I am in the middle. I don’t mind focusing on BOTH male and female characters because it is an ensemble, so at times the spotlight must swing one way then the other to tell the tale. What worries people I think is that it won’t swing back, now that it has centered on Rumple. He has always been an important character, so I do not feel that has changed.
Ariel was one of the highest rated I think and it featured Regina and Snow heavily. So I think it is possible the writers will remember a lot of their audience did want to see women as the drivers of the action, not just passive participants, and try to recapture some of that, but the nature of the PP tale worked itself in this way. I guess it would have been too crazy to make Pan Rumple’s MOTHER (even though traditionally PP is played in the musical plays by women more often then men!). It would have definitely been innovative though, and undercut the feeling its just another story of men as Miril says.
I definitely have that feeling with Star Wars and LOTR–though I love both stories dearly. The women characters are clearly more in the background than the men, even if there’s one or two that have something important to do.
Well we’ll see if the writers can get back on track–OZ if they do it has several important female characters ( Dorothy, the witches, Ozma, Glinda) but they could also focus on the men (Wizzard, and Dorothy’s 3 companions) . It is all about how they choose to do it, if they do indeed go there next. I’ll wait and see.
“If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be, it would. You see?” -- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass