You hit on this at the end of the video, but absolutely the reason we get gender swapped and race swapped characters in films/tv is because Studios rely on IP name recognition to sell. Original characters and content literally don't do as well as IP name brand. People will even 'hate watch' or youtube channels will 'hate talk' gender swapped properties to get buzz and clicks etc more than they'll watch original properties. That's the saddest part about all of this... we've done it to ourselves. As with anything, if you want more original characters, more great female characters, more great new BIPOC characters, you have to support the films/shows/books that write these characters so that the execs will see there's money to be made here. Money moves the needle in the entertainment industry (as in any industry). Original characters don't make money, long standing IP characters do (ugh). In comics, they tried to 'have their cake and eat it too' but creating gender swapped characters with different names (Mighty Thor, spider-gwen, Captain Carter, etc). Let's call a spade a spade, these are gender swapped characters, but by renaming them, the comics get to feel like they've created a new character. Are they bad characters? Of course not, but is it a lazy way to get around a real problem? Yes... absolutely it is. Since Hollywood execs are pretty lazy as is, the best way to get them to make something original is to vote with your dollars. Buy and promote books that have great original female and BIPOC characters, go support the films that write original female and BIPOC characters, tell your friends and family to go see them, yell about them on Twitter so studios can see how popular they are, and honestly... stop supporting the big brand name IP stuff that goes in for lazy gender swapping. For example Everything Everywhere All At Once is incredible, go support that! Go support the Jade Legacy series, John Gywnne's new Gods series, Discworld Witches/Tiffany Aching series, etc. There's good new original art out there that deserves just as much - if not more - love as *Insert lazy gender swapped big studio movie **#4512**.*

The issue for me with geneder swapping is when the writing is not good. As a result it is easy to interpret the swap as a hollow money catch, which definetly feels bad.

Your point on "just make a new property" makes me think of one of my personal favorite fantasy Stories "The Deed of Paksenarion" where the author, Elizabeth Moon, wanted to explore a character that was a Paladin but she thought most "Paladin" type characters were unrealistic and acted in a way that was hard to relate to. So she made a story about a young farmgirl taking on the difficult life of becoming a Knight and answering a call from their god. Worth checking out if you haven't already.

One of the earliest and best so-called "strong female character" examples is Ripley from the Alien franchise, and it can be argued that she herself was a gender swap from the source material. Dan O'Bannon originally drafted the Ripley character to be male, and then during casting and rewrites Ripley was gender swapped for Sigourney Weaver and her character fleshed out with some details about a relationship with Dallas that ended up on both the writer's and cutting room floor. Anyway it's pretty cool that one of modern sci-fi's archetypal 'strong females' was originally just a ho-hum male character that ends up being one of the most beloved final girls and heroines in movie history.

In general, I am not a fan of gender swapping characters . That being said, sometimes when it has happened I didn't mind at all once I saw the results. Two specific examples of this are Starbuck in the "reimagined" Battlestar Galactica series, and more recently, Liet Kynes in the recent Dune adaptation movie. I wasn't happy to hear they were going to be swapped beforehand, but once I saw the performances, I was completely on board.

Two IMHO really good gender-swaping: - Liet Kynes in the most recent Dune adaptation. This role is rather small, and the whole point about this character is to be "a scientist" and to provide some exposition about Arakis and the desert. Would work with any gender, and it did. - Stormfront in season 2 of The Boys. Originally male in the comic books, female in the adaptation. By having her as a female, the series could tie her into other big plots of the series (e.g. commercialisation of feminism) and the mummy issues big subplot of Homelander. You may actually like her at the very beginning - only to have it turn on you later.

TLDR summary: Instead of gender swapping existing IP, normalize the canonical writing of female characters in the first place

I love your thoughts! As a (male) author who might one day get a story adapted to the screen, the thought of gender-swapping sometimes crosses my mind. I honestly don't know how I'd feel about one of my characters being gender-swapped, however, I do very consciously choose the genders of my characters when I write them. In my current WIP I have 9 characters: 4 male and 5 female. Each represents some aspect of myself, and it would feel weird to have that "aspect" suddenly change gender, for me, as the author.

Gender swapping the Starbuck character in the rebooted Battlestar Galactica series in the 2000s worked very well. The Boomer character was gender-swapped as well.

The first one that came to my mind was when the "new" version of Battlestar Galactica made Starbuck a woman. I didn't like it. But I watched. And Katie Sackhoff was awesome. However, she did tend to portray the character in a very aggressive, tough (sorta masculine?) way, which goes to the classic error of gender-swap where the character is the same except for the gender. While I understand your point about everyone relating to Harry Potter (or were there enough characters for everyone to relate too? Hermione?) I'd add that Hunger Games was pretty contemporary and popular with a female protagonist that seemed to do well! Personally, I don't feel a need to relate to a character as much as I just want them to be well-written, consistent and "true". To me gender swapping of important characters is almost like a heads-up warning: questionable writing ahead!

When I find out characters in a story have been gender swapped, it’s an instant turn off. Gender swaps are so rarely done well.

I strongly agree. I actually like gender swapping if they’re adding something, but that’s rarely the case. Lots of times I think they’re trying to push some agenda and it feels a bit gross. As a straight white man in my thirties, I felt like I related to the main character from Everything Everywhere All At Once more than any character in years, and she was a middle aged Chinese immigrant woman with tax problems who owned a laundromat. But that’s because the character was so well developed and was so human. Most times I think gender swaps are just taking a strong male character and making it a strong female character…and I think that’s a bit dumb. Characters need to be fleshed out and have their own identity or they’re not going to be worth engaging with.

First, (and I think I've said this to you before, but...) thanks for continuing to explore gender dynamics on your channel. As a male creator, I want to always be striving to see and understand all angles of it, as best I can. As I was raised in a world where "male is universal and female is niche," I realize I do indeed need to strive--to push myself--and to do so with an open mind. Second, GO JO! Jo Eberhardt is a dear friend, an incredible writer, and a fierce advocate of unboxed thinking (which is what Writer Unboxed--the site she and I both contribute to--is all about). Thanks much for featuring her piece.

The topic of these swaps have turned so hostile and volatile it's almost impossible to engage in a proper discussion without being labeled one way or another under the inane American political framework (crazy SJW vs racist bigot) that most people are not even a part of, because they're not even American! I am Southeast Asian Chinese who's mostly aligned with the American liberal on most issues, but my stance on adaptations are as such: Shang-Chi should remain male and Chinese, and Galadriel should remain female and white. I would have thought this would be the consensus position that seemed pretty equal and fair for the most part, but apparently it isn't! The fact that I don't want a Chinese Gandalf is enough evidence for some to think I'm racist against my own race (!!!), which goes to show how far off the rails the conversation has become. A man who's against gender-swapping would probably be shut down immediately.

