Chris: 0:00

Yes, but I think that also extends to what we were already said was directors. You know, you hear the new Guy Ritchie movie, and you know, you're going to probably see like an action heist movie. Jason Statham is probably going to be in there somewhere. And we don't really have a lot of branded female action directors.

Brandon: 0:27

Hello and welcome to the Cup of Tea Critiques Podcast. I'm your host, Brandon Chaisson, and like always, I'll be joined today by the team that brings you cupofteacritiques.com here we'll dive in deep into the productions and topics we broach on our website, so you can decide for yourself if they're your "cup of tea." Ready for a deep look with a deep brew? This week's topic, heroines in film. Cup of Tea Critiques is a family affair, and I'm here with my brother Chris, my mother, Reba, and my father, Terry. And fam, before we even dive too deep into this conversation, I want to just give us all an opportunity to list and kind of talk about some of our favorite heroine characters,

Reba: 1:03

I can go first. So So I have a few. I think one of my favorites is Salt. Seeing Angelina Jolie kick butt for a couple of hours was really cool. So Salt would be, I don't know very subtle character in that film. Yeah, so those would if it's at the top of my list, would it, but it would certainly be one of my favorites. Another would be Ivana Milicevic in Banshee. I know it's not a movie, I know it's not a movie. It's a series, but she certainly kicked butt in Banshee. It was a really, really, really good series. be my those would be my favorite.

Terry: 2:42

Yeah, I guess being the senior member of the team, some of mine go a little farther back. I liked Alien and Sigourney Weaver's character as Ripley. She was one of the earlier really, I guess, badass in terms of action. And even though that's a horror, it was a bit of action as well. I mean, you know, there was constant fighting throughout that with, of course, the alien creatures

Excerpt from Alien: 3:38

Clip from Alien

Terry: 3:39

Celine, Kate Beckinsale's character in Underworld. I like the horror genre, and she was a badass in that one as well. And then Columbiana, with Zoe Saldana as Cataleya, was one of the few action movies with women of color that, um, that are around and so more, which are not action movies, but still, I think strong heroine characters were Miss Sloan, so kind of copying from Reba there a bit in Winters Bone as well with Jennifer Lawrence's character. I thought they were very strong characters that were heroic. And then my last one would be all of the African American female characters in Hidden Figures. I thought that not only as a movie, but as just a piece of history, that those were powerful and heroic figures. No pun intended.

Excerpt from Hidden Figures: 5:11

Clip from Hidden Figures

Chris: 5:12

I, well, I will have to put, well, I guess I'll say her actual name, the well, I could say that the the bride, or spoiler alert, if you haven't seen a 20 year old movie, Beatrix Kiddo from Kill Bill, probably my, I would probably say that's number one. And the other three, I would say on my list. I'm gonna give a specific reason afterwards. But Clarice from Silence of the Lambs, Sarah Connor from Terminator, and Mulan, voiced by Ming Na Wen. I think those three in particular, because I think I'm throwing out because they, you know, there's a there's a list of Rotten Tomatoes, list we all kind of looked at, called 87 Fearless Women Movie Heroes. And I kind of disagree, but the reason I really like those three, Sarah Connor, Mulan and Clarice, is because they all showed fear, and they all just kept going, you know, like they weren't like about those three is that they were they were fearless. They had fear. They were afraid. There were moments in there that they're afraid, and it was another dimension to them, that they just kept, you know, they kept going. So that's why I would include those three. I mean, Sarah Connor in the first movie is scared the whole time, you know, and then she comes back stronger in the second movie. Mulan is scared when she first goes into the army and you see her growth. fearful, but they still were courageous.

