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
