The perfect suburban '50s housewife. The wholesome girl next door. And, of course, the bimbo. I think it's safe to say we've seen one too many of these tropes on the big screen.
Interested in finding out which productions have resorted to them (and other similar ones), Reddit user Mikess314 made a post on r/AskWomen, saying: "What movie featuring female characters was clearly made without a single woman being involved?"
Turns out, people think there's no shortage of them. Continue scrolling to check out how everyone responded.
#1
Harley Quinn’s dumb outfit in Suicide Squad. No woman is going to dress like that for anything physical. Those short shorts would ride up your bum and you’d break your ankle in the stilettos.There’s a huge difference with the outfits in Birds of Prey which was written, directed and produced by women. High rise denim shorts, sports bra and a chunky wedge (or trainers I think?) is a way better outfit for causing mayhem.
Image credits: allfurcoatnoknickers
#2
Jurrasic World. Let's please stop it with 'frigid, stuck up corporate woman taken down a peg by rough and tumble guy with big heart and then falls in love with him'. Please, I'm begging everyone in Hollywood. Stop this madness.
Image credits: baitnnswitch
#3
Not a movie, but the episode of Game of Thrones where Gillie decides to take Sam's virginity 5 seconds after he saves her from being r**ed and we all know that nothing makes a woman hotter than almost being r**ed by gruesome strangers. Oh, wait, no, it's just that a bunch of dudes decided that Sam deserved a "prize" for his heroic acts and so they wrote in the woman's vagina as the prize without putting any thought into what an actual human female would do in that situation.This one is especially bad because in a previous season there was a well-written scene where a female character specifically states "A woman who has just escaped a r**e won't want to have sex immediately after. You should have known you were being set up because of that."
So not only where there no women involved in the new scene, there was no one who bothered to read what was actually written in previous seasons. The latter is almost more offensive LOL.
Image credits: [deleted]
#4
Another one: when Jennifer Lawrence dyes her hair platinum blonde with boxed hair dye in Red Sparrow. As any fake blonde will tell you it’s a really time consuming and tricky process. Not something you do in 10 minutes in a bathroom.Pretty sure any Cosmo Girl could tell you that
Image credits: allfurcoatnoknickers
#5
The first few Avengers movies with Scarlet Johansson as Black Widow. It seems like she was just there to be eye candy and not really have much of a character. She has hinted a bit at this, that she put her foot down on a scene where they had her in a cute tennis outfit for no reason. It was nice to see them give her more of a character throughout the series.
Image credits: BankerBabe420
#6
Every single movie Megan Fox was ever in. Transformers… oh my god that was rough. Michael Bay practically shoved the camera up her a**hole and just told her to act hot, but then tried to say it was feminist because she… knew about cars? Lol.Jennifer’s body is a whole other beast. Great movie clearly made by and for women, and the marketing just said “Megan fox is in it, so let’s make it look like it’s just a sex movie with a sexy lady and market it to the COMPLETELY wrong audience.”
Image credits: Marriane_Deer
#7
There’s a line in a book about a lady taking so long to pee because the pee gets lost in her confusing lady maze inside.#8
IF SHE IS DESCRIBED AS THE “cool girl” F**K THAT F**K THAT F**K THAT!!! NO GIRL EXISTS LIKE THAT. One that is the perfect amount interested in “male things” while still maintaining the PERFECT amount of femininity. Never gets mad. Is never too clingy. That s**t. watch the cool girl monologue from Gone Girl. She explains it perfectly.#9
Books where the female characters never interact with each other or it’s always negative/catty/competitive.#10
All the girls in “Spring Breakers” ... written by Harmony Korine. There’s something unsettling about a middle aged guy writing through the eyes of college girls. Vanessa Hudgen’s character says, “Seeing all this money makes my pussy wet”.
Image credits: ioaki
#11
Tbh most of my what I thought were said so I'll say the 50 shades series (and there was woman involved if you can believe that)#12
Books where women are incredibly aware of what their boobs are doing and how they feel all the time....#13
Any birth scene where the mother is just a little sweaty but totally glowing and happy and wide awake after a 20-hour labor, and looks like she was never pregnant at all as soon as they leave the hospital.#14
In Age of Ultron where Black Widow is talking about how she's a monster but not because she's an assassin — just because she's infertile. WTF?#15
Movies where women are running for their lives in high heels.Movies where prostitutes easily fall in love with their johns
Movies that get basic female anatomy wrong.
And to be specific, Star Wars: The Revenge Of The Sith when Padme “loses the will to live” after having 2 beautiful, healthy babies, because shes so sad about losing Anakin.
Yeah, because as we know, Mothers are never motivated by their children and don’t really want to protect them. If they’re boyfriend has a tantrum, they just lay down and die.
Image credits: thanarealnobody
#16
Almost every female super heroes. What woman in her right mind would go into battle breast out, legs bare, hair flying all over the place in full nails and makeup? It doesn’t matter if it’s a tv program, a movie, anime, live action, cartoon, etc…#17
Gone girl. It completely invalidates sexual assault. The whole thing was pretty much saying that women use their gender to manipulate men and that we lie about the things we go though as women in order to do so#18
Van Helsing#19
Not a movie (I know, sorry), but Breaking Bad. Love the series, but every female character is insufferable, and the way Skyler’s character is mishandled is particularly bothersome. She is written like a man’s idea of the nagging overbearing shrew of a wife, and is almost universally hated because of it. Meanwhile, I’ve never understood what exactly people wanted from her. A pregnant woman’s terminally ill husband starts acting shady as f**k...how else would anyone react in that situation? But instead of writing her very understandable suspicion with some depth, they basically said “Pfft. Wives are such a drag, amirite?”. And then she cheats.This may seem a weird detail to fixate on, but I really hated that they had her smoking during her pregnancy. I assume the intention was to show how badly the situation was affecting her, but considering how unsympathetic they made her overall, it just further poisoned the audience against her.
