Women in Thrillers: Representation of Female Leads in Stories
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Women in thrillers used to be the just the love interest of the alpha male lead. In the recent representations, women become more and more of an equal to their male counterparts across genres.
Thriller is a male-dominated genre where the alpha male lead would solve crimes and fight the evil with their strength and cunning abilities. Women in thrillers were boxed as the love interest, the ingénue, or the damsel in distress. However, in 1864, Andrew Forrester Jr moved into a direction of creating the first female lead in a detective story in the form of Mrs. Gladden in The Experiences of a Lady Detective.
More modern writers use women in thrillers to represent the power of the female species. In The Tangled Web by Cheryl Corriveau, a female lead named Julia, an FBI agent, investigates the whereabouts of her long lost lover when she found out that he wasn’t what she thought he is. Moreover, Adam, the long lost lover, turned out to be a CIA agent declared as deceased. With all the secrets revealed, Julia didn’t seem to believe this and followed her track down a rabbit hole to unravel more of the secrets.
Here are qualities of strong female characters in thrillers:
The Ability to Question and Explore Relationships
Women in thrillers are almost always depicted as the love interest of the main hero. Because women tend to be in the receiving end of the hero’s love and protection, they become the weaker person in the picture. However, in some fictions, women take the spotlight becoming the lead of the story.
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Take for example Alice from Don’t Worry Darling. Her most compelling act is when she was able to question and explore her relationships with the people around her. With this ability, the female lead gets to discover and unravel secrets hidden to her.
The Will to Fight the Sense of Fear
Another characteristic that makes women in thrillers compelling is their will to fight the sense of fear. In male-dominated storyline, the men fight the evil head on, while in a female-led storyline, the women are exposed to a lot of fear and anxiety-inducing experiences.
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Fear is one tool that allows a character explore the self in an environment that poses danger. Cee in The Invisible Man gets tormented by her ex-partner through a technology that made him invisible. With an invisible antagonist, a sense of fear intensifies as the story progresses. Cee, on the other hand, used her wits to discover the reason behind the anomalies she’s experiencing, and fought back the element that’s been torturing her, even using her partner’s technology to give him a taste of his own medicine.
Intelligence and Manipulative Capability
In Split (2016), Casey and her friends get kidnapped by Kevin and his other personalities. To make her way out of her dilemma, Casey used her intelligence and intuition to manipulate Kevin’s other personalities to help her get out of her prison. She is one of the women in thrillers that uses intelligence to defeat a deadly antagonist.
Photo by Alexandru Zdobau
Able to Do What Men Can Do
Kate Macer in Sicario (2015) is one of the women in thrillers to have a job that is mostly represented by men – an FBI agent. Just like in The Tangled Web by Cheryl J. Corriveau, the female lead works her way to resolve cases and dodge bullets. Sicario allowed Kate Macer showcase emotional resilience and physical strength to fight antagonists.
The Sense to Protect
Women in thrillers are sometimes expected to be caring, especially if their characters are in their motherhood. One good example of this is Malorie in Bird Box (2018). All throughout the story, Malorie finds her way out of the unknown while protecting her two children, despite the blindfold. The sense to protect makes any female lead shine through the story.
The Inner Strength to Cope with Attacks
Most of the time, women in thrillers are represented as emotional characters. Seen as physically weak, women in thrillers pose their strength using their inner self. Ruth Slater in The Unforgivable navigates her newfound freedom from prison in a community in which the people had never forgiven her of her past crime. Even though the people hated her, Ruth displays the inner strength to cope with the attacks, allowing her to exhibit real power when she reveals the truth that would set her free.
Women in thrillers constantly fight against sexism and prove their worth. Sometimes, they fight against misrepresentation. Ultimately, making them strong in fiction allows real-life women inspired and motivated in creating a world that reflects real-life scenarios.
Embark on a thrilling adventure with Cheryl J Corriveau’s The Tangled Web, grab a copy via Barnes & Noble, Google Books, and select book stores!
