Continuing our Women's History Month countdown, this week's deep and stylish female badass is the one and only literal superhero who simply couldn't be ousted from this list. Yes, she's technically owned by Marvel, but she’s not part of either the DC or Marvel main universes, so I’m getting away with this one. That’s my rationalization, and I’m sticking to it.
(Disclaimer: This is one of those rare and embarrassing moments when I'm forced to admit near-total ignorance of a story's printed origins. I haven't read the Kick-Ass comics, and this post is based entirely on the awesomeness of movie-verse Hit-Girl as played by the ever amazing Chloe Moretz)
If you don't know Hit-Girl, here are the basics:
Superheroes are fictional, as they are in our universe. Or they were. Super powers remain fictional, but a handful of ordinary humans are taking up the tradition of stylized, masked vigilantism for their own various reasons. The first one we meet is our hero, Kick-Ass (A.K.A Dave Lizewski).
They're not the no-killing-code kind of costumed vigilantes.
And she's eleven years old.
I heartily disagree.
In fact, I find movie-verse Hit-Girl quite possibly the least exploitative female super in fiction.
Her costume precisely captures her persona.
Hit-Girl is not eye candy, and she's not a damsel in disguise. She's a hero with every bit as much depth and complexity and about as active a role as Kick-Ass, our actual protagonist.
She's a born and bred badass with more experience in masked street violence than almost any adult in the game, yet with a complete lack of experience with normal life, even more so than other people her age. When she steps into a room, no matter how many fully grown heavily armed men are in it, her sheer comic-book-fantasy-grade ability can command instant fear and respect, but there's a childlike put-on quality to the flirty femme fatale banter she attempts.
Hey, she deals with mobsters every day. Give her a break.
Hit-Girl is exactly what she should be, what she would be under the circumstances. She's a frighteningly cold and efficient killing machine, and a lonely, awkward, vulnerable human being.
I'm not the biggest fan of the second Kickass movie, partly due to its uneven pacing and tone, and mainly because of its unbelievably clumsy and lazy handling of the other female characters, Night Bitch,
For example…
(Watch this one with the sound on. The music choices are as over-the-top beautiful as the action itself.)