What makes Ripley work?
Versus the new crop of female led movies? Yes I know the new ones are just pandering and Ripley is not, but it's interesting how she was embraced in 79. I personally love her.
shareWhat a load of garbage.
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Ripley was not "embraced" as anything in 1979. In the first movie, she was never anything more than the last crew member who survived the alien. That was it. She wasn't even an action hero then; she was just eye candy. Her last scene was literally of her prancing around half naked in bikini underwear and tank top so the guys would have something to jerk off to later. It wasn't until feminist director James Cameron did the sequel in 1986 when she was turned into a blatant female action hero.
To reiterate:
1. 1979: Ripley not a famous iconic female action hero, just the "last (wo)man standing" in a sci-fi slasher pic, like Laurie of Halloween or Nancy from Nightmare on Eln Street
2. 1986: Ripley now a famous iconic action hero, deliberately and obviously made so by a feminist director, James Cameron
This kind of inaccuracy is why millennials and GenZs on the internet piss me off. You talk about cultural history, but don't know shit about it. Why prattle about it if you don't know, especially if you weren't alive until 20 years after the fact?
That aside, the reason why Ripley was "embraced" in 1986 was that GenX and Boomers weren't a bunch of pussy manbabies getting upset over seeing female action heroes. How do I know? The kind of "overpowered" female character (aka "Mary Sue") they keep bitching and moaning about goes back decades to the 1960s, starting with Honey West and Emma Peel.
Nobody back in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and 1990s could give two shits about watching Emma Peel, Ripley, Sarah Connor, Xena: Warrior Princess, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Leloo from The Fifth Element kick ass. It's this generation that cares, because of how damaged they are. Most of these so-called "males" probably have never been in any kind of healthy sexual relationship with a female. Max Landis is a classic example. Has rape and sexual assault allegations a mile long, yet became an MRA hero with his "any female protagonist is a Mary Sue" bullshit. These are the kind of "men" who are having issues with female heroines--emotionally stunted manbabies.
Its weird , you'd think it would be the other way round with millenials accepting the female hero and boomers going "We want john wayne back"
It must be something to do with the internet age giving the young & stupid a voice these days
Why would anyone think it would be the other way around? John Wayne back wasn't anything remotely close to being a Boomer or being of their time, and Boomers were the ones that created the "Mary Sue" female heroines that GenZs and millennials keep ranting about.
shareI know it it isnt the other way round, but If i'd been on a desert island for the last 25 years and someone said:
Guess whos become all anti female and ranting and raving when women get roles in films , is it:
a) The new touchy-feeley millenials boys who cant change a tire an their own car , and use moisturiser, and have grown up in the enlightened 21st centuary where women are unchained from the kitchen sink and are even allowed to join golf clubs.
b) The old men who are men's men and cut their toenails with a pair of pliers.
I'd have guessed, incorrectly, B
"Boomers were the ones that created the "Mary Sue" female heroines that GenZs and millennials keep ranting about."
The mid-1960s female heroines you sited earlier, Honey West and Emma Peel, weren't created by "boomers", they were created by writers, directors, and producers born in the 1910s, 1920s, and 1930s. Anne Francis and Diana Rigg, the actresses who played those characters, were born in 1930 and 1938.