Payback time - “Elektra” leads a resurgence of female superheroes, giving women someone to cheer for.
CHUCK GRAHAM
Tucson Citizen
Xena Excerpt
Surely, nobody has forgotten Xena and her close pal Gabrielle. Plans are still afoot in L.A. to bring Lucy Lawless and Renee O'Conner to
the big screen in the same roles they made famous on television. Every pop culture analyst and movie reviewer (including me) will be eager to see what changes have been wrought in the relationship between these two since the
mid-1990s.
Article
Wonder Woman
Because Hollywood has always been happy to exploit the willing female audience, no matter what its desires, we are just beginning to see the development of movies about superheroes who are women. Taking their cues from the
feminist movement, these modern (in every respect) women are tough-talking, tough-acting and just plain tough.
Remember Barbarella, the space age superhero (1960s style) who manipulated men the old-fashioned way? Well, these 21st-century females are nothing like Barbarella.
They more closely resemble Wonder Woman, an earlier comic book creation for girls in the 1940s whose appetites for action just weren't satisfied by the adventures of those tag-alongs Batgirl and Supergirl.
In fact, the Hollywood rumor mill has Sandra Bullock lined up to play the all-new, all-PC Wonder Woman dressed up with every power that digital computer imagery can provide. Jennifer Garner as Elektra Natchios the seductive
sword-waver in "Elektra" is only the latest of several superhero women with films in the pipeline.
Also coming our way (if they ever get all the studio accountants and celebrities' agents to nod "yes" at the same time) is the third "X-Men" film, which promises a much larger role for the hurricane-haired Storm character
originated by Halle Berry.
But you know what they say about all those extra lives cats possess. Berry working with a different director, and her same buff body shouting allegiance to physical fitness could still blow away audiences as Storm.
One new set of superheroes sure to return is that super-suburban family, the Incredibles (in the movie of the same name) They may be computer-created but sure proved their power at the box office. Dealing in stength from the
distaff side are Elastigirl (known down at the grocery store as Helen Parr, and her teen daughter Violet, who is more of an emerging superhero). Violet doesn't have a superhero name yet, but she is developing the power to
become invisible and to create force fields.
Though they aren't a family, members of the Fantastic Four are scientists and one of them is a woman - Sue Storm. Interestingly, once the new movie "The Fantastic Four" arrives (it is presently in post-production) we will
see that Sue (Jessica Alba) with the more politically correct name Invisible Woman also has the power to create magnetic force fields.
Female power will be even more abundant when those women living among the X-Men get their own movies. Remember Anna Paquin as Rogue? Rebecca Romijn-Stamos as Mystique? There's also Famke Janssen as Dr. Jean Grey. Granted,
she's a little too old school, but she could be freshened up.
Don't forget. Elektra herself was the girlfriend of Dare Devil, a blind lawyer played in the movie by Ben Affleck. Considering the
current plight of Affleck's career, Elektra did the smart thing by leaving. Nowhere to be seen is the leather-clad Mr. Devil in this new film. If "Elektra" is a hit, the lady will never look back. She'll be wanting to hook
up with another superhero, maybe the Green Hornet. His car is just as cool as the one Batman drives.
Hey, it could happen.
Remember, too, that Hellboy's first film was so successful he qualifies for a sequel. Which means ... wave a big torch here ... a chance to spin off Hellboy's girlfriend, Flamegirl - officially known as Liz the depressed
woman with psychokinetic powers, played by Selma Blair in the movie.
Surely, nobody has forgotten Xena and her close pal Gabrielle. Plans are still afoot in L.A. to bring Lucy Lawless and Renee O'Conner to the big screen in the same roles they made famous on television. Every pop culture
analyst and movie reviewer (including me) will be eager to see what changes have been wrought in the relationship between these two since the mid-1990s.
Superheroes, of course, are a reflection of society's own self-image. An ink-blot metaphor of what weak people would do if they were strong. Or just think of them as the comic book version of the Greek gods on Mount Olympus.
Pop culture analysts have drawn a direct line between the current form of feminism that has emerged since the 1960s and the comic book characters that emerged at the same time.
Most notable of these are all the superfolks in those "X-Men" books, which first hit the newstands in 1963. The first "X-Men" movie opened in 2000 followed by a successful sequel, "X2," in 2003. Sure, the Wolverine role made
a star of Hugh Jackman, but there was no shortage of powerful women exercising their own strengths.
Maybe the creators of "Catwoman" assumed too much. They might have overestimated the positive momentum in the female audience for a picture about a willful woman who was light on her feet. Or perhaps we should look a bit
deeper and see that Catwoman was not exactly a luminous symbol of white light.
When Catwoman was morally good, she was very, very good, but when she was bad, she was horrid (just as the movie). The idea of a sexy female who could take both goodness and badness to their extremes might not have been as
appealing as a mythic goddess who stood four-square for goodness.
Still, there are all those women who feel so put upon they are convinced that now is payback time. In the movies, as in all other aspects of life, they want those bad, bad men to suffer. In that popular movie poster for
"Elektra," we see Garner wearing a mean game face and flaunting weaponry that looks Asian.
Those in the comic book are aware Elektra was trained to be a ninja by assassins who call themselves the Order of the Hand. When the order's leader commands Elektra to murder a man and his 13-year-old daughter, she rebels
against her masters.
Isn't that just like a woman?
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