Amanda Rodriguez – Bitch Flicks

Top 10 Superheroines Who Deserve Their Own Movies

So few superheroines are given their own movies. I’m officially declaring that it’s high time we had more superhero movies starring women. The first in a series of posts, I’m starting with a list of my top 10 picks for super babes who deserve their own flicks.

This repost written by Amanda Rodriguez appears as part of our theme week on Superheroines. | Editor’s note: Since this article’s original posting in June 2014, solo films have been announced for Wonder Woman, Painkiller Jane, and Black Widow.

Most rational people seem to agree that we desperately need more representations of female superheroes to serve as inspiration and role models for girls and women alike. In truth, there is no shortage of superheroines in the world; we’ve got seriously acclaimed, seriously badass female characters from comic books, TV shows, and video games. Though these women tend to be hypersexualized or relegated to the role of supporting cast member for some dude, we still love them and can’t get enough of them. It still remains that so few superheroines are given their own movies. I’m officially declaring that it’s high time we had more superhero movies starring women. The first in a series of posts, I’m starting with a list of my top 10 picks for super babes who deserve their own flicks.

These are the superheroines I’d choose to get a movie if I ran Hollywood:

1. Batwoman

Not to be confused with Batgirl, the DC character Batwoman is the highest profile lesbian character in comic book history. A wealthy military brat who was expelled from West Point Academy due to “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” Batwoman is a defiant, tattooed socialite by day and a crime asskicker by night. With compelling, topical social themes (particularly with regard to queer culture), amazing action sequences and a lush, lurid and darkly magical underbelly of Gotham that we never saw with Batman, Batwoman has so much to offer audiences.

2. Wonder Woman

Wonder Woman is practically a goddess; she’s an Amazon princess with superhuman strength and agility raised only among women on the concealed Paradise Island. With her superior physical prowess and training, she constantly saves the day and her love interest, Steve Trevor. Not only that, but she also has cool gadgets like her invisible plane, Lasso of Truth, and her bullet deflecting bracelets (Wolverine’s adamantium bones ain’t got nothing on Wonder Woman’s gauntlets). The world has been clamoring for and drumming up rumors of a Wonder Woman movie for at least a decade. She’s as steeped in history as Superman, as iconic as Batman, as patriotic as Captain America, as strong as Hulk and way sexier than Ironman, and yet Superman, Batman, and Hulk have all had their own movie series AND their own series’ reboots while the rights to Wonder Woman languish on the shelf. Hell, the 70s were more progressive than today because they recognized the need and market for female superheroes when they created the beloved Wonder Woman TV series starring Lynda Carter that ran for four years. Give the woman a movie already, damn it!

3. The Bionic Woman

Speaking of the 70s and their penchant for female-driven TV shows, Jaime Sommers, aka The Bionic Woman, first had her own TV series in 1976, which was then rebooted in 2007 as Bionic Woman. After an accident nearly kills her, Jaime is retrofitted with a bionic ear, arm, and legs, giving her superhuman strength and speed in those limbs as well as acute hearing that she uses in her secret agenting. Though Jaime Sommers was imagined as a spin-off to the male-driven series The Six Million Dollar Man, she was successful in her own right and expanded the horizons of little girls in the 70s. I want Jaime to get a real movie, not just some piddly made-for-TV deal. My only requirement for said movie is that it keep the super sweet 70s sound effects for when she uses her bionic powers.

4. Samus Aran from Metroid

Samus Aran is a space bounty hunter who destroys evil Metroids in the Nintendo video game (you guessed it) Metroid. Because of Samus’ androgynous power suit, game players assumed she was a man until the big reveal at the end of the original 1986 game when she takes off her helmet. Gamers loved it. Not only that, but Metroid was and continues to be one of Nintendo’s most lucrative and popular game series, such that the latest installment of the game (Metroid: Other M) came out as recently as 2010. With ever-expanding plotlines and character development, Samus has proven that she is compelling enough to carry a series for over two and a half decades. Instead of making another crappy Resident Evil movie, I say we give Samus a chance.

5. Runaways

Runaways is a comic book series that chronicles the adventures of a group of minors who discover that their parents are supervillains. Not wanting to go down the evil paths of their parents, the kids make a break for it. Now, both boys and girls are part of the gang, but there are more girls than boys, and the women are nuanced, funny and smart. The de facto leader of the rag-tag group is Nico, a goth Japanese-American witch (um…how cool is that??). Then there’s Gertrude who doesn’t have any powers (unless you count her telepathic link to her female raptor), but she’s tough, smart, confident and is a fat-positive representation of a nontraditional female comic book body type. Next, little Molly is a scrapper and a mutant with superhuman strength and great hats who kicks the shit out of Wolverine. Finally, we’ve got the alien Karolina with powers of light and flight who explores her sexuality, realizing she’s a lesbian. Karolina ends up falling in love with the shapeshifting Skrull, Xavin, and the storyline explores transgender themes. Joss Whedon himself was involved for a time in the series, so you know it’s full of humor, darkness, and deep connections to the character. There’s so much WIN in Runaways that it’s a crime they haven’t made a movie out of it yet.

6. She-Ra: Princess of Power

She-Ra is the twin sister (and spin-off) of He-Man. Possessing incredible strength, a healing touch, an ability to communicate with animals, and a power sword that transforms into anything she wants, She-Ra is, frankly, the shit. Ever since I was a bitty thing, I always loved She-Ra, and I’d contend that with her organizing of a 99.9% female force to fight the evil Horde, She-Ra and her powerful lady friends are busting up the patriarchy. Though 1985 saw the feature length animated film introducing She-Ra’s origin story through the eyes of her brother in The Secret of the Sword, it’s time for She-Ra to have her own live action film. I mean, He-Man got his chance on the big screen with Masters of the Universe, starring Dolph Lundgren. Though I love Lundren’s mush-mouth rendition of the most powerful man in the universe, it’s universally regarded as a steaming pile of Cringer crap. I’m sure She-Ra can easily top reviews like that, especially with her women-powered “Great Rebellion.”

7. Storm

Storm, aka Ororo Munroe, is one of the most powerful mutants in the X-Men franchise. She is intelligent, well-respected, and a leader among her mutant peers and teammates. Storm also flies and controls the fucking weather. Does it get more badass than that? Storm was the very first prominent Black female in either DC or Marvel, and the fanbase for this strong Black woman grows all the time. Though the X-Men film series sprung for the acclaimed Halle Berry to play Storm, her character is habitually underutilized and poorly developed. Enough! Let’s get Lupita Nyong’o to play Storm in her origin story, chronicling her thievery in Cairo, her stint as a worshiped goddess when her powers first emerged, and her eventual induction into the X-Men. That, friends, is an epic tale.

8. Xena: Warrior Princess

Xena: Warrior Princess is a TV series that ran for six years about a couple of women traveling and fighting their way across the world, their stories weaving in and out of ancient Western mythology. Xena herself is a complex character, full of strength and skill in combat, while battling her own past and demons. Her companion Gabriel, though also quite skilled at martial arts, is the gentler of the two, always advocating compassion and reason. Together, the pair formed a powerful duo with pronounced lesbionic undertones that has appealed to queer audiences for nearly 20 years. I suspect the statuesque Lucy Lawless could even be convinced to reprise her role as this fierce female warrior who stood up to gods and men alike.

9. Black Widow

Black Widow, aka Natalia Alianovna “Natasha” Romanova, began as a Russian spy. With impressive martial arts abilities and wily womanly charms, Black Widow is renowned as one of the deadliest assassins in the Marvel universe. In an attempt to redeem her past, Black Widow joins the S.H.I.E.L.D agency and the Avengers, adding her considerable skills (that she has cultivated without the aid of magical abilities) to the team. Though I’m not, personally, the biggest fan of Black Widow, I’m impressed by her universal appeal. She’s appeared in a handful of comic book movie adaptations, most notably The Avengers, and people go ga-ga for her. Even those who care little for the rallying cry for greater female on-screen representation and even less for feminism are all about Black Widow starring in her own film. Hell, she even has a remarkably life-like action figure…proof positive that this gal has made it to the big-time.

10. Codex from The Guild

The Guild is a web series with short episodes that focuses on Codex, aka Cyd Sherman, an introvert with an addiction to massive multi-player online roleplaying games (MMORPG). In her online guild, Cyd is the powerful priestess Codex. Reality and her online personae collide when members of the guild begin to meet in real life. This is a fun and quirky web series written and created by its female star, the talented Felicia Day. Not all superheroines need to have superpowers and save the day. In fact, some superheroines just have to give it all they’ve got to make it through the day. With powers of humor and authenticity, Codex would make a welcome addition to the superhero film family.

Honorable Mention

1. Painkiller Jane

Queer Painkiller Jane has rapid healing powers like those of Wolverine, but she tends to be far grittier and darker, even facing off against the Terminator in a particularly bloody installment. She briefly had her own craptastic television series starring Kristanna Loken before it was wisely canceled.

2. Rogue

From the X-Men, Rogue is the complicated and compelling daughter of Mystique with vampire-like powers that make her nearly invulnerable but also render her unable to touch any other living creature.

3. Batgirl

Batgirl has had many permutations throughout the ages, beginning as a sidekick to Batman and Robin in comics, TV as well as film and ending with several different versions of her own comic series, including her incarnation as Oracle, the paraplegic command center for the Birds of Prey comic and disappointing TV series.

4. Power Girl

Power Girl is another version of Supergirl who, therefore, has the same powers as Superman. She is a leader among other superheroes, a formidable foe, and renowned for being “fresh and fun.”

5. Psylocke

It might seem ridiculous that so many X-Men made this list, but, damn, they have got some awesome ladies on the roster. I’m ending with Psylocke, my all-time favorite X-Men character. Elizabeth Braddock is a telepath who can use her telekinesis to create pyschic weapons. Upon her death, she inhabits the body of a Japanese ninja, eventually taking over the body completely so that she adds hardcore martial arts skills to her repertoire.

I know I missed a bunch of amazing superheroines. That’s a good thing because it means there are so many badass super babes out there that I can’t possibly name them all. Now we’ve just got to get a bunch of those ladies up on the big screen to show us reflections of ourselves and to inspire us to be more.