Do any men think Vin from Mistborn is Niche? In film, what about Sarah Connor or Ellen Ripley? There are really countless examples in books, comics, film, and video games. I think the issue is how many female lead stories are written today. This is probably an intentional compensation for the lack of female stories (understandable to some extent) in the genre because for the first 50+ years of the genre the reading audience was heavily predominated by men due to male and female literary interests. The problem though is that now there is an equal (or maybe even slight majority of the audience) number of women reading fantasy but the fantasy books being written for this audience are, well, being written FOR this audience. The whole idea of the importance of representation is that people need to see themselves represented in order to empathize with the character (WRONG!) and if you have that as your starting principle when you start writing, your character traits will almost necessarily define your niche because you are operating from the assumption that the audience and the character are critically linked in that way. Bottom line is that a lot of these arguments assume the outcome in their hypothesis, and that is inherently limiting on the types of things they offer. They write a female character to represent an underrepresented female audience, and in so doing are making a conscious or subconscious choice to not write a book for a male audience.

I totally agree with you: passing on the mantle is a much better paradigm than simply gender-swapping. The new icon's failings can be blamed on inexperience, and they have room to grow their own legend. As long as they don't marie-sue themselves into a corner.

Gender swapping in an adaptation normally betrays an inadequate understanding of the original material. Writers often choose the characteristics of their characters intentionally, including gender. Choosing to switch them always risks jeopardizing an aspect that character brings to the story that only becomes evident after the gender swap.

I agree with almost everything you said here... Except, please don't change anything in the Mistborn crew. I found Vin's experience as a girl joining an all male crew to be unique for that reason. That crew is excellent as it is and shouldn't be changed, IMO

I think that whenever you try to change something, if you don't love what it already then you're not going to handle it with the necessary reverence. As fans we can always tell when a beloved property isn't being handled with love. Personally, I think the biggest problem with gender swapping, is that usually the person doing the swapping isn't someone who deeply loved the original, but is instead someone trying to 'fix' something they never understood to begin with.

Gender swapping can not only work, it can be great. The problem is when the gender swap is done to further an agenda that has NOTHING to do with the themes and narrative of the book. To take an EXPLICITLY feminist example of Handmaid's Tale: You could not gender swap Offred to be a man. You could not gender swap the commander to be a woman. It would undermine the entire narrative, no matter what intent you had. Sometimes there's no particular need for a character to be male or female (the newest Dune featuring a female Liet Kynes makes absolutely zero difference to the story, the character or the culture of the Fremen, as they're 1) not patriarchal and 2) Liet Kynes is explicitly an outsider who has been accepted) but that CAN be done badly even so. Sometimes, the choice is ENTIRELY to "subvert expectations" or whatever and can SERIOUSLY hurt the setting or just be poorly written dross.

An incredibly easy solution: Just don't gender-swap any existing characters. Don't do it. Ever. If you feel there is a lack of good characters of any type, then make more of them; new ones that is. And, importantly, make them good. Altering popular characters, will only alienate fans of said characters.

Kelsier was a murderous psychopath who chose the good guys. Many of his actions were...disturbing, and in just about any other situation he would be a real moustache-twirling villain. He has a major "father-daughter" relationship with Vin, but I don't know about female moustache-twirling either. I can see a female charismatic Kelsier if that was her main arc as the leader of the group, and maybe female Kelsier/Vin could have a mother/daughter relationship (I don't like it but okay), but I have a hard time seeing female Kelsier leader/female Kelsier mother, and female Kelsier psychopathic killer all together. Where is Elend's mother, though? As long as she's human, adding her as a character would be quite interesting.

I think this is a great question to ask, and before I continue, I'd like to mention that I don't really care. The US preoccupation with gender isn't something that registers much on my radar. 1) Companies that create things like film and TV adaptations of books are corporations that want to make money. They don't care how much the fan base likes something, they only care that it makes money. Additionally, they'll burn an entire property by making a single movie that brings in some money, but that alienates the majority of the fan base and renders continued installments unviable. The way they think of this entire issue is, "This property already has X number of people that are interested in it, so it's likely to generate Y amount of money. If we add in A and B races, genders, orientations, etc. then we can bet on X+1 that'll be interested in it." They have ZERO recognition about why a story or IP resonates with its fanbase, and they don't care. They want your money. Therefore, this is kind of a moot point to mention, because as long as the current system stays in place, those that finance these adaptions will continue to make financially-driven decisions that many members of any particular fanbase will object to. 2) Cosmetic "gender swaps" don't truly address the problem that many people who advocate for representation want to see fixed. As you pointed out from the article you cited, making changes to a character's appearance doesn't really matter and is only really likely to anger fans. 3) "Ethically," there's no problem with trying to be more inclusive with an adaptation or when creating a new work, if that's what the creator wants to do. And there's nothing wrong with not wanting to watch or read something that doesn't appeal to you. However, it is "unethical" to label something as "racist" or "sexist" or with whatever popular pejorative people use now simply because something doesn't appeal to you. 4) "Artistically," I'd argue that some things are intrinsic to a story. Kunta Kinte should always be portrayed by a black person. Akira is inherently Japanese. James Bond must always be portrayed by someone from the British Commonwealth, and I'd argue, a "man." I agree with you that if they want a Jane Bond, they should just make a different character. However, Atomic Blonde was amazing, and no one went to see that. So there's the issue. Alternatively, Ghost in the Shell was supposed to feature a "Caucasian" character with a Japanese "soul," and everyone freaked out. I'd go further to say that nothing about GitS's story requires it being Japanese, having Japanese performers, or anything. The story requires zero Japanese-ness, just like 99% of US stories require any "US-ness." For a character like the Doctor, part of what makes that character is his transcendental nature. He has never been "male" or "female" or anything of the sort. If anything, she's autistic and brilliant and capable and caring. Insert anyone that can portray those qualities. I would argue that there is a distinct British-ness to how the series has always been done, but even that isn't necessary for the character. Ultimately, if you're going to change anything about the foundational "spirit" of a story, there has to be a good reason for it that permeates the entire new story. And at that point, you're basically just making something entirely different anyway. 5) Solution: Stop supporting adaptations that make changes contrary to the spirit of the original work. Instead, try to support new IPs that address the issues you want to see solved, like by reading or watching things that were created from the ground up to be more inclusive. Check out the books and TV show of the Expanse for a great example. Season 5 of the Expanse was almost entirely dominated by their female characters, from a plethora of ethnic and cultural backgrounds, and it was their best season.

As a big fan of Doctor Who, the lore of the show lends itself perfectly to a gender-swapping main character, and I was excited when Jodie was cast. Sadly her run was really badly written and I didn't end up enjoying it at all! I hope she won't be the last female Doctor we get

Absolutely! Great points! Thank you for making this video.

I feel that female characters can and need to stand on there own. In my book there are many strong female characters from lead character to sub-characters. About 1/2 the main characters are women (which would make since). A strong female character doesn't need to beat up 250 guys (which Hollywood seems to think it does) to be powerful. When I run into fans I always ask "who is your favorite character?" Almost always in the top four is Queen Lika. She has no magic, does kill people with swords, she is just a great leader. This is the reason why the third book in the series will be her origin story. If netflix ever turned my book into a mini series and gender swapped the main character (Timikia) they would destroy the entire thing. However with amazing women throughout the book they wouldn't need to. Female characters are amazing to explore and I love doing it. You supplied a really thoughtful discussion of the topic. Nice job.