Brandon: 7:16

I like all of those. And I just want to point out that at least in this episode, Dad, you're the one that called yourself out for being old, so I was going to try and give you a pass this week. But thank you for keeping the streak going. But, but in talking about favorite heroines like I, I actually had a very long list, so I'm just trying to give a few of these. And Okoye from Black Panther, played by Danai Gurira. I love how they respected her as a as she was just a fierce warrior. And you see that in both the first and second film and and as well as in The Avengers films, that she is very much respected for her prowess as a fighter. She's also strong minded, like you can tell that she's not backing down from anybody, not just in terms of a fight, but having difficult conversations, she's willing to do so. So I really like that about her.

Excerpt from Black Panther: 8:11

Clip from Black Panther

Brandon: 8:14

Peggy Carter was another one. She did not back down from any fights as well. Also another Marvel character, this one played by Haley Atwell. But, um, I like that. She was, she understood her limitations, and so she beats you with the other aspects, like she lets you beat yourself. You know, usually when she's fighting the men, usually it was their egos that allowed them to be defeated, and so she let that happen. And she was willing to outsmart guys. She was willing to sit there and strategize. Can come up with plans. I enjoyed that about her. Same can be said for Hermione Granger from Harry Potter, you know, played by Emma Watson. Hermione was the smartest of the three of them, and she was extremely book smart, but she was also very loyal to her friends. They started off in the first movie, you know, trying to figure out who they were and when they when the guys stepped up to try and help her. She also joined in on that, and she just didn't let them linger, even if they were being idiots. She didn't care to tell it's like she cared to tell them that. She wanted to make sure they knew they were being idiots. But she also helped them figure it out and end up on the better side of a lot of situations. Sometimes they should have been in more trouble if it wasn't for her. So I've got two more real quick. Actually, three, but Daenerys Targaryen, played by Emilia Clark in Game of Thrones. And no, it's not a movie, but any one of those could have been put on the big screen, and we would have really enjoyed those. But I love her character arc from the female character that was really just looked at as a means to an end to help the men get what they wanted sold off, essentially as a wife, so that an army could be given to her brother, and then she turned out to be the fiercest, strongest leader out of most of the ones we saw throughout the entire show. So I really enjoyed her character arc. Despite how it all ended, I really just like that.

Excerpt from Game of Thrones: 9:54

Clip from Game of Thrones

Brandon: 10:11

Dad, you already mentioned Celine, played by Kate Beckinsale in Underworld. Another one where what I liked about that was, when you first get into the movie, you saw the trailers for Underworld, you didn't realize that she was just going to be the lead and the number one warrior for the vampire clan. But as you saw, not only was she the fiercest fighter and all that, she was smart. She knew where to look. She had been, she had been hunting the werewolves. It wasn't just I'm fighting these, I'm going to eradicate them. She was she was super tough, and then it spawned several sequels. And then lastly, just as a character, Lois Lane, I know she takes a back seat to the Superman for obvious reasons, and in plenty of cases she ends up the damsel in distress. But at the same time, and especially in more recent productions, she seems to be one that really like challenges, Clark Kent, and ultimately Superman, when she finds out about him, to help him become his best self. And so I really like that about her character. It does prove a lot that, like the right partner, can really help somebody really reach their the utmost potential. So that's why I like Lois Lane. That being said, with all these we've we've listed mainly action heroes or action heroines, anyways, and however, there seems to be a dearth of female lead productions. Most are still either led by men or are part of ensemble productions. So I want to ask the panel like, why do we think that is?

