Tuesday 24 November 2015

Of Movies and Female Leads....

Most of my friends are aware that whenever a movie have a strong female lead, i often would pass from watching the movie entirely. Some might say that i'm too chauvinistic to even allow a woman to be the main lead (especially in action packed movies). Yeaa yeaaa... i can be a bit strong with my male agenda... but it doesn't mean that i despise female leads.

My problem, too often, with female leads in movies (especially the action ones) is that they are too obsessed in empowering the lead that they didn't even appreciate what women are. Among the usual suspect would be to create super strong and awesome lady lead who could beat the crap out of anybody and SLIT A DAMN BIG CLEAVAGE IN TIGHT SUITS. see how spiteful i am about it? yeahhh.. the women lead could add a zipper (like breastfeeding mother's clothing... lol) just in case they need to flash some sexy to get out of tight spot, but please.. don't let it all out 24/7.

Some just slap a woman face on a character that could just work with a male character (Terminator... errr.. which number was it? the one with the lady villain...you're guilty on this!!!!) and devoid of any female touch, feels. By making the character a female doesn't add anything to the story... to the character development... to no impact... and to no significance. I hate decisions to make a character a lady just for the sake of eye candy. yeaaa yeaaa... i know you'll complain... "but azam, you love eye candies".i bet tonnes of feminazi would start screaming.why are saying that it's good to sideline females from leads. deeyyy.... by nature, as a man... i like eye candy. but i know that the objectifying of women is not a good thing by brain. dudes and dudettes... i do have a brain. im not governed just by my primal instincts. contrary to popular beliefs, im not a total dick. hahahahahah

If you wanna do things right... have a strong story development of the female lead. create a dynamic character, show that the fact that she's a woman... adds to the story telling. show that the story cant't work if the lead is a guy instead of a woman. thennnnn..... you'll get a standing ovation from me (not a standing ovation while sitting down... you geddit?? you geddit right????). A fair example would be Brienne of Tarth from game of thrones. yes, im highlighting the action packed ones. there are other good lady leads but they're still within the safe zone of what defines a woman.


Yeaa yeaa... i know some of you would moan..."but Azam... she's not the main character.". dude... take a chill pill and understand. she's a POV character in Game of Thrones (GoT) and that as much as lead that any character could be in GoT. what makes Brienne a good female lead is that she is strong, with virtues of a knight, dynamic, and still believable. in my eyes she's 100% a true knight and 100% a true Lady... not just a far fetched bastardized merger of the two polar opposites.

Want an even cooler example? How about we reboot the spiderman series and replace peter parker with woman to headline her own comic? Sounds like a total sellout bullshit with another excuse to put sexy into spidey... Well it turned out we have THIS!


Spider-Gwen!!!!! yeaahh... i know... she's still in tights... but at least there's no big slit from her neck to down below. why is she called Spider Gwen?? it is because....


Because she is Gwen Stacy, Peter Parker's former flame that often died or vanished to obscurity in the many spider man universe(s). she's a version of spiderman in an alternate timeline/universe (whatever!) where instead of Peter Parker, it was Gwen that was stung by the radioactive spider. She actually met the main Spiderman(the one we all know) and this is what happened.


A role reversal... as how Peter failed to save the life of Gwen Stacy and it is the biggest regret that he had to carry.... Spider Gwen couldn't save the Peter Parker of her world and it is the weight that she had to carry. The gender switch created a new breath of fresh air and new perspectives on characters that we thought was set in stone. The writer took the whole spider-verse, tore it to smithereens, shake them up, re-organized it... and it still worked. The female spidey is awesome in her own rights.

I wont elaborate more on her story but if you're interested to know... kotaku wrote a great deal of detail on why Spider Gwen is awesome. READ IT HERE

Now im just gonna leave you guys with this....