Antiheroes are everywhere, but only anti-heroines become pirate queens and burn down prom.
The world has been having a love affair with the anti-hero for years. It’s easy to see why – they’re complicated, they’re compelling, and…oddly attractive? For whatever reason, we can’t get enough of them. But what about the anti-heroine – where’s she been all this time?
The roles that women are granted in film is a long-running, ongoing debate. While it’s true that their roles are getting more varied (just take a look at the women of Marvel), all too often woman in film is still just the love interest or the mother, the damsel in distress or little more than a scantily-clad, artfully posed background prop. It’s far rarer to see interestingly flawed women on the screen. But they’re out there. Here’s ten of them.
10. Ravenna – Snow White and the Huntsman (2012)
She’s the evil queen, right? Ravenna comes close to being more of a caricature of a villain; after all, she wants to cut out her step-daughter’s heart, and it doesn’t get much more evil than that. The Snow White and the Huntsman imagining of the tale in particular, though, offers us more of an insight – Ravenna is a queen caught up with what the patriarchy demands a woman be: forever beautiful and forever young. What girl can’t relate to being bombarded with that message day in and day out? It’s just that we don’t all become impeccably dressed but terrifyingly murderous in our quest to have it all.
Featured image: Universal
Inset image: Universal Pictures
