Something I forgot to mention is horror movies have a plethora of good female protagonists, even if the initial intention was just someone to look scared and vulnerable. Wouldn't be hard to just take notes from the likes of Laurie Strode, Sydney Prescott, or Audrey Hepburn's character from wait until dark.
@@edocursedmark2693 I finished it Tuesday night and loved it. Although they didn't say those exact words, a few of the content creators I follow, talked about her being a Mary Sue. Some shows and movies are guilty of that, this isn't. The trailer concerned me a little but I LOVED every moment of it. What I have a lot of respect for is the honesty of the actors. Some are gamers and some aren't, I can't fault their performances. It feels like they are condemned for actually like they game before doing the show and the other side is like 'why don't you like the game if you're in the show' I feel sorry for actors sometimes with everyone needing a clickbait line for tiktok.
The Marvels was blatantly a DEI-fest... and the studios have taught viewers that those things are almost always garbage. They are also busily giving us another recognizable pattern... going back to at least Ghostbusters 2016... the newest Charlie's Angels... the new Peter Pan and Wendy... Velma... She-Hulk... Then there's another pattern... that simply placing the female on the pedestal (Rey, The Force Awakens) is no longer enough empowerment... now, they have to dig trenches, or canyons, under the male characters... like so many of the male characters in The Last Jedi. Next, another human characteristic comes into effect... expectation. When we *expect* to be discriminated against, we tend, quite strongly, to *perceive* it, even when it isn't there. Pattern recognition and expectation both reinforce, and amplify, each other, creating a sort of "snowball effect".
Grimm is like more than a decade old. I wouldn’t consider that from our current DEI times. Besides, I’m sure he wasn’t saying this about every modern show in creation, just mainly the shit Disney has been peddling the last few years. Maybe try not to jump to conclusions that get’s you all riled up needlessly.
@@danielwright3929You made your point clear, you don’t have to pointlessly be a dick about it. But, it’s true, many modern shows and movies have greatly written female characters. People just like to look into the few badly written ones too much and say all modern shows are bad at writing female characters.
Do audiences really hate female action heroes? We actually hate bad writing, and we hate being blamed when we stop paying for bad writing. What bothers me most is turning this situation into a men vs women problem. When the real problem is the studios hired activist writers to "save money", but they could have just asked the fans to write better scripts for free
The M v F problem isn't fake or imagined. It's not that they are *adding* female action "heroines"... it's the bait-and-switch, *replacement*, and humiliation of the male characters and heroes... because that is the *intent* of so many of the activists that you mentioned. They've done it so many times over the last few years, that people have come to *expect* it... even when it might not be there. In turn, that expectation means that a *very* large percentage of people *perceive* that message, even when it isn't actually there.
@@Nyet-Zdyes Sadly, this is a "Why not both?" situation. The upcoming female Silver Surfer for example. Shalla-Bal (Earth-9997) was the Silver Surfer in Earth X #12, and died in that very same issue, but nooo, the MCU is making her the main Surfer.
@@thatHARVguy The Silver Surfer is, sort of, another bait-and-switch. IMO, this all stems from what we should have read as a prophecy... KK's infamous t-shirt... "The Force is Female". If you really think about it, what we call "woke" is the result of intersectional feminism. It explains the Mary Sues, the bait-and-switch, Marvel's 4th phase, Rey & Luke and The Last Jedi... the choice of who to direct the new SW movie (Obaid-Chinoy), KK's "story group" being 6/8 female (want to bet the 2 guys are rainbows?), the rumors behind the original Indy 5 being another bait-and-switch, and so on...
Don't give me that bad writing crap. You forgive so much more if the protagonist is male. Most of these movies are basically on par with each other but you give so much more scrutiny to the ones with female protagonists.
@@l.tc.5032 If Male? Book of Boba Fett, ObiWanTV, & Cassian Andor. All poorly rated and I agree with the audience. Let's look at Marvel's Best. Loki can't be part of the MCU anymore, Nick Fury's Secret Invasion, & Thor: Love&Thunder all show the same exact problems (bad writing). Even Moonnight had 2 male protagonists, nobody cares anymore. Deadppol and Wolverine are variants...that's all Marvel has left. But I have to give you credit. A Super Soldier, a Weapons Dealer in a suit of Power armor, and a literal embodiment of religious oppression, are all garbage protagonists closer to a power fantasy, so your reply is correct they are the same quality, and I elect to reject them equally
People usually bring up Ripley, Sarah Connor etc. But do people not remember all the badass women of Kill Bill?! Beatrix, Oren Ishi, Gogo Yabari, Vernita Green (Vivaca Fox), and Daryle Hannah. We LOVE badass women in movies, what we don't like are badly written, pandering, or message-driven characters which have been being pushed in the current culture war we are in. What we have gotten in recent times is the erasure of men heroes in current male driven franchises: - Rey (Star Wars) - Terminator Dark Fate (Literally kills John Connor to replace him with the female new savior) - Marvel going all female - Indiana Jones (tried to replace him with Phoebe Waller Bridge) - James Bond (Inserted the new female character and he is killed at the end) - Madame Web (just terrible wrting) and so one and so on.
I was gonna mention this too, rewatched them recently on Netflix... Don't forget that QT also gave us the great female cast in "Death Proof" and Rose McGowan's role in "Planet Terror."
1. Princess Mononoke 2. Nausicaä of the Valley of the wind 3. Wonder woman 2009 4. JL: Crisis on two earths 5. JL: Doom 6. Superman/batman: Apocalypse 7. In the line of duty 4 8. Iron angels 1-3 9. Police story 3 10. Coraline 11. New nightmare 1994 12. The night comes for us 2018 13. Chocolate 2008 14. The villainess 2017 15. Born to fight 2004 16. Green lantern: Emerald knights
I’ll never understand why Hollywood thinks you can’t lift women up without bringing down men. I love many female heroes, but I don’t see why you can’t have one without portraying all the men around her as sexist, stupid, bumbling jerks. It gets old after a while.
The thing that people forget about both Ellen Ripley AND Sarah Connor is that they both went on an arc that crossed two films - starting with them being 'normal' people, and ending with them being 'action heroes'. Sarah was a young waitress, and Ellen was, essentially, a truck driver. They went through an extremely difficult crucible, and - bit by bit - found new reserves of strength within themselves that even they didn't know they had. That journey, through a crucible, is what viewers find satisfying, whether it's male or female. Another example? Nancy Thompson.
People have no problem with Female Action Heroes. They have a problem with poorly-written Heroes. As you alluded to, the 2017 Wonder Woman is an excellent example of people liking a female action-hero. Then WW84 happened and...yeah we know what went wrong there.
The only people focused on the gender of characters instead of the writing are the right wing grifters that make a living from hating women and their low IQ followers. There is no middle ground to be found with these people because they're bad faith actors. The only things that can be done is that the studios have to make movies so good that they are hater proof and we can ignore the grifters.
One of my go to favorite female action heroes is Mulan. She started out as a compassionate person who felt out of place in her society. Women were expected to act a certain way to please and honor their families, but Mulan was kind of quirky, clumsy, slightly tomboyish. What defined her character was a dutiful sense of respect and honor to her father and that love for him was why she took his place in the army. She struggled at first, she wasn't initially accepted by everyone at first and pretending to be a man proved to be challenging. With that said, what she lacked in brawn, shae made up through resourcefulness and quick wit. Even when she was discovered and was on the brink of givng up, she saw that Shan Yu was heading to china and raced back to save the other without a second thought. She's a well written charater who shows strength and vulnerability. The live action version is the opposte where she's basically already a good warrior from the start due to genetics and now she has to hide who she is for reasons. I can't connect with that character. She's not fun to watch. That avalanche scene, which was a perfect representation of Mulan's cleverness and capabilties was replaced by her basically earthbending the Avalanche with just a touch of her hand.
Mulan was a young woman who failed being a good daughter because she was forced to conceal herself and bend herself, and discovered herself as soon as she found a way out of her constricting role. Life action Mulan already knew who she was, and her only obstacle were men trying to tell her otherwise. The real Mulan was relatable because we all struggle to find our place in life, and her example told us why it is reasonable to let women discover themselves, so everyone could benefit in the end by her contribution. It showed us that finding what you're good at is hard but worth it in the end. It also gave a real reason why women's empowerment is a good thing, and also showed that deciding that women are worth less without giving them a chance to prove themselves is stupid. Not only that, but it was a powerful film that gave something good to everyone. The new film is just: men bad, women good, so step down you morons and let women rule.
I remember having a revelation when watching the Wednesday show a long time ago: Bella Swan from Twilight is a better written protagonist than 95% of women protagonists for the last decade. That's not a good thing. Here's my case: if you ask "what is Bella's motivation for being in the central conflict in the story" you can easily answer this. If we ask this about Ray or Galadriel or Captain Marvel, the answer gets muddy. Then there's a second question that's more damning: what's Bella's relationship with the supporting cast? This can also be clearly answers also. Edward is her lover, Jacob a loyal friend, nuf said. Now ask that about Ray and Galadriel and Captain Marvel. Don't answer with what the supporting cast sees in them, ask what she sees in them. I realized this when in the Addams family show she finally gets a connection with a supporting cast member in the tim Burton werewolf boy which humanizes her to an extent and makes her somewhat sympathetic. That's negated right afterwards when he's revealed to be the tim Burton werewolf and she goes back to square one. Its not that they can't even have romantic relationships with anyone, it's that they can't have relationships with anyone at all. Bella Swan isn't a well written character mind you, shes pretty blah. Yet she runs rings as a protagonist around these new MCs like it's no tomorrow.
@@lilmovieperp3599 There certainly are, as mentioned by @robchuk4136 with Arcane and also Blue Eye Samurai (recent shows relatively), but the sentiment of "female leads who have no flaws/can do no wrong" has been done so frequently (or at least marketed with such intensity) that genuinely good female LEADS are now considered a rarity. I heard Furiosa was good, but I didn't watch it because I wanted to save money and theatres are expensive. I've mostly gone back to anime and manga nowadays, so I don't really care that much of many western media releases. EDIT: Going back to my roots, so to speak, with being hyped over anime series. I'm Indonesian and anime was always prevalent on TV when I was a kid during the 2000s. Dragon Ball, Naruto, Bleach, and One Piece. Animax was definitely my go-to most of the time when my parents finally had Satellite TV.
No, audiences hate bad female action heroes. Look at Wonder Woman and notice the difference. Look at Carol Danvers in the comics back in the 70s, 80s, and 90s, and compare that to the Brie Larson version. Hollywood is run by people who don't know anything about comics and who think that the entire concept of comic book superheroes is offensive, so what can you expect?
@@assassin8636 Incorrect. Ellen Ripley to this day is a popular female action hero, and Aliens was one of the most popular sci-fi action movies ever made. Maybe it's actually because "y'all" can't write female characters, or any kind of stories, for that matter?
Maybe some of you know about the "scar experiment"? It's a psych experiment that they did, which basically revealed that people *perceive* things that they *expect* to see/happen... even when they aren't there/don't happen. Another factor is one of the most basic requirements for sentience... the ability to recognize patterns. These crappy movies are establishing a pattern... which is going to be worsened by the *expectation* of the movie to be bad. So, people are going to expect a female action movie to be bad... which means that (often) it *will* be perceived that way.
@@Nyet-Zdyes You forget that we have better examples to use as a comparison. We also have the comics to use as a comparison. We've seen great movies with female action heroes before, and we've seen great comic book stories with female superheroes before. So when Hollywood cannot live up to that standard, one must conclude that Hollywood simply does not care about making movies with female action heroes that are actually good. The false presumption is that the fact that they exist at all is enough.
I remember when Alita Battle Angel and Captain Marvel both came out in theaters and the corporate press make it a competition and that if we the audience like Alita over Marvel then we were sexist. When Alita is the Strong female hero that people like.
I was part of the 10% theater occupancy for the opening of Captain Marvel. I was part of the 90% theater occupancy for the opening of Alita Battle Angel. 'Nuff said.
The whole "Marvel fans are just toxic, they hate women!" argument is so stupid! It is like some comedy sketch based on the charge scene from Braveheart. Liv Tyler as Betty Ross Gwyneth Paltrov as Pepper Potts Natalie Portman as Jane Foster Jaimie Alexander as Sif Marvel fans: "Hold." Scarlett Johansson as Natasha Romanoff Hayley Atwell as Peggy Carter Cobie Smulders as Maria Hill Zoe Saldana as Gamora Karen Gillan as Nebula Pom Klementieff as Mantis Marvel fans: "Hold!" Elizabeth Olsen as Wanda Maximoff Evangeline Lilly as The Wasp Zendaya as MJ Letitia Wright as Shuri Lupita Nyong'o as Nakia Danai Gurira as Okoye Marvel fans: "HOLD!" Bri Larson as Carol Danvers Marvel fans: "NOW! HATE WOMEN NOW!!!"
@@gloriathomas3245 not a fan of the show, but since it's before the 2010s when people wrote competent stuff there's a reason why it went so well. Buffy was just an overall much likeable character, no one complained about her
@@gloriathomas3245no it doesn't. There is no "girl power" element to Buffy, and she makes mistakes and has flaws and grows from those mistakes. She's also competent, smart, courageous, and never relents from protecting the world against evil. She has a great mix of strengths and weaknesses. Not many modern female action characters have those things. None of us had issue with Ahsoka. None of us had issues with the female characters from the Star Wars Extended Universe stories, like Jayna Solo, Leia, Mara Jade, Tenel-Ka (my personal favorite character from the Young Jedi books), and so on. Tenel-Ka is a FANTASTIC female character. None of us had issue with the female characters in the KOTOR series, which had great female characters like Bastila Shan and Visas Marr, and even great female villains like Kreia (who is an EXCELLENT villain) and Atris. One of the great things about Star Wars is that the Force makes it easier to have believable female combatants because strength and sprinting speed and reaction time are less of a barrier because that all can be supplemented or circumvented through Force powers. I guarantee you that if abandon any preconceived notions of how you think men respond to female action characters, you will notice that sexist intent is a very very small portion of the criticisms made by men, and most men have no issue with well written female characters. Let me throw in some examples from Marvel too: Natasha Romanov, Wanda, Yelena, Kate Bishop, Gamora..... All well liked characters. And we had a FANTASTIC female villain with Hela (with Cate Blanchette just absolutely killing it in that role). The ones that most men dislike are Captain Marvel and She-Hulk, and it's because the writers leaned too much on them being women rather than being interesting or compelling in any way.
