2nd Wave of Feminism in Action Movies

In Ms. O'Connell lecture she talked to us about women's portrayal in television. She begins her talk with a movie entitled "Lara Croft Tomb Raider". She says this is the first action movie that she could remember, that had a women as the lead role. This movie came out in 2001, not very long ago. However, I believe since then the industry has put together movies with more important and main female roles. For example, the movie "Wonder Woman" displays a strong female main character. This movie came out in 2017. Another movie, "Avengers" includes Black Widow as one of the main characters. Both female roles powerful, strong, and courageous which defy common traditional gender roles. However, I also believe that there aren't enough main characters in action movies that are women. "Wonder Woman" came out in 2017 and we haven't really seen a woman main character in an action movie since. In "Avengers", Black Widow is one of many super hero main characters and she is the only girl and receives the spotlight only a few times. These two super heros are some of the only female ones compaired to hundreds of male superheros and many of the male super heros have their own movies. I think we have come a little ways in trying to get more main character female roles in action movies but it definitely is not equal yet.

I also noticed as Ms. O'Connell talked about main character females, how they were physically portrayed. Back to body image and idealistic bodies, the female super heros have the "picture perfect" but almost impossible to attain body types. Wonder Woman is tall, with perfect long dark hair, a face full of make up, big boobs, long legs, and a skinny waist. Black Widow has almost the same attributes except her hair is red. None of the female main characters in action movies have a normal body, they are all like models and unachievable.

All together, I really enjoyed Ms. O'Connell's portion on action movies because I never realized some of the stuff she was saying and was extremely surprised that she had only recognized a female in an action movie as a main character as late at 2001.