My Favorite Alpha Females on Film

There are few terms I dislike more than "strong woman."  I immediately think of a one-dimensional, combative know-it-all with something to prove to the world.  This is because Hollywood often takes this shortcut in their portrayal of women whom they want you to know are "strong."  In short, Hollywood likes making strong women into bitches. 

In reality, female strength takes a lot of different forms.  Strength can show itself when a woman makes prudent judgments under difficult circumstances.  Sometimes it is revealed through restraint, rather than by body slamming the bad guy.  There's a gentleness that comes with true confidence.  That's the kind I like.

The following are leading female characters whom I enjoy watching.  They encompass a whole bunch of personality types, just like real women. 

(Warning: spoilers throughout.  If you haven't seen the movie but plan to, skip the text!)



(1) Marge Gunderson in Fargo (1996) played by Frances McDormand


Marge Gunderson is Fargo, North Dakota's heavily pregnant police chief.  She is an uncomplicated woman living an uncomplicated life.  She loves her husband.  She likes her job.  She enjoys her pregnancy-related appetite; in fact, much of the humor involves Marge having a hearty breakfast, lunch, and dinner, as well as a few heaping plates in between to hold her.

One day, in the dead of winter, two homicidal maniacs arrive in Fargo.  Marge deals with the three initial murders in the same pragmatic fashion with which she deals with a dead battery in the cruiser.  Huh.  This must be fixed.  I will set about fixing it.  That is her attitude and that is how she proceeds.

I like that she analyzes only what needs to be analyzed.  There is no mulling over the intricacies of the murderers' minds.  There are no sleepless nights over the tragic loss of life.  She is efficient in her mental processes.  She allows herself only one pensive moment in the film.  It comes while she is transporting one of the murderers back to Fargo.  As she drives through a blinding snow storm, she recites the number of people her prisoner has killed.  "And for what?" she asks him.  "Just a little bit of money."  There is a long pause as the snow blows around them.  "I just don't understand," she says sadly.  Her bewilderment is so genuine it causes the murderer to hang his head.

She is one of my favorite characters in film, mostly because she is so grounded.  She doesn't allow anything into her mind that doesn't deserve a place there.  There is only room for her husband, her unborn baby, her job, and the all-you-can-eat buffet.  For Marge, this is enough.


(2) Rachel Cooper in The Night of the Hunter (1955) played by Lillian Gish

Any story that positions children in the face of evil is unsettling.  This is how The Night of the Hunter goes from beginning to end.  It is film noire at its darkest.  It is a child's nightmare come to life. 

The film involves two children--brother and sister--running for their lives in the Depression era mid-West.  What they're running from is pure evil--their cunning new stepfather, known as "The Preacher," played perfectly by Robert Mitchum. 

The adults in their lives are useless.  They are either too oblivious, too weak, or too helpless to protect the children.  Nine year-old John and four year-old Pearl are entirely on their own.  They set sail in a rowboat and head down a river at night.  Their only destination is anywhere beyond The Preacher's reach.

Salvation hardly seems likely for the two, yet in their sleep, their boat comes to rest at the foot of a savior.  Rachel Cooper is an elderly widow who takes in homeless children who end up on her doorstep.  She feeds them, clothes them, rehabilitates them if that's what they need, and does her best to turn them into healthy adults.  She's a bit of a religious fanatic, but no matter.  Her brand of Christianity is loving, not stern and punishing.  She is everything John and Pearl need.  At the very least, she is an adult who isn't trying to kill them, which is a refreshing change for them.  At her best, she is the brick wall that stands between the children and the evil that comes looking for them.


(3) Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games (2012) played by Jennifer Lawrence

Katniss is a sixteen year-old girl living in an impoverished post-apocalyptic America.  North America is now comprised of twelve districts.  Every year, per order of the Capital, each district must send one boy and one girl to compete in a survival-style competition.  The battle has no time limit; it continues until there is only one survivor. 

Katniss is not an Alpha in a subtle kind of way; she is a full-on, balls-to-the-wall empowered female.  Since the death of her father five years prior, she has been solely responsible for her mother and younger sister, Primrose.  As such, she has become a superb hunter, forager, and provider. 

When the lottery results name Primrose as the girl who will be sent to the competition, Katniss asks that she be allowed to go in her place.  She feels she has a better chance of survival given her physical prowess and her mastery of the wilderness.  She's right. 