Sound off in the comments by listing your top female superhero picks to get their own films!

Take a look at the rest of my Top 10 installments: Top 10 Villainesses Who Deserve Their Own Movies, Top 10 Superheroine Movies That Need a Reboot, and Top 10 Superheroes Who Are Betters as Superheroines.

Bitch Flicks writer and editor Amanda Rodriguez is an environmental activist living in Asheville, North Carolina. She holds a BA from Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio and an MFA in fiction writing from Queens University in Charlotte, NC. She writes all about food and drinking games on her blog Booze and Baking. Fun fact: while living in Kyoto, Japan, her house was attacked by monkeys.

Top 10 Villainesses Who Deserve Their Own Movies

While villainesses often work at cross-purposes with our heroes and heroines, we love to hate these women. They’re always morally complicated with dark pasts and often powerful and assertive women with an indomitable streak of independence.

This repost by Amanda Rodriguez appears as part of our theme week on Unlikable Women.

As a follow-up to my post on the Top 10 Superheroines Who Deserve Their Own Movies, I thought it important to not neglect the bad girls of the superhero universe. I mean, we don’t want to piss those ladies off and invoke their wrath, do we? While villainesses often work at cross-purposes with our heroes and heroines, we love to hate these women. They’re always morally complicated with dark pasts and often powerful and assertive women with an indomitable streak of independence. With the recent growing success of Disney’s retelling of their classic Sleeping Beauty, the film Maleficent shows us that we all (especially young women) are hungry for tales from the other side of the coin. We want to understand these complex women, and we want them to have the agency to cast off the mantle of “villainess” and to tell their own stories from their own perspectives.

1. Mystique

Throughout the X-Men film franchise, the blue-skinned, golden-eyed shapeshifting mutant, Mystique, has gained incredible popularity. Despite the fact that she tends to be naked in many of her film appearances, Mystique is a feared and respected opponent. She is dogged in the pursuit of her goals, intelligent and knows how to expertly use her body, whether taking on the personae of important political figures, displaying her excellent markmanship with firearms or kicking ass with her own unique brand of martial arts. As the mother of Nightcrawler and the adoptive mother of Rogue, Mystique has deep connections across enemy lines. X-Men: First Class even explores the stigma surrounding her true appearance and the isolation and shame that shapes her as she matures into adulthood. The groundwork has already been laid to further develop this fascinating woman.

2. Harley Quinn

Often overshadowing her sometime “boss” and boyfriend The Joker, Harley Quinn captured the attention of viewers in the Batman: Animated Series, so much so that she was integrated into the DC Batman comic canon and even had her own title for a while. She’s also notable for her fast friendship with other infamous super villainesses, Poison Ivy and Catwoman. Often capricious and unstable, Harley always looks out for herself and always makes her own decisions, regardless of how illogical they may seem. Most interestingly, she possesses a stark vulnerability that we rarely see in villains. A dark and playful character with strong ties to other women would be a welcome addition to the big screen.

3. Ursa

Ursa appears in the film Superman II wherein she is a fellow Krypontian who’s escaped from the perpetual prison of the Phantom Zone with two other comrades. As a Kryptonian, she has all the same powers and weaknesses of Superman (superhuman strength, flight, x-ray vision, freezing breath, invulnerability and an aversion to kryptonite). Ursa revels in these powers and delights in using extreme force. Ursa’s history and storyline are a bit convoluted, some versions depicting her as a misunderstood revolutionary fighting to save Krypton from its inevitable destruction, while others link her origins to the man-hating, murderous comic character Faora. Combining the two plotlines would give a movie about her a rich backstory and a fascinating descent into darkness in the tradition of Chronicle.

4. Sniper Wolf

“I watched the stupidity of mankind through the scope of my rifle.” – Sniper Wolf

Sniper Wolf from Metal Gear Solid is one of the most infamous and beloved villainesses in gaming history. A deadly and dedicated sniper assassin, Sniper Wolf is ruthless, methodical and patient when she stalks her prey, namely Solid Snake, the video game’s hero. Not only that, but she has a deep connection to a pack of huskies/wolves that she rescues, which aid her on the snowy battlefield when she faces off with Snake in what was ranked one of gaming’s best boss fights. In fact, Sniper Wolf has made the cut onto a lot of “best of” lists, and her death has been called “one of gaming’s most poignant scenes.” Her exquisite craft with a rifle is only one of the reasons that she’s so admired. Her childhood history as an Iraqi Kurdish survivor of a chemical attack that killed her family and thousands of others only to be brainwashed by the Iraqi and then U.S. governments is nothing short of tragic. Many players regretted having to kill her in order to advance in the game. She is a lost woman with the potential for greatness who was manipulated and corrupted by self-serving military forces. Sniper Wolf is a complex woman of color whose screenplay could detail an important piece of history with the persecution of Kurds in Iraq, show super cool weapons and stealth skills while critiquing the military industrial complex and give a woman a voice and power within both the male-dominated arenas of spy movies and the military.

5. Scarlet Witch

One of the most powerful mutants in X-Men lore, Scarlet Witch

Scarlet Witch, the twin sister of Quicksilver and daughter of Magneto, is one of the most powerful mutants in the X-Men and Avengers universe. With power over probability and an ability to cast spells, Scarlet Witch is alternately a valuable member of Magneto’s Brotherhood of Mutants as well as the Avengers. She can also manipulate chaos magic and, at times, control the very fabric of reality, such that she can “rewrite her entire universe.” Um, badass. She’s also one of the most interesting characters in the X-Men and Avengers canon because she’s so deeply conflicted about what she believes and who she should trust. Eventually coming around to fight on the side of good, Scarlet Witch has a true heroine’s journey, in which she has a dark destiny that she overcomes, makes choices for which she must later seek redemption, finds her true path as a leader among other warriors, and she even becomes a mother and wife in the process. Despite her extensive comic book history (first appearing in 1964) and the fact that she’s such a strong mutant with such a compelling tale of the journey from dark to light, Scarlet Witch has only been a supporting character in video games, TV shows, and in movies (most recently set to appear in the upcoming Avengers: Age of Ultron). That’s just plain dumb.

6. Ursula

Ursula, the sea witch from Disney’s The Little Mermaid, is so amazing. Part woman, part octopus, she has incredible magical powers that she uses for her own amusement and gains. With her sultry, husky voice and sensuous curves, she was a Disney villainess unlike any Disney had shown us before. What I find most compelling about Ursula is that her magic can change the shape and form of anyone, and she chooses to maintain her full-figured form. Though she is a villainess, this fat positive message of a magnetic, formidable woman who loves her body (and seriously rocks the musical number “Poor Unfortunate Souls” like nobody’s business) is unique to Disney and unique to general representations of women in Hollywood.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLSnNSqs_CQ”]

Now that Disney has made Maleficent, they better find a place for this octo-woman sea witch, and they better keep her gloriously fat, or they’ll be sorry.

7. Evil-Lyn

Evil-Lyn was the only regularly appearing villainess on the 80’s cartoon series He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. Unlike its blissfully female-centric spin-off, She-Ra: Princess of Power, He-Man was pretty much a sausage-fest. Much in the way that Teela and the Sorceress were the only women representing the forces of good, Evil-Lyn was the lone lady working for the evil Skeletor. As his second-in-command, she proved herself to be devious and intelligent with a gift for dark sorcery that often rivaled that of the seemingly much more powerful Skeletor and Sorceress. There appears to be no official documentation of this, but as a child, I read Evil-Lyn as Asian (probably because of her facial features and the over-the-top yellow skin tone Filmation gave her). I love the idea of Evil-Lyn being a lone woman of color among a gang of ne’er-do-wells who holds her own while always plotting to overthrow her leader and take power for herself. (Plus, she has the best evil laugh ever.) I have no illusions that she’ll ever get her own movie (despite Meg Foster’s mega-sexy supporting performance as the cunning Evil-Lyn in the Masters of the Universe film). However, I always wanted her to have more screen time, and I always wanted to know more about her, unlike her male evil minion counterparts.

8. Knockout and Scandal

Knockout & Scandal are bad girls in love — Knockout and Scandal are bad girls in love

Scandal Savage and Knockout are villainess lovers who appear together in both comic series Birds of Prey and Secret Six. As members of the super-villain group Secret Six, the two fight side-by-side only looking out for each other and, sometimes, their teammates. Very tough and nearly invulnerable due to the blood from her immortal father, Vandal Savage, Scandal is an intelligent woman of color who’s deadly with her Wolverine-like “lamentation blades”. Her lover Knockout is a statuesque ex-Female Fury with superhuman strength and a knack for not dying and, if that fails, being resurrected. I love that Scandal and Knockout are queer villainesses who are loyal to each other and even further push the heteronormative boundaries by embarking on a polygamous marriage with a third woman. I generally despise romance movies, but I would absolutely go see an action romance with Scandal and Knockout as the leads!

9. Lady Death

Lady Death overcomes her status as eye candy

Lady Death has evolved over the years. Beginning her journey as a one-dimensional evil goddess intent on destroying the world, her history then shifted so that she was an accidental and reluctant servant of Hell who eventually overthrows Lucifer and herself becomes the mistress of Hell. Her latest incarnation shows her as a reluctant servant of The Labyrinth (instead of the darker notion of Hell) with powerfully innate magic that grows as she adventures, rescuing people and saving the world, until she’s a bonafide heroine. An iconic figure with her pale (mostly bare) skin and white hair, Lady Death has had her own animated movie, but I’m imagining instead a goth, Conan-esque live action film starring Lady Death that focuses on her quest through the dark depths of greed, corruption and revenge until she finds peace and redemption.

