7# X`````n   `x .*X`...X......Kandi Birdsell In a world of high fashion, plastic surgery, and sex symbols, mainstream Hollywood often fails to treat its actresses justly. When women complained about the pay gap between leading men and women, Hollywood answered by paying millions to Sharon Stone for Sliver and Demi Moore for Striptease. A definite feat in that the actresses finally received amounts closer to those earned by Jim Carrey and Tom Cruise; however, Carreys and Cruises roles stem from their abilities: Carreys to be ridiculously funny and Cruises to be real and endearing. Hollywood is saying that Stones and Moores higher salaries are not for their acting ability but rather for their more sexual endowments. Hollywood has attempted to answer the call for womens films in the same manner. Call them feminist films, call them womens liberation films, call them films in which women liberate themselves, but overall movies like Thelma and Louise and Set It Off must be called unsuccessful. As much as women (myself included) and men enjoy these films, the sad truth is that these supposed liberation films often offer crime as the only path to empowerment for the heroines and consistently fail to allow the women to enjoy the social and economic freedom that they struggle to attain. .... These supposed womens films seem to end up mostly anti-woman. It is true that women find the love and support they need without men through their friendships; however, they ultimately bond with these friends through death. The films present crime as the best solution for their characters and then punish them for attempting to achieve emancipation through that solution. Instead of films that present only larceny, homicide, and suicide as the path to liberation, shouldns a womans film propose education, legislation, and self-determination? In an age when womens roles are supposedly improving, shouldnt feminist films improve as well? Would the public be that opposed to a film that not only allows a strong female figure to free herself socially and economically but that also permits her to live long enough to enjoy that freedom? I am not inclined to think so. uvy} +5 @@!!   !! P@   !"Xcm  -&alG[w E e $ % a ++++++,,-../0Z0`122y222335':K#y HH@Rd(hh @d' =/B@H-:StyleWriter II Geneva! Avant GardeE