Old Women Kick Ass: thoughts on growing old with Sarah Connor

I waited 28 years to see this moment:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It hit me with the sort of power this scene had in 1991:

via GIPHY

I didn’t even really know I was waiting that whole time, of course, because I didn’t even know it could be possible (especially after T3 ). But I was. I knew it after months of hearing about James Cameron talking another movie and my strong belief that it would be without Linda Hamilton’s Sarah Connor….and then, boom, they announced she was coming back!

Maybe the inclusion of Sarah Connor’s entry would have lost power once I saw the movie, due to being included in the trailers. It really didn’t. Then again, neither have those pull ups in over 28 years. I have now seen Terminator: Dark Fate three times, I hope to get to a theater again a few more times before it finishes up. I will, of course, also be adding the DVD to my regular gym line up (which is now mostly the first two Terminators, but sometimes I throw on the first two Aliens, sometimes Mad Max: Fury Road, and then there are some others, but mostly Terminator).  I’ll likely do a full and spoilery review eventually, but right now this is more a reflective journey piece although I’ll discuss the movie somewhat and towards the end some spoilers about Sarah Connor will be touched upon.

I was 29, the same age Sarah was in Terminator 2: Judgment Day according to Dr. Silberman, when T2 came out  Of course the movie taking place in 1994 or 1995 (I’m not going into the issues of the conflicting information we’re given on that, just go with what you prefer) while it was released in 1991 means I am technically a few years older than Sarah. On the other hand, Linda Hamilton was 34 at the time of filming (October 1990 through March 1991) and the release in July. So a few years here or there, both actress and character are my contemporaries. This also means that in one year half my life will have been spent with my feelings of connection to (okay, okay… being obsessed with) the character of Sarah Connor.

Hamilton and Carrie Fisher are really my most contemporary female action/sci-fi actresses I’m a fan of, but I discovered Linda late, when she discovered Sarah’s bad ass self, besides, I somehow missed The Terminator when it first came out and only saw it shortly before going to T2. Sigourney Weaver is just enough older to not feel quite so connected although I loved Alien and Aliens. Jamie Lee Curtis is totally my favorite in the horror genre and is even closer in age, but was the quintessential Final Girl in the original Halloween, so while I might have identified somewhat with Laurie Strode’s shy bookworm nerdiness, she wasn’t exactly a role model type back then. My childhood heroes were, of course, much older, not to mention sparse and more problematic. I can think of no others who really are near my age. It was like one day I had much older role models I wanted to be like (but probably butcher), then Sarah and BOOM! I was mom-age watching “kids” getting all the action. When Buffy the Vampire Slayer (the series, the movie was amusing but not a huge blip) came out only a few years after T2, I was closer in age to Kristine Sutherland’s Joyce than Buffy and her gang. Now, I’m even older than the parents on the CW’s Arrowverse shows, which has given me the characters I longed for as a teen, especially with Sara Lance in Legends of Tomorrow as well as Batwoman. (Although I admit to great disappointment that Alex Kingston’s Dinah Lance was not revealed as the original Black Canary, as in the books and would have given me a heroic peer, but rather replaced with the newly created Sara being first…they could have done both!!!. As it is, Kingston is the closet to my age of any of the other parents on these shows *sigh*)

I’ve I talked some about what it meant to me and how significant the timing was to discover this character in 1991 at a time when I was really working to figure out a Celtic Reconstrucionist Pagan warrior path for myself. Not just as fitness motivation, but martial arts as well. And simply not being a damn by-stander, so while our “activism” might be different on practical levels, there was a sense of “What would Sarah Connor do?” that kept me going at times and still does. Eventually, when I returned to the country, I also took up prepping and firearms training, all with Sarah on my mind.  Of course, I also liked the way she dressed, being partial to all black and lots of pockets myself. However, I like more accessories (Celtic-styled, of course).

When Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines came out just over a decade later, it was at first disappointing to learn that Sarah Connor was killed off before the movie starts. But it turned out to be so badly written that it was really more of a relief, especially in a way that if anyone felt they had to acknowledge the film as canon it could be that she faked it. Far better than the other options, like killing her off on screen either subjecting Hamilton to being in it or recasting her as they had John Connor. The Sarah Connor Charm School could maintain its own fanon, for us Sarah lived on. All was good. So far….

But Sarah Connor essentially got trapped in that 30ish stage as characters tend to do. In my 30s and early 40s, the issue of age was still peripheral but it was starting to show, after all I note above the realization I was closer to “mom” age than hero age already. Then when That TV Show came around my issues weren’t just that it was miscast and horribly written, but also that having them jump forward in time “Sarah” was kept 30ish when she, like I, would have been early middle aged. Of course, a middle aged woman could not be the title character of an action-scifi tv show, now could she? Seems that is still impossible.

So Sarah’s middle age was something of a mystery, although we got to see Linda in other roles and I even got to meet her Linda!!!!!in 2010. I was then two years shy of 50 years-old and with my first reading glasses, went to Chicago ComicCon to meet Linda Hamilton, who was then 54. And I remember feeling a bit “connected” as I noted readers on the table top of every woman (and Michael Biehn) I was there to see (with the exception of Kristanna Loken, the token “kid” on my list of the actors I met at the con). Of course, Linda isn’t Sarah, Sarah might have been taking to aging differently.

But there were some hints. Just before that con it was announced that Linda would be playing Chuck‘s mother. A mom-of-an-adult role, but in this case another kick ass mom far more relatable for me than, say BtVS‘s Joyce. And included homage such as “come with me if you want to live” and a shot of “Mary Elizabeth Bartowski” in lock-up doing chin-ups on an overturned bed seen on a monitor. The role was followed by her “mom” appearances in Defiance, which gave her a chance to explore struggles with bipolar disorder as it would be for someone in a post apocalyptic world where treatment was limited, and her “mentor-but-not-bio-mom” Lost Girl role.

