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People dont understand that in order to make a strong female character, you don't have to make her say that she is one every 5 minutes, you can instead write a great character, that happens to be female.
Who would have guessed the same guy who ruined X-Men 3, Fant4stic, X-Men Apocalypse and also being the director/screenwriter of Dark Phoenix could have another flop in his career?
If we can see it why hollywood not? Its the same thing with everyone being chocked why GOT fell off after the book material was done, these dudes wrote f'ing xmen origins what the hell did you expect.
@@daniboy4153 I love that your comment is open to interpretation between Paul W.S. Anderson and Paul T. Anderson. But we obviously know which one is it
The fact that the "strong female protagonist" has already been done perfectly over 40 years ago with Alien tells me that this concept isn't difficult to pull off, but rather that the filmmakers behind all the "action women" films are just grossly incompetent. The comment you made about not writing a race or gender instead just write a character was also done in Alien. The entire script had only the names of the characters and never denoted any race or gender. That's why originally they had Ridley in mind to be a man until they met Sigourney Weaver and knew she was right for the role.
There’s nothing wrong with gender affecting a character’s actions or motivation. You don’t need to make your characters aggressively asexual to write a “good” female character. A better example than Ripley or Sarah Connor would be Lisbeth (Dragon Tattoo trilogy) or Mrs. Smith (Mr. and Mrs. Smith) because it proves you can have an *aggressively* female character who is still entertaining because of good writing. The problem is pandering for profit. The “message” is hollow and trite because they don’t care, they want to check the boxes that marketing tells them sells. I’m a woman who enjoys women-led properties with women-heavy representation… but it’s not going to make me ignore bad writing just like my preference for Captain America-movies isn’t going to make me watch a movie with the same quality as the 1990 Captain American movie. Even movies like Aeon Flux or The Hunger Games, which aren’t exactly triumphs of cinema, can be popular and entertaining despite unsubtle ”messages”. It’s about quality and no one, even the target audience, doesn’t enjoy being pandered to in the hopes of getting your money with the minimum level of effort.
Nah nah nah nah... script doctor and actresses be like... what's this discussing thing called trust issues. Whamen have no weaknesses... delete that part. She'll have no problem doing this and that :)
I can't think of the last time I saw a male action lead being introduced kicking someone's ass in training. The hero is introduced as an underdog, if a character is introduced kicking ass it's typically a villainous lead or it's a Steven Seagal movie. You need to start your heroes at a low point or else they have nowhere else to grow.
I mean you can have that, if you later establish that their's bigger obstacles they have to face later, having a character whose "On the Top" can work well if you introduce someone whose more "on the top" than them or force them do do something different altogether Ie having a someone whose really good at hand to hand combat learn how to use ranged weapons.
@@Zechariah_Mathieson1871 But can you think of a good example? Even John Wick was introduced meek then getting his ass kicked by punks, a hero who later elevated to absurd levels of unstop-ability.
@@Zechariah_Mathieson1871 Hmm, it's different when it's a movie about combat. There's difference between beating someone at a game and literally beating someone up.
If you ask what makes a male character special, "He's a man" will never be part of the answer. Writers have to start treating female characters the same way.
@@AeneasGemini Exactly. Cal Kestis from SW Jedi: Fallen Order is a perfect example of this. Critics blasted him before and after release, and why? Not because his story was boring, his performance was subpar, or anything like that. They were upset because he was an "aggressively generic white man."
If movies like this keep coming out, I think it will be. With so much schlock like this meant to pander to the diversity crowd, a straightforward action movie starring a guy will be seen as a breath of fresh air rather than more of this shit. It'll get to the point where a movie starring a white guy will be seen as a sign that it's a genuine, good, original movie that's selling itself on its own merits, rather than pandering garbage. In fact, it's already happening: one of the biggest praises I've seen multiple people give the new Top Gun is "it doesn't try to be preachy with forced diversity and is just a genuinely good movie".
"You know what the problem is with Male lead action movies? The characters are always flawed or problematic in some way, We can fix that in our Female lead action movies by making sure our characters are not flawed and are always right. Weird that no one has thought of that before." - People who write female lead action movies, probably.
The problem is that flawed or problematic characters are interesting. Flawed characters can always become better characters when they are on a journey of discovery or redemption. Problematic characters are fun, because you REALLY want the lead of the story to kick some villain's ass. What the old movies did right, was it showed you that the "bad gums (TM)" was never EVERY GUY in the story, just the bad apples of society. Take that away, and you just have bullies trying to act righteous.
There's is a little known Martial Arts flick called Furie that I highly recommend. It follows a mother who's a debt collector and just so happens to know how to smack fools silly, but ends up having her child kidnapped. Regardless of her martial skill, she is no god among men. No money, friends, connections, and even her family had seemingly forsaken her. Regardless she does everything she can to save her child, even if doing so is pretty suicidal. Even when she wins a fight its always by the skin of her teeth, just enough to have made it out alive. Veronica Ngo shines in the roll and a good example for Hollywood to follow. I know they won't but yah know...
I have to agree,Furie is an awesome movie. What makes the movie so great is there's no fancy moves or over the top wire stunts. Just a mom trying to get her child back from the people who took her,by any means necessary.
Your orchestration of bubble tea blew my mind, it was my jam for literal months, If your movie suggestions are even a fraction as good I'm hyped to check it out.
That's a really good movie. At first I watched it because let's support Vietnamese film a little(I'm Vietnamese) not expecting much as film in Vietnam kinda suck most of the time. Never expected Furie (Hai Phuong) to be that good of a movie though.
I rewatched Aliens today and it boggles my mind that 40 years ago they knew how to make great female characters like Ripley, Newt and Vasquez. All in one movie! They all grow and are inspiring to people of any gender.
Aliens is a great example of a proper strong female character, never occurred to me she was out of place or if she was placed there due to pandering or quotas, whatever, now every "strong" woman in a movie is completely out of place, unrealistic jerk acting like an asshole, pretending to be a dude, except it's just an awkward shit show across all movies and shows
@@efreitorhabibulin238 Thats because back then they focused on actually writing good plots lol. 80s and 90s were golden for films, shows and games. At some point the world turned insane
@@efreitorhabibulin238 There's Sara Connor to, for modern movies I like Furiosa from the modern Mad Max to. Let's hope they don't fuck it up on her movie.
I’ve always wondered what would happen if you told a group of writers to write an action movie but didn’t tell them the protagonists were women until after it was written
@@otbaht ...or you get "Salt", which allegedly was originally supposed to be a Tom Cruise vehicle, but being so similar to "Mission: Impossible" was rejected and taken up by Angelina Jolie instead.
@Marina Levine wow, normally you drop a "wake up" over some profound piece of information or an important subject. But, sure, random comment about movies, that works too.
"I'm here to entertain you." Tom Cruise, There's nothing wrong with diversity, but they always make "the message". More important than a great script. The Underworld films with Kate Beckinsale, Are a good example a film with a female lead. Without the aforementioned forced messaging.
The pushing of "the message" has made me more critical of movies or other media with female leads. Because there's always some nonsensical ideology they force in there, while almost always putting men down or taking over well-established male roles or both
Which is precisely why people cry about "forced diversity". I don't think most people really care about who is in a movie, but when the entire point is "Women good" and there's no real substance it gets annoying to some.
Exactly. "The message" will come naturally if you have a good story. Ridley Scott's Alien had Ellen Ripley, but its so-called "message" goes beyond surface-level "women powah" even though it was written to be a haunted house movie. lol
And either the marketing sucks, making bad trailers with shit covers from highly recognizable tracks which will mostly be worse than the original, or there will be no marketing at all and the only news about the film will come by you when it already flopped.
@@laurocoman Word of mouth is the best marketing. Every1 told me Squid Game. Matrix 1. Pulp Fiction. 300. GOT was outstounding. A naff movie wont get any traction from anywhere so its plummets.
@@TheStraightestWhitest squid game not awesome??? Reminded me of kubrick. The use of escher influence. The soundtrack. The jazz music mixed with ultra violence.... the twists, the betrayal, the climax... Squid game was BEYOND awesome and i dont even watch netflix or any commercial tv. You didnt watch it with english voice over did you (face palms)
There is a huge difference between being cocky and being a jerk. Whenever there's a fight scene to show how good the female character is, in a CIA training facility or whatever, she always beats up her (male) opponent. I've been into martial arts most of my life - that doesn't happen. Only a complete jerk would beat up a training partner. They portray some women as assholes and still want us to like them.
yo, this 100%. Every time I've been involved at martial arts or tried it (I prefer the gym) no one, even the teachers, beat their partner. I remember that once a guy got hit in the head. Everyone stopped, turned around, and went to help.
Well, not to mention that a woman couldn't ''beat up'' a trained man even if she wanted to! In this movie, the woman appears to weigh maybe 125, and her training partner she beats the crap out of weighs at least 190. LOL....ain't gonna happen!
Go and watch the fight between Gina Carano and Michael Fassbender in Haywire. You can see her pulling her kicks to not hurt him. I genuinely think if that fight was real, she would have beaten the snot out him. Only female/male fight scene I've ever thought that about.
@@disposabull She is trained fighter, Fass is not. We are talking about equal skill. Where weight is going to be everything, that's why we have weight categories
@@georgiyyamov5827 Are we reading the same comment thread? Nobody was talking about equal skill or weight classes. We were talking about men vs women fights. So I stand by my comment. 99% of Hollywood fights are a 90lb supermodel flailing around hopelessly while a 300lb steroid monster gets knocked out, then there is the hair flick, pose and bitch-face pout. The Haywire fight is the only fight I've seen where I believe the female actress would destroy the male actor if you put the two of them in a cage. Yes that is because Carano is a trained from birth fight bot and Fassbender is a prettyboy who only fights wrinkles with his skincare regime.
“You know, Amy, anytime someone calls attention to the breaking of gender roles, it ultimately undermines the concept of gender equality by implying that this is an exception and not the status quo.” -Knuckles the Echidna
By trying to fight imaginary sexism from movie watcher's, they created real sexism in movie watcher's. It wasn't until recently that I started seeing female led movies and thinking "Well that's gonna be shit."
Right, OP? I see "female led" movie in the headline and I immediately classify it as shit and that's just because I already know it's gonna be shit. I don't need to step in shit to know it's shit. I use knowledge and previous experience. Hollywoke, in their fervor to pander, created a problem that didn't exist before (seeing "female led" and knowing it'll be rank garbage).
Fr, the only movies that have been coming out recently with a female lead that have a chance to be good are superhero movies. And even then they're usually not the best, but they're tolerable at least
@@CT-1118 what's funny is when something that is actually decent comes out, they attack it. I still remember all the nonsense shit dogpile they did to Alita: Battle Angel.
I always like to point out Sarah Connor in T2. She's seriously messed up due to the trauma she experienced in the first movie and her knowledge of what's coming. She comes close to murdering a man in front of his children to prevent it.
@@thirstypilgrim97 Her transformation from ordinary woman to stone cold killing machine is explained by the first movie. It's a fully believable character arc with real world consequences ie her being in that mental institution and having her kid taken away and needing to break out and recover him. And she's never without feeling, unlike some of these "strong female characters" who come off like psychopaths who just like killing. She muses that the Terminator would be a pretty good father.
@@thirstypilgrim97 hardly. She was a woman who had her complete world turned upside down and after being helpless in the first movie spent the next 10 or so years training for the end of the world to keep her son alive. Nothing she did was masculine lol
Hollywood: "look at us we're not sexist were woke look look a women led action movie!" Us: "So why do you think it'll sell?" Hollywood: "hahaha women have tits"
Tbf, that's a valid selling point, celebrities in general help to sell films by being hot. Nothing wrong with a bit of titillation, just so long as it goes hand in hand with a decent plot.
Don’t forget Terminator, Sarah Conner is another strong female character who is believable, just like Ellen Ripley. Contrast to Captain Marvel and Rey from Star Wars who are just two giant boring Mary Sues.
I think the terms “female hero” “male hero” “black hero” “white hero” etc, instantly makes people assume the writers couldn’t let their writing prove a person is a hero. They think they have to tell people “watch our film because we put a pretty lady as the lead instead of a nasty sticky boy” like a child would talk about a club they made with the rule of no boys or no girls. People who are fans of heroics know there is no qualifier for being a hero beside the definition of a hero. You aren’t a hero for being born a certain way. when someone says “look at my female hero” it’s obvious they don’t know what makes a hero, so how could they write a good hero story?
@@brooksroth345 To correct you, "Ripley from Alien is a perfect example of an amazing action hero". As, like OP said, you are minimizing the character down to their sex by separating her character into "female action hero".
One of my favorite examples of a woman who is able to take on men twice her size but in a more realistic manner is Faith from Mirror's Edge. The principle with Faith according to the devs is that Faith uses her body as a projectile. She hits like a train because she uses her momentum to knock down her enemies, either that or she avoids the fight completely. It's a really clever principle that I like to think of when I am thinking about how Hollywood can solve this female led action movie problem.
And they don't even need to tell you this directly, just playing the game the mechanics play into that sense, if you are in the flow and hit someone they are out. but if you stop moving and try to take them out you are going to either come away having barely survived or you're gonna die.
You could also make it substantially more realistic by having the woman use weapons that shift the fight to a matter of skill rather than strength, rather than insisting on taking down every man in hand-to-hand combat. You'd have to pull some miraculous bullshit to take down someone twice your size with bare fists (even if you are both the same sex), but defeating a much stronger opponent using skill with a blade or simply a gun is far more feasible.
“When making an action movie, don’t think of your characters as female, or male-just think of them as people” Amazing advice. I really wish most directors thought like this.
I personally think that it matters a little bit, because men and women react differently in certain situations, like if you’re making a movie about a single father the character’s actions “should” be slightly different from one about a single mother. But that character should be at least “okay” if you swap the character from a man to a woman.
Well, that's obviously retarded. Women are smaller, weaker, more emotional and think differently. They _are not the same_ as men. And this is a good thing, for movies and real life. Consider: A woman is an action character. A field operative for an alphabet organization, and she kicks ass. Alright, we know women have thinner skin, less dense muscles, less dense bones, are usually shorter, are slower, have less stamina, and are physically weaker by a huge margin. Most women want children and don't care about fighting, and the odds of those two both being untrue for a particular woman are particularly low. Women won't even do construction, but we're expected to believe she's on the front lines in a world-class organization that fights crime? O.K., so now you have your work cut out for you: How do you turn this woman into a believable or even semi-believable action hero? Answer that and you've created an interesting character indeed.
Honestly, the thing that threw me off about this movie wasn't the whole "wahmen hero" thing, it was the fact that a US agent and a Chinese agent were working together to get a weapon of mass destruction. I guess Hollywood is so obsessed with pandering that they completely ignore logic & actual politics.
@@override367 Yeah, China's not exactly known to be progressive. Dunno what strain of crack the writer was on when they pitched the film to exec's, but I sure want some.
as a work of fiction i dont see actual politics being as an important factor except when the movie itself states in that is a factor. like 'oh yeah US and China cant coexist and stuff' but thats me trying to disconnect actual politics from fiction and imagine it being an alternate earth.
@@stashallemagne4488 The thing is when you use our reality as the setting for your film, you bring with it the implications within our reality. They could have just swapped in some names and it wouldn't be an issue, but lazy and pandering directors sometimes don't even do that.
There will always be unrealistic aspects to movies, but the more over the top it gets, the less immersive the experience. These actresses look like they'd struggle to open a jar, but they're blocking punches from a man that can bench 300+ lbs. A smaller opponent can win with superior tactics and technique but this isn't what they're show casing. It looks ridiculous. David doesn't beat Goliath in a wrestling match... He beats him with wit and precision.
I know right!? not just that but even in a movie why would the IT help go out into the field? the whole point of them is to stay in the office to ya know give tech support not get shot cause they don't have the right skills for things like field work.
There’s so much creativity you can get with the limitations of size. Perhaps the character is extremely skilled in a martial art that can take down bigger, but less skilled opponents, however similarly skilled opponents could cause problems. Maybe their an expert marksman who utilizes her skills with various firearms but is not as adapted to close combat. Maybe they utilize their advanced gymnastics skills to use the environment against their opponents but struggle in open spaces. Maybe they utilize gadgetry to compensate for lack of combat prowess but without them, is pretty much average. Maybe their not even a fighter, but add value to the team by using extreme levels of charisma is non combat situations the others may struggle with. Notice how these offer both unique strengths and weaknesses to help differentiate characters in fight scenes. But no, these movies have to be lazy and give us generic fighting skills that make no sense for the characters preforming them.
Jessica Chastain went on Twitter and bashed the Kill Bill movies for putting Uma Thurman's character through the ringer, saying that female characters shouldn't have to go through that to prove how strong they are, because "we already are." She thinks that all female characters should just be assumed to be strong just because they're women, they shouldn't have to do anything to earn it. She wants to make woke female-led action movies without even understanding why action movies exist in the first place. Pass.
She's truly out of touch. I remember a few years ago she was an intriguing actress to watch, but now it's just career killing box office bombs. Haven't seen the Scenes From a Marriage remake yet tho
What? So let me get this straight. Kill Bill would have been better if Uma Thurman didn't have any blood on her after a battle, or didn't punch her way out of a coffin. In what universe do some of these twitter people live in? The character wasn't trying to 'prove how strong she was'. She was fighting for survivial, redemption and revenge. It's like some of these twitter people can only see 'I want everybody to think I'm strong, because I SAID SO!!!!!' as a formula for a character, and then wonder why they aren't getting the accolades that Uma Thurman has gotten.
You know as a native german speaker its refreshing to have a german conversation in a movie where I can actually make out what they are saying. I've have seen cases where the spoken language was so bad I had to go through the subtitles, just to understand what they were trying to convey.
Yes but I still noticed how he germans it up, pronouncing words like Rammstein does to make it sound even more German to a foreign speaker - they always do that in American movies.
I feel the biggest problem with modern female heroines is that they're too fixated on being badass that we never really see anything outside of that. Tony Stark wasn't just an interesting and fun character to follow because he was Iron Man, he was fun to follow because we got to see him function in his normal, everyday life. We saw what he liked, what he disliked, what his hobbies were, what he would do during down time, he felt like actual person. With all these new female-led action movies it's like they're constantly bashing me over the head with "they're badass and awesome!" over and over without showing me more of who they are.
And Tony is pretty damn average in terms of physical ability. He uses his smarts to engineer tools that he wins his fights with and any time he runs out or doesn't have access he's quite helpless, at least for as long as he gets the idea to use something else to his advantage. So Tony is a badass because of his brains and determination, not because he overpowers opposition
@@houndofculann1793 Yeah, which also makes it interesting that he was kind of the leader of the Avengers, a group that consists of two skilled assassins, a hulking brute, a literal god, and a super soldier. Compared to him he's pretty weak as just Tony, but he manages to utilize his intelligence to outsmart the opponent.
This is why it's important to make a character compelling and interesting. Give them flaws and a character arc to get audiences invested. But also give them positive traits that we can relate to. The problem with these movies is that they think woman = perfect badass. But the problem is, without a character we like, it just makes them a shallow stereotype.
Movies with well written female leads: - Atomic Blonde - Mad Max Fury Road - Kill Bill - Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon - Alien - Silence of the Lambs - Terminator 2 - Sicario - Edge of Tomorrow - Widows - A League of Their Own Turns out people just like good movies
I think one of the best cases of “badass female character actually done right” I have seen in a long time was actually in the TV show “SWAT” on Amazon Prime. I don’t remember the name of the episode but essentially it was about this crew of extremely heavily armed and dangerous crew that was hitting diamond stores with military precision. Now eventually it turns out that it’s an ex-military all female crew that’s behind it but with the exception of the SWAT team leader having conflicting emotions about having shot and killed a woman (he makes it clear that he knows logically that it doesn’t make sense to feel bad about it, since she was actively trying to kill them, but it’s just drilled into him since childhood that men should never hurt women no matter what) they are treated just like any other criminals on the show: As dangerous criminals that *must* be stopped before they can hurt anyone else.
