Whenever a girlboss movie like The Marvels (2023) or Ghostbusters (2016) flops, no one ever blames the quality of the movie. It’s always our fault, and by “our,” I mean normal people. Although Hillary Clinton received nearly 66 million votes in 2016, and only 20 percent of those voters could’ve delivered The Marvels to a $100-plus opening weekend, it’s not their fault for staying home. It’s our fault. No one ever asks why tens of millions of Hillary’s voters stayed home. It’s our sexism that killed the movie.
That flawed and sweaty logic aside, how about answering this…?
How are we MAGAtards all sexists when we love a whole bunch of filmdom’s badass women? Here are a few and a look at what makes them awesome…
Sarah Connor: Terminator 2 (1991)
Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) earned the audience’s respect largely because of Hamilton, who buffed up for the role in a way that made us believe the Sarah Connor from The Terminator (1984) had evolved into a deadly, angry, determined fighting machine.
Director/writer James Cameron ensured this evolution made sense. At the end of Terminator, Sarah’s character arc went from damsel-in-distress to survivalist.
We also love Sarah because she never tries to be a man, and the movie never pretends she’s a man by having her 99-pound frame toss around 210-pound men. Instead, she uses her wits, like a syringe full of cleaning fluid or a big freaken gun.
Best of all, she is deeply flawed and driven by her maternal instinct (to save her son). She doesn’t have all the answers, and her greatest virtue (her love for her son) is also her greatest flaw: she’s prepared to assassinate an innocent man to save her son.
Ripley: Aliens (1986)
Writer/director James Cameron took Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979), a classic haunted house/creature feature, and juiced it up with Space Marines and non-stop action.
In Aliens, Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) earns our respect in much the same way Sarah Connor would six years later. Ripley never tries to be a man. She only takes over a leadership role after the Space Marines fail. She is driven by her maternal instinct to save a child. And again, she’s not throwing around 210-pound men. She’s surviving on grit, brains, and resourcefulness.
Alice: Resident Evil Franchise (2002 – 2017)
These six films grew in popularity over their fifteen years, and no one complained about having a woman play an action hero. Why?
To begin with, Alice (Milla Jovovich) is sexy, and when you’re talking about a woman as beautiful as Jovovich, men find that sexiness equal parts appealing, threatening, and intimidating. Classic femme fatales — from Barbara Stanwyck to Kathleen Turner to Sharon Stone — are always sexy. That sexiness makes them feel like a threat.
Does 110-pound Alice toss men around like rag dolls? Yes. But only after a virus gives her the equivalent of superpowers. She also dares to find certain men attractive.
Alice is also flawed. Time and again, she’s defeated. A couple of the movies end with her defeat.
Above all, Alice is a woman. Both she and her ally Claire Redfield (Ali Larter) aren’t Mad Max-style loners looking out for number one in a post-apocalyptic world. That’s what men do. Instead, they are maternal protectors of everyone they come across, regardless of the danger. That’s what women do.
The Bride: Kill Bill Volume I & II (2003 – 2004)
Another sexy, maternal, vulnerable, and flawed woman — a scorned woman seeking revenge against the man who betrayed her. But after she discovers her baby is still alive, her maternal instincts kick in.
I could go on and on… Erin Brockovich (2000), Silence of the Lambs (1991), Jackie Brown (1997), Zero Dark Thirty (2012)…
The women in these movies don’t demand our respect because of their entitled vaginas; they earn our respect in the same way male heroes earn our respect: being true to who they are (women) while overcoming their flaws and vulnerabilities to save the day.
Brie Larson’s Captain Marvel is not John McClain in Die Hard (1988). John McClain was deeply flawed, could laugh at himself, and lost and lost and lost until he finally won. Instead, Captain Marvel is much closer to the sniveling, entitled TV reporter in Die Hard, the one played so memorably by William Atherton.
Relating to your protagonist is crucial to creating a successful character. No one can relate to Mary Sues, to perfect characters like the sexless, generic Rey in the new Star Wars trilogy or whoever that blonde blank is in Amazon’s Rings of Power. When our heroes are vain, selfish, scared, stubborn… When they are maternal, attracted to the opposite sex, able to laugh at themselves… We can relate to those qualities, and watching our heroes overcome those flaws inspires us to do the same, to be better.
So….
Instead of manufacturing stupid excuses to rationalize their girlboss flops when not even Hillary voters come out to see them, an entertainment industry that wasn’t irretrievably broken would compare their female-driven flops to female-driven hits and make the necessary corrections.
But Hollywood will never do that. (Did I mention irretrievably broken?) To look back at iconic, universally beloved female action heroines would hurt The Cause, which is to brainwash us into believing sexless, smug, entitled, perfect girlbosses make good role models.
You see, as Democrats flood our country with tens of millions of third-world illegals, Americans are told to have abortions, remain single, and never have children. That’s part of the Great Replacement Theory. Another way to stop Americans from procreating is to turn America’s young women into the hideous Rachel Zeglers and Brie Larsons. No real man would build a life with either of those two. When Hollywood still respected human nature, and the bottom line, John Wayne, Jack Nicholson, and Robert Mitchum used to chop snooty women like that down to size, humanize them. Sadly, Hollywood is willing to lose billions in a desperate effort to rewire human nature into a population of weak men and insufferable women.
John Nolte’s debut novel Borrowed Time (Bombardier Books) is available today. You can read an exclusive excerpt here and a review of the novel here.
