Women in Film Blogathon

The film industry has a notorious reputation for being very masculine in nature. Many genres are notoriously male-dominated and I've written several articles dedicated to criticizing the lack of women in specific areas. We live in an age where we should know better, and I happen to have come to know several female bloggers with similar interests in film to my own (Katy Rochelle, Brittani Burnham, Fritzi Kramer, Kristina Dijan, Sati, and Mette being good examples). In fact at this point I might even know more female bloggers than male ones.

While running of my Favorite Movie Scenes event I got to thinking that this would also be a great subject for a blogathon. With this one, the intention is to draw attention to some of the good, strong, female characters we do have in the movies.

Naturally to keep things orderly I have to come up with some rules:

1. The female character in question should have qualities that make her strong. That doesn't necessarily mean better than the guys, just well-written; we're trying to promote equality here, not reverse misogyny.
2. Unlike my previous blogathon, I'm going to be a bit stricter here and say that each entry should only focus on one character. However, if you like you can write multiple entries examining different characters.
3. If you can, do try to find less obvious choices. There are a few that I can expect are likely to get picked: Ellen Ripley, Sarah Connor, etc. If you decide to write about any the "obvious" choices, I encourage you to at least try and find something new to say about them.
4. You are allowed to pick characters from any film from genre or time period you like.

One area I would suggest exploring if you like would be if you can find well-rounded female characters in areas that are known to be male-dominated. There are certain genres known for this such as war movies, science fiction (though it's gotten a little better about this more recently), and westerns. That said, there is nothing wrong with pulling out a character from a romantic comedy or melodrama if you think they are good enough. If by some chance you actually manage to find a movie that depicts a strong, well-rounded and competent woman firefighter you will have my everlasting respect.

You also are not limited to the present day, it is possible to go further back and still find well-written female characters (I've previously written about Howard Hawks, a studio-era director whose films often had surprisingly progressive images of women). 

As for how to submit your entries, there are a few ways you can do so. The most straight forward method would be to simply post a link in the comments, but you can also send it through my twitter feed or by e-mail if you want. I'll make sure to post each submitted entry here so you can find them easily.

Since I'm currently running this at the same time as a separate blogathon (and I've had ideas for another one), I'm going to set the deadline for this one much later, since I don't want anyone to feel they have to rush to get their entries in. This time I'm going to set the deadline for July 31.

Submissions:

Hitchcock's World- Tauriel

Hitchcock's World- Maya

Radiator Heaven- Ruby Lee Gissing

Dell on Movies - Troy Carmichael

Flick Chicks- Mary Poppins

Flick Chicks- Marge Gunderson

The Oscars Project- Jenny Mellor

Let's Go to the Movies- Hermione Granger

Girl Meets Cinema: Elizabeth Swann

Rambling Film: Anna

Hitchcock's World: Galadriel

Feeling Fuzzier: Mulan

Cinematic Corner: Elizabeth Shaw