Rewatched Howl's Moving Castle this morning with some friends through screen-sharing, throughout the movie I realized how powerful the MC(Sophie) is, then I kept thinking about it and I realized she is neither super-strengthed or physically trained, the "power" I felt from her character comes from the bravery and the courage she expressed again and again in the movie. She complained, fall, cried, bled, fall in love, but not once did she not feel "independent". I don't know enough about literature to explain how I felt, but I was very sure this is the kind of female protagonist I look for in any medium.
Better than how they wrote Rey in The Force Awakens. A running gag where the "male protector" kept grabbing her hand, or that she needed to be rescued.
I feel like the Ghibli movies get this. Never once have I seen one and been like "ah yes that girl definitely needs a man to protect her". Like in Kikis delivery service there's our main character, Kiki, who's independent for setting out on her own, the baker lady, who's occupying a traditionally domestic role but she's very strong willed and energetic and supportive in giving our protagonist somewhere to stay, there's the artist in the woods who's arguably the most independent cause she lives entirely on her own. None of these situations are exactly the same yet all of the characters feel so powerful even if it's not on a physical strength level.
Yes! This is something people who try to make these “strong female characters” have missed. They forget that you don’t need women to be physically strong to be a strong and a good character. There’s this thing where feminists keep trying to “compete” with men. Everything they do is in relation to men. They see men doing all the fighting and ass kicking or whatever and then say for equality or to make strong characters they must also make their female characters do the same. But it just falls short because men and women aren’t built the same. Not that women can’t be fighters in movies but some feel it’s the ONLY way to make a strong/ independent female character, as opposed to letting them be strong in other ways.
"Real people do bad things for good reasons and do good things for bad reasons" Dude, this is basically the golden standard for any believable spy action flick, people saw a couple of Bourne movies and thought it was all about the cool action sequences, and forget that it's all about the greyness of that world, of not knowing if your enemy is truly your enemy and your ally is truly your ally depending on the mission, the objectives, and even the politics back home on the other side of the world. You could have replaced the whole female protagonists with male protagonists, and still have had a truly lackluster movie, because in this movie the issue is not the protagonists per se, it's the plot behind them that simply sucked
@@Memorywholed You could and there are many examples, but a villain like that has to be entertaining and/or funny to watch, or be a good counterpart to the hero
The crazy thing about this is that Chastain already played an awesome female main character in Zero Dark Thirty. That character was interesting and well written and very badass without showing her beating someone up or anything.
It's ironic that these agenda driven movies always try to make every male character very very evil just coz they're men but somehow always end up having the most bland and uninteresting female characters and the male characters that they go out of their way to make evil end up being more layered and actually fun to watch 😂
@@gamerdweebentertainment1616 I haven't seen the movie but just the clip of him doing it in this video made me go "Whoa! That's crazy! I've not seen that before". And to be honest, that one clip was more interesting than anything else I'd previously seen about the movie. And I'm a straight man and this is a movie full of beautiful women and THAT was the most interesting thing to me.
anyone who says there's not a woke agenda is lying to you. likewise, anyone who says being woke doesn't negatively affect a project is also lying or ignorant. it's not as if we don't have enough examples. the problem with the agenda is now they have a checklist of things that has to be done that leads to mary sues. then they hire 'feminist' writers who own a copy of 'save the cat,' and we all know how well that works out. this all stunts creativity.
Indeed, the worst thing one can do to a cause and which purely agenda-driven people refuse to get: It's to make fewer give a hoot about the cause or get annoyed by it. A bit like the South Park episode on the town flag, practically.
I think the reason these films fail is simpler: the action is bad. If I'm supposed to believe a woman without superpowers is a badass her actions have to reflect that. When I see slow movements, slap punches, and just generally unimpressive fighting choreography the core reason for why I want to see an action movie is ruined. Plenty of actors (male and female) are just shitty at doing physical roles. Forcing them into that stuff makes for a bad movie. If an actor can't fight just have them use guns, knives, other objects. They should fight dirty, especially as a female that is giving up 70+ pounds on her opponent.
Holywood doesn't believe in men being stronger than women. A woman with no superpowers can give up 500 pounds and still ragdoll her male opponent like an empty basket.
this director is an excellent writer. but he gets totally lost when it comes to directing. i notice he produced deadpool 2 which was directed by the man who did atomic blonde. he should have went to him for some pointers.
I remember watching Haywire, and wholeheartedly believing that Gina Carano's character, Mallory WAS an actual badass. They accomplished that by not making her invunerable. She almost gets her ass kicked in several fights, never making it out unscathed. She was at a clear disadvantage in her fights, but won through skill and raw determination. Another believable lady badass was Hanna... like.. how do you make a tiny little thing like Saoirse Ronan come across as an actual physical threat? You write her character well.. literally trained to kill from the moment she could hold a weapon... and have her behave in a manner where you truly accept that she is basically an emotionless killing machine experiment set loose on those who created her.
Right! like just get women who look like they are the appropriate muscle mass! Like there are no male marvel superheroes without a six pack! so why do we end up with female action stars whose thighs smaller than their knees and have biceps the size of a man's wrist???!
@@sheeeeessssss and it isn't like there aren't options for that. Jessica Biel and Kaley Cuoco come to mind as women with muscular upper bodies that can still pull off traditional Hollywood beauty standards.
Although I do believe that a female empowerment movie can be good, like “Wonder Woman” or “Alita: Battle Angel”, many movies in the industry tend to use their platforms to make the media they create solely about political issues.
people will definitely be more inspired by something if that thing is good. But it seems that Hollywood just thinks that people get inspired when they tell them to be.
I would like to see an action movie where it would be considered that women are smaller and weaker than men, so they have to use something other than brute force to win. For example, surprise the opponent by acting undercover, like the medieval Geisha assassins. This could lead to an entire sub-genre of action films, but lazy filmmakers prefer to follow the old pattern and pretend that a 60-kg woman will beat Arnold Schwarzenegger in a fist fight...
@@JoJo-mm8sn Because when someone like Bruce Lee or Arnold fights a whole army it bends credulity but it doesn't break it. Bruce or Arnold probably could fight off two or three guys at once so doubling that number on screen doesn't break reality. Whereas these actresses couldn't take one guy in a fight so it instantly breaks reality when they're beating three of four.
Thanks to lethal weapons, small and weak fighters (man or woman) can take on much larger and stronger opponents in real life, so long as the weaker fighter is more skilled and dexterous. This is because certain lethal weapons (specifically blades and guns) don't need much strength, and they provide so much damage that they can bypass the muscular mass resistance from the opponent. With enough speed and precision, a woman swordfighter can evade her opponent's attacks and stab them in a vital organ. And if she has a gun...heck, even a kid can murder someone with that. lol The problem with these films is that the writers insist on having the female characters fight barehanded, which is a big no-no in real life. In a barehanded encounter, size and muscle are HUGE factors to take into consideration. This is because the body can take a lot of non-lethal damage without stopping. Even if the woman fighter lands a clean punch on a weak spot, the larger opponent can push through the pain and keep fighting. The best course of action in such an encounter is to RUN AWAY or at the very least use things around them as makeshift weapons. *_tl;dr: Women can fight large men PROVIDED THEY USE LETHAL WEAPONS. Fighting barehanded is DUMB._*
As an "as a woman myself" viewer, I've been finding Hollywood has the most irritating, propaganda-filled, "women are perfect", "men are bad/dumb", "look, we have minorities!" movies of these past few years. They cater to a handful of women who think they're better than everyone else, including better than other women, and they refuse to see that *normal people* are sick of it. Strong female characters have existed for many decades. Now they're suddenly acting as if they never existed. Even SJW female actors have recently said that it's hard for a woman to be the main character in a movie, when they themselves ARE THE MAIN CHARACTER IN THE MOVIE THEY'RE PROMOTING. This is a slap to the faces of both men and women, regardless of background. Women aren't perfect, not good at everything, and aren't strong just because we just so happened to be born with this physical body. We don't win at everything just for being born. They're setting IMPOSSIBLE standards for young girls around the world and teaching young girls to feel ENTITLED TO THE WHOLE WORLD. It's utterly ridiculous. Way too many movies/shows are no longer stories, they're just distorted messages.
Agreed with every single word of yours. Seriously, as a girl, John Wick inspired me more than these characters ever could. Logic exists no more in the world of vanity and narcissism.
exactly. not every female action star has to be better hacker than Mr. Robot, better gun fighter than John Wick and better agent than James Bond. We need some "flaws" in today's female action stars... Atomic Blonde was a good movie, yet they are still doing the wrong path.
😄😄I agree wholeheartedly 🙏 Also unrelated but.....are you a monsta x fan? I recognized your profile picture....that scene in the show was funny as hell... but yeah, it's just sad hollywood keeps making stuff like this. We need GOOD female action movie.....other then atomic blone....or kill bill... :(
@@sallylee8422 Yeah, I'm a Monsta X fan. :) Exactly. I really didn't like what they did with Scarlet Which on the tv series Wanda Vision, for example. She enslaved an entire freaking town and the residents told her she made them go through hell and one even told her she wished she rather die, but then another woman tells Wanda, "They'll never know what you sacrificed for them." She didn't sacrifice anything. Actually anything. That's the most stupid line they could've done just to make a woman seem perfect. It sounded so out of place with the entire show and it was so weird. I hope they change soon because it's getting ridiculous. :/
"In China, we are friendly" I laughed, then I stopped, remembering that these are the same folks that are literally running Muslim "re education centres". I am terrified about how much we are seeking their approval through the medium of movies. Fantastic video as always Filmento. Is there any recommendations for movies to act as a pallet cleanser? I'm a bit worn out with reality atm.
Yes same, i had to put my phone down and look at the ground in absolute disbelief as a flood of images from the Hong Kong protests and the MANY injustices happening in China flooded my brain China is many things Nice it is not
Wait, was that the actual caption rather than just sarcasm from the video's author? Because as a Mandarin speaker, I have sensed considerable...... "creative" liberty having been taken.
Bottom line: too much money is spent on the ensemble leads so not much is left for all the other important positions required to make a film. Take the writer and the director of The 355 as an example. They are Theresa Rebeck and Simon Kinberg, respectfully. Theresa is credited on seven films as a screenwriter or a story writer, and her most notable title is Catwoman from 2004. Yes, that Catwoman. Her directorial counterpart, Simon, has been credited as a producer since 2007 on numerous things, but this is his THIRD time behind the wheel. He made one episode of The Twilight Zone in 2019 (apparently that exists), and he also directed X-Men: Dark Phoenix (2019). What should that tell you? These [s]films[/s] movies are not made to tell a story or make a point, they are an attempt by people with money to make more money. These folks use any means necessary to give themselves an edge over all the other shit that's floating around, including incorporating highly sensitive subjects like race or gender equality. Here's what I say: they are bad films, be the protagonist a male, female, a stick or an alien, and they will NEVER be good. Good is good; Bad is bad. sauce: Wikipedia, IMDb
In their industry it apparently doesn’t matter how money is made, only that it’s *Made. At. Any. Cost.* Even if it means selling the integrity of an audience(or the integrity of anything else for that matter). They don’t seem to realize or care about the consequences of talking down to customers with zero nuance. Who are we stop them from making that mistake? (shrug) Let them. The results will speak for themselves.
Well said. i see a lot of, usually right wing reactionary types, on youtube talking about the 'left/woke ruining movie x' but how woke or left wing is it to cynically make a movie with the most superficial aproach to race or gender, not becuase you belive in those issues or care or have anything remotely new or interesting to say but 100% cynically to use it as a gimmick and to make money by manipulating and exploiting people. They know they can make something female GB and shrug off all teh valid criticism as 'sexist', they know that such a movie even if good is going to wind up the actual sexists and racists and that controversy is good for them and tehy know a lot of people will pay and defend the movie as a reaction to the backlash. I hate it. Its liek when people called Picard show woke - its not, neither is eternals> they are just really crap movies with some diversity in it but there is nothing remotely 'woke' about the plot or messages, if anything Picard is quite anti 'woke' with a lot of its plot! I just feel that teh lazy blaming of th left/wokeness lets the cyincal producers and lazy terrible writers off the hook time and time again. leik you say its all about the money. you would have thought mettoo Wenstein and Epstein etc would have put paid to the idea that the players in Hollywood care about anytghing but themsleves
No they had everything they wanted. This was their limit. The goal was to make a badass FEMALE movie. That's it. The movie sucked because they thought they can just swap women for men and then give them magical powers because they are women. No one earns it or is anything less than the best in the world.
Yeah this movie has an amazing concept but having Kinberg writing the script and direct was really a bad idea. Should've hired a better writer than him
As an aspiring female writer I get worried that if enough female-led movies or movies written/directed by women fail- Hollywood will back out of hiring or greenlighting movies with female writers/directors/actors etc. Which makes no sense right? Look at Arcane for instance- a series with wonderful representation, writing, directing, and voice acting! It's a great series because it has great writing. The problem with- well, any movie- but with movies as of late is the writing. But I'm afraid that Hollywood will look at female led movies like this one and forget to see the bigger picture with a lot of movies in general.
" I get worried that if enough female-led movies or movies written/directed by women fail- Hollywood will back out of hiring or greenlighting movies with female writers/directors/actors etc. " Don't worry about that. Hollywood could fail a million times and still not care. It's all about getting their "message" across. And right now Feminism and LGBT representation are Hollywood's top concerns. If I were a writer, I'd get those female lead films out there before the bubble bursts 5-10 years from now.
I dont understand, why care about representation at all? You think that in a indian or chinese movie they think hey lets put in some white people? no they dont and they shouldnt. Basically representation means less white ppl, its racism and hate towards whites. Also it doesnt make anything better because its the acting, writing and directing that is most important. Oh i thought arcane was pretty good and i really felt something for most characters, especially the sisters.
@@acealpine6806 there is no 'getting out female led movies before the bubble bursts' as if female led movies are meant to be worn out- I mean you can't just stop having female leads the writing just needs to be better and yes definitely stop ONLY promoting 'the message' (PS- seems were a fan of critical drinker cuz he's the only person i know who says 'the message' XD)
It seems to be generally taboo to portray flawed women in mainstream fiction. A daring writer may try, but a script goes through too many filters before actually becoming a movie. Producers, executives, financiers, director, main cast... They all want to play it safe to secure their investment, but playing safe is not always a good idea in the creative industries.
While the point stands, even playing it safe and keeping the characters themselves flawless they could have used a more daring screenplay at times, as the host suggests. I mean, having the antagonist shoot their families is pretty wild, I'd say that breaks taboo, or at least convention.
The film industry is broken up into two different sections: the creators who tell the story, and the business people who pay for it. One wants to tell a story, the other wants to make money. It’s a very polarizing partnership.
exactly. honestly to this day, as an avid movie fan, sarah connor and ellen ripley are not just my favorite female protagonists, but protagonists in general of all time. what i really enjoyed about these characters other than a brilliant movie and acting, is that the agenda was about making a good movie and that was it. i think i read somewhere that cameron wrote the last name of ripley's character first. and then he decided whatever first name fit well with the "ripley" last name would decide the gender of the character. if this anecdote is true, what a great example of how to build a character. doesnt matter if its a girl or a guy. write a good character and gender won't matter.
Simply having Chinese actors is not "pandering". You lot are taking this "pandering" too far, almost near racism territory. I see it too with how when there so happens to be 1 or 2 non Caucasian actors, the movie is suddenly trying to be "woke" and "diverse".
@@angrysocialjusticewarrior lmao, wtf are you talking about. IU have never seen someone claim Chinese pandering because they have people in it that are Chinese. ITS ALWAYS because there is some BS message or statement that its trying to make about china. Seriously how inept are you at reading that you missed this point?
Watching 120 lb Jessica Chastain toss around 200 lb trained dudes makes it impossible for me to suspend disbelief. My niece told me that the Army trained her and female recruits how to hurt a man and then run away. They weren't encouraged or trained to go toe-to-toe with a male combatant.
And the contrarian would point out here, how they know well trained women who could take down a normal guy...and that's the thing. In these action movies, one would think the henchmen and body guards...are well trained. So then, would the argument be that a well-trained female martial artist has a high success rate against a well-trained male martial artist? I think not.
Unless the girl is like 6'5" and can bench over 250 lbs and is an expert in martial arts, which I kinda wanna see in real life.
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@@somebody700 and yet, if a man jumps from the top of a building with a car, crashes thru a wall, hits the floor AND DOESN'T DIE it's just another F&F movie that sells a truckload of tickets. And, by the way, TWO muscle cars can drag A FUCKING BANK VAULT like an empty beer can. Very realistic!
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@@somebody700 then why do this movie have to be realistic?
15:38 I think the argument that villains are poorly written because they’re ‘just bad’ is a little bad itself. Not every villain has to be, or should be, a compelling moral character with a ‘I could see it from his point of view’ motive. Some people are truly just greedy psychopaths. I think people who complain about villains who are just greedy psychopaths are the same people who blindly eat up the polished image many billionaires have made for themselves, and they struggle to believe that mustache twirling villains exist. They do, and their are many famous ones who have a lot of power our own world. Bezos doesn’t have his workers piss in bottle for some compelling moral character reason; he just wants money.
There is also an elephant in the room that nobody ever mentions. The essential question is, whose fantasy is this? You have to write for your audience. James Bond films were successful originally because they offered a fantasy of a dangerous and glamorous life to men who lived boring and repressed lives. John Wick offers a kewl power fantasy for contemporary men. But who is the audience for the 355? Women failed to go and see the 355. Men didn't go because most don't fantasize about kicking ass as a woman. Men saw Aliens in droves because it wasn't about Ripley being a woman. It was about her struggle to survive. You could gender-swap that film and it would STILL be good. So women see Sex and The City movies in droves and men see John Wick movies in droves. These franchises are hardly original stuff but they deliver the well-packaged fantasy that the audiences enjoy and find satisfying. The 355 tries to lure in women with exotic locations and designer gowns but where is the romance? Where is the fun? Men identify with struggle against adversity, taking the knocks and getting up again, the hero's journey and, with John Wick, his kewl contemporary lifestyle. The 355 contains none of that. So who was the audience that the 355 was written for? Who identifies with these characters? Apparently the writers believe that their are legions of women who fantasize about being effortlessly good at everything and wearing a tonne of makeup while kicking the crap out of a bunch of guys and not breaking a fingernail. That doesn't seem to be the case. I actually think that some of these writers need therapy. They also need to understand the basic fact that Sex and The City would utterly bomb if it was gender swapped. You have to write for a real audience out there rather than some imaginary audience that you'd like to exist.
That's a good point, even if you're 'writing for yourself' (IE you're creating the kind of story that you'd like to see or read) you still have to remember that other people are going to see this, so you still have to at least make it entertaining
Just what I was thinking.. why do they make these movies, nobody's interested. I think they know there is not an audience for this, it's a hollywood perspective they are trying to push through. I think they're hoping to just change the culture by simply only offering this kind of bs. Practically every franchise has been femalized and diversified.. and they all ruined their success and appreciation from the public, especially men and as with sports, mostly men go to the movies.
I don't even think the gender of the characters is that big of an issue. The bad character development could be overseen if instead the actual action scenes were any good.
