Looking like a hero: constructions of the female gun-fighter in Hollywood cinema.

This paper addresses the aesthetic and semiotic issues of dress, agency and desire as they are articulated around the figure of the female gun-slinger in action-driven genres. It explores the problems that this complex figure presents for feminist critics, in relation to the fetishisation of the female action figure, the potential for readings of cooption or resistance embodied in the transvestite heroine, and the celebration of cinematic violence. It also explores a number of strategies whereby film-makers and narratives contrive to contain the transgressive potential of the female gun-slinger. With particular reference to Salt (Phillip Noyce 2010), it highlights issues of transformation, performance and identity, focusing on the operation of costume as an ‘alternative discourse’ within the text. It considers the limitations and potential of the contemporary action heroine as an empowering female figure within popular culture

Intimacy, ‘Truth' and the Gaze: The Double Opening of Zero Dark Thirty.

The opening scene of Zero Dark Thirty (Kathryn Bigelow, 2012) is, strictly speaking, not a 'scene' at all since it offer no images, only a black screen, some text and a soundscape that uses real recordings of phone-calls made on 11th September 2001 to depict the events of that day. In this article I want to discuss the operation of intimacy, cultural memory and audience address in these ninety seconds, the way in which these same ideas are reworked in the scene that immediately follows, and the way in which the film's investment in ' the spectacle of the real' and complex treatment of the gaze is established within both these opening sequences

No Small-talk in Paradise: why Elysium fails the Bechdel Test and why we should care

After a century of feminist activism, women are still marginalized in many areas of human activity throughout the Western world – and women are still marginalized in the outputs of the culturally powerful dream factory that is the Hollywood film industry. This is not a coincidence. The 'Bechdel Test' is a rule of thumb to determine the extent to which women are marginalised in a film or television text. Popularised by cartoonist Alison Bechdel in 1985, it is not an academic theory but a joke of sorts that has become itself a meme of popular culture - and is arguably all the more powerful for that. To pass the test a film must feature at least two named female characters, who have a conversation with one another about something other than a man. While it does not grapple with qualitative issues of ideology and representation, it does have the virtue of simplicity. It is able to cut through the post-modern sophistry that can obscure some unpalatable truths about modern culture and the society that produces and consumes it, at a time when the number of speaking female characters in top grossing Hollywood films appears to be in decline, from an unedifying 2009 high of 33%(Smith, S 2013). I would arguing that the issue highlighted by the Bechdel test merit serious academic attention. In this paper, I will discuss some of these issues in relation to mainstream Hollywood film. In particular I will focus on the recent sci-fi blockbuster Elysium (Blomkamp 2013), arguing that the utilisation of its two female leads, and the pointed manner in which they are deprived of an opportunity to pass the Bechdel test, bring into focus some critical concerns about gender representations in 21st century Hollywood

From stepmother to mentor: intergenerational heroism in the female-led action films

With a couple of notable exceptions, the female action hero has, until the turn of the century, been a single, exceptional woman amid a cast of men. As such she is weighed down by a burden of representation that does not afflict her male counterparts, and haunted by the spectre of the fetish which, as Claire Johnston argued at the dawn of feminist film theory, does not represent woman at all but a ‘lack’ that functions to define the male. Her very exceptionality, moreover, serve to contain any revolutionary threat she might pose to gendered norms, rendering her ‘the exception that proves the rule’. In the last two decades we have seen the development across action orientated genres, of films featuring a number of female protagonists cutting across this narrative logic. This remains a very youthful cohort, however, despite the parallel rise of the aging (male) action hero. While the older male action hero is often seen mentoring his younger spiritual heir, albeit with a bit of Oedipal sparring along the way, his female counterpart is largely absent from our screens. Indeed where our female action heroes have the benefit of a mentor (and they frequently do) that mentor is invariably male, once again reinforcing a sense that the power wielded by the female action hero is inherently masculine and provisional. Where Hollywood films do explore the relationship between an older woman and the younger woman preparing to replace her, moreover, it is more likely to be represented in terms of jealous rivalry - whether through a variation of the traditional ‘wicked stepmother’ trope, through the effective weaponsing of conflicting feminisms as explored by Cobb (2011) or through a reworking of the scenario epitomised by All About Eve (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1950) – a film recently remade by another male director (Ivo van Hove, 2019). In this papter, I will explore how these traditional patterns are disrupted in three recently released, female-led actions films – three films, incidentally, directed by women: The Old Guard (‎Gina Prince-Bythewood, 2020), Mulan (Niki Caro, 2020) and Charlie’s Angels (‎Elizabeth Banks, 2019). Despite the generic, stylistic and structural differences between them, all three, in their particular ways, challenge the trope of the jealous ‘older woman’ threatened by the usurping ingénue, and replace it with a narrative of mentorship and intergenerational heroism

‘Critical Race Theory and Jordan Peele’s Get Out’ by Kevin Wynter (Book Review)

Book review: In summary, notwithstanding the structural and stylistic concerns expressed above, I would thoroughly recommend this volume – in particular to any reader who, like this reviewer, brought more interest than expertise to the topic. An engaging introduction to critical race theory and an insightful analysis of the film