i was thinking about how the female characters died in two of the franchises i used to like. they died so easy – with minimal struggle, as a sacrifice, as a penance… as if it was natural that their male counterparts would live and they would die. it disturbed me.
not their deaths, but how their deaths were framed. it was framed not as a conclusion to her story or her arc, but as an inevitable part of the story of their male counterparts – for his redemption, for his survival, for the final conclusion of his story. it was framed as a noble sacrifice or a heroic act. (the hero being the man, of course.)
it was so… so peaceful. so quick. so easy. so effortless.
as if they were not killing a woman, but picking a flower. as if they were just swatting a fly. the women barely struggled.
she surrenders.
she surrenders to the inevitable – her death – it is the logical conclusion, after all. if they can be of no further service to the plot or the male characters, it is time that she died. it is economical.
so she dies, so readily. as if death is the natural state of a woman. she is still and obedient when she’s a corpse. so she dies, so facilely.
a gurgle of breath. a drip of blood. the music swells. she is dead. there. done.
the male hero is distraught though. this is about him after all, not her. either acknowledging her noble sacrifice, or lamenting his heroic act. he sheds the single lone tear that signifies that he is sad, while retaining his machoism. (there isn’t much to grieve over anyway, after all the woman was barren. there isn’t much value to her. she wouldn’t attain motherhood, so she isn’t that valuable. come to think of it, she isn’t a virgin either. her value falls further. you see, men in movies go berserk when their mothers, wives or daughters are killed. a woman ought to be fertile, loyal to a man, or a virgin to be truly mourned.) anyway, focus on the male hero – his grief, his doubts. he will get whatever he wishes, his happily ever after. she will be an afterthought, a footnote in his story.
that was her purpose throughout, she just didn’t recognise it, till just before her death.
but i wondered – what if she didn’t die so effortlessly? what if she struggled like any human? what if she didn’t surrender? what if she willed to live? what if she didn’t wilt like a flower picked? what if she didn’t die effortlessly?
what if she died like a woman? an actual woman? yearning for life and grasping it with all her might even as she is getting killed? what if violence against women’s bodies were framed as actual violence, instead of a narrative device? instead of a way to showcase the hero’s nobility or pain?
would these scenes still be “beautiful”? “noble”? “heroic”? would we look at the lone tear that the hero shed and empathise?
