The minority Women of Predator films

[Estelle]

@ Jehdin Thwei

I’ve always noticed the women holding the leading female roles, no matter how small, in the Predator films have always been “minority.” I never ever felt the choices were deliberately and solely “race” based or that Caucasian women were being over looked.
Like the person in an earlier post pointed out, it only made since to go with Elpidia Carrillo for P1 and Alice Braga for Ps. I don’t think these women were chosen for the “exotic’ factor, but more so for the “accuracy” factor. I mean Dutch and his crew were in SOUTH AMERICA right? Lol
But also like you said, in the AVP films they could have used any woman and you are right. The reason I think the women in the AVP films “worked” is because this is the 21st century and more and more people are starting to see women as women no matter what their ethnicity.


Now, personally speaking..I love the fact that most of the women have been “Minority.” You see this even in some of the novels, Machico anyone! (or whatever her damn name is)
I was blown away with the choice of Sanaa for the role of Lex. No matter how much people feel AVP sucks, I’ll always hold high respect for the film for that reason. It isn’t very often you find “minority’ women in leading roles, especially African American women…so I say kudos to AVP for that. And I also want to say that I hold those who commented in this thread with high regard as well, I’ve seen this or a very similar topic come up on other sites a few times and it wasn’t handled as civilly, maturely and intelligently as it is here. It grew very nasty and insulting to read.
~Estelle

 

[ReverendScapegoat]

Insulting how? That sucks!
I tend to find that sci-fi fans ( At least those I've met! ) are among the more intelligent and forward-thinking of people... I can't think of many if any SF geeks I've encountered that show any sexist, homophobic or racist tendencies.

As for my take on the reasoning for the "minorities" - Anna was hispanic because that fitted the character.
I think there's a fair possibility that MCA's character in P2 was intended to reference that.

Now, I have to be careful how I phrase this next part... It's not an easy opinion to put into words because it is very easy to misunderstand me and read racism where there is none.

When AVP was released, I wondered why the female lead was a black American.
The already-established character of Machiko Noguchi was Japanese, and her interactions with the Predators in the AVP comic included aspects of Japanese culture and her upbringing in such a society... Contrasted with the rigid confines of the Predator society itself.
I suspect that Lathan's race may have played some part in her casting in the part - In that by the time of AVP it was established that "minority females" play a part in Alien/Predator movies.
But was there any undercurrent of Alexa Woods' cultural heritage interplaying with Predator culture, in the same way Machiko's was shown?
I don't think so, not really. She was something of a cardboard "Strong, Ballsy Female Lead". Not many nuances of anything, there.

The AVP movie, therefore, was changed from the comics for no apparent reason, and lost some of the subtleties of the source material - But wasn't different enough for us ever to see a proper adaptation of the comic books.
Noguchi is a fantastic character, and I'd love to see her onscreen, but I doubt now that that will ever happen.

Isabelle was a step in the right direction, though

 

[PredatrHuntr]

I see is as being something very simple: the directors wanted to keep the continuity in the films by keeping the females similar to the girl in the first movie. They are all similar except for the chick in AVP, but I'll just blame it on Anderson and his faggotry for bastardizing the Pred franchise...

Seriously don't think it has anything to do with being a minority...they just wanted to capture the same feel as the the woman in the first movie...

 

[Estelle]

Insulting how? That sucks!
I tend to find that sci-fi fans ( At least those I've met! ) are among the more intelligent and forward-thinking of people... I can't think of many if any SF geeks I've encountered that show any sexist, homophobic or racist tendencies.

You are 100% dead on with this.^^^I’ve always found this to be so true in my encounters with true sci-fi folk..However, not all folks drawn to the Predator & aliens and other similar franchises are the as highly evolved as geeks.

Some of the comments in the threads I’ve seen grew insulting to read because some folks went over board when posting their disapproval with Sanaa .. I mean it’s fine if someone doesn’t like her..hey that’s cool. But there’s no need in firing off radical slurs.. The post had started off semi good, but then sunk to a lower level when those who couldn’t refrain from using/posting the racial slurs decided to join in. I don’t know why in AVP they chose an African American woman, but I Know a lot of people are put off by it..Maybe one day there will be another AVP panel at a con. And maybe Anderson will be there and maybe someone can ask him why he chose a black woman to play the role of lex. And inform him how F’ed up they think this choice was.
~Estelle

 

[JehdinThwei]

I'd like to see Toni Braxton in a role, but that's pure lust on my part

Thanks everyone for the well thought out replies. I appreciate this forum's ability to handle the subject objectively.

