What Happened to the Women?

I was talking to my girlfriend a few nights ago on the phone about how we think Claire's already dead, and we both realized something: the show has totally shafted the women. (Apparently, others agree.) Think about it. First there's the long list of the dearly departed:

Danielle: killed by a freighter freak's gunshot.
Alex: killed by Keamy's gunshot.
Libby: killed by Michael's gunshot.
Ana-Lucia: killed by Michael's gunshot.
Shannon: killed by Ana-Lucia's gunshot.
Nadia: killed by a Widmore crony (possibly a gunshot).
Klugh: killed by Mikael's gunshot.

Then there are the women still on the show:

Kate. The female lead. Just not likable anymore. She was cool and all in the first season, but now she's fraudulently raising a (possibly) dead girl's baby, got out of a guilty murder rap by coercing her own mother, and embarrasses herself on an almost episode-to-episode basis by alternating between jumping in Sawyer's bed and trailing after Jack like a hurt puppy.

Claire. Of all the regulars, the writers have been most willing to use Claire only when they need her. She's often been absent from full episodes, and now - and I don't mind stressing this - she's probably dead. Hopefully that little snag in her character's future will be fully explored in the season finale, because after Lindelof & Cuse announced that she was finally getting a "big storyline," we really haven't seen much of it, and it's easy, though troubling, to foresee a Claire-less Season 5.

Sun. I've always liked Sun the least out of any character on the show, and perhaps that's because its hard to get much of a handle on her. During season 3, the writers decided to make her a pathological liar, and an adulteress - than seemed to forgive her and move away from that in the most recent Sun/Jin episode. The future still holds potential, but that depends on whether or not (A) she goes back to the island, and (B) Jin is alive or dead.

Charlotte, Penny, and Rose. Of the four main freighter people, Charlotte is by far the least interesting; her only personality trait is "sour." Penny's great but has an extremely limited role on the show. And Rose appears every so often to dispense soundbite-sized wisdom. Fine for a minor character, but not worthy of much discussion.

Finally, special mention goes to Juliet.

Juliet is perhaps the perfect example of the Lost writers' struggle with female characters. She was probably introduced for the sole purpose of finally providing the show with a strong female character, and it worked - until the end of Season 3. Now that it's been pretty much established that she's not secretly evil, the intrigue surrounding her character dissipated - and the writers noticed it too, because she hasn't had much to do this season.

So what do they saddle her with? A revised-history backstory about how she was actually having an affair with Goodwin - which is not only unnecessary, but signals a profound lack of creativity. You need to give your female character something to do, so you give her an affair? I'm sorry, but you already did that with Sun, and it felt stale then. One of the reasons I watch Lost is to avoid the type of plot line found on every other television drama on the air.

One of the things that Lost has found such success in is hiring writers from the comic book world, but putting a bunch of male geeks in one room is sadly not a recipe for female character success. (IMDb lists 17 writers throughout the show's history; 3 are female.) Unfortunately, the lack of strong female characters is an industry-wide problem, and Lost can be credited for at least trying to do more with its women than sticking them in the traditional girlfriend/love interest roles. But of late, it hasn't really been succeeding.

TAGS: Claire, Juliet, Kate, Sun, Women
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