EW has put together a list of films starring fearless and feisty young women. Essential girl power, they call it.
So, tell me, where is Tank Girl? Lara Croft? Ripley? Alice?
UPDATE: I'm going to keep updating my list!
Eowyn (best girl power line in a film ever), Matilda, Yu Shu Lien, Agent Sever, Annie (who sings "You Can't Get a Man With a Gun" - I beg to differ), Sarah Connor, River Tam, Elektra...
Check out the comments for even more - I feel a movie marathon coming on!
Okay, I bit and scrolled through the twenty-eight POWER girl flicks, only because Ripley wasn't one of them, I liked the ladies in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, but then I am a bit strange that way. Back to cutting the lawn, couldn't find a Power Girl to do that job.
ReplyDeleteThelma and Louise.And, yes, Ripley rocks !
ReplyDeleteToni
Yeah, I know it's only a portion of the film, but Patricia Arquette beating the ever-loving-stuffing out of James Gandolfini in True Romance makes it my ultimate girl-power film of all time.
ReplyDeleteAnd yeah, Ripley's what it's all about. Love her.
"So, tell me, where is Tank Girl? Lara Croft? Ripley? Alice?"
ReplyDeleteToo violent for the shrinking violets at EW to even contemplate, I suppose.
James
I'm sorry: "Clueless" shows "fearless and feisty" young women???? Who made this list, anyway???
ReplyDeleteThe ending of "Jagged Edge". Gotta be a classic.
ReplyDeleteAs the crazed killer stalks Glenn Close's character, we see the macho cop racing to her house to save her. The killer gets closer and closer, and the would-be hero isn't going to make it in time.
Suspense builds as the door handle turns on the bedroom where Close is waiting. Is it the killer? Or her savior?
It's the killer - the hero cop doesn't make it in time - and Close dispatches him with a .357 Magnum.
Score one for the ladies...
(And phlegmfatale, I thought I was the only other person on the planet who was a "True Romance" fan!)
LIPSTICK
ReplyDeleteWhen Ms. Hemingway takes out the bad guy with a moving shot with her deer rifle, I'm sure Papa was proud. It sure made me smile.
The Mrs. says too many modern films, and not enough from a time when women were not encouraged )or allowed) top be assertive.
ReplyDeleteAnnie Get Your Gun
Unsinkable Molly Brown
Gone with the Wind (fer cryin' out loud)
I would add what the heck is wrong with Eowyn in Lord of the Rings? Other than she didn't have a lever gun.
Mmmm. Lever Gun!
I would add all the women in Kill Bill, Lucy Liu in Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever, and Charlie's Angels. Let's not forget the women in the Matrix.
ReplyDeleteMrs. Borepatch
Sean Young, Darryl Hannah & Joanna Cassidy in "Blade Runner"
ReplyDeleteWe could add Rene Russo, she's bad ass in a number of films. Angelina Jolie in "Foxfire" works, the women of the movie D.E.B.S. (the movie is rather cute, Jordana Brewster as a lesbian...sweet cinematic joy).
ReplyDeleteFirst: Entertainment Weekly? Seriously? Come ON! I work in the Entbiz and I won't read that crap -- and they give it to us free!
ReplyDeleteSecond: You know what I hate about those stupid list posts of theirs (and others)? You have to wade through their entire stupid, ad-encrusted, Front Page-generated crap HTML... crap... in order to see the whole list. If it wasn't YOU doon' this, I woon'ta even looked.
Third: EVERY choice on their list is WRONG. NONE of them meet the essential "girl power" requirements of... you know, showing powerful women. Gib. Mir. Ein. Brech!
All of those mentioned here exude more power from an earlobe than the whole lot of junk films from their whole cardboard packaging.
Ripley, yes. Xena and Gabrielle. Hell, JOXXER has more grrl power than those skanks.
Gabrielle Anwar in Burn Notice is demonstrating a whole lotta grrl power. Yeah, it's "only" TV, but she is the one who could turn Al Pacino on with a whiff.
Eowyn, def: "Those without swords may still die on them." Yesss!
GFD
You forgot one of my favorites. Kate Beckinsale as "Seline"
ReplyDeleteZoe in Serenity; Geena Davis in Long Kiss Goodnight; Julianne Moore in Hannibal; Jodie Foster in the one where she goes all urban vigilante; my list just goes on and on...
ReplyDeleteEW can kiss my Colt shootin' lily white A$$
all the characters of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon rocked hard; the female ones harder than the men.
ReplyDeleteoh, and no Thelma and Louise? what were they thinking?
African Queen
ReplyDeleteRosy Olnutt is one tough cookie. A man could be proud to call her his wife, as Mr. Olnutt did.
Tank Girl? Now I haven't seen it in a VERY long time, and I have to say I liked it a lot. (An action movie that played on male insecurity was just not going to make it commercially.)
ReplyDeleteSydney Bristow of Alias.
