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Post by kuatorises on Mar 7, 2019 15:38:51 GMT
When I review my mental list of strong female movie characters, I noticed that they tend to be at extreme ends of the spectrum and very few are well-balanced characters. Some remove all traces of femininity from their character in order to look strong and badass. Examples of these are Sarah Connor in T2, Furiosa, Ellen Ripley in her latter movies, and a whole bunch of Michelle Rodriguez characters. On the opposite side of the spectrum, there are those who emphasize too much on their sexuality which makes it hard to take their badassery seriously. Examples are the latest Charlie's angels movies, the women in Sucker Punch, Angelina Jolie's Lara Croft, Halle Berry's Catowman, etc. Sometimes they're made simply as placeholders for action scenes but given very little personality. This is probably the most common. Examples are Selene from Underworld and Alice from the Resident Evil films. Black Widow also kinda falls in this category, same with majority of female action characters. Sometimes they're seemingly made as an avatar for socio-political agendas without room to develop organically. Rey from Star Wars, Supergirl from the CW series, the latest Ghostbusters movie, etc. Then of course there are the mary sues, where the movie tries to bend over backwards just to service them. Rey, Katniss Everdeen, Bella Swan, etc. It seems Captain Marvel might fall under one (or more) of these categories. Anyway long story short, I'm looking for the best examples you can give of well-balanced, strong female movie characters. Someone who can be badass but still feminine. Capable but not perfect. Someone who can physically dominant when necessary but also has depth and personality. So far the one's I've come up with are: Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) Red Sonja (Brigitte Nielsen) Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) Alita (from Alita Battle Angel - Rosa Salazar) Neytiri (from Avatar - Zoe Saldana) Ellen Ripley from her earlier movies (Sigourney Weaver) Hey, I'm not quite following why this matters?
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Post by kuatorises on Mar 7, 2019 15:39:38 GMT
There's nothing well or balanced about Sarah Connor, at least the last time we saw her. Awesome character, but she's fucking nuts. Not sure what you mean. She's not nuts by the end of T2, which is the film I was referring to. The rest of the franchise after that is garbage. What gave you the impression that she was suddenly mentally healthy?
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Post by ThatGuy on Mar 7, 2019 15:40:10 GMT
Gamora. Good call. She's secretly the best female character in the MCU as of yet. Of course they killed her off. Meh, Infinity War is still part 1 of a single story.
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Post by Rey Kahuka on Mar 7, 2019 16:10:01 GMT
Not sure what you mean. She's not nuts by the end of T2, which is the film I was referring to. The rest of the franchise after that is garbage. What gave you the impression that she was suddenly mentally healthy? She isn't going to be 100% (who would be after what she went through?) but the character is still solid in terms of wanting to protect her family, prepare for the future, etc. She's a well rounded character with realistic and relatable motivations. She isn't a total basketcase at the end of that film, nor is she a one dimensional cartoon character. She shows strength and vulnerability at the same time.
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Post by Skaathar on Mar 7, 2019 17:25:00 GMT
When I review my mental list of strong female movie characters, I noticed that they tend to be at extreme ends of the spectrum and very few are well-balanced characters. Some remove all traces of femininity from their character in order to look strong and badass. Examples of these are Sarah Connor in T2, Furiosa, Ellen Ripley in her latter movies, and a whole bunch of Michelle Rodriguez characters. On the opposite side of the spectrum, there are those who emphasize too much on their sexuality which makes it hard to take their badassery seriously. Examples are the latest Charlie's angels movies, the women in Sucker Punch, Angelina Jolie's Lara Croft, Halle Berry's Catowman, etc. Sometimes they're made simply as placeholders for action scenes but given very little personality. This is probably the most common. Examples are Selene from Underworld and Alice from the Resident Evil films. Black Widow also kinda falls in this category, same with majority of female action characters. Sometimes they're seemingly made as an avatar for socio-political agendas without room to develop organically. Rey from Star Wars, Supergirl from the CW series, the latest Ghostbusters movie, etc. Then of course there are the mary sues, where the movie tries to bend over backwards just to service them. Rey, Katniss Everdeen, Bella Swan, etc. It seems Captain Marvel might fall under one (or more) of these categories. Anyway long story short, I'm looking for the best examples you can give of well-balanced, strong female movie characters. Someone who can be badass but still feminine. Capable but not perfect. Someone who can physically dominant when necessary but also has depth and personality. So far the one's I've come up with are: Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) Red Sonja (Brigitte Nielsen) Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) Alita (from Alita Battle Angel - Rosa Salazar) Neytiri (from Avatar - Zoe Saldana) Ellen Ripley from her earlier movies (Sigourney Weaver) Hey, I'm not quite following why this matters? Because normally when they try to make a female character badass, they sometimes do this by removing anything soft and feminine for her just to highlight how tough and hard she can be. Or it can be the opposite, they focus too much on her being female to the point where she's sexually objectified and we have a hard time taking her badassery seriously. Or when they want to showcase how capable she is, there's a tendency to make her too capable so she ends up being good at nearly everything. Too perfect. Not enough flaws. Or maybe it's the other way around, where she's all about needing help all the time because she can't seem to do things on her own. Then there's the part where, because they want to show how tough she is in a fight and stay away from the stereotype of women needing to be saved all the time, they focus so much on making sure she kicks ass on screen that they forget to give her a personality. Like I said, I'm looking for someone well-balanced.
