this post was submitted on 19 Apr 2025
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[–] [email protected] 130 points 2 weeks ago (8 children)
[–] [email protected] 78 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

She was widely ridiculed for the quote with Alien as a notable example.

I think the rest of the quote was pretty accurate. She was speaking to gender bias in Hollywood and saying she was happy to be an exception, which I think was fine. But because she said something boneheadedly wrong to tee up the point, that's all anyone really remembers about it.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

You can be wrong but still hold a valid point broadly.

If you say "franchises" instead of movies and limit it to movies where the woman is the STAR and not part of a duo (Terminator and Terminator 2) and goes for 3 or more movies the only other example I can think of off the top of my head is Alien.

Theres a lot of female starred standalone movies, and a decent number of duos, sometimes with sequels. But once you start looking beyond that it gets REALLY skinny really fast.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

Resident Evil has entered the chat...

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

We try to forget those movies exist at all.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

You can't deny the first one was great.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 weeks ago
[–] [email protected] 47 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)
[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Alien came out 12 years before terminator 2.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 weeks ago

Yes, I was just giving another extremely well known example that predates Hunger Games by a few decades

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Id even say that arguably that doesnt count.

She was a lead role, but Michael Beihn and Arnie got top billing in the Terminator and Terminator 2 movies. Edward Furlong and Linda Hamilton had "starring" roles but they werent the lead.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 weeks ago

Sure, but Sarah was really the protagonist. Regardless, Alien came much earlier

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Absolutely does. But they wanted to introduce us to one of their favorites. Which if I must say absolutely is an underrated awesome movie. Gina Davis is great in almost everything she's ever been in. They didn't imply it was the first.

As you said aliens definitely predates it and also counts. But the statements that it was the first big female led action movie was just so ridiculous because there are so many good ones that are easy to point out. Just how that blue origin launch with the all female crew was somehow this big step for females in space. Completely ignoring and down playing all the female astronauts throughout NASA's history.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 weeks ago

Fun fact about that: I think it was Mike Mullane who was on one of the first missions with a female astronaut. He found her, obviously, to be beyond qualified, and was just as furious as all the other astronauts of any gender at the dumb type of "how will you do your makeup in space" type of questions she would get from the press.

Anyway, partway through the mission her hair got caught by some kind of machinery, sucked in and tangled up in it, and it was a little bit of a pain in the ass to get things sorted out. She hunted down every single member of the crew and made them swear an oath under threat of terrible violence not to say a goddamned word about it, because it was intolerable that there be some actual negative issue with some reality that was connected with her gender in any way, that anyone could point to as a reason why male astronauts were better.

Then he put it in his book. Of course. Hopefully enough time had gone by at that point that we understood that astronauts can be qualified even if they have hoo-has. Or, well, we did until Jeff Bezos got involved.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (3 children)

Dude, there are at least:

  • Alien
  • Doomsday
  • Planet Terror
  • Aeon Flux (edit: not Aron Flux)
  • Catwoman
  • all Charlie's Angels movies
  • and literally all Mills Jovovich movies

They are not all that well known, but the claim is still complete nonsense.

Edit:

  • Ultraviolet
  • Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon
  • Sucker Punch
  • Salt
  • Pans Labyrinth
  • Lara Croft
  • Kill Bill !!! (How the f did I forget Kill Bill?)
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[–] [email protected] 19 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Pam Grier would like a word

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 weeks ago

Alien isn't an action movie. It's a horror. Aliens, however, is absolutely an action movie.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 weeks ago

Dunno if that counts as an action movie, but she is wrong because there were a number of action movies with one or more women as leads in the 70s and 80s. They were B movies, but still movies!

[–] [email protected] 73 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Aliens has her beat by a few decades.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 weeks ago (5 children)

Came here to say this. Why do people forget about Ellen Ripley?!?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 weeks ago

It's strange, because Ripley is like the #1 "I don't hate women in movies, just bad writing" excuse

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 weeks ago

Yeah, and Aliens is actually GOOD.

