Kimberly Peirce's remake of Brian De Palma's classic comes at a time of collective pearl-clutching about "strong female characters," with everyone from Natalie Portman to Kareem Abdul Jabbar waxing philosophic about what constitutes an authentic, yet affirming, display of womanhood. "The fallacy in Hollywood is that if you're making a 'feminist' story, the woman kicks ass and wins," Portman says. "That's not feminist, that's macho."

Of course, watching Ripley claim victory against the alien queen, or Katniss Everdeen deploy wits and arrows to save the boy (and the day), is legitimately thrilling: There is a life beyond "love interest." Sarah Connor's abs may be as intimidatingly unattainable as Barbie's waist, but she got ripped to save the world. Though they're surgeons with shotguns, blessed with strategic minds as ruthless as their right hooks, these "strong female characters" aren't always motivated by machismo.

Whether she's volunteering to take her sister's place in the arena or grooming her son to lead the resistance; gunning down the gangsters who sell drugs to the kids in her neighborhood or swinging swords to avenge her daughter, the "strong female character" is often stirred by a maternal concern, a quintessential desire to preserve her community, to protect the weak and vulnerable. Her bad-assery must be in the service of a greater good. Even when she's more ethically complex (like the Bride, who begrudgingly admits that all the people she killed to get to her daughter, "felt good"), she never takes a place at the table of Walter White's grand epiphany: "I did it for me."

Carrie does what Beatrix Kiddo and Ellen Ripley and Katniss Everdeen don't: She does it for herself. Her vengeance, her violence, is in service to no one, no noble good. She doesn't kill because her family and friends have been threatened. There are no friends, no fellow outcasts, to protect from the bullies. No little sister to shield from Mama's wrath. Only her. And she is enough. Carrie kills because she was wronged.

Katniss takes up her father's bow to feed her family. Coffy picks up her gun to protect her community from the tainted smack that zombified her sister. The mousy Sarah Connor of the first Terminator transforms into the leonine warrior of Terminator 2 because of who her son will become. These narratives reflect the ways our national hand-wringing over women's roles still focuses on service to others—how to balance being a mom and a wife, a dutiful daughter and a good friend while holding her own in the office. In "The Hunger Games," Katniss' fellow tribute, Peeta, tells her that he wants to show his oppressors that he's not "a piece in their game…they don't own me." Katniss' response is all too familiar to any woman who's ever shouldered too great a load for too little pay, just to keep mouths fed and bodies warm: "I just can't afford to think like that."