However, many criticisms have been leveled at such attempts because alot of female-centric media that has been created as of late has never really been 'great' or even accurate. That Hollywood is trying to fill diversity and representation quotas rather than make a good media that has women as its center.

Common and widely spewed critiques of this movie include not only a half-assed attempt at pleasing the #MeToo movement and to pander to the LGBT+ Community in the most shallow way possible by brute forcing a lesbian relationship with Daphne and Velma--a relationship that was not built up but rather made immediate. The fact that they belittled Fred with the only joke around him being the 'dumb white guy'.

Overall, the show's bad attempt at trying to represent women and diverse characters in the most inaccurate and shallow way possible, despite being made by a women.

The show tries to portray that women go through much more suffering than males do in this male-dominated society, but while that is generally true, the attempts that they portray in the show is superficial at best, and insultingly simplified and demaning at worst.

As an example, She-Hulk tries to belittle The Hulk in this show by saying that she is much better at controlling her anger, and calmer than the Hulk because she keeps her calm when she gets catcalled or told by other males how to do a job that she specializes in. And she says this in the most insulting, demeaning, and way possible.

And the reason why this is so bad is because Hulk is one of the most tragic characters in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. One of the characters that has canonically tried to commit suicide. Has lost his most of his loved ones. Has bore witness to the Blip, and every disaster that happened throughout the MCU.

While yes, She-Hulks issues are valid, she shouldn't make it a competition or to compare problems with other people, especially not the Hulk. And if we give her a taste of her own medicine and actually compare problems here--her own issues are absolute nothingburgers, completely irrelevant, and downright microscopic compared to what the Hulk has gone through. Hell, She-Hulk doesn't even earn her pride or her acclaim. She hasn't accomplished anything near the Hulk has.

And this scene of She-Hulk trying to one-up the Hulk not only invalidates the Hulk, but also instills the idea to many children and women that comparing and invalidating problems with other people, especially males, is a good thing. That it empowers women. That the best way to go around addressing issues is to make it seem like everyone else's issues do not compare to your own. Instead of properly addressing or processing female-centric issues such as catcalling or being belittled by male superiors in fields she is an expert in, she tries to make it grander compared to what males go through.

It is a well-known fact that males struggle to express their feelings and keep problems to themselves, which lead to higher suicide rates compared to women (A. England, 2023).

And this media doesn't help with that fact. It doesn't just fail to empower women in a healthy way, but even enforce an already harmful behavior amongst many males around the world.

It's not just She-Hulk that has this problem, but generally a lot of women in the MCU, such as Captain Marvel and Shuri.

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUmqKqE4HJM

Source: https://www.healthline.com/health/mens-health/mens-suicide-rate

Using Disney as an example, Bob Iger, the CEO of the Company, is actually responsible for a lot of the diversity and representation, as he has stated that it is the one change he wanted to leave during his term as Disney's CEO. However, I don't blame him necessarily for the misrepresentation happening in Disney and Marvel related films, as those are primarily the work of the directors, the writers, producers, and at times even the actresses themselves.

And why this is relevant is simply because times are changing. While we are still in a majorily patriarchal society, there have been great strides in accomplishing a lot of the issues women has had for a long time. However, a lot of media owners are quite out of touch.

Because they see the #MeToo movement has gained popularity, they superficially align themselves to the movement not because a lot of them wholeheartedly support or believe in it, but because that's where the money is. This is a breeding ground for many shallow representations and a lot of misrepresentations. A fact that looking at Hollywood right now would quite immediately prove.

And with that context in mind, it's important that female representation should be corrected and be judged. We don't want the wrong ideas and the wrong lessons to be learned by next generation, don't we?

Bob Iger: https://variety.com/2020/film/news/disney-ceo-bob-iger-executive-diversity-2021-chapek-1203518019/

Whether they be girlbosses in a shallow attempt to make empowering messages, or sexualized caricatures and damsels in distress, a lot of writers, directors, and producers in Hollywood and in general media just can't seem to understand that a proper representation of women... is to show women as they are. Be strong and independent without being rude and demeaning. Be charismatic and attractive without being a lust-filled succubus. Be traditional without judging modernity.