10. Asajj Ventress

Last, but not least, we have Asajj Ventress from the Star Wars universe, and the thought of her getting her own feature film honestly excites me more than any of the others. I first saw Ventress in Genndy Tartakovsky’s 2003 TV series Star Wars: Clone Wars, and she was was mag-fucking-nificent. A Dark Jedi striving for Sith status, Ventress is a graceful death-dealer wielding double lightsabers. Supplemental materials like comic books, novels and the newer TV series provide more history for this bald, formidable villainess. It turns out that she’s of the same race as Darth Maul with natural inclinations towards the Force. Enslaved at a young age, she escaped with the help of a Jedi Knight and began her training with him. She was a powerful force for good in the world until he was murdered, and in her bitterness, she turned to the Dark Side. Her powers are significant in that she can cloak herself in the Force like a mist and animate an army of the dead (wowzas!). Confession: I even have a Ventress action figure. The world doesn’t need another shitty Star Wars movie with a poorly executed Anakin Skywalker; the world needs a movie about Asajj Ventress in all her elegantly brutal glory.

Please bring Asajj Ventress to life on the big screen!

Peeling back the layers of these reviled women of pop culture is an important step in relaxing the binary that our culture forces women into. Showing a more nuanced and empathetic version of these women would prove that all women don’t have to be good or evil, dark or light, right or wrong, virgin or whore. Why do we love villainesses? Because heroines can be so bloody boring with their clear moral compasses, their righteousness and the fact that they always win. When compared to their heroine counterparts, villainesses have more freedom to defy. In fact, villainesses are more likely to defy expectations and gender roles, to be queer and to be women of color. In some ways, villainesses are more like us than heroines because they’re fallible, they’ve suffered injustices and they’re often selfish. In other ways, villainesses are something of an inspiration to women because they’re strong, confident, intelligent, dismissive of the judgements of others and, most importantly, they know how to get what they want and need.

Recommended Reading:

Top 10 Superheroines Who Deserve Their Own Movies
Top 10 Superheroes Who Are Better As Superheroines
Top 10 Superheroine Movies That Need a Reboot
The Many Faces of Catwoman
Dude Bros and X-Men: Days of Future Past
She-Ra: Kinda, Sorta Accidentally Feministy
Women in Science Fiction Week: Princess Leia: Feminist Icon or Sexist Trope?
The Very Few Women of Star Wars: Queen Amidala and Princess Leia
Wonder Women and Why We Need Superheroines
Monsters and Morality in Maleficent

‘The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part I’ and What Makes Katniss Everdeen a Compelling Heroine

While watching ‘Mockingjay Part I,’ I had an epiphany. I asked myself why Katniss Everdeen is such a compelling heroine to audiences and why other heroines modeled after her are popping up all over the place? There’s no denying that audiences (especially young women) are hungry for strong female representation on screen. We love to see Katniss use her wits and her bow to save the day, but in ‘Mockingjay Part I,’ there is very little action (Katniss uses her bow only once), and Jennifer Lawrence’s performance is still riveting. Why, do you think, that is?

Written by Amanda Rodriguez.

Mild Spoilers Ahead

First off, let’s get the unpleasant part out of the way. Serious fans of The Hunger Games series will likely hate me, but we’ve all got to face the truth. The third installment in the series, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part I should not have been made. Splitting movies into two parts is an ever-growing trend in Hollywood’s never-ending quest for more money. Over the course of the two-hour film, not enough happens to warrant its existence. There is little moving the plot forward, and the ending itself is anticlimactic as our heroine Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) isn’t even involved in the ultimately uneventful final showdown mission to rescue the captive tributes. The vital events that do happen in Part I could have easily been condensed into the first 20 minutes of the finale of a legitimate trilogy.

With that out of the way, let’s talk about what does work in Mockingjay Part I. There are a lot of women involved in the film itself, from the writer of the novels, Suzanne Collins, who adapted her books for the screen, to Nina Jacobson, the producer of the entire series, to our tenacious heroine Katniss, played by the increasingly popular, amazing performer and feminist Jennifer Lawrence.

I particularly liked that Mockingjay Part I also sets up the opposition between patriarchy and matriarchy with the introduction of Julianne Moore as President Coin of District 13. Under the patriarchal tyranny of President Snow (Donald Sutherland), the districts of Panem suffer as the people are used for their labor and their districts’ resources while fear and capital punishment are the norm. His Capitol, however, is rich, fashion-obsessed, and completely self-serving. The matriarchal President Coin, on the other hand, represents revolution with a strict focus on democracy and a socialist emphasis on the sharing of resources. District 13 is a militaristic, utilitarian underground compound that eschews fashion in favor of function (as evinced by the monotone uniforms all residents wear). Those of us who have read the books know that a lot will shift before the series concludes, but for now, this embodiment of a nontraditional representation of matriarchy in Coin is refreshing. She is decisive, smart, calm when under attack, and always thinking about the greater good of the people.

While watching Mockingjay Part I, I had an epiphany. I asked myself why Katniss Everdeen is such a compelling heroine to audiences and why other heroines modeled after her are popping up all over the place? There’s no denying that audiences (especially young women) are hungry for strong female representation on screen. We love to see Katniss use her wits and her bow to save the day, but in Mockingjay Part I, there is very little action (Katniss uses her bow only once), and Jennifer Lawrence’s performance is still riveting. Why, do you think, that is?

Two words for you: emotional range. While there are a plethora of limitations and stereotypes by which female characters are plagued, audiences are getting tired of the limited range of emotion that male heroes are allowed to exhibit due to the strictness of masculinity within our culture. Women are increasingly allowed to showcase a greater range of emotions without it damaging their perception as a strong, good leader.

In Mockingjay Part I, Katniss is suffering from intense PTSD. She has flashbacks, night terrors, uncontrollable bouts of crying, and dissociates from her surroundings. Throughout the film, she is an emotional wreck, as she should be after what she’s gone through, from being hunted and forced to kill for sport, to having her home of District 12 genocided as a result of her actions.

We watch Katniss go through an emotional roller coaster as she experiences shock, horror, terror, guilt, sadness, loss, anger, grief, and devastation. She is overcome with love for her family, Gale, and Peta, and, at her core, we are the most compelled by Katniss’ compassion and her instinctual drive to protect others. Katniss is sometimes wrong and often rash in her actions. In truth, it is her vulnerability displayed on screen like a raw wound from which we cannot look away.

This is the stuff of heroes. We see her experiences nearly break her time and time again, but she won’t give up. Carrying on is so hard that it nearly destroys her, but her sense of what is right is so strong that she cannot turn her back on her fellow oppressed district dwellers.

Like Katniss is the symbol of revolution as the mockingjay, she’s also the symbol of a movement that values women as nonsexualized leads with rich, complex characterization. We’re increasingly bored with the stoic male hero and instead crave the strength and vulnerability of the growing number of female sci-fi action heroines that are emerging thanks to the success of Katniss Everdeen and The Hunger Games.

Aside: The United States IS the Capitol. The storyline of The Hunger Games is so popular in the US, but we’re missing the point if we don’t confess that we are the oppressive world superpower that tyrannizes the rest of the word, exploiting the labor and resources of others so that most of us can live in relative wealth and comfort. End rant.

Bitch Flicks writer and editor Amanda Rodriguez is an environmental activist living in Asheville, North Carolina. She holds a BA from Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio and an MFA in fiction writing from Queens University in Charlotte, NC. Her short story “The Woman Who Fell in Love with a Mermaid” was published in Germ Magazine. She writes all about food and drinking games on her blog Booze and Baking. Fun fact: while living in Kyoto, Japan, her house was attacked by monkeys.

The Women of ‘Interstellar’

I very much enjoyed ‘Interstellar’; It depicts a realistic species-threatening crisis with the dwindling success of food cultivation. It has an expansive vision of our future as human beings, and it has super cool science that it manages to make accessible to the layperson. But… (I wish there didn’t always have to be a “but”) the film’s depiction of its female characters was lacking to say the least.

Interstellar movie poster — *Interstellar* movie poster

Written by Amanda Rodriguez.

Spoiler Alert

Director Christopher Nolan’s latest opus, the dystopian space/time/dimensional travel film Interstellar, is impressive. It’s beautifully shot with stunning visuals (the black hole is amazing). It depicts a realistic species-threatening crisis with the dwindling success of food cultivation. It has an expansive vision of our future as human beings, and it has super cool science that it manages to make accessible to the layperson. Despite a running time of two hours and 40 minutes, I very much enjoyed Interstellar, but… (I wish there didn’t always have to be a “but”) the film’s depiction of its female characters was lacking to say the least.

Interstellar star Matthew McConaughey with the two female leading hanging off him. — *Interstellar* star Matthew McConaughey with the two female leads hanging off him

Interstellar is about Coop (Matthew McConaughey) and his struggle to save the human race and get back to his family. Make no mistake, despite there being two strong, female supporting leads, this movie is all about Coop; his quest, strength, morality, ingenuity, and righteousness. Even at the end of the film when he discovers that everything had always been about his daughter Murph (Jessica Chastain) and her ability to solve the “gravity equation,” we linger very little on her story or her life as it exists outside of her father.

Murph destroys the last vestiges of corn crops

Even the long-awaited father/daughter reunion is rushed and anticlimactic with Murph insisting that she isn’t important and that Coop has better things to do than spend time with her. What the hell? Aside from the payoff being weak from an objective standpoint, this scene reinforces the idea that even the most beloved female characters exist solely to spur on and facilitate the journey of the male hero.

Thankfully, there was no real sexual tension between Coop and Dr. Brand

On the space expedition with Coop is his mentor’s daughter, Dr. Amelia Brand (Anne Hathaway). She is a scientist, but I’m not exactly sure what her area of expertise is. She’s in charge of the “Plan B” genetic material, which is sort of a mother role, but she also claims to be the expert on which planet they should choose based on its proximity to the black hole. Regardless, her duties aboard the Endurance are a bit fuzzy.

Dr. Brand cries after her massive fuck-up

Dr. Brand’s most distinguishing characteristic, though, is that she is a fuck-up. In her obsession to retrieve logged data (which proves useless) from one of the potential new homeworld planets, Brand jeopardizes the entire mission, gets a fellow scientist killed, and loses the crew a lot of years. She cries about her mistake while Coop lays into her. I couldn’t help wondering why the sole woman on the expedition had to be the one who supremely fucks over the crew even worse than the male rogue scientist who is actively trying to sabotage them?

