Women In The Media.

Bella Beats Bond as tough Teenager.

The latest Twilight has knocked Sky-fall of it's Us chart perch, and now a host of other films starring action heroines is in the pipeline as Hollywood takes it's cue from the huge sales success of young adult fiction.

Twilight's Bella is far from alone when it comes to active young heroines invading cinematic territory usually occupied by male characters. Paving the way for a wave of new aggressive tougher feminine stars.

Melissa Silverstein says that it's gigantic, that is has shown women can fuel box office.
One thing however that Hollywood is trying with it is to replicate the Twilight films success, telling stories of  young powerful female characters in setting not usually associated with them.

The most obvious example of that being the Hunger Games, set in a brutal futuristic dystopia where the bow wielding heroine is a ferocious young girl called Katniss Everdeen.

In 2013 another supernatural series, Beautiful Creatures will get its turn in cinemas. The main character of Lena, a 'caster' whose magical powers can be claimed for good or evil on her 16th birthday, is to be played by young actress Alice Englebert.

This year will also see the first Mortal Instruments movie, featuring Lily Collins as Clary Fray, a young girl battling demons who have kidnapped her mother.

Angel-fall, the first movie from another adaptation from a young adult book with a female protagonist, and which takes place in a post apocalyptic Earth.

The trend has even reached the world of animation. Pixar released Brave, its first ever film with a female lead, a scottish princess called Merida, who is far more skilled with a bow and arrow than any of the male characters in the film.

One thing that has struck the many observers of the trend is that the young female characters , emerginf in post Tmilight Hollywood are not overly sexualised. Instead they wield weapons, lead other characters and exist in film genres, such as horror, dystopian science fiction and post apocalyptic settings, where strong male characters have usually dominated.

The character of Everdeen is dominant and strong including over her purative love interests. These girls are not wearing bikinis, its not just about showing skin.

Many experts wold argue that the trend is still unlikely to reverse deep rooted sexism in the world of movie making. Silverstein pointed out that while Hollywood now seems content to make action movies with strong, young female leads it is still risk averse when it comes to strong adult womens roles.

It seems Hollywood are still not comfortable in taking the progress made with teen movies and turning that into the more grown up spectrum of entertainment. "Girls can be powerful and strong. Women can't, we are  comfortable with girls kicking arse, but not a woman who is in their twenties or thirties unless that happens to be Angelina Jolie. but she is an anomaly. Silverstein said.

It is unlikely then, many observers believe that the success of Twilight and the movies that it has paved the way for will do much to change the balance of power in favour women elsewhere in the industry . Women will struggle to find good roles and high wages compared to their male co stars, they will still find sitting in the directors chair a rare experience and they will still be troubled by the industry's persuasive ageism. a recent study of family oriented films are likely to be friendlier to female roles than else where. It showed that only 11% feature girls and women in roughly half of the speaking parts. It also showed that while women make up 47% of the labour force in the US, they occupy only one of five jobs featured in family films.

Just 11% of directors are women and just 13% of editors. Overall 26% of people working in the movies are women. A figure that had moved up a mere five percentage points over the last 15 years.