STRONG, INDEPENDENT, AND IN LOVE: FIGHTING FEMALE FANTASIES IN POPULAR CULTURE

$50=,9:0;@6-,5;<*2@$50=,9:0;@6-,5;<*2@

$56>3,+.,$56>3,+.,

#/,:,:(5+0::,9;(;065:5.30:/ 5.30:/



"#! #%#"#! #%#

#""  $!$#$!#""  $!$#$!

330:65  (3<4)6

$50=,9:0;@6-,5;<*2@

(330:657(3<4)6<2@,+<

0.0;(3)1,*;+,5;0C,9/;;7+?+6069.#

!0./;*30*2;667,5(-,,+)(*2-69405(5,>;();63,;<:256>/6>;/0:+6*<4,5;),5,C;:@6<!0./;*30*2;667,5(-,,+)(*2-69405(5,>;();63,;<:256>/6>;/0:+6*<4,5;),5,C;:@6<

!,*644,5+,+0;(;065!,*644,5+,+0;(;065

(3<4)6330:65 "#! #%##""  $!

$#$!

#/,:,:(5+0::,9;(;065:5.30:/



/;;7:<256>3,+.,<2@,+<,5.30:/',;+:

#/0:6*;69(30::,9;(;0650:)96<./;;6@6<-69-9,,(5+67,5(**,::)@;/,5.30:/(;$56>3,+.,;/(:),,5

(**,7;,+-6905*3<:06505#/,:,:(5+0::,9;(;065:5.30:/)@(5(<;/690A,+(+4050:;9(;696-$56>3,+.,69

469,05-694(;06573,(:,*65;(*;$56>3,+.,3:=<2@,+<

"#$#!#"#$#!#

9,79,:,5;;/(;4@;/,:0:69+0::,9;(;065(5+():;9(*;(9,4@690.05(3>692 967,9(;;90)<;065

/(:),,5.0=,5;6(336<;:0+,:6<9*,:<5+,9:;(5+;/(;(4:63,3@9,:765:0)3,-696);(0505.

(5@5,,+,+*67@90./;7,940::065:/(=,6);(05,+5,,+,+>90;;,57,940::065:;(;,4,5;:

-964;/,6>5,9:6-,(*/;/09+7(9;@*67@90./;,+4(;;,9;6),05*3<+,+054@>692(336>05.

,3,*;9650*+0:;90)<;0650-:<*/<:,0:56;7,940;;,+)@;/,-(09<:,+6*;905,>/0*/>033),

:<)40;;,+;6$56>3,+.,(:++0;065(303,

/,9,)@.9(5;;6#/,$50=,9:0;@6-,5;<*2@(5+0;:(.,5;:;/,099,=6*()3,565,?*3<:0=,(5+

96@(3;@-9,,30*,5:,;6(9*/0=,(5+4(2,(**,::0)3,4@>69205>/63,69057(9;05(33-694:6-

4,+0(56>69/,9,(-;,9256>5(.9,,;/(;;/,+6*<4,5;4,5;065,+()6=,4(@),4(+,

(=(03()3,044,+0(;,3@-69>693+>0+,(**,::<53,::(5,4)(9.6(7730,:

9,;(05(336;/,96>5,9:/0790./;:;6;/,*67@90./;6-4@>692(3:69,;(05;/,90./;;6<:,05

-<;<9,>692::<*/(:(9;0*3,:69)662:(33697(9;6-4@>692<5+,9:;(5+;/(;(4-9,,;6

9,.0:;,9;/,*67@90./;;64@>692

!%& !% #!%& !% #

#/,+6*<4,5;4,5;065,+()6=,/(:),,59,=0,>,+(5+(**,7;,+)@;/,:;<+,5;B:(+=0:6965

),/(3-6-;/,(+=0:69@*6440;;,,(5+)@;/,09,*;696-9(+<(;,";<+0,:"65),/(3-6-

;/,796.9(4>,=,90-@;/(;;/0:0:;/,C5(3(7796=,+=,9:0656-;/,:;<+,5;B:;/,:0:05*3<+05.(33

*/(5.,:9,8<09,+)@;/,(+=0:69@*6440;;,,#/,<5+,9:0.5,+(.9,,;6()0+,)@;/,:;(;,4,5;:

()6=,

330:65  (3<4)6";<+,5;

9"<:(569+6(169 96-,::69

95+@663,509,*;696-9(+<(;,";<+0,:

STRONG, INDEPENDENT, AND IN LOVE:

FIGHTING FEMALE FANTASIES IN POPULAR CULTURE

DISSERTATION

A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the

requirements for the degree of Doctor in Philosophy in the

College of Arts & Sciences

at the University of Kentucky

Allison Paige Palumbo

Lexington, Kentucky

Director: Dr. Susan Bordo, Professor of Gender and Women’s Studies

Lexington, Kentucky

ABSTRACT OF DISSERTATION

STRONG, INDEPENDENT, AND IN LOVE:

FIGHTING FEMALE FANTASIES IN POPULAR CULTURE

During the late 1970s and 1980s, feminist critics like Janice Radway began to

reconsider so-called women’s genres, like romance novels and soap operas and

melodramas, in order to address the forms of subversion and expressions of agency they

provided female audiences. However, in spite of greater willingness to consider the

progressive potential in romance narratives, there has been little such consideration given

to stories of romance for the fighting female character—defined as a protagonist who

uses violence, via her body or weapons, to save herself and others. The fighting female

has received a good deal of attention from critics like Yvonne Tasker, Sherrie Inness,

Rikke Schubart, and Phillipa Gates because she enacts transgressive forms of femininity.

However, the typical response has been to ignore the intimate or romantic relationships

she has with men or to critique them based on the assumption that such hetero-

relationships automatically limit her agency and attenuate her representation as a

feminist-friendly heroine. This view presumes that female empowerment opposes or can

only be imagined outside the dominant cultural narratives that generally organize

women’s lives around their hetero-relationships—whether sexual or platonic, familial or

vocational.

As I argue, some fighting female relationship narratives merit our attention

because they reveal a new cache of plausible empowered female identities that women

negotiate through their intimacies and romances with men. These negotiations, in turn,

enable innovative representations of male-female relationships that challenge long-

standing cultural scripts about the nature of dominance and subordination in such

relationships. Combining cultural analysis with close readings of key popular American

film and television texts since the 1980s, my dissertation argues that certain fighting

female relationship themes question regressive conventions in male-female intimacies

and reveal potentially progressive ideologies regarding female agency in mass culture. In

essence, certain fighting female relationship narratives project feminist-friendly love

fantasies that reassure audiences of the desirability of empowered women while also

imagining egalitarian intimacies that further empower women.

KEYWORDS: Fighting Females, Heterosexual Relationships in Popular Culture,

Empowered Female Identity, Power and Intimacy, “Strong, Independent

Woman” Archetype

Allison Paige Palumbo

April 18, 2016

STRONG, INDEPENDENT, AND IN LOVE:

FIGHTING FEMALE FANTASIES IN POPULAR CULTURE

Allison Paige Palumbo

Dr. Susan Bordo

Director of Dissertation

Dr. Andy Doolen

Director of Graduate Studies

April 18, 2016

Date

I dedicate this dissertation to Scott Woodham, whose constant and varied support, humor,

confidence, friendship, and love made a very painful and long process more bearable, and

to Mike and Cindy Palumbo, who were there with love and advice throughout the twenty-

four-year journey it took me to reach this place.

iii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The following dissertation, while an individual work, benefitted from the

invaluable insights of two people in particular. First, my amazing Dissertation Chair,

Susan Bordo. She is the reason I came to the University of Kentucky, she is the writer I

want to become, and working with her has been a dream come true. She never forgot

about me, and her thorough and perceptive comments always challenged, supported, and

encouraged me. Dr. Virginia Blum helped me find my voice—the idea for this

dissertation emerged from a paper I wrote for her seminar on film and intimacy, and her

praise and promotion convinced me to make the big switch to popular culture. I have

been lucky to have two such brilliant advisors. Really, though, my entire committee

deserves this praise: Dr. Roxanne Mountford, Dr. Karen Tice, and Dr. Ana Liberato. As I

said after my defense, I couldn’t have asked for a more awesome committee of sharp,

dedicated, kind, and positive people.

In addition to the support of my wonderful committee, I received great help from

the Division of Writing, Reading, and Digital Media, in particular from the indomitable

Deborah Kirkman, who made sure I remained employed and supported throughout my

time at UK. My family has been integral to my success as well. My spouse, partner, and

professional copy-editor Scott Woodham helped me complete this project in more ways

than I can count. My father Mike, the first Dr. Palumbo, has been a great role model for

academic life. My mother Cindy, is the best cheerleader a child could ever imagine. My

brother Eric, your bravery and determination to try new things and take big leaps always

inspires me. All four of you are great examples for living as a smart person in a difficult

world; you nurture my love of critical thinking, and you always challenge me to be my

best. My friends in Anchorage who forced me to take off the pajamas and venture out

into the world on occasion deserve a special note. Thank you: Kim Sunée for all the

sparkling conversation and sparkling wine; Catherine Stewart for all the good juju; Sarah

Jansen—my touchstone for all things academic here—for the elevated discourse. Finally,

I gratefully acknowledge my fellow UK cohort for keeping me sane these last seven

years, in particular Ashley Bourgeois, Andrea Holliger, Michelle Justus, Leah Toth, and

Julie Naviaux. What would I have done without the working lunches, the library dates,

the phone, email, and text message therapy sessions? You all kept the isolation at bay,

stoked my waning spirits, and never let me forget why I wanted to do this in the first

place.

!"#$%&'(&)'*!%*!+&

"),*'-$%./0%*!+&1111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111&222

)3"4!%5&'*%&1111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111&6!

'445%++2'*&"*.&3%!%5'75'0"*)%&111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111&8&

.%+4%5"!%$9&+%%,2*/&*%- &+!'52%+&11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111&6:&

"$2%*"!2*/&0%*&"$2%*"!%+&-'0%*&1111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111&68&

.%(2*2*/&(%02*2+!7(52%*.$9&$';%&1111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111&<6&

45'=%)!&';%5;2%-&1111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111&<:&

)3"4!%5&!-'&11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111&<>!

$';%&#?..2%+&%0%5/%&1111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111&:6&

!3%&68@A+&$';%&#?..9&(2/ 3! 2* /&(%0"$%&11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111&:B&

Flirting(with(Power(...........................................................................................................................................(52&

!3%&<67)%*!?5 9&$';%&#?..9&(2/3!2*/&(%0"$%&111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111&C>&

Variations(on(a(Theme(....................................................................................................................................(71&

Having(it(All-or- Nothing(.................................................................................................................................(76&

Role(Play(&(The(Changing(Workplace(......................................................................................................(83&

-%&) "*D!&('5/%!&!3%&("*+&111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111&8C&

)3"4!%5&!35%%&11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111&6A6!

39#52.2!9&1111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111&6AE&

5'0")!2'*&%0%5/%+&1111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111&6A@&

!3%&%/"$2!"52"*&)'?4$%&11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111&66>&

$2#%5"! 2*/ &)'*($2)!&1111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111&6<>&

!52"$&"*.&%55'5&111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111&6:>&

The(Man(with(a(Plan(......................................................................................................................................(138&

The(Overprotector(...........................................................................................................................................(144&

02++2*/ &!3 % &0"5,&111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111&6E>&

The(Freedom(to(Experiment(.......................................................................................................................(149&

Fighting(Females(and(Audience(Expectations(....................................................................................(151&

02++%. &'44'5!?*2!2%+&1111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111&6CA&

)3"4!%5&('?5&11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111&6C@!

(%0"$%&2.%*!2!9&F&!3%&2*!%54$"9&'(&+!5%*/!3&F&;?$*%5"#2$2!9&2*&4'4?$"5&)?$!?5%&11111111&6>:&

1980s:(Woman-as-survivor(hits(primetim e(..........................................................................................(177&

1990s:(Woman-As-Survivor(and(Mass(Media(......................................................................................(180&

(2/3!2*/ &(' 5 &=?+!2)%G&(2/3!2*/&!3%&+9+!%0&111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111&6@@&

Sexism(...................................................................................................................................................................(189&

Assault(&(Violence(Against(Women(.........................................................................................................(197&

9'?&0".%&0%&!32+&-"9&1111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111&<A@&

Paternalism(........................................................................................................................................................(208&

Betrayal(...............................................................................................................................................................(216&

*'!&"$$&0%*&"5%&)5%"!%.&%H?"$&111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111&<<A&

!3%&4'!%*!2"$&2*&!3%&+?5;2;'5&2.%*!2!9&111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111&<:<&

)3"4!%5&(2;%&1111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111&<:B!

!3%&!20% +&"5%&)3"*/2*/&"*.&+'&"5%&0%*&11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111&<:>&

A(Plea(for(Nuance(............................................................................................................................................(238&

Signs(of(Progress(..............................................................................................................................................(246&

(?!?5%&(%02*2*2!2%+&1111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111&<E8&

The(New(Stories(................................................................................................................................................(252&

Changing(the(Rules(of(the(Game(...............................................................................................................(254&

“We(saved(ea ch(o ther”(...................................................................................................................................(258&

4'+!7( %0 2*2+!&("*!"+2%+&1111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111&<C<&

#"),&!'&!3%&#%/2**2*/&11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111&<CE&

Evolving(Pleasures(..........................................................................................................................................(267&

5%(%5%*)%+& 1111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111.270!

;2!"& 111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111& ..281!

CHAPTER ONE

Fighting Females And Love

I don’t need a man to make it happen, I get off bein’ free.

I don’t need a man to make me feel good, I get off doin’ my thing.

I don’t need a ring around my finger, to make me feel complete.

Pussycat Dolls, “I Don’t Need a Man,” 2005

When I was three years old, I worshipped Wonder Woman. Accessories as

weapons, a fun costume, super powers—what more could a child ask of her favorite

hero? First, I had the underoos, then the Halloween costume—with sweatbands for

makeshift bracelets, and a jump rope lasso. I wanted to fight for good like Wonder

Woman. I wanted to do things that no other human could do, and because of her, I

thought both were possible. Back then, I saw her as a unique, powerful, and inspiring

hero. Today, I see her as an example of what I will henceforth refer to as the “strong,

independent woman” archetype, which is exemplified by an empowered female character

whose behavior stands in striking contrast to dominant historical views of women as “the

weaker sex,” both mentally and physically.

