Women Heroes in the Movies...

[takyris]

I'm 'a have to jump on the "Make better movies" bandwagon. As a moviegoing guy, I certainly don't mind a heroine who looks good in tights, but my "to go or not" decision is based not on tights-appearance but on whether it's a good story, with a good character, and good acting, and, y'know, stuff like that. Does she get to do the stuff a male hero would get to do? Did they get an actress capable of doing the physical role (in Elektra, I decided not to go after seeing the fights in Daredevil -- Jennifer Garner is a good actress, but she can't sell me on a fight scene)?

I think the "guys are threatened by a woman who is strong and just want sex appeal" stuff is garbage. At least, it is for me. I'd rather watch Linda Hamilton single-hand-pump the shotgun and put a blast into the evil terminator in T2 than watch Cameron Diaz vamp her way through a Charlie's Angels fight scene. That's not to say I dislike Cameron Diaz, but I'd rather see her in something that isn't trying to sell me on her as an action hero.

 

[barsoomcore]

Denise Di Novi obviously has a pretty short memory. "America's not ready for a female superhero"?

Yeah, because Xena: Warrior Princess did so poorly. Oh, and Charlie's Angels, yeah, that was a big flop. Yes, obviously the problem is that America's not ready for strong, super-powered women. Because it's not like there's ever been a popular TV series called Wonder Woman, is there?

Sheesh. Why do people say things that they must know are going to make them look like idiots?

Just once I'd like to see some producer just come right out and say, "Okay, it sucked. You know, we really tried, but making a movie is hard and you wouldn't believe how you can overlook things that seem so basic when you're in the middle of juggling millions of dollars, stressed-out artists, angry investors and uncooperative weather. But we did our best, it didn't quite work out, we learned a lot and we'll try again. Catch you next time!"

I would go see her next movie just because she said that, frankly.

 

[TemplarSaint]

I must agree with just about every other poster here: Bad movies are bad movies, and they cannot be taken as indicative of the popularity of a genre. Unfortunately, the same type of careless attitude also haunted fantasy movies until Lord of the Rings came out.

 

[takyris]

Barsoomcore: Or that small art-house picture, Kill Bill...

 

[Villano]

''America is not ready for a female superhero,'' says Catwoman producer Denise Di Novi. ''Men [don't] want to see it — especially teenage boys — and it seems like women don't want to, either.''

Ah, yes. The great Hollywood mantra, "It's not my fault!" The movie didn't fail because it was one of the worst ever made. It's the fault of the audience! They just don't understand it! And if you listen closely, you can hear the producers of Alexander crying homophobia.

I also enjoy the fact that she can say that men didn't want to watch her movie. Women either. That means that no one wanted to watch her crappy film.

I wonder if she actually believes what she says. Do you think that she's convinced herself that the movie was really great and it's everyone else's fault it failed? I hope she isn't still working in Hollywood.

Of course, the guy who directed House Of The Dead is going to be doing the Bloodrayne movie. This means that someone in Hollywood actually watched that film and said, "Hey, this guy really understands video game movies!"

Reasons Charlie's Angels screenwriter John August: ''Studios think all teenage boys are horny, and therefore want to see a beautiful girl kicking ass. But teenage boys are also kind of terrified of women, so the sexuality drives them away.''

Yes, because we all know that teenage boys don't want to watch sexy women. In fact, teenage boys are much more likely to use the internet to reseach their homework than try to download naked pictures of women.

Also, I'm glad that they talked to the screenwriter of Charlie's Angels, because it's not like that film was based solely around the idea of beautiful women doing nothing but kicking ass. People went to see it for the acting and Oscar caliber script.

Of course, people will go see bad movies with female leads. Even the terrible Resident Evil: Apocalypse apparently did great at the box office (and that even had two ass kicking women in it).

 

[Endur]

Both Catwoman and Electra should have been awesome movies. The problem is the Directors and the Writers didn't know what they were doing.

Catwoman was treated like a cut-rate camp movie. Guess what? That doesn't cut it.

Catwoman was DOA... dead on arrival. It was dead the second they decided to separate the character from Batman and change the character away from Selina Kyle. First, Batman didn't have to appear in the movie (he never appeared in Birds of Prey), but he did have to be mentioned. Batman should have had a cameo in the Catwoman movie.

