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I'm re-watching Alien right now. It's almost a full 40 years old now (came out in 1979), and every time I watch this movie (let alone Aliens), it strikes me how Ellen Ripley is probably the strongest female character that I've ever seen put to film and that so much time has passed between that film and now makes me wonder why.
As a point of trivia, that is very possibly related, the script for Alien was unisex. That is, none of the characters were specifically written to be male or female. The screenwriters left that decision for the director to make and referred to all characters in the script only by their last name.
It's possible that decision created a circumstance where because the character was developed without a bias towards gender, Ripley ended up imbued with a particular strength that wouldn't have been there if she'd been planned from the outset to be a woman (not because women can't be strong, but because bias on the part of the writers would've messed with things -vs- writing characters that were divorced from gender).
I guess for starters, am I wrong in that assessment that there haven't really been characters that have fully lived up to the standards set by Ellen? I've certainly seen other strong female characters that I can highlight, whether it's Lisbeth Salander or Clarice Starling and so on, but I feel like as strong as they are, they're still not quite on the same level. All of those mentioned were in life & death situations, so I can't say it's due to the danger level... I think it's probably more that those characters have identifiable weaknesses too (Whereas Ellen Ripley comes across as flawless to me, while still grounded in a realistic representation).
If I'm wrong in that assessment, what are some other equally strong characters that I'm really overlooking?
If I'm right in that assessment, why do you think it is that almost 4 decades have passed where we haven't seen a character of such strength to argue that she's on equal or stronger footing.
As a point of trivia, that is very possibly related, the script for Alien was unisex. That is, none of the characters were specifically written to be male or female. The screenwriters left that decision for the director to make and referred to all characters in the script only by their last name.
It's possible that decision created a circumstance where because the character was developed without a bias towards gender, Ripley ended up imbued with a particular strength that wouldn't have been there if she'd been planned from the outset to be a woman (not because women can't be strong, but because bias on the part of the writers would've messed with things -vs- writing characters that were divorced from gender).
I guess for starters, am I wrong in that assessment that there haven't really been characters that have fully lived up to the standards set by Ellen? I've certainly seen other strong female characters that I can highlight, whether it's Lisbeth Salander or Clarice Starling and so on, but I feel like as strong as they are, they're still not quite on the same level. All of those mentioned were in life & death situations, so I can't say it's due to the danger level... I think it's probably more that those characters have identifiable weaknesses too (Whereas Ellen Ripley comes across as flawless to me, while still grounded in a realistic representation).
If I'm wrong in that assessment, what are some other equally strong characters that I'm really overlooking?
If I'm right in that assessment, why do you think it is that almost 4 decades have passed where we haven't seen a character of such strength to argue that she's on equal or stronger footing.