That’s not to say women have always been

presumed to lack any strengths. Maternal instincts, nurturing capacities, domestic

abilities, and moral integrity have all been considered important traits in womanhood

within the past two centuries. These traits not only set women apart from men but also

gave them an important platform for asserting their worth: for education, for political

Feminist scholars analyzing film as far back as the 1930s have identified versions of the

“strong, independent woman” archetype. Maria DiBattista calls them “fast-talking dames

in romantic comedies from the 1930s.”

Phillipa Gates refers to them as “hardboiled” and

“independent” girl reporters of early female detective films. Lori Landay’s version is the

“female trickster,” whom she describes as exercising “covert power” during the über-

traditional postwar years. Such an archetype flourishes particularly in periods like the

Depression and WWII, when “tougher” women, as Gates puts it, were “not only

admirable […] but necessary” (110).

franchise, for economic independence, etc. But physical force and vigor, the exuberant

exercise of power, pleasure in competition and defiance, competent authority, and

autonomy are largely absent from cultural notions of women’s “strengths.” The archetype

of the “strong, independent woman” arises precisely in response to that absence.

Today, there are more examples of the archetype than ever, not only as fictional

characters but also as real women: women running Fortune 500 companies, acting as

whistleblowers and participating in combat, dominating billboards and primetime, and

even running for president. These women are role models whose presence in popular

culture makes the concept of empowered women seem like a norm for Americans. They

also show us that being tough, autonomous, intelligent, aggressive, and rational no longer

means being a man. In fact, it doesn’t even mean being masculine, at least not in the

sense of being incompatible with or the opposite of feminine. Strength and independence

are now part of what many women learn, through mass media, about being a woman, in

narrative after narrative.

At least, it’s what I learned as I continued to watch strong, independent female

characters on screen. I sought them throughout my childhood in my Saturday cartoons,

religiously waking myself up at 5:30 in the morning, so I could watch the latest exploits

of Jem and She-Ra, or watch the kick-ass Scarlett and Lady Jaye keep up with the boys

on GI Joe. My favorite game for pretend was to play spy, creating an amalgam of

whatever Bond woman happened to be popular at the time (though Grace Jones was

always my favorite) and James Bond because I wanted to run the show. My ultimate

dream was to be Joan Wilder from Romancing the Stone (1984) and Jewel of the Nile

(1985). She had exciting international exploits, found love, faced death, and used it all as

fodder for another best-selling novel. To me, she combined the most interesting aspects

of my favorite stories: heroic adventures and romance. For at the same time that I sought

stories of kick-ass ladies, I sought stories of love. I watched movies like When Harry Met

Sally and Baby Boom over and over. I was devoted to television characters like Laura

Holt, Maddie Hayes, and Clair Huxtable: model career women who followed their

dreams and their hearts.

By my early twenties, I was still devoted to heroic woman stories, but the love

narratives had started to lose some of their appeal. The release of a new Meg Ryan/Tom

Hanks vehicle seemed far less interesting to me than the latest installment of the Alien

movie franchise. Had I lost interest in romance? Far from it. In fact, this was at the time

in my life when I was very serious about finding a great love. However, I was also

struggling to be my own person, to follow my own dreams and start down my chosen

career path. I had plans to travel the world, to attend graduate school. I was coming into,

and exercising, my own forms of strength and independence. I wanted to see more

evidence of women on screen doing the same, women making a difference, doing

something amazing, and being the heroes of their own lives and stories. Unfortunately,

there weren’t very many female characters who did that who also got to find love. In fact,

the more romance a woman enjoyed in a narrative, the less strength or independence she

expressed in the story.

For example: You’ve Got Mail (1998), that quaint story about finding romance in

unexpected circumstances with an unexpected person, as a fierce business competition

leads to love. Meg Ryan’s character, Kathleen, starts out an independent business owner,

but by the end of the story, she’s lost her business. Furthermore, she loses it to the man

she ends up loving! You’ve Got Mail tells us that gaining love is enough for a woman to

make up for losing a career, a legacy. How depressing is that trade off? Trades offs for

women are typical in romance narratives. Another Meg Ryan character from French Kiss

(1995) named Kate gives up her citizenship, a teaching job, and all of her hard-earned

savings to a man with questionable ethics and a surly demeanor in exchange for his

eventual devotion and life on a vineyard in a country where she doesn’t even speak the

language. If women aren’t giving something up for love, then they rely on love to save

them in some way. One of the classic examples of this is Pretty Woman (1990) or its

lesser counterpart Milk Money (1994), where a female prostitute with a heart of gold is

rescued from her terrible life by a generous man (both with a good dose of Pygmalion

thrown in, as the woman transforms into a proper leading lady). Then, of course, there are

the numerous films adopting the classic Taming of the Shrew storyline, where a woman

with a very bitchy or hard-ass personality is softened thanks to the love of the right man,

as happens in Ten Things I Hate about You (1999) and The Proposal (2009).

On the flip side, the more explosions, the bigger the fight between good and evil,

and the more a woman could take care of herself, the less likely she was to end up lucky

in love in the narratives I watched. There are plenty of characters who illustrate this:

Sarah Connor in the Terminator movies (1984 and 1991), Clarice Starling in Silence of

the Lambs (1991), Thelma and Louise, the amazing Alice in the seemingly endless

Resident Evil franchise, or all of the female heroes I watched in my early youth like

Wonder Woman, the Bionic Woman, and Charlie’s Angels. They all get to be heroes of

Giving up or changing a career to make a relationship work or even bettering one’s self

isn’t necessarily degrading or sexist. It’s the fact that we don’t see stories of men doing

the same and the repetition of female sacrifice and improvement that’s are the problems

behind these fantasy “choices.”

some kind. But while they could take down the bad guys, they never got a good guy, not

for very long anyway. As a viewer, I was left torn, wanting the women to have it all, but

finding myself presented with heroines who never did, who seemingly had to choose

between heroic accomplishment and romance. This representational “either/or” has since

raised many questions for me. Why are such strong, independent women so rarely shown

with a satisfying love relationship? Why are the “empowered woman” stories and

romance stories such mutually exclusive genres? Why, in 2016, is it still so rare to find

portrayals of an empowered woman in love who doesn’t sacrifice her strength and

independence to enable the romance narrative?

Because there has been a lack, though, doesn’t mean such portrayals didn’t, or

don’t, exist. There have been glimpses of alternative romance narratives—not only in

niche genres or in programs with small but dedicated followings, but also in Hollywood

blockbusters and primetime television—that represent an empowered version of

womanhood that still finds room for intimacy. These alternative romance narratives offer

sites of potential resistance, transformation, and agency. They show us examples where

feminist-friendly heterosexual intimacies are being advanced and even celebrated, where

popular culture is replacing the feminist man-hating stereotype with a feminist man-

loving ideal—whether the love is romantic or not—that portrays female relationships

with men in ways that avoid or question the old caricatures. My purpose with this study is

to pick one such pocket of transformation: the fighting female narrative.

The fighting female character is a version of the “strong, independent woman”

archetype. She differs from other versions, however, because her strength is, in part,

exhibited when she uses her body and other weapons in violent combat. Moreover,

fighting female narratives rely heavily on her exercising violence to protect herself and

others. In other words, she poses a physical threat, maintains elements of self-reliance,

and performs in ways most typically reserved for male heroes. Fighting female characters

in a variety of genres have multiplied onscreen over the last few decades. There have

been babes like Mrs. Peel (from The Avengers television show), Charlie’s Angels, the

Bionic Woman, and the varied women of James Bond films; superheroes like Wonder

Woman (soon to get a 2016 film reboot), Black Widow (The Avengers movies), and the

new Supergirl (who debuted on CBS fall of 2015); alien fighters like Ellen Ripley (Alien

franchise) and Dana Scully (The X-Files); warrior women like Xena and Buffy the

Vampire Slayer; military officers like Jordan O’Neil (G.I. Jane); sci-fi heroines like

Olivia Dunham (Fringe), Sarah Manning (Orphan Black), Kiera Cameron (Continuum),

Agent Carter, and the female stars in Agents of S.H.I.EL.D.; and even a zombie turned

crime-fighter Liv Moore (iZombie). There are also the female fighters I will address in

this study, who range from private detectives like Laura Holt (Remington Steele) to cops

like Cagney and Lacey or Kate Beckett (Castle) to spies like Sydney Bristow (Alias) and

Evelyn Salt (Salt) and, finally, to dystopian revolutionaries like Katniss Everdeen (The

Hunger Games) and Tris Prior (Divergent series).

The increase in kick-ass women on screen has occurred in part, I would argue,

because they so fully embody an empowered-woman identity—a woman who can take

care of herself (or at least can appear to), who can be independent, forceful in pursuing

her goals, and who can be the good guy, so to speak. Such an empowered woman appeals

for various reasons. For some who might find the character troubling, the appeal might be

in clues that she’s not so independent or capable, as they look for ways the narrative

punishes her for her strength and independence or attenuates those characteristics. For

others, it might be the titillation of the fighting female who is often scantily clad and

whose (typically) lithe fighting form is enhanced by the spectacle of combat. For others

still, the appeal might lie in seeing a woman do for herself what male characters have

always done—be a protector, seek justice, or maybe just beat the crap out of bad

people—instead of being forced to watch on the sidelines or, as is often the case, be

excluded completely. This latter view is what I would characterize as more feminist-

friendly and reflects the assumption that critics like McCaughey and King, Halberstam,

and Tung share: fighting females can be empowering and function as “possible tools in

the liberation of women” (McCaughey and King 20) as well as “offer the possibility of an

alternative embodiment for women” that can “embolden” them (Tung 96-7).

This symbolic position, I will argue in this dissertation, makes the fighting female

a useful lens through which to view the relationship between romance and power and

understand the way narratives of hetero-intimacy both reflect and contribute to broader

assumptions about that relationship. Yet until now there have been few feminist analyses

of the relationships depicted in these narratives. Feminist critics who focus on various

fighting females, like Yvonne Tasker, Philippa Gates, Hilary Neroni, Rikki Schubart, and

Sherrie Inness, have done excellent work concentrating on the fighting character’s

function as a variant of the strong, independent woman archetype, exploring the

parameters of her self-determination, self-reliance, and all around autonomy. Perhaps

such critics have tended to favor interrogations of these elements because they defy

typical representations of femininity and do not intuitively connect with the

interdependent and attachment-oriented traits of intimacy. My argument, in contrast,

emphasizes the potentially radical nature of the fantasy of feminist-friendly love offered

by some of these relationships, which imagine independence and romance or intimacy

not in conflict but in concert.

The representational partnership between independence and intimacy is not

without its tensions, however. Still, I emphasize that interrogating these fantasies as old

stories of love portrayed in new settings with new character types offers insight into the

way the romantic genre has been both appropriated in service of proving a liberated

vision of female empowerment and also how old conventions and expectations

appropriate those visions. Examining several different versions—from “buddy”

partnerships to successful sexual/marital unions to “fraught” relationships—I will thus

explore the fighting female romance genre as “a site of simultaneous complicity in and

resistance to patriarchal structures” (Jowett 30).

As such, these narratives, fantastical as

some of them are, “offer a recognition of how women negotiate the problems of romance

in a postfeminist era”

where challenges to gender roles and the acknowledgement of the

personal as political have had lasting—and often highly contradictory—impacts on both

female and male identity, hetero-relations, and the way they are portrayed in the popular

media (Jowett 30). This is the standpoint from which I base my analysis of fighting

females’ hetero-romances and intimacies in this study, as I contend that combining

intimacy and independence in fighting females’ onscreen lives increases the level of

viewing pleasure and in the past decade has lead to female characters who portray the

See also Stevi Jackson, who addresses the interplay of complicity and resistance in

heterosexual of love in Heterosexuality in Question 114.

Jowett and I use this term not as a theoretical identifier but as a historical marker to

reflect society following the 1960s and 1970s when feminism—and feminist

issues/activism—was introduced to the public on a large scale.

kind of human complexity and depth that many feminist media critics have been

demanding since the 1970s.

Oppression and Hetero-Romance

A Brief History of Women’s Liberation and Love

In 2015, Michelle Obama spoke on a panel at Glamour magazine’s “The Power of

an Educated Girl” event. One line of Obama’s remarks was picked up by a variety of

outlets reporting on the event. Obama encouraged girls to “Compete with the boys. Beat

the boys,” and she stated, “There is no boy, at this age, that is cute enough or interesting

enough to stop you from getting your education. If I had worried about who liked me and

who thought I was cute when I was your age, I wouldn’t be married to the president of

the United States.” One report on Amy Poehler’s Smart Girls website had the headline,

“Michelle Obama Says Books Are Better than Boys” (McKenzie). MSN.com posted a

video of Obama speaking with the headline “Michelle Obama: Books before Boys,

Girls,” and New York Magazine posted a similar headline stating, “Michelle Obama urges

girls to forget boys and focus on education” (Roy). In reality, Obama never says to

“forget boys;” rather she advises that an interest in romance with boys should not

interfere with girls’ intellectual development. Her point is laudable, but she makes some

unfortunate assumptions. First, that homosexual romance for girls doesn’t pose the same

problems as heterosexual romance. Second, that girls should seek an education to attract

the right kind of man and marry up, which implies that, ultimately, her relationship status

rather than her career remains the primary (or at least preferred) indicator of female

success. Finally, her statement implies an opposition between heterosexual relationships

and success for women. This opposition lies at the heart of the divide between the strong,

independent woman and romance that we so often see in popular culture.

This opposition mirrors and emerges from the deeply embedded tensions

between autonomy and heterosexual love in American women’s lives. The very nature of

ideals of romance and intimacy with men has been problematic for centuries of women

seeking self-determination and/or liberation, as Wendy Langford reminds us in

Revolutions of the Heart. She provides an excellent overview of key feminist arguments

detailing the ways that romantic love, marital unions, or heterosexuality have been used

to create and maintain structural inequality between men and women.

Sociologist Eva

Illouz in explaining Why Love Hurts has also noted that love is a source of misery for

many because “institutional arrangements” organize “our emotional life” (4) and love

plays out in a “marketplace of unequal competing actors” (6). Love and/or romance as a

basis for women’s subordination has been critiqued by many of the most well-known

proto-feminist thinkers and feminist theorists.

Over two hundred years ago, Mary Wollstonecraft noted that both women’s

misconceptions about love, cultivated by a society that refused to recognize their

rationality, and men’s insistence on relating to women as objects subjected women to the

curse of frivolity and prevented them from meeting their potential. Emma Goldman wrote

an essay about “marriage and love” that argued the liberatory potential of love was not

possible because society uses love to hide the social and economic function of marriage.

