Who is Evelyn Salt?

      In choosing the female violent action character, I have chosen Angelina Jolie’s portrayal of Evelyn Salt in SALT (2010).  As an avid movie-goer I have already seen this movie. However, I have chosen it again to not just watch it but to, now, have a more analytical view point. Firstly, Angelina Jolie is at the top of my list of thespians for her work onscreen and her humanitarian work off screen.  Aside from her past “weirdness” to me she epitomizes beauty, grace and intelligence. Secondly, because of the high esteem that I do have for her it was hard to dissociate from that and analyze the character Salt. That being said it was interesting looking at Salt from my newly acquired feminist goggles. I was expecting to be disappointed, let down that a woman in a starring role as a VFAC would be the stereotype that we have come to expect from that role. Surprisingly, SALT is not what Hollywood’s portrayal of VFAC’s are(mostly). From the over sexualisation, to the damsel in distress, Evelyn Salt is a counter stereotype allowing for a female lead character to ACTUALLY be the hero; to engage and challenge her male counterparts as an equal.

      The opening scenes of SALT you see her in a damsel situation where she is being held captive by Korean soldiers. This is also the only scene in the movie that you see an obvious intersection of violence and femininity.  Writhing in pain in her underwear and being assaulted, you’re not sure who Salt is but you know she needs saving. At this point I assume that this will be the underlying theme of the movie, the beautiful, sexual woman that needs constant saving. The following scene does little to dissuade the notion. Upon leaving the torture facility, Salt turns to her comrade and says “I don’t understand, all the rules say to leave, one life is not worth blowing operational cover. Why did you do it?” The camera pans to a man standing looking very concerned and agitated. Her saviour is a man (who we later find out is her husband). Salt, who we have just seen being tortured, is overcome by emotion and almost cries. Her hero. Fortunately, this is the only scene where you see Salt as the weaker sex. I say fortunately because the blueprint of the hero saving his woman from his foes is getting tired. For three minutes of the film Salt is weak, at the mercy of her male captors and saved by her male counterparts. For three minutes she is the typical action film female character. In “Violent Female Action Characters in Contemporary American Cinema” (Gilpatric, K. 2010), it states that female action characters rarely get to play the main action character where “58.6% of VFACs were portrayed in a submissive role to the male hero in the film”, yet for the remaining 90 minutes Salt IS the main character. She’s not submissive, she’s not the one that needs to be saved, in fact she is the one doing the saving and she’s still a woman.

      Salt is still a woman. That is an important point to make. A point that is also questioned in “Romancing Trauma: The Violent Woman in Contemporary American Film” (Neroni, 2005) Can this be a woman? Can femininity be corrupted by violence? Yes and yes. Applying these questions to Salt, I’m left with a sense that yes she is a woman, a beautiful woman that still retains her femininity. However, YES that femininity is corrupted by violence. Her violent female persona is hard to validate by Hollywood standards because to be in a romance a female must be submissive (Neroni, 2005). We have seen Salt do these inherently male moves, kill, maim and assault which is not conducive to a female submissive romantic persona so she is left alone at the end of the film (her husband is killed just as she was going to save him).

      I also believe that this could have easily been an overly masculinized role Salt is a CIA agent that is suspected of being a Russian mole. The action scenes are fast paced and violent, with a beautiful woman as the lead. With VFACs there are a few paths that could be taken: over sexualized, latex wearing, high heeled vixen (I can barely walk in heels much less, run and do karate moves), the ever present damsel (can we just put her in an impregnable tower already?), or the rough talking, cigarette smoking, dude girl (who seems to always be played by Michelle Rodriquez).  The dude girl is fun, with funny quips and interesting moments but you get the feeling that it’s a caricature of a male action hero. I’ve yet to meet a woman that is like that. Salt is not a caricature, the masculinized version of a male action hero, she is multi-faceted. She is strong and stealth and intelligent and can fight hand to hand combat with the best of them. But she is still a woman. The moment when her husband is killed in front of her, the emotion that she holds back is evident. She’s worked so hard to get to this point, to save the man that she really loves to have him killed. All of these things cross her face as you watch the tremble in her lower lip, the swell of tears in her eyes. I don’t believe that the dude girl persona would have had those feelings. The dude girl in this role would have shut down her feelings and made a quip, a one-liner, to mask any effeminate feelings.

