...I assume small screen characters are allowed. How about Kara Thrace on Battlestar Galactica? Or CJ Cregg on The West Wing? Oh wait, her "franchise" has expired. Buffy Summers (expired). Sydney Bristow (expired). Let's hope the new fall lineup has some women with "claw power" - whatever that means!

I'm sure there will be plenty who hate, hate, HATE that I'm bringing this character up, but there's no denying the books/movies around her made money...

Bridget Jones.

And, if we're going small-screen...

Carrie Bradshaw.

Agent Scully from X-Files would be another good choice...

in order to convince someone to have sex with them.

Alice (Milla Jovovich, Resident Evil 1 & 2 -- and 3 is being filmed)

Kara "Starbuck" Thrace (as already noted)

From "powerful positions", Ororo "Storm" Munroe (Halle Berry) from X-Men. I mean, she's the leader now. On the other hand, the actress' impact throughout the series has been fairly weak.

From the small screen, what about Sam Carter?

lisa simpson is way cooler than lame bart!

Are feminists still praising that violent cartoon, "Thelma and Louise?" I don’t get it and didn’t get it in '91. I don’t think vigilantism and dying in a fiery car crash is progress, sorry.

I’m also beyond the 15 year old boy fantasy of a strong woman, which is someone with big boobs who can beat the crap out of you. Yawn.

I’ll take Erin Brockovich, even as portrayed by Julia Roberts in a push-up bra.

One of my early feminist cinema role models, in a damn fine movie, is Ellen Burstyn in “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore.” Yeah, it’s dated and schmaltzy in parts, but it’s Scorsese, and it is hugely enjoyable, gritty and realistic. Jodi Foster, at age 12 or so, is fabulous in it.

Lisa is way cooler than bart

Also defying the "Current Franchise" rule:

Lola (of Run, Lola, Run)?

Or the Fifth Element herself?

Quentin Tarantino's "The Bride?" (Uma Thurman in Kill Bill Vol. 1 and 2)?

Miho: The dead serious Asian hooker with the male-protagonist-butt-saving blades in Sin City.

Sadako: The psychokinetic/poltergeist antagonist of Ringu/The Ring (movie's probably too old, though)

Lola: Run Lola Run (probably also dated.. I don't watch a lot of new releases)

Corpse Bride: Corpse Bride

Honestly, there's not much to choose from, that I can think of. I wouldn't have thought to criticize a top-ten list for not having enough women in it, as that may be a bit of a sexist assumption in itself. Perhaps we should be criticizing the lack of claw-having female characters in the movies lately, instead? I'm definitely feeling the Lara Croft nomination, though, good call!

Ooh, she's not admirable, but she definitely had claws: Aileen Wuornos, the man-killing prostitute psycho in Monster

How about Eryn Brokavich (in real life and as played by Julia Roberts)? What about Joan Allen's turn in The Contender (a role about a women nominated for the vice presidency)? How about Katherine Hepburn in Adam's Rib or Woman of the Year?!

Those boys over at EW need to wake up and smell the estrogen!

It's the same mentality that decided that Batwoman (or was it Catwoman) had to be gay. After all, how'd believe in a strong independent straight woman?

Does anyone know the statistics on how many women go to the movies? I only bring this up because, if I know anything about Hollywood, I know that they will do anything to get them money. So is a dearth of "stronger female characters" a chauvinism problem, or is it (for better or worse) what the audience wants (an audience which may very well be 50% women).

Also, maybe this isn't a bad thing. Most Hollywood film structure is predicated on a character making a stupid decision (Inciting Incident) that has incredibly negative unforseen consequences (i.e., Dustin Hoffman's character in the Graduate having sex with an older woman and not knowing he'd fall in love with her daughter: he can stop fucking Mrs. Robinson, but he can't unfuck her). So maybe what Hollywood is saying is that men make stupider decisions than women.

...that back in the pre-1970s, when women had generally inferior status to men, there was an equality of sorts in Hollywood (Plenty of first-rate actresses and material tailored for them - Bette, Joan, Kate, Marilyn, Ava, Liz...). Now, when women in the "real world" are striving to achieve equality with men, Hollywood has decided that females are generally expendable except for certain types of roles. And why is it so hard nowadays for actresses generally to "open" a film, when apparently this was not the case in previous decades?

The weekly doesn't enumerate their criteria for great characters, but they must have composed their list with dollar signs in mind

Well, since the article sub-heading call it a list of the "top ten franchise characters in movies," and since every item includes dollar grosses, it would appear that the term "film's most powerful characters" is meant to convey box-office power. Doh!

The word "franchise" is used repeatedly in the original article. In the entertainment industry, a franchise character or property is one with lots of built-in name recognition and demonstrable ability to draw a huge number of ticket buyers each time a new movie in the series is released.

So while one is certainly free to compile a list of "risk-taking, ass-kicking female protagonists," that's not what the article was about. The article was about the present ability of a character to act as the linchpin of a series of financially lucrative movies. [Thelma and Louise clearly do not qualify, unless the next movie is a prequel or they come back as the undead.] Based solely upon that criterion, I do not at present see too many viable female candidates for this type of list.

The only one that springs immediately to mind is the "Underworld" series starring Kate Beckinsale. $93MM worldwide for the first movie on a $22MM budget; $107MM for the second on a $45MM budget -- that is what makes for a currently successful female franchise character.

It is not as though Hollywood hasn't tried to build franchises around female leads. Recent efforts include such bombs as Catwoman (cost $100MM; ww gross $74MM), Elektra (cost $65MM; ww gross $56MM), Aeon Flux (cost $55MM; ww gross $51MM), and Ultraviolet (cost $30MM; ww gross $20MM). So why was Underworld successful while these others were not? Since the protagonist's gender wasn't the problem, I would suspect that the quality of the writing and acting, or lack thereof, was the real issue.