I gender-swapped characters all the time when I was a child and reading animal fantasies that featured almost all-male casts. In my own imagination, Water Rat and Badger (The Wind in the Willows) and Bagheera (The Jungle Book -- Kipling, not Disney) were female. They were products of a time when "male as default" was even more deeply entrenched in popular culture than it is now. Plus, these characters got to exist BEYOND gender; gender was incidental rather than essential to their characters. Female characters in my childhood books never got to exist beyond gender. They were always female because they had to be, and played heavily gendered roles (mother, mother figure, love interest). As such, they never captured my imagination. However, this was my own personal gender swapping. This was how I saw the stories. I never expected the rest of popular culture to go along with it. I will admit to a spike of pleasure when I happened upon an adaptation of The Jungle Book in which Bagheera was female and voiced by Dana Delaney, but I understand why a lot of readers and viewers are suspicious of gender swaps. I do, however, hope we start seeing more new female characters for whom gender is incidental rather than essential. Let's see more female Disney animal sidekicks!

When it comes to Doctor Who I actually liked when the Master was reintroduced as a woman. She still felt like the Master. I was looking forward to Jodie Whittaker but sadly the writing didn't work for me.

As with any swaps/changes, they can only possibly work when the writer of the adaptation is at least as good as the writer of the original (which is rare because it generally takes a really good writer for people to want to adapt their stuff in the first place). Why? Because for a great writer, everything about their characters fits together and is intentional. To effectively change a character’s gender (or race, or anything) the new writer needs to rebuild the character from the ground up with the new traits in mind. At the same time, they have to ensure that the end product has the same feel as the original character. This is borderline impossible. I don’t want to completely dismiss it because I feel like I’ve seen it work before (though I’m drawing a blank on when), but success is not common, and the vast majority of writers should just not try.

Sorry for spamming your videos, I just discovered you and am going through your catalog. Gotta say tho I'm loving your even handed and rational approach! Cheers! I know the show wasn't out before this video but I think House of the Dragon is actually an example of "swapping" done well. Idk if u saw it or no, so I'll err of the side of not and explain myself. (I was one of those ppl who was irritated that Dynarius didn't have Violet Eyes, but the writing won me over) So in HotD there is a Valarian who was actually race swapped and it actually had implications on the story, which atfirst was a big red flag to me seeing how poorly GoT ended. I didn't think the writers would have the skill to account for the problems made. Seeing as most writers today don't have that skill I felt justified in my skepticism. But when the question of a characters liniage came up in the show they actually managed to make it work by changing it from a "question" of lineage, to a "open secret" that everyone knew but didn't really bring up but still cuased internal issues. It was brilliantly done! It just took thought and effort on the writers part. Another example of swapping, this one actually a studio mandated male to female swap, done well-ish, was actually Dune, Liet Kynes was changed to a woman which actually had major implications to the story. The Fremen being an actual Patriarchal Scocity, it's more complex than that but for sake of brevity. Kynes needed to be a man to be basicly a "god" to the fremen. But Valnu basiclly just chopped all of Kynes parts that establish that fact from the story and thus side stepped all the issues all together, atleast in part 1. So it was done well enough that I could let it go.

I enjoyed your thoughtful examination of the topic. It’s a nuanced subject. That said, I think the way it’s done is the problem. It’s much easier to change an already existing IP than to come up with something new. The problem with that is that many fans of the original work have a visceral reaction to changing something that they might’ve loved their entire lives. Like someone has defaced a work of art. People will embrace new good stories and characters regardless of their gender. Look at Vin in Mistborn. She’s strong, thoughtful, vulnerable, clever, resourceful, and an all around badass. People love her! I would react just as strongly if they tried to gender swap her to be Vin Diesel. It feels like there’s an agenda behind most of these swaps and people don’t like having it shoved down their throats. I’ll support any author or artist that creates new and interesting characters, male or female.

Excellent video. I have no follow up thoughts except that Gin Mazoti is great 🤪 Also for real though, let's take a look at John Wick. John Wick had almost no budget, it was written by a first time writer who had no studio attached, the movie had no name (Keanu kept calling it John Wick and so it stuck) and it really only had two things going for it, in the public eye- it had Keanu Reeves and it looked (and ended up being) very good. Now it's a huge franchise. Now, admittedly, this is a bit of a needle in the haystack situation. There are without a doubt 50 Jimmy Wicks and Kevin Wicks out there that did not become a big action franchise or inspire spin-offs. But John Wick shows it's still possible with unestablished IP. So it just makes me roll my eyes when studies want a female James Bond or whatever, because the argument that just making a great film with care, attention, and talent won't be enough to launch a *new* franchise with a fantastic female lead has always been a flimsy one to me. It just strikes me as such lip service- "we want the ladies to come to movies more, so if we change X character they will come", or "do this film but with all women". It's just so service level and transparent. It strikes me as faux-feminism. But you could just easily put the trust that you did in John Wick into something else- like Atomic Blonde! Which did very well. Or instead of "lady lord of the flies", you have Yellowjackets (unless this is what you meant) which is EXCELLENT and is 90% a cast of women interacting with each other across two timelines. Basically studios are lazy and boring, generally.

I'm someone who doesn't mind it in the least really. it can be 'tokenized' and that can be bad or disappointing. But so much of the reaction isn't really to the swap itself, but to the opposing sides on the issue of female representation clashing with each other. And I guess I'd rather side with the well-meaning but flawed than the toxic.

The reason why fantasy books written with a female protagonist were seen as books for women was because they generally specifically targeted female audiences. The fact is writers writing male and female characters (often) will write very differently. With a male protagonist books generally don't specifically target men, not all writers of these characters are men to begin with. Now in modern fantasy esp since the hunger games fantasy books with female protagonists have become more mainstream. First it practically became the norm in YA fiction. Then it seeped into regular/adult/non ya fiction. E.g. Brandon Sanderson writes female characters but it's not specifically aimed at women. Or any particular gender But traditionally and still most fantasy, esp written by women esp specifically written for women. With specifically their tastes, issues and wants in mind. And believe it or not, we are different target audiences for a reason, we don't all enjoy the same stuff. Female fantasy usually has a romance plot on the foreground, generally a love triangle of some sort with a younger woman and 2 older bad boy types, or troubled types of some sort. Meanwhile mainstream fantasy either doesn't have romance or has romance as one of the many sideplots, you are infested in the love plot etc but it's not the main focus. That generally is the major difference. On top of that most female targeted fantasy focuses on social interactions esp in smaller scale. And on often on the fragile, silent girl, who doesn't realize how beautiful and special she is to show the entire world how incredible she is. Mainstream fantasy is long past that stuff, but female targeted fantasy is often cliche chosen one, self empowerment, I can do it, yes queen slay hardcore wish fulfillment, type of stuff that is fluff to add extra drama to the actual plot, the romance. Most guys, and also many women really just aren't into that stuff. While mainstream fantasy, sci fi be it movies or books are far far more in demand because women can still relate whether it has a female or male protagonist. Same for movies. It's not that strange that a show about 2 lesbian vampires or whatever didn't do that well. Most people into fantasy have no interest in seeing another teen vamp romance drama inspired by some romeo and juliet story. And most teen girls watching that stuff because they like the handsome dudes playing the bad boys don't care because wish fulfillment is a big part of the enjoyment for them,.

Elizabeth Moon and Tanya Huff write great sci/fi-fantasy with female main characters. Highly recommended.

I've encountered people who are against gender swaps and say 'just create new characters', but when a movie like The 355 with new female characters doesn't do well, those same people said 'no one wants a female-led action movie.' Some people will complain no matter what you do.

