#HawaiiFive0 …… where have all the ladies gone?

This post is in response to some conversations I saw on twitter, and some of the comments made here with us, as well. There are some feelings that the show sidelines women by casting so few and also struggles to write good characters for the few who are actually there. As usual I don’t want to base things purely on feelings, but went to examine the trends of casting, for the past 4 seasons.

To be brutally honest, I could not really care less who else, apart from Alex, are cast in Hawaii Five-0. But no man is an island and to make the story of Steve work, Alex needs at least a few characters around him 😀

Let us examine the history of the main, regular and recurring cast of the show ……

Main Cast:

Main cast of 3 men and 1 woman – at least there is a woman as part of the team this time around with the reboot 😀 .

Regular Cast:

Additions to the team: 3 men and 1-1=0 women – at least we got 2 seasons of Cath. (I really do not believe it was planned for the team to lose a woman at this stage – it is just sad circumstance created by bad choices 😦 )

Let us take a look a the casting of women vs men:

Women:

Recurring women – family

We have 6 women who are family members of the main and regular cast, who have been on the show more than once. Some good choices in casting, some maybe not. The main problem with them is that they are not all readily available in Hawaii for filming odd episodes and they are therefore not seen that much.

Recurring women – girlfriends

The wives and girlfriends are the ones in the danger zone, for me. They are usually the target of both the fangirls and the writers. Do they have a place on the show as good characters or are they putting the show in danger of being a ‘Soap Opera‘? Do we need them or do they just spoil the fun between the boys?

Recurring women – support cast

I have Lori here, because she struggled to fit into any other category amongst the ladies for me. Maybe her problem was that she always was the odd one out. For the rest, I believe most people would only vaguely remember these other ladies on the list …… Not really part of the Ohana gatherings are they?

Recurring women – dead

All  4 of these female characters had the potential of adding something more to the show. Did their deaths mean that much to the storyline of the show, or could they have been of use as ongoing characters? ? How do you feel?

They used so many different babies for little Joan – at least 7 for first episode (Epi 407) we saw her in and a few others for 2nd one (Epi 409). Guess the baby girls are just as interchangeable as some might believe most of the other women on the show are?!  😀

Men

Recurring men – family

Here I combine the family and boyfriend list, because there are not that many men for these categories.

Recurring men – friends

The boys club seems alive and well – and growing all the time. Does not take much to get one of the boys a place at McG’s table, does it? 😀

Recurring cast – Support cast

I personally would love to see the Governor and Toast more.

Recurring men – villains

I guess there are not a lot of women villains who can be used as snitches. Maybe women are not capable of being good villains? 😀

 

Recurring men – police support

This is a male only category – maybe there are also not a lot of women in HPD for the team to interact with. Also not any of them capable of doing research as lab techs or other skills the team need. Oh, I do remember vaguely that there was someone they used on occasion – she used to work for Navy Intelligence. Wonder what happened to her? 😉

Recurring men – dead

I know a lot of the fangirls would have liked to see more of bad brother Michael – mainly because they never got the chance to see Dr Andy and Dr Lee together on their screens again. 🙂

Some are glad to see the end of Ian Wright (aka Nick Jonas) – I for one feel that the character had some potential for a few more encounters with our crew. (maybe if someone more believable portrayed the character? I do not think Nick did badly, but maybe a villain of this caliber needed someone (real actor) with a little more experience)

As you can see from the names on display above, the recurring male characters for the show far outweighs the women. The men even have a few categories that I could not find for the women. Difficult even to weigh the %’s of it.

Because I like men and do feel that they are more fun to be around with, it does not really bother me that much, that there are so many men as recurring characters in the cast.  It would however be nice to see some nice female characters for our men to interact with.

As I said in the beginning, as long as Alex and his Steve graces the screen of Hawaii Five-0, I will be watching the show regardless of who is or is not there with him. But it is great when there are some nice characters and stories around him, that can display his talent as well……… (and of course nice colleagues to work with and who create a fun vibe on set – because I believe the vibe on the set also spills over to the show and the fun we have with it!)

The question is, does women have a place as recurring characters in a cop show like this or have the writers got the right formula for it? Will more regular women characters draw more viewers or not…..? I would think that, that is the bottom line for decisions in casting for any show?

Just want to mention that the lists of recurring characters I have compiled, contains every single actor I could find who occurred in Hawaii Five-0, with a talking role, on more than one occasion. If I did miss one, I apologise, because it is a rather daunting task to find everybody.