Simone de Beauvoir interpreted a woman’s devotion to ideas of love and romance—

See also Grossi and Joanne Hollows’ chapter on “Women’s Genres” in Feminism,

Femininity, and Popular Culture for another overview of different feminist views on love

and romance.

again, encouraged by men who would “lead her into temptation”—as proof of “bad faith”

or a form of false consciousness that confines a woman to a limited feminine life and

prevents her from “taking charge of her own existence” and overcoming her oppression

(721). More radical feminists like Shulamith Firestone characterized love as “the pivot of

women’s oppression” (121) and claimed that romance is one of several “artificial

institutions” that serves “male supremacy” (139), a point that is similar to one Germaine

Greer makes about romantic fiction in her chapter entitled “Romance” from The Female

Eunuch.

These women and other feminist thinkers from the 1960s to the early 1980s

whose work addresses institutions surrounding ideals of love, romance, and intimacy—

like Andrea Dworkin, Mary Daly, Kate Millett, and Adrienne Rich, and Gayle Rubin—

have influenced the way Americans understand love in relation not only to feminism but

female empowerment in general. They have spawned academic debates about

compulsory heterosexuality and heteronormativity and the sex/gender divide. They also

contributed to debates about feminism and intimacy that other feminist critics have had

and that the mass media have taken up, like Arle Hochschild’s ideas on the working

woman’s “second shift,”

the mommy wars,

and/or Anthony Gidden’s ideas on the

“democratization of intimacy,”

to name a few that are particularly relevant to ideas about

contemporary love post-feminism.

Most of these critics and feminists, and those who have continued to follow their

critical paths, have not argued that feminism is against or incompatible with love; they

Designated as such in the book of the same name, written by Arlie Hochschild

A phrase coined in a 1990 Newsweek article entitled “Mommy vs. Mommy”

Addressed in Anthony Gidden’s work on intimacy.

have merely wanted to show that our ideas about love itself are cultural constructs that

have taken many restrictive forms for women. In other words, their aim was to show that

“love is not itself necessarily oppressive, but it becomes so because of the social context

in which it is constructed” (Grossi). The primary source of reluctance to address the

feminist potential or value in representing empowered females in love is the notion that

women need to extract themselves from the circle of male influence/patriarchy that is

now more clearly understood to circumscribe female existence. In a culture where

women are only relatively recently being imagined on a large scale to possess more than

a wholly passive, weak, emotional, or nurturing personality, there’s been an

understandable rationale behind feminist media criticism that seeks out alternative images

outside of romance. For in pop culture depictions of women, as Jennifer K. Stuller points

out,

love has often been the motivating impetus for women. And it is perhaps

because of this that female heroes are often shown in tandem, either as a

team or as the sidekick to the professionally superior male […]. This could

easily be interpreted as a way of containing women’s power by only

depicting them in more traditional roles […]. It could also be suggested

that a solo woman warrior is still too outrageous to be taken seriously and

therefore requires assistance in her heroic adventures. (Ink Stained

Amazon 8)

Based on this logic, seeking lone-wolf heroines makes sense.

The goal is to find role

models of women—whether real or imagined—who defy those assumptions, who are

self-sufficient, strong and capable, aggressive, rational, power-seeking, and successful, as

well as to unveil the assumptions behind continually positioning women in relation to

men. Such alternatives are absolutely necessary to first bring women’s issues and

experiences into the cultural narrative, to recognize them as subjects, citizens, or as the

old feminist adage states, to accept the radical notion that women are people too. This has

been part of the important goal to change the way women are subject to oppressive and

restrictive assumptions, policies, and practices.

Desperately Seeking New Stories

In 2015, the “Bechdel Test” from Alison Bechdel’s comic strip Dykes to Watch

Out For, celebrated its 30

birthday.

From its inception in 1985, the “Bechdel Test”

immediately gained favor in feminist media criticism, and its assumptions still resonate

for many contemporary critics analyzing women in popular film.

This “test” helps

characterize what many believe is required of onscreen characters to represent feminist-

friendly models: a TV show or movie must have at least two female characters who talk

Some feminist critics see the progressive potential in romance storylines. In the 1980s

and 1990s, feminist media critics like Janice Radway, Lynne Pearce, Jackie Stacey, and

Ian Eng began to reconsider so-called women’s genres—romance novels, soap operas,

and melodramas—by addressing their subversive potential for expressing female agency.

Yet, elements of romance and intimacy in narratives that include the heterosexual

relationships of fighting females have received almost no consideration.

Also known as the Bechdel-Wallace test, as Bechdel credits Liz Wallace with the idea

for the test (Garber).

In November 2013, several theaters in Sweden began to include ratings that indicate

how well a film meets the Bechdel test criteria, sparking new interest in and debates

about the media test.

to each other about something other than men. The assumption is that this requires new

stories of female experience and provides stronger proof of women’s empowerment.

Contributors to The Washington Post, The Guardian, NPR, and The Huffington Post

regularly refer to the test in commentary when discussing popular media, including new

film releases like Jurassic World (which fails the test) and television series like Orange Is

the New Black (which passes with flying colors).

Essentially, the premise behind this “test” is that not only are women

underrepresented in media (hence the criteria for at least two women)

but that their

representation tends to be anchored to a male’s presence where they have no lives or

interests outside of their relationship with the male (hence the criteria for the women to

talk to each other about other aspects of their lives). This model rejects representations of

male domination and privileges representations of female community over heterosexual

romance because of the way the latter has been overly represented by popular media and

because it often seems incompatible with enlightened thinking about sex and gender

equality.

The importance of female community to feminist thought stems from the idea that

patriarchy discourages female bonding that would encourage women to recognize their

shared subordination and unite to fight against it (Langford Revolutions 6). The idea of

female community also offers an ideal egalitarian intimacy that doesn’t have to negotiate

the dominant/subordinate sex divide that affects representations of hetero-intimacies.

The website Bechdeltest.com is dedicated to maintaining an up-to-date database rating

whether or not a movie fits the criteria; numerous media websites mention it, including a

Tumblr blog entitled “Does this Pass the Bechdel Test?” and the websites TV Tropes,

Film School Rejects, and Feminist Frequency. It has even been referenced by characters

in the film Seven Psychopaths (“Useful Notes”).

A fact that has been documented recently by several media research groups (Siede).

Sherrie A. Inness provides a useful example of this assumption about the power of female

bonding for media analysis when she distinguishes between homosocial and heterosexual

intimacies in her analysis of Xena from Xena: Princess Warrior as an exceptionally

tough woman character. Though Inness doesn’t refer specifically to Bechdel’s test or to

specific theories about feminist female bonding, she points out how Xena’s close

friendship with Gabrielle doesn’t “detract from her tough image” because “toughness in

women does not have to be antithetical to friendship. The result is a new vision of the

tough woman hero that emphasizes both her physical toughness and her connection to

other women” (Tough 168).

Quite a few feminist media analyses assert that love/intimacy can really only be

shown within female homosocial/homosexual relations because it’s assumed that when a

man becomes involved, as Inness points out in her analysis on tough women in popular

culture “heterosexual desirability in a woman often signifies submissiveness to a

dominant man” (Inness Tough 43). Emphasizing even the strongest woman’s

heterosexuality, from her perspective, renders them “sexual objects” reined in by the

male gaze (69); is used “to reduce her toughness and broaden her appeal” (48); indicates

“that they are still at the beck and call of a man to whom they are sexually attracted” (82);

and keeps the female’s narrative constrained within the realm of “traditional women’s

concerns” (125) or “primarily feminine issues, such as heterosexual romance” (152). In

spite of the fact that there are those who question the basic tenets of the original Bechdel

Test (usually offering ways to improve the test that will maintain its original spirit),

Aymar Jean Christian points out, “the test really only measures one thing. It gauges

male dominance not necessarily female empowerment.” Blogger Anna Waletzko notes

the test “does not measure the artistry or gender equality within a film, but rather

there remains some critical consensus today with the assumptions Inness voiced almost

twenty years ago about heterosexuality downgrading strong women characters’ feminist-

friendly appeal.

In 2004, describing Laura Holt (Stephanie Zimbalist) from Remington Steele,

Linda Mizejewski argues that Laura’s potential was “tempered by her position within the

classic screwball courting couple.” Despite Mizejewski’s concession that “Laura Holt

proved that the game of the detective genre can be played with a ready-for-primetime

woman investigator who is smart, attractive, heterosexual—and not glamorized,”

Mizejewski ultimately sees the romance as a mitigating factor rather than an aspect of the

series to be viewed with feminist implications (Hardboiled 77). Additionally, she sees

feminist implications in Moonlighting, but the way Maddie Hayes’ (Cybil Shepherd)

position as a female investigator was not interrogated in the way her relationship with

David was troubles Mizejewski. The “imposition of a romantic subplot” and the

“heterosexual partnership” are for her attempts to settle the “problem” the female

detective presents as a woman in a man’s role (“Picturing the Female Dick” 6-7). That’s

why, for her, a show like Cagney & Lacey, with a female partnership at the forefront, is

not necessarily better but certainly a stronger reflection of feminist viewing interests; it

“evoked the very anxiety that screwball quells—the question of loyalty to men,” the

screwballs in this case being Remington Steele and Moonlighting (Hardboiled 80). So

represents a superficial measure of the value of a film. The measures used to gauge

gender equality with the Bechdel Test are too two-dimensional to accurately measure the

message of female empowerment in movies.” Moreover, the test doesn’t take into

consideration power dynamics between women based on ethnic, racial, economic, or

sexual orientation. Also, relevant to my work, the test partakes in the assumption that

heterosexual romance or intimacy alienates viewers looking for empowered women

because romance, as we have seen, doesn’t fit well in stories of female success or power.

love assures the audience of a woman’s desirability—an important marker for women—

and hence lessens the threat of her supposed masculinity and other gender role

reversals.

Most recently, Phillipa Gates’ 2011 book Detecting Women likewise addresses

how “[t]he ‘problem’ of the female detective is more often worked out along the lines of,

borrowing Andrea Walsh’s term, the ‘femininity-achievement conflict’ (139). In other

words, the female detective’s ‘feminine’ success is determined through her ability to

acquire a proposal of marriage, while her ‘masculine’ success is determined by her ability

to discover ‘whodunit’” (33). Gates excuses the marriage resolution that tended to wrap

up the plots of the feminist-friendly female detective films she analyzes from the 1930s

by explaining that they are just “tacked-on” (132). However, she is less willing to

overlook the way female detectives who followed Clarice Starling’s “unqualified success

as a detective” returned to having their success qualified by their “acceptance of a

heteronormative relationship, (most often with a male colleague) at the end of the film”

(276). This qualification reflects the way that the capable woman’s gender remains a

“problem” so long as she remains unattached, making her more of a threat to the status

quo. Again, romance qualifies a heroine’s success, because the female detective “is

expected to give up her independence and work as part of a team—with a partner (both

professionally and personally)” (289), a point Lisa Dresner also makes in her analysis of

Both Lisa M. Dresner and Hilary Neroni make similar assertions in 2007 and 2005,

respectively. Dresner identifies ways that female investigator’s abilities are “bracketed”

by the inclusion of male partners whose presence implies her incompetence (68). Neroni,

one of a few critics to advance an in-depth interrogation into a female’s hero’s hetero-

intimacies rather than avoid such texts in favor of single female hero plots, still ultimately

sees the use of romance as a way to attenuate the “trauma” the violent woman onscreen

presents in terms of her threat to established gendered behaviors.

female investigators in popular culture (69). Like Inness, the one example Gates provides

of an enlightened partnership is one between two women, the FBI agents Gracie Hart and

Sam Fuller in Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous (2005).

The problem romance poses in popular culture representations of empowered

women even cropped up in online discussions about latest Mad Max installment, Fury

Road (2015). The film prompted intense debates about whether or not it’s a feminist

movie, and one viewer’s perspective on why it’s not asserts, “A feminist agenda would

have said screw the love interest and focus on the roundhouse kicks. But, since no such

feminist agenda actually existed, the production team solved the problem with a last-

minute save–the budding romance between Capable (one of the wives) and repentant War

Boy Nux” (Depares). The romance in the movie didn’t even involve the protagonists—

these two are side characters. The mere fact that romance was integrated into the

narrative was assumed to reduce the film’s potential feminist implications for Depares, a

view that coheres with what Inness and the majority of these critics think: making a

relationship primary to a female character’s story simply places her back in the sphere of

intimacy that has always been expected of women and therefore limits her transgressive

potential. After all, hasn’t finding love and getting married—rather than getting the bad

guy or making the world a safer, better place—been the preferred happy ending for

women since Shakespeare?

However, in the last chapter, Gates concludes that the film Untraceable (2008) offers

the best example of a detecting woman finding a balance between work and relationship

success.

Alienating Men Alienates Women

The above excerpts offer neither unusual nor exhaustive examples of feminist

critiques of heterosexual romance that occur in narratives that feature some of the

strongest, most independent versions of female characters, like detectives (private and

public), violent women, action heroines, and warrior women. Unfortunately, feminist

critiques of heterosexual relations in narratives and/or feminist calls for female

community stories have been commonly misunderstood or misrepresented to mean that

feminism is anti-love (at least, anti-hetero love) and all feminists hate men. The people

who subscribe to this misapprehension, though, completely miss the point. Interrogating

love and re-envisioning love does not mean destroying it. That’s the fear, though: that

love and feminism can’t coincide because feminism critiques love.

Author and blogger Sara Dobie Bauer characterizes this fear perfectly in a post

where she writes, “I’m not a feminist. I share certain feminist ideologies, but […] I’m not

always tough, and sometimes, I want to be saved.” Admittedly, Dobie Bauer writes this

post in service of supporting the strong male lead. It’s her implication about feminism

and romance that interest me here. On one hand, she equates being unrelentingly tough

with a feminist view that purports no need for men. On the other hand, she equates being

somewhat tough but also wanting to depend on a man in a relationship with not being a

feminist. Her belief brings us back to the assumption of feminist critics who champion

the lone-wolf female hero—women doing it all on their own is “feminist” and truly

tough, and women who do it with the help of a man are “pseudo-tough,” as Inness put it.

I would pinpoint misapprehensions like Dobie Bauer’s as one of, if not the, most

difficult obstacles for feminism to overcome—the source of many women’s reluctance to

call themselves feminists even when they believe in feminist principles (the so-called

“I’m not a feminist, but…” phenomenon). Often the reasons women give is based on

their desires for relationships with men, or more specifically, their fear of appearing anti-

male. Take actress Shailene Woodley’s quote from a May 5, 2014 Time magazine article.

