Iconic Women in Pop Culture

You are tuned in to Steve Megatron on Altered

Geek. Hello and welcome to Altered Geek. I'm

your host, Steve Megatron Phillips, and joining

me in this adventure into geekdom is... Mike

the Birdman Dodd. That's right, I'm finally back

on this show. Yes, from the great beyond. He

is, uh, he is back. That's right, and... This

was always one of my favorite shows to do because

it's very free form and I have to watch my potty

mouth. So I won't swear, I promise. So we thought

since this is released the day after, we thought

that we would touch on the International Women's

Day. Yes, we are celebrating International Women's

Day, which was March 8th. So celebrating powerful

women, be it in fiction and real life. If it

is basically a woman or I guess not so much anymore

because the definitions have changed. Basically,

we're just celebrating people that are powerful,

who identify as women, be it transgendered or

whatever. We're just here to say, hey, you're

awesome. And there's some pretty cool ones that

I've seen in the media over the last couple of

years. I posted this on my Twitter yesterday.

I'm actually choosing a female astronaut. named

Roberta Bondar. She was a member of the Canadian

Space Agency. She flew a number of different

shuttle missions over her very long career. And

she was the first woman that I remember going

into space whose name that stuck with me. And

I remember this name from when I was a child.

um as well because I think I want to say she

did something with either the space lab or uh

Canada space arm I can't remember which but it's

just one of those names that has always stuck

with me um another woman that I'd like to feature

and this is actually going way back into into

Mike's personal history here um there was an

author who wrote a book back in the back in the

mid 90s to late 90s called surfing the net. And

it was author was JC hers, H E's, H E R Zed.

And it was basically this woman who was surfing

the internet back when it was all BBS is web

pages were still a fairly new thing. Chat rooms

are still fairly hot. Instant messaging was still

very much in its infancy. You'd have like, AOL,

Yahoo, but it was mostly like private chat rooms,

stuff like that. And this woman very much influenced

how I approached the internet because I learned

about things like CDC, which is Cult of the Dead

Cow, which is like this old hacker group. I'm

pretty sure they're still around. There was this

BBS, which stands for bulletin board system,

called Zen Moo. And basically, you would use

this board to meditate. And if you talked too

much on the board, you could talk every so often.

But if you talk so much, you'd get kicked out.

It's like you cannot attain Zen -ness while talking.

Or if you say the right thing at the right time,

it's like, oh, you are enlightened or whatever.

And it was just so weird. I started learning

about the internet and its culture very much

in its early infancy from her, and it very much

shaped the way that I approached the internet

coming into the mid -90s and the 2000s while

I was in high school. I remember getting this

book from my local library. In fact, if I could

track down a copy, I'd love to reread it just

to see how much internet culture has evolved

since then. But my favorite fictional woman of

all time, It's actually a tie, if you can believe

that. It comes down to Commander Ellen Ripley

from the Alien series. I think she's the ultimate

badass, especially in the movie Aliens. But the

other one comes from the video game series Mass

Effect as portrayed by Jennifer Hale as Commander

Shepard. This is a character who I grew to love

and respect over the course of three games, multiple

pieces of other tie -in media as well, expanding

upon the Mass Effect universe. It's just one

of those characters because... The character

was you. You can either go Paragon or Renegade

or a mix of the two, but your decisions shaped

the effects of the Milky Way galaxy against your

fight against the Reapers, trying to unite all

these different races, the Quarians, the Turians,

the Salarians, et cetera, et cetera. Well, not

just that, but depending on which way you went

depended on how Shepard appeared. Mm -hmm. Exactly,

it was fully character customizable. Mine was

always this drop -dead gorgeous green -eyed redhead.

And I was always very vanilla with my romance,

as though as I did multiple playthroughs of the

game, I would choose different ones. But my true

love... is Garrus Vicarion, the Turian hitman,

I guess you could say, or a former police officer,

I guess you could say. He was always my favorite

romance in that game. Although, when you could

enter a lesbian relationship in Mass Effect 3.

