Macho women with guns.

I mused to my Lovely Wife Cheryl, as I am wont to do, as to why action heroines often have kids to defend. Elektra had that little girl (not in the comics, Elektra was an assassin, pure and simple), Ultraviolet had that catatonic boy, and even Ripley had Jonesy and Newt.

She opined that somebody needs to get in trouble, somebody needs to be saved. If it was another woman, that screws up the story, because our female lead needs to show that women are strong. If it's a man, then it shows women stronger than men, and most of the audience wouldn't buy that. The exception would be Sheena of the comics, who had a sidekick named Bob that always got captured and held hostage in a complete role-reversal. Same thing happened to Wonder Woman's Steve Trevor.

It also seems to be okay when the female action hero's boyfriend gets captured, she releases him, and they both kick butt side by side (see Alias, Underworld).

So I guess we're going to see lots more macho men saving weak women and macho women saving weak children in action movies to come. Who do macho children save, pets?