Quote:
"In most of her films, Nell Shipman played the leading role, always of the heroic stamp. [...] Her Amazonian beauty, the easeful presence of her body (cross-hatched with equal parts of hysteria, display, strength, and bravery), her great sense of moral justice, and the instinctive connection with animals and nature: these are the signs of her essential femininity, and simultaneously the source of the heroism which allows her to resist conventional narrative inscriptions of the woman protagonist as victimized and rescued."
-- Kay Armatage

Source:
Armatage, Kay. "Nell Shipman: A Case of Heroic Femininity." In Feminisms in the Cinema, edited by Laura Pietropaolo and Ada Testaferri. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995. (p. 143)