Reba: 11:36

Well, you know, something that may point us an explanation for that is some research that's out there right now. So a group of researchers from George Washington University took a set of data sets, one of which was Kaggle, which is a well known movie industry database that consists of about 6800 movies from 1987 to about 2016 and what they did is they took this data and combined it with several other data sets, a couple of them from GitHub, and then another data set. I can't think of it, but all combined, they had information like the name of the movie, the genre of the movie, the director of the movie, the length of the movie, who starred in the movie, other actors in the movie, and so on and so forth. So they had all of this information, and what they really wanted to understand was things like, you know, male versus female heads of films, as well as the directors associated with the film, as well as the genre of the film. They know their research from 2000 to 2016 so that 16 year period, and what they found is that the number of movies being led by females has gone up, particularly since 2009 and so another thing they looked at was just how successful are these movies? And they looked at that success in terms of IMDb score, which is, you know, can range from zero to 1010, being the best. And then they also looked at it in terms of the movie's revenue, and they did that based on female led films versus male led films, and they plotted that on a graph so you can easily see just how these films compare. And what they found is again, starting in 2009 female numbers began coming closer to the male numbers in terms of IMDb score and in terms of revenue. Now what that tells us is that, you know, one I think writing is getting better. That is, you know, stories being written for female leads, those stories are indeed getting better, and therefore we're seeing the proof in the pudding in terms of the IMDB scores for these movies, and in terms of the amount of money these movies are making. Now, what does that correlate to? Well, interestingly, these female led movies, they correlate to the number of female directors coming into the industry now. So these female directors are making sure that their films are led by females, and so we're seeing more female led movies as a result of that. There's still a long way to go, but I think this can give us some inkling as to why we're now seeing more heroines in in some of the films, especially in action films as well, not not just dramatic films.

Terry: 14:34

Yeah, I think is, yeah, there's more diversity in film with more female directors and screenwriters, for that matter, that you'll see that trend go up.

Reba: 14:47

Yeah, and that's what, that's what the research shows that you're seeing female directors go up, and that correlates with female led films.

Chris: 14:57

Yeah, I think the more female directors there. Are, the more stories and movies you're going to get that are like that. And I think even further up, the more female executives you get, the more female directors they'll hire, which means the more female led stories you'll get. So I think it goes, you know, all the way up the food chain. In that regard. I also think

Reba: 15:17

I mean to your point, Chris, sorry to interrupt. To your point, it is, it has a trickle down effect. Essentially, it has a trickle down effect. They are, you know, female priorities. So if you have females in the executive suite, in the executive suites of studios, there's increased likelihood that you're going to, you know, the the output of that company is going to be more female led films.

Chris: 15:41

I also think there's, there's a kind of a cultural, I don't know if you call it an expectation or a cultural norm, that that, you know, these, these action movies, they're kind of, they have this mass appeal, and they they're in these archetypes, where it's kind of, you understand, there's the hero, the guy, it's usually male, and they're, you know, they're, sometimes it's a one man army kind of a thing, and that the actresses often get cast as the the love interest, or the you know, the the you know, They're, they're assisting the male lead, in a sense, often they're the, unfortunately, they're treated as the trophy for his accomplishment. And so I think there's an element to that where that's kind of how, how the movies have been cast, and the stories have been struck, constructed, and, you know, that's we're hopefully, you know, tearing that down a little and leaving room for for other types of stories and other types of understandings. So part of it is just when you, when you zoom out from that, that's, I think that's part of why you see it that much. See stories like that. And I think there's another notion of just like plausibility, like some people just say they don't, they don't find, they don't find female action stars believable. You know that they're that they're that they're capable of that kind of violence, or that they can win these fights, you know that they're in. And so I think that's why you see, you know, when we, when we when we look at a lot of female, what we call female led action movies, they're in in the fantasy realm because they're ensemble cast, and also they're playing a character that you know is otherworldly in a sense, you know, it's not like a CIA agent or something like that. It's like a superhero. So people suspend their disbelief for that a little bit more.

