Entertainment is something we all crave. We pay good money to see movies in the theater, television is no longer free (not the good channels anyway), and then, of course, you can pay extra for pay-per view channels on top of your regular cable bill. What are we watching? What is the entertainment we all love and crave? Why do women seem to want to see other women in distress, or in love, and men want to see the shoot "em up, beat "em up, drop the bomb on them all, flicks? Is it that, when a woman watches a movie about another women that is being abused, or has overcame alcoholism, she is somehow putting herself in the other woman's place? Does she feel better about her own life as she watches? Do men fantasize while watching Jean-Claude massacre an entire army of terrorist thugs with his bare hands? Why are these roles always portrayed the same way; women in trouble, and men kicking butt? Quite honestly, I wish there were a little more substance and variety.
Entertainment should allow us more creativity, fantasy, and more importantly, inspiration in the roles played by our Heros. There is opportunity here for women to be stronger, and more hero-like, but, we are more often portrayed as the damsel in distress, in one way or another, and it sells. There should be more story lines depicting a woman president, and how she would handle the likes of Osama Bin Laden and world terrorism, or how she governed the efforts of the latest space shuttle mission that failed, and saved the lives of all of the passengers on board. Now that would be inspiring! We see films like these, but men are in the leading roles. Susan Isaacs writes about this very thing in her essay entitled, "Brave Dames and Wimpettes". "Turn on the TV, read a book, or go to the movie, and you"ll find hurt women disturbingly prominent in our art." (473) Isaacs also says, "I for one, don't want to be assumed to be the weak or the wounded.
