'This film is a con'. Thus ran the opening of Spare Rib's review of Ridley Scott's Alien on its initial release back in 1979. With the exception of this film, in which Sigourney Weaver stars as Ripley, when feminist writers have addressed the action cinema at all during the 1980s, it has only been to dismiss the genre as macho and reactionary in familiar terms. However, the emergence of a series of diverse action-based films centred on female protagonists has begun to generate a debate as to the political status of these films and their heroines. Thelma and Louise, a road movie also directed by Ridley Scott, was the surprise hit of the summer of 1991, both in America and in European countries such as Britain and France. The success of the film generated a series of articles, reviews and other commentaries which diversely praised, expressed concern or fascination at its 'gun-toting' heroines. Some saw Thelma and Louise as a feminist reworking of a male genre, the road movie, with women taking the place of the male buddies familiar to viewers of popular Hollywood cinema. For others, the film represented an interrogation of male myths about female sexuality, an admirable commentary on rape and sexual violence. I've already spoken of the way in which Thelma and Louise has been appropriated by some women as a 'lesbian film'. Elsewhere Thelma and Louise has been characterised as a betrayal, a narrative that cannot follow through on its own logic. Far from being about empowering women, in this view the image of women-with-guns is considered to be one which renders the protagonists symbolically male. Whatever view we take, Thelma and Louise and associated female heroines have generated, at the beginning of the 1990s, an academic and journalistic debate analogous to that sparked by the muscular male stars of the 1980s. The film has also been consumed in an historical moment marked by the public re-emergence of familiar questions to do with sexuality, violence and relations of power between men and women, in the publicity surrounding the nomination of judge Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court and the Kennedy rape case in the United States.
From Chapter 7 'Action Heroines in the 1980s', in Yvonne Tasker (1993), Spectacular Bodies: Gender, Genre and Action Cinema. Routledge, London and New York. pp. 134-135.
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Cultural Studies uses a range of techniques to extrapolate meaning and context from texts (any interpretable signifying practice (Barker, 2008, p.11)). Textual analysis is a method of extracting implicit and explicit elements from texts and its purpose is to clarify perspectives so we may empathise with the author's cultural outlook. Of these elements, this essay discusses discourse, genre, intertextuality and narrative in reference to Text2.
In Cultural Studies, discourse refers to the underlying assumptions exhibited explicitly or implicitly within a text. Essentially, all texts already come from a point of view, and dependent on the how meaning is generated by the reader, these discourses (often numerous, working for/against/oblivious of one another) can position the audience within a certain framework of liberating or prohibitive thought/action (Barker, 2008, pp.30/Lecture 4, 2009, p.1). In broad categories such as the individual, social, and institutional (Lecture 4, 2009, p.22), meanings are reproduced and reinforced by acceptance of discourses within texts. Thus Cultural Studies sees value in identifying discourse – production of meaning can be intercepted and understood as a contrived rather than absolute truth (Lecture 4, 2009, p.20).
Using Kress’ approach (why/how/what other ways text might be articulated (Lecture 4, 2009, p.14)) we see Text2 presenting an account of female protagonists emerging in Hollywood action films around the 1980s – a predominantly male arena at the time - and how commentators critiqued this phenomenon. The text itself seems to attempt a critical description of an often neglected genre in academia. Other ways it could have been written would be to denigrate the action-film genre, or take sides in the gender debate - praising female heroines as progress/dismissing any imbalance existed. From all this we induce a gender discourse about a sexist industry within the western cultural framework, aimed at educated individuals who might otherwise be inclined to dismiss the action-film genre as a lowbrow and sexist domain (Barker, 2008, p49).
Genre refers to regulated themes informing a text - typically socio-historical factors like economic/ technological/political climate which provide broad (implicit) discourse conventions typical of that genre (Lecture 5, 2009, pp.2-3). This might manifest by stereotyping the context to a particular time/place, and class of people. Therefore historical analysis of genre and conventions assists in identifying discourses (Lecture 5, 2009, p.8). With Text2 we have a journalistic investigation of genre, which historically takes a critical approach to its subject matter. The action-film genre might be seen as gender targeting to men in the way soaps are for female audiences (Barker, 2008, p325). Given the lack of women in action-films at the time a critical position is put upon the established viewpoints i.e. a feminist reworking, male characters simply replaced by women, clarification of feminine sexuality myths conjectured by men.
Genre’s related concept of intertextuality relates to referencing between texts. A mechanism brings in imagery, feelings, and meanings from secondary texts via embedded symbols within a primary text (Barker, 2008, p.202). The subsequent collage/heteroglossia is where different meanings compete. Prevalence of mainstream meaning perpetuates existing practice, while prevalence of subversive meaning encourages change (Lecture 5, 2009, pp.12-13). The key is identifying what intertextuality adds to primary texts. In Text2 we see multiple references articulating the secondary place women play in society and action-films. ‘Spare Rib’, a feminist magazine, connotes strong/tough attitudes towards any practices considered male dominated (almost to extremity from the male perspective). While reference to “muscular male stars” evokes Schwarzenegger-types hired for physique over acting skills and denigrates action-films as lacking substance. It is noteworthy the films referenced (Alien/Thelma and Louise) were both popular and well received in popular culture, likely chosen to illustrate how effective women can be in action roles. Two unproven sexual harassment (Thomas/Kennedy) references at the end further allegorise men in positions of power and women subordinated, dubiously reinforcing narratives of patriarchal injustice.
Narrative animates discourses as ostensibly logical sequences within texts. It implies cause and effect, so the outcome of the narrative appears the only outcome viable. Discourses underlying that outcome are produced as objective fact rather than subjective understanding. Hence it is often understood as an ideological tool, producing meaning in the reader transparently (Barker, 2008, pp35, 63).
Text2 creates narrative by propounding the action-film as a platform of female oppression where women battle against both internal and external resistance, though with huge box-office success. In comparing the debate to that started with male stars a decade earlier, Text2 sets the narrative up for a successful female outcome, almost prognosticating the genre will open up to heroine narratives.
All texts have conscious or unconscious perspectives underlying them. To understand these perspectives - particularly when alien to the reader – Critical Studies breaks apart and analyses textual constituents. This approach to Text2 with discourse, genre, intertextuality and narrative illuminates a feministic theme in what initially appeared as a balanced account of action heroines within popular cinema.
Cultural Studies cannot naturalise all cultures, but in providing tools to understand where assumptions are reproduced or reinforced, we might at least interpret perspectives in an informed and understanding way.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
- Chris Barker 2008, Cultural Studies: Theory and Practice, 3rd edition, SAGE, London.
- Lectures 4-7 Various 2009, ‘Module 2’, CLT110: Text, Image, Culture, Macquarie University, Sydney.
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