In previous reviews, I've let you in on my late-blossoming love for Joss Whedon (Buffy, Angel). This week, I finished up my viewing of his trio of shows with the one and only fourteen-episode season of Firefly. Previously, I'd also watched the film version of the Firefly story, Serenity, which was made after Firefly was taken off the air. Since Serenity is basically a continuation of Firefly, with nearly identical characters and actors, this review is for both the series and the film.

Like Buffy (and more or less unlike Angel), Firefly/Serenity has strong, central female characters. Firefly/Serenity's feminism is much different than Buffy's, though, as the entire premise of the show isn't a reversal of horror movie victimhood. Instead, Firefly/Serenity is a new take on the western frontier adventure story, which is certainly another area of traditional film misogyny. Though the main character, Mal (Nathan Fillion, who is amazing here as compared to his incredibly misogynist role as Caleb in Buffy) is male, he is surrounded by super competent women. First, there is his lieutenant, Zoe, played by Gina Torres. Zoe is confident, deadpan, and deadly. If Firefly/Serenity is a new take on westerns, Zoe is a new take on Clint Eastwood. She's a woman of color, and neither her femaleness nor her color is at all the point. She's just as likely to save Mal (or her husband, the ship's pilot, Wash, played by Alan Tudyk) as he is to save her. She's unabashedly stronger and cooler-headed than her husband, who mostly admires, rather than resents, it. In my book, Zoe is up there with Sarah Connor and Ripley in the cannon of badass action heroines.

Next, there is the ship's mechanic, Kaylee (Jewel Staite). We see her take her job from a man (with whom she is having sex in the engine room of the ship), and she's a mechanical genius. She's also a very realistic, funny, self-effacing character. The actress reportedly gained 20 pounds to play Kaylee, putting her at a larger-than-usual size for television (though still by no means fat). Given the unfortunate tendency for women in the Whedonverse to be waifs, this was nice to see as well.

The third major female character is Inara, played by Brazilian actress Morena Baccarin. Inara is a "companion," which translates, in the world of Firefly, to a very respectable, expensive, high-class prostitute who has complete control over who she chooses as clients. She is also the only person on the ship who doesn't answer to Mal--she rents a shuttle from him and runs her own business from it, she's not part of the crew, and she makes it clear that she doesn't take orders.

Finally, there's River (Summer Glau, who is now starring in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles). Unlike the rest of the cast, River's character is quite a bit different in Firefly than it is in Serenity. In both, she's a young, brilliant woman who was imprisoned, tortured, and experimented on by the Firefly/Serenity government baddie, The Alliance. In the film version, she's not only slightly crazy, but a killing machine and the action hero of the film. The television show treats her differently, focusing on her empathic (and telepathic) powers, rather than her physical prowess. She's much more of a victim on Firefly than in Serenity, which is too bad, but was probably planned to change had their been further episodes of the show (and it's foreshadowed a bit at the end of the series). She also has some great moments in the series, like when she tells backstabbing crewmember Jayne (Adam Baldwin) that she could kill him with her brain.

It isn't just the strength of the female members of the crew that makes them stand out, it's also the relative "weakness" of their male counterparts. Simon (Sean Maher), the ship's medic and River's brother, is constantly portrayed as weak, effeminate, and even foppish. Pilot Wash is good at what he does, but takes a backseat to Zoe if any actual danger comes along. And even Jayne, who was hired for his muscle, is in short supply of both class and brains. The only really heroic male character is Mal, and even he falls to the deviousness of repeating villains. The villain who gets the best of him most often is a woman, Saffron (Christina Hendricks). Even though the women on the ship include a "professional" and a "crazy," it's Mal, not any of the female characters, who ends one episode in the buff (with his hip tattoo showing, even).

In Buffy, feminist action is defined within the narrow parameters allowed by white, middle-class high schoolers/young adults--Buffy can kick ass, Willow can do magic, but they still behave within the confines of normal white teen girlhood, never becoming sexually aggressive, overly angry, or independent of male guidance. Though the feminist potential grows over time, it remains constrained up until the show's end. In Angel, the female characters are rarely treated with respect at all. In Firefly/Serenity, though, a more mature and unconstrained idea of feminism begins to be explored. Women play the roles of warrior/gunslinger (Zoe), innocent/mechanical genius (Kaylee), psychic/assassin (River), wise independent professional and prostitute (Inara) and various supporting villains and heroes (Patience, Saffron, Mandy). There doesn't seem to be a role in the Firefly/Serenity universe that a woman can't play. To my mind, that is absolutely progress. (Please note that other reviewers disagree very strongly. For example, Katherine at Whereof One Can Speak says that all of the female characters are stereotypes.)

Race is also treated more maturely and completely on Firefly/Serenity than on Buffy. Three of the major characters (Zoe, Shepard Book, and Inara) are non-white, as is one of the major villains (Early in the show, The Operative in the movie). The world in which the Serenity crew operates seems to be one in which race and gender are no longer major markers of anything. There is never a mention of race in reference to any of the characters. It is only in the case of Inara, who often dresses in Persian-inspired costumes, where it even seems to come into play. We are clearly meant to read Inara as exotic, though this is just as much a trope of her class and profession as her non-whiteness. For Zoe and Book (Ron Glass), race seems to be a complete non-issue.

Though Firefly/Serenity do better with characters of color than Joss' previous work, they aren't perfect. As several bloggers have pointed out (including Claire at Hyphen, Katherine at Whereof One Can Speak, and Rob at Big Monkey, Helpy Chalk), it is very troublesome that the future imagined for Firefly/Serenity includes an English-Chinese hybrid language and eating with chopsticks, but no actual Asian characters. I can think of no rational reason for the decision not to include Asian actors as both major and minor characters in Firefly/Serenity. Other Magazine's Liz writes that she "would have liked Firefly and Serenity even more if the history were deeper, and the "multiculturalism" well thought out." That criticism is valid.

