10 great movies with kick-ass women who don’t necessarily kick anyone’s ass

I’ve been putting together a number of lists of movies, TV shows and other media that feature women that I have called kick-ass. (For an index to the lists, see the kick-ass women project page.) The lists so far are mostly about movies and shows in the action genre, with lots of nods to those women characters who can really kick some ass. As in physical kicking of physical asses. It has recently been suggested to me that it would also be nice to see more about movies with women who kick-ass in a more figurative sense: strong, courageous, intelligent and in control. Possessing of dignity, integrity and wit. So, here goes:

10 great movies with kick-ass women who don’t necessarily kick anyone’s ass

  1. Cold Comfort Farm (1995)
    Flora Poste (Kate Beckinsale) is a witty young woman who likes to put things in order. She is not easily daunted, even by her somewhat menacing eccentric relatives. (This is one of my favorite movies, too. Also a very funny and pleasant movie.)
  2. Dolores Claiborne (1995)
    This thriller features several strong and intelligent women characters, played by Kathy Bates, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Judy Parfitt.
  3. Contact (1997)
    Jodie Foster plays Eleanor Arroway, a brilliantly kick-ass scientist. (I actually haven’t seen this yet, but have it on good authority that her character kicks ass.)
  4. Zero Effect (1998) Kim Dickens plays Gloria Sullivan, a young woman who brilliantly and calmly masterminds a scheme for her own ends. An excellent mystery movie overall, too.
  5. Shakespeare in Love (1998)
    Viola De Lesseps (Gwyneth Paltrow) flouts tradition and disguises herself as a boy in order to pursue her desire to act on the stage.
  6. 10 Things I Hate About You (1999)
    In this adaptation of Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew, Kat Stratford (Julia Stiles), is a high school girl who knows her mind. And knows a lot of other things, too.
  7. Saving Grace (2000)
    Brenda Blethyn plays Grace Trevethyn, a courageous and innovative woman with a green thumb who turns to unusual measures to make money to save her house.
  8. Le Fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulain (2001)
    Audrey Tautou stars as Amélie, who uses her wit and creativity to make a difference in the world around her.
  9. Bend it Like Beckham (2002)
    Parminder Nagra plays Jesminder ‘Jess’ Kaur Bhamra, a teenage girl who defies her traditional family’s wishes to pursue her love of football (as in soccer). Also features Keira Knightly as another footballer.
  10. Volver (2006)
    This Almodóvar movie is dominated by strong women characters.Penélope Cruz stars as Raimunda, a daughter, a sister, and a mother of a teenage daughter. Courageous and resourceful, she pulls things together to protect her daughter after an incident where her daughter kills a man in self-defense.

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This post is being kicked over to the //engtech group writing project #3.

Thanks to bs, who suggested a version of the title of this post in a comment.

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seeing red

It’s Thursday once more. Which means it’s time for some Themed Things. This week’s Thursday theme is red folks, to follow up on those blue folks. Red-furred, red-skinned, red-shelled, or red cardboard, this post is red all over.

  1. The Devil. The big bad red dude. Frequently portrayed pitch fork-wielding, with pointy horns, and a long pointy tail. And also very red.

    devil_pd.jpg cute_devil.png

  2. Hellboy (2004) A movie starring Ron Perlman about a big, strong guy. Red. Looks like a demon but files down his horns. Based on a comic book character.

    3. hellboy.jpg     frylock.jpg zoidberg.jpg

  3. Frylock, from Aqua Teen Hunger Force. The guy, or technically, the animate red-faced box of fries, with the brains and know-how.
  4. Dr. Zoidberg. The lobster-like alien doctor (from the planet Decapod 10) on Futurama. Fun to quote (note that Fry is a human male):

    Dr. Zoidberg: Now open your mouth and lets have a look at that brain.
    Dr. Zoidberg: No, no, not that mouth.
    Fry: I only have one.
    Dr. Zoidberg: Really?
    Fry: Uh… is there a human doctor around?
    Dr. Zoidberg: Young lady, I am an expert on humans. Now pick a mouth, open it and say “brglgrglgrrr”!

