"Many of my movies have strong female leads — brave, self-sufficient girls that don't think twice about fighting for what they believe in with all their heart. They'll need a friend, or a supporter, but never a saviour. Any woman is just as capable of being a hero as any man."
About half the population is female, yet the chances are that any summer blockbuster you can name will have male heroes saving the world and women as their hapless Love Interests — if they even feature at all. And if they do they'll probably only be minor characters talking about the men in their lives. This invites a question: Why?
Well, because commercial fiction is produced to make money, and, for a variety of reasons, women have either lacked disposable income or have been more likely to pay for a story about a man than the other way round. Publishing costs money, and writers have to make a living, so they need to show profitability to get their works made. Thus, the English-speaking world's growing focus on women as equal partners has been slow to translate into fiction in which women figure as main characters. Adventure-oriented genre works, including fantasy and science fiction, have been even slower in that respect than romantic, comic, domestic, or "literary" stories.
But there are always exceptions, and from those exceptions, we get Feminist Fantasy.
At its most basic, this just means science fiction or fantasy whose main character is a woman who is the active center of her own story, making things happen. Maybe we just like seeing a woman save the world from aliens sometimes…
These stories can, but don't have to, contain other feminist elements:
- Some stories point out the ever-present but oft-ignored gender inequalities in a Standard Fantasy Setting. Conversely, escapist stories in which equality is simply taken for granted are good for a dose of optimism and expanding the idea of the possible.
- Science fiction and fantasy are suited to examining sexual issues and gender relations by depicting alternative societies (maybe a Lady Land or the result of a Gendercide) or species with unfamiliar sexual biology, or by subjecting characters to Gender Bending. (See also Speculative Fiction LGBT.)
- Another type of Feminist Fantasy is a gender-flipped or non-sexist retelling of an old story, often 19th-century fairy tales or folk tales. These are popular and happened with several versions of Disney princesses in the 2010s such as Enchanted and The Princess and the Frog. The former is self-aware and sends up the traditional Disney Princess archetype, and the latter is about a hardworking girl who wants to be a businesswoman and ends up with a guy and a tiara along the way. Both advocate different ways to "be female". Enchanted celebrates Giselle's idealism and the qualities that make her a "traditional" Disney princess while The Princess and the Frog contrasts Tiana's mature independence with her more girlish friend Charlotte.
See also Most Writers Are Male, Most Fanfic Writers Are Girls, and Most Writers Are Writers. For when people watch a Feminist Fantasy because it portrays women well, see Watched It for the Representation.
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Card Games
- Magic: The Gathering has an odd example: White represents healing, protection, chivalry, and law and order. Many of the powerful white creatures (all the powerful angels, Lin Sivvi) are depicted as female. Indeed, the first pure white-mana plane, Serra's Realm, is a matriarchy.
- As explained by Mark Rosewater himself, one reason for the Female Angel, Male Demon standard is to specifically avoid the evil succubus trope.
- Magic: The Gathering in general is very equal opportunity-minded. The style guide given to the artists explicitly states: "Make an effort to illustrate a variety of races, genders, ages, and body types. Feel free to paint beautiful women, as long as they're shown kicking ass. No damsels in distress. No ridiculously exaggerated breasts. No nudity."
- Furthermore, later editions make a point to avoid printing non-Legendary cards with exclusively male or female names, so cards like Hasran Ogress
and Brothers of Fire are unlikely to see reprints any time soon.
Comic Books
- Aria (1979) is a Franco-Belgian variation of the trope about an Action Girl that roams an inhospitable land and who fights injustices along the way, a bit like a Knight Errant.
- Darna is a well-known and beloved hero from the Philippines. She transforms from ordinary girl Narda to superhero Darna to defend the weak against the evil, whether they be common crooks or supernatural forces.
- The DCU:
- Mera, Queen of Atlantis and Aquaman’s wife, is a powerful sorceress who would later become a Breakout Character and kicks as much butt, if not more, than her husband.
- Batgirl is always highly intelligent, a skilled fighter, and very much an equal to the other members of the Batfamily no matter which heroine currently wears the mantle.
- Katana from The Outsiders is a master swordswoman who goes on various adventures on various teams to battle against the villainy in the world.
- Batwoman features the adventures of Kate Kane, a highly skilled former West Point cadet who uses her military training to fight crimes.
- DC Comics Bombshells is an alternate DC universe set during World War II where all the superheroes are female. Women in general also have more opportunities than they did in reality, like full military and police service and greater participation in sports (even traditionally masculine ones like boxing).
- Fables deals with beings from Fairy Tales and mythology living in exile in modern-day New York. It explores some of the darker aspects of the original tales and deconstructs many of the problematic elements found there. In particular, Prince Charming is the prince from most stories, and a serial divorcee unable to find happiness as a result. Snow White is often the focus of the series, having grown into a strong-willed politician who runs much of Fabletown's daily business. Just don't mention the seven Dwarves. Consisting of a massive ensemble cast, almost every single female character has developed over the centuries into a force to be reckoned with. The war in the Homelands, as well as changes in human society, have transformed them into modern women, often looking unfavorably on certain aspects of their pasts. The Spin Offs, Fairest, From Fabletown With Love, and Fables Are Forever all focus on the women of the series. The latter two are solo adventures starring Cinderella, Fabletown's master spy and assassin in James Bond-style adventures. Issues of female sensuality and sexuality, motherhood, reproductive rights, healthy and unhealthy relationships, misogyny, and sexism are all touched on or explored within the series.
- Power Girl has always been portrayed as a powerful heroine and often stands out from other female characters in having a muscular build. Her Cleavage Window (easily her most marketed feature) is a point of contention, with people both in and out of universe asking exactly how seriously she, Kara, can be taken in such an outfit. How it's resolved is usually Depending on the Writer.
- Supergirl has had multiple incarnations but is always one of the most powerful heroes around since she is the Distaff Counterpart to Superman.
- Wonder Woman is perhaps the original feminist heroine; a super strong crime fighter amazon. Creator William Moulton Marston even believed that within a century America would become a matriarchy (and that that was a good thing).
- Zatanna is a gifted magician who solves occult problems either on her own or with a team. She is noted to be brave, mature, and likable. She grew in popularity due to her solo comic series.
- ElfQuest is a series with explicit feminist themes, and the decades-long work of married creators Wendy and Richard Pini. The series explores gender roles through culture clash, features multiple examples of female leaders and warriors, takes potshots at the Comic Industry's bias against female creators, and features an incredible variety of female characters. In particular, long-time lovers Nightfall and Redlance defy typical gender roles with her as a fierce Huntress and Warrior, while he is a gentle Plantshaper. The Big Bad, Winnowill, is also a woman. During the '80s, the possibility of a Saturday Morning cartoon was explored but ultimately abandoned when Executive Meddling came into play. The studio demanded that Polar Opposite Twins Ember and Suntop be given a personality switch, as they didn't want a tough future Chieftess and a gentle boy. The Pinis walked away rather than comply.
- Femforce from AC Comics is a superhero group composed entirely of women. Despite the "cheesecake" art style, the ladies of Femforce are treated with a reasonable level of respect - they are brave, smart, capable, and everything else a hero should be.
- Hack/Slash features a Final Girl who becomes a Serial-Killer Killer, traveling the country fighting undead beings known as "Slashers". Cassie Hack is tough as nails, highly intelligent, and a bit concerned that her mother's murderous impulses may be In the Blood because she's really good at fighting monsters. She travels with the deformed Vlad, who looks a bit like Jason but is actually the more gentle and kindhearted of the pair. The series deals head-on with many of the misogynistic tropes of Horror films, and Cassie often works to help other women go from victims to Action Survivors capable of fighting for themselves. Often compared to Buffy, another series involving the designated female victim killing monsters.
- Jill Trent, Science Sleuth was about the titular hero solving crimes and mysteries and her main companion is her female best friend.
- Lumberjanes features five teenage girls who kick butts, solve mysteries, and growing in their friendship.
- Magical Beatdown is a hyper-violent street harassment revenge fantasy about an average video game-loving schoolgirl who transforms into a foul-mouthed and rage-fuelled Magical Girl when provoked.
- Marvel Universe:
- A-Force: A Marvel superhero team consisting entirely of women from the Avengers, including several names found elsewhere on this list like Captain Marvel and She-Hulk.
- Black Widow is one of the greatest spies in the world, a deadly assassin, and a core member of the Avengers.
- Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel (formerly Ms. Marvel, Warbird and Binary) is a highly decorated Officer turned superheroine. Carol has seen many ugly incidents, but even when stripped of her powers she still kicks much ass alongside her male peers. Eventually, after the madness that was M-Day and living an alt life as the most powerful non-mutant superhero, she got her act together. Furthermore, she transitioned from Ms Marvel to Captain Marvel, taking on the title in honor of the original Mar-Vell (while she isn't the first female to do so, being the third actually, she is the one with the most staying power).
- The Mighty Thor has become one, with a woman currently holding the title and wielding Mjolnir. With the new Goddess of Thunder, the series has taken on a distinctly feminist tone with creators responding to sexist complaints in a very meta fashion.
- Ms. Marvel (2014) sees a new generation taking up the mantle, focusing on Pakistani-American teenager Kamala Khan. A long-time fan of Carol Danvers, she is inspired to take up the mantle of Ms. Marvel after gaining superpowers as part of the Terrigan Mists awakening her dormant Inhuman genes. The series has been an unexpected hit, with critics even calling her "the new Spider-Man".
- Depending heavily upon the creators involved, Red Sonja is an early example with a powerful, independent female warrior who focused strongly on defending the weak and turning the tables on her male foes. Some aspects of the character come under question, or have been poorly handled by creators and undermined the more positive elements. This has resulted in Sonja being a highly controversial character, alternately praised as an iconic feminist heroine or decried as a juvenile representation of a heroine. The incarnation being written by creator Gail Simone has been highly praised.
- She-Hulk is a brilliant lawyer, as well as a physical powerhouse, and her series often deals with positive portrayals of female sensuality and sexuality.
- The Spider-Gwen one-shot takes perhaps the most famous dead girlfriend in all of comic books, and offers an alternate take on things. Gwen Stacy becomes the super-hero with spider powers, though the circumstances of her and Peter are radically different; while Uncle Ben doesn't die Peter ends up dying a bit after he becomes the Lizard, due to being envious of her superhuman abilities and him always needing her help. The series started as a one-shot in Edge of Spider-Verse, and proved popular enough to get an ongoing that ran for five issues before Secret Wars (2015) hit, then relaunched with a new issue #1 after it was over.
- Spider-Woman has had several incarnations, but is always a strong woman with abilities that set her apart from that other hero with spider-themed powers. Interestingly enough, she was not created as his Spear Counterpart (she was actually made when Marvel noticed some people were making a project called Spider-Woman and they rushed to make the character to claim the name), so she can carve her own path.
- The Unstoppable Wasp: Nadia van Dyne is an enthusiastic Science Heroine eager for adventures. Her recurring mentor is her stepmother Janet van Dyne, the original Wasp and the first female Avenger. Nearly all of her supporting characters, not to mention her most prominent team-ups, are women and girls, many of whom are her friends through Genius In action Research Labs.
- X-Men: Beginning with the famous run of Chris Claremont from 1975 to 1991. His run saw Jean Grey grow from The Load to one of the most powerful beings in the entire Marvel Universe, Phoenix Force notwithstanding, and established Storm firmly as the team leader. Even with his departure from the X-books, the franchise continues this tradition of portraying varied women — often the most popular characters in the book(s) at any given time.
- Paper Girls follows a Coming of Age Story for four female friends which includes sci-fi and time-traveling that has each of the members learning more about themselves as well as valuable lessons.
- Princeless is about a princess in a tower guarded by a dragon, who gets tired of waiting for a prince to rescue her and strikes out on her own (with the dragon).
- Tank Girl is a cult classic among female fandom for its outrageously sex-positive characters and punk aesthetic. Notably, Rachel Talalay proposed doing a film adaptation because of this, and despite being heavily neutered from its source material because it scared the executives, the movie also developed a cult fanbase over the years.
- Vampirella was created as this, though changes in feminist ideals and poor handling by creators have strayed from that. Designed and co-created by feminist Trina Robbins, she was a strong, powerful, independent heroine with a seductive appearance and innate goodness. Like the equally controversial Red Sonja, she was created during the Second Wave of Feminism — an era that dealt with women's sexuality, rejection of sexual repression, and reproductive rights.
- The only thing preventing W.I.T.C.H. from being a Magical Girl manga is that it was drawn and first published in Italy.
- Zsazsa Zaturnnah is a famous Philippine heroine who fights against the forces of evil, especially misogynistic villains.
Fan Works
- Holding the World On Their Shoulders is a specifically trans feminist fantasy, following May Marigold, a trans woman who suffers severe Trans Tribulations, becomes a Femme Fatale, inherits the mantle of Maiden with the immense magic that comes with it, and becomes The Heavy for the entire story of RWBY. The main antagonist of the story is also the fascist dictator James Ironwood who represents everything wrong with the transphobic society May was raised in.
- Infinity Train: Blossoming Trail has the focus on Chloe Cerise, who doesn't want to be stuck with the traditional anime role of "female companion of Ash Ketchum who goes on a journey and finds her Goal in Life via Pokémon" but feels all the pressure when everyone else expects her to follow this role because of her father (the local Pokémon Professor) and sees that those creatures just take everyone's attention away from her, making her feel unloved and unwanted. When she finds herself on the Infinity Train, the first thing she does is get a change in wardrobe, swapping the school uniform with anchors with a dress for fish to symbolize her freedom, and decides that she's going to discover herself while on the train and not give a Fletchling about her family and friends worrying for her because she knows that going back home will mean everyone just forcing her to go along with their wishes and her going back to the status quo.
