The western enshrines America’s mythic indulgence into ideas of expansionism and boundless potential. The genre is rooted in the legend of America’s Wild West from the late 19th century, a time in which the Frontier symbolized freedom and opportunity for the people. The American people retained this attachment to the western myth, ultimately leading to a nostalgia that pervaded art forms such as literature and film.

While chock-full of heartfelt moments and the unmistakably quick-witted humor so characteristic of its protagonist, the implications of the story are arguably more powerful than the film itself.

There is no doubt as to the magnificence of this show, but The Queen’s Gambit does have its shortcomings—problems that I have rarely seen acknowledged by film critics or viewers alike.

It is the paragon of revivals, displaying quality independent of its source material, deepening the canonical universe, strengthening the pre-existing mythology, and is widely regarded as the best interpretation amongst many other Star Trek properties.

Come Drink subsumes the female knight-errant under the male savior while not addressing issues of sexism, while Crouching Tiger directly challenges patriarchal norms and creates feminist discourse, both being reflective of their respective sociohistorical contexts of feminism.

Kurosawa focuses on the boundary between the samurai and the farmers, uniting them in the fight against the bandits to show that social class lines can be broken when people come together for a common goal.

As the fight for more diversity and inclusion of underrepresented groups are underway, it’s important to look back and analyze the progress the industry has made in the portrayal of women in film across the years. What’s even more interesting to analyze are the differences in female characters — when written by men versus when written by women.