Debutiful

Do you ever have a particular vibe you just love in art and media, and then realize that there’s a common throughline for why you love these particular songs, stories, artworks?

If, like me, you enjoyed Cinderella as a child, and Knives Out as an adult, if Stephen King’s Carrie and Roald Dahl’s Mathilda struck a cord with you, and if Artemisia Gentileschi’s painting Judith Slaying Holofernes speaks to your soul, it might just be that you enjoy stories that are Good for Her.

What began with a gif from a television show (a woman responding to news about a mother driving herself and young children into a lake with “good for her!”) and a Tweet (@cinematogxphy’s post about the Good for her Cinematic Universe) has become a shorthand way to describe a certain storytelling form.

There is a lot of discourse about what defines a Good for Her story, but the definition I most appreciate suggests that this kind of narrative:

1. Features a female/ femme protagonist who
2. Lives in a systemically unjust society (usually patriarchal), and
3. Is personally harmed by the outrageous injustices of that society, and
4. Overcomes this harm/ injustice by playing not by the rules of society, but by her own rules.
5. There must be a major catharsis for both the audience and the heroine, and
6. The heroine cannot feel sorry for winning. She also cannot feel sorry for how she’s won.