The Karate Kid and girls in 80s movies

So, I don't know if this counts as feminism, or whatever, but I noticed, during a recent viewing of The Karate Kid (the 80s one, not the one with Will Smith's kid) that Elisabeth Shue's character, Alli, is a really cool chick. She's totally into Daniel-san, and flirts with him, like love interests in all teen movies do. But she's also cheerfully assertive in a way that I found pretty awesome. Alli follows up with Daniel-san, blithely moving on from her breakup with the evil Johnny in a healthy, carefree way. Daniel-san worries about it to the point of avoiding her even though he likes her, but Alli is all about "dealing with it." And, Alli invites herself to sit with Daniel-san at lunch, and to the arcade, where there's a cool game she wants to show him. Alli is totally taking the lead in the relationship, which is really nice to see. She sticks up for herself with Johnny too, telling him to buzz off at the beach, and getting in his face about his aggro tendencies. When Johnny kisses her at the country club (why is there a country club in Encino?! and is Encino any less bad than Reseda?) to humiliate Daniel-san, Alli punches him in the face and tells him to drop dead. Good stuff. What really impressed me is how, during the climactic karate tournament, when Daniel-san is like, "what is going on? I'm dead for sure", Alli is the one who explains the rules and point system to him, calmly and efficiently, because she's GOT THIS.

I feel like I don't really see many characters like Alli. Love interests in movies about male friendships tend to be visions of perfection who glide through the movie in soft focus, giving the hero small acknowledgements before he somehow gets her in the end, with the help of his buddy. But Alli is her own character, and despite the fact that she's the third wheel to Daniel-san and Mr. Miyagi, it's still really clear that she knows what's going on and has her own motivations and personality. I wish they had kept her around in the sequels, especially in the third one where the girl character was so very very superfluous. I haven't watched any teen-marketed movies for a long time, and I wonder if there are more or fewer Allis now. I hope there are more.

One last thing thing I noticed about Alli is kind of superficial, but I think not really. Elisabeth Shue in that movie was really pretty, but looked like a real girl. She didn't look like a sex doll like Megan Fox, or like some fake-wholesome Miley Cyrus. Elisabeth Shue was also healthy and athletic looking--not the tiniest girl you'll see, but definitely one that could hold her own in say, a pickup soccer game with Daniel-san. In other words, she looked like a normal teenager. Why can't girls look like that in movies now? Why do even the "nerdy" ones like Needy in "Jennifer's Body" have to be Amanda Seyfried, that is, bombshell behind glasses? I think I'm showing my age here, but damn it, why can't girls in movies look like normal people like boys do? I think I'm also reminded of this because I recently watched the "Flowers in the Attic" movie again, and noticed that Kristy Swanson was kind of chubby in that. In a baby fat way. But she was still cute, like a normal teenage girl. No way could a girl like that be in a movie nowadays. They'd have to be very thin, with big glossy lips, and around 8 lbs of hair extensions. That sucks.