Yes, goes for male and female characters equally. I hated just about all the characters in Avatar, visually beautiful, but story and characters were garbage.
Honestly I may get into trouble for saying this and this is probably off topic, but I feel like the reason why you occasional get shit from people (at least from my observations) is because your most successful videos have generated a portion from an audience that are like "yeah, screw female leads" and say the kind of linear stuff that they criticise on the other side of the fence. Then, whenever you interject any kind of nuance into the argument and say additional reasons why female leads aren't successful, these kinds of people get upset that your viewpoints don't completely match theirs. All I'll say towards those people is: welcome to planet earth, where it's impossible to agree with EVERYTHING someone says. I really enjoy your videos and I enjoy your nuanced perspectives even if I don't agree with everything you say, because, as I said previously, that's impossible!!! 😂😂😂
As a long time comics and then MCU fan before it all became a flaming bag of waste management, everytime I see a headline now asking or stating something something female action hero this, men not going to see female protagonist led franchises that, another part of my soul dies. A whole media concocted firestorm and it doesn't even exist. And it won't go away. It just. Keeps. Going.
I don't really care what race, gender, or sexuality of the character. I am only going to watch the movie or show for the story. I am really getting tired of "men hating female leads." Everyone in this world forget that there are female protagonists that are underrated which no one never heard of. Look at anime for example, Japan like tell stories about characters it doesn't matter what gender the protagonist is. They tell stories of these characters strength and flaws!
What do mean by man-hating leads? Part of what made Emma Caulfield character (Anya) and Eliza Eushku (Faith) so appealing in Buffy was the fact that they are well-written misandrist that balanced out Gellar's character. At the same time its also why I often say that this show just couldn't be made today in current form because it would taking a lot of flack from the mansophere.
@@gloriathomas3245 Studios have the balls to say "This movie would make men angry, uncomfortable, duh duh!" Thats the reason why their movies or show is failing and they sit there and look stupid and blame one specific gender.
I will never forgive what they did to Scarlet Witch. She could've been so interesting, but for some reason she had to become a mindless villain in MoM. I actually liked most of Wandavision until they made Agatha be the one at fault as well. I really hoped we could see Vision confront Wanda one on one without that unnecessary add on. It should've ended on her internal conflict rather than an external conflict with Agatha that distracts from it. Also speaking of MoM I love Doctor Strange and he was basically sidelined in his own movie when he was barely set up properly in the first one. It makes him feel so unimportant when he could've been a great centerpiece for the franchise going forward.
I hated eps 7 & 8, how they changed her origin from the Mind Stone, to being special all along. And then the Mind Stone introduced her to the Phoenix Forc--I mean, Scarlet Witch Force. How did Pietro get his powers? Who cares, he's dead, so let's make a boner joke to piss off the FoX-Men fans. 🤦♂ Other than killing the dog, they accidentally made Agatha an anti-hero defending Earth from the Scarlet Witch Force.
@@thatHARVguy Agreed. Omg, I forgot about the boner joke. That made me mad 'cuz even if they had to make it not be the actual X-men version of Quicksilver the stupid name joke was such an unnecessary jab that just pissed people off in the end. 😭
Great points. I've spent my life enjoying video games, TV shows and movies with female characters who were "strong" or part of the action. Female characters have changed in recent years. We should acknowledge that. I think the real problem is when the core identity of a character, show, movie, game, etc. revolves around simply being "strong female" or "female lead". Too many female characters today are cookie cutter tropes and are weighed down by political subtexts and agendas that are made worse by toxic reactions (from both sides) on social media. Just let the character be cool, likable and interesting. I think Emily Blunt said it best in an interview, stating she rejected the strong female lead label, that doing the whole strong female lead thing is so boring. She wants to play interesting characters... Nuff said right there!
Its actually kinda insane how many people will assume everyone is so sexist theyll refuse to watch a movie or play a game with a woman in it before they consider the idea that just maybe a product is just bad
As I've always stated, it's doesn't matter if its a male or female lead action film, if the film is bad, it's bad due to poor writing, acting and directing. Thor Love and Thunder was bad because Marvel took the lease off of Taika Waititi and you get scenes that make no sense. The same thing happen with Woman Women 1984 as DC took lease off of Patty Jenkins and you get a flat and weird story where Diana sleeping stranger who's suppose be Steve Trevor.
Continuing the list of successful female-centered action movies/shows/characters off the top of my head: Princess Leia, Trinity (Matrix), Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Charlie's Angels (NOT that one), Alias (tv show), Katniss... just a few.
Wonder Woman 2017 was the first movie to ever make me cry. I loved Steve and Diana's relationship. She was a strong female character done (fairly) well - we don't see that anymore! Thank U for the video and for giving some of us a place to share our thoughts and discuss!!
It's refreshing to hear someone talk in such a level headed manner about these things for a change. I pretty much agreed with everything you said here, can't think of a thing I disagreee with honestly! It's so easy I've noticed for people who are passionate about something to get lost in said passion all too easily to the point they stop thinking or acting subjectively... and hell as someone I like to think is a rather rational person I'm guilty of this too from time to time. But really, everything you said here seems objectively spot on from my perspective at least. It's a shame that enough companies go for that rage-baiting strategy you mentioned nowadays that so many people just automatically assume it's the default. I didn't even know about that situation with Madam Web's promotion being misunderstood and misquoted like that... It's wild how that "Once burned, Twice Shy" mindset can cement itself in public perception like that.
Never undersell sex appeal. I personally know of many women in my life during the initial releases of the MCU that were drawn to those movies because of the attractive men. I also know plenty of other pieces of media, very commonly in anime, that live or die on their sex appeal to their male audience. Mind you it takes interesting characters and an engaging story to really get people dedicated but never undersell the power of sex appeal to draw people in. If you can enhance the sex appeal of a character with actual good character writing you've basically got a guaranteed fan. That's why the best girl discourse in anime and shipping/fanfiction community on Tumblr in the 2010s (Superwholock, MCU, etc) are/were so strong. This is/was primarily predicated on the sexual/romantic appeal of their characters.
Brie Larson wasn't giving an interview. She was part of the Women in film Crystal award ceremony on June 13, 2018 where she infamously delivered her misguided call to arms speech for more people of color inclusivity within the world of film criticism and wildly went off course devolving into a filibustering rant about '40 year old white dudes whom these films weren't made for you.' Brie's big budget Marvel debut film was still in post production and released on March 8, 2019. In-between that time, Brie Larson had become a public relations nightmare and Marvel was in damage control mode non-stop ever since.
2:10, for a second I thought you were about to bring up the show Once Upon a Time (though oddly enough Emma Swan from Once Upon a Time actually would be an example of a female action hero.)
“Predator isn’t character driven.” Oh, I guess those bits of Mac mourning his friend and wanting revenge. Or Dillion going from just using people for a mission to taking one for the team aren’t character driven. Silly me.
90's kids grew up with excellent female protagonists such as Mulan, Katara, Toph, Kiki, Sophie Hatter, Hermione (especially in the books), and more. We all saw how to do a good job writing characters who are female. I don't get why Hollywood is so bad at it. Like, it is cartoonish how bad they are at it.
Some men are pretty misogynist and post some pretty vile stuff online. I just don't like the studios painting the entire male audience as sexist. I love action movies like Salt and Atomic Blonde, both female action lead movies. Most movies these days try to make the women "strong" by shitting all over the male characters and making them all useless and incompetent.
In relation to Captain Marvel's success, it's very relevant to mention that the movie was sandwiched between Infinity War and Endgame. Infinity War is arguably the best MCU movie and it ended on massive cliffhanger. No one wanted to miss what came next, and if that was Capt. Marvel or Rocket Racer they were going to show up. Feige knew what he was doing in setting the release schedule to prop up a lackluster character.
Shadowcat used to be the most popular character in Xmen. She was funny, cute, and acted as the glue for the Xmen. Her compassion anchored the team when a lot of them had a ton of very serious psychological issues. She also was Jewish, which was cool. Her pet was a dragon, her boyfriend was Colossus, and she turned Wolverine from being psychotic into someone who learned to control himself better. She didn't wear low cut clothes, wasn't really sexuallized, but sometimes her impulsivity backfired on her. People loved how she brought out the best in those around her by just being herself. She was a Stealth fighter in a comic series that was mostly full of heavy hitters. She'd sneak in and rescue her teammates. Kitty took down huge ships using her powers. But when they did the cartoon they inexplicably replaced her with Jubilee. Another character that was well liked was Rogue. Sure, she was sexy, but she used that to disarm her enemies. She had to get close to do that. Rogue had a fascinating relationship with Mystique. Mystique sorta raised her, and her presence messed up Mystique's ability to fight. That Mystique abandoned her actual child, Nightcrawler, made it more interesting. Rogue's hatred and fear of her own powers kept her from being so OP that she got boring. She had to recover from being tricked by her mom into putting Captain Marvel into a coma. It always affected her, but with the therapy sessions she got Rogue learned to accept her powers more. I loved how she was weak and strong, emotional and calloused, funny and serious. She felt human. Storm was another character that was so strong that she legitimately was the most dangerous Xmen character other than Jean with Phoenix abilities. She was the leader for quite some time, able to guide others and give good orders. Storm beat Callisto and earned the respect of the Morlocks. However, she had severe claustrophobia and ptsd related to this. Getting trapped would make her disassociate and wreak havoc. Ororo was more serious than the other women in the team, but she lost her parents in a way that gave her ptsd, so it made sense. She was also very dark skinned, being 100% Kenyan, which was cool. People appreciated her ability to handle emergencies and take charge. Also, she loved fashion but they didn't use this as a sign she was less capable. People loved these characters, and they drew women into comics. Why can't they just show them properly?
I really don't care what gender a character is as long as they are well written. The reason I didn't go see The Marvels or Madame Web in theaters was because all the trailers for both films were uninteresting. I am excited for Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga after I saw the first trailer for the film and planning on seeing it in theaters when it's released.
Underworld. Resident Evil. Kill Bill. The good Charlie's Angels. Wonder Woman. Mad Max Fury Road. Salt. Hunger Games. Atomic Blonde. The Hunt. Happy Death Day. AVP (I don't care what anyone says, I love this.) Honestly, it's hard to group movies by female leads alone. They just ignore the good female led films and crap out a Halle Berry Catwoman then go "I guess female leads can sell films." And opposite the HB Catwomans of the industry, is the dead-faced Captain Marvels of the world. They're crafting these chracters out of spite. Men say so and so, so I'll prove them wrong by destroying any shot of characterisation and storytelling to insert gripes I found in a WSJ opinion piece. They sexualised female chracters like Catwoman (the HB one) so now, every costume for female characters will be unflattering or ugly. The reason films like Underworld are personal favourites, is because it was made with love. They just wanted to make a cool and badass character. But these new films are made by committee, are obsessed with being inclusive and not offensive that we get a blank slate or a Damsel. Because characters who are women have to represent all women. No character can do that. They can only be themselves. But that's the one thing female characters aren't allowed to be.
I love a great female Action Hero as long as at the end of the day she actually is presented as female. That's why the ones that they keep putting out now do not work because they're presenting them all as a masculine figure. For example Sarah Connor is one of the greatest female action heroes ever to Grace the screen and everything she does everything she does is motivated by the protection of her son John
A few of the content creators I follow have already dived into this subject but I still like your presentation. I keep saying that the warmth and positivity you have is such an important reason for subscribing to your channel. A lot has already been said about the great examples, I think we should so compare how characters were written in Jurassic Park vs Jurassic World as likeability is also a major factor. Ellie Sattler (JP) is more likeable to begin with, she shows fear but she also shows strength. Although some moments are played for comedy, Claire Dearing (JW) is less likeable as a human being, she's physically on the run but never really emotionally on the run if you know what I mean. She shows moments of fear, these only feel like a momentary reaction. Also, not too long ago Jennifer Lawrence seemed to think herself to be the first female action star. Is this ignorance or arrogance to those leading ladies that came before?
I'm cool seeing women action heroes, they just need to be aesthetically pleasing. Just like the guys, they are all pretty much the epitome of manliness, if the woman is the hero she needs to be hot. Ive seen a *TON* of Asian movies where the chic was the star, and yikes were they slammin'. They were also incredibly talented and athletic/skilled. Not just acting, but they knew how to move to look vicious and still feminine. They also fail occasionally. Rocky didnt win the ritle his first time out. Clubber Lang beat his ass...but with women heroes they, well can't lose bc their opponent is better than them. It has to be a guy and the guy has to cheat to win while the girl hero needs really bad luck or some situation where she has to choose to lose. Ei female hero and Trump stand in villain are fighting. Another person is in trouble so the female hero bails on the fight to save the other person. A guy hero is just allowed to, well lose. Often to get whooped and look stupid in the process, being completely dominated. They can't seem to get over themselves and let women lose, sometimes embarrassingly so. I liked Black Widow too, all the way up to her solo film which was 6 years to late and had a horribly written 2nd half of the film. A girl talking to, essentially her dad, about her menstrual cycle and how useless those pesky men are along with how much easier they have it. Ugh. I *WANT* more well written female heroes and less bad ones. As for Thor getting his shirt ripped off, I don't care about that either, as long as they movie doesn't trounce the original material and make a mockery out of said hero, which is all that was doing. I liked the first 3 Hunger Game movies too. Not as much as the books, but I still found them enjoyable. And no, these movies aren't *_"Female Skewed,"_* they were poorly written ultra-lib vanity flicks.
Growing up in the 90s there were countless lady badasses if you were into anime, comics, and kung fu flicks. they were so prominent and everywhere it was awesome and inspirational for art. have a mt. rushmore of action dudes sure but way more action ladies than duders from those day.
I don't think audiences hate the idea of a female action hero because Night Of The Comet and Buffy The Vampire Slayer solidified the fact that female action heroes can be very good when the story is engaging the and characters are relatable. In fact part of why Buffy became so popular with people regardless of gender stem from the fact the show spoke the language of its viewers especially if you were a teen growing up in the 90's and the characters and their situations were very relatable and realistic. Beyond that I'm particularly glad that the role of women has changed on on-screen, a far cry from the 60's and 70's where they are just secondary characters, case in point Uhura in TOS. The fact they radically changed Nichelle's character and her more upfront in the films was a welcomed change.
