When I look around the world, I don't see too many damsels in distress. If they're a damsel in distress, they're manipulating some guy to help them.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that women often portray themselves as needing help to manipulate others into action.
Sigourney Weaver's quote reflects a critical observation on the traditional trope of 'damsels in distress.' It implies that, rather than being passive victims, many women are active agents who use their situations to influence and manipulate those around them, especially men, into providing assistance, thus challenging the stereotype of helplessness.
In practice
Discussing the representation of women in movies at a film festival.
I've always thought that a lot of the problems in the world would be solved if a spaceship did arrive, then anyone with one head and two arms and two legs would be your brother! It wouldn't matter where they were from or what they believed or anything. It might be good for us.
Writers write these male stereotypes, and it makes it ten times more interesting if a woman says the lines.
Please, God, please, don't let me be normal!
Most of life is hell. It’s filed with failure and loss. People disappoint you. Dreams don’t work out. Hearts get broken. Innocent journalists die. And the best moments of life, when everything comes together, are few and fleeting. But you’ll never get to the next great moment if you don’t keep going. So that’s what I do. I keep going.
I never think about Wall Street - why should I - but to go down there so often while filming 'Working Girl,' to become acquainted with this whole different world, and to find out what goes on behind the scenes is so interesting. There's so much of the city that you don't really bother to investigate. Ahh... New York.
Once I put that wig on, I didn't say an intelligent thing for four months. My voice went up. I walked differently. I'd ask incredibly stupid questions.
Marriage is the alliance of two people, one of whom never remembers birthdays and the other who never forgets them.
It's kind of heartbreaking when I talk about it now, I still get very moved by the lack of opportunities that were available to myself and to the very few others who were Hispanic young actresses.
I've traveled around the world, and what's so revealing is that, despite the differences in culture, politics, language, how people dress, there is a universal feeling that we all want the same thing. We deeply want to be respected and appreciated for our differences.
I know I have a very self-destructive tendency since my mother died, I have got to be honest.
Without the Sisters of St. Joseph, I might not be standing here.
My yardstick is how somebody treats me.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.