Hawksian woman

Tough talking female character archetype popularized in movies by film director Howard Hawks using actresses such as Ann Dvorak, Rosalind Russell and Angie Dickinson. The best known Hawksian woman is probably Lauren Bacall who played the type iconically opposite Humphrey Bogart in To Have and Have Not and The Big Sleep.

The Hawksian woman is up-front in speaking her mind and keeping up with her male counterparts in witty banter as well as taking action to get what she wants personally as well as sexually, and could in many ways be seen as a post-feminist before the fact. Hawks discussed his preference for this kind of woman, in his life and movies, in some detail with Joseph McBride, taking up a full chapter of Hawks on Hawks (1982).

John Carpenter, an avowed Hawks fan, includes Hawksian women in most of his movies, from Halloween through his most recent Ghosts of Mars, particularly Karen Allen in Starman and his then wife Adrienne Barbeau in The Fog and Escape from New York fit this mold.