She’s dedicated to presenting strong women on screen, yet when she was asked, “Do you

consider yourself a feminist?” she replied, “No, because I love men” (Dockterman). Her

statement was very close to one Lady Gaga made during a video interview in 2009: “I’m

not a feminist. I hail men, I love men” (“10 Celebrities”).

The misapprehensions of both

the Dobie Bauers of the world and the Innesses expose the difficulties associated with

imagining women who find a happy medium that combines empowerment and successful

romance.

Many women’s lingering fears of alienating men are easy to identify as further

proof of just how deeply entrenched women’s lives are in romance fantasies and how

necessary it is to focus on the non-romantic aspects of their lives and identities. Still, we

do well to remember that the desire for close human companionship isn’t the same as a

fantasy, even though those fantasies do shape desire. Imagining a world without men

isn’t the answer, but neither is imagining a world where women aren’t concerned about

their relationships with men, whether those women are heterosexual or not and whether

those relationships are intimate or not. That’s why Michelle Obama’s well-intentioned

advice that young girls shouldn’t worry about young romance, so they can focus on

getting smart, is so problematic in terms of reflecting the nuances of female identity and

experience.

Later, Lady Gaga admitted to being “kind of a feminist.” For a list of celebrity women

who reject feminism, see “I’m Not a Feminist, But…” on Salon.com.

Yes, girls need to see that being smart, as part of being capable, being strong and

independent, is a good thing, and they should put in the efforts that will lead to their

success. Yes, American society needs to continue to develop education infrastructure and

promote cultural values that will encourage girls to succeed. And yes, it is important that

girls grow up with a confidence that allows them to determine their own worth and not

fall victim to the limited/limiting idea that their whole being should revolve around

romance, hetero or not. However, Obama’s advice implies a damaging either/or

perspective: either girls can be smart and educated, or they can enjoy the titterings of

early crushes and the hormone-induced pursuits of young romance. What we need is a

little nuance in the ways we address hetero-relations in connection with female

empowerment. As I argue, there are fighting female narratives that provide some of that

nuance. They don’t always manage a happy medium, but many certainly try.

Defining Feminist-Friendly Love

Before I move onto my discussion of the cultural importance of fighting female

fantasies and their stories involving hetero-relations, I need to define some important

terms that I will use throughout this project. My use of the term “romance” refers to the

story of love—its development or the related courtship and sex relations—and “intimacy”

regards the nature of the knowledge and private actions between individuals. I have used

the term “feminist-friendly” to characterize the kind of heroine who might appeal to

feminist-identified viewers. “Feminist-friendly” refers to what some might call

“progressive” aspects of an onscreen female’s characterization that defy stereotypes. It’s

a diffuse notion because feminism is diffuse both as a body of ideas and as a practice. In

short, feminist-friendly media attempts to advance women’s issues and/or viewpoints that

have long been sidelined. Some aspects emphasize women’s capability as equal to that of

a man; some problematize traditional gender roles by blending masculinity and

femininity in male and female characters, by showing women in positions of power,

leadership, or equal partnership with men; some argue against sexist

comments/characters/plot, either implicitly or explicitly. In other words, feminist-friendly

media projects a fairly inclusive notion of what it means to be an empowered woman in

American society. I use inclusive in the sense of recognizing there are many ways that

women can express their feminism, just as there are many ways the media can express

feminist principles. Granted, these elements will not fit in every version of feminism that

exists. I don’t identify this approach as unified with any specific feminist wave or type of

feminism, though the majority of the fighting females I analyze are white

and easily

identified as middle class and heterosexual

, which certainly limits the feminist

populations they inhabit.

Overall, I am interested in looking at the ways

characterizations of fighting females capitalize on feminist-friendly assumptions about

females and femininity specifically in relation to hetero-intimacies.

With the exception of Maggie Q as Nikita in CW’s Nikita

With the exception of the bisexual heroine of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series.

For an excellent feminist analyses of Black fighting females, see Sims’ Women of

Blaxploitation: How the Black Action Film Heroine Changed American Popular Culture

and Dunn’s “Baad Bitches” and Sassy Supermamas: Black Power Action Films. For

overviews on Asian fighting females, see Meyers chapter on “Women Wushu Warriors”

in Films of Fury: The Kung Fu Movie Book, and for a brief feminist analysis of Asian

fighting females, see Arons’ “‘If Her Stunning Beauty Doesn’t Bring You to Your Knees,

Her Deadley Drop Kick Will’” in Reel Knockouts.

There are examples of strong, independent women of color who negotiate complexities

of hetero-intimacy on screen today. However, few of them are fighting females, and

many who are aren’t leads in the story, or the hetero-relations play out differently

When I use the term “feminist-friendly love,” I am referring to portrayals of

romance and/or intimacy in keeping with those progressive assumptions. I would

describe such a portrayal as a relationship that emphasizes equality as integral to the

intimacy and fosters trust and support between the individuals. It’s a liberating love that

empowers women. Such love rejects portrayals of gender roles that maintain masculine

or male superiority or that limit either of the partners to static personalities or

characteristics based on sex difference. Feminist-friendly love allows for both partners to

enter the relationship freely and to be desiring subjects while enjoying the pleasures of

being an object of affection. It also allows both partners to express and explore their

identities, to be successful in multiple roles, or at least not to be limited in emotional or

intellectual ways (even if they might be limited in physical/material ways, including

economically). Ultimately, it’s a love wherein the strong, independent woman can trust

she will be able to retain her identity as such. Feminist-friendly love can take the form of

a romance-based relationship, through dating and sexual intimacy, a friendship-based

relationship, or both.

Project Overview

I have organized each chapter to focus on one version of an empowered female

identity that a fighting female negotiates through her intimacies and romances with a man

or men. Chapters two and three examine two distinct fantasies where the fighting female

unites with a male co-lead as a partner in romance and combat. In chapter two, “Love

because of racial and cultural variations that don’t converge with the emerging female

identities I address in this study.

Buddies: Fighting Females and the Business of Love,” I analyze television shows like

Remington Steele, Moonlighting, Bones, Castle, and Chuck that combine crime-fighting

business partnership with an intimate relationship in ways that assign the fighting female

a co-protector identity. This identity assumes her empowered role as a career woman

makes her an ideal partner for men and conjures a feminist-friendly love fantasy that

constructs an egalitarian workplace meant to foster cooperative hetero-relationships.

Chapter three, “Love Warrior: The Romaction Fighting Female on the

Homefront” continues to concentrate on the hetero-partner-couple in the Romaction film

subgenre, which combines a romantic comedy narrative with an action plot. Romaction

fighting female narratives like Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Date Night, The Killers, and Knight

& Day attempt to critique regressive domestic gender roles and portray a feminist-

friendly love fantasy of egalitarian romance by partnering the couple to fight threats to

their home and family life. These movies rely heavily on assertions that women are

empowered by male domesticity and nurturing even as they endeavor to construct an

empowered identity for the female as love warrior.

My fourth chapter, “What Doesn’t Kill Her Makes Her Stronger: Survival and the

Fraught Fighting Female,” addresses the fighting female in film and television

productions where she is the primary hero and not a co-lead, including television and film

texts like Prime Suspect, The Closer, Alias, Murder by Numbers, and Salt. In these

narratives, battling male domination—portrayed through sexism, gender-based violence,

or paternalism—empowers the fighting female as a survivor. Because this character’s

relations with men often force her to negotiate a position as both a victim and an agent,

the stories project conflicting messages about the possibility of feminist-friendly love for

the empowered heterosexual woman.

My study concludes with chapter five, “Fighting Females: The Men Who Love

Them and the Women Who Will Lead Them All.” I revisit previously discussed texts like

Prime Suspect and The Closer and include new texts like the Divergent and The Hunger

Games film franchises. My analysis demonstrates how fighting female fantasies are key

to an evolving mass-media representation of not only feminist-friendly female but also

male identities that depend on and reinforce the empowered woman ideal and alternative

narratives of hetero-relations. The chapter concludes by exploring ways that an

empowering male character who is both supportive of and subordinate to a female hero

character functions in narratives that construct a fighting female as leader identity.

While these narratives’ progressive female identities and resistant hetero-

relationships foster female empowerment, they cannot always resist the persistent and

problematic framing of male-female relationships as an inevitable source of antagonisms

at best or a continuing battle of the sexes at worst. The fighting females I analyze

throughout this study are not uncontestable role models, but I don’t believe those exist in

life or onscreen. Their romances can also be challenging, just like love today can be

challenging for any woman. But I approach this project with the understanding that, now,

there are many more narratives of love to consider. As Grossi observes, “romantic love

can be understood in myriad ways. Love can be both liberating and progressive. On the

other hand, it can be oppressive.” There’s something to question or critique in each

fighting female romance narrative I address.

The stories tread a sharp edge being

affiliated with romance. Still, as Coppock et. al note, “while compulsory heterosexuality

is a way of maintaining control over women, and the myths of romance make this

palatable, this does not necessarily negate the desire for a(n equal) sexual and

companionate relationship” and the pleasures in seeing examples of these relationships

(35). In interesting and recognizable ways, all of these fighting female fantasies indicate

ambivalence about egalitarian hetero-relationships and reveal the lingering problems

patriarchal social and political structures pose for fostering male/female parity. In the

end, fighting female narratives afford contradictory viewing pleasures that reveal both

new expectations for and remaining anxieties about the “strong, independent woman”

ideal that have emerged in American popular culture post-feminism.

These females do exist predominantly in fantasy worlds where all of the women are

conventionally attractive and many of the men are enlightened (or at least teachable).

Worlds where heterosexuality and monogamy are the uncontested choices for romance,

where the pairing of a woman and man onscreen almost always leads to inevitable union.

CHAPTER TWO

Love Buddies: Fighting Females and the Business of Romance

Love is our business and business is booming.

It don’t seem like work ‘cause we love what we’re doing.

Satisfaction guaranteed and that’s understanding

Love is our business and business is good.

—John Michael Montgomery, “Love Is Our Business,” 1999

Once upon a time, there was Nick and Nora Charles, the darling movie couple of

the Thin Man (1934). They were, and still remain, loved by critics and fans, and their

popularity spawned five movie sequels over the next thirteen years (and a short-lived

television series from 1957-1959). In Nick and Nora’s sparring, flirtatious dialogue and

penchant for encountering intrigue, mass media encountered a basic blueprint for a

crime-fighting couple narrative that cleverly combined screwball chemistry and mystery

drama, a formula that has had a particularly lasting effect. Outlines of Nick and Nora

remain visible decades years later in character couples like Laura Holt and Remington

Steele from Remington Steele (1982-1987), Maddie Hayes and David Addison from

Moonlighting (1985-1989), Temperance Brennan and Seeley Booth from Bones (2005- ),

Kate Beckett and Richard Castle from Castle (2009- ), and Sarah Walker and Chuck

Bartowski from Chuck (2007-12).

One similarity between these couples and Nick and Nora—the clever banter and

exchange of barbs—remains an important element of their relationships, as does the way

solving crimes together provides an opportunity for innuendo and romance. There are,

however, a few differences between the characters then and now. The protagonists today

Critics have made the Nick and Nora association for all of these shows except Chuck. I

reference it here because it’s a solid love buddy example, one I will be including in my

analysis.

don’t start off the story married—we get to see them meet, fall in love, and (sometimes)

marry. There is no graphic violence in The Thin Man series and relatively little fighting.

Nick is comfortable wielding a gun or throwing a punch when necessary, but there is no

blood. The depiction of crimes, including murder, in today’s series exhibit much more

gore, more shooting and hand-to-hand combat, and even the occasional explosion.

Probably the biggest difference, however, between Nick and Nora and these other

couples is that the more contemporary ones include a fighting female, whether an

amateur like Maddie Hayes (Cybil Shepherd) or a full-on professional fighter like Sara

Walker (Yvonne Strahovski). Nora, while spunky and always up to solve a crime, never

fights. She holds a gun once, playfully, at Nick in The Thin Man, but she only takes one

punch and never throws one of her own (the punch comes from her husband Nick, who

knocks her out to keep her from following him as he pursues a possible dangerous lead).

The introduction of a fighting female into the dynamic, a woman capable of protecting

herself and others, and who can fight both physically and intellectually, in today’s

onscreen couples made possible what I refer to as “love buddies,” a dual-protagonist

male/female relationship that partners a woman and a man in romance and combat.

The love buddy fighting female has been one of the more popular and consistently

replicated versions of empowered women to hit the small screen. Like other fighting

females, she exudes self-reliance and strength in the pursuit of justice. But the love buddy

narrative differs from other fighting female narratives in that the dramatic tension is

characterized as much by the question of whether or not the male and female costars will

get together and stay together as by the question of whether or not they will catch the bad

guy (both of which they almost always do). This question plays through the love buddy

program as the narrative interrogates the possibility of romance obsessively—will they or

won’t they? should they or shouldn’t they? Why or why not? What will happen? etc. In

other words, the negotiations around coupling are integral to the series as a whole.

My analysis of the narratives involving love buddy fighting females in this

chapter focuses on the setting of love in the workplace where the women occupy the

position of both crime-fighting business and romance partners. The fantasies of feminist-

friendly love that emerge within these narratives both expose and resolve male/female

antagonisms assumed to have emerged due to women’s participation in the workforce,

which has had a major impact on hetero-relations in the last thirty years. In so doing, the

fantasies require audiences to not only question the traditional heterosexual contract but

also question assumptions about heterosexual compatibility, which are based on the

traditional contract. My use of the term “heterosexual contract” here is loosely based on

Monique Wittig’s definition of it as a “political category that founds society as

heterosexual” where it both defines women as a sex in relation to men and marginalizes

their position within a larger social contract that establishes rights, responsibilities,

privileges, and the exercise of authority in the public sphere (The Straight Mind and

Other Essays 44). The heterosexual contract is a personal and political relationship that

determines, on the surface, divided but complementary gender roles for men and women

that, underneath, maintains a hierarchy based on that difference that justifies male

domination and patriarchy.

For the purposes of my argument, the traditional heterosexual contract delegates

the role of protector and/or breadwinner to the male (whose duties situate him

traditionally in the public sphere) and the role of the protected and/or dependent to the

female (whose duties situate her traditionally in the private, domestic sphere). The

empowered woman’s access to the workplace and her associated potential to unravel the

traditional heterosexual contract raises a lot of questions: how do women in the

workplace affect notions of male/female compatibility? Can a woman successfully pursue

a career and a romance? Is a woman’s strength and independence compatible with

heterosexual intimacy? What does such intimacy entail? Would such an intimacy be

feminist-friendly?

