Damsels in distress aren’t always my favorite characters. A lot of the time, they kind of annoy me. It’s just so hard to believe that anyone really needs someone else to cover their mouth so they don’t scream and alert the knife-wielding murderer of their location. Or, my least favorite attribute, the old ‘this door looks creepy and scary, why don’t I open it and see what’s inside, letting no one else know where I’ve gone.’ Everyone makes a dumb choice now and again, but damsels in distress tend not to make any smart choices.
Unfortunately, sometimes they are necessary. After all, you can’t create a hero without giving them someone to save. And if that hero just so happens to be in love with the girl in trouble, well, then there is all the more emotional reward when they escape danger unharmed. So I get the damsel’s role, I respect her purpose to the plot. I just don’t always respect her.
That’s why I really enjoy stories that have a damsel I can root for. Someone whose talent is more than just perfect hair no matter what the weather or situation. I want a damsel who is brave and smart but just has bad luck. Or, even better, a damsel who knowingly puts herself in danger in order to do something heroic herself.
The Amazing Spider-Man’s Gwen Stacey, played by the consistently brilliant Emma Stone, falls into this category. Spidey’s leading lady in this year’s revamping of Spider-Man is intelligent, confident and just quirky and vulnerable enough for you to fall in love with her as much as Peter Parker does. More importantly, she has none of the characteristics of your typical damsel. For one thing, she’s not helpless, nor is she clueless to the hero’s secret and yet-oh-so-obvious identity. And when the time comes to face the bad guy, she has as much courage as the hero. In fact, Gwen is more like a partner to the web-slinger, helping him to stop the enemy, not hindering him.
It would have been easy to slap the pretty actress on a gossamer web and let her scream for help while the hero swung around, took down his nemesis and then swung back over for a kiss. But the movie, rather smartly, sucked fans in by giving us more than one heroic character to root for. At the same time they did something rarely done, they gave us a damsel in distress that we could respect.
defydemure 