Women of ‘Fast’ franchise fight to stay off sidelines
After 2 decades, stars still await female-led film
With more than
$6 billion in global boxoffice receipts counted and countless rules of physics wantonly violated on screen, there’s one limit the almost 22-year-old “Fast & Furious” franchise hasn’t yet dared shatter: Audiences are still waiting for women to take charge in their own “Fast” vehicle.
After 10 testosteronefueled features films, some of its longest tenured franchise stars are too.
“What I’ve been fighting the most for is to not be in the babysitting seat, because that’s what’s frustrating,” Jordana Brewster said ahead of the recent worldwide release of “Fast X.” “I want to play with more comedy. I want to play with more action. I want to play with unleashing energy. There’s so much at stake in these movies that I want to play more of a central role in it.”
Brewster originated the role of Mia Toretto in 2001’s “The Fast and the Furious,” reprised it in several sequels and briefly saw action in the 10th film, playing protector to brother Dominic Toretto’s (Vin Diesel) young son, Little Brian. But every “Fast” so far — including 2019’s Dwayne JohnsonJason Statham spinoff “Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw” and the animated series “Fast & Furious Spy Racers” — has been led by Dom or his various brothers-in-musclebound arms.
Although women have been part of each ensemble, a dedicated spinoff could “give us the opportunity to flesh out all the female characters,” said Brewster. “And I think it’s something an audience would like.”
A March report by the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University found that women accounted for 38% of main characters and 37% of all speaking roles in the top 100 domestic movie releases of 2022, marginally up from the prior year. Only 10% of action films featured female protagonists.
But women have been instrumental in elevating the “Fast” franchise, making up a reported near-half of moviegoers on “Furious 7,” the first “Fast” picture to cross the billion-dollar mark in theaters. (The film’s audience was also 75% nonwhite.)
Fellow original cast member Michelle Rodriguez
has been the star most vocal in her criticism of the franchise’s depiction of women, dating back to the initial script’s depiction of her streetwise character Letty. Rodriguez’s pushback transformed the character from Dom’s “trophy girlfriend” to “this really layered character.”
Protective of the character, Rodriguez initially refused to come back after the first film, just to be killed off in the fourth, 2009’s “Fast & Furious.” “I was like, ‘No. I’ll take some pictures. I’m not going to be in a movie where you’re killing a character who’s beloved,’ ” she said in a recent interview. “You don’t have any other real kick-ass females. Aside from Jordana, you’re not really representing women at all. And I was like, ‘You want to kill her, dude?’ ”
Rodriguez credits Diesel for backing her behindthe-scenes fight for Letty’s second return in one of “Fast’s” seminal big-swing twists: The “Fast Five” credits tag revealed Letty was still alive but suffering amnesia. Letty went on to become one of the series’ most important characters and thrilling fighters.
In a 2017 Instagram post promoting the eighth film, “Fate of the Furious,” Rodriguez again threatened to walk if the franchise didn’t do better by its female characters.
“All those fights with the studio about having a female voice and having a character that really represents the true grit of a street kid, a woman — all those fights really paid off,” Rodriguez says now. “Because I honestly feel like if I would have just agreed to do what I was told to do, I don’t think Letty would be here today. And I think that all those arguments I had about integrity really mattered in the end.”
The series barely passed the Bechdel test until 2021’s Justin Lin-directed “F9,” in which Letty and Mia have a chat over a meal during a mission — a first that happened after Rodriguez pointed out that the sistersin-law and childhood acquaintances had never shared a meaningful scene together on screen. Theirs is a history Brewster would like to keep mining as the franchise wraps up its main series films.
“I would love to explore the relationship with Letty because that little bit in (‘F9’) was not enough,” she said, noting that Mia’s children with Brian, played by the late Paul Walker, are now canonically teens. “I’d like to see Mia harness (her) strength when someone crosses her family. Because that’s what’s really interesting about Mama Bear energy — mess with my children, and you’re going to see what happens.”
Four years ago, the prospect of a bigger showcase for the women of the “Fast” universe got a boost when producer-star Diesel announced that a femaledriven installment was in development.
Although studio head Donna Langley told Business Insider last year that she would “love to see a female ‘Fast,’ ” Universal has yet to announce that such a film is in the works. A spinoff reportedly being written around series villain Cipher (Charlize Theron) has also not been officially announced.
Several prominent female characters have recurred in the “Fast” universe’s extended family of heroes, love interests, enemies, frenemies and allies over the course of the films, including intelligence operative Gisele (Gal Gadot), expert hacker Ramsey (Nathalie Emmanuel), Rio lawwoman Elena (Elsa Pataky), federal agent Monica Fuentes (Eva Mendes) and criminal matriarch Queenie Shaw (Helen Mirren).
Others have popped up once each in the franchise’s two decades but have left enough of a lasting impression on fans to return, like “2 Fast 2 Furious’ ” Suki (Devon Aoki), “Tokyo Drift’s” Neela (Nathalie Kelley), “Hobbs & Shaw’s” Hattie Shaw (Vanessa Kirby) and Madame M (Eiza Gonzalez), Han’s ward Elle (Anna Sawai) and “Fast X” additions Isabel (Daniela Melchior) and Abuela Toretto (Rita Moreno).
Universal Pictures President Peter Cramer asserted in a recent interview that the studio is still interested in a female-led “Fast.” (Christina Hodson is poised to become the franchise’s first credited female screenwriter with the upcoming 11th film.)
As for Brewster’s vision of a femme “Fast” spinoff? Leave the boys at home. Contain it on a smaller scale with slightly less world-ending stakes than the bombastic, globe-trotting core films. To fans, she says: “Keep fighting for it.”
“It would be really fun to explore,” she said. “And it could be totally independent of the guys.”