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| Gina Carano, fyi. |
I'm an action movie person, I always
have been. When I was ten, I saw Terminator 2 for the first time and
decided that I wanted to be
Sarah Connor. When I started working out in college? It's because I
wanted to look like Wonder Woman (which is impossible, but still). I
loved Eowyn so much that I still have a set of binders from
highschool with some really embarrassing printed out pictures and a
couple of fake Rohanian names on them shoved into the back of my
closet.
But I
have a confession to make.
 |
| Sorry, honey, but no. |
I
didn't watch Colombiana. Or Salt. I thought, as I said here, that
the new Charlie's Angels reboot was shit on toast. I wasn't a big
fan of Malin Ackerman's portrayal of Silk Spectre II in Watchmen, and
Scarlett Johansson's hot and all, but Black Widow? Really? These
women are all beautiful, and I'm sure those films up there are even
pretty good*, but my biggest problem is that I can never forget I'm
watching an actor when I look at them.
Think
about it.
Zoe
Saldana is like 100 pounds soaking wet. Maggie Q is too, but she's
all angles and terrifying muscles. Zoe Saldana? Less so. I do not
believe that Ms. Saldana is a mercenary trained from birth to kill.
I just want to feed her a cheeseburger.
 |
| A little more believable. |
It's
like when Faith showed up on season three of Buffy. Watching Eliza
Dushku (younger, more muscle mass Eliza Dushku) beat up on vampires
made you realize that, mystical superpowers or no, Sarah Michelle
Gellar was a little shrimpy for a bruiser. I mean, the show made fun
of it, and it was 90% of the premise, but all of a sudden it just was
kind of...weird.
So,
for this reason, I'd like to take a moment and recognize the women
who I do believe. When they kick an ass, I know that ass is kicked.
If you met them on the street, you'd walk a little faster, clutch
your things a little tighter. These are the women who really, truly,
could beat you up.
Sigourney
Weaver (Ripley)
Who
doesn't love Ripley? From a movie all about rape (Alien) to an even
better movie about motherhood (Aliens), Ripley took no shit, suffered
no fools, and committed some seriously impressive alien genocide.
Along the way, Sigourney Weaver convinced me, and most of the people
watching, that she was one scary chick. Take the scene at the end of
Alien. She's stripping down to her underwear, completely vulnerable,
and for the first time in the movie you can see her arms. She's
actually ripped. This isn't movie fu making her able to fight, she
can really work it. From there, her eventual takedown of the alien
seems justified. Earned. Sigourney Weaver made an underwear scene
less about sex and more about vulnerability, and in the process
proved that she has what it takes to protect herself. Which is, in
and of itself, pretty damn sexy.
Linda
Hamilton (Sarah Connor)
So, in
the first Terminator movie, Sarah Connor's kind of a mess. She wilts
and screams and cries and whines. She clings, and then she gets
knocked up. But in the second movie, it's like her pregnancy
hormones gave her superpowers, because there Linda Hamilton is, doing
chinups on a hospital bed in an insane asylum, and it is awesome.
Seriously. Not only is she an exponentially more interesting
character, she's also tough, and cool, in a way that's realistic,
achievable, and really, really badass. I can only imagine the kind
of training Linda Hamilton went through to play that Sarah Connor,
because those muscles aren't fake. That chinup is real. And that
badassery is epic.**
Lucy
Lawless (Xena)
It's
not exactly that Lucy Lawless is
Xena, it's more that I can never unsee it. No matter what else she
does in life, for me, she will always be Xena, Warrior Princess. And
that's not a bad thing. I entirely believe that Lucy Lawless, with
her broad shoulders, strong legs, and definitely not a model
physique, could wield a sword. Those things are heavy! And it
wasn't just her on the show who displayed this preference for realism
in casting. Renee O'Connor's Gabrielle began the show as a more
girlish sidekick, who slowly transitioned into a fighting role. As
she transitioned, she gained muscle mass and stamina. She looked
like a fighter.***
Michelle
Yeoh and Gina Carano
And,
finally, a tip of the hat to those ladies of cinema who don't just
look like they can really win a fight, but who really, really can.
Michelle Yeoh (Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon) started out in stunt
work, and slowly transitioned into acting, though she still does all
her own stunts. Gina Carano (Haywire****) is an MMA fighter that Steven
Soderbergh saw on television and thought, "What if I made a
movie starring her? A movie where the action lead could actually
fight?"
What
if, indeed?
There's nothing wrong with skinny women being skinny
(unless they're forcing other women to be skinny), and there's
nothing wrong with indulging in a little Hollywood fantasy every now
and again. Sometimes I watch Tomb Raider too. But when you see
Angelina Jolie pistol whipping a man like her arms can actually whip
a pistol, it's important to remember that there are women out there
who can do that, and do it well.
And it's very important to remember not to piss those women off.
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| Shout out to Gina Torres, who always looked realistically murderous on Firefly. |
*Or
not. Colombiana got pretty bad reviews.
**A
special shout out to Lena Headey who played Sarah Connor in the
Terminator tv show. She was pretty darn epic herself, but just not
quite believable enough to make this list. Still, the quality of her
acting was amazing, and well worth it.
***The
canonical lesbianism didn't exactly hurt my love of this show. It
was way ahead of its time. Hell, it's way ahead of this time.
****Out in theaters! Go see it now! DO IT!
