Great blog, Janice, as always. Lyudmila Pavlichenko, nicknamed “Lady Death”, the Ukrainian sniper in the Soviet army in the Second World War who claimed 309 kills, shows that some women can be super-successful in weapon-wielding roles that are traditionally male. However, Pavlichenko was not a particularly tall woman, and so would have been poorly suited even in her prime to be part of Trump’s security detail, in spite of her impressive marksmanship.

I watched “Furiosa” at a 3 p.m. showing on a weekday not long ago and there weren’t even 10 people besides me there in that big theatre. It seemed to have all of the makings of a huge box office success, like its predecessor, “Fury Road” but hasn’t been doing well in theatres in general. The actress who played Furiosa, Anya Taylor-Joy, had previous been a huge success in “The Queen’s Gambit”, where she played a master chess player, another category that has been heavily male dominated. Just the same, there are female grand masters. The idea that this woman, shorter and smaller-framed than Charlize Theron, could be a bad-ass street fighter, eliminating any number of bigger, burlier men, demanded just too much suspension of disbelief on the part of audiences. The film industry needs to withdraw from DEI along with the US Secret Service.