Proximity to the black hole causes time to move differently on-world (one hour is seven years). — Proximity to the black hole causes time to move differently on-world (one hour is seven years)

Brand also makes the case that the final planet the crew should investigate is the one on which her lover awaits them in cryo-sleep. Her scientific reasoning that the planet being far enough away from the black hole that it would be unaffected by its gravitational pull is sound. However, she then launches into an impassioned, weepy speech about love and how love drew her across the universe. In the theater, I almost puked all over myself. Though the film then adopts the concept of love being the only force that can traverse all dimensions, it’s hokey and annoying that the only female scientist on the mission must be the one to deliver that saccharine sweet, touchy-feely message, especially since it runs counter to her reserved and logical character.

The ship spots the black hole on the horizon

I’m not saying that women can’t be sensitive or fuck-ups or supporting characters, but it gets tiresome when this is frequently the case in films. It’s getting old hat to constantly see female characters on screen who lack dimension, exist solely to further the plot, or whose ability to do their jobs is questionable. At least Interstellar didn’t grossly sexualize the women of the film? Interstellar is a good, solid film that entertained my brain (which seems like a rarity these days), but it fails to be a great film due to its inability to create a female character worth watching in any of the 200 minutes of its run-time.

Bitch Flicks writer and editor Amanda Rodriguez is an environmental activist living in Asheville, North Carolina. She holds a BA from Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio and an MFA in fiction writing from Queens University in Charlotte, NC. Her short story “The Woman Who Fell in Love with a Mermaid” was published in Germ Magazine. She writes all about food and drinking games on her blog Booze and Baking. Fun fact: while living in Kyoto, Japan, her house was attacked by monkeys.

‘To Be Takei’: Ohhh Myyy

Jennifer M. Kroot’s documentary ‘To Be Takei’ centers around the life, career, and activism of George Takei, the much beloved ‘Star Trek’ original series veteran helmsman Sulu. The real meat of Takei’s story, though, is his youthful imprisonment in a Japanese American internment camp during World War II and his coming out as a gay man, followed by his gay rights activism.

Written by Amanda Rodriguez.

Jennifer M. Kroot‘s documentary To Be Takei centers around the life, career, and activism of George Takei, the much beloved Star Trek original series veteran helmsman (turned Captain) Hiraku Sulu. The film has a lot for Trekkies in it with its cast interviews: Nichelle Nichols (Black communications officer Nyota Uhura), Walter Koenig (Pavel Chekov with his ridiculous Russian accent), and William Shatner (infamous ham Captain James T. Kirk). The real meat of Takei’s story, though, is his youthful imprisonment in a Japanese American internment camp during World War II and his coming out as a gay man, followed by his gay rights activism.

“The Naked Time”: Takei’s all-time favorite Star Trek episode

A pioneer for Asian American representation on television, George Takei is best known for his 1966 role as Star Trek‘s Mr. Sulu aboard the USS Enterprise. Though Takei has had a prolific acting career since, he still attends conventions and speaks with fondness about his Star Trek days. Believing in the “multi-ethnic” cast and boundary-pushing themes of the classic sci-fi series, Takei even confesses that he suggested to show creator Gene Roddenberry that the cast be expanded to include a gay officer. Alas, that didn’t happen, but it’s some consolation that many years later, the Star Trek franchise dealt with questions surrounding sexuality and same-sex marriage and equality, most notably in Deep Space Nine with its character Jadzia Dax.

To Be Takei payed a great deal of attention to the ongoing feud between George Takei and William Shatner, as I’m sure fans have always been curious about it. The film even suggests that Shatner may be homophobic but never outright says it. Despite the discord between captain and helmsman, we see that Takei has formed life-long friendships with fellow cast members Nichelle Nichols and Walter Koenig who even attend and participate in his wedding to long-time love Brad Altman (now Brad Takei).

The Takei wedding ceremony

Throughout his life, George Takei has always been an activist. Now he spends much of his time at speaking engagements where he educates audiences on his experiences as a Japanese American prisoner of the US internment camps, explaining the harsh conditions and the stripping of rights and humanity that went on at the camps. Takei spent four years of his childhood in internment camps. He’s spent many years fighting for recognition and reparation for survivors. He’s even collaborated on a musical Allegiance that he refers to as his “legacy project,” which details the lives of survivors and life-long trauma caused by internment.

A quote from George Takei’s father about his family’s internment used in the play Allegiance

Decades after his most popular film and television role as Mr. Sulu ended, George Takei has managed to become a pop culture icon. He’s become a radio and internet sensation, best known for his wildly popular Facebook page, which at present has nearly 7.5 million fans. Takei wields his online fanbase and notoriety, building and communicating with an activist base, to promote with humor the issues about which he cares. Most notably, Takei is ever more present and vocal about the gay rights movement, in particular, same-sex marriage equality. However, Takei uses his infamous humor to humanize LGBTQI people who are bullied, persecuted, and discriminated against. In fact, one of his most hilarious and impactful uses of social media to spark anti-hate activism, was his “It’s OK to be Takei” campaign:

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRkIWB3HIEs”]

Um…So. Much. Awesome.

To Be Takei also reveals some less shining examples of George Takei’s life. Though director Jennifer M. Kroot refers to George and Brad’s marriage as “charmingly functional-dysfunctional,” it’s safe to say Takei’s marriage may not be the healthiest relationship in the Alpha Quadrant. Not only that, but we see Takei’s unforgiving weightism, wherein he tells fellow Star Trek actor Wil Wheaton (Wesley Crusher) that he’s got to lose that weight he put on. Takei then mocks his husband Brad’s weight gain over the years, despite Brad’s insistence that he feels “sensitive about it.”

I, like so many others, am still enamored of this ever-rising ex-Star Trek actor. With his deep voiced oh my‘s and his dedication to humor and social progress, it’s hard not to overlook Takei’s faults. In spite of his very human shortcomings, George Takei is an amazingly energetic human being, using his growing fame to create real change in the world.

Read also at Bitch Flicks:

Trill Gender and Sexuality Metaphors in Star Trek

Bitch Flicks writer and editor Amanda Rodriguez is an environmental activist living in Asheville, North Carolina. She holds a BA from Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio and an MFA in fiction writing from Queens University in Charlotte, NC. Her short story “The Woman Who Fell in Love with a Mermaid” was published in Germ Magazine. She writes all about food and drinking games on her blog Booze and Baking. Fun fact: while living in Kyoto, Japan, her house was attacked by monkeys.

‘Lyle’ is a Lesbian Take on ‘Rosemary’s Baby’? Yes Please!

My sister and fellow Bitch Flicks contributor, Angelina Rodriguez, and I live tweeted our viewing of ‘Lyle.’ We loved actress Gaby Hoffman’s big, beautiful brows and the gap between her two front teeth (these two traits are strong in our own family). Leah often wears ratty, mismatched pajamas, and very few of the characters have styled hair. Overall, we appreciated how real and unmade-up the film’s stars were.

Written by Amanda Rodriguez.

I was excited to review female-directed (Stewart Thorndike‘s) Lyle, a FREE streaming independent film and a reboot of (pedophile) Roman Polanski’s classic film Rosemary’s Baby. Like Rosemary’s Baby, Lyle stars a pregnant woman who becomes more suspicious and more isolated every day, fearing a conspiracy to harm her unborn child. Unlike Rosemary’s Baby, Lyle‘s lead character Leah (Gaby Hoffman) is a lesbian, and her first-born daughter, Lyle, dies under mysterious circumstances. Though billed as a horror movie (and, in some inexplicable cases, a horror comedy), Lyle is more of a psychological thriller than anything, dissecting the ways in which Leah deals with grief, loss, pregnancy, and motherhood as well as paranoia, aggression, fear, and alienation.

My sister and fellow Bitch Flicks contributor, Angelina Rodriguez, and I live tweeted our viewing of Lyle, using the hashtag #LyleMovie. Aside from being really fun, it also helped us home in on the successes and shortcomings of the film. First of all, we loved actress Gaby Hoffman’s big, beautiful brows and the gap between her two front teeth (these two traits are strong in our own family). Leah often wears ratty, mismatched pajamas, and very few of the characters have styled hair. Overall, we appreciated how real and unmade-up the film’s stars were.

Gaby Hoffman and her furrowed big, beautiful brows. — Gaby Hoffman and her furrowed, glorious brows.

The cast of the film is almost entirely made-up of women. Only one primary character is male, and he’s a Black man. I can’t tell you how refreshing it is for this jaded feminist reviewer to see a cast comprised of groups that media traditionally under-represents!

The downside of a ratio like this, though, is that all Leah’s persecutors (real and imagined) are other women. Most notably, her partner, June, played by Ingrid Jungermann (the creator and star of the lesbian web series F to 7th). Leah and June mostly have a non-affection relationship with little to no physical contact. June is portrayed as an inconsiderate, perhaps murderous partner who may or may not be using Leah. If June is, in fact, using Leah and her baby-making abilities, is June even actually gay, or is that part of the ruse? I don’t like that I found myself questioning the veracity of a character’s sexuality, and it seemed that Lyle encouraged this suspicion.

June & Leah's fleeting intimacy — June and Leah’s fleeting moment of intimacy

The film also may have been advancing a weird, regressive perspective on motherhood, as even the poster declares, “A mother should protect her child.” Leah does little other than exist as a pregnant woman. Her identity outside of her status as “mother” is largely unknown to us. Lyle seemed to be seeking to normalize lesbianism through the notion of the nuclear family. For instance, the couple moves into a fancy apartment to accommodate their expanding family. Leah stays at home while June works late hours, and June is constantly gaslighting her pregnant partner. It’s all very traditional and falls within the existing heteronormative paradigm.

A pregnant Leah runs down the street, begging for help

On the positive side, we have a self-advocating heroine who is intelligent, clever, and stands up for herself. She never gives into those who seek to erase her fears and her accusations of foul play. Leah is strong and self-preserving (while protecting her unborn child) until the end. Having a hugely pregnant heroine with bushy hair and eyebrows is a beautiful thing. Having the climactic final showdown take place in the birthing room is also seriously badass. Though I didn’t love the implications that could be read into some of the themes in Lyle, it’s moving in the right direction. This is a free, independent horror film starring lesbians that doesn’t seek to exploit their sexuality for the male gaze. It’s very existence is a triumph. Plus, it’s fun to watch.

