LogFAQs > #924941385

I'm not talking about the history of female action heroes in general. There were some film serials which had female leads. There was a western called Gunslinger about a sheriff's widow who takes over his profession and goes after the bad guys. And, yes, there were dozens of female leads (and costars) in Chinese martial arts cinema.

I'm not talking about that. I'm talking specifically about the transition from 80s cinema (specifically Hollywood) to 90s cinema. In movies like Die Hard, Lethal Weapon, and Predator, the women were mostly non-action characters who more or less occupied the damsel in distress roles while perhaps being a little more sophisticated character-wise. In the 90s, you saw movies like T2, Mortal Kombat, True Lies, Die Hard With a Vengeance, etc., where the female lead would get into fight scenes and generally be more of a bad ass in her own right.

Women in action movies were a thing before the 90s, but they didn't become commonplace in Hollywood films until around that time. There were some female action leads in the 80s, but it seemed like it was still okay to have the female lead mostly be on the sideline whereas the 90s had her really get into the game so to speak.