What about that chick in Guardians of the Galaxy?

I'm totally addicted to Scandal right now (all 4 seasons are on Netflix). Though flawed*, the black female lead is a very strong character. It's no movie, but should have what you're craving.

* ok, the flaw is an attraction to powerful men that remind her of her father, so certainly not strong in every aspect you're looking for.

oh, for fuck's sake, it's a fucking MOVIE!!!! entertainment, escapism! get your knickers in a knot about income inequality, domestic violence, lack of job opportunities for ALL women, the attack on reproductive rights. movies are nothing in the scheme of things, honey.

When I was a kid, I HATED movies about/starring kids. I liked books with kid characters, but as soon as someone translated that to the big screen, the kid actors got on my last nerve. As an adult, I still hate kids in movies. All my friends loved kids in movies, they felt some need to identify with the movie kids, but that was never true for me.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Wouldn't you be considered a racist and sexist if you said you wanted to see white, male actors in lead roles? Why are you allowed to openly profess your want for black women to appear in more movies?

I was surprised to hear the person with whom I watched—and laughed out loud with at moments that were supposed to be touching—Silver Linings Playbook actually reported to me she enjoyed Joy. I'm going to take your word for that is stinks.

And everyone calm down, the author is bagging on what she saw (beyond what was mentioned, I loved that a Star Wars film had two young leads that could actually act)—filmmakers had their reasons, the author has hers.

*Sorry, the author ISN'T bagging.

#5 Oh shut the fuck up, asshole.

On one hand, right on, but on the other, try watching movies made for and marketed to black people. They're there, just invisible to you.

@5 - Dude, what? Maybe that's beeeecauuuse white, male lead roles are the, I don't know, vast majority of the entire stock of Hollywood films? and fiction stories? and TV hosts? and CEOs? and police? and politicians? and... ad nauseum. Do you even understand what 'racism' actually is?
If you're trying to be a parody of the racist reality (like Ken Mehlman ;>) you are failing rather terrifically. Sorry.
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The point of the Slog post is well-taken. This 'equality' thing is sure taking a long time. But then nearly 400 years of abject inequality is quite the entrenched mentality to overcome. It's happening though.
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@3 - Au contraire, ma soeur. Movies and media representations are very much the stories we tell ourselves about the reality we see and want to see. Fiction is a very real way of leading the cultural horse to the watering trough. It inspires imagination, mental images of things that don't but might exist, and imagination is what enables change on the streets, in daily life. If you can think it, you can do it. If you can't visualize something, you'll likely never even recognize it could ever be.
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Word to the wise, Jessica Jones --yes, quirkly/gloomy girl stereotype-- is a rather demented series. Kinda gruesome, and seriously psychologically messed up. Could have some very real triggers for some people... psychopathological boyfriend control, rape, abortion, unwarranted bloody gore, manipulation, nice people dying horribly for no good reason, suicide, etc. etc. Everyone in that show is real messed up. Watch at your own risk. I'm kinda regretting I've gotten so far in, there's stuff I can't unsee now. :>(

...and to be clear, by "entrenched mentality" I mean systemic institutional and cultural racism.

Kathleen, it's much better than it used to be 5, 10, 15 years ago and getting better by the year. Check out the Shadow and Act blog on indiewire.com
Kali Hawk starring in the film, 50 shades of black-send up of 50 shades of gray
Gabrielle Union--Being Mary Jane on BET
Zoe Saldana--the aforementioned Guardians of the Galaxy and working on a Nina Simone bio pic.
Tracee Ellis Ross-Black-ish
Tika Sumpter--Get on Up, Ride Along 1 and 2 as well as the role of Michelle Obama in a film about the early romance years of Michelle and Barack Obama
Rosario Dawson--the upcoming Luke Cage series on Netflix
An Underground Railroad series coming up on the WGN Network in March featuring black actresses.
Netflix Daredevil has a black superhero love interest I believe?

I have to say that, while I agree with the sentiment, I'm not impressed with the delivery. "As a woman of color," ... I basically want stars to look like me. Hey, that's exactly what the executive producers are saying! Now, if you want a wide variety of people in films, Mayan, Portuguese, Polynesian, Korean, West African, Icelandic... well, then you'd be saying something. A statement about multi-culturalism, the illusion of the concept of "race," the humanity behind us all.

But saying you just want to see people who look like you is boring and useless. We already have that in plenty.

What if it's a woman of color as the lead, but she doesn't speak english? Or she's too rich or too poor? Too tall, too thin, too fat, too skinny, too old, too young, too...you get the point. If you look too hard you're never going to find someone who mirrors you until you star in your own biopic. I hear the complaint you're making, but I also think you're barking up the wrong tree using Star Wars as your example. I'm neither a young white woman nor a young black former stormtrooper, but it doesn't stop me from enjoying the movie. Take the victories where we can and let's build on them. Use Star Wars as the example that the top grossing movie this year had leads that weren't white men. Mad Max also had a strong female lead (though along with a white guy). This should be used to prove that audiences are open to women and minorities as leads. Let's build on that so that when a movie comes up with the option of a strong woman of color as the lead the studios won't think twice about casting her.

@10, Jessica Jones is tamer than the source material, Marvel's old Alias comic.

Demanding that women and minorities are shoehorned into something originally created by a white man, in a reboot that is the creation of another white man, will always ring false and ultimately hurts the cause.

The barrier to entry has never been lower. If women & minorities want more staring roles then they need to write good scripts themselves, and stage their own low budget productions.

@10 400 years is a bit much. in 1616 abject nationalism was de rigeur. There was no such thing as inequality in the modern sense since there were only a vanishingly few multicultural places on earth. I suspect that perhaps only Macao and Jerusalem were as diverse as today's least diverse large cities, if that.

Racial inequality as we know it really only dates to pre-revolutionary america, about 250 years ago.

@10, that's why I think Jessica Jones is one of the best shows on tv:). It doesn't strike me as typical black and white superhero who crushes the bad guys with his/her superpowers. It's primarily just a straight up noir detective show with characters that have real life problems and issues like everybody else.

@14: This.

@18: I actually dislike Jessica Jones because it tries too hard to be all gritty and hard-boiled and just comes across as cheesy and melodramatic. However, the whole thing of "just a regular guy with real world problems" is nothing new in superhero comics; that was part of the big appeal of Spiderman when he first began, because he was just another nerd with a tricky social situation and a part-time job, like so many of his readers.

i was disappointed (not surprised) that Marvel only went with one female-led series in The Defenders line-up. i would have liked to have seen Luke Cage and Danny Rand blended into a Heroes for Hire series and White Tiger take the Iron Fist spot.

"...and don’t get me started on the completely emasculated Black male characters in [The Walking Dead]."

That bit surprises me. I thought Tyrese is a great character for the show, and I can't think of any instances where he was emasculated. Most (if not all) of other black males on the show I will certainly grant, but Tyrese too?

@18 That's ridiculous. I enjoyed the show, but it's outright TERRIBLE.

Jones risked and cost the lives of DOZENS of people (if not hundreds) just to save Hope Schlottman from a long jail sentence.

Literally, simply killing herself in Ep 1 would have resolved the entire show.

Or, wearing earplugs, which they did in the end.

Grey's Anatomy.

My favorite show to binge watch as I sit alone on a Friday night.

With my cats.

And a box of Franzia.