I have only experienced 2 gender swaps that bothered me & yes, one was the 13th Doctor. I love Jodi as an actress, but the storyline of the Doctor up to that point was decidedly male (like marrying and making a baby with a women) and if they were going to gender swap then why does she still dress like a man, and just SO many other problems that are glossed over. The other one was Dune (the newest movie). It’s my favorite sci-fi and I feel invested in the main characters to the point that trying to make them something they aren’t made me veto the movie. The clips of it I did see made me feel that the beauty of the strong feminist leaning of the 2 main women were done with a male bent instead of allowing that beauty to shine. I’d like to see it done the other way sometime - Making a female male and not having them act ANY differently or dress differently or having them male just act a feminine version of the character. I bet it wouldn’t go over well. 😅

As usual, you have an excellent, well-reasoned thesis, which I agree with. In response to your final questions, gender and race swaps are likely done for the brand recognition. This is a flawed reason to engage the practice because it produces precisely the response we're seeing today. Eric July is a KZfaqr who provides a similar response to the danger of swaps - that new, dynamic characters do more for expanding the brand than replacing existing characters. As I write this, I realize there is one more point to make: It is a poor argument by the opposition that, in cases like Thor, that the "title" or "mantle" is changing hands. In Thor's case, it is literally his name. In Spider-Man's case, one could argue that the mantle shifted from Peter Parker to Miles Morales, but wouldn't it be better for the African American and Latino communities for Miles to have developed his own identity, even with the same powers, rather than having him leech off the recognition of a white man? Anyway, it's a pleasure to watch your reasoned position as usual. Thank you for all you do.

The thing I want first and foremost is good characters and good stories. Man, woman, doesn’t matter to me. Though I’ll completely admit your point about how close we are to the character determines how we feel about gender swaps does apply to me. I wouldn’t want Kelsier or Kaladin to be made into a female, nor would I want Vin or Shallan to be made male (not that we see many of those swaps, but the point remains). If a swap does occur however, I try to look at it from a creative standpoint. Ask myself if there’s creative intent here, or are they just doing it to do it. When it comes to titles or mantles, most of the time I can be swayed into being fine with it if the character is well written. For instance since it was brought up in the video, I was fine with Jane Foster becoming Lady Thor. There’s comic precedence for it, they weren’t replacing Thor, and I kind of figured they’d kill her off and I remembered that she went out like a boss in the comics so I wanted to see Natalie Portman be a cool superhero and go out with a bang. And while the handling of Lady Thor is far from my biggest problem with that film, I still think it could’ve been done a bit better. Overall though, I’d rather they just have the confidence to write a good female character. And as a total side note; female James Bond has existed since 2017. Her name is Lorraine Broughton, played by Charlize Theron in a film called Atomic Blonde. I watched it on a whim and I’m like this is James Bond minus the gadgets and isn’t as…clean, I guess? She’s not stopping to fix her cuff links after escaping construction equipment on a crumpling train car. Don’t know how the general public felt about that movie but I wouldn’t say no to more.

I'm going to go out on a limb here with a skill saw and portable power source, so I'll try and put as many civil comfort blankets between myself and the ground. Please let me know if I sound mangled by the end of this. I'll preface this by saying, I started to read the Wheel of Time right at the end of high school. I spent a few months doing nothing but reading the books. I have not finished the series. The last book I have a strong memory of is Lord of Chaos. I am waiting and considering a few things before I continue reading the series. I have seen the first season of the Amazon Prime show, and I think they made excellent choices in the adaptation of an epic to the screen. This epic to screen process is fairly new, and I am excited to be able to watch the process of creating it unfold before my eyes. Now, on with my carpentry session. I think a profound example of the gender swapping effect within literature can be seen by comparing a piece of writing dear to Bookborn with reality. Consider the main conceit of The Wheel of Time (the male side of the source is tainted and produces madness in those who wield it). Now consider the gendered-ratio of mental illness in society. The comparison does not hold up one-to-one, but my point is to highlight the effects of merely swapping genders between works of art. It is not to draw some sort of deeper insight into our world today. If the female side of the source was corrupted in The Wheel of Time, and women were driven mad by it, then the dragon reborn would be a woman and all the attendant hopes for society would be focused more towards her by the fans of the series. I can see some attempts, at this point, to talk about both sides of the source being tainted in various amounts, again that would be a diversion from examining the effects of gender swapping within literature by trying to look at the here and now instead. One of the points of literature, a method of looking at our world, requires some conceits in order to focus the intent of the authors. Gritty realism has its place, maybe more so in noir type writing, but in fantasy the ability to abstract away some of the complexities of life allows for us to suspend our belief more willingly and see a potentially different world.

I was preparing to mention the Mistborn film idea right from the start of the video - should have known you would mention that yourself. 😆

gender swaps = "strong female characters" Even the less egregious ones, e.g. the new Dune, are awful. What if Villeneuve, already making a 2-part movie, had decided to just include any of Jessica's good scenes? If he had filmed the weirding room? Or her confrontation with Thufir? Or the dinner party scene which is my low-key FAVORITE scene in the book (and I get why it's never adapted but what if it were?)? Is it even better for women in Hollywood to waste an actress like Rebecca Ferguson to "tokenize" (yes, I know controversial because like I said this was not that egregious) an actress like Sharon Duncan-Brewster in a role NO ONE will remember her for?

One thing that has convinced me that gender/race swaps aren't all that bad is to see it as a sort of stepping stone. I'd prefer that new great stories are written with more women and non white characters, but in order for big companies to get involved with those properties, they have to be convinced it's worth it first. Therefore, we accept these race/gender swaps as a sort of temporary middle ground, where diversity can be presented on screen and normalized hopefully leading to more great originals that have those things in the first place.

I’m writing a speech on Female Characters and have been binging your videos - thank you for your help!! 😂

I thought the whole point of Mistborn was that Vin was the only girl.

I was hoping you would talk a bit more about whether or not gender is essential to the character and if so, what that says. I really appreciate and enjoy your thoughtful approach to analyzing Fantasy/SciFi.

Nostalgia is a tricky thing to navigate

I completely agree, but also argue that the swaps are just a bad band-aid that diminish the original creative work at the expense of originality and re-using existing intellectual property to make a quick buck. Example: JK Rowling’s Hermione from the Harry Potter books. What if Rowling made Hermione the Girl Who Lived by just slightly changing the backstories, and furthermore Rowling benefited from the ability to write a young woman character as a female author? So the origins were swapped in that Harry grew up with James & Lily (and became fast friends with the MC) -but Hermione's muggle parents were assassinated by old Voldy (for ‘reasons’). And just as Harry was originally protected by the sacrificial love of his parents, Hermione gains the same lightning bolt on her forehead at the cost of her parents' lives, but also is forced to endure a harsh upbringing by equally cruel muggles like the Dursley's. Basically, the entire narrative could be re-written in the same universe, but now it’s a confident, intellectual & mildly antisocial main character at the center of an upset in the wizarding world. Also, Ron and Harry can compete to see who’s more foolish. I believe people would buy these reimagined novels -especially because Hermione’s approach to life would be a fresh girl’s take. Maybe they’d even watch the first movie “Hermione & the Sorcerer’s Stone” -but because it’s already been done once, there’s no thunder. There have to be scores of fantasy novels featuring a female MC written for a mainstream audience, by talented female authors & some male authors who can successfully write female characters. Modern culture being what it is the consumer’s money will still generally flow away from media featuring female MCs towards male MCs. But in time, if they’re given equal exposure and promotion, the quality of entertainment will show through. It just requires that the profit seeking media industries actually believe that women can make them as much money as men can make them.

