More Than Just Perfect Hair

Damsels in distress aren’t always my favorite characters. A lot of the time, they kind of annoy me. It’s just so hard to believe that anyone really needs someone else to cover their mouth so they don’t scream and alert the knife-wielding murderer of their location. Or, my least favorite attribute, the old ‘this door looks creepy and scary, why don’t I open it and see what’s inside, letting no one else know where I’ve gone.’ Everyone makes a dumb choice now and again, but damsels in distress tend not to make any smart choices.

Unfortunately, sometimes they are necessary. After all, you can’t create a hero without giving them someone to save. And if that hero just so happens to be in love with the girl in trouble, well, then there is all the more emotional reward when they escape danger unharmed. So I get the damsel’s role, I respect her purpose to the plot. I just don’t always respect her.

That’s why I really enjoy stories that have a damsel I can root for. Someone whose talent is more than just perfect hair no matter what the weather or situation. I want a damsel who is brave and smart but just has bad luck. Or, even better, a damsel who knowingly puts herself in danger in order to do something heroic herself.

 

The Amazing Spider-Man’s Gwen Stacey, played by the consistently brilliant Emma Stone, falls into this category. Spidey’s leading lady in this year’s revamping of Spider-Man is intelligent, confident and just quirky and vulnerable enough for you to fall in love with her as much as Peter Parker does. More importantly, she has none of the characteristics of your typical damsel. For one thing, she’s not helpless, nor is she clueless to the hero’s secret and yet-oh-so-obvious identity. And when the time comes to face the bad guy, she has as much courage as the hero. In fact, Gwen is more like a partner to the web-slinger, helping him to stop the enemy, not hindering him.

It would have been easy to slap the pretty actress on a gossamer web and let her scream for help while the hero swung around, took down his nemesis and then swung back over for a kiss. But the movie, rather smartly, sucked fans in by giving us more than one heroic character to root for. At the same time they did something rarely done, they gave us a damsel in distress that we could respect.

We Need Bullet Proof Bracelets And The Lasso Of Truth

It’s a bird, it’s a plane, whatever it is, it’s sure to be a man. This summer is full of exciting blockbuster superhero movies. Both Spiderman and Batman will fight it out in July and last weekend’s huge opener, The Avengers, is set to own the rest of May. To be fair there are plenty of women in these movies. I’m looking forward to seeing Emma Stone as Gwen Stacey and Anne Hathaway as Catwoman, but neither character is the center of the film she stars in. Even The Avengers’ Black Widow didn’t quite get the same standing as her muscular male counterparts. In one scene you had Captain America with his shield, Thor with his hammer and the Black Widow with her… tiny gun?

As fun as the movies were and promise to be, we need more. Quite frankly, we need bullet proof bracelets and the Lasso of Truth.

 

Not only did the men get cooler weapons but they’ve, with the exception of Hawkeye, each had their own movie. Two in Iron Man’s case. More superhero movies are slated for the future: Iron Man 3, Thor 2, Captain America 2, and The Avengers 2 are all in development. I wouldn’t be surprised if they tried one more time to get The Hulk right since Mark Ruffalo did such an excellent job as Bruce Banner. If Spidey brings in the kind of numbers they’re expecting, I’m sure we’ll see a sequel within the next two years. Somewhere, someone is already breaking story on that one.

But is anyone writing about Wonder Woman? Rumors all seem to say that the movie died before even being put on the books.

Why? Is it the name, the costume? Wonder Woman is an Amazonian Princess named Diana, so I can understand not wanting a character named Princess Diana, but the solution seems kind of obvious. Nickname her Ana – there, problem solved.  One of the issues with the costume was already addressed in the cancelled-before-it-had-a-chance TV show that was set to air last Fall. Pants. Everyone is already wearing their skinny jeans in their tall boots, why can’t a warrior? As for the top, well, I’ll admit, it does seem somewhat impractical fighting gear but if they could make Thor’s outfit work I’m sure Wonder Woman’s eagle top could look quite fashionable and functional. In fact, there’s more potential in movie product tie-in than just Halloween costumes if they get the outfit right.

So why does Wonder Woman keep getting left behind? She has a rich back story, cool powers, and her own freaking tiara. What more could producers want? Is the sinister belief that movies about women don’t make any money keeping this peace loving warrior princess in the dark? Because if this is what the studios are worried about I have (yet another) simple solution: Don’t make the movie crap. Give her a good story with a bit of a plot twist, some character development. Make her smart, funny and compassionate with just enough of a weakness to make her relatable but not so weak that she gets on your nerves.

 

If  Hollywood would just realize that movies with women in the lead fail so often because they either center around an adorable/hot character that is really too naïve or bitchy to put up with for two hours, the plot goes nowhere and you’re stuck watching your leads put on one outfit after another while dancing around a table with their girlfriends (seriously, who does that in real life… sober?) or, my personal least favorite, they keep doing ridiculous things, never growing or learning from anything that came previous, until someone steps in and gives them the support that changes their life around.

The only support Wonder Woman needs is from her costume.

So how about it? Write an awesome story with deep characters, give it solid special effects and some humor to break the tension when needed.  And make the lead female. It’s not hard. Hunger Games did it.