‘Kim Possible Movie: So the Drama’ Gave Us a Feminist Icon Ahead of Her Time

Sure, today we’re somewhat used to the idea of a female superhero on our screens: Captain Marvel, Batwoman, Supergirl… You get the idea. But in the early aughts, there was a different girl protecting the streets: Kim Possible. And she wasn’t your basic average girl; she was a feminist icon before her time—cargo pants, cropped top, and all.

Back in 2005, 15-years ago today, Disney Channel released its first ever animated original movie, Kim Possible Movie: So the Drama. KP was, once again, on a mission to save the world while, at home, she faced life as a regular old teenage girl in high school. Gossip, mean girls, finding a prom date… It was so the drama.

Team Possible, Kim (Christy Carlson Romano) and her sidekick Ron Stoppable (Will Friedle) along with his naked mole rat Rufus, were tasked with taking down their arch-nemeses Dr. Drakken (John DiMaggio) and Shego (Nicole Sullivan) who were closer than ever to world domination. Their evil plan included stolen toy designs from world famous toymakers, synthodrone androids, taking over fast food corporations, kidnapping, brain tap machines, cybertronic technology, and learning what Kim’s biggest weakness was: boys. You know, the usual supervillain stuff. And sure all the drama of the action packed 69-minute TV movie was something to discuss — spoiler alert, though it has been 15 years — Kim and Ron finally become a couple, we are here to celebrate Kim Possible as a series dripping in feminism and strong female characters.

Though strong female leads weren’t unknown on Disney Channel — check out groundbreaking hits That’s So Raven and Lizzie McGuire — putting a female character at the helm of an action based animated series was not the norm. Dave the Barbarian, an animated series that ran from 2004 to 2005, placed its male lead Dave as the strong defender of his sisters and kingdom while his parents were away. Set in the Middle Ages, his older sister Candy, who was put in charge of the kingdom as the eldest sibling, was given a stereotypically Valley-girl voice and attitude—she would rather be shopping than ruling over the kingdom.

There were some strides at the time to introduce less stereotypical characters. The Proud Family, which ran from 2001 to 2005 and wrapped up with a TV movie a few months after the release of So the Drama, focused on Penny Proud navigating life as a teenage girl. In the movie, 16-year-old Penny finally showed her dad that she deserved some independence after saving the world from evil humanoid peanut Genome Warriors (yes it’s a thing).

But shows like Kim Possible and Proud Family were the exception, not the norm, in the mostly male-dominated slate of Disney Channel shows from the 2000s.

So, when it comes to KP, what’s the sitch? While she isn’t just like us, she still is us. She obsessed over boys, struggled to fit in, and rivaled mean girl Bonnie as captain of the cheerleading team. But all that was while still kicking ass and showing the world a teenage girl is more than a vain, girly stereotype; we can be it all: beauty, brains, and brawn. She used her high school skills to her advantage, flipping over villains and toting a slew of high tech tools concealed in items typically found in a teen girl’s makeup bag. That wasn’t lip gloss in that tin, it was a potent stink bomb. She stood up to the men who tried to defeat her, and took them down. But the titular character wasn’t the only one showing that a girl could be something more than just a damsel in distress.

While Shego may have been considered Dr. Drakken’s so-called sidekick, she was anything but. Shego was the only other character who came close to Kim’s level of skill and athleticism and, oftentimes, was the only thing holding Drakken’s schemes together. She was the most threatening of the duo, not the other way around. She was smart, conniving, sarcastic, and powerful. She was there pointing out the flaws of Drakken’s plans for world domination and the one on the frontlines when Team Possible showed up to save the day.

Kim Possible flipped the gender norms that ran rampant in 2000s TV upside down. Her sidekick was a boy who wasn’t threatened by her strength (take notes boys and girls). He supported her and he was the one who was left to watch her take down the bad guys, standing on the sidelines and cheering her on. The men in this world succeeded because of their female counterparts and they didn’t fight it. It truly is surprising that a movie written by two men and directed by another is so feminist.

Fighting villains at night, Kim still worried about what boys thought of her extracurriculars as a world-saving hero because she was, after all, a basic average girl — and that’s what made her so relatable. As Monique, Kim’s BFF tkproclaims, “Kim, you are a strong, independent woman. Anybody afraid of that is not worth your time.” You know it, Monique.

Stream Kim Possible Movie: So The Drama on Disney+