ReplyDeleteMaureen O'Hara as Mary Kate Danaher in The Quiet Man (1952). And she didn't even need a gun.
ReplyDeleteMisbeHaven
Natalie Morales in The Middleman.
ReplyDeleteWhere's Sarah Connor when you need her?
ReplyDeleteWe need a film title for Breda, whom is certainly a girl power girl...hmmm...Something like, "Overdue?" A librarian on the hunt for felons with overdue books???
ReplyDeleteAlso only on TV, but Yancy Butler as Sara Pezzini in Witchblade.
ReplyDeleteOK that list misses everything about power.
ReplyDeleteMilla Jovovich as Alice in the Relative Evil series. She looks good fighting zombies.
Milla Jovovich as Violet in Ultraviolet. Not a great movie, but visually interesting. (I love vampire movies, and this almost qualifies.) And she looks good fighting the establishment.
Ziyi Zhang in House of Flying Daggers.
Maggie Cheung in Hero (as Flying Snow) stands on her own.
Michelle Yeoh in Tomorrow Never Dies (one of the very few "Bond women" who could kick ass in her own right.)
Halle Berry, Framke Janssen, Rebecca Romijn and even Anna Paquin in the X-men.
Jennifer Garner as Elektra in Elektra. Like Tank Girl, it isn't a great movie, hell it isn't even as much fun as Tank Girl, but it has its moments.
Even the really bad original Buffy the Vampire Slayer had its moments - and it was certainly about girl power. (Kristy Swanson was in that film as Buffy.)
That list on ew was just ridiculous. (Kirsten Dunst was on there twice.)
And if you want to include anime (which I do)
ReplyDeleteThere is Kuchiki Rukia from Bleach. Rukia is a pretty serious samurai-like warrior. She kicks serious butt.
Faye Valentine of Cowboy Bebop. Armed with a GLOCK (a 30 I think).
Mireille Bouquet and Kirika Yuumura - the assassins in Noir.
Tifa Lockhart from Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children. (OK so it isn't anime. It's close) And Tifa is a serious fighter.
And of course Major Kusanagi Motako of Section 9, from Ghost in the Shell. I prefer the first movie, but what I have seen of the TV series is OK. (This is one bit of anime where the Movie spawned a TV series.) Major Kusanagi is a tough lady, even if she is a mostly-artificial cyborg.
I don't have the intestinal fortitude to wade through Entertainment Weakly, but I'm having a hard time believing I'm not seeing Angelina Jolie as Jane Smith in Mr & Mrs Smith!
ReplyDeleteI mean, as an assassin, she's got FIVE TIMES the kills of her hubby, and when they fight, she totally kicks his butt! Well, before they kiss and make out, that is.
Duh. Miss Congeniality.
ReplyDeleteOverheard at a friend's place over Thanksgiving '01:
Friend: "Hey, Tam! Miss Congeniality's on!"
Me: "I don't wanna watch no dumb beauty pageant movie."
Friend: "No, you really need to see this movie."
Wound up buying the DVD. :D
I like your list better.
ReplyDeleteApparently no one at EW has seen a pre-1970 movie. What about all those '30s and '40s films with strong heroines (even if they weren't the action-hero type)?!
ReplyDeleteEowyn wins, hands down. And how about Zoe - how come "Clueless" and "Romeo & Juliet" made the cut, but not Zoe?!
Eleanor of Aquitaine (TheLion in WinterKatharine Hepburn [1968])
ReplyDeleteMarie 'Slim' Browning (To Have and Have No [1944])
Viola (Twelfth Night , Imogen Stubbs [1996])
Marion Ravenwood (Raiders of the Lost ArkKaren Allen [1988])
and... why not?
Cherry (Planet Terror, Rose McGowan [2007])
The Village was the only one on the list that was about a powerful woman.
ReplyDeleteNot already mentioned:
Girlfight, S.W.A.T., or anything Michelle Rodriguez is in. Not all good movies, but she does not exactly play wimps. Angela Bassett
is another who does not come across as wimpy.
Nine to Five
Kate Beckinsale in the Underworld
movies.
Amy Madigan in Streets of Fire.
Malgorzata Foremniak in Avalon.
Mary Louise Parker in Red Dragon and the Clarice Starlings in the other Hannibal movies.
Frances McDormandFrances McDormand from Blood Simple to Fargo.
Keira Knightley in King Arthur and Domino.
Joan of Arc in several movies.
Sharon Stone in The Quick and the Dead.
Demi Moore in G.I. Jane.
Mary Woronov occasionally plays tough women. One of her movies that has several powerful women is Night of the Comet.
La Femme Nikita and the American remake Point of No Return and other Luc Besson films.
Enough
If I might toss another's name into the mix: Amanda Tapping as Col. Samantha Carter in Stargate: SG-1, Stargate: Atlantis, and their respective movies.
ReplyDelete