- The author, herself a woman, points out the numerous amounts of Double Standards Chloe faces because of her gender whereas Ash and Goh are praised or have the freedom to follow their dreams because either they're into Pokémon or are boys or how she's bullied either because she's skilled in something that's mostly for boys (softball) or because she isn't into what everyone in society is into (demons, writing and macabre) in fact stating that the entire story was inspired by a Double Standard moment from the anime itselfExplanation and finding it increasingly annoying how much Chloe is Out of Focus over Goh.Explanation
- Finally, Chloe does not have a love interest of any kind. The closest she gets is Lexi (who is dressed as the boy of her nightmares but acts more like an advisor and friend), and her growth in this story and the sequel is about trying to mend fences with her Childhood Friend. She faces a lot of pressure when she constantly gets labeled different things from "Monster Lover" to "Princess". The Unown construct of her even plays with it; everyone always sees her differently like a statue, a fragile china doll, and even just herself with her mouth stitched up, reflecting how the real Chloe is never really seen as a person.
- Infinity Train: Seeker of Crocus is a retelling of Blossoming Trail with more feminine focus as all females in the story have their own motivation and goals, all of them have their own struggles, and many of the enemies Chloe faces are females on the Train (Casimira and Grace) or off it (Sara, her bully). GPQ even notes that the original Infinity Train had a lot of feminism involved since the first three books all had a female protagonist — Tulip for Book 1, Lake for Book 2, and Grace for Book 3 — to which she suggested how Owen Dennis saw females as forces of change in a stagnant world. Malphas in Act 2 even states that Chloe Cerise and Grace Monroe are the chosen avatars of Feminine Chaos, with Chloe embodying creation and life with her stage productions and interacting with denizens, and Grace embodying destruction by corrupting the Apex and killing denizens for her own amusement/survival. Chloe herself, while retaining many of her traits in Blossoming Trail, is shown to also be very crafty when the situation calls for it, using Flaw Exploitation if a fireball to the face doesn't cut it.
- Inter Nos, a My-HiME fanfic set in Roman times, Shizuru is a general commanding an army, as well as a Senator from a patrician family, and her legates and centurions are also women. The commander of their allied forces elite division is Natsuki, with whom Shizuru forms a lesbian relationship over time, and their prime enemy for the major part of the story is a male Emperor, who, where Shizuru employs reason, tactics, and finesse to get what she wants, he relies on brutality, violence, fear, and military might to maintain control of his Empire.
- Many Maleficent fanfics give more nuanced roles to the three pixies that were portrayed as useless idiots in the movie, and change Queen Leah's death to a divorce, increasing the number of female roles as well as the quality of the portrayal of women. Maleficent herself makes for a decent feminist hero, and Aurora, more often than not, grows up to be a Warrior Princess. Some fanfics also do away with the implied romance with Prince Philip, by shipping Aurora with Maleficent.
- A Mother's Touch is a retelling of Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V but if the protagonist happened to be Yoko Sakaki, a sukeban turned housewife who has to take care of her son after her husband mysteriously vanished three years ago, particularly dealing with a hateful hometown who spit on Yuya's face solely because of Yusho's disappearance. Yoko is a Mama Bear who will do anything she can to protect her family and while she does fight off rich assholes using words, she takes it upon herself to extend a hand to those who need help and will not let grudges take over when there's more serious matters to attend to. The author, the same one who wrote Infinity Train: Blossoming Trial, also made comments at how she wished Yoko had a bigger role and how the anime would drastically change if a mother took the helm and makes sure that Yoko interacts with more characters outside her son and Sora, showing the struggles she has to go through while Yusho was galavanting in Heartland.
- Mobile Suit Gundam Storm is an attempt to take Gundam's "Artificial Newtype Girl" archetype (most directly Soma Pieris of Mobile Suit Gundam 00) and, in the words of Joss Whedon, "create someone who was a hero where she had always been a victim".
- Star Trek: The Original Series:
- One of the objectives of Leslie Fish's The Weight series, from the 1970s, was to provide the main cast with female counterparts who were every bit as competent as they were. Henry Jenkins chose this story as a case study in the fanfiction chapter of Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture.
- In Henry Jenkins' Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture, he mentions Jane Land's "Demeter", which puts Uhura and Christine Chapel in command of an all-female landing party on a voyage to a lesbian separatist space colony; their adventures not only provide these characters with a chance to demonstrate their professional competency but also to question the patriarchal focus and attitudes of The Original Series and its male protagonists. Land characterises her project as rescuing Chapel from "an artificially imposed case of foolishness":
"Try to think objectively for a moment about what we know of Christine Chapel's background, education, accomplishments... and you will come up with a far more interesting character than she was ever allowed to be. The Christine Chapel I found when I thought about her was neither wimp nor superwoman, but, I hope, an intelligent, complex, believable person."
- Although With Strings Attached is about the Beatles and hence has four male main characters, C’hou, the world they're sent to, has complete equality of the sexes. In fact, all of the leaders they meet on any world they visit are female: Grynun, Kerrun, Aurion, Brox (sort of), Amelia, and the queen of the Warrior Women. And the female Shag is the leader of the Fans and the instigator of the entire adventure.
- Notably, the world that Jeft put together himself is male-centric, though the village of the Warrior Women is a local subversion.
- The situation is reversed in The Keys Stand Alone, when George explicitly notes that the situation on C'hou has become much more masculine and reflects more traditional male-female roles. This is partially due to Most Gamers Are Male and partially due to the gameworld having been designed by the traditional, and underimaginative, Jeft. Notably, when the four first escape the gameworld, they rescue, and are taken under the wing of, Durothé, who's currently female and who started out that way. In addition, Ikaly, their unseen female handler, becomes a crucial factor in their ability to win the day, as does Suvensie, the leader of the Survivors.
Films — Animation
- The title character of Anastasia is a spunky, proactive young woman who is determined to track down the family she barely remembers. She is quite snarky, quick-witted, and takes crap from no one, as Dimitri finds out the hard way. Although she needs Dimitri and Vlad's help to reach France and find her family, she proves to be of great help during their journey. Anastasia is ultimately the one who defeats Rasputin and in the end, she decides to give up being a princess (or Grand Duchess to be more specific) because finding her family was always more important to her than being royal, and this way she gets to live life on her own terms and be with Dimitri.
- April and the Extraordinary World follows the titular Science Hero protagonist in an Alternate History who goes on adventures of eluding corrupt cops, reuniting with her parents, and saving humanity. And while she has a love interest, it doesn't take precedence over her character arc.
- A number of the direct-to-video Barbie animated films with fantasy or fairy tale settings are this:
- In the Barbie Fairytopia series, the main protagonist Elina is a fairy who saves Fairytopia multiple times from the clutches of the Evil Sorceress Laverna, even when she doesn't have wings in the first film (this in fact gives her an advantage, as she is unaffected by Laverna's spell that sickens fairies and prevents them from flying). Fairytopia is ruled by the benevolent Enchantress and seven Fairy Guardians, the majority of which are women; Azura in particular serves as a wise and supportive mentor to Elina. In the second film, Elina teams up with a tough and snarky mermaid named Nori to save Prince Nalu, ruler of Mermaidia.
- Barbie and the Magic of Pegasus follows Annika, a rebellious and determined princess who loves ice skating. She sets out to save her parents and kingdom after they're frozen by Wenlock, who didn't take Annika rejecting his marriage proposal well. The secondary protagonist is a talking Pegasus named Brietta who is actually Annika's Long Lost Sister, who also rejected Wenlock; breaking the spell on Brietta subsequently becomes part of her motivation, too. Annika and Brietta are aided in their quest by Rayla the Cloud Queen and her three daughters. Near the end, it's revealed that Wenlock's three troll slaves are actually his wives, whom he cursed when he got bored of them. When Annika realizes this, she promises to free them if they help her defeat Wenlock. After the women are restored and Wenlock has been Brought Down to Normal, they quickly take custody of their ex-husband and begin ordering him around.
- Barbie & The Diamond Castle revolves around Heterosexual Life-Partners Liana and Alexa, who befriend Melody, a young trainee Muse who is trapped in a mirror. They set out to free her by finding the magical Diamond Castle while being pursued by an evil former Muse named Lydia. The Muses are depicted as an order of women who can use music to perform magic. Notably, although Liana and Alexa have a bit of Ship Tease with two guys, the film focuses more on the friendship between them and Melody; it is in fact their bond as friends that magically protects them from Lydia's spells and enables them to defeat her in the end.
- The protagonist of Chicken Run is a determined, brave, and good-hearted hen trying to free other imprisoned hens from the female Big Bad and her plans to eat them.
- Coraline is a smart, active, and proactive young woman who ends up saving her parents from a powerful Big Bad, who is another woman.
- Disney animated films have been more proactive with their female characters starting with The Little Mermaid (1989):
- Aladdin: Princess Jasmine is another Rebellious Princess, unsatisfied with her Gilded Cage and unwilling to be forced into marriage just because the law demands it. Her Establishing Character Moment involves sending her latest suitor packing by sending her pet tiger after him.
- Beauty and the Beast (1991) features an intelligent, free-spirited heroine who loves to read and dreams of living a life of adventure. Belle stands her ground against Jerk Jock Gaston and the titular Beast, calling them on their behavior and refusing to change herself to suit others.
- Brave stars Merida, a Rebellious Princess that is something of a tomboy. She's an exceptional archer, as well as skilled at horseback riding and rock climbing, and constantly battles with her strict, traditional mother. The story focuses on the relationship between mother and daughter, as an Arranged Marriage and a curse force them to work together and begin understanding one another better. Merida comes to see her mother's quiet strength and the heavy responsibility she shoulders as both a mother and a Queen. Meanwhile, Queen Elinor comes to respect her daughter's independence and decides against forcing her into a political marriage. As a literal Mama Bear, she faces down and defeats a monster bear in order to protect her husband and children. The curse is lifted once Merida is able to accept her mistakes and reconcile with her mother. The political marriage is called off, with both Merida and her suitors declaring that they want to Marry for Love and the relationship between Elinor and Merida strengthened considerably.
- Encanto follows the female Everyman protagonist as she tries to find her place in her magical family while also trying to save said family and their home. While her family includes males and females, special attention is given to her relationships with her female relatives, especially her maternal grandmother. All of the women are flawed, complex but ultimately good people with varying character designs.
- Frozen (2013) focuses on the relationship between two sisters, and explores the meaning of True Love as well as conquering your fears. Anna is in love with the idea of love, dreaming of Love at First Sight while Elsa attempts to always keep her emotions in check and refuses to let anyone close out of fear of her powers. Anna falls head over heels in love with Prince Hans, agreeing to marry him after knowing him for a few hours. First Elsa, and later Kristoff, both call her on rushing into such a serious matter with someone she barely knows. The nature of True Love is also explored when Anna's heart is frozen, with only an "act of True Love" capable of saving her. Everyone believes it will require True Love's Kiss, and rush her back to Hans... only for him to turn out to be a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing out to seduce his way onto the kingdom's throne. The act of True Love is instead Anna's Heroic Sacrifice to protect her sister, and this allows Elsa to realize that fearing her powers and shutting everyone out was the cause of her Power Incontinence. Once she accepts herself, she's able to restore her kingdom and become a Queen adored by her people. Meanwhile, Anna and Kristoff realize their feelings for each other and take the first steps toward a relationship. Hans is first punched into the harbor by Anna, and then sent back home to face punishment for his crimes.
- The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Disney) transforms Esmeralda from the weak, fickle woman of the novel into being kind-hearted and street-smart. Even when she's in danger, she makes them regret it. Her role illustrates how unrealistic the Madonna-Whore Complex truly is, as all three men want her....but while Quasimodo sees her as a perfect angel and Frollo sees her as a wicked temptress, Amazon Chaser Phoebus sees and appreciates the person. When Frollo ties her to a stake and threatens to have her burned as a witch if she doesn't become his mistress, she responds by spitting in his face.
- The Little Mermaid (1989): Ariel is a Rebellious Princess fascinated by the human world, challenging her father's firm belief that everything on the surface is evil. Falling for Prince Eric is merely the push needed to drive her to pursue her dream. Unlike her counterpart in the original story, she gets a happy ending.
- Moana is a notable departure from many Disney traditions, a fact the company made a point to advertise. Though the chieftain's daughter, Moana is shown to be the sole heir and next in line to lead her people, without any mention of marriage being necessary. In fact, the company noted that she would not have a Love Interest or romantic subplot. The film instead focuses on her as The Chosen One that undergoes a quest to find the demi-god Maui and save the world.
- Mulan: Based on the Chinese legend. Mulan is resourceful and brave, choosing to disguise herself as a man in order to take her father's place in the Imperial army. Through her quick wits and determination, she becomes an accomplished soldier and goes on to defeat the Big Bad Shan-Yu and save China from his conquering ambitions. Her love interest follows her home, to return her helmet. When awkwardly complimenting her, he focuses on her fighting skills.
- Pocahontas stars another Rebellious Princess, very loosely based on the real figure from American history. She's bothered by the idea of settling down in a "good match" marriage. Instead, she challenges John Smith's ideas about the world and ends up preventing a war.
