A Brief History of the Female Action Movie!

Hi everybody!
The aesthetic of the action movie is well-established for men and for extra-terrestrials, not so much so for women. Let us discuss what I'm looking for with the WONDER WOMAN movie for a bit.
The most successful director for the female hero archetype has been Luc Besson. First was LA FEMME NIKITA (starring his then-wife Anne Parillaud), which concerned the recruitment of a violent street criminal who is groomed to become an international assassin. The physicality of Parillaud's performance and the kinetic energy of the movie is irresistable. It inspired the basic cable TV series NIKITA (with Peta Wilson) and was remade in America as the tepid POINT OF NO RETURN, directed by John Badham and starring Bridget Fonda.
Besson then lifted the character of Leon the Cleaner (of crime scenes) for THE PROFESSIONAL, which concerned a young orphan (the debut of Natalie Portman, who has never been better), taken under the wing of a lonely hit man (Jean Reno) and who learns his deadly trade. While not as thrilling as LA FEMME NIKITA (few movies are), THE PROFESSIONAL remains provocative and a touch unsettling.
(For those who have seen PULP FICTION, the character played by Harvey Keitel - Victor the Cleaner - was "borrowed" from these two films!)
In THE FIFTH ELEMENT, gypsy cab driver Bruce Willis picked up fare Milla Jovovich (Besson's then-2nd wife) who turns out to be the savior of the world. With the slinkiest outfit in memory, Jovovich still manages to fire more bullets than Swarzenegger did in THE PREDATOR.
Unfortunately, Besson's directing career has been tabled because of his vehicular manslaughter conviction, but he continues to be an active action-screenwriter in such films as THE TRANSPORTER series with Jason Strathem and the recent TAKEN with Liam Neeson.
The trick with the female hero archetype is that she not be punished for being courageous, curious or adventurous.
For example, in THE GOLDEN COMPASS, the teenage heroine survives dangers that would have normally made her Victim #3 in your average splatter movie.
Besson's triology of films display an uncluttered appreciation of what a woman can do with a license to thrill!
William Moulton Marston's WONDER WOMAN comic was less an exercise in misogyny than in misanthrope, but it is still a quite grim view of the essential human condition. It was basically OF HUMAN BONDAGE with a smiley face. WONDER WOMAN was less into rehabilitation than she was into transformation - turning evil men into good. This goes beyond incarceration or retributions - things that we can actually implement or aspire to.
Modern psychology has eliminated certain ideations that were popular practices in the 1940s, such as phrenology. Sometimes a bump in the head is just a bump in the head.
Even the lie detector that Marston introduced produced results that are inadmissable in court.
However, the DR. JECKLE and MR. HYDE mentality, the Salem Witch trials, even a movie like THE EXORCIST; all speak to the stubborn belief that possession by evil spirits is possible and solvable.
Marston was engaging in magic realism with WONDER WOMAN, applying cutting edge psychology to a children's entertainment, with truly bizarre results.
If WONDER WOMAN's bracelets were removed, she was driven into an insane rage. Why, exactly? Did her Amazonian discipline completely disappear without Aphrodite's restraints? (More likely, the only way that Marston could rattle WONDER WOMAN's cage was to make this Amazonian exception. Luckily, the readers did not respond favorably to this behavior and Marston rarely included it.)
Even if WONDER WOMAN had this buried evil side, how could she ever hope to redeem us mere human beings from our own evil selves?
Aphrodite's philosophy of "refrain from evil", of "restrain our sisters", and "do it all over again, baby", never made much sense to me.
In the last decade, WONDER WOMAN has been portrayed as either a whiny Cassandra or a naive Pollyanna. Her once-sunny view of life has since turned her into a cynical ambassador (THE NAIL), an embittered princess (THE DARK KNIGHT) or a homogenized tough girl (JUSTICE RIDERS).
WONDER WOMAN is bigger, better and more benificent than she has been shown to be.
WONDER WOMAN is not just a goddess among us slumming with the sinners in the good ol' summertime.
Marston assigned her a different spectrum of emotions than the rest of us, with gradations of reactions and orchestrated scenarios completely unique to her. Maybe Marston was right to encircle her in experiences which completely isolated her from her fellow adventurers.
However, even his editor the great Sheldon Mayer was unable to incorporate WONDER WOMAN into the Justice Society, and when Marston passed, Mayer dumped the WONDER WOMAN comic like a hot potato into the legendary Robert Kanigher's young lap.
When Marston died he took the twinkle in WONDER WOMAN's eyes with him.
We have to respect the weirdness that made WONDER WOMAN wonderful to allow her to return to her legendary appeal.
Tomorrow, more goodies! Be good!
Brad