Brandon: 17:43

Yeah, Chris, I would agree with that point big time at the end. Mom, I want to go back to something you brought up. This, this research talked about how they were using IMDb scores and the box office numbers to kind of help explain the success of these films. Just to give an example. Electra was a Marvel movie that came out before the MCU was it's what it is today, but it got a IMDb score of 4.7 and made about 57 million at the box office. But to this researcher's point, you know, especially when we include female directors involved. Wonder Woman was directed by Patty Jenkins. And so you have a hero and female directed movie, and this one has a 7.3 IMDb score that also made 824 million at the box office. And when you see improvements like that, that is definitely something I believe, would spearhead, the point that more of these productions can be made, and obviously that it can be successful. I mean, just to kind of refer back to one of our prior episodes, if I'm not mistaken, we said it needed to make twice the budget in order to be considered a box office hit. Well, the budget for Wonder Woman was 149 million, yet this movie made 824, so clearly it was a success. Yeah, and it can be done again and again. Yes. Oh yeah, Chris, you brought up the the whole idea that, like some people are talking about, how they don't believe in the female heroes, because they don't look like the part. They don't look like the big, muscular that can win the fights and everything like that. And when we were talking about this in pre production, we also talked about the idea of recyclable personalities. So for example, when you think of going to action movies you want to see, you hear people going, Hey, I'm checking out the new Vin Diesel flick. Or I'm check out The Rocks new movie. Or I can't wait to check out Jason Momoa's new one that just came out today. Whatever. We don't hear that same kind of deal when it comes to heroins. Why don't we see this for women?

Reba: 19:44

Can we? Can we back up a quick second and come back to that question? Do you mind?

Brandon: 19:50

Sure. Go ahead, Mom, where do you want to go?

Reba: 19:52

Yeah. So I just want to respond to Chris's, Chris's, Chris's comment earlier regarding. Um, people feel that female leads and action in action roles are not plausible. And I think, which essentially reiterates what Chris was saying, is that that speaks to the depth of our biases about women. We have these, you know, very strong ideas about, you know, who women are and what women can and cannot be. It's not just about their physique. Women's bodies vary, period. But even though women's bodies vary, there are still ideas nonetheless about who women should be. You know, how they should behave, what they should look like, the kinds of things they should do and should not do. And so these are the kinds of things that feed into this idea about whether or not females can can be authentic in roles as as heroines in action films. And so the question becomes, you know, how do we challenge that?

Terry: 21:04

Yeah, I don't know. I I'm with you on the whole notion of women being authentic or believable in those roles. I mean, seriously, Keanu Reeves is John Wick. You know, nobody, he's a decent sized guy, but, you know, he's doing some super human kind of things in terms of taking on so many people in a given fight, and I just don't understand why that disbelief is laid upon female action characters. I mean, to your point, obviously you would kind of wince at someone who's rather diminutive doing these kinds of things. But there are a lot of actresses that could pull off the role of being an action hero because of their physique, or the fact that maybe they're just faster, you know, they're quicker. They outwit the others. You know, to me, those are believable characteristics that that are easily laid upon them. And so why aren't those emphasized?

Brandon: 22:09

Yeah, I agree. I mean, there's, you know, Kevin Hart has an action movie. Timothy Chalamet has a few of them there. And so it's kind of like, and, you know, my, my thing is always, like, all of it is far fetched, like it's all, like, even the Schwarzenegger movies that I loved as a kid, you know that they're all far fetched, like, they're all kind of ridiculous. So, you know, it's not something I think I've ever been bothered by, but, but, yeah, so I think if you, if you try to go into it with an open mind now, I will admit that there are seen certain scenes you see in movies where you're like, All right, come on. Like, sometimes it's just a little too much, but, but, yeah, I generally go into every action movie expecting it to be a little kind of ridiculous in terms of the things that the protagonist is able to survive. You know, like, like, it's like, I hate to break it to you. Schwarzenegger can't beat an army of people. He can't he can't dodge none. James Bond can't dodge a room full of Russians shooting automatic guns at him, like it's all kind of silly. So, so, um, so. And frankly, that's kind of the appeal to me. I think that's kind of why it's fun. Um Chris

Chris: 23:35

Go ahead.

Brandon: 23:36

I'm sorry. I gotta, I gotta, I have to cut in there, because you've given me the the opportunity to say this, because I agree with you that it's always going to have certain things that are far fetched, which is among the reasons why I struggle with Jason Statham movies when he's a part of an ensemble. I really enjoy him, but when you're telling me that I have 80 minutes of things like an all of a sudden flipping car to get a bomb off the very bottom that has a hook size of about six inches. You gotta be kidding me. So we can say he can pull off things like that. I do struggle with how we can say that women can't do some of the things that they're showing us. So okay, I I yield the mic back to you.

