This month, Ready Player One was released into the world. Prior to this, I wrote an overly gushy review of the book. Back then, when I read it, I was excited that I had gotten out of my reading slump and I was pumped for an adventure that involved some video games that I am familiar with. (I consider myself to be somewhat geeky, but I am afraid of staking claim on geek culture, lest I be labelled fake.) However, I have to re-review the book, as I see its flaw more clearly. This doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy the story — I enjoyed it for what it was, and I thought it was well-developed, but I think I have to take back the part about well-developed characters in my review.
In Ready Player One, there’s a gamer girl by the name of Art3mis, who is almost like the protagonist in every way. She’s skilled at gaming, knows her 80s trivia, but somehow, by virtue of the plot, Wade has to be the one who claims the prize because he’s the protagonist. Despite her competence, Art3mis comes in second, and is the other prize for Wade — win the competition, get the girl, and live happily ever after.
Art3mis is a trope that I see in pop culture a lot — the cool girl sidekick who also functions as a prize, and Cline isn’t the only writer who is guilty of this. This appears in many pop culture franchises, and although it seems to empower women, it… really doesn’t because they are regarded as prizes.
After releasing Ready Player One, Cline wrote another book titled, Armada, which is about video gamers using their skills to fight aliens, because every first person shooter actually trains the best people to fight aliens. In it, the love interest is described as cool, right down to her outfit and her attitude. She’s almost as good as the player, and by virtue of the plot, survives enough to get together with the main character. She’s desirable since she likes the same things that the main character likes, and is therefore worthy as a prize.
This happens in Star Wars as well. There is no reason for Princess Leia or Queen Amidala to fall for Han Solo and Anakin Skywalker respectively. Both women are bad-ass in their own right–Leia is a decent sharp shooter and Amidala is a diplomat, but they somehow end up with Han and Anakin, even though there is no reason for them to fall for these men. Han is a sexual predator, projecting his own desires onto Leia by saying that she wants him even though she clearly doesn’t, and it was highly implausible for Amidala to fall for Anakin — it’s like falling for your little brother.
This happens in Stranger Things as well. In season 2, we’re introduced to Maxine, who beats the gang’s high score on some video game. The boys ogle her and stalk her, which is covered in Pop Culture Detective’s video about Stalking For Love. Even though the gang stalk her, she ends up with Lucas, which baffles me.
There are other examples of this–Lois Lane, a highly competent reporter, is Clark Kent’s prize, who ends up being saved by him so much that you don’t even need to read the comics to know that this happens. And yes, this overlaps with the Damsel in Distress trope, too.
So why is this bad? It seems like it’s progress, right? And I guess, to some extent, it is. Women have fought so long to get screentime where they’re not shown as airheads and now have some special skills and abilities in pop culture. But what limits them is how they become subordinate to the main character. By becoming a prize, the message sent to women is this — you can be competent, but not as competent as a man. You can be good, but at the end of the day, you are a prize, an trophy to be flaunted in a cabinet. Here, the girl’s agency ends. She’s nothing more than one of the spoils the main character reaps at the end of the quest. This actually suggests that a woman’s abilities are limited, and plays into a male power fantasy whereby men still dominate in a patriarchal society, one where they cannot conceive a woman excelling just as well as them and being on equal footing.
Moreover, how cool she is depends on stereotypical masculine interests in which men dominate. Being skilled at gaming, is only part of the equation — in the Big Bang Theory, we have Bernadette, who is a pretty good scientist herself. Whatever the woman’s interest is, it has to be in a male dominated field, or it is deemed unworthy. This diminishes the worth of supposed feminine interests — interests like make-up, fashion, sewing, and other feminine pursuits are de-valued and are not cool enough. We’re insinuating that some interests are cooler than others because, again, it’s a man’s world, and according to our value judgements, a woman’s interest is simply not as cool, or interesting, or valued as a man’s.
So what do we do?
- We can write more female protagonists who have myriad interests. There is nothing wrong with liking make-up and anything feminine. Characters like that can be well-rounded, too. Show everyone that there is merit in myriad interests, and make the character’s interests relevant to the plot.
- More importantly, even if the female character is good at a stereotypically masculine interest, we make her the main character. We need more women of different races and cultures represented in our media.
- We can choose not to pair off the female character with the male character. It’s that simple. We make them friends. This removes her status as a prize to begin with, and shows the audience that friendship can be just as rewarding as a romantic relationships. Too often, a heterosexual romantic relationship is portrayed as the ultimate goal in stories, while friendship is sidelined. It’s time to change that.
I, too, have fallen for The Cool Girl trope many a time, and to be honest, they seem pretty cool. I still enjoy all of these stories (except Star Wars) and there is nothing wrong with that. But being aware of the kinds of messages these tropes send is important, especially if we want equality. We need to progress from these trite tropes and show women that their potential is unlimited, because these representations influence the way we think.