Bitch Flicks writer and editor Amanda Rodriguez is an environmental activist living in Asheville, North Carolina. She holds a BA from Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio and an MFA in fiction writing from Queens University in Charlotte, NC. Her short story “The Woman Who Fell in Love with a Mermaid” was published in Germ Magazine. She writes all about food and drinking games on her blog Booze and Baking. Fun fact: while living in Kyoto, Japan, her house was attacked by monkeys.

Top 10 Superheroes Who Are Better As Superheroines

There are soooo many superheroes out there. These gents get top billing in comics, movies, and TV shows while their superheroine counterparts tend to get the shaft, existing in unwarranted obscurity or playing second fiddle to a male lead. Do these super-dudes deserve all this limelight? Is there something inherently male about them that makes them special, or would some of these superheroes be just as good, if not better off, as women?

Women versions of Avengers superheroes and villains — What if women had starred in *The Avengers*?

Written by Amanda Rodriguez.

There are soooo many superheroes out there. These gents get top billing in comics, movies, and TV shows while their superheroine counterparts tend to get the shaft, existing in unwarranted obscurity or playing second fiddle to a male lead. Do these super-dudes deserve all this limelight? Is there something inherently male about them that makes them special, or would some of these superheroes be just as good, if not better off, as women? Many superheroes have been re-imagined as superheroines (Batwoman, Supergirl, Spidergirl, etc.), and some of them should be re-cast as superheroines. Here’s my Top 10 list of super-dudes who are or should be super-ladies.

1. Thor from The Avengers

Re-casting Thor as a woman is a done deal. Marvel has taken one of its oldest and most popular heroes who’s appeared in a slew of films and announced that henceforth Thor will be a female god. She won’t exist alongside the original Thor, as so many female re-imaginings of superheroes do (even some on this list), but, instead she will supplant her unworthy predecessor, taking his place as God of Thunder in Asgard, wielding his magic hammer and his titan strength.

Thor comic panel — Thor as a woman in comic form

Despite my love of the Norse mythology from which the comic hero is derived, I’ve never much cared for Thor. He often struck me as a dumb, self-important brute of a man. Now, though, I’m curious to see how Marvel handles the transition (though I’d love if Thor was trans*, pun not intended), and I’m excited to see how a female all-powerful god handles herself.

2. Venus from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Venus: the "aquamarine" turtle — Venus: the “aquamarine” turtle

Venus de Milo is a somewhat obscure addition to the TMNT canon of humanoid, intelligent mutated turtles. Unlike the male turtles, she’s named after a work of art rather than an artist, and I’m definitely reading some lack of female subjectivity into that choice. In the short-lived live action series Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation, Venus reunites with her brothers, and while she doesn’t know martial arts like her brothers, she uses magic instead.

While it’s pretty cool that this brief and obscure series added a female turtle, it begs the question, “Why wasn’t one of the four original turtles a girl?” While apparently comic writers were mandated to not include a female turtle, for this reviewer who was once so into the Turtles that she drew their portraits and hung them over her bed, there’s really no satisfying answer. Now that the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have made another comeback and are back on the big screen, it’s time to bring back Venus…only please make sure she can kick some ass with a weapon, too, and not just float around some weird balls David-Bowie Labyrinth-style.

3. Spawn

Um...yes to a badass Lady Spawn — Um…yes to a badass Lady Spawn

Todd McFarlane’s popular comic Spawn features Al Simmons, a military man of questionable morals, who dies and is brought back as a supremely powerful demonic figure to collect souls for hell. Like all good anti-heroes, Spawn refuses to play nice for heaven or hell. The comic is lush, dark, and gritty, featuring a Black hero. Spawn was turned into a moderately successful cartoon series and a craptastic film series.

Though the comics have briefly featured women having or taking over Spawn’s powers and the dreaded angel Angela has had her own miniseries, a female Spawn has never been given a real chance as a lead. We also need more superheroines of color, and since the original Spawn is a Black man, there’s no reason why a female version couldn’t also be Black. Frankly, I’d love to see a strong, dark, morally complex woman deal with being a putrefying corpse reanimated to perform an eternal mission in which she doesn’t believe. Now that’s a rich role that a woman could really dig into.

4. The Question from 52

The original DC comic book version of The Question is the male Vic Sage. Though The Question doesn’t have any super powers to speak of, he wears a faceless mask that obscures his features. In the series 52, a terminally ill Vic trains Renee Montoya, a lesbian ex-Gotham City cop and on-and-off love interest of Batwoman, to be his replacement. Thus, The Question was born anew.

The Question sometimes fights alongside her ex-lover Batwoman — The Question fights alongside her ex-lover Batwoman

I love Renee Montoya because she’s an exceedingly rare Latina superheroine, she’s also an exceedingly rare lesbian superheroine, she doesn’t have any superpowers or a trust fund but still manages to fight the good fight, and she questions everything. She’s an interesting, emotionally messed up character who figures out answers for herself, lives by her own moral compass, and every once in a while, gets to save the girl (even if that girl is a totally hardcore Batwoman). Dear Montoya, you are so much win.

5. She-Hulk

Jennifer Walters is the cousin of rogue scientist Bruce Banner a.k.a the Hulk. After a blood transfusion from him, She-Hulk is born. A star lawyer who defends the rights of the disenfranchised and an Avenger, She-Hulk also maintains much of her personality when she transforms into her green-skinned form. Often considered the strongest woman in the Marvel universe, She-Hulk is incredibly intelligent and skilled at combat. Despite (or perhaps because of) her extremely tall, muscled, green body, She-Hulk is a huge sex symbol in the comics industry.

Like her male counterpart the Hulk, She-Hulk also contends with an antihero version of her powers in the form of Red She-Hulk (Banner love interest Betty Ross who’s had a couple of cameos over the years). Both of these women are differing, but intriguing representations and applications of female power and psychology, often becoming more confident and/or aggressive in their Hulk-ified bodies, choosing when to transform, and internalizing positive or negative feelings of self-worth based on their bodies. Now if we can just get one or both of these badass babes a movie…

6. Captain Marvel

Though Carol Danvers has been known by many different names over her 46 years in comics (Ms. Marvel, Binary, and Warbird), I like her best as Captain Marvel. Though Danvers derives her latest title directly from the male Captain Marvel, the name itself has a long history with both men and women indiscriminately donning it over time. I also prefer the current Captain Marvel because she’s now penned by female comic writer Kelly Sue DeConnick, and her costume has been altered to be far less revealing and far more practical than Danvers ever enjoyed before.

Danvers has the powers of the Captain Marvel hero (and, at times, antihero) line with superhuman strength, endurance, speed, and flight. Over the years, she’s also developed abilities of her own, including light speed travel, shooting energy beams from her hands, and absorption of energy to boost her own powers. Along with that, she also has combat, flight, as well as tactical and strategic skills from her air force days. As an Avenger and a member of Guardians of the Galaxy, it’s a possibility that she’ll appear in one or both of those franchises. Lately, rumors also speculate that Katee Sackhoff will aptly play the title role in a Captain Marvel an upcoming film. Considering studios’ extreme and groundless resistance to making a woman-fronted superhero flick, it’s doubtful, but a girl can dream.

7. Darth Talon

Darth Talon: so...much...badassery — Darth Talon: so…much…badassery

My first encounter with Darth Talon of the Star Wars universe was at Dragon-con in Atlanta (yes, I’m that nerdy) where a very dedicated woman cosplayed the hell out of that dark side Twi’lek, and I lost my shit at Talon’s sheer awesomeness. With her red skin, Sith tattoos, yellow eyes, and dedication to the dark side, Darth Talon is basically a female version of Darth Maul, the primary antagonist in Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace.

Though Darth Talon is the villainess female equivalent of a villain (and not a superheroine at all really), she deserves a spot on this list because she has the potential to be an iconic female version of a male figure. With her strength, cunning, and loyalty to the dark side, I’ve got my fingers crossed that she’s one of the characters we’ll be seeing in the upcoming Star Wars: Episode VII.

8. Black Panther

The male Black Panther (T’Challa) was the first ever Black superhero to hit mainstream comics. The lover and sometime husband of X-Men‘s Storm, Black Panther is the chief of a powerful nation in Africa known as Wakanda. To protect his people and lands from inevitable exploitation for their valuable natural resources, Black Panther hides his country from the outside world. He is a much needed Black African hero who, in a sense, rewrites the colonial history of the African continent by guarding his country from very real greed and imperialistic forces. When T’Challa nearly dies and loses his powers, his sister Shuri takes on the Black Panther mantle.

Like her brother, Shuri leads her country and possesses superhuman strength and agility along with a protective suit constructed from Wakanda’s precious, coveted mineral vibranium. Being the Black Panter, imbued with such great power and responsibility, changes Shuri. She learns the value of humility and self-sacrifice while becoming a respected diplomat and a fierce leader who makes it abundantly clear that her country is not to be fucked with. We need more representation for badass Black superheroines like Black Panther who can help us re-imagine and therefore empower a continent that has been brutally and tirelessly exploited for hundreds of years.

9. Hellgirl

A fan rendering of a Hellgirl action figure

There is no Hellgirl female version of Hellboy, the crusty but loveable demon beautifully rendered by creator Mike Mignola. There’s nothing inherently gendered about Hellboy’s red tail, sawed off horns, giant stone fist, and propensity for cigars. There’s nothing inherently male about his dark origins and his desire to overcome them to do good in the world.

In fact, I’d argue that a physically and emotionally rough-around-the-edges superheroine is just what we need. Enough of these drawings of women with stereotypically unrealistic bodies and their giant, barely covered breasts. Give us a superheroine who has to shave her horns instead of her legs, a woman who, like Hellboy, hides a gentle heart behind a jagged exterior, who struggles with depression and low self-worth but still manages to save the world.

10. Link from The Legend of Zelda

Zelda as Sheik Photo Realistic — Princess Zelda disguised as Sheik

Lastly and dearest to my heart, we’ve got the hero of Hyrule, Link, who is already pretty androgynous with his gender neutral name, dress-like tunic, long blonde hair, lithe build, and elven ears. He could easily be re-cast as a female character, if not removed completely, giving Zelda the agency to save Hyrule. Don’t get me wrong, I love me some Link, but is there a reason Zelda even needs him to save the day in a video game that’s named after her?

