This, however, has always been on the periphery of the industry, where it might be considered safe for such wild ideas as women behaving like real human beings to exist, as long as there are at least a few nude shots and enough gore and gristle to keep everyone happy.
Mainstream audiences have been much more likely to see women conforming blandly to the stereotypes that the film industry has been pushing for the best part of 100 years. If a woman is successful, then they’re a bitch. If they don’t act like a four year old, then they’re a humourless bitch. If they don’t put out for a guy who would otherwise pleasure himself with a pie, then they are either frigid…or a bitch.
All of these “characters” are either waiting around for a man to come and save them, while also teaching them how to rediscover their inner “cool person,” or they are waiting around to save a guy, acting as both mother and lover to the unhappy protagonist and reminding him what a top draw chap he used to be, or could be, or Jack Black…or something.
Even in an otherwise great film, like Garden State, Natalie Portman is the living embodiment of a manic pixie dream girl. She exists solely to improve the life of Zach Braff. In her own universe she would be a petulant child, unable to cope with life. Here, she is a ray of hope who could save our hero from a life of medication and denial. What is most frustrating is that Portman is a versatile and talented actor, left in a role that requires less of her than a part she played when she actually was 12.
One could fill libraries with a catalogue of these sorts of role, but being the cheery optimist that I am, I would more happily look to the future, inspired by those doing a great job now.
While there are many great female directors and writers working in the industry, it is only Kathryn Bigelow who seems to have broken through the boys only club of the action blockbuster, winning an Oscar for the heart-stopping Hurt Locker and making the finest film about the “war on terror” yet, with Zero Dark Thirty. Hardly broad family material, but certainly a change to see the world of violence through female eyes. All of this only adds to the reputation she secured in the 1980s and 1990s with the likes of Point Break and Near Dark.
Women in the role of director or writer are normally confined to what we somewhat simplistically call “independent cinema,” with the likes of Lynn Ramsey and Jane Campion producing films more interesting than George Lucas could manage in his wildest dreams. Meanwhile, the likes of Zoe Kazan and Brie Larson are producing great work as well, often dealing directly with male dominated industries and how they connect with and undervalue women.