Acacia in Lost Girl is my favorite of the three roles, despite my conflicted feelings over this series, which certainly had strong women, lesbian and bisexual characters but also had an annoying mixture of actual Gaelic cultural concepts (including faoladh, a huge part of my ongoing studies) mixed with nonsense (including how faoladh was misrepresented, never mind the horrid misrepresentation of my patron Goddess as an evil “Fae” title).  Acacia had a style that was a bit more in keeping with my own than Sarah Connor’s, actually. I mean, I might often wear the basics of Sarah Connor’s T2 look, but I have a Gaelic warrior’s love of adornment as well. So I add a lot of jewelry not to mention tattoos (which you just figure Acacia has hidden under her leather). I do, on occasion, go heavy on eyeliner like Acacia, too. And I have a much loved 30+ year-old leather, more basic style than Acacia’s but decked out in tartan and chain mail. Yeah, I love Acacia…just wish Linda played such a character on a less problematic (for a folklore purist like me) show. But, none of these three were Sarah, exactly. Although clearly all shared different elements.

In the middle of this, of course, was another new “Sarah Connor” in the retconned disaster Genisys, making the character even younger as she starts her time-traveling at 18 (although Emilia Clarke was 29 or there about, as Hamilton had been in T1).  (and also extremely horrible writing). Thankfully, this was extremely easy to ignore, even after I finally saw it as it was on a streaming service I already had when it landed there.

With Linda Hamilton appearing in the roles above, and Genisys not even a factor, it wasn’t hard to picture how a middle aged Sarah Connor might be like. It wasn’t the same as having that character right in front of us, though. It wasn’t getting to see her. It still left us with Sarah at 30something, something we could never aspire to be again. There have been few middle aged female action characters until recently, how could there be many when there are still few female action characters of any age or other designation; and even then some are supposedly “older” they’re still often only in their 40s and still often don’t survive long in the movie (I’m looking at you Wonder Woman).

The youthful focus, when we get strong women at all, isn’t surprising. We live in a youth obsessed culture, especially when it comes to women. There isn’t a minute that women living in this society don’t get the message that we’re only “worthy” when we are young and even then only if we are thin enough, pretty enough, “girly enough,” etc. Hollywood gets blamed, but that’s really a reflection, although one that teaches us “our place” and teaches cis het men where to put us. No matter a woman’s “worth” when young, we lose it as we age; first we are supposed to be mothers, then when too old for that we’re supposed to just disappear. Unless we try to hide it, fight it, pretend to be younger, but then we are mocked for that, too. And at some point we either become invisible or people get really cranky to see we’re still around. The ageist attacks on Linda Hamilton’s returning as Sarah Connor show this explicitly.

When you have been wanting representation of women fighters and the industry still falls short, it becomes even more aggravating when you realize that you’ve aged out of the small sampling. You’ve become invisible. You’re seen as decrepit, witj even the return of Linda as Sarah bringing up some seriously problematic misinformation about aging and fitness (I will likely be doing a piece on this, I have been fairly quiet on it but as a middle aged fitness professional with specialty certification in senior fitness, I have thoughts). Oh, yes, there has been some improvement which Dark Fate is part of, but there’s a long way to go to match the number of male action heroes we see of any age, but even more so for over 50.

There is, of course, Helen Mirren in RED, always to be brought up by those who wish to prove that somehow that one character is enough to balance the many older male stars/characters and we should just shut up about now. I love Mirren and I found her character fun, but completely token, and doesn’t even make up for there being three older men on the team. Not only the only woman in the “band” but “the nice little old lady who happens to be an assassin” is essentially the entire character Mirren’s given to work with. The role and the fact it’s trotted out anytime the subject comes up truly does nothing but scream the absence of strong older women in action roles.

We did have the Vuvalini of the Many Mothers in Mad Max: Fury Road and some even survived to the end. Fury Road is really the fist action movie where women were well represented, rather than token. Charlize Theron’s Imperator Furiosa is easy to recognize as A Strong Female Character but, along with the Vuvalini, the brides Furiosa is helping escape and the older woman who helped them all show their own strength and skills. While the old women were not central, they were vital, and in a movie with so many strong women, they don’t feel as token. Still, not central.

The return of General Leia in the new Star Wars trilogy was a great blessing, although her character was, again, vital but not centered. Yet she served as a wonderful backbone for the Carrie Fisher as General Leia centering of Daisy Ridley’s Rey and then also Kelly Marie Tran’s Rose; a vital improvement from the “only woman in the entire universe” trope that unfortunately marked Leia’s original appearances way back when. I think we all suspected that Leia was meant to be central in the upcoming The Rise of Skywalker, as Han had been in The Force Awakens and Luke in The Last Jedi, if her tragic real-life death had not gotten in the way. This has been confirmed, but I’m not linking because, tbh, I can’t even bear to click on the links themselves it’s so heartbreaking. We have yet to know how much they were able to make her part of with left over footage. Of course, the character would have likely died in this final one by the end, anyway, the generational nature of the trilogy of trilogies is obvious, even if upsetting to many fans. But, personally, I’d much rather have a dead Leia in the franchise and a live Carrie Fisher in the world. We’ll never see quite the movie that might have been planned and that we might have hoped for.

Who knew it would be bookish nerd Laurie Strode who would bring an ass kicking middle-aged woman front and center ? In fact, who knew Laurie Strode in middle age would be conceived as very much the paranoid, prepping, obsessively trained sort of character that Sarah Connor was. That isn’t to say she was an actual copy, she was totally Laurie Strode,Jame Lee Curtis and Judy Greer -Halloween 2018 not Sarah Connor; she came to this place from and with her own trauma. Jamie Lee Curtis pulled off this off-screen arch beautifully, leading the next two generations of Strode women into the fight for their lives that she always knew would eventually come. Oh, and SPOILER! (but the cat’s kind of out of the bag now …and I’m so there for this too!) She survived. Because old women do not need to die to save the next generation of women warriors! 