And very appealing. There are so many guys like me who grew up having crushes on badass female characters like Buffy or Xena (I'm 24 but I watched those shows during my childhood). There's Kim Possible too when you include cartoon characters.
@@gloriathomas3245 Of course, nothing wrong with that. I'm just saying that there's nothing wrong with having beautiful women protagonists who are written well. The great and interesting stories just amplifies the interest in my opinion.
Night of the Comet is pretty obscure, I don't think it had much of an impact. I find it very strange to cite it in the same breath as BTVS. That's like a deep cut cult classic. I also wouldn't really consider it an "action movie." The issue with citing BTVS, which definitely had significant impact, or a show like Xena: Warrior Princess, is that neither of these shows were really about the action. They had action, but the real selling point of these shows is the character relationships and their development over the course of a series. I mean, when I think of the action in Buffy -- a show I absolutely love! -- I mostly snicker at the endless shots of Buffy from behind when she's *clearly* a stunt actress. Or with Xena, the "action" is borderline slapstick comedy and you're a lot more likely to laugh at how absurd it all is than get the sort of visceral thrill real action films provide. But you watch Buffy for the insanely clever writing and amazing dialogue, and you watch Xena because Lucy Lawless is a true gem who has incredible screen presence.
@@wolfofthewest8019 Man, it's been a while since I've watched Xena. I think I've seen thumbnails and clips about the ridiculous effects. But I still find them engaging because the dynamic and overall story is captivating. That's always a thing with really old movies with obvious visual effects or fight choreography. You know it's not as great as it is now, but when the show is good, you just don't care about it.
Apologies for the long one. Truth be told no one wishes to support a bad movie because someone that looks like them or is their gender is in it. There is only one time that a sect of people will ignore the possibility a movie is bad. And that is when those people have had no other alternative comparatively to view anyone from their demographic. The angry fringes of both sides have simultaneously made it seem like women,other races,and "different bedroom activities preferences" are in everything, and nothing and the same time And this is where we must ignore the fringes.. on both sides.
Every time I saw Dakota Johnson talking about Madame Webb it was like she was extremely high on heroin or some kind of medication or if that's normal and that's the way she acts all the time there's something seriously seriously wrong with her because you've heard the term bird brain before I don't even think she's got a bird brain.. I didn't like her character in 50 Shades of Grey or whatever and I watched the first movie I thought it was stupid and I thought she was a terrible actress but Madam Webb solidified for me the fact the Dakota Johnson might be The Offspring of two fantastic actors but not all traits get passed down apparently never mind the fact that I've never seen someone handle a can of Pepsi so awkwardly all through a whole movie like it was a co-star or something
Geena came a long way by the time she made that one. She was a lot more confident as an action star than she had been in her previous attempt in Cutthroat Island (which I contend wasn't a bad idea, it just need more time to develope). In Cutthroat Island, you could see she was uncertain of herself in this kind of role, all that Uncertainty was gone in The Long Kiss Goodnight, she knew what she was doing and she did it well
I really liked Natasha, too. Black Widow seemed to have more going on than just good looks at first. I thought that she sympathized with Banner, but for them to fall in love with him seemed weird. Not that I'm anti love or anything, but I liked her camaraderie with Cap and Hawkeye better. They really dropped the ball with her solo movie, especially with Taskmaster.
Kill Bill Vol 2 just turned 20. I'll go to my grave believing Uma Thurman deserved awards recognition for her performance. A great character is a great character regardless of gender. Even using Wonder Woman as an example, don't forget James Cameron (who gave us Ellen Ripley and Sarah Connor) called out Patty Jenkins for making a shallow female hero. Diana wasn't handled with much depth (and it got exposed in the sequel), so I think shallowness is a big part of the problem today too.
Here is my question... why do we even need female driven action movies? Why do we need action movies told from a female persepctive? Action movies is and allways will be, a male dominnated movie genre. Best example: 65% of the (very small) "The Marvels" audience was male... Can woman play roles, even leading roles, in action movies? SURE! But those movies should still pander towards a male audience. How many Rom Coms are out there who flip the script completely? Is there a huge effort by male writers to create Rom Coms where the men is lying on his bed and writes in his diary how much he is in love with the jock female queen of the highschool? Exactly... btw, I like Rom Coms a lot. And I am a 40 year old male. Btw... I dont think Whedon did anything wrong with how he wrote Black Widdow. In Age of Ultron she wasnt just trying to get Banner. I agree the falling on her chest part was corny. But other then that... why isnt she allowed to have a love interest? Name a male Superhero without one... If anyone asks how to write brilliant female characters, Whedon comes to my mind first. Buffy, Cordy, Willow (the greates character ever written in my book), Anya, Faith, Fred, Zoe, Inara, Kaylee, River... even villans like Glory, Faith (yes she was both), Lilah... but ok, everyone can have their own opinion. Back to topic. Noone wants to see a woman being written like a man. A good female action hero isnt just a woman playing a mens role... She is a woman who has female characteristics she uses to win the fights. Watch Alita Battle Angell... Here are some examples how NOT to do it: Would the story of the new Star Wars Trilogy be different, if Rey would be played by a man? Except the stupid love bs in the last movie of course. What about Captain Marvel. Make her character an undersized (like 5'6) men who gets bullied in his youth, bullied in the army aso... and the exact same movie with the exact same script couldve been used! THATS the problem. Can you replace Wonder Woman with a men and tell the exact same story? Nope! Thats why the 1st Wonder Woman movie was good, while having a female lead. She was a woman... and a good looking one on top of that! You might not care about how a male hero looks, but men are different then woman. We love to watch beautifull woman... and there is nothing wrong with that, unless beauty is all the character has. Here is my question... can you name any new Marvel female lead with a clear cut love interest? Captain Marvel? Monica Rambeau? Miss Marvel? Shiri? Iron Heart? Monica Chavez? Ahm the new Black Widdow (already forgot her name)? What about female Hawkeye (forgot her name as well)? Or that Echo character? I can only think of She Hulk to a degree. But Daredevil is more a boy toy who simps for her, then a true love interest. Long story short. Of course there can be female characters in action movies. But write them like woman with female characteristics, and make the movie overall for men. If woman like them, great! The same way its great if men (like me) like Rom Coms. But do not pander to the opposite sex and just think, well our core audience will just swollow this anyways.
I think the art of filmmaking is dying. People have lost interest after a couple decades of only getting lowest common denominator films green lit because everything has to be big budget, billion dollar blockbusters. Smart, nuanced writing just doesnt make it to the big screen. You can see better stuff on RUclips by amateur filmmakers. Nobody watches these big budget films and asks, "is this good?" before it hits theaters, so they're taken off guard every time. At the end of the day, when a half a billion dollars is on the line and it needs to gross a billion or more and it's a 200 million loss, an executive somewhere has to make up a narrative to feed the stakeholders to keep his or her job: "It's got to be the fans' fault! They don't know what they want!"
If they took their sweet ass time to write better characters, then maybe we wouldn't complain about those interchangeable plank of a person they're trying to portray on the screen.
Yeah but to make a successful female superhero you need to have a specific type of character to make it work. The girl that overcones hardship to survive (Alian), the motherly protective aspect (Wonder Woman), the cool sexy girl (Lara Croft) Yeah the female audience of MCU watched more of the Steve, Tony and the entertainment less about the female characters. Male audience don't like a character that works as male and women are just less interested in action.
50 year old straight white Christian man here can I absolutely love action movies science fiction and superhero movies and I don't care if they are male or female what I care about is if it's believable and it's good story and good character. I like the first Wonder Woman even though the third act kind of went off the rails the second Wonder Woman was absolutely trashed I loved the MCU with all the highs that it had and a few loads from phase one all the way to the end of phase 3 and phase 4 and 5 are absolute trash so I do love female main protagonist but it's got to be a good movie it can't be your shit movie like the Marvels or the male orientated Shazam 2 which was terrible and Madame Webb was absolutely horrendous
There is something very sexy about a female character racing around and saving the day. Female superheroes have been popular since the 1930s. What audiences dislike are smug self righteous hateful characters.
I still wish we would have got the final film even if they were to split it into two movies for the Divergent series because it was actually starting to get really good
its probably the same reason audiences prefer mens pro sports to womens.. Its non traditional to see women in NON feminine roles... Audiences LIKE womens Gymnastics, Figure skating, and Beach Vollyball, but DONT Watch WNBA
I noticed a patteren in super heroes. After low sales comics switch to horror. Example is E.C. comic in the 50's after heroes were on the wane. In the early seventies marvel and warren magizines went to horror titles. Today I seen horror magizines starting up.
For me The thing about Terminator 1 and alien 1, those first films were more or less in the horror genre, where in general horror film typically have a female protagonist, alien is a horror/suspense film and terminator 1 is a horror sci-fi, then the sequels became more action oriented allowing for the leads to become action stars and for the filmmakers an opportunity to do something different with their female leads. That’s why it felt strange to have Ash be the lead in evil dead at the time as male leads weren’t typical in horror lead roles. But roots of the where the female action leads in those 2 franchisees came was from a because of the horror esc approach and therefore female leads worked better having them face a bigger threat and seeing how they overcame that, but sadly now everybody in Hollywood wants to make a macho woman leads boss around the men and make them extremely unlikeabke like captain marvel
Heroes..just like everyday people...need flaws to be relatable (because no one is perfect) in order to be interesting. We all love a good power fantasy, but that only goes so far then it is mind numbing and boring. We need to be able to understand the characters we are supposed to care about. Also I think many men like actual strong female characters because of their many struggles on their journey showing their true strength and resolve. My wife suffers from DDD and ovarian cysts which has plauged her for years. I am inspired by my wife everyday because I know she isn't perfect, but she always tries and eventually reaches her goals when I would've stopped, in order to prove to herself and others that she is strong despite having physical issues in her back and hips.
THEY LIKE them when they are LIKEABLE!!! princess leia , Padme, Wonderwoman SuperGirl were GOOD they were SEXY, FEMININE had male love interests and SMILED Black widow, & her sister , Capt Marvel THE MARVELS< and that goofy indiana jones woman were grumpy no smile no fun no boyfriends, all not feminine NOT SEXY just UNLIKEABLE
2 great action comics with gorgeous art and cool female protags are "Hotwire" by Steve Pugh and "Monstress" by Marjorie Liu & Sana Takeda. Both lady leads are really interesting and flawed characters.
I think a lot of the female action film failures are made with hostility. I look at Elizabeth Banks and her interviews for Charlie's Angels or Captain Marvel with Brie Larsen, Ghostbusters 2016. The interviews are not in the film, but it gives you an insight into where the filmmakers are approaching the film. They weren't made with passion for telling a story that mattered to them, it seemed to be more of "stick it to the audience" attitude. If you are hostile and antagonistic in your mind and intent towards a chunk of your audience, that storytelling is not going to be so good.
Just looking even at the recent feminist rejection of Poor Things, even though it has strong feminist themes (I found myself thinking of Ibsen's "A Doll's House" and the magic realism of Angela Carter - I loved the film myself and I noticed that most of the people that didn't like it didn't like it for "feminist reasons'), part of their critique was that it was "a product of the male gaze" and as you say, same could be said of Wonder Woman (and as I remember from my childhood, was said about Wonder Woman - I found feminist influences around me growing up were more likely to see Wonder Woman as "sexist" than "feminist") and in fact could it not be said, if being created by and appealing to men is deemed to be negative - which is kind of what "male gaze" means, putting aside their insistence that is a bad thing - doesn't the same criticism apply to every popular culture feminist icon, at least every one I can think of - Lara Croft, Tank Girl, Emma Peel, Morticia Addams, Buffy, Catwoman, She-Ra, Jana of the Jungle, Princess Leia - they were all created by men creating women they found attractive - they're all Pygmallion's sculptures. Even the Sex In The City women are products of a gay male's gaze because they are "diva" characters. If the feminists insist that is "problematic" they would be cutting off their noses to spite their faces. And if appealing to 50% of the population is seen as a bad thing then success is seen as failure and maybe even failure is seen as success, so the ones that are now bombing, because they don't appeal to men, are a double win for them because flopping is taken as evidence they are right that misogyny is rampant, so it gives all the reward of a confirmed bias, and also by flopping they prove themselves not to be "problematic". I think they find perverse reward in the flops.
I (old white male) love female heroes. Starting with Homer's Pallas Athene, several active female characters in Grimm's fairy tales, Spyri's "Heidi": There always were strong gurls in my childhood and youth. Later, when I switched to Science Fiction, there were many female characters, who were at least as strong as boys/men, e.g. in the novels of Robert Heinlein, Anne McCaffrey, McMaster-Bujold, Connie Willis. I even adored Rey in The Force Awakens, and did sense a tough background story for her. Deeply disappointed by Last Jedi, I never ever watched again any movie of the Star Wars franchise. BTW: Yesterday, I watched Tomb Raider (2018). Great. No stupid whobling sex-bomb, but a tough intelligent woman.
Jolie is also quite good in Salt, Wanted, and that newer one where she plays a traumatized smoke jumper where some bad guys are trying to get rid of a witness.
I don't agree that Wonder woman was "female point of view/female gaze" as a movie. It was a very very beautiful half naked woman who is very strong but completely helpless without her man (every other man sexual fantasy). It was a good movie but it wouldn't be half as successful if it wasn't intentionally appealing firstly to men
I was into Marvel because of Loki, I realized his character but they absolutely destroyed him over time. I think the last time he might of been in character was Thor 2, after that I have no idea who the character is any more
I don’t understand why people have such a problem with men being more ubiquitous in action movies. It’s reasonable to assume that more men are in action movies because, in general, more men like action movies. This is the same for women being in more romcom movies because, in general, more women like those types of movies. There are exceptions of course, but it’s exhausting trying to create equality of outcome in terms of casting more women in action movies just because. How about we make movies that focus on character rather than the protagonist’s gender? Wonder Woman 2017 was the best female protagonist superhero movie and I don’t think it’ll be beat for a long time. We could’ve had the same thing for Batgirl. RIP.
Their are a lot of headlines that go out over the web about poor box office being because of misogynist. I now look something like the marvels or madam web as a chicken or the egg type thing. I dont know if you have seen the honest trailer for wonder woman. They said patty Jenkins asks the question what if female lead superhero movies didn't from start to finish. I really like that line, and when i heard someone online say that was their favorite dceu movie i had to stop and think. I wonder who they were able to get from marvel phase three to help with it? JK, PJ deserves a lot of credit
@@MiqelDotCom Well let’s see. Third wave readers would be in management positions now and the fourth wavers are doing the writing. But of course that’s not what’s happening at all. Just a lot of bad writing happening in a vacuum.
