"And there's another way the movie's dated. I'm definitely in favor of roles for Pam Grier, and Carpenter gives her a small but showy one in Escape from L.A.. She plays Hershe—it's pronounced like "Hershey," thus it's an insistent play on race as well as gender. See, Hershe is a transwoman with hairy 'pits and an uncharacteristically deep voice who used to be a buddy of Snake's known as Carjack Malone. When Snake finds her, he gets in close, runs his hand up her thigh to her crotch and declares, "The more things change, the more they stay the same," before intimidating "Carjack" with the gun he found there. When she insists, "I'm no longer Carjack Malone," he hisses in response, "I don't give a fuck what you are." Yes, Plissken has story reasons for threatening Hershe. But, absent that greater context, the film plays here exactly as though Snake is threatening a hate crime."