scribbles-by-kate:

One of the things I fell in love with Once Upon a Time for was the strong women. We saw Snow White pull her husband’s sword from its scabbard in the pilot and then we had this exchange:

Charming: ‘You’re a girl?’
Snow White: ‘Woman.’

And, honestly, I cheered. I’d been really starved for content about strong women for a while by that point. There were the period dramas that make a point of injecting their women with gumption to make them appeal to modern audiences, but Once was the first show in a while where I was really spoiled for strong heroines.

And they were all different too. Sure, they could each kick ass. Snow and Emma both had a history of kicking people’s asses when they thought it was warranted, but their personalities were different, at least when you took the curse into account. Mary Margaret wasn’t Snow White: she was a lot more mousy, but she found her strength. Emma found a way to be strong and let her family in, especially in those early seasons.

And we had Regina too, who wasn’t my favourite character on the first go around, but who is one of them now, for sure. I appreciate so much that she knew what she wanted, misguided as she was, and she went for it. She did everything she could to get what she believed at the time was her happy ending. And later on, we started to see her layers. She was a gentle, kindhearted girl, who went down a wrong path, but who turned her life around, found that girl she used to be within her again, but was made stronger through adversity. She became a wise, levelheaded leader, and we saw how big a heart she had. She could kick your arse, but she would also try to help you if you needed it. She’s the epitome of a strong woman.

And Belle. My goodness, when I heard her say ‘No one decides my fate but me’, I knew she was going to be my favourite iteration of Belle. Now, Belle won’t kick your arse the same way Emma and Snow would, though she will if she needs to! She’s strong and kind and brave (even though she doesn’t always see herself as brave). She wants to be a hero so badly: she wants more than is on offer for the women of her kingdom, and she absolutely gets it. For me, Belle’s always been the strongest of the women, next to Regina, because she has to talk herself into being brave, and she overcomes her insecurities to fight for Rumple and fight for her family and her people. And even when no one acknowledges her, she helps. She’s kind of the unsung heroine of the show, because her heroism is much quieter. Her heroism is in living a good life, overcoming her insecurities, and loving her husband so much that he’s able to take that love and inspiration she provided with him and ultimately put an end to the Darkness.

And there are so many more brave, feisty women on this show. We have Mulan, Aurora, Anna, Elsa, Merida, Alice, Ella (the second Ella, I mean), Robin. They’ve all had such an impact on me. They fight their own battles. Sometimes it’s with a sword. Sometimes it’s with their understanding and sympathy and love. Sometimes it’s with their brains and a book. Sometimes it’s with a magic spell. These women didn’t wait for the men to save them: they saved themselves. A few of them even saved the men, over and over again.

We can argue the strengths and weaknesses of the show’s depictions of women and the directions some of the stories took, but the thing is…there’s a female character in this show for every young woman to relate to, and no arguing about the show’s direction can take that away. For some young women, there’s more than one female character they love and take inspiration from. For me, it’s Belle, Regina, and Alice. For someone else, it’s Emma: for another, Snow: for another, Ella, and so on, and so on. When a show gives you this many female characters: when you’re able to look at a cast and see a lot of women, and you’re able to take inspiration from one or more of them, then that production is doing something right. We needed Once Upon a Time. Girls and boys growing up needed to see these female characters. Even grown men and women needed to see them. We needed these women at a time when we weren’t seeing a lot of strong, three-dimensional women on television.