I begin this analysis of the love buddy fighting female by directing attention to the

emergence of the character, focusing predominantly on the last thirty years as I argue that

combining a crime-fighting business partnership with a romance fantasy addresses

male/female relationship antagonisms in the work sphere in both problematic and

progressive ways. On one hand, it either presumes the dubious nature of female authority,

a problem for women attempting to enter traditionally male careers (as seen in the early

love buddy series), or it overemphasizes the presence of enlightened workplaces and

distracts from remaining gender inequities (as seen in more recent love buddy series). On

the other hand, the way the narratives address male/female relationship antagonisms in

the work sphere reflects the emergence of an empowered female co-protector identity that

assumes a woman can be an ideal partner and relies on the construction of an egalitarian

workplace that can be seen to foster cooperative hetero-relationships. This egalitarian

workspace then becomes a progressive ideological space that celebrates the end of the

traditional heterosexual contract and the beginning of heterosexual feminist-friendly love.

Love Buddies Emerge

Romancing the Fighting Female Partner

While the love buddy narrative has some historical antecedents, the formula

didn’t really solidify until the 1980s. Love buddies before this period were either

flirtatiously platonic like The Avengers (1965-69),

or married as in Get Smart (1965-

70), McMillan and Wife (1971-77),

and Hart to Hart (1979-84). None of these versions

included the couple discussing their feelings, detailing their attraction, or encountering

any kind of relationship tension over getting and staying together.

Additionally, with

the exception of agent John Steed’s female partners in The Avengers, the female

characters are there generally to be saved and fretted over and thus at best would be

considered pseudo-fighting females: women like Nora Charles who have moxie but are

helpless to protect themselves or others.

The female costars of the love buddy narratives begun after 1980 not only have

true fighting females in them—women who fight with fists, guns, and intelligence—but

there’s that necessary relationship tension between her and her male partner. Those two

elements are absolutely central to the fantasy presented by the love buddy and also

explain why these popular love buddies are all crime-fighting narratives. The police

precinct and detective agency—arenas of justice and violence that long discouraged

female participation—become the ultimate imaginative territory to examine women’s

The series began in Britain in 1961 but was only broadcast in the US between 1965-69.

Even after the series was syndicated, it included mainly the episodes after 1965.

The 1976-77 final season became McMillan after the wife was written off in a plane

crash.

There was definitely some sexual innuendo between John Steed (Patrick McNee) and

his partners Emma Peel (Diana Riggs) and Tara King (Linda Thorson), but this served for

only brief titillation rather than actual narrative tension.

ability to succeed in the workforce.

She needs to have some level of aggression, some

ability to face challenges, and some confidence to accept the responsibilities of her

professional position and rely on herself. These capacities signify a woman who can do

more than fulfill a traditional role of nurturing and looking after the family, who was

once thought to only be able to succeed in traditionally female positions like nursing,

teaching, or administrative work. Just as importantly, her fighting capacities represent a

woman who can be more than a subordinate to a man, for through the performance of

strength and independence in her fighting capacities, she challenges the traditional

dominance/subordination sex relational pattern.

With her physical, emotional, and intellectual strength, the fighting female

embodies the necessary characteristics of a woman who could symbolically be accepted

as a colleague of and collaborator with a man. She also enacts a feminist-allied character,

even when she doesn’t identify herself as such, because of her implicit—through a look

or act—or explicit, verbal rejection of chauvinistic or sexist standards or characters.

Because of these associations, the fighting female presence on screen complicates

representations of the heterosexual contract that presumes female dependence on male

protection and control. This complication is the basis of the love buddy fantasy, which

creates a male/female work partnership determined by and deeply invested in the

empowered woman model relevant to certain feminist ideals. This fantasy relies on the

A theme that was central to another popular television show in the 1980s featuring

fighting females, Cagney and Lacey, which I will discuss more in chapter four.

The challenge sets her apart from other noteworthy strong female characters onscreen:

Mary Richards from The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970-1977), Maude Findlay from

Maude (1972-1978), or Alice Hyatt from Alice (1976-1985). They had sassy and

independent personalities and challenged authority but either had little of the authority

that the fighting female’s prowess conveys or posed less of an ideological threat to

gender divides.

assumption of an equal opportunity workforce that makes the work partnership seem

possible, and as the work partnership turns toward an intimate relationship, it also has the

effect of promoting the desirability of strength and independence in women. Basing the

fighting female’s allure not just on the spunky traits of the intelligent and quick-witted

woman who has been popular on screen since the 1930s, as Gates and other critics

explain, but also on the autonomy and courageousness of a fighter goes a long way

toward counteracting what critics have argued restricts fighting females in the romance

plot.

The 1980s were the ideal period for the love buddy to emerge because it was a

period when the fighting female had gained acceptance on the small screen, proven to be

an audience-pleaser. The popularity of television shows like The Avengers, Policewoman

(1974-78), Charlie’s Angels (1976-81), The Bionic Woman (1976-78), and Wonder

Woman (1975-79) demonstrated that women could not only hold their own as crime-

fighters but also carry a series for at least a couple of seasons.

By the 1980s, the big

screen had also introduced audiences to the baddest badass woman yet, the Blaxploitation

fighting female, whom Yvonne Sims rightly argues “changed American popular culture”

with her action-oriented persona, fabulous beauty, and righteous spirit. Essentially, the

violent woman began to inch toward the mainstream, no longer portrayed as just a

deviant female or relegated to the role of the villain, like the femme fatales of film noir

(though examples of both remained on film and television). Consequently, the violent

I distinguish crime-fighting from detective work here and throughout, noting that the

latter is about solving the crime using intellect—something women detectives in books

and later onscreen have been doing since the 1800s—whereas the former is about

actually apprehending the bad guys and requires physical involvement.

woman character became the kind of heroine that could fulfill the escalating interest in

strong, independent female roles.

So, we have the initial popular embrace of the independent woman occurring in

mass media that, increasing over the decades, has become what Jowett refers to as proof

“that feminism or some feminist ideas have been incorporated into hegemony” (5).

This

allowed for willingness in some arenas of the popular imagination to comprehend an

empowered female identity where some versions of femininity could absorb

characteristics of strength and female desirability rather than be lessened by aggressive or

violent abilities. Additionally, the 1980s were also a time in which massive changes in

the workforce had impacted American society. By 1982, the year that the first full love

buddy program Remington Steele premiered, 51.5 percent of women had entered the

American workforce,

indicating what economist Claudia Goldin calls “a quiet

revolution” that affected both the economy and heterosexual relationships. More women

were working than ever before, including married women, but more importantly, more

women were working in “careers” rather than “jobs.” This meant that the female

workforce expanded from being populated primarily by women who “work because they

and their families ‘need the money’ to those who are employed, at least in part, because

occupation and employment define one’s fundamental identity and societal worth” (1).

More women also owned their own businesses or worked as management than

ever before. In 1972, women only owned 4 percent of American businesses (Linard). By

1980, the number had risen dramatically to 26.1 percent (“Facts on Working Women”).

Susan Douglas refers to this change as a “media compromise with feminism” rather

than an incorporation (Where the Girls Are 218).

Up from 37.7 in 1960 (“Women in the Labor Force”).

Between 1960 and 1970, the number of women in management positions rose a modest

three percent, from 15 to 18, but between 1970 and 1980, that number shot up twelve

percent to a total of 30 (“Percentage of Women”). The numbers would continue to

increase year after year through the decade. Even so, there remained plenty of concerns

about the repercussions of career-bound women. As Professor Alice Kessler-Harris wrote

in a 1982 article for The New York Times, working women had to shoulder the burden of

being marginalized as “peripheral workers” or as an “inconvenient aberration” (A21).

They also had to take the blame for the increase in men’s unemployment and the

economic fears attending the loss of male breadwinners. As we can see, by the 1982 love

buddy debut, some people struggled not only with lingering concerns about whether or

not women should be in the workforce but also concerns about how to deal with it now

that there seemed to be no signs of them leaving.

The 1980s Love Buddy Fighting Female

Where there’s a “will they?” there’s a “won’t they?”

The conflicts raised not only by women’s increased entry into the workforce and

their greater participation in management positions shaped the two 1980s love buddy

narratives that bookended the decade: Remington Steele and Moonlighting. In Remington

Steele, private investigator Laura Holt opens her own detective firm. She invents a male

boss, Remington Steele, and names the firm after him because she can’t get clients as a

female P.I.. During a case, she meets a charming interloper and thief (Pierce Brosnan)

who discovers her secret and takes Remington’s name and position for himself (we never

do learn his real name), and they become business partners and a detective team. In

Moonlighting, ex-model Maddie Hayes (Cybil Shepherd) loses all of her money to a

thieving accountant. She has to close each of the failing businesses she owns that were

tax write-offs and have become financial burdens. Intending to close the detective agency

she owns, she meets the boss, David Addison (Bruce Willis), has an exciting adventure

on a case, and ends up becoming his boss and taking over the business, renaming it the

Blue Moon detective agency (to cash in on her celebrity as the once famed “Blue Moon

shampoo girl”).

On one hand, both narratives promote acceptance and even celebration of the

burgeoning vision of the empowered woman, symbolized by the professional successes

of its fighting females. This is the beginning of the feminist-friendly love fantasy, where

the successful woman partners with a dashing, enlightened male in a symbolic nod to

equality: equal representation (female and male co-stars), equal opportunity workplace

(male and female co-workers), and companionate intimacy freed from the monetary,

legal, and gender restrictions of the traditional heterosexual contract. On the other hand,

the fantasy is portrayed as extremely tenuous, where failure constantly threatens the

successes of both the workplace and the intimacy. This tenuousness can be seen

representing some people’s lingering fears about the strong, independent career woman

undermining social traditions as much as other people’s experiences with the realities of

the strong, independent career woman trying to negotiate those traditions.

Testing Female Authority

In a sense, the fighting female was on trial in the popular media of the time

because she didn’t fit into an easily classified gender role. Her presence onscreen ebbed

and flowed throughout the 1970s and 1980s almost like a media experiment, a blip in a

popular culture almost entirely inhabited by fighting males and victim females. This

experimental quality made her the perfect character to showcase the career woman whose

social presence was also considered by some to be an experiment doomed to fail.

Remington Steele provides a good example of this. Not only was Laura one of the first

working women to own her own business on primetime, but her business is in a

predominantly male field, meaning her character tread on unsettled cultural ground. The

show depended on her ambiguous position and actually emphasized it in the opening

monologue:

I always loved excitement, so I studied, and apprenticed, and put my name

on an office. But absolutely nobody knocked down my door. A female

private investigator seemed so... feminine. So I invented a superior. A

decidedly MASCULINE superior. Suddenly there were cases around the

block. It was working like a charm until the day he walked in with his blue

eyes and mysterious past, and before I knew it he assumed Remington

Steele’s identity. Now I do the work, and he takes the bows. It’s a

dangerous way to live, but as long as people buy it, I can get the job done.

We never mix business with pleasure; well, almost never. I don’t even

know his real name!

The beginning of her monologue reminded viewers, week after week, of both her failure

and her success. She was not able to get a company running under her name based on her

own merit because of her sex, but thanks to her ingenuity and her implied abilities as a

detective—doing the work, getting the job done—she found a way to make the success

happen. She also has earned the right to success, thanks to her apprenticeship. Her

position is therefore defined by the tensions between traditional sexist assumptions about

women in the workforce and newly enlightened realizations that women might be capable

contributors.

These tensions remain a theme throughout the series, ranging from Laura’s

concern about losing clients and cases in the early seasons to Steele’s spending habits or

criminal past bankrupting or otherwise threatening her business. In “Tempered Steele”

(01.02) Laura has to dress Remington down for spending lavish amounts of agency

money on a woman (one he was tasked to distract while Laura investigates a case).

Because he gets mad at her attempts to restrict him, he ruins the case Laura is about to

complete. In “Thou Shalt Not Steele” (01.05), Laura worries about money and fights with

Remington for saying no to a client’s case without asking her, when she would have

taken it for the much-needed income. At the beginning of season two, we learn about

another threat to the agency because Remington is being audited and Laura must come up

with a way to prevent his identity and their fraud being discovered.

Moonlighting also portrays the failure/success tandem, as Maddie Hayes goes

from a successful professional model and savvy investor to a struggling owner of an

insolvent detective agency. Failure defines the very basis of the series, from her entrée

into the detecting profession through her tenure as a detective. Bankruptcy hovers over

every case and new client she drudges up, every success she and David Addison have,

every executive decision she makes. In “Brother Can You Spare a Blonde?” (02.01),

Maddie almost loses her house. In “Atlas Belched” (02.09), competitor Lou LaSalle

wants to buy the agency, and Maddie almost capitulates because it’s so close to

bankruptcy. Maddie often has to take cases that she or David finds distasteful to pay the

bills, like in “The Bride of Tupperman” (02.11) where a man wants the agency to find

him a perfect wife, and Maddie scoffs at being a professional pimp. Every episode raises

the question of whether or not the agency will close; remaining open hinges solely on the

outcome of their current case.

There are two overall implications to the will-she-won’t-she-be-a-success theme

enacted by Maddie’s and Laura’s struggles as business owners. First, and important to

note, is that to a certain extent the struggles are results of circumstances beyond the

fighting female’s control. Laura’s failure to dredge up clients for an agency under her

name isn’t actually her failure. It’s society’s, and noting the oversight of clientele who

automatically think a woman can’t be a good detective in the monologue highlights the

wrong-headed sexism behind that assumption. Remington himself refers to the ill

treatment Laura received trying to open a business under her name, saying, “Tawdry

thing this male chauvinism” (01.01). Their first client together is a chauvinist who insists

Remington lead the investigation, even though Remington says, “I never involve myself

directly in a case. I function best in an advisory capacity.” The client likens Laura as the

second-string to Steele’s quarterback (01.02). Her struggles here are specifically gender-

related and evidence of the obstacles women face in the workplace.

Maddie’s situation is the result of a corrupt accountant who runs off with all of

her money, so her circumstances don’t implicate gender inequities. She does not have

clients who question her abilities as a woman detective, as Laura does. Yet, the

tenuousness of her business does not have to be directly tied to her position as a woman

in the narrative in order to still implicate her position as a woman in the media

represented as a business owner. Laura’s unfair circumstances more explicitly point the

finger at prejudice, but the key issue at hand in the struggle facing both businesses is the

way they highlight the competitive and difficult nature of a capitalist business force (a

common concern in 1980s mass media) where women have to be able to stand up to

challenges that aren’t always fair—it’s just business. Maddie actually makes this very

claim in episodes one and nine of the first season, that the events occurring around the

agency—the possibility of liquidating the agency or selling it, respectively—are “just

business.” But it’s not just business—it’s a new popular representation of a female-run

business that must navigate conflicting audience views of women as capable and as a

threat. As female business owners, both characters held a conspicuous place in the

television schedule in a decade when only a few other female characters ever had their

own business.

