I just read a review of 5 new "science-fiction" movies streaming on Netflix, and was struck to notice that 4 out of 5 featured female heroines. Some of them, such as Noomi Rapace in Black Crab, were kick-ass heroines in full military regalia. Noomi's character isn't just Chuck Norris with breasts, either, her role as a mother is key to the plot. Even the fifth, non-female-led movie features a key, plot-critical female lead driven by maternal power. Has Hollywood finally embraced powerful females?
Maybe. The downside of being the lead in an action-adventure movie is that along with all the opportunity to kick ass, you also get your ass kicked. Sure, you come out on top in the end, but on the way the audience gets to watch you get beaten on.
One of the offerings is a dark comedy, Madelines. A couple has invented a time machine, and the wife uses it to successfully time travel. Only problem is the machine gets stuck in a loop, causing her to reappear every day at the same time. Since only one version of a person can exist in any time line (according to the show's time-travel construction), they have to murder each excess wife as she appears. So, yeah. This is a comedy about a man forced to murder his wife every morning.
I haven't seen it. Maybe they do something good with it. But the concept gives me pause.
I think of some of the earlier entries. The Terminator and Alien series. In the original Terminator, Sarah Connor is largely a victim to be defended by her time-traveling hero, but there are hints of her rising to strength, and in the sequel she is a lioness--wild, untamed, and deadly. Ripley in Alien is more evenly strong, but also more victimized in a sexual way. Whether in the disturbing scene in the first movie, where the android forces a rolled magazine into her mouth, or the whole third movie, where a shorn Ripley is trapped in a prison colony, sexual violence pervades the show--even though the ultimate enemy is non-human.
Whatever the gender, action heroes are sexy. James Bond was notoriously sexy, even as a stuffy Englishman in a suit. But watching these trailers, I noticed I was watching scene after scene of violence against women. Women stabbed, strangled, drowned in the bath, drowned in the pool, thrown around, dragged, strangled again, thrown even further, and hit a lot.
I don't know. Is it any different than Bond or Rambo or Captain Kirk getting abused? Or is the implication of misogyny imposed from without? That is, could we watch the same violence against two characters, but when the character is female, the action is viewed through the lens of a culture that fetishizes violence against women, making it looking both sexy and misogynist. When the character is male, the very same violence is not seen as commenting on the victim's vulnerability. Perhaps "victim" is an important word: it is never used for Bond or Rambo or Kirk.
Of course, even when the violence is the same, there is a key difference in the scenes when you change the gender of the victim. For despite the occasional Femme Fatale in Bond, those who perpetrate physical violence are overwhelmingly other men. Gender is not an obvious issue when perpetrator and victim are both the same. But make it Jane Bond who gets beaten, and suddenly we have male-female violence, suddenly gender does matter.
My mind is not made up. I don't know whether to celebrate the rise of strong female action heroes, or to condemn the sexy violence. It bothers me.
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