The Portrayal of the High Kicking Action Heroine: Across Space, Format, and Theories

By
Angela Waldrop
Emerson College

Women in film and their portrayal is part of a never-ending debate. Are they always subject to Laura Mulvey's "gaze," even in a different culture or with female directors? What is the text that is written across their bodies, that Yvonne Tasker studies to decode for us? And what does their expression or repression of sexuality and traditional gendered roles mean to us, as interpreted by countless other feminist theorists? And as if we aren't already in a large enough pile of critical literature what do all these things mean when applied to Asian action cinema-and how do those sensibilities of Asian heroines translate to the US, with our "western gaze?" What's attempted here is a look at the Asian action heroine in two forms: live action (Heroic Trio and Supercop 2) and anime (Battle Angel and Iria: Zeriam the Animation). Why all this curiosity about the action heroine sub-genre? Simply to elucidate their portrayal and roles, and to determine whether or not these portrayals and roles are positive or negative upon the image of women. It seems, at this beginning point, that no matter the format of the genre, the action heroine always finds her authority/power countered by older/frivolous notions of femininity to "tame" her, despite the fact that her traumas, talents, and journeys are the same as male heroes.

Perhaps the strongest following for the action heroine is to be found in Hong Kong-style films with their strong background of martial-arts proficient women. Michelle Yeoh is one actress that stands out in this area, and her popularity has even spread to the US. Two films in which she's featured that are selected Heroic Trio and Supercop 2. In the first, Yeoh teams up, albeit begrudgingly, with two other strong women to save Hong Kong from an underworldly foe whose intent is to kidnap male babies and raise a new emperor for China. Her compatriots in action all face problems of femininity -- Wonder Woman has a husband who is a cop, and thus she has the responsibilities of keeping a home for the man, in addition to saving the city from evildoers. The bounty-hunter biker character has her gender held against her in several instances, but she plows through them incessantly with hem motorcycle, Yeoh's characters is attached to a scientist- or is that more of an assigned to? She's living with the scientist who works day and night on developing an invisibility suit, which Yeoh's characters [in her evil phase] dons several times and is told to bring to the underworld ruler for the mission (China's emperor). Yet Yeoh is emotionally attached to the scientist, and thus risks her life to save him from death because of the invisibility suit. But a primary plot point is being overlooked here-the women are saving babies from kidnapping. MALE babies. Whether or not it's true, to western audiences, this major plot point hearkens back to the tales of China's girl babies being killed immediately upon birth, since they cannot carry on the family line and name, and are more likely to bring disgrace upon the family. If the gender roles were reversed, would it be as believable for three men to bond together to save female babies from being kidnapped? Would it be as convincing if the underworld ruler's mantra was that China should not be without an Empress? It is precisely because these characters are women that we believe that they will bond together and save all the babies from certain death. The women fight as hard, if not harder than men, often duping or beating the police force, which is made up primarily of men. It's Wonder Woman's husband that's in danger as a cop in the film; she goes on the battle the enemy while he's left with his hand on a landmine. Is it then a Hong Kong feminist statement on men, on male police, or on the police force in general that's being made in Heroic Trio?

That's not to say that Hong Kong doesn't like it's police force. In fact, another Yeoh outing can be seen in Supercop 2 (and yes, she was in the original). Yeoh's character, Jessica, is a real mainland China cop, whose promotion makes her boyfriend David uneasy. She's now the real breadwinnner. He leaves her to head to Hong Kong promising to send for her or come back, once he's gotten some money or establishment. Crimes of an uneasy nature begin to go down in Hong Kong a short time later, and Jessica is sent to aid them, a supercop-exchange program of sorts. She's paired with two men, HK cop partners, and moves into an apartment across the hall from Martin (the cute one), whose attractiveness to Jessica (and vice versa) provides an interesting counterbalance to her obvious skills as a cop. Jessica's assignment to the case however, intends for her merely to give consultation and stay out of the field. Is it because she's a woman, or because she's not from Hong Kong? But passive Jessica lasts for all of about five minutes, and suddenly the cop partners find themselves paired with one kicking girl, who saves them numerous times. Suddenly it's revealed that Jessica's former boyfriend from the mainland, David, is aligned with the very bad guys Jessica and HKPD are after. This leads to more than a few mishaps and Jessica finds herself removed from the case. Yet she still aids the HK cops, going with them to bust the case and capture David. It's her former relationship with David, and the issues of her womanhood, that put her in a precarious position on this case and in the movie. From the point of view of the male HKPD, her femininity and emotions are the reasons for her troubles. Because she is female, she's initially excluded from the action. Because she's female, her emotions have her removed from the case. Eventually, David finds himself double-crossed, and he dies, leaving Jessica wailing against a metal floodgate door in the subway. Would a man do that?