When Halloween (2018) was announced in Sept. 2017, I still believed that there would be no return for Linda Hamilton’s Sarah Connor and was perhaps even more annoyed. After seeing T2 3D, I was sure it was the one and only time I’d see Linda in the role in 3D, the last time I’d see her Sarah in a theater. I was never so happy to be wrong when just four days after hearing about Curtis’s Halloween return, Cameron announced Linda was returning as Sarah Connor. Along with a great statement that older badass women are not represented enough in action movies. Followed by the rather ominous note about “passing the baton.”

There is an important factor, of course, in having women of different ages as we do see in the last Skywalker trilogy, Halloween now and Dark Fate. It gives women and girls of all ages someone to reflect themselves. Diversity is still an overall issue (Halloween offers the least diversity, with the three generations being one white family). We’re not there yet, there’s work. That certain people are super mad about it is all the more sign how much we need to break the white cis het male default. That default, itself, no longer hinges on youth as much as it did with so many favorites still in action, including Arnold Schwarzenegger. But Hollywood still loves pairing older male stars with younger female costars, or younger looking.

Sarah Connor in Terminator Dark Fate shooting Linda Hamilton’s Sarah Connor is not young looking. Given that she’s probably younger than Hamilton (movie is set in 2020, see my mention above about their age difference) but looks older, she totally looks like someone who has faced trauma, has probably not really slept in over two decades and doesn’t give two shits about skin care or hair dye. She does look rough, and she should look rough. And seeing unapologetic aging in a woman who can kick ass is powerful for those of us who also show our age, yet still know that we have ass kicking potential.

Because we do. Sometimes, despite maybe a few more aches and pains (but, some of us have had them all our lives, anyway) and age related wear and tear (although, oddly, the issue I currently have interfering with my training and activity is associated with far younger folk, DeQuervain’s is also known as “New Mother’s Thumb” and more recently “Gamer’s Thumb” …in my case it might be “writer with a sticky space bar on her computer thumb”) mostly we don’t all feel all that different than we did decades ago.  Especially given that not many of us who were very active in our youth were injury free then. I was always having to take breaks or work around something, it’s just that now some of those things might be “age related.” Me next to Sarah Terminator: Dark Fate standee at AMC

Perhaps because of some of the physical stuff as well as life shit that got in the way, I have to say that I very much needed to see Sarah Connor’s return right now. I needed to see her having gone through (and still in) hell at a time when I’m feeling that. I needed to see her with gray hair and lines in her face, because …me too. I also needed to see a Sarah Connor who kicked ass as only she can. And at the side of another woman who can kick ass in a different way; not because the other woman, Mackenzie Davis’s Grace, is younger, but because she’s got augmentation that Sarah doesn’t. I needed to see each have strengths and weaknesses, that sometimes balanced each other. Grace is stronger and faster, but not so good on the long haul, while for Sarah the long haul is really what she knows.

This movie is part of a yet small trend of ending the single token female character, of women working together, of different aged women working together. This trend needs to grow. Perhaps it won’t in the Terminator series, for the low box office might have now ended it for good. Or, horribly after we waited so long for this, yet another fucking reboot which might appease those boys this upset so much. But I am glad we got a Terminator that was part of this trend, because I needed Sarah, who started as Final Girl and grew as Only One Woman Allowed, to be part of it.

It certainly plays into the mission of The Sarah Connor Charm School. It was our movie. Finally. And maybe when we needed it most.

If you haven’t seen it, get your ass into a theater seat before it’s too late!

Final Girl or Action Hero: Will This Finally Be an Actual Female-led, Feminist Terminator Movie?

First official photo of  Natalia Reyes as “Dani Ramos,” Mackenzie Davis as “Grace” and Linda Hamilton as “Sarah Connor” in Terminator 2019

So, as a feminist running a physical feminist fan site (that would be the one you are on right now) for Linda Hamilton’s Sarah Connor, I have to break this to you and often to myself:
The Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgment Day are not actually feminist movies.  They are not really female led, either. Yeah, it sucks. I truly wish I could tell you differently, but I’ve been dealing with this fact for years. Those of you where have been reading recently probably have picked up on this with some of my recent posts.

But, but Sarah Connor is the lead, right? Well, only kind of.

The title character is, obviously, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Terminator. It is pretty standard for monster movie titles to be or to allude to the monster, which was the case of The Terminator which was a Final Girl horror piece with a twist a the end.  Sarah doesn’t breath a sigh of relief that it’s all over after she crushes the monster, Sarah and Maxwhile the audience knows better, she heads off to prepare for the fact it’s just starting. She’s also pregnant because the movie also broke the usual virginal requirement for Final Girls. Final Girls are only kind of the lead character, she does win, after all, but really the monster is the star. The Final Girls can even change in each movie.

Schwarzenegger’s Terminator is again the title character, now a franchise name, in Terminator 2, this time as the hero. It’s, of course, handy that it as the T1000 is also a Terminator, the monster still gets in on the title (this, of course, means there was a female title character in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, but as awesome a person and actress as Kristanna Loken is, there was no saving that movie). While Sarah is shown as tough and capable and, for many of us, felt like the lead, this time she doesn’t even kill the monster in the end like a Final Girl. She comes close, but is short that last shell that might have driven the T1000 over the edge and into the molten steal It is the Terminator who has to take the final shot. She does then get to kill this reprogrammed ally, but it’s somehow not the same as watching her crush the monster that tried to kill her and did killed everyone she loved, “you’re terminated, fucker!” And now that she is not a Final Girl, being the only fully developed female character in the movie, she sadly fits in the One of the Boys mode far too much.

