Tuesday 5 April 2011

Predictably Skimpy



We would like to believe that female superheroes have come along way since the 1996 adaptation of Barb Wire, where Pamela Anderson played a bounty hunter and wore a black leather corset outfit, but is this truly the case?.

After almost a decade female superheroes are still being typecast as glorified beauty queens who happen to have superpowers and an attitude. These so called superheroes are dressed as every teenage boy’s fantasy, in either black or red leather with the customary thigh high boots, i.e. Cat woman, Aeon Flux and Electra. In my opinion and according to the IMDb website ratings, female superhero movies deviating from the customary acrobatic sex symbols do quite well at the box office. For example Alice from Resident Evil, although very attractive is a bad ass female superhero who uses her martial arts skills to kill zombies and mutant dogs without the help of any tight fitting, boob revealing outfits.

Another one of my favorites is Hit girl from the movie Kick ass. An eleven year old superhero girl, no sexy outfits or seductively husky voice, just amazing gun wielding abilities and a vocabulary that would make most grown men blush. Female superhero movies could become just as popular a franchise as that of Spiderman and Batman if the focus moved away from their dangerous curves towards their dangerous abilities and attitudes.

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