This article was written exclusively for The Film Magazine by Lucas Hill-Paul.
The recent releases of Captain Marvel and Jordan Peele’s Us mark a clear shift in how Hollywood treats its female genre protagonists. Where cinema once frequently presented women in horror and action as objects of sexual threat or as passive victims, these films—and a growing number of contemporary titles—reposition female heroes as fully formed, resilient figures who drive the story rather than merely reacting to it. The legendary Ellen Ripley, embodied by Sigourney Weaver, stands as a crucial turning point in that evolution: not an instant revolution, but a disruptive example that helped break away from the tired formula asserting that female-led horror or action could not succeed at the box office.
Brie Larson’s portrayal of Carol Danvers in Captain Marvel exemplifies a broader change in the superhero genre. Where many male superheroes are defined by ongoing trauma, responsibility, or continual reinvention across multiple films—think the Hulk’s struggle with rage, Thor’s grappling with leadership, or Iron Man’s repeated self-discovery—Danvers completes a convincing arc within a single story. Her origin is brutal and constraining, but the film allows her to move beyond that history and assert herself as the dominant force in the narrative, free from the obligation to prove her worth to male rivals.
Unlike other female characters who have been saddled with tropes about emotional instability or uncontrollable power—tropes that underpin storylines like the one promised in X-Men: Dark Phoenix—Carol Danvers refuses to be reduced to hysteria or destructive femininity. This refusal to buy into the cliché of the “over-emotional” woman is an important corrective in mainstream franchise filmmaking and helps normalize female agency and competence on screen.
Female figures in horror have long been framed as victims of circumstance, dating back to F.W. Murnau’s silent classic Nosferatu, where Count Orlok menaces Greta Schröder’s sleeping Ellen Hutter. Through Hitchcock’s films such as The Birds and Psycho, and later the slasher boom of the 1970s and 1980s, the “final girl” archetype emerged: an often-innocent woman who survives a psychopathic attacker and either kills or escapes the threat. Laurie Strode in Halloween and similar characters helped popularize that model, which defined many of the era’s horror narratives.
Yet slasher franchises often undermined their own survivors by repeatedly returning disposable protagonists to new rounds of terror, effectively turning the monster into the real victor across sequels. By the late 1980s, with the commercial logic of endless sequels dominating the market, those cycles cemented a sense that female-centered horror could trap its heroines in perpetual victimhood. James Cameron’s Aliens, as a follow-up to Ridley Scott’s claustrophobic original, can be read as a rebuttal to that tendency: it refuses to re-legitimize helpless femininity and instead amplifies Ripley’s agency and leadership.
Across the two films, Ripley evolves from a traumatized, reluctant protagonist into an emblem of practical, emotional strength. In Aliens, her experience with the creatures gives her crucial knowledge and a hard-won authority that the boisterous marines lack. While the military characters flaunt macho bravado and oversized weaponry, Ripley is the only one who connects to the frightened child Newt on a human level, treating her as a person rather than an asset. That emotional intelligence, combined with Ripley’s determined combativeness, reframes heroism as both empathetic and effective.
Ridley Scott’s Alien remains a visually and thematically powerful film, but it still carries traces of 1970s imagery that invite the audience to scrutinize the female body in ways the male characters are spared. The threat of sexual violence is palpable in several scenes, and Ash’s betrayal contains echoes of sexualized power dynamics. Yet the progression into Aliens transforms Ripley into the primary agent of her fate—damaged, relentless, and self-determining rather than a passive object of fear.
Jordan Peele’s Us offers a contemporary counterpart to Ripley’s legacy. Lupita Nyong’o’s performance balances a woman pursued and a woman prepared to fight back; her character Adelaide mirrors Ripley’s moral complexity and survival instincts. Both heroines emerge from bloody ordeals exhausted yet victorious, underscoring that modern horror can present women who survive through grit, intelligence, and emotional nuance rather than by happenstance.
The influence of films like Aliens is only now being fully recognized across franchises and genres. James Cameron’s later work, including his sequel to The Terminator, continued to center women who transform trauma into proactive force—Sarah Connor being another notable example. Women have long endured real-world violence and marginalization, and cinema is gradually catching up by giving female characters narratives that respect their strength and complexity. Ellen Ripley’s evolution remains one of the earliest and most enduring rejections of cinematic rules that once confined women to victimhood.
You can support Lucas Hill-Paul at the following links:
Personal Twitter – @lucashpaul
You can find more of his writing at Film Daily News – @FilmDailyNews