While some of us, of all genders, where hooked by the transformation of Sarah Connor, a lot of the male audience was focused on the Schwarzenegger’s Terminator, whether it was  the monster of the first or the hero of the second. Some seem to, disturbingly but not surprisingly, identify more with the monster. This demographic was where Cameron likely saw the money coming from, the myth of the young white male target audience that is even harder to kill than a Terminator (although recent box office successes of Wonder Woman and Black Panther are giving some hope). It was certainly where merchandisers saw their money coming from. While there were multiple, many unrelated to the movie in any way, Terminator figures as well as a John Connor one, made by Kenner between 1991 and 1997 there was never a Sarah Connor figure. We did not get a Sarah Connor figure from T2 until McFarlane’s Movie Maniacs 5 came out with three variants 13 years after the movie. Surprise, they did well enough that several other figures have been made since from the truly horrible Sideshow one in 2007 to the outstanding Hot Toys 2009 and N.E.C.A. 2015 figures.

Hot Toys Sarah Connor, Dryad Designs Morrígan

When I’m not writing about pop culture “strong women” or fitness, I research and write about warriors and gender issues in Old Irish literature and culture. My educational background is in Celtic and women’s studies and it’s been something I have continued to research seriously for over 30 years now. This may seem like an aside, but it definitely connects for me as there are layers of similarity in studying women warriors in both modern media and Old Irish literature. One big one how there are few women warriors in either early Irish or modern stories, yet many, including many feminists, declare that those few mean that women are so well represented that we should just shut the fuck up about it now.

Which, of course, I’m not. Because counting off two, three or a dozen “strong female characters” actually does more to demonstrate that there actually are not that many compared to “strong male characters” which are, of course, usually just called “characters” because male is seen as the default and physical strength is something considered normal for men but exceptional for women. You can’t make similar lists of all the “strong male characters” in either the Irish literature or modern movies and television so easily, there are just too many. Instead people will list their favorites or the best know. And also ignore all the dozens of supporting characters that are male and in roles indicating strength, while even in the background there are few such women. If we need further reminding of the issue, we just need to see how white cis-het men get so defensive about being “erased” when there are “too many” characters (or writers or directors…) who are not white cis-het men. That’s because there are some who truly believe that that white cis-het maleness is the Default Human and everyone else is Other, so they must outnumber everyone all the time.  One woman (or PoC or LGBTQ+ person) is “equality,” two is “really pushing it,” more than that is “Feminazi SJWs* Ruining My Childhood!” Even though, you know, the world doesn’t work that way, so why should fiction? And if your world really does work that way, you have created a safe little bubble for yourself haven’t you? Guess what? That means that both your childhood and your current bubble need ruining. Time to join the real and very diverse world.

The other reason not to step back is that we’re usually having to find these characters in works that are non-feminist, even misogynist, and even when not that heavily so were created by men and not from women’s points of view. This is extremely obvious in the Old Irish literature, which we have not only written down by male clerics but most of the translations we currently have were done by men during the Victorian era. The point of view we get these stories from is very male and often hostile towards women. Which, oddly, is part of the reason why the fantasy of women warriors and women’s “strange” equality in early Irish culture is still believed by many, despite the evidence that women were not equal and any living female warriors wold have been outside the culture which is actually the very focus of what I write about on that subject. “If men wrote about them it must be they existed.” Except that it doesn’t work that way, either, and the actual presentation of female warriors in these texts is actually very negative. They are usually the enemies of the hero, sometimes monstrous. If positive, they are veiled as Otherworldly, Outsiders, and serve the hero of the story as teachers who are only warriors to pass the skills on and sometimes sacrifice themselves for his future. Well, kind of like some view Sarah’s role with John and maybe Dani now, which at least is a positive change regarding the gender of the student but it’s making some of us really worried about the possibility of that sacrifice aspect. (blatant self-promotion, this is all total simplification, if anyone is interested in that sort of thing you can visit  Scáth na Feannóige)

Yet, while the viewpoint, the lens, that male writers might have see these female characters in was often down right misogynist, some of those women seem heroic to women today. In feminist literary studies there is the concept of looking at how different readers/listeners/viewers of a story see the story through different lenses, only some sharing the same point of view with the writers. Irish literature, among other forms, is being studied through this theory. Women, like Queen Medb of Connacht may have been written in a bad light, but women today and possibly women of early Ireland, often feel empowered by the story of her “unwomanly” ambitions and actions. (for those interested this is my review of what I consider to be the most thorough study of Medb’s story using this theory. Several of my papers on my site linked above as well as the blog linked here examine others)

Whether we are discussing ancient tales or modern movies, the story itself does not have to be written as feminist for us to find feminist messages. James Cameron did not create Sarah Connor as a feminist icon, that is clear in where the movie falls short. Like Medb is now made a feminist icon by feminists own vision of her, feminists, including Linda Hamilton through her amazing performance, made Sarah Connor a feminist icon. That’s our lens, we don’t need to pretend Cameron had the same one.

Today, men still tell most of the stories about women. It’s 2018 and it’s just now that we are really seeing an effort in film and television to even the playing field for women, people of color and LGBTQ+ folk. Oh, just as with characters in movies and literature, yes, we can name women who have held power in Hollywood, including Gale Anne Hurd who played such a vital role in bringing The Terminator to us both as writer and producer, and doing the leg work to sell it, to begin with.  But white cis-het men still control things. Some of these men have worked to uplift women, POC and LGBTQ+ colleagues by consciously hiring and centering their voices. Others, as we have seen, continue to treat women directors and writers as if they are mythical, as satirized here. The San Diego Comic-Con had a panel of female filmmakers discussing  the very real issues of working in Hollywood today.  Some women who have made progress are definitely lifting other women up behind the camera, like Marvel’s Jessica Jones show runner Melissa Rosenberg hiring only female directors for season 2 and again for season 3, which will include the star Krysten Ritter’s directorial debut.

