Talk:List of female action heroes and villains

Big Hero 6
Hello, I saw two heroines (GoGo Tomago & Honey Lemon) from Big Hero 6 are mentioned on the page, but into the "Marvel" section, whilst it should be into a "Disney" section (that doesn't exist yet). Marvel is part of Disney now, but these heroines feature in a Disney movie, nothing to do with Marvel or MCU. (sorry if I've added my question / remark not the correct way, I'm not used to do a lot of edit on Wikipedia)

Why?
What was the point of adding action villains? REVUpminster (talk) 19:03, 8 July 2017 (UTC)
 * For the same reason we have the following two lists:

and because the term "hero" is not broad enough. The list contains "anti-heroes" such as Sarah Connor, villains such as Grendel's Mother and reflects the fact that the topic examines female action figures. I am open to a completely different title if you have one that would encompass all of the above. I'm signing off for today, but I'll check in tomorrow.-Classicfilms (talk) 19:14, 8 July 2017 (UTC)
 * So the other two should be combined or a separate female action villains created for consistency in articles.REVUpminster (talk) 19:39, 8 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Changing the title and scope of this article requires consensus. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 01:27, 9 July 2017 (UTC)

hmmmm…well, my goal was really just working to make the article as accurate as possible (hence my hope over the next few weeks to beef up the references). In addition to the points I made above, characters such as:

Catwoman or Mystique/Raven

are really neither fully heroes nor villains as they have been portrayed as both. So which list would they reside on? In addition Beatrix Kiddo/The Bride and Nikita are closer to anti-heroes (and I can source and reference all this later if need be), which again complicate the binary of hero/villain. So, while I’m always interested in consensus and am open to debate, I’m also a bit perplexed as to what the argument against listing heroes and villains in the same article would be. Perhaps if you could clarify your concerns, it would help me understand what needs to be done.

Truthfully, I’m not sure I understand why it is problematic to list both character types (hero and villain). For example - AFI published the “100 GREATEST HEROES & VILLAINS” list: http://www.afi.com/100Years/handv.aspx

which is the basis for this Wikipedia article: AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes & Villains. I realize that AFI’s list is constructing this WP article, but it is an example of a WP:RS combining the two character categories. I do think it would be a push to say that for us to do so is a form of WP:OR.

So - I do have another idea. Let me know what you think - in addition to the phrases female action hero and action villain (both of which I have WP:RS for if I need to list them), I have seen: “Female action characters” as in this article: http://www.cinemablend.com/new/10-Greatest-Female-Action-Characters-All-Time-Ranked-83637.html?story_page=10 Thus, how about “Female Action Characters” as potential title? It might be a useful solution. If you would like to start a RFC, I’m fine with that - just a little busy in RL to comment a lot.

That's it for now. I’ll check in again sometime on Monday. Thanks for your input! I appreciate it. You both offer useful insight into ways to improve this list which is always the goal.-Classicfilms (talk) 07:37, 9 July 2017 (UTC)
 * I don't think that book is the source of the article. There are hardly any females and of those such as Thelma and Louise are not action heroes. What an action hero has always been disputed with some dubious inclusions.REVUpminster (talk) 13:33, 9 July 2017 (UTC)
 * I don't have much time to discuss this now, but I will post tomorrow with WP:RS from scholarship on action film, action heroes and villains. In addition, this post is about the title, so I'd like more clarification about the objection to adding "and villains" - or my suggestion to change the title to “Female action characters” . More tomorrow - Classicfilms (talk) 21:44, 9 July 2017 (UTC)

As promised, here is a very short list, based on works that one could partially access online. There are many others available in digital and RL libraries. However, this list does indicate there is quite a bit of WP:RS on the topic:

1. Discussion of Action-Adventure Films, heroes and villains.
 * Croteau,David R. and William D. Hoynes.”Media/Society: Industries, Images and Audiences” 3rd Edition.SAGE Publications, Inc, 2002.

2. Female action heroes and villains
 * Knight, Gladys L. “Female Action Heroes: A Guide to Women in Comics, Video Games, Film, and Television.” Greenwood, 2010

3. Female Action Heroes and Villains
 * Stasia, Cristina Lucia. “My Guns are in the Fendi! The Postfeminist Female Action Hero.” In “Third Wave Feminism: A Critical Exploration.” S. Gillis, G. Howie, R. Munford (eds.)Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.