Chris: 24:16

Come back next week for Brandon's next Jason Statham roast session, cause he's got plenty.

Brandon: 24:23

I don't think I've done that on an episode yet. I've wanted to, I haven't yet.

Chris: 24:29

We cut stuff for time listeners. But as far as you know, you brought up the branding of it all, like, you know, the new rock movie, the new Jason Statham and the new Schwarzenegger. Like we don't see that for even actresses that we we know to do action roles, you know, necessarily classified as that. But I think that also extends to what we already said was directors, you know, you hear the new Guy Ritchie movie. And, you know, you're going to probably see, like an action heist movie. Jason Statham is probably going to be in there somewhere. And we don't really have a lot of branded female action directors the same way as we as we do with just throwing guy, Richie out there as an example. But there's, you know, even Tarantino, for instance, or somebody like that. We, some people can't name five female directors at all, let alone ones they typically do actually movies. So I think it's a it's the same, it's kind of the same trickle down effect in terms of the just the branding of the movie.

Brandon: 25:36

Okay? So with that in mind, we also have mentioned, though that these movies are starting to have larger audiences. We're having bigger turnouts at the box office. We I think we've all mentioned her name, Jessica Chastain, for me, if I see her name listed on something, I know it's going to be good, and I want to check it out. It's not far fetched for me to think of her as being a heroine. But I admit, as I'm looking at my list Zero Dark Thirty and Miss Sloane in particular. I haven't necessarily thought of her as an action hero, but I would tell you that, because I've watched her in these movies, I and those two movies in particular, I'd be inclined to go check them out. So I guess what I want to do is throw this back to the panel. I want to ask you guys, given the success we've seen and the uptick in at least female productions. Do you think that we are going to continue to see an increase in these and eventually get to a point where we're going to have female action heroes that are going to be able to be called out by name, to to run these things and make us turn out and get to the theater to check them out?

Terry: 26:37

I think we can get there, particularly the rise in directors and screenwriters, female directors and screenwriters. And to Chris' point, as you go up the chain in terms of executives, as those numbers rise, I think we will see those types of things happen.

Reba: 26:56

I agree with your dad. The research suggests that there is a strong correlation between the increase in directors and the increase in female led films. I tend to think now, unfortunately, that research, you know, ended as of 2016 but I tend to think things have continued to increase. I mean, based on, you know, the release of Ballerina and some of the films even we've mentioned, which came, which has come out since 2016 I tend to think that those numbers continue to rise in terms of female led films, which means, chances are, female led directors have increased. And based upon our own research we did last year, I think it was a number of female directors have climbed, especially for indie films. And yeah, given those things, I tend to think, granted, that's anecdotal, but I tend to think that, yeah, we will continue to see an increase. There, no doubt in my mind. So there's two things I would love to know, actually, is in the indie sector, I see a lot of I see a lot of directors that also do the writing, which is great, which is absolutely great. But outside of that, in terms of action films, you know, the big blockbuster stuff, I don't know how many screenwriters are. I don't know what the diversity of the screenwriting staff looks like. I don't know how many women are in the writing room. And so it would be nice to know that, because I think that would influence who that character is, and what that character looks like, what they do, etc. And so I would, I would love to know what that what that is. The other thing is, not just in terms of not just in terms of sex, but also in terms of race diversity. I mean, to some degree we know with directors, but we don't know in terms of screenwriting. So I would love to know what those numbers look like, because I would like to see much more diversity on screen in terms of action heroes, I think we all mentioned. There were a few that were mentioned with some Black female action leads, but there's a dearth of those as well, not to mention the lack of Hispanic and Asian. So.

