Sexy Super Heroines

You just have to love some of the characters that popular media have been coming up with since color TV and comic books became popular. Gorgeous, sexy and strong women who are courageous and like to kick ass pretty much whenever they can have been captivating the imagination of writers and audiences alike. Especially in recent decades there’s been an avalanche of stunning female super heroes and one could almost say they’re surpassing the classic male hero figure. Even movies where the main hero is a man, usually feature a serious kick-ass heroine who grabs much of the attention.

Using super heroines seems to cater mostly to male audiences. To most men there is hardly anything more exciting than a sexy girl who wipes the floor with other men on a regular basis. I’m sure that is the main reason for their popularity. The other reason is that it is politically correct to illustrate women as almighty - especially compared with men. In modern times, the only way to satisfy most of the audience, is to show a beautiful woman beating evil men to pulp by the dozens.

Apart from the often skimpy outfits and excessively big hair, a super heroine usually has some kind of super powers but this doesn’t always have to be the case. Even when they’re ‘just’ human, they still tend to handle things with highly unrealistic ease. But it gets a little more complicated:

Women with special powers are not a new idea at all. But in the past those powers tended to be black magic, witchcraft or satanic. The new element in our modern super heroine is her physical abilities - the raw violence and brute force that she can and does use plentifully.

These are basically not very original characters who are a kind of branch-off from male super heroes and comic book figures. Batgirl and Supergirl for example are just a kind of lighter, weaker and more female version of the main characters, Batman and Superman. They never really had their own great story - even though Supergirl featured in her own movie. The sidekick super heroine never really felt quite right - more like an attempt to get women interested in the genre. That failed pretty badly just like the early attempts to get women interested in computer games.

I think, more by accident, these experiments revealed that it was mostly men who liked the new heroine and then it was not far off to start a new genre where women rule - provided they were beautiful and sexy of course.

This particular kind of super heroine is what there has been so much of lately so let’s look at some examples:

• Wonder Woman. She was perhaps the first of the modern heroines. Essentially an Amazon who comes from an island where women rule with special powers and, just by accident, all happen to be sexy and beautiful. Wonder Woman is a mostly feminist message of the female supremacist kind. That message is that women are not only more beautiful, but also stronger and, most importantly, more moral and peaceful than men. Wonder Woman is like a reactionary message to the supposed evil patriarchy.
• Cat Woman is a character that grew out of the Batman stories. As such, she isn’t entirely her own super heroine and she also isn’t exactly a heroine since she never entirely takes sides with the good guys. I had to include her because she’s a very original character and there is no male equivalent anywhere to be found. She’s also famous for carrying a whip as her main weapon. A sexy woman in a skin tight outfit with a whip is going to get some hearts beating for sure.
• Xena - Warrior Princess. How could any page on super heroines not include Xena? She’s the newer kind, the post-feminist super heroine if you want. Women now don’t have to prove they’re better than men anymore because it is commonly accepted as true and Xena is a kind of celebration of that. She is strong and direct, resorts to physical disputes at pretty much any given opportunity (and there are plenty). Though men are especially often on the receiving end of her kicks and punches, Xena still mostly caters to a male audience. Like I said, guys love watching beautiful girls kick guys’ in the behind. Interestingly though, Xena is also depicted as very clever and often outsmarts her opponents. This is somewhat of a new development in the super heroine trend. As successful as women beating men physically was on screen, women shown as more intelligent than men never quite caught on as we’ll see in the next example.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She appeared around the same time as Xena and, although Buffy has superhuman strength, that is about the only common trait she shares with Xena. Buffy is a teenage girl trying to have a ‘normal’ life while working as a vampire slayer at night. She is depicted as helpless and clueless most of the time. Being ‘cool’ is the main drive behind her character. Throughout the seasons, the show leaned increasingly on sidekicks who, coincidentally, also started gaining super powers one by one. This is a phenomenon you’ll observe in many of the modern marvel type shows.
• Lara Craft - the main character from Tomb Raider. Originally a game character, Lara Croft made it to the movies in 2001 with a perfectly suited Angelina Jolie. She has no superhuman powers - though could be fooled into thinking she does by the way she deals with situations. She is depicted as very smart, hyper independent and highly capable - in particular with fire arms and other kinds of weapons such as her legs. In many ways she caters to the same kind of audience that Xena did and consequently you find yourself reminded of her frequently. Lara Croft poses a lot more than Xena though and her looks are a crucial element in the movies’ success.

Nerd Dating

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