Gender and Base Needs and Archetypes. Who? What? Where?

Recently the Tut'z have started to explore growing new archetypes for our style of Commedia. We really want to focus on female archetypes, because (of course) they are underrepresented in Commedia. Traditionally, females follow one of three: a spoiled love-obsessed daughter, a no-nonsense-but-practical-realist-uses-her-body-to-get-ahead servant or (less common) the wife of Pantalone who used to be a courtesan. To say the least, very... uninspiring to women.
OR a woman can play a male role as a woman but it's really a woman stepping into a mans shoes which is also problematic. 

This started a conversation for us around gendered characteristics. Well, actually, this started a conversation for us around female masters. And we thought about women in power. And that then led to a conversation about women taking on male characteristics to gain power. And THEN we got into gendered characteristics and THEN we started talking about base needs (the foundation of all characters). Because the male characters follow one of 3 base needs: power, sex or food. There is also money but that is related to power, kind of. So, we asked ourselves, what are female characters base needs...

And at the same moment, the Tut'Z discovered voice messages on WhatsApp.

So Dory says, base needs being more masculine and feminine... what if gendered base needs were products being sold.  Then that led to ...

Patrick was like ... wait, base needs are often restricted from women. But women get love and affection, the emotional rather than the biological base needs. 

Dory says, yup it's true and sad and we need to hold that mirror up. 

Molly was like, yup, women have to think beyond the present whereas men are not as focused on it (or trained in it). Which is because women have kids and automatically think beyond themselves. 

And Dory agrees. And the thing with money... is that both?

And then Ali got into a whole thing about money... money feeds ego, money feeds power, money for food. The different reasons to need money.

But money is a middle man, right? A base need is more human. More like a drive. Unless you are a master and then you might be able to think beyond the here and now. Hmm.

So, are base needs gendered? In commedia? In society? The Tut'Z will keep talking but we invite anyone to share thoughts with us. 

- Just some thoughts from Patrick