Liara? No, actually, no, I did romance Liara

once or twice, but it was Trainer. the ship's

comms officer, I guess you could call her. I

always thought she was kind of fun because you

can seduce her while you're upstairs playing

chess and you can just walk into the shower with

her and have yourself a romantic evening, I guess,

if you want to put a spin on it. But I always

thought that was kind of cute. I didn't so much

fall in love with Sarah Ryder, who was the main

character of Mass Effect Andromeda, although

I did have a lesbian romance with her too. I

romanced my ships. I guess not the botanist.

Actually, maybe it was the botanist. I think

it was the Australian, or the chick that had

the really cool accent. I can't remember her

name. That's how memorable Mass Effect Andromeda

was to me. Well, see, I decided not to play that

game. And you're lucky for it. Because one, I

wasn't going to pay initial pricing. And two,

I'd played Mass Effect 3 and the other ones before.

And then one of the nice things was EA Access

had Mass Effect 2 for free, not that long ago.

And so I was like, I'll save this for a rainy

day. And then I went back and I played it again.

It took me, I don't know, four days to be. Just

because I'm crazy and then I Played is you know,

cuz I'll usually do like a run through is like

Male Shepherd and then I'll go through is like

female Shepherd and then just kind of you know

Just see what happens just because sometimes

the story is different depending on that and

I enjoyed it. The game as a whole and I think

that that's a pretty strong character no matter

which way you go, although it makes it slightly

more hardcore if you're the female version. Yeah,

I think you get a better story if you're a female

renegade shepherd just because Jennifer Hale

gives a really good bitchy performance, like

she comes off as a complete bitch. But it's really

good though. Now, if you play that as a paragon,

once again, you get a really good story there

as well. But that's not to say she isn't the

only female in video games we should be celebrating.

If you want a fantastic pair of games, there's

the Tomb Raider Reboot, which is available on

both next -gen consoles and PC. and then Rise

of the Tomb Raider, which was the sequel to that,

which is yet another fantastic game. And the

Tomb Raider movie comes out in just a couple

of weeks, actually. Hopefully it's actually pretty

good. I've kind of got mixed thoughts on it.

It can't be any worse than the original ones.

I thought the first Tomb Raider movie was okay,

but the second one, I remember so little of it

as it might as well not exist. Which is kind

of a poor thing because I think Angelina Jolie

did play a fairly decent Laura Croft, but to

be fair she fit the physical aspect of the original

Lara Croft Well, yeah, I mean and have much of

the personality up until the video games later

on flushed her out Yeah, but that was because

other games were showing that story sold Yeah,

the game and and that's that's kind of part of

it and and one of the other things kind of switching

gears from games if you go films you have like

Princess Leia you have which kind of also doubles

the fact that Carrie Fisher yeah don't don't

give a crap lady you know like she may not have

been the most powerful person but like she had

a voice and you couldn't shut her up if you wanted

to and that was kind of the point of it absolutely

I mean if you look at Star Wars they have a whole

history of powerful women I mean you got like

you said Princess Leia Padme Amidala though not

so much in the first one I would almost argue

that Leia is the strongest one of the Star Wars

franchise I could make an argument for Rey but

she only has two movies under her under her it

remains to be seen what they do with her in the

third film Exactly. I don't want to give my full

opinions on Rey till there's the complete trilogy

for her. But yeah, you also have a lot of expanded

universe characters like Sabine from Star Wars

Rebels. She's awesome. Let me just preface this

with Rebels is a spectacular series. Absolutely.

Have you watched the finale? Not yet. I love

how they tie it up. Yeah, like I've read how

it ends, but I have to see it for myself It's

and it's it's spectacular plus they they leave

this glimmer of hope of something that could

take place between episode six and seven Which

I hope they do is like a like a TV movie or something

Well if they do another series in between six

and seven because you have 30 years Plus of time

in between there you could have theoretically

Mark Hamill come back and voice Luke Skywalker

Which he probably would because it won't require

him to act Exactly and you could even probably

get Adam Driver to come back as Kylo Ren and

you wouldn't really really really wanted to and

well If you're yeah, if you're if you're bridging

the gap and depending on what part of the timeline

you're playing in there You know if you had Harrison

Ford's character, you could even have Hamill

do that because he could do a pretty passable

Han Solo Yeah, I mean, there's so much opportunity

for like I kind of storytelling in there I'm

trying to think of other Star Wars powerful characters.