Some of the other claims of racism in Firefly/Serenity just don't work for me. Helpy Chalk's Rob writes that Firefly is "a fictional world where the most troublesome parts of the myth of the West are actually true. The surrogates for Native Americans really are savages. The surrogate for the Confederacy really was justified in its cause." He goes on to explain that the Reavers are the "savages" and the outer planet resistance is the Confederacy. I find this reading of Firefly/Serenity as a Western to be too literal.

Claire at Hyphen wrote to Joss, "Maybe you'll find yourself a little more relevant to non-geeks if you bother to really look at the people who already populate and are going to populate the spaces you exploit for your fictions." I don't buy this as a reason for Firefly's cancellation. While she is right about the stupidity of not including Asian characters, Firefly is still one of the most racially balanced action movies or television shows I've seen. I think that had Whedon as much time to develop the Firefly/Serenity story as he did Buffy and Angel, it would have ended up being better than either of them, at least in terms of feminist and anti-racist action. The world created for Firefly/Serenity bases worth as a person on actions, morality, taking care of your friends, doing what needs to be done. There is no room for judgment based on sex or race. And that may well be something the viewing public wasn't ready to see.

I am giving both Firefly and Serenity four stars, under the assumption that the direction taken in Serenity is what would have happened in Firefly if it had been allowed to continue (especially with regards to the changes in River). Even though they are flawed, both the film and the series are among the most feminist and anti-racist action media I've ever seen. They also represent a positive progression in anti-racism and even feminism for Mutant Enemy's work. I think Joss should be proud.

Posted by Grace in 4 Stars: Greatest Hits
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Quentin Tarantino's films Kill Bill Vol. 1 and Kill Bill Vol. 2 have been on my Heroine Content "to review" list for quite some time now, and I'm excited to have finally re-watched them and to be reviewing them. For the purposes of my comments here, I'm taking them as Tarantino originally intended, as one film, not as a film and its sequel. I'm not making any particular distinction between the events/characters of the first and second volumes.

First, on race: the cast of Kill Bill is multi-racial. The film's central characters, the members of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad are two white women, The Bride and Elle Driver (Uma Thurman and Daryl Hannah), a white man, Budd (Michael Madsen), an Asian woman, O-Ren Ishii (Lucy Liu), and a Black woman, Vernita Green (Vivica A. Fox). Bill himself (David Carradine) is white. The film subverts traditional racial roles in both subtle and less subtle ways. One more subtle subversion is the roles the former Viper squad women have taken when The Bride comes back to seek revenge on them. It is the other white woman, Elle Driver, who has stayed with Bill. The Black woman, Vernita Green, seems to be living a successful and even mainstream suburban life, and the Asian woman, O-Ren Ishii, has become the boss of the Yakuza. Of all of the Deadly Vipers, only the Black woman, Vernita, has left her life of crime behind.

A more direct commentary on race is made in the infamous scene where O-Ren Ishii is taking control of the Tokyo crime underworld and one of the other heads of families makes disparaging remarks not only about her gender, but also about her Chinese and American ancestry (O-Ren is supposed to be Chinese-Japanese-American). O-Ren's response, in part, is "The price you pay for bringing up either my Chinese or American heritage as a negative is... I collect your fucking head." This is after she has beheaded the offender. Makes a pretty clear point about being accepting of other races, and of mixed race people.

O-Ren's gang, the Crazy 88, is, among other things, a study in Japanese stereotypes. They are hyper violent, arrogant, hard drinking, and painfully fashionable in their dark suits. O-Ren's personal bodyguard, Gogo (Chiaki Kuriyama) dresses as a schoolgirl. But the intentionality of the stereotypes, and the way in which they are both a nod to themselves and to subversion makes them feel more anti-racist than racist. The same is true of legendary sword maker Hattori Hanzo (Sonny Chiba) martial arts guru Pai Mai (Chia Hui Liu)--though they do play characters that are in some way typical, or even "stock," Tarantino is clear that he understands those characters as such, and they come off as a both a nod to the days when these were the only options for Asian film and as a subtle subversion of the stock characters they represent.

Situating Kill Bill in feminist discourse is just as complicated as in anti-racist discourse. First, the obvious: The Bride (and the amazing Zoe Bell, who makes her possible) is a badass. The scene in the first film where she takes on the entire Crazy 88 is the stuff of legend, and her grittier beat down of Elle (the eye! the snake!) in the second film is both gruesome and inspiring. I love that she is a female character out for revenge and that she has no mercy on those who have wronged her. That being said, I hate how often she seems to be doing it because of her (assumed dead) child and not on her own behalf. The Deadly Vipers beat her up and then Bill shot her in the head. That ought to be why she's pissed. That she was pregnant when they did it is secondary.

Like any Tarantino movie, Kill Bill isn't without its share of horrible sexual abuse and graphic, gruesome violence against women. The attempted murder of The Bride and her murder of her wedding party is really just the beginning. The Bride is raped repeatedly while she is in a coma, not only by hospital employee Buck ("Your name is Buck. You came here to fuck."), but by the men to whom he rents out her immobile body. Later, she's buried alive. The child O-Ren watches from under a bed while her parents are murdered in an animated segment, and then is forced to copulate with the pedophile who murdered them in order to get into position to take her revenge. However, the moral universe is pretty clear in Kill Bill--the bad guys always pay, and they pay at the hands of the women they've wronged. The Bride's revenge on both Buck and the pervert to whom he rented her out when she had just come out of her coma is suitably brutal, and all the more impressive for her having enacted it without the use of her legs (in the case of the unnamed pervert, with just her teeth). So, if you can handle watching the horrors, you are rewarded with the vengeance. But don't underestimate the horrors.

