Strong women on TV and in movies
Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Veronica Mars are two very strong, resourceful female characters that have graced our television screens in the last 15 years. There shows have both been embraced by many feminists as groundbreaking. I enjoyed Buffy the Vampire Slayer very much. I haven't seen Veronica Mars, so it is impossible to say whether I would actually enjoy that program. I probably would. I think though that when all is said and done the Feminist ideal represented by both Buffy and Veronica is impossible to live up to. They are both super heroes, who save the world, while at the same time managing to be witty and gorgeous. Women can be strong in a number of ways. They don't have to save the world and make things go boom. Female strength can be subtle, and dosen't always come with blonde hair. It's hard to find different kinds of female strength in North American popular culture. There is no acknowledgement that a midwestern housewife can be just as stong as a female police detective, or that a woman who makes dresses can be just as interesting as a spunky 20 something superspy/punk princess Are there any films that Babblers can think of.(besides Winter's Bone, and made in Dagenham) that show different kinds of women being strong in different ways?
Princess Leia(Star Wars), Lara Croft(Tomb Raider), Emma Peel(The Avengers), Ripley and Newt(Alien), Lara(Dr Zhivago), Loretta(Coal Miner's Daughter), Jackie Brown(""), Marge Gunderson(Fargo), Sara Connor(Terminator), Yu Shu Lien & Jen Yu, (Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon), Beatrix Kiddo(Kill Bill), Erin Brockovich(""), Louise Bryant(Reds), Ma Joad(Grapes of Wrath). It's a long list.
Helen Mirren as Detective Chief Inspector Jane Tennison on Prime Suspect! One of television's best ever performances.
And +1 to Margie Gunderson!
Jane Tennison, oh aye.
And Margie was married to Norm, son of a Gunderson. Ya hey.
Honourable mention should go to Bett Lynch/Gilroy, Coronation Street.
Marge Simpson? What a woman!
Alright, alright, Evelyn Ryan is a real woman. Can't top that. Not actually. But I still think Claire Bennet of Heroes will take some beating, even if she is a figment of someone's wild imagination. Claire's talent is that she can spontaneously regenerate. Save the cheerleader, save the world!
Poppy from Happy-Go-Lucky, played by the awesome Sally Hawkins, also from Made in Dagenham. Her relentless positivism and desire to help others is the kind of strength the world needs.
Kathleen Turner as Barbara Rose in War of the Roses
Love, love, love Jane Tennison, Margie Gunderson, Coraline and Poppy.
Annette Bening and Julianne Moore in "The Kids Are Alright" were very good.
Still the pool is shallow. As for TV, I like Alicia Florrick and Kalinda Sharma in "The Good Wife". I've also always enjoyed Roseanne Connor too.
Emily Rose in 'Haven'.
Marg Delahunty & Marg, Warrior Princess
Marge Ciccone(Seeing Things) Man I miss that show
Ginger and Brigette in the Ginger Snaps trilogy. Anna and Lucie in Martyrs. Dawn in Teeth. I like horror movies :)
Oh and Linda Fiorentino's character in The Last Seduction (squeaks in at 1994). She's so evil but so amazing in that film. And what about Evey in V for Vendetta (the graphic novel was so much better...)?
Possibly my all time favourite animated film, Miyazaki's first movie, the amazing Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. The princess Nausicaa is clever, capable, strong, and a badass fighter, but is mostly distinguished by her enormous heart and Buddha-like connection to the natural world. She is the kind of role model for young girls that I can get behind. Never a victim, always at the forefront of solving every problem, yet never descending into a parody of masculine aggression to prove to the audience how tough she is. She maintains an unshakeable commitment to preserving life and avoiding conflict throughout the story.
In fact most Miyazaki films yield up great female characters. Another of my favourites is Chihiro from Spirited Away.
Yes, both animated.
While an unpopular antagonist it's pretty hard to disregard Xenia Onotopp the Bond femme fatale in Golden Eye
All of the women on Criminal Minds (played by Paget Brewster, A.J. Cook and Kristen Vanegas).
Paul Cornell (Doctor Who, Action Comics): Panel Parity
Janeane Garofalo in just about anything.
Lucy Liu, Drew Barrymore and Cameron Diaz in Charlie's Angels.
I mean that somewhat tongue in cheek, but the movie did make fun of a lot of the sexism in the original TV series.
Kathy Bates in just about anything.
Nicole Kidman in many roles, including in The Hours, To Die For, Golden Compass.
Leslie Knope on Parks & Recreation
Meryl Streep in Silkwood. Sally Field in "Norma Rae".
Howabout the entire cast of The West Wing? Heck, I'll even take Ainsley Hayes, as much as I dislike much of her politics. (Ditto Amy Goodman.)
This thread deserves a mention of the Bechdel test. Not to say that this automatically constitutes strong female characters, but rather a bare minimum standard.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/zizyphus/34585797/
Amanda Tapping
The Bechdel Test previously on babble
Honestly, unless you've got a huge ensemble cast, any character-driven story that isn't going to ignore half the population is going to fail that test...
I mean, it derails any political drama if the office-holder is male.
Sports Night: Natalie gets sexually assaulted by the subject of an upcoming interview, and she and her boss Dana Wittaker, are discussing whether she should report the assault, Natalie being reluctant to do so. Are she and Dana talking about a man? Dana's brother, an NFL tackle, gets busted for steroids, obviously they're talking about a man. Or when Issac the Executive Producer has a stroke... there was one time that Dana saw the musical of The Lion King, so that wasn't about a man, unless Simba counts.
West Wing: CJ Cregg and Abigail Bartlet, White House Chief of Staff and First Lady (board-certified in thorascic surgery) respectively, go back and forth on who should ultimately decide if the president, whose MS has moved into the secondary-progressive stage, should be woken in the event of a developing security situation. (Iran shooting down an airliner and the likely efficacy of the president containing the rhetoric of the British Prime Minister, Maureen Graty.) Surely they're talking about a man.
So yeah, it's a crappy standard based on a femmephobic premise: That concern for men, group or individual, is a feminine trait and that femininity implies powerlessness, something I'd like to hope we'd moved past what with it being the twenty-first century and all, especially within the feminist movement.
...
"Can I have this muffin?"