Everything is a copy of a copy of a copy.

Thursday night’s class really got me thinking. I’m a movie buff, and I’ve always been into film – any and all genres, excluding 99% of Julia Roberts movies (Hugh Grant, too). But Thursday, I realized that most of my favorite characters – whether they be comedic leads, action stars, etc – are all male. Loved Tom Jane as Frank Castle in The Punisher. Jason Statham kicks some serious ass in The Transporter series. Clint Eastwood – need I say more.

But what about women? I mean, I guess Kate Beckinsale was good in Underworld, although I wanted to bed her more often that I wanted to be her in that movie – she’s even hot as a vampire. Halle Berry gave it a shot in Catwoman, but let’s be honest, that flick stunk worse than a box of used up kitty litter. It seems that, for the most part, women in an action lead role are genearlly not as readily accepted as a male. But part of it comes from what we have been taught by society: Women are the damsel in distress, beautiful but incapable of handling themselves in a tough situation.

Now we touched on Ripley from Aliens, and as I was surfing around YouTube (something I find myself doing accidentally for hours on end sometimes), I came across this clip, and found it kind of ironic that it was from the very heroine we brought up in class:

Weaver makes an awesome point at the end of this video when she says that she was just “playing a person.”  Boom, that’s all there is to it. In order to accept women in this strong lead role, we must not think of it as a “woman playing the lead” but rather as just a character. That is the key to our acceptance.

~ by El Amante on April 5, 2010.