The Weather Outside is Weather (2016)

For the entirety of Raiders of the Lost Ark, Marion remains in full control of both her body and her personality, a rarity for female characters at the time of the film’s release. She’s granted depth with personal demons from her past and emotional vulnerability when the situation deems it appropriate for her to grow alongside Indy. She avidly rejects the notion of being anything other than a sassy, humane rebel, and Indy’s equal in every way. This she does while still maintaining her femininity.

Coralie Fargeat once said that “Being a woman is body horror,” and when you think about the ways we are taught to experience our own bodies, it becomes almost impossible to argue with her.

Like all modern societal phenomenons, it started with a meme. This one highlighted that when there’s a mom in a Pixar film, she is almost without fail given striking curves that highlight the bottom half of her body following a minuscule waist. From Elastigirl to the skeletal Mama Imelda, the animation giant’s artists seem to have a fixation on making exaggeratedly curvy maternal characters.

In Spike Lee’s She’s Gotta Have It (1986), we follow the love life of powerful female protagonist Nola Darling (Tracy Camilla Johns) and explore the relationship dynamics she has with her partners. She sees three men simultaneously: Greer Childs, (John Canada Terrell) Mars Blackmon (Spike Lee), and Jamie Overstreet (Tommy Redmond Hicks). Though an 80’s film, She’s Gotta Have It is surprisingly progressive with its themes of female sexuality, although at some points in the film it is handled clumsily. Overall Nola is an incredibly compelling character especially for modern women, as we as a society acknowledge female sensuality more and more without the negative stigma.

John Fawcett’s "Ginger Snaps" intertwines the lore of the werewolf to the hellish experience of a young girl going through puberty.