  5. Clifford, the Big Red Dog. A dog. Who is both big and red. A favorite book character from my childhood. Now a franchise with oodles and oodles of Clifford books and merchandise. And a TV show, apparently.

    6. bk_clifford_deluxe.jpg elmo.jpgwilt.png

  6. Wilt, from Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends. Tall, skinny, and red.
  7. Elmo. The fuzzy annoyingly squeaky-voiced Sesame Street character. (Here’s an Elmo link to click at your own risk.)

    8. a_akadouji-kasuga-shrine-1488ad.jpg

  8. akadouji

    Literally “Red Youth.” Also often called Kasuga Akadouji 春日赤童子. A mysterious human figure said to have appeared on a rock immediately in front of the Kasuga 春日 Shrine gate. He often is shown as a youth (Jp. = douji), colored red (Jp = aka), standing on a rock, and leaning on a staff.

    9. redlionjacket.gif

  9. The Red Lion: A Persian folktale and book based on the same by Diane Wolkstein. About a prince who must learn to face his fears and fight a lion. Who is red. (The flag of Iran used to have a red lion on it, too.)

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So them’s the red folks. Want more color than just red? Feast your eyes on the latest Carnival of Colors.

on kicking ass

I’ve been working for some time on an endeavor that I have dubbed “the kick-ass women project.” So far, the project has involved putting together various lists of movies and shows that have prominently featured women characters who, in my opinion, kick some ass.

However, I have yet to either define the term kick-ass or really describe what it is that I mean by the expression kick-ass woman. So here goes a try.

A kick-ass woman is a woman is more than ordinarily strong, courageous, and intelligent. Kick-ass women (or for that matter, kick-ass people in general) are those who face up to challenges that are beyond the ordinary, stand up for themselves and for others, and demonstrate their stength, courage and intelligence.

What do I mean by strength? Well, strength of character, primarily. Courage to stand up for her beliefs, for her rights, or even for her wants. Plus the brains to figure out what needs to be done.

Of course, I also enjoy the action genre, and added to these fundamental kick-ass qualities, I appreciate additional qualities. A kick-ass woman should ideally have some physical strength and the ability to hold her own in a fight. And I do have a penchant for women who can show off some martial arts skills, and literally kick some asses. Or other bits. In action or suspense movies, a kick-ass woman should also be able to outwit her opponents.

In some ways, a kick-ass woman character can also be defined by things she is not, things she does not do. For example, she doesn’t wait around for some man. To rescue her. Solve things for her. Notice her charms. Send her flowers. Marry her. She is not just the “love interest,” the prize, the trophy. She is not helpless. This is not to say that she can’t be a love interest, or accept some help, or be noticed for her charms. She can like getting flowers. She can even have romance, love, sex, marriage, whatever. More power to her. But these things are not the extent of her worth, her self worth, her role in whatever movie or show we’re watching.

I like to think of women as fundamentally strong, courageous and intelligent. This is the baseline. Sure, some women are stronger, others wimpier. Some brilliant, some not as bright. But generally, women have the potential to kick ass. It’s just that all too often in the media that is served up to us, whether it’s the more traditional male-dominated action and suspense movies, or the “chick movie” type romantic comedies, the women characters are overshadowed or underdeveloped. Watered down, or just gussied up.

Like many others, I want more movies and TV shows to feature women who demonstrate their strengths.

So, where am I going with this project? Well, I’ll probably put together a few more lists. It has come to my attention that I should put together lists of movies where the ass-kicking is more figurative than literal. While heavy on the action genre, my existing lists do include some such non-action movies, but there are certainly more out there.

I’ve also come across a number of other resources (books and websites) that discuss, rate or list kick-ass women movies and shows. I’ll get around to writing about them. At some point.

I also still have this plan of reviewing and actually scoring individual movies (or shows), based on the kick-assedness of the women characters.