The attachments and emotions of anime heroines though, are of a more diverse nature. Iria, the title character of Trio: Zeriam the Animation, is a bounty hunter with her brother, Gren, and their relationship is one of intense trust, loyalty, and admiration. Even though she's much younger, and an apprentice to her brother, Gren allows her leeway that no apprentice [and likely no girl] is allowed. In a shadowy rescue mission on a cargo ship, Iria and Gren find themselves battling a science project that got out of hand-Zeriam, a killing machine, who seems unstoppable. During the battle, Iria and Gren get separated; the communicators that they share deliver nothing but static. Iria abandons the ship as it explodes landing on a strange planet, and her status as a female, and an apprentice bounty hunter, give her nothing but trouble. Zeriam also lands upon this planet, and Iria finds no help from the authorities in stopping him. She befriends a rather ambiguous street urchin, who it turns out later, is a girl, and suddenly Iria finds herself playing a mother/mentor of sorts. It's also at this point that Iria receives messages from what sounds like Gren on the communicator. As Iria and the street girl journey to battle Zeriam and find Gren, Iria's emotional attachment to the street girl and Gren gets her into one jumble after another, due to her status as a young female, and an apprentice bounty hunter. She travels through the universe, and kicks many heads in along the way, but not without difficulty. Iria wants nothing more than to be just like her brother Gren, and even wears male hair beads. Is it just that Gren is a boy that she wishes to embody his power, or is it his status as the best bounty hunter in the universe?

Galli, the "battle angel" of Battle Angel is no human, but a rebuilt cyborg. She's part of a postmodern world, with a class system clearly defined-the upper crust live in Zolum, and everyone wants to go there, leaving behind the ironyard on the ground, populated with fearful humans, cyborgs, and spinal thieves. Unlike the heroines in the above movies, Galli is initially unaware of her power(s), and discovers new ones constantly as she goes along. Galli, like Iria, wants to be a bounty hunter, bringing to justice the spinal thieves. Her creator/savior, Dr. Edo is highly skeptical at first-after all, she's just a young girl, and a newly re-formed cyborg girl with no memory at that. He wants only to protect her, but during a deadly battle, he realizes her power and lets her have her way. During her development, she meets a young boy named Yugo, and falls in love with him. Yet Yugo cares nothing for Galli-his only motivation is to make it to Zolum, the world floating above them. At one point, Yugo's desires for money to Zolum get the best of him, and he's listed on the bounty-hunter bulletin boards with a price on his head. Galli finds Yugo, and gives him the money he believes he needs to escape to Zolum, with her declaration of love as an added bonus. But Yugo is gunned down before he begins his journey. Galli attacks Yugo's assassin, and takes Yugo's body to Dr. Edo for re-formation as a cyborg. Galli sits by his bedside, waiting to reunite with him. Rebuilding Yugo, though, only increases his desires to go to Zolum, and he ascends the waste pipes that attach the floating city of Zolum to the ground. His mania ends up being the cause of his death in the end, and Galli is left with only bitterness and the memory of her love for Yugo. Dr. Edo tries to console her, but her powers and maturity are suddenly beyond him. What then, is the role of the man as creator and the man as lover to a female cyborg? Is it her artificiality, her emotions, of her gender that stands in the way of her life?

Laura Mulvey might say it was the fetishism of the woman in cinema that stands in Galli's way. Movies are, by their nature in un-reality, a spectacle, and when women are portrayed in them, "as a sexualized spectacle ...you find traces of everyday anxieties or collective fantasies that defy conscious expression"(25). Let's overlook the fact that this is Mulvey speaking specifically about Hollywood cinema-Hollywood's cinema influences cinema around the world. Mulvey states that movies are subject to psychoanalytic theory (specifically Freudian) because of the combination of psychoanalysis and semiotics within the language of cinema (24). Psychoanalysis also applicable because of the world in which film comes from-the surrounding symbolism and the ways in which people understand films.

Mulvey also makes much of the Pandora myth as a demonstration of woman in cinema forming Pandora as the primary woman from which all other women and their faults (as portrayed in culture) descend. The use of these kinds of theorization-the influence that myth and symbolism hold on popular culture and interpretation-led to a great rekindling and reformation of the ways in which women's roles were analyzed. "The initial idea," she writes, "that images contributed to women's alienation from their bodies and from their sexuality... gave way to theories of representation as a symptom and signifier of the way that problems posed by sexual difference under patriarchy could be displaced as feminine"(66). Not only do images of women shown onscreen affect the way real women act, but it's also the actions of the real women that then lead to onscreen caricatures. As a self-fulfilling cycle of active fetishization and marginalization, it may seem impossible for our action heroines to ever break out of any negative analyses of their characters.