My only real gender related problem with Kill Bill is the set up of the Deadly Viper squad to begin with. Why in the world are these four beautiful, smart, deadly women working for Bill in the first place? He gives the orders, they do the deeds? Why? What's in it for them? These questions are never answered to my satisfaction, and I'm particularly bothered by the way O-Ren, Vernita, and Elle seem all too happy to attack The Bride at Bill's behest. Particularly with Elle, this seems to be in part due to jealousy between the women for Bill's attentions, and that's something I can live without seeing.

Then there is, of course, the mommy angle. Both The Bride and Vernita are mothers, and motherhood The Bride's big motivating factor. However, this didn't bother me as much in these films as it normally does, if only because non-mommy figures are portrayed as well (O-Ren and Elle), and because Bill takes fatherhood pretty seriously, too.

All in all, Kill Bill Vol. 1 and Kill Bill Vol. 2 are great action movies. They are entertaining, suitably badass, and very female-centered. Like Tarantino's other films, they don't appear at the outset to be great works of gender and racial equity, but if you scratch the surface, you'll see that the stereotypes aren't really quite what they seem. Somewhere, in the stylization and the absurd witticisms and the painstaking soundtrack, there is subversion, and I like that. Four stars.

Posted by Grace in 4 Stars: Greatest Hits
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When I reviewed Million Dollar Baby, I mentioned that I had a soft spot for boxing movies, and that I'd review Girlfight and you'd see why. Well, I'm making good.

In some ways, Girlfight resembles Million Dollar Baby. Some of the basic plot structure (economically disadvantaged girl with tenuous family ties takes up boxing and becomes successful) is the same. However, the feel of the two films is completely different. Unlike Million Dollar Baby, Girlfight is written and directed by a woman (Karyn Kusama, who also directed Aeon Flux).The boxer in the movie, Diana, is played by Michelle Rodriguez, whom I desperately want to take on more serious action roles, as she's a born bad ass (you can also see her in The Fast and the Furious, Resident Evil, and BloodRayne, in which she apparently does not shine). Most importantly, though, the film is actually about Diana's path to self-respect and pride through boxing, rather than being about a dysfunctional father-daughter relationship between her and her trainer.

Diana starts out as a high school girl with a wicked temper and a reputation for fighting. She becomes interested in boxing when she visits a gym to pay for the boxing her little brother, Tiny, is being forced to do by her father. The typical "I don't train girls" stuff ensues, but it is blessedly short-lived, and it is clear from the beginning that Diana is going to be damn good at this. She proceeds to train with her brother's trainer, without the knowledge of her sexist dad.

The first major conflict of the film is Diana's relationship with her father, which ends in a phenomenal scene where she physically challenges him and wins, confronting him about his physical abuse of her dead mother. It's an enormously powerful scene, and one that is played perfectly by both Rodriguez and Paul Calderon, who plays her dad. It's also a reversal I can't ever remember seeing, wherein not a son, but a daughter confronts her father for his treatment of her mother.

The second major conflict is between Diana and her boyfriend, Adrian, played by Santiago Douglas. Diana and Adrian meet through the gym, and in what is admittedly a contrived plot device, end up fighting each other in the film's epic battle. Here again the film shines, and distances itself from Million Dollar Baby. In Girlfight, the amateur boxing is gender-blind, and Diana and Adrian are the same size and in the same weight class. When he learns he will have to fight Diana, Adrian at first refuses, saying it's because he can't hit her, but telegraphing fairly clearly that he's afraid she'll beat him. She insists the fight happen, and when it does, Adrian lets go and gives it his all, as does she. And then she wins. In the film's last scene, Adrian asks her how she can ever respect him now that he's hit her. Diana responds that he showed her respect in the ring, treating her not like a girl, but like any other opponent, and that is the best thing he could have done. And though the film ends with a cliché kiss between them, it's completely on gender equal terms.

Girlfight does as well with race as with gender. The characters are mostly Latino, though the film is non-specific about most of their ethnicities. Some, like Diana and Tiny, whose father is dark-skinned and whose mother clearly was not, seem to be mixed race. Hector, Diana's trainer (played by Jaime Tirelli) is Panamanian. Other, minor characters, such as other trainers in the gym, are both white and black. Race is a non-issue in the film, but it makes wide use of non-white actors and treats them and their characters with the same dignity that would be accorded to white actors. Sadly, this is a Hollywood rarity and a reason to commend Girlfight.

Girlfight is absolutely a four-star Heroine Content film. The elements I look for in a non-sexist and non-racist film are all here, and it's also entertaining and heartening to watch. I recommend it without reservation. This is what a boxing movie should be.

Posted by Grace in 4 Stars: Greatest Hits
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Dear Lorna Cole,

I love you.

You heard me, I love you. If I had a locker, I would put your picture up on the inside of the door.

You're not even in the poster for Lethal Weapon 3, but in my opinion you are the star of this film. I'm not the only one who feels this way. Everyone I knew who saw this in 1992 fell in love with you, because you are so damn cool. Did it help that Rene Russo, who plays you, is conventionally beautiful? Sure. We humans are a shallow lot, and we've been well-trained by our culture to respond to certain cues. But honestly, there was so much more to it than that. We fell in love with you because you just kick so much ass, literally and figuratively.

Let's start with your job. Internal Affairs. Normally stereotyped in films as uptight, territorial, and an impediment to justice. Sure, you start out hostile to having Riggs (Mel Gibson) and Murtaugh (Danny Glover) involved in your case, but that's because they have a bad reputation. Riggs gives you a hard time, and you respond in kind - coming out slightly ahead in the banter war instead of losing face to the superior man. Once Riggs and Murtaugh demonstrate they have something to offer, you work with them. You don't reject them just to maintain your authority. You're focused on the goal. Put dirty cops behind bars, save lives.

