hmmm..I gotta say that the
hmmm..I gotta say that the question smacks a bit of male chauvinism
I think women and men in Sci-Fi and Action movies behave very HUMANLY.
"Ackk, I’m being attacked by a Terminator/Alien/Bad Guy or Gal/Cylon/ or other special antagonist, what shall I do? I’ll defend myself!!"
Seems a pretty human response mirrored in daily life here on Earth, I’d say.
I don’t think that most female sci-fi characters are portrayed in a masculine fashion. What do you mean by masculine? Scratching and spitting? Your example of Ripley: She wore the same clothes as everyone else in the unit ,as soliders do, exercises like everyone else (I had to do pull ups in order to pass gym and they didn’t tell me I was being manish), and fought for her life. When it comes to gender issues its Interesting that you didn’t bring up Vasquez from the same movie:
Hudson: " Hey Vasquez, have you ever been mistaken for a man?"
Vasquez: "No, have you?"
Most women and men defend themselves when attacked. I think that the sci-fi genre often isn’t considered as commercial success "formula" and therefore has the oppourtunity to offer more well rounded characters.
One movie series your question made me think of is the Pitch Black/Riddick series; which offers you a female character (Jack) that truly does use male clothes and mannerisms but wouldn’t be a character most women would identify with. The female pilot (Carolyn Fry) doesn’t wear leather or glamazon makeup or man clothes and goes through very identifiable human conflicts and triumphs over cowardice to become a hero and never even "boffs" either lead male character…flip over to Chronicles and you have a glamazon female character who instead of kicking butt physically is a political butt kicker and is still displayed as a strong, not passive character. Obviously there are passive male and female characters in all those movies (and hopefully every movie).
So anyways, enough rambling. My point is simply that Sci-Fi explores the Human spirit and condidition which may include leather cladding or gender issues in its explorations 🙂