writing a strong female protagonist, part deux

all right, peeps. time for me to do an informational post comprised entirely of my opinion. some of you might agree, some of you might not. that's fine. we're all adults, right? we can have disagreements.

tonight's topic of discussion:

Bella Swan.

in all honesty, i've been dying for a forum in which to pinpoint the exact ways that ms bella does us a disservice as womenfolk. even when we were lovestruck teenagers, we eventually figured out, either through our own experiences or the commonsense advice of close friends, that mr awesome wasn't all he was cracked up to be. and we moved on.

here's what bothers me about bella (and yeah, i read all four of those books).

1) Bella never progresses. the same silly girl who fell in luvst with edward in the beginning is the exact same girl who births renesme in the last book. there's no indication that she has grown as a human being, you know, like normal people. there's no sense of maturity. she lives, eats, sleeps, and breathes edward. her entire world revolves around him. where's her independence? where is her identity? it's like she doesn't have one until she meets him, and then she's mindnumbingly redundant, which leads me to point number 2.

2)She's superficial. even the most resolute twihard (right? i really don't know twilight lingo) will admit that bella is fixated on edward's looks. and that never. changes. ever. i eventually got to the point where i just read dialogue because i was so annoyed by how much bella missed edward's sculptured chest or eyes or whatever. i guess she couldn't miss parts of his personality, given he doesn't actually have one. he's as exciting as a rice cake. not even the caramel- or chocolate-covered ones. the original. bland. tasteless. rice cakes.

now, don't get me wrong. everyone who knows me knows that i'd leave my bf in a heartbeat for chris evans (bf knows it too; unfortunately, chris evans does not) and for the first few months, i'd likely worship the ground the man walks on. however, at SOME POINT, that fades. i'd stop noticing his piercing blue eyes and perfectly sculpted chest in favor of his charm, his wit, and his intellect. i'd engage him in conversations about life, love, music, our choice of arts... i'd get to know HIM inside, not just outside. my guy is a really good-looking man, if i say so myself. when i'm away from him, i don't miss his body. i miss HIM. i miss his voice. i miss his stupid jokes. i miss laughing with him while we watch stupid people on 'most shocking.' i miss the comfort he provides. i miss the way he smells. i miss the way my head fits perfectly into his shoulder... i miss how he GETS me. i just want HIM, you know? not his chiseled manly form or whatever the hell she calls it. i can understand missing someone to the point of insanity, but it's gotta be more than his muscles and pasty sparkling skin. really.

3) She's the woman tied to the railroad tracks. Other known aliases: Damsel in distress. Woman tied to a chair with a stick of dynamite. Princess locked away in a tower. we've all seen the movies and read the fairy tales. rapunzel is locked away in a tower, just waiting for someone to come by and rescue her. sleeping beauty is awakened by her true love's kiss. dudley-do right has to rescue nell from any number of snidely whiplash's traps. you know who kicked serious ass? rachel weiss' character from the mummy, evelyn. she even came back from the DEAD and kicked anck su namun's reincarnated butt! hellz yeah, nefertiri! some seriously awesome sai work there. or hows about max from dark angel (fell in girl love with jessica alba on that show)? she TOTALLY kicked ass, but she was still vulnerable with logan. she did whatever she had to to protect the people she loved. granted, she was genetically altered, but still.

my point is that bella does nothing but promote (unhealthy) conflict while never acting as part of the resolution. though the story is told in her POV, everything happens TO her, never BY her, if that makes any sense. the one semi-brave thing she does is confront james, and even that is a bad idea. she only gets herself into more trouble and then edward has to come rescue her for the zillionth time. she can't get herself out of trouble.

there's a huge bold line between help from friends and being saved by friends. let me give you an example.

in TEEK, by steven krane, alison is wanted by the government because she's part of a controlled experiment and has NO idea about it until she somehow makes a boy's pelvis explode. yeah. that's right. EXPLODE! but that's not what makes her a strong female protagonist, oh no. what does is that, despite her paralyzing fear, alison DOESN'T GIVE UP. she fights through to the end to uncover what this whole teek thing is and why it's happened to her. why she's different. and she does so with the help of her sassy friend macy and the dad she never really knew. then there's this awesome teek fight between her and jessica and...yeah. you'll have to read it yourself. i'll mail it to you.

but do you see the difference? please say 'yes!' the situations are different, but the principle is the same. strong female protags push the action. weak ones are pushed BY the action.

...i'm totally copyrighting those last two.