My 5 Most Kick-Ass Fictional Female Characters

I have chosen 5 of my most favorite female TV/movie characters that I think rise above others in terms of kickassness. I didn’t include the all-too-popular ones (e.g. Princess Leia, Sarah Connor, Ellen Ripley, etc.) because I just don’t feel that much affinity towards them.

Here goes. The list is in countdown.

5.   Daria Morgendorffer from Daria (2007)

Have you met Daria? This bitter sharp-tongued albeit intelligent 16-year-old is practically my poster girl when I started tasting the angst of teenage life (I call it “the Dark Ages”). Her clothes scream indifference, her expression perpetually flat, and her ever-monotonous tone never fails to come up with jabbing remarks. She comes from a family that seems to be in constant disappointment of her while her queen-bee, aptly named sister, Quinn, which is everything she’s not, gets all the attention. Quinn even goes so far to not admitting they’re related.

Daria’s view of life is no match for those around her, and so others estrange her (some insist on calling her “Diarrhea”). She only hangs out with Jane, her best friend, who suffers from similar low-self esteem. Daria’s audacious comments and her overall rejection to conform to pretentious normalcy are what I have always secretly aspired to have during those years.

Some of Her Memorable Quotes:

• [after talking to her sister, Quinn] “That's it. Must... contact... intelligent... life...” 
• “Sometimes your shallowness is so thorough, it's almost like depth.”
• “Do you think if you breathe on me, I might catch your enthusiasm?”

4.   Wednesday Addams from The Addams Family (1991) & Addams Family Values (1993)

Growing up in a long line of old family that finds joy in all things ghastly tends to make you a tad bit sociopathic, I guess. Wednesday Addams, in picture is portrayed so spot on by Christina Ricci, is that creepy little girl who is as pale as a sheet, never smiles, and stares into the deepest abyss of your soul. She is enthralled by the macabre, has played with death on more than one occasion (usually her object of experiment is her own brother, Pugsley), and goes around telling people that “she is a homicidal maniac”.

Wednesday is someone I’d like to be for a day in the way she doesn’t give a damn to anyone. Would be interesting to just give them one of those deathly stare, and they would falter like ants under a magnifying glass. One time, Wednesday fakes a smile in front of a crowd – a smile that only multiplies her sinister quality and makes people wish they hadn’t seen it in the first place.

Some of Her Memorable Quotes:

• [when asked about her Halloween costume] “This is my costume. I'm a homicidal maniac. They look just like everyone else.”
• “I’ll stop wearing black when they make a darker color.”
• “Be afraid. Be very afraid.”

3.   Irene Adler from Sherlock (2011)

Ah, The Woman. The Woman. Though only featured in a single Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories, she has been considered as the most significant female character in the whole canon for being the only woman who has ever outwitted him. In BBC’s Sherlock, Irene Adler is the dominatrix who, using her incredible sexual appeal (and prowess, mainly), has established quite a reputation among the rich and influential. She uses these to her advantage in blackmailing and later terrorism. Only, there’s a slight glitch in the plan: she is genuinely attracted to Sherlock Holmes. This “flaw” is what allows Sherlock to reverse the table and defeats her in the end.

Despite everything, Irene is what I can call the equal female nemesis of Sherlock Holmes. It’s clear that they share mutual admiration and eagerness to overpower the other (although in Sherlock’s case, it doesn’t really show). As the only woman Sherlock doesn’t hesitate to fight off an entire Taliban terrorist cell for, this Irene Adler deserves my big fat gigantic respect.

Some of Her Memorable Quotes:

• “Brainy's the new sexy.” 
• [to Sherlock, after he solves her something in less than 7 seconds] “I would have you, right here, on this desk, until you begged for mercy twice.”
• "This is how I want you to remember me. The woman who beat you."

2.   Hayley Stark from Hard Candy (2005)

Okay, now we’re getting to a whole new level of kick-ass. We’ve done quirky, we’ve done creepy, we’ve done sexy, and now we will delve into downright psychopathic.

Hayley Stark is just your average pre-teen girl who sometimes likes to flirt online. She likes listening to Goldfrapp and munching on tiramisu. Totally harmless. Totally innocent. Or at least that’s what she leads us to believe. Hayley agrees to “hook up” on a café with a much older man she meets online, as fresh and naive as she is. The man, Jeff, has no clue as what the horror he will face after he takes the girl home.

No, this is not a slasher film. I will not spoil the fun for those who haven’t seen the movie, because you have to watch it to believe what Hayley is capable of. Not to mention that pre-Juno Ellen Page plays the part so chillingly perfect she will imprint not-so-easy to forget image in your mind. The kind of courage (or perhaps derangement) she got lands her the #2 spot on this list. You’ll get me when you see it yourself.  

Some of Her Memorable Quotes:

• “Sorry, I couldn’t hear you. Maybe it was the music. Or, I don’t know, maybe it was the bullshit.”
•  “Was I born a cute, vindictive, little bitch, or did society make me that way?”
•  “Well, 4 out of 5 doctors agree that I am actually insane.”

