An occasionally
appealing modern archetype, done prominently in
"The Matrix", for example, and cutely in the "
You're Under Arrest!"
anime and
manga (okay, and countless others). Sometimes just
irritating, though. Girls with guns are often just generic supporting characters given a larger role because there needs to be a
love interest and something
sexy for the guys to look at in between
explosions. There's often nothing particularly
female about them besides their artificially-created
curves. Nonetheless, they're frequent objects of
fantasy, popular from
Hong Kong to
Hollywood, from the
dime novel of the
1920s to
Lara Croft--and probably stretching back to the endless male fascination with
Amazon myths. There's all sorts of
theory about this, from
pop culture to
psychology. A search on
women in film in a
university library database should turn up several works.
For the record, I thought "
The Long Kiss Goodnight" was a better example of the character/genre.