We are now seeing more female writers and directors in action movies, especially comic book based ones which is coming up as we’re finally getting female-led comic book based movies at all.  Wonder Woman, which, remember, Cameron infamously attacked as “not really feminist,” was initially written by men, but put in the talented directorial hands of Patty Jenkins who co-wrote Wonder Woman 1984.  The upcoming Captain Marvel movie is directed by Anna Boden with Ryan Fleck, both are co-writers along with Geneva Robertson-Dworet (who also co-wrote Tomb Raider), Nicole Perlman, Liz Flahive, Meg LeFauve and Carly Mensch. The treatment for Black Widow was written by Nicole Perlman and it will be directed by Cate Shortland.

Hurd actually co-wrote The Terminator script, as well as producing the first two films. She has been given “characters by” writing credit on Terminator 3, Genisys, The Sarah Connor Chronicles and some of the video games. We’ll see if she gets them with the new movie or not. She should  William Wisher is the only other writer credited on Terminator 2, as well as having writing credit on the first one with Cameron and Hurd.  But for Cameron’s return to the franchise, he and co-producer David Ellison hired a roomful of writers. All men. And he hired another man to direct. While attacking Jenkin’s Wonder Woman as not as “feminist as T2,” Cameron somehow forgot to include any actual female presence anywhere behind the camera of his supposedly feminist new movie.

I’m not going to say that men can’t write and direct Strong Female Characters or even express feminist ideals. And Linda Hamilton’s Sarah Connor is a strong character, in both the first movie when she’s thrown into a situation she has no preparation for (and was co-written by a woman) and the second where she is more obviously the epitome of the trope. But she is alone as a major female presence in T2.

Since then some men have clearly learned that the Strong Female Character doesn’t have to be One of the Boys and exist only in the company of men. Notable cases in recent times are, of course, Mad Max: Fury Road, Star Wars: The Last Jedi and Black Panther, all were written and directed by men (with women among the production staff, at least), but all featured multiple, diverse (including older) strong female characters that spoke to and worked with each other. Of course, all were were both subject to toxic “fan” attacks over this aspect (as well as over race in Black Panther, which also was an issue they had with TLJ). Both Kelly Marie Tran and Daisy Ridley of of TLJ were driven off Instagram due to these “fans'” harassment. A group of such “fans” claimed responsibility for that attack had also attempted to undermine the success of Black Panther and failed spectacularly.

These are the movies I had thought we had coming back in the 1990s, strong, capable and, yes, muscular, women following in Sarah Connor’s footsteps. But more of them in any given movie or show. And diversity in strengths, characters, sexuality, race, size, appearance.  Ah…how naive I was.  We are still only barely getting this now, despite the examples noted above, despite how upset so many misogynists are. The reality is that in all movies, but especially action, women are still not equally represented, no where close.

Terminator 2 should have been a game changer, Linda’s portrayal of Sarah certainly did push boundaries  in the hearts and minds of many women. Her physicality, her toughness, her organization, her prepping, even her psychotic break from knowing the truth and being gaslighted by…everyone…was stupendous for a female character.  But it didn’t really change the game in movies to the extent it could have. This is likely because for all her strength, Sarah was alone, therefore such a breakthrough was not even considered by filmmakers at the time.  And she was presented as primarily the future hero’s mother for all her muscle and skill, with no alternative non-maternal fighting women involved for balance as she was the only fully realized female character in the entire film. Add the cringey faux feminist rant that is shut down by her son and that she needs rescuing in the end, Sarah is a “strong female character” that doesn’t challenge fragile masculinity all that much. Therefore any progress stopped there, where we see similar characters, well, it’s usually clear that she’s One of the Boys.

If we needed more evidence that T2 wasn’t female-led nor feminist, it’s the fanboys who are right now crying over the inclusion of two more female characters and the release of a photo of the three as the first official photo, many who are claiming “T2 was real feminism, this is fake feminism.  Because 1) they think they have the right to proclaim what is or isn’t feminism and 2) they think that equality means that men outnumber women at least 3-1. I will note that it’s not just men, there are women out there who even call themselves “feminists” who gladly support this delusion and join in on the attacks. Like the “Sarah alone was real feminism, if there are other strong women for her to work with that fake feminism” I was informed by a guy that he had it on the “creds” of YouTube “feminists” that “SW: A New Hope with Leia alone was real feminism, while four prominent women in TlJ as fake feminism ..and totally erased the men.”  So, yeah, it’s not just men who are the problem, some women gladly attack and we are seeing that with Terminator now as well. But we can look at the actual numbers, to see exactly how feminist ANH was in comparison to all the SW movies through TLJ really were; even TLJ fails at reaching 50% of the dialogue being by women. Yet some very fragile men see that as erasure. Meanwhile, I would love to see such a count on T2 and the upcoming movie.

The toxic misogyny has certainly showing up in the Terminator fandom since this movie was announced, primarily at first in the form of ageism because Linda Hamilton is now 61. Mind you, Arnold Schwarzenegger is 71 which has prompted some ageist remarks, but far fewer than towards Linda. The photos of Mackenzie Davis have been attacked since the beginning, often with misgendering or vile tr*nny attacks. There were murmurings of “this better not be Feminazi SJWs* Ruining My Childhood!” again.  The release of the photo at top, the first official photo for the movie, of course, has verified that’s what it is for this type and the attacks have been standard. Natalia Reyes had mostly been ignored in the English and other non-Spanish speaking media and social media until then. As she looks more conventionally “feminine” at this point, may save her from some attack. It does make me kind of glad that Hamilton does not do social media (seriously, folks, none of those profiles or pages are her or official, most are straight forward, but at least one person has accounts everywhere claiming to be her, they are not) and Davis does not seem to either. Otherwise, they might end up driven off by the shit like Ridley and Tran were.

