Our latest featured contributor is columnist Lisa Shipman. Check out Lisa's articles In part one, we had television. In part two, we had music. Part three is all about films.
I’m going to be honest here. I’ve really struggled with this category. I ended up going through the film pages of Artificial Sweetener and still came up with very little. If you’ve got any suggestions of your own, let me know below!
She’s one of the only Disney “princesses” that saves herself. She doesn’t need Shang to help her, she doesn’t really need Mushu either, but he’s there for comic effect and everyone loves him anyway. When her father is enlisted into the army, despite his ailing health, she takes his place in a country where women aren’t allowed to go to war. Whilst at first the outlook is dire and she’s set to embarrass her family name, in the end she stands up for herself, for her friends, and for her country against guys twice her size, and whilst being outnumbered, too. That takes gumption. Gumption she didn’t even know she had.
When we first meet her, she’s wearing crazy make-up and is the queen of a country. We meet her again, and she’s a senator. She then falls for Anakin even though she knows shouldn’t and the two embark on a clandestine marriage.
Daughter of Padme, she was always going to be great. She can hold her own against the men around her both in wit and in fighting skills, and she does it with style.
In a rare, female-driven comedy, it’s only fair the whole cast is included. It takes moxie to have a shit in the street, or in the sink of a fancy wedding dress shop. It also takes a lot to apologise to someone when you know you’re wrong.
Her parents may be about to get a divorce, but Hannah focuses on herself, not her crazy family, and when she realises that the guy she’s fallen for isn’t all he’s supposed to be, she takes things into her own hands and chases after womaniser Cal, giving him a taste of his own medicine.
Sophie and Donna have lived quite happily on the island of Kalokairi for the last twenty years, looking after themselves, looking after the island, and running a business all by themselves.
In order to earn some extra money, Kim takes up a job as a “chalet girl”, at a ski resort in the Alps. Whilst there, she discovers a love of skiing and spends every spare moment she has on her newfound love, which she’s also pretty good at. However, in order to pursue her new hobby, she has to face her past.
Rose rebels against those that are trying to force her to live a life that she doesn’t want by falling in love with Jack instead of Cal. She manages to escape spending the rest of her life with Cal, but sadly loses Jack, too. Oh, and she spits in Cal’s face.
Picture Credits:
How about Bliss from Whip It? She meets a group of strong women through roller derby and then finds the strength to stand up to her Mother who wants her to enter beauty pageants and also to finish a relationship she knows isn’t right for her.