You've been called a female version of Riggs, or a man in a woman's body. That line of thought assumes that no woman would actually be tough, assertive, adventurous, and into the Three Stooges. OK, that last bit does smack of the classic male fantasy, and it doesn't really fit in with how you're portrayed, but it doesn't make you a man. Yes, you and Riggs have a lot in common. Wisecracks and a propensity for violence come to mind. But there's nothing slapstick about you. You are, for lack of a better word, cool.

That's why Riggs falls for you. It's not because you're dressed to seduce - frankly, some of your outfits are pretty awful, like that patchwork vest thing. His attraction does begins with the physical, but it turns into love when he discovers a kindred spirit whom he can respect. He respects you so much that he does his job, even when you're in danger and his heart is being pulled in two different directions, because he knows you both have a mission that is more important than your individual lives.

Finally, how cool is it that Russo was 38 years old when she played you? She was actually born within 2 years of Mel Gibson, rather than being 20 years younger as per the usual Hollywood guideline for hookups.

The film you inhabit is not without problems. I do wish that the African-American characters in the film weren't as stereotyped as they are. We see a restaurant owner, several police, and a train driver who just seem like regular people, and we see Murtaugh's family. But then we have the female driver of the armored car who is played for laughs about the lacivious fat black woman, and "gang" teenagers who only serve as a plot device. We need more African-American characters in movies, but not like this. I give the filmmakers credit for not making Danny Glover and his family the only African-Americans in L.A., because how bizarre would that be, but a little more care would have been appreciated.

However, I give Lethal Weapon 3 four stars, because even in a "supporting" role, you are one of my all-time favorite action heroines. The scene where Riggs stands back and watches you whip the bad guys in the warehouse, with a look of delight and pride on his face, is one of my favorite movie love scenes ever. He just can't get over how much you rock, and neither can I. Call me?

Posted by Skye in 4 Stars: Greatest Hits
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Double Dare is a different kind of film than what we usually review here at Heroine Content. Rather than being an action movie, it's about action movies. It doesn't feature the women who are in these movies for their pretty faces, great bodies, and famous names, but the ones who are in them for their ability to kick ass.

Made in 2004, Double Dare is Amanda Micheli's look inside the world of stuntwomen. She follows two stuntwomen, one at the beginning of her career (Zoe Bell) and one at the end (Jeannie Epper). Bell began the film (as well as her career) as Lucy Lawless' stunt double in Xena: Warrior Princess and ended working as Uma Thurman's stunt double for Kill Bill. Since then, she's worked on several smaller projects, and she recently came in front of the camera in the Tarantino/Rodriguez project Grindhouse.

For Epper, however, the situation is not so rosy. In her early 60s when the film was made, Epper was clearly less interested in reliving her stunt glory days (including being Lynda Carter's stunt double on the Wonder Woman television show) than in continuing to work. However, the film shows that Hollywood is no kinder to older stunt women than it is to older actresses, and Epper doesn't get much work through the course of the film (though she does end the movie with an eight week assignment on 2 Fast 2 Furious).

Micheli does a fantastic job of showing not just how these women and others like them kick serious ass, but the obstacles they face in order to do so. In one particularly telling scene, Epper is in a meeting of the coordinating committee for the US Stunt Awards. She suggests that the group consider making their format like the Academy Awards, with separate male and female categories for some awards. While some of the group members take the suggestion seriously, most are quick to make fun of it, saying things like, "what, should we have an award for best fall from 12 feet?" and "we don't want to award wienie stunts." Another scene shows Epper getting a consultation for plastic surgery, with the explanation that she has to improve her body to get work.

When I watch an actress kick ass in a movie or on television, I very rarely give thought to the behind-the-scenes woman who is actually making that ass-kicking happen. Behind every Heroine Content movie, though, there is at least one woman taking the risks and getting the injuries. As fabulous as Linda Hamilton was in T2, she couldn't have done it without legendary stuntwoman Debbie Evans; much as we love Angelina Jolie's Lara Croft, she owes a great debt to Eunice Huthart. And, as watching Double Dare makes clear, without Zoe Bell, The Bride never could have existed. I am glad to have seen it for just this reason--I hope to keep it in mind the next time I watch a woman doing something really cool on screen.

I'm giving Double Dare four stars. It's a must-see for other fans of Heroine Content who are willing to set aside their fantasies for a little while and see how the work really gets done, and I think it does a good job with making both the sexism and the glory in this industry clear without beating anyone over the head with it. I'd definitely recommend it.

Posted by Grace in 4 Stars: Greatest Hits
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A couple of months ago, I wrote a less-than-flattering review of Alien. Many of the comments on that review suggested that I just didn't get the film, or was expecting it to be something it wasn't. Even more of them suggested that I take a look at the sequel, Aliens, to get more of what I was after.

And I did. Though I didn't love Aliens, I did prefer it greatly to its predecessor, and I very much preferred Ripley's expanded character in Aliens to her muted one in Alien.

A couple of weeks ago, Dan at Cinemathematics wrote a really interesting piece on "The Two Ripleys". Had I read this piece before I saw Aliens, I might have viewed it differently. I definitely agree with Dan's irritation that the Aliens Ripley puts mother-instincts before her own survival. I didn't need to see mama-Ripley. Personally, I get tired of action heroines having to be mothers (same thing irritated me about The Long Kiss Goodnight).

That being said, though, I don't agree with the rest of Dan's assessment. Mother figure or not, Ripley simply kicks more ass in Aliens than in Alien. She's a civilian woman who takes over a military operation, makes plans to destroy many millions of dollars worth of the Company's stuff, and runs around shooting and blowing things up. She spends most of the movie in charge, pissed off, and fighting, rather than blathering about rules and regulations. I'm all for that. This Ripley isn't as goody-goody as the first film's character, and she's more likable and funnier that way.

