The "Hawksian woman" is, in film theory

Film theory

Film theory is an academic discipline that aims to explore the essence of the cinema and provides conceptual frameworks for understanding film's relationship to reality, the other arts, individual viewers, and society at large...

, a character archetype

Archetype

An archetype is a universally understood symbol or term or pattern of behavior, a prototype upon which others are copied, patterned, or emulated...

 of the tough-talking woman, popularized in film by director Howard Hawks

Howard Hawks

Howard Winchester Hawks was an American film director, producer and screenwriter of the classic Hollywood era...

 through his use of actresses such as Katharine Hepburn

Katharine Hepburn

Katharine Houghton Hepburn was an American actress of film, stage, and television. In a career that spanned 62 years as a leading lady, she was best known for playing strong-willed, sophisticated women in both dramas and comedies...

, Ann Dvorak

Ann Dvorak

Ann Dvorak was an American film actress.Asked how to pronounce her adopted surname, she told The Literary Digest: "My name is properly pronounced vor'shack. The D remains silent...

, Rosalind Russell

Rosalind Russell

Rosalind Russell was an American actress of stage and screen, perhaps best known for her role as a fast-talking newspaper reporter in the Howard Hawks screwball comedy His Girl Friday, as well as the role of Mame Dennis in the film Auntie Mame...

, and Angie Dickinson

Angie Dickinson

Angie Dickinson is an American actress. She has appeared in more than fifty films, including Rio Bravo, Ocean's Eleven, Dressed to Kill and Pay It Forward, and starred on television as Sergeant Suzanne "Pepper" Anderson on the 1970s crime series Police Woman.-Early life:Dickinson, the second of...

. The best known Hawksian woman is probably Lauren Bacall

Lauren Bacall

Lauren Bacall is an American film and stage actress and model, known for her distinctive husky voice and sultry looks.She first emerged as leading lady in the Humphrey Bogart film To Have And Have Not and continued on in the film noir genre, with appearances in The Big Sleep and Dark Passage ,...

, who iconically played the type opposite Humphrey Bogart

Humphrey Bogart

Humphrey DeForest Bogart was an American actor. He is widely regarded as a cultural icon.The American Film Institute ranked Bogart as the greatest male star in the history of American cinema....

 in To Have and Have Not

To Have and Have Not (film)

To Have and Have Not is a 1944 romance-war-adventure film. The movie was directed by Howard Hawks and stars Humphrey Bogart, Walter Brennan, and Lauren Bacall in her first film...

and The Big Sleep

The Big Sleep (1946 film)

The Big Sleep is a 1946 film noir directed by Howard Hawks, the first film version of Raymond Chandler's 1939 novel of the same name. The movie stars Humphrey Bogart as detective Philip Marlowe and Lauren Bacall as the female lead in a film about the "process of a criminal investigation, not its...

.

The archetype was first identified by film critic Naomi Wise.

Characteristics

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. Despite his preference for this kind of woman, Hawks never considered himself a feminist and simply stated that he thought these women were lively and interesting both in films and in life. Hawks discussed his preference for this kind of woman in some detail with Joseph McBride, taking up a full chapter of Hawks on Hawks (1982).

The Hawksian woman foregoes her feminine, yielding, servile gender identity to take leading roles – albeit on masculine terms – as denoted by being known, like the male protagonists, by nickname rather than forename.

Influence

John Carpenter

John Carpenter

John Howard Carpenter is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, editor, composer, and occasional actor. Although Carpenter has worked in numerous film genres in his four-decade career, his name is most commonly associated with horror and science fiction.- Early life :Carpenter was born...

, an avowed Hawks fan, includes Hawksian women in most of his movies, from Assault on Precinct 13

Assault on Precinct 13 (1976 film)

Assault on Precinct 13 is a 1976 American action-thriller film written and directed by John Carpenter. It stars Austin Stoker as a police officer who defends a defunct precinct against an attack by a relentless criminal gang, along with Darwin Joston as a convicted murderer who helps him. Laurie...

through his most recent Ghosts of Mars

Ghosts of Mars

John Carpenter's Ghosts of Mars is a 2001 American science fiction action horror film composed, written, and directed by John Carpenter. The film stars Ice Cube, Natasha Henstridge, Jason Statham, Pam Grier, Clea DuVall, and Joanna Cassidy...

. Examples of Hawksian women in Carpenter's films include the characters played by Karen Allen

Karen Allen

Karen Jane Allen is an American actress best known for her role as Marion Ravenwood in Raiders of the Lost Ark and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull...

 in Starman

Starman (film)

John Carpenter's Starman is a 1984 science-fiction fantasy film directed by John Carpenter that tells the story of an alien who has come to Earth in response to the invitation found on the gold phonograph record installed on the Voyager 2 space probe.The screenplay was written by Bruce A. Evans,...

and Adrienne Barbeau

Adrienne Barbeau

Adrienne Jo Barbeau is an American actress and the author of three books. Barbeau came to prominence in the 1970s as Broadway's original Rizzo in the musical Grease, and as Carol Traynor, the divorced daughter of Maude Findlay in the sitcom Maude...

 in The Fog

The Fog

The Fog is a 1980 horror film directed by John Carpenter, who also co-wrote the screenplay and composed the music for the film. It stars Adrienne Barbeau, Jamie Lee Curtis, Tom Atkins and Janet Leigh...

and Escape from New York

Escape from New York

Escape from New York is a 1981 American science fiction action film directed and scored by John Carpenter. He co-wrote the screenplay with Nick Castle. The film is set in the near future in a crime-ridden United States that has converted Manhattan Island in New York City into a maximum security...

.

In a May 2000 profile of actress Cameron Diaz

Cameron Diaz

Cameron Michelle Diaz is an American actress and former model. She became famous during the 1990s with roles in the movies The Mask, My Best Friend's Wedding, and There's Something About Mary. Other high-profile credits include the two Charlie's Angels films, voicing the character Princess Fiona...

in The New York Times, journalist Dave Kehr remarked that Diaz "would have fit marvelously well into the tradition of the Hawksian woman, with her sense of fun, camaraderie and forthright sexuality."