I even have plans to write more about the expression kick-ass, and why I’ve chosen it over terms like sheroe or heroine.

a tale of two buildings

I’m a grad student at a large urban university in the American Northeast. This school has many buildings. Some big, some small. Some old, some new. This is the story of two buildings.

Building A and Building B are neighbors. They live on the same major street that runs through the center of the university. Between them runs a small street.

Both buildings are academic buildings, filled with classrooms and offices for faculty and staff.

Building A is an older building. It’s of a moderate size. It’s got character, mind you, but it’s a bit run down. Well, in some ways it’s quite run down. The heating and air conditioning are quirky, so it’s usually too hot or too cold. The stairways are narrow, and the elevators often on the fritz.

Building B is a newer building. Taller. Concrete. Modern. When you walk in, you are greeted by a cavernous entryway, tiled in marble. In the center is a large metallic abstract sculpture, somewhat evocative of a globe. Everything is expansive and expensive. Shiny.

When you walk into Building A, the space that you enter is a bit dimly lit. There’s a somewhat dingy carpeted sort of lounge area with some cushioned seats in front of you, and to your right, there’s a an area with a linoleum floor and a few cafeteria-style tables and chairs. Building A has a few vending machines: a soda machine, a candy and snack machine, and one of those hot beverage machines that can give you a watery cup of hot chocolate or a cup of coffee that you might turn to in a fit of caffeine desperation, but would never choose to drink.

In Building B, though, you can stroll up the sweeping double stair case with its wide marble steps to the second floor, where you can buy a scone and a caramel macchiato at a Starbucks. Or you can opt to get a more substantial lunch, or perhaps a light salad, at the gourmet soup and sandwich shop next to the Starbucks.

Building B is a showcase building for the university. Higher ups in the administration have installed their offices in part of the building. Building B often provides venues for important guest lecturers and other high-profile university events.

Building A is a respectable building, but next to Building B, it looks downright shabby.

These two buildings have in common that they house academic departments and graduate programs that focus on investing in the future. One of these two buildings is called the School of Management, and houses the business programs. The other building is called the School of Education, and houses teaching programs. Do I even need to tell you which building is which?

I’m really not making this up. The two buildings really do face each other, often seeming to me as some sort of concrete and brick manifestations of the very attitudes and trends of our society. Education programs are underfunded, schools are underfunded. Meanwhile, the focus of society is on the business of making money.

So many of our schools are struggling to make do. Many classrooms are overcrowded, many schools are short of up-to-date textbooks and resources. But a good school is not just about the size of the classroom and the quality and quantity of materials: a good school needs good teachers. It’s saddened me over the years to learn of so many bright and idealistic people who enter teaching, only to suffer burnout. The public schools, and especially the city schools, lead to the fastest burnout. Among many factors that contribute to this problem is that teachers get the short end of the stick in our society in terms of pay and prestige. In spite of the difficulty of the task, the need for commitment, the knowledge, patience and strength required to do this incredibly important work, public school teachers are typically not paid well. Certainly, they are not getting the sort of income that those who choose to follow career paths laid out in business professions.¹

Those who enter education programs, who choose to become educators, are often considered impractical dreamers. Sometimes it’s assumed that they aren’t motivated enough, or even bright enough, for other career options. It is taken for granted that teachers will not get paid particularly well.

Let’s face it. Our society values money. And pay is often a reflection of prestige. And teachers are just not getting as much of either of those as they deserve for their contribution to society.

This is just to say that I hope for a day when the pride that universities show in their education programs equals that of business programs. But in order to see that shift, our society will need to re-evaluate attitudes towards education professions.