Their position then as owner/bosses only highlighted their token—and

thereby tentative—stance.

The second implication of the will-she-won’t-she-be-a-success theme in these two

1980s love buddy programs emphasizes the tentative basis of female authority being

explored for the first time in the workplace during this period, both on screen and off.

The question of not only whether women possessed the business acumen or assertive

nature to be leaders but also the question of whether they could apply leadership skills

cropped up in the popular media, contributing to the sense of experimentation

circumscribing representations of working women onscreen. The media paid a lot of

Only Alexis Carrington from Dynasty (1981-1989), Julia Sugarbaker from Designing

Women (1986-1993), and Angela Bower from Who’s the Boss (1984-1992) come to

mind. Other women on television, fighting female or not, were employees, usually of

male run/dominated offices.

Working Girl (1988) reflected a similar interrogation of women in corporate business

where women had long been excluded, like crime-fighting professions. The film’s

primary tension was whether or not Tess McGill (Melanie Griffith) would prove herself

worthy of business success.

attention to women in positions of authority, like British Prime Minister Margaret

Thatcher and the first female Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, appointed in

1981. In 1984, the first major party female Vice-Presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro

ran with Walter Mondale and instigated a very public debate about (and an

unprecedented amount of focus on) whether or not women could be successful in

authoritative positions. During a debate with then Vice President George H.W. Bush, the

moderator inquired if Ferraro thought “the Soviets might be tempted to try to take

advantage of you simply because you’re a woman,” and in one interview on Meet the

Press, correspondent Marvin Kalb asked Ferraro if she was “strong enough to push the

button” (Braden 109-10). In 1985, the crime-fighting profession even saw its first female

police chief, Penny Harrington, appointed in Portland, OR, which made national news, as

did her resignation shortly thereafter and the federal sex discrimination suit she brought

against the department for facing poor treatment by the vice squad under her command

and being forced to resign.

In a decade where only one woman held a CEO position in a Fortune 500

company, it was not unusual to wonder if women had what it took to get the job done.

Business women had to face and overcome long-held stereotypes about females—“too

soft to be hard on crime, too emotional to be trusted with the nation’s checkbook or

defense, too disorganized to be effective because of their family responsibilities or

mysterious biology, and too idealistic to play the hardball insider game” (Witt et al. 211).

The mass media highlighted every blunder as a reflection of women’s abilities in general,

as Ferraro lamented, “[T]he defeat of one women is often read as a judgment on all

women” (qtd. in Faludi 269). As women in general had very little representation in

public business and political office, they received extra scrutiny from those who saw

them as role models and from those who questioned their right to authority and ability to

lead in their positions.

The 1980s love buddy narratives can be seen as reflecting both of these

tendencies: the willingness to represent a woman with authority as a business owner but

the lack of conviction about that authority. Returning to Laura’s monologue, we can see

that even as she informs the audience how she made her business work, she betrays her

lack of autonomy over that business because a complete stranger could so easily usurp

her control. Her claim that, “before I knew it he assumed Remington Steele’s identity,”

highlights her powerlessness in the situation, as does the phrase, “as long as people buy

it.” Laura was at once Remington’s boss and subordinate—both in the role she plays as

his employee and in her forced capitulation to his scheme. She creates his role but then

has to rely on him to perform it properly and not endanger her business. Remington’s

rogue power was particularly a problem in the first two seasons, when he kept her

leadership abilities in check. When the sexist client in “Tempered Steele” insisted on

Remington leading the case, Laura was forced to guide him on the side and hope that

Steele could complete the con. In “Steele Waters Run Deep” (01.03), Laura has to

scramble to cover a boring security job that Remington doesn’t feel like doing, even

though it will fill the office coffer for two years. Laura regularly can’t get Mildred Krebs

(Doris Roberts), the office assistant starting in season two, to give Laura things she needs

(like a photo of a suspect, as in “Red Holt Steele” 02.03) or tell her important details

sometimes because Krebs’ first loyalty is to Remington, whom she calls “the boss,” much

to Laura’s dismay (Krebs isn’t in on the ruse until later in the series).

Laura is also the effective crime-fighter and detective who has to give Remington

all the credit, in spite of his bumbling (until he decides to become her apprentice and

learn the detective trade from her). In “Tempered Steele,” Remington’s name is the one

in the papers being credited for foiling the murder, though he wasn’t the one to figure out

the correct culprit. In “In the Steele of the Night” (01.09), Steele must uncover a

murderer at a reunion of detectives, but he relies on Laura to guide him through the

whole process and also make him appear legitimate amongst other professional

investigators. Remington merely performs the role of the knowing detective, or he just

plays around while she actually solves the crime, as in “Heart of Steele” (01.14); often

when he does help, it’s accidental, as when he takes down a bad guy Laura was chasing

after accidentally dropping a pencil he was looking for. Because Remington is a male and

she is a female, it’s impossible to ignore the implications of sex conflict as the basis of

this authority/dependence struggle, a point to which I will return.

Maddie Hayes is an amateur detective, but she owns the Blue Moon Agency. She

is the one who decides to keep it running as a legitimate business. However, various

elements throughout the series clearly put her ability to manage an office and maintain

authority in doubt. Her employees consistently mock her or resent her leadership. In the

episode “My Fair David” (02.05), Maddie catches David in a limbo party with the other

employees. She’s angry because he needs to act more like a “boss, not a buddy,” and she

bets him that he can’t be serious. If she wins, he has to fire the unnecessary employees he

has insisted they keep on. The employees, dissatisfied with the new somber David,

badmouth her for “de-Daving” him. Another instance of the employees disrespecting her

authority is when Maddie fires the troublesome MacGillicuddy (Jack Blessing) in “It’s a

Wonderful Job” (03.08). The entire office revolts.

David, the insubordination ringleader, disrespects her from their very first

meeting when she informs him of her plan to dissolve the company. He calls her a “cold

bitch” for her business decision (01.01). David also encourages unruly behaviors from

other employees by treating the business, and her authority, as a game (as the

aforementioned limbo incident indicates). In the majority of episodes, he lounges around

the office playing with his toys, nursing hangovers, and singing ballads. The more she

yells at him and the employees and the more the unprofessional dynamic stays the same,

the more ineffective her authority seems. For all her professionalism, knowhow, and the

respect she earns from clients, she still can’t control the business. For all of David’s

goofiness and lack of business acumen, the employees respect him more. The “It’s a

Wonderful Job” episode makes David’s underlying authority explicit when Maddie

imagines never having started Blue Moon (in an homage to It’s a Wonderful Life). David

ends up being the successful business owner, and she’s the sad, lonely drunk. The

episode portrays her business choices as interfering not only with her success but also his.

In the end, this storyline has her respecting his choices more than hers, thereby degrading

her authority, as happens in “My Fair David,” when Maddie herself apologizes for

wrongly trying to make him more serious and businesslike because she misses the “old

David.” She is often wrong in her interactions with him.

Taken from only these perspectives, these two love buddy programs might seem

more aligned with backlash oppositions to the burgeoning empowered-woman ideal

rather than representations of the feminist-friendly love fantasy. Critics were quick to

point out problems with Maddie’s authority that stem from David’s chauvinism. As

Susan Faludi characterizes the show, backlash exists all throughout the ways David

“ultimately tames his ‘queen bee’ boss” as part of the show’s “long-running campaign to

cow this independent female figure” (Backlash 157). Elaine Warren, writing for the Los

Angeles Herald Examiner in 1986, saw a softening of Laura’s authority and, as others

have since pointed out, believed Holt’s “overall strength of character has been noticeably

diluted” from her portrayal in seasons one and two, specifically because Laura “has come

to depend on Steele” more, as exhibited in her “cuddling up to him at trying moments”

(qtd. D’Acci 144).

However, there’s more to consider that complicates these critiques. Where each of

these females do earn their respect is in their fighting abilities and/or the work they do to

catch the bad guy, in successfully closed cases at the end of each episode. Of the two,

Laura is definitely the better crime-fighter. She almost single-handedly closes each of the

cases that come to her agency. She saves Remington regularly, and while there is

relatively little violence enacted in the narrative by any character in the show compared

to other crime shows of the period, Laura is comfortable handling a gun and wielding

punches, kicks, and weapons including a purse (01.05), a hypodermic needle (01.13), and

a knife (01.18) to take down criminals. Maddie also fights in a variety of ways, though

Moonlighting includes even less explicit physical violence than Remington Steele.

Maddie will do anything from bite a killer she’s fighting (01.04) to wrestle guns from bad

guys (01.01 and 01.06), and she actually throws as many punches as David does—though

both tend more toward the slapstick than serious fighting skills. They are just as likely to

take down a culprit together by slip-sliding through a mess of bubbles on a tile floor and

falling into a pile (02.02) than having a long fight scene. The key here is that she’s just as

incapable as he is. For example, in the pilot, David punches and wrestles with one villain,

knocking him out, while Maddie wrestles with another and takes away his gun. But

David’s nemesis gets the better of David, and Maddie shoots wildly and gets taken down

by the one she fought. They both prove incompetent. Nonetheless, Maddie is definitely

more aggressive than David and has a penchant for yelling, growling, snarling, slapping,

and doggedly chasing the culprits. She’s a woman with determination and physical

assertiveness that leaves little uncertainty about her strength. Thus, no matter what

hesitations arise about Laura and Maddie’s business success or their authority as a boss

each episode, there is no question about whether or not these two fighting females will

succeed for the client, find and often fight the culprit, and close the case.

As I mentioned previously, the strong and independent characteristics that made

these successes possible are integral to the allure of both of these love buddy fighting

females, and that is what works in service of the burgeoning feminist-friendly love

fantasy. These women flouted the popular status quo of the period but were not subject to

punishment for it. They were aggressive, driven, and capable without being exaggerated

as monsters (which happened with certain other 1980s narratives including transgressive

women, like those showcased in Dynasty and Falcon Crest). Even Maddie’s “cold bitch”

persona was just one facet of her personality and didn’t preclude audience sympathy for

her.

Additionally, Maddie and Laura enacted feminist values by calling out

chauvinism and making feminist choices—though the word feminist was never actually

used in either program.

Maddie constantly called David out on sexist behaviors, and as

Laura’s Remington Steele opening credit monologue repeated weekly, she was forced to

build a grand deception because clients were too sexist to work with women dicks. Both

characters also exhibited sexual desire and had sex out of marriage without being

portrayed as deviant. They are attractive, and there are instances of sexual

objectification—more so for Maddie, whose beauty and modeling background are

referenced regularly; however, they are objectified considerably less than their 1970s

fighting sisters, and they often criticize such objectification—again, more so for Maddie,

who regularly calls David out for his sexist ogling. Finally, both women crave emotional

connection and the vulnerability involved with intimacy but without it making them

appear fragile and in need of protection that they can’t otherwise provide for themselves.

They are emotionally mature, expressive, logical, professional, romantic: in other words,

they are complex beings expressing agency in their personal lives (even when they

continue to struggle with it professionally).

If there remains any uncertainty about how both of these women presented new

and inspiring fighting females for an audience starved for intelligent, strong, and

independent women, then just look to the many websites, social media outlets, and fan

fiction dedicated to these shows decades after they hit primetime. Stephanie Zimbalist

still gets fanposts (today’s version of fan mail) thanking her for what she represented.

Brenda Holmes writes a Facebook post stating,

In Moonlighting, David refers to “the movement” and “the rights women dropped their

mops for” in an argument with Maddie, but this is the closest reference that happens in

the series.

Your character in Remington Steele, I thought of as a partial role model

back in the day. (That character, along with my own mom.) That’s

because she could be her own person (strong and independent), while also

having an incredibly handsome guy in her life. From what I’ve seen since

those ep[isode]s years ago, few women are that strong. I’ve tried to be one

of them, but have struggled with it for years. I’ve come quite a ways, but

still have some road ahead of me. But I just wanted to thank you for

setting one more example for me at the time.

In her comment, Ms. Holmes echoes what many women might have found so

fascinating about Remington Steele and its 1980s companion—the presence of a “strong

and independent” woman who also has romance in her life. There’s also an entire page on

a very thorough and well-researched website from 2003 celebrating all things

Moonlighting dedicated to Maddie, where fans share their fascination with her complex

character and the way romance contributes not to her story but to her personality. One

describes Maddie by saying, on the one hand, “She has extraordinary strength—an iron

will—and an outlook that is occasionally inflexible,” while on the other hand, “When the

ice begins to thaw, we get a look at the Maddie who often seems afraid to come out and

play [...] the woman who is soft-hearted and vulnerable.”

These are very different responses than what some feminist critics have said about

the show, then and now. Warren addresses the “traditionally feminine, vulnerable ways”

(qtd. in D’Acci 143) romance defines the Laura. Faludi and more recent fan critics like

Lynch focus on the backlash machismo of the male characters by providing behind-the-

scenes production stories that highlight producer Glenn Gordon Caron’s desire to bring a

real man back to television (Faludi 144) or conspiracies to “curb the single Shepherd’s

‘aggressive’ personality” by rejecting her attempts to define Maddie’s character (Faludi

157) or by blaming Shepherd’s pregnancy for ruining the show (Lynch). Such criticisms

reflect the difficulty of pinning down any one reading of these programs. Still, they

neglect insights that the pleasures viewers experience bring to readings of the program,

viewers who recognize that there’s more going on behind the hetero-relations for the

fighting female than simply the production company’s attempts to moderate the threat she

poses (to allow for a broader-audience appeal that includes those who may not have been

ready to celebrate a woman in charge).

The combination of independence and intimacy in these stories makes a powerful

appeal to women who, in the wake of feminism, claim a right to their own lives, to

building their own identity outside of romance, but who still desire intimacy, hetero or

otherwise. Amidst a popular media culture filled with stories about newly liberated

women having trouble with romance —as single or married women seeking higher

education or new levels of career goals—a heroine who beats the odds does seem

inspirational. And there were plenty of articles printed during this period that “reported”

on the relationship between women’s increased independence and their dwindling

romantic prospects. What woman of the 80s doesn’t remember the extremely misguided

1986 Newsweek cover story on the “Marriage Crunch” that famously and mistakenly

warned women that they were more likely to get killed by a terrorist than get married

after 40?

