…but they killed the leading lady. Being a bit taken aback by the sudden departure of Marion as a character from “Robin Hood”, with the series recently finished on the BBC, thought I’d see what others’ reactions were.
Talk about an outpouring. I didn’t sit and count how many comments(though it was a fairly interesting indication of how many different countries now view the programme, one way or another), but there must have been nigh on a hundred responses on a BBC page.
It did make me think back to my own reaction when another leading lady, Trinity, was killed in the final part of the Matrix trilogy. I may not have been ‘in shock’ and all the other descriptions when Marion was killed, but I do remember the shock seeing it happen the first time, as it were. (After all, sword through the middle vs large metal pole through the middle – not a lot to choose between them as a way to go.)
Here’s one way in which the internet is interesting – if you do feel upset, cheated (or equally elated, amazed) about the outcome of something you’ve been following, you can quickly find some more people who share the same opinion, or round up a few if you’re an early commenter.
It’s worth noting that only about 10% of those who commented upheld the way “Robin Hood” was handled - the rest laid in with some pretty strong adjectives describing the distress viewers had. Maybe it’s more so because “Robin Hood” was seen as a family show. (I do struggle with that a bit, given the amount of death and bloodshed shown in it week by week.)
But clearly, Marion’s character had impressed on the feisty heroine front. It seems we have a need for such roles on TV. One person commented on comparisons between Billie Piper’s character of Rose (in “Doctor Who“), and that of Marion, as an indication of how strong female roles are really popular with viewers, but get stopped after a while.
I wondered why this has such a shock factor. Is it because we are unused to seeing female characters die in film or TV? Is it because we don’t normally see female characters who are also fighters? It’s worth bearing in mind that it’s only relatively recently that women in the British army have been allowed into frontline positions, and some are still unhappy with this decision, even though there are women who are prepared to serve there.
Are we upset at the death of a woman, or the death of the love interest? Or are we just shocked at story conventions being turned upside down? I remember a similar reaction at the downbeat ending of “Twin Peaks“, nearly two decades before. It seems to be worse where a couple show signs of getting together in a drama, and then the opportunity is taken away from them.
This is a long post already; I’ll bring things to a close. But I think it’s interesting to see what people demand of their entertainment, and why, in relation to ‘real life’. Deputy article following soon.