A Male Damsel in Distress

But all your doing there is a gender flip on Taken. That's barely less lazy than taking Taken but making the hero a dad saving his daughter.

Don't just invert. Find these characters and write an original take based on them.

But what do I know, I'm just a ham bag in a box.

Could it have worked if the story was a mom who is a former CIA agent and she has to go to Paris to save her son from kidnappers while her former husband stays back in the United States, waiting by the phone to hear his son is safe?

Why is this even a question? Do you ascribe some supernatural power to men that women don't have? I can tell you, at the very least, there is no action performed by the title character of the movie John Wick that could not have been performed by a woman, and it's all pretty impressive, especially considering Keanu Reeves is a 50+ year old man. I think it's a sign of just how little we have progressed as a society that a 78-year-old Clint Eastwood can beat up a young man at least 50 years his junior in Gran Torino - and far from people not batting an eye over it, they actually celebrate how he's "very convincing" and "still got it" after all these years. At 56-years-old when the first Taken came out, Liam Neeson was no spring chicken himself, something that was also very positively acknowledged in many interviews and reviews. Meanwhile the question is raised, whether ANY woman could be considered convincing in a role as a trained killer, looking to take back her son. - It is objectively ridiculous. Especially since men defeating other men who are twice their size has been a staple of the genre since before action movies were a thing. Goliath doesn't slay David because he's gigantic unbeatable badass, he doesn't slay David at all, for pretty much exactly that reason. So any of that nagging "Woman don't have the upper body strength to tussle with a grown man" is a giant load of horseshit Especially when you consider that skinny little Jena Malone can allegedly deadlift somewhere between 235-300 pounds, yet this (apparent) genuinely surprising feat is not considered nearly as noteworthy or commendable as Clint Eastwood's (definitely) imaginary ability to beat up a grown man who's three and a half times younger than he is. But hey, if I want to find out if she's ever been naked on screen - Mr. Skin's totally got me covered! God forbid women complain about any of this though, that would make them feminists, and feminists are SJWs, and that's bad, since - in this wholly enlightened age, the rest of us are faaar above such irrational, emotional outbursts. That's why I HATE THEM! They're so STUPID! And DUMB! 😒

Yeah, there's a lot of hostility there, not necessarily directed at you. Suffice it to say I am not one of these people who thinks the recent cultural shifts occurring as of late are really for the betterment of anyone, knowing how much further we all would have had to go before such an intense and massive retaliation was truly warranted. All I know is stories are not generally very good by being as unsurprising as possible, and the best way to be surprising is not to pigeonhole your characters. Men cry, women fight, saints lie, and the bad do right. While this shouldn't be surprising, it is, and when it's not anymore it will still be better for our stories, because any student of Darwin, or patron of Baskin Robbins can tell you - variety is necessity.

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There's no such thing as the establishment. Everyone knows that!

It's not the action stuff, I'm talking about the man being the one in danger through the whole movie and the woman saving him. He's the damsel in distress. The woman has to break him out of the dark tower and grip his hand, pulling him screaming through dangers and telling him to hold on tight to her as she swings across the room on a cord, swooping them both to safety and then taking her reward in sex.

Would audiences go for that? I'd have a hard time taking it seriously and an even harder time respecting the male character.

That's what I'm talking about, the emotional reaction an audience would have, not the 'realism'; I'm the biggest anti-realism person you'll meet Two things I hate are realism and characters who behave consistently.

You hate characters who behave consistent? What kind of writer...? You know what, nevermind...

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There's no such thing as the establishment. Everyone knows that!

I take it you're a fan of characters behaving consistently

Well surprise surprise, I don't exactly think it's a stretch to say most writers are. Or even... people in general. I mean - if you don't have to be realistic or consistent you can pretty much write any old crap you want, which I guess is the appeal... in a way, but it lacks a certain standard - which I suppose is also appealing, to a certain kind of person.

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There's no such thing as the establishment. Everyone knows that!

I'm aware that you're trolling, btw.

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There's no such thing as the establishment. Everyone knows that!

I think maybe it's best not to think of a character in terms of a man and woman (not all the time), and just think of them as a person, in these survival situations. Have man do what you think that character would do, man or not.

And have the woman character do what you think that character would do, woman or not.