As has been mentioned by others (including Dan), part of the change in Ripley's character between the two films is because Alien is more or less a horror movie, while Aliens is an action film. In the first film, there wasn't really sufficient room in the plot for Ripley to really shine as heroine, and in the second one, there is.

In Aliens, I finally saw the Ripley people are talking about when she comes to their mind after I explain to them what we're doing here at Heroine Content. Though not, in my mind, quite as perfect an HC poster girl as Tank Girl, who doesn't need a kid to inspire her, Ripley definitely takes a deserved place in the Hall of Fame beside The Long Kiss Goodnight's Samantha and T2's Sarah Connor. Four stars.

Posted by Grace in 4 Stars: Greatest Hits
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When Grace and I started this blog last year, The Long Kiss Goodnight was the first movie on my review list. So of course, it took me almost a year to review it. Part of that was not knowing what to say, except "It's amazing!" And that's not a very interesting review.

But I'm still going to start out by saying "It's amazing!" So amazing that it manages to overcome itself. It contains some of the the worst cliches of the action heroine. Shower scene? Check! The heroine doesn't even bother to pull the shower curtain closed. "Strip and torture" scene? Check! With wet lingerie, even. The Bad Guy calling her a bitch often and with great vigor? Check!

But somehow, magically, it's a heroine content classic.

Geena Davis plays Samantha, a small town schoolteacher who can't recall her life before she washed up on the beach eight years ago. Samuel L. Jackson plays Mitch, a private detective who is hired to help Sam find some trace of her past. When it turns out that her past may involve something more complicated than grading homework - say, oh, killing a bunch of people - they end up fighting all kinds of Bad Guys and things explode.

What does this movie do right?

It lets Samantha be everything she is. She's a warm, funny mother and teacher. She's also a highly trained fighter. She isn't forced to choose one or the other as the "happy ending."

It gives her genuine friends and relationships. Sam is not a heroic figure set apart from the rest of the world. She's a real person who can do for herself just fine, but she realizes her full self when she's connected with other people. Her boyfriend cares about her, but doesn't try to control her, and he's not afraid of her. She and Mitch develop a close, supportive friendship.

It's a compelling story about well-developed characters played by talented actors.

It's also a kick-ass action movie.

(I hate to draw the conclusion that it didn't do well at the box office because the star is a woman, so perhaps I will console myself and think that this combination confused people.)

It contains the best takedown of a man catcalling a woman that I have ever seen. Honestly, it should be required viewing during discussions about street harassment. If you haven't seen the movie, watch it just for this scene.

Most importantly, the film never says that Samantha can't be who she is because she's a woman. When the characters react with shock to finding out about her past, it's not "But you're a girl!" or or "But you're so little!" or "But you're a mom!" There are plenty of other reasons why it's bizarre to discover that the neighborhood 4th grade teacher and PTA member is a trained assassin, so there's no need to resort to outdated gender stereotypes.

True, there are a few scenes that could have used some editing: the "life is pain" speech, the blood and whipped cream thing (ick). If you've seen it, you know what I mean.

Race is brought up very explicitly. Police arriving at Samantha's house in response to a violent disturbance immediately and obviously focus their suspicions on Mitch, the African-American man. Mitch makes comments like "the white lady seducing the colored help" and a half-joke about Miss Daisy when Samantha orders him around. They film's creators make Mitch's race part of the movie, instead of just casting an African-American actor and then pretending like race and racism would never come up as he's interacting with a bunch of white people in modern-day America.

Mitch is given a truckload of characteristics that I consider negative, and that is probably not the greatest thing. However, he's also shown as a fully developed human being, not just a stereotype - and perhaps I am naive to think that Samuel L. Jackson probably had enough clout in 1996 to avoid taking roles that he would consider degrading. However, I just don't feel like my racism detector is developed enough yet to assess the overall impact. It seems like an edge case, where I would defer to people of color or white folks with more of a cultural studies background than I have, especially given the lack of any other living people of color in the movie.

Oh yes, I did just say "living." There is one other person of color who plays a prominent role in the film, albeit without a speaking part. To avoid spoilers, let's just say that it's not unusual for white men in power in the real world to place the blame on people of color for their misdeeds, so you shouldn't be shocked that someone thought to use it in a movie. An article called Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People on the website Everything2 lists the movie on its Recommended list, presumably for this plot point.

(Several pages of Google searches for the movie's title plus the word racist or racism didn't bring up much more, except for an academic article I'll need to track down. Technorati has nothing. That's the thing about reviewing older movies - there wasn't enough blogging back then!)

Overall, unless I find out something more sinister about the treatment of race issues, I give this movie four stars. Love it. Love Samantha, love Mitch, love the scene where she jumps out the window and uses a machine gun to punch a hole in the ice and save both of them.

And how much do we love Geena Davis for See Jane?

Posted by Skye in 4 Stars: Greatest Hits
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No, the OTHER Buffy. The movie. Yes, there was a movie. In 1992. About eight people saw it, and half of them hated it.

I am not one of the haters.

This Buffy the Vampire Slayer, played by Kristy Swanson, is almost like a first draft of the television series. Every once in a while you see glimpses of what the t.v. Buffy will be like. It's interesting for the aficionado.

However, this Buffy stands on her own. She isn't as conflicted and angst-ridden as her television incarnation, true. But she's not going for the Joss Whedon painful teen drama award. She's just trashing vamps and saving the damsel in distress, who is played by Luke Perry. Yes, Luke Perry. Also Donald Sutherland, Rutger Hauer, Paul Reuben, and a young Hilary Swank as a preppy wanna-be cheerleader with big hair.

