Yahoo News Why 2017 is the year of the movie heroine
In the last few weeks some very depressing things about the movie industry have risen to the surface, with the ripples and repercussions of the horrendously widespread Harvey Weinstein sexual assault and harassment allegations filling the headlines.
As more women come forward, as more testimonies suggest this kind of abuse was "an open secret" in Hollywood and that people knew and did nothing, the more the film industry is starting to look like a really horrible place for women.
In front of the camera, though, a more positive trend is emerging. 2017 has seen a whole raft of fascinating, varied, female heroes and it seems like it's a movement on the rise. While the numbers are still stacked heavily against female characters (women made up 29% of protagonists in the 100 highest-grossing films of 2016 – men were 54%, with the rest ensembles), what we are seeing is an appetite for more interesting female heroes.
Wonder Woman, of course, is the first female superhero in the current wave of Marvel and DC comic book movies to get her own film. Sure, there have been female characters as supporting cast members or as part of superhero team-ups, but she's the first to get a movie named after her that serves as her origin story.
It was directed by a woman, too, and it was a massive hit, currently residing at number 2 in the US box office charts for 2017.
At number 1 is Beauty and the Beast – a live-action fairytale starring outspoken feminist Emma Watson, about an intelligent, self-possessed young woman who serves as a positive role model to little girls with a Disney Princess obsession.
The year was ushered in with the tail-end of Rogue One and Jyn Erso's rebellion, and it'll draw to a close with Star Wars: The Last Jedi and Rey's ongoing journey with The Force.
That's just the blockbusters. Look outside that bracket and there are more unusual female heroes here too – powerful, inspirational female characters who feel new and authentic.
Newcomer Danielle Macdonald plays Patricia Dombrowski in Patti Cake$, a New Jersey teenager from a crappy home who wants to be a rapper. An unlikely 'heroine' in a story which mirrors any rags-to-riches music movie, she defies all expectations. This character alone means the film transcends the clichés it embraces.
The car park rap-battle early in the movie highlights the differences: Patti raps and the group applauds; the scummy douchebag guy (who she slightly fancies) raps back focusing entirely on calling her fat and ugly. The battle's not over. Patti picks herself up and freestyles a retort, mocking the size of his knob. She's victorious on her own terms and he can't handle it, so he head-butts her squarely in the face.
Far from being a starlet wanting to make her dreams come true, Patti is a talented outsider in a world that's absolutely against her because of her appearance, her gender and her class, but she's unwilling to be destroyed. Patti is one of the year's most unlikely heroes and one of the best.
Watch out later this year for Molly's Game, Aaron Sorkin's directorial debut starring Jessica Chastain as "poker princess" Molly Bloom – a real person who ran very high-end poker games in LA and New York. Molly is a hero you almost never see – a gorgeous, glamorous woman with a drug and alcohol addiction, who mixes with the rich and famous in increasingly corrupt circles but remains fiercely moral. A beautiful woman with no boyfriend or child to make her "safe", but who isn't a femme fatale. A former athlete defeated by a hideous accident who isn't a tragic case.
Molly's Game is a story about a lone female in a world of very powerful men who think they can buy everything, including her. It's a film of moral complexities but Molly is without doubt a hero, one you'll be rooting for through tears right to the end.
Further valiant attempts at presenting kick-ass women protagonists in 2017, which might not have been 100% successful, are Charlize Theron's cold war agent in Atomic Blonde, Scarlett Johansson's AI in Ghost in the Shell, Katherine Waterston's scientist in Alien: Covenant, and Milla Jovovich in the latest instalment of the Resident Evil franchise.
Not without problems perhaps, but these are powerful heroes of their own films. Even when Hollywood doesn't get it exactly right there's at least the dawning appreciation that audiences have a taste for female protagonists.
Now more than ever it's important to have female heroes on screen.
This is a time when real women, in Hollywood and elsewhere, are having to stand up and become heroes themselves – to tackle monsters and battle demons, to speak out and to fight for what's right even if it comes at a price. 2017 is the year of the heroine in more ways than one then, and it looks like they're here to stay.
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