Likewise, Daredevil should have had a cameo in the Electra movie.

Both movies were poorly directed and had terrible scripts.

Examples of Strong Female Movie Characters that Catwoman and Electra should have been like: Female stars from Alien, Terminator, Tomb Raider, Matrix, Kill Bill, various martial arts films, etc.

Well, with Hedi's article(Sci Fic News page) stating the obvious...about women heroes showing on the screen...is in jeopardy, or is it dead?

Problem? Yes...it is in our society.

What will take to change it, and how long?

Yes, my questions are vague, but there is enough to read between the lines.

Express constructively...your solutions for this dilemma.

 

[Victim]

Let me be a bit of the devil's advocate and turn things around:

Maybe one's standard of "good" (writing, movies, etc) is related to perceptions of gender and expected gender roles. Take the first two Alien films for example. Ripley is a strong female character, no doubt, but in some ways retains some traditional female roles. She's the scared woman alone in the dark in Alien, and the mother protecting her daughter in Aliens.

An interesting experiment would be to have an established writer with a built in fan base, someone known for good writing (Bendis, maybe, or Morrison or someone), write, say, Spider-Girl and see what happens.

Of course, there may be numerous examples already out there. Neil Gaiman's work, like Sandman, features numerous female protagonists and was popular. But Sandman certainly wasn't a traditional super hero book.

Now, I am not saying Catwoman did not suck (I have not seen it and don't intend to because, well, it looks like it sucks). I'm just playing devil's advocate and questioning assumptions.

Err, wasn't Alien originally written for a male lead, not Sigorny Weaver (name is probably butchered)?

 

[John Crichton]

The answer is simple:

Give Joss Whedon, Tim Minear or JJ Abrams $75 million to write and direct X female lead film.

Or just do what everyone above has been saying and stop having hacks write, direct and produce these films. There are many good lead roles on TV for females. But genre-wise this just hasn't made its way to the silver screen in some time.

 

[John Crichton]

Err, wasn't Alien originally written for a male lead, not Sigorny Weaver (name is probably butchered)?

That may be true, I can't recall at the moment.

The trick is that the part works for either gender and she knocked it out of the park.

 

[Green Knight]

Ah, yes. The great Hollywood mantra, "It's not my fault!" The movie didn't fail because it was one of the worst ever made. It's the fault of the audience! They just don't understand it! And if you listen closely, you can hear the producers of Alexander crying homophobia.

I also enjoy the fact that she can say that men didn't want to watch her movie. Women either. That means that no one wanted to watch her crappy film.

I wonder if she actually believes what she says. Do you think that she's convinced herself that the movie was really great and it's everyone else's fault it failed? I hope she isn't still working in Hollywood.

No kidding. Talk about sour grapes on her part. Catwoman's failure has NOTHING to do with sexism and EVERYTHING to do with the movie being one of the worst pieces of drek ever put to film. The damn thing reeked "ABOMINATION" from Day One.

As for Elektra, I don't know whether it is good or bad, but the fact is that it's a spin-off from one of the worst Marvel movies means that it's already got a strike against it. Add to it that, yes, it is Elektra, a non-entity to most people, and it's already got a lot going against it. And if what I've heard is true about the film being bad, then that's enough to make it DOA. Believe me, people hear about these things. Hell, I was psyched about Punisher until it was about to come out and I actually started reading reviews of the thing. I've yet to see it. Wish I had done the same with that massive green turd, The Hulk. My only disappointment with the whole Elektra boondoggle is that Jennifer Garner, IMO, is a great actress. So it sucks to see her talents wasted on two movies that were less then stellar. Especially since the likelihood of seeing her in another comic book movie are nil.

As for the whole thing about successful movies with heroines in the lead, I agree with pretty much everyone that the failure of some of these movies doesn't signal any kind of a trend. Because if you look at other films with female heroes in the lead, they've been successful for DECADES! Some movies fail, others succeed, but if you were to group them into two camps, with a handful of exceptions, the thing dividing the successes from the failures has nothing to do with sexism and everything to do with an utter lack of quality. That's why movies like Aliens succeed, while movies like Catwoman fail. There're exceptions, of course, but for the most part it has nothing to do with sex and everything to do with quality.