[–] [email protected] 36 points 2 weeks ago (5 children)

The internet loves ridiculing women who slip up, or like Jennifer Lawrence in this case, are maliciously taken out of context for the purpose of ridiculing women

[–] [email protected] 21 points 2 weeks ago (9 children)

"I remember when I was doing 'Hunger Games,' nobody had ever put a woman in the lead of an action movie because it wouldn’t work β€” because we were told girls and boys can both identify with a male lead, but boys cannot identify with a female lead."

I'm curious how you're gonna spin that as being taken out of context.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

she's talking about an attitude studios had at the time. you have no evidence that this exact conversation didn't happen. fuck, you can see right wing babies cry and throw a fit right now whenever they see a woman in the lead of any movie let alone action.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

That’s a pretty piss-poor attempt at an argument. She specifically states nobody had ever cast a woman as an action lead. And as for not having evidence, that fact that she didn’t deny it, and issues an apology tends to imply she fucking said it.

After #MeToo, liberals have over corrected so much that as soon as a woman says anything, you take it as fact. And if that woman is wrong, you twist her words like some MAGA chud with Trump to try and make her right all along. It’s absolutely ridiculous. You know it’s ok to admit that sometimes a woman somewhere will say some stupid shit, right?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)
  1. you completely misread the part about evidence.

  2. you didn't have to go full MRA but ok that's a choice I guess

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

Ah, the good old "if you don't agree with every woman, you're sexist" argument. It's right up there with the "if you criticize Israel you hate Jews" on my list of viewpoints to respect.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I think some of it is because we love our action women! Sigourney Weaver and Linda Hamilton were fucking AWESOME action stars that were unique, smart and complex; and not just "woman who acts like a douche male" type that most modern poorly written female action stars are.

And IMO they were way better actresses and better written than whatever hunger games was.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (2 children)

True. There’s certain asymmetry in how internet likes to shit on women. You would have to be blind to not notice

It is some kind of sport in every single community regardless of political spectrum. The difference is amount of slurs

I always get the death threats quite immediately when I mention being a land lady. There is asymmetric escalation

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 weeks ago

The death threats aren't because you're a woman, the death threats are because you're a parasite and don't provide anything to society by hogging up housing and keeping it from being affordable. No land lord/lady has ever provided a useful contribution to their community.

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 2 weeks ago

La Femme Nikita (original French), Alien, and Terminator 2 all had seriously kick-ass female leads.

[–] AngryishHumanoid 21 points 2 weeks ago

IIRC she was specifically talking about the young adult genre.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 2 weeks ago
[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 weeks ago

I wasn't allowed to watch "violent" movies as a kid, so I missed a lot of action classics like RoboCop, Rambo, etc. But there were a few exceptions we had on tape so they got watched a lot. Long Kiss Goodnight, T2, Alien,... I rewatched this one again a couple of years ago and was shocked at how violent it actually is. It finally clicked that my single Mum was making an exception for iconic kick-arse women.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 weeks ago

What about Underworld ?

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 weeks ago

Kill Bill? or its inspiration, Lady Snowblood?

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Aeon Flux?

EDIT: Ah someone beat me to it.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Fuck guys, I forgot about this. I'm going to write a strongly worded tweet to Jennifer because I bet she forgot she was wrong too!

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 weeks ago

Other female led action movies that came out in 2012 include- Brave, Underworld: Awakening, Resident Evil: Retribution, Silent Hill: Revelations... but I feel like I'm belaboring the point that many others have made by now.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 weeks ago

scroll down for good movies

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 weeks ago

This feels more like she was obviously exaggerating for dramatic effect versus outright lying. In a conversation, I think most would understand that she meant not very much and she was talking about the young adult genre in general.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 weeks ago

Aeon flux i remember being a female led action film.

Am I wrong?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 weeks ago

Oh. Em. Gosh, I've watched that movie so many times since I was a kid, I couldn't even count. She's awesome and terrifying!

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