Why do some "great" recent movies have battered females?

Upon recommendation I watched "The Cooler" and found it not up to the hype. Great performances by Baldwin, et al. but it reminded me of "Leaving Las Vegas." Another sleazy portrayal of Vegas which includes violence against women in graphic detail.

Why is this considered great Movie Art...the violence against women?

Frankly, I'm not opposed to violence when necessary for the story...for example, why didn't they show Adrianna's body being shot in the Sopranos? I mean it was worse when Christopher was strangling her to near death....

But damn, it seems like a lot of battering is becoming common place...

And then life imitates the movies, and so on, and so on.

I despise movies which show women as objects to be beaten, battered, abused and murdered, when there's nothing but gratuitous violence as the theme.

This is one reason why Thelma and Louise resonated with so many women ... finally, Louise decided she wasn't going to take that sh*t anymore and shot Harley, who was "having a little fun," as he called it, the attempted rape of Thelma. After that movie, there wasn't much else about women fighting back. Except for one movie, True Romance, where the gal kicked the living daylights out of someone trying to kill her.

And of course Sigorney Weaver always rules!

Kill Bill.

If you're looking for a movie about 'women fighting back,' you're probably not going to find one much better.

Not your runofthemill chick flick