When Did The Hatred Turn On Female Action Heroes?
The female action hero. Not much of them on the big screen, are there? Sure, there is some stuff on TV, but when it comes to the movies, we don’t really get much. People have been clamoring for a Black Widow movie, but Marvel is reluctant to make a film with her name on the title. She isn’t technically a superhero, but she’s an Avenger that can kick some ass. She’s also a slam dunk for female viewers that wan’t to see a superhero movie they can get behind. I’m sure guys won’t be reluctant to go with their girlfriend to see the movie. They will both probably be pumped to see it. Why is it taking so long? Why the hatred against female action heroes?
If you think “Oh, people don’t want to see a girl on screen doing all that. They want to see men shooting and blowing stuff up!” You know who one of the best action heroes was to hit the silver screen. Ellen Ripley from Alien. If you stand up to my face and say she isn’t a total badass that makes all the men on the screen look like wimps, the you probably have never seen any movie in the series. This not only makes you ignorant, but it also means you don’t like great characters in great films.
In 2016, it seems unheard of that a woman can carry an action movie. Not because they can’t, but because the studio’s have apparently put brain-eating in their ears and forgot history. Women have been kicking ass all the way up until now. What is one of the biggest franchises in recent memory? The Hunger Games. It starred Jennifer Lawrence fighting bad guys, a corrupt government, losing family, falling in love, and MAKING MONEY. How many movies have those things with men as the star? Most. Before you start trying to think of some top notch female action stars, let me give you a few of them really quick so your mind adjusts.
- Milla Jovavich
- Uma Thurman
- Bridgette Nielson
- Linda Hamilton
- Lucy Liu
- Devon Aoki
- Maggie Q
- Angelina Jolie
- Ronda Rousey (bit of a stretch, but still)
- Zoe Saldana
- Scarlett Johansson
- Michelle Rodriguez
- Pam Grier
- Michelle Yeoh
- Kate Beckinsale
- Lena Headey
- Carrie-Ann Moss
- Summer Glau
- Eliza Dushku
And so many more. All the people on that list could carry a big budget movie, and many of them already have. The problem is the lack of getting the main part in a movie that isn’t written in crayon. You don’t have to have a woman in skimpy clothes, doing stunts to keep me interested, you just need a good script. There was one movie Kate Becksinale was in called Whiteout. She plays a U.S. Marshal who tracks a killer in Antarctica, as the sun is about to set for six months. Sounds like she should be head-to-toe in winter clothes for the whole movie, right? Opening scene of it is her in the shower. In my opinion, she’s the most attractive woman on the planet, but starting off a movie like that with a silly and unnecessary scene made me feel kinda bad. You don’t need scenes like that for a movie to make money. You don’t see Bruce Willis swinging his dong around in Die Hard, do you? No. Best Christmas movie ever? Yes.
Studio’s seemed to have changed what they want out of movies in the past 20 years. Story, acting and strong women characters in films have been replaced with a hot girl being saved by the male hero with cool explosions. Even if the woman in the film is supposed to have a strong female character, they usually cast a woman who can’t really act, but will have to take her clothes off multiple times. As much as seeing naked women is fun, it’s distracting when it has nothing to do with anything.
Remember that scene in Star Trek Into Darkness where Alice Eve takes her shirt off to change for no reason, then we all see he in her bra. She probably had to work out for months to nail that scene. The problem is that audiences knew immediately that is was sex-bait for viewers. J.J. Abrams even had to admit that it was the only reason it happened when he was interviewed. She was a strong, smart character in the film, but when that happened, it was downhill from there. That movie was awful. I guarantee a studio goon suggested it.
Look how forced this is:
What this article will probably activate is the MRA (Men’s Rights Activists). Star Wars: The Force Awakens had to deal with controversy of having a female main character. Twitter, Facebook, mainstream media, and other think-pieces about it was all over for months. MRA’s were losing their minds over the fact that a woman could headline one of the biggest movies of all time. What happened? She kicked ass, made all the men look like wimps, and proved once again that a woman could headline a movie with a great script. She didn’t have to bare any skin. There was no scene where she had to change out of her sand clothes into a more tropical look when she changed planets. There was too much going on in the film for any of that crap. If there was some throwaway scene where Finn was telling her about how he was a stormtrooper while she was changing, and then she yelled at him to “stop looking, I would’ve walked out no matter how far into the movie I was.
The point here is that audiences who love film want more women to have starring roles in action movies. It’s a given that they can do all the same cool stuff, look cool doing it, and manage to make you walk out happy you’ve just seen a great movie. Doubt me? Watch Alien.
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Jeff Sorensen is an author, writer and occasional comedian living in Detroit, Michigan. You can look for more of his work on The Huffington Post,UPROXX,BGR and by just looking up his name.
Contact: jeff@socialunderground.com