On one hand we have bangers like Kill Bill, Salt, Underworld and the other hand we have this, Charlie's Angels and Ocean's 12. It doesn't take a genius to see why one worked and the other didn't. It seems they never learn
Yeah, on one hand you have movies with ONE female lead surrounded by countless men, and on the other hand you have movies with MULTIPLE females leads and hardly any men. Yeah.
@@brutusb8004 it's not a problem. Look anime. There is countless of anime (mainly magical girls anime) that have several female characters and barely a single men. Look Madoka Magica. It's excellent. But the thing is masterfully writen. The characters are well-done.
Honestly one of the biggest things that bugs me about this is the way the main characters are holding their guns. They look like they've never seen someone fire a single shot before. Best example is the scene at 2:32, where she's holding the gun directly in front of her with both elbows flared out towards the sides. You shoot the gun holding it like that, it's not staying in your hands, and it's going to strike you in the chest. The generic grunts look more like they're actually shooting guns than the main heroes. I get that hollywood thinks that guns have no kick or recoil to them, but they should at least make sure they're being held and shot in ways that make sense.
The last good ''strong woman'' that I've seen in a movie probably was Furiosa in Mad Max Fury Road, it's the first that comes to mind. And guess what? The movie doesn't care that she is a woman.
The best moment is when Max gives her the sniper rifle, because of one gesture he understands that she’s better than him. No word, just a spontaneous interaction beetween the two caracters. This makes furiosa instantaneously look badass and show a very strong trust beetween her and Max. In a poorly written movie she would have bragged that she’s a better shooter just because she’s a woman, or Max would have been humiliated or another non sense. Very satisfying scene.
The message was there but very subtle. Older white men controlling younger men while hoarding the young virgins. Not too long after that Hollywood released The Handmqidsbtale. This is a round the same time as #MeToo and high profile scandals. Nothing happens by accident.
@@rolletroll2338 The sniper rifle scene also elevated her without bringing down Max. He handed her the rifle because she was a better shooter, and this was just treated as "a thing", there was no insult to Max for not being able to do that one thing, and the reason for this is largely that everyone had their strengths and weaknesses. She doesn't even gloat about it, as far as I recall, Max is never mocked or immasculinated for having to hand over the rifle. Success isn't a zero-sum game. Not only does Hollywood insist on making it one with these movies, they draw the sum line through things like gender or race, then cry bigotry when people point out what they are doing.
Haa, its interesting cause I see a lot of comments mentioning Alien as Riply being the ultimate beacon of the script literally didnt care shes a woman so much that she was planned to be a dude the whole time. For me Mad Max Fury Road did the exact opposite and its a beacon of doing female characters right without ignoring they are women. Its also interesting to note that it was I think the only movie that had a prominent feminist consultant on set (I remember there were men calling for boycots of the movie because evil feminist propaganda lol). But Fury Road says a lot about women and motherhood. Furiosas story is inherently linked to her being a woman, from her being stolen to serve as breeding stock as one of the wives, to being discarded as trash due to her inability to produce children. Due to this and her strenght she is able to raise through the ranks in the war boys. And what does she do with that? Uses it to escape and take the other wives with her. To try and take them to her place of origin, the Green Place, where she lived in the matriarchal tribe of The Many Mothers. Joe only sees women as effectively cattle to be used for milk and motherhood as merely giving birth to fill his ranks, Furiosa grew up knowing she is capable of so much more. Its part of the reason why I think Fury Road is so good. The movie deals with a lot of very female themes, but it doesnt pander, its still a great action movie and it shows that even when discussing very female experiences it absolutely can be done in a way that everyone can relate to them, instead of the classic cop out of "men cant relate to female characters struggles". And I think the fact that so many people dont even notice the very womens experience lead themes they still relate to the story and the characters is the biggest proof of that.
I think you're viewing hollywood too much as one identity. They aren't the Borg from Star Trek. There are a bunch of decent to excellent action movies with strong female leads over the years. There are also a bunch of really bad movies from misguided movie makers. One comment elsewhere from under this video kind of nails it when they say that a lot of movies confuse "strong female lead" with "invincible female lead". Let's take a "middle of the road" movie like "Salt" with Angelina Jolie. Despite Jolie not being the most physically believable actor, it ends up being believable because the director tried to make a movie and not a point. I'm like super left on the political spectrum but that doesn't mean that I don't think the all female ghostbusters formula of "man stupid, woman awesome" isn't utter cringe to me. But just like actually good action movies IN GENERAL are a bit of a rarity and there are a ton of shit action movies with male leads there are also bad action movies with female leads in them. But most movies with female leads that are actually good, are.... often forgotten about when talking about action movies with female leads. People are always looking at the negative examples because those are so grating.
@@paulszki “super left on the political spectrum”. What does that even mean today? As far as I’m concerned, liberalism murdered the left and now wears its skin as a custom. I’ve never in my life met a leftist that wasn’t a fiendish neo-liberal, who parroted the official ideology of the American Empire.
@@grandmastersreaction1267 I'm from Germany if that helps in your classification of my person. So if you're from the U.S. that might explain why you've never met me. I'm pretty far away from neo-liberalism and favor a well regulated free market economy. So neither communism (with central planned economy etc.) not unfettered capitalism that leads to whatever the U.S. is experiencing now: A pseudo democracy where people are angry at one party or another but even if democrats in the U.S. are, in my mind, the lesser evil, they're still in the pockets of american companies and their lobbies. Don't get me wrong, Europe (or specifically Germany) isn't some paradise. But our stricter labor laws (no bullshit "at will employment"), actually mandatory minimum 24 vacation days for a 40 hour work week (that don't include sick days because that is ridiculous) and other social policies (mandatory healthcare insurance for every employee) and other safety nets in addition to cheap education.... just look way more humane than whatever the U.S. has going on. And despite all these "freebies" out society is not a bunch of slackers, if the clichés about German work ethic are to be believed. So yeah, I'm not a neo-liberal fiend that calls himself left. I think I'm just ... left.
"twice her body weight" and literally holding back / pulling his punches. Yeah - she is really fantastic - if we would see this happening to a male hero we would react the same way... we would call it: 'FAKE!' and walk away from it. Also: they never seem to receive a hit or punch... all the man they are fighting seem to be utterly incompetent....
It’s because it’s kind of a no no to show violence against women in media; usually it only ever happens in action movies to establish a single super bad guy or in character dramas to establish an abusive relationship. It’s also why bad guys are hardly ever women outside of superhero movies; it’s ok for a woman to walk into a room and gun down scores of bad men but it would be uncomfortable to watch a guy protagonist walk into a room and do the same for many women. I don’t know whether that’s a good or bad thing, but it’s a relevant cultural attitude
@@willmungas8964 It's interesting to me how women in films/shows are allowed to batter men just for annoying them, it's always made me wonder if that's the reason that the numbers of violent women in relationships is just going up and up.
@@alexanderl.6207 Dude, consider for a second that you repeatedly see women smacking around guys on TV for even the most meager provocation and it's often portrayed as good (or funny), yet the reverse would never happen. As someone who's been in an abusive relationship with a violent woman I can't help but feel that ladies learn from these things and start to think it's okay. It's a horrific and destructive thing, no matter the gender of those involved, and we should never encourage it among women as media does.
The thing about these "girl power" movies is, even though Hollywood won't admit it, they've been done before, many MANY times and they've been done much better too. So they keep making the same girl power action movie over and over again thinking they're the first to do it each fucking time, and the audience isn't interested. Anyone remember the Charlie's angels movies from the early 2000s? Yeah they were girl power movies, they were also charming and fun and the angels were likable, they weren't stone cold bitches yet they could turn badass at the drop of a hat. Those movies did well because they put the characters and story before the message, the message was blended in with the rest and was conveyed effectively. Don't underestimate women. And guess what? Nobody angry over it, no controversy, people were down for Charlie's angels
Charlie's Angel's movie? Nope 👎 The 355 -> sexy and strong by woman's standards (preachy and an overcorrection) Charlie's Angel's -> sexy and strong by men's standards (outdated male gaze pandering) Both SUCK. Gotta land in the middle. The middle is Kill Bill and Aliens. Raging Phoenix is a FANTASTIC action film example. Watch a fight scene from TH-cam and tell me I'm wrong 😁
"A basic shootout with female actors is still a basic shootout." Enter Michael Bay: after three movies, even fight scenes and shootouts with robots become "generic shootouts".
I mean, it's true....the first transformer movie was cool and all, but if the only thing you can offer is cool cars morphing into cool robots to beat the crap out of each other, then in the end it's just a brawl with shiny CGI which is not the screenwriters' fault per se, there's only so much you can pull for inspiration out of a 1980s cartoon meant to make more commercially palatable some plastic toys
Jessica Chastain's combat training scene backfired (also her scenes in Paris). Instead of setting up a physically strong character, it exhibited how insufficient Chastain was for a physically demanding role.
A competent director would have adapted that into the plot giving her character development as an intellectually superlative agent having to overcome her lacking physique in the absence of her beefcake partner. But women can't have meaningful flaws and a heteronormative couple, even a platonic one, being complementary is the biggest sin in the cult of wokeism.
The problem I see with most female action movies is they try to hard to make them act like male characters. Most of the best female action movies I've seen are the ones where the character is allowed to be herself, a woman. Which is usually with brains not muscle. This works because the female characters uses society's prejudices and stereotypes against their opponents. Which put her in an advantage because the enemy's downfall is their ignorance.
That takes too long! Movie doesnt have time for her to manipulate victim, play victim, complain, cuddle, go to shopping, drink coffe with friends, or beauty parlours, or wait for pms to pass, get married, divorce etc.. Thats why they just try to use female with men characteristics.
@@havedrill1 look dawg we just gotta be honest here there is no way the top 100 women wrestlers can beat the top 1000 men wrestlers. same goes with sports. there's a reason why there is women's sports and men's, and there is a reason why women got mad when biological men starting competing in their sports and would come out on top.
I find one of the biggest issues is that by constantly emphasising how badass these women are you make them completely devoid of vulnerability and by extension relatability. Matt Damon is able to sell you how scared and apprehensive he is during an action scene, making you feel as if there are actual stakes (despite knowing he's a protagonist and therefore indestructible); the ladies are here to demonstrate they can kick ass and be tough and confident, they know they are all-powerful and indestructible which ultimately makes them one-note and uninteresting. We've already seen a similar thing with Harrison Ford's Indy and Angelina Jolie's Tomb Raider. Indiana Jones could dish it but he could also take it, and when someone imagines an action scene with Indy in it odds are his face will be worried or scared or emoting in any similar appropriate way. Lara on the other hand just confidently smirks and acts badass... making her unrelatable and dreadfully dull to watch.
In Indiana Jones' case we see him get beat to hell and back in most movies. By the end of the film Indy looks like he's had enough. People like seeing this attention to detail.
In that case you could at least argue that Tomb Raider is a video game adaptation, while Indiana Jones is not. And I think they did a good job at making Lara feel like the same character as in the games. I also think that at least in her first movie (I don't really remember the second one and I haven't seen the newest one yet) she does struggle at least a little here and there and even though she is mostly just badass, her enemies still have the upper hand simply by outnumbering her and her allies by far. Not to mention she bounces off the other characters with her over the top personality and has some romance going on in both movies. Plus she even has some sort of character arc in the first movie even if it's not really a good one.
As a kid, my first hero wasn't Batman or Superman. It was Ellen Ripley. She taught me to do what no other hero did. Showed me how to act when faced with the unknown, and what to do when circumstances terrify and paralyze with fear. You stand up, stay brave, and push forward. She did all that without having to say a single word about it.
Having your character be a "brave wahmen who don't need no man" ain't enough anymore. You need to have actual characters and good characterization. Can't help to feel that writers and directors are hiding behind female characters so that when their movie sucks or flops, they can throw accusations at the audience. Also if you want badass female characters you really have to earn it. Anyone who's ever gotten into a fight knows that having a few inches of height alone on someone is a massive advantage. Yet you have these scrawny ladies take on 3-5 different guys that are almost a foot taller than them, make sure that they at least go some muscle tone and you REALLY sell the choreography. For some reason the choreography is almost always worse than in male-lead action movies. In short, if you have a female-lead action movie you should be putting in twice the effort, not barely half the effort.
"In short, if you have a female-lead action movie you should be putting in twice the effort, not barely half the effort." So, you agree. Making a movie with female leads is twice as difficult? Edit; Grammar
The choreography sucks because of physics. Any man of average size that has had a woman of average size try to push them or try to punch them in the arm or chest, lets say... will know what Im talking about. Im sorry... Jessica Chastain won't move a 200 lbs muscled guy an inch if he doesnt want to move and were expected to believe she can flip him around, knock him out, choke hold him, etc. So what ends up hapening is the guy has to carry the coreography and do all the effort or shes going to end up with a broken arm. That translates to the screen and it is cringeworthy. No ammount of choreography, unless it is masterfully done, will be able to overcome the disbelief.
@@davidjordannavarro5757 so the way to fix that is to have women using actual fighting styles that give them an advantage. I imagine there are plenty of martial arts that cater to shorter or smaller people. It's the fault of the whole production to not make the fights more realistic.
@@ashwindsouza606 twice as difficult if you want to sell that a 100 lb woman will take down a 200 lb trained man, or several men 1on1 or carousel style without ANY weapons. Sure, there is an agreement, and that is “girl power” and a fierce Reeeeeeeeee! aren’t enough.
Love how they are "empowering women", but only if you are tall, skinny and look great with tonnes of makeup! Would love to see the hold their own against Holly Holm or Valentina Shevchenko!
"What Happened to Monday" was a great example of female sci-fi action done well. The characters were all twins, yet each was unique and vulnerable in different ways. The motive ended up being an entirely female one as well, that as a mother is heartbreaking, yet it was never forced. I wish this movie was talked about more.
@@tearfrost984 Yeah, it's on Netflix, Sci-fi action thriller. It had a great plot and was female centric in a way that was natural, just great story telling.
@@rossegan7244 While the plot of Kate wasn’t the best and it reminded be of other films like John Wick, the casting choice first of all made for a believable “badass” and the choreography was pretty good from what I remember. The character also struggled and got beat up as you’d expect when fighting a bunch of men, decent action movie.
Has anyone ever seen the movie Hannah? That had a female lead and it was a very good movie. She didn’t need to remind everyone that she was strong but she showed it time and time again throughout the movie. I cared for the character and wanted her to win, instead of making fun of us guys for being stupid and gross, she focused on staying alive and being an entertaining character
The Amazon show version is really good too they just finished the series with four seasons. They didn’t want to keep it going just for the sake of keeping it going
8:35 Reminds me of that Spiderman vs Sand man fight in Subway They did get trapped between two trains and the fight didn't end there Making use of the sewage or water system to *"kill"* sandman at the end
It's actually sad, because more and more female lead movies are going to be made just like this and they will likely fail like all others because gender is the main reason why is being made, which just makes worse for whoever is next in line.
The reason female action heroes don't have any character is that a well-developed character requires flaws. Hollywood is terrified to show a woman as anything other than totally competent and amazing at all times for fear of the Twitter mobs, who they know would decry anything even slightly suggestive of a woman having any sort of meaningful internal struggle or personal shortcoming.
And when the flaws are showed they're just rationalized by twisting the storytelling reality up to the point where they end up glamorized instead... Sometimes even turning them into "attractive/quirky" qualities. No actual, real flaws or weaknesses that matter are ever showed. smh, Pride was considered a sin for a reason.
you can see this trope elsewhere...in advertisement for example, when someone acts stupid or only as an assert for the woman who always knows best/is always right/always good. Same for TV shows, books, nowhere you 'll find a portrayal of a woman a bit realistic, because as you said, twatter's hyenas would immediately fire their keyboard and summon Satan.
Actually as a movie nerd, most action movie with male protagonist have flaws so I don’t understand why they don’t let female protagonist have flaws , bc how else would I relate to her/him if I don’t see myself in them or seeing them getting over their hardships makes them more human in my eyes, perfect is boring therefore the movies are boring too.
@@zinnia5659 You're not supposed to relate to them. The point is to hold up an unachievable ideal. Totally boring to watch, but being enjoyable is rarely ideology's modus operandi.
I made a drinking game just from this video: Take a shot every time you see a limp-wrist and bent elbow while firing the prop guns that have zero recoil lmao
When your movie sends a message of "woman good, man bad", it's sending a very bad message of toxic feminism and discrimination against the opposite gender. If this was turned the other way around, the movie would have sparked an outrage. With that being said, I don't mind having a female led character as long as she is well written and someone the audience can relate to. A well written character is a well written character whether they be male or female.
and another man talking about "toxic feminism". even if a movie shits like 90 minutes on men and does nothing else, I couldn't give less f's nor does it make feminism toxic in general. toxic feminism is what joss whedon has done over all those years and still thinks it's not even worth a d'n apology. those things are real, happening in the real world.
The problem isn't that women in the movie point out the misogyny and sexism that they constantly face by men but more so that the movie heavily relies on this message to make the movie good. The entire movie industry is "turned the other way" against women, so I don't think talking about discrimination against men or how they are portrayed in the movie is the problem because many men do truly act like that. I respect your take.
@@Andyisgodcky @Paul W you're both not the brightest stars in the night sky aren't you? whedon claimed to be a feminist while treating charisma carpenter like shit on set when she got pregnant, then wrote her out of the story AFTER he integrated the pregnancy into the story. so if I call this behavior "toxic feminism" I know what I'm doing while you two can't even follow the topic because you're too lazy to get the info. still feeling superior?
Over a decade ago, I would have attempted to give a movie like this a chance. But nowadays, I assume every one of them is going to be trash and I'm right every time. Like hitting a bullseye so many times that I do it in the dark. Next month, a new movie is going to be announced as well as a new t.v. show idea. Both of them will be shit. I'm throwing darts in the future now.
And thats exactly why I dont go to the movies anymore Hollywood is not getting any more of my money until they pull there heads out of there asses. Its like a long time ago when Hollywood was trying to push all of these political documentaries you know Mikel More was one of these idiots and they would play them at the movie theaters thinking people would go a see them and pay to see them. Yikes!
As a guy with a competitive combat sports background, this is pretty easy. They try to get sexy women. After the explosion of WMMA in the ufc. We know what strong and capable women look like. It's why we love Gina coronno playing a bad a.. but not some skinny twig who has never thrown a punch. People just look, and they can't think "that's believable." It's like putting Kevin heart in the next terminator reboot. Edit They also did this to themselves by spending nearly a decade making every female film feminist and preaching. Eventually, people would stop going.
A terminator series starring Kevin hart as like a fish out of water engineer who does comedy on the side and gets targeted by skynet for a development he discovered by mistake and ends up being saved and trained by like Sarah conner to go from a bumbling nobody to becoming a competent survivor........ would genuinely actually make for a really good T. V miniseries IMO 😂😂😂 If executed properly and not played for jokes lol
Excellent point about Gina Carano. In the Mandalorian she has a short but intense fight against Mando as her introdction and there is genuine tension during the fight and weight behind her punches. The fight ends in a stalemate but with the slight advantage to Gina. And that is after we've seen Mando kicking ass for a few episodes before this. No one had any issues with this, why? because it obvious that Cara Dune is strong and knows how to fight. And through this she earns the respect of Mando and the audience in a believable way. She is buff, capable and skilled, without losing her femeninity
A perfect example of how to use a setting as more than just a back drop is the climax in Rush Hour. They fought with location as Jackie's character tries to save the artifacts adding a layer of urgency. They use the dangerous height of the catwalk as a sense of peril and the banner save to show quick thinking of Chris Tucker's character.
