I was sitting on a beige sofa in a living room in northeast Cedar Rapids when she said it: “Sometimes, I just don’t think I’m a protagonist in my own life.”
I was a high schooler and was spending my Saturday evening like I spent most Saturday evenings. Sitting on a beige sofa in a living room in northeast Cedar Rapids, watching boys play Guitar Hero. Or Halo. Or watching boys stack a bunch of books on top of chairs to see who could jump over the highest pile. Or watching boys half-fake-wrestle on a carpeted floor. (In case you’re wondering, yeah, the carpet was also beige.)
The only thing unusual about this particular night was my friend’s comment. I thought for a moment.
Then I told her I didn’t know what she meant.
“I’ve never felt that way,” I said. I was definitely a protagonist in my own life. I mean, right?
That’s how I thought of it. At the time, at least.
Now I’m not so sure.
I read this essay by Claire Vaye Watkins, “On Pandering,” around five years ago. But I still think about this passage a lot:
“As a young woman I had one and only one intense and ceaseless pastime, though that’s not the right word, though neither is hobby or passion. I have practiced this activity with religious devotion and for longer than I can remember. I have been trying to give it up recently, since moving away from Bedford Falls, since around the time my daughter was born. But nearly all of my life has been arranged around this activity. I’ve filled my days doing this, spent all my free time and a great amount of time that was not free doing it. That hobby, that interest, that passion was this: watching boys do stuff.”
In stories, the protagonist is the one who gets to do stuff. The protagonist––also known as the main character, or the hero––is the one who has a goal. The protagonist moves the story forward as they pursue their goal, ultimately changing their world and themselves as a result of their actions.
As a kid and a teenager, I read and watched a lot of stories. Some were part of my school curriculum, some were books and TV shows and movies I discovered on my own. But almost all had one thing in common: a white, cis, straight* boy (slash wizard slash hobbit) was the protagonist.
So in addition to watching a lot of real boys do stuff, I was watching a lot of fictional boys do stuff. And over and over and over, in the stories, women and girls played the role of bland love interest, or meddling mother, or nagging friend, or cringeworthy classmate, or dead body in need of avenging. And trans and nonbinary and gender-nonconforming people basically didn’t exist at all.
I think I did know what my friend meant, when she said she didn’t feel like a protagonist. I think I was just so used to not feeling like one that I didn’t even know how to put it into words.
It would be very cool to time-travel back to that version of myself sitting on the beige sofa. I’d wipe the Dorito crumbs off sixteen-year-old Erin’s fingers and hand her a stack of books where women and girls make messes and make mistakes and make change. I’d tell Erin and her friend that these stories are out there; you just have to look for them. I’d tell them to do their best to stop watching and start acting.
Until I figure out the time-travel thing, though, I’m settling for paying a lot of attention to the media I consume now, here in the present day. My goal: make sure I’m supporting creators who are crafting stories that reflect a diversity of protagonists, realities, and dreams.
I’m a big believer in the feedback loop between art and life. The stories we consume can stretch or stiffen our narratives about the real world, too.
Which protagonists will you root for in 2021?
Happy New Year’s, all! And happy storytelling.
<3 Erin
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Erin Becker (she/her)
Writer | Communications Consultant | Storytelling Expert
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*Caveat 1: there is definitely a vibe between a few of the Outsiders, but since S.E. Hinton took to Twitter to shut down any fans who suggested her characters might be members of the LGBTQ+ community, it kind of doesn’t count. And caveat 2: all the Harry Potter fan fiction, in which basically no one is reliably straight. (Let’s be real, Ginny is way better for Hermione than Ron is. And yes I will die on this hill.)