Lisbeth Salander, Columbiana, Angelina Jolie in Tomb Raider, The Tourist, and Salt, and Jennifer Lawrence in Hunger Games … girls are kicking butt lately! Some say it’s the fourth wave of feminism coming; people are rushing to see girls kick butt and they’re becoming inspired by it, too.
Women are the new action heroes, assassins, spies, hired guns, and even defenders against the occult in today’s films. And unless you’ve been under a rock, this is a pretty big cultural shift in the way we view gender roles. Some may say is a marketing shift – “girls are hot when they’re tough” – but even so: that’s another point for feminism. The days of “speak when spoken to” and “your opinion doesn’t matter because you’re not as good as a man” are gone. These girls can take most men out with a single punch.
And there’s more to it than just being tough – these girls are also extremely smart. In most action movies, the guys fight their way out of a problem, or they call the smart guy sitting at a laptop to navigate them out. These girls don’t need the guy at the laptop: they’ll figure it out themselves and if it comes down to it they’re not afraid to get their hands dirty.
It’s a really awesome step forward for feminism and for Hollywood because let’s be honest, as bad as Jonah Hex was, it’s still better to see Megan Fox kicking butt than it was to see Josh Brolin.
