Monika Bartyzel at Cinematical has a great post on recognizing — and therefore bringing more attention to — unconventional roles for women. You know, the kind where women are strong, heroic, active, and maybe even over 40! (— Oh my god, Martha, what did she just say? My brain is melting! — Just breathe, George, just breathe. Remember it’s only a blog.)
No, it’s more than that, George. The day of strong, varied, tough, angry, competent, heroic, tragic, big-as-life grown-up women is coming, and I aim to be there. Because it all starts with the script. I’ve talked before about the kind of women I want to write… and you know what? I should be doing some of that right now.
But before I get busy, let me point you to Bartyzel’s post. Be sure to follow her link to the Hollywood Reporter article that sparked her thinking, and then read her post on the feedback-cycle possibilities for making the pool deeper and wider for women’s roles.
Me, I’ll be working on that. Enjoy your day.
I look forward to books/films with strong, over-forty women heroes. I don’t watch a lot of movies, but from the trailers I’ve seen, most women over forty are in the mom-is-widowed/divorced-and-has-to-re-enter-the-dating-pool role. And of course, the fellows she dates and the one she ends up falling in love with are male (’cause everyone knows that being a woman is all about finding a man). I’m hoping for female starship captains, alien-planet terraformers, rebels, cops, detectives, scientists and the like, preferably with a thing for other women. I think it’s high time . . .