@@cynicalex3450 Yep, I agree with you... it couldn't be the advent of those people reaching positions of control... like... KK... or the head of Amazon Studios. TBF, though, the "allies" like Feige and Iger are just as bad... and then there are the ones like Ruin Johnson and Rafe Judkins.
Great video! LOTS OF AWESOME POINTS! I have something to add. Thor: The Dark World. This is pretty much universally thought of as a meh Marvel movie. Ragnarok, in way, was a reaciton to that movie but for the most part, i think alot of Marvel fans think that movie is not very good. And yet... I dont not see any videos or articles uging us to ease up on The Dark World. Where are all the videos or whatever from legions of dudes who say we are just haters... or even videos saying its "not that bad". yeah, there are none. It was bad, and we moved on. Yet, when any kind of cricism is leved towards female-led projects -- we see the directors, actors, showrunners, producers calling us toxic insted of addressing unlikeable characters, bad writing, changes to the source material that is just checking a box.... etc.
My favorite female action lead is Demi Moore's Lt Jordan O'Neil in G.I. Jane. She undergoes SpecOps training and initially gets her ass kicked, but that gives meaning to her perseverance and growth.
Agree to disagree about Black Widow. Yes, the Ultron movie had problems. After Ultron, a lot of us wanted more of her back story. I know in the comics she was more powered than in the movies but MCU wise, what made her so cool was that she was just a normal (albeit very well trained) human fighting alongside Gods and super soldiers vs aliens. Both her and Clint were so underrated. They were the glue that held the team together. She should’ve had her own movie years ago. Probably before or after Civil War instead of 6 years too late after she’s already died just to replace her with her sister (although Florence did a fantastic job).
I have never thought it was a matter of the gender of the characters. It was always, and will always be, the quality of the story and how well they can tell it.
Years ago with Charlie's Angels? Wasn't 2016 when it happened, that is with Ghost Busters? Even Ocean's 8 suffered from the same poor choices of attacking men to attract a women audience wasn't that even before Charlie's Angels? This has been going on for almost 10 years. Though, perhaps it reached its Zenith with Charlie's Angels?
Yes, sort of. But its more like males often watch action movies and fantasize about being the hero - its like roleplay, which is why boys buy Star Wars and Marvel toys. That rolepaly fantasy is much harder to engage in, for them, if the protagonist is a female. Meanwhile, women don't seem to have the same roleplay fantasy when they watch action movies. Which is why they tend to like them less than men - because they are often so crappy. But many males are happy with crappy action movies, solely as a roleplay fantasy escape. That's not to say female action heroes NEVER or CAN'T work, just that its comparatively rare as an overall trend. And there is nothing wrong with acknowledging this overall trend.
I'm just here for the teaser for your short film! jk Hey, my favorite MCU characters were also Iron Man and Black Widow, even though, from the movies I saw, imo, Loki was the best. I did wear a Captain America shirt to the theater for Civil War to support the metaphorical Cap position (once again appreciating your depiction is not promotion since wanted to say that being that I said I preferred Tony but that doesn't mean I agreed with his metaphorical stance...I was with Cap's freedom over fear stance in Winter Soldier and Civil War...he just didn't have that RDJ charisma for me) and I did love when he said, "Well, I couldn't leave my best girl. Not when she owes me a dance," in Winter Soldier, which I thought the story was a better version of Metal Gear Solid 2 which....anyways...I'll get back to that...maybe...gonna take you for a Marvel v Capcom style ride...which, by the way, I wouldn't be surprised if more guys like Chun Li than gals. I thought Natasha was overall the most consistently well written hero across the movies I saw (never saw her solo movie). I didn't even see all the MCU movies before Endgame. RDJ was really my draw to the MCU but if they kept with the sincere serious tone of the first Iron Man and Incredible Hulk with Edward Norton, which was chef's kiss casting imo, I probably would have been more enthusiastic to see them rather than for something to connect with people...I even liked the newer X-Men movies because, imo, they had a more sincere serious tone; however, I did like Iron Man 3, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 and 3 which weren't on that level, but, where was I? Oh, yeah, I thought Natasha was more consistently well written, but maybe after hearing your Age of Ultron vid, I'll think otherwise.... Imo Tony had peak characterization in the first redemptive Iron Man movie compared to Natasha, and then...I liked his relationship with the kid in Iron Man 3 because, for me, the way I think of fiction with how it can help people is metaphorically encapsulated by that Justice League Unlimited Batman holding Ace's hand on the swingset before she passed away where, for me, and I know you, me, adults here, and you mentioned soldiers reading Wonder Woman, like fiction and superheroes, but I think most of fiction, but especially superheroes, is there to help uplift children, so it was just neat to see Tony help the kid. And, yeah, I'm similar to you. I appreciate movies that are well structured such as Sound of Music which I gave a 10/10 which is more of a women's movie (I agree with you Alien/Aliens are more guy films, at least from the ones I've seen, and I think Terminators are as well, even though they have women action heroes) and I am definitely not all the Hills are Alive at the Sound of Music to see it on my own, but if I had to, I could, because I think it's a masterpiece, and I have Maria Rainer on my list of most noble fictional characters I could think of from childhood onward. I agree, Marvel, Star Wars, I'd also add Lord of the Rings to be more universal. With DC....it's Batman. When it comes to superheroes, it's Spider-man, Batman, and X-Men imo. And I will say when it comes to the MCU, I thought a lot of women were in it for the "hot guys." haha Also, oh sweet! I saw your pinned comment and I actually have Wait Until Dark waiting for me to watch! I seriously just got the dvd before watching your video! And I have seen the first 4 Halloweens and Scream 1-3 for Laurie Strode and Sydney Prescott. For action characters...I like plenty of DC and Marvel ladies (there was a time when Wonder Woman was and Starfire was my favorite superhero because working out is my favorite hobby so I appreciated them training for their abilities as well as them having a faith aspect even though I don't share their values) but...Eoywn, Arwen, and Mulan! I don't know if April O'Neil from TMNT counts. By the way, I'm hoping the upcoming TMNT Last Ronin is good! That's gonna give competition to Sonic-mania! Woo-hoo! I remember liking and thinking Kill Bill Vol. 2 was amazing giving it a 9/10 but that's when I was younger so maybe it has moral issues, same with liking Nancy in Sin City so I don't want to lead anyone astray...but I gave Terminator 2 a 9/10 which has Sarah Conner. Gave Incredibles a 10/10 which has Elastigirl as a deuteragonist, and that's the only action movie I rated that highly besides Raiders of the Lost Ark. Mad Max Fury Road I originally gave a 10/10 but then knocked it to a 9/10 because the lead characters both Max and Furiosa didn't have much to their characters. The Portal games were really good first person games we play as the woman Chell! I don't think she speaks but the villain Glados does! Still hoping to play the older Tomb Raiders one day along with Prince of Persia Sands of Time and Ninja Gaiden Sigma being action adventure games I played and enjoyed but didn't finish! However, played all the modern Tomb Raiders with Lara Croft, multitasking at volume 0 so I don't know the story, but preferred playing those games to Uncharted due to Lara's gameplay mechanics and authentic challenge (as opposed to artificial challenge with bullet sponging, clunky controls, and magnetic aiming in Uncharted)...I played all the Uncharted games including Lost Legacy where we play as Chloe Frazer, so I just like it better gameplay mechanic-wise...Uncharted's multiplayer was fun though..which I did play as women characters but only cuz I had to, if there's an option, I'm always going to choose to play a man if the gameplay is around the same quality. Control was another good third person action game with a female lead, that I played at volume 0.. I only gave two video games 10/10s Resident Evil 4 and Devil May Cry 3 which both had women action characters, though not main characters, and the third game I gave the highest rating 9/10 to is the fighting game Tekken 5 DR and that had many women characters I played a lot with; however, my mains were men Jin, King, and Kazuya...and then playing Tekken 7, pretty much stuck to Jin. You mentioned Samus, and she was my go to character besides Link (thinking his name was Zelda when I was little) when I'd play Super Smash Bros until....we got to play as Solid Snake...err, even though he looked like MGS3 Big Boss dressed as Solid Snake from MGS2....which, MGS3 was my childhood favorite pop-culture anything as a kid, and MGS2 was my second favorite childhood video game and they had women action characters....I gotta go! Looking forward to your short film! Hope you and yours have a great day, JesterBell!
People want *fun* movies, compare Charlie's Angels (2000), with Cameron Diaz, Lucy Liu and Drew Barrymore, vs Charlie's Angels (2019), with Kristen Stewart, Naomi Scott, and Ella Balinska. Speaking of Stewart, I love Underwater (2020) Look at how populare the Resident Evil franchise is...how many female leads does that frachise have/ In general the general audience also wants beautiful people in it's media. (the last Spiderverse movie...Madame Web comes to mind) Also, we like good protagonists, either well written or likeable, by script or by actor-charisma (or both), think Captain Marvel vs Wonder Woman And maybe we have female protagonist fatigue....it's weird when Onward came out, a story about *two brothers* and their relationship with each other and their deceased father felt like breath of fresh air. So, I don't believe at all it's hatred, or mysogyny or partiarchy or insecure men...I think it all has to do with good writing/likeable characters/actor charisma and fun factor. Not necessarily all together or in that order. BTW, I'm putting the emphasis on fun, because first and foremost movies are to entertain. I recently watched Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, I thought it was awesome. Dumb AF, but FUN, too. (Sometimes you have the incidental both good & fun, like Godzilla; Minus One, but I'm more interested in the entertainment value over quality)
No. I hate badly written characters, no matter which gender. On your thumbnail-picture: I neither like this marvel-woman (which is overpowered too btw.) nor this stupid character Thor, he's not funny, but embarrassing, in ALL of the movies. Catwoman was almost always cool, especially the Michelle-Pfeiffer-version. Or most of the 2000''s X-women/fem-villains. Not to forget the first Wonder Woman. Or Black Widow. But it's easier to write bad scripts and then blame the audience for hating it, less work for them.
8:58 It's because they allowed the story itself to make a mockery of Thor. "Doth mother know, you weareth her drapes?" With this line, they neutered Thor and prepared him to become the kicking post of the MCU for the sake of moron comedy. From that point on, that was their main goal with the character. Kind of like how after the outstanding 'The Incredible Hulk' they turned their energies towards making Hulk appealing to modern audiences by making him an effeminate, non-threatening project for Natasha to try and fail with.
I would like to give my little piece and while it may sound tiresome i still think the current not just MCU problem but movie problem has been the implementation of DEI, not to say diversity in itself is bad as you said, there have been good female action leads in the past, but my point is that diversity has been used at least in all recent marvel movies as a replacement for character, like is assumed that because a character, or a writer or director is diverse it will somehow produce a good film when a vast majority have no idea what they are doing or even have no clue about the source material. As for films like madam web, there was already a negativity attached to the MCU since previously it felt like they wanted to push the male audience away, Brie Larson being mostly responsible for that, so i think at that point most were just expecting the worse without even seeing the movie first. Apologies for the rant but great video, hopefully one day we will see the return of good character writing in movies
nope. Alien franchise. Terminator Franchise Nikita franchise Resident Evil franchise. ALIAS tv series Tomb Raider games and movies and new show Mad Max: FURY ROAD has spawned a PREquel etc. for decades. MOST movies fail. blaming that failure on gender or race is just the person doing the blaming exposing themselves as a bigot.
Something I forgot to mention is horror movies have a plethora of good female protagonists, even if the initial intention was just someone to look scared and vulnerable. Wouldn't be hard to just take notes from the likes of Laurie Strode, Sydney Prescott, or Audrey Hepburn's character from wait until dark.
I thought you were going to mention Ripley. She's my go-to for good female protagonists in a horror film.
Correction: She's not good, she's GREAT!!
@@edocursedmark2693 I finished it Tuesday night and loved it. Although they didn't say those exact words, a few of the content creators I follow, talked about her being a Mary Sue. Some shows and movies are guilty of that, this isn't. The trailer concerned me a little but I LOVED every moment of it. What I have a lot of respect for is the honesty of the actors. Some are gamers and some aren't, I can't fault their performances. It feels like they are condemned for actually like they game before doing the show and the other side is like 'why don't you like the game if you're in the show' I feel sorry for actors sometimes with everyone needing a clickbait line for tiktok.
@@jamesabernethy7896 She wasn't a Mary Sue, but she was a complete moron, which may be worse.
The sad thing is, a lot of the woke people would argue that the "Final Girl" trope is toxic. You can't win with them, lol.
The Marvels was blatantly a DEI-fest... and the studios have taught viewers that those things are almost always garbage.
They are also busily giving us another recognizable pattern... going back to at least Ghostbusters 2016... the newest Charlie's Angels... the new Peter Pan and Wendy... Velma... She-Hulk...
Then there's another pattern... that simply placing the female on the pedestal (Rey, The Force Awakens) is no longer enough empowerment... now, they have to dig trenches, or canyons, under the male characters... like so many of the male characters in The Last Jedi.
Next, another human characteristic comes into effect... expectation.
When we *expect* to be discriminated against, we tend, quite strongly, to *perceive* it, even when it isn't there.
Pattern recognition and expectation both reinforce, and amplify, each other, creating a sort of "snowball effect".
Hate? No the modern WRITERS suck at making them!
Yeah, it's not misogyny that's bombing your movies, it's shitty writing.
WTF are you talking about dude? Many modern shows have fantastic written female characters. Ever watched Grimm?
Grimm is like more than a decade old. I wouldn’t consider that from our current DEI times. Besides, I’m sure he wasn’t saying this about every modern show in creation, just mainly the shit Disney has been peddling the last few years. Maybe try not to jump to conclusions that get’s you all riled up needlessly.
@@danielwright3929You made your point clear, you don’t have to pointlessly be a dick about it. But, it’s true, many modern shows and movies have greatly written female characters. People just like to look into the few badly written ones too much and say all modern shows are bad at writing female characters.
Do you find John Wick a compeling AH (Action Hero)?
Mrs Frisby from "Mrs Frisby and the Rats of Nimh" will always be a relatable character. And she's a mouse!
Brisby, Mrs Jonathan Brisby.
@@bladerunner3314 I think in the book she is called Frisby while in the movie she's called Brisby 🤔.