Chris: 29:20

I think we will see more. Because I do think actors in general, as they as they get older, they start going into producing, and they kind of throw their money around a little bit. And I think I can easily see actresses like Viola Davis and Jessica Chastain and Charlize Theron throwing their money behind movies with female action leads. So I think, I think that's a that's a potential avenue. I also will say, as far as stars and branding, it would be, you know, I guess this crossover stars, as much as anything. I think, you know, the the female wrestlers are potentially. It, you know, it could become action stars and movies, because, you know, I'm not a wrestling fan myself. I work with a couple, but I don't, I'm not too familiar with the names, but WWE, as you know, these female wrestlers, and you think about, you know, they have the the build of an action star, like they have to do all these stunts. So they're, they're familiar with stunts. They're familiar with performance. They usually, they usually very strong and more and athletic looking, and, and, and they, unlike a lot of you know, combat fighters, like in boxing and UFC, they don't lose their Mystique with with losses, the same way, you know, like, I think we saw Ronda Rousey and Conor McGregor kind of lost a little bit of their luster when they started losing fights, you know, and then and then and then they were, they were a little less marketable. And so I think female wrestlers are a great way. It could be a great branding opportunity in terms of female action stars.

Terry: 31:02

Hey, Chris, along those lines, I've got a nice list for you, if I don't know about talent wise in terms of that, but their names certainly give them an edge in terms of that. You have some WWE female wrestlers. Charlotte flair, good name for the screen, io, Sky, Nikki, Bella, interesting name and Jordan Grace. So if you're going to push names, those are pretty good names you could push as far as female wrestlers concern.

Brandon: 31:42

Yeah, the character names, their pseudonyms, they're they're definitely marketable. That's why they were chosen for the WWE. Chris, to your point bringing them up, I think that was great. You have the excellent point that they don't lose luster by losing, in fact, most of the time, it plays into the greater story lines. So they're already used to the storytelling of what their craft does. I feel like that probably transfers over. They're used to the entertainment values, so that transfers over as well. They're easy on the eyes, which even for male action heroes, that plays a role for women when they want to check out these films as well. So like it worked both ways. Those are all big things as well. I do want to close out by mentioning a few more names here that like I can easily see them being marketable based on stuff they've done in the past. For example, Kate Beckinsale, I mentioned with Underworld, she did multiple movies right now.

Excerpt from Underworld: 32:40

Clip from Underworld

Brandon: 32:53

We know she can be an action hero, so I can easily see trying to market behind her name. I mentioned Danai Gurira from playing Okoye. She was also, if I'm not mistaken, she was in The Walking Dead. We've watched her literally just be a strong character on screen, so I can easily see trying to market behind her from those those roles alone. But we'd be remiss if we didn't mention again Ming-Na Wen who has played several different roles over time, she started as Chun-Li in Street Fighter, and she's also been in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. She did Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. So like we noticed, she can do those things. She's done a lot of other things as well. And of course, Michelle Yeoh, who has carried a great many productions, done a lot of her own stunts as well. So like those are just a few names alone that I can easily see still being marketable to this day. And maybe what we need to do is start with them, to have the blueprint, and we can start seeing an uptick, because once we see them carry it, we'll know what to do with the rest of the female the female stars that'll come down the pipeline. So with that, we're going to go ahead and wrap up this edition of the Cup of Tea Critiques Podcast. Thanks so much for listening and figuring out your cup of tea along with us. Honestly, we could go on and on like we do at our dinner table, but we look forward to you joining us again next week for another great discussion. Make sure you rate and follow the Cup of Tea Critiques Podcast. Wherever you listen to your favorite podcast, also leave a comment and give us a list of your favorite heroines. You can stay in the loop on all things COTC by subscribing on our website, at cupofteacritiques.com you can also find us on Facebook. Check out our Instagram, at cupofteacritiques and on Letterboxd at COTCritiques. For Reba, Terry and Chris. I'm Brandon. We'll see you next week for another deep look with a deep brew.