As of late, what has been really important to me in how screen stories are crafted is the way that women are written in their respective stories.

 

For example, in Blade Runner 2049, I feel that women take on very 2 dimensional and backseat roles. Firstly, I felt that it gave very little credit to the actresses’ abilities as performers. Secondly, I felt that it was a boring cookie cutter film, where the female characters take a serious backseat in screen time and active speaking moments. [[SPOILERS]] One of my biggest issues with the film was the scene where Officer K (Ryan Gosling)’s hologram girlfriend, Joi (Ana de Armis) initiates sex with him with the help of Mariette (Mackenzie Davis). It felt less like a scene with actual character, relationship and plot development and more like some male fantasy of a girlfriend initiating a threesome.

 

In direct contrast to this film, Alien (Ridley Scott, 1979) shows a compelling, 3 dimensional female with flaws and strengths that an audience likes and wants to succeed. Ellen Ripley, played by Sigourney Weaver, was originally written by the screenwriters, Walter Hill and David Giler, to be a man. By writing a character without being blinded by stereotyping qualities such as sex, race or age, Ellen Ripley is a character without any wasted screentime, action or dialogue. This is something that I also admire in Denis Villenveuve’s films Arrival and Sicario. In both these films, like Alien, the female protagonists are crafted and driven by their own personal, independent motivations and desires, as opposed to only being plot devices to their male counterparts.

 

What I want to get out of this studio is more ability to write characters as unbiased from their stereotypes as I can. I want to be able to fixate less on their personal qualities such as sex, race or age, and instead learn how to craft interesting and compelling characters and relationships.