#20
Revenge of the nerds.What would a women do if she realized she has been tricked into having sex with another man without her consent?
Keep having sex with him, of course
#21
I hate movies where women are portrayted as a 'sex' object...The movie that features female characters but without a single woman involved: Jason Bourne (2016). Its target audiance is clearly men. But there are several female into it. It seems like at every explosion in the movie. There is a women flying into the air with a lot of blood involved.
#22
Although I love the series, Indiana Jones.#23
Barbarella with Jane Fonda. She’s supposed to save the universe but is so helpless all the time and these men have to come and save her and more.She’s a massive feminist now and has commented that it’s not her proudest work
#24
Sin City#25
Lara Croft#26
There's a film known amongst folks who track down, "so bad it's good" movies (like The Room) called Samurai Cop. There are many, many things wrong with this movie (obviously) but the scene where a nurse flirts with the main character makes me wonder if the director had ever seen a woman flirt, ever.#27
Kramer vs Kramer . Meryl streeps character is so unrealistic it’s laughable. And not even the part where she leaves it’s the part where she comes back, decides she wants to be a mom again to the point where she goes to court and then changes her mind because she sees what a great dad Dustin Hoffman’s character is. And then poof she’s gone again. A mom, who is motivated enough to try and get custody in court would never give up and just f**k off like that.#28
Twilight#29
Nocturnal Animals. The women in the story within the story basically just exist for the purpose of r**e and murder. This is supposed to be a metaphor for how the man feels violated that his wife aborted their child and cheated on him. Oh, and the man stalks his now ex by mailing her this incredibly violent novel.#30
The Breakfast Club and The Kissing Booth.I love The Breakfast Club but I do not believe for a second that any woman in real life is gonna willingly kiss a man who just had his face up her skirt.
I just genuinely hate The Kissing Booth overall.
#31
American pie#32
The Boys (tv show). There’s a few female screenwriters scattered here and there but it’s 99% cishet dude bulls**t.And before anyone tries the “you don’t understand it” spiel, yes, I do. And the “feminist” tone it goes for misses by a mile. The show suffers from an egregious use of lampshading — noting misogyny exists but not actually criticizing it in any meaningful way — and is male gazey in insidious ways.
e: I think it’s impossible to turn the original source material into anything empowering for women. There’s just nothing substantial to go off of.
#33
Catwoman#34
The original planet of the apes movie or any James bond movies#35
Charlie’s Angels (2000 & 2003) just ooze the male gaze#36
There’s Something About Mary#37
Fight Club. Wild Things. Devil's Advocate#38
Unpopular opinion but, Jenny in Forest Gump.#39
Pulp Fiction. Hate to say it.Actually, I don’t. It’s for sure Pulp Fiction.
#40
Not a movie, but Death Note. The female lead is atrocious to watch, even by anime standards. And as usual in the shonen genre, the author writes good female side characters by accident and then doesn't know what to do with them.#41
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. The amount of ass/feet shots is just weird#42
Strange Magic“It’s Star Wars for girls” What!?
#43
The Truth about Cats and Dogs was so triggering. I looked up to Janeane Garofalo as a role model, and also thought she was a hottie with a similar look/body type to me. The movie's message of, don't worry if you're not tall skinny blonde Uma Thurman, men will still like your fugly ass for your personality, was pretty harmful. I don't know who was involved in the writing but if it was women there's a lot of internalized misogyny there.#44
Taken. Every girl/woman in that movie is just terrible.#45
Basic Instinct. Just finally saw it for the first time and holy hell every woman is hot and hysterical.#46
Any movie with a birth scene in which the vagina is treated like an orifice capable of stretching powers even Elasti-Girl from "The Incredibles" would envy. Like, wow, that woman just gave birth to a f**king full-grown demon cause pelvises NEVER break under the strain of childbirth! And a vagina is basically just an unbreakable elastic hole that can accommodate ANYTHING going in or out of it! Right?(This was entirely a reaction to the demon birth dream from "Marianne.")
In the same vein, any birth scene where the mother is just a little sweaty but totally glowing and happy and wide awake after a 20-hour labor, and she looks like she was never pregnant at all as soon as they leave the hospital. BOO.
#47
Look up the bechdel test, it's hilarious watching movies and seeing if they pass. Spoiler alert, mass majority don't.#48
Closer. Some of the choices and dialogue for the women was ridiculous and clearly came from the egotistical fantasies of a man.#49
Sandra Bollocks character in Gravity - it was painful to watch#50
Maze Runner I only watched the first one but if you put a sexy plant where she is standing with a note it’s the same impact#51
Not a movie, but there were more than a few female characters in the show Supernatural that were definitely written in a way that made me think there's no way a woman was involved in writing this.#52
Like all the Marvel movies#53
Fifth Element#54
Crank. And Crank: High Voltage. My fiancé and I just laughed about how god awful the women in those movies were portrayed.#55
That one episode of victorious where it’s a secret Santa thing and they sing the song in a short skirt fishnet stockings and short shorts#56
Green lantern#57
Last Duel. Then again, pretty much any movie that falls into the "movie about marginalization and traumatization of women primarily starring men" category.#58
Atomic Blonde. 100%.#59
Can´t stop thinking bout that scene on Monthy Python's Holy Grail movie, where male actors are dressed as females disguised as male peasants#60
Not a movie but Pretty Little Liars. Barfffff#61
Mary Jane(Spider-Man 2002 and sequals)#62
Kill Bill#63
I would love to say Wonder Woman 1984, but the truth is that it was just disappointing and insulting at the same time.#64
16 Candles…#65
Dead or Alive.Sucker Punch.