A Woman's Place in the World of the Crow

The women in the world of The Crow. Objects of male desire. The reason men want to come back and seek revenge. Drug dependent junky girlfriends. Perverted females serving their male masters quest to kill the Crow. These have been the types of women, to which we have been exposed, in the world of The Crow. Except for three characters, Iris Shaw (Flesh and Blood), Hannah Foster (The Crow: Stairway to Heaven), and Amy Carlisle (Clash by Night), the lead character in the world of The Crow has belonged to an all boys club. The thought of a female being spotlighted as an avatar, for many, is ludicrous. The question is why? Lack of size is a laughable reason used by many. Brandon Lee was no hulking figure. At 5ft 10in and weighing 160lbs, Brandon, by any measure, was not a massive figure. Eric Draven's power came from the anger within, the Crow, not his size or gender. The whole premise of The Crow is an average person being pushed beyond the limits by death and love. It is not a super hero story. What is it about a female playing a pivotal lead character in a Crow movie that seems to scare people away from the notion? Sigourney Weaver and Linda Hamilton are two prime examples of women who have crossed the line of inequity and shown that women can play strong and viable leads in action movies. When asked about a female lead in the Crow, the young male's customary response is "Oh, it is not realistic for a chick to be whipping up on some guys head". My response to that is, "and it is realistic for a man to be able to take hundreds of bullets and keep on walking?" In the realm of fiction, you are only limited by your lack of imagination. It seems many lack the imagination to accept a female as an avatar in the movies. Along with the obvious shortage of female heroines, there has also been a lack of female characters in the lead role of a villain. The Crow movies have failed to introduce a female character that breaks the typical female mold. They have been portrayed as sacrificial lambs, weak clairvoyants, kinky half sisters, or just pretty faces. The Image comics did introduce a female lead villain, Sin, but the all too familiar role of dominatrix was used instead of creating a character with depth. It seems, for those with limited imaginations, that a woman can not have power unless it is used through sexual seduction. An example of a change in the tide toward female leads can be seen in the last three James Bond movies. Long recognized as a movie series that uses women more for show than placing them in substantial roles, the last three stories have highlighted women who match 007 in intelligence and physical ability. They have finally awakened to the fact that women can be shown in an authoritative light, yet not loose the integrity or realism of the story. How long will it take the Crow audience to realize this? Only the TV series has attempted to show women in a role of substance and power. In the series, we were introduced to two female characters in recurring roles, one a District Attorney and the other a detective. Though their male counterparts usually saved the day, these two women represented something more than perversion and weakness. In addition, two of the highest rated episodes of the TV series featured Bobbie Philips in the intense and provoking role of Hanna Foster. Yet the TV show is blasted, by some, for its "toning down" of the almighty mythos of The Crow. I say the only thing toned down was the ability of the audience to expand their imagination. The most powerful woman to date, within the realm of The Crow, is, actually, a 13yr old girl named Sarah. In both the movie adaptation and TV series, Sarah is shown to be free-minded and self-sustaining. The Crow: City of Angels attempted to expand Sarah's role even further and take her into adulthood. What started out as a promising premise regressed back to the over-used tale of a man coming to the rescue of his fallen love. O'Barr has long lobbied for a female character to be used in a movie. Moviemakers, like the masses, seem to feel that a female Crow is too far fetched to make any impact. Time has long passed when women had a "place" and were kept there. They are no longer satisfied to play the roles of damsels in distress or the less than adequate partner, much like a magician's assistant, nothing more than window dressing, and rightly so. As long as the male audience for the Crow continues to be narrow minded, and the female audience is accepting of females being portrayed as nothing more than distressed damsels and painted streetwalkers, we will never convince the powers to be to stretch THEIR imaginations. It does beg to question, "Why should filmmakers stretch their imaginations when the audience is satisfied with being stagnant?"

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