- The Princess and the Frog: Tiana is a hard-working, determined young woman with a dream of opening her own restaurant. She faces down the Big Bad to save Naveen, winning through her refusal to accept the temptation of an easy fix. She then confronts the businessmen who refused to sell the restaurant to her, and goes on to achieve her dream of opening a thriving business that she runs with Naveen at her side.
- Sleeping Beauty (1959) is the Trope Codifier as far as Disney examples go. The villain Maleficent is a Lady of Black Magic and is referred to as the Mistress of All Evil. She's notably stronger, more powerful, and much smarter than the typical Disney villain. So effective is she that she's effectively won by the end of the second act. On the heroes' side, the three Good Fairies drive the plot. They hide the princess from Maleficent for years and create the counter spell to save her. When Prince Philip is captured, the fairies are the ones who rescue him and provide him with the tools necessary to stop Maleficent.
- Tangled: Rapunzel, while having multiple Princess Classic traits, uses her 70-foot-long hair and a frying pan as weapons. When her mother refuses to let her leave her tower to see the yearly lights in the sky that she's always dreamed of watching up close, she knocks out the thief who breaks into her tower, ties him up with her hair, and talks him into showing her where the lights take place.
- Wreck-It Ralph has Badass Adorable Vanellope Von Schweetz and Space Marine Sgt. Calhoun, as one half of the gender-balanced main cast. Vanellope is a glitched character in a racing game and blackmails Ralph into helping her win the next big race. In doing so, the game will be reset and she'll reclaim her rightful place as the Main Character. Though she's really a Princess, she gives up the throne in favor of becoming President. Sgt. Calhoun is the commander in a First Person Shooter, acting as the player's guide and generally kicking ass as a Fem!Shep Expy. Having been Widowed at the Wedding when a Cy-bug ate the groom, she's determined to track down and destroy the Cy-bug threat. She ends up marrying Fix-It Felix Jr., who falls in Love at First Punch and avoids his predecessor's fate due to the wedding involving massive amounts of firepower. The ending credits feature them as a Battle Couple. It's also noteworthy for the decision to use a young girl as the Audience Surrogate for the events outside the video games.
- Ralph Breaks the Internet has an extended sequence in which Vanellope meets the characters who comprise the Disney Princess lineup. They jokingly acknowledge some of the more sexist tropes that have informed the franchise (focus on external over internal beauty, Damsel in Distress status, etc.), act as Big Sister Mentors to Vanellope, and in the climax, the fourteen of them basically become a superhero team, using their unique skills and Iconic Items to save Ralph's life. In a more subtle example from the same film, the final antagonist is a horrifically destructive Kaiju embodying Ralph's insecurity about the fact that his close female friend wants to seek her own fulfillment instead of staying with him.
- Zootopia (2016) uses Funny Animals as a media to discuss serious issues of prejudice in society, and how stereotypes harm and hold people back from their dreams. Judy Hopp is a cheerful and determined young Bunny, and refuses to give up on her dream of becoming a Police Officer even when told there's never been a Rabbit Cop. She manages to achieve her dream of becoming the first Rabbit Police Officer but is ignored and belittled by others as "dumb", "cute", or "not a real cop" and sent to work as a Meter Maid. She fights through all of this and teams up with Fox con artist Nick to save Zootopia from a dangerous plot. The film consulted female police officers about the issues they encounter on the job and the struggles of being seen as the token girl in a male-dominated profession.
- Disney Fairies, a straight-to-DVD film series about six fairies with different "talents" (gardening, fast-flying, animal husbandry, water and light-bending) with no love interests who always go on adventures. The main protagonist is a "tinkerer" which is the equivalent of an inventor and mechanic.
- Happily Ever After: Snow White is out to save her prince and the dwarves have been replaced by dwarfelles. There's also an additional "empowerment" element for little girls watching the movie, as Thunderella, the youngest of the Dwarfelles, does finally manage to "get it right" regarding her powers and is primarily the one responsible for the villain's defeat.
- Being the Decon-Recon Switch that they are, The Incredibles 1 and Incredibles 2 discuss the topic of women and their roles in society through Helen Parr. In the first film, whereas Bob (trying to fit the role as the Standard '50s Father) is under masculine pressure to be independent and learning to accept help from others, Helen is the Housewife that overextends herself to help others and relearns to take-charge for herself in her efforts to save her husband from Syndrome like the feminist icon she claimed to be. In the second film, Helen takes on the role of breadwinner because her abilities are more P.R. friendly. While uncomfortable with the idea at first, she rediscovers a more independent part of herself that she had forgotten about and sees that she has a positive impact on other women like Voyd.
- Megamind is an Affectionate Parody of the Silver Age of Comics. Roxanne Ritchie is a Lois Lane-style reporter and frequent Damsel in Distress for various evil schemes, but she's easily the most level-headed character, and her skills as a journalist save the day repeatedly throughout the movie. The villain Tighten turns evil when Roxanne tells him that she is not interested in him, as he had figured that heroics would automatically entitle him to his crush.
- Over the Moon follows a young girl's desire and adventures to meet the moon goddess, Chang'e. Said young girl is a Science Hero Child Prodigy who goes through a coming-of-age story of learning to move on from her grief. Also, her relationship with her deceased mother is a central relationship in the film.
- Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken: This is prominently DreamWorks Animation's take on doing a Coming of Age Story comedy through the lens of a shy adolescent girl with anxiety. The twist here being it's filtered through a superhero-esque sea fantasy starring humanoid sea krakens that can transform into powerful Kaiju. As stated sporadically in the film, only the women of the Gillman family exclusively have the ability to become giant warriors, allowing each royal generation to be the ruling defenders of the Seven Seas. The film also explores generational conflict between mothers and daughters among the living Gillman women, how they initially drift apart, but eventually reconcile through common familiar bonds and talking.
- The Sea Beast has a female character as the main protagonist who befriends the sea beasts and resolves the conflict through nonviolence. Also, the numerous female characters in the story are given unique character designs and treated equally along with their male counterparts.
- The Secret Life of Pets is not amazingly groundbreaking, and is more focused on its male characters like most films, but notably The Hero (and his friend) are saved by the hero's Love Interest, who beats up a large group of big dogs, cats, and even an alligator for him. This is what finally causes him to notice her.
- Shrek 1 plays with the Princess Classic, with Fiona initially trying her best to fit into the traditional role of the princess in a story. However, she's happiest when beating up bandits and being crude with her ogre Love Interest. The third film builds heavily on this foundation, as Fiona and her mother rally various fairytale princesses to drop the Distress Ball and save the day.
- The Swan Princess manages to be this to an extent. The main protagonist is Princess Odette and while she's not an Action Girl, she is portrayed as strong-willed, intelligent, and courageous. She refuses to go through with an Arranged Marriage to Prince Derek even though she loves him because she thinks he only likes her for her looks, saying she needs to know he loves her for herself. After being kidnapped and cursed by Rothbart, who wants to marry her to 'legally' take over her kingdom, she utterly refuses to cooperate. note Although she needs Derek to break the spell by making a vow of true love to her, she doesn't sit around waiting for him to arrive; she comes up with a plan to steal one of Rothbart's maps to locate Derek's kingdom and then takes advantage of the fact she turns into a swan to fly off and find him. She's a Damsel in Distress in the climax, though not through lack of trying, doing everything she could to warn Derek of Rothbart's plan. Derek also saves her by telling her he truly loves her "for her kindness and courage" as opposed to her physical beauty.
- Turning Red stars a teenage girl going through a Coming of Age Story as she and the other female members of her family can magically turn into giant red pandas. The movie also focuses on her relationship with her mother and deep friendship with her three female best friends. The movie itself can be read as metaphorical of a girl having her first period, and the movie also brings up menstruation.
- Wendell & Wild has a teenage girl as the protagonist in a horror and demon-oriented story. The story also deals with said protagonist going through a coming of age as she confronts the grief from her Dark and Troubled Past. The film also features a number of female characters who have equal prominence to their male counterparts.
Films — Live-Action
- The Alien series is legendary for both its Freudian monsters and female protagonist, Lt. Ellen Ripley.
- The original film was written as a Gender Equality Fantasy, with characters only referred to in the script by their last name or rank so that each role could be cast without preconceptions and thus avoid the standard Horror Movie gender dynamics. This resulted in a male Decoy Protagonist killed early in the film and allowed the creation of one of the most iconic female characters in Science Fiction history. Ripley would go from an Action Survivor taking charge in order to escape the titular alien, to a full-blown Mama Bear that blasted her way through an alien hive and battles the enormous Alien Queen in Powered Armor in the sequel.
- The Alien spinoff Alien vs. Predator (2004) honors this tradition of a strong female protagonist, with mountaineer/guide Alexa caught between two of science fiction's most iconic alien threats. She is highly resourceful and fierce enough of a fighter to earn the respect of the Predator warrior she forges an uneasy alliance with. The novels and comics the film is loosely based on give us an even greater badass in Machiko, a Security officer who ends up being adopted into a clan of Predators for a time.
- Alice in Wonderland (2010) is a Coming of Age Story with a nineteen-year-old girl as The Chosen One. While it has some Anvilicious bits (the end of the garden party, anyone?), it's still properly epic.
- The 1993 remake of Attack of the 50 Foot Woman. In the original, Nancy is an alcoholic harridan who wants her husband "all to herself"; the remake makes her more sympathetic, starting out as an Extreme Doormat exploited by all the men in her life, then becoming more confident after her transformation into a Giant Woman. Several male characters were Gender Fliped, and even the mistress character, who is originally killed by Nancy in the end, is made more sympathetic. Then there's the Gainax Ending: Nancy and two other giantesses fly off in a spaceship while their husbands undergo therapy.
- Birds of Prey (2020) follows in the footsteps of Wonder Woman (2017), notable not just for its all-female team but also for being a major Hollywood Superhero film written, directed, and produced by women. The story revolves around newly-single Harley Quinn teaming up with Black Canary, Huntress, and Renee Montoya to protect a teenage girl, Cassandra Cain, from a crime lord. Marketing for the film has focused heavily on the strength and independence of its heroines, as well as the avoidance of exploitative Male Gaze or uncomfortable, fanservice-y costumes.
- Black Panther (2018) has a main male character but the majority of important roles go to women, verging from queen, scientist, general, and spy. And the male protagonist relies on and respects them for their help and support, a sharp contrast to the antagonist, a violent He-Man Woman Hater. Wakanda in general is an egalitarian society with plenty of women in leadership. The sequel Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is an even better example, having the highest female-to-male character ratio out of any MCU film. It focuses on Shuri’s Coming of Age Story and Hero's Journey, with particular emphasis on her relationship with her mother. A large part of the film is about the women of Wakanda protecting Riri Williams, a young African-American genius. In the end, Shuri engineers an alliance between Wakanda and the equally powerful nation of Talokan by defeating a nigh-invulnerable God-Emperor and forcing him to yield to her.
- One interpretation of Blood Machines can be seen as a Cosmic Horror spin on the idea. The Villain Protagonist Vascan is a Straw Misogynist who abuses his female-coded AI, brutalizes an all-female crew, and captures and threatens to rape one of them. His captive would go on to kill him in a Honey Trap, takes control of his body through an invasive form of magic that can be construed as a rape metaphor, the AI he abused rebels and evolves into a Humanoid Abomination and the film ends with him becoming an unwilling passenger of a god-like entity that resembles a woman.
- Bumblebee, written by a woman and featuring women as the human protagonist and the main villain. The Prequel focuses heavily on the bond that develops between Charlie Watson and the titular Autobot. Frequenting a junkyard to find parts for an old sports car, Charlie becomes fascinated with a broken-down VW Bug and takes it home to begin fixing it up. The car turns out to be a badly damaged Autobot with a faulty memory core and missing voice components. She befriends and nicknames him Bumblebee, and begins working on repairing the alien as best she can. As the government and a pair of Decepticons close in on them, Charlie and Bumblebee must save Earth from destruction.
- Captain Marvel (2019) is a fiercely and unapologetically feminist film, bringing the heroine to the screen in the Marvel Cinematic Universe's first film to be centered around a female protagonist. An Amnesiac Hero, Vers is a Kree warrior fighting in the galactic war against the shapeshifting Skrulls when she crash-lands on Earth in the 1990s. Forming a partnership with a young Nick Fury, Vers begins to discover clues to her own past as a human fighter pilot named Carol Danvers. The film features several Take That! moments to common criticisms that women face such as seeming unfriendly for not "smiling enough" or being required to prove themselves to gate-keeping men. In a twist on the classic mythos, the mysterious woman from Carol's past turns out to have been the original Mar-Vell and the final confrontation concludes with Carol ignoring her former commander's taunts to fight him on his terms, blasting him into a mountain before stating she doesn't have to prove herself to him. The film is a Power Fantasy for women, portraying numerous badass women who are unapologetic in their confidence and ability. It also takes the time to include messages of inspiration for the next generation of girls, encouraging them to pursue their ambitions without compromise.
- The Craft is a supernatural horror / Urban Fantasy film (and precursor to the likes of Charmed (1998) and Buffy the Vampire Slayer) that revolves around four misfit teenage girls who practice witchcraft as a way of empowering themselves, with their sisterly bond as a coven helping them overcome adversity in the form of bullying, slut-shaming, and other issues. The girls' use of magic and pursuit of knowledge and power is not depicted as being negative in and of itself; it's only when they start abusing their powers and using them to harm people (or each other) that things go south. In the climax, the main protagonist Sarah seeks help and guidance from a wise mother figure, who encourages her to embrace her full potential as a witch in order to stand up for herself and gain better self-esteem and confidence.
