Michelle & Rose on How to Kick Ass Without Flashing Cleavage

Rodriguez and McGowan explain why chicks in action flicks have to be so sexy

By Ted Casablanca, John Boone Sep 01, 2010 5:03 PMTags
Michelle Rodriguez, Machete, Rose McGowan, GrindhouseGrindhouse Productions, Weinstein Company

We love watching ladies kick ass. Whether it's Angelina Jolie in Salt, Tomb Raider, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, uh you get the idea. Or Jen Garner when she's not hamming it up from rom-coms. Or Michelle Rodriguez in damn near every flick she does.

But whenever a badass babe gets to get tough with the guys—assuming she doesn't end up six feet under in the end, as Michelle knows so well—it's a T-town requirement that she don, well, almost nothing:

So we asked two of our fave action babes—Rodriguez and former Grindhouse gal Rose McGowan—if they thought we'd ever see a fully clothed chick kick ass on the big screen.

"Well, you know what I think: I think it's really about that balancing act between masculinity and femininity. And I think that this is kind of like a new phenomenon in our culture," Michelle enthusiastically explained when we posed the Q to her at last week's Machete premiere.

"I think Generation Me is the first one to really be exposed to that balance with someone like Angelina Jolie. Or even look at Johnny Depp, I really feel ambiguity in that level even on the guy's end with the metrosexual community coming out. It doesn't mean that they're gay. It just means the guys are being more internalized and women are being more externalized and have adapted to the surroundings of a male dominated world."

Michelle optimistically wraps up:

"And, I'm just saying, that whole process has created a new entity that's being introduced to the community and it doesn't have a voice. And I'd like to give it one!"

We can't think of anyone better to speak up, M.R. But, with Michelle's constant name-dropping of Ange, we couldn't help but imagine the two battling baddies together? We'd definitely be first in line opening night.

McGowan, who played a go-go dancer with a gun as a substitute prosthetic leg in director Robert Rodriguez's last exploitation flick, knows she's a chick with a lot of kick. As she explained at The Art of Elysium's 2nd Annual Genesis Award why she takes so many roles where she gets to throw a punch:

"I don't know, there's something about me. I was a ballerina but somehow got off the route that I was on and now I do things where I'm either trying to kill the world or save the world. But maybe it's just because I'm a strong woman."

And as for that whole sexualizing business:

"I think that's a shame, because I'm really strong in real life and I don't necessarily go around being overtly sexual, but it's also fun to wield a sword and cut off people's heads. This is a rule in the movies: women get to wear nothing, men get to wear full-on suits. That's just how it goes. Totally lame."

But if not Rodriguez, McGowan has a plan to end the cycle:

"You know what? I'm rocking my full length parka the next time I go to a meeting and just being like suck it."

Hallelujah!