Why The Genderswap Is The Best Thing About Warriors
Here's another post on The Warriors genderswap because I’m still not over how good it was!!!
You've got to understand that changing the Warriors to women was a sacrifice. No matter how good a choice it was, it alienated a lot of the people who would otherwise be obsessed with it.
Warriors is already a cult 70s movie - it doesn't have a huge fanbase. Making the main characters women basically alienated that entire fanbase. Because Warriors is very much a movie about masculinity.
The fans liked it because it was about masculinity, and masculine themes (courage, honour) done masculine-y.
You can find megafans of the movie on reddit or tumblr, who are very much annoyed that the story is no longer about men being men. The story isn't the same anymore, and they aren't interested.
But the change wasn't made without reason.
Lin Manuel Miranda previously thought it was impossible to turn the Warriors into a musical, despite it being one of his favourite movies. The thing that changed his mind? The genderswap.
The Warriors album was made because of the genderswap. Lin thought it was the only interesting way to tell the story in the modern age - and you know what? He was right.
Everything just hits harder when they're women.
Orphan Town and We Got You are hilarious because they're women.
Turning a male/female seductions on their head. Male seduction is a k-pop Ballad about being a nice guy? Genius.
Moments like Call Me Mercy and Park At Night are empowering and emotionally charged because they're women.
Mercy looks at the Warriors and for the first time in her life sees women that have empowered themselves, and drops everything in her life to join them, because she wants to feel like that too.
Ajax sees a catcaller sexually harassing all of her friends and thinks "I need to teach this guy a lesson, because no one else in the world will ever do that"
The story feels more intense - it feels scarier.
On some level, every women is afraid to walk home at night, and Warriors is just that feeling elevated to a musical. The threat doesn't just feel more real - it feels intimately relatable.
The genderswap was heavily inspired by gamergate. Warriors is now a story about women not being believed, being falsely accused and taken advantage of.
But the story's moral still ends up being that these women need to keep their pride, need to keep pushing on. Through everything they still hold their heads high.
God it just works so well.
Re-intepreting Luther into an incel-type villian who wants the women out of his "space"? Brilliant. Turning the controversial Swan/Mercy romance into a lesbian love story? Fantastic! Shifting the story from being about courage, to being about the courage to hold your head high even after being attacked with gender-charged abuse? Life-changing.
The emotions just... work better when they're women. Reversing the genderswap now would be taking the story's teeth away.
You can't reverse time now guys!
Much like Warriors evolved the book - the musical evolved the movie. The dudebros are scratching their heads - angry they can't relate to the musical, without realising that they aren't supposed to.
Warriors is no longer a story about masculinity. It's about femininity now and I couldn't be happier.