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¹ From the U.S. Bureau of the Census.²
Earnings for “Management, professional, and related occupations”

  • Median: $45,620 Mean: $59,139

    • Earnings for “Education, training, and library occupations”

  • Median: $31,555 Mean: $34,553

    • ² I seem to be developing an addiction to using footnotes in my posts.

    my pants are falling down

    Once more, I’ve been shockingly lax of late with my pants. It’s been ages, simply ages, since I’ve posted some serious pants content.¹ And sadly, I don’t really have time do write much today. Not even about pants. (I have work to do.) But I can share a bit of pants I’ve been sitting on for while.

    Feast your eyes and ears on this pants musical extravaganza².

    Warning: the video linked does feature a brief non-pants bit. As in where the folks in the video are not wearing any. Pants, that is. Of any sort. The question is, will this attract or repel you?

    Well, I guess this is a short pants post. But short pants can be good, especially when the weather gets warm.

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    ¹ “Wait,” you’re saying, “has the pants content ever been serious?” Well, no, not really.

    ² Thanks to jenny for bringing this inspired pants production to my attention.

    Al Gore rocks.

    Al Gore made a guest appearance on the Daily Show this week to talk about his book, The Assault on Reason. (I didn’t get to see it when it was on TV, as we suffer from a cable deficiency, and don’t get Comedy Central.) You can see a pretty complete transcript of the interview here, but the clip is worth watching:

    Gore has some interesting things to say about the media, and also about The Daily Show¹:

    Actually, if you want to get through a lot the nonsense, and get to the heart of the most important news of the day is, this is one of the places to go to get the straight story. And it’s ironic.

    He also goes on to make an analogy to court jesters of the Middle Ages, who were in a unique position to criticize the court through jokes. And he uses the term highfalutin, which I just don’t get to hear often enough.²

    One point that comes up (by both Gore and Stewart, who also rocks) is that the internet is a means by which the money-driven zombie-producing powers of TV news can be counteracted. Gore says of the internet:

    It is the single greatest source of hope that we will be able to fix what ails the conversation of democracy.³

    So, here’s to the conversation.

    And here’s to Al. (Ah, how different the world might have been…)⁴

    ———————–

    ¹ Please note that Jon Stewart did not hound Gore with questions about the horserace.

    ² And by the way, the spelling of this etymologically mysterious word seems to be not terribly conventionalized. We also get high-fallutin’, hifalutin and high faluting, to name some of the possibilities.

    ³ Please also note that the first 3 comments on this YouTube post are apparently written by 12-year-olds. Which demonstrates some of the flaws of the internet as a medium for serious discourse.

    ⁴ I like to use footnotes in my posts. Footnotes are cool.

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    revenge of the teeth

    Last night I posted a list of things teeth-oriented. Yes, a silly list. But I should have realized that teeth are no laughing matter. Now teeth want revenge, and they have launched a full-blown attack.

    Phoebe has been showing some signs of teething this week. Fairly minor. A tendency to drool, and bite and chew on things. Habits which she’s largely outgrown. There has been some tugging on the ears, and our 15-month check-up confirmed that there are no ear infections. So, teething it is. No big deal. Right?

    That is until last night.

    I hadn’t been prepared for an attack of “vicious canines.”

    Phoebe is a good sleeper. A phenomenal night-time sleeper. (Not so great with naps.) She rarely wakes up in the night, and when she does, she can usually get back to sleep pretty quickly. But last night, just as I was going to bed, at 1:00 a.m., Phoebe woke up screaming. The long and short of it is that she just would not settle down. Did not want to be put down. At 3:00, I finally decided to just hold her, and take her into bed with me. We slept fitfully, and she woke up at 6:00. Full of energy.

    I spent most of the morning lying on various floors as she played nearby. She’s been in a great mood except when she’s expected to sleep. We tried a morning nap. She was very tired, and went down in her crib with no argument. Relieved, I stumbled back to bed, and collapsed.

    She slept in her crib for 25 minutes.

    At this point, I threw myself on John’s mercy, who has work he needs to do today, to let me get just a little more sleep. So, happily, I am now at least partially functional.