The only recent movie that managed to pull off a female, non-powered bad-ass is The Hunt (2020) and it achieved this because the protagonist: 1. Wasn't fighting against professional killers, they're disgruntled middle class liberals playing a game. 2. There were no expectations of her character and until the last scene we have no idea of what her story is. 3. She doesn't do anything that requires any suspension of disbelief. If I have to watch another movie with an 8st waif taking on a half dozen men that are three times her size with the only explanation being "grrrrl powa!" I'm going to burn all my TV's.
Atomic Blonde is good. I liked Anna as well (Luc Besson thriller). Jessica Jones was good series with female (powered) protagonist. Some older moves with female protagonists that I have liked: Alien, Terminator, Kill Bill, Tomb Raiders (Angelina), Aeon flux, Salt, whole Underworld series, Serenity, I even like some of the Resident Evils.
You can't really out-market a badly thought out and developed film though. Atomic Blonde was good because it had a better narrative, with realistic high stakes action sequences, and a more fleshed out and believable protagonist. A film with 4 different protagonists doesn't allow enough time to flesh out each one and make you care about them. It was too gimmicky and flat, with poor choreography. Plus as he said, unoriginal and has been done better.
It did okay. It grossed about a hundred million worldwide, about half domestically and half abroad, on a thirty million production budget. The marketing budget is usually around half the production budget, so the whole thing probably cost around forty-five million. The studio typically gets to keep around fifty to seventy percent of the box-office, with the rest going to the theaters, although the share for theaters is usually on the higher side overseas (that is why domestic box-office is worth more than foreign). That means that it probably made around fifteen million dollars. That's not a fantastic ROI for the movie business, but it did make some money. So it did okay, but just okay.
one of the thing i don't like is they put very famous actresses instead of actresses that can play the part, none of those women looks credible in a physical altercation...
Realistically, a female agent's greatest weapon is her sexuality, and for whatever reason, these films are bound and determined to steer as far from that as possible. Also, action films are kinda moving away from the whole "action hero who never gets hit" thing, but Hollywood still has an aversion to showing a woman being beaten to a bloody pulp after winning a fight.
I think these female action scenes would work better if they fought with vicious improvisation. A female spy who gouges eyes and slashes tendons with whatever's to hand is more realistic (and entertaining, in gritty brutal flicks) than one who slugs it out with a man twice her height and build, and somehow wins.
Hollywood tends to shy away from female sexuality because it'll almost always come off as objectifying women (ie that's ALL a female character can good to get out of a bad situation) or, if its a man seducing a woman, it'll come off as creepy, even if that wasn't what they were going for
We have had female UFC fighters for years, we know what they look like, yet they cast women that look like models who have never lifted a weight or taken a punch. This wouldn’t fly with a male action star. It makes it impossible to suspend disbelief. I don’t know how anyone could take a movie with casting like this seriously.
The reason women in movies look like models is because people wouldn't pay money to watch women who don't fit the beauty standard. This is a problem with objectifying women in Hollywood, and its got way worse effects than just suspension of disbelief for the women who watch it
Unless it's someone built like Gina Carano going life and death with a reasonable physical match like Michael Fassbender, I'd much rather see some lateral thinking go into fight scenes. Surely being constantly physically overmatched should inform a more thoughtful or abrupt approach to combat? Watching a woman who weighs less than 120lbs out strength and throw a person twice her size around just takes me right out of a movie. Whereas that Carano/Fassbender fight scene in Haywire just drew me right in.
I think Alicia Vikander in Tomb Raider fit somewhat into bringing a thoughtful approach to combat. She wasn’t able to go toe to toe with men bigger than her, so she’d use a rock against them or something like that. She did easily strangle someone who was around the same size of her but that was believable. He was just some teenager and she probably had more muscle than him.
Same, it'd be great to see a female protagonist struggle with enemies clearly stronger than her and have to use the environment and clever moves to defeat them, rather than throw punches with no weight behind them and somehow knock a grown ass dude out lol
I love how these female lead movies always come off as even more of a fantasy than any other movie specifically because it's innately known that the only way these ladies could fight off these men is if the men were deciding to let them win. It's like a child playing a sport with adults.
Not to pick an internet fight, but I don't think size is the issue. Jet Li is 5'6" 145 lbs, significantly smaller than, say, Uma Thurman. Almost exactly the size of Summer Glau. But I never got the feeling that he shouldn't be able to win those fights -- especially in The One (which I am heretofore recommending to you if you haven't seen it). It has to do with choreography and stunt work. The recent crop of "Girl Power" TM movies just don't seem to spend any of their time and money on those two elements.
@@brucebrown2241 Also everyone is ignoring that MMA started with BJJ being refined to the point that a third guy in a row... In a list of increasingly smaller guys, was beating up or winning matches with increasingly bigger guys. I imagine there has since been someone afterwards who were even smaller and took on people even bigger.
Women “can” beat men, just not in a vacuum. But the problem is that Hollywood rarely ever tells us why or how the women can just automatically beat every single male character to a pulp.
@@Seth9809 Yes, but BJJ makes someone capable of beating up bigger people, that does not make it a guarantee. If there are two fighters with equal technique, the fighter that is bigger in size will always win, unless he commits a mistake.
Ellen Ripley didn't pick up a gun until (which almost 2 movies later!) in Aliens at the final chapter... and she is still one of the most celebrated bada55 female leads.
One thing I’d add is that you don’t have to dismiss her femininity to make her a strong character. La Femme Nikita is one of my favorites, but there really aren’t many that are good with female leads.
@@KilgoreOnDrugs Ah for the days when a strong female action lead could just be an example of a human with inner strength and fortitude AND also a female, rather than being some perfect model of easy girl power. Ripley was a competent crewmember from the start, and then when needed she did what needed to be done. There was no "because I'm a woman, I'm inherently better than everybody else, so there!" political vibe. She earned our respect the same way any male character would - by overcoming obstacles in a believable way. Not by having everything handed to her. I liked the contrast with Garcia (do I recall the name right?) of the space marines in Aliens. Garcia was more outwardly strong and hard, being more like her fellow marines. She acquitted herself well in that role, but it was less engaging. While Ripley just wanted to do her job and get home, or help the little girl - but when needed, she was tough as nails underneath. Not with superhuman strength or magical ninja skills, not trying to prove anything, but just using the tools at hand, being smart, and having courage and judgement.
Atomic Blonde, Charlize Theron, Kill Bill Volumes 1 and 2, Black Widow movies with Scar Jo, JLo in The Cell, Charlie's Angel's with Cameron Diaz are light hearted and then of course it's almost always a girl that is the only survivor of many horror movies. LOL!!!
There was a time protagonists and antagonists progressed through their actions, not their gender or skin color. Jason Bourne works, not because it's a white male protagonist, but because it's a character haunted by his actions, forced to survive extreme situations with the skillset he learned.
i thought the whole premise of jason bourne was really lame. Didnt like the story and couldnt finish it. But i do agree. He was an actual character lol.
But...it does work because he's a white male, and there's nothing wrong with that. If the next James Bond role is given to a black or Chinese or Indian actor, it would ruin the franchise! It's OK To Be A White Male!
And not being mean or anything, but Matt Damon can act..!! And i think the most boring thing about these Action Starlets, is they just can't act, not in the genre they are being portrayed in. Just take the last bond film, yes most likely a swansong for Daniel as bond, but the person they put in as the new 007 Lashana Lynch, that had no finesse or appeal, no suave or sophistication, least of all the ability to be female, just showed the strengths of a male character in female form. Looked more like an extra from Starship Troopers than a secret agent.
Man from U.N.C.L.E is a great example on how to do a spy movie with two protagonists from opposing governments. That movie acknowledges the racial and cultural differences between America and Russia and fully embraces it and the end result is one of the best spy movies ever made
You would think that a film with a gigantic budget would train these woman actors how to hold a handgun with two hands correctly. It’s strange they cannot get this simple prospect correct. Bad ass government agents/operators would hold their weapons perfectly for accuracy and proficiency.
Another big factor that at least affects me in The 355, is the mind-numbing lack of charisma from any of the characters/actresses, as seen in the trailer. It would affect me in the same way if the protagonists were all male. The problem is amplified by the reasons stated by Filmento. The protagonists lack anything that would help in making them stand out. They're barely more than cardboard cutouts. A very personal problem is also that only few of the fight scenes look believable to me. It's something I can often pick up on when watching martial arts scenes. Experienced martial arts actors have a way of emphasizing their attacks to making them look very real. Actors inexperienced in the field always just look like a person who's weakly going through a set of memorized motions. Even when trying to emphasize, they might still rather look awkward or weak, due to lack of understanding how to put your own weight into an attack or a defense. It's a subtle but noticable element of choreography and one of the reasons why Hong-Kong-created martial arts scenes looked so much crunchier (in the 80s-90s, at least). The protagonists in The 355 mostly look shabby in their execution of moves. You can see that the stunt workers (opponents) are primarily carrying the fights through their reactions. The "inexperience effect" gets amplified by a performer's lack of a strong physical appearance. This is not as important and I'm *not* talking about a body-builder look, but just at least some lean musculature to enhance the impression of a person in constant training, *over plenty of years* . It's at least disappointing that actresses in movies such as these usually look more like fashion models or ballerinas than seasoned fighters.
Gina Carano is a big exception. There are others too, like Charlize Theron in Atomic Blonde. She has more a model’s figure but she was also lean and very fit for that film. Alicia Vikander in Tomb Raider as well. She got very muscular for it and looked intimidating. This film seems to have more generic looking beautiful women, though.
Interesting that you say that because I often times notice that as well with such fight scenes - you can see that they are just that - scenes. The only woman actress I know that made it seem impactful was Angelina Jolie... I actually can't think of any other action woman that portraits fight scenes well.
Homeland, best female led character ever (in my opinion), I could compare her character in the series to that of house. She had depth, the scenes were realistic and worked only because it was her, not just because she was a woman. Rue, Euphoria character (I know, not a movie hero character list) crafty, strong but vulnerable. Ghost in the shell. The movie. The Heat, in my opinion, very successful in it's delivery. Black Summer, lead character. Resident Evil film series, though I think anymore than 3 was an overkill.
There was a movie Jack Nicholson starred in where his character had advice on how to write female characters, "I take a man, and I remove reason and accountability" Evidently Hollywood writers took that to heart and also removed any reason we should care about them.
That movie was As Good As It Gets. And even that scene was written to show that Nicholson was an @$$hole for having that mindset (the waitress's expression truly sold it)
@@leileyaravencroft " And even that scene was written to show that Nicholson was an @$$hole for having that mindset" Yet Nicholson in that movie played a very succesful best selling romance novelist and thus the characters mindset clearly worked well for him. Funny how people who argue "he was an asshole" misses the fact he was an old guy who had done very very well for himself up to that point.
@@leileyaravencroft He was portrayed as an asshole based on his bluntness and complete lack of tact. He was also portrayed as someone very intelligent and perceptive. So while his comment was harsh, it was also incredibly accurate.
A great action movie with a female lead is Atomic Blonde, it doesnt waste any time patting itself on the back for having a female protagonist, and the fight scenes are amazing because they show that the character uses intelligence and superior training the conquer odds rather than just pretending she's inherently stronger than 5 burly goons at once. The "Stairwell Scene" is one of the most intense action sequences I've seen
Although I liked that scene myself, I still think it's far too unrealistic. I mean she blocked the men's kicks with her arms several times. She would've broken her arms in real life. Plus, a couple of punches to her face would've knocked her out cold in real life, perhaps even put her in a coma. Women just don't stand a chance against men in fighting. That's why we have domestic violence laws that protect women and children from men and don't pit men against women in combat sports. The only way a woman can stand a chance against two angry men that are committed to killing her is by avoiding them or shooting them with a gun until they die. Engaging in hand-to-hand combat with them is a surefire way to get herself killed.
Atomic blonde was alright but too pretentious, i liked it not cus its good move but charlize theron was in it and decent choreograph fights. Best Female Action move ive seen is SICARIO. Check it out. In that Emily blunt was not a just Second grade Male but real woman with flaws and had a reason to be there.
See the easy way to avoid movies like this is to watch out for and avoid *all female* main casts. These never work. And the biggest enemy of female lead characters is an old lady named "Mary Sue". Because for some strange reason girls can't have weaknesses anymore.
I'm allowed to make this video because I'm so familiar with women.
If you want to get familiar with women too, check out Manscaped-- right now 20% off with code FILMENTO20: mnscpd.com/Filmento
it's just that easy, folks
That was smooth. 🤌🏼
Damn filmento thinking he got as much play as bully maguire
If you would publish your female action script i would read it
I'm also familiar with women ,if u don't believe me just ask ur mother
People dont understand that in order to make a strong female character, you don't have to make her say that she is one every 5 minutes, you can instead write a great character, that happens to be female.
also give them a flaw. like something they're scared of, and make them have to face their fear in the final action scenes or something like that
@@LucasN00b You mean like, a humanized female person instead of a mary sue in a setting of unhumanly stupid guys?
Exactly.
@@VVabsa YES!
@@VVabsa unhumanly, evil patriachy sexbrain guys*
Who would have guessed the same guy who ruined X-Men 3, Fant4stic, X-Men Apocalypse and also being the director/screenwriter of Dark Phoenix could have another flop in his career?
It's a pattern like Paul Anderson
If we can see it why hollywood not? Its the same thing with everyone being chocked why GOT fell off after the book material was done, these dudes wrote f'ing xmen origins what the hell did you expect.
how does he keep geting hired wtf He cant keep getting away with this
He would work well doing B list Netflix films.
@@daniboy4153 I love that your comment is open to interpretation between Paul W.S. Anderson and Paul T. Anderson. But we obviously know which one is it
The fact that the "strong female protagonist" has already been done perfectly over 40 years ago with Alien tells me that this concept isn't difficult to pull off, but rather that the filmmakers behind all the "action women" films are just grossly incompetent.
The comment you made about not writing a race or gender instead just write a character was also done in Alien. The entire script had only the names of the characters and never denoted any race or gender. That's why originally they had Ridley in mind to be a man until they met Sigourney Weaver and knew she was right for the role.
There’s nothing wrong with gender affecting a character’s actions or motivation. You don’t need to make your characters aggressively asexual to write a “good” female character. A better example than Ripley or Sarah Connor would be Lisbeth (Dragon Tattoo trilogy) or Mrs. Smith (Mr. and Mrs. Smith) because it proves you can have an *aggressively* female character who is still entertaining because of good writing.
The problem is pandering for profit. The “message” is hollow and trite because they don’t care, they want to check the boxes that marketing tells them sells. I’m a woman who enjoys women-led properties with women-heavy representation… but it’s not going to make me ignore bad writing just like my preference for Captain America-movies isn’t going to make me watch a movie with the same quality as the 1990 Captain American movie.
Even movies like Aeon Flux or The Hunger Games, which aren’t exactly triumphs of cinema, can be popular and entertaining despite unsubtle ”messages”. It’s about quality and no one, even the target audience, doesn’t enjoy being pandered to in the hopes of getting your money with the minimum level of effort.
Nah nah nah nah... script doctor and actresses be like... what's this discussing thing called trust issues. Whamen have no weaknesses... delete that part. She'll have no problem doing this and that :)
Oh yeah, I remember that Ripley Scott film.
Everyone forgets Charlene Baltimore of The Long Kiss Goodnight. She wasn’t unbeatable, but you had to be ruthless to completely beat her down.
@@theleap2946 that movie had a terrible child actor as the daughter, and some pretty lame dialogue at times but it's got it where it counts, agreed.
I can't think of the last time I saw a male action lead being introduced kicking someone's ass in training. The hero is introduced as an underdog, if a character is introduced kicking ass it's typically a villainous lead or it's a Steven Seagal movie.
You need to start your heroes at a low point or else they have nowhere else to grow.
I mean you can have that, if you later establish that their's bigger obstacles they have to face later, having a character whose "On the Top" can work well if you introduce someone whose more "on the top" than them or force them do do something different altogether Ie having a someone whose really good at hand to hand combat learn how to use ranged weapons.
@@Zechariah_Mathieson1871 But can you think of a good example?
Even John Wick was introduced meek then getting his ass kicked by punks, a hero who later elevated to absurd levels of unstop-ability.
@@Treblaine I'm pretty sure it happens in a lot of sports movies, where the athlete starts at his prime but gets old and weaker, less sharp ect.
@@Zechariah_Mathieson1871 Hmm, it's different when it's a movie about combat. There's difference between beating someone at a game and literally beating someone up.
I mean the first Jason Bourne is the only one that comes to mind.
If you ask what makes a male character special, "He's a man" will never be part of the answer. Writers have to start treating female characters the same way.
Well nowadays their answer to that question will probably be "nothing, he's a man"
@@AeneasGemini Exactly. Cal Kestis from SW Jedi: Fallen Order is a perfect example of this. Critics blasted him before and after release, and why? Not because his story was boring, his performance was subpar, or anything like that. They were upset because he was an "aggressively generic white man."
right, it can't be that hard, make them smart, be able to "manipulate ppl"
If movies like this keep coming out, I think it will be. With so much schlock like this meant to pander to the diversity crowd, a straightforward action movie starring a guy will be seen as a breath of fresh air rather than more of this shit. It'll get to the point where a movie starring a white guy will be seen as a sign that it's a genuine, good, original movie that's selling itself on its own merits, rather than pandering garbage. In fact, it's already happening: one of the biggest praises I've seen multiple people give the new Top Gun is "it doesn't try to be preachy with forced diversity and is just a genuinely good movie".
@@user-sg4ov7ng4h bruh 😐
"You know what the problem is with Male lead action movies? The characters are always flawed or problematic in some way, We can fix that in our Female lead action movies by making sure our characters are not flawed and are always right. Weird that no one has thought of that before."
- People who write female lead action movies, probably.
The problem is that flawed or problematic characters are interesting. Flawed characters can always become better characters when they are on a journey of discovery or redemption. Problematic characters are fun, because you REALLY want the lead of the story to kick some villain's ass. What the old movies did right, was it showed you that the "bad gums (TM)" was never EVERY GUY in the story, just the bad apples of society. Take that away, and you just have bullies trying to act righteous.
@@sigmacademy we know… that’s what the guy above was saying
In fairness, writing a 'flawed' female lead these days does seem to be a short road to career suicide by feminists...
Let's just take characters and remove any conflict or development from them, perfect! We saved screenwriting!
Redemption arcs are the product of the patriarchy. Good story telling IS toxic masculinity.
There's is a little known Martial Arts flick called Furie that I highly recommend. It follows a mother who's a debt collector and just so happens to know how to smack fools silly, but ends up having her child kidnapped. Regardless of her martial skill, she is no god among men. No money, friends, connections, and even her family had seemingly forsaken her. Regardless she does everything she can to save her child, even if doing so is pretty suicidal. Even when she wins a fight its always by the skin of her teeth, just enough to have made it out alive. Veronica Ngo shines in the roll and a good example for Hollywood to follow. I know they won't but yah know...
I have to agree,Furie is an awesome movie. What makes the movie so great is there's no fancy moves or over the top wire stunts. Just a mom trying to get her child back from the people who took her,by any means necessary.
Excellent point!!
Your orchestration of bubble tea blew my mind, it was my jam for literal months, If your movie suggestions are even a fraction as good I'm hyped to check it out.
That's a really good movie. At first I watched it because let's support Vietnamese film a little(I'm Vietnamese) not expecting much as film in Vietnam kinda suck most of the time. Never expected Furie (Hai Phuong) to be that good of a movie though.
thx for the tip, just finnished watching it, and all i can say is that i was entertained, what a gem of a movie...one to rewatch.
I rewatched Aliens today and it boggles my mind that 40 years ago they knew how to make great female characters like Ripley, Newt and Vasquez. All in one movie! They all grow and are inspiring to people of any gender.
