Where the Women Have Agency

[barbarienne]

Several posts in the SF/F corner of the internet this morning on the topic of Women in Refrigerators.

Marie Brennan talks about it here, discussing the concept of women having agency, that is, taking action as independent people.

kateelliott has a related post here, wherein she discusses one of the most notable movies in SF wherein a woman is an action hero

Comments

[kouaidou]

My friends and I just watched the Richard Donner cut of Superman II. Lois may just be the love interest there, but she has some amazing agency in trying to figure out Clark's secret, including a fabulous bit where she shoots him that was changed for the theatrical release.

[barbarienne]

Oh! I would love to see Lois shoot Clark.

Yes, that was one of the things I hatedhatedhated about Superman Returns: Lois. She was awful. What agency she has is driven by her being stupid. It was particularly obvious when contrasted with the Karen Allen version of Lois. This expansion of the character you mention just makes me love that version all the more.

[kouaidou]

You mean Margot Kidder, right? Karen Allen was Marion in Indiana Jones (a character who was definitely awesome, though I can't recall if she actually had a lot of agency...?)

[barbarienne]

Yes, Margot Kidder. They do look annoyingly alike

Just the fax, ma'am

[kouaidou]

Wow. I bow to your amazing Indy-recall skills.

Watched Die Hard 2 with friends tonight, partly motivated by your mention of the first one here. Being stuck in a plane circling Dulles the whole movie, McClain's wife is in less of a position to directly affect the situation on the ground, but she still stops the sleazy reporter who has hacked in on the tower from revealing John's actions on the national news, which ultimately saves him from the terrorists.

The thing is, it's a totally contrived and coincidental situation (especially since he just happens to be the same sleazy reporter from the first movie). But I think it's to the credit of the writers that they were willing to go to such lengths to make sure she had something to do and could play a part in saving John. Given the situation, it would have really easy to leave her in the motivating macguffin role, whispering "John... save me!" every 20 minutes to remind us of the stakes

Re: Just the fax, ma'am

[barbarienne]

My Indy recall skills are because I saw it eleventy-billion times when it was first released in the movie theater, plus my sister bought the novelization and I read that a zillion times. (It hews pretty closely to the movie.) All that information went into a brain considerably younger and more absorbent than my current brain. :-) I couldn't reiterate the second or third movie near so well.

I agree with you on Die Hard's treatment of black characters. Certainly not perfect, but the first movie has the distinction of casting a black man as the science/computer/tech guy, while not making him a nerd. That has since become something of a trope, but DH was, if not the first, certainly a very early example. Add Reginald Vel Johnson (who has played a cop at least three times I can think of), one of the FBI guys, and the limo driver kid, and you've at least got a range of black men in the film, and none of them use a gun except law enforcement.