Why Hollywood needs more female spies

It’s a thrilling season for spy movie enthusiasts. The action-packed lives of spies, the covert operations that define them and, most importantly, the never-seen-before action scenes are captivating us this summer. We have been thoroughly entertained by Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One and the recently concluded Marvel’s Secret Invasion, a gritty espionage thriller series where, for a change, the spies are aliens. And now, a female spy is all set to take the centrestage. I am talking about Gal Gadot’s Heart of Stone dropping on Netflix screens next week (August 11).

I am intrigued by the trailer of this a high-octane, female-driven spy flick, fronted by none other than a female A-lister, Gal Godot. Right from Charlie’s Angels to Black Widow to Priyanka Chopra Jonas’ recent spy thriller Citadel, I’ve loved watching dapper, sophisticated, and exceptionally skilled female spies on screen. While there have been multiple thrillers centred on female spies, it’s surprising we do not have a big-budget ‘female-spy franchise’ like Mission Impossible (MI), Bourne or the James Bond series? This is 2023, so why are only men saving the world in Hollywood?

With Heart of Stone, the makers are clear they want to create a really strong, female-driven action movie and not a male story that’s been done many times already. Netflix is aiming to begin its own Mission Impossible-esque franchise with Gal Gadot in the lead. What’s important is that the movie even has a female antagonist, played by none other than Bollywood superstar Alia Bhatt. In one of the interviews, Alia mentioned she loved the idea that the movie was headlined by a female superstar: “It was a woman-led action film — that’s what makes it compelling in a completely different way as opposed to just a woman being a part of the plan.”

If you remember, around the release of No Time To Die (2021), the final film of actor Daniel Craig as the iconic spy, there were media conversations about casting a female for the role of Agent 007. But Daniel Craig made it clear that he was against the idea of casting a woman as James Bond. He said he does think that women and people of colour should be offered roles of this calibre, but does not think this particular role should be given to a woman. While Craig’s views are his own, they might also reflect the prevailing sentiment within the film industries worldwide that has been apparent for decades. In fact, it is this franchise that gave up on the past baggage to cast Judi Dench as M, a role played by a man for more than three decades. Dench’s performance became one of the highlights of the subsequent James Bond movies.

Whatever Hollywood might think, audiences have had no real issues with female spies and many such films have hit the bull’s eye at the box office. There have been strong female-spy characters even in the MI as well as the James Bond series but unfortunately, there has been no such long-running series led by a female spy.

There are a bunch of the female spy-centric movies I’ve had greatly enjoyed watching. I’ll list a few. The humorous Charlie’s Angels (2000) and its funny sequel Charlies Angels: Full Throttle (2003), but I strongly recommend the wonderfully dark and violent Atomic Blonde (2017) with Charlize Theron as Lorraine Broughton, an MI6 agent working in Berlin during the Cold War. For producers looking for a template of female espionage genre, this one had ‘Don’t mess with female spies’ written all over it.

Angelina Jolie’s Salt (2010) was written with Tom Cruise in mind, but then the lead role was reworked into a female CIA agent suspected of being a KGB spy? Jolie looked fabulous performing those edgy stunts. Similarly, in the spy thriller, Eye in the Sky (2016), the lead role that actress Helen Mirren played was written for a male actor. It’s an intriguing story of Col. Katherine Powell (Mirren), who discovers a bunch of Kenyan suicide bombers but there is a moral dilemma when a nine-year-old girl is present in the target area. In the much talked about Red Sparrow (2018), Jennifer Lawrence looked intense in the titular role of a Russian spy, but the film was a tedious watch with graphic scenes of rape and violence.

Then there’s the hugely successful action-packed spy thriller Black Widow (2021) from the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). The lead character Natasha Romanoff, played by Scarlett Johansson, became one of the most popular characters of MCU after the blockbuster Avengers: Endgame. The point, however, remains that it has taken 24 movies of the MCU to finally make a Black Widow. And yes, there has been no announcement of another Black Widow film, which would be difficult after Nat’s death in the Avengers: Endgame.

These are a few female spy-centric movies I like, but honestly, there aren’t enough of them and it’s plain disheartening. I hear Citadel is going to have an Indian segment with Samantha Prabhu in the lead. The South Indian star will also be making her big Hollywood debut with Arrangements of Love, directed by Downtown Abbey’s Philip John. Samantha is not exactly playing a a spy, but it’s a lead character of a Tamil woman running a detective agency. Interesting, isn’t it?

So come on, Hollywood! Give us some more female spies in the lead role! Empowering portrayals of women are long overdue, and the time is just about right for these remarkable stories to shine.

wknd@khaleejtimes.com