Holding Out for a Hero

Of all the interesting roles for women created by science fiction on television these days, there are still those shows which have tremendous potential and yet seem to fall short of the mark. One such example is Heroes.

It’s not as simple as saying there are no complex or interesting roles for women in Heroes lore, however there is a peculiar tendency in the lore created by the show to have the female characters, even those with their own superhuman abilities, most often relegated to either victims in need of protection, or quasi-villains in need of being stopped or set upon a different path.

The most prominent female character in the show is arguably Claire Bennet, the indestructible cheerleader. And if you followed the story of the first season, she was the subject of the show’s first and most famous tagline: Save the Cheerleader, Save the World. Partly due to her young age, and partly to her essentially passive ability, the idea of saving, sheltering or protecting Claire was one of the most universal themes of the season, with most of the characters, even those without super-human abilities, motivated to aid in the cause of saving her from the parasitic villain Sylar, out to acquire her power as he had so many others, by getting very up close and personal with her brain – which would have been slightly difficult to overcome, even for the girl who makes a habit of throwing herself off of tall structures and sticking her hand down garbage disposals.

By the end of the season, despite the infamous declaration which had made her survival key to ‘saving the world’, Claire’s part in averting a nuclear disaster had more to do with inspiring heroics in others than it did accomplishing anything in her own right. As ‘The Cheerleader’ she existed in no small way as the representative of youth and hope, undying innocence to be saved and preserved. As the iconic personification of female adolescence, the all American cheerleader, she was something of a modern day equivalent of a princess in peril, waiting for the brave knights to prove their worth on the quest to save her.

By contrast, we have the other most prominent female character in the form of Niki Sanders. Despite being one of the more compelling emotional stories, Niki’s struggle through the season was largely against the nemesis in her own mind, an alternate personality known as Jessica. The result of abuse she endured as a child, and the death of her sister Jessica, Niki’s mind had splintered into another distinct personality. Like a mutant Sybil, Niki’s ability to use her incredible strength was paralyzed by her alter ego. Jessica was created by Niki’s mind in no small way to give her an detached sense of strength in the face of abuse she faced as a child, a separate persona who could endure the torments her mind didn’t know how to bear and protect her from even the knowledge of them. However, as an adult, her duty of serving as Niki’s emotional strength meant in turn that she was also the recipient of Niki’s physical strength.

Jessica existed in part as the villain in the story of Niki, and the struggles of her family and representing Niki’s inability to accept the burden of her own strength. And yet, in the end, Jessica’s defeat was signified by her giving up control rather than Niki seizing it, and Niki’s embracing her own power came in the face of a shape-shifting villain named Candace who merely impersonated Jessica, paralyzing Niki once again until Jessica appeared to her one last time to inspire her.

Most disappointing about Niki’s story, was that after all of her struggles, the idea of embracing her strength was never shown in more than fleeting glimpses. One blow disabled Candace, and even Niki’s jumping into the final battle against Sylar amounted to a single strike which seemed to exist more to give another character, Peter, the ability to absorb her power and aid in his ability to fight against the season’s biggest villain.

The new season of Heroes has been a mixed bag in terms of it’s female roles. With Claire’s storyline dominated by a new a love interest who along with her adoptive father has already helped to save her, and Niki struggling once again with the idea of her own strength, having developed yet another personality along the way and potentially losing her strength entirely, even as she is infected with a disease which left her in need of a male characters heroics in order to save her.

A much brighter spot has been the introduction of a new character, a cousin to Niki’s son Micah, named Monica Dawson, who possesses the ability to mimic any physical action she witnesses and as such has happily not yet been in need of rescue. However, in addition we have been introduced to Elle, a lightning powered sociopath, and Maya, for whom anxiety brings about a black-eyed plague which kills anyone near her with the exception of her brother, who in true Heroes fashion has the ability to save her and those around her by absorbing the disease and neutralizing it.

During the first season we were teased with glimpses of a character named Hana Gitelman, known as Wireless, who existed mainly in the graphic novel sub-set of the Heroes story and unfortunately seemed to disappear from there as well, was perhaps the most dynamic and outright heroic of all the female characters introduced into the Heroes universe. It’s hard not to hope, in a mythology where such abilities are manifested in such a variety of characters, that by the end of the current season we’ll actually get to see a few of the these female characters not in need of being saved or controlled. And ones who are inspired by the same kind of impulse toward heroism demonstrated by their male counterparts, rather than simply serving as the inspiration.