So yeah, it's cotton candy, but it's fun. Buffy starts off as an airhead, living the rich girl life of shopping and Christian Slater movies. A mysterious man shows up and tells her she has a destiny... and you probably know the rest. Goodbye the girl who doesn't react when her boyfriend's best friend says "I don't mean to sound sexist or anything, but can I borrow her?" Hello to the girl who spends her time training for battle, then slams the aforementioned jock into a locker when he tries an unwelcome grab. Very satisfying.

When she takes on the vampires, forget screaming for help or collapsing in a heap from one blow. In a refreshing turn of the tables, Luke Perry's character Pike is the one with the fainting problem. When they give chase to some vamps, Buffy steals a biker's ride, while Pike has a scooter. He's the sidekick, no doubt about it, but he does lend a hand (or a jacket) when she's in trouble. And they still get to dance at the prom:

Pike: "I suppose you want to lead."
Buffy: "No."
Pike: "Me neither."
Buffy: "This is a good thing."

Sidekick, sure, but also the beginning of a good relationship.

The movie does have weaknesses. I'm so over the "one person of color, and it's the girl who stabs you in the back" casting thing. Been there, done that, let's move on. (If we ever find an action film that handles race and gender well, I think we'll have to add another level to our ratings scale.)

I also have to deduct points for the the stupid use of Buffy's cramps as a vampire detector. The "natural reaction to their unnaturalness" line used to explain this plot device is appalling. Thank goodness this was left out of Buffy 2.0.

Overall, though, I give Buffy the Vampire Slayer 4 stars. You may not like the campy comedy, but this Buffy is 100% heroine content.

Posted by Skye in 4 Stars: Greatest Hits
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James Cameron's action epic Terminator 2: Judgment Day opened the summer I turned 12. And it was hot hot hot. Everybody had a crush on previously unknown teen angst machine Edward Furlong (though, in my age group, more from the Guns N' Roses "You Could Be Mine" video than from the film itself, since we couldn't get in to see the R-rated film without our parents). T2 was THE big thing.

I didn't see it (see above re: parents) until it came on to VHS (remember VHS?). And when I did, I didn't share the Furlong-mania. For me, there was someone much, much more attractive in the film.

Linda Hamilton.

Linda Hamilton's Sarah Connor is the first action heroine of whom I remember being cognizant. From the first moment she appeared on screen, doing chin-ups in her mental ward cell, she made one thing very clear to me, and it isn't something I've since forgotten: nothing kicks so much ass as a woman doing chin-ups. I can't do a chin-up. Not even one. I have never, in my entire life, been able to do a chin-up. Clearly it isn't just the chin-ups that make Sarah a compelling character, but I maintain that they have a good deal to do with it.

Sarah Connor is a great character. She's unremittingly driven to protect not only her son, but her world. She's physically capable and mentally sharp. It is quite questionable whether or not she needs to be rescued (if you'll remember, she was doing just fine breaking herself out of the mental hospital before Machine 1 and Machine 2 came along), and when she is "rescued," it's not by a man, it's by a machine. And she's not sexed up while she does any of it. She never runs in heels, she never seduces anyone (though her kid does make reference to her shacking up with anyone who would teach her stuff, it's not shown in this film). This combination, to my mind, makes her a gold standard action heroine.

There is something admirable about the film's entire premise, as well--saving the humans from the machines, rescuing us from our own technology. There are also little bits of what I would even call feminism, or at least some form of feminist consciousness. One example is the early scene between John's foster parents, where his foster mom, Janelle, berates his foster dad, Todd, for not helping around the house. That's something you just don't see in movies, especially action movies. The best example, though, is Sarah's voice-over while watching John interact with the Terminator:

Watching John with the machine, it was suddenly so clear. The terminator wouldn't stop, it would never leave him. It would never hurt him or shout at him or get drunk and hit him or say it was too busy to spend time with him. And it would die to protect him. Of all the would-be fathers that came over the years, this thing, this machine, was the only thing that measured up. In an insane world, it was the sanest choice.

If that isn't an indictment of men as fathers, I'm not sure what it is.

Racially, T2 isn't as good a film. There are (I think) only two non-white characters. The first is Miles Dyson, the scientist responsible for the creation of Skynet, the computer system that takes everything over. Although he's a sympathetic character, he's not a very well fleshed-out one, and he is obviously problematic, since he's the brain behind all of the bad stuff that happens. It is, however, a non-stereotypical role for a black man. The second is Enrique Salceda, Sarah's friend, who outfits the Terminator, Sarah, and John with weapons after Sarah's escape. Though he seems like a good enough guy, he's a minor character, and it's not exactly a stretch to see a Hispanic man and his family portrayed in a film as desert-dwelling outlaws of some sort. All that being said, I still have to give T2 four stars, partially due to it's semi-hidden feminist content, but mostly because I think Sarah Connor may well be just behind Tank Girl in my HC hall of fame.

Posted by Grace in 4 Stars: Greatest Hits
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In a move that may well prove controversial, I hereby bestow the Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie romantic comedy action movie Mr. and Mrs. Smith with four heroine content stars.

There are numerous reasons for these stars, but the single biggest one is that Angelina Jolie's character in the film, "Jane Smith" is a much bigger badass than Brad Pitt's character, "John Smith." The Smiths are married assassins, and the film captures the days before and after they discover each other's true identities. During these days, Jane has a bigger guns, better plans, smarter lines, and better clothes. John has a partner, doofy Vince Vaughn; Jane has a squad of black-clad mini heroines. John makes his kill, drives home, and barely remembers to put his wedding ring back on before going inside. Jane makes hers, gets new drapes, and has dinner on the table at seven. She's just that much cooler. Late in the film, when the Smiths are confessing to each other the number of people they've killed, John says that he doesn't really keep count, but his number is in the high-50s or low 60s. "I've been around the block and all," he says. Jane responds with her number: 312. When John expresses disbelief, she says "some were two at a time."