- The 1996 film's sequel, The Craft: Legacy, leans heavily into this, even having the main villain be the embodiment of toxic masculinity, while the girls are very much about women's power.
- Guillermo del Toro:
- Guillermo del Toro's stated intention with Pacific Rim was to make a science fiction/action film with a heroine that was an equal partner rather than a Love Interest, "Sex Kitten", or a Damsel in Distress. While Raleigh is the designated hero of the story, the narrative primarily focuses on Mako's Hero's Journey and represents her as every bit his equal. Mako has been praised as a non-stereotypical representation of an Asian woman while still acknowledging Japanese morals. It tilts the standard roles assigned to a male and female protagonist, with Raleigh acting as the emotional support for mentally-scarred Mako as she comes to grips with her painful past and desire for revenge.
- Another film by Guillermo del Toro is Pan's Labyrinth, a haunting Alice in Wonderland-ish fairy tale set against the harsh reality of the Spanish Civil War. Ofelia, a girl with a vivid imagination and great curiosity, has moved into the countryside with her widowed mother and new stepfather, the brutal Captain Vidal. There, she discovers a mysterious old labyrinth and encounters a Faun, who reveals to her that she is a lost princess from the Underworld. She is faced with three tests, meant to show whether her time in the human world has diminished her true self or not. Meanwhile, the family's maid, Mercedes, attempts to help the rebels against her employer and protect Ofelia. Melding a dark and nightmarish fantasy world with very real human cruelty, it deals directly with themes of misogyny, marriages of convenience, and societies that value male children over everything else. Ofelia is a brave, intelligent, and strong-willed heroine unwilling to be bound by her cruel step-father, while Mercedes is a woman of incredible courage and conviction who famously gives Captain Vidal a half Glasgow Grin when he threatens to torture her and makes it clear, before the rebels gun him down, that his son will never know a thing about him. While ambiguous in the film itself, Word of God confirms that the supernatural elements of Ofelia's journey are real.
- Yet another Guillermo del Toro example is Gothic Horror Crimson Peak. The main character is a Spirited Young Lady and proto-feminist named Edith Cushing, who is determined to become a published writer regardless of what everyone else thinks, would rather be writing ghost stories than romances, chooses to Marry for Love and sets about investigating the mysteries of Allerdale Hall by herself. Edith's Love Interest Thomas Sharpe admires her intelligence and creativity, and in their love scene, he bares a lot more skin than her (which was actually his actor Tom Hiddleston's suggestion). Most of the ghosts turn out to be Thomas' murdered wives, who are actually just trying to warn Edith. It's also revealed that the true villain is Lucille Sharpe, who is quite an intelligent and formidable, though very unhinged, Dark Action Girl who is the real mastermind of the murders; Thomas is largely subservient to her and a victim of Domestic Abuse on her part. In the climax, Edith's other Love Interest Alan comes to save her, but is badly injured, prompting Edith to save both him and herself.
- Enchanted uses the Decon-Recon Switch to hang many a lampshade on classic fairy tales, with Princess Classic Giselle being banished to modern-day New York by her Wicked Stepmother Narissa. There, she meets jaded divorce lawyer Robert and his daughter, who is thrilled to meet a fairytale princess. Prince Edward follows his betrothed to New York to rescue her, while Giselle and Robert begin to see the positive aspects of the other's worldview as she tries to help him instill some romance into his relationship with his fiancée Nancy. In the end, Giselle is saved from a poisoned apple by Robert's kiss, and rescues him in turn when Narissa transforms herself into a dragon. They become a couple, and Giselle opens a business making fairytale princess dresses for little girls. Edward elopes with Nancy, having finally found the romance she's wanted. The queen's henchman stays in New York and becomes a successful Self-Help author.
- Fast Color: The film centers on three female generations of one family — Bo, her daughter Ruth, and Ruth's daughter Lila. Because of their superpowers (which are also shown to be exclusively held by females), they're on the run from men who want them for their uses. Further, they're black or mixed race, which is also unusual.
- Ghostbusters (2016) is a Continuity Reboot of the franchise, starring a Gender Flipped cast. The team consists of a group of female scientists (and an amateur historian) who wear practical uniforms and kick plenty of ass while fighting to get the respect they've earned. The filmography of director Paul Feig itself tends towards the trope in the comedy genre.
- Hundra: A very primitive and barbaric one. Hundra's tribe are women who'd rebelled against domination by men and live off by themselves, only going among men for conceiving babies. Once more men find their forest abode, all except her are ruthlessly slaughtered. Hundra then goes on a quest to restore their people, refusing to submit toward men as well. She frees female sex slaves and encourages rebellion in other women whom she's met, with the explicit message being in favor of their emancipation generally, although it's undermined by her nearly raping a man as well, while other women later do this explicitly. The film appears oblivious to this however.
- Milla Jovovich and Angelina Jolie have established themselves as big-time Action Heroines through these kinds of films. If they star in a fantasy or science fiction film, expect them to be One-Woman Armies. Michelle Rodriguez and Summer Glau have also built careers as Action Heroines in the genre(s), to a lesser degree.
- Jovovich has headlined the Resident Evil Film Series as Alice, a former Umbrella agent out to save the world.
- In Ultraviolet (2006), Jovovich stars as a vampire-like warrior who must protect a mysterious boy from the forces hunting him.
- Jolie took up the role of Adventurer Archaeologist Lara Croft in the Tomb Raider films. She's also noted to be the highest-grossing Action Heroine in the business. Likewise, she plays the live-action Maleficent mentioned above
- Kill Bill is a two-part epic and love letter to numerous genres in the process. When an assassin tries to settle down into a normal life, her former comrades interrupt her wedding rehearsal and slaughter those present. She awakens from her coma years later and begins a Roaring Rampage of Revenge against them that spans continents and cinema genres. The Bride and the female assassins she faces are all exceptional warriors, engaging in brutal duels to the death and leaving carnage in their wake. The subtle elements of fantasy are borrowed from classic Hong Kong films, with people displaying martial arts that border on the supernatural. Most notably, the Hermit Guru was said to be able to use a Finger Poke of Doom to kill enemies after they took five steps.
- Labyrinth is a coming of age tale, combining the talents of Jim Henson and George Lucas. Sarah is a Spoiled Brat with a love of fantasy and resents having to deal with her baby half-brother, Toby. One night, when forced to babysit, she wishes the goblins would take him away.....and gets her wish. The Goblin King challenges her to solve his Labyrinth in 13 hours, or Toby will be transformed into a goblin. She must outwit the mysterious Labyrinth, escape various death traps, and storm the Goblin City to rescue her brother. Along her journey, Sarah must accept that Life Isn't Fair, reject the Goblin King's many temptations, and learn to balance childhood dreams with adult responsibility. When offered the chance to rule at his side, Sarah rejects him by declaring that, "You have no power over me".
- Mad Max: Fury Road. The critically acclaimed film takes place in the kind of testosterone-fueled, hyper-masculine After the End setting the Mad Max setting is known for, yes, and ostensibly stars Tom Hardy as the titular 'Mad Max', but the crux of the movie is propelled by Charlize Theron's character, the elite Imperator Furiosa, and her mission to return to the matriarchal home of her childhood, spiriting away five women who have been forced into sexual slavery and baby-production by a brutal warlord in the process. Many critics have pointed out that the real star of the film is Furiosa, who literally drives the action in a quest for redemption for her past wrong-doings and liberation from the warlord, with Max himself taking the more subdued arc of recovery from trauma and reconnecting to his humanity. A good portion of the movie is devoted to women kicking ass and taking names for their fellow women.
- Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga chronicles Furiosa's rise as Immortan Joe's best warrior after she escaped becoming one of his breeding slaves.
- Maleficent is a Perspective Flip retelling of Sleeping Beauty (1959), starring Angelina Jolie. Drawing comparisons to WICKED, it reimagines Maleficent as a complex woman who changes from heroic guardian of the Moors to vengeful girl victimized by the misogynistic King Stephan, and finally into an antihero over the many years the film covers. She serves as an unwitting mother figure to Aurora and helps to mold the princess into a wise and strong-willed young woman. Aurora is notably more proactive in this telling of the story, with far more character development and agency than is normally seen in most versions of Sleeping Beauty. She is also not woken from her sleep by Prince Philip, who even points out that he doesn't know her well enough to be in love yet. Instead, it is Maleficent who awakens Aurora with a remorseful kiss to the forehead — having included in her curse that all who met Aurora would come to love her. Of course, the many changes were not exactly received positively by everyone, with some claiming that the film tries too hard to be feminist and ultimately comes across as an Anvilicious fantasy-flavored Lifetime Movie of the Week.
- MirrorMask: Helena dreams of leaving the circus, but after a fight, her mother falls mysteriously ill. Traveling to a strange and magical world, she encounters many individuals who resemble those she knows in the real world. The White Queen (resembling her mother) has fallen ill after the Dark Princess (resembling Helena) stole her Charm and without it, the world is dying. Helena undertakes a quest to save the world and her mother, venturing to the Darklands to confront the Dark Queen (again, her mother). A surreal coming-of-age tale, it remains ambiguous whether it was All Just a Dream or not.
- The Princess (2022): The princess refuses to comply with feminine norms, secretly training herself to fight, and then rejects a marriage to which she didn't consent to. After this, she has to fight off her would-be husband who's taken over and won't accept "no" for an answer (which is putting it mildly). She's rewarded finally by her father admitting she proved him wrong, accepting her as a warrior woman and making her his heir, while also saying in the future all princesses of the realm will be allowed to make these choices.
- General consensus about Revenge (2017) is that it gives its exploitation genre a decidedly feminist spin, with some critics calling it "the bloodiest, most violent contribution to the #MeToo movement". Case in point: this is one of the very few movies where the male main character is shown completely naked from the front while the female lead is only ever seen very briefly topless.
- Sam: Downplayed as it's not heavily focused on, but after He-Man Woman Hater Sam gets turned female, he's soon unhappy having to deal with things as a woman. This includes getting sexually harassed multiple times by her boss, learning how the glass ceiling affects women, and getting unwanted overtures from players like she was as a man. Sam's transformation explicitly was to make her gain empathy, which works and Sam helps Margaret, the Plucky Office Girl who he previously stole ideas from along with their boss, get a much deserved promotion while she insists on the same pay as her male counterpart received. Sam bonds with her and they grow into friends based on their experiences of sexism/fighting against it.
- Scream turns the genre's more sexist conventions on its head. Notably two of the movie's survivors are female, both of whom outwit the killer at several turns (especially in the sequels too).
- Snow White & the Huntsman features a more proactive titular princess, who breaks out of her tower prison herself and flees into the forest where no one but the Huntsman will dare to venture. With his teaching, she develops into a Lady of War and leads an army to reclaim her throne by force, ultimately taking down the Queen on her own.
- Star Wars:
- The Force Awakens was a massive leap forward for female characters not just in Star Wars, but the science fiction and action film genres in general, to the degree that Aliens played in cinema history. The film stars a woman named Rey who is drawn into the galactic war between the Resistance and the First Order alongside Deuteragonist Finn, and in short order proves herself to be smart, badass, and independent. But when she runs across Luke Skywalker's lightsaber she discovers that she is in fact extremely gifted in the Force and a nascent Jedi-to-be. Princess Leia is now General Leia and leads the Resistance military. There's a female stormtrooper captain named Phasma who is set up to basically be the next Boba Fett (although she ends up being a bit of a Faux Action Girl until the sequel), in addition to random female stormtroopers (pay attention to some of their voices next time you watch the movie) as well as female First Order officers. Tons of women are seen as being part of the Resistance military, including a female X-Wing pilot who is featured quite prominently in the final battle. There's also Maz Kanata, a mysterious non-human woman who is sensitive to the Force and urges Rey towards her destiny as a Jedi. As director J. J. Abrams has pointed out, the Force belongs to everyone, not just dudes.
- Prior to the Sequel Trilogy, Star Wars was always reasonably feminist for its time (especially considering the first film was released in 1977), though more downplayed. Princess Leia is the only major female character in the original trilogy, but she is a confident, quick-witted, and proactive badass; she's not just a princess but an ambassador, senator, Rebel agent, and soldier, and is often considered a feminist icon. There is some controversy over the 'Slave Leia' outfit in Return of the Jedi, but as many fans and Carrie Fisher herself pointed out, Leia eventually strangles to death the creep who forced her into the outfit with her own chains, without help from the men. Also, although she doesn’t have a very large role in the films, it's revealed that one of the main leaders of the rebellion is a woman named Mon Mothma.
- In the Prequel Trilogy, Padmé Amidala is an intelligent and charismatic Action Politician who has been involved in politics since her preteens and fights for liberty and champions diplomacy. Particularly in The Phantom Menace, she has a team of loyal handmaidens who also serve as bodyguards/decoys and fight at her side. She is unfortunately Demoted to Satellite Love Interest in Revenge of the Sith, although given some of George Lucas' unused story ideas for the film and the deleted (but canonical) scenes of her helping found the future Rebel Alliance, this wasn't his intention (not to mention it would've been difficult to have her be involved in big action scenes as she's supposed to be eight-to-nine months pregnant). There are also lots of female Jedi and politicians as minor or background characters and one of Padmé's would-be assassins is a shapeshifting woman named Zam Wesell. Padmé's home planet of Naboo frequently elects teenage girls and women as queens and expanded material confirms that Leia's adoptive mother Breha Organa rules Alderaan in her own right (Senator Bail Organa is her husband, but doesn't have a royal title).
