Where the Women Have Agency
Several posts in the SF/F corner of the internet this morning on the topic of Women in Refrigerators.
Marie Brennan talks about it here, discussing the concept of women having agency, that is, taking action as independent people.
kateelliott has a related post here, wherein she discusses one of the most notable movies in SF wherein a woman is an action hero ( Read more... )
Actually, yes, Marion also had a lot of agency, though it was annoyingly come-and-go. She runs her own bar and can drink a big man under the table. She haggles hard with Indy for the headpiece. She tries to bargain with Toht, but he's utterly unsentimental, so her failure there is not a matter of her being weak, but rather him being utterly ruthless. When her bar is burned down she tells Indy, "I'm your goddamn partner!" thereby taking charge of what she's going to do next.
In Egypt, she gamely faces the kidnapper in the bazaar, wielding a frying pan until he pulls a knife. Then she runs and is kidnapped. She's shown to be psychologically tough, but not a fighter. That may be a "female" weakness because women are generally smaller than men, but it's not a failure of her self-actualization.
In the Nazi camp she works her people-skills to charm Belloc. She then outdrinks him and tries to escape the Nazi camp, but is stopped by Toht. (The famous "this is a torture device--no, wait, it's a coat hanger!" moment.)
After that it becomes all about Indy, with Marion sort of thrown in to add complications to what he's doing. She's useless in the snake-filled tomb, though at least she does gamely wave torches at the snake so Indy can do his breaking-through-the-wall thing.
On the airstrip she takes action to thonk the pilot in the plane before he can shoot Indy. Then she hops into the plane and goes to the gunner's position and shoots...I forget--why is she shooting? Are troops coming? It leads to the exploding truck and the fire headed toward the plane wherein she is now trapped. Now has to be rescued by Indy.
After that she takes no actions. She's a pawn on the boat, then a prisoner, made a helpless piece of baggage until the very end when everyone's faces melt. After that she's a love interest, but at least remains in character as someone who won't just do whatever Indy wants.
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Watched Die Hard 2 with friends tonight, partly motivated by your mention of the first one here. Being stuck in a plane circling Dulles the whole movie, McClain's wife is in less of a position to directly affect the situation on the ground, but she still stops the sleazy reporter who has hacked in on the tower from revealing John's actions on the national news, which ultimately saves him from the terrorists.
The thing is, it's a totally contrived and coincidental situation (especially since he just happens to be the same sleazy reporter from the first movie). But I think it's to the credit of the writers that they were willing to go to such lengths to make sure she had something to do and could play a part in saving John. Given the situation, it would have really easy to leave her in the motivating macguffin role, whispering "John... save me!" every 20 minutes to remind us of the stakes.
(It's tangential, but I've also noticed that the Die Hard movies, while pretty stereotypical in their portrayal of black characters, are still very kind to them in terms of agency and death toll; surprising in movies of the genre.)
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I agree with you on Die Hard's treatment of black characters. Certainly not perfect, but the first movie has the distinction of casting a black man as the science/computer/tech guy, while not making him a nerd. That has since become something of a trope, but DH was, if not the first, certainly a very early example. Add Reginald Vel Johnson (who has played a cop at least three times I can think of), one of the FBI guys, and the limo driver kid, and you've at least got a range of black men in the film, and none of them use a gun except law enforcement.
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