Unpacking Heat: Women and Guns in Popular Culture Unpacking Heat
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UNPACKING HEAT: WOMEN AND GUNS IN POPULAR CULTURE UNPACKING HEAT: WOMEN AND GUNS IN POPULAR CULTURE By MARLO EDWARDS, B.A., M.A. A Thesis Submitted to the School ofGraduate Studies in Partial Fulfilment ofthe Requirements for the Degree Doctor ofPhilosophy McMaster University © Copyright by Marlo Edwards, July 2005 DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (2005) McMaster University (English) Hamilton, Ontario TITLE: Unpacking Heat: Women and Guns in Popular Culture AUTHOR: Marlo Edwards, BA (York University), MA (University ofCalgary) SUPERVISOR: Professor Susie O'Brien NUMBER OF PAGES: v, 262 ii ABSTRACT In this dissertation I analyse the increasingly popular figure ofthe gun wielding woman in written and visual popular texts from the late nineteenth century to the present. My methodology is primarily indebted to gender theory, and melds the attention to form and narrative characteristic ofliterary analysis with the ideological critique that is a hallmark ofcultural studies. What distinguishes my project from previous scholarship on female "action heroes" is my interest in the broad historical and cultural themes ofgenre, as well as my particular and sustained attention to the gun. Much ofthe critical attention paid to the female action hero is concerned exclusively with her challenge to traditional binary understandings ofgender and sexuality. As a part ofthis type ofgender-focused reading, the gun, when it is discussed at all, tends to be read simply as a "phallic" object. While I do not dispute the phallic symbolism ofthe gun, I argue in this dissertation that to read the gun only or purely in this way is to both unproblematically reproduce essential gender categories and also to ignore the complex material and mythological history ofthe weapon. I trace this history and symbolism through an analysis of the woman with a gun in three genres: westerns, crime narratives, and science fiction. Along with considering how the woman with a gun challenges gender conventions and engages with generic themes, my analysis ofthe figure addresses the crucial question ofhow she reworks and/or revitalises liberal myths ofheroic agency. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Researching and writing this dissertation at McMaster's Department of English and Cultural Studies has been an overwhelmingly positive experience. From my arrival at this department, the faculty and staffhave been welcoming and helpful. Most important in this regard has been my supervisor, Susie O'Brien, and lowe her my warmest thanks. Susie's keen editorial eye was invaluable in the construction ofmy argument in the dissertation, and her patience and encouragement also inspired me to keep writing. Not only has Susie been my best critic, she has been a good and very generous friend-it has been a pleasure to work with her and to get to know her and her fine family. I have also benefited from years ofsupport and advice from Mary O'Connor and Imre Szeman, both ofwhom added much to this project through their expertise and editorial suggestions. As a group, this committee gave me a glimpse ofthe possibilities ofcollegial university life, and I feel very lucky to have had them working on my behalf. I would like to thank McMaster's Graduate Scholarship program and SSHRC for making my doctoral years financially secure. My thanks to the Department ofEnglish and Cultural Studies' administrative staff-Antoinette Somo, Clover Nixon, TIona Forgo-Smith, and John Silva-who have been unfailingly knowledgeable and helpful throughout the course ofmy degree. I must also express my deep appreciation to my family and friends for their love and support throughout this process. And I particularly wish to thank those people who suggested primary and secondary sources for the project and/or provided feedback on my work: Katherine Edwards, Judi Edwards, Betty Torlone, Victoria Loy, David Jefferess, Paul Hong, and especially Tim Walters. Finally, I am eternally grateful to Jake Kennedy for his intelligent counsel, his unwavering confidence in me and in this project, and-perhaps most crucially-for looking after the baby so I could write. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction Action Hero(ine)ism: Genre, Gender, and Violence 1 Chapter One Trifles with Rifles , 24 Chapter Two Bullets and Badges 89 Chapter Three Cyborgs and Six-guns 184 Conclusion Either/Or Both/And Woman/Gun 243 Works Cited 250 v PhD Thesis - M. Edwards McMaster - Dept. ofEnglish and Cultural Studies Introduction Action Hero(ine)ism: Genre, Gender, and Violence French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard is famously quoted as saying "all you need for a movie is a girl and a gun." The producers ofcontemporary popular narratives, and their audiences, seem to agree, as an increasing array ofbest- selling fiction, blockbuster films, and prime-time television series feature not only girls and guns, but girls with guns. This atypical combination works to drive plots, and it has an enormous visual impact-as evidenced by the images ofgun- wielding female heroes that circulate in excess oftheir narrative contexts. Aliens' Ellen Ripley cradling a "pulse rifle" in one arm and a young girl in the other is one ofthe more recognisable ofthese. But there are many more: Nikita (ofthe original French film) crouched behind a desk sporting a little black dress and a great big handgun; the ripped Sarah Connor (from Terminator 2), decked out in a black tank-top, combat pants, aviator sunglasses and a rifle; or the fantastically stacked Lara Croft with her trade-mark thigh holsters. Unlike the women with guns who might be found in mainstream "action-adventure" narratives ofthe past (female side-kicks, villains, or femme fatales), figures like Nikita and Ripley combine a sustained and defining association with the gun with a starring role. Contemporary representations ofthe woman with a gun thus bring together a heady mix oftraditional-gender-role subversion, erotic spectacle, violence, and 1 PhD Thesis - M. Edwards McMaster - Dept. ofEnglish and Cultural Studies old-fashioned heroics. It is the purpose ofthis project to investigate the implications and possibilities ofthis spectacular confluence. Whatever her incarnation-anarchist punk, detective, cowgirl, military hero(ine), saviour ofthe human race, revenge-seeking waitress-the woman with a gun presents a provocative challenge to traditional gender conventions. And so when "female action heroes" began to enter mainstream popular culture in the 1980s (with the hardboiled PIs ofSarah Paretsky and Sue Grafton) and especially in the 1990s (with the Aliens and Terminator series, Thelma andLouise, etc.) feminists inside and outside ofthe academy understandably took note. Indeed, the juxtaposition offemininity and firepower is not only visually appealing, it makes for catchy headlines (along the lines of"Girls Just Wanna Have Guns"), as well as academic article titles (for example Barbara L. Miller's "The Gun-in-the- Handbag, a Critical Controversy, and a Primal Scene") and book covers. l Yvonne Tasker's ground-breaking book on the action hero and genre, Spectacular Bodies: Gender, Genre, and the Action Cinema, which primarily focuses on male action heroes, contains ten film stills, four ofwhich depict women with guns. Given the clear cultural force ofthese images, and the critical scrutiny that the active, violent female hero has received from feminists, when I began my research for this project I expected to discover a range ofanalyses ofthe implications ofthe 1 See Read's The New Avengers, the cover ofwhich features a pholograph ofa mini-skirted woman brandishing a revolver (from a film poster); Tasker's Working Girls, which features a still ofa rifle and pistol packing Geena Davis from the film The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996); and McCaughey & King's Reel Knockouts, which snperimposes a the silhouette of a stylized, cmvaeeous, pistol-wielding woman over a background offlames. 2 PhD Thesis - M. Edwards McMaster - Dept. ofEnglish and Cultural Studies girl and gun combo. But though titles and cover images often capitalise on the gun-toting gal's provocative impact, the analysis in these texts very rarely addresses the woman's relation to or interaction with her weapon(s) in any detail. Ifthe gun is, as Jeffrey Brown suggests, a "particularly powerful phallic means of power," ("Gender" 61) it seems important that feminists pay close attention to how popular texts negotiate their female protagonists' use and possession ofit. This is therefore the first goal ofmy dissertation-to provide a feminist reading of key popular texts that focuses on the relationship between woman and gun. Feminist response to the new collection of"active" female heroes has been ambivalent. Can these figures be embraced as representations offemale power and agency, or do they reduce female power to an erotic spectacle? Are they, as Carol Clover implies, ultimately "men in drag" (see Men, Women, and Chainsaws 18,40,52,59-61) or more complex performances ofgender ambiguity? As most critics recognise, the woman with a gun is a figure ofsuch excessiveness that it becomes impossible to ultimately fix her political import, either on a general or specific level. Claudia Springer, for example, notes that because ofthe ambiguities and contradictions ofher presentation, the "angry" woman ofpopular culture "can neither be hailed as a feminist paragon nor repudiated as a mere sex object; she incorporates aspects ofboth but fully embodies neither" (344). Springer's reading reflects the important theoretical acknowledgement-articulated most clearly by Stuart Hall in "Notes on Deconstructing 'The