Aliens is a great example of a proper strong female character, never occurred to me she was out of place or if she was placed there due to pandering or quotas, whatever, now every "strong" woman in a movie is completely out of place, unrealistic jerk acting like an asshole, pretending to be a dude, except it's just an awkward shit show across all movies and shows
@@efreitorhabibulin238 Thats because back then they focused on actually writing good plots lol. 80s and 90s were golden for films, shows and games. At some point the world turned insane
That’s because they wrote Ripley as a man lol
A brilliant movie.
@@efreitorhabibulin238 There's Sara Connor to, for modern movies I like Furiosa from the modern Mad Max to. Let's hope they don't fuck it up on her movie.
I’ve always wondered what would happen if you told a group of writers to write an action movie but didn’t tell them the protagonists were women until after it was written
you'd get alien. They were planning for the mc to be a guy but when they saw the try out they just said hey she's the lead now when it came to ridley.
@@otbaht thats bc ridley is more of a monster than the aliens in that role
@@otbaht its not a action movie...
@@otbaht ...or you get "Salt", which allegedly was originally supposed to be a Tom Cruise vehicle, but being so similar to "Mission: Impossible" was rejected and taken up by Angelina Jolie instead.
@Marina Levine wow, normally you drop a "wake up" over some profound piece of information or an important subject. But, sure, random comment about movies, that works too.
"I'm here to entertain you." Tom Cruise, There's nothing wrong with diversity, but they always make "the message". More important than a great script. The Underworld films with Kate Beckinsale, Are a good example a film with a female lead. Without the aforementioned forced messaging.
The pushing of "the message" has made me more critical of movies or other media with female leads. Because there's always some nonsensical ideology they force in there, while almost always putting men down or taking over well-established male roles or both
Which is precisely why people cry about "forced diversity". I don't think most people really care about who is in a movie, but when the entire point is "Women good" and there's no real substance it gets annoying to some.
Exactly. "The message" will come naturally if you have a good story. Ridley Scott's Alien had Ellen Ripley, but its so-called "message" goes beyond surface-level "women powah" even though it was written to be a haunted house movie. lol
Hell, throw in Cynthia Rothrock in the 80's.. she had a whole line up of films with her as the selling point.
I love how "the message" has become a thing.
Good Old Drinker.
>Movie flops
>Movie makers blame the people
>Calls the people sexist or bigot or anything to make them the victims
>Repeat
It didn’t even faze me that this happened
And either the marketing sucks, making bad trailers with shit covers from highly recognizable tracks which will mostly be worse than the original, or there will be no marketing at all and the only news about the film will come by you when it already flopped.
@@laurocoman Word of mouth is the best marketing. Every1 told me Squid Game. Matrix 1. Pulp Fiction. 300. GOT was outstounding.
A naff movie wont get any traction from anywhere so its plummets.
@@armondtanz Well besides Squid Game, all of those films and TV series were actually awesome. That's the difference.
@@TheStraightestWhitest squid game not awesome??? Reminded me of kubrick. The use of escher influence. The soundtrack. The jazz music mixed with ultra violence.... the twists, the betrayal, the climax...
Squid game was BEYOND awesome and i dont even watch netflix or any commercial tv.
You didnt watch it with english voice over did you (face palms)
There is a huge difference between being cocky and being a jerk. Whenever there's a fight scene to show how good the female character is, in a CIA training facility or whatever, she always beats up her (male) opponent. I've been into martial arts most of my life - that doesn't happen. Only a complete jerk would beat up a training partner. They portray some women as assholes and still want us to like them.
yo, this 100%.
Every time I've been involved at martial arts or tried it (I prefer the gym) no one, even the teachers, beat their partner.
I remember that once a guy got hit in the head. Everyone stopped, turned around, and went to help.
Well, not to mention that a woman couldn't ''beat up'' a trained man even if she wanted to! In this movie, the woman appears to weigh maybe 125, and her training partner she beats the crap out of weighs at least 190. LOL....ain't gonna happen!
Go and watch the fight between Gina Carano and Michael Fassbender in Haywire.
You can see her pulling her kicks to not hurt him.
I genuinely think if that fight was real, she would have beaten the snot out him. Only female/male fight scene I've ever thought that about.
@@disposabull She is trained fighter, Fass is not. We are talking about equal skill. Where weight is going to be everything, that's why we have weight categories
@@georgiyyamov5827 Are we reading the same comment thread? Nobody was talking about equal skill or weight classes.
We were talking about men vs women fights.
So I stand by my comment. 99% of Hollywood fights are a 90lb supermodel flailing around hopelessly while a 300lb steroid monster gets knocked out, then there is the hair flick, pose and bitch-face pout.
The Haywire fight is the only fight I've seen where I believe the female actress would destroy the male actor if you put the two of them in a cage.
Yes that is because Carano is a trained from birth fight bot and Fassbender is a prettyboy who only fights wrinkles with his skincare regime.
“You know, Amy, anytime someone calls attention to the breaking of gender roles, it ultimately undermines the concept of gender equality by implying that this is an exception and not the status quo.”
-Knuckles the Echidna
That scene is spectacular🤣🙌🙌🙌
That whole scene was so outta left field but goddamn was it absolutely amazing.
Boom Knuckles: Smarter than way too many writers and executives on the matter. Or in general.
@@FezFindie 💀
The soft bigotry of low expectations.
By trying to fight imaginary sexism from movie watcher's, they created real sexism in movie watcher's.
It wasn't until recently that I started seeing female led movies and thinking "Well that's gonna be shit."
Right, OP? I see "female led" movie in the headline and I immediately classify it as shit and that's just because I already know it's gonna be shit. I don't need to step in shit to know it's shit. I use knowledge and previous experience.
Hollywoke, in their fervor to pander, created a problem that didn't exist before (seeing "female led" and knowing it'll be rank garbage).
Fr, the only movies that have been coming out recently with a female lead that have a chance to be good are superhero movies. And even then they're usually not the best, but they're tolerable at least
That's the whole point, they want to sow division between people, divide and conquer.
White vs black
Jew vs Muslim
Men vs women
East vs West
@@CT-1118 what's funny is when something that is actually decent comes out, they attack it. I still remember all the nonsense shit dogpile they did to Alita: Battle Angel.
@@nunyabiznes33 I actually haven't watched that yet, what happened?
I always like to point out Sarah Connor in T2. She's seriously messed up due to the trauma she experienced in the first movie and her knowledge of what's coming. She comes close to murdering a man in front of his children to prevent it.
She's masculinized, though
@@thirstypilgrim97 Her transformation from ordinary woman to stone cold killing machine is explained by the first movie. It's a fully believable character arc with real world consequences ie her being in that mental institution and having her kid taken away and needing to break out and recover him. And she's never without feeling, unlike some of these "strong female characters" who come off like psychopaths who just like killing. She muses that the Terminator would be a pretty good father.
@@thirstypilgrim97 hardly. She was a woman who had her complete world turned upside down and after being helpless in the first movie spent the next 10 or so years training for the end of the world to keep her son alive. Nothing she did was masculine lol
@@thirstypilgrim97 are you saying that because she’s not the typical female character we see too often that Filmento keeps calling out?
@@thirstypilgrim97 no she's not she has a whole monologue about a mother creating life
Hollywood: "look at us we're not sexist were woke look look a women led action movie!"
Us: "So why do you think it'll sell?"
Hollywood: "hahaha women have tits"
Tbf, that's a valid selling point, celebrities in general help to sell films by being hot. Nothing wrong with a bit of titillation, just so long as it goes hand in hand with a decent plot.
@@AeneasGemini
"I watch it for the plot."
The "plot": *insert pic of Chris Hemsworth here*
Now that was funny
-Patrick star.
Thats the Problem with Hollywood
They are extremely incompetent.
Alien and Aliens aka Sigourney Weaver?
Hollywood and Idiots: "Men just don't want strong female characters!"
Me, watching Alien and Aliens: "I'm sorry, what?"
"have they ever been mistaken by a man? "
"no, have you? "
As I sit here waiting for Horizon Forbidden West to come to PC......
@@trla6505 I think the phrase is ..
"Hey Vasquez, have you ever been mistaken for a man?'
@@Knightyme likely
Don’t forget Terminator, Sarah Conner is another strong female character who is believable, just like Ellen Ripley. Contrast to Captain Marvel and Rey from Star Wars who are just two giant boring Mary Sues.
I think the terms “female hero” “male hero” “black hero” “white hero” etc, instantly makes people assume the writers couldn’t let their writing prove a person is a hero. They think they have to tell people “watch our film because we put a pretty lady as the lead instead of a nasty sticky boy” like a child would talk about a club they made with the rule of no boys or no girls.
People who are fans of heroics know there is no qualifier for being a hero beside the definition of a hero. You aren’t a hero for being born a certain way.
when someone says “look at my female hero” it’s obvious they don’t know what makes a hero, so how could they write a good hero story?
Ripley in alien is a good example of a great female action hero.
@@brooksroth345 To correct you, "Ripley from Alien is a perfect example of an amazing action hero". As, like OP said, you are minimizing the character down to their sex by separating her character into "female action hero".
@@brooksroth345 Funny because she's not doing "action hero" sht until Aliens. In the first movie all she does is run from the alien.
@@noneya3635 What's your point?
@@noneya3635 She manages to avoid it via her smarts which is also a strength hence why Ripley was a strong hero since movie one.
One of my favorite examples of a woman who is able to take on men twice her size but in a more realistic manner is Faith from Mirror's Edge. The principle with Faith according to the devs is that Faith uses her body as a projectile. She hits like a train because she uses her momentum to knock down her enemies, either that or she avoids the fight completely. It's a really clever principle that I like to think of when I am thinking about how Hollywood can solve this female led action movie problem.
And they don't even need to tell you this directly, just playing the game the mechanics play into that sense, if you are in the flow and hit someone they are out. but if you stop moving and try to take them out you are going to either come away having barely survived or you're gonna die.
You could also make it substantially more realistic by having the woman use weapons that shift the fight to a matter of skill rather than strength, rather than insisting on taking down every man in hand-to-hand combat. You'd have to pull some miraculous bullshit to take down someone twice your size with bare fists (even if you are both the same sex), but defeating a much stronger opponent using skill with a blade or simply a gun is far more feasible.
Yeah they just needed to make Faith more interesting. Also she was really unlikeable in Catalyst. She was rude to her handler.
@@sulphuric_glue4468 taser gauntlets would take down anyone xD
@@sulphuric_glue4468 Mulan(1998).
“When making an action movie, don’t think of your characters as female, or male-just think of them as people” Amazing advice. I really wish most directors thought like this.
I personally think that it matters a little bit, because men and women react differently in certain situations, like if you’re making a movie about a single father the character’s actions “should” be slightly different from one about a single mother. But that character should be at least “okay” if you swap the character from a man to a woman.
Well, that's obviously retarded. Women are smaller, weaker, more emotional and think differently. They _are not the same_ as men.
And this is a good thing, for movies and real life. Consider: A woman is an action character. A field operative for an alphabet organization, and she kicks ass.
Alright, we know women have thinner skin, less dense muscles, less dense bones, are usually shorter, are slower, have less stamina, and are physically weaker by a huge margin. Most women want children and don't care about fighting, and the odds of those two both being untrue for a particular woman are particularly low. Women won't even do construction, but we're expected to believe she's on the front lines in a world-class organization that fights crime?
O.K., so now you have your work cut out for you: How do you turn this woman into a believable or even semi-believable action hero?
Answer that and you've created an interesting character indeed.
Honestly, the thing that threw me off about this movie wasn't the whole "wahmen hero" thing, it was the fact that a US agent and a Chinese agent were working together to get a weapon of mass destruction. I guess Hollywood is so obsessed with pandering that they completely ignore logic & actual politics.
I honestly can't stand the Chinese pandering and it doesn't even make sense because these movies keep flopping in China
@@override367 The thing is this "propaganda" is not catered for the chinese populace it ist for the "western" people.
@@override367 Yeah, China's not exactly known to be progressive. Dunno what strain of crack the writer was on when they pitched the film to exec's, but I sure want some.
as a work of fiction i dont see actual politics being as an important factor except when the movie itself states in that is a factor. like 'oh yeah US and China cant coexist and stuff' but thats me trying to disconnect actual politics from fiction and imagine it being an alternate earth.
@@stashallemagne4488 The thing is when you use our reality as the setting for your film, you bring with it the implications within our reality.
They could have just swapped in some names and it wouldn't be an issue, but lazy and pandering directors sometimes don't even do that.
There will always be unrealistic aspects to movies, but the more over the top it gets, the less immersive the experience.
These actresses look like they'd struggle to open a jar, but they're blocking punches from a man that can bench 300+ lbs.
A smaller opponent can win with superior tactics and technique but this isn't what they're show casing. It looks ridiculous.
David doesn't beat Goliath in a wrestling match... He beats him with wit and precision.
Very well said👏👏
David also brings a proverbial gun to a knife fight. I am a small guy and realize that if I tried to fight a 6'6" guy I would get clapped.
I know right!? not just that but even in a movie why would the IT help go out into the field? the whole point of them is to stay in the office to ya know give tech support not get shot cause they don't have the right skills for things like field work.
There’s so much creativity you can get with the limitations of size. Perhaps the character is extremely skilled in a martial art that can take down bigger, but less skilled opponents, however similarly skilled opponents could cause problems. Maybe their an expert marksman who utilizes her skills with various firearms but is not as adapted to close combat. Maybe they utilize their advanced gymnastics skills to use the environment against their opponents but struggle in open spaces. Maybe they utilize gadgetry to compensate for lack of combat prowess but without them, is pretty much average. Maybe their not even a fighter, but add value to the team by using extreme levels of charisma is non combat situations the others may struggle with.
Notice how these offer both unique strengths and weaknesses to help differentiate characters in fight scenes. But no, these movies have to be lazy and give us generic fighting skills that make no sense for the characters preforming them.
@@irondolphin9387 fast and furious came to mind, the one were they are in dubai and the the female one fight the head of chif , I like that fight
Jessica Chastain went on Twitter and bashed the Kill Bill movies for putting Uma Thurman's character through the ringer, saying that female characters shouldn't have to go through that to prove how strong they are, because "we already are." She thinks that all female characters should just be assumed to be strong just because they're women, they shouldn't have to do anything to earn it. She wants to make woke female-led action movies without even understanding why action movies exist in the first place. Pass.
She's truly out of touch. I remember a few years ago she was an intriguing actress to watch, but now it's just career killing box office bombs. Haven't seen the Scenes From a Marriage remake yet tho
Clearly forgot with Bill's group there's three other female assassins and overall four female boss fights
That made me dislike her. Action movies are my shit.
She sounds like she doesn't even know how stories work
What? So let me get this straight. Kill Bill would have been better if Uma Thurman didn't have any blood on her after a battle, or didn't punch her way out of a coffin. In what universe do some of these twitter people live in? The character wasn't trying to 'prove how strong she was'. She was fighting for survivial, redemption and revenge. It's like some of these twitter people can only see 'I want everybody to think I'm strong, because I SAID SO!!!!!' as a formula for a character, and then wonder why they aren't getting the accolades that Uma Thurman has gotten.
You know as a native german speaker its refreshing to have a german conversation in a movie where I can actually make out what they are saying. I've have seen cases where the spoken language was so bad I had to go through the subtitles, just to understand what they were trying to convey.
Yes but I still noticed how he germans it up, pronouncing words like Rammstein does to make it sound even more German to a foreign speaker - they always do that in American movies.
I feel the biggest problem with modern female heroines is that they're too fixated on being badass that we never really see anything outside of that. Tony Stark wasn't just an interesting and fun character to follow because he was Iron Man, he was fun to follow because we got to see him function in his normal, everyday life. We saw what he liked, what he disliked, what his hobbies were, what he would do during down time, he felt like actual person. With all these new female-led action movies it's like they're constantly bashing me over the head with "they're badass and awesome!" over and over without showing me more of who they are.
Yes!!!
And Tony is pretty damn average in terms of physical ability. He uses his smarts to engineer tools that he wins his fights with and any time he runs out or doesn't have access he's quite helpless, at least for as long as he gets the idea to use something else to his advantage. So Tony is a badass because of his brains and determination, not because he overpowers opposition
@@houndofculann1793 Yeah, which also makes it interesting that he was kind of the leader of the Avengers, a group that consists of two skilled assassins, a hulking brute, a literal god, and a super soldier. Compared to him he's pretty weak as just Tony, but he manages to utilize his intelligence to outsmart the opponent.
Indeed. They spend so much time making sure we know how ‘strong’ the women are that they forget to make them compelling characters.
This is why it's important to make a character compelling and interesting. Give them flaws and a character arc to get audiences invested. But also give them positive traits that we can relate to.
The problem with these movies is that they think woman = perfect badass. But the problem is, without a character we like, it just makes them a shallow stereotype.
Movies with well written female leads:
- Atomic Blonde
- Mad Max Fury Road
- Kill Bill
- Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
- Alien
- Silence of the Lambs
- Terminator 2
- Sicario
- Edge of Tomorrow
- Widows
- A League of Their Own
Turns out people just like good movies
Mad max for sure was great with writing it's female characters🙌
Angelina Jolie's wanted
Meryl streep's Sophie's choice
Anne Hathaway's devil wears Prada
Anna Kendrick's pitch perfect
"The point is, I've never before seen the hero escape the police by yeeting babies."
I burst out laughing at that line!
I think one of the best cases of “badass female character actually done right” I have seen in a long time was actually in the TV show “SWAT” on Amazon Prime. I don’t remember the name of the episode but essentially it was about this crew of extremely heavily armed and dangerous crew that was hitting diamond stores with military precision.
Now eventually it turns out that it’s an ex-military all female crew that’s behind it but with the exception of the SWAT team leader having conflicting emotions about having shot and killed a woman (he makes it clear that he knows logically that it doesn’t make sense to feel bad about it, since she was actively trying to kill them, but it’s just drilled into him since childhood that men should never hurt women no matter what) they are treated just like any other criminals on the show: As dangerous criminals that *must* be stopped before they can hurt anyone else.
Rewatched Howl's Moving Castle this morning with some friends through screen-sharing, throughout the movie I realized how powerful the MC(Sophie) is, then I kept thinking about it and I realized she is neither super-strengthed or physically trained, the "power" I felt from her character comes from the bravery and the courage she expressed again and again in the movie. She complained, fall, cried, bled, fall in love, but not once did she not feel "independent". I don't know enough about literature to explain how I felt, but I was very sure this is the kind of female protagonist I look for in any medium.
Better than how they wrote Rey in The Force Awakens. A running gag where the "male protector" kept grabbing her hand, or that she needed to be rescued.
Another good example (also from Studio Ghibli) is Chihiro from Spirited Away.
@@joshg.6315 perfect example, u could switch her out with anybody and theyd still feel like a badass
I feel like the Ghibli movies get this. Never once have I seen one and been like "ah yes that girl definitely needs a man to protect her". Like in Kikis delivery service there's our main character, Kiki, who's independent for setting out on her own, the baker lady, who's occupying a traditionally domestic role but she's very strong willed and energetic and supportive in giving our protagonist somewhere to stay, there's the artist in the woods who's arguably the most independent cause she lives entirely on her own. None of these situations are exactly the same yet all of the characters feel so powerful even if it's not on a physical strength level.
Yes! This is something people who try to make these “strong female characters” have missed. They forget that you don’t need women to be physically strong to be a strong and a good character.
There’s this thing where feminists keep trying to “compete” with men. Everything they do is in relation to men. They see men doing all the fighting and ass kicking or whatever and then say for equality or to make strong characters they must also make their female characters do the same. But it just falls short because men and women aren’t built the same.