But in a way, I’m taking this hysterical vitriol as a good sign. Change is coming, slower than some of us might like, but the tantrums over it make it clear that it’s happening. So it makes me hopeful that despite the lack of women behind the scenes, with three strong actresses playing strong roles, Terminator 2019 might just take major steps towards being an actual feminist movie….as defined by a middle aged feminist with a background in women’s studies who doesn’t really give a flying fuck whether actual feminism hurts certain men’s feelings or not. And if it is and does hurt those fragile feelings, all the better. Women, non-binary and non-fragile men spend money too, and again and again it’s being shown we will fill those seats that the misogynists won’t. And given that Mackenzie Davis appears to be at least part machine, given her apparent surgical scars and therefore may qualify as a Terminator, this may have a female title character.

I am hoping that what we are seeing does indicate that the female fans of Sarah Connor are a considered fanbase this time. That we will, indeed be seeing these three characters be well developed and featured. And that THEY DON’T KILL OFF SARAH CONNOR! I also really hope that we get action figures of all three right off the bat!

*Social Justice Warrior being used as a pejorative is one of the most Bizarro World things I have seen in all this mess. But, see, I’m old enough to remember the term being used as a positive descriptive and consider the idea of fighting for social justice being negative one of the fucking stupidest things I have ever seen. Obviously, I am using it ironically to mock those who use it as a slur here.

James Cameron STFU!: Strong Women Do NOT Need Men’s Comparisons

Sarah and Ripley Shushing Cameron
By Axel Medellin –used with permission*

**Spoilers for both the first two Terminator movies and Wonder Woman….just in case you need them ***

James Cameron really needs to stop making feminist fans feel embarrassed to love Sarah Connor!

Because that’s what he’s doing with this tone-deaf attacks on Wonder Woman. Cameron apparently fancies himself to be Ares, as he sees Wonder Woman as his archenemy. Or more likely, he just thinks he’s God’s gift to “strong women” movies and just can’t take any competition, especially from a female director, while he’s apparently veiling for the Most Misogynist Faux-Feminist Male Filmmaker crown, currently worn by Joss Whedon

After that first attack on Wonder Woman in August, when Terminator 2: Judgment Day got a limited run in 3D format, Cameron was schooled by WW director Patty Jenkins. It’s clear he still doesn’t understand, as he double down on his statement a month later and got schooled by Wonder Woman (and Madame President) Lynda Carter. Never mind the absurdity that he is complaining about Wonder Woman being too sexual and an appeal to “….appeal to 18-year-old males or 14-year-old males…..” when he is promoting his future sequels that feature the females of a non-mammalian species as being half-naked with “tits.” Something he himself has said makes no sense but he felt was necessary, and very in keeping with the exploitative sexualization of native women which such White Savior Among Noble Savages trope movies like Avatar are centered on. Because, you know, at least it makes some sense that Diana has breasts, those weren’t just added in for those teen boys (many of whom seem to bitch that they aren’t big or shown enough….because, you know, for a costume based on the iconic strapless bathing suit, it’s pretty much Hoplite armor and there isn’t even any cleavage, yet you still recognize that its WW which was a great compromise and maybe one of the best things to come out this movie in the long run, as DC artist now are running with the idea)

To be honest, while I lost interest in Cameron’s work with Titanic, although my issues started with True Lies, complete with Jamie Lee Curtis’s character forced to do a strip tease, but I was won back by the underrated Strange Days directed by Kathryn Bigelow. But it was Avatar that completely made me lose any real respect for him. The racist, colonial, misogynist stereotypes are so blatant and so wrong that if we want to talk about steps backwards…well, he is the one actually running, blindly backwards. These are not the movies of the 21st century!

While he claims to want “strong female characters” he is making movies for those 14 to 18 year-old boys he thinks a pretty female lead in armor is meant to draw. T2 was really a fluke when it comes to him having female fans. And he’s losing us fast, here, because NEWS FLASH! a lot of female fans who are into T2 because Linda’s Sarah kicked ass and want to be excited for her return also enjoyed Wonder Woman and do not appreciate being told by some man that we are wrong to!

I was never really all that thrilled that he was involved at all with the upcoming Terminator reboot. Yes, I love the first two Terminator movies, but they do fall short of what they could have been and that, I believe, is completely at Cameron’s feet. I am glad he’s not hands on in this, but the problem is that he has instead built a team of all male writers, at least one of whom made a damn mockery of the character of Sarah Connor, a male director and left it to be run by two producers who also made a mockery of Sarah Connor, even though at least one producer is female. So while I’m glad Linda Hamilton is coming back as Sarah, I’d be much happier if it were with Gale Anne Hurd and William Wisher along with some female writers and a female director anxious and able to show that Jenkins success is not a fluke. I am really not hopeful this is going to be a remotely good movie. I hope she’s got an escape clause if she decides it sucks. Because with the team they have and talk of “passing the torch” I’m afraid it’s going to. I will watch it for her, right up until they kill her off.

Cameron’s insistence that he, and only he (and maybe these other men he’s gathered for TReboot) understands “strong women.” But, of course, his  mansplaining (because that is what it is) of “strong women,” only proves he does not understand women, strong or otherwise, fictional or real. A man who does isn’t going to go around telling female fans they are wrong for loving a movie that he just is not able to understand. And he obviously doesn’t.

Wonder Woman 1941
Wonder Woman in the beginning

Cameron doesn’t even seem capable of understanding that Wonder Woman/Diana is a this is a 76 year-old comic book icon that millions of girls and women have idolized all our lives. Some for 76 years even! That it’s a big deal that it took that long for the character to get a title movie or, for that matter, only got featured in a male-led DC movie just a few years ago. When Superman and Batman, the other two big name DC superheroes, have had many movie incarnations. That this movie was called a failure by many comic book movie fanboys long before it came out, on every conceivable social media forum. That we’ve been battling to get women-led comic book movies and told that they will fail, because Catwoman and Elektra, which were badly written crap (but so have been many male-led ones), failed so badly over a decade ago. That it was even under promoted until just before it’s release and yet it smashed records! Highest grossing action film directed by a woman. It is just $1 million shy of 2002 Spider-man for a comic book movie and is the highest grossing comic book origin movie of all time. That means no Batman, no Superman, not even Batman vs. Superman with Wonder Woman thrown in, has done so well.

