She speaks! Nicole Kidman speaks! She emits such lasery vitriol too, setting her sights on the gilded hills of Hollywood. Star of such films as Flirting and Malice and also famously known as "Stephen's Girlfriend on the Phone" in the 2002 film Panic Room, Kidman alleges that Hollywood is singlehandedly advocating violence against women. Err, wasn't she the one that starred in Dogville where her character is beaten up, raped, and tortured? Well then.

But Nicole Mary Kidman may be onto something. This could be a reason why more and more veteran actresses are defecting to the small screen where they can call the shots, albeit with mixed results. Let's not forget, one of the year's most-hyped films, after all, is one that the Times has sub-headlined, "Is America Ready for A Movie About an Obese Harlem Girl Raped and Impregnated by Her Abusive Father?"

Although, on the other hand, a quick look at the year's top-grossing films show that nothing is askew from years past. Most abhorrent probably is that the Sandra Bullock starrer The Proposal remains somewhere in the Top 10, but not for its violence against women; just for violence against storytelling. And to upset Kidman's allegation, another buzzed-about flick was Jennifer's Body, where a woman was the one committing violence, a sub-genre of movies which has enjoyed post-Kill Bill popularity. In that same vein was 2007's Teeth, where violence against similarly violent men was eerily disguised as campy feminism.

Fundamentally, Hollywood is just doing its job and until Nicole Kidman can take over the world and enforce her own unique methods of coercive persuasion to alter trends, we're stuck in a typical sometimes-woman-bashing-sometimes-man-bashing Hollywood era, where Paul Blart: Mall Cop easily has a bigger box office haul than Ponyo.