STRONG WOMEN SERIES #5: The Women of The 100
When people on my timeline began watching The 100, a show on The CW about a bunch of teenage delinquents sent to the earth in order to determine whether or not it in inhabitable after an apocalypse wiped out civilization, I thought: "Well, this sounds like it'll get cancelled quickly." A show about teenagers seems fitting to find a home on The CW, a network that once housed Gossip Girl and 90210 and The Carrie Diaries. But as I said in my post about how the network is becoming the home of some of the best and most well-rounded female characters on television, I decided to put aside my prejudices of the network and actually sit down to see what this show was all about. As it turns out, I got sucked in pretty quickly to the action and the drama and the stories of these characters.
And, as you may gather by the title of this post, I was incredibly impressed with the portrayal of women in the series. I wrote my post about The CW when I had only watched the pilot episode of The 100. Now that I'm officially caught up on the show, I thought I would discuss the four leading ladies of the series and their incredible and wonderful nuances. At the moment, I don't think any other show on television has the bravery to tell stories of young, strong women like The 100 does. Whenever you see teenagers on television series, they're usually trying to figure out who they are -- they're always portrayed as having less and less valuable life experience than adults. And while there is one adult female I would like to discuss on this series, the rest of the women are young but already extremely grounded (pun not intended). They have beliefs and morals and values and incredibly tragic, beautiful stories that have shaped the way that they see the world, humanity, and themselves.
Just because a woman is young doesn't mean she isn't confident in who she is and what she wants out of life. Strong women aren't just those who are of a certain age or a certain class or have been through certain experiences. What defines a strong woman is her layers -- her ability to be compassionate or vulnerable or stubborn or loud or meek or manipulative. Strong women don't have to be likable. They don't have to be relatable. They just have to exist on television in such a way that surpasses a trope or a prop. They have to have agency and stories that reveal more about their character. They have to be real, in other words. All of the women on The 100 are real and quite frankly amazing. So let's discuss them, shall we?