Zelda, her alter ego Sheik, and her hero Link

Zelda, herself, is wise, magical, and skilled in combat. She even cross-dresses as Sheik, a figure who guides Link to important knowledge he needs to complete his quest. Why can’t Zelda be the Heroine of Time, supplanting Link as her savior? And while we’re at it, why the hell haven’t we had a movie version of The Legend of Zelda yet? Other than that they’d probably butcher it, I can’t think of a single good reason.

Men dressed up as female superheroes in Big Bang Theory — Men dressed up as female superheroes in *Big Bang Theory*

Though some argue the valid perspective that turning existing male superheroes into superheroines is lazy or doesn’t give female heroes their own identities, I mostly think that turning popular iconic male figures into women shows that gender isn’t that important when it comes to being powerful, capable, and a force for good in the world. In a time when female representation is often limited to sexual objectification, re-presenting male heroes as heroines in particular shows young girls that gender roles are arbitrary and that women can accomplish the same goals and be just as amazing as men. We need that right now.

Bitch Flicks writer and editor Amanda Rodriguez is an environmental activist living in Asheville, North Carolina. She holds a BA from Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio and an MFA in fiction writing from Queens University in Charlotte, NC. Her short story “The Woman Who Fell in Love with a Mermaid” was published in Germ Magazine. She writes all about food and drinking games on her blog Booze and Baking. Fun fact: while living in Kyoto, Japan, her house was attacked by monkeys.

Top 10 Superheroine Movies That Need a Reboot

We all know that male superheroes get reboots for their (often shitty) movies over and over and over again. There are an ever-increasing number of Batman, Superman, and Hulk movies, not to mention a growing franchise of Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor flicks. With this mentality of quantity over quality, there’s no excuse for denying reboots to some of my favorite female superheroines and their considerably fewer films. Some of the movies that made my top 10 list admittedly sucked, and their heroines deserve a second chance to shine on the big screen. Some of the movies, however, were, are and ever shall be totally awesome, and I just want a do-over to enhance the awesome.

Written by Amanda Rodriguez.

We all know that male superheroes get reboots for their (often shitty) movies over and over and over again. There are an ever-increasing number of Batman, Superman, and Hulk movies, not to mention a growing franchise of Iron Man, Captain America and Thor flicks. With this mentality of quantity over quality, there’s no excuse for denying reboots to some of my favorite female superheroines and their considerably fewer films. Some of the movies that made my top 10 list admittedly sucked, and their heroines deserve a second chance to shine on the big screen. Some of the movies, however, were, are and ever shall be totally awesome, and I just want a do-over to enhance the awesome.

1. Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Buffy catches a knife before cheerleading practice

When the film Buffy the Vampire Slayer came out in 1992, I loved it. At the tender age of 10, I was already a huge movie nerd, so I was delighted to see all those celebrity cameos (Kristy Swanson, Donald Sutherland, Pee-Wee Herman/Paul Reubens, Rutger Hauer, Luke Perry, David Arquette, and I still associate the Academy Award-winning Hilary Swank with her bit part in this flick as an annoying, backstabbing valley girl). I loved the cheesiness and the unexpected badassness of its cheerleading heroine, Buffy. The movie, though, doesn’t hold a candle to the quality, thematic breadth, character depth, epic scope and feminism of the subsequent TV show Buffy the Vampire Slayer that aired 1997-2003.

Buffy has become one of the most iconic superheroines in our pop culture history. She has prophetic dreams and preternatural strength, agility, speed and healing along with the mantle of a dark destiny as “the chosen one” who must give her life in service to protecting the world from unseen demonic threats. A reboot could draw more from the material of the TV show, focusing on friendship, community and sisterhood while keeping all the action and humor that draw in crowds. Combine that with a die-hard cult fanbase, and a BtVS reboot can’t lose.

2. Supergirl

Supergirl must save the omega hedron — Supergirl must save the Omegahedron…whatever that is

The 1984 movie Supergirl, starring a young, fresh-faced Helen Slater, was another childhood favorite of mine. Even now 30 years after its release, my nostalgia-tinted view doesn’t allow me to see Supergirl as anything other than a formative superheroine movie about a woman who chooses her duty, her family, and her planet over romantic love. Though Supergirl (aka Kara) has the exact same powers as her cousin Superman (superhuman strength, flight, x-ray and heat vision, freezing breath, invulnerability and an aversion to kryptonite), Kara was so much more exciting than the Man of Steel from whom her comic incarnation was spawned.

One of the many Supergirl comic incarnations — One of the many *Supergirl* comic incarnations

Supergirl, like Superman, is an uncomplicated role model for young girls and boys. She is always brave, good, and righteous, and her moral code guides her and always triumphs in the end. I say if Superman got a series reboot, then fair is fair and Supergirl should get one, too.

3. Red Sonja

Despite Arnold's size in this poster, Red Sonja is always winning — Despite Arnold’s size in this poster, Red Sonja is the true badass here

My love of Red Sonja is downright legendary. She’s a barbarian babe and the greatest sword-wielder who ever lived. The film is full of grand, beautifully choreographed fight sequences, dramatic accents and lines that I’ll probably utter on my deathbed (“You can’t kill it; it’s a machine!“). Sonja faces off against Queen Gedren, a lesbian super villainess played by the mistress of the sword and sandal genre: Sandahl Bergman (more on her later). As a young child, I adored watching these strong, independent women face off in single combat–women who would decide the fate of the world.

Rumors of a Red Sonja reboot titillate but don't deliver — *Red Sonja* reboot rumors titillate but don’t deliver

Both based on comics, Red Sonja is part of the Conan universe. If Conan got his very own craptastic reboot of Conan the Barbarian (starring Jason Momoa of Khal Drogo fame), then it’s high time Red Sonja got hers, too. Hell, they should even make Sonja a lesbian since she’s none to fond of the gentlemen folk and just look at that Kentucky waterfall action she’s rocking. Wow, the idea of an epic lesbian swordswoman is really blowing my mind. That. We need that S.T.A.T.

4. Aeon Flux

The 2005 film Aeon Flux was generally considered a flop. Based on the animated series Aeon Flux that appeared on MTV’s Liquid Television in the 90s, the film was so loosely based on its source material that it disappointed fans and failed to engage newcomers. Animated series creator, Peter Chung, called the film version “a travesty” that made him feel “helpless, humiliated, and sad…Ms. Flux does not actually appear in the movie.”

Frankly, the movie just wasn’t weird enough. The cartoon is populated by bizarre bodies that bordered on the grotesque, trippy visuals, nonlinear narratives and complex political and philosophical musings. The animated Aeon Flux was really cool, iconic, unexpected and unpredictable. Hollywood could use an injection of surreal, nonconformist cinema. Aeon should get a second shot, one that stays truer to its eccentric cartoon.

5. Lara Croft: Tomb Raider

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and its sequel Lara Croft Tomb Raider: Cradle of Life are based on the wildly popular video game series Tomb Raider. A female Indiana Jones-type adventuring archeologist, Lara Croft is an ideal heroine: brilliant, capable, inventive and athletic. Croft is proof that female-centric video games that don’t sexually exploit their heroines can be extremely successful and lucrative.

The movie, however, had a long, convoluted, boring storyline. With a Bond-style episodic approach, the film left me feeling like I hadn’t gotten to know any of the characters in a meaningful way, and even the much anticipated action sequences dragged on and on and on. I don’t want to say good-bye, though, to such a magnetic female character who draws both male and female fans. With a quality script and a judicious editor, a Lara Croft reboot could be amazing, encouraging little girls to want to be Lara Croft (not Indiana Jones) when they grow up.

6. She

1982’s She is a cult classic full of the most random-ass shit you can imagine. I was obsessed with it as a kid. Starring the arresting Sandahl Bergman, of Red Sonja and Conan the Barbarian fame, the film is probably very loosely based on the H. Rider Haggard novel She. The movie takes place in a bizarre post-apocalyptic world wherein She is a ruler of a matriarchal society. Worshiped as a goddess, She protects her people and accepts male (sexual) sacrifices. She is a warrior who goes on a journey to rescue a young woman, encountering werewolves, exploding mimes, a giant in a tutu and some green dudes who seem like they have some kind of leprosy.

Keeping the darkness and the zaniness of the original film, a reboot about a powerful, complicated, not always righteous female ruler set in a dystopian, magical world would be an exciting challenge. If I had my way, Bergman would reprise her role as She or at least have a cameo in the reboot.

7. Elektra

Though the character Elektra has a long comic book history, she first appeared as a love interest in 2003’s Daredevil. Though she died in the end of that massive pile of festering turds, she was later resurrected for her own spin-off film, Elektra, which was a box office flop. Truly, I was impressed with actress Jennifer Garner who performed the role of Elektra, mainly due to how excellent she was with the physicality of the role. She trained hard for the part and looked graceful, strong and natural in her martial arts performance and sai use, which is a hell of a lot more than I can say for fat-headed Ben Affleck’s awkward, cringe-worthy fighting “skills.”

Comic Elektra and live action Jennifer Gardner

The plotline of the Elektra film was silly with a throwaway story, but I appreciate that our heroine strives to protect a young girl much like herself and presumably goes on to train this girl, bringing about a new era where women work together and aren’t pawns of a male secret group. Marvel can do better with this dark ninja assassin fighting her own demons. I vote for a do-over!

8. Sheena Queen of the Jungle

Sheena had so many super cute/cool animal pals

Another childhood favorite of mine was Sheena, starring Tanya Roberts as a female Tarzan who communicates with animals and saves her “people” and homeland from exploitation. I used to run around as a kid putting my fingertips to my forehead Sheena-style, hoping I, too, had a gift for speaking to animals (you probably know how that turned out). When I grew older, I actually became too ashamed to watch the film because it’s so painfully racist (I can’t stand that white savior trope).

