Female action movie heroes have come a long way since Ellen Ripley and Sarah Connor shredded the enemy in the “Alien” and “Terminator” franchises.
Today, women in action movies routinely kick butt and take names just like their male counterparts — and therein lies a cause for concern.
Women in the movie industry are cheering the evolution of female roles and role models, but they also express concern about some potential downsides, including Hollywood’s penchant for one-dimensional casting and a loss of femininity in female characters.
Action films featuring female heroes reflect a cultural shift in society toward equating men and women, said Kathryn Gould, vice president of Women in Film and Media Colorado.
“A woman can be masculine, and there’s nothing wrong with that,” said Ms. Gould, an actor and screenwriter.
Society, she said, values so-called masculine traits — combativeness, single-mindedness, drive, physical prowess — and holds them up for emulation in its heroes. Feminine traits such as communicating, nurturing, consensus building and empathizing are less valued in society and are kept out of the heroic mold, she said.
“The fix to all this is not giving women masculine traits but valuing the feminine in general,” Ms. Gould said. “That’s how we reach balance.”
Examples of this action movie shift can be seen in theaters and pay-per-view outlets. “The Predator,” in theaters now, features a female biologist, played by Olivia Munn, battling the title creature with the same ferocity and effectiveness as a group of misfit male soldiers.
The summer blockbuster “Skyscraper” cast Neve Campbell alongside the burly Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, but Miss Campbell snared scenes in which her wife/mother character takes on a group of terrorists and knocks out one of them.
In last year’s hit “Atomic Blonde,” an adaptation of a graphic novel, Charlize Theron essentially plays a female James Bond, complete with brutal hand-to-hand combat with beefy henchmen and the seduction of a female French agent.
Kimberly C. Pierce, a film historian, critic and podcaster, looks back fondly on one female action hero who returned to the screen last year for “Star Wars: The Last Jedi.”
“Sarah Connor and Ripley never quite spoke to me. … The character I looked up to was Princess Leia. … She was a woman who could still be warm, and she wasn’t written like a man,” Ms. Pierce said of the signature role of the late Carrie Fisher.
George Lucas created the “Star Wars” empire, but Ms. Pierce said that having women tell these stories can make a difference. She noted last year’s breakout blockbuster “Wonder Woman,” directed by Patty Jenkins and starring Gal Gadot, a former combat trainer for the Israel Defense Forces.
Miss Gadot’s Diana battles Nazi troops with strength, skill and fury, but she also consoles French villagers and sheds tears over the atrocities of war.
“You can have a female character who can kick ass and be interesting while still letting her be a woman,” Ms. Pierce said.
She compared Ms. Jenkins’ emphasis on the character’s strength, competence and heart with that of director Zack Snyder, who captured Wonder Woman’s arrival in “Justice League” with a slow pan up, starting with her bare legs.
Ellie Bufkin, senior contributor to the right-leaning website The Federalist and co-host of the “Flix It” podcast, the trend for tough female action movie heroes empowers women by giving them cultural touchstones. But that change comes with some obstacles, the kind that less-gifted screenwriters can easily trip over.
“Stripping a woman of feminine essence to help create a ’tough’ exterior is also an annoying trend,” she said. “Women can be both graceful and fearless. … Women can be classic and lovely without also being a ’damsel in distress.’”
Pam Tate, communications director for Nashville Women in Film and Television, sees the trend as a necessary course correction.
“Oftentimes, when the status quo is changing … we bend over backward to create something that seems equal,” Ms. Tate said. “You can go over the top … but it’s always easier to pull something back than fighting to make something happen.”
The battle for equality is far from over, she said, noting that the trailers for “Skyscraper” and “The Predator” gave little screen time to their female heroes.
Deven MacNair, a stunt coordinator and stuntwoman, said one factor holding back female action heroes is the industry’s lust for realism.
“We’re at a point where directors want real doctors, real nurses, real Navy SEALs … everything authentic,” Ms. MacNair said. “And we want a woman who can do a backflip off a Jet Ski.”
That brings its own on-set challenges, but a good stunt person can ease that transition. Ms. MacNair recalled working on a recent film in which the actress begged out of a stunt that required her to stomp out a fire. The stuntwoman did the honors for a few takes, which emboldened the actress to tackle the stunt herself.
“She gets to see the vision of the stunt double doing it. Sometimes stunt doubles are just there as insurance … as a visual of what to do,” Ms. MacNair said.
That kind of creativity can extend to making actresses tougher than they appear on the surface, she said, adding that she typically confers with the director to nail his or her vision and decide how to capture an actress’ heroism.
“Do you want this lady to throw a man out of the window, or do you want her to be scrappy or more realistic? Scrappy men or women can outfight any pounds of muscle,” she said.
What worries Ms. Bufkin is Hollywood’s tendency to “shoehorn” mediocre action film fare to capitalize on the #MeToo movement. She cited “Peppermint,” a recent female vigilante film starring Jennifer Garner that drew weak box office results and withering reviews.
“When Hollywood churns out too many stinkers, it makes the idea of a hero, badass woman somewhat of a trope for box office poison,” she said.
Action clunkers featuring male heroes, by comparison, don’t endanger an entire movement.
“They’re figuratively and literally bulletproof,” Ms. Bufkin said.
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