I never really thought about gender swaps before. But now that I am thinking about it, I think a big reason I didn't like Artemis is because Jazz felt too much like she was just a gender swap of Mark Watney and not her own character. As you said, gender swaps for adaptations aren't received well for characters the audience is close to. Swapping their gender just makes it feel like they got the character wrong because their gender is part of who you got to know as a reader. Considering that, I think if you're trying to gender swap, you're better off creating a whole new character from scratch that can fill the same role. For instance, I think if you're going to create a female version of Ham, it would work better if she wasn't a philosophizer like Ham.

This is a very difficult and nuanced discussion. As a general rule I am always against it. One of the major problems I have with it is that, if well written, characters have a unique voices. And if you have ever looked at the studies men and women problem solve and think about things from different angles. When you change a character you then have to change a lot of how they approach things. What you get 99% of the time is newly swapped female characters that think and act like men(and often they are disrespectful towards men just for being men which in itself is sexist). Which is actually antithetical to the goal of having strong female characters, you actually just have a male character in a females body. *contains some mistborn spoilers be warned* As far as the wanting to change Kelsier specifically to a female, that has to do with not having males mentor females. People think that it subliminally teaches that men are inherently better and more knowledgeable. When in fact its just because Kelsier is older and has been Mistborn longer. We know its not inherently sexist because Vin later does the same for Elend which is the gender role reversal. There was an extensive article talking about this earlier this year called "hollywoods new rules" its a checklist of things that are "Okay" to do and not do. If you read that article and look at basically every story in the last 3-4 years you will see they are all the exact same narrow predicatable storylines because of this checklist. While the original goal of representation is noble the execution is mostly tokenization. Which shows a lack of belief you can create strong female characters you lazily shortcut by trying to piggy back off the name of beloved male characters. I want Kelsier to be swapped as much as a I want Vin to be changed. Which is to say, not at all.

Gender swaps seem a bit forced for me. And in a way it feels more sexist. Like, "oh, the characters in my book are all males, how could it happen, let's change some of them to females". If you want to have more female representation just write a book about a female character. There are books in fantasy with a main female character i liked (Maggie Furey's Artifact of Power series or Trudi Canavan's Black Magician trilogy)and i would feel just as weird if these females were changed for males.

Few more examples Constantine - Tilda Swinson as Gabriel. While angels are androgynous, they are typically seen as male. I had no issue with this and she nailed the role. The cross shotgun on the other hand... Passion of Christ - Satan played by an actress. Never seen the movie so I cannot comment on the performance but I do see multiple potential issues with this choice of having a woman as evil Temptress again. Sandman - Lucifer played by Gwendilon Christie. Has not been released so cannot comment but Gaiman's Lucifer (you can argue Satan and Lucifer are two separate entities but that is for elsewhere) is a much different interpretation than in traditional Xianity. And having a non binary actor play gender swapping Desire is brilliant. Completely agree on Jodie Whitaker's Dr. Who. A wasted chance to do something really good. The choice to make Kynes a woman was an interesting choice. It didn't affect the plot overall and did add a little different nuance to the character. Having a woman play Starbuck was also interesting. It changed the whole dynamic and overall the show was mostly amazing.

I think you’re right on the basis it’s case by case. However, I think it’s further than just how fans feel. For example, I agree, Doctor Who is built to be a regenerated individual, therefore gender swap is fine, the James Bond one however, isn’t just that it’s a continuum, but also it’s a real person. The novels are based on a real person, therefore I think swapping the gender would be quite disrespectful to the original person. Secondly, I also think it depends if Gender is critical to the character. I don’t think you could swap Kelsior, however, I don’t think it’s just because fan attachment. I think you’d need to change the story quite a bit. I read Kelsior and Vin’s relationship as Kelsior being the big brother than Vin always wishes Reen had been. Therefore you’d need to change that relationship to the big sister, which intrinsically slightly changes it, though not massively. But also change Reen to be Vins sister. Though not massive changes I think you start spiralling when you do that. I also think Dockson wouldn’t work for similar reasons. His relationship with Kelsior, however, pretty much any other member of the crew would work in my opinion.

Personally I often enjoy it when an adaptation swaps genders, because it gives me a new way to look at a character that I already am close to. I once saw a production of Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar" where all the characters were gender-swapped, and it was very interesting! It made me consider how I interpreted a character's position or actions differently based on the gender, and gave me a deeper sense of who characters like Cassius and Calpurnia really were and how I saw their decisions. So I think if I look at an adaptation as _just_one_adaptation_, and not as a permanent and irrevocable change, then I can really enjoy unusual and experimental reinterpretations of the characters. (I'm sure it's much harder to do that if you know that more people will see the movie- or TV-version than ever read the book, so that the new version will be the "official" version in many people's minds. But that's always an issue when adaptations intentionally diverge, from Disney's Cinderella to the later seasons of GoT.)

@Bookborn , I was rather excited when they did the Dr Who was a woman reveal as the lil intro made her seem dark, edgy and and a bit more determined, and then I got wiffle woffle, all in all with all the years i've watched who and i started back with the 3rd Dr, I found the female lead who the worst (mostly due to the writing but also i found the representation off as well). The biggest problem with Gender swapping for the most part in films and TV is that either the roles don't work for the opposite sex with the situations they're in, I'm mostly action sci fi and sci fantasy based, and they try to do the action scenes exactly the same as they would the male and it just suspends your belief (ie a 5'4 size 6 girl kicks a 6 ft athletically fit man across a room is unbelievable rather than have the hero fight smarter its more if a guy can do it why can't a woman ) , or they have to rewrite so much of the character that they essentially become someone else and it doesn't seem to fit the world properly. my opinion is rather than Gender Swap why not create whole new original properties so that both the lead and the world fit together or focus on existing IP's where there are female leads . As for the Mistborn series having just finished the first trilogy for the first time, I could see Breeze gender swapped fairly easily as it doesn't really matter which sex would have his power and precission but Ham not so much and in the books they give a reason as to why this would be so as well, in that pewter increases apon already existing muscle mass so generally speaking people of the same strength in ability a man will out power a woman in such a scenario, he even says that Vin seems to be a total exception to this rule (also Vin fights smarter has a few other bonuses like burning bronze to help notice things sooner as well against Ham and Duraluminum), of course gender swapping Ham would mean that she's no longer as exceptional in such regard and just normal and lessen either of them, Clubs would be my suggestion for gender swap, or Dockson neither focus on physical strength as their primary ability.

I prefer the idea of creating new characters rather than changing the gender of existing ones. Marvel does an excellent job at developing feminine versions of masculine characters, in my opinion. It doesn't detract from the original character in any way. To be strong, I don't believe the female character has to lose her feminine attributes. Princess Lea was an excellent example. In fact, I enjoy books with a decent mix of male and female characters. It becomes dull when there are too many men present. You eagerly anticipate the chapters in which the female protagonist appears. Sanderson is a master at harmonizing gender roles. I believe that inventing new characters is beneficial.