- This is without mentioning the Expanded Universe and animated series (both Legends and Canon) which is full of strong, powerful, and proactive female characters, such as Mara Jade, Ahsoka Tano, Asajj Ventress, Hera Syndulla, Sabine Wren, etc. The Force Awakens is, however, significant in being the first theatrical Star Wars film to have a badass woman as the central protagonist, rather than a supporting protagonist.
- That being said, The Rise of Skywalker has received controversy for the way it handles the female characters; Rey is revealed to have inherited her power from a male relative which some have argued overshadows Rey herself (The Last Jedi strongly suggested she was Randomly Gifted) and she ends up kissing a man who tortured and stalked her. Rose Tico - the first female Asian lead in the movies - is Demoted to Extra (after the actress was harassed online with racist and sexist comments) and newcomers Zorii Bliss and Jannah are largely defined by their relationships with Poe and Finn. In spite of this, Rey is still firmly the main hero of the story.
- Japanese Sukeban and Female Yakuza B-movies of the late '60s and early '70s, despite being classified as Exploitation Films and many of them including sexual violence, showed women outwitting and defeating the Yakuza who, despite being criminals, were still part of institutionalised patriarchy.
- Sucker Punch has a group of women who are in a mental hospital treated like sex slaves by the corrupt orderlies. They band together to find a way to escape their situation, using their own sexuality as a weapon. Overall the story attempts to deconstruct the Male Gaze by showing the nasty effect it can have on the girls. There's also a few literal examples - as there are many fantasy sequences imagined by the protagonist where she and her friends become an Amazon Brigade to achieve their goals. Reaction to the film was very divisive, but it does have a small fanbase of feminists who believe in its message.
- Terminator:
- Sarah Connor in Terminator 2: Judgment Day is one of the earliest examples in Western pop-culture of a female character becoming an action icon: While mostly being portrayed as a Damsel in Distress in the first movie, she clearly Took a Level in Badass for the sequel, as the film follows her as a full-blown Action Girl and Mama Bear this time around, who takes down Skynet.
- While the sequels focus more on John Connor and Kyle Reese (Terminator Genisys however still portrays Sarah Connor even more as an badass Action Girl than before), Terminator: Dark Fate features the all-female Power Trio of Sarah Conner, Dani Ramos and Grace. After John Connor is Killed Off for Real early in the movie, Dani is now The Chosen One who is destined to free humanity from the evil A.I. Legion and defies the Madonna Archetype Sarah was portrayed as in the previous movies. The only prominent male characters in the movie are the Big Bad and Carl a.k.a. the T-800 in a supporting role, who is significantly Demoted to Extra compared to the previous movie.
- The Thing (2011), a Prequel of the original film. The film stars Kate Lloyd, a level-headed and capable scientist brought in to examine the titular creature when it is discovered frozen in the ice. According to the creators, Kate was intended as a homage to Lt. Ripley, the heroine of Alien.
- Wonder Woman (2017) stars the aforementioned comic book superhero of the same name and is about her journey from the Lady Land of Themyscira into Man's World at the height of World War I where she fights to end one of the deadliest conflicts in human history. True to the comics, Wonder Woman embodies a number of positive, strong feminine ideals such as empathy, love, and truth while also being a super strong demigoddess capable of kickings tons of ass. In a meta sense, the film is also the first tent pole superhero film to be directed by a woman and the first theatrical comic book adaptation centered around a female lead ever to receive critical acclaim and commercial success.
- The Underworld film series stars Kate Beckinsale as Selene, a powerful vampire warrior who spends most of her time kicking vampire and werewolf butt with guns, swords, improvised weapons or occasionally just her bare hands. She rarely needs to be rescued and as of Underworld: Blood Wars has become one of the three Elders, the rulers of the vampires.
Live-Action TV
- Upon close inspection, Morticia Addams from The Addams Family (the show and the film series) can be read as a feminist icon to a certain degree. She is sexy, confident, and fully comfortable in her own skin, completely unashamed of many of her strange hobbies and her still very active sex life. In her marriage, she is equal to Gomez in everything, especially when it comes to parenting their children. Whenever they have a scheme, they do it together, and they have no secrets to hide from each other (not that they would want to).
- Agent Carter is a spin-off of Captain America: The First Avenger, starring the titular female agent, becoming the first female lead in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In the aftermath of the war, Peggy finds herself reduced to fetching coffee and answering phones at the organization she works for — belittled by her peers and unable to find respect as a field agent. When Stark inventions are stolen and he finds himself accused of treason, he contacts Peggy to clear his name and find the missing inventions. Working as a double agent, Peggy takes advantage of her peers' tendency to ignore her and fights to save New York from a criminal organization. The series deals with not only the misogyny of the era but the plight of thousands of women forced to surrender their wartime careers to the returning soldiers.
- American Horror Story: Coven is a distinctly dark and twisted tale, driven by a diverse cast of women. The shadowy society of magic is almost predominantly female, with the powerful figures of Fiona Goode and Marie Laveau leading the rival groups. Unlike previous installments of the series, the women are the driving force of the story and rarely require assistance or protection from the few male characters. They fight their own battles, with each other as well as the various outside forces that threaten them. It deals with issues of older women as sexual beings, feminism as a force that changed society, sexual assault, and even women as dangerous figures in the form of abusers or killers. It neatly avoids the Double Standards concerning female-on-male violence, portraying either sex as equally capable of being the abuser or the victim. On multiple occasions, students of the school declare that they do not need men to protect them, facing down hordes of zombies or axe-wielding serial killers without needing rescue.
- Battlestar Galactica (2003) features a balanced cast, explores explicitly feminist themes, and features a fairly equal society. Secretary of Education Laura Roslin finds herself thrust into leadership as President of the refugee fleet, struggling to deal with maintaining power while hiding her terminal illness. Kara Thrace is an ace pilot with a troubled past, and mysterious visions that could lead humanity to salvation. Caprica Six is a seductive but strangely kind Cylon, with the Six models slowly finding themselves at the forefront of a philosophical divide among the Cylons. Three, played by Lucy Lawless, is a prophet who believes she can discover the identities of the divine Final Five models. The Eights, primarily Boomer and Athena, struggle with identity and finding their place in the world as they find themselves on opposite sides of the war. The series deals with issues of reproductive rights, female sexuality, abuse, sexual violence and its aftermath, troubled relationships, varying sexual orientations, and the problems women face as leaders. For every male lead, there is an equal female lead with her own unique journey. It also takes place in an explicilty Non-Heteronormative Society, and according to Word of God, the concepts of sexism and homophobia never existed among the Colonials, even in their equivalent of pre-historic times.
- Batwoman (2019) (which is set in the same universe as Supergirl (2015)) clearly aspires to be this right from the get-go. After Batman mysteriously disappears, his cousin Kate Kane steps up to become Gotham's new protector as Batwoman. Kate is very much an Action Girl and was once in the military until she was kicked out for refusing to hide the fact she's a lesbian. She openly has romantic/sexual relationships with women throughout the series and also goes out of her way to ensure Gotham knows she's not Batman (hence the long wig she dons). One of the main antagonists is a woman named Alice, the leader of the Wonderland Gang who is terrorising the city. The show also includes plotlines or themes around social justice and feminism. After Kate disappears herself, the equally tough Ryan Wilder takes up the mantle of Batwoman in Season 2.
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and a fair number of Joss Whedon works. (The original 1992 film aspired to this too, but didn't quite get there.) The title character of Buffy is a teenage girl who discovers she's the latest in a long line of Slayers, girls chosen by fate to battle the forces of evil with preternatural abilities. Buffy is notably both very badass and quite traditionally 'girly', enjoying shopping and dancing, none of which she is derided for. The show also has many strong and powerful supporting or recurring female characters, in particular Buffy's best friend Willow, a nerdy techno whiz who later becomes a powerful witch. Joss Whedon stated he was partly inspired to create the series as an inversion of the helpless blonde girl who gets killed by the monster in horror movies, with the girl instead having the ability to fight back (indeed, the opening scene of the series flips that trope on its head in another way, with the "helpless" blonde actually being the vampire Darla, who lured in her prey by playing that part).
- Charmed (1998) is a feminist fantasy that features three sisters banding together and saving the world. This is especially true of earlier seasons when the story seemed very focused on vulnerable women preyed on by aggressive male characters. The fantasy was that they were witches and could thus defend themselves from all of these threats. Also, Charmed was very focused on celebrating women in general, with the Halliwells descended from a long line of strong women (and Piper's sons Wyatt and Chris being explicitly the first male witches born into the family in many generations). Like the original show, the new series also revolves around three sisters as its main protagonists and often involves women's issues as well. In fact, their mother was even a professor of women's studies at the local university.
- Cursed (2020): The series is a much more feminist take on the Arthurian legend, told from the perspective of Nimue, The Lady of the Lake of the legend. She's remade into the lead character, who wields the Sword of Power while Arthur here is (although not unimportant) in a secondary position. Nimue leads the Fey to protect them from genocide and is explicitly The Chosen One. Other female characters are also in prominent positions, both as warriors or otherwise. The difficulties many women would have in the medieval pastiche setting also get explored, such as mostly having been denied real power over their gender, which Nimue and the characters mentioned actively defy.
- The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance. Two of the three main characters are girls - Deet and Princess Brea - who are both brave, intelligent, proactive, and heroic in their own way. The rulers of the Gelflings (the Maudras) are all women and in Gelfling society, gender is (otherwise) no object; both males and females can be warriors, scholars, and so forth. The Big Good of the series is Mother Aughra, an avatar of the planet who helps guide the Gelflings in their quest to realize the true nature of the Skeksis and restore the Crystal of Truth to save Thra; Brea and Deet also play vital roles in uncovering the truth and uniting the Gelfling tribes.
- Dark Matter (2015) starts out as a typical ensemble show; the mercenary crew of the Raza is majority male but has a female captain (though initially a man is the main viewpoint character) and includes a female Teen Genius and a helpful Android (who is a gynoid). However, it develops more and more into this trope in season 2, by sidelining, face-heel-turning, or unceremoniously killing off most of the regular male characters, including the original White Male Lead protagonist, as well as adding another female regular and expanding the Android's personality and plot involvement. By the end of the season, the remaining two guys on the Anti-Hero team basically just act as henchmen for "Boss Lady" — and they are perfectly content with that.
- When Doctor Who returned to TV in 2005, its producers (first Russell T Davies, later Steven Moffat) took the view that the companion was to be a central character in the series, equal to the Doctor. Considering most of the Doctor's companions are female, it resulted in Rose Tyler, Martha Jones, Donna Noble, Amy Pond, Clara Oswald, and Bill Potts all becoming a major focus of the action in turn, with many occasions in which they save the day (and the universe). In particular...
- ...the uber-example of the companions is Clara Oswald (to the point of the character becoming a base breaker). By the time of her departure after "only" 2 1/2 seasons, she was responsible for not only the Doctor's survival over the millennia, but every future Doctor will also exist because of her (thanks to her resolving a longstanding plot point about how many times the Doctor can regenerate). She is also the only companion to be explicitly established as the Doctor's Distaff Counterpart.
- With the 2017 announcement that the Thirteenth Doctor is a woman (Jodie Whittaker), the show is firmly this from Series 11 onward.
- Fantaghirò, an Italian Romantic Fantasy series by Lamberto Bava, is about the eponymous heroine fighting rival kingdoms, evil sorcerers and fantasy monsters; and while her boyfriend is a Warrior Prince, he is usually the one who needs to be rescued.
- After showing how women are underestimated at best and treated as sex slaves, brood mares, and bargaining chips at worst, Game of Thrones gets this tinge in its 6th season, in the form of Women Are Wiser. Almost all factions (King's Landing, the Reach, Dorne, the Iron Islands, Meereen) have come to be headed by strong, competent (at least sometimes) female rulers (Cersei Lannister, Olenna Tyrell, Ellaria Sand, Yara Greyjoy, Daenerys Targaryen) while the men who had previously held these positions have failed one way or another. The one faction that has a man on its throne (the North) owes its existence to Sansa Stark more than it does to its king Jon Snow, who almost got himself and his men killed and would have lost without Sansa's diplomatic skill. Even previously competent male leaders like Tyrion Lannister and Jon have turned into General Failure and made a mess for the women to clean up. Women such as Brienne of Tarth, Arya Stark, and Lyanna Mormont, if not queens in their own right, acquit themselves better than most men do at this point. It eventually ends up being subverted by the end. Ellaria is last seen rotting in the dungeon after being defeated by Euron Greyjoy and losing her daughters, while Olenna is given the chance to commit suicide after being defeated by Jaime's forces. Most controversially, Daenerys ends up Jumping Off the Slippery Slope, going on a rampage through King's Landing and killing thousands of innocent people, not just Cersei. Jon is ultimately forced to kill Daenerys, resulting in only two female rulers remaining: Yara ruling over the Ironborn and Sansa as Queen in the North, and both largely got the positions by virtue of no one else being eligible for them.
- Its prequel House of the Dragon is literally this trope; the whole premise of the show is how the feudal, ultra-misogynistic system of Westeros slowly crushes the realm and engenders the biggest civil war in the history of Westeros simply because the heir to the throne is a woman, leading to a usurpation by those who want her younger half-brother to be king despite his lack of suitability for the job and the fact that their father was explicit about wanting her to succeed him.
