Damsels in Distress, but only when the Hero shows up

[wicked]

Last night the kids and I watched Swamp Thing. It's a movie from the early 80's, so there are certain things you have to expect.

However in the beginning of the movie the heroine was kicking some butt. She had the forethought to take a rifle off a dead guy and take out one of the bad guys. She also flat out kicks another one's butt. Not only does she fight, she rescues herself, and is the only one to escape alive.
What happens to her when our monstrous hero shows up?
She gets grabbed and drug off. Repeatedly.
Now wait a minute. When did you turn into Poor Sweet Sue?

Ok, so it was the 80's. We laughed, we mocked, we threw popcorn.

If it were left as a relic of the 80's I could be happy with it. But not so.

We watched The Expendables the other night.
The beginning of the movie? Our heroine takes on a goon three times her size.
The end of the movie when the goons are all dead, the heroes have crashed the compound in the glorifying light of pyrotechnics, and she's being drug around by the arm by some doofus in a suit? You got it. Cue batting eye lashes and faux Southern Belle cries of "Halp me, halp me. I'm being ab-duc-ted."

Come on lady. Punch him in the throat and rack his nuts. Geez.
(I also totally hated the way they portrayed Jet Li. Way too many white boy male egos behind that movie. So not cool.)

A little consistency would be nice. Now I have nothing against the occasional faint-hearted heroine, but they're supposed to progress, not regress.

[Dave]

Interesting gender view. I've seen both movies and examining the motivation of the female leads never even occured to me. I guess I wasn't really paying attention to the characters in either of these movies....

[Samuel Mae]

I hear ya, wicked. It's frustrating to read or watch. Like every Clive Cussler book with Dirk Pitt in it (and maybe the rest of his, though i've only read Pitt books), where the female MCs are drawn as highly intelligent, qualified, motivated, with great survival skills, but as soon as they see Dirk they want to cook and clean for him and can't wait to sample his manly vigor. Plus he always has to save them.

[wicked]

I guess I wasn't really paying attention to the characters in either of these movies....

Granted, they weren't exactly thought provoking dramas.

I hear ya, wicked. It's frustrating to read or watch. Like every Clive Cussler book with Dirk Pitt in it (and maybe the rest of his, though i've only read Pitt books), where the female MCs are drawn as highly intelligent, qualified, motivated, with great survival skills, but as soon as they see Dirk they want to cook and clean for him and can't wait to sample his manly vigor. Plus he always has to save them.

That would drive me crazy. It the heroine starts out Xena the Warrior Princess, and ends up June Cleaver, there is a serious problem.

Raging hormones can turn anyone into a sap, at least for a little while, but there better be at least an exorcism involved if the author expects me to believe it changes the heroine into a completely different person.

[Samuel Mae]

I reckon it's typical alpha male wish fulfillment fantasy. I think it is less prevalent now than it was 20 years ago, but it's definitely still around.

[Jaqhama]

Go read Peter O'Donnell's Modesty Blaise series. The first six books were the best.
Modesty was the basis for Marvel comics the Black Widow and Lara Croft and all the rest of the modern female heroines.

Book 1 is : Modesty Blaise.
Then: Sabre Tooth. I, Lucifer. A Taste for Death. The Impossible Virgin. Pieces of Modesty.

Far and away the best female action/adventure character ever created.
Oh yeah...the actual writing and supporting characters and villians are top notch also.

[glutton]

My heroines are more likely to rescue the hero than vice versa, even when the hero is one of the best male warriors in the world.

Finn - 2nd best warrior in the kingdom and top 5 in the world
Rose - Best warrior in the kingdom and arguably #1 in the world

Different book -

Claude - 3rd best warrior of his homeland
Manon - #1 or 2 (it's not made clear) in their homeland

Different book -

The hero and heroine appear to be equal-ish in ability and they're both among the best warriors, but the heroine fights without a weapon against weapon-wielding opponents, and they both save each other... also the heroine gets more big fight scenes

The other 2 completed novels -

The heroines are the strongest warriors in their lands and the male leads are unremarkable in a fight

It's also common in my works for the male hero or heroine's love interest, if he is a top tier warrior, to fight the heroine in an epic brawl, or want to fight her for the sake of his pride because she has such rep.

They are war goddesses.

[erazmus]

Everybody needs a little rescue sometime. Swamp Thing and the Expendables aren't exactly where you want to start evaluating an era's values and norms. They are both dreck.
Even tough guys wear out, get beat up and tied up. Not in the movies, of course, but elsewhere. James Bond spends more time, in the books, tied up and tortured than he does almost anything else. And most often he gets out by being rescued by some female character (who is succumbing to his overwhelming sex appeal, of course. Handy, that.) It is an established Hollywood fact that tough chicks only get to be tough once or at most twice in a feature film, unless they are the main character.

Miike

[glutton]

Even tough guys wear out, get beat up and tied up.

Yeah, but they don't stop trying to be tough guys which I think is what Wicked was complaining about.

[wicked]

Nothing wrong with tough characters needing a rescue now and then. It's when the character gets set up as fiery, and turns into a weepy powder puff on the verge of fainting that irks me (unless there is a compelling reason for the emotional breakdown).

Faux Action Girl isn't identical to what I'm thinking of, but if I spend any more time at TV Tropes I won't get any writing done.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/PlayingWith/FauxActionGirl

Compare to Badass in Distress
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BadassInDistress

[glutton]

There's also the old joke that a tough chick's weak spot is her upper arm, because if a bad guy grabs them there they become helpless.

[erazmus]

I have no explanation. In some cases I think it might be the writer either loosing track of that character, sacrificing the character to build up either the hero or the plot, or in some cases, the writer changing--IE the writer wrote her bad, and the director changed it half way through.

Mike