The competition is a venue in which kinship or compassion can get a person killed.  All around Katniss there are mean-spirited competitors; the kind who would be the bullies on the pre-apocalyptic schoolyard.  She's certainly no pushover; however, she shows the kind of temperance that separates her from the pack.  She is not a killing machine as some of the others are.  She is a competent enough survivor that she can spare a little compassion for those weaker than herself.

I like Katniss because she is reminiscent of the ancient Minoan goddess Britomartis, mistress of animals and of the wilderness; wielder of the double axe of power; and the protector of young girls.  (Centuries later, the ancient Greeks adopted her as Artemis and the Romans, as Diana; both added "goddess of the hunt" to her resume).  Katniss Everdeen seems to be her living embodiment.  If that isn't Alpha, what is?



(4) Lucy Muir in The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947) played by Gene Tierney

The year is 1900. Lucy Muir is a young widow who decides to move herself and her young daughter (played by Natalie Wood) out of the home of her oppressive in-laws.  She heads for the remote British coastline. She is unsure of what exactly she will do; she knows only that she wants to create her own life, not to have it created for her by social convention.

I admit that every time I watch this film I am jealous of Lucy Muir. Who wouldn't be? With just a little bit of money, she is able to move to a seaside cottage overlooking the beach. She is able to hire a housekeeper. She is achingly beautiful. Lastly, she inspires the former owner of the cottage, a cantankerous sea captain, to fall in love with her. The captain is a ghost, but no matter. He provides her with an autobiographical novel to write. The novel is published, takes off like wildfire, and sets her up nicely for the rest of her life.

I want Lucy's life, and I also want her death. When she dies peacefully in her rocking chair many years later, who is there waiting for her? The captain, of course. He takes her hand, walks her down the stairs, into the fog of the sea, and into the white light. She doesn't even have to do that alone.

Despite my jealousy, there are a lot of reasons why I like Lucy Muir. I like her for calling her own shots in life--not common in 1947 when the film was made and certainly not common in 1900. I like her for standing up to the captain when he tries to frighten her out of the house. I like the manner in which she stands up to him, too. She is not shrill or sharp-tongued. She is simply firm and unyielding. It is why the captain is compelled to refer to her, throughout the film as "my dear lady."

The poet Carl Sandburg once described a bank of fog as moving "on little cat feet." Lucy Muir is the kind of Alpha female who also moves about on cat's feet. She suffers heartbreak privately. She fights her battles with dignity. She knows who she is. She remains, to the very end and beyond, a Captain's lady.



(5) Vianne Rocher in Chocolat (2000) played by Juliette Binoche


I wouldn't classify this film as a chick flick because it is better than that. I would, however, describe it as a most womanly story. It features an independent single mother, Johnnie Depp, and lots of chocolate.

Vianne is the keeper of a secret recipe for chocolate that has been passed down matrilineally through her family.   The chocolate is magical.  It changes peoples' lives.   It reawakens old passions.  It liberates souls from earthly oppression. The chocolate is very much like the herbal secrets that were, in days of yore, passed down from woman to woman.

Vianne and her young daughter arrive in a small French village in 1959 to set up a chocolate shop.  It is a temporary stop.  While their shared past is kept from us, we do know that they are nomads.   They find places to stay for a little while and make chocolate.  When the wind speaks a certain way to Vianne, they pull up stakes and move on.  Vianne is content with her nomadism, partly because she has an aversion to commitment.   Why, we do not know, but one can presume that the fact that she is the sole provider for herself and her daughter has something to do with how her life has gone thus far.

I like Vianne because she is a healer.  The chocolate is merely her tool; it is she alone who works the magic.   She is the High Priestess, the Medicine Woman, the Venus of Willendorf.  She is a true daughter of The Mother of All Things.  She is the female spirit that rides softly on the wind.


(6) Mrs. Warren in The Spiral Staircase (1945) by Ethel Barrymore

I love those atmospheric old thrillers.   This one features a fully-staffed mansion, a dysfunctional family, a nearby country village, and a serial killer on the loose.  All of the action in the film takes place--surprise--on a stormy night.   Windows keep banging open and shut.   The killer's eye is seen watching from somewhere in the house.   People keep going down into the dusty old basement with candles held aloft.  There is every stock element of the genre in this movie.  Right from the beginning, I'm in cinematic heaven.

