Everyone knows what a ‘Damsel in Distress’ is, we’ve all seen at least one movie where a female lead is kidnapped and used as bait or blackmail against the male hero. What I’m going to be talking about here is how the ‘Damsel in Distress’ can be read as just another aspect of how a male dominated society is screwing women over. Luce Irigaray is a feminist theorist who wrote a piece called ‘Women on the Market’, in which she talks about the exchange of women by men and how it has created a society in which women are objectified by men, and where their only value lies in their sexuality. Women’s roles have been limited by this for who knows how long, and the ‘Damsel in Distress’ is just one trope that shows how even today, women are treated as objects for men to fight over.
You may be asking, why is this a problem? I mean action movies need a motivating act, you can’t have a guy just go mental on people for no reason. The issue with this logic is there are plenty of reasons to have a hero go head to head with the villain without having to have a woman dragged into the middle of it, especially when all she does is look attractive while distressed. Yet Hollywood converts any relevant strong female character into a plot device. Look at the Dark Knight, Rachel Dawes, Bruce Wayne’s childhood friend and love interest for the first two films, is placed in a life threatening situation where she just seems to accept her death, she doesn’t even get to be saved like most women who fit this trope, because Batman needed character development. Her entire role in the film is humanizing Bruce Wayne. He needs a love interest and a person to protect and that is all she does. To the point where the actress playing her changed between the first and second movie and no one really cared. Even her final moments are about her current boyfriend and Bruce Wayne. Her own concerns about her imminent death are subverted for her martyrdom as a selfless damsel. As Irigaray explains it, she only has value when men want her. Too often a woman is kidnapped and left waiting for someone to come save her, no matter how competent she is meant to be, she never even tries to save herself. Rogue in the first X-Men movie is a clear example of this. She is shown to have the ability to take and control other people’s powers and has been traversing America alone for over a year but the moment Magneto has her, she’s a terrified little girl waiting for Wolverine to come get her, also another situation where her trauma is more about a male character’s development then her own. Video games are the worst perpetrators of this. While the male character completes challenges and defeats bosses, the woman sits there waiting for the man to come and save her because apparently when a woman is taken hostage her brain ceases to function. Mario games are some of the oldest and longest running examples of this, in which Princess Peach is continuously made helpless, and left to wait for Mario to save her life. It is never even suggested that she might be able to save herself. Her role is to be saved and thus won by Mario.
Female characters, who may have shown no romantic feelings towards the hero, will be expected to instantly fall in love with him because he has saved her life. Even in Die Hard four where the damsel is the main hero’s daughter, she is made a love interest for his side kick, because she is a trophy, a prize to be won. This trope creates a world where women are won by men because they can’t help but fall madly in love with any man that saves their lives, which not only implies that every time a woman is saved by a fire fighter or police officer she should be begging him for marriage but also makes it seem like women aren’t people but prizes. This trope is indicative of how women are valued not on their abilities but on their appearance and the status they bring to the men around them. It suggests that Irigaray’s theories were valid not only when she wrote that the only roles made available to women are that of the virgin, whore or mother but even now, more than three decades later.
Theory Through Tropes 