And fortunately, to counteract a lot of the bad representation examples I just showed, I have a lot of GOOD female representation in the mainstream that actually accurately women, and portrays an ideal and healthy version of women empowerment.

Bella Swan in the movies is nothing but an object to be competed for by the two love interests in the series, Jacob and Edward. Always constantly sexualized, lusted after. Hell, she's even psychologically and physically abused in the films a lot of the time. Repeatedly shown as being a damsel in distress. She has no agency other than to choose which boy to pick. In fact, her depiction is quite unhealthy, as the Twilight franchise in general and her portrayal fetishizes powerlessness, abuse, and simplifies all her problems to a point that all it takes to fix them is a boy to be there for you.

While a lot of other movies and media show the sexualized damsel in distress or the objectivity problem more so than Bella Swan in Twilight, I found her to be the most appropriate amalgamation of all those problems.

The movie is a about two women with different types of power. The protagonist Merida is all about masculine, hard power. She's all about riding horses as fast as she can, shooting arrows, and independency. While her mother, the Queen Elinor, is all about feminine, soft power. She's all about asserting dominance through charisma and traditional means and filling in the traditional female royalty trope.

These two ideas on what better femininity clashes in the movie, as mother and daughter fight for what's good for themselves and the kingdom.

Merida longs to be independent but is forced to be the damsel in distress by her mother. While Elinor is traditional through and through and wants to eliminate her daughter's dreams of independency.

However, the good decision this film decides to do is to not belittle one idealogy over the other. Recognizing that both of them have their own advantages and unique strengths and can fit in well with the rest of society. That both types of feminine power are valid. That there's no shame in women accepting traditional female powers and no shame in women also breaking the mold.

Merida is proven wrong and shown that her mother's traditionality has its own advantage. Elinor is also proven wrong and shown that Merida's straightforwardness also leads to surprisingly good results.

In the end of the film, Merida learns this lesson by adopting some of her mother's charismatic and traditional traits, while Elinor also learns to let loose once in a while and embrace wildness like her daughter.

Unlike more recent representations of hard power and independency like Captain Marvel, where the characters are more like caricatures of ideals rather than accurate portrayals and actually showcasing the problems women suffer, Merida actually DOES suffer the problems women went through during this time--more specifically, the arranged marriage, and tries her best to go around it in the best way she can.

And instead of throwing aside and demeaning the traditional tropes Hollywood and society these days looks down on, Elinor embraces it. In fact, even shows that being traditional is also powerful in its own right.

It's perhaps one of the best examples of female representation in media, as its more nuanced than most depictions Hollywood and mainstream media released in recent years.

Sarah Connor is what a badass, hard power female character should be. Someone who actually earned her badassery, both with the achievements, skills, and the effort to pull off the acclaim and status that she has.

She started off as a damsel in distress, actually. Originally hunted by the first Terminator and had to be saved and protected by Kyle Reese, the knight in shining armor for her. However, as time passed by, Sarah has seen and lived through enough encounters and life-threatening situations, she has adapted. She has slowly developed a skillset and the necessary abilities to survive to a point where she no longer needed Kyle Reese to save or protect her.

In fact, she becomes the one who does the protecting, as when Kyle Reese and she conceives a child, John Connor, she has to be the one that protects John from the hunts of the Terminators, pulling off impressive feats that makes her an unforgettable badass. All the while, she never loses her femininity and loses the female-specific problems that plague her. She just learned to cope and address it by herself. A woman that not only knows the issues on what its like to be a woman, but stands up and fights despite all of that.

Through character development, struggle, and effort, Sarah's depiction of hard power becomes what modern Hollywood movies dream to achieve. And for some reason these writers and directors just can't understand why Sarah was such a good badass, meanwhile the women like She-Hulk and Captain Marvel that they pass off as badass doesn't even compare.

They try to make it so that Captain Marvel and She-Hulk is a badass because they don't struggle or because they do things effortlessly. And if they do struggle, it's all superficial things that they think is everybody's fault instead of internalizing those problems and dealing with it.

But what makes Sarah a badass isn't because she doesn't struggle. It's because she does. All the time, even. And in ways and leagues that Captain Marvel and She-Hulk can't compare. (Yes, I'm comparing their problems because if She-Hulk likes to compare problems, I might as well do the same to her.)