The thing is, Sheena is a female icon with a lot of history behind her. In 1937, she became the first female character to have her own title. She’s had her own movie and TV series. She is self-reliant, clever, righteous and part of a unique community that includes people and animals, and she chooses her home over love. The character of Sheena speaks to women. My solution to Sheena‘s inherent racism is to make the character African and Black like the people of her community. If The Beastmaster, Sheena’s (totally sweet) animal communicating male counterpart, got his own film trilogy (in which Tanya Roberts herself co-stars) and TV show, then Sheena deserves a second shot as a new and improved Black superheroine to be a role model for the next generation of women, particularly women of color.

9. Tank Girl

Tank Girl had a pretty wacked out style — Tank Girl had a pretty wacky style

The 1995 film Tank Girl was unsuccessfully translated from its comic origins to the big screen. Despite having a series of celebrity cameos and high profile artists contribute to its soundtrack, the film, like its comic book, was a crazy conglomeration of imagery, absurdist, barely cohesive narrative and haphazard political commentary. Roger Ebert said of the film,

Whatever the faults of Tank Girl, lack of ambition is not one of them…Here is a movie that dives into the bag of filmmaking tricks and chooses all of them. Trying to re-create the multimedia effect of the comic books it’s based on, the film employs live action, animation, montages of still graphics, animatronic makeup, prosthetics, song-and-dance routines, models, fake backdrops, holography, title cards, matte drawings and computerized special effects. All I really missed were 3-D and Smell-O-Vision.

The Tank Girl comic continues its popularity — The *Tank Girl* comic continues its popularity

So Tank Girl didn’t make money. It did become a cult classic, and it was directed by a woman (Rachel Talalay), which are both wins in my book. It’s a story that revolves around a woman who doesn’t take shit from anyone. She smokes, she farts, she has tons of sex and just generally does what she wants. The anarchy of the character of Tank Girl and the defiant example she provides for women deserves another chance to show women that we don’t have to meet a feminine mold; we can call the shots and we can be as weird as we want to be…and still save the day in the end.

10. Frozen

Elsa uses her powers in Frozen — Elsa uses her powers in *Frozen*

Frozen is the highest grossing animated film of all time and the 5th highest grossing film of all time. Damn. That is some serious popularity. That is some serious proof that people are starving for quality stories about the love and relationships between girls and young women. Loosely based on the Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale The Snow Queen, the Disney film Frozen centers around Elsa and her sister Anna, showing how their love for one another is what truly saves the day.

The power of sisters in Disney’s *Frozen*

This is the perfect opportunity for Disney to take the reins in their neverending quest for more money and reboot Frozen as a live action movie with all the bells and whistles that a mega-corporation can afford. Such a high profile movie about the beautiful and important bond between young women will help feminism more than I can say. Plus, it’ll be cool to see a live action Elsa use her sweet ice powers.

As I was compiling this list, I realized what a huge influence these superheroines were for me as I was growing up. It’s sad how few of my examples extend into the new century. Though I may have missed a few, it seems more likely that this is because Hollywood hasn’t been making movies about female heroes nearly as often as they should be. With films like Frozen, The Hunger Games, and Divergent, I hope to see a shift in that pattern that neglects the tales of heroines. These movies don’t always get it right, but their very existence is a triumph. Maybe with their success, the lazy producers of movies will dig up some of the films on my list and give them a second, maybe better chance to inspire women of the next generation.

‘Spamalot’: A Feminist Review

Though ‘Spamalot’ doesn’t greatly improve on the number of significant roles for women, it does add a host of female background performers who appear frequently as well as the show-stealing Lady of the Lake (often dubbed the Diva of the Lake). Though she is primarily a love interest, the Lady of the Lake is also essential as she’s the equivalent of a dues ex machina who solves dilemmas the cast faces, puts them on the right path for their quest and generally inspires enthusiasm in the pursuit of the grail.

Written by Amanda Rodriguez.
Spoiler Alert

I recently went to see a local production of the infamous musical comedy Monty Python’s Spamalot (a Broadway adaptation from the 1975 hilarious Arthurian quest film Monty Python and the Holy Grail) at Asheville Community Theatre. Though running a little long at two and a half hours, I loved it. As a fan, it was wonderful to get to see a theatre company bring to life all the gags, costume changes, ridiculous accents, jokes and songs that make Monty Python so special. As a feminist, I’d like to examine how the theatre production measures up to scrutiny through a feminist lens.

First off, despite my love of it, there’s no denying that the original source material, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, is a sausage-fest. Most of the women are played by men, and the most noteworthy scene featuring women is a bunch of cloistered nun-types at Castle Anthrax who all desperately want to have sex with Sir Galahad (they thankfully omitted this scene in the play). Though Spamalot doesn’t greatly improve on the number of significant roles for women, it does add a host of female background performers who appear frequently as well as the show-stealing Lady of the Lake (often dubbed the Diva of the Lake). Though she is primarily a love interest, the Lady of the Lake is also essential as she’s the equivalent of a dues ex machina who solves dilemmas the cast faces, puts them on the right path for their quest and generally inspires enthusiasm in the pursuit of the grail.

The Lady of the Lake has a lot of tongue-in-cheek meta-songs, and the best one, “Whatever Happened to My Part (The Diva’s Lament),” actually acknowledges how little stage time she’s gotten in comparison to her male compatriots. Though this number concedes that her representation is at best uneven, it doesn’t do much to truly integrate the lone female character into the plot itself.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJqAYUAJbTk”]

In the above clip, we have Sara Ramirez of Grey’s Anatomy fame performing the role of the Lady of the Lake in the original Broadway production. She even won the Tony for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in 2005. I love that a full-figured woman of color was cast in this role, and the world recognized how brightly she shined.

Asheville Community Theatre's Nana Hosmer as the Lady of the Lake — ACT’s Nana Hosmer as the Lady of the Lake

In the Asheville Community Theatre Spamalot production, I was so pleased to see the astoundingly talented Nana Hosmer fill Ramirez’s shoes as the Lady of the Lake. The full-figured diva has a dynamite voice that playfully emulated different musical genres but also shook the rafters with its vibrato. I feel fortunate that I (and all the other theatre-goers) got to see this woman’s powerhouse performance.

The talented Nana Hosmer in Spamalot — The talented Nana Hosmer in *Spamalot*

All in all, though I lamented the lack of female characters and found the number “You Need a Jew” mildly offensive, I was delighted that, though the play felt the need to end with a wedding, it was a gay wedding between Lancelot and the song-loving, fabulous Prince Herbert. I was worried they wouldn’t have the guts for it, but then I remembered, hey, this is Monty Python we’re talking about here. I was, however, the most moved by Nana Hosmer’s Broadway caliber performance. She, along with Sara Ramirez, reminded me how challenging it is for women of color and women with bodies that don’t match Hollywood’s (very thin) standards to find quality roles in films and on TV. I hope this means that theatre is a more welcoming arena that is appreciative of talent and beauty that comes in different shapes, sizes and colors.

‘She-Ra’: Kinda, Sorta Accidentally Feministy

‘She-Ra: Princess of Power’ represents a network of powerful women who not only like each other, but they support each other, organize a rebellion against an oppressive patriarchal regime, and get shit done. The example this powerful group of women set for impressionable girls like myself is tremendous.

She-Ra: Princess of Fucking Power

This repost by Amanda Rodriguez appears as part of our theme week on Children’s Television.

Confession: as a child of the 80’s, I refused to watch cartoons that didn’t have a significantly visible representation of women in them, and the more visible and the more badass, the better. GI Joe and Transformers were out, but Jem and the Holograms, Thundercats, and He-Man made the cut (don’t ask me to explain my little girl logic). Though Jem had a ton of women in it and I loved the series obsessively, She-Ra: Princess of Power was my favorite because not only did the show have tons of women in it, but they were all kickass warriors. I still think about and talk about the show more than is probably considered “normal” (whatever that bullshit word means). Now as an adult looking back, I’m compelled to figure out why that show has been so prominent in my consciousness then, as an impressionable young girl, and now, as a feminist grown. First, we’ve got to compare He-Man and She-Ra, twins with magical, transformative, empowering swords. He-Man’s non-magical alter ego is Prince Adam, while She-Ra’s is Adora. Prince Adam takes on the persona of the lazy, whiny, spoiled, conceited prince who is generally a coward, while Adora is the smart, organized, capable, and charismatic leader of The Great Rebellion. While He-Man had to spend half his time pretending to be a fuck-up and to this day people mock Prince Adam (I strongly advise you to watch the video below for some serious yucks), Adora was an example of a tactically astute, benevolent leader who included the talents and ideas of others.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjVugzSR7HA”]

When the twins transform into their superhero selves, both have equally unmatched physical strength (though She-Ra is more prone to doing flips and super sweet spin kicks while shouting “Hee-Yah!”). The jewel in She-Ra’s sword isn’t the only difference between her and He-Man’s swords of birthright. Her sword can transform into nearly any physical object she commands (a shield, a lasso, a ladder, even a helmet that lets her breathe underwater).

She-Ra: “Sword to ice-maker.” Great for making ice cream or freezing over lakes to go skating on warm summer days.

She-Ra also has innate powers that are denied He-Man. She can communicate via telepathy with animals. Not only that but she can heal the injured with a good old-fashioned laying on of hands. It’s easy to see some of her additional powers as the writers attempting to feminize the character. Her empathic communication with animals and healing powers could certainly be coded as “nurturing” and therefore more traditionally feminine, but at the same time, She-Ra is just as strong as He-Man. Let’s face it, with her extra abilities, she’s an even bigger badass than he is.

Then we’ve got to consider the sheer number of female heroes in She-Ra.

From left to right: Glimmer, Angella, Castaspella, She-Ra, Frosta, and the villainous Cat-Ra

Like most shows geared toward young girls around that era, there were a lot of female characters and a notable dearth of male characters. In fact, Bow was She-Ra’s only regularly featured male hero to be included in The Great Rebellion. I also remember She-Ra more consistently involving and more fully featuring its wide range of female characters than, say, My Little Ponies or Rainbow Brite.

In part because of the huge female cast, She-Ra also showcased tons of Bechdel test-passing female friendships.