- The Handmaid's Tale: Not only is the main character a woman along with most supporting characters too, the series revolves around women's issues. Most particularly is bodily autonomy, since the Handmaids are breeding slaves, though also other rights which women have gained (at least in part of the world). They struggle both to resist and survive under a misogynist regime that's horrifically oppressive, in which the smallest freedom is denied to them. Given that many issues in the series have come back into prominence with a number of US laws curtailing many reproductive rights, actual American feminists have even taken up the Handmaid motif to protest while wearing their garb.
- iZombie is a crime/fantasy drama focused on Olivia "Liv" Moore, a woman who finds her plans derailed after being turned into a zombie. With a need to consume human brains to remain sentient, Liv breaks off her engagement and quits her job as a Surgical Intern before taking a job as an Assistant Medical Examiner. This grants her access to the brains she needs, but with it comes visions from the deceased — visions that allow Liv to help solve their murders.
- Jessica Jones (2015), the second work in the Marvel Cinematic Universe to be led by a woman, takes a really Darker and Edgier approach while still focusing on a female hero and having a supporting cast that is comprised mostly of women. Jessica Jones, as in the comics, is a retired superhero who has taken to private investigation work. Her enemy is Kilgrave, who has the ability to control minds with his voice, and uses his powers to rape women and abuse other people, and of whom Jessica herself was once a victim. Her biggest allies are a powerful female attorney and an equally powerful female media personality. Luke Cage is another one of her allies, but in a Gender Flip, he's mainly there to look hot and have sex with Jessica at first. Notably, the series plays many Film Noir tropes straight, except with a woman being the lead instead of a man, including her being a hard drinker and having casual sex.
- The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power:
- The producers wanted female characters to play a more prominent role than they did in the source material or previous adaptations. Galadriel, a supporting character in the source material, is the protagonist of the series, which expands on the reference in the books to her having gone through a Warrior Princess phase. Queen Regent Miriel is a POV character and her struggles as a female monarch, also mentioned in the source material, are explored. The producers also added Canon Foreigner female characters including Bronwyn, Disa, Eärien, Nori and Poppy to round out the narrative.
- Feminist themes can be seen Galadriel's first-season plot in that she is a competent woman whose valid concerns about encroaching evil are dismissed as being paranoid and/or hysterical. This leads to her becoming more obsessed and engaging in behavior that seems to confirm the authorities' opinion of her. The irony is that it is Halbrand who recognizes her abilities and encourages her, without her realizing that the man who values her is the very enemy she has been seeking, as Halbrand is Sauron in disguise.
- Galadriel's Season 2 encounter with Sauron has clear parallels to an abusive ex-partner showing up, wanting another chance and not taking the rejection well. When she tells Sauron to "heal himself", she's rejecting the fallacy of the Morality Chain and is telling him that he's the only person responsible for his behavior.
- The harfoot storyline portrays two young, female characters who are not physically strong or trained as warriors setting out on an adventure and learning that they have worth. Nori, in particular, must learn to value her instincts when she has been taught she is nothing special.
- Motherland: Fort Salem: The series revolves around four young women at the titular Fort Salem, a training academy for military witches in an Alternate History where witches escaped persecution during the Witch Trials by agreeing to fight for the army. In their world, as a result of witches being majority-female, the US seems largely female-dominated (or at least has many leading women, including the President, although she's not a witch herself, and the head of the Army, who is), while the story focuses on female characters even in minor roles (male characters so far have been secondary and in a decided minority), with them filling positions that have been traditionally occupied solely by men and having great prestige.
- Nikita features two women as the main heroes in season 1, and in seasons 3 and 4 the primary antagonist is a woman. The titular character is considered among the most dangerous characters in the series. When most male division agents run into her, it doesn't end well for them.
- Once Upon a Time (2011) follows Emma Swan, a tough and cynical Bounty Hunter who finds her life turned on its head when the son she gave up for adoption shows up on her doorstep. He reveals to her that she is The Chosen One, the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming destined to break the Evil Queen's curse and save the enchanted residents of Storybrooke. Though initially unwilling to believe, over time Emma comes to accept her destiny as a hero. Featuring numerous characters from classical fairy tales and legends, many are re-imagined as heroines in their own right as opposed to typical Damsels. Snow White and Prince Charming are a Battle Couple, Regina (the Evil Queen) is a complex and deeply flawed woman, Belle is a Guile Heroine, and even those women that don't physically fight are shown to possess other kinds of strength — great intelligence, supernatural might, or incredible emotional fortitude.
- Once Upon a Time in Wonderland is a Spin-Off of the above, and continues the tradition of strong women. Alice is brilliant and able to outwit the various Chessmasters gunning for her. Discovering that her Lost Lenore Cyrus is still alive, Alice undertakes a quest to rescue him. And like Regina, the Red Queen (Anastasia) is a sympathetic villainess.
- Orphan Black is a gritty sci-fi series about a human cloning conspiracy, with most of the clones being women. Along with having a main cast consisting almost entirely of complex female characters, the series explores themes of identity, motherhood, female autonomy, and reproductive rights.
- The Outpost: There are roughly equal numbers of women and men in the main and supporting cast, with many common character archetypes of Heroic Fantasy (and Westerns) Gender Flipped: The Drifter, protagonist Talon, is a wandering revenge-seeker Action Girl trying to find a place in the world, the bartender is a money-grubbing, morally gray female innkeeper, and Gwynn is set up as a classically feminine Blue Blood but shows a taste for wild living and then turns into The High Queen and an Action Girl to rival Talon after it's revealed she's really Rosmund, the Hidden Backup Princess who is plotting a revolution to regain her throne.
- Shadow and Bone, based on the book series by Leigh Bardugo. The central protagonist is an orphaned teenage girl, Alina, who discovers she's the legendary Sun Summoner, a Grisha capable of manipulating light and of potentially destroying the magical wall of darkness literally dividing their country. Alina is also visibly of mixed ethnicity (in the books she's just Ravkan – a Fantasy Counterpart Culture to Russia – while in the show she's part Ravkan, part Shu – the fantasy counterpart of Mongolia or China; her actress has a Chinese father and English mother), which is uncommon for a Western fantasy protagonist. She starts out being manipulated by General Kirigan, who seeks to use her power for his own gain and makes her feel she has to rely on him, but by the end of Season 1, she takes back control, declaring she doesn't need him and will shape her own destiny. The other plotlines also have strong female protagonists: Nina is a Heartrender spy who survives abduction and manages to change her captor's view that all Grisha are evil and all women should be docile housewives; Inej is a former Sex Slave who is determined to escape that life by joining a Caper Crew and is skilled at martial arts and infiltration. For Grisha in general Gender Is No Object, with women serving in the Second Army alongside men.
- Star Trek
- Star Trek: The Original Series included women in a professional, military setting but still with some lingering Stay in the Kitchen attitudes. Uhura, the female character who appeared the most often in the series, was the Communications Officer but largely regulated to being a phone operator, simply repeating "Hailing frequencies are open." This is generally seen as Fair for Its Day as Uhura was always treated with respect, as well as being a woman of color which made Nichelle Nichols into an icon with loads of fans, inspiring both real life female astronauts and other entertainers.
- Star Trek: The Next Generation had three women in the cast, Security Officer Tasha Yar, Dr. Beverly Crusher and Counsellor Deanna Troi. Due to the Troubled Production of the first few seasons Denise Crosby requested to leave and Tasha Yar was killed off, which had an unfortunate side effect of leaving the other two women as "caregivers." But both characters are seen as integral to what the show became, and set the stage for the next evolution of female roles in Star Trek.
- Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager had the female cast all as interesting, complex characters and in positions of real authority. DS9 had Major Kira as Number Two and a former resistance fighter and Jadzia Dax as the science officer but a Trill who has a symbiont that gives her memories of past lives both male and female, including one who had been a mentor to Commander Sisko and had deep friendships with a bunch of Klingons. VOY had The Captain as Kathryn Janeway, Chief Engineer B'Elanna Torres as a half-Klingon with a Hair-Trigger Temper, Kes the Mysterious Waif with dangerous telepathic powers and Seven of Nine a former Borg drone learning to rediscover her humanity. During the late 90's several magazine articles and a TV Guide spotlight noted that woman in Star Trek had really taken center stage. The franchise since then has been an expansion of what was built here.
- Strange Empire was a sadly short-lived Canadian western about a Métis gunslinger looking for her missing husband, a black woman who used to be a sex slave and now is married to the villain of the show, and an autistic woman who wants to be a doctor, and their struggles in the No Woman's Land of a small frontier township consisting primarily of miners and prostitutes. The show particularly stands out in the way it plays And Then There Were None... with its white male characters.
- Supergirl (2015) focuses on the titular heroine, as she decides to follow in her cousin's footsteps and become a hero. Kara worries about being trapped in her more famous cousin's shadow and works to become her own hero defined by her own successes and failures. Alongside her foster sister, Alex, she aids a covert government agency in hunting down escaped alien criminals — with the relationship between the sisters a major focus of the story. Her boss, media mogul Cat Grant, also brings another perspective into the story in exploring the double standards attached to successful women. Women, she tells Kara, have to work twice as hard to be acknowledged and aren't allowed to make mistakes if they want to be taken seriously.
- Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, the Spin-Off of the Terminator films. Picking up after the second film, it stars Lena Headey as Sarah and introduces Summer Glau as Cameron, a Terminator in the form of a young woman who has been sent back to protect John Connor. Much of the series revolves around the two women fighting to protect John from killer cyborgs, ensuring that he'll grow up to follow in his mother's footsteps as leader of the human resistance.
- That's So Raven has a main female protagonist and her dealing with the troubles of having psychic visions. She also deals with heavy subjects for a show aimed at children — Racism, body-shaming, drugs, stealing, feeling like a freak because you have something that hardly anyone has, and so forth.
- Tin Man (2007) is a Science Fantasy retelling of The Wizard of Oz, where the three main power players are women. DG leads the resistance, her mother the queen is The Mentor pulling the strings so that evil is defeated, and the evil Azkadellia commands an entire army as well as wielding plenty of dark magic herself. As Azkadellia is really DG's possessed sister, the climax of the story stresses the power of sisterly love, where the combined powers of the sisters defeat the true Wicked Witch. Most of the men in the story are subservient to the women in some way.
- Westworld, being loosely based on the 1973 film, can be described as a Feminist Fantasy given that one of the showrunners is Lisa Joy, the wife of Jonathan Nolan, who is also one of the showrunners. While it is a science fiction show that focuses on artificial intelligence, human nature, and philosophy (particularly on the subject of free will vs. determinism), the protagonists are two female hosts, Dolores and Maeve, who are constantly abused by the human guests and employees. Throughout the show, both women began fighting for the freedom of their species and while they make mistakes along the way, they eventually learn. By the end of Season 3, Dolores sacrifices herself to destroy the system that is holding back the humans' freedom and passes her mission to Maeve to help both the hosts and the humans find their future.
- The Wheel of Time (2021): Several of the protagonists are women, with the Aes Sedai Magical Society (who are all female in the present) as a prominent powerful group who include the continent's premier political advisors, diplomats, healers, librarians and scholars as well as Action Girl fighters against the forces of the Shadow. The Aes Sedai govern a city-state, Tar Valon, centred around the White Tower, and have influence in most other lands as well through sending a Sister to serve as the Court Mage. The series shows them as equal to (or greater than) men in its world. Multiple countries have ruling queens, and the largest, Andor, legally can only be ruled by a Queen. In rural villages like Emond's Field (where much of the main cast comes from), the most influential authority is the Women's Circle, led by the Village Wisdom. Though The Chosen One is male, he's helped greatly by the women on his side (one of whom is the Mentor Archetype who is the actual central character), and two of the other four people who were identified as possibly being The Chosen One had been female as well. One of the prominent antagonist groups are the Whitecloaks, a Knights Templar-esque bunch who believe channeling the One Power is unnatural and like to Burn the Witch!; although not explicitly a Straw Misogynist organization, the subtext is there, given that they're all men and their targets are women.
- Witchblade: The Witchblade is explicitly a female force, choosing women to wield it and regarding them as superior. Many of the villains Sara encounters are, conversely, in one way or another embodiments of the darker sides of masculinity or the products of male efforts to "usurp" the female domain (e.g., clones represent artificial control over pregnancy and birth, brainwashing super soldiers can be seen as a twisted version of child-rearing, and The Lance of Longinus is literally the Spear Counterpart to the Witchblade and wielded by a villain). Protagonist Sara Pezzini is tough and capable but also not afraid to show emotion or otherwise appear feminine, and protective of others in a definite Mama Bear sort of way.
- Wonder Woman (1975) was intended to be explicitly feminist like its comic book counterpart, but the network ordered the show's producers to tone down the messages.
- Xena: Warrior Princess used to provide the page image. It revolves around the adventures of Xena, a powerful Action Girl who seeks to atone for her dark past as a warlord by fighting for good. She's joined by her loyal best friend Gabrielle; they are either Heterosexual Life-Partners or lovers.
- Yellowjackets follows an all-female cast as they survive being stranded and uncover the mystery behind it. They are all complex women who are each given their own development and arc.
Music
- Seanan McGuire, already an author of many feminist fantasy works, has also released quite a few songs in this genre. For example, "Wicked Girls" from the album of the same name critiques the treatment of female characters in classic children's fantasy and fairy tales, like Dorothy, Wendy, and Susan, and offers them an alternative.
Tinker Bell says, and I find I agree
You have to break rules if you want to break free.
