Not feminism, but...

Feminism is often talked about in relation to movies. There's a lot of discussion about how we need more feminism in movies. The thing is, we don’t need “The Next Great Feminist Movie." What we need are movies with realistic representations of men and women. We don’t need feminism in our movies; we need gender equality.

Gender equality means an equal distribution of male and female extras from technicians to civilians.

Gender equality means a realistic male to female character ratio

Gender equality means female characters who have their own storylines instead of being a plot device in the male protagonist’s character development

Gender equality means female characters don’t use their “feminine charms” to get what they want and male characters aren’t “powerless to resist her”

Gender equality means female characters whose bodies aren’t glorified objects to be stared at

Gender equality means emotion isn’t strictly “feminine” and strength isn’t strictly “masculine”

Gender equality means female characters who are female characters, not “Female Characters”

Gender equality means that a male character and a female character can wear equally tight pants, without either character’s bodies being glorified or ogled

Gender equality means that a male and female character can be friends without pursuing a romantic relationship

Gender equality means that you don’t have male characters and female characters; it means you have characters


Do you want to know what movie fits these criteria?

Captain America: The Winter Soldier 
Starring Chris Evans, Sebastien Stan, Scarlet Johanssen

I know, my first guess wouldn’t have been a superhero movie either. Not only is it well scripted, edited, acted and filmed it’s also a very good case study in movies where female characters are just characters, not “lady characters” or objects. I was tempted to write a long post about this, but it’s not made a huge deal of in the movie and I wont either, because equal representation of both genders in movies shouldn’t be note-worthy, it should be the norm.

I strongly urge you to go and see The Winter Soldier, because it’s also just a really good movie. Smart humour, awesome fight scenes surprising plot twists, you’ll love it.

So go see it


Feisty chick-o-meter: 10/10
Age rating: 12+
Rating: 10/10
Number of explosions: Soooooooo many