This film is a rare instance where there are two action leads, male and female, and they are not just equally matched, she's better. Even when they put down the guns and resort to hand-to-hand combat, she is superior. And again, has the better lines. When he says "come to daddy," she counters by hitting him over the head with a teapot and saying, "who's your daddy now?" In both the cold, planned side of killing and the immediate, instinctual side, she prevails.

Jane is also a bigger badass in the emotional realm. She's colder than John and more willing to kill him than he her. When a wistful John tells her she "looked like Christmas morning" the first time he saw her, she responds by telling him he looked like the most beautiful mark she'd ever seen. In a striking reversal, the male half of the warring couple is the one who keeps extending his hand in peace in this film, not the emotional female.

It's true that Jane's character is sexualized. In some scenes, she dresses in a hyper-feminine manner, complete with bondage gear for one hit, high heels almost always. However, it doesn't detract from her efficiency or from her control. Rather than hobbling Jane's character, the times when she wears outlandish getups seem to accent how easy it is for her to do what she does. I think it helps that she's not always dressed that way--she spends most of the film in well-tailored pantsuits, a great turn on the working woman power suit.

As remarkable as Jane's competence and badass potential, however, is the way in which her character turns domesticity on its head. Her cache of weapons is hidden in a secret compartment in her gourmet kitchen. Her cover as an upper class suburban wife is run as efficiently and cleanly as her business operation, with dinners representing all four food groups on the table at the same time every day and constant redecorating. I can't help but think that it must have been an intentional choice on director Doug Liman's (who also directed the Bourne movies) part to emphasize Jane's cover more than John's. It came off to me as subtle commentary on the second shift pulled by career women in general, pulling double duty as domestics and members of the workforce. After all, Jane Smith is the successful CEO of her own tech corporation--why would she refer to herself as a "suburban housewife" if not point a finger at the way that many American women occupy dual roles?

All in all, I love this movie, and I think Angelina Jolie's role in it is a step forward for women in action roles. Part of this is Jolie as an actor--she's just more believably dangerous than all-American Pitt, who hasn't scared me since Fight Club. Much of it, though, has to be attributed to an excellent script by Simon Kinberg (oddly also responsible for the disaster that was X-Men 3) and good direction by Lyman. For me, this one gets added to the heroine content greatest hits.

Posted by Grace in 4 Stars: Greatest Hits
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Welcome to the world after the comet. There isn't much water, so the utility company has turned into a fascist government. The cool kids steal water and live in communes. When the fascists destroy the commune, Tank Girl (played by Lori Petty) must rescue the girl and save the world.

How much do we love watching her do that? Let us count the ways.

Number One: We love her unapologetic pro-fun agenda. If Tank Girl can't dance, dress up in silly outfits, and crack jokes, then she will find something more entertaining than your dour revolution. Since the whole point of the revolution is to make things more enjoyable, I'll be following her. Trust me, she's not falling down on the government overthrow part.

Number Two: Tank Girl refuses to respect authority, even when it's holding a gun. Forget toeing the line for convenience. She is who she is. So if you're a commando soldier guy working for The Man and you're thinking about taking advantage of her, think again. You may be stronger, but she's not going to put out just because you're temporarily in charge of the situation.

Number Three: She's never beaten down. Even when she's imprisoned as a slave in the mines, she asks a guard when Baywatch is on. The bucket of dirt he kicks onto her head in response doesn't even seem to faze her. No spectacle of the broken heroine here, people, move it along! If you want to watch a woman suffer, you'll have to find someplace else to gawk.

Number Four: Meet Jet Girl, played by Naomi Watts. A fellow captive in the mines, she has achieved a semi-privileged position due to... her mechanical skills. Nope, she's not being used as a sex slave. She repairs airplanes. Yes, she's sexually harassed, but it's nothing that a little well-timed power tool use won't fix.

Number Five: When the bad guys torture Tank Girl, she's clothed. The strip-and-torture scene is a cliche, so the film's creators skip it. Snaps for director Rachel Talalay and writer Tedi Sarafian. Well played.

Number Six: You know that other big cliche, the shower scene? In this movie, it's a shower of dirt. Tank Girl is wearing clothes the whole time, and her upper arms wobble. I'm not saying some people wouldn't find that attractive, but to me it feels like a funny little parody.

Number Seven: I cannot fully convey how beautiful it is to watch Tank Girl go through costume after costume while the stripper-bot lectures her on how to create her sanitized, socially acceptable "look." Follow the instructions properly? Hardly. (Suzanne of the Campaign for Unshaved Snatch and other Rants would be proud.)

Number Eight: The rehumanization of the strip club. How does Tank Girl approach a large crowd of rich men who are paying to exploit women? How does she intervene with the woman who owns the joint and makes money off other women's bodies? A musical number from Cole Porter:

When the little bluebird
Who has never said a word
Starts to sing Spring

It is nature that is all
Simply telling us to fall in love

And that's why birds do it, bees do it
Even educated fleas do it
Let's do it, let's fall in love

Everyone's singing, everyone's dancing, and now people are expressing themselves for the sheer joy of it and living as equals. Job well done.

Number Nine: The non-makeover of Jet Girl. Her new look evolves as a result of her increased confidence, not the other way around. She becomes more conventionally attractive, including the mysterious disappearance of her glasses, and in some ways I regret that. However, no outside force asks her to. Tank Girl doesn't do a fashion intervention. We don't have the classic makeover moment where someone takes away her glasses to show her the "real" Jet Girl. So I'm taking it as Jet Girl growing into herself, and more power to her if she wants to wear red lip gloss.

Number Ten: Tank Girl has her priorities straight. The damsel in distress she's trying to save, Sam, is a school-aged girl who was abducted by the fascists. At a crucial moment, Tank Girl refuses to let the bad guys use her love for Sam as a weapon against her. She would rather that Sam die than live as a slave. Instead of collapsing into sentiment, she takes action. And kicks major ass.