Not that women can’t be fighters in movies but some feel it’s the ONLY way to make a strong/ independent female character, as opposed to letting them be strong in other ways.
"Real people do bad things for good reasons and do good things for bad reasons"
Dude, this is basically the golden standard for any believable spy action flick, people saw a couple of Bourne movies and thought it was all about the cool action sequences, and forget that it's all about the greyness of that world, of not knowing if your enemy is truly your enemy and your ally is truly your ally depending on the mission, the objectives, and even the politics back home on the other side of the world. You could have replaced the whole female protagonists with male protagonists, and still have had a truly lackluster movie, because in this movie the issue is not the protagonists per se, it's the plot behind them that simply sucked
But hear me out, you could make the bad guy a mustahce twirling villain with no motive other than being evil
@@Memorywholed You could and there are many examples, but a villain like that has to be entertaining and/or funny to watch, or be a good counterpart to the hero
"In China we treat people nice."
Tiananmen Square Massacre: Am I some kind of a joke to you?
Tiananmen Square what? It's a nice place where nothing bad ever happened.
Add Xinjiiang, Tibet, and Hong Kong to that aswell.
@@achi5170 Something something, Ba Sing Se
CCP: Yes
Taiwanese here, yes I can confirm that they treat us *nice*.
The crazy thing about this is that Chastain already played an awesome female main character in Zero Dark Thirty. That character was interesting and well written and very badass without showing her beating someone up or anything.
It's ironic that these agenda driven movies always try to make every male character very very evil just coz they're men but somehow always end up having the most bland and uninteresting female characters and the male characters that they go out of their way to make evil end up being more layered and actually fun to watch 😂
IKR right I was, SHIT he's brutal no way he killed em just like that...
@@gamerdweebentertainment1616 I haven't seen the movie but just the clip of him doing it in this video made me go "Whoa! That's crazy! I've not seen that before". And to be honest, that one clip was more interesting than anything else I'd previously seen about the movie. And I'm a straight man and this is a movie full of beautiful women and THAT was the most interesting thing to me.
anyone who says there's not a woke agenda is lying to you. likewise, anyone who says being woke doesn't negatively affect a project is also lying or ignorant. it's not as if we don't have enough examples.
the problem with the agenda is now they have a checklist of things that has to be done that leads to mary sues. then they hire 'feminist' writers who own a copy of 'save the cat,' and we all know how well that works out. this all stunts creativity.
Indeed, the worst thing one can do to a cause and which purely agenda-driven people refuse to get: It's to make fewer give a hoot about the cause or get annoyed by it. A bit like the South Park episode on the town flag, practically.
Remind me of Uncharted
I think the reason these films fail is simpler: the action is bad. If I'm supposed to believe a woman without superpowers is a badass her actions have to reflect that. When I see slow movements, slap punches, and just generally unimpressive fighting choreography the core reason for why I want to see an action movie is ruined. Plenty of actors (male and female) are just shitty at doing physical roles. Forcing them into that stuff makes for a bad movie. If an actor can't fight just have them use guns, knives, other objects. They should fight dirty, especially as a female that is giving up 70+ pounds on her opponent.
Holywood doesn't believe in men being stronger than women. A woman with no superpowers can give up 500 pounds and still ragdoll her male opponent like an empty basket.
this director is an excellent writer. but he gets totally lost when it comes to directing. i notice he produced deadpool 2 which was directed by the man who did atomic blonde. he should have went to him for some pointers.
I remember watching Haywire, and wholeheartedly believing that Gina Carano's character, Mallory WAS an actual badass. They accomplished that by not making her invunerable. She almost gets her ass kicked in several fights, never making it out unscathed. She was at a clear disadvantage in her fights, but won through skill and raw determination.
Another believable lady badass was Hanna... like.. how do you make a tiny little thing like Saoirse Ronan come across as an actual physical threat? You write her character well.. literally trained to kill from the moment she could hold a weapon... and have her behave in a manner where you truly accept that she is basically an emotionless killing machine experiment set loose on those who created her.
Right! like just get women who look like they are the appropriate muscle mass! Like there are no male marvel superheroes without a six pack! so why do we end up with female action stars whose thighs smaller than their knees and have biceps the size of a man's wrist???!
@@sheeeeessssss and it isn't like there aren't options for that. Jessica Biel and Kaley Cuoco come to mind as women with muscular upper bodies that can still pull off traditional Hollywood beauty standards.
How successful this was: this is literally the first time I've ever heard of this movie
Same
unsuccessful
me too lol
@@robertbabic80 they lost like 50,000,000 i think lol
Yeah never heard of this film
Although I do believe that a female empowerment movie can be good, like “Wonder Woman” or “Alita: Battle Angel”, many movies in the industry tend to use their platforms to make the media they create solely about political issues.
Woke politics. It's totally controlled to sell you a false image of the world and teach you their morality.
people will definitely be more inspired by something if that thing is good. But it seems that Hollywood just thinks that people get inspired when they tell them to be.
"Mid-Ternals", "Matrix: Regurgitations" and now "The 355". Dude, YOU DON'T MISS!!!
I would like to see an action movie where it would be considered that women are smaller and weaker than men, so they have to use something other than brute force to win. For example, surprise the opponent by acting undercover, like the medieval Geisha assassins. This could lead to an entire sub-genre of action films, but lazy filmmakers prefer to follow the old pattern and pretend that a 60-kg woman will beat Arnold Schwarzenegger in a fist fight...
You definitely want to watch True Romance. Don't let the name fool you.
@@OrphanMartian so this movie isn't about a Romance that is true
Then what the fuck is the movie about
Why? You watch men take on swarms of male attackers and beat them all without considering whether it is realistic. Just be honest.
@@JoJo-mm8sn Because when someone like Bruce Lee or Arnold fights a whole army it bends credulity but it doesn't break it. Bruce or Arnold probably could fight off two or three guys at once so doubling that number on screen doesn't break reality. Whereas these actresses couldn't take one guy in a fight so it instantly breaks reality when they're beating three of four.
Thanks to lethal weapons, small and weak fighters (man or woman) can take on much larger and stronger opponents in real life, so long as the weaker fighter is more skilled and dexterous.
This is because certain lethal weapons (specifically blades and guns) don't need much strength, and they provide so much damage that they can bypass the muscular mass resistance from the opponent.
With enough speed and precision, a woman swordfighter can evade her opponent's attacks and stab them in a vital organ.
And if she has a gun...heck, even a kid can murder someone with that. lol
The problem with these films is that the writers insist on having the female characters fight barehanded, which is a big no-no in real life.
In a barehanded encounter, size and muscle are HUGE factors to take into consideration.
This is because the body can take a lot of non-lethal damage without stopping.
Even if the woman fighter lands a clean punch on a weak spot, the larger opponent can push through the pain and keep fighting.
The best course of action in such an encounter is to RUN AWAY or at the very least use things around them as makeshift weapons.
*_tl;dr: Women can fight large men PROVIDED THEY USE LETHAL WEAPONS. Fighting barehanded is DUMB._*
As an "as a woman myself" viewer, I've been finding Hollywood has the most irritating, propaganda-filled, "women are perfect", "men are bad/dumb", "look, we have minorities!" movies of these past few years. They cater to a handful of women who think they're better than everyone else, including better than other women, and they refuse to see that *normal people* are sick of it.
Strong female characters have existed for many decades. Now they're suddenly acting as if they never existed. Even SJW female actors have recently said that it's hard for a woman to be the main character in a movie, when they themselves ARE THE MAIN CHARACTER IN THE MOVIE THEY'RE PROMOTING.
This is a slap to the faces of both men and women, regardless of background. Women aren't perfect, not good at everything, and aren't strong just because we just so happened to be born with this physical body. We don't win at everything just for being born. They're setting IMPOSSIBLE standards for young girls around the world and teaching young girls to feel ENTITLED TO THE WHOLE WORLD. It's utterly ridiculous.
Way too many movies/shows are no longer stories, they're just distorted messages.
Agreed with every single word of yours. Seriously, as a girl, John Wick inspired me more than these characters ever could. Logic exists no more in the world of vanity and narcissism.
exactly. not every female action star has to be better hacker than Mr. Robot, better gun fighter than John Wick and better agent than James Bond. We need some "flaws" in today's female action stars...
Atomic Blonde was a good movie, yet they are still doing the wrong path.
Thank you for pointing out the irony of the "no strong women" rhetoric.........while promoting a STRONG WOMAN movie!!!
😄😄I agree wholeheartedly 🙏
Also unrelated but.....are you a monsta x fan? I recognized your profile picture....that scene in the show was funny as hell... but yeah, it's just sad hollywood keeps making stuff like this. We need GOOD female action movie.....other then atomic blone....or kill bill...
:(
@@sallylee8422 Yeah, I'm a Monsta X fan. :)
Exactly. I really didn't like what they did with Scarlet Which on the tv series Wanda Vision, for example. She enslaved an entire freaking town and the residents told her she made them go through hell and one even told her she wished she rather die, but then another woman tells Wanda, "They'll never know what you sacrificed for them." She didn't sacrifice anything. Actually anything. That's the most stupid line they could've done just to make a woman seem perfect. It sounded so out of place with the entire show and it was so weird. I hope they change soon because it's getting ridiculous. :/
How to write a really good female action character:
Step 1: Write a really good action character
Step 2: Hire a really good female actor
"In China, we are friendly"
I laughed, then I stopped, remembering that these are the same folks that are literally running Muslim "re education centres". I am terrified about how much we are seeking their approval through the medium of movies.
Fantastic video as always Filmento. Is there any recommendations for movies to act as a pallet cleanser? I'm a bit worn out with reality atm.
Yes same, i had to put my phone down and look at the ground in absolute disbelief as a flood of images from the Hong Kong protests and the MANY injustices happening in China flooded my brain
China is many things
Nice it is not
It's sad, really.
Hollywood can't afford to lose that sweet social credit it seems
Wait, was that the actual caption rather than just sarcasm from the video's author?
Because as a Mandarin speaker, I have sensed considerable...... "creative" liberty having been taken.
@@reptiliannoizezz.413 Your social credit score has dropped by 50 points. Please think before you speak 🎶
This is a joke.
Bottom line: too much money is spent on the ensemble leads so not much is left for all the other important positions required to make a film. Take the writer and the director of The 355 as an example. They are Theresa Rebeck and Simon Kinberg, respectfully. Theresa is credited on seven films as a screenwriter or a story writer, and her most notable title is Catwoman from 2004. Yes, that Catwoman. Her directorial counterpart, Simon, has been credited as a producer since 2007 on numerous things, but this is his THIRD time behind the wheel. He made one episode of The Twilight Zone in 2019 (apparently that exists), and he also directed X-Men: Dark Phoenix (2019).
What should that tell you? These [s]films[/s] movies are not made to tell a story or make a point, they are an attempt by people with money to make more money. These folks use any means necessary to give themselves an edge over all the other shit that's floating around, including incorporating highly sensitive subjects like race or gender equality. Here's what I say: they are bad films, be the protagonist a male, female, a stick or an alien, and they will NEVER be good. Good is good; Bad is bad.
sauce: Wikipedia, IMDb
In their industry it apparently doesn’t matter how money is made, only that it’s *Made. At. Any. Cost.* Even if it means selling the integrity of an audience(or the integrity of anything else for that matter). They don’t seem to realize or care about the consequences of talking down to customers with zero nuance. Who are we stop them from making that mistake? (shrug) Let them. The results will speak for themselves.
Well said. i see a lot of, usually right wing reactionary types, on youtube talking about the 'left/woke ruining movie x' but how woke or left wing is it to cynically make a movie with the most superficial aproach to race or gender, not becuase you belive in those issues or care or have anything remotely new or interesting to say but 100% cynically to use it as a gimmick and to make money by manipulating and exploiting people. They know they can make something female GB and shrug off all teh valid criticism as 'sexist', they know that such a movie even if good is going to wind up the actual sexists and racists and that controversy is good for them and tehy know a lot of people will pay and defend the movie as a reaction to the backlash. I hate it. Its liek when people called Picard show woke - its not, neither is eternals> they are just really crap movies with some diversity in it but there is nothing remotely 'woke' about the plot or messages, if anything Picard is quite anti 'woke' with a lot of its plot! I just feel that teh lazy blaming of th left/wokeness lets the cyincal producers and lazy terrible writers off the hook time and time again. leik you say its all about the money. you would have thought mettoo Wenstein and Epstein etc would have put paid to the idea that the players in Hollywood care about anytghing but themsleves
No they had everything they wanted. This was their limit. The goal was to make a badass FEMALE movie. That's it. The movie sucked because they thought they can just swap women for men and then give them magical powers because they are women. No one earns it or is anything less than the best in the world.
It's always the awful script killing big movies
Yeah this movie has an amazing concept but having Kinberg writing the script and direct was really a bad idea. Should've hired a better writer than him
26 million USD sounds like a lot, but it never fails to amaze me how much money they managed to use making the film... x___x
It's ALL a scam really. "You need a filming permit for this Auction location." "The building owner will charge you $300K a day so shoot it quick!" 😑😑
As an aspiring female writer I get worried that if enough female-led movies or movies written/directed by women fail- Hollywood will back out of hiring or greenlighting movies with female writers/directors/actors etc. Which makes no sense right?
Look at Arcane for instance- a series with wonderful representation, writing, directing, and voice acting! It's a great series because it has great writing. The problem with- well, any movie- but with movies as of late is the writing. But I'm afraid that Hollywood will look at female led movies like this one and forget to see the bigger picture with a lot of movies in general.
If it happens, write well enough that they can't refuse to return to objective appreciation for a good script.
@@TheHadMatters hell yeah XD
" I get worried that if enough female-led movies or movies written/directed by women fail- Hollywood will back out of hiring or greenlighting movies with female writers/directors/actors etc. "
Don't worry about that. Hollywood could fail a million times and still not care. It's all about getting their "message" across. And right now Feminism and LGBT representation are Hollywood's top concerns. If I were a writer, I'd get those female lead films out there before the bubble bursts 5-10 years from now.
I dont understand, why care about representation at all? You think that in a indian or chinese movie they think hey lets put in some white people? no they dont and they shouldnt. Basically representation means less white ppl, its racism and hate towards whites. Also it doesnt make anything better because its the acting, writing and directing that is most important. Oh i thought arcane was pretty good and i really felt something for most characters, especially the sisters.
@@acealpine6806 there is no 'getting out female led movies before the bubble bursts' as if female led movies are meant to be worn out- I mean you can't just stop having female leads the writing just needs to be better and yes definitely stop ONLY promoting 'the message' (PS- seems were a fan of critical drinker cuz he's the only person i know who says 'the message' XD)
It seems to be generally taboo to portray flawed women in mainstream fiction. A daring writer may try, but a script goes through too many filters before actually becoming a movie. Producers, executives, financiers, director, main cast... They all want to play it safe to secure their investment, but playing safe is not always a good idea in the creative industries.
While the point stands, even playing it safe and keeping the characters themselves flawless they could have used a more daring screenplay at times, as the host suggests. I mean, having the antagonist shoot their families is pretty wild, I'd say that breaks taboo, or at least convention.
The film industry is broken up into two different sections: the creators who tell the story, and the business people who pay for it. One wants to tell a story, the other wants to make money. It’s a very polarizing partnership.
The problem with the movie is it puts agenda over making sure the movie is good.
the problem with your perception of the movie is the agenda you're putting over making sure that "their" agenda is to blame - and nothing else.
@@CinceTheDay why so butthurt? these movies are a flop anyways
@@ishu.7 there is no "these movies"
exactly.
honestly to this day, as an avid movie fan, sarah connor and ellen ripley are not just my favorite female protagonists, but protagonists in general of all time.
what i really enjoyed about these characters other than a brilliant movie and acting, is that the agenda was about making a good movie and that was it.
i think i read somewhere that cameron wrote the last name of ripley's character first. and then he decided whatever first name fit well with the "ripley" last name would decide the gender of the character.
if this anecdote is true, what a great example of how to build a character. doesnt matter if its a girl or a guy. write a good character and gender won't matter.
Message over plot. Women are all good. Men are all bad. Its all predictable and cookie-cutter cinema.
3:55 "one gigabyte of ram should grant me access to these top secret files" HAHAHA!
Your call-out for Hollywood's constant pandering to China made me feel satisfied. I've been waiting for someone to bring this up. Well done, sir.
Simply having Chinese actors is not "pandering".
You lot are taking this "pandering" too far, almost near racism territory.
I see it too with how when there so happens to be 1 or 2 non Caucasian actors, the movie is suddenly trying to be "woke" and "diverse".
@@angrysocialjusticewarrior lmao, wtf are you talking about. IU have never seen someone claim Chinese pandering because they have people in it that are Chinese. ITS ALWAYS because there is some BS message or statement that its trying to make about china. Seriously how inept are you at reading that you missed this point?
Southpark likes to roast hollywood for Chinese market pandering
Isn't Fan Bing Bing reviled in China for tax evasion right now? They didn't even do that right.
@@angrysocialjusticewarrior Your handle is appropriate, you deliberately miss the point and malign your enemy.
Watching 120 lb Jessica Chastain toss around 200 lb trained dudes makes it impossible for me to suspend disbelief. My niece told me that the Army trained her and female recruits how to hurt a man and then run away. They weren't encouraged or trained to go toe-to-toe with a male combatant.
Same with my girl in self defense class.
And the contrarian would point out here, how they know well trained women who could take down a normal guy...and that's the thing. In these action movies, one would think the henchmen and body guards...are well trained. So then, would the argument be that a well-trained female martial artist has a high success rate against a well-trained male martial artist? I think not.
Unless the girl is like 6'5" and can bench over 250 lbs and is an expert in martial arts, which I kinda wanna see in real life.
@@somebody700 and yet, if a man jumps from the top of a building with a car, crashes thru a wall, hits the floor AND DOESN'T DIE it's just another F&F movie that sells a truckload of tickets.
And, by the way, TWO muscle cars can drag A FUCKING BANK VAULT like an empty beer can. Very realistic!
@@somebody700 then why do this movie have to be realistic?
"In china we treat people nice", has to be one of the most unintentionally funny lines I've ever heard.
I thought so too.
15:38 I think the argument that villains are poorly written because they’re ‘just bad’ is a little bad itself. Not every villain has to be, or should be, a compelling moral character with a ‘I could see it from his point of view’ motive. Some people are truly just greedy psychopaths. I think people who complain about villains who are just greedy psychopaths are the same people who blindly eat up the polished image many billionaires have made for themselves, and they struggle to believe that mustache twirling villains exist. They do, and their are many famous ones who have a lot of power our own world. Bezos doesn’t have his workers piss in bottle for some compelling moral character reason; he just wants money.
There is also an elephant in the room that nobody ever mentions. The essential question is, whose fantasy is this? You have to write for your audience. James Bond films were successful originally because they offered a fantasy of a dangerous and glamorous life to men who lived boring and repressed lives. John Wick offers a kewl power fantasy for contemporary men. But who is the audience for the 355? Women failed to go and see the 355. Men didn't go because most don't fantasize about kicking ass as a woman. Men saw Aliens in droves because it wasn't about Ripley being a woman. It was about her struggle to survive. You could gender-swap that film and it would STILL be good. So women see Sex and The City movies in droves and men see John Wick movies in droves. These franchises are hardly original stuff but they deliver the well-packaged fantasy that the audiences enjoy and find satisfying. The 355 tries to lure in women with exotic locations and designer gowns but where is the romance? Where is the fun? Men identify with struggle against adversity, taking the knocks and getting up again, the hero's journey and, with John Wick, his kewl contemporary lifestyle. The 355 contains none of that. So who was the audience that the 355 was written for? Who identifies with these characters? Apparently the writers believe that their are legions of women who fantasize about being effortlessly good at everything and wearing a tonne of makeup while kicking the crap out of a bunch of guys and not breaking a fingernail. That doesn't seem to be the case. I actually think that some of these writers need therapy. They also need to understand the basic fact that Sex and The City would utterly bomb if it was gender swapped. You have to write for a real audience out there rather than some imaginary audience that you'd like to exist.