 

[Lflank]

I'd like to see Toni Braxton in a role, but that's pure lust on my part

Were I to be a thoroughly sexist swine, I'd agree with the death-row inmate in "Predators" and say of all the female leads "Your ass is awesome".

The lead in P1 was obviously chosen because they needed a Central American character--but I think there's a reason why they chose a female for the character instead of a male. Think of the time when P1 was made--the US was waging a very bloody proxy war in Nicaragua and El Salvador, and "communist guerrillas" were the standard movie bad guy (sort of like "muslims" are today). So the scenes in P1 where the US Army kicks ass on the rebel guerrillas appealed strongly to a particular type of audience (on the other hand, the Central American wars were also extremely unpopular in the US, and the movie's images of the mighty US military special forces--the best of the best of the best--getting its ass kicked by a lone adversary with mostly primitive weaponry, appealed strongly to another type of audience).

But having established that the guerrilla rebels were bad guys, the movie then needed a way to make the "captured guerrilla" character a sympathetic one that even the gung-ho types would be able to identify with and have feelings towards, to turn the character into a Good Guy. And the best way to do that was to make the character female.

In all the later films, I think the selection of ethnic leading female characters was a perhaps conscious effort by the filmmakers to point to and celebrate the increasing cultural diversity within the US. The lead in AVP was one of the first roles in which an African-American WOMAN carried the movie and also kicked ass (and indeed one of the messages of the movie is communicated in the fact that the various different earth cultures were once, according to the film's mythology, all one). The film is worth a grateful nod just for that.

 

[Lflank]

You are 100% dead on with this.^^^I’ve always found this to be so true in my encounters with true sci-fi folk..However, not all folks drawn to the Predator & aliens and other similar franchises are the as highly evolved as geeks.

Historically, sci-fi has always been at the leading edge of progressive social commentary. It was after all on Star Trek The Original Series that TV had its first interracial kiss; and Deep Space Nine gave us one of the first lesbian kisses on TV. The Original Series commented several times on racial equality (the mere existence of the character of Uhura was a bold social statement), and The Next Generation made some bold statements about gay rights, militarism and sexism. The best sci-fi is ALWAYS a commentary about ourselves and our current times.

The thing about the Pred series that is different, though, is that Pred is also an action series, and it also draws the sort of gung-ho testosterone-poisoned type of audience that sci fi doesn't normally appeal to. So Pred, alas, has its share of Neandertals in the audience.

Not a slam against any particular Pred fan---just a factual observation. As Estelle points out (and as the racist comments she apparently saw would confirm) not all Pred fans are as highly evolved as the typical sci fi geeks.

But hopefully they will learn something by watching the films.

 

[JehdinThwei]

Great thoughts Estelle and Lflank!

 

[Tatsu]

I agree with LlFlank about that & want to expand. He's right that the Pred movies have always been action movies, but one thing they did do that was great, was they showed Women & what they were capable of & what we as a public audience, knew Women were capable of. Anna was a hostage, Leona a Cop, Alex a Wilderness Survival guide, Kelly A soldier in Iraq & then you had Isabelle who was a trained specialist. So it also appears that they've - in a weird sense - evolved almost, Career-wise.

 

[Lflank]

I agree with LlFlank about that & want to expand. He's right that the Pred movies have always been action movies, but one thing they did do that was great, was they showed Women & what they were capable of & what we as a public audience, knew Women were capable of. Anna was a hostage, Leona a Cop, Alex a Wilderness Survival guide, Kelly A soldier in Iraq & then you had Isabelle who was a trained specialist. So it also appears that they've - in a weird sense - evolved almost, Career-wise.

Well keep in mind that Ana wasn't a hostage--she was a kick-ass guerrilla leader who happened to get captured.

All the female leads were kick-ass.

I rather like that.

 

[GordonGekko]

Consider that many of these American mainstream films also make a HUGE chunk of their revenues overseas, so the casting has to reflect what's marketable across the board.

CSI Miami is one of the most popular shows in the WORLD. For US standards, it's a pretty horribly written procedural show, but audience overseas love it. Latin women will appeal to a latino audience. A movie like Predators tried hard to appeal to all markets ( an Asian, an African American, a Latino, etc) although you could argue that Robert Rodriguez always tries to incorporate a diverse cast.