Number Eleven: Tank Girl is unashamedly sexual, and her sexuality is not punished or degraded. From the first few minutes of the film, we can tell this woman likes to get busy. Rather than sexually abusing her or "normalizing" her, the film lets her be herself from the beginning to the end. She loves sex, and that's just fine.

Number Twelve: Strong relationships between women. Tank Girl, Jet Girl, and Sam care for each other, trust each other, and help each other. No backstabbing here, just banding together to bring down the anti-fun establishment.

Yes, Lori Petty is a conventionally attractive skinny girl. Yes, I do wonder how Ice-T felt as one of only three people of color in the film, especially since he played a mutant kangaroo and you could hardly tell.

But for sheer exuberance and 100% heroine content, I give Tank Girl four stars. Especially because of the ending credits. Where else will you hear Joan Jett sing Cole Porter?

Posted by Skye in 4 Stars: Greatest Hits
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I loved Underworld. I practically danced my way out of the theater when it was over. It's a fabulous action movie. Guns, swords, huge fights, suspense, conspiracy, betrayal, and a non-sappy love story. Nothing really blows up, but I can let that go because Selene, the main character, is amazing. She is strong and decisive, and she takes care of herself and those she cares about. The film's creators respect the hell out of her, and it shows throughout the film. She is portrayed as extremely capable, and they've even dressed her in clothes and shoes that she could walk and fight in without breaking an ankle. As far as heroine content, Underworld knocks it out of the park. Things on the anti-racism side are a little shakier, but overall I feel like the anti-racist message wins out.

For those who aren't familiar with the plot, it goes something like this. Selene's family was murdered by werewolves. She was adopted into a patriarchal aristocracy of vampires by Viktor, one of the rulers. She becomes a Death Dealer, a soldier in the genocidal war against the werewolves. When she begins to suspect that the war isn't quite what she's been told, her investigation starts to unravel vampire society.

As the story plays out, we learn that Selene is deeply loyal to her father-figure Viktor. But unfortunately for her corrupt kin, her loyalty doesn't stop her from questioning the history she has been taught. She trusts her own instincts when things just don't seem right. It brings her into conflict with Kraven, the jackass currently in charge of her coven. When he's not sexually harassing her, he's threatening her with punishment and ordering her not to continue investigating.

But to Selene, protecting her people and finding the truth matter more than protecting her own standing. She's possibly the only one in the movie acting out of anything other than self-interest. True, she doesn't play politics well. Her loyalty to Viktor blinds her to his real nature until late in the game. But I completely disagree with Grace's description of Selene as a pawn of powerful men. Her actions continually challenge and threaten those powerful men and their plans. She shrugs Kraven off no matter how far he escalates, and she even defies Viktor to bring him proof of her accusations.

There are light touches of the usual action heroine cliches. When Selene is driving and passes out, forcing Michael to save her, it just felt like a mechanism to add vulnerability to her character. It didn't fit. I also wish that there were other women. There is a quick glimpse of one other female Death Dealer. There is Erika, the stereotype of the manipulative pretty girl. Amelia, the vampire elder, just dies. That's all. The film's creators are unwilling to admit that any other women could be strong or powerful.

However, the film's creators don't take away from Selene by indulging in all the formulaic garbage that plagues so many supposedly strong women in action films. There is no gratuitous cleavage. There is no strip and torture scene. There is no fainting or crying under pressure, only to be rescued by a man. When Selene and Michael fight the bad guys, they work together, and more often than not she's saving him. Her love for him doesn't suddenly make her weak.

From an anti-racist perspective, I thought the film also succeeded by showing Selene reject what she's been taught about the relationship between vampires and werewolves. She moves from seeing werewolves as subhuman targets of violence to an understanding that they are people who have been done wrong by vampire society. And since Selene has a solid grounding in right and wrong, she rejects Viktor's racism. We are strongly on her side by that point in the movie, and we are cued by the film to have the same reaction she does.

But since I'm white, I'm not the expert on racism. So I did a Google search to see if anyone else had commented on this aspect. Most of the reviews I found mentioned the race and class aspects of Underworld with an approving nod for the message the film conveys. That's not to say it's perfect. You may want to check out this comment on Underworld and racism from a forum on Starpulse. The basic issues raised by the commenter can be summarized as follows:

• Why was there only one black vampire?
• Why was there only one black werewolf?
• The werewolves, analogized to African-Americans, are often shown in their animal form, which is dark, violent, and non-human.
• The film conveys the message that mixing vampires and werewolves is bad.

The first two points are definitely a weakness. Further down the forum one of the commenters points out that the black werewolf was actually one of the executive producers of the film, but I don't know if that makes me feel better or worse! They couldn't find any actors of African descent? As to the fourth point, I thought the film was actually quite strong in its rejection of Viktor's racism around mixing between vampires and werewolves.

The third point is troubling. The most "civilized" werewolf, Lucian, is white. The film portrays him as the leader of the werewolves, but in many ways he's shown as "more evolved" than they are. He does not change into his animal form very often, if at all, and he chastises several of the other werewolves for acting like animals. Since the creators of the film decided to tell a story about race and class, I wish they had been a lot more careful with this part.

So I'm torn between giving Underworld four stars because of the amazingness that is Selene, and giving it three stars because the overt messages about race and class aren't always reflected in the choices the film's creators made about casting and portrayal of people of color.

In the end, I give it four stars, because to me it is one of the Greatest Hits of female action films and its heroine decisively rejects prejudice and racism. Heck, I'd make my children watch it if I had any - and if I thought it wouldn't give them nightmares!

Posted by Skye in 4 Stars: Greatest Hits
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