@@CLDJ227 True, due to the Frisbee guys whining.
But I think most people know the Don Bluth cartoon, not the book.
Do audiences really hate female action heroes? We actually hate bad writing, and we hate being blamed when we stop paying for bad writing. What bothers me most is turning this situation into a men vs women problem. When the real problem is the studios hired activist writers to "save money", but they could have just asked the fans to write better scripts for free
The M v F problem isn't fake or imagined. It's not that they are *adding* female action "heroines"... it's the bait-and-switch, *replacement*, and humiliation of the male characters and heroes... because that is the *intent* of so many of the activists that you mentioned.
They've done it so many times over the last few years, that people have come to *expect* it... even when it might not be there.
In turn, that expectation means that a *very* large percentage of people *perceive* that message, even when it isn't actually there.
@@Nyet-Zdyes Sadly, this is a "Why not both?" situation. The upcoming female Silver Surfer for example. Shalla-Bal (Earth-9997) was the Silver Surfer in Earth X #12, and died in that very same issue, but nooo, the MCU is making her the main Surfer.
@@thatHARVguy The Silver Surfer is, sort of, another bait-and-switch.
IMO, this all stems from what we should have read as a prophecy... KK's infamous t-shirt... "The Force is Female".
If you really think about it, what we call "woke" is the result of intersectional feminism.
It explains the Mary Sues, the bait-and-switch, Marvel's 4th phase, Rey & Luke and The Last Jedi... the choice of who to direct the new SW movie (Obaid-Chinoy), KK's "story group" being 6/8 female (want to bet the 2 guys are rainbows?), the rumors behind the original Indy 5 being another bait-and-switch, and so on...
Don't give me that bad writing crap. You forgive so much more if the protagonist is male. Most of these movies are basically on par with each other but you give so much more scrutiny to the ones with female protagonists.
@@l.tc.5032 If Male? Book of Boba Fett, ObiWanTV, & Cassian Andor. All poorly rated and I agree with the audience. Let's look at Marvel's Best. Loki can't be part of the MCU anymore, Nick Fury's Secret Invasion, & Thor: Love&Thunder all show the same exact problems (bad writing). Even Moonnight had 2 male protagonists, nobody cares anymore. Deadppol and Wolverine are variants...that's all Marvel has left. But I have to give you credit. A Super Soldier, a Weapons Dealer in a suit of Power armor, and a literal embodiment of religious oppression, are all garbage protagonists closer to a power fantasy, so your reply is correct they are the same quality, and I elect to reject them equally
People usually bring up Ripley, Sarah Connor etc. But do people not remember all the badass women of Kill Bill?! Beatrix, Oren Ishi, Gogo Yabari, Vernita Green (Vivaca Fox), and Daryle Hannah. We LOVE badass women in movies, what we don't like are badly written, pandering, or message-driven characters which have been being pushed in the current culture war we are in.
What we have gotten in recent times is the erasure of men heroes in current male driven franchises:
- Rey (Star Wars)
- Terminator Dark Fate (Literally kills John Connor to replace him with the female new savior)
- Marvel going all female
- Indiana Jones (tried to replace him with Phoebe Waller Bridge)
- James Bond (Inserted the new female character and he is killed at the end)
- Madame Web (just terrible wrting)
and so one and so on.
Kill bill what a movie.
Some more stuff with badass heroines: The Matrix, The Lord of the Rings, Firefly, Ghost in the Shell (especially the anime series)
I was gonna mention this too, rewatched them recently on Netflix...
Don't forget that QT also gave us the great female cast in "Death Proof" and Rose McGowan's role in "Planet Terror."
The fact no one brings up Kill Bill is crazy
_Sometimes_ it gets brought up. For some reason, Kill Bill doesn't get brought up anymore.
1. Princess Mononoke
2. Nausicaä of the Valley of the wind
3. Wonder woman 2009
4. JL: Crisis on two earths
5. JL: Doom
6. Superman/batman: Apocalypse
7. In the line of duty 4
8. Iron angels 1-3
9. Police story 3
10. Coraline
11. New nightmare 1994
12. The night comes for us 2018
13. Chocolate 2008
14. The villainess 2017
15. Born to fight 2004
16. Green lantern: Emerald knights
Underworld
I’ll never understand why Hollywood thinks you can’t lift women up without bringing down men. I love many female heroes, but I don’t see why you can’t have one without portraying all the men around her as sexist, stupid, bumbling jerks. It gets old after a while.
The thing that people forget about both Ellen Ripley AND Sarah Connor is that they both went on an arc that crossed two films - starting with them being 'normal' people, and ending with them being 'action heroes'. Sarah was a young waitress, and Ellen was, essentially, a truck driver. They went through an extremely difficult crucible, and - bit by bit - found new reserves of strength within themselves that even they didn't know they had. That journey, through a crucible, is what viewers find satisfying, whether it's male or female. Another example? Nancy Thompson.
People have no problem with Female Action Heroes. They have a problem with poorly-written Heroes.
As you alluded to, the 2017 Wonder Woman is an excellent example of people liking a female action-hero.
Then WW84 happened and...yeah we know what went wrong there.
Am I the only one that thinks "Handsome Guy" was gay?
The problem is poorly written characters because we've seen just as many male lead action movies fail in the past few years.
The only people focused on the gender of characters instead of the writing are the right wing grifters that make a living from hating women and their low IQ followers.
There is no middle ground to be found with these people because they're bad faith actors. The only things that can be done is that the studios have to make movies so good that they are hater proof and we can ignore the grifters.
What do you consider a poorly written character?
@@gloriathomas3245characters that lack personality, motivation, clear goals, flaws and everything associated with good characters.
@@BaithNa well you're describing tons of show and movies from the past then.
Three words: Xenia Warrior Princess
Xena would be considered woke today, at least by the people that throw around the term.
@@gloriathomas3245 who cares
One of my go to favorite female action heroes is Mulan. She started out as a compassionate person who felt out of place in her society. Women were expected to act a certain way to please and honor their families, but Mulan was kind of quirky, clumsy, slightly tomboyish. What defined her character was a dutiful sense of respect and honor to her father and that love for him was why she took his place in the army. She struggled at first, she wasn't initially accepted by everyone at first and pretending to be a man proved to be challenging. With that said, what she lacked in brawn, shae made up through resourcefulness and quick wit. Even when she was discovered and was on the brink of givng up, she saw that Shan Yu was heading to china and raced back to save the other without a second thought. She's a well written charater who shows strength and vulnerability. The live action version is the opposte where she's basically already a good warrior from the start due to genetics and now she has to hide who she is for reasons. I can't connect with that character. She's not fun to watch. That avalanche scene, which was a perfect representation of Mulan's cleverness and capabilties was replaced by her basically earthbending the Avalanche with just a touch of her hand.
Mulan was a young woman who failed being a good daughter because she was forced to conceal herself and bend herself, and discovered herself as soon as she found a way out of her constricting role. Life action Mulan already knew who she was, and her only obstacle were men trying to tell her otherwise. The real Mulan was relatable because we all struggle to find our place in life, and her example told us why it is reasonable to let women discover themselves, so everyone could benefit in the end by her contribution. It showed us that finding what you're good at is hard but worth it in the end. It also gave a real reason why women's empowerment is a good thing, and also showed that deciding that women are worth less without giving them a chance to prove themselves is stupid. Not only that, but it was a powerful film that gave something good to everyone. The new film is just: men bad, women good, so step down you morons and let women rule.
I remember having a revelation when watching the Wednesday show a long time ago: Bella Swan from Twilight is a better written protagonist than 95% of women protagonists for the last decade. That's not a good thing.
Here's my case: if you ask "what is Bella's motivation for being in the central conflict in the story" you can easily answer this. If we ask this about Ray or Galadriel or Captain Marvel, the answer gets muddy.
Then there's a second question that's more damning: what's Bella's relationship with the supporting cast? This can also be clearly answers also. Edward is her lover, Jacob a loyal friend, nuf said. Now ask that about Ray and Galadriel and Captain Marvel. Don't answer with what the supporting cast sees in them, ask what she sees in them.
I realized this when in the Addams family show she finally gets a connection with a supporting cast member in the tim Burton werewolf boy which humanizes her to an extent and makes her somewhat sympathetic. That's negated right afterwards when he's revealed to be the tim Burton werewolf and she goes back to square one.
Its not that they can't even have romantic relationships with anyone, it's that they can't have relationships with anyone at all.
Bella Swan isn't a well written character mind you, shes pretty blah. Yet she runs rings as a protagonist around these new MCs like it's no tomorrow.
Ellen Ripley, Sarah Connor, (animated) Blue Eye Samurai.
You hit the NAIL ON THE HEAD!! Those are brilliant female protagonists who had great character and they were written very well.
Blue Eye Samurai is so good. Arcane also. We're getting some good female action heroes in Netflix animation, at least.
@@lilmovieperp3599 There certainly are, as mentioned by @robchuk4136 with Arcane and also Blue Eye Samurai (recent shows relatively), but the sentiment of "female leads who have no flaws/can do no wrong" has been done so frequently (or at least marketed with such intensity) that genuinely good female LEADS are now considered a rarity. I heard Furiosa was good, but I didn't watch it because I wanted to save money and theatres are expensive. I've mostly gone back to anime and manga nowadays, so I don't really care that much of many western media releases.
EDIT: Going back to my roots, so to speak, with being hyped over anime series. I'm Indonesian and anime was always prevalent on TV when I was a kid during the 2000s. Dragon Ball, Naruto, Bleach, and One Piece. Animax was definitely my go-to most of the time when my parents finally had Satellite TV.
No, audiences hate bad female action heroes. Look at Wonder Woman and notice the difference. Look at Carol Danvers in the comics back in the 70s, 80s, and 90s, and compare that to the Brie Larson version. Hollywood is run by people who don't know anything about comics and who think that the entire concept of comic book superheroes is offensive, so what can you expect?
😂 look at the underworld movies too. 😂
People also don’t want to see Mary Sue’s that take over established characters.
@@assassin8636 Incorrect. Ellen Ripley to this day is a popular female action hero, and Aliens was one of the most popular sci-fi action movies ever made. Maybe it's actually because "y'all" can't write female characters, or any kind of stories, for that matter?
Maybe some of you know about the "scar experiment"?
It's a psych experiment that they did, which basically revealed that people *perceive* things that they *expect* to see/happen... even when they aren't there/don't happen.
Another factor is one of the most basic requirements for sentience... the ability to recognize patterns.
These crappy movies are establishing a pattern... which is going to be worsened by the *expectation* of the movie to be bad.
So, people are going to expect a female action movie to be bad... which means that (often) it *will* be perceived that way.
@@Nyet-Zdyes You forget that we have better examples to use as a comparison. We also have the comics to use as a comparison. We've seen great movies with female action heroes before, and we've seen great comic book stories with female superheroes before. So when Hollywood cannot live up to that standard, one must conclude that Hollywood simply does not care about making movies with female action heroes that are actually good. The false presumption is that the fact that they exist at all is enough.
Ripley, Conners, Princess Leia, croft, etc. We hate just hate bad writing
I remember when Alita Battle Angel and Captain Marvel both came out in theaters and the corporate press make it a competition and that if we the audience like Alita over Marvel then we were sexist. When Alita is the Strong female hero that people like.
I was part of the 10% theater occupancy for the opening of Captain Marvel.
I was part of the 90% theater occupancy for the opening of Alita Battle Angel. 'Nuff said.
@@thatHARVguy I saw opening day
The whole "Marvel fans are just toxic, they hate women!" argument is so stupid! It is like some comedy sketch based on the charge scene from Braveheart.
Liv Tyler as Betty Ross
Gwyneth Paltrov as Pepper Potts
Natalie Portman as Jane Foster
Jaimie Alexander as Sif
Marvel fans: "Hold."
Scarlett Johansson as Natasha Romanoff
Hayley Atwell as Peggy Carter
Cobie Smulders as Maria Hill
Zoe Saldana as Gamora
Karen Gillan as Nebula
Pom Klementieff as Mantis
Marvel fans: "Hold!"
Elizabeth Olsen as Wanda Maximoff
Evangeline Lilly as The Wasp
Zendaya as MJ
Letitia Wright as Shuri
Lupita Nyong'o as Nakia
Danai Gurira as Okoye
Marvel fans: "HOLD!"
Bri Larson as Carol Danvers
Marvel fans: "NOW! HATE WOMEN NOW!!!"
Many Marvel fans would absolutely hate Buffy The Vampire Slayer it was made today because that show has everything they're complaining about.
@@gloriathomas3245except Buffy was flawed, likeable and had her share of failures, which was what the female heroes of today lack.
@@xdomeman point me to an example
@@gloriathomas3245 not a fan of the show, but since it's before the 2010s when people wrote competent stuff there's a reason why it went so well. Buffy was just an overall much likeable character, no one complained about her
@@gloriathomas3245no it doesn't. There is no "girl power" element to Buffy, and she makes mistakes and has flaws and grows from those mistakes. She's also competent, smart, courageous, and never relents from protecting the world against evil. She has a great mix of strengths and weaknesses.
Not many modern female action characters have those things.
None of us had issue with Ahsoka. None of us had issues with the female characters from the Star Wars Extended Universe stories, like Jayna Solo, Leia, Mara Jade, Tenel-Ka (my personal favorite character from the Young Jedi books), and so on. Tenel-Ka is a FANTASTIC female character. None of us had issue with the female characters in the KOTOR series, which had great female characters like Bastila Shan and Visas Marr, and even great female villains like Kreia (who is an EXCELLENT villain) and Atris. One of the great things about Star Wars is that the Force makes it easier to have believable female combatants because strength and sprinting speed and reaction time are less of a barrier because that all can be supplemented or circumvented through Force powers.
I guarantee you that if abandon any preconceived notions of how you think men respond to female action characters, you will notice that sexist intent is a very very small portion of the criticisms made by men, and most men have no issue with well written female characters.
Let me throw in some examples from Marvel too: Natasha Romanov, Wanda, Yelena, Kate Bishop, Gamora..... All well liked characters. And we had a FANTASTIC female villain with Hela (with Cate Blanchette just absolutely killing it in that role). The ones that most men dislike are Captain Marvel and She-Hulk, and it's because the writers leaned too much on them being women rather than being interesting or compelling in any way.
No, we hate poorly written heroes, gender is irrelevant to the discussion.
What do you consider a poorly written character?
