Women in action movies

The changing role of women in the genre.

1. Look at the "classic" role of the female in action movies etc - the helpless victim whose sole function in the narrative is to be saved by the male hero, or to be sexually conquered by the male hero (Bond girls for example) - who therefore are simply accessories to his masculinity.

2. Look at the development of the female protagonist - early examples such as Alien (sci-fi horror action) or Terminator 2 (sci-fi action). These protagonists are often hailed as a really positive representation of gender as they are main protagonists, tough, and NOT objectified - ie not objects of male voyeuristic sexual pleasure.

3. What about more recent female protagonsist in non-traditional female genres (ie not romcoms)? Are they still carrying on this positive representation or are their representations more ambiguously positive? Think about Lara Croft, or Charlie's Angels, or Pirates of the Caribbean (the last one where Keira Knightly becomes a sort of protagonist), Resident Evil...

4. These more modern protagonists are clearly more avaliable as objects for heterosexuual male voyeuristic pleasure/the male gaze etc. SO they are both subjects and objects. For primary research you could investigate with female audience members their responses to these differences. PRIMARY RESEARCH: Analyse a range of clips from each era comparatively to reveal the differences in the reps of femininity, and then explore with a real audience of women their responses to these differences...

Hello [:
I've changed my mind since the last blog I put up because I think that it wont fit in with the brief and also I just don't want to to that anymore. In stead i think that so that my hypothesis has a time thingy to it I might look at how women's roles in films has developed to them becoming stronger, more masculine and more successful. If I am going to do this I think that I should look at different films from different eras. But ATM I'm really lost and confused about what I should actually be doing!! HELP!!!

I have started to read the first part of chapeter 3 of that book you told me to read. And I was wondering whether I can mention TV in my critical research study. Because the first section in the chapter is about woman and men on TV and there is alot of point made that are similar to the ones that i wanted to make about the film industry and how women are represented, and arent usually the main protagonist in action films.

In the TV part it says that 'in action-adventure shows, only 15 percent of the leading characters were women.' and then a decade later the results had almost doubled 'to a still low 20 percent of characters'. Would I beable to in my research compare the tow, or sort of like say this is what has been found out in TV and then say and this is what i have found out in film and then say something like whether these two examples are similar or the same as how women are represented in all medias. What do you think?

BTW I'm really confused with this whole blog thing, is this just so I dont have to talk to you for advise? instead you post it on here, what you think i should do next? Soooo confused!

Lastly, I dont really know what to do next, Im just reading two bits about women in film..then what? make points about what I have read?