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Angelina Jolie: Is she the first or last true female action star?

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The Hollywood Reporter’s Jay Fernandez has a pretty intriguing, not to mention really (and I mean really) long take on the gestalt of Angelina Jolie as Hollywood’s only real female action star.

She’s getting $20 million to star in ‘Salt,’ due out next Friday, which is not the kind of money that actresses get for starring in cute romantic comedies or feel-good dramas, much less weighty Oscar fare. In Hollywood, the big money is in action movies, which play all around the globe, using special effects and eye-popping stunts instead of subtitles to get their message across.

What’s sort of fascinating about Jolie is that she’s such a freakish star, in the sense that she actually has almost zero appeal in romantic comedies (see ‘Life, or Something Like It’) or serious drama (see ‘Mighty Heart’ or ‘Beyond Borders’). But put her in an action movie and she lights up the screen, whether it was in 2008’s ‘Wanted,’ 2005’s ‘Mr. and Mrs. Smith’ or her ‘Lara Croft: Tomb Raiders’ films. According to Fernandez, her Big Five action films (also including 2000’s ‘Gone in 60 Seconds’ have grossed nearly $1.5 billion worldwide.

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That means she can write her own ticket when it comes to action, which is why she finds herself in a film like ‘Salt,’ a project that was originally written for a man (reportedly Tom Cruise). The question that’s harder to answer, either for Fernandez or the inevitable women and gender studies professor he quotes in the story, is whether it’s really a big step forward for women when a bold soul sister like Jolie is making all this dough. It’s great for Jolie to make $20 million a pop, but if the parts aren’t really gender-specific -- meaning that if she didn’t take them, they’d be given to a guy -- is that really progress?

I think it’s a step in the right direction, since it feels like a healthy development for audiences to embrace a strong, assertive and, yes, sexually charged woman doing what was formerly always seen as a man’s job -- the job being kicking some butt. It would be just as healthy to see a man being accepted by audiences in what was thought of as more sensitive, emotionally complex woman’s roles too.

The only assertion in Fernandez’s piece that I’d take issue with is where he says that Jolie, at 35, has -- by the Indiana Jones standard -- ‘another 30 years of running, punching and flipping ahead.’ If only. Some cultural attitudes are still a long way away from changing. Harrison Ford may be able to get away with doing some careful leaping and bounding at 60, but I wouldn’t bet on even Jolie breaking that barrier. In Hollywood, once woman lose their youthful beauty, they become character actors. There are rare exceptions, since I guess we could call Meryl Streep a star, but only in a certain kind of film. She sure ain’t in the same tax bracket as Jolie.

When it comes to Jolie’s success as an action movie star, the key element in her entire box-office equation is her shimmering sex appeal. When that fades, she’ll have to find a new line of work a lot faster than Sly Stallone ever did. It’s great to see her break through the glass ceiling of action films, but the sad truth of working in Hollywood is that whenever you break through one ceiling, you’ll find another one looming just above your head.

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