1. Prince of Persia: Sands of Time (2010). First of all, the woman's only role in this movie is to be a prize to this guy she doesn't even know. Even worse, she does get to know him, but then in the end all of her memories of him are erased and everything she went through to save everyone, is made redundant. Way to write sexism into, not just the story, but the very core of your story. This is one of those rare instances where we really would have preferred she died over the outcome where she lived. She would've made a difference and would've at the very least died of her own volition.
1. King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (2017). We had to share the top spot, because both of these movies are equally offensive. We can't believe this film was made in 2017. They have literally removed all of the original myth's female characters. Instead of having an array of very powerful and diverse women that they had in the original story, all the women in this film are there either to die or be kidnapped. Their purpose is solely to motivate the men in the story. It was a painful experience to watch, especially since Jenni is such a big fan of the original Arthur legend.
3. Avengers: Age of Ultron (2014). God, this one was infuriating! Because we had actually started to like Black Widow in The Winter Soldier - she was competent with flexible morals, you know, like a spy, and all her interaction with a character who is complete opposite of her added some actual intrigue to her character. And this was accomplished without fabricating a forced love story. Then Joss Whedon decided to throw all of that "useless" character building out the window, make her a damsel in distress, add a love story that comes right out of the fucking blue (and feels so cringeworthy) and worst of all, makes her barren. Because after all, a uterus is all that women are. And no, Joss Whedon, you are not forgiven in making the dude infertile as well. That was just some bullshit manoeuvring in order to forcefully connect Banner and Black Widow. It's insulting.
4. Robin Hood (2010). Here we have an example of the strong-independent-woman trope, aka a female character who the film shows is capable of taking care of herself but in the end seems to forget all those skills she had and has to be saved by the guy. Also, she has little to no personality, which, granted, plagues pretty much everyone else in this movie, too.
5. Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002). We will write about both this and the 3rd one more extensively later, but when we watched these again we knew both the second and third films had to go on this list. In a nutshell, Èowyn is one of our favourite literary characters ever, and these movies completely annihilated her. Instead of being a cold-blooded fearless warrior, she's a silly lovelorn teenager. The reason why this is higher, is because of the motherfucking cooking scene in the extended version. It's the worst.
6. Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003). They turned one of the coolest scenes in the entire book trilogy into a hurried and anti-climactic short fight. They reduced Èowyn's badass character into a scaredy-cat. It's fine if that's how somebody was originally written, however, Èowyn was not. Plus, she totally should've had steel armour on her.
7. Spider-Man 2 (2004). We've already written about Mary Jane in another post, so no need to delve into why we find this movie annoying. Though, to be fair, the men in these Spider-Man films aren't a lot better.
8. Passengers (2016). The premise of this film was actually quite interesting. If they had followed through, it might've made an interesting movie. We just find it hard to believe that someone would forgive, and worse, still want to be with an asshole who lied to you to get into your pants ('cause he lonely, hey) and basically stole your whole life from you. Doesn't make the female character very relatable to us and makes the love story more than a little toxic. Again, if it was written with that in mind, we wouldn't have a problem. It's all about the framing.
9. Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith (2005). These movies in general are so bad that we're surprised only this one made it here. But unlike in the previous two pointless outings, in this one the female character does absolutely nothing except walk around barefoot and pregnant (though we do think her clothes in the second film are beyond ridiculous - she looks like she's working at a seedy strip club instead of the senate). Her only role is to give birth and then die. And don't even get us started on the whole weepy "don't go breaking my heart" - routine. We await for the day when male writers realize that pregnant women aren't invalids.
10. Jurassic World (2015). This movie fails particularly in comparison to the original. It's pretty astonishing that a movie from 1993 is less sexist than a film from 2015. The trope of the uptight woman and chill dude does not work in this installment, feels terribly forced and doesn't add anything to their respective characters. They can't all be Leia and Han. And why would anyone in their right mind wear high heels when walking through a forest?!?!?
11. Troy (2004). Jesus, this movie. This is the real Stockholm Syndrome if you ask us. Your captor is not a rapist like those other dudes, so obviously you fall in love with him. None of the women in this story really matter, except Helen of Troy who is basically blamed for the whole war. Otherwise this is a super forgettable movie.
12. Frozen (2013). It's supposed to be all about female empowerment, but one can't help but notice the inconsistencies while watching. Elsa's story is fine, but Anna...ugh. Her life basically revolves around men, and even the ending where she supposedly grew up and did it all for her sister, she still gotta have some arm-candy. We don't want films where men are treated the same way women have been treated for centuries. That's not female empowerment, that's payback. And this film contradicts itself - they say that love at first sight doesn't exist, but then try to fool us into thinking that love at first day does. We mean, it's no different from your usual Disney love story, but when they went out of their way to emphasize how ridiculous it is to fall in love so fast they undermine their own story when exactly that happens in this film.
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