And yet, knowing this, I chose to write an Indian (as in, from India) female anti-heroine in the scifi fantasy I just first-drafted.

I did that with the intent of forcing myself to write a strong female role, something I felt I could work on improving. It might make it a hard sell, but it felt right creatively.

I think it will take time, but as filmmaking becomes more accessible to your average Joe and Jane, we'll see a lot more variety in leading roles.

"The 'conventional wisdom' is that girls will watch movies with male or female leads, but boys won't watch movies with female leads."

I think this is COMPLETELY BACKWARDS.

Take Tomb Raider (the video game) as an example. Guys have no problem literally inhabiting the body of a female character in an action genre.

The real problem imo -- is that females in action movies that aren't your typical damsel in distress, are usually of another type -- and that is surrogate male.

That is -- they only exist when a comparison is made to how "manly" they are, or how extraordinary a woman they are because they are doing a man's job. Kinda stupid if you ask me.

There's an audience out there for strong female characters in their own right.

This is very very frustrating and very very true, but God knows I'm not letting that stop me. :) When I went to see 'Transformers', I went with about eleven other girls because we wanted to see giant robots from space beating each other up, not because our boyfriends dragged us. (Most of us are happily single anyway.)

I'm working on a load of different projects right now, most of them with female leads and casts, but gender never drives the story. None of them are about fighting the patriarchy or having a litter of kids. We do have other ambitions. :) And I love men! They're awesome! It just hurts a little when some of them think I have it easier in life because all I have to do is marry rich. (That's if writing/producing/theater/steel/nun doesn't work out.)

Much love and thanks for writing this. It's always encouraging.

Well let me state for the record, I'm an amateur. Learning as I go, and based on this post.... I'm crap up a creek writing a script with two female leads. I guess the beauty of trying to write something and not knowing how to do it, is if it's a complete failure, I can blame it on being inexperienced?

I heard that the Blindside almost didn't get made because Hollywood wanted to have the relationship in the film be a father/son relationship, not a mother/son relationship.

It's tough to be in an industry where it seems like the only way females get any recognition is if they do extremely male-centric movies (e.g. Kathryn Bigelow).