So as you may of guessed by the title (which is a half arsed reference to a film that I've never seen, but has an iconic poster), today is all about those members of the human species who are women. That's right, it's International Women's Day! Statistically speaking, women are more likely to be women than men, isn't that a fantastic statistic! I could blabber all day about these great facts about women (because they are pretty great), but that's not what you are here for is it? So instead of top women knowledge, you are going to get some great recommendations for things that are either made by or feature women. Okay feature women is quite a broad category, so I think I'll keep it to things that contain great female protagonists (or, as I just said, are made by women, because I'm pretty sure music doesn't have protagonists.) So without an further delays, lets celebrate women the TGOI way, by watching, listening to and playing women! Actually, lets not do that, that's more O.J. than TGOI.
Aliens - James Cameron (Film)
I could have been super indie kid here and picked a relatively unknown film with some really deep female lead in it, but lets be honest here, when you think "strong female protagonist in cinema," Sigourney Weaver's portrayal of Ripley will most likely appear straight away in your cranium. Now, the real test here was deciding which Alien film showed her at her best. Was it her lone survivor role in Alien, or her super kick arse, kill every alien by herself role in Aliens- actually never mind I already decided. Aliens is a superb follow up to the horror classic, featuring a team of super duper marines who take on the entire alien horde because they think they are the shit (but turn out to just be shit), but need to take the survivor of the first alien encounter, Ripley, with them, because she beat one before, so clearly she can beat the rest, right? Well luckily, they are so fucking right. Seriously, she is the coolest female, nay, the coolest human being ever to grace the screen. If you love strong female characters fighting a bunch of aliens, then you have found the film for you! Oh, and the film itself is actually a superb film, in fact, it's one of the greatest action films of all time, so that helps too.
White Rabbit - Jefferson Airplane (Music)
Quite honestly, music is absolutely chock full of amazing female talent, so choosing something for music was insanely hard. I wanted to go with a song that really filled me with emotion, and an artist who wasn't Kate Bush (because I show love for her on a regular basis). Whilst I had many choices, such as Think by Aretha Franklin, Bang Bang by Nancy Sinatra, and Because The Night by Patti Smith (which are all phenomenal for different reasons, seriously check them all out), I decided to go with White Rabbit by Jefferson Airplane. This is a Vietnam era psychedelic rock song all about those hallucinogenics and those Alice in Wonderland references. It's a superb song written and performed by Grace Slick (that name is fantastic by the way) that really gets me good. I've always been a fan of this type of rock, and this is probably my second favourite song of that era (first being Buffalo Springfield's For What It's Worth). It's quite the short song, but I guarantee you will listen to it over and over.
The Walking Dead Season Two - Telltale Games (Game)
If you haven't heard of the Walking Dead video games (not that shitty first person shooter based on the show, the story driven one) then either you have been living under a rock, or you are not really interested in the story driven game genre or games in general, which is fair enough. They are excellently made games that feature you making various story changing decisions in a world full of the dead. The story is written superbly, but it's the characters that really shine through, especially the lead protagonist in the game's second season (and main, but unplayable character in the first season) Clementine. She is a youthful child in this cruel world, yet despite being a bunch of pixels on a screen, you care for her more than you would care for most real humans on the planet. She is a fantastic standard for amazing female characters, just like Ellie in The Last Of Us (which would have gone here if Max hadn't recommended it already.) These games are amazing at showing how characters don't have to be 2D, as Clementine goes from the one you want to protect at all costs in the first game, to the superb and caring (or super cruel if that's how you play these games) survivor in the second. Oh and for the record, yes I did cry at the end of season one of this game.
I think we can all agree that women are great, and today has been the day to recognise that greatness, which I have done through a blogpost (grandmaster women supporter right here), but in all honesty, why is it that today is women's day? Why can't every day be women's day? In fact, why can't every day be human day, in which we all celebrate every gender and race's equally? Because at the end of the day, on the inside, we all have skeletons that are basically the same. But that might be because they are resting inside us until the day they can burst out and claim the world in the name of skeleton kind. If that's the case, start loving everyone equally, before the Skeleton Rapture claims us all!
Seriously though, Happy International Women's Day!
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