However, this list is not the only one that has been created or researchers have come up with; Christina Larson presented her own list in her article “Seven Mistakes Superheroines Make: Why the Latest Action-babe Flicks Flopped.” According to her, every female action hero that has broken at least one of the rules she mentions has failed to receive a positive reception by the audience. Those rules are:
- Do fight demons. Don't fight only inner demons.
- Do play well with others. Don't shun human society.
- Do exhibit self-control. Don't exhibit mental disorders.
- Do wear trendy clothes. Don't wear fetish clothes.
- Do embrace girl power. Don't cling to man hatred.
- Do help hapless men. Don't try to kill your boyfriend.
- Do toss off witty remarks. Don't look perpetually sullen.
Let us analyze two of the movies featuring female action heroes that have failed to be accepted by the majority of society, and check if what Larson claims is true. In “Catwoman,” Patience Phillips ends up shunning human society when she decides to leave all of her life behind, including her boyfriend, to save people in danger. Moreover, she does wear fetish clothes. “Elektra” also wears fetish clothes, she does exhibit mental disorders and is sullen rather than witty. Moreover, she seems to struggle too much with her inner demons, and at least at the beginning she did shun human society. We do not see any of these rules broken neither in “Tomb Raider” nor in “Charlie's Angels,” or even in “Alias,” even when Alex from “Charlie's Angels” and Sidney from “Alias” have been shown wearing fetish clothes, but that was only as a cover in a mission, not because that is what they had chosen to wear emblematically. We can conclude, then, that Larson was indeed right: if a female action hero breaks any of the rules mentioned above, the audience, that is to say society, will not accept them or the movie or television show will flop.
Moreover, there is also a key to a good action movie, as Stephanie Mencimer states in her article “Violent Femmes.” She assures that there should be “an inverse relationship between the amount of special effects and the amount of dialogue. Talk too much and the heroine loses her mystique and starts to remind men of their ex-wives.” Here lies another mistake that “Catwoman” made. Patience talks too much in comparison to Lara Croft or Charlie's Angels. In addition, the movie puts a lot of emphasis on the sentimental relationship between Patience and Tom Lone, and also on what happens within Patience herself as she undergoes and tries to cope with the changes that turned her into Catwoman.After including this entire dilemma there is not a lot of action in the movie, not as much as in other action movies which have been successful.
