Looking at any TV show, past or present, that falls into the crime genre, it’s easy to see there’s a format, especially for that of a female character. CSI, Criminal Minds, Bones and Rizzoli and Isles to name a few all do it. Just look closely at them; they all have the same character, maybe just with a different hair style or accent.

 

These characters are special, compared to other genres, they fall into not one but two stereotypes. It’s a mathematical equation really. It’s simple; all you do is add one of the following archetypes after the word Kickass: Kickass Prom Queen, Kickass Rebel, Kickass Geek, Kickass Hipster, Kickass Girl Next Door, this all adds up to someone who is really hot and who can pull out crazy martial arts karate moves at random, all while keeping up the idea of being sleek and feminine.

 

I would be lying, and you would be lying, if we said we didn’t watch these programmes imagining ourselves as one of these women - hopefully we all know that these are not realistic portrayals- I mean who wouldn’t want to run down a street without the fear of makeup streaking down our faces, or being worryingly out of breath and having sweat trying to escape from every part of our bodies?!

 

If we look at the characters of Sarah Lund and Olivia Pope, we may at first think they seem like any other leading women in TV. In reality though, these two apparently unalike characters are actually a lot more complex and even similar than you imagined. And dare I say it; they could actually be game changers for emerging females on TV.

 

Sarah Lund (Sofie Gråbøl), the leading character in Nordic drama Forbrydelsen - otherwise known as The Killing to us English speaking watchers - is a break from this trend. To give a brief backstory of Lund: she is a police detective in Copenhagen, with a complicated marital status. She has a son (who she seems to have forgotten she ever gave birth to?), she only ever wears one of two jumpers, which are really just inverted versions of each other, and she is emotionally isolated from pretty much every situation.

 

Envisioned by Gråbøl and producers early in preproduction, Forbydelsen’s Lund was developed to break from the norm, a character who is driven and relentless, without worries over her appearance or about acting how a woman is believed to behave.

 

Lund can be seen as a real woman, a woman you would easily walk by in the street, not for any other reason than because she is just like me or you. It brings an authenticity to the character that allows for a real life emotional connection to the story being played out on-screen.

 

Olivia Pope (Kerry Washington) fixes problems for the privileged and elite, in the political world of Scandal. Pope, unlike Lund, fits into a classic stereotype-‘The Kickass Prom Queen’-but falls out with a bang thanks to her questionable actions and moral views. She is also a black woman, not that this should be important, but this is only the second time a television show has featured a black woman in a starring role since 1974.

 

Pope is single but complicated, with a fearless personality living in a man’s world. Priding herself on wearing ‘the white hat’, Pope could at times be seen as one of the most unpleasant characters, on a show where 99% of people behave unpleasantly. But this can be seen as a positive attribute, realistically bringing faults to a character who could otherwise be a classic vision of Hollywood; looks to kill and a wardrobe many women would die for.

 

Created by Shonda Rhimes (Grey’s Anatomy, Private Practice) Pope has the same depth as any other ShondaLand character and lives in a world where race, religion and sexuality aren’t just a play for ratings— instead these ‘issues’ are reflections of the ones we face, in the world we all live in.

 

Olivia Pope may not look or act how you or I do, but by having a strong female character, who can easily stand up against any man, without having her femininity or sexuality being brought into question, is definitely an influential and hopefully inspiring movement for the industry.

 

You can easily see that Lund and Pope are two completely different characters, from two completely different worlds. But the point is that they ultimately carry the same message. A message that says women don’t have to fit into a stereotypical box. It’s a message that tells writers and producers to take note. People want to see real people, not an idea of what a real person is, as there isn’t one. People want to be inspired and emotionally captivated, without being made to feel inferior, whether that be to a man, or a woman, or to a cause.