@@gloriathomas3245 Unrelatable, inconsistent
@@bloodymares well you're talking about a lot of stuff not just made today but also in the past
@@gloriathomas3245 Bad writing is timeless
Yes, goes for male and female characters equally. I hated just about all the characters in Avatar, visually beautiful, but story and characters were garbage.
Honestly I may get into trouble for saying this and this is probably off topic, but I feel like the reason why you occasional get shit from people (at least from my observations) is because your most successful videos have generated a portion from an audience that are like "yeah, screw female leads" and say the kind of linear stuff that they criticise on the other side of the fence. Then, whenever you interject any kind of nuance into the argument and say additional reasons why female leads aren't successful, these kinds of people get upset that your viewpoints don't completely match theirs. All I'll say towards those people is: welcome to planet earth, where it's impossible to agree with EVERYTHING someone says.
I really enjoy your videos and I enjoy your nuanced perspectives even if I don't agree with everything you say, because, as I said previously, that's impossible!!! 😂😂😂
As a long time comics and then MCU fan before it all became a flaming bag of waste management, everytime I see a headline now asking or stating something something female action hero this, men not going to see female protagonist led franchises that, another part of my soul dies.
A whole media concocted firestorm and it doesn't even exist. And it won't go away. It just. Keeps. Going.
I don't really care what race, gender, or sexuality of the character. I am only going to watch the movie or show for the story. I am really getting tired of "men hating female leads." Everyone in this world forget that there are female protagonists that are underrated which no one never heard of.
Look at anime for example, Japan like tell stories about characters it doesn't matter what gender the protagonist is. They tell stories of these characters strength and flaws!
What do mean by man-hating leads? Part of what made Emma Caulfield character (Anya) and Eliza Eushku (Faith) so appealing in Buffy was the fact that they are well-written misandrist that balanced out Gellar's character. At the same time its also why I often say that this show just couldn't be made today in current form because it would taking a lot of flack from the mansophere.
@@gloriathomas3245 I don't care I am okay with whatever the gender of the character is I only care for the story
@@gloriathomas3245 Studios have the balls to say "This movie would make men angry, uncomfortable, duh duh!" Thats the reason why their movies or show is failing and they sit there and look stupid and blame one specific gender.
I loved Xena Warrior Princess growing up, incredibly badass lady.
I will never forgive what they did to Scarlet Witch. She could've been so interesting, but for some reason she had to become a mindless villain in MoM. I actually liked most of Wandavision until they made Agatha be the one at fault as well. I really hoped we could see Vision confront Wanda one on one without that unnecessary add on. It should've ended on her internal conflict rather than an external conflict with Agatha that distracts from it.
Also speaking of MoM I love Doctor Strange and he was basically sidelined in his own movie when he was barely set up properly in the first one. It makes him feel so unimportant when he could've been a great centerpiece for the franchise going forward.
I hated eps 7 & 8, how they changed her origin from the Mind Stone, to being special all along. And then the Mind Stone introduced her to the Phoenix Forc--I mean, Scarlet Witch Force. How did Pietro get his powers? Who cares, he's dead, so let's make a boner joke to piss off the FoX-Men fans. 🤦♂ Other than killing the dog, they accidentally made Agatha an anti-hero defending Earth from the Scarlet Witch Force.
@@thatHARVguy Agreed. Omg, I forgot about the boner joke. That made me mad 'cuz even if they had to make it not be the actual X-men version of Quicksilver the stupid name joke was such an unnecessary jab that just pissed people off in the end. 😭
Scarlet Witch is the hero of MoM, not the villain
The answer is "They do the way hollywood's been doing it for a while."
I agree with everything you say, but I kept getting distracted by the adorable Kirby pic on your wall in the background.
Great points. I've spent my life enjoying video games, TV shows and movies with female characters who were "strong" or part of the action. Female characters have changed in recent years. We should acknowledge that. I think the real problem is when the core identity of a character, show, movie, game, etc. revolves around simply being "strong female" or "female lead". Too many female characters today are cookie cutter tropes and are weighed down by political subtexts and agendas that are made worse by toxic reactions (from both sides) on social media. Just let the character be cool, likable and interesting. I think Emily Blunt said it best in an interview, stating she rejected the strong female lead label, that doing the whole strong female lead thing is so boring. She wants to play interesting characters... Nuff said right there!
Its actually kinda insane how many people will assume everyone is so sexist theyll refuse to watch a movie or play a game with a woman in it before they consider the idea that just maybe a product is just bad
As I've always stated, it's doesn't matter if its a male or female lead action film, if the film is bad, it's bad due to poor writing, acting and directing. Thor Love and Thunder was bad because Marvel took the lease off of Taika Waititi and you get scenes that make no sense. The same thing happen with Woman Women 1984 as DC took lease off of Patty Jenkins and you get a flat and weird story where Diana sleeping stranger who's suppose be Steve Trevor.
Am I the only one that thinks "Handsome Guy" was gay?
If they made a spider woman movie that actually relates to the original comic books then I think men and women would enjoy it
Continuing the list of successful female-centered action movies/shows/characters off the top of my head: Princess Leia, Trinity (Matrix), Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Charlie's Angels (NOT that one), Alias (tv show), Katniss... just a few.
Wonder Woman 2017 was the first movie to ever make me cry. I loved Steve and Diana's relationship. She was a strong female character done (fairly) well - we don't see that anymore! Thank U for the video and for giving some of us a place to share our thoughts and discuss!!
It's refreshing to hear someone talk in such a level headed manner about these things for a change. I pretty much agreed with everything you said here, can't think of a thing I disagreee with honestly! It's so easy I've noticed for people who are passionate about something to get lost in said passion all too easily to the point they stop thinking or acting subjectively... and hell as someone I like to think is a rather rational person I'm guilty of this too from time to time. But really, everything you said here seems objectively spot on from my perspective at least. It's a shame that enough companies go for that rage-baiting strategy you mentioned nowadays that so many people just automatically assume it's the default. I didn't even know about that situation with Madam Web's promotion being misunderstood and misquoted like that... It's wild how that "Once burned, Twice Shy" mindset can cement itself in public perception like that.
Never undersell sex appeal. I personally know of many women in my life during the initial releases of the MCU that were drawn to those movies because of the attractive men. I also know plenty of other pieces of media, very commonly in anime, that live or die on their sex appeal to their male audience. Mind you it takes interesting characters and an engaging story to really get people dedicated but never undersell the power of sex appeal to draw people in. If you can enhance the sex appeal of a character with actual good character writing you've basically got a guaranteed fan. That's why the best girl discourse in anime and shipping/fanfiction community on Tumblr in the 2010s (Superwholock, MCU, etc) are/were so strong. This is/was primarily predicated on the sexual/romantic appeal of their characters.
Brie Larson wasn't giving an interview. She was part of the Women in film Crystal award ceremony on June 13, 2018 where she infamously delivered her misguided call to arms speech for more people of color inclusivity within the world of film criticism and wildly went off course devolving into a filibustering rant about '40 year old white dudes whom these films weren't made for you.' Brie's big budget Marvel debut film was still in post production and released on March 8, 2019. In-between that time, Brie Larson had become a public relations nightmare and Marvel was in damage control mode non-stop ever since.
2:10, for a second I thought you were about to bring up the show Once Upon a Time (though oddly enough Emma Swan from Once Upon a Time actually would be an example of a female action hero.)
It's a shame really enjoyed that show for a while. Then it fell off and it seems to have dropped from my mind completely until you mentioned it.
@@manicmonochrome7098 Yeah. It was good at the beginning but then went completely off the rails.
1939 'Gone With The Wind' Vivian Leigh OWNED that movie. Men WANT to see strong female characters in movies. Acted like REAL women would act.
No one complains Scarlett O'Hara is a great character, but she's not an action character.
“Predator isn’t character driven.”
Oh, I guess those bits of Mac mourning his friend and wanting revenge. Or Dillion going from just using people for a mission to taking one for the team aren’t character driven. Silly me.
90's kids grew up with excellent female protagonists such as Mulan, Katara, Toph, Kiki, Sophie Hatter, Hermione (especially in the books), and more. We all saw how to do a good job writing characters who are female. I don't get why Hollywood is so bad at it. Like, it is cartoonish how bad they are at it.
Some men are pretty misogynist and post some pretty vile stuff online. I just don't like the studios painting the entire male audience as sexist. I love action movies like Salt and Atomic Blonde, both female action lead movies. Most movies these days try to make the women "strong" by shitting all over the male characters and making them all useless and incompetent.
In relation to Captain Marvel's success, it's very relevant to mention that the movie was sandwiched between Infinity War and Endgame. Infinity War is arguably the best MCU movie and it ended on massive cliffhanger. No one wanted to miss what came next, and if that was Capt. Marvel or Rocket Racer they were going to show up. Feige knew what he was doing in setting the release schedule to prop up a lackluster character.
Let's not forget all those movie tickets that were "gifts" **cough** business write-offs **cough** .
Shadowcat used to be the most popular character in Xmen. She was funny, cute, and acted as the glue for the Xmen. Her compassion anchored the team when a lot of them had a ton of very serious psychological issues. She also was Jewish, which was cool. Her pet was a dragon, her boyfriend was Colossus, and she turned Wolverine from being psychotic into someone who learned to control himself better.
She didn't wear low cut clothes, wasn't really sexuallized, but sometimes her impulsivity backfired on her.
People loved how she brought out the best in those around her by just being herself. She was a Stealth fighter in a comic series that was mostly full of heavy hitters. She'd sneak in and rescue her teammates. Kitty took down huge ships using her powers.
But when they did the cartoon they inexplicably replaced her with Jubilee.
Another character that was well liked was Rogue. Sure, she was sexy, but she used that to disarm her enemies. She had to get close to do that. Rogue had a fascinating relationship with Mystique. Mystique sorta raised her, and her presence messed up Mystique's ability to fight. That Mystique abandoned her actual child, Nightcrawler, made it more interesting.
Rogue's hatred and fear of her own powers kept her from being so OP that she got boring. She had to recover from being tricked by her mom into putting Captain Marvel into a coma. It always affected her, but with the therapy sessions she got Rogue learned to accept her powers more.
I loved how she was weak and strong, emotional and calloused, funny and serious. She felt human.
Storm was another character that was so strong that she legitimately was the most dangerous Xmen character other than Jean with Phoenix abilities. She was the leader for quite some time, able to guide others and give good orders. Storm beat Callisto and earned the respect of the Morlocks. However, she had severe claustrophobia and ptsd related to this. Getting trapped would make her disassociate and wreak havoc. Ororo was more serious than the other women in the team, but she lost her parents in a way that gave her ptsd, so it made sense. She was also very dark skinned, being 100% Kenyan, which was cool. People appreciated her ability to handle emergencies and take charge. Also, she loved fashion but they didn't use this as a sign she was less capable.
People loved these characters, and they drew women into comics. Why can't they just show them properly?
I really don't care what gender a character is as long as they are well written. The reason I didn't go see The Marvels or Madame Web in theaters was because all the trailers for both films were uninteresting. I am excited for Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga after I saw the first trailer for the film and planning on seeing it in theaters when it's released.
Underworld. Resident Evil. Kill Bill. The good Charlie's Angels. Wonder Woman. Mad Max Fury Road. Salt. Hunger Games. Atomic Blonde. The Hunt. Happy Death Day. AVP (I don't care what anyone says, I love this.)
Honestly, it's hard to group movies by female leads alone.
They just ignore the good female led films and crap out a Halle Berry Catwoman then go "I guess female leads can sell films."
And opposite the HB Catwomans of the industry, is the dead-faced Captain Marvels of the world. They're crafting these chracters out of spite. Men say so and so, so I'll prove them wrong by destroying any shot of characterisation and storytelling to insert gripes I found in a WSJ opinion piece.
They sexualised female chracters like Catwoman (the HB one) so now, every costume for female characters will be unflattering or ugly.
The reason films like Underworld are personal favourites, is because it was made with love. They just wanted to make a cool and badass character. But these new films are made by committee, are obsessed with being inclusive and not offensive that we get a blank slate or a Damsel. Because characters who are women have to represent all women. No character can do that. They can only be themselves. But that's the one thing female characters aren't allowed to be.
I love a great female Action Hero as long as at the end of the day she actually is presented as female. That's why the ones that they keep putting out now do not work because they're presenting them all as a masculine figure. For example Sarah Connor is one of the greatest female action heroes ever to Grace the screen and everything she does everything she does is motivated by the protection of her son John
A few of the content creators I follow have already dived into this subject but I still like your presentation. I keep saying that the warmth and positivity you have is such an important reason for subscribing to your channel.
A lot has already been said about the great examples, I think we should so compare how characters were written in Jurassic Park vs Jurassic World as likeability is also a major factor. Ellie Sattler (JP) is more likeable to begin with, she shows fear but she also shows strength. Although some moments are played for comedy, Claire Dearing (JW) is less likeable as a human being, she's physically on the run but never really emotionally on the run if you know what I mean. She shows moments of fear, these only feel like a momentary reaction.
Also, not too long ago Jennifer Lawrence seemed to think herself to be the first female action star. Is this ignorance or arrogance to those leading ladies that came before?
I'm cool seeing women action heroes, they just need to be aesthetically pleasing. Just like the guys, they are all pretty much the epitome of manliness, if the woman is the hero she needs to be hot. Ive seen a *TON* of Asian movies where the chic was the star, and yikes were they slammin'. They were also incredibly talented and athletic/skilled. Not just acting, but they knew how to move to look vicious and still feminine. They also fail occasionally. Rocky didnt win the ritle his first time out. Clubber Lang beat his ass...but with women heroes they, well can't lose bc their opponent is better than them. It has to be a guy and the guy has to cheat to win while the girl hero needs really bad luck or some situation where she has to choose to lose. Ei female hero and Trump stand in villain are fighting. Another person is in trouble so the female hero bails on the fight to save the other person. A guy hero is just allowed to, well lose. Often to get whooped and look stupid in the process, being completely dominated. They can't seem to get over themselves and let women lose, sometimes embarrassingly so.
I liked Black Widow too, all the way up to her solo film which was 6 years to late and had a horribly written 2nd half of the film. A girl talking to, essentially her dad, about her menstrual cycle and how useless those pesky men are along with how much easier they have it. Ugh.
I *WANT* more well written female heroes and less bad ones. As for Thor getting his shirt ripped off, I don't care about that either, as long as they movie doesn't trounce the original material and make a mockery out of said hero, which is all that was doing.