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Post by Skaathar on Mar 7, 2019 17:28:57 GMT
What gave you the impression that she was suddenly mentally healthy? She isn't going to be 100% (who would be after what she went through?) but the character is still solid in terms of wanting to protect her family, prepare for the future, etc. She's a well rounded character with realistic and relatable motivations. She isn't a total basketcase at the end of that film, nor is she a one dimensional cartoon character. She shows strength and vulnerability at the same time. Well as I mentioned in my OP, there is nothing soft or even remotely feminine about T2 Sarah. She's about as hard and tough as they come. She has a lot of anger, is volatile and a bit unstable. Even her love for John is hard and sometimes even brittle. This does not make her a bad character, in fact it makes her a very strong character and one of my favorites of all time, but it does mean she's not the most well balanced heroine out there.
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Post by Rey Kahuka on Mar 7, 2019 17:30:16 GMT
Hey, I'm not quite following why this matters? Because normally when they try to make a female character badass, they sometimes do this by removing anything soft and feminine for her just to highlight how tough and hard she can be. Or it can be the opposite, they focus too much on her being female to the point where she's sexually objectified and we have a hard time taking her badassery seriously. Or when they want to showcase how capable she is, there's a tendency to make her too capable so she ends up being good at nearly everything. Too perfect. Not enough flaws. Or maybe it's the other way around, where she's all about needing help all the time because she can't seem to do things on her own. Then there's the part where, because they want to show how tough she is in a fight and stay away from the stereotype of women needing to be saved all the time, they focus so much on making sure she kicks ass on screen that they forget to give her a personality. Like I said, I'm looking for someone well-balanced. Classic example is Vasquez in Aliens. Luckily the film also has Ellen Ripley. Compassionate but a realist, and doesn't take any shit when the going gets tough. Just a solid character that doesn't need to remind the audience she's a woman.
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Post by kuatorises on Mar 7, 2019 18:14:12 GMT
Hey, I'm not quite following why this matters? Because normally when they try to make a female character badass, they sometimes do this by removing anything soft and feminine for her just to highlight how tough and hard she can be. Or it can be the opposite, they focus too much on her being female to the point where she's sexually objectified and we have a hard time taking her badassery seriously. Or when they want to showcase how capable she is, there's a tendency to make her too capable so she ends up being good at nearly everything. Too perfect. Not enough flaws. Or maybe it's the other way around, where she's all about needing help all the time because she can't seem to do things on her own. Then there's the part where, because they want to show how tough she is in a fight and stay away from the stereotype of women needing to be saved all the time, they focus so much on making sure she kicks ass on screen that they forget to give her a personality. Like I said, I'm looking for someone well-balanced. Are you equating well-balanced with good/quality?
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Post by Skaathar on Mar 7, 2019 18:15:57 GMT
Because normally when they try to make a female character badass, they sometimes do this by removing anything soft and feminine for her just to highlight how tough and hard she can be. Or it can be the opposite, they focus too much on her being female to the point where she's sexually objectified and we have a hard time taking her badassery seriously. Or when they want to showcase how capable she is, there's a tendency to make her too capable so she ends up being good at nearly everything. Too perfect. Not enough flaws. Or maybe it's the other way around, where she's all about needing help all the time because she can't seem to do things on her own. Then there's the part where, because they want to show how tough she is in a fight and stay away from the stereotype of women needing to be saved all the time, they focus so much on making sure she kicks ass on screen that they forget to give her a personality. Like I said, I'm looking for someone well-balanced. Are you equating well-balanced with good/quality? Nope. As I previously mentioned, I think Sarah Connor (T2) is a great character and very well done... but she's definitely not balanced. I also mentioned that I found Red Sonja to be a well-balanced heroine, but I wouldn't exactly call her a high-quality character.
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Post by Winter_King on Mar 8, 2019 10:20:37 GMT
She is the benchmark IMO. No one else comes close. But I disagree with the assessment that her femininity is removed. Quite the opposite. Her relationship with Newt reinforces her femininity.
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Post by them1ghtyhumph on Mar 8, 2019 11:03:03 GMT
As in another thread, I will go with Laura Linney in 'Congo' and Ripley8
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Post by James on Mar 8, 2019 14:44:30 GMT
Yeah it has to be Ripley.
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Post by Grabthar's Hammer on Mar 8, 2019 16:17:55 GMT
It’s obviously Mikaela Barnes from Transformers.
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Post by ThatGuy on Mar 8, 2019 21:27:34 GMT
It’s obviously Mikaela Barnes from Transformers. Mikaela Banes. She's a play on Michael Bay. And you joke, but I saw something that actually said she was the only character with a story in that 1st movie.
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Post by Skaathar on Mar 8, 2019 22:13:59 GMT
It’s obviously Mikaela Barnes from Transformers. Mikaela Banes. She's a play on Michael Bay. And you joke, but I saw something that actually said she was the only character with a story in that 1st movie. Well I certainly found her a better character than Witwiki.
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Post by twothousandonemark on Mar 8, 2019 22:29:53 GMT
Judging by this site, I'd say Punisher.
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