Powerful Women in Cinema

Being an avid fan of all things film from Casablanca to Evil Dead, the blog example in class of bad mamma jamma's on the silver screen got my creative juices flowing. It is often discussed how leading roles are difficult for actors and actresses to access due to their race, but this also rings true regarding the oft underplayed aspect of gender itself. This is not to say that women do not get leading roles. They certainly do. The type of part is the focus here. It's obvious Ingrid Bergman was a leading lady in the aforementioned Casablanca, and quite a dynamic and lovely one at that. Her character garnered respect for her stance against the Nazi party, as well as her desire to fight her emotions and stay with her husband. This concept of commitment stands in line with the traditional values we associate with the fairer sex: all attributes feminine and docile. Yet, roles for females as the star of the film, and especially action films, are limited to this day. It is very rare for us to see a woman on screen blowing things up and oozing the "I am woman, hear me roar" sentiment. This no doubt stems from a lack of roles utilizing this archetype of individual. Having documented the shortage, there are a few. And the ones that are available offer up some of the most original and pleasurable cinematic experiences out there. Let's get started:

1) Sigourney Weaver as Ellen Ripley (Alien, Aliens, Alien 3, Alien Resurrection): Is there any other actress that was this kick ass yet maintained her maternal instincts? She's not a caricature. It would have been easy to make her a cardboard cutout of a butch woman blowing things up. Instead, in the deft hands of Ridley Scott (Alien) then James Cameron (Aliens), she comes to represent the human race as our queen bee. I'm not sure it gets any better than the end of Aliens. Overpowered by her instincts to regain the little girl Newt, she treks into the hive of the aliens with a grenade launcher taped to a flame thrower, dropping flares like bread crumbs along the way. In the center of the hive, she encounters the queen alien, and the moment is electric. Here we have the two matriarchs of their species, in an intergalactic stare down. Ripley torches the eggs, grabbing the little girl and hauling tail back into the space station to escape. The queen is not so happy, and follows in close pursuit, leading to a final fight sequence for the ages. Ripley dons a mechanical suit that, for most intensive purposes, looks like an advanced fork lift. Spewing a line like, "Get off her, you bitch!"towards the queen only adds to the intensity. What most people don't realize is that they are watching two females fighting over the survival and propagation of their species. Downright amazing and the best example of a woman showing her action mettle. Please don't watch the last two in the series. Trust me.


2) Linda Hamilton as Sarah Connor (Terminator and Terminator 2): If anyone comes close to Ellen Ripley, it is Sarah Connor. Both Terminator movies were directed by James Cameron, who also helmed Aliens. One might say Mr. Cameron has a thing for tough chicas, but that shouldn't be too hard to deduce. He married Linda Hamilton! Yes, that's right: Sarah Connor. In the first film, we see Sarah as a mid-twenties everygirl, working a 9 to 5 and going out on the town to dance to some new wave 80's junk at the local club. By T2, when she understands her fate as the sole protector of John Connor, her son (and by the way the savior of the human race), that girl is long gone. What we are left with as the viewer is a woman who has vivid dreams of her flesh being torn off in a nuclear explosion while her skeleton dangles by her fingertips from a chain link fence. Quite a jarring scene. When she's shooting at the T2000 robot out of the back of a moving truck with her legs both shot up, you realize this lady is raw. Understanding Sarah's stance on life in general in the second film is summed up clearly in this quote from T2: "How are you supposed to know? Fucking men like you built the hydrogen bomb. Men like you thought it up. You think you're so creative. You don't know what it's like to really create something; to create a life; to feel it growing inside you. All you know how to create is death...". Hard as a rock.

3) Uma Thurman as Beatrix Kiddo, aka, "The Bride" (Kill Bill Vol. I-II): Quentin Tarrantino loves quirky genres of cinema, such as kung fu and 70's B-movies, and in these two off the wall offerings he combines elements of them both. That's not all. He adds the narrative style of a western (very simlar to japanese samurai films/kung fu), and puts a woman in the lead. Not just any woman. We meet her as only "The Bride", her name bleeped over whenever uttered in the first film in classic B-movie fashion. We eventually find out, after enough deaths to make Robocop blush, that we are looking at the assassin Beatrix Kiddo. She's on the ultimate mission for revenge after the brutal loss of her daughter at the hands of a beating while pregnant. Can you figure out who she wants to knock off? Simply look at the title: Kill Bill. Her mentor and father of said little girl. There's no doubt that Ms. Kiddo's skills with a samurai sword (taught to her in a classic training segment straight out of a kung fu film starring famous Chinese actor Chia Hui Liu) are prolific beyond anyone she encounters. Are they enough to take out the other queens of cinema referenced here? Watch and question that yourself!

Honorable Mention: Lori Petty as Rebecca (Tank Girl), Geena Davis as Charlie Baltimore (The Long Kiss Goodnight), Carrie Fischer as Princess Leia (The Star Wars Trilogy)

Please comment and add any leading lady roles that incur bad ass status!