Warning. This reading may contain foul language. And dick jokes. Definitely dick jokes.
Before I tell you how angry I am, you should know this is all my fault. I know there are good movies out there. People seem to really like Downton Abbey. I’ve got Netflix; I could watch Roma, I guess. Probably fantastic. But those aren’t my movies.
We should get this straight now, because you’re going to wonder about it. I know more about horror than you do, more than you want to know or thought there was to know. I’m not bragging. It’s sort of embarrassing, really. I watch horror. I read horror. I teach horror. I dream in zombies and apocalypses and I have since I can remember.
I fell in love with horror because of Scooby Doo. “Ruh roh, Raggy. Rit’s a ronster!” Jinkies those kids were great. Running out of gas and solving a mystery every week. And I fell in love with science fiction because of Spock, well. I mean I fell in love with Spock and he was in science fiction. My teenage role model was Buffy the vampire slayer. And I came of age at time when monsters were animatronic and everybody spoke English in space. It was a magical time.
I was born the year after Ripley killed an alien for the first time. So I was born into a word of ass kicking space miners and princesses who shot lasers and strangled Jaba the Hut with their own slave chains. Take that patriarchy. I know things change. But in the 40 years since Ripley jettisoned a killer alien into the unyielding icy vastness of space (in just her underpants) my movies, horror, science fiction, comic book movies, they’ve betrayed me. And I’m mad as hell about it.
So I saw Deadpool. I’m a little embarrassed about it honestly. I heard it was smart humor. I heard it was one of the first times a superhero had openly questions his sexuality (sit down Robin). It was 100 minutes of dick jokes, head shots, and CGI. All of the female characters could have been played as convincingly by blow-up dolls. This one doesn’t talk. We call her cranky Barbie. This one is strong. We call her evil manish Barbie. This one is just a vagina. We…well you get the idea.
Mad Max, I’ll say it, is not a feminist film. They literally stopped the movie to pour water over sex slaves in the desert, because…feminism? I like watching things go boom. So if you’re about to tell me that I don’t understand Mad Max like you do let’s step on over to Thunderdome and see who leaves. I can’t believe a movie where a mutant, suspended from bungee cords, playing a guitar that shoots fire as the truck he was bouncing on tore through the desert, I can’t believe that movie could make me so sad.
There are women in the movie. One of the main characters is a woman, and she looks really badass. She’s got a bionic arm and she kills people and she shaves her head and uses machine grease for war paint and she’s got a stupid, but sort of kick ass name, Furiosa. But she’s useless. Her plan to save the slaved harem ladies while noble, was crap. And really, though she looks tough, she’s a maiden in distress. She gets saved again and again by Max, who, though recently drained of most of his blood, saves Furiosa with what little blood he has left because he’s so many he has extra.
But here’s the thing, women went to see this movie, and they came back, arms raised, ‘Feminist movie!’ Did we see different movies? Did you guys get a sneak preview of Tank Girl 2? My hero, by the way. She rocks a mowhawk, blows shit up with a bazooka, and makes friends with big talking kangaroos (special friends even).
The women in Mad Max were male fantasies. Literally sex slaves who even when freed want to be the object of desire.
Yeah, Ripley runs around in her underwear. Yeah. She probably propelled a great many preteens into pubescence. Sure Leia wore a metal bikini and kissed her brother. Buffy cared about clothes, and boys. But these characters had agency. They fought. They won. They failed too. But they existed as whole characters. It is human to be a sexual creature. It’s okay to look great and be badass. But my movies, they’ve forgotten that second half. There are no women in my movies who are people. They are objects of desire as novel and interesting as a Calvin Kline add where the clothes they are selling seem to be missing. There are women, like Furiosa, who look strong, but are written by men who don’t know what it is to be strong. Or who have never spoken to a woman and noticed that she may, indeed, have her own desires different from his.
You might not know that Ripley was originally written as a man. But you can imagine what would have happened if Ripley had been played by a man, much like the television show Fargo, based on the movie with the same name, it would have been unremarkable. Ripley tested our preconceived notions about heroes, and intergalactic Warrant Officers, and she inspired girls like me. In 1979 we could have it all. Guns and glory. Power and android friends. We could kill the monster with acid for blood and rescue the cat too.
I’m not saying we should go back. Though I am looking forward to Alien Awakening with an enthusiasm that is bordering on the frenetic. Come on 2021! But you can’t go back, Buffy Summers isn’t in high school anymore, but there are still vampires fight, zombies to kill and mutant aliens to drop into molten metal. What I’m calling for is a return to badassery. A rising from the ashes of hyper-sexualization and loss of agency. I want horror and sci-fi to put on their shit kicking boots, pull on their big girl pants and get to killing again. Let us be as strong as we were 37 years ago. Let us be whole again. I don’t care if you have to write every character as a man and then pick gender from a hat if that’s what it takes.
I don’t know if you can see from there. But I’m ready. I even have a crossbow in the car if things go south. Come on back Ripley. We need you.