From left to right: Perfuma, Castaspella, Mermista, She-Ra, Glimmer, Angella, Frosta

These women all work as a team for a noble common cause under a female leader, Adora. Glimmer and Angella are even an inter-generational mother-daughter duo with a profoundly strong connection as shown in the He-Man/She-Ra feature-length film The Secret of the Sword wherein She-Ra is introduced to the He-Man universe and must rescue Queen Angella from a minion of The Evil Horde. Glimmer is also clearly Adora’s best friend. In all actuality, the general lack of female rivalry should be attributed to the pre-sexualized nature of the show’s target audience. Though there are some crushes throughout the series, they are all harmless and never consummated (even with a kiss).

Unlike many superheroine mythologies, She-Ra isn’t the only one with astounding abilities. In fact, her friends possess a plethora of mystical qualities that make them assets to The Great Rebellion. Though the female characters are not diverse in their race or in their slim and buxom builds, they are diverse in their talents. Flight, clairvoyance, teleportation, creation of energy shields, spell casting, uncanny aptitude for disguises, power over frost, and physical transformations are just a handful of the amazing strengths She-Ra’s friends possess. To a woman, they are all brave, leaders in their own right, and capable of working as part of a collective.

She-Ra: “Ladies…um, and Bow, let’s kick some ass!”

Let us not forget that The Great Rebellion is a predominantly female rebellion from its leaders to its foot soldiers to the monarch they hope to enthrone. Glimmer’s mother, Angella is the Queen of Bright Moon and is considered the “rightful ruler of Etheria.” A benevolent matriarch, She-Ra and The Great Rebellion fight the evil Horde in order to restore Angella’s kingdom. All these women have joined together to fight Hordak, who is a symbol of the tyranny and oppression of the patriarchy. Don’t believe me? Just think about it: in the film The Secret of the Sword when we meet Adora, she is known as Force Captain Adora, and Hordak is a father figure to her. He has indoctrinated her into the Horde, leading her to believe that the Horde is just and the rebels evil. Hordak also surrounds himself with patriarchy-complicit women like Cat-Ra, Entrapta, Scorpia, and even the mother figure, Shadow Weaver who casts her spells to subdue Adora to the will of Hordak. Essentially, Hordak has lied to Adora about reality. Once she becomes aware of his lies, Adora turns against Hordak, discovers her true, empowered identity as She-Ra, joins a band of women, and fights to supplant him with a matriarchy.

She-Ra…for…the…win…

Yes, all the women of She-Ra are white (except for a handful of obscure cameos by Netossa), and they’re all scantily clad, thin ladies with big boobies. Yes, She-Ra is a calculated He-Man spin-off designed to bring in a female audience and sell more toys in the never-ending quest for more money. And, yes, it’s probably an accident that the girl power vibe and transparent anti-patriarchy theme are so strong. Whatever the studio’s reasoning, the end result is a network of powerful women who not only like each other, but they support each other, organize a rebellion against an oppressive patriarchal regime, and get shit done. The example this powerful group of women set for impressionable girls like myself is tremendous. In the 80’s, I had a glittery She-Ra sword that I felt completely justified in swinging around because I, like She-Ra, was the heroine of my own story.

PS: Mom, sorry about that lamp I broke.

Was ‘Jem and the Holograms’ a Good Show for Little Girls?

Though the show’s focus on romantic love, fashion, and female rivalry are of dubious value, there are definitely a lot of good things going on with ‘Jem and the Holograms’: the notion that fame and fortune should be used for philanthropic means, that female friendships can be strong and form an important network of support, and that a sense of community is crucial.

This repost by Amanda Rodriguez appears as part of our theme week on Children’s Television.

As a little girl growing up in the 80s, I loved the show Jem and the Holograms. I confess that I still have a bunch of the songs from the show that I listen to from time to time (occasionally subjecting my spin class attendees to a Jem track on my workout playlists). Looking back now as an adult feminist, I’ve wondered how the show influenced me and whether or not that influence was a positive thing. *I did a similar assessment of another of my much-loved 80’s cartoons called: She-Ra Kinda Sorta Accidentally Feministy.*

There are a few potential not-necessarily-empowering aspects of Jem. Firstly, the show is fashion-obsessed and revolves around the characters’ fashionability. Unlike most cartoons where the characters mostly wear the same outfit in every episode, the thin female bodies of Jem‘s characters are adorned in multiple wardrobe changes often within a single 20-minute episode. Fashion and modeling, we know, are traditionally coded as female. The fashion world is extremely hard on women, placing undue emphasis on their bodies, especially on the thinness of those bodies. The drummer (and Black bandmate) Shana, however, designs clothing, so there is an aspect of fun creative expression at play here. Not only that, but the band Jem and the Holograms gets into the world of fashion and music in order to maintain the foster home for young girls that they run.

In this light, being on the cutting-edge of fashion, making money, being famous, and maintaining their record label (Starlight Music) is all a means to a philanthropic ends. The band often performs benefit concerts, singing many songs that deliver a positive message about fair play, hard work, creativity, education, and friendship to its young, predominately female audience. Jerrica Benton (Jem’s alter ego) must become a savvy business woman in the advent of her father’s death in order to run her inherited huge record label while living with her beloved foster girls, trying to give them good, happy lives. Jerrica and her friends are capable, ambitious women who thrive in the business world and do so for noble reasons. That type of female representation is all too rare in any pop culture medium, and it definitely had a positive effect on my impressionable younger self.

Another aspect of the show that could be a negative for little girls was all the female rivalry. The primary focus of the show was the often high-stakes band rivalry between Jem and the Holograms and their nemeses (another all-female band), The Misfits.

Misfits Close-up — The Misfits: Roxy, Pizzazz, & Stormer

The Misfits were mean, reckless, and ruthless in their pursuit to beat Jem at everything. They’d lie, cheat, commit crimes and sabotage, and endanger the lives of Jem and her bandmates in order to win at any cost. They even had a song called “Winning is Everything.” True story.

[youtube_sc url=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMlneySmI3g”]

Though Jem passes the Bechdel Test with flying colors, this dangerous female rivalry is troubling, reinforcing mainstream media’s insistence that women can’t be friends; they must, instead, compete for resources, men, and general approval. Instead of the bands being able to cooperate and collaborate, they are mostly at each other’s throats (with The Misfits, of course, being the instigators). The upside of this rivalry is that the major players are all women. The characters with all the talent, power, and agency are women. The epitome of this is the all-powerful matriarchal figure of Synergy. She’s a basically sentient hologram generating computer system. She gets Jem and her crew out of countless jams, operates as home base for their operations, and acts as a concerned, maternal mentor for them. Though Synergy is a computer system, she has awesome power and Jerrica/Jem often goes to her for counsel.

Synergy to Jem — “Synergy, create a hologram of Jem.”

Not only that, but even the cruel Misfits are given depth over time. My favorite character (on whom I had a serious girl-crush) was Stormer, the blue-haired Misfit who was a bad girl with a heart of gold. When her bandmates crossed the line, she would always undermine their machinations in order to do the right thing, often saving the day. We also learn that Pizazz, the ringleader and front woman for the band, struggles with her former identity as: Phyllis, a rich girl with a neglectful father whose approval and attentiveness she could never garner. Despite the contentiousness of the rival bands’ relations, the fact that women are the primary actors and reactors gives the show a variety of female perspectives and permutations, which is what’s so often lacking in current female representations in film and on TV.

In fact, there are hardly any male characters in the show at all. There are only two to speak of: Jem/Jerrica’s love interest and road manager, Rio Pacheco, and The Misfits’ slimy band manager, Eric Raymond. Later the lead singer of The Stingers, Riot, enters the scene with his ridiculous hair and obsession with Jem. These male characters’ relevance and even usefulness was often in question. Eric was incompetent at all of his scheming in a distinctly Road Runner style. Jem/Jerrica couldn’t even confide her secrets in Rio, and he was often left waiting in the dark for situational resolutions. I often questioned how healthy for young girls the representation of the love triangle involving Rio, Jem, and Jerrica was. It was bizarre that Jem was Jerrica, so Rio was essentially cheating on his girlfriend…with his girlfriend. There was even an episode where Jerrica gets tired of being herself and her Jem personae, so she dons a hologram of a completely new appearance. Rio falls in love with her, too, and they share a kiss. Though the inherent deception on all sides of the relationship is not good role modeling, maybe it’s important that Rio loves Jerrica no matter what physical form she takes on.

I am in love with this Rio & Jem cosplay duo. — I am in love with this Rio and Jem cosplay duo.

The band itself, Jem and the Holograms, was also surprisingly racially diverse. The drummer, Shana, was Black, and the lead guitarist, Aja, was Asian. They later added a new drummer, Raya, who was Latina, when Shana took up bass guitar. Though the front woman for the band (who couldn’t actually play an instrument) remained a white woman, with the addition of Raya, there were actually more women of color in the band than white women. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen that kind of ratio on a TV show that wasn’t specifically targeted at people of color.

Jem and all the Holograms — Jem, Kimber, Aja, Raya, and Shana

Though the show’s focus on romantic love, fashion, and female rivalry are of dubious value, there are definitely a lot of good things going on with Jem and the Holograms: the notion that fame and fortune should be used for philanthropic means, that female friendships can be strong and form an important network of support, that a sense of community is crucial, especially that of an older generation of women actively participating in that of teenage girls, that the arts should be respected and fostered, and that the virtues women should value in themselves should include honesty, compassion, fairness, determination, and kindness. Maybe I’m biased because I always thought the show was “truly outrageous,” but the good seems to outweigh the bad, giving us a series about women that tried to teach little girls how to grow up to be strong, ethical, and believe in themselves.

Top 10 Villainesses Who Deserve Their Own Movies

Written by Amanda Rodriguez.

1. Mystique

2. Harley Quinn

3. Ursa

4. Sniper Wolf

5. Scarlet Witch

Perhaps the most powerful mutant in X-Men lore — One of the most powerful mutants in X-Men lore, Scarlet Witch

6. Ursula

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLSnNSqs_CQ”]

Now that Disney has made Maleficent, they better find a place for this octo-woman sea witch, and they better keep her gloriously fat, or they’ll be sorry.

7. Evil-Lyn

8. Knockout and Scandal

9. Lady Death

10. Asajj Ventress

The Dark Side has the Sith Asajj Ventress. #win — The Dark Side has Asajj Ventress. #win

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