You know mentioning the difference between Ella Enchanted and Harry Potter there’s also a reason why they went with JK instead of her actual name that I still don’t know. But they actually did it because they thought that obscuring the authors name would obscure her gender and make people assume her a man because nobody thought little boys or their fathers would want to read a book written by a girl, which is ridiculous.

I like the idea of gender swapping 1 or 2 characters in the Mistborn crew, but I dislike it being Kelsier. He would need to be drastically rewritten, and that's pretty dangerous, considering he's such a big part of the book and the canon as a whole. Sanderson has a lot more freedom with the other crew members the reach the same goal: naturally having women in the cast that are not Vin. It would feel more like a revision to make the story better instead of an alternative canon. I've seen quite a few gender swaps that seemed totally fine though. Anime do that all the time with historical figures (especially western ones). New stories with new characters that are only loosely based on historical figures. Gender swapped James Bond? Well, agent 007 had enough and fucked off to who-knows-where and they need someone else to do the job. Wouldn't be "James Bond", but some other catchy name, but still 007. Wouldn't that be totally fine in principle? The success would depend mostly on the writing and the acting, imo.

I would rather have more original works with female protagonists than a gender swapped title. Women can stand on their own without replacing a man’s role.

A problem is that they're trying to sell representation of women to men because they don't want to lose the money from the existing base. Except then it ceases to be the same character so they've lost the existing base and not gained any of the new people who also will have the existing preconceptions about that character.

I can think of only one gender swap that worked brilliantly: His Girl Friday is reworking of Ben Hecht’s the Front Page, switching one of the main reporters character to a woman. It allows her to not only to be quitting to get married, as in the original, but also to be the ex-wife of the newspaper publisher (played by Cary Grant).

I play a lot of video games and I try to hunt down games where the main character either is female or (in the case of games like Mass Effect and Dragon Age) you can make them female. I like Lara Croft more than Nathan Drake (and I'm talking from the reboot that started with Rise of the Tomb Raider). The reason is that, even though I can't fully relate to certain situations that open up with female characters, I relate more to the females than the males. That being said I think the 13th Doctor was a great casting choice. It's just that the season itself wasn't as well written as it could have been. The best gender swap (for me) was the reimagined Battlestar Galactica. They did a good job with both Booomer and Starbuck, but Starbuck was the absolute best swap. The reason is that the show runners didn't just swap the character, they introduced nuances that made her a female character instead of the original male character.

I don’t have any problems with a gender swap provided that it is written well and makes sense. Unfortunately, that is seldom the case. When a character’s sexuality is altered it seems like their entire identity is their sexuality. When their race is altered it seems as if their entire identity is their race. When a character’s gender is changed? You guessed it. The most defining feature of the character becomes their gender. In the end it just seems as if these alterations are made just to make the cast more diverse for the sake of being more diverse. There is one giant problem with this: greater diversity doesn’t necessarily produce a better product. I would just like to add that I could definitely see Breeze being a female. Spook could work as well with a few alterations. Kelsier though? Not at all.

I feel like books and shows/movies are art. I think like this. If you have a sculpture or painting and I add to it. How much can I add to it before it is not the thing you started with? If you add anything it is not the same sculpture or painting in my eyes. When you change mediums. I am ok with the necessary changes. As long as you do not change anything that will affect the character. In fantasy, a character is made up of the character arc, character growth, The adversity they overcome, and physical attributes that distinguish them. If you change any of these things. that would deviate from the character. It would not be what the person imagined and then created in their book. That would include gender. I do agree if you want representation; make your own thing. I all so agree that people with the talent should do that more.

I think any gender swapping of the main charter is a mistake. With the exception being, a show like Doctor Who. Its such a shame the writing had turned terrible during the 12th doctors run. I would much prefer a new well written story with a female protagonist. An example of a new IP that I enjoyed and hope they make a sequel too is The Old Guard on Netflix. This show has so much potential for great stories with interesting charters.

In my opinion it's often not the actual gender swap that's an issue. I feel like sometimes having casting decisions like this is a symptom of a director (IDK is it the director who decides casting choices? I think so right?) not knowing what they want to do with the story. If gender is relevant to a character's personality, then changing it from the original story is probably a bad idea. After all, it it wasn't an issue in the original adaptation, there's no point making changes for no reason, it just distances people from the original form of the character they enjoyed. And if gender is not relevant to the character at all, then again, what's the point? I don't think people care about 'representation' half as much as film producers think. An example of this is I enjoy many of the Korean shows on Netflix, (The most famous example being the almost universally loved squid game) and I can't remember at any point seeing any of the main cast being of european ethnicity like myself. I do not care in the slightest, nor did it in any way interfere with my engagement in the story. We relate to good characters if they are well written, not because they share our physical characteristics. If a film producer thinks a character needs changing gender to make them relatable, chances are they've already gone wrong somewhere and the character is going to end up badly written no matter who they cast for the role.

Thank you for this, it was excellent food for thought for me, on a topic I haven't really thought about much before. I have to agree with your fundamental point that if we want more great female characters than we should write more new works with them. Having said that, there are two gender swaps that I really love: Starbuck in BSG and Liet in the new Dune.

My thoughts exactly about James Bond. We love James Bond as himself. You know what's funny with that, is that I could see they wanted Lashana Lynch to be built up as like the next bond, but everyone I talked to absolutely loved that small part Ana De Armas played in the movie and wanted to see more of her. I think one of the reasons is that it looked like Lashana was trying to take over as the beloved character we already love, but Ana De Armas' character seemed so fresh and exciting. What I'm trying to say is, make a new movie with Ana De Armas as 009! That would be so cool and new. We don't need a female James Bond. We need a new kickass agent

I encounter the idea that female characters are "niche" all the time and it's just bizarre. I think anyone who proclaims a "first" with respect to female characters is just showing their ignorance. Sadly, it's often female authors who do this, claiming that there just aren't female characters in fiction, especially science fiction. See Kris Rusch's introduction to the Baen collection Women of Futures Passed for comment on this, also Pam Sargent's Women of Wonder series of anthologies.

Kaladin to Sallydin and Syl to Byl confirmed.

They can be but its more the exception than the rule. Problem is that people that care about that rarely just stop there and inject ideology into the content. Your first point is spot on in that the more central the character is the more likely a gender swap will get a reaction. In the terms of BSG it just wasnt that big an IP. There was some rumbling around starbuck but the writing was excellent. Boomer an Cain were completely different characters but the writing was good and the characters werent central to the IP anyway. Compare that to Netflix Sandman which is very good but for some reason they gender swapped constantine and completely changed the character - a character arguably more popular than sandman with his own following. Makes no sense. Oh, for Thor there was a big backlash because thats his name, not his title (and there have been plenty of other characters that lifted the hammer and have their own identity) and the comics apparently had some feminist moments. This is an example of ideology taking precedence over writing.

Speaking as a Doctor Who fan, I’d absolutely recommend the 13th Doctor seasons specifically BECAUSE it works so well. There are truly some gems to be found there but specifically her entire last season where Jodie just knocks it out of the park every single time she’s onscreen.