4. Action Heroes
 * Synnott, Anthony. “Re-Thinking Men: Heroes, Villains and Victims,” 1st Edition. Routledge, 2009.

5.Action Heroes
 * Tasker, Yvonne. “The Action and Adventure Cinema.” 1st Edition. Routledge, 2004

6. Female Action Heroes
 * Tasker, Yvonne. “The Hollywood Action and Adventure Film (New Approaches to Film Genre)” 1st Edition. Wiley-Blackwell, 2015.

7. Female Action Hero
 * Purse, Lisa. “Contemporary Action Cinema” 1st Edition. Edinburgh University Press, 2011.

Extra: This is an IMDB page, but it reflects a panel called “female action heroes” at a San Diego Comic-Con:
 * Our Favorite Female Action Heroes and a Few Villains, Too

I am on and off the WP this week, so I’ll check back later. -Classicfilms (talk) 21:19, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

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Cleanup
Hello, I stumbled upon this page and, while happy that it exists, feel it needs some rearranging and formatting. This free-for-all list style is incredibly hard to parse, or to quickly find a listing of interest. Shouldn't the list be organized in some kind of way (I imagine alphabetized by media title might be most intuitive)? Should we have separate sections for heroes vs villains? If we have it in a table-type format we could use a column to indicate whether a character is a hero or a villain so we wouldn't have to separate heroes and villains that come from the same source, although I would be concerned about the labeling of alignment creating possible spoilers for some media. Anyone have input on this? Should there also perhaps be qualifications for who is listed, such as, that the character must be able to communicate or otherwise act upon the plot in a sentient and important manner? I noticed that Epona from the Legend of Zelda series was included; while she is unquestionably important (and majestic), she is.. to the best of my knowledge, a mere horse (a mere mare, if you will), and I find this a little odd among the rest of the seeming majority of the list being human/humanoids or otherwise sentient beings! There are however other nonhuman characters who might merit inclusion, so I would be hesitant to put a rule about simply "no animals" or anything similar, but Epona's inclusion suggests that maybe the current requirements are a little too open-ended. Does this mean that any apparently female character, appearing for an unspecified duration in an action-like media, could or should be included? I feel that might be overstepping the intent of this article and that it should be a bit more defined.

[ETA] Epona's inclusion is even more strange when considering that GLaDOS, of the video game Portal, was not listed. I assume this was simply that nobody had added the latter yet, but it strikes me that a horse would be included while a fully sentient female AI with absolute importance to each source media she appears in, was not. This difference seems to highlight the need for more specificity in whom this article is meant to include.

Curious about others' thoughts on these ideas! Zee (talk) 11:47, 22 November 2019 (UTC)
 * you might want to check WP:LISTCRITERIA for some universal guidelines. It may answer some of your questions. ☆ Bri (talk) 13:58, 22 November 2019 (UTC)


 * Your observations seem to me to make sense and I personally think that there is a case for cleanup.
 * Wikipedia can sometimes become a swamp for a world wide webs worth of subjectivity - or worse. Should any web based writer want to build up their own content by naming so and so as such and such, then Wikipedia editors get some licence to incorporate that subjectivity into the encyclopedia.
 * Then again WP:LISTCRITERIA points out, for instance, that "List of Norwegian musicians would not be encyclopedically useful if it indiscriminately included every garage band mentioned in a local Norwegian newspaper."
 * I think that you're spot on to describe it as a "free-for-all list" and, as far as I can work out, this is because a "my hero" factor comes into play. It can get very subjective.
 * Another option could be to use a set definition such as when used in other Wiki articles such as hero which begins: "A hero is a real person or a main fictional character who, in the face of danger, combats adversity through feats of ingenuity, courage, or strength. ... post-classical and modern heroes, who perform great deeds or selfless acts for the common good ... The antonym of a hero is a villain. ..." Hero further mentions that, "The word hero comes from the Greek ἥρως (hērōs), "hero" (literally "protector" or "defender")".
 * But then there are issues when one writer portrays a character as being more heroic than another writer or when character arcs turn heroes into villains or vice versa - but characters tend either toward heroic or villainous identities.
 * I think that the article has many characters that aren't best described as heroes such as Jane Smith, a contract killer who's main involvement is not to get killed by the people giving the contracts. Beatrix Kiddo was another groundbreaking character, but not a hero.  GregKaye 20:44, 28 January 2020 (UTC)