The top three strong women leads who aren’t Elle Woods

Legally Blonde is a decent enough film, and I appreciate the effort of the filmmakers to create a stereotype-defying and intelligent female lead. However, the fact remains that Woods only gets into law school because the admissions officer fancies her, and her big show of intelligence at the end of the film has nothing to do with any knowledge of complex law. I’ll take any of these badasses over Ms. Woods:

Ripley - Alien

Academics are absolutely obsessed with Ridley Scott’s 1979 classic. Full books have been written about its themes, which range from the fears of modern society, to Marxism, to representations of pregnancy (phallic imagery guys, phallic imagery everywhere). Sigourney Weaver plays Ripley who the author Judith Newton perfectly says ‘appropriates qualities traditionally identified with male, but not masculinist, heroes.’

Éowyn – Lord of the Rings

The nature of Tolkien’s insanely intricate world of Middle Earth makes my argument here rather difficult. Fortunately I only need one quote to make my case. During the Battle of Pelennor Fields, Éowyn confronts the Witch King of Angmar who boasts “You fool! No man can kill me! Die now.” Éowyn retorts, “I am no man.”, and deals a killing blow. Ouch.

Chihiro – Spirited Away

The Bechdel test describes whether a film contains at least two named women who talk to each other about something other than a man. Despite a worrying number of films today failing this test I cannot think of a single Miyazaki film which could be included amongst them: Chihiro is only one of his many inspiring and maturely-written female characters. She may not be perfect, but her realism makes her relatable and wonderful.