Another article, “The Changing Women’s Marriage Market: Later May Mean

I was 10 when this “statistic” emerged and still remember the shock and fear it caused.

Twenty years later, on June 4, 2006, Newsweek printed a follow-up story entitled

“Marriage by the Numbers” to retract their findings and report that marriage

Never, Study Says” from The New York Times Feb. 22, 1986, notes how women who get

college degrees and start careers have only a 50% chance of getting married once they hit

25 (Greer). That same year, the Times also published “More Women Postponing

Marriage,” which includes data about women and men getting married later in life, but it

ends by referring to the diminishing ratio of single women to single men after the age of

35 (Associated Press). The Times trend continues into April 28, 1987 with an article that

describes “Single Women: Coping with a Void” and ends on a section called

“Independence or Intimacy” that characterizes women’s growing lack of desire for sex or

love the longer they are out of a relationship, of women gratefully going into the office

on Sunday to avoid the cute brunching couples and families, of women praising the

pleasures of living how they want but secretly yearning for someone to share their lives

with (Gross). As still tends to be the case, there is an assumption that independence and

intimacy are mutually exclusive terms, particularly for women.

This is just a small

sampling of the obsessive reports being published all over the country and throughout the

decade.

When taken in relation to this negative cultural context, it makes sense that

women then and now might seek narratives where the fighting female nabs the bad guy

and gets the good guy without having to use typical feminine wiles, sacrifice her

opportunities for women are more optimistic than they thought. They also claim the

terrorist analogy was never meant seriously. Pamela Abramson, the author of the line that

was actually first written in a memo, said, “It’s true—I am responsible for the single most

irresponsible line in the history of journalism, all meant in jest.” In New York, writer

Eloise Salholz inserted the line into the story. Editors thought it was clear the comparison

was hyperbole. “It was never intended to be taken literally,” says Salholz. Most readers

missed the joke, probably because it was easy to believe when taken in context with all of

the similarly dismal reports out there.

See Adams.

principles, or hide her ambition; without having to suddenly become incapable, afraid, or

fragile; all while remaining the hero of her own story and even saving the good guy from

time to time. These are all crucial characteristics that set the love buddy fighting female

apart from the few other strong, independent female characters of the time, like Claire

Huxtable of The Cosby Show (Phylicia Rashad), Ann Kelsey of LA Law (Jill Eikenberry),

and Alexis Carrington of Dynasty (Joan Collins). While not all women focus on

cultivating romantic relationships, the search for and enjoyment of intimacy is part of the

majority of women’s lives. Many women do struggle to find a balance between the desire

for romantic relationships and their professional ambitions. Because of this, it also makes

sense that the media-cultivated tension in the independence/intimacy opposition would be

reflected in those fighting female romance narratives, where the question of the crime-

fighting woman’s career success nestled comfortably among the will-they-won’t-they

question of relationship success made popular by the love buddy storyline.

Thus, the love buddy fighting female fantasy can be seen to both reflect and

cultivate a perception of heightened intimacy conflicts that were, and continue to be,

stressed by portions of the mass media in a turbulent post-feminist period. People could

be as much enthralled by the interrogation of the fighting female’s desirability in the

intimate sphere and her ability to fulfill the role of a lover as by interrogations of her

authority in the business world and her ability to fulfill the role of a partner. That’s why

the ups and downs in intimacy mirrored the ups and downs in the business in both

shows—add to bankruptcy threats, lost clients, and amateur mistakes the threat of the

relationship breakdown, where each moment of intimate progress (a lingering look, a

spontaneous hug, maybe even the first mistaken kiss) might be stalled by the fighting

female’s doubts and fears about losing control and power.

Flirting with Power

As I’ve shown, the female protagonist’s fears are quite well-founded, what with

the struggles to maintain authority that define her tenuous position in the work

partnership with men. Thus, I return to my point about Remington Steele (that also

applies to Moonlighting): power struggles over authority in the workplace occur within a

sex hierarchy that still privileges the male partner. This is true even for male characters,

like Remington and David, who are decidedly more enlightened than the “traditional”

male and who combine sensitive qualities with their rakish and even chauvinistic

behaviors (respectively).

Both men profess to support their “partners” wholeheartedly. For example, when

clients overlook Laura’s authority and demand he work on the case, Remington is just as

frustrated and tells them she’s in charge. Of course, he also wants to avoid responsibility

and simply enjoy the spoils of his arrangement. Also, as much as some critics want to

paint a picture of David as “hardboiled,” he constantly undermines his own chauvinism

with moments of sincere and supportive behaviors toward Maddie, as when he tells her

that he’ll respect her wishes and wait for her to decide about staying in business during

the pilot. Of course, this is undercut by his having to shoo away reporters because he

called them assuming he could get Maddie to make an announcement to keep the agency

open.

This contradictory interplay in the male personalities not only develops their

dynamic qualities as co-leads but also reflects the way that, as men, they are

automatically afforded the privilege in the authority hierarchy because of the traditional

heterosexual contract. As I pointed out previously, for a good part of the series,

Remington does little but spend the company money, and Mildred automatically accepts

him as “the boss.” David comes to work unkempt and hung over and exhibits no kind of

management ability, and the employees afford him much more respect than Maddie.

The narratives make it difficult to forget that even though these men aren’t the

bosses, the success of the business resides entirely on them—keeping up a stolen role

(Remington) or controlling the employees and the tenor of the office (David). The

workplace dominance/submission relation then gets intermingled with the issue of

heterosexual intimacy, bringing power struggles into romance. Thus, the authority,

independence, and control the fighting female struggles to maintain on the job and in her

work partnership became part of her struggles in her romantic partnerships because they

are with the same man. This dynamic plays on the fears within certain arenas of

American culture that were undecided about what women’s increased public presence

would do—not just to the economy or the structure of the domestic sphere in general but

also to the intimate relationships between men and women. Would the threat and uproar

the working woman caused in the public economy happen in her private relationships?

How would men and women relate to each other if they both possessed the traits required

to be self-reliant and successful career people? What would romance look like?

Moreover, what would be the benefits of such a change for men?

As men faced greater competition from women in jobs, competition became part

of the romantic fantasy, where the professional woman and man as business adversaries

translated into intimate adversaries. Films like Woman of the Year (1942) and Adam’s Rib

(1949) explored a related fantasy decades before during a similarly tense economic

period when women had entered the workforce not only in higher numbers but also in

more technological and dangerous jobs in response to World War II.

Heterosexual

competition as an intimacy standard, thus, emerges during periods when gender roles

become destabilized. Consequently, one common love buddy fighting female trope has

been the obsessive inquiries about the problem of what Laura Holt repeatedly referred to

as “mixing business with pleasure” because they are competing notions that don’t mesh

intuitively with traditional romance. Blurring the lines of emotional and professional

experiences—where it would lead, what it would threaten, how it could happen—defines

the basis of the romantic clash for the 1980s love buddy fighting female. After all, her

position symbolizes the way the professional woman’s personal feelings are at stake but

also her career, where a failed relationship could lead to a failed partnership and failed

business endeavor.

The first time that Laura sees the stranger who would become Remington Steele

in the pilot, she finds him attractive and alluring in his role pretending to be a South

African government agent. When he takes over the imaginary role of Remington Steele

that she created, she is frustrated and angry with him, until the end of the episode when

he is about to leave both her and the role behind, when she is free to flirt with him and

The producers and actors of Remington Steele and Moonlighting (as well as critics

writing about them) explicitly noted how the shows were essentially reboots of just these

sorts of screwball comedies so popular in the 1930s and 40s.

even seem sad at his departure. But in the second episode, he returns to her and the role

and immediately begins causing problems. He spends money wildly, forcing her to close

his accounts. In his anger, he then ruins a lead in the case she was working, making her

look bad to an already sexist client. Steele then ingratiates himself with the client by

offering his own plan without Holt’s approval. The two have a heated argument back at

the office that starts with a frustrated Laura chastising him for his inappropriate behaviors

and ends with the two discussing the possibility of going to bed together. Laura very

openly declares that she would like to sleep with him but that she won’t let pleasure get

in the way of business, ending the discussion. Her secretary Bernice (Janet DeMay)

encourages Laura to go for it, enjoy herself, but Laura demurs, in part because she’s

unsure of what she wants and what indulging her desires would mean for the business,

and in part because she thinks that not sleeping with him will keep him interested.

These two episodes set the tone for the remainder of the series, as Laura moves

seamlessly between competing emotions: resentment and appreciation, frustrated anger

and attraction, and worrying about the state of the agency and her own personal needs.

For Remington does help the business, if only because of sexist clients who refuse to

work with a woman unless she’s working for a man. The only way she imagines herself

able to exercise “control” over Remington—to both keep him helping the business and

sticking around for a possible relationship—reveals how the fantasy of competitive

romance is just another a power play that requires manipulation and calculated denial.

This sounds very much like tactics from the old heterosexual contract: a woman denying

sex until the security of a commitment can be obtained. Only this time, her feminine

wiles exist side by side with her determination to follow her dreams and be a success.

Moreover, it’s understood that Laura denies herself pleasure as well. Make no mistake,

this play is not about making Laura seem demure. Other episodes show us that Laura was

once something of a wild thing, a partier, and she has had past lovers and other potential

lovers during the series.

What’s particularly interesting about the will-they-won’t-they aspect of their

relationship isn’t so much about either sex or commitment, even though it professes to be,

but rather about trust and sharing, the real basis of the power problems between them in

the realm of intimacy. Laura insists on knowing who Remington really is before she can

consider maintaining a relationship of any kind with him, outside of the workplace. He

refuses to give her this knowledge for most of the series. They continually contest each

other’s reasoning and positions on this, where he says that she’s being too rational and

she says he needs to commit at the very least to sharing his story with her. The narrative

continually positions them on opposite sides of each other, even at times when they share

the same desires—though, of course, at different times. This keeps the competitive edge

to their interactions. For example, in “Signed, Steeled, and Delivered” (01.04), Laura is

excited when Remington asks her out on a date, until she learns it’s only because his

previous date cancelled at the last minute. Here, she seems the most interested in moving

things forward with them romantically. Then, in the very next episode, Remington is the

one who wants to make a date of their evening work as they steal a painting to foil an art

thief—he shares cognac with her from a thermos, toasts to their “first time” (committing

For example, in “Vintage Steele” (01.19), we meet the ex with whom she lived for

some time, and he describes Laura as “[i]mpulsive. Uninhibited. Absurdly passionate,”

and he says to Remington, “It must get trying for you at times, keeping her in check?”

a crime). Laura, however, says very clearly, “This isn’t a date, you know” to cut off the

romance, this time to his disappointment.

These power plays certainly can be seen to reinforce the notion of traditional

gender roles in hetero-romance as a salve to the destabilized gender roles portrayed in the

hetero-partnering in Remington Steele, just like the critics mentioned earlier note. Hence,

the show traverses the murky line dividing the burgeoning ideal of feminist-friendly love

just finding a toehold in arenas of 1980s popular media from the rigid standards of

intimacy based on gender opposition and unequal sex relations favoring male privilege

and control The same dynamic occurs in Moonlighting, but the competitive power play

romance takes a hostile turn. Maddie actually despises David from the beginning—with

good reason—unmoved by his immediate attraction for her. David constantly goads

Maddie with his oafish passes and chauvinistic objectification of her. The perfect symbol

of their hostile romance occurs with the first big love scene between them in season

three’s episode, “I Am Curious…Maddie” (03.14). They argue—David thinks she should

choose him since she dumped Sam Crawford (Mark Harmon), but she wants to choose

based on what she needs rather than what she feels.

David goes on about how shallow she is, how she looks for men who look good

on paper, and how she’s all business, no “pleasure;” Maddie complains that he lacks

culture, doesn’t take work seriously enough, isn’t driven. He calls her a “bitch,” and she

calls him a “bastard” and tells him to leave her house. She slaps him, repeating her

demand, twice. The third time she begins to slap him, he catches her hand. They stare at

each other, and in a moment that viewers like myself had waited for (a moment that 60

million viewers tuned in for that a 1996 issue of TV Guide ranked as number 77 of the top

“100 Most Memorable Moments in TV History”) they finally kiss—passionately,

tenderly—and end up in bed together. The next episode begins where this night leaves

off, the morning after, and it starts with another argument. Maddie wants to pretend

nothing happened, David doesn’t want to pretend, and the two fall into bed together

again. And so it goes. Moments of passion and attraction, peppered with door slamming,

slaps, punches, objects thrown, and lots of yelling.

The extremity calls to mind the traditional love-hate romance plot where a slap, a

shouting-match, or another hostile gesture often functions as a prelude to the kiss and true

love, and it’s a trope that has existed since Shakespeare and that TVTropes.org refers to

as the “slap-slap-kiss.”

This narrative convention has been described as symbolically

enacting the similarity between love and hate, which is certainly a worthy point. Yet,

there was so much more going on behind Maddie’s two very powerful slaps, so much so

that it garnered a good deal of media attention and caused quite a stir amongst viewers.

Many found the violence off-putting and thought it didn’t reflect the kind of true

affection the characters felt (or should have felt if they were going to fall into bed

together). I think what is so troubling behind what the website the “slap-slap-kiss” is how

it bares the power dynamics behind the romance, particularly in Moonlighting. It enacts

violence very much in keeping with the hostile back and forth between Maddie and

David and reflects their relationship/work struggles. The slaps are also a gender-bending

act. When the slap comes from a woman trying to maintain control instead of from a

woman who has been offended, it symbolically depicts social confusion about the

TVTropes.org notes how the trope commonly happens amongst a squabbling male and

female pair before they are a couple. Also, the blog Megapegs Land provides a list of

other examples of this trope, ranging from the film Father Goose (1964) to Cheers and

Indiana Jones to Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Gossip Girl.

empowered woman who at once presents an alluring ideal but also poses a threat to

traditional heterosexual romance. The slap is of course another power play, one that

attempts to assert her frustration at the threat David poses to her independence because,

as she mentions during the fight, she feels like he keeps choosing for her by asserting his

attraction against her will. Her slaps result from him once again not respecting what she

says because he won’t leave. His emotional power over her is furthermore tied to the

overall power he exerts in the business as well, which I addressed earlier, and the “slap-

slap-kiss” ultimately reminds viewers of the uneasy competitive basis of post-women’s

liberation hetero-intimacy. It can be solved in the moment, but the relationship, like the

future of the Blue Moon agency, remains unstable in the long run.

