Entertainment should allow us more creativity, fantasy, and more importantly, inspiration in the roles played by our Heros. There is opportunity here for women to be stronger, and more hero-like, but, we are more often portrayed as the damsel in distress, in

one way or another, and it sells. There should be more story lines depicting a woman president, and how she would handle the likes of Osama Bin Laden and world terrorism, or how she governed the efforts of the latest space shuttle mission that failed, and saved the lives of all of the passengers on board. Now that would be inspiring! We see films like these, but men are in the leading roles. Susan Isaacs writes about this very thing in her essay entitled, “Brave Dames and Wimpettes”. “Turn on the TV, read a book, or go to the movie, and you’ll find hurt women disturbingly prominent in our art.” (473) Isaacs also says, “I for one, don’t want to be assumed to be the weak or the wounded.” (473) I have to say, I agree with her statement, one hundred percent! Women are not helpless, and it is high time that someone writes a screenplay that portrays a stronger, more effective female personality. Okay, so watching some of these women in crisis movies may help women to see that they are not alone; abuse, alcoholism, or having rotten children does not make them a failure. It also may give them hope that one day, they too, will be a strong enough person to overcome whatever plagues them. Other disturbing roles women play are the sexy, dimwitted, help me I’m a woman roles. What a disappointment, and an insult to us all! For whatever reason, this is the role that men appear to be more attracted to. This is what they pay the big bucks to see at the theater. Here’s an example, perhaps not a huge blockbuster at the theater, but it does make the point, She’s All That (1999), starring Rachael Lee Cook as Laney Boggs. Here is a movie where the female role has been taken from one extreme to the other. “When she spills her books in front of class superstar Zach Siler (Freddie Prinze Jr.), his buddies bet that he can't turn the ugly duckling into a prom queen.” (Netflix) There you have it, a so-called victim, a girl that needs “help”, because she isn’t popular, she must be miserable, and so, our hero saves her from her horrid life. She could have been a young version, a flashback, of the female president that I was looking for earlier, that squashed Bin Laden!

On the other side of the table, movies for men are all about the same types. They are either about some form of terrorist activity, and a beefy hero that saves the world, or about some busty bimbo running along the beach in a thong bikini. What about the movie that Stanley

Some topics in this essay:
, Dames Wimpettes”, Fight Club, Princess Jasmine, Thy Daughter”, Dudley Moore, Michael Douglas, Bin Laden, Prinze Jr, Law School, princess jasmine, bin laden, seen movie, female role, female president, movie female, little mermaid, roles women, hero saves,