I liked the first 3 Hunger Game movies too. Not as much as the books, but I still found them enjoyable. And no, these movies aren't *_"Female Skewed,"_* they were poorly written ultra-lib vanity flicks.
Growing up in the 90s there were countless lady badasses if you were into anime, comics, and kung fu flicks. they were so prominent and everywhere it was awesome and inspirational for art. have a mt. rushmore of action dudes sure but way more action ladies than duders from those day.
I don't think audiences hate the idea of a female action hero because Night Of The Comet and Buffy The Vampire Slayer solidified the fact that female action heroes can be very good when the story is engaging the and characters are relatable. In fact part of why Buffy became so popular with people regardless of gender stem from the fact the show spoke the language of its viewers especially if you were a teen growing up in the 90's and the characters and their situations were very relatable and realistic.
Beyond that I'm particularly glad that the role of women has changed on on-screen, a far cry from the 60's and 70's where they are just secondary characters, case in point Uhura in TOS. The fact they radically changed Nichelle's character and her more upfront in the films was a welcomed change.
And very appealing. There are so many guys like me who grew up having crushes on badass female characters like Buffy or Xena (I'm 24 but I watched those shows during my childhood). There's Kim Possible too when you include cartoon characters.
@@RedHood001-KA I might be guy but I'm not watching to engage in the male gaze, I'm watching because they have good stories and relatable characters.
@@gloriathomas3245 Of course, nothing wrong with that. I'm just saying that there's nothing wrong with having beautiful women protagonists who are written well. The great and interesting stories just amplifies the interest in my opinion.
Night of the Comet is pretty obscure, I don't think it had much of an impact. I find it very strange to cite it in the same breath as BTVS. That's like a deep cut cult classic. I also wouldn't really consider it an "action movie."
The issue with citing BTVS, which definitely had significant impact, or a show like Xena: Warrior Princess, is that neither of these shows were really about the action. They had action, but the real selling point of these shows is the character relationships and their development over the course of a series. I mean, when I think of the action in Buffy -- a show I absolutely love! -- I mostly snicker at the endless shots of Buffy from behind when she's *clearly* a stunt actress. Or with Xena, the "action" is borderline slapstick comedy and you're a lot more likely to laugh at how absurd it all is than get the sort of visceral thrill real action films provide. But you watch Buffy for the insanely clever writing and amazing dialogue, and you watch Xena because Lucy Lawless is a true gem who has incredible screen presence.
@@wolfofthewest8019 Man, it's been a while since I've watched Xena. I think I've seen thumbnails and clips about the ridiculous effects. But I still find them engaging because the dynamic and overall story is captivating. That's always a thing with really old movies with obvious visual effects or fight choreography. You know it's not as great as it is now, but when the show is good, you just don't care about it.
Apologies for the long one.
Truth be told no one wishes to support a bad movie because someone that looks like them or is their gender is in it.
There is only one time that a sect of people will ignore the possibility a movie is bad.
And that is when those people have had no other alternative comparatively to view anyone from their demographic.
The angry fringes of both sides have simultaneously made it seem like women,other races,and "different bedroom activities preferences" are in everything, and nothing and the same time
And this is where we must ignore the fringes.. on both sides.
No we dont. We hate poorly written ones that act like preachy Girlbosses.
Every time I saw Dakota Johnson talking about Madame Webb it was like she was extremely high on heroin or some kind of medication or if that's normal and that's the way she acts all the time there's something seriously seriously wrong with her because you've heard the term bird brain before I don't even think she's got a bird brain.. I didn't like her character in 50 Shades of Grey or whatever and I watched the first movie I thought it was stupid and I thought she was a terrible actress but Madam Webb solidified for me the fact the Dakota Johnson might be The Offspring of two fantastic actors but not all traits get passed down apparently never mind the fact that I've never seen someone handle a can of Pepsi so awkwardly all through a whole movie like it was a co-star or something
Geena Davis did an action movie, Long Kiss Goodnight, which was great.
Geena came a long way by the time she made that one. She was a lot more confident as an action star than she had been in her previous attempt in Cutthroat Island (which I contend wasn't a bad idea, it just need more time to develope). In Cutthroat Island, you could see she was uncertain of herself in this kind of role, all that Uncertainty was gone in The Long Kiss Goodnight, she knew what she was doing and she did it well
I really liked Natasha, too. Black Widow seemed to have more going on than just good looks at first. I thought that she sympathized with Banner, but for them to fall in love with him seemed weird. Not that I'm anti love or anything, but I liked her camaraderie with Cap and Hawkeye better. They really dropped the ball with her solo movie, especially with Taskmaster.
Kill Bill Vol 2 just turned 20. I'll go to my grave believing Uma Thurman deserved awards recognition for her performance. A great character is a great character regardless of gender.
Even using Wonder Woman as an example, don't forget James Cameron (who gave us Ellen Ripley and Sarah Connor) called out Patty Jenkins for making a shallow female hero. Diana wasn't handled with much depth (and it got exposed in the sequel), so I think shallowness is a big part of the problem today too.
Damn, I may have to rewatch thr Kill Bill's now.
If the movies in question have the quality of madam Web or rebel moon then the gender of the Mc won't matter at all.
So glad you said "Both Genders" 👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿
Here is my question... why do we even need female driven action movies? Why do we need action movies told from a female persepctive? Action movies is and allways will be, a male dominnated movie genre. Best example: 65% of the (very small) "The Marvels" audience was male... Can woman play roles, even leading roles, in action movies? SURE! But those movies should still pander towards a male audience. How many Rom Coms are out there who flip the script completely? Is there a huge effort by male writers to create Rom Coms where the men is lying on his bed and writes in his diary how much he is in love with the jock female queen of the highschool? Exactly... btw, I like Rom Coms a lot. And I am a 40 year old male.
Btw... I dont think Whedon did anything wrong with how he wrote Black Widdow. In Age of Ultron she wasnt just trying to get Banner. I agree the falling on her chest part was corny. But other then that... why isnt she allowed to have a love interest? Name a male Superhero without one... If anyone asks how to write brilliant female characters, Whedon comes to my mind first. Buffy, Cordy, Willow (the greates character ever written in my book), Anya, Faith, Fred, Zoe, Inara, Kaylee, River... even villans like Glory, Faith (yes she was both), Lilah... but ok, everyone can have their own opinion.
Back to topic. Noone wants to see a woman being written like a man. A good female action hero isnt just a woman playing a mens role... She is a woman who has female characteristics she uses to win the fights. Watch Alita Battle Angell... Here are some examples how NOT to do it: Would the story of the new Star Wars Trilogy be different, if Rey would be played by a man? Except the stupid love bs in the last movie of course. What about Captain Marvel. Make her character an undersized (like 5'6) men who gets bullied in his youth, bullied in the army aso... and the exact same movie with the exact same script couldve been used! THATS the problem. Can you replace Wonder Woman with a men and tell the exact same story? Nope! Thats why the 1st Wonder Woman movie was good, while having a female lead. She was a woman... and a good looking one on top of that! You might not care about how a male hero looks, but men are different then woman. We love to watch beautifull woman... and there is nothing wrong with that, unless beauty is all the character has. Here is my question... can you name any new Marvel female lead with a clear cut love interest? Captain Marvel? Monica Rambeau? Miss Marvel? Shiri? Iron Heart? Monica Chavez? Ahm the new Black Widdow (already forgot her name)? What about female Hawkeye (forgot her name as well)? Or that Echo character? I can only think of She Hulk to a degree. But Daredevil is more a boy toy who simps for her, then a true love interest.
Long story short. Of course there can be female characters in action movies. But write them like woman with female characteristics, and make the movie overall for men. If woman like them, great! The same way its great if men (like me) like Rom Coms. But do not pander to the opposite sex and just think, well our core audience will just swollow this anyways.
I think the art of filmmaking is dying. People have lost interest after a couple decades of only getting lowest common denominator films green lit because everything has to be big budget, billion dollar blockbusters. Smart, nuanced writing just doesnt make it to the big screen.
You can see better stuff on RUclips by amateur filmmakers. Nobody watches these big budget films and asks, "is this good?" before it hits theaters, so they're taken off guard every time.
At the end of the day, when a half a billion dollars is on the line and it needs to gross a billion or more and it's a 200 million loss, an executive somewhere has to make up a narrative to feed the stakeholders to keep his or her job: "It's got to be the fans' fault! They don't know what they want!"
If they took their sweet ass time to write better characters, then maybe we wouldn't complain about those interchangeable plank of a person they're trying to portray on the screen.
Yeah but to make a successful female superhero you need to have a specific type of character to make it work.
The girl that overcones hardship to survive (Alian), the motherly protective aspect (Wonder Woman), the cool sexy girl (Lara Croft)
Yeah the female audience of MCU watched more of the Steve, Tony and the entertainment less about the female characters.
Male audience don't like a character that works as male and women are just less interested in action.
_"Do Audiences REALLY Hate Female Action Heroes?"_
*HELL, NO!*
_"Do Audiences REALLY Hate _*_POORLY WRITTEN/AGENDA-DRIVEN_*_ Female Action Heroes?"_
*HELL, YES!*
50 year old straight white Christian man here can I absolutely love action movies science fiction and superhero movies and I don't care if they are male or female what I care about is if it's believable and it's good story and good character. I like the first Wonder Woman even though the third act kind of went off the rails the second Wonder Woman was absolutely trashed I loved the MCU with all the highs that it had and a few loads from phase one all the way to the end of phase 3 and phase 4 and 5 are absolute trash so I do love female main protagonist but it's got to be a good movie it can't be your shit movie like the Marvels or the male orientated Shazam 2 which was terrible and Madame Webb was absolutely horrendous
There is something very sexy about a female character racing around and saving the day. Female superheroes have been popular since the 1930s. What audiences dislike are smug self righteous hateful characters.
I still wish we would have got the final film even if they were to split it into two movies for the Divergent series because it was actually starting to get really good
its probably the same reason audiences prefer mens pro sports to womens.. Its non traditional to see women in NON feminine roles... Audiences LIKE womens Gymnastics, Figure skating, and Beach Vollyball, but DONT Watch WNBA
I noticed a patteren in super heroes. After low sales comics switch to horror.
Example is E.C. comic in the 50's after heroes were on the wane. In the early seventies marvel and warren magizines went to horror titles.
Today I seen horror magizines starting up.
For an 80s action film, Predator IS surprisingly character-driven...
For me The thing about Terminator 1 and alien 1, those first films were more or less in the horror genre, where in general horror film typically have a female protagonist, alien is a horror/suspense film and terminator 1 is a horror sci-fi, then the sequels became more action oriented allowing for the leads to become action stars and for the filmmakers an opportunity to do something different with their female leads. That’s why it felt strange to have Ash be the lead in evil dead at the time as male leads weren’t typical in horror lead roles. But roots of the where the female action leads in those 2 franchisees came was from a because of the horror esc approach and therefore female leads worked better having them face a bigger threat and seeing how they overcame that, but sadly now everybody in Hollywood wants to make a macho woman leads boss around the men and make them extremely unlikeabke like captain marvel
Heroes..just like everyday people...need flaws to be relatable (because no one is perfect) in order to be interesting. We all love a good power fantasy, but that only goes so far then it is mind numbing and boring. We need to be able to understand the characters we are supposed to care about. Also I think many men like actual strong female characters because of their many struggles on their journey showing their true strength and resolve. My wife suffers from DDD and ovarian cysts which has plauged her for years. I am inspired by my wife everyday because I know she isn't perfect, but she always tries and eventually reaches her goals when I would've stopped, in order to prove to herself and others that she is strong despite having physical issues in her back and hips.
THEY LIKE them when they are LIKEABLE!!! princess leia , Padme, Wonderwoman SuperGirl were GOOD they were SEXY, FEMININE had male love interests and SMILED Black widow, & her sister , Capt Marvel THE MARVELS< and that goofy indiana jones woman were grumpy no smile no fun no boyfriends, all not feminine NOT SEXY just UNLIKEABLE
2 great action comics with gorgeous art and cool female protags are "Hotwire" by Steve Pugh and "Monstress" by Marjorie Liu & Sana Takeda. Both lady leads are really interesting and flawed characters.
I think a lot of the female action film failures are made with hostility. I look at Elizabeth Banks and her interviews for Charlie's Angels or Captain Marvel with Brie Larsen, Ghostbusters 2016. The interviews are not in the film, but it gives you an insight into where the filmmakers are approaching the film. They weren't made with passion for telling a story that mattered to them, it seemed to be more of "stick it to the audience" attitude. If you are hostile and antagonistic in your mind and intent towards a chunk of your audience, that storytelling is not going to be so good.
Lots of great female action heros and super heros, Wonder Woman, Black Widow, Scarlet Witch, Nebula, Gamora, Storm, Jean Grey
Just looking even at the recent feminist rejection of Poor Things, even though it has strong feminist themes (I found myself thinking of Ibsen's "A Doll's House" and the magic realism of Angela Carter - I loved the film myself and I noticed that most of the people that didn't like it didn't like it for "feminist reasons'), part of their critique was that it was "a product of the male gaze" and as you say, same could be said of Wonder Woman (and as I remember from my childhood, was said about Wonder Woman - I found feminist influences around me growing up were more likely to see Wonder Woman as "sexist" than "feminist") and in fact could it not be said, if being created by and appealing to men is deemed to be negative - which is kind of what "male gaze" means, putting aside their insistence that is a bad thing - doesn't the same criticism apply to every popular culture feminist icon, at least every one I can think of - Lara Croft, Tank Girl, Emma Peel, Morticia Addams, Buffy, Catwoman, She-Ra, Jana of the Jungle, Princess Leia - they were all created by men creating women they found attractive - they're all Pygmallion's sculptures. Even the Sex In The City women are products of a gay male's gaze because they are "diva" characters. If the feminists insist that is "problematic" they would be cutting off their noses to spite their faces. And if appealing to 50% of the population is seen as a bad thing then success is seen as failure and maybe even failure is seen as success, so the ones that are now bombing, because they don't appeal to men, are a double win for them because flopping is taken as evidence they are right that misogyny is rampant, so it gives all the reward of a confirmed bias, and also by flopping they prove themselves not to be "problematic". I think they find perverse reward in the flops.