The three central characters are Mrs. Warren, the bed-ridden old dowager and matriarch of the house; her caretaker, Helen, a young woman who has been rendered completely mute by a childhood trauma; and the killer, whose identity is unknown until the end.  He preys upon women who are disabled in some way.   (Watch out, Helen!)

Mrs. Warren can barely tolerate her two sons or her annoying nurse.   However, she does love Helen.  As cantankerous as she is with others, she becomes downright tender whenever Helen is in the room.   She worries for Helen because--as most elderly matriarchs in movies--she knows there is trouble afoot.  She instructs Helen to hide under the bed if the serial killer comes calling.   She begs her to leave the house and go somewhere safer.  She knows trouble is coming, and while she herself is bed-ridden, she can at least take precautions to protect Helen.

I like this character just as I like all wise old matriarch characters.   I like the hidden soft spots.  I like the protectiveness she feels for the vulnerable Helen.   I like that she rules the house from her bed.   I like that she faces danger head-on and doesn't back down. As in most "thunderstorm thrillers," old Mrs. Warren steps up just when the day needs to be saved.


(7) Mary Macgregor in Rob Roy (1995) played by Jessica Lange

I like the character of Mary Macgregor mostly for what she is not.   She's not all wifey in the well-worn Hollywood sort of way.  She isn't a passive backdrop, there to show that the leading man is heterosexual, which is one way Hollywood uses the wife character.  Nor is her strength measured by how well she can dominate the men in her life, another handy tool Hollywood uses.  Mary Macgregor is neither of these stock characters.  She is simply a robust, womanly Highlander.  I like that she smiles a lot.   I like that she lifts up her skirts without a care in the world and straddles her husband, right there in the heather while the children play in the distance.   I like her loyalty, not only to her husband but to her clanmates as well.

Who Mary Macgregor is--not as a woman but as a human being--is best revealed when she is raped by her husband's nemesis.  Her attacker's intent is not only to bait her husband but to humiliate a woman whose strength he interprets as arrogance.   After the rape, he sets her home on fire, then watches for her to emerge from the house.  He wants to see her fury and her distress.   He wants tears. However, when Mary emerges from the burning house, she stands tall.   The rape has not had the desired effect. She is not broken at all.

Afterwards, she makes the friend who was charged with protecting her promise he will not tell her husband about the rape.  Doing so would only result in Rob Roy lashing out in anger, which would lead him right into the trap his enemy has set for him.  "I can bear this," she tells the friend.  What she is saying is that the situation demands that she bear it alone, and so she will.  She will not ask anyone else to carry it for her, especially when harm could result from it.  Mary Macgregor is an Alfa.  When she says she can bear it, you know she can.


(8) Christine Vole in Witness for the Prosecution (1957) by Marlene Dietrich

Marlene Dietrich played a dual role in this film, the first being a devoted German wife, the second being a sharp-tongued Cockney guttersnipe.  She was so adept in her portrayal of these characters that even those in the film industry didn't believe she could possibly have played the Cockney tart.  She had nailed it so expertly that she was unrecognizable even as Marlene Dietrich.  There was a rumor among Hollywood's power base that the guttersnipe was played by another actress altogether.  This doubt compromised the integrity of her entire performance and probably led to her being passed over for an Oscar nomination.  Essentially, she was so good she was unbelievable.  She was too good for Hollywood.

In the role of Christine Vole, she pretended to feel nothing but contempt for her husband when in truth, she was deeply devoted.  She was acting a role of someone who was acting a role who was acting a role.  At every level she is flawless.
 
There are those who might ask, Christine Vole, Alpha?  A woman who lives and breathes for her husband; who sacrifices herself for him; who is betrayed by him and played for a fool by him?  Sure, why not?  Until the end, she is motivated not only by love, but by a strong sense of obligation to him.  At the time they met, she was a single nightclub singer in war-ravaged Germany.  Food is scarce.  Every time a bomb is dropped, the roof of her hovel crumbles a little more.  Death is a real possibility every single day.  She is saved by Leonard Vole, a soldier who will eventually become her husband.  She feels she literally owes him her life.  Her actions in Witness for the Prosecution are a well-designed way of repaying him.  When he needs her, she steps up.

In all species, Alphas, men and women both, frequently place themselves in great danger so that others will live.  This is what Christine Vole does for the man she loves.  The fact that she gets her heart ripped out and handed to her on a plate doesn't negate her courageousness.  Alphas get played too.