And it is problematic that in 2017 all of this is newsworthy, is a big deal. It shouldn’t be and Terminator 2 should have led the way to change in the ’90s. But it didn’t. Perhaps in part because it was not a female-led action movie, Sarah Connor who was the protagonist Final Girl in the first, took a back seat in T2 to the story of a boy and his pet Terminator. There are no other strong female characters (“prepper” Jolanda is off hiding unarmed with her kids instead of teaming up with her husband to flank the intruders, which would make far more sense) or even any actually developed female characters at all.  This makes Sarah a Not Like Other Girls/One of the Guys trope (yes, a problem with WW after they leave Themyscira, too) The feminism of T2 is actually shut down by the badly written feminist rant that is, then, shut down by her little boy scolding her! While Sarah finished off the Terminator in The Terminator, she requires a last-minute rescue at the end of T2.

Don’t get me wrong, Sarah Connor’s arch from Final Girl to Warrior was an awesome thing. Obviously! I’ve been obsessing on Linda’s portrayal for 26 years, for crying out loud! But the movie wasn’t perfect and those imperfections make Cameron an utter hypocrite to say a single word about an actual female-led movie. Especially when there are things that are very problematic with Wonder Woman that are not the things he’s noting and things that he hasn’t done a remotely good job with. Like the Not Like Other Girls trope and lack of other, diverse, intersectional female characters after they leave the island.

It’s a big deal for there to be a blockbuster female-led action movie when female-led action movies in 2016 were at 3%, in a year that had a record-breaking, “huge” (sarcasm quotes) 29% of the 100 top grossing films being female-led, 37% over all.  Yeah, today, it’s still a big deal when women lead films at all, let alone action films. But, remember, Cameron did not make T2 female led. So….he has no business opening his mouth on this.

With such a small number of female-led action movies, we already do not have the diversity that male-led ones do.  But Cameron seems to feel that strong women only come in one type, that they should all be Sarah Connor knockoffs. This view is simplistic and one-dimensional, the idea that while male action characters can be, obviously, very varied (unless someone can find me where he said Superman shouldn’t be wearing that sexy, form-fitting costume), strong women must all be exactly alike. And, apparently, totally broken and mothers looking for redemption (he had to turn Ripley, a character he did not create, into a guilt-ridden abandoning mother who finds a second chance with an orphaned child). NEWS FLASH! the mother thing is the least interesting thing about either Sarah or Ripley for some of us.

What is interesting to me about Sarah is that she was a “normal woman” Final Girl who twisted the Final Girl trope at the end of the first movie by heading out to prepare for the future because she knows that the real monster hasn’t even been created yet. Whose arch into Terminator 2 show her as a determined survivalist. Here was a woman who had trained, prepared, organized to prepare her son for a horrible future, and then sacrificed herself in an attempt to keep him from having to face that. I fell in love and identified in many ways, sans the entire mother part, with Linda Hamilton’s Sarah. I thought both Linda and Cameron, as well as co-writer William Wisher and producer Gale Anne Hurd, were utterly awesome. I still have those feelings for Linda, Wisher and Hurd (and it doesn’t hurt that Wisher and Hurd both kindly supplied auction bling to help my chief Terminator Spotter get surgery! Thanks to The Terminator Fans. I am eternally grateful to all three! <3)

That Cameron is so focused on how beautiful Gal Gadot is has a certain creepy quality as he is comparing her to his ex-wife. But it is true that Sarah was not “dolled up.” That her hair got messy, that her clothing was practical from a modern standpoint (unlike the original bathing suit, Diana’s costume in the movie was, as I noted above, totally practical from an ancient Greek standpoint). She showed a lot of skin, though, for all the better to show the muscle (and, yes, I’d have loved to have seen more muscle on Wonder Woman, along with a beauty queen face as is standard in the comic today).

Sarah was also a “real person.” You know, as far as action film characters go. Like, say Kyle Reese. Wonder Woman/Diana is a comic book super-powered superhero, like Superman. Not even like Batman whose only super-power is that he’s rich and dysfunctional. In fact, while Superman is an alien, Diana is a fucking Goddess. Okay, the Goddess part is a recent addition to the character in the comics, but even before she was revealed as a Goddess she had been bestowed with “the strength of Hercules, the wisdom of Athena, the speed of Hermes and the beauty of Aphrodite.” So being Diana's battle-perfect hairbeautiful is a canonical part of the character, although how she was drawn did change with the ideals of beauty at the time. And as either supernatural Amazon or Goddess, if she wants to come out of a battle with perfect silky hair, she can and always did.

Being a supernatural super-powered superhero, her life story is also vastly different from Sarah’s. Sarah is, I think, far easier to relate to having some sort of vague average American upbringing in the original movies. Diana was born to save the world, in the version used in the movie. Actually, Diana is far more like John Connor than Sarah, born to save the world with a sort of “otherwordly” father, but their upbringings with this understanding were different even beyond one being supernatural and the other being Earthly paramilitary survivalist and if I were to compare Sarah with anyone in the movie it would be with Hippolyta. (Something I will probably do and have now done).

Now I am personally more drawn to Sarah’s “realness”…a mortal woman of our time who turned herself into a warrior and survivalist. Because that’s what I have tried to create in myself even before Terminator 2 came out.  Diana was someone I wanted to be back as a child. Hmm, actually at the time she didn’t have superpowers, but had lost them and took up karate, although I also had some older ones. But that doesn’t mean that I can’t enjoy the higher fantasy of Wonder Woman or understand that that might appeal more to other women. Especially with the great, if brief, Amazon training scenes at the beginning.

