Attention TV & Movie Producers: Please Stop Re-Writing Male Parts for Women

Instead of re-creating iconic male roles as female ones, why not write terrific ORIGINAL female characters? The fact that you can't seem to come up with anything new for women is, frankly, kind of insulting. 

The trend of re-casting traditionally iconic male roles with women (or the re-creation of those male characters as women) is a current big pet peeve of mine. Here's why, as I would put it to any TV insiders if I got a chance to talk to them about it.

 I consider myself a feminist. Maybe not a radical one, but you'll find me supporting women's causes, and speaking up for downtrodden women all over the world. I am ALL for female power. FEMALE POWER, YAY! And, I LOVE powerful female heroes on TV, in movies, in books, and other media. But, when you change male roles to female ones, you lose me....and, I suspect, a lot of other women, too.

You insist you are promoting the empowerment of women by giving formerly male roles to them, but, I promise, you're actually doing just the opposite. It alienates much of your original audience (women included), and basically tells us you are so creatively bankrupt when it comes to women that you have to re-appropriate male roles for them because you can't come up with anything decent that's original.

Please, hire some more female writers, if you have to keep looking to gender-swapping male roles to give us anything powerful and interesting to do on the screen. Your female writers will, I assure you, create some amazing ORIGINAL characters for you who will become just as iconic as the male characters you seem so eager to change in a lame effort to appease us.

It's like when J.J. Abrams made the new Sulu in the Star Trek re-boot gay, and George Takei (the original Sulu) was against it. Abrams was surprised, as Takei is gay, and he did it as an homage to Takei himself. He didn't understand what Takei understood, and what women all over the world are beginning to understand....the character was not originally conceived that way. 

To Takei, making Sulu gay was going against Gene Roddenberry's original vision for the show and its characters. He said he wanted more gay representation on the screen, but would have MUCH preferred if a NEW character who was already gay had been written for the re-boot. 

To Takei, making an original Star Trek character gay who was not originally gay just drew attention to the fact he was gay; it was almost like token casting. Takei wanted a gay character who had been that way from the start, so his or her sexuality would not be viewed as anything unusual or different, but just part of who that character was from the beginning....their identity. He asked Abrams to please not insult Gene Roddenberry, himself, or gay people everywhere by making an existing character gay, when the original was not. Abrams did it anyway, because he apparently really couldn't be creative enough to make an awesome new gay character.

I certainly didn't like it when Josh Whedon did this to Willow in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Since she was originally heterosexual, making her gay in Season Four just brought attention to her sexuality, when it should have been the least interesting thing about her. He could have brought in the character of Tara with an awesome and original gay partner to become allies of the Scooby Gang, and it would have been much more effective and representative of the gay community. (I still think Willow and Xander should have been a couple, by the way.)

It's the EXACT same thing with changing originally male roles to female.

It's already been a thing in comics for a while. And, it's annoying. We've had female versions of:

• Spiderman
• The Joker
• Robin
• Captain America

And, who knows who else. I don't really follow comics, except for when they come up in online conversations or articles.

On TV and in the movies, we've had:

• The female Ghostbusters
• The Master on Doctor Who (changed into the female Missy)
• The Doctor on Doctor Who (the next one will be a woman....don't even get me started on how wrong that is)
• The all-female Ocean's Eleven that's supposedly being made

There's also the all-female version of The Odd Couple, which is typically performed on stage. It's not a new thing, but still an example of unnecessary male-female cast flipping.

Those who say this gender-swapping of iconic roles is empowering for women are totally missing the point. They say, "Why can't women envision themselves in the hero role? These traditionally male hero roles should be made female to give girls and women a hero with which to identify and aspire to." 

To me, it's just saying, "We couldn't be bothered to invent a cool, heroic female character, so here, ladies, have these spare male roles. Imagine what it would be like for you if that guy was a woman. He's already heroic, so you can ride your female-ness to heroism on his previously established coattails."

Honestly, TV and movie producers and writers, don't do it. Use some creativity.

There are dozens, if not hundreds of iconic male roles in media of all kinds, and these characters were created as originals. Why can't you do we women the same courtesy and create amazing, incredible heroic female characters for us the same way....as originals? 

Anything else is just insulting.

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