So do as you like — we're determined to be
Wicked girls saving ourselves.
Other
- A Mighty Girl website is dedicated to this in order to inspire the young women in the world - Their site has various forms of media (mainly literature) of stories with female characters at the forefront, whether the genre is fiction or non-fiction.
Tabletop Games
- Blue Rose is designed to emulate Feminist Fantasy of the sort published by Tamora Pierce and Mercedes Lackey.
- Heroine is a highly unusual role-playing game that doesn't explicitly concern itself with any obviously feminist issues, but stars an Always Female main player character overcoming fantastic challenges through her cleverness, daring, and kindness. Also, it is more of a storybook fantasy than any other kind of fantasy.
- Thirsty Sword Lesbians, as the name suggests, is a Powered by the Apocalypse system that revolves around "angsty disaster lesbians" having swash-buckling Science Fantasy adventures. Themes of the game include fighting corrupt authority figures and using The Power of Love.
Theater
- One of the earliest examples is Anne Marie du Boccage's 1749 play Les Amazones, a reimagining of the Greek myth of Theseus and the Amazons in which the Amazons are victorious. The play's sub-heroine, Melanippe, explains the Amazon code to Theseus in what is, in effect, a feminist manifesto. Their aim, she says, is to redress the balance upset by the seizure of power by arrogant males. The only way to do this is by force.
- Six: The Musical is about the six wives of Henry VIII forming a band and signing about their tragic lives. The final song throws the tragedy aside and instead has each girl sing about the Alternate History events that led them to form a band together, all of which involve them either ditching Henry or otherwise having a happy life;
- Catherine of Aragon turned down Henry's proposal and joined a nunnery, becoming a top-of-the-hitlist singer as part of the gospel choir.
- Anne Boleyn used Henry's romantic letter to make a hit song, being picked up by a record company and is currently a songwriter for Shakesy-P.
- Jane Seymour had a large family and formed a family band with her children.
- Anne of Cleves was turned down by Henry and moved back home, becoming a renowned musician while living at the House of Holbein.
- Katherine Howard ditched the music teacher who tried to seduce her, instead teaching herself the craft.
- Catherine Parr heard of each girl individually and reached out to them to form the band.
Toys
- Lauren Faust's original toyline concept, Milky Way and the Galaxy Girls, does this with a wide, diverse cast. She got put in charge of the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic Continuity Reboot when she pitched the idea, and you can notice similarities between the two. Either way, she is quite proud that she could deliver such a blow to the Girl-Show Ghetto.
Visual Novels
- The central protagonist of Ascension (2013) is Aida, a snarky, asskicking thief-turned-hero who is unapologetic about any of this. Other major characters include Sky and Tillie; although Sky spends a lot of the first chapter as rather timid and Prone to Tears, she's still quite brave and loyal, and later takes some serious levels in badass to become a powerful magic user. Tillie is a very intelligent alchemist who defied dwarf stereotypes to follow her passion and aspires to open a magic school. There are also numerous supporting or minor badass and strong-minded female characters.
- The main protagonist of Witch on the Holy Night is Aoko Aozaki, who's a Hot-Blooded, asskicking magus-in-training who doesn't take shit from anyone. Her primary ally and confidant throughout the story is Alice Kuonji, who's very poised and dignified, but who's every bit as dangerous as Aoko. And that's not getting into the fact that the Big Bad is Touko Aozaki, who's one of the most powerful and accomplished mages in the entire setting. Furthermore, the two main male characters, Soujuurou sizuki and Lugh Beowulf, both tend to take more subordinate roles to the girls, and are both shown to be perfectly ok with that. And that's not even getting into the fact that Aoko is the wielder of one of the Five True magics, which have the ability to do the impossible, and which she uses to save Soujuurou's life. Lastly, on a more minor note, there's pretty much no Fanservice regarding the girls. In fact, the only scene that could qualify as Fanservice involves Soujuurou having a Shirtless Scene while changing only for Aoko and Alice to stumble upon him, and they're both shown to be rather appreciative of what they see.
- The Nasuverse as a whole. While some of the later entries definitely tend to be more heavy on fanservice, there's no denying that it's filled with a high number of powerful, competent women. Of the entries, The Garden of Sinners and Witch on the Holy Night both follow female protagonists with little to no fanservice present, and in Fate/stay night and Tsukihime, the heroines tend to be just as, if not more, competent and powerful than the male protagonists, with Arcueid, the "main" heroine of the latter, being a contender for strongest character in the setting. Furthermore, a fair number of the Big Bads and Arc Villains are women, with Kiara Sesshouin, Tiamat, and Morgan Le Fay being particularly striking examples.
Web Animation
- RWBY is an action-oriented series focused on an Academy of Adventure where students train to become Hunters or Huntresses. The cast are all loosely based on various Fairy Tales, with Little Red Riding Hood starring as scythe-wielding Ruby, Snow White as Lady of War Weiss, Goldilocks as Cute Bruiser Yang, and Beauty as Ninja Blake. The cast primarily consists of women, all capable warriors in their own right and respected as equals by their male peers. It also features references to warrior women from mythology, in the forms of Pyrrha Nikos (Amazons) and Nora Valkyrie. According to Word of God, they intentionally avoided panty shots even when the heroines are jumping and flipping around in short skirts.
- A consistent pattern in the show is that male authority figures always screw up in some way and will either recognize their faults and work alongside the heroines or double down and become villains. Ozpin freely admits that he has made "more mistakes than any man, woman or child" on Remnant, and is on the receiving end of several What the Hell, Hero? from the girls. Taiyang was deeply depressed and absent for most of Ruby's childhood, leading to Yang's Promotion to Parent. Qrow is an alcoholic who only decides to go sober after Ruby chews him out for being useless. Lionheart succumbs to his cowardice and becomes an agent of the (female) Big Bad and Ironwood succumbs to paranoia and becomes a fascist dictator (who is opposed by a different, all-female team of heroes). Finally, the brother gods Light and Dark put the entire overarching conflict into motion by being petty and cruel. It usually falls to younger female characters to pick up the slack and fix the mistakes of their male predecessors.
Webcomics
- The Adventures of Gyno-Star is explicitly feminist. One of the antagonists is a housewife who wants to turn all women on Earth into housewives. Another one is a teenage boy whose superpower is making the Male Gaze come true, changing himself into a muscled abnormity and all women into thin and nevertheless big-breasted bimbos.
- Awful Hospital's protagonist is a mother Trapped in Another World, searching for her ailing son. For a time, she is the Unfazed Everyman in a party with a grandmotherly bacterium medic, a swashbuckling fungus princess, and a maggot sorceress.
- Beware the Villainess!: The story centers around a smart, capable female protagonist that takes an introspective look at Double Standards of the romance genre, as well as wider fiction and even real life, and thus takes the story Off the Rails by refusing to play along with sexist tropes and assumptions. She out-maneuvers, out-wits (and sometimes even out-fights) the characters that repeatedly try to stop her, and does it while calling out their flaws and explaining why the things they want or believe are toxic/twisted. The story is not afraid to repeatedly mention that its female characters are not "things" to be rescued, admired, or sought-after, but agents in charge of their own fates.
- Draconia Chronicles, if you can get past the fact that half the characters are nudists and the other half are Nubile Savages, and all of them except the kids and two male characters are Ms. Fanservice in their own way. 99% of the cast are strong independent women, as the story is about two matriarchal civilizations locked in a Forever War.
- Erika and the Princes in Distress: The story as a whole deals with many feminist topics, and uses the inversion of gender stereotypes to put light on them and invite the reader to question them. The most obvious example is the fact that Women Are Tough and Men Are Delicate, and those who do not fill that mold are often looked down upon. Characters also often find themselves on the receiving end of comments that mirror ones thrown at the opposite gender in real life: women are told that they shouldn't cry and should learn to fight their own battles, while men are told that they should smile more, that they're not fit to do "women jobs", and that body hair on them is ugly. There's even an organization trying to fight for men's rights by overthrowing the current system, that they see as oppressive and unequal.
- One notable scene is the duel between Benoit and Kaylane, during which she ends up undressing him before assaulting him. This was inspired by a very similar scene from The Mask of Zorro in which Alejandro does this to Elena, which the author for the comic notes rarely made anyone bat an eye. The gender inversion of the scene was meant to point at the Double Standard at play; without going into detail, it certainly succeeded in causing reactions and discussion from readers. Kaylane later gets chewed on by Irvine regarding her attitude, the latter telling her quite angrily that she has no right to treat men the way she does. His argument pretty much straight-up matches real-life feminist arguments on the matter, only with the genders reversed.
Irvine: Listen to me! The fact that he's dressed like this does not grant you the right to touch him! He's not some piece of meat or toy that you can take advantage of as you please! Got it? Might he be naked, you'd still have no right over his body!
- The character arc of Prince Aurel is particularly heavy on feminist themes. He desires to become a nurse, despite people around him (including his mother and his best friend), telling him that it is a woman's job, and suggesting that he should focus on more manly interests such as embroidery or singing. He is told that all great nurses in history were women, which he finds absurd since men are never actually given a chance to be nurses. Even after proving himself a competent nurse, one man refuses to let him attend to his daughter, for the sole reason that he is a man. Needless to say, this mirrors many of the obstacles faced in real life by women trying to get into male-dominated fields. In the French version, Aurel also insists on being called a "soignant", the masculine form of "nurse", despite other characters insisting that it is "soignante", the feminine form. This actually mirrors a real debate among French speakers, as several professions such as doctor ("docteur"), professor ("professeur"), chief ("chef"), or author ("auteur") lack a feminine form. The official rule is that the name should remain masculine even when applied to a woman, while feminists have been fighting to introduce feminine forms for years ("docteure/doctoresse", "professeure/professeuse", "cheffe", "auteure/autrice"). Aurel being told that "it sounds wrong" is also a common real-life argument made against those new words.
- The book-exclusive chapter of Volume 2 touches upon another important feminist topic, that being the invisibilization of women. Said story features Alberta, the younger sister of Queen Ariane, who proves to be an exceptionally talented researcher and practitioner to the point of overshadowing the Queen herself. It's eventually shown that her husband has been helping her in her research and coming up with cures for her patients behind the scenes, yet she consistently took all of the credit for it. This mirrors an unfortunate reality of women's work having historically had the credit of their work taken by men, with infamous examples including Mileva Marić, Alice Ball, or Rosalind Franklin.
- One notable scene is the duel between Benoit and Kaylane, during which she ends up undressing him before assaulting him. This was inspired by a very similar scene from The Mask of Zorro in which Alejandro does this to Elena, which the author for the comic notes rarely made anyone bat an eye. The gender inversion of the scene was meant to point at the Double Standard at play; without going into detail, it certainly succeeded in causing reactions and discussion from readers. Kaylane later gets chewed on by Irvine regarding her attitude, the latter telling her quite angrily that she has no right to treat men the way she does. His argument pretty much straight-up matches real-life feminist arguments on the matter, only with the genders reversed.
- Girl Genius is a Webcomic featuring a female protagonist and a fairly even distribution of male-to-female supporting and minor characters, which are almost always shown to be on par with their male counterparts. Both male and female characters are the subject of heroism, captivity, villainy, general badassery, and fanservice in approximately equal ratios.
- Grrl Power is a comic about those with superpowers, and the majority of the prominent characters are women.
- Kill Six Billion Demons concerns Allison, an average twentysomething woman from Los Angeles being given the Master Key to the Universe and (unknowingly) becoming The Chosen One prophecied to save it from the Seven Black Emperors. However, for still-unknown reasons the Prophecy says the chosen one is male, leading to the protagonist's boyfriend being taken as the true Chosen One and kidnapped by the Emperors, who are confused as to why the Chosen One has no power to stop them and believe Allison is some kind of feint intended to mature and bring the Master Key to him. All of Allison's companions are either women (Cio, Nyave, and Princess) or have No Biological Sex but are implied to want to be female (82 White Chain) who later becomes a full angel-to-human trans woman. Finally, the comic is set in a "Groundhog Day" Loop where The Chosen One has failed to fulfill the Prophecy over and over again at the same point during The Hero's Journey, necessitating the resetting of time. Said Chosen has always been male up to this cycle, and it's implied The Chooser of the One decided to choose Allison in an attempt to rectify this.
- Magick Chicks is an ongoing Urban Fantasy which is set at a One-Gender School for monster hunters in training.
- The series is actually a Spin-Off for the Hellrune Coven, a witch trio who were expelled from Charybdis Heights and transferred to Artemis Academy. Melissa is the Coven's leader and is eventually revealed to be half witch/half Magical Girl.
- The academy's student council consists of the 7 most powerful students at the school, which includes: Callista, the captain of the school's Archery Club, whose Improbable Aiming Skills have earned her the nickname "Deadeye Archer". Tandy is captain of the Ninja Club, and their president, Faith Abbot, is the most powerful esper in its history.
- Namesake has Emma, a female protagonist that is thrown into a pre-written story where she's expected to fulfill a role, yet still constantly makes her own decisions and can actually be quite bossy in order to make things work out and return to her sister about whom she cares deeply. The comic has more female than male characters altogether, and most of them show to have qualities such as being the Action Girl, mature and well-informed, strong-willed and/or magically gifted, and they handle situations pretty well without male guidance. The Big Bad is a man and both cunning and powerful, but he's often in the background, while his minions are for the larger part an Amazon Brigade (including a trans woman) with only a few male co-workers and are far more active.
