Girls on Film: by Tanya Landman

Today we have a guest post from Tanya Landman. One of Tanya's many previous books, Apache, was shortlisted for the Carnegie. For her latest, Buffalo Soldier, she returns to America, to the time of the Indian Wars. (For a review, see here.) Read on to find out about the inspiration behind her heroine.

I grew up very confused.
            My grandmother was born in 1903:  her generation had lived through WW1 and WW2, keeping the home fires burning and the country running, dealing with grief and loss with heroic fortitude.  All around me I could see strong, intelligent, capable women: there was nothing weak or feeble about any of them!  
            And yet when it came to film and TV,  if a woman appeared on screen at all,  you could guarantee three things.  She would:  
            1) scream   
            2) fall over 
            3) need rescuing.
Oh yes – and if she was being chased she’d be in high heels and she’d never ever have the sense to take her shoes off so she could run properly.  I seemed to spend most of my childhood yelling at the screen, “Don’t do that, you stupid woman!”

That’s probably why the film of Gone With The Wind had such a big effect on me.  Of course, there are all kinds of problems with it for a modern audience, but I saw it for the first time when I was eleven and Scarlett O’Hara – tough, manipulative, determined, resourceful – was a revelation.  OK, so she wasn’t particularly likeable.  But then, Scarlett didn’t give a damn about whether people liked her or not.  She was her own person, a  belle turned businesswoman, and  I admired her.
            But as far as female role models on screen were concerned,  Scarlett was kind of it.
            It’s true that every so often a character would come along who would be hailed by the press as a feminist icon.  I remember when Sarah Jane joined Doctor Who she was said to be something new and different.  She had a job!  Sarah Jane was a journalist, no less.   Wow! Here was a companion with brains!!!!
            I watched the first episode with avid interest.  As I recall she did the guaranteed 1 – 3 in about five minutes flat.
            It was the same with Marian Ravenwood in Raiders of the Lost Ark.   Another ‘breakthrough’ female character I thought she was great – for a while.  All right, she drinks men under the table, she wears trousers, she runs her own bar and stands up for herself.  But oh dear – pretty soon  there she is needing to be rescued.  And later  – well, there’s a big surprise – she ends up in high heels and a frock.
            When I started writing I wanted to create female characters who were not only capable of saving

their own skins, but of rescuing other people too. Who had adventures and faced challenges; who were good at what they did and could think and act for themselves. Just like real women, in fact.  I’ve written the kind of people I’d have enjoyed reading about in my youth:  the kind of ones I’d have loved to have seen on TV: people like Charley O’Hara, the subject of my new novel, Buffalo Soldier. Charley – born Charlotte – is born a slave, but she eventually achieves freedom – after a spell in one of the black regiments of the American Army (as a ‘buffalo soldier’) in the 19^thcentury Indian wars. Quite a girl!            So – in my dreams – I think it’s about time that Hollywoodcame along to make  me an offer I can’t refuse.   Come on, guys!  Charley O’Hara would look great on screen!  And it’s about time Katniss had some company….