Um Right off the top of my head. I'm really thinking

here. Sorry, um What's Ashoka? Yes, so Ahsoka

Tano. Yes I blanked on his name for a second,

but yeah, Anakin Skywalker's padawan who became

very powerful in her own right. And it's still,

you know what? I'm not gonna say anymore if you

haven't seen the finale. I know where you're

going with it. You have to watch the finale to

get even more added on top of that awesomeness.

Yeah, like there's something there. Another series

to talk about a powerful woman and definitely

inspired me to take a look at the sciences a

little bit harder is Dr. Dana Scully. from the

X -Files. Very, very influential character who

definitely got a lot of people. I remember a

lot of teenage girls in the 90s wanted to get

into forensics because of Scully. And I think

that's still cool. And if you say Mulder and

Scully even to this very day, people know exactly

who you are talking about as Gillian Anderson.

Well, another one that's that's kind of an icon

in of itself is the is Nichelle Nichols Yep from

like Star Trek. She was the first African American

on the bridge of the enterprise of Star Trek

in general She was you know, the first in space,

you know as of a TV program And then and then

you know, there were a lot of firsts with her

and that's what inspired like Whoopi Goldberg

It kind of paved the way for all of the rest

of the people to be interested in Star Trek that

didn't think they had a chance back when it was

airing. Yeah, I mean Star Trek during the 60s

had a lot of social commentary with it. We had

the first interracial kiss. We had a lot of allegories

on racial tensions told during the course of

that show. And it was very, very powerful, got

people talking, got a lot of conversations that

were uncomfortable to certain people happening.

And it still does. Yeah, and it still does to

this very day. I mean, Star Trek continues to

inspire. This and even this year Star Trek discovery

with Michael Burnham, she's not a true member

of the command staff She's not the captain and

we're following her journey through it and romance

wasn't shoehorned in it felt very natural I know

there's There's a I can't remember what it's

called off the top of my head. It's like the

Bechel test or whatever Yeah, and does she pass

it? I think, as far as I understand it, because

the romance between her and the other guy, it

just happened. It wasn't forced. It wasn't forced,

but at the same time, it seemed like a crutch

at a point. Yeah. And I kind of want to blame

part of that on the writing in general for the

series, whereas I feel like a much better...

Star Trek character and I'm not going TNG because

TNG had a lot of the same tropes as TOS but And

so did Enterprise even for that matter but DS

9 and Voyager you had Kira Nerise Jadzia Dax

and then you had Katherine Janeway and so those

three were like you know, powerful in different

ways. Like Jade Zia was like, because she was

a trill, she'd lived as, you know, man, woman,

whatever, you know, just kind of. She had the

whole gamut of experiences. Yeah, all these different

experiences. So she kind of just was just having

fun with life like, whatever, you know, just

kind of having fun messing with people and then

while doing the same job and then. going into

Kira who's been forged by war against the Cardassians

and then had to be tough. And then you had Janeway

who had to put on the full armor of Starfleet

just because she was stranded in the Delta Quadrant

and had to be the support for the crew. Absolutely,

there's so much there too. Another series that

has powerful women though ultimately in very

different how their characters develop is Game

of Thrones. You look at Daenerys Targaryen starts

out as this very meek girl who was basically

given away as a prize to Cal Drogo of help. Blair,

what was the name of the people she was given

to? Help me out again. The Raider guys. It's

gonna drive me nuts. The Dothraki, the Dothraki.

And then you see other characters like... Brienne

of Tarth, who's this knight played by Gwendolyn

Christie, who also plays Captain Phasma from

Star Wars, The Force Awakens, and The Last Jedi.