I think it mainly revolves around what the center of the story will be. I can live with a female Kelsier so long as it'll be the same story. She'll be vengeful against the Lord Ruler for killing her husband, she'll be constantly smiling even when things go wrong, and she'll aim to teach Vin about friendship as well as allomancy. But that's not what usually happens. I think... many times the gender swap is done in order to appeal for people who are interested in more fair representation. And then they twist the story around it. So... for example... there is a danger of female Kelsier caring more about how female skaa are often sexually abused. This was present in the original Mistborn but never given much attention (only a bit with Elend's father). Kelsier never cared about it very much. If female Kelsier will care about it more than he did, if the story will suddenly spend much of its time on that... then it'll end up being a different story, and im not sure what I think about that. As much as it's important to talk about sexual abuse, idk if it has much more room in Mistborn than what it got in the original

It’s definitely hard to just give a single answer. I usually hate gender swapping. It’s lazy feminism & patronizing. And when the character is a popular, established male character, like James Bond, it’s completely a bad move. It turns people off and gives the impression that women are too weak to come up with their own stories. I hated the gender swap on Doctor Who. They could have written a strong female Time Lord into the show rather than appropriating the main character who has a long history as a straight male, husband, & started the show as a grandfather. The push to get people to forget that long history was infuriating. That being said, I don’t get upset when the characters are lesser known or where gender isn’t really important. I didn’t care about the female ghostbusters because they weren’t the same characters and their original gender wasn’t really important in their characterization. Still think it would have been better to just come up with something new & original, but it didn’t piss me off like the Doctor did. 😂

I'm not in favor of gender-swapping major characters indiscriminately, because that can introduce questions and skew the subtext in ways that weren't in the original. Changing Gandalf to a woman *ought* to be fine, given that Gandalf has no interactions with anyone that rely upon the gender of any character; but referring to Gandalf as a "witch" instead of a "wizard" brings a ton of linguistic baggage to the way we imagine that character. It would also feel very different to gender-swap Aragorn - now you've got a bunch of old men (Gandalf, Elrond) who are constantly telling a woman what to do. That's a whole extra layer of social commentary that wasn't there before. Gender-swapping Frodo or Sam introduces the potential for a romantic subplot (at least for a lot of cis-het readers, who would never have considered it otherwise), and takes away the essence of their relationship, which was a difference in *class* (a high-born gentleman officer who struggles with a heavy burden and the low-born batman who is the true hero) not one of *sex* (a high-born lady assigned a heavy burden and the man who makes sure she finishes her mission). You can't just flip a switch and say "there, we did it!" without looking at rebuilding the story and all of its implications. You might as well write a different tale at that point.

So many thoughts... - gender swapping without other changes, makes it a masculine female lead... - might be that women are (on the whole) more empathic and therefore can better identify with men, while men might be reluctant to identify with women. Here I have no idea if this is inherent or cultural or something else. - also I've read books that are more or less geared to women (cassandra clare, sjm) and just couldnt care less about the main protaganist and their relationship problems, so maybe this is actually again related to the second point. Anyway, seems the world more or less wants one type of consumer, while I think the world is more interesting if we can have multiple different entertainment geared to all kinds of people. And to increase empathy of people, representation isnt bad, but then it often falls on this one person to represent so many people, which will inevitably fail... But no representation will alienate people too... So... A lot of thoughts, no answers. Still always good to try to look at things from different points.

Good points. Ripley showed that most people enjoy strong women representation.. but …gender swapping just shouts gender swapping..and is often dumped on, before even getting a chance. It also comes with man bashing, where the male s are not as good… and the audience face palms..

I think Oceans 8 is a really good movie, easily the second best movie in the franchise (although the second and third of the originals are a very low bar). I think it helps that they are all original characters and it's in the same universe the original films. It didn't come across as forced or anything to me.

I think Ham could work as a gender swap, but then a female intrepetation of Ham.

So in general, I’m against changing the source material. I understand adapting to a different medium, but I still want it to be as close to the original as possible. So usually I don’t like it. However, there are times when I don’t have an issue with it. Marvel’s Moon Knight that just released gender swapped Layla’s character. In the comics it is a male, but in the show, a female. And that didn’t bother me because her story in the show was great. It made sense, and worked with what was being set up and developed. That being said, let’s look at another example in the MCU where the gender swapped a male into a female. In Captain Marvel, Mar-Vell was originally a male, and the mentor to Carol. In the movie, Mar-Vell was swapped to a female, and it didn’t work. In fact it would’ve been a stronger story if she had still been a male (if you want my full thoughts on that, I can give them. There’s just too much for the point of this comment to go into). So that one was a bad gender swap. And one last example within the MCU. Taskmaster. In the comics Taskmaster is (once again) male. But for Black Widow they gender swapped the character. And in this example, it really didn’t do anything one way or the other. Or at least, not enough to really matter. I can’t specifically say it would have been better if it had still been a male in the movie, but at the same time, there is no reason I can think of that it needed to be a female. One of your points was that it might depend on how close to the character we are. Well each of these 3 examples are characters that I’m not particularly close to. I know of them all, and I actually find Taskmaster very interesting, but I can’t say I’ve read many comics with him. So in this instance at least, I would say that my closeness to the characters doesn’t affect my opinion in any way. Anyways, that’s just some of my thoughts in the subject. It’s an interesting discussion, and definitely one that needs to be had, but I definitely lean more towards the “no. Don’t gender swap” side of things. Create new characters with the same depth as the male characters. Then nobody should have an issue. 🤷🏼‍♂️ -T

I personally do not like gender swap! I would definitely would not want mistborn to be gender swapped!! I would definitely not want breeze or ham to become females! I agree with the part where you create new female based stories rather than swaps!

I thought they already did an all female lord of the flys>>>>> Mean Girls

This is one that hurts a little. On the one hand I really want more female characters. But I just don´t like it done like this. I would tend to agree with your points throughout this - I find gender-swapping annoying. Because it feels like an inauthentic attempt to cater to female viewers, while cashing in on brand recognition, but not actually doing the work to create interesting female characters written from the ground up. My reaction to hearing the suggestion of Kelsier being being gender-swapped was also disapproval. Not because I think think a lead female character in Kelsier´s position would make the story worse. Many of Brandon´s lead female characters are some of my favourite characters, full stop. My issue is more that Kelsier is an extremely prominent character, and such a fundamental change would make Kelsier not really feel like Kelsier. In the same manner that if we suggested instead making him old, or a kind-hearted man that didn´t like violence. For the same reason I wouldn´t want to go the other way and make Vin or Spensa a guy either. I have the same issue, if to a smaller extend, with the comic heroes. Outside of Wonder Woman and the X-men, most of the prominent comic heroines are usually overshadowed off-shoots of their male versions - Batgirl, Supergirl, She-Hulk, Female Thor, Spiderwoman... If we want more prominent female characters - and I would *love* to have more - I would much rather they invent new ones who can stand on their own. Don´t make a female Bond, make a new female super spy who has her own quirks and personality, and so on.

Your thoughts on the Prime show concept of "The Rings of Power"?