    What scares me is that the offending teeth are not even visible yet. How long will this go on?

    sinking my teeth in

    I’ve decided I need to organize my things. I have a tendency to make lists of things, willy-nilly, whenever the urge strikes. Any old day of the week. Whether it’s blue dudes on a Saturday, balls on a Friday, or pigs on a Sunday, or cheese on a Tuesday. Willy-freakin’-nilly, I tell you.

    So I was all like “hey, I should pick a day. Have a thing day. A themed thing day.”¹ So to go all out with the alliteration, I’m going with Thursdays. Thus creating the Themed Thing Thursday.

    So in honor of the onset consonant of the words theme, thing and Thursday, the voiceless inderdental fricative, my first official theme of things for this Themed Thing Thursday will be teeth. Because without teeth, it’s really hard to say things.

    teeth.jpg

    A few things toothy

    1. ϴ or theta.
      The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) symbol for the voiceless dental (or interdental) fricative. This sound is usually written “th” in English, though the sound is nothing like a t followed by an h. (Note also that not all instances of “th” are stand-ins for theta: there’s the evil twin ð, too. Sometimes called the “eth.” It’s the voiced dental fricative. You know, the one in the.)
    2. The Tooth Fairy
      A legendary individual who pays children for losing their teeth. In the version of the myth I grew up with, when you lose a tooth, you put it under your pillow when you go to bed. In the morning, you wake up to find a coin in place of the tooth. The explanation for this phenomenon is not that the tooth has metamorphosized, but that a strange woman, possibly with wings, sneaked into your room while you slept, and felt around under your very head for the tooth, grabbed and pocketed said tooth, and then left you a small payment. This was supposed to be a comforting tale.
    3. The Wikipedia Tooth Fairy page has a whole bunch of fun popular culture references to the tooth fairy by the way, such as the episode of the Simpsons where Bart loses his last baby tooth, or Darkness Falls (2003), horror movie about an evil tooth fairy.
    4. The movie Toothless (1997)
      I had actually never heard of this movie until some soul out there tried desperately to find quotes from the movie. I have no idea why. I’m assuming it was the same person, trying variations of “quotes from the movie toothless” and “toothless movie quotes.” And they kept getting my post on movie quotes where I quote the “tough and ruthless/rough and toothless” bit from Kentucky Fried Movie. Anyhow, the movie “Toothless” was a TV movie from 1997, and looks to have been pretty sucky. Kirstie Allie played a dentist turned tooth fairy.
    5. Speaking of dentists, there’s the movie Marathon Man (1976) (And also the novel by William Goldman, author of The Princess Bride.)
      The story features a famous (or infamous) torture scene involving an evil, sadistic dentist. (“Is it safe?”)
    6. Little Shop of Horrors. A 1960’s B movie that was later adapted to a Broadway musical which was later adapted to another movie. The main story is about an alien man-eating plant, but it also features a sadistic dentist. (Clearly, some people have issues with dentists.) Steve Martin plays the dentist in the 1986 movie.
    7. Just in case you fear that all pop culture portrayals of dentists are unfavorable, Monty Python offers this counter-example, featuring heroic feats performed by a member of the BDA. (“It’s a man’s life in the British Dental Association”):

    8. And speaking of Python, what list of teeth could be complete without those big pointy teeth from the Holy Grail. You may be happy (or dismayed) to learn that you can now purchase associated merchandise, such as slippers and hand-puppets featuring rabbits with big pointy teeth.

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    ¹ I’m also inpsired by some folks I admire who have their own weekly theme days, like KC’s Medical Advice Mondays and Sage’s Word Wise Wednesdays.

    unceremonious

    Lots of folks are graduating around now here in the US. From middle schools, high schools, colleges. My nephew even just graduated from high school. (No, not the one that was born in January. He’s barely in kindergarten!) All the stuff in the air about graduations has me thinking. About graduations I haven’t had.

    No, no, I’m not lamenting the fact that I’m still in school. This prolonged incarceration educational endeavor is largely by choice. And I’m making progress on the schemes for tunneling my way out.

