Last week, on my day off from work, I finally got around to watching "The Lego Movie." And yes, I know, I'm incredibly late to the party-- what can I say, college tends to make my Netflix queue extremely bloated. I was charmed by the colorful animation, the fun premise and, yes, the absurdly catchy theme song, but I also found myself sighing at the inclusion of one of my least favorite tropes, the hypercompetent female sidekick.
In case you haven't heard of it before, the basic gist is this: our hero, the bumbling male (and usually white) lead is repeatedly shown to be untrained and unqualified for the task at hand, often to comical effect. Luckily for him, he has a kickass female sidekick who is there to train him, clean up his messes and then step neatly out of the way during the final battle so the hero can step up and show how much he's grown throughout the film. Think of Neo and Trinity from"The Matrix," of Scott Lang and Hope Van Dyne from "Ant-Man," of Cage and Rita from "Edge of Tomorrow." I could go on. It's a common enough of a trope that I could probably spend the rest of this article listing examples and still have some left to spare.
While this trope typically crops up in action movies, it also rears its head in children's media like "The Lego Movie" and "Ben 10" though we can trace it all the way back to classics like "Inspector Gadget." This is because it also can be milked for comedic effected. Unlike the goofy hero, the hyper-competent female sidekick rarely provides any humor on her own--maybe we laugh at how straight-laced or stern she is, or she makes a scathing sarcastic comment that's mostly mean but a little funny too-- but she makes a great straight man for the wacky and ridiculous hero, highlighting just how off-the wall our protagonist is. She supports him in not only action but in comedy (and often romance too, unless she's a relative of some sort). Support, support, support. It's why she's there. Not to be her own person.
Of course, she's also there to make sure the film meets its required "girl power" quota. "Look!" The film seems to be saying, "See! Our female lead is stronger and smarter than our male lead! Now no one can accuse of sexism!" But the thing is even if the female sidekick is stronger and smarter ... it never seems to be enough. No matter how heroic, clever or powerful, it's somehow never enough to be in the center of the poster, let alone for her be the hero.
And often she's not even that compelling of a character. After all, how many of us are good at everything and have no pesky flaws or weaknesses to tie us down? It's much easier to connect to the everyman hero, who makes the same mistakes we tend to and endears himself to us through his plucky humor. He's the one who's allowed to be our underdog, to be human, faults and all.
Not only is this teaching children of all genders to empathize with boys over girls, but it also subconsciously conveys the message that even the most extraordinary of women can't measure up to the heroism of a mediocre man.
If we want for our kids to have real and relatable heroines and for Hollywood to do more than just pay cheap lip-service, it's time to say enough is enough and stop being satisfied with the hypercompetent female sidekick.
