From a young age, a majority of us are brought up watching movies and tv shows. Even today, we can very easily watch actors portraying these separate characters to themselves for an audience, which is us. From time to time, we will come across a character that we may be able to relate to or idolise simply because of their role or their appearance.
Over the decades, we have accumulated our fair share of leading women icons on the big screen. From Princess Leia to Hermoine Granger, we are fortunate to have women still dominating the big screen.
However, our options arent as diverse as we'd want it to be in the 21st century. Yeah, we have Shonda Rhimes who brought us the iconic character of Olivia Pope who will forever live on with us and the unforgettable Annalise Keating, but is that really enough? Of course not. I'm not implying that there aren't Black, Latina and Asian women icons already, but to include them on this list simply because of their skin colour isn't something I'd just do. With cases like Emma Stone and Scarlett Johnson (you already know where I'm going with this), it's widely known that caucasians are sometimes given roles of POC which is clearly unacceptable. But that's a whole other discussion for another day...
Saying that, here is a list of women icons in film and TV that have left an impression on me.
PRINCESS LEIA
What's an iconic women compilation without the one-and-only Princess Leia? The OG badass and Feminist icon will be with us always. RIP.
OLIVIA POPE
If you haven't watched Scandal, what do you spend your time doing? The political drama created by Shonda Rhimes is still one of the best tv shows to this day, mostly due to the role of Olivia Pope, portrayed by Kerry Washington.
THE 'KILL BILL' CAST: The Bride, O-Ren Ishii and Gogo Yubari
Kill Bill is just one of those movies that you already know will be a phenomenal movie just by looking at the cast. If you haven't already watched it, add it to your 'must-watch' movie list.
SUKI
Suki (Devon Aoki) only appeared in 2 Fast 2 Furious, but she most definitely left her mark. Her and her crew are made up entirely of women, which was different from the usual all-male crews in the rest of the franchise. Apart from Mia, Letty, Gisela, Elena, Ramsay, she was one of the only other notable female roles in the franchise. Petition for Suki to have her own movie!
MIRANDA PRIESTLY
Any explanation needed? Everyone into fashion always claim that Meryl Streep's portray of Miranda Priestly (which is a portray of Anna Wintour) is what led them to have an interest in fashion... but I think for me it was the opposite.
THE AHS CAST: Jessica Lange, Angela Bassett, Sarah Paulson, Taissa Farmiga and Emma Roberts.
AHS has got to be one of the best shows TV has seen in the last decade, thanks to the phenomenal cast and the vision of Ryan Murphy and co.
ANNALISE KEATING
Oh c'mon, you must have seen this coming by now... No one can cover a murder like Annalise and if you're on the bad side of her, good luck.
ARYA STARK
The youngest stark sister earned her rightful place on this list.
Edit: I made this list before the GOT Season 7 finale where we finally see a stronger and different side of Sansa, but up until now I thought Sansa and Daneyrs were not the female leads that we viewers wanted to see. Danerys relies to much on others (lol) and seems to think she's obliged to the iron throne (uh huh honey no). I was silently rooting for Arya Stark to end up on the iron throne but we all know that's never going to happen with Jon Snow (spoiler) as the rightful ruler but anyway...
HERMOINE GRANGER
Not so much now, but a few years ago she was a character that a majority of us looked up to.
TOMB RAIDER
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