And then one of my favorite characters in the

show, because she's so deviously evil, Cersei

Lannister. This is a woman with, if you're not

planning 10 steps ahead, she's at least 11 or

12 ahead of you. She's so evil, and she'll do

whatever she has to to protect her family. to

win the so -called Game of Thrones. And you also

see Arya Stark, who starts out as this kind of

a tomboy, but becomes this really awesome assassin

-like rogue. You also see Sansa, who starts out

as a spoiled little brat, but eventually becomes

this lady of the court, stuff like that. And

there's so many powerful women in there, too.

I mean, I'm forgetting so many, like Jon Snow's

Wildling girlfriend, Yigret. Yigrid, she was

awesome, stuff like that. There's the little

girl. I can't remember what house she represented,

but she came to the Starks' help. She's like

eight years old and basically told off a room

full of men that I'll stand with the Starks until

the day that I die. If the rest of you don't,

you're all cowards. And this little girl convinced

all these old men, you know what, maybe we're

wrong here. and I thought that was pretty impressive.

Other properties to kind of talk about that have

really powerful women in them too. Look at The

Hunger Games, Katniss Everdeen, Harry Potter,

Hermione Granger. Well, I would almost argue

with The Hunger Games though. They kind of put

her in this weird, like... She was forced into

it. Well, into one, and then she, you know, there

was still the trope between Her kind of boyfriend

friend that was in their district and then oh,

yeah, Peter Yeah, well Peter and then the other

the other guy that that one of the Hemsworth

Yeah, whose name is not even worth remembering

right now But yeah, so I mean it was kind of

that that same trope now if you you go a different

a different series like you could go Agent Carter

Yep Who from the Marvel universe from the Marvel

universe who who can hold her own you could go

black widow you could go Gamora, yep I believe

Jessica Jones, but I don't watch any of that,

so I kind of gathered that from the character.

Yeah, Jessica Jones, definitely a woman who can

handle herself, very much strong, independent,

doesn't need a man, and is very much in solving

her own problems. Very much enjoying Jessica

Jones Season 2, which just dropped on Netflix

as of this recording yesterday. which is, I think,

a fantastic progression for the Marvel MCU. Also,

Ming -Na's character of Agent May on Agents of

S .H .I .E .L .D. Oh, yeah, totally. I think

she's the strongest female character on that

show. As much as I like Daisy and Simmons, I

prefer May. Yeah, they just seem too young and...

The I don't know like they can't get down to

business like agent may agent may could literally

take out like, you know That's why they call

her like the army, you know, it's Yes, you know

exactly she walks in there kicks everything.

Yeah, and so I'm nobody nobody can take you know

And there's one franchise we haven't mentioned

yet, which is the ultimate strong woman, in my

opinion. And also the strong woman that's also

vulnerable as well, the Terminator, Sarah Connor.

This young woman who is forced into these dramatic

circumstances to basically, hey, your unborn

child's gonna be the one that saves the world.

It's up to you to make sure that he gets there.

stuff like that, and if you watch the first two

Terminators, Linda Hamilton's performance of

Sarah Connor, so drastic from this meek little

girl, like, oh my god, there's this monster chasing

me, to she breaks out of that mental hospital

and takes on the T -1000 with a shotgun at one

point, and almost knocks him in the lava. Well,

and the funny part is, is that's why she's coming

back to play the character. Yeah, I mean, I'm

so glad Linda Hamilton's gonna be back. I mean,

there's so much that's probably the only logical

direction to go with it though Mm -hmm is to

have her like skip the whole John Connor thing.

Just go straight to her Showing you know that

yes, there's such a thing as an older, you know

strong woman icon Exactly. I mean it's gonna

be neat to see her again portray that role and

I'm honestly super, super looking forward to

it. I guess the shift gears to comic books. Countless.

Wonder Woman, Batgirl, Batwoman. Well, Batgirl

kinda got, I mean, she's strong, but she did

get neutered at one point because they had to

add the whole Joker backstory and then the Batman

love triangle thing. So it made it too convoluted.

