Feminine Masculinity: The Rise of Women in Action Films
It has become a trend in cinema for female actresses to take on roles that used to be typically suited for men. Action films in particular are now common vehicles for female stars, who are often achieving more success with the genre than males. In Stephanie Mencimer’s article, “Violent Femmes,” she writes that the success of females in action movies as a result of redefinitions in current masculine roles in society, coupled with the decline of the muscular, male action star.
In her article, “Badass girls on film,” Lisa Arnold writes about the attraction of females acting violently towards males on film. In the article, “Barb Wire and the Implausible Female Action Hero,” Marlo Edwards discusses the allure of an extreme, dominatrix female in an action film and the attraction of that particular type of character.
These three different views give a broad perspective on the current state of women in action movies. The female action genre has evolved in many ways throughout the years and has become successful through this evolution. The way that the female body is presented, the attitudes of the female characters towards males and the psychological idea that all men secretly want to live in a society dominated by women have contributed to this success.
The ultra-masculine, hard body type that was dominant during the Reagan ’80s no longer defines the typical American male. Mencimer writes:
The average straight American male today is the doughy white guy who sits in a suburban office park most of the day before driving his SUV home to his wife and kids and online stock reports. Shooting hoops and bench-pressing in the garage just don’t figure into the equation. And why should they, when women are more interested in the size of men’s portfolios than the size of their pecs anyway? (4)
This vision of the working class, suburban male as a money-driven individual whose success comes from flexing corporate muscle rather than body muscle fits into the idea that males are no longer defined by the macho characteristics associated with the Reagan-Bush ’80s. The emergence of this kind of re-defined male has a strong correlation with the rise in and acceptance of females in masculine roles in the media. “Girl-power flicks like Charlie’s Angels, Crouching Tiger, and Tomb Raider are topping the $100 million mark once dominated by men like Schwarzenegger”. (1) She also mentions the very poor box office numbers from the recent films of Schwarzenegger and Stallone.
There is obviously a strong correlation between the changing roles of men in society and the decreased success of hard-body action films but there is also a strong change in the roles of females. With the rise of the self-sufficient woman, the male-defying woman, the single mother, the working class female and the female bosses in society there has been a rise of women in film who are meet these same characteristics.
The successful female action films up until recently have featured what were essentially women playing men. Sigourney Weaver as Ripley in the first two Alien films, Linda Hamilton in Terminator 2: Judgment Day and Brigette Nielsen in Red Sonya were women who shared similar characteristics: strong, muscular, hard-edged and essentially masculine characters who wield large guns and swords as though they are substitute phalluses. They are not overtly sexual beings but instead are women who can step into roles that could easily be occupied by men.
The women in films such as Charlie’s Angels, Tomb Raider, and Crouching Tiger have progressed from feminized-masculinity to sexy, attractive women who are genuinely skilled with their bodies. As men no longer have to be hard-bodies in order to succeed on film, neither do women. Films like Charlie’s Angels are gratuitous in their depictions of the female body. The curves rather than the muscles are emphasized.
The women in these films have developed their bodies to become supreme sexual beings, capable of attracting sexual attention and being able to out-fight anyone who doesn’t like it. The success of this kind of female could be attractive to the new American male who has accepted the new ideal of masculinity. But can these films be attractive to females? Mencimer doesn’t believe so. She argues that “the feminist critics are right: Women are still only be allowed to be violent within certain parameters largely proscribed by what men are willing to tolerate”. (5)
Gina Arnold has a different point of view and argues that this new breed of female action films is positive and liberating for females. Arnold states: “Judging by the ecstatic reception of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon in malls of Middle America, one can assume that audiences are thrilled to see women assuming physical superiority over men”. (5) She also points out that most of these films offer an almost graceful approach to violence. She writes:
Stripped of danger and cruelty and the ugly and mean competitiveness that taints the violent actions of the male world, these fight scenes can be watched with total equanimity. They feel liberated from the bonds of gender and the tyranny of fear. (6)
Arnold points out that in most of the fight scenes dominating action films with female protagonists, females are rarely seen as bloody, mutilated, vicious or malicious. The violence in which they partake is like an extreme form of ballet. These women are graceful. They can outmatch, outwit and outfight everyone else, but they can do it without leaving so much as a scratch behind.
