Movies, TV, and Gender Roles

With all this talk about what's okay to talk about in relation to sex, I have to wonder what's being said about gender. I had heard on jezebel.com, a site that I consider feminist, that Whip It! was a good movie and empowering to women. So, keeping gender roles in the back of my mind, I saw Whip It! and noticed that almost every character could be viewed as strong, male or female. Since it's still generally accepted for female characters to be weak, I thought about the traditional gender roles in movies and television and wondered who was pushing against the traditional barriers.

When I say 'strong' or 'weak' I'm not necessarily referring to whether someone can kick ass. I'm referring to whether a character can be independent, defined on their own terms, and has the same amount of development when compared to other characters with the same amount of screen time and plot importance regardless of race, gender, or whatever else. For example I wouldn't consider Cho, from Harry Potter, as being weak because her character development is roughly equal to her screen time and overall plot importance. On the other hand I'd consider Bella, from Twilight, to be weak because her character was fairly flat and started to be defined in terms of Edward from the moment she met him (I'll get to the real rant about Twilight later).

So how about it? Know any characters that are strong or weak in defiance of the norms? The only good example I can come up with now is Buffy from Buffy: the Vampire Slayer but there's got to be others, right?

Please comment, but remember to be respectful.

By the way, I loved Whip It! and I want to encourage people to watch it.

Kit.