The 1990s and early 2000s blew by
and not much progress happened in this space
Hollywood did give us Trinity, a supporting role in The Matrix
A character in the vein of Princess Leia that has her own storyline, but steps aside so the protagonist can have
the final moments of Glory
Only recently have we seen a true speciation in female characters in sci-fi
In the last 10 years there was an explosion of teen dystopian sci-fi
The Hunger Games burst on the scene in 2012 with a hero that finally resolved many of the former issues
that we've explored with women in science fiction
Katniss Everdeen was a strong woman
As the protagonist of the movie, her motivation is derived from being a protecter for her family and her sisterly duties
I volunteer
I volunteer as tribute
She was also a perfect heroine
Perfect aim with a bow and arrow
Perfect survival skills
And a perfect intellect to best her way through the games
Saving both herself and Peeta at the end of it all
Yet there was one flaw
Katniss' character relied on perfection
Katniss was the best example of a human being on a dystopian Earth
She's fit, fierce, protective, attractive and the only thing that brings her back to Earth is her guarded personality
A lot of movies in recent years have fit this perfect heroine distinction
The next major step in the evolution of women on the sci-fi screen
Arrival features a professor acted by Amy Adams whose perfection shows through in her arguments with the men surrounding her
Dr. Banks' most compelling moments are visible through her being smarter and more thoughtful than the military
macho men that steamroll her
You saw what they wrote
Using a word they don't fully understand
Warning
Enough
Louise
We don't know
If they understand
The difference between
A weapon
And a tool
Our language, like our culture
Is messy and sometimes
One can be both
Because Dr. Banks and Katniss had minimal character flaws
Audiences weren't getting the deeply layered characters that men had been able to play for years
And we don't really get complex sci-fi women until we start seeing shows like Orphan Black
In the show, Tatiana Maslany plays many characters
All clones
Having one actress play so many people with vastly different experiences
Is an astute metaphor for the wide range of the female experience
Maslany plays hippies, corporate villains, suburban moms, and thieves
And for once
We finally get to see stories about women where women get to be complex heroes and motivated villains
Anti-heroes, leaders, conniving characters
We've already been seeing these archetypes for decades for men
This is what Sarah means when she says we survived you
This is evolution
With the burst of great content available at everyone's fingertips, it finally allowed Hollywood the space to take risks
on stories they were unwilling to try out before
Orphan Black's clones, Fury Road's Furiosa, Annihilation's scientists
All of these female-led films and shows prove that there's been a market for years and only now is Hollywood finally
understanding that evolution
Big budget popular Science Fiction is now a healthy and realistic portrayal of society
The future is female
And Hollywood is starting to understand that
We're hopeful for sci-fi that tell the stories of all of you
Whatever type of human you may be