The Best of Netflix’s ‘Featuring a Strong Female Lead’ CategoriesMovies are meant

The Best of Netflix’s ‘Featuring a Strong Female Lead’ Categories

Movies are meant to make us feel understood. Actually, let me rephrase that: Movies are meant to make men feel understood, at least in today’s cultural climate — last year, women made up only 12 percent of protagonists and just 30 percent of speaking roles in the top-grossing films. Needless to say, as women, it’s tough to find films that represent us, that make us feel seen, that help us to process our experiences. (Not to say that women can’t relate to male protagonists, or vice versa, but come on, Hollywood — 12 percent is bleak.)

Enter Netflix’s “Featuring a Strong Female Lead” categories, which do much of the difficult work by sorting through endless films and TV shows starring toothy white dudes, burning them in effigy (I think), then serving up hundreds of examples of complex, fully drawn women going through some shit onscreen. But this long, unwieldy list of lady-centric media creates yet another problem: What to watch when, and why?