My problem with gender swapping is that it tends to be very superficial - the only change is to get a female face in the show in order to attract a new female audience. But the handling of the new female role often doesn't change - it either still feels like a man or it feels gender neutral. There is no feeling that the show is now written around a woman. My specific example is Doctor Who. When the female doctor was announced, I was optimistic. After all, why can't the doctor be female? As far as I knew, this would be the first time the doctor would be reincarnated as a woman. What would that feel like to him/her? What new perspectives would it bring? And what challenges would the doctor face in adapting to dealing with others? Would they bring Rose Tyler back and explore her reaction to a female doctor? For those that don't know, the doctor sometimes travels alone but normally acquires one companion (very rarely more) and explores the growing friendship between the doctor and that companion over 1 to 2 seasons. The companion is usually female. The doctor is incredible but also has weaknesses. He can be vengeful and get carried away. The companion often serves to temper that anger and help the doctor to focus on the threat in a more positive way. The show is heavily focused on the doctor's character and the interactions with the companion who is usually a friend but in very rare circumstances can be more (like Rose). What I wanted was to have the first 4 episodes be just the female doctor. This would give the audience time to get to know her, to see the familiar doctor traits in how she approaches and deals with problems and to help us to connect. Then introduce one companion and start exploring the interaction that a female doctor would have with someone else. This would require a writer who has a deep understanding of a woman (obviously) and also who knows (or works closely with someone who knows) the character and lore of the doctor and maintains it in a respectful way. Instead what did we get? The first episode gave the doctor 4 companions and focused almost entirely on them. And it continued for the season. This season was the companions' stories. We got to see how the companions interacted with events. On the rare occasions we got to focus on the doctor, there was almost no acknowledgement that he was now a woman. It was as if the gender didn't matter, let's just get on with it. On top of that, the doctor's character just felt wrong. It was eccentric but not in the familiar enjoyable way. It was immediately clear that this woman on our screen was NOT the doctor. And this was confirmed when we found out that the showrunner told the actress not to watch any of the previous episodes, in order to ensure she approached the role of the Doctor in a completely new way. I struggled through the first season with the female doctor (season 11 of new Who) and then dropped it. After having watched and mostly enjoyed the previous 10 seasons, I now saw that the show was empty and devoid of any character or soul. It was something different and I had no connection to it any more. I heard that later seasons destroyed the lore to such an extent that people who had watched classic and new Who over 5 decades were mortified and abandoned it in droves. Doctor Who is now ruined. But to be clear, it wasn't the gender swapping alone that had ruined it. It wasn't even the actress - she played the part she was told to play. It was the way the character was written and presented to us. The old and familiar doctor's character was gone and an impostor was in their place. The problem is that most modern media producers don't know how to write a good female character and they are not prepared to take a risk on doing so.

I liked female Starbuck in BSG but I don't think things like female James Bond are a good idea. Masculinity seems a very core part of a character like that and I think if you take that away you are essentially creating a new character, so why not just create a new character with a new name. I also think it's doing a bit of a disservice to female representation that they can only get it by having female versions of male characters there needs to be more original great female characters and less swapping IMO

Good thoughts and discussion here. Thank you.

If it is made on political bases it is wrong ( i.e. ghostbusters ), if it has an organic reason for the story then it has possibilities ( i.e. Sandman ).

For me it’s always about how well it is executed by the actor/writer/director. Only time it could be awkward is in cases where gender orients the story in some way. Like if you swapped Moraine with a male or Dalinar with a female. There are parts of the character arcs where their gender is relevant that wouldn’t come across the same. Kelsier I wouldn’t mind.

Part of my frustration is that they often make these gender swapped stories and don't actually look at how circumstances change with a female cast. If they look at any kind of feminist views it's surface level at best and feels half assed. If you wanted to gender swap something like...lethal weapon (bear with me), how would that story change with a female running wild in Riggs' place? A woman with that level of recklessness wotluld be benched in a heartbeat while Riggs got a seemingly endless length of rope (enough for all those movies anyway). The gender dynamics would affect the outcome and most examples that see the light of day don't take the time to actually explore it. And my example probably isn't perfect but i think it proves my point on the fly.

I think too much weight is given to gender as though it's some special immutable aspect of a character unlike any other character trait, when really it's just one aspect of what makes a character who they are. Adaptations change characters all the time. To use a real example, the character of Mance Rayder in Game of Thrones is extremely different to the way the character is portrayed in the books, and that's not a gender swapped character! I can imagine a universe where the TV series cast Mance as a woman but made them more similar to the book character than the version we actually got.

Happy reading to you!! 🎥🦋

it can be very succesful i think, to use another doctor who example: the master was a very succesful and beloved swap. i also think it depends on context, something like regeneration makes it very feasible

So many things in this video that I agree with. Gender swapping for "Brand recognition" is the one of the most inane ideas. I have a deep dislike for it. Gender swapping and keeping the exact same characteristics of the male character always feels disingenuous, simply because it provides a picture of a man's world still and tends to be even less relatable. If you're going to genderswap a character, do it for the story, or even change the story in order to make the character make sense. This video has some parallels with why " the strong female" character doesn't always work, aka Capt Marvel in her movie. Slapping toxic male traits (emotional distance/lack of emotion and extreme aloofness/independence) onto a female character doesn't make her strong by any means and creates toxic role models for girls to live up to. And it just feeds a screwed up system, simply because it's still a male-centered viewpoint. Women don't have to be men to be strong. The issue is with our perception of what is strong.

The only thing I like about gender swapping is that it is a tacit acknowledgement that the original IP didn't have enough non-male characters. The acknowledgement feels a bit good in the soul. So even when it's done badly, it's still like 2% good to me, haha. In general though I don't like it, because we don't just need the external female-ness, we need characters that show actual lived experiences and personalities that are outside of the TV/Film presented male norm (which I think at times is so narrowly presented that men are probably also not happy about it either). In the best of worlds, we wouldn't need gender swapping because the amazing new IPs with good representation of non-male characters would be getting the resources to continue their work in film/tv. Sadly we're not there yet. But there is progress being made. I begrudgingly accept gender swapping as a stepping stone in the right direction.

So first, swaps can only happen when mediums change, so not Sanderson one book to another. The more popular something/someone is the less success you will have with fans. Even changing hair color can be met with push back because ppl love a character for a reason and like to keep them authentic. Some characters could stand a fresh perspective depending how old the source material is but can’t be treated as changing or the producer just making it their own.

Why would Thor need gender swapping when there's so many other female God's in the Norse Pantheon that could be represented in film or TV?

Brandon Sanderson has said somewhat recently that the characters he has already swapped are Ham and Dox. Kelsier is a man and will always be a man

Men and women are different so gender swapping means you need to rewrite a character entirely. Gender swaps can be hard because it doesn't seem like an actual female character sometimes. My opinion usually depends on whether it seems like an actual woman or a man with a new name. On your last point, all minorities are expected to project onto the white male. I can't personally speak to this, but I have seen others discuss how everyone, including minorities, is expected to relate to characters like Harry Potter. Meanwhile, Asian, Black, and LGBTQ+ characters are (supposedly) only relatable to those groups. I think this is just a false idea we have to change. While this isn't fantasy, my strait dad was able to relate more to Heartstopper than I was (as a queer kid). Stories with minorities and marginalized groups are not for one set of people. Basing a character or world on a group should not limit who can/should read or watch a story.

I feel Ham works for a gender swap more than Breeze.