      I appreciate this movie for its complexities, in the characters and storyline. You don’t realize how mindless movie watching has become until you’re challenged to analyze one. The continued gendered stereotypes within a contemporary American film (Gilpatric, K. 2010) have become so ingrained in our collective psyche you don't even realize that it's happening .  The damsel storylines HAVE to be in an action movie (right?). We’re the weaker sex and we need to be saved (right?). It's not an action movie if the male hero doesn't get the girl (right?). A movie like Salt challenges those ideals. Here is a LEAD woman that is comparable to her male counterparts in her skill and position in the movie, yet is STILL a woman.  She doesn't fall in love with the lead role, doesn't engage in sexual activity and isn't easily manipulated. I think that if we as an audience watched it more than Hollywood wouldn't have a choice but to offer us this kind of film.

References 

Neroni (2005) Romancing Trauma: The Violent Woman in Contemporary American Film (Module 12 readings)

Gilpatric, K. (2010) Violent Female Action Characters in Contemporary American Cinema  http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11199-010-9757-7/fulltext.html

WHALE RIDER

WHALE RIDER

1.   For me Paikea represents a female counter-stereoptype two ways. Firstly, she’s not the typical little girl that we see in “male gaze” movies. You never see her with other girls her age and there is little childlikeness to her. In the end of the movie you see why but in the beginning this represents a counter-stereotype: the lack of levity and mirth that you see in female children her age. Secondly, and my interpretation may be wrong here, she doesn’t seem to be what your typical “female gaze” protagonist would be personality wise. I think that goes back to my preconceived notions about how a feminist should behave. She has this quite, stoic calmness to her. Whereas, I would imagine that someone that was tasked with challenging a male propagated ideal would be more in your face, loud righteous. However, after reading Rubaiyat Hossain’s article, I come to realise again I need to step outside of my own epistemology that “there is a specific currency in which the female film director's gaze behind the camera must translate reality”. Hossain’s article identifies that there isn’t just “one feminist ideology or vision but that there is a “way of seeing” that defines the female voice in movies. Whether its owning sexuality, or going against social norms or in the case of Whale Rider’s protagonist regardless of her sex she can be what her people need, the female voice is all encompassing. Paikea knows that her grandfather, Koro, will not accept her as the chief but she also knows it’s her calling. She does what she can in the circumstances proving quietly that she can be chief regardless of how she was born. 

2.   Whale Rider’s message is clear: no matter what your gender, if you believe you can do it, you can. As I was watching the movie I found myself entranced by the character’s (as well as the actress who played this role incredibly well) calm. Her acceptance of her grandfather’s churlish demeanor regarding her sex amazed me because I wasn’t sure if it was a matter of naivety on her part or a maturity beyond her years to continue to love him regardless of his views. The more I think about it, I believe Paikea had this unwavering love for her grandfather because of her own father’s absence in her life. She had to prove to Koro that she was worth loving.  I don’t think that there were any gendered expectations for Paikea. The only expectation was that she stay away from the chieftain exercises because she wasn’t a boy. During the opening ceremony Koro would not allow her to sit in the front row because of this fact. As well when she was using the sticks to fight the boy, Koro would not listen to the fact that she was just defending herself. “What have you done... Do you know what you’ve done. You’ve broken the tapoo of this school.” Even after this, Paikea still persists and finally proves to her grandfather that she IS the person to lead the tribe. 

3.   Whale Rider personified counter-cinema in its organic feel. There wasn’t the overacted flashy Hollywood blockbuster emotion.  The independent label on a film usually guarantees a well thought out realistic view of a situation or event. Hollywood tends to endorse films not based on merit but which starlet can be convinced to play the lead role or which director can helm the project. With Whale Rider, Niki Caro was able to tell a story through the female gaze with emphasis on the emotion on the characters faces. The shots were either close up, when Karo was teaching the boys the stance the close up of his face was arresting in the power, or panoramic shots of the scenery that were also as arresting in the beauty of it. There wasn’t an objectification or over romanticised feel that the film could/would have taken if it was seen through the male gaze.  This was a story about a girl that was trying to prove herself. There was no underlying romance that a commercial movie would have taken to satiate what they believe is a female’s want in a film. 

Mildred Pierce

Mildre Pierce

1. Watching Mildred Pierce to its conclusion, I was left with a great dissatisfaction. Mildred Pierce Beragon at the end of the movie had lost everything that she loved seemingly because of a pursuit of independence to provide unabashedly for her children. Yet, somehow ending up with the person she had shunned in the first place.  Jeanine Basinger's The Genre  claims that the genre the women's film was just that, a contradiction.