    The graduations I’m recalling, or not recalling as the case may be, are ones from my past. Or that weren’t in my past. Here’s a weird thing I realized about myself that I hadn’t disclosed in my recent confessional of weirdness: I don’t have a high school diploma.

    However, in spite of not actually having technically “graduated” from high school, I have both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree. Ha! How’s that for weirdness?

    Okay, here’s the story. My family moved around a lot when I was growing up. I actually went to 4 different high schools. The first was in Colorado, the second in Hawaii and the third in California. When I was a junior in high school, which was while we were living in California, my mother remarried. And my mother and I moved in with my new stepfather. In France.

    So, high school number 4 was in France. It was an international, bilingual school on the IB system. I was due to be a senior. The last two years of the IB (International Baccalaureate) program were actually cumulative. But starting in the last year of the program (terminal) would have had me going in a year behind in all my courses. So they put in me première, basically junior year. I had just finished 3 years of American high school, and didn’t want to wind up in high school for a total of 5 years. However, the powers that be assured me that completing my 4th year of high school at the new school would suffice for finishing my high school education, at least as far as American universities were concerned. I could get some sort of stamp on my transcript saying I’d finished 4 years of high school.

    So that’s what happened. I finished that last year of high school, and apparently got that stamp on my transcript. I never even saw the thing. But it was enough to get me admitted into the American university of my choice. (Brown, if you were wondering.)

    But there was no high school graduation. I was never a senior. All my school friends in France were just finishing their penultimate year of secondary school.

    Another 4 years went by, and I was scheduled to graduate from Brown. Except for the fact that I took a semester off along the way. (Following extreme burnout from working 3 jobs and raising 6 puppies. Another story.) So, in May of 1993, I did not graduate from college. However, this time, I went through the ceremony. (Hey, all my friends were doing it.) I was scheduled to finish in December, 1993 anyhow, and it wasn’t uncommon for folks to attend the commencement ceremony a semester ahead.

    And yes, I did finish Brown in December of ’93, as scheduled. There was some sort of ceremony that December for the midyear grads, but really it was more of a gathering in a hall. No diplomas. Because they only got awarded in May. So hey, I got to have the graduation ceremony all over again in May of ’94. And this time, I got my diploma. Well, actually, that’s not exactly true, either. What I got was a formal-looking roll of paper with a note inside saying that my actually diploma was being “engrossed” and would be sent to me in the mail. (Yes, it the paper actually did say “engrossed.”) (And yes, I did get that diploma in the mail at some point. In fact, I just found it tonight, stumbling across it while trying to find an old journal. It’s been sitting, gathering dust, on the bookshelf next to my bed for probably several years. I had no idea it was there.)

    Fast forward 10 years . I finally finished my master’s project at my current school in August of 2004, making me eligible for September graduation. I’m not even sure if they had a September ceremony. (Again, I could have “walked” in the May 2004 ceremony, but this time I opted not to. For one thing, my program doesn’t have a department, so you have to leech yourself on to some other department’s ceremony.) September came, and nothing much happened. As far as I knew, the completion of the degree had gone through: master’s project submitted, paperwork submitted, official admittance to the PhD program. But no actual evidence of a degree.

    And then at some point that fall, I checked my online transcript, and the magical words had appeared:

    DEGREE AWARDED
    Master of Arts
    Major: Applied Linguistics
    September 25, 2004

    Woohoo! Call me master, baby! But still no diploma.

    And then finally, on October 23rd, 2004, a tube appeared in my mailbox. I remember the day well, as it was the day before my wedding. (My second wedding to John.) My mother and sister were visiting. And I had gone out to walk the dog and check the mail. In my pajamas. Flannel polar bear pajamas. And I came back in with that tube. Still wearing my pajamas, I gathered my mother, my sister and my husband (who I was about to remarry), and I sang a wordless (dooooo doo doo doo doooo doo) version of “Pomp and Circumstance.”

    I opened my red cardboard tube.

    I had been awarded a master’s degree.