Not that all feminist theorists would say that--Molly Haskell is noted as saying that images of the negative female onscreen are no conscious conspiracy... [these] images are instead the product of an 'unconscious drive working to keep women in their place.. .that has arisen out of a fear, or awe, of woman's greater survival and sexual powers"' (Thornham, 16). Cinema and its images then, are part of an unconscious arrangement-being in a theater in the dark, staring at the screen, is something of a dream experience, and thus allows things to seep in beyond the conscious mind, hence the visceral empathy one perceives with the characters onscreen. This dream-experience also allows for a distance between the self and the screen when responsibility and reality come around, since we rationalize that the movies are only representing things (Thornham, 37). Nonetheless, it's our response to these representations that demonstrates the effects of the image upon our subconscious, and thus our conscious mind.

In the analysation of the action woman, this comes even more to light. As a given, let's say that film's nature as a dream-state forces it to rely even more so on symbols and semiotics than everyday life, It has been said that the cinematic heroine is masculine, or even the castrating woman, in opposition to her Freudian role as the castrated symbol to the male figure by Barbara Creed (Thornham, 105). "The castrating woman is not herself 'castrated'; her power derives from her completeness. Equally, there is in these films no male hero who can function as the male spectator's 'ideal ego' and so reinforce his sense of identity" (Thomham, 105). Carol Clover takes this ideal farther and states that the action heroine (Clover's case: the horror film's 'Final Girl') is a masculinized female who invites the male to identify with her, which leads to gender confusion within the audience (Thornham, 109). If the girl onscreen is confused and appealing to males, then where does that leave the women? Constance Penley sums this up by stating that 'there is no female spectator, at least at the level of unconscious identification"

Is this an injustice to the female audience? And if 'there is no female spectator,' what then of the explosion of the primarily male-imaged 'muscular cinema' that Yvonne Tasker spends a whole book upon? Surely all those well-chiseled male bodies are not purely for all the men in the audience? Tasker, it seems, believes in a female spectator in the modern film, as she analyses the role of the action heroine in modem cinema. "One of the pleasures of the cinema," she states," is precisely that it offers a space in which the ambiguities of identities and desires are played out" (17). Tasker even notes the importance of the "female fighter as the center of the action... has for sometime been an important figure in Hong Kong action traditions" (15). Tasker isn't afraid to counter the points of the past in feminist film theory either, as she points towards the dissolution of Mulvey's gendered roles in cinema (active/male, passive/female), citing that males in many modem action flicks play both roles; controlling the action of the film and also being portrayed with his body as a sexual spectacle (16). It's no longer just the women who are fetishied, it seems; it's no longer only men that can control and propel action.

How does this apply to our lovely Asian heroines? Well, 'western gaze' included, it seems that perhaps each theorist may see these ladies differently. For Mulvey, the women of Heroic Trio are portrayed in a non-threatening way-they're saving babies, the ultimate, highly gendered, expression of womanhood through reproductive abilities. These women fulfill their roles by allowing the lives of the men to go on. The Trio's fetishization is evident through costuming, and the gaze of the male upon the object is obviously portrayed through the male cops watching the trio save the day. Additionally, the trio are never fighting men- they're only fighting against each other, until they team up against the underworld ruler, who is a eunuch. Jessica of Supercop additionally finds herself the object of someone else's view - David and the HK cops are constantly looking upon her, either in awe of her skills, as a sex object, or as something that is in need of protection from death. It's also Jessica's desire to get to the bottom of the case that drives her into the depths of the action, even after her expulsion from the case. It's the classic pandorian curiosity cited by Mulvey that finds Jessica embroiled in conflict.

In the case of Iria in Iria, she's subjected to fetishization as a novelty - a young female bounty hunter. Additionally, Iria's also constantly subject to the gaze of her brother. Though this may not necessarily be in a sexualized manner, or even physically present, the character of Iria always feels as though Gren is watching her, protecting her. Galli of Battle Angel is also prey to the same fetishization as a novelty- a female cyborg bounty hunter with amazing powers. Both of these women are intent on going where they are not allowed, to discover what it is that they are excluded from.

Unlike Mulvey's citation of the Pandora myth, however, they are all allowed a success in the end-the Trio defeats the underworld eunuch, Jessica shows that she really is a Supercop [too] by going on with being a cop even after her emotions once found her in trouble. Iria takes on Zeriam, and gains the answer to the disappearance of her brother, and Galli is truly a Battle Angel when it comes to her bounty-hunting and protective skills. The machinations of male storylines aren't keeping the woman from being successful heroines.

