Back in the 90s I used to make fun of how Hollywood action movies were all the same. Think Terminator, Rambo, and Die Hard.
You have one hero, and you get to basically watch him kick ass for an hour or so. The hero is a man, the villain is a man, and all those little people who get their asses kicked are also men. A woman's typical role is eye candy. You get a hot lady, who's sole involvement in the plot is to get in trouble. She would get kidnapped or attacked, then sit there and pout while the hero goes through all sorts of trouble to save her, and earn his passionate kiss at the final scene. The heroine is basically there so that the hero gets to be a hero. She has no role of her own other than to create the circumstances for the hero to shine.
There was a time when I was really fed up with this same movie getting released over and over again under different names and in slightly different settings. I thought I'll never see the end of it. I'm bringing this up because lately I've noticed things starting to change. You started to see action movies where the focus is a little more gender balanced. Think Kill Bill, Hancock, and Mr. & Mrs. Smith. The story there involves men and women. Both are heroes, as in peers. Which makes for really interesting plots.
I've been keeping an eye on this trend, until last week, while at the theater watching SALT, it finally dawned on me that we might have truly turned the corner!
SALT is unlike any action movie I've ever seen. It's basically Angelina Jolie kicking everybody else's ass! She's truly the sole hero of the movie. The whole plot revolves around her. Everybody else is a sidekick.
And we're not talking elegant heroine, cleanly sniping people or gracefully doing martial arts in a sexy dress with full makeup. We're talking down and dirty scenes with ugly fist fights and gory shootouts. Angelina appears in most of the scenes all roughed up with blood and bruises all over her face :)
It's not the movie that got me thinking. It's how surprisingly well it was received. The audience basically absorbed the plot without even noticing anything unusual about it. It just felt normal, nothing out of the ordinary, watching a woman beat up men for an hour or so!
If Hollywood is a magnifying glass for America's social misconceptions, are we finally living the day when misconceptions about women have melted away?
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