For the longest time in the film and entertainment industries, woman were not taken as seriously as their male counter-parts. These industries have been dominated by men since the beginning of the 20th century. In most cases, female characters were generally expected to be side characters that didn’t do much aside being damsels-in-distress, looking pretty, or being completely evil. Over the past 30 or 40 years, the pendulum has been swinging the other way, although not as far as some would have hoped. That being said, there have been a lot of female characters that have been extremely memorable, and for the right reasons. There have been a lot of influential women in the industry over the years that have shaped and changed the industry into something that was once been dominated ONLY by men, not just behind the camera, but in front as well. In my opinion, there is no bad time to celebrate women’s contributions to cinema. For this post, I’m going to discuss some of the most bad-ass female characters to grace the silver screen. Lead characters or side characters, these women have thrown the doors open on what women can accomplish in this industry. Ladies, this one’s for you.
Starr Carter(Amandla Stenberg)The Hate U Give
Being bad-ass isn’t always about how well you can beat somebody up or the distance you can shoot people from. Sometimes, it’s all about standing up for what’s right and confronting the evils of society. Amandla Stenberg plays Starr Carter, a black female student who was a witness to a police shooting. Over the course of the film, we see Starr go from being distraught to somebody who became the face of a movement. While The Hate U Give is based on a book, it plays out like something that’s ripped from today’s headlines. Amandla’s performance is one for the record books. This particular scene has Starr confronting a fellow student who doesn’t realize that she’s racist. Starr is bad-ass because she’s a girl that’s willing to confront issues that have plagued the African-American community for decades.
Hua Mulan(Zhao Wei)- Mulan: Rise of A Warrior
I picked this version of the story over the Disney animated film, because I felt it better represented the legend of Hua Mulan. The story of Mulan was written centuries ago in China and concerned a peasant girl who took up her father’s sword to defend her country. The story is really good because when it was written, women were expected to be subservient and obedient. It was part of the culture. While Mulan is not an actual historical figure, as far as we know, she may have been modeled on women that defied cultural norms to fight for their homeland. This film shows a peasant girl that defied her father’s will to rise in the ranks of the army and become a general. The movie definitely has a lot of action, but at its core was a woman that wanted to defend her family and country against a growing threat and succeed. You really don’t get to be more bad-ass than that.
Maleficent – Sleeping Beauty
Maleficent is one of the greatest female villains of all time and certainly one of Disney’s most notorious. If you’re going to be a villain, you may as well go the distance, right? This character is so evil that when she’s spurned by the king and queen, she puts a curse on their child. Now, one would think that would be cowardly, but she shows up with not a care in the world and manages to scare the soldiers enough that they don’t dare approach her. Yeah, she’s evil, but she actually succeeds in carrying out her curse, to a degree. Obviously, she’s thwarted by the fairies, but still, you have to admit the audacity of a villain to walk in and curse a royal child with death in front of the parents and just disappear without a care in the world. Maleficent is bad-ass and she knows it. She even turns into a fire-breathing dragon! How freakin’ awesome is that?
Leia Organa(Carrie Fisher)-Star Wars
Leia Organa is an important character not just in Star Wars but also in cinema in general. George Lucas took the princess-in-distress trope and turned it on its head. Leia is quick-witted, good with a blaster and a take-charge kind of woman. The moment you see her in the original, you know she’s bad-ass. Over the course of an entire trilogy, she becomes even more bad-ass, even when she eventually falls for Han Solo. The late Carrie Fisher took what could’ve been a typical princess role and opened the door for more women to take on roles that had them do more than just stand around looking scared and waiting for somebody to rescue them. Leia Organa is one of the greatest female characters of all time and we have Carrie Fisher to thank for that.
Ellen Ripley(Sigourney Weaver)-Alien Series
Leia Organa, as a character, may have opened the doors to women trying to break out of the typical female stereotype, it was Sigourney Weaver’s Ellen Ripley that took the next step. Introduced in Ridley Scott’s Alien in 1979, Ellen Ripley quickly became a character known for her tenacity, quick-thinking and general bad-assery. Sigourney Weaver and Ripley quickly became the face of the Alien films, at least until Alien 3. I don’t count Resurrection because that just feels like a different movie. No movie shows Ellen Ripley as a bad-ass more so than James Cameron’s Aliens. While the character was struggling with what happened in the original film, she’s recruited to head back to LV-426 to investigate the disappearance of colonists that had set up shop there. Not only is Aliens one of the best science fiction sequels of all time, it also gives Ripley a more emotionally charged arc that has her fighting back against the creatures that killed her crew. Again, the character was take-charge type and put up with shit from NOBODY.
Sarah Connor(Linda Hamilton)Terminator 2: Judgment Day
While the original Terminator saw Sarah Connor as a helpless victim trying to avoid being killed by a murderous machine from the future, Terminator 2 takes the character and turns her into a warrior woman. While bad-ass in every sense of the phrase, I picked this particular scene for a couple of reasons. It shows the character on a mission to kill the creator of Skynet, only to realize that she’s a human being and not a Terminator. The moment Sarah realizes what she’s about to do has her recoiling and backing away before she ends an innocent man’s life. This moment shows the character both at her most bad-ass and her most vulnerable. This scene also marks a turning point in the film in which the characters go on the offensive against Skynet.
Hai Phuong/Than Wolf(Veronica Ngo/Hoa Thanh)-Furie
Now, let’s get into some serious fisticuffs. Furie is a Vietnamese action thriller that has the character of Hai Phuong tracking down her daughter that had been kidnapped by human traffickers. Sound familiar? What separates this film from something like say Taken, is that the lead AND the villain are both women, and both are very bad-ass in their own way. Hai Phuong is a former gang-member trying to protect her daughter, and Than Wolf is a human trafficker intent on selling Hai’s daughter to organ traffickers. It’s an emotionally packed story that has some serious heavy-hitting action. This battle between the two characters is awesome because both actresses do their own fighting and it’s brutal. It’s an awesome action film.
Sofia(Halle Berry)John Wick Chapter 3: Parabellum
In the world of John Wick, hurting a dog is pretty much a death sentence. Never mess with an assassin’s dog. I’ve never been a huge fan of Halle Berry’s, but she really steals the show during this part of the film. The character of Sofia used to be an assassin, but ended up managing one of the guild’s hotels in Casablanca when John Wick shows up. What I really love about this scene is seeing Halle’s character go into full-on murder mode. What’s even better, is that she has two German Shepard dogs with bulletproof vests that she uses in these fight sequences. Sofia is pretty much on equal footing with John Wick in terms of combat capability. She’s one of the few characters in these films that could go toe-to-toe with John Wick and possibly come out on top. She’s not in the film for very long, but boy does she make an impression.
X-23(Dafne Keen)Logan
I was honestly not expecting the character of X-23 to be as savage as she was in Logan. Should’ve expected it, though, given that she was created using Wolverine’s DNA. Essentially, she’s his daughter, and like him, she’s got a temper and mean streak to match. It was actually very shocking to see a little girl just slicing and dicing grown men left and right. The movie itself was phenomenal and Hugh Jackman was amazing as always, but Dafne Keen’s X-23 almost steals the show, she’s that good. I honestly would love to see a spin-off film with X-23, which is ironic considering Logan is a spin-off in and of itself. Daphne Keene is one to watch out for if she ever takes up the claws again.
There are definitely a lot more amazing female characters out there. These are just some of my favorites. It’s absolutely incredible to see so many amazing female characters showing up. While there have been strong female characters over the years, we’ve really begun to see them show up in the last decade. I can’t wait to see more.