But anyways, she's still, even with the paralyzing

aspect, still was a highly intelligent, powerful

person in that of Oracle. And that too, I mean,

she's also a paraplegic. Although I think she

walks now, so. That's how much out of touch I

am with Comic Continuity, which changes week

to week anyway. Yeah, especially when DC and

Marvel seem to reboot their universe every three

years. Yeah. But you also have Jean Grey. You've

got multiple X -Men characters, like my favorite

being Psylocke. Well, and they've even turned

Mystique into one in the recent years. Yeah.

She's always been a super cool character, like

that also that awesome shape shifting as who's

the actress who portrays her again? Jennifer

helped me out here. Jennifer Lawrence. Yes. I

think she did an awesome job in all the X -Men

movies. She she tends to play a lot of strong

battle ready women. And that's her thing. And

you know what, I'm totally cool with that. I

am on board. Same with Amelia Clarke who plays

Daenerys Targaryen when she played Ser Conner.

I was on board for that and still am, but she's

not coming back. So, oh well. But yeah, like

Wonder Woman being one. I'm trying to think of

other DC characters off the top of my head. Well,

you have Raven. Yep, Raven. Starfire. Batwoman.

Batwoman, yep. Who's a character I'm not super

familiar with. All I know is she's like a mute

ninja. Batwoman's, well, she's the LGBT character

of the Bat universe. And she's also kind of constantly

butting heads with Batman. Because she's taking

on the Batmantle, but she also It doesn't have

the same methods, I would say, to where Batman

kind of disagrees with her quite often. I take

it she's more brutal? Yes. She's like the Jason

Todd of the group. Oh boy. I'm trying to think.

Scarlet Witch is one from Marvel, which is, I

love Elizabeth Olsen. I love her portrayal of

her. I do too. I just think she's... Cool, plus

I like the way her powers look. Jubilee from

the X -Men, though now she's a vampire, and I

fell out of... Yeah, it's really frigging weird.

If you read some of the Marvel comics stuff from

a couple years ago, I'm like, okay. I had to

stop reading comics. It was just getting painful

after a certain point. The only comics I was

reading and I stopped, unfortunately, was the

My Little Pony in Street Fighter and Ghostbuster

stuff. Which hell there's a group of powerful

women the four new Ghostbusters You say what

you will about the reboot at least the characters

are fun Which I think is kind of neat how there's

that crossover comic happening with IDW where

they bring the Ghostbusters universes all together

Then you if you go with go with with GI Joe you

have Scarlet and Lady J and the Baroness in the

Baroness Now, who's the name of that female dreadnought?

I can't remember her name. It's gonna bother

me because I can see your face. Zorana, badass

looking chick. I'm trying to think. There are

so many out there. I think that they get glossed

over just because there's so many prominent male

characters. Well, yeah. I mean, I'm not saying

that they all get glossed over, but some more

than others. exactly and that's rather unfortunate

I mean I think that's why Mass Effect is such

an interesting dynamic is because it's you can

either be one or the other and that's you know

it's whatever you know you feel like playing

that particular save and that's that's kind of

the fun thing with like games like Star Trek

online you know the MMORPG type thing you know

you get to fashion your character however you

want Yeah, I mean, one thing I'm glad Mass Effect

gave us the chance to experience that story,

how we wanted to do it, be it as a man, as a

woman, be it as gay or straight, or even if you

don't want to pursue romance, you don't have

to. Nope. which I think is kind of an option

there. I actually did that one playthrough. Every

romance I turned down after my true love died,

after Caden died. I played as Femshep and I chose

to stay alone. Because I was so heartbroken and

it's kind of cool to get into that mind space

of doing that with a character or Falling in

love again with Mass Effect 2 picking it up once

again with with Garrus Who you couldn't romance

in the first game, but you can definitely do

it in the second and third games It's cool because

there's some really touching character moments

and I think This is probably a comment that'll

incite some people. So this is my opinion I think

you get some better stories with women. Like

I said, some of my favorite movies, The Terminator,

Aliens, are with powerful women. And I think

that's just so badass. And it wasn't until I

became more cognizant of Hollywood theory and

just how the movement towards equality, especially

in the last couple of years, has really changed.

