Girls in Action Movies / Bad SW Spaceships

Maybe you should introduce her to the first Alien movie.

The lead role was apparently first intended for a man but well Sigourney Weaver stole the show.

 

Mulholland Drive had some pretty strong female characters, but that film is sort of off the rails...

Still a Lynch mindscrew though.

 

Not defending Rogue One, but I think the major re shoots that were done, earlier in the year, might have helped form your daughter's opinion. Was Felicity Jones not up for the task? Maybe, maybe not...

I think the film prior was darker and focused more on the father/daughter relationship. And Disney wanted a tone closer to A New Hope...

 

Or for something lighter "Fifth Element"

 

This is a complicated question that can probably be answered by "marketing" in a lot of cases, but the more interesting question I would pose to her is what sort of roles she assumes a male should take as opposed to female. Then ask her to consider where those assumptions come from. Our conceptions of gender norms are almost entirely cultural and tradition based rather than biological constructs, so reminding oneself of that and garnering a sense of autonomy from realizing you don't have to live within norms if they don't serve your purposes is probably a worthwhile exercise (at any age).

 

To me that's like asking why Joan of Arc had to be a woman. She was a woman, and she had motivations for doing what she did that had very little to do with her sex/gender.

Why is it taken for granted that a man playing the hero is normal but a woman playing a hero has to have some justification for the character being a woman?

 

La Femme Nikita (1990)

 

What she would say about something like Game of Thrones? I have liked the portrayal of woman (and girls) in that series.
They usually outsmart and outwit most men there.

 

Princess Mononoke

 

I think there are a lot of characters in stories that could be gender or race swapped without any significant change to the story occurring. Most action movies aren't really about gender, race, class, etc. Probably a better question is why do we not demand movies with better written characters in general?

 

Why would a girl have the lead in an action movie for any other reason than to have a girl in an action movie? Women are not competitive in combat sports with men so a kick ass woman character isn't very believable.

 

The flip side of that argument is that if they introduced a new gay character into Star Trek, that character would be defined by their sexual orientation. They'd be the gay character. Revealing that an established character is gay doesn't make them the gay character because the audience already has a connection to them irrespective of their sexual orientation. It adds a new facet to a developed character.

Edit: It's like Rowling saying after the fact that Dumbledore is gay. His sexual orientation isn't relevant to the events of the Harry Potter books, but it does add dimension to the character, because he had a life outside of the events of those books.

 

Azumi, that film kicks ass.



That fight scene. (Not even the best yet!)



Disney cannot touch the intensity of some Asian manga and anime adaptations.

Also check out "Lady Snowblood," before "Kill Bill" and Tarantino this revenge film was seriously setting some standards.

 

Try fencing, you will learn quickly.

 

Thou doth overgeneralize too much...

If by combat sports you mean UFC, I fail to see the connection between the octagon and most modern action movies. I definitely don't see the connection to a sci fi universe with aliens and laser guns. If you mean "contact" sports, there are sufficient examples that run counter to the generalization that I don't need to suspend disbelief at the sight of a woman in the lead role. I really don't see what the problem is with having a female lead versus a male lead in almost any movie genre. If a character could be replaced by a similar actor of the opposite sex, that means the movie probably wasn't written as a propaganda piece, and I don't know that I would really care. If it obvious that the producers changed the sex/gender of the character to be more trendy or marketable, I still probably don't care even if I hate the producers a little more. If a character is poorly written or poorly acted, that is a different issue. Thankfully, poor writing/acting transcends sex/gender.

 

This. Especially as a book reader GRRM has nailed the characters, what drives them and how they see the world. From a character perspective I'm yet to read anything that competes with GoT.