Nov 6 2005
John Harlow, Los Angeles
Goodbye Hollywood hunks, hello superbabes. Women action heroines are now more popular with cinema audiences than traditional granite-jawed heroes. Film studios are skipping over a generation of “sensitive” young men and turning to Oscar winners such as Catherine Zeta-Jones, Charlize Theron and Halle Berry to woo audiences back to the multiplex.
A report for Warner Bros said a female superhero will generate about 25% more in box office receipts than a man in tights. “Young men have realised they prefer to spend two hours in the dark with a wild woman than a man,” said the report.
But the rise of the cinematic superbabe is worrying campaigners for family- oriented films. “These women are both more sexually aggressive and, helped by special effects, much more rawly violent than John Wayne or Arnold Schwarzenegger used to be,” said a spokesman for Plugged In Movie Review, a syndicated conservative radio programme.
“The old-school heroes would just gun a baddie down and then make a banal quip. The women, aided by invisible wires, keep kicking you in the head until you crumple. It’s more realistic in a way and some of them are just terrifying.”
A case in point is Aeon Flux, a Japanese comic character about to be brought to athletic life by Theron. The former model describes Flux as a “strong free-thinker”. Teenage boys are more likely to be attracted by her scanty clothing and big guns.
The film, to be released in Britain in February, will be followed by a tidal wave of post-feminist fury. Milla Jovovich, the Ukrainian model, will beat up zombies in Resident Evil: Afterlife; Kate Beckinsale will hunt werewolves in Underworld: Evolution; and Berry will play Storm again in X-Men 3. All three films are expected to earn a lot of money.
All this may be bad news for Hollywood’s vintage action heroes Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis and Sylvester Stallone who are all planning to revive their muscle-bound alter-egos.
Film executives have long been fretting about a lack of young male action stars.
“Many young men think playing an Arnold-type role is silly and could not do it without a patronising smirk,” said a veteran agent. “That is why today the action women of Hollywood are glowing.”
Do you think this is valid?