- Priya's Shakti is an independent comic produced in an effort to address sexual assault and Rape Culture in India. The story follows Priya, a young woman who is cast out of her home and community after being assaulted. The Goddess Parvati incarnates into the young woman in answer to her prayers but finds that humanity continues to shun and abuse Priya. This enrages Shiva, who curses mankind until his wife intervenes to save them. Blessed with the Goddess' power, Priya journeys to fight for dignity and compassion, bringing hope to the world once more. The series includes special codes that unlock "Augmented Reality" content, featuring the stories of real survivors.
- Pusheen the Cat: The title character is female, the series has a Gender-Equal Ensemble, and all characters engage in a wide range of activities without being restricted to gender stereotypes.
- The Wendybird reinvents the story of Peter Pan this way. The story focuses on Wendy's thirst for adventure and becoming Neverland's savior. At least 75% of the cast is gender-bent, and many of the females are given a heavy amount of Xenafication, including Captain Hook and Tiger Lily.
Web Original
- Limyaael's Fantasy Rants Feminist fantasy rant. Although she considers herself a feminist, Limyaael critiques tropes she sees in a lot of these, such as portraying women as inherently smarter, more virtuous and even them ruling as ideal. Limyaael particularly dislikes those which (ironically enough, given feminist criticism of this) use Rape Tropes poorly, overusing she thinks Rape as Drama, Child by Rape, simply using Rape and Switch at all, Madonna-Whore Complex and Girls vs. Boys Plot. In general, she thinks these give feminism a bad name, and fall into unfortunate stereotypes of feminists that such works perpetuate.
- Mirrorworld by Scraggle is a story about Vita Lynere, a young teen who becomes trapped in the bizarre world of Inoptica, in a twisted sort of Alice in Wonderland take off. What sets it apart is the story becomes about Vita, her struggles and character, as she grapples with both the terrible situations she's been thrust into, as well as her anxiety over her life back on earth, culminating in how Vita develops and bonds with the residents of Inoptica, particularly her sisterly relationship with the young 'Day Vamp Wigavat, and it doesn't hurt that the story includes a number of other complex and capable female characters as well.
Western Animation
- Amphibia: The series follows the adventures of a brave, smart, and ultimately good-natured teenage girl named Anne Boonchuy. Her culture as a Thai-American is explored in various episodes and her arc in season 1 is of her unlearning her initially toxic beliefs about friendship. Anne's friends, Sasha Waybright and Marcy Wu, play a fairly large role in season 2 and have similar arcs about unlearning toxic behaviors and growing as people.
- Arcane: This series features a number of women in prominent and major roles as equal as their male counterparts, with gender not being an issue. All of them are given unique character designs, goals, and characterization. The closest person to being a protagonist is a young woman who is one of the strongest and morally noble people in the show.
- Avatar: The Last Airbender has numerous diverse women with their own personalities, character arcs, and strengths without being subjected to just a love interest or plot device.
- The Legend of Korra, the sequel to the above series, exploits its predecessor's Cash-Cow Franchise credentials, to be more "girl power"-oriented by dint of taking the risk of basing a children's action show around a female protagonist. It worked out; the boy viewers didn't care that the main character was a girl because they knew she was awesome. The original series had six recurring female characters with distinctive stories, and a few episodes with explicit feminist themes, which is cemented in the final season. Multiple women of all ages - particularly Korra, Su, Lin, and the series' first female Big Bad, Kuvira - are the ones to drive the plot, with the male characters taking a supporting role. Asami becomes The Lancer to Korra and the two even have a Relationship Upgrade.
- Carmen Sandiego has the main character as an intelligent, athletic famous thief who rarely loses and uses her skills to stop the main evil organization. There are also women with different body types, ethnicity, and personality types.
- DC Super Hero Girls is spearheaded by Lauren Faust, a name you'll see much of as this section continues. As the title suggests, it follows six heroines from DC Comics reimagined as high school students. They have wildly different personalities but have a common drive to serve their city and consistently support each other, a reflection of Faust's "there's no 'wrong' way to be a girl" philosophy. Apart from Monster of the Week situations, the majority of the villains are also female, and nearly every episode passes The Bechdel Test. Consider the show's Title Drop moment: after the heroines have saved the city, a group of preteen girls cheer, amazed to see a group of superhero girls.
- Disenchantment: The story focuses on a Rebellious Princess Action Girl Bean, who defies the roles of medieval society to upper-class women while finding herself. Bean is also a main female character who is notably less sexualized than usual, being fairly average looking, lacking any curvy silhouette, and preferring an efficient, simple, and practical tunic/pants/boots outfit (although she does show some attractive curves in the dresses she wears on special occasions).
- Elena of Avalor in which the main protagonist's story isn't about finding romance but about training to become a proper Queen in the future. She gives and receives support from various female characters, with none of them getting into an awkward Love Triangle.
- Glitch Techs: One of the main protagonists is a female, whose video game skills are noted to be above excellent, even besting the male protagonist, though he doesn't act embittered about it. There are numerous female supporting characters who are Action Girls and their place is not questioned. Also, all of them are given distinct looks and are not carbon copies of each other.
- Inside Job (2021) follows Reagan, a super-genius female main character as she tries to keep all the secrets of the United States a secret. Uniquely for a female protagonist, Reagan is allowed to be as flawed, vulgar, and messy as any of the male main characters
- Kim Possible broke the norm with the girl who can "do anything"; kickass females on the front lines, and in a Disney Channel action series, no less.
- The Love, Death & Robots has two of those:
- Short "Sonnie's Edge" features a confident and tough-as-nails rape survivor who participates in Kaiju Beastly Blood Sports and relishes bringing toxic, powerful men down a peg both inside and outside the arena.
- Unlike the short story it's based on (whose main theme is Occupiers Out of Our Country), "Good Hunting" is primarily about Yan becoming an android vigilante after all the mistreatment she received throughout her life from various men.
- Maya and the Three: follows the adventures of a teenage Mesoamerican princess as she unites a team to defeat the cruel gods. The other female characters are given their own agency and characterization along with the males.
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic shows that feminist works can find a wide audience. While the franchise has always been aimed at girls, and creator Lauren Faust created the cast as a way to remove generic "niceness" from the characterization of girls and avoid the problems inherent in having one girl in a cast,note the show is written to be enjoyed equally by parents and kids alike, and succeeds beautifully. It may be the only Western girls' cartoon that has inspired raiding threads on 4chan.
- The Owl House: The main character is an openly bisexual teenage girl of Dominican descent taking a journey to be a great Witch and her teacher is a famous and powerful Witch named Eda Clawthorne, who is on the run from the tyrannical authoritarian government of the setting. Most of the main character's notable relationships are those with other women, most notably Amity Blight, who becomes one of her best friends and later on her girlfriend.
- Phantom Investigators has a gender-equal team of two girls and two boys in the titular group of paranormal investigators, with one of the girls (Daemona) serving as the team leader (with Kira, the other girl, serving as The Lancer). The fact that the leader of the team is a girl is never made a big deal in the series and both girls are shown to be very smart and resourceful.
- The Powerpuff Girls. The entire series is based around cute, five-year-old little girls being badass, and their femininity, or lack of it, is not shown as a bad thing. The series encountered controversy over an episode featuring a Straw Feminist villain named Femme Fatale. She stole only Susan B. Anthony coins and convinced the girls that men were their enemies — leading the girls to let her go and begin acting hostile towards the guys in their lives. Ms. Bellum, Mrs. Keane, and a female police officer pulled the girls aside, teaching them about equality and helping expose Femme Fatale as a hypocrite who injured female officers during her crimes and didn't know anything about Susan B. Anthony's role in history. Some felt the episode mocked feminism, while others praised the focus on equality and learning about historical figures. Lauren Faust herself mentions she feels the topic wasn't handled well in the episode.
- Rainbow Brite, with its Badass Adorable heroine and numerous Magical Girl elements that celebrate traditionally feminine aspects as sources of strength. Even before gaining her color-based magical powers and Cool Horse, Wisp was brave and determined, as well as quick-thinking. As Rainbow Brite, she's loved by all of Rainbowland and saves the universe alongside Jerk with a Heart of Gold Krys in the Darker and Edgier movie.
- Ready Jet Go!: Although Jet, a male-presenting alien, is the main character, the series has an Ensemble Cast and so girl characters like Celery, Sydney and Mindy get extensive focus. Many of the characters' parents are also successful women in STEM, something never questioned or mocked. Sydney and Mindy don't exist solely to be friends with Jet, they also stand on their own and are crucial to the plot. Each of the female characters has a unique design. The series had the Geena Davis Institute for Gender in Media as part of its advisory board along with a mostly female writing team,note , resulting in it being quite feminist.
- Parodied in the Rick and Morty episode "Never Ricking Morty". Morty has to tell a story that passes The Bechdel Test in order to save Rick's life (long story). The story involves his sister Summer and mother Beth having a stiltedly random conversation that avoids any reference to men whatsoever. When Morty finishes the story, Rick remarks that it was a "feminist masterpiece". What's especially ironic is that the show usually fails the aforementioned test.
- She-Ra and the Princesses of Power reboots the iconic 1980s series, carrying its feminist message to a new generation. The series is noteworthy for re-imaging the cast with practical costumes and a variety of body types and racial characteristics. Instead of simply being a title, the titular Princesses are defined by their powerful magical abilities and their roles in protecting Etheria. The show also analyzes the different relationships (both positive and negative) between its female characters while also incorporating positive LGBTQ themes.
- She-Ra: Princess of Power paved the way for many of the above shows, being a spin-off of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (1983) created to appeal to a female audience. The titular heroine is the long-lost twin sister of He-Man and gains a magical sword that grants her the same superhuman powers he possesses. She is every bit her brother's physical equal and, like him (He-Man, despite how the name sounds, is no meathead), uses brains and brawn to save the day. The cast is primarily female, with many involved in the Great Rebellion battling to free Etheria from the tyrant, Hordak. Unlike its sibling series, the Rebellion is at a constant disadvantage and must overcome through a combination of martial strength, intelligence, and inspiring the oppressed citizens to stand up for themselves. Like many Magical Girl series, typical elements of femininity (ex. glittery gemstones, winged unicorns) are celebrated as sources of strength, and physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual strength are all treated as equally important traits. The generation that grew up with She-Ra went on to be the audience of other major series, such as Buffy and Xena.
- Star vs. the Forces of Evil is a Magical Girl high/urban fantasy centering on Star Butterfly, the princess of Mewni, a kingdom whose line of succession and study of magic is matriarchal, meaning that only the women in the family are eligible to wield the royal magic wand and be the ruling monarch. Her entire family is composed of Royals Who Actually Do Something, with her various "grandmas" being warriors, scholars, or diplomats, all with different morals and distinct personalities. While standard teenage romance drama does pop up, it's portrayed far more realisticallynote than is usual. The show does deal with gendered issues such as arranged marriage, infidelity, misogyny, and motherhood, but primarily focuses on Star realizing the Evil Colonialist history of her family and subjects, the real dynamics of the Monster/Mewman conflict, and the choices her family has made over generations that continue to affect the kingdom in the present. The show, in a similar vein to other Magical Girl shows, utilizes feminine objects as tools of power, namely the royal magic wand that changes form depending on who holds it. Although for many queens it looks like a conventional Magical Girl wandnote , it has uniquely turned into a clock, a cane, a laser sword, a parasol, a goblet, a magic 8 ball, a puzzle cube, a pen, and a rolling pin. Star herself is an extremely powerful witch with a balance of strengths and weaknesses who matures throughout the series as she's forced to confront more and more complex political and interpersonal issues.
- Steven Universe is a ground-breaking series for its LGBT representation, predominantly feminine cast, and complete dismantling of traditional gender roles. The series presents a young male hero who is following his late mother's legacy and is defined by his emotional depth and desire to resolve conflicts through open communication and empathy instead of violence. The Crystal Gems are a group of feminine-presenting aliens with diverse body types and unique personalities, all working together to defend Steven as his caretakers and protect the Earth from invasion. There is a prominent lesbian couple, who share an on-screen kiss and further broke ground by getting their own wedding episode. As the bond between Steven and Connie develops, she becomes a skilled Action Girl who wields his mother's sword while Steven uses her shield as a Barrier Warrior. The series encourages children to be themselves, breaking down stereotypical roles and toxic ideas about masculinity and femininity. It teaches girls to be confident and love themselves while presenting them with an incredibly diverse range of women to look up to. It also actively teaches young boys that kindness, empathy, emotional vulnerability, and "feminine" behaviors or looks are not shameful or weak. The series presents a boy who has worn makeup and dresses, cries openly, tries to befriend his enemies, and looks to women as protectors and as inspirational figures.
- Totally Spies! features Sam, Alex, and Clover — three Ordinary High School Students who happen to be super-spies that regularly save the world. Their high-tech gadgets are often things like makeup or accessories, turning the feminine into powerful tools that help take down villains or escape various dangers. Typical teenage drama about romance, cute boys, fashion, and dealing with the resident Alpha Bitch are combined with James Bond-styled action and heroics. Word of God admits to being inspired by the anime Dirty Pair, another series about female spies.
- Winx Club: A Magical Girl type of series that focuses on a group of different young girls, all with different ethnicities and interests who each go through their own character arcs. And while all of them have romances they are not the main issue for any of them, and they strongly believe in The Power of Friendship.
- Similar to the original comic book being a Magical Girl series created by westerners, W.I.T.C.H. (2004) is essentially a western Magical Girl series.
