Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Not too long ago, teen dramas were jam packed with strong female characters who were high kicking, vampire slaying and wittily disposing of anyone and anything that stood in their way.

But the halcyon days of Buffy and co are long gone. Instead a look at today’s schedules introduces us to a new generation of teen idols who shop rather than slay, and are more likely to slip on a pair of Jimmy Choos than wittily dispose of their feelings through prompt, punchy pop culture referencing. Perhaps it’s a sign of the times, but where have all the strong women gone?

The new guard Of course teen drama has never been the most progressive of mediums, but just a few years ago shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Veronica Mars were being praised for their bold portrayal of female characters. In both cases the leads were strong independent women, who knew their own minds and dispatched their adversaries with either superhuman strength or sassy wit. This in itself was not a breakthrough but the fact that the slayer and super sleuth could do so without losing their feminine charms, meant that they became role models for a generation of young women.

Fast forward a few years and the small screen has become a cathedral to credit cards, shopping and the type of emotional vacuousness that makes Paris Hilton look like Germaine Greer. TV’s teen queens now worship at the altar of capitalism with shows in the mould of Gossip Girl and 90210 portraying their female characters as little more than expensive clothes horses.

With high kicks replaced by hair pulling and sleuthing making way for smarming high society; teen drama offers very little encouragement for their audiences to be all they can be. In fact so drained are female leads of their own independence that, more often than not, the characters have become defined by their male counterparts. The shows have become as much about who’s seeing who as who’s doing what.

It’s an epidemic in American TV and one that like most teen trends is beginning to make its way across the Atlantic where the popularity of US TV is driving change in our own programming. Home-grown teen dramas such as Hollyoaks for example, aren’t doing much to buck the trend and hugely popular ’reality’ shows such as Shipwrecked and Paris Hilton’s British Best Friend pedal an image of women as spoilt, shallow and materialistic that is almost lifted straight from US screens. Billie Piper (Image © BBC) Look to the stars Just because strong female characters have packed up their wit and wiles and left teen dramas behind, doesn’t mean they’ve moved on from tellyland altogether. A quick scan of the soaps for example throws up a bevy of brave beaus; but gazing skyward to the traditionally male dominated world of science fiction offers surprisingly rich pickings in the search for strong women.

In American shows such as Battlestar Galactica, The Sarah Connor Chronicles and Dollhouse, women aren’t just matching the men they’re leading them. In the post apocalyptic world of Battlestar Galactica the X chromosome is particularly well represented and some of the fleet’s most important roles are occupied by the fairer sex. From the tough talking, hard drinking pilot/soldier Starbuck to the bravery and political brilliance of President Laura Roslin, the women are bold, beautiful and critically important to the show.

The same can be said for The Sarah Connor Chronicles where Lena Headey is quite brilliant as the show’s title character and Summer Glau is beautiful and deadly as one of Skynet’s unstoppable killing machines. Michelle Ryan (formerly of EastEnders fame) also added to the genre’s growing roster of strong women for her turn in The Bionic Woman.

British sci-fi is also jam-packed with strong women. As well as her turn in the US sci-fi re-boot, Michelle Ryan has also starred in the recent Doctor Who: Planet of the Dead Easter special as the bold and beautiful Lady Christina. She’s not the first strong woman to have helped the good Doctor however, and in recent years the show has been blessed with some particularly superb female characters. Head and shoulders above the rest perhaps is Rose Tyler, played by Billie Piper.

The character went beyond any previous incarnation of the Doctor’s companion, matching the Time Lord stride for stride with her wit and willingness to do battle with enemies ranging from Darleks to Cybermen. She has saved the world on numerous occasions; a firm fan favourite, alongside her feisty personality she even stole the Doctor’s heart in a particularly wrenching conclusion to the fourth series. Temporal troubles have also developed another string of Saturday tea-time heroines in ITV’s Primeval, where former S Club 7 member Hannah Spearritt is the pick of the bunch as critter-catcher Abby Maitland.

Sadly, shows like The Sarah Connor Chronicles and Dollhouse aren’t breaking any records in the ratings on either side of the Atlantic and with the network’s axe looming over the both of them, we could very quickly see even fewer strong women on the box.

Hopefully however the autumn schedules will change all of that and with a new Doctor on the way we can only hope that the powers that be over at the BBC can pick another iconic and empowering female companion to help him on his travels. But, in the meantime, until their trust funds run out or their credit cards are maxed, the socialites are here to stay.