That's a good point, even if you're 'writing for yourself' (IE you're creating the kind of story that you'd like to see or read) you still have to remember that other people are going to see this, so you still have to at least make it entertaining
Yeah but this would imply that men and women are different which is a taboo belief in the west
Foi nailed it
Just what I was thinking.. why do they make these movies, nobody's interested.
I think they know there is not an audience for this, it's a hollywood perspective they are trying to push through. I think they're hoping to just change the culture by simply only offering this kind of bs.
Practically every franchise has been femalized and diversified.. and they all ruined their success and appreciation from the public, especially men and as with sports, mostly men go to the movies.
I don't even think the gender of the characters is that big of an issue. The bad character development could be overseen if instead the actual action scenes were any good.
On one hand we have bangers like Kill Bill, Salt, Underworld and the other hand we have this, Charlie's Angels and Ocean's 12. It doesn't take a genius to see why one worked and the other didn't. It seems they never learn
Its Ocean's 8, but we understand your point
Sarah Connor from Terminator 1, 2 and The Chronicles of Sarah Connor is awasome too!
Yeah, on one hand you have movies with ONE female lead surrounded by countless men, and on the other hand you have movies with MULTIPLE females leads and hardly any men. Yeah.
@@brutusb8004 how about actually having a good script, director and cast. Ever thought about that? 👀
@@brutusb8004 it's not a problem. Look anime. There is countless of anime (mainly magical girls anime) that have several female characters and barely a single men. Look Madoka Magica. It's excellent. But the thing is masterfully writen. The characters are well-done.
I haven't even heard of this movie until Filmento made this video.
Likewise, it was only released a month ago, but is absolutely forgettable!
@@vashsunglasses I saw it on the side of a Metro bus and that was it
Honestly one of the biggest things that bugs me about this is the way the main characters are holding their guns. They look like they've never seen someone fire a single shot before. Best example is the scene at 2:32, where she's holding the gun directly in front of her with both elbows flared out towards the sides. You shoot the gun holding it like that, it's not staying in your hands, and it's going to strike you in the chest. The generic grunts look more like they're actually shooting guns than the main heroes. I get that hollywood thinks that guns have no kick or recoil to them, but they should at least make sure they're being held and shot in ways that make sense.
The last good ''strong woman'' that I've seen in a movie probably was Furiosa in Mad Max Fury Road, it's the first that comes to mind. And guess what? The movie doesn't care that she is a woman.
The best moment is when Max gives her the sniper rifle, because of one gesture he understands that she’s better than him. No word, just a spontaneous interaction beetween the two caracters. This makes furiosa instantaneously look badass and show a very strong trust beetween her and Max. In a poorly written movie she would have bragged that she’s a better shooter just because she’s a woman, or Max would have been humiliated or another non sense. Very satisfying scene.
The message was there but very subtle. Older white men controlling younger men while hoarding the young virgins. Not too long after that Hollywood released The Handmqidsbtale. This is a round the same time as #MeToo and high profile scandals. Nothing happens by accident.
@@rolletroll2338 The sniper rifle scene also elevated her without bringing down Max. He handed her the rifle because she was a better shooter, and this was just treated as "a thing", there was no insult to Max for not being able to do that one thing, and the reason for this is largely that everyone had their strengths and weaknesses. She doesn't even gloat about it, as far as I recall, Max is never mocked or immasculinated for having to hand over the rifle.
Success isn't a zero-sum game. Not only does Hollywood insist on making it one with these movies, they draw the sum line through things like gender or race, then cry bigotry when people point out what they are doing.
I think the last good "strong woman" in television was Strong Woman from South Park.
Haa, its interesting cause I see a lot of comments mentioning Alien as Riply being the ultimate beacon of the script literally didnt care shes a woman so much that she was planned to be a dude the whole time. For me Mad Max Fury Road did the exact opposite and its a beacon of doing female characters right without ignoring they are women. Its also interesting to note that it was I think the only movie that had a prominent feminist consultant on set (I remember there were men calling for boycots of the movie because evil feminist propaganda lol).
But Fury Road says a lot about women and motherhood. Furiosas story is inherently linked to her being a woman, from her being stolen to serve as breeding stock as one of the wives, to being discarded as trash due to her inability to produce children. Due to this and her strenght she is able to raise through the ranks in the war boys. And what does she do with that? Uses it to escape and take the other wives with her. To try and take them to her place of origin, the Green Place, where she lived in the matriarchal tribe of The Many Mothers. Joe only sees women as effectively cattle to be used for milk and motherhood as merely giving birth to fill his ranks, Furiosa grew up knowing she is capable of so much more.
Its part of the reason why I think Fury Road is so good. The movie deals with a lot of very female themes, but it doesnt pander, its still a great action movie and it shows that even when discussing very female experiences it absolutely can be done in a way that everyone can relate to them, instead of the classic cop out of "men cant relate to female characters struggles". And I think the fact that so many people dont even notice the very womens experience lead themes they still relate to the story and the characters is the biggest proof of that.
It’s a real shame how Hollywood refuses to learn their lesson over and over
I think you're viewing hollywood too much as one identity. They aren't the Borg from Star Trek.
There are a bunch of decent to excellent action movies with strong female leads over the years. There are also a bunch of really bad movies from misguided movie makers. One comment elsewhere from under this video kind of nails it when they say that a lot of movies confuse "strong female lead" with "invincible female lead".
Let's take a "middle of the road" movie like "Salt" with Angelina Jolie. Despite Jolie not being the most physically believable actor, it ends up being believable because the director tried to make a movie and not a point.
I'm like super left on the political spectrum but that doesn't mean that I don't think the all female ghostbusters formula of "man stupid, woman awesome" isn't utter cringe to me. But just like actually good action movies IN GENERAL are a bit of a rarity and there are a ton of shit action movies with male leads there are also bad action movies with female leads in them. But most movies with female leads that are actually good, are.... often forgotten about when talking about action movies with female leads. People are always looking at the negative examples because those are so grating.
@@paulszki yeah you might be on to something
Because they keep hiring the same kind of people from the same sources (Californian colleges).
@@paulszki “super left on the political spectrum”. What does that even mean today? As far as I’m concerned, liberalism murdered the left and now wears its skin as a custom. I’ve never in my life met a leftist that wasn’t a fiendish neo-liberal, who parroted the official ideology of the American Empire.
@@grandmastersreaction1267 I'm from Germany if that helps in your classification of my person. So if you're from the U.S. that might explain why you've never met me.
I'm pretty far away from neo-liberalism and favor a well regulated free market economy. So neither communism (with central planned economy etc.) not unfettered capitalism that leads to whatever the U.S. is experiencing now: A pseudo democracy where people are angry at one party or another but even if democrats in the U.S. are, in my mind, the lesser evil, they're still in the pockets of american companies and their lobbies.
Don't get me wrong, Europe (or specifically Germany) isn't some paradise. But our stricter labor laws (no bullshit "at will employment"), actually mandatory minimum 24 vacation days for a 40 hour work week (that don't include sick days because that is ridiculous) and other social policies (mandatory healthcare insurance for every employee) and other safety nets in addition to cheap education.... just look way more humane than whatever the U.S. has going on. And despite all these "freebies" out society is not a bunch of slackers, if the clichés about German work ethic are to be believed.
So yeah, I'm not a neo-liberal fiend that calls himself left. I think I'm just ... left.
"twice her body weight" and literally holding back / pulling his punches. Yeah - she is really fantastic - if we would see this happening to a male hero we would react the same way... we would call it: 'FAKE!' and walk away from it. Also: they never seem to receive a hit or punch... all the man they are fighting seem to be utterly incompetent....
It’s because it’s kind of a no no to show violence against women in media; usually it only ever happens in action movies to establish a single super bad guy or in character dramas to establish an abusive relationship. It’s also why bad guys are hardly ever women outside of superhero movies; it’s ok for a woman to walk into a room and gun down scores of bad men but it would be uncomfortable to watch a guy protagonist walk into a room and do the same for many women. I don’t know whether that’s a good or bad thing, but it’s a relevant cultural attitude
@@willmungas8964 Misandry in its finest form
@@lukewalken1316 lmao relax
@@willmungas8964 It's interesting to me how women in films/shows are allowed to batter men just for annoying them, it's always made me wonder if that's the reason that the numbers of violent women in relationships is just going up and up.
@@alexanderl.6207 Dude, consider for a second that you repeatedly see women smacking around guys on TV for even the most meager provocation and it's often portrayed as good (or funny), yet the reverse would never happen.
As someone who's been in an abusive relationship with a violent woman I can't help but feel that ladies learn from these things and start to think it's okay. It's a horrific and destructive thing, no matter the gender of those involved, and we should never encourage it among women as media does.
Fight scenes with small 120 lb Women is just such a joke it's insulting to anyone that has ever boxed or done karate/Judo
The thing about these "girl power" movies is, even though Hollywood won't admit it, they've been done before, many MANY times and they've been done much better too. So they keep making the same girl power action movie over and over again thinking they're the first to do it each fucking time, and the audience isn't interested.
Anyone remember the Charlie's angels movies from the early 2000s? Yeah they were girl power movies, they were also charming and fun and the angels were likable, they weren't stone cold bitches yet they could turn badass at the drop of a hat. Those movies did well because they put the characters and story before the message, the message was blended in with the rest and was conveyed effectively. Don't underestimate women. And guess what? Nobody angry over it, no controversy, people were down for Charlie's angels
Charlie's angels was pretty good. Saw it again recently. It does not take itself too seriously.
Yeah it seems like those 2 Charlie’s Angels movies from the 2000’s have held up pretty well. Need to see them again.
Charlie's Angel's movie? Nope 👎
The 355 -> sexy and strong by woman's standards (preachy and an overcorrection)
Charlie's Angel's -> sexy and strong by men's standards (outdated male gaze pandering)
Both SUCK. Gotta land in the middle. The middle is Kill Bill and Aliens.
Raging Phoenix is a FANTASTIC action film example. Watch a fight scene from TH-cam and tell me I'm wrong 😁
@@Delroy61 holy shit you're right , also I fucking love kill bill gives me the same vibes as John wick movies
@@Delroy61 Chocolat (the movie where the lead in Raging Phoenix first made her name; she also hurt herself filming that balcony scene, I believe)?
"A basic shootout with female actors is still a basic shootout."
Enter Michael Bay: after three movies, even fight scenes and shootouts with robots become "generic shootouts".
I mean, it's true....the first transformer movie was cool and all, but if the only thing you can offer is cool cars morphing into cool robots to beat the crap out of each other, then in the end it's just a brawl with shiny CGI
which is not the screenwriters' fault per se, there's only so much you can pull for inspiration out of a 1980s cartoon meant to make more commercially palatable some plastic toys
Jessica Chastain's combat training scene backfired (also her scenes in Paris). Instead of setting up a physically strong character, it exhibited how insufficient Chastain was for a physically demanding role.
A competent director would have adapted that into the plot giving her character development as an intellectually superlative agent having to overcome her lacking physique in the absence of her beefcake partner.
But women can't have meaningful flaws and a heteronormative couple, even a platonic one, being complementary is the biggest sin in the cult of wokeism.
The problem I see with most female action movies is they try to hard to make them act like male characters. Most of the best female action movies I've seen are the ones where the character is allowed to be herself, a woman. Which is usually with brains not muscle. This works because the female characters uses society's prejudices and stereotypes against their opponents. Which put her in an advantage because the enemy's downfall is their ignorance.
Invasion of the Body Snatchers comes to mind
That takes too long! Movie doesnt have time for her to manipulate victim, play victim, complain, cuddle, go to shopping, drink coffe with friends, or beauty parlours, or wait for pms to pass, get married, divorce etc..
Thats why they just try to use female with men characteristics.
Well, I guess we all know what you think about women.😳😳
@@havedrill1 i think they are big children
@@havedrill1 look dawg we just gotta be honest here there is no way the top 100 women wrestlers can beat the top 1000 men wrestlers. same goes with sports. there's a reason why there is women's sports and men's, and there is a reason why women got mad when biological men starting competing in their sports and would come out on top.
I find one of the biggest issues is that by constantly emphasising how badass these women are you make them completely devoid of vulnerability and by extension relatability. Matt Damon is able to sell you how scared and apprehensive he is during an action scene, making you feel as if there are actual stakes (despite knowing he's a protagonist and therefore indestructible); the ladies are here to demonstrate they can kick ass and be tough and confident, they know they are all-powerful and indestructible which ultimately makes them one-note and uninteresting.
We've already seen a similar thing with Harrison Ford's Indy and Angelina Jolie's Tomb Raider. Indiana Jones could dish it but he could also take it, and when someone imagines an action scene with Indy in it odds are his face will be worried or scared or emoting in any similar appropriate way. Lara on the other hand just confidently smirks and acts badass... making her unrelatable and dreadfully dull to watch.
In Indiana Jones' case we see him get beat to hell and back in most movies. By the end of the film Indy looks like he's had enough. People like seeing this attention to detail.
And he hates SNAKES!
In that case you could at least argue that Tomb Raider is a video game adaptation, while Indiana Jones is not. And I think they did a good job at making Lara feel like the same character as in the games. I also think that at least in her first movie (I don't really remember the second one and I haven't seen the newest one yet) she does struggle at least a little here and there and even though she is mostly just badass, her enemies still have the upper hand simply by outnumbering her and her allies by far. Not to mention she bounces off the other characters with her over the top personality and has some romance going on in both movies. Plus she even has some sort of character arc in the first movie even if it's not really a good one.
As a kid, my first hero wasn't Batman or Superman. It was Ellen Ripley. She taught me to do what no other hero did. Showed me how to act when faced with the unknown, and what to do when circumstances terrify and paralyze with fear. You stand up, stay brave, and push forward. She did all that without having to say a single word about it.
Mine was Lara Croft Tomb Raiden
Laurie Strode for me.
Ellen Ripley and John McClain were my childhood inspirations as well..
How about Zira in the first planet of the apes? Strong, confident woman (Well, Ape woman) who did just as well as her male coworkers.
@@kamxam1384
She is a good example as well.
Having your character be a "brave wahmen who don't need no man" ain't enough anymore.
You need to have actual characters and good characterization.
Can't help to feel that writers and directors are hiding behind female characters so that when their movie sucks or flops, they can throw accusations at the audience.
Also if you want badass female characters you really have to earn it. Anyone who's ever gotten into a fight knows that having a few inches of height alone on someone is a massive advantage. Yet you have these scrawny ladies take on 3-5 different guys that are almost a foot taller than them, make sure that they at least go some muscle tone and you REALLY sell the choreography. For some reason the choreography is almost always worse than in male-lead action movies.
In short, if you have a female-lead action movie you should be putting in twice the effort, not barely half the effort.
"In short, if you have a female-lead action movie you should be putting in twice the effort, not barely half the effort."
So, you agree. Making a movie with female leads is twice as difficult?
Edit; Grammar
The choreography sucks because of physics. Any man of average size that has had a woman of average size try to push them or try to punch them in the arm or chest, lets say... will know what Im talking about.
Im sorry... Jessica Chastain won't move a 200 lbs muscled guy an inch if he doesnt want to move and were expected to believe she can flip him around, knock him out, choke hold him, etc. So what ends up hapening is the guy has to carry the coreography and do all the effort or shes going to end up with a broken arm. That translates to the screen and it is cringeworthy. No ammount of choreography, unless it is masterfully done, will be able to overcome the disbelief.
@@davidjordannavarro5757 so the way to fix that is to have women using actual fighting styles that give them an advantage. I imagine there are plenty of martial arts that cater to shorter or smaller people. It's the fault of the whole production to not make the fights more realistic.
@@ashwindsouza606 Learn english.
@@ashwindsouza606 twice as difficult if you want to sell that a 100 lb woman will take down a 200 lb trained man, or several men 1on1 or carousel style without ANY weapons. Sure, there is an agreement, and that is “girl power” and a fierce Reeeeeeeeee! aren’t enough.
Love how they are "empowering women", but only if you are tall, skinny and look great with tonnes of makeup! Would love to see the hold their own against Holly Holm or Valentina Shevchenko!
How to write a female action movie
Don’t focus on the “female”
Too bad these writers are too focused on trying to put men down they couldn't be fucked enough to write a good script.
Instead focus on the "action".
"What Happened to Monday" was a great example of female sci-fi action done well. The characters were all twins, yet each was unique and vulnerable in different ways. The motive ended up being an entirely female one as well, that as a mother is heartbreaking, yet it was never forced. I wish this movie was talked about more.
That sounds familiar? Is it Sci fi?
@@tearfrost984 Yeah, it's on Netflix, Sci-fi action thriller. It had a great plot and was female centric in a way that was natural, just great story telling.
Netflix movie "Kate" is how you do a female action character... Betty gilpin in the 2020 movie "the hunt" is just as good.
@@rossegan7244 While the plot of Kate wasn’t the best and it reminded be of other films like John Wick, the casting choice first of all made for a believable “badass” and the choreography was pretty good from what I remember.
The character also struggled and got beat up as you’d expect when fighting a bunch of men, decent action movie.
That movie was awesome. Was he a great father? Or was she just a bad daughters?
Has anyone ever seen the movie Hannah? That had a female lead and it was a very good movie. She didn’t need to remind everyone that she was strong but she showed it time and time again throughout the movie. I cared for the character and wanted her to win, instead of making fun of us guys for being stupid and gross, she focused on staying alive and being an entertaining character
Excellent film that doesn't give anyone an advantage for just being a woman. She earned everything she achieved and the audience can appreciate that.
Hannah and Salt are some of my favorite action movies. 10/10 stories
The Amazon show version is really good too they just finished the series with four seasons. They didn’t want to keep it going just for the sake of keeping it going
@@003mohamud You bastard, you stole my Salt mention.
and the main antagonist is also a woman who Cate Blanchett plays horrifyingly well
8:35
Reminds me of that Spiderman vs Sand man fight in Subway
They did get trapped between two trains and the fight didn't end there
Making use of the sewage or water system to *"kill"* sandman at the end
It's actually sad, because more and more female lead movies are going to be made just like this and they will likely fail like all others because gender is the main reason why is being made, which just makes worse for whoever is next in line.
And the potential viewing audience fully realizes this and stays away....amazing Hollywood can not realize this.
Hollywood is more focused on race and gender than writting good characters
The reason female action heroes don't have any character is that a well-developed character requires flaws. Hollywood is terrified to show a woman as anything other than totally competent and amazing at all times for fear of the Twitter mobs, who they know would decry anything even slightly suggestive of a woman having any sort of meaningful internal struggle or personal shortcoming.
Nailed it.
And when the flaws are showed they're just rationalized by twisting the storytelling reality up to the point where they end up glamorized instead... Sometimes even turning them into "attractive/quirky" qualities. No actual, real flaws or weaknesses that matter are ever showed.
smh, Pride was considered a sin for a reason.
you can see this trope elsewhere...in advertisement for example, when someone acts stupid or only as an assert for the woman who always knows best/is always right/always good. Same for TV shows, books, nowhere you 'll find a portrayal of a woman a bit realistic, because as you said, twatter's hyenas would immediately fire their keyboard and summon Satan.