I become very media aware of it. And I'm like,

wow, that's really cool. I've been pro feminist

and all this stuff for years without realizing

I have to beat people. I don't have to beat people

over the head with it. I just have to be like,

you know what? It's cool. And I'm glad I'm glad

my stories have representation. I'm glad my stories

are just as cool as the male dominated ones.

It doesn't all have to be John matrix from commando

saving his little girl and all this crap. It

can be just as awesome with a Different sex in

the same role. I mean, I wonder what's gonna

happen with that female Expendables movie Whenever

that gets made or if health you want a female

action movie. That's literally as ridiculous

as Commando the Resident Evil movies with Mila

Jovovich Yeah, she might as well be Jod Matrix

or friggin' Neo at this point. So - They're rebooting

that universe with somebody new now. Thank God.

Now that they've finished that storyline. The

last film was terrible and great at the same

time because the last two were like WTF. See,

that entire series was hot garbage, and not because

of Mila Jovovich. It's because they took the

source material and just took a huge steaming

pile on it. Well, there's no continuity between

it all. None whatsoever. And they take - Because

you get random characters from the games that

just randomly show up for one movie and then

they're never referenced or seen again. Yeah,

I mean that's such an unfortunate thing because

Resident Evil has powerful female characters

into it like Jill Valentine Claire Redfield Well

Claire Redfield was in most of it. Jill Valentine

was in the second one and then they had Chris

Redfield show up in the third or fourth one,

which just and then he dies. He didn't die Oh,

I thought he did! No, he didn't die. And then

they just never brought him back. I was like,

where did he go? Because it was driving me nuts.

Because it was the guy that played Michael Schofield

on Prison Break, who was adept at getting out

of jail. And so that's what he did in the movie

he was in. He got out of jail, out of Resident

Evil. Which is... Which is rather good casting,

I think, to have him play Chris. But yeah, I

mean, if you play Resident Evil Nemesis, you

get a really cool story where Jill's being chased

by the Nemesis tyrant. Or if you play Code Veronica,

you get to see Claire's story as she goes to

Rockford Island. I would argue Sheva from Resident

Evil 5 is kind of a shitty female character just

because she's blander than bland. Sherry Birkin

gets interesting in Resident Evil 6 because they

bring her back after in the game storyline after

like 15 years. And I was always happy in Resident

Evil 2. There wasn't a romance between Claire

and Leon. It was like, we're going to survive.

We're going to be friends. And that's it. Just

it's a survival situation. And they didn't force

a romance in there. Now you could argue. Leon

and Ada Wong But Leon was like hey, I will help

I will help you I am a hero, but that's a conversation

for a different day I could talk about Resident

Evil and problems with that series for hours

I'm such a fanboy with that series Trying to

think what else I can really say about really

good female characters I don't know. I think

there's quite a few out there, and if we're missing

any You can email us, feedback at altergeek .com

and let us know what ones you think should have

been mentioned or ones that stand out to you

that we may have missed. Yeah, exactly. Let us

know which is an underappreciated woman from

film, television, video games, comic books. Basically

any piece of media that you can think of. Or

if there's a woman from history you think we

should have mentioned. I wish I could have talked

about Rosa Parks, a very important part of your

civil rights movement in the United States, but

I just don't know a lot about her because I haven't

read a lot about her. And that's unfortunate.

And I admit my ignorance in that. But this has

been a heavy topic in a lot of ways, but it's

been a fun topic in a lot of ways. It's light,

but it's also, yeah, it touches on a lot of different

dynamics that kind of go on in Not only media,

but just in life in general. Exactly. So hopefully

you celebrated women's day today by doing something

nice for someone or watching something or learning

about something. Hopefully we've taught you something

or at least have got your interest peaked in

learning about one of the women that we've talked

about today. So I guess for Altered Geek, I've

been Mike the Birdman Dodd with Steve Megatron

Phillips saying, get altered, get geeky. with

the Altergeeks.