1.   Mindy Macready/Hit-Girl from Kick-Ass (2010) and Kick-Ass 2  (2013)

Since I couldn’t come up with a more creative title, I’m bound to repeat the same phrase when talking about Mindy Macready – no doubt the most kickass female movie character for yours truly. With an appearance of a cute, pony-tail sporting little girl, she will literally slaughter your ass in the most gruesome way possible if you’re so much as getting on her nerves. She is also blessed with the foulest mouth guaranteed to give your grandparents instant aneurysm and heart attack simultaneously. At night, Mindy turns into a masked vigilante, Hit-Girl, who runs around town eliminating crooks and criminals in insanely violent ways, dropping F- bombs and both kind of C-bombs all the while.

In short, this girl rocks my socks to kingdom come. Not to mention I have this sort of unhealthy obsession towards Chloë Grace Moretz (I mean, she can turn me if she really tries). Mindy is someone you’d rather plunge off building for than messing with. Yet, she also has some adorable moments that show she is still just some other teenager, albeit with fondness for murderous rampage and insatiable bloodlust. You know, like you sometimes secretly feel like doing.

Some of Her Memorable Quotes:
(NOTE: Her best lines involve languages that public would deem inappropriate, so I’ve chosen some of her ‘milder’ ones.)

• “Act like a bitch, get slapped like a bitch.”
•  “This 15 year old girl just owned your ass.”
•  And this gold:

Sorry. Can’t help it.

[Review] Ruby Sparks (2012)

Often we have this image on our heads about the perfect person we want to be with. Me, for example, would love to have a significant other who is into movies as much as I am, has a great sense of humor, who is protective, caring, kind, and also plays music. Sounds too much to ask, indeed. Nobody’s perfect. And even if we find that one person who seems to fit into our entire criteria, there is no guarantee that they will have the same feeling in mind. It happens – it’s real life. And so we move on.

But what if we can will that person into existence?

In Ruby Sparks (2012), the often underrated but actually fanciful Paul Dano plays Calvin, a twenty-something writer who is facing a gigantic writer’s block for his second novel after previously thriving with his first. People dub him the ‘genius’, the term that he grew uncomfortable with as the time passes because he doesn’t feel like he’s living up to the hype. A sentiment that, to be honest, shared by yours truly. His days feel empty and meaningless without so much as a drop of inspiration, and while his agent keeps rushing him to create another masterpiece, Calvin found it impossible to even craft a sentence. Until his therapist asked him to write something about his dog, Scotty – an adorable but quite pathetic creature that to me mirrors his owner himself. The dog proves to provide a gateway into something, or rather someone, who changes his life forever.

When he started writing about a girl named Ruby Sparks and giving her a detailed backstory, Calvin once again found his writing passion. He began endlessly writes and dreams and writes about her - this one person that is just the perfect girl for him. Understandable, because who in the world hasn’t made their writing works as a means of escape from reality? But then Ruby comes to life. She just magically appears one day in Calvin’s house, completely herself the way he has ever imagined him to be. And the best thing is - she already is his girlfriend.

After some period of maniacal panic and convincing himself that Ruby is indeed not a figment of his imaginations through some hilarious means of proving, Calvin accepted the awesome occurrence like anyone would embrace someone who is everything they have ever dreamed about. He was head over heels, and for some time, his life is perfect.

Then their relationship started to get more real. Ruby started to act more like a normal person, with wants and needs that Calvin couldn’t control. But Calvin knew that he holds power over of their relationship, literally. When something just isn’t the way he likes it to be, he simply writes Ruby the way he wants her to be. He scrambled to maintain perfection again, up into the point of desperation, until eventually he realized that some things are just not meant to be. Only then did he let Ruby go be herself; no longer a character on his story, no longer someone he wrote and dreamed up about, but a person by herself.

Watching Ruby Sparks does make one wonder about her own image of perfection. About endless what ifs and whys. It is not that deep of a movie, but it’s the simplicity that really hits home. How frequent are we hoping that this person we have been yearning for can walk into our lives in the flesh and make our dreams come true? When it happens… you won’t be questioning yourself. You will be just like Calvin who says “I don’t need to make sense of this. I don’t care if there’s no good explanation.” You won’t be needing justification for the things that make you happy.

But then, have you ever actually thought how would the end turn out? Would the happiness last? When my Ruby starting to be a person and not merely my own creation, can I accept it?

Happiness isn’t defined by how you picture it to be. Happiness is embracing the reality and making the most of it. After Ruby left, Calvin gets on with his life, publishes his next book that is entirely based on his experience with Ruby. That’s making do with life and making your own happiness. But in the end, the film still offers the romantic minds with the probably most-desired finale, by reuniting Calvin with Ruby once again in a different circumstance. A choice I actually not too fond of despite being a sucker for happy endings – because sometimes it is necessary for me to look at things more realistically. I would have preferred Calvin to perhaps find somebody new and build his life afresh – because that would be a more realistic notion I’d give myself.

Nevertheless, Ruby Sparks was executed in the right portion and taste without having to give too much icing on the cake. I have always had a soft spot for Paul Dano since The Girl Next Door and favored his performance in Little Miss Sunshine, and though he might not be that brilliant here, he put up a convincing performance. As Ruby, Zoe might not differ too much from the typical Indie movie pixies with quirkiness in every direction, but she was likeable enough. Their great chemistry can also be contributed to the fact that Zoe and Paul are real life couples. All in all, Ruby Sparks is an enjoyable watch for lovers alike. As for the single ones, you might need to prepare for introspective moment of contemplation right after the credits roll.

Personal rating: 7.7/10