Women Are Calling Out Unrealistic Female Characters Written By Men
It seems that Hollywood could use some more amazing female writers.
Hollywood has a long history of writing women as if they were built from the same tired checklist. Some are impossibly perfect, some are reduced to a stereotype, and some seem to exist only to make a male lead look better by comparison.
That frustration is exactly what sparked a recent Reddit discussion on r/AskWomen, where user u/Mikess314 asked, "What movie featuring female characters was clearly made without a single woman being involved?" The replies quickly turned into a crowd-sourced list of characters that felt wildly unrealistic, from action heroes to love interests to the so-called cool girls.
The answers are blunt, funny, and very specific, and they say a lot about how women are still written on screen. Read on.
1. Claire Dearing
"Jurassic World. Let's please stop it with 'frigid, stuck-up corporate woman taken down a peg by a rough-and-tumble guy with a big heart, and then falls in love with him.' Please, I'm begging everyone in Hollywood. Stop this madness."
Reddit / baitnnswitch2. Harley Quinn
"Harley Quinn's ridiculous outfit in Suicide Squad. No woman is going to dress like that for anything physical. Those short shorts would ride up your bum, and you'd break your ankle in the stilettos.There's a huge difference with the outfits in Birds of Prey, which was written, directed, and produced by women. High-rise denim shorts, a sports bra, and a chunky wedge (or trainers, I think?) are way better outfits for causing mayhem."
Reddit / allfurcoatnoknickers3. Every female superhero... ever
"Almost every female superhero. What woman in her right mind would go into battle with her breasts out, legs bare, and hair flying all over the place while wearing full nails and makeup? It doesn't matter if it's a TV program, a movie, anime, live-action, cartoon, etc."
Reddit / MadamButtrfli
One Redditor had a very broad answer right away.
4. Gilly
"Not a movie, but the episode of Game of Thrones where Gilly decides to take Sam's virginity five seconds after he saves her from being r**ed. We all know that nothing makes a woman hotter than almost being r**ed by gruesome strangers. Oh, wait, no, it's just that a bunch of dudes decided that Sam deserved a 'prize' for his heroic acts, and so they wrote in the woman's vagina as the prize without considering what an actual human female would do in that situation.This one is especially bad because, in a previous season, there was a well-written scene where a female character specifically states, 'A woman who has just escaped a r**e won't want to have sex immediately after. You should have known you were being set up because of that.'So not only were there no women involved in the new scene, but there was also no one who bothered to read what was actually written in previous seasons. The latter is almost more offensive, LOL."
Reddit / [deleted]
5. Basically, all the females
"Movies where women are running for their lives in high heels.Movies where prostitutes easily fall in love with their Johns.Movies that get basic female anatomy wrong.And to be specific, Star Wars: The Revenge of the Sith, when Padmé 'loses the will to live' after having two beautiful, healthy babies because she's so sad about losing Anakin.Yeah, because as we know, mothers are never motivated by their children and don't really want to protect them. If their boyfriend has a tantrum, they just lay down and die."
Reddit / thanarealnobody
6. Dominika Egorova
"Another one: when Jennifer Lawrence dyes her hair platinum blonde with boxed hair dye in Red Sparrow. As any fake blonde will tell you, it's a really time-consuming and tricky process. Not something you do in 10 minutes in a bathroom. Pretty sure any Cosmo Girl could tell you that."
Reddit / allfurcoatnoknickers
7. Females who are overly 'boob-aware'
Reddit / localgyro
8. All the new mamas
Reddit / CantBHavinWithThis
9. The bitchy ones
Reddit / xivora
10. Black Widow
"In Age of Ultron, where Black Widow is talking about how she's a monster, but not because she's an assassin—just because she's infertile. WTF?"
Reddit / xpgx
That complaint came up more than once.
11. Women with a 'lady maze' inside them
Reddit / king-of-new_york
12. Black Widow... again
"The first few Avengers movies with Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow. It seems like she was just there to be eye candy and not really have much of a character. She has hinted a bit at this, that she put her foot down on a scene where they had her in a cute tennis outfit for no reason. It was nice to see them give her more of a character throughout the series."
Reddit / BankerBabe420
13. Every role Megan Fox has ever played
"Every single movie Megan Fox was ever in. Transformers… oh my god, that was rough. Michael Bay practically shoved the camera up her a**hole and just told her to act hot, but then tried to say it was feminist because she… knew about cars? Lol.Jennifer's Body is a whole other beast. Great movie, clearly made by and for women, and the marketing just said, 'Megan Fox is in it, so let's make it look like it's just a sex movie with a sexy lady and market it to the COMPLETELY wrong audience.'"
Reddit / Marriane_Deer
14. Betty Childs
Reddit / miaDante09
15. All the girls in Spring Breakers
"All the girls in 'Spring Breakers'... written by Harmony Korine. There's something unsettling about a middle-aged guy writing through the eyes of college girls. Vanessa Hudgens's character says, 'Seeing all this money makes my pussy wet.'"
Reddit / ioaki
16. The cool girls
Reddit / whateveridontcareeeo
Some of the replies were less about one character and more about a whole type of writing.
And if you thought the “frigid corporate woman” trope was bad, check out Oscars 2026 red carpet fails.
17. The Bechdel test failures
Reddit / Opposite-Beat-5243
18. Skyler White
Reddit / bloodandsmokes
19. Anastasia Steele
"To be honest, most of my thoughts were said, so I'll mention the Fifty Shades series (and there was a woman involved, if you can believe that)."
Reddit / Logical_KaleV
20. Just... all of Twilight
Reddit / Ok_Taro_9518
21. Barbarella
Reddit / International-Act-19
22. Flirty females
Reddit / dont_f**kin_die
23. Every female in American Pie
Reddit / bigcomfycouch7
And then the thread kept rolling with even more examples.
24. Jenny Curran
Reddit / MicahMX700
25. All of Charlie's Angels
Reddit / HRPunsNStuff
26. Lara Croft... that's all
Reddit / VenereVeritasx
27. The sex objects
Reddit / [deleted]
28. Indy's ladies
Reddit / ExistentialKazoo
29. Catwoman
Reddit / lemontea_theenemy
30. Mia Wallace
Reddit / Local_Director5235
What's your take on these characters? It's certainly food for thought.
The film industry has been dominated by men for an eternity, and that becomes obvious when you think about some of these characters and how women are often portrayed. Do you agree that female characters would be more accurately written by women?
Hollywood still has some catching up to do.
Want more Hollywood body-visibility drama, see why Danielle Fishel “couldn’t show her arms” on Boy Meets World’s last season.