I (old white male) love female heroes. Starting with Homer's Pallas Athene, several active female characters in Grimm's fairy tales, Spyri's "Heidi": There always were strong gurls in my childhood and youth. Later, when I switched to Science Fiction, there were many female characters, who were at least as strong as boys/men, e.g. in the novels of Robert Heinlein, Anne McCaffrey, McMaster-Bujold, Connie Willis. I even adored Rey in The Force Awakens, and did sense a tough background story for her. Deeply disappointed by Last Jedi, I never ever watched again any movie of the Star Wars franchise.
BTW: Yesterday, I watched Tomb Raider (2018). Great. No stupid whobling sex-bomb, but a tough intelligent woman.
Jolie is also quite good in Salt, Wanted, and that newer one where she plays a traumatized smoke jumper where some bad guys are trying to get rid of a witness.
I don't agree that Wonder woman was "female point of view/female gaze" as a movie. It was a very very beautiful half naked woman who is very strong but completely helpless without her man (every other man sexual fantasy). It was a good movie but it wouldn't be half as successful if it wasn't intentionally appealing firstly to men
I was into Marvel because of Loki, I realized his character but they absolutely destroyed him over time. I think the last time he might of been in character was Thor 2, after that I have no idea who the character is any more
I don’t understand why people have such a problem with men being more ubiquitous in action movies. It’s reasonable to assume that more men are in action movies because, in general, more men like action movies. This is the same for women being in more romcom movies because, in general, more women like those types of movies. There are exceptions of course, but it’s exhausting trying to create equality of outcome in terms of casting more women in action movies just because. How about we make movies that focus on character rather than the protagonist’s gender? Wonder Woman 2017 was the best female protagonist superhero movie and I don’t think it’ll be beat for a long time. We could’ve had the same thing for Batgirl. RIP.
Their are a lot of headlines that go out over the web about poor box office being because of misogynist. I now look something like the marvels or madam web as a chicken or the egg type thing.
I dont know if you have seen the honest trailer for wonder woman. They said patty Jenkins asks the question what if female lead superhero movies didn't from start to finish. I really like that line, and when i heard someone online say that was their favorite dceu movie i had to stop and think. I wonder who they were able to get from marvel phase three to help with it? JK, PJ deserves a lot of credit
It’s such a weird coincidinky that all this ‘bad writing’ started when people reading feminist literature entered the job market.
Umm, you mean the mid-1970s?
@@MiqelDotCom Well let’s see. Third wave readers would be in management positions now and the fourth wavers are doing the writing. But of course that’s not what’s happening at all. Just a lot of bad writing happening in a vacuum.
@@cynicalex3450 Yep, I agree with you... it couldn't be the advent of those people reaching positions of control... like... KK... or the head of Amazon Studios.
TBF, though, the "allies" like Feige and Iger are just as bad... and then there are the ones like Ruin Johnson and Rafe Judkins.
Great video! LOTS OF AWESOME POINTS! I have something to add. Thor: The Dark World. This is pretty much universally thought of as a meh Marvel movie. Ragnarok, in way, was a reaciton to that movie but for the most part, i think alot of Marvel fans think that movie is not very good. And yet... I dont not see any videos or articles uging us to ease up on The Dark World. Where are all the videos or whatever from legions of dudes who say we are just haters... or even videos saying its "not that bad". yeah, there are none. It was bad, and we moved on. Yet, when any kind of cricism is leved towards female-led projects -- we see the directors, actors, showrunners, producers calling us toxic insted of addressing unlikeable characters, bad writing, changes to the source material that is just checking a box.... etc.
My favorite female action lead is Demi Moore's Lt Jordan O'Neil in G.I. Jane.
She undergoes SpecOps training and initially gets her ass kicked, but that gives meaning to her perseverance and growth.
14:00 The thing you're talking about here is called "fan baiting", and to this day it is still central to their marketing strategy.
Agree to disagree about Black Widow. Yes, the Ultron movie had problems. After Ultron, a lot of us wanted more of her back story. I know in the comics she was more powered than in the movies but MCU wise, what made her so cool was that she was just a normal (albeit very well trained) human fighting alongside Gods and super soldiers vs aliens. Both her and Clint were so underrated. They were the glue that held the team together. She should’ve had her own movie years ago. Probably before or after Civil War instead of 6 years too late after she’s already died just to replace her with her sister (although Florence did a fantastic job).
I have never thought it was a matter of the gender of the characters. It was always, and will always be, the quality of the story and how well they can tell it.
Years ago with Charlie's Angels? Wasn't 2016 when it happened, that is with Ghost Busters? Even Ocean's 8 suffered from the same poor choices of attacking men to attract a women audience wasn't that even before Charlie's Angels? This has been going on for almost 10 years. Though, perhaps it reached its Zenith with Charlie's Angels?
Female action heroes can be great if done right. We've had plenty of good ones pre-2012/2013.
There should have been a Black Widow movie in Phase 2 instead of after Avengers Endgame.
Yes, sort of. But its more like males often watch action movies and fantasize about being the hero - its like roleplay, which is why boys buy Star Wars and Marvel toys. That rolepaly fantasy is much harder to engage in, for them, if the protagonist is a female. Meanwhile, women don't seem to have the same roleplay fantasy when they watch action movies. Which is why they tend to like them less than men - because they are often so crappy. But many males are happy with crappy action movies, solely as a roleplay fantasy escape. That's not to say female action heroes NEVER or CAN'T work, just that its comparatively rare as an overall trend. And there is nothing wrong with acknowledging this overall trend.
I'm just here for the teaser for your short film! jk Hey, my favorite MCU characters were also Iron Man and Black Widow, even though, from the movies I saw, imo, Loki was the best. I did wear a Captain America shirt to the theater for Civil War to support the metaphorical Cap position (once again appreciating your depiction is not promotion since wanted to say that being that I said I preferred Tony but that doesn't mean I agreed with his metaphorical stance...I was with Cap's freedom over fear stance in Winter Soldier and Civil War...he just didn't have that RDJ charisma for me) and I did love when he said, "Well, I couldn't leave my best girl. Not when she owes me a dance," in Winter Soldier, which I thought the story was a better version of Metal Gear Solid 2 which....anyways...I'll get back to that...maybe...gonna take you for a Marvel v Capcom style ride...which, by the way, I wouldn't be surprised if more guys like Chun Li than gals.
I thought Natasha was overall the most consistently well written hero across the movies I saw (never saw her solo movie). I didn't even see all the MCU movies before Endgame. RDJ was really my draw to the MCU but if they kept with the sincere serious tone of the first Iron Man and Incredible Hulk with Edward Norton, which was chef's kiss casting imo, I probably would have been more enthusiastic to see them rather than for something to connect with people...I even liked the newer X-Men movies because, imo, they had a more sincere serious tone; however, I did like Iron Man 3, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 and 3 which weren't on that level, but, where was I? Oh, yeah, I thought Natasha was more consistently well written, but maybe after hearing your Age of Ultron vid, I'll think otherwise....
Imo Tony had peak characterization in the first redemptive Iron Man movie compared to Natasha, and then...I liked his relationship with the kid in Iron Man 3 because, for me, the way I think of fiction with how it can help people is metaphorically encapsulated by that Justice League Unlimited Batman holding Ace's hand on the swingset before she passed away where, for me, and I know you, me, adults here, and you mentioned soldiers reading Wonder Woman, like fiction and superheroes, but I think most of fiction, but especially superheroes, is there to help uplift children, so it was just neat to see Tony help the kid.
And, yeah, I'm similar to you. I appreciate movies that are well structured such as Sound of Music which I gave a 10/10 which is more of a women's movie (I agree with you Alien/Aliens are more guy films, at least from the ones I've seen, and I think Terminators are as well, even though they have women action heroes) and I am definitely not all the Hills are Alive at the Sound of Music to see it on my own, but if I had to, I could, because I think it's a masterpiece, and I have Maria Rainer on my list of most noble fictional characters I could think of from childhood onward.
I agree, Marvel, Star Wars, I'd also add Lord of the Rings to be more universal. With DC....it's Batman. When it comes to superheroes, it's Spider-man, Batman, and X-Men imo.
And I will say when it comes to the MCU, I thought a lot of women were in it for the "hot guys." haha
Also, oh sweet! I saw your pinned comment and I actually have Wait Until Dark waiting for me to watch! I seriously just got the dvd before watching your video!
And I have seen the first 4 Halloweens and Scream 1-3 for Laurie Strode and Sydney Prescott.
For action characters...I like plenty of DC and Marvel ladies (there was a time when Wonder Woman was and Starfire was my favorite superhero because working out is my favorite hobby so I appreciated them training for their abilities as well as them having a faith aspect even though I don't share their values) but...Eoywn, Arwen, and Mulan! I don't know if April O'Neil from TMNT counts. By the way, I'm hoping the upcoming TMNT Last Ronin is good! That's gonna give competition to Sonic-mania! Woo-hoo!
I remember liking and thinking Kill Bill Vol. 2 was amazing giving it a 9/10 but that's when I was younger so maybe it has moral issues, same with liking Nancy in Sin City so I don't want to lead anyone astray...but I gave Terminator 2 a 9/10 which has Sarah Conner.
Gave Incredibles a 10/10 which has Elastigirl as a deuteragonist, and that's the only action movie I rated that highly besides Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Mad Max Fury Road I originally gave a 10/10 but then knocked it to a 9/10 because the lead characters both Max and Furiosa didn't have much to their characters.
The Portal games were really good first person games we play as the woman Chell! I don't think she speaks but the villain Glados does!
Still hoping to play the older Tomb Raiders one day along with Prince of Persia Sands of Time and Ninja Gaiden Sigma being action adventure games I played and enjoyed but didn't finish!
However, played all the modern Tomb Raiders with Lara Croft, multitasking at volume 0 so I don't know the story, but preferred playing those games to Uncharted due to Lara's gameplay mechanics and authentic challenge (as opposed to artificial challenge with bullet sponging, clunky controls, and magnetic aiming in Uncharted)...I played all the Uncharted games including Lost Legacy where we play as Chloe Frazer, so I just like it better gameplay mechanic-wise...Uncharted's multiplayer was fun though..which I did play as women characters but only cuz I had to, if there's an option, I'm always going to choose to play a man if the gameplay is around the same quality.
Control was another good third person action game with a female lead, that I played at volume 0..
I only gave two video games 10/10s Resident Evil 4 and Devil May Cry 3 which both had women action characters, though not main characters, and the third game I gave the highest rating 9/10 to is the fighting game Tekken 5 DR and that had many women characters I played a lot with; however, my mains were men Jin, King, and Kazuya...and then playing Tekken 7, pretty much stuck to Jin.
You mentioned Samus, and she was my go to character besides Link (thinking his name was Zelda when I was little) when I'd play Super Smash Bros until....we got to play as Solid Snake...err, even though he looked like MGS3 Big Boss dressed as Solid Snake from MGS2....which,
MGS3 was my childhood favorite pop-culture anything as a kid, and MGS2 was my second favorite childhood video game and they had women action characters....I gotta go!
Looking forward to your short film! Hope you and yours have a great day, JesterBell!
Seen The Princess (2022, Hulu original)? Totaly loved it.
People want *fun* movies, compare Charlie's Angels (2000), with Cameron Diaz, Lucy Liu and Drew Barrymore, vs Charlie's Angels (2019), with Kristen Stewart, Naomi Scott, and Ella Balinska. Speaking of Stewart, I love Underwater (2020)
Look at how populare the Resident Evil franchise is...how many female leads does that frachise have/
In general the general audience also wants beautiful people in it's media. (the last Spiderverse movie...Madame Web comes to mind)
Also, we like good protagonists, either well written or likeable, by script or by actor-charisma (or both), think Captain Marvel vs Wonder Woman
And maybe we have female protagonist fatigue....it's weird when Onward came out, a story about *two brothers* and their relationship with each other and their deceased father felt like breath of fresh air.
So, I don't believe at all it's hatred, or mysogyny or partiarchy or insecure men...I think it all has to do with good writing/likeable characters/actor charisma and fun factor. Not necessarily all together or in that order.
BTW, I'm putting the emphasis on fun, because first and foremost movies are to entertain. I recently watched Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, I thought it was awesome.
Dumb AF, but FUN, too. (Sometimes you have the incidental both good & fun, like Godzilla; Minus One, but I'm more interested in the entertainment value over quality)
No.
I hate badly written characters, no matter which gender.
On your thumbnail-picture: I neither like this marvel-woman (which is overpowered too btw.) nor this stupid character Thor, he's not funny, but embarrassing, in ALL of the movies.
Catwoman was almost always cool, especially the Michelle-Pfeiffer-version. Or most of the 2000''s X-women/fem-villains. Not to forget the first Wonder Woman. Or Black Widow.
But it's easier to write bad scripts and then blame the audience for hating it, less work for them.
8:58
It's because they allowed the story itself to make a mockery of Thor.
"Doth mother know, you weareth her drapes?" With this line, they neutered Thor and prepared him to become the kicking post of the MCU for the sake of moron comedy. From that point on, that was their main goal with the character.
Kind of like how after the outstanding 'The Incredible Hulk' they turned their energies towards making Hulk appealing to modern audiences by making him an effeminate, non-threatening project for Natasha to try and fail with.
I would like to give my little piece and while it may sound tiresome i still think the current not just MCU problem but movie problem has been the implementation of DEI, not to say diversity in itself is bad as you said, there have been good female action leads in the past, but my point is that diversity has been used at least in all recent marvel movies as a replacement for character, like is assumed that because a character, or a writer or director is diverse it will somehow produce a good film when a vast majority have no idea what they are doing or even have no clue about the source material.
As for films like madam web, there was already a negativity attached to the MCU since previously it felt like they wanted to push the male audience away, Brie Larson being mostly responsible for that, so i think at that point most were just expecting the worse without even seeing the movie first.
Apologies for the rant but great video, hopefully one day we will see the return of good character writing in movies
15:05, though it’s worth noting that none of that movies action heroes do any action heroing.
nope.
Alien franchise.
Terminator Franchise
Nikita franchise
Resident Evil franchise.
ALIAS tv series
Tomb Raider games and movies and new show
Mad Max: FURY ROAD has spawned a PREquel
etc. for decades.
MOST movies fail. blaming that failure on gender or race is just the person doing the blaming exposing themselves as a bigot.
Brie didn’t say that she didn’t want men to go see it she just said the movie wasn’t meant for them.
Why is it so hard to accept that it's bad writing? They blame everything and everybody except their shitty creations