And lastly, since I talked about this with a friend of mine last night....if you want to see strong females in leading roles, there's nothing wrong with that! I do as well...clearly. I aspire to be a bad ass when I can.
But DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT act like we haven't had a good run from time to time. You can't expect the world to change over night. It never will. That's wistful thinking.
Start showing your kids the same movies/tv shows with leading women...here I can name a few:
1. ALIEN ANTHOLOGY - If you cast out Ripley and refuse to show future generations one of the original bad ass females in Sci-Fi history...you have no honor.
2. Mad Max: Fury Road - A sequel that got it right. AND it wasn't in your face about it. Perfection.
3. Princess Leia
4. Agent Carter
5. SARAH, FRIGGIN' CONNOR.
6. Lt. Uhura and Capt. Janeway
7. Firefly - Zoe. Kaylee. River. Inara.
8. Farscape - Need I say more, or do I have to list like I did with Firefly?
9. Dana Scully
10. Michonne from Walking Dead
11. Mako from Pacific Rim
I could go on for an hour here...but seriously, stop excluding the past and refusing to show new generations these amazing stories that got it right. Sure they had male counterparts, but that's called BALANCE. It's called being human instead of labeling one thing one way. It is proven that original concepts and sequels done correctly will kick all sorts of ass. Reboots, by and large, either fail or might be half decent, but not enough to be REMEMBERED.
And if you say that any of those movies aren't something you can show your kids....please remember that Ghostbusters wasn't exactly a kid film. We just so happened to be able to watch it when we were kids and took it over. Venkman says "Make 'em hard!" for cyin' out loud. Didn't even realize that 'til I grew up, amoungst many other slipped in things for adults.
So there it is. Final post on this. I'm resting my case.
I don't think you and I disagree, but I do have an issue with the list you provide (namely #3,4,6,9 and 10). And my problem with it is the typical thing that happens in movies. The bad ass woman is established only to become the guys side kick or be constantly rescued by him. What's called the
Trinity Syndrome
"For the ordinary dude to be triumphant, the Strong Female Character has to entirely disappear into Subservient Trophy Character mode. This is Trinity Syndrome à la The Matrix: the hugely capable woman who never once becomes as independent, significant, and exciting as she is in her introductory scene"
A lot of the characters you mention are subject to this, and that is the problem in Hollywood.
1. Strong badass woman, sure, but like terminator is overshadowed by the Alien
2. Cant argue here Mad Max: Fury Road got it right.
3. Princess Leia? really? I cant believe she makes the list. She is literally being rescued throughout the entire 3 films. She is a prime example of the supposed strong woman in Hollywood. One minute firing guns and being a bad ass and the next she needs to be rescued from Teddy Bears by the guys. When she tries to rescue one of the guys, she gets captured and wears the skimpiest outfit ever. The movies only take place because she needs to be rescued...think about it...Obi Wan and Yoda were apparently perfectly fine letting the empire rule the galaxy until oh man lets go rescue the girl.
4. Agent Carter, Meh. I didn't watch the show, (which is not set in a great time period for women) but in the movie she was the bad ass until the real Hero (Guy) shows up. Then is relegated to a dance partner.
5. SARAH CONNOR, yeah strong woman, over shadowed by the Machine.
6. I dont remember Lt. Uhura as a bad ass, She is the communications officer, basically a space secretary. Capt. Janeway a TV show, but she was less of a bad ass the longer the show went on. She was basically in love with Chakotay when I stopped watching.
7 and 8 Never watched it.
9. Dana Scully was literally Mulder's side kick, He even has to save her from cancer.
10. Michonne from Walking Dead, Yeah a bad ass but again the more the show goes on the more she becomes Ricks sidekick. Is it following the comic, yeah. But she could/should be the Daryl of the show, instead she is becoming tame. Shoot Carol is starting to become more of bad ass then her.
11. Mako from Pacific Rim Like #2 I couldn't agree more with this one also.
I would put forward that one can agree this treatment of female characters in movies is a problem with out liking this GB movie. So there is no need to excuse it, say things that are clearly not true like that women are respected to much to be the funny lead (don't remember who said that). Just go on not liking this GB movie, and also recognizing that this is a problem in Hollywood.
Now, none of this has really anything to do with this GB movie So I'll just let it go after this post.