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On Arrow, women are constantly treated as tools rather than characters, used to further the legend of Oliver Queen.
I suspect that Waller’s death was management-mandated: there was a rumor, when Deadshot was killed off last season, that DC/Warner was clearing the decks and didn’t want any of the cast of the Suicide Squad movie appearing in Arrow anymore. I dismissed the theory at the time but Waller’s sudden and anticlimactic death leaves me much more inclined to believe it.
That doesn’t mean your premise isn’t valid, though; the pattern you’re describing is real, regardless of how any individual example originated or was executed. Hell, your list isn’t even exhaustive; what about last season when Oliver kidnapped Lyla, and the betrayal was explored entirely in terms of how it affected his relationship with Dig?
I think the show’s gotten better in its portrayal of its female cast, by leaps and bounds (look at where Thea and Laurel are now, for example, compared to early in the series where they were addicts and their lives were a mess), but it’s still got a long way to go.
The Suicide Squad killing rumor is interesting. If so, it’s curious they would bother to bring Katana back this week. And if so, what her fate may be in the next few episodes.
A major difference between the Barbara and Felicity comparison: after being shot, Barbara wasn’t able to be Batgirl and sought out a new manner in which to fight crime, reinventing herself as Oracle. Felicity was already in that role, so the shooting is a personal struggle. Finally giving her the title “Overwatch” could have (and should have) come at anytime beforehand.
I read your piece with great interest, particularly given the headline. You actually forgot a few instances, like when Slade Wilson killed Shado or when Sara Lance was murdered.
You also might have forgotten when Robert Queen killed his (male) aide before committing suicide. Or when Tommy Merlyn died. Or all the times Diggle has been in jeopardy. Or the two times Roy was kidnapped. Or, y’know, when Oliver was stabbed through the chest and kicked off a mountaintop.
To date, we’ve removed the eyeballs of two characters on Arrow — both male.
To date, we’ve tortured scores of people — especially Oliver — all male.
It’s hard to escape the reality that Arrow is a dark show where bad things happen — often to good people.
But your focus on what’s happened to our female characters is selective to say the least. Your ignorance of convenience also extends to turning a blind eye to the strength of Laurel Lance, Felicity Smoak, Sara Lance, Thea Queen, Helena Berinelli and Nyssa al Ghu — four of them costumed super-heroes in their own right. And we haven’t even debuted Vixen on the show.
I appreciate you watching the show. I just wish that you weren’t being so selective about it.
Interesting read. While I agree with some aspects I also disagree with others. Don’t feel like debating it though. Also, maybe it doesn’t bother me as much b/c while I love the Flash I feel like their female characters are reduced to solely love interest roles. So, I often find myself enjoying the females on Arrow more because we see them in the action. They are all strong on their own right. Arrow is also female heavy so yes the females are in danger more often thus damsel in distress feeling but men have often needed rescued as well. Roy particularly this episode. Ray an episode. And how often in the flashbacks has often been rescued by a women often Shado whether hallucinating or not. It goes both ways.
This reads to me as not coming from a place of “female characters should be treated better”, but more from “female characters should not be harmed at all–i.e., since women in real life have been legitimately treated poorly in a myriad number of ways over the centuries of human history, we should completely eliminate the suffering of women in our fiction”. The former can be a valid point; the latter is an utterly unrealistic expectation–good and bad things happen to women and men all the time, and any character, of any gender, who doesn’t experience strife of some kind in their story is, quite frankly, so uninteresting as to be pointless.
Furthermore, this particular assertion baffles me:
“….’Arrow’ isn’t interested in exploring storylines that divert attention from Oliver Queen’s journey.”
Next, I suppose you’re going to complain about how “The Flash” mistreats Caitlin Snow and Iris West because it focuses too much “attention” on *the character whose name happens to be the title of the series*. We can argue all day about how there should be more examples in TV, and particularly those adapted from comics, of shows with a female central character, but it’s, again, unrealistic to expect that any series will spend any great length of time on storylines that don’t in some way involve and draw focus to the main character. The show’s still called “Arrow”, not “Team Arrom”, and it’s still Ollie’s story at the end of the day.
1. Waller clearly sacrificed herself to save Lyla.
2. Nobody on Team Arrow actually liked Waller. She committed (or ordered) five horrible acts for every one grey/good action on this show. Giving her a big touching send off would have been very, very out of place. Diggle and Lyla may have had some respect for her, but for everyone else she was only tolerated when it was absolutely necessary. Frankly, I was surprised that they gave her a solemn toast instead of saying ‘good riddance’ and throwing a party.
3. Every male character has played damsel in distress as well. Roy much more than the rest, but Diggle, Tommy, Maseo, Ray Palmer, Yao Fei, Detective Lance, Curtis, and Oliver have all had turns. Acting like this is only a problem for the women on Arrow is hilarious.
4. Sara has died countless times? You can’t count to two? Once on the boat (she didn’t actually die then, but whatever) and once by Merlyn via Thea.
5. I felt they spent an adequate amount of time with Felicity’s feelings in last week’s episode, but the little inspirational speech Curtis gave last night rang hollow to me as well. I don’t think the narrative should revolve around her injury given this is an action-oriented superhero show, but you’re right in that it’s being glossed over and tidied up a bit too quickly.
6. That last paragraph is mostly speculation, so I’m going to leave it alone.
“At least The Killing Joke, the Batman story that crippled Barbara Gordon and inspired Felicity’s story, was willing to delve into some of the horrific emotional baggage from Barbara’s injury. ”
What? No it didn’t. The biggest flaw in The Killing Joke, that it’s roundly criticized for nowadays, is that it doesn’t deal at all with the impact it had on Barbara at all, only on the impact it had on her father (and to some degree on Batman).
Alan Moore had her crippled and sexually assaulted only to motivate the male characters. It was Kim Yale and John Ostrander who explored how Barbara felt about it.
LOLOLOL pwned by Guggenheim.
Writing a poorly researched article is NOT okay.
Comicbeat’s Alexander Jones does selective research, and it’s NOT okay.
Tried to score points with the “look at me I’m an ‘in-tune to women’s issues’ male” but was shot down with facts.