Other feminist theories are also not excluding the ladies of this subject from being able to succeed in their heroine journeys. Nonetheless, theories are still skeptical of the effectiveness of action women's portrayal. Every action of the heroines, it seems, is undermined by a constant reminder of feminine weakness. Most often, It preys upon sex or emotion and its ensuing attachments. The Trio find themselves entangled in memories-they realize that they all knew each other in some form (childhood, underground) before their present incarnation as heroines. Yet, while this does delay the narrative and undermine their team-ness initially, it is this emotional attachment that allows them to work together even more strongly and intensely as a team. They succeed in their journeys as 'castrating' women, and battle against the (interestingly enough) castrated male underworld ruler. Jessica's emotions in Supercop initially get in the way of her involvement in the case, but it is again her emotional involvement with David and her emotional love for her job-that make her continue on her quest to solve the case and deal with David's wrongdoings. As far as 'castrating' goes, Jessica's is more internal-she separates herself from her emotions in order to solve the case and catch David.

Iria 's emotional attachment to her brother is the motivation behind her entire quest. It's her love for him that sends her racing through space to take on Zeriam and find Gren. Additionally, Zeriam, like other movie monsters, is frighteningly dark and fluid, qualities which are constantly referred to as feminine. So then, which is monstrous, and which is feminine? Iria of Zeriam? Iria marches right ahead, like any good 'Final Girl' and castrates the monster, only to discover that its appearance of masculinity, as well as her own, was through the absorption of her brother. Galli's love for Yugo and emotional attachment to Dr. Edo are what allow her to discover her powers as a Battle Angel under times of duress in conflicts with other bounty hunters and spine thieves. Galli's role in reference to castration is a little more involved-her ability to be a bounty hunter threatens Dr. Edo and his masculinity, especially when it becomes obvious that she is a far better one. Yet, the castration of Dr. Edo is a fairly simple one, even welcomed by him. Yugo's character could be castrated by Galli in any number of ways-through her giving him money (money classically=power/traditionally male), or her saving him from death, or her final attempts to talk him off the pipes to Zolum (rationally classically=traditionally male).

There is no dominating man of strength in these films; they're all being saved by the heroines in one form or another. Nonetheless, is it truly possible to say that there is no female spectator for these films? The pleasure derived in film is primarily from watching, and that voyeurism is something exhibited and even enjoyed by both sexes. Though the female may not necessarily be looking at the screen in a sexual manner (per male gaze and gender roles/identification), there is still an appreciation of the body displayed in action cinema, be it male or female. Tasker notes this, and understands that in modern cinema, the viewer's identification is of a more ambiguous nature. That's not to say Tasker thinks that action heroines' portrayals have no flaws. "It is important [to action cinema that]... femaleness be unthreatening to the symbolize world of the film...," and this clearly is visible in all the Asian heroines (25). The female-ness of the heroines is emphasized at every point where it seems that the heroine is too strong for the world around her. It's the female-ness which grounds her in the narrative in a manner acceptable to the viewer. The effectiveness of the action heroine, to Tasker, seems to be that she is bound into a role of female-ness that must be nearly divisive to her role as a heroine. Without the undermining qualities of female-ness, no audience would feel a sense of authenticity, and no pleasure would be derived from watching.

All these theorists make excellent points, and, out of all of them, I find the most modern and interesting insights in the work of Tasker. Yet one thing troubled me the most, and none of them seemed to address it. Cinema, as to the extent of my knowledge, is visual images paired with some sort of storyline, some more lacking than others. Therefore, it seems to me that the narrative itself would be the root of negative female portrayal in action cinema. These narratives, though, come from literature, and literature is built upon centuries-old foundations. Any film that gets made (for the most part) follows a very standard three-act 'hero's journey' (coined by Christopher Vogel) structure that is derived from classical storytelling. Therefore, it would seem that the problems exhibited in action heroines would be just as problematic in action heroes. The reasoning behind these three-act literary structures, though, was that they rang true to audiences. They wanted a flawed hero who doesn't immediately reach his goals, who can be undermined by things which are either of his own flawed nature, or beyond his control. In the case of action cinema heroines, these flaws would be perceived as the femininity of the characters. If these heroines were flawless, then certainly no one would believe them, empathize/sympathize with them, and take pleasure in the eventual reaching of the goal. Is it truly the breasts that are knocking the women of action cinema out, or is it the manner of the literary genre/plot style that they're locked within?

For the most part, in the films looked at above, the weaknesses of the heroines seem to derive from necessary plot and character construction. Additionally, it seems as though most roles could be gender-reversed with minor plot reconstruction, and have been so in other films in some manner. The journeys are the same, the trials are the same, and the talents are the same. Every hero/heroine must be undermined in some form to make the reaching of their goal that much more sweet. It seems that in Asian heroines' (with what little knowledge I have of their cultural acceptance of high-kicking heroines) portrayals, being female is not necessarily a bad thing, and may even be crucial to the success of saving the day. The balance achieved by these heroines seems to even be due to the fact that they are female. They use what seems to be a disadvantage (being female) to their advantage (re: in battle). And after all, for the martial-arts, high-kicking heroine, it's not body size that matters, it's the focus and discipline exhibited in the reaching of a goal.

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