Amy Adams is hilarious and adorable and a wonderful singer. In many ways, she is the perfect person to be in a kids movie! So why was her character barely a character at all? We get a little bit of motivation from her at the beginning but I guess the writers didn't want her to just be a woman waiting for a ring, probably because there is precedent for that, and it is not pretty*.
So then her motivation kind of stays but isn't really that strong and... she ends up with little character, just a cute face and a lovely singing voice.
So how does a body in a movie (or any story) become a character instead of a simple plot device? Motivation. If there is something that the character wants that motivates all of her actions, then she becomes a person, not just a prop. Oh, and by the way, Jason Segel, if you're reading this, I love you man, and I'm not blaming you. Writers do this all the time to the women in their stories, and rarely seeing full, human, motivated female characters can make it hard to write them.
Let's think about this. During any given day, what do you want? Seriously, make a list. There's the basics: food, shelter, sex. Then there are interpersonal relationship desires that are as diverse as people and their relationships can be: to win a parent's approval, to get your sister to admit she was wrong, to get an apology from your friend, to receive a compliment, to receive forgiveness for your wrongdoings. The list goes on and on.
In a Disney movie, women have far more limited desires, if any, and women in grown-up movies aren't that much different. If women are good, they can want love, also known as "magic" and "dreams" before they meet the prince. If women are bad, they can want beauty (after they've lost it due to pesky aging which turned them evil)... and that's pretty much it.
Although, I gotta give those female villains some credit. Sure, there's the implication that as women get older they can either become a fairy godmother who helps an ingenue or more likely a spiteful villain who tears her down out of envy. But at least the villains are active. And often they are very funny. The villains set the plot into action by pursuing what they desire. Motivation. Action. The two parts of a character's story. I can't help but be impressed with the one-upsmanship of the evilness of villains in Disney stories. From kidnapping little girls to pushing princesses out of a magical land and into Manhattan to attempting to turn puppies into coats. Puppies for God's sake!
Our female protagonists don't get the same kind of respect as motivation and action, and if they have motivation, they usually just want to get married. In romantic comedies, there is no desire big enough that it isn't just a front for wanting to get married. She wants to excel in her field? No, actually she just needs to learn to slow down and fall in love! She wants to fight crime at a Miss America-like Pageant? I think she needs one dude to turn her pretty and another dude to love her for it. She's already engaged and is spending a nice weekend with her family? Wrong, she's engaged to douchebag Bradley Cooper and just hasn't met the lovable liar and womanizer Owen Wilson yet! It's like screenwriters try to avoid the route of a woman only being motivated by catching a man, but all the solutions are still, you guessed it, catching a man.
I have a secret for you. I really hope this one doesn't get out, because it's actually pretty awesome. The secret to writing a great female character is to write a great character. Here's something to try: take that short story you haven't written yet or that screenplay or that sketch or that novel, and think about the male protagonist in your mind. Now ask yourself, why does he have to be male? In many cases, there is really no reason he has to be male.
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*Incidentally, I have a little rant about how this movie, which I watched on a plane, exemplifies everything wrong with romantic comedies. There are great romantic comedies out there, but they are few and far between, and this is certainly not one of them. If you would like to hear my rant about Leap Year, ask me sometime.
