It’s a cinematic staple: villain and hero grapple during a fight, rolling about, while the damsel stands there, hands to cheeks, shrieking, terrified, and the entire viewing audience mutters some variant of, “Geeze, girl, pick up a tire iron and hit the bad guy!” But no - they can only gasp and watch in horror.
Whose performances best exemplify the helpless female?
I always thought the actress that played Sgt. Murtagh’s daughter in the first “Lethal Weapon” was a good example of this. She has a chance to drive the limo away, but wastes precious seconds in horrified shrieking.
To answer the OP’s question, I’d say the worst of the lot has to be “Spider Island,” a film that was deliciously sent up by the MST3K gang. It’s about a dozen or so chorus dancers on a trip to Hong Kong whose plane crashes on a mysterious island full of giant spiders. All but one or two of them do nothing but scream when danger presents itself. In scene after scene, slow-movig puppet spiders need only show themselves to women whose only possible response is screaming, despite the fact that they are almost all profesisonal dancers and hence in peak physical condition. Running away? Not an option for them, they’re just too helpless.
Jamie Lee Curtis in True Lies. She later redeams herself–albeit in Keystone Cops fashion–with a MAC-10.
My favorite counter-example to this might be the Kathleen Turner in the otherwise badly-aged Romancing The Stone; while Michael Douglas is busy tussling with an allegator in trying to retrieve the eponymous stone, Turner takes on the villian single handedly, and by the time Douglas shows up to “save the day” she’s finished him off. The Steven Seagal film Under Siege has some fun with this convention as well; that, and the over-the-top double teaming of the Gary Busey and Tommy Lee Jones almost offsets the fact that Seagal stars in the film.
Personally, I prefer movies where the “damsel in distress” can hold her own; witness the otherwise excorable Tomorrow Never Dies, Supercop, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (can you tell I have a Michelle Yeoh infatuation), and Lethal Weapon 3, in which Renee Russo’s character was the only redeaming quality (even though she does end up a helpless distressed damsel).
Don’t you know that women lack the fight or flight response and once you crash land on an island all you can do is giggle and writh? Its’ empirically proven.
How about the Archetype: **Pearl White ** as Pauline in the Perils of Pauline Silent Film?
I always thought **Fay Wray ** in King Kong was an excellent Damsel in Distress.
Was anybody ever more famous for screaming?
She made several “B” Thrillers also where she was the Damsel in Distress.
I saw the Original “Wax Museum” with her in it once and it was pretty good.
I hate that about anime. Even if a female character is able to kick the average joe’s ass, the male characters are usually on such a higher level of skill that all she can do is play damsel in distress. Even shows that are more geared towards female audiences occasionally feature the protagonist shrieking in helpless terror. (Heck, Sailor Moon even parodied this with having it be one of Usagi’s powers.)
Lots of video games are guilty of this, too, but the ones that are among the least logical have got to be the Final Fantasy series, where the females can call forth enough firepower to level small cities but still need to be rescued by the hero at some point in the game. (Rinoa, I’m looking at you.)
Plus, unlike your typical DID who could do something if she had an ounce of common sense, Anne Darrow is pretty much at the mercy of a thirty-ton gorilla.
The best screamer who ever appeared on film, Ola Ray. All she did was scream (and HOW she screamed) and run INTO a rotting old house.
I also found, while image googling for a photo, that she was quite willing to doff clothing if the role called for it. And even if it didn’t, apparently…
Not a bad infatuation to have. And since you mentioned her, if I recall correctly, Jackie Chan had to be talked into co-starring with her in Police Story III (released in the US as Supercop) because he doesn’t think women should fight. See Maggie Cheung in the Police Story movies.
Have you seen any of Yeoh’s other Hong Kong vehicles? Project S, Wing Chun, Tai Chi Master, etc? The last is probably the best film, in which she co-stars with Jet Li, but she gets sidelined for the final battle, unfortunately. Yes Madam is also a lot of fun, if extremely dated and cheesy.
I think Kate Capshaw’s character, Willie Scott, in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is also worthy of mention. She’s the weakest of Indy’s leading ladies.
I loathe the helpless female stereotype; it’s the sort of thing that makes me shout at the TV. The main reason For Your Eyes Only is my favourite Bond movie is that Melina Havelock saves Bond’s life in their first encounter, right after she’d killed the asassin who murdered her parents.
I can’t recall if she was “helpless” or not, but Nicole Kidman’s run as teh dumb blonde nuclear scientist in The Peacemaker just astounded me. I mean willingness to take off your shirt in a movie is one thing, but personally it felt like it was one of the greatest bits of female actress whoring I had ever witnessed.
You’re talking about the same series of games where you can destroy the planet and still have to save it from the flaming meteor afterwards.
As for anime, DBZ and Ranma 1/2 really bug me for this–all the really powerful characters are guys. Videl, Chi-Chi, Akane and Shampoo are all quite strong in their own right, but are rather out-classed by the male characters.