Consider, for example, the character of Trinity (played by Carrie-Anne Moss) in The Matrix. Trinity is the first character in the film that partakes in any action. In her first scene, she displays the ability to float through the air with weightless effort, move faster than the world around her, destroy an entire army of police officers with martial arts ability and evade vicious-looking male characters without ever getting bloodied, hit or even touched. She displays these superhuman abilities before any of the male protagonists in the film do, and she does so with more grace and precision.
There may however, be a change in this graceful, eloquent manner of female violence in cinema. Recently there were two films: Kill Bill Volume 1 and Volume 2 which featured the actress Uma Thurman in the role of a revenge-seeking martial arts master. The films throw her in several bloody, brutal fight scenes in which she is beaten and scarred but always hurts her opponent even worse. Thurman’s character in the film is vicious, intense and wants to physically harm everyone around her. The blood-splattered fights she participates in give are a far cry from the violence-as-ballet that’s seen in most other female action films. That the Kill Bill films were successful at the box office seems to indicate that there is a position for a more bloodthirsty bland of female violence in cinema.
Arnold argues that males can also appreciate these films on completely different levels than females. She states: “Perhaps the sight of women beating people up is pleasurable to men because it reinforces their secret belief that women are the ones in control of our society”(5). She seems to be arguing that there is a veiled, buried masochism that exists in the psyche of most males. If the typical function of the modern male in society is to please women (as Mencimer might argue), then perhaps men get a kick out of watching women be the aggressive, dominant species. Most of the modern female action films are being marketed to adolescent, male teenagers, which may seem to indicate that this buried masochism begins at a young age.
Marlo Edwards takes this idea a step further and makes a strong case for the film Barb Wire, a very unsuccessful film from 1996 starring Pamela Anderson, which was strongly dismissed by many feminine critics as being a very misogynist film. Edwards argues that not only can the film be viewed from a feminist perspective, but also that the main character herself is a very strong, sexual, feminist being. Edwards argues:
Barb Wire’s appearance/performance in the film-and her position as a character portrayed by Pamela Anderson-thus causes her to be dismissed categorically-(she is an unusually powerful and active hero, in a fascinatingly intertextual film) or in terms of her specific visual signification (dominatrix, not sex kitten). Analyses of the female action hero thus need to consider how desirability functions vis-Ã? -vis dominant power structures within particular filmic contexts. (9)
Anderson’s character in the film is a leather-clad dominatrix. She uses her presence, her body, her sexuality and her skills to manipulate men to further her own needs and to display her dominance over the males with whom she shares the screen. Edwards’ statement of “dominatrix, not sex-kitten” is important because it explains how this is a character who likes to show off her body but uses it in order to assert her own authority rather than be viewed as a helpless, oversexed victim.
Barb Wire is easily dismissed as being a chauvinistic sex film for a number of reasons. Pamela Anderson, herself, is
pretty much the quintessential model of the modern blonde bimbo and her presence in the film as well as her penchant for appearing nude in countless men’s magazines causes her immediate dismissal by feminists. The film might have been unsuccessful because it wasn’t as subtle as Charlie’s Angels, or Tomb Raider, or other films in which attractive females have dominatrix-like authority over males. Barb Wire is blatant about the S and M relationship between males and females. The main character dresses in black leather, brandishes a whip, beats up a lot of men and looks completely strong in the process. She doesn’t operate with the kind of grace of a Charlie’s Angel, but with the strategy of a woman who knows she can dominate men.
The progression of the female action star has evolved quite a bit since Sigourney Weaver first donned a white tank top and out-manned her male counterparts in the Alien films. The early female hard bodies have advanced into graceful, female sex goddesses who can also kick ass. The repressed masochistic relationship that males have with these women has allowed the films to grow more and more successful as the years pass. These films can be both appreciated and hated by feminists who are either eager to embrace the idea of women who can outfight men or eager to dismiss the over-sexed women as perverse male fantasies. Given the right circumstances, within the right formula, female action films can not only deliver huge box office results, but elevate female actresses to the role of stars who are as capable of opening action films as their male counterparts.
Works Cited:
Mencimer, Stephanie. “Violent Femmes”
Washington Monthly, September 2004, Pgs. 1-5
Arnold, Gina. “Badass Girls on Film”
Salon.com, January 22, 2001. Pgs. 1-9
Edwards, Marlo. “The Blonde with the guns: Barb Wire and the Implausible Female Action Hero”
Journal of Popular Film and Television, Spring 2004, Pgs. 1-9
