In Hollywood cinema, a new heroine is emerging, and she is not the stereotypically “perfect” girl. Oh no. Whether these heroines are poised or clumsy, feminine or butch, they all have one thing in common: flaws.
It’s no wonder these women are becoming the new heroines, we all have our flaws and our problems. The cinematic heroines struggling on the big screen are lovable not because they have these problems, but because they work so hard to overcome them. We can all admire that. They are flawed; therefore, they are fabulous.
Ladies and gentlemen: I present to you the new Hollywood heroines.
Lisbeth Salander (Girl with the Dragon Tattoo)
She has intense eyes and piercings everywhere. Her hobbies include chain-smoking cigarettes, riding her motorcycle, hacking computers and single-handedly robbing fraudulent billionaires. Lisbeth Salander has become an icon in not only one but two versions of Stieg Larson’s Millenium Trilogy.
She was so popular that three years after the Swedish version was released Hollywood started production on its own adaptation. The project came to fruition this past December and earned over 100 million dollars in the United States.
It’s small wonder. Lisbeth Salander, in an indelible performance by Rooney Mara, is simply a fascinating character. In her small, compact frame, she holds so much wrath, power, violence and unbelievable sadness. When you look into her eyes, you’re torn between the impulse to run away from her and the desire to hug her.
This girl with the dragon tattoo is made fascinating by her contradictions: she’s violent and angry and cold…and yet surprisingly vulnerable. Despite all the atrocious things that happen to her, Lisbeth never plays the victim; she exacts her own revenge. The best example of this is when she scrawls a bloody tattoo with an untrained hand on her rapist and guardian.
She’s a genius, she’s wounded; she is, to put it quite simple, a mystery. Lisbeth suffers from a painful and (as of yet) hidden past that makes us all want to learn more. After seeing that movie, I ached for a dragon tattoo to call my very own. I wanted to put on a pair of leather paints, smear on some eyeliner and stalk around the town. Lisbeth is just that infectious.
“The thing that I found most interesting was that [Lisbeth] could be as off-putting as she is, but at the same time she’s also quite innocent and childlike … I think that sort of makes her very unpredictable; you don’t really know what you’re going to get, what’s going to pop out of her.”
– Rooney Mara
Katniss Everdeen (The Hunger Games)
Prepare thyself, all movie theaters. The time is nigh. On March 23, your auditorium will be invaded by the teeming hordes of Hunger Games fans that are coming to enjoy, but also carefully critique, the adaptation of their beloved book. (I do not judge, as I will be one of them.)
Everyone is excited to see Katniss Everdeen, played by Jennifer Lawrence (who was nominated for an Oscar at 20 years old), face off against the capital in a bloody fight to the death against 23 other child contestants.
Katniss, like Lisbeth, is a resilient, intrepid, resourceful yet emotionally stunted, teenage girl, who is carrying too much of the world’s weight on her shoulders (next to her signature bow and arrow, of course). From the moment she sacrifices herself as tribute to the hunger games to save the life of her little sister, viewers will be entranced by the disparity between her selflessness to save the life of a loved one and her determination to survive the games, which of course means allowing 23 others to die. Katniss is enthralling. The cold determination of this impossibly young girl trying to survive a death match while still holding on to her humanity is simply captivating.
“Katniss is an incredible character: she’s a hunter but not a killer… It’s not like she looks around the arena and goes, Yeah, I got this. I think she looks around helplessly, and thinks, I made a promise to my sister that I would survive; now I have to kill in order to do so.”
-Jennifer Lawrence
Marilyn Monroe (My Week with Marilyn)
Not all modern heroines are warriors, however, nor do they have to necessarily belong to this generation. In the 1950s, Marilyn Monroe was the blond “it” girl of Hollywood who oozed sexiness from her pouty red lips down to her high-heeled shoes. Today, her image still adorns almost every girl’s college dorm room, just one small sign that she’s taken her rightful place as one of Hollywood’s most enduring icons of all time.
After Marilyn Monroe’s untimely death, word spread about her struggles with depression and drugs. Even now, people can only grasp at straws in trying to truly discern the enigma that is Marilyn Monroe.
The film My Week with Marilyn, starring Michelle Williams, attempts to unravel the mystery through a behind the scenes portrait of her daily struggles . The film is based on the journal of the third director of one of Marilyn’s movies The Prince and the Showgirl, Colin Clark, who had a tryst with her on the set of the film.
We see her being fed pills by members of her entourage: one pill to wake her up, one pill to calm her down. Instead of ruining the image of this shining icon, however, My Week with Marilyn made me love her even more. This untouchable, glamorous starlet became a person to empathize with.
The film makes her become real: she was just Norma Jean Baker, a child-woman who was just looking to be loved and taken seriously. Everyone has issues with identity, and we can all relate to the woman who tried to resolve one of the most confusing identities of all: a balance between your bare unaffected self, in this case Norma Jean Baker, and the character you will the world to love, Marilyn Monroe.
Marilyn is proof that just because you struggle and fight against what seems to be a never ending wave of troubles does not mean you can’t achieve greatness.
“For me, the most crucial discovery — the flash — was that the widely accepted image of Marilyn Monroe was a character that Norma Jean played. Unless you study her and understand her a bit better than the commonly accepted view, one could miss who she was underneath that. Marilyn was a part she played.”
–Michelle Williams
The new Hollywood heroines are flawed and therefore fantastic. They have problems that are often times more elaborate than a real world girl’s could ever be, and yet they are relatable. As it turns out, we shouldn’t be trying to hide our imperfections because, once they are discovered, you may find that the world will respect you all the more. Ask Lisbeth.
Sources:
Boxofficemojo.com
Ew.com
Huffingtonpost.com
womenandhollywood.com
vanityfair.com
My Week with Marilyn (photo): http://beyoubebold.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/michelle-williams-as-marilyn-monroe-343756-300×300.jpg
Rooney Mara (photo): http://images.fandango.com/images/fandangoblog/rooneymara05.jpg
Jennifer Lawrence (photo): http://ellegirl.elle.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/HG.jpg