The women's film is the slybots of genre; or, to put it bluntly, the women's two-face. Of all the genres in Hollywood's history, the woman's film is the most deceptive, as appropriate to the sex that has had to achieve its goals partly through subversion. Everything it destroys, it reaffirms.p.7 

In this, Mildred Pierce exemplifies the third purpose of this genre: the temporary visual release.  Her venture into the working world and eventually as a successful business owner is pleasing because this is a woman doing this at that time. However, Mildred's rejection of the traditional family role of dutiful wife was wrought with missteps, failure and despair.  As the viewer in a modern day world I know that the decision that she made was a right one because her husband was being unfaithful to her. She could not continue to live in the same home with him.  Yet nearing the end of the film you get the sense (implied) that if she had stayed with Mr. Pierce and had listened to his admonishments about Veda, none of the resulting events would have occurred. She said as much at the beginning of her interrogation  by the detectives exclaiming when asked "why did you divorce him?" "because I was wrong. It took me four years to realize that I was wrong."

2. On introduction to Bert Pierce, he states emphatically that Mildred shouldn't be raising the girls like he was a millionaire and that if she didn't spoil them that Veda wouldn't act so belligerent towards him.   Mildred is adamant that the girls need have everything that she could provide for them. This is a clear example of Molly Haskell's (1987) SACRIFICE category. Mildred during her argument with Bert states "they'll never cry, if I have anything to do with it... Those kids come first in this house before either one of us. Maybe that's right and maybe it's wrong but that's the way it is." Mildred proves this statement to be true when she made the monumental sacrifice for Veda's love and attention by giving Monte Beragon one third of her restaurant to satisfy Veda's vanity.  At first it seemed like a normal emotion to want to maintain a proper upbringing for her children, but as the movie progresses it becomes almost a pathological need.  After catching Veda and Monte kissing, Mildred still ended up protecting Veda. Mildred was going to commit suicide so that the suspicion of murderer would be on her. More so, when her suicide attempt was thwarted Mildred would have sacrificed her freedom by confessing.

4. I was so awed by the visual aspect of this film. The actresses with their flawless faces, the clothes that I wish I could get my hands and the beautiful sets everything was catching to the eye. The film noir era is undoubtedly a visually captivating genre. Every scene has dramatic stagings that draw you in. The scene at the boardwalk when the officer emerges from the shadow and the preceding minutes when Mildred has her hand on the bars the way the shadows fall around her.  This film's cinematography had to be dark because of the nature of the plot: investigating a murder. The score was dramatic orchestrations designed to put emphasis on a plot twist or dramatic occurrence.  The scene where Veda explains to her mother about the blackmail and the reasoning behind it the score builds and builds to an ominous crescendo when Mildred tears up the check. 

5. The "mammy" role has been defined in movies as a means to render black woman as entities only capable of being wet nurses and maternal figures to white children.  The Lottie character is not represented as a maternal figure in this film but as the "liberated" mammy. 

Hollywood films presented two, essential, garden-variety Mammy images.... The other was her "liberated," domesticated sister, characterized by McDaniel, Beavers and others as the maid, servant, cook and faithful soul. this image supposedly emancipated the Mammy from her antebellum entrapment by a more equal posting in the home of the white family. p.5

Lottie was seen in the kitchen at Mildred's and at the house.  She was eternally cheerful and peppy proclaiming at the opening of Mildred's "this is just like my wedding night. So exciting!" A loyal servant, Lottie was so happy when Mildred returned from Mexico.

6. I do not get the sense that Mildred Pierce is a mixture of the "male gaze" and the "female" gaze. What I have gleaned from watching the movie and reading the following material is that the "female gaze" is not seen in this film.  The male gaze is seen prominently even in the most simplest scenes. For example when Mildred was changing the lightbulb the first thing we see is her perfectly sculpted legs sitting a top a ladder. In another scene, a newly emancipated Veda is dressed seductively and singing for sailors at an establishment. There weren't any evident "female gaze" scenes. It could be argued that the "female gaze" was employed when Monte Beragon was courting Mildred, but even in those scenes Mildred was the object. At the beach house, the camera shots were cut away from him to reveal a seductive Mildred posing on the floor. Also, the moment when they were on the beach the focus was on Mildred and what bathing suit she was wearing. The femme fatale, Veda, was an object of the male gaze when her mother, being too independent, could not fulfil that role anymore. You see Mildred go from wearing clothes that showed off her femininity to big fur coats and boxy shaped clothes. This happened because Veda was now of age to be desired; able to receive the male gaze.  Also with her new found sexuality and femininity her lust for money and lifestyle was even greater. She now was using deceit and manipulation to obtain what she wanted. Blackmailing a man that was clearly in love with her showed the femme fatale manipulation at full steam. Veda personifies the femme fatale character by being deceitful and manipulative to the end, pulling on her mother's heart strings guilting her into taking the blame for the murder.