Hawaii Five-0

The show Hawaii Five-0 is a 2010 remake of a show by the same name from 1968. The show centers around an elite Hawaiian police task force given, at least in the first season, full immunity from prosecution for actions committed while the team is in action, a privilege later revoked by the new governor of Hawaii at the beginning of season two. The team consists of Lieutenant Commander Steve McGarrett, Detective Danny Williams of the Honolulu Police Department, former H.P.D. officer Chin Ho Kelly, and rookie H.P.D. officer Kono Kalahaua. While the show's main characters are male, the female characters are well-developed and have a strong presence as well, creating an atmosphere of gender equality.

Warning: Potential spoilers for all seasons of Hawaii Five-0 ahead.

Kono, as well as being the "rookie" of the team, is also the only female. At first, the show seems to set up the typical "hot female cop" stereotype, but as the show progresses, it becomes clear that this is not the case. In the pilot episode, she makes her first appearance in a bikini, having just come from the ocean after surfing. She somehow takes down a guy twice her size with one punch (temporary suspension of belief may be required here) and proceeds to run up the beach to meet the other three members of the team in her bikini with her surfboard under her arm. Later in the pilot, as well as in the third episode, she is placed more in a stereotypical sex object/defenseless girl position in order to gain intelligence.

Despite the possibly sexist introduction, however, Kono is portrayed as an independent and valuable member of the team. She is always treated as an equal among the members of her team, and is capable both in the action or behind the scenes working with technology to find people, make connections, or find data such as cell phone records. During episode twelve in the first season, Chin (who also happens to be Kono's cousin) gets a bomb locked around his neck, and a ransom of ten million dollars is demanded for his life. Kono is the one who comes up with a plan to retrieve the money when the government refuses to help, and the team proceeds to break into an H.P.D. vault with confiscated money from a drug bust inside. She later oversees the transaction with a sniper rifle, and shoots the man remotely holding Chin hostage in the shoulder to incapacitate him so Steve can use the man's fingerprint to release Chin. Kono, a female character, was the driving force behind the entire episode, and did so without bringing stereotypical gender roles into the mix. While the people Five-0 pursues may see her as the weak member of the team due to her gender, they are quickly given evidence to the contrary when she proves herself to be equal to the men in every regard.

Male characters on this show form the majority by far, partially reflecting real life gender divisions. However, one of the first major characters introduced is Governor Pat Jameson - the female governor of Hawaii. She does not play very much of an active role in the show. Her voice is present more than her physical self, but the scenes she does participate in portray her as a strong female character as well. She is the one who sets up the task force to begin with, though Steve suspects her motives for doing so are more along the lines of better public opinion to have a greater chance at reelection than for actually finding and capturing criminals in Hawaii. Her gender is never really mentioned and she is treated as any male governor would be treated, which helps dissipate any feelings of gender bias among the audience that occur when she is first introduced. The show later takes a step back from this point at the end of the first season, when she was revealed to be working with criminal mastermind Wo Fat, assassinated, and subsequently replaced with the male deputy governor. Despite these events, for the majority of season one, Governor Jameson is a major example of feminism in the show.

Steve's love interest Catherine Rollins is another strong female character. She only comes up a few times in the first two seasons, mainly when Steve needs access to the army's satellites to gather intel, but she later joins the team in seasons three and four and proves herself to be just as capable as the rest of the team - much like Kono.

Hawaii Five-0, while being a male-centered cop show, provides female characters that are just as defined and developed as the male characters without reverting to traditional stereotypes. The capability of the women on the show proves that societal divisions based on gender are pointless, as women are almost always equal to men.