Give Me More Badass Older Ladies…Please.

Taken, The Expendables, RED, all films which heralded the genre lovingly deemed ‘Geri-action’. Geri-action allowed the heroes of the 1980s/90s to dust off their guns and get right back into the swing of things.

(The Expendables 3 Promo Image) 

The Geri-action genre, however, appeared to be a bit of a boys club, with the only main female member of any of the films I mentioned being Helen Mirren in RED. I remember seeing RED (Retired and Extremely Dangerous)at the cinema and being blown away by her character. I honestly can’t really remember anyone else in that film, Mirren’s performance has stuck with me, and I honestly think it is because her character is something we see so rarely. An acclaimed English actress, known for her roles in quaint films such as Calendar Girls and the royal drama The Queen, playing a badass ex-MI6 agent is astonishing, and overall, just different.

(Helen Mirren in RED2)

However, over the years we have been pelted with films starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Harrison Ford, Tom Cruise, Liam Neeson and Sylvester Stallone, to name a few. Even though I enjoy pretty much all of these actors, the genre is getting a little bit tired.

Although there are a few older women in action films, they are never the star. M in James Bond, played by Judi Dench from 1995-2012, whilst being amazing in the role, is definitely not the main action hero of the story. Most recently, Robin Wright, in Wonder Woman, plays the grizzled warrior Antiope but is killed off within the first 20 minutes of the film.

What I want is older leading ladies in action films, and it looks like we are getting there, slowly but surely. Images have been released over the past couple of months of Jamie Lee Curtis reprising her role as Laurie Strode in the sequel to the 1978 film Halloween. Linda Hamilton is also returning to the Terminator franchise as Sarah Connor.

 

(Linda Hamilton as Sarah Connor in the Untitled Terminator Reboot)

(Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Stroder in the 2018 Halloween Sequel)

Although I am overwhelmingly excited about both of these actors returning to their beloved roles, the issue is that they aren’t new roles. It goes with the nature of sequels, your original actors will obviously age. This isn’t a massive issue, because I am so glad that the remakes are happening and they have finally realised that casting younger actresses in the same kind of role is not what the people want. Believe it or not, audiences are changing, we don’t want to purely see young women any more, we loved the actors who made the films so successful in the first place and it is actually an insult to them to cast younger people in the role. I mean as much as I love Emelia Clarke, look how terribly Genisys went when they tried to cast her as Connor…

In movies, if they want the original actor back, they have to deal with the fact that they age. However, video games are different and there is a distinct lack of older women in the field. And this is a design choice, they can choose to make their action heroes older if they wish, Snake in Metal Gear Solid, Joel in The Last of Us, and to some extent Nathan Drake in Uncharted. But I cannot think of a single female heroine who gets older in video games. If anything they are made younger.

Now, my mild obsession with this topic stemmed from Rhiannon Pratchett, the writer of the Tomb Raider reboot, she stated in an interview with EW that:

“I’d love to write an older Lara in her 50s, who’s grizzled and war-torn because we get that with male protagonists,” Pratchett says. “Snake [from Metal Gear] has evolved over the years, and so has Sam Fisher from Splinter Cell: He’s been allowed to get older, and I’d love to see that with a character like Lara, as older and battle-hardened. And maybe she has to take another character under her wing, which is often done with dad figures in games — it’s the ‘dad-ification’ of games, like Joel in The Last of Us or Booker in BioShock Infinite.”

This is everything I want for Lara Croft, she is my favourite character in gaming, she was the start of my love of gaming when I picked up Tomb Raider III when I was about 6. She has evolved so much since her debut in 1996, mainly becoming more hi-res as the gaming industry has flourished. She has traded in her toucher exterior, becoming more naive and vulnerable in the latest reboot.

(Tomb Raider, 2013)

Although her figure has become more realistic, there is still the sense that she is there as a sex symbol, as she has been for over twenty years now. Why can’t we break free from this? For me, it seems a natural progression for the character. Sadly, Pratchett is no longer on the writing team, but I really hope her comments spark something in the new writers!

Whats your favourite older action heroine, or which heroine would you love to see as an older woman? Drop a comment with your thoughts, I would love to hear what everyone thinks on the topic!

 

By Siobhan Eardley

Works Cited:

https://ew.com/gaming/2018/03/13/tomb-raider-older-lara-croft-rhianna-pratchett/