Actually as a movie nerd, most action movie with male protagonist have flaws so I don’t understand why they don’t let female protagonist have flaws , bc how else would I relate to her/him if I don’t see myself in them or seeing them getting over their hardships makes them more human in my eyes, perfect is boring therefore the movies are boring too.
@@zinnia5659 You're not supposed to relate to them. The point is to hold up an unachievable ideal. Totally boring to watch, but being enjoyable is rarely ideology's modus operandi.
You’d think with a 75 million dollar budget they’d be able to afford someone to show them how to hold a damn pistol…
I made a drinking game just from this video: Take a shot every time you see a limp-wrist and bent elbow while firing the prop guns that have zero recoil lmao
All I know is that if shit goes down I am going to call on a woman for help because of movies ... whoops I just died.
When your movie sends a message of "woman good, man bad", it's sending a very bad message of toxic feminism and discrimination against the opposite gender. If this was turned the other way around, the movie would have sparked an outrage. With that being said, I don't mind having a female led character as long as she is well written and someone the audience can relate to. A well written character is a well written character whether they be male or female.
and another man talking about "toxic feminism".
even if a movie shits like 90 minutes on men and does nothing else, I couldn't give less f's nor does it make feminism toxic in general.
toxic feminism is what joss whedon has done over all those years and still thinks it's not even worth a d'n apology.
those things are real, happening in the real world.
@@CinceTheDay Toxic feminism is a MAN's fault. Ha! Ok, more man blaming and hate.
@@CinceTheDay Ironically, your "women can do no wrong" and "it's always the man's fault" attitude is a perfect demonstration of toxic feminism.
The problem isn't that women in the movie point out the misogyny and sexism that they constantly face by men but more so that the movie heavily relies on this message to make the movie good. The entire movie industry is "turned the other way" against women, so I don't think talking about discrimination against men or how they are portrayed in the movie is the problem because many men do truly act like that. I respect your take.
@@Andyisgodcky @Paul W you're both not the brightest stars in the night sky aren't you?
whedon claimed to be a feminist while treating charisma carpenter like shit on set when she got pregnant, then wrote her out of the story AFTER he integrated the pregnancy into the story.
so if I call this behavior "toxic feminism" I know what I'm doing while you two can't even follow the topic because you're too lazy to get the info.
still feeling superior?
Over a decade ago, I would have attempted to give a movie like this a chance.
But nowadays, I assume every one of them is going to be trash and I'm right every time. Like hitting a bullseye so many times that I do it in the dark.
Next month, a new movie is going to be announced as well as a new t.v. show idea. Both of them will be shit. I'm throwing darts in the future now.
now were you right?
It took you 10 years to realize that these movies were invariably garbage?
@@domsanchez148 lol no. It's been over 10 yrs since I figured it out.
And thats exactly why I dont go to the movies anymore Hollywood is not getting any more of my money until they pull there heads out of there asses. Its like a long time ago when Hollywood was trying to push all of these political documentaries you know Mikel More was one of these idiots and they would play them at the movie theaters thinking people would go a see them and pay to see them. Yikes!
bruuh
As a guy with a competitive combat sports background, this is pretty easy. They try to get sexy women. After the explosion of WMMA in the ufc. We know what strong and capable women look like. It's why we love Gina coronno playing a bad a.. but not some skinny twig who has never thrown a punch. People just look, and they can't think "that's believable." It's like putting Kevin heart in the next terminator reboot.
Edit
They also did this to themselves by spending nearly a decade making every female film feminist and preaching. Eventually, people would stop going.
Now I (don't) want to see a *Terminator* film starring Kevin Hart.
Would love a Spy Movie with Valentina in the Lead
A terminator series starring Kevin hart as like a fish out of water engineer who does comedy on the side and gets targeted by skynet for a development he discovered by mistake and ends up being saved and trained by like Sarah conner to go from a bumbling nobody to becoming a competent survivor........ would genuinely actually make for a really good T. V miniseries IMO 😂😂😂
If executed properly and not played for jokes lol
@@cecollins68 I was talking about Kevin Hart _as_ the Terminator.
Excellent point about Gina Carano. In the Mandalorian she has a short but intense fight against Mando as her introdction and there is genuine tension during the fight and weight behind her punches. The fight ends in a stalemate but with the slight advantage to Gina. And that is after we've seen Mando kicking ass for a few episodes before this. No one had any issues with this, why? because it obvious that Cara Dune is strong and knows how to fight. And through this she earns the respect of Mando and the audience in a believable way. She is buff, capable and skilled, without losing her femeninity
A perfect example of how to use a setting as more than just a back drop is the climax in Rush Hour. They fought with location as Jackie's character tries to save the artifacts adding a layer of urgency. They use the dangerous height of the catwalk as a sense of peril and the banner save to show quick thinking of Chris Tucker's character.
“In China we treat people nice” Lmfaoooooo
they need the funds
Sure the Uighurs in Xinjiiang would disagree with that.....
Hey its comedy.
@@thegunslinger1363 they wouldnt but etim would
The only recent movie that managed to pull off a female, non-powered bad-ass is The Hunt (2020) and it achieved this because the protagonist:
1. Wasn't fighting against professional killers, they're disgruntled middle class liberals playing a game.
2. There were no expectations of her character and until the last scene we have no idea of what her story is.
3. She doesn't do anything that requires any suspension of disbelief.
If I have to watch another movie with an 8st waif taking on a half dozen men that are three times her size with the only explanation being "grrrrl powa!" I'm going to burn all my TV's.
Yes nice example. The female character also had a interesting weirdness making her unique and special which keeped me hooked.
Atomic blonde.
@@victorgitonga7892 yeah I agree Atomic Blonde had some really outstanding fight scenes
"She doesn't do anything that requires any suspension of disbelief."
Well I don't know about that....
Atomic Blonde is good.
I liked Anna as well (Luc Besson thriller).
Jessica Jones was good series with female (powered) protagonist.
Some older moves with female protagonists that I have liked:
Alien, Terminator, Kill Bill, Tomb Raiders (Angelina), Aeon flux, Salt, whole Underworld series, Serenity, I even like some of the Resident Evils.
Atomic Blonde did well...right?
I think the issue is the marketing. These actresses, writers, and producer were toxic as hell
I would watch Charlize Theron punch orphans for 3 hours. She could sell it with just facial expressions. Her You made me angry face is priceless.
i prefer anna tho, charlize theron kinda forcing herself to do so much action package like john wick or raid
It got people into the theaters but the reviews (the actual viewer reviews not the critics) meant there would be no franchise.
You can't really out-market a badly thought out and developed film though. Atomic Blonde was good because it had a better narrative, with realistic high stakes action sequences, and a more fleshed out and believable protagonist. A film with 4 different protagonists doesn't allow enough time to flesh out each one and make you care about them. It was too gimmicky and flat, with poor choreography. Plus as he said, unoriginal and has been done better.
It did okay. It grossed about a hundred million worldwide, about half domestically and half abroad, on a thirty million production budget. The marketing budget is usually around half the production budget, so the whole thing probably cost around forty-five million. The studio typically gets to keep around fifty to seventy percent of the box-office, with the rest going to the theaters, although the share for theaters is usually on the higher side overseas (that is why domestic box-office is worth more than foreign). That means that it probably made around fifteen million dollars. That's not a fantastic ROI for the movie business, but it did make some money. So it did okay, but just okay.
one of the thing i don't like is they put very famous actresses instead of actresses that can play the part, none of those women looks credible in a physical altercation...
Realistically, a female agent's greatest weapon is her sexuality, and for whatever reason, these films are bound and determined to steer as far from that as possible. Also, action films are kinda moving away from the whole "action hero who never gets hit" thing, but Hollywood still has an aversion to showing a woman being beaten to a bloody pulp after winning a fight.
Hollywood action heros have regenerative abilities. They get stabbed and are fine
I think these female action scenes would work better if they fought with vicious improvisation. A female spy who gouges eyes and slashes tendons with whatever's to hand is more realistic (and entertaining, in gritty brutal flicks) than one who slugs it out with a man twice her height and build, and somehow wins.
Hollywood tends to shy away from female sexuality because it'll almost always come off as objectifying women (ie that's ALL a female character can good to get out of a bad situation) or, if its a man seducing a woman, it'll come off as creepy, even if that wasn't what they were going for
@@jaymartin8273 that's the excuse they give, the real reason is to push tr4nnie acceptance by removing any and all references to female attractiveness
@@tadpolegaming4510 I wouldn't go that far, but yes it is an issue
We have had female UFC fighters for years, we know what they look like, yet they cast women that look like models who have never lifted a weight or taken a punch. This wouldn’t fly with a male action star. It makes it impossible to suspend disbelief. I don’t know how anyone could take a movie with casting like this seriously.
cus Gina Carano doesnt fit hollywoods agenda
Only place they get away with non muscly male protagonist is anime.
The reason women in movies look like models is because people wouldn't pay money to watch women who don't fit the beauty standard. This is a problem with objectifying women in Hollywood, and its got way worse effects than just suspension of disbelief for the women who watch it
@@annahughes8272 Nobody watched this movie, so it wouldn't have changed anything.
@Lucas Lucas looks like you are just slow...
Unless it's someone built like Gina Carano going life and death with a reasonable physical match like Michael Fassbender, I'd much rather see some lateral thinking go into fight scenes.
Surely being constantly physically overmatched should inform a more thoughtful or abrupt approach to combat?
Watching a woman who weighs less than 120lbs out strength and throw a person twice her size around just takes me right out of a movie.
Whereas that Carano/Fassbender fight scene in Haywire just drew me right in.
I think Alicia Vikander in Tomb Raider fit somewhat into bringing a thoughtful approach to combat. She wasn’t able to go toe to toe with men bigger than her, so she’d use a rock against them or something like that. She did easily strangle someone who was around the same size of her but that was believable. He was just some teenager and she probably had more muscle than him.
@@gilgamesh310 She's obviously from the John Kreese school of philosophy. Strike first, strike hard, no mercy.
Same, it'd be great to see a female protagonist struggle with enemies clearly stronger than her and have to use the environment and clever moves to defeat them, rather than throw punches with no weight behind them and somehow knock a grown ass dude out lol
Despite her size, I'd say Charlize in Atomic Blonde made those fights pretty damned convincing.
@@sakulaeyr9819 She's 5'11" as well, so I wouldn't call her small.
I love how these female lead movies always come off as even more of a fantasy than any other movie specifically because it's innately known that the only way these ladies could fight off these men is if the men were deciding to let them win. It's like a child playing a sport with adults.
Not to pick an internet fight, but I don't think size is the issue. Jet Li is 5'6" 145 lbs, significantly smaller than, say, Uma Thurman. Almost exactly the size of Summer Glau. But I never got the feeling that he shouldn't be able to win those fights -- especially in The One (which I am heretofore recommending to you if you haven't seen it). It has to do with choreography and stunt work. The recent crop of "Girl Power" TM movies just don't seem to spend any of their time and money on those two elements.
@@brucebrown2241 Also everyone is ignoring that MMA started with BJJ being refined to the point that a third guy in a row... In a list of increasingly smaller guys, was beating up or winning matches with increasingly bigger guys.
I imagine there has since been someone afterwards who were even smaller and took on people even bigger.
Women “can” beat men, just not in a vacuum. But the problem is that Hollywood rarely ever tells us why or how the women can just automatically beat every single male character to a pulp.
@@Seth9809 Yes, but BJJ makes someone capable of beating up bigger people, that does not make it a guarantee.
If there are two fighters with equal technique, the fighter that is bigger in size will always win, unless he commits a mistake.
led*
Ellen Ripley didn't pick up a gun until (which almost 2 movies later!) in Aliens at the final chapter... and she is still one of the most celebrated bada55 female leads.
Correction: She picked up TWO guns and taped them together. Even more badass.
One thing I’d add is that you don’t have to dismiss her femininity to make her a strong character. La Femme Nikita is one of my favorites, but there really aren’t many that are good with female leads.
Remember the bushy eyebrows? 🤗 That's a really well written movie.
I loved "The long kiss goodnight" great action flick with Geena Davis as the lead!
I'm a big fan of Ellen Ripley from the Aliens franchise
@@KilgoreOnDrugs Ah for the days when a strong female action lead could just be an example of a human with inner strength and fortitude AND also a female, rather than being some perfect model of easy girl power. Ripley was a competent crewmember from the start, and then when needed she did what needed to be done. There was no "because I'm a woman, I'm inherently better than everybody else, so there!" political vibe. She earned our respect the same way any male character would - by overcoming obstacles in a believable way. Not by having everything handed to her.
I liked the contrast with Garcia (do I recall the name right?) of the space marines in Aliens. Garcia was more outwardly strong and hard, being more like her fellow marines. She acquitted herself well in that role, but it was less engaging. While Ripley just wanted to do her job and get home, or help the little girl - but when needed, she was tough as nails underneath. Not with superhuman strength or magical ninja skills, not trying to prove anything, but just using the tools at hand, being smart, and having courage and judgement.
Atomic Blonde, Charlize Theron, Kill Bill Volumes 1 and 2, Black Widow movies with Scar Jo, JLo in The Cell, Charlie's Angel's with Cameron Diaz are light hearted and then of course it's almost always a girl that is the only survivor of many horror movies. LOL!!!
There was a time protagonists and antagonists progressed through their actions, not their gender or skin color.
Jason Bourne works, not because it's a white male protagonist, but because it's a character haunted by his actions, forced to survive extreme situations with the skillset he learned.
Except his fighting skills.
Just the fact that many people will see Jason Bourne and immediately think “but he’s a straight white male” is a problem in itself.
i thought the whole premise of jason bourne was really lame. Didnt like the story and couldnt finish it. But i do agree. He was an actual character lol.
But...it does work because he's a white male, and there's nothing wrong with that. If the next James Bond role is given to a black or Chinese or Indian actor, it would ruin the franchise! It's OK To Be A White Male!
And not being mean or anything, but Matt Damon can act..!! And i think the most boring thing about these Action Starlets, is they just can't act, not in the genre they are being portrayed in.
Just take the last bond film, yes most likely a swansong for Daniel as bond, but the person they put in as the new 007 Lashana Lynch, that had no finesse or appeal, no suave or sophistication, least of all the ability to be female, just showed the strengths of a male character in female form. Looked more like an extra from Starship Troopers than a secret agent.
Any movie when a woman beat a trained guy with 30kg more muscles than her should be advertised as fantasy.
Man from U.N.C.L.E is a great example on how to do a spy movie with two protagonists from opposing governments.
That movie acknowledges the racial and cultural differences between America and Russia and fully embraces it and the end result is one of the best spy movies ever made
You would think that a film with a gigantic budget would train these woman actors how to hold a handgun with two hands correctly. It’s strange they cannot get this simple prospect correct. Bad ass government agents/operators would hold their weapons perfectly for accuracy and proficiency.
Their nails might be too long
These chicks are hot and 3 of them are older than me but I still think this movie looks too tedious to watch
Another big factor that at least affects me in The 355, is the mind-numbing lack of charisma from any of the characters/actresses, as seen in the trailer.
It would affect me in the same way if the protagonists were all male. The problem is amplified by the reasons stated by Filmento. The protagonists lack anything that would help in making them stand out. They're barely more than cardboard cutouts.
A very personal problem is also that only few of the fight scenes look believable to me. It's something I can often pick up on when watching martial arts scenes. Experienced martial arts actors have a way of emphasizing their attacks to making them look very real. Actors inexperienced in the field always just look like a person who's weakly going through a set of memorized motions. Even when trying to emphasize, they might still rather look awkward or weak, due to lack of understanding how to put your own weight into an attack or a defense. It's a subtle but noticable element of choreography and one of the reasons why Hong-Kong-created martial arts scenes looked so much crunchier (in the 80s-90s, at least).
The protagonists in The 355 mostly look shabby in their execution of moves. You can see that the stunt workers (opponents) are primarily carrying the fights through their reactions.
The "inexperience effect" gets amplified by a performer's lack of a strong physical appearance. This is not as important and I'm *not* talking about a body-builder look, but just at least some lean musculature to enhance the impression of a person in constant training, *over plenty of years* .
It's at least disappointing that actresses in movies such as these usually look more like fashion models or ballerinas than seasoned fighters.
They look like they'd break their hands if they tried to punch a man in the face, because they would.
Gina Carano is a big exception. There are others too, like Charlize Theron in Atomic Blonde. She has more a model’s figure but she was also lean and very fit for that film. Alicia Vikander in Tomb Raider as well. She got very muscular for it and looked intimidating. This film seems to have more generic looking beautiful women, though.
Interesting that you say that because I often times notice that as well with such fight scenes - you can see that they are just that - scenes. The only woman actress I know that made it seem impactful was Angelina Jolie... I actually can't think of any other action woman that portraits fight scenes well.
@@R-SXX Trinity - from the Matrix
Its very weird that charisma thing - specialy since those women do have charisma and very strong camera presense in other movies.
Homeland, best female led character ever (in my opinion), I could compare her character in the series to that of house. She had depth, the scenes were realistic and worked only because it was her, not just because she was a woman.
Rue, Euphoria character (I know, not a movie hero character list) crafty, strong but vulnerable.
Ghost in the shell. The movie.
The Heat, in my opinion, very successful in it's delivery.
Black Summer, lead character.
Resident Evil film series, though I think anymore than 3 was an overkill.
You are so under-rated, it's unbelievable!
You have helped me understand and appreciate writing much better than any teacher ever did.
661.00 is very underrated Sherlock
There was a movie Jack Nicholson starred in where his character had advice on how to write female characters, "I take a man, and I remove reason and accountability"
Evidently Hollywood writers took that to heart and also removed any reason we should care about them.
That movie was As Good As It Gets. And even that scene was written to show that Nicholson was an @$$hole for having that mindset (the waitress's expression truly sold it)
@@leileyaravencroft " And even that scene was written to show that Nicholson was an @$$hole for having that mindset"
Yet Nicholson in that movie played a very succesful best selling romance novelist and thus the characters mindset clearly worked well for him. Funny how people who argue "he was an asshole" misses the fact he was an old guy who had done very very well for himself up to that point.
@@leileyaravencroft He was portrayed as an asshole based on his bluntness and complete lack of tact. He was also portrayed as someone very intelligent and perceptive. So while his comment was harsh, it was also incredibly accurate.
A great action movie with a female lead is Atomic Blonde, it doesnt waste any time patting itself on the back for having a female protagonist, and the fight scenes are amazing because they show that the character uses intelligence and superior training the conquer odds rather than just pretending she's inherently stronger than 5 burly goons at once. The "Stairwell Scene" is one of the most intense action sequences I've seen
Atomic blondie is such a gem, fantastic fight scenes
That movie is AWESOME
Although I liked that scene myself, I still think it's far too unrealistic. I mean she blocked the men's kicks with her arms several times. She would've broken her arms in real life. Plus, a couple of punches to her face would've knocked her out cold in real life, perhaps even put her in a coma. Women just don't stand a chance against men in fighting. That's why we have domestic violence laws that protect women and children from men and don't pit men against women in combat sports.
The only way a woman can stand a chance against two angry men that are committed to killing her is by avoiding them or shooting them with a gun until they die. Engaging in hand-to-hand combat with them is a surefire way to get herself killed.
Oh yes. I love that movie!
Atomic blonde was alright but too pretentious, i liked it not cus its good move but charlize theron was in it and decent choreograph fights. Best Female Action move ive seen is SICARIO. Check it out. In that Emily blunt was not a just Second grade Male but real woman with flaws and had a reason to be there.
See the easy way to avoid movies like this is to watch out for and avoid *all female* main casts. These never work.
And the biggest enemy of female lead characters is an old lady named "Mary Sue". Because for some strange reason girls can't have weaknesses anymore.