(9) Minnie Castavetes in Rosemary's Baby (1968) played by Ruth Gordon


Ruth Gordon's acting gig lasted for seventy years.  She made her last film when she was eighty-nine years-old.  In all those years, she is best known for her performance as Minne Castavetes in Roman Polanski's Rosemary's Baby.

Minnie Castavetes is the Alpha female who oversees Satan's unborn baby.  She is the one who tends diligently to the details of the conception and pregnancy.  She is the one who repels interfering do-goodies from her sentry point next door.  She is the one who keeps Rosemary distracted and bothered while the coven implements their diabolical plans.

The role of Minnie did not deviate one iota from Ira Levin's novel.  However, Ruth Gordon added a number of details to her performance that amplified the character.  For example, there is a scene in which Minnie and Roman have their new neighbors over for dinner.  During the evening, Minnie interrupts her husband frequently or ignores him altogether.  She speaks to him twice; once to tell him to take his pill and once again, to watch the carpet as he is serving drinks.  When she sees that Roman has allowed water to drip onto the floor, she chokes and sputters and points.  "The caahhpet!" she brays.  She immediately begins to dab the wet spot with a napkin.  "Jeez, brand new caahhpet!"

For dessert, there is cake.  She serves it by sliding each piece onto a plate with the assistance of her fingers, which she licks between each serving.  She then eats her own cake with her mouth open.  As she eats, she leans forward and peers at her guests' plates, just to see how their meals are progressing. 


She was a character who was meant to be laughed at.  She is the the nasal-voiced aunt or nosy neighbor we've all had; the one who wears the cat-eye glasses on a chain and too much makeup.  We recognize her immediately when Ruth Gordon brings her to life.  That familiarity was deliberate.  The more familiar Minnie is to us, the more amusing she is; and thus, the more chilling it is when she turns out to be a servant of Satan.

Ira Levin got that, and so did director Roman Polanski.  Most importantly, Ruth Gordon got that.  She got the whole character.  Thanks to her, Minnie Castavetes became the most unsettling devil-worshipping, overly made up, carpet-obsessed old woman in cinema history.


(10) Loana in 1 Million Years BC (1966) played by Raquel Welch

Back in the days when cave women wore false eyelashes, there was Loana, the Alpha female of the Shell Tribe.  Loana had teased hair, long, tanned legs, and a dazzling white smile.  She wore a fur and leather bikini, cut in such a way as to not waste animal skin on unnecessary coverage.  Loana also had big, tanned boobs that always seemed about to fall out of the leather bra.  For many viewers, waiting for that moment was the most suspenseful part of the whole film.  However, no matter how many rocky cliffs Loana scaled, no matter how many spears she threw, no matter how many giant turtles she fended off, the boobs stayed in the little fur bra.

It is clear right from the beginning of the film that Loana is the undisputed Alpha female of the Shell women.  We know this because she is the only one clad in a bikini.  All the other women are in leather one-pieces.  Additionally, when she discovers a brawny outcast from another tribe laying on the beach, she shoos the other women away from him.  Back off, girls; he's all mine, she says with hand gestures.  Quickly, the Beta girls scurry away and leave Loana to her prize. 

Don't think for a moment that Loana is complacent about her status in the tribe. She has to fight to maintain it, and fight she does.  In one scene, an encroaching female decides to challenge Loana's authority.  By the subtle use of visual symbolism, we know this female is after Loana's Alpha status as she, too, is clad in a fur bikini.

The tension builds between them and finally culminates in a girl fight.  It's no sissy fight, either.  There are some touch-and-go moments, especially for the bikinis. 

While the two cave girls grunt and writhe in the dirt, the men smile and nod approvingly.  After a laudable battle, Loana triumphs.  In keeping with traditional primitive ritual, one of the men places a large stone in Loana's hands.  The message is clear.  She is expected to smash the stone into her defeated opponent's skull.  The men gather around and chant their encouragement.  They want to see brain matter splattered all over those cave walls.

As Loana straddles the other woman, rock held above her head, she pauses.  She takes a moment to search the depths of her soul.  Defy peer pressure and hope the rival cave girl learned her lesson, or go with the brain matter?  (I don't know about you, but this is the moment that had me on the edge of my seat).  Finally, Tumak, the prize from the beach, steps forward and takes the stone from her hands.  He has recognized that Loana is a woman of many dimensions.  She has morals.  She is civil.  Now it is understood within the tribe that Loana has nothing to prove.  She is the only rightful wearer of the fur bikini.