Bottom line is, many women are fans of both Sarah Connor and Wonder Woman. And Ripley. And The Bride/Beatrix Kiddo. And Furiosa, the Wives and the Vuvalini of the Many Mothers. And General Leia, Rey and Jyn Erso. And others still too few, and sometimes not all that great. And we want more. More Sarah Connor from Linda Hamilton. More Wonder Woman and not just DCEU version. More comic book super-powered female heroes. More down to earth and messy haired and variously flawed mortal female heroes…some who are butch, some who are femme, some who are women of color, some who are queer, some who are trans women…..

Yes, we want it all!

And we don’t want men telling us that we don’t fucking understand strong women. It’s insulting. We do actually know a bit more than you do about strong women.

We are strong women!

 

*Sketch of Sarah Connor and Lt. Ellen Ripley shushing James Cameron on behalf of Diana/Wonder Woman was drawn by Axel Medellin, who kindly granted permission for use here, and  was originally posted Tumblr 

Meeting Our Icon

(For those who have seen it already, this is an edited version of a post from my own Championing Ourselves Blog, but I thought it would kick this off. I may repost other Terminator related posts)

Last August I went to Chicago ComicCon for a secret meeting with “Sarah Connor” who was undercover as the actress Linda Hamilton. ~;p I also got to meet her tragically late roommate
“Ginger” Bess Motta, the Termatrix Kristanna Loken.
Kristanna Loken
The first of these kickass actresses I met was Kristanna Loken. While you all may know Terminator 3 was not may favorite movie, I did become a fan of Loken when she was in the television version of PainKiller Jane, a very different version from the comics, but with a lot of power and, yes, ass kicking. Loken’s passions are evident in her work with several charities, especially involved in helping children. Among recent movies she has made Darfur and is currently working on Love Orchard that confronts the issues of migrant workers whose families are often torn apart by current laws. Fans can become involved in this movie through the Kickstart link on Kristanna’s website as well as find information on her charities and other activities. Kristanna obviously doesn’t just play strong women in movies and TV, she lives it.
Bess "Ginger" Motta
While we then waiting in line to meet Linda Hamilton, she went on break. Others in the line were gracious enough to let me slip out to meet Bess Motta, who was Ginger, Sarah’s roommate, in The Terminator. She was also one of the 20-Minute Fitness instructors in the 1980s, and is still a fitness instructor today. That she’s keeping up that part of her career is quite obvious, as she’s probably as fit or fitter than she ever was. She was a delightful person and seemed to be having a great time at the con herself.

The favor we got was paid, um, backwards as the women who were behind us and saved our spot had theirs saved by those behind them while they went to see Michael Biehn. I’d been warned that fellow fans in these lines might be nice during what may be a long wait.

Okay, so yeah…..here we go! Trying to describe meeting Linda. OMG! I can’t. It was amazing. As I was picking out photos and paying for the autographs with her assistant, he has commented on the shirt (the shirts got many comments, actually…including one guy who did ask if I had more than one on Sunday, which I did, btw). Linda quoted the “siempre como culebra” and explained to him that it was from T2 and what it meant. After that, it’s sort of a blur.

As the shirt was already brought up, I babbled a bit about The Sarah Connor Charm School, of course. And the prerequisite, “what an inspiration you were” stuff. When I noted the purpose of the SCCS, which is also the purpose of this blog, to pass on inspiration to other women to find their own strength, Linda said, “In the end the only thing we have is our own strength.” Gods, mine pretty much was gone, but I managed somehow to stay upright, get the Linda hugautographs and some photos with her. Oh, there was also a bit of “looking so forward to seeing you on Chuck” and her saying she was excited about doing the show too.

I also told her that I’d be back because I had a gift for her. This being my first con, and with some of the things written up, I wasn’t sure if this was okay, but she was open to it. The next day I did see her, Bess and Kristanna along with Michael Biehn very briefly as we went through for our professional photos which I still need to scan. We also went to the Terminator panel, with Linda and Michael, which was delightful. They were very open about not liking the later two movies all that much, he especially did not mince words. A number of fans seemed thrilled to know that the love scene in the first film was uncomfortable because they did have feelings for each other and spouses who knew it and were there. But for me, I was touched by several other women who told her how much Sarah Connor was an inspiration of strength, especially one who told her that she helped her through a really difficult time in her life. This reflects what I wrote earlier. This is why these roles are vital to us, we need role models.

I did learn a few very important things to keep in mind if I go to a ComicCon again. The most important is stick to the panels and avoid the floor on Saturday. That’s when most people are Michael "Kyle Reese" Biehnthere. Yet, I did have a professional photo with a different photographer, on the floor (the Terminator ones were where the panels were) with Lindsay Wagner and Richard Anderson of the original Bionic Woman. And the Terminator actors were all across from William Shatner and other Trek stars, so between the two the aisle there was jammed packed. We did manage to get back to see Bess and to see Michael Biehn. So, yes, I did get photos and autographs with two men, so see I’m not sexist because I have token male representation here! *snerk* Bess even asked us to pose with her for a photo for her FaceBook page!

But, of course, the highlight was again seeing Linda, this time with the certificate from the Sarah Connor Charm School to present to her. She even remembered how I spell my name, for when she autographed the group Terminator photo she noted that Michael Biehn had spelled it wrong. (Bess noticed too!). I showed her the certificate and she seemed thrilled by the words, saying that she’d treasure it for ever.

Giving Linda the award
It reads:

Certificate of Appreciation
Linda Hamilton
The Sarah Connor Charm School
thanks you for your inspiration to women
to be strong, prepared and save ourselves, our loved ones, the world

And then:kiss

Do I even need to say there are no words?