Yet, the extremity also emerges from the show’s satirical basis, which includes a

progressive mocking and unraveling of romance conventions as much as detective show

traditions that we don’t see in Remington Steele. Thus, Maddie and David are more like

caricatures than characters at times, but caricatures that eventually develop into more

complex characters and thus break down the stereotypes informing perceptions of their

behavior. I would say that their emerging intimacy shows its greatest potential for

feminist love through this breakdown, where they learn to relate to each other as two

subjects rather than the typical subject/object dynamic characteristic of male/female

relations traditionally represented in mass media.

In the moments when they aren’t fighting over work, values, or romance by

taking stereotypical male versus female positions, they become sensitive, supportive,

communicative, even tender human beings. These moments encourage the audience to

look beyond their exteriors: the cold, driven professional Maddie (functioning

emblematically as the feminist career woman who threatens heterosexual traditions), the

goofy, irresponsible, and sexist David (functioning emblematically as the entitled,

traditional career man who threatens career women’s success). They reflect at once the

worst and best of the roles they embody. These moments also encourage seeing that the

sex-based power competition only exists when they perform these stereotypical roles.

Eventually, we see a man and a woman who accept each other for whom they really are

and can forgive each other for the mishaps caused when they are in caricature, so to

speak. Their most intimate moments aren’t when they are in bed together but in other

situations of difficulty and joy when they can mourn, weep, or celebrate together. Their

real intimate potential is not in the partners they are initially, the lovers they become

periodically, but in the friends they end up being, the camaraderie that outweighs the

competition and gives them common ground but doesn’t necessarily erase their

individual differences.

The same breakdown of the subject/object divide and the non-sexual intimate

dynamic that contradicts the elements of competition are very much a part of the

Remington Steele narrative, though both are less drastically enacted. Laura plays the

business-minded woman focused on her career. Remington plays the charismatic

troublemaker who focuses more on being entertained than being responsible, at least

early on before he becomes a true detective. They may lack caricaturistic excess, but

Remington and Laura make up for it in their flipped work positions. After all, in spite of

Remington’s challenges to her authority and her need of him to role-play, she is actually

the professional detective and he the amateur. He may make her position difficult, but he

ultimately does have to follow her lead. In fact, she is the one who provides him the

opportunity to become a crime-fighter and inspires him to be her apprentice. That’s one

of the reasons why I don’t put as much stock in oft-stated criticisms lobbed at the way the

series changed from the original premise (pitched in 1969 by Robert Butler, the eventual

creator of Remington Steele, along with Michael Gleason) of a series featuring only the

female investigator. That they eventually added a male “boss” to the show to get a green

light on production is a capitulation, but having Laura be the one with the skills and the

successful business acumen still flips the gender roles and asserts her subject position.

This is a very bold sex-role statement, considering the time period, to have a woman be a

man’s professional better.

Their intimacy is established as a process of getting to know each other, solving

crimes together, sharing moments of triumph, and this goes also long way toward

undermining the competition that incites power struggles and, thus, is reminiscent of

traditional sex-role divides (even if the roles are reversed). In the scene in “Thou Shalt

Not Steele” where Remington treats their stealing a painting together as a date, it’s not a

kiss or any other kind of sexual expression that he finds enticing in the moment. It’s that

she’s sharing for the “first time” what is implied to be his own professional talent

(stealing). His reply to her statement that they won’t be making a habit of such capers is

“Pity, really. There are so few forms of true intimacy left.” This statement is both playful,

in keeping with his troublemaker character, and sensitive because it is sincere; he wants

to share this with her. He enjoys working with her and comfortably expresses that—the

job offers moments when he can let his guard down, just like it does for her, and they can

stop competing and playing at whose gender wins.

Examples like these problematize the readings that the shows favor the male

characters and do whatever they can to lessen the feminist impact of the female character.

The interplay of these intimate roles, their fluctuations and contradictions, shows how

unstable gender roles are and undermines the traditional notions of male/female romance.

Both results are essential to the fantasy of feminist-friendly love, which occurs through

alternative forms of feminist-friendly intimacies that had yet to take hold in other arenas

of the popular imagination before the love buddy narrative.

The first version of feminist-friendly intimacy occurs in Remington Steele, where

the strong, independent Laura does find romance and ends up with a well-matched

partner, whom she actually helps cultivate through the series, both professionally and

relationship-wise. The show ends on an assertion of couplehood that essentially offers a

straightforward and typical view of hetero-romance, only with new co-protector

male/female identities that assert compatibility. From the start, the attraction was mutual,

and over a shared dinner during the pilot, they flirted openly with each other. The series

encouraged focus on their being well-matched romantically by maintaining the focus on

this attraction as a pleasant experience for both parties (as opposed to the reluctant

attraction Maddie felt toward David). Even more so, as the series continued, they became

more well-matched through shared principles (Remington giving up crime to become a

crime-fighter, Laura learning to embrace the criminal within to improve her crime-

fighting) and eventually, shared abilities, as both were closing cases in the final seasons,

rather than Laura being the one to piece everything together. Though the plot finalizes

with Holt and Steele finally going to bed together—having resolved Remington’s

unwillingness to open up emotionally by reuniting him with the father he never knew—

the ending remains ambiguous about the fate of their working relationship. Will they

return to the States and continue to work as partners? It seems likely, but who knows?

Suddenly, this information is no longer as important as Laura getting her man and the

series getting a storybook happy ending, castle and all.

Moonlighting ends with a very different, but still important, assertion of feminist-

friendly intimacy, one that offers a critique of the classic storybook ending. In a self-

referential move typical of the series, during the finale’s last scenes, the “producer” Cy

tells them that the show died because the romance was over. Maddie responds, “But it’s

not over. David and I are still friends.” Cy sarcastically responds, “Oh goodie, that’s

exactly what America wants to see. David and Maddie, friends.” In reality, a number of

issues contributed to the show’s cancellation, ranging from long-term writing and

production problems and delays to Bruce Willis’ and Cybil Shepherd’s desires to move

onto other endeavors. Still, the narrative choices made in this final episode to explain the

ending emphasize the problem with society’s ideas of love as traditional romance,

showing how it is based on unrealistic expectations that a fulfilling intimacy between

men and women can only be sexual and romantic. The finale does so by turning the other

characters into the voice of society—Cy saying Maddie and David needed to stay in love

to stay onscreen, Agnes tearfully criticizing them for ruining everything because they

ruined their romance. In other words, with its final breaths, the show critiques the same

kind of heteronormative assumptions that some feminists note are a problem in

representations of women in the media in general in the male and female protagonist

being destined, basically through their sex roles, to end up together in a romantic

relationship. The show critiques this in favor of another kind of hetero-intimacy: platonic

partnership. Very few television programs involving fighting females have explored this

possibility.

The final scene has Maddie and David sitting at the front of a church, holding

hands, looking at each other tenderly, before a montage of happy, sad, romantic, angry,

and intimate moments throughout the series. By not bringing these two together at the

end of the series, in spite of their best final efforts,

Moonlighting ultimately cannot

imagine a feminist romance, but it does give us a glimpse at a feminist-friendly love as

hetero-intimacy. As for the issue of whether or not the Blue Moon Detective Agency

would prove solvent, that became about as moot as the will-they-won’t-they trope

(because they did get together for a time, and it still didn’t matter). Like with Remington

Steele, the final emphasis is the state of the union, so to speak. What ended the agency

wasn’t Maddie’s poor business skills or lack of authority but rather the show’s

cancellation, for the reasons listed above. The network closed the agency as part of the

finale, freeing the show’s narrative arc from the will-she-won’t-she-be-a-success trope as

well. Does that change the fact that there were consistent male challenges to her authority

throughout? No. That remains problematic as far as the professional woman she

represented. Still, Moonlighting offered audiences a kind of partnership between men and

women that explored multiple elements of female identity that would make possible a

stronger, more complex female character.

Overall, the potential in both of these fighting females’ personal relations and

business interests being undermined or unraveling at any time shapes these 1980s love

buddy narratives. From this perspective, I would argue that these early love buddy

They rushed to a church to get a priest to marry them, but he wouldn’t do it.

programs are really about the fighting females, even though they include male co-stars,

and the shows reflect contemporary questions about female identity in an age struggling

with working women. This social and economic disruption, encouraged by feminist

movements and also a changing financial system, more than anything weakened gender

roles and put into play conflicting expectations. Firmly entrenched beliefs established

through the heterosexual contract about a woman’s place being in the home, being

protected and supported by a man, or about a woman not being able to do what a man can

do, were being undermined with every statistic—even those in news reports that

promoted panic about women’s marital status included proof of their rising education and

career successes.

One effect of orienting these love buddy narratives around the fighting females is

that she often comes off as being emotionally reluctant at best or cold at worst. Hence,

Laura’s repeated refrain about not mixing “business with pleasure” turning out to be a

defense mechanism to ensure that she remains in charge of the business. Maddie’s “cold

bitch” persona in the first episode, when she dispassionately informs David that she is

closing the agency, turns out to have been another defense mechanism, a result of her not

only being swindled out of everything but also of being put in charge of firing a bunch of

strangers. They don’t always have the luxury of seeking fun or catering to their emotional

whims. This indicates that the struggle to maintain authority and to balance the intimate

desires with the business work is the woman’s alone. As Linda Mizejewski points out in

her discussion about Maddie’s unwillingness to give into her desires for David (a point

that also applies to Laura’s resistance to Remington), “her resistance symbolized not

virtue but hard-earned lessons from 1970s feminism: independence, self-protection, and

integrity” (Hardboiled 79).

It also reveals a new expression of privilege for the male characters who function

in these love buddy fantasies not only as enlightened men—because they are sensitive,

more emotional, and find the empowered woman desirable—but also as more enlightened

than the women. Both Laura and Maddie are uptight about and determined to control the

terms of their relationships with men. This is indicated in their romances with other men

during the show, men who tend to be drudges and dullards. Laura is linked to her ex, the

dull banker Wilson Jeffries (David Huffman) and has a flirtatious relationship with

season one employee, by-the-book investigator Murphy Michaels (James Read). Maddie

marries, briefly, Walter Bishop (Dennis Dugan), during a period of emotional confusion

because he seems stable and, compared to David, dispassionate. Remington and David,

on the other hand, tend to be more easy-going and cavalier because they can be. It’s

simpler for them to incorporate non-stereotypical gender traits because they already

occupy the superior position in the sex hierarchy. Both Remington and David are

portrayed as playboys, linked to beautiful and exciting women either in their past or their

present. The men’s free-wheeling emotional lives, whether in their determination to seek

pleasure at work or off the clock, tends to highlight the excessive self-control practiced

by their partners who work long hours with little social life and who temporarily end up

with the dull boys. And the women’s temporary choice of dull boys highlights the way

the non-traditional female seeks emotional protection against intimacy or in practical

intimacy the way the traditional female sought economic and social protection in

intimacy.

The men don’t need to resist because the stakes aren’t as high for them. This

becomes a key problem in the love buddy narratives to come. Where once the ideal

traditional heterosexual relationship was presumed to ensure a woman’s social and

economic protection and security as well as the fulfillment of her feminine role, in the

world of the empowered woman, the heterosexual relationship presents a threat: to her

career, her autonomy, her self-respect. This is why Laura and Maddie are so serious

about the business of love and worry about getting involved on a whim or purely for the

purpose of pleasure.

The 21-Century Love Buddy Fighting Female

“You Just Can’t Stay Out of My Personal Life, Can You?”

Both 1980s love buddy narratives reoriented the popular boundaries of femininity

in order to make room for strength and independence in their female protagonist’s

identities. They contributed more proof that a woman’s drive, assertiveness, and

intelligence were not entirely threatening, did not deserve punishment, and could in fact

be very desirable traits that fit snugly within her femininity, rather than automatically

being opposed to it. As crime-fighting characters, Maddie and Laura provided an

excellent counterpoint to the less nuanced macho crime-fighters popular at the time,

including those in Magnum P.I., Columbo, The A-Team, Dragnet, and CHiPs. They were

different from many other female characters whose hetero-romances were emphasized in

the narratives—like thinly-veiled damsels-in-distress Jennifer Hart or Amanda King and

eye-candy playthings proliferating on the big screen in films like the Police Academy

franchises. Maddie and Laura also provided a contrast to the negative portrayals of the

Kate Beckett to Rick Castle, Castle (03.14)

violent woman as a driven, manipulative bitch character found in just about any soap

opera (in primetime or daytime) and in more extreme forms in films like Fatal Attraction

(1987). But the unique character of the love buddy fighting female took a nearly sixteen-

year hiatus after Moonlighting ended in 1989.

It wasn’t until 2005, with the premiere of

the still-popular series Bones, that another love buddy narrative hit the small screen.

Then, in 2007, the series Chuck premiered, and in 2009, the also popular Castle brought

audiences other new primetime love buddies.

Bones features forensic anthropologist Dr. Temperance “Bones” Brennan (Emily

Deschanel), who works for the Jeffersonian (a fictionalized version of the Smithsonian).

She also assists FBI Agent Seeley Booth (David Boreanaz) in solving murders, along

with a crew of “squints” (Jeffersonian scientists). Booth and Brennan eventually marry.

As of the season ten finale, they have one child and one on the way. Castle is named for

the male protagonist, Richard “Rick” Castle (Nathan Fillion), a best-selling crime

novelist, and the series begins with him using his connections with the New York City

mayor to be assigned to the NYPD as a consultant, so he can research a novel. He is

assigned to Detective Kate Beckett (Stana Katic), who becomes the muse for his latest

One could argue that the break ended with The X-Files premier (1993-2002), which

provided a varied take on the love buddy, with the will-they-won’t-they tension between

the dual protagonists Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) and Fox Mulder (David

Duchovny). However, there is little interrogation into their relationship, no agonizing

about whether or not they want to or should become a couple, even if there are enticing

moments. When they come together near the end of the series, it happens obliquely,

behind the scenes, sometimes to confusing effect (for example, it’s unclear whether or

not Mulder fathers Scully’s baby). The same case goes for Fringe (2008-2013) and the

partnership between Agent Olivia Dunham (Anna Torv) and Pater Bishop (Joshua

Jackson). Both shows include elements of science-fiction impact the basis of the hetero-

relations in ways beyond the scope of this study. As far as Scully and Olivia’s positions

as fighting females, both fit more within the fraught narratives that began to preoccupy

the cultural imagination of the 1990s, which I address in chapter four.

detective hero, Nikki Heat, and they solve crimes together as partners, lovers, and then

husband and wife. Chuck is also named for the male protagonist, Charles “Chuck”

Bartowski (Zachary Levi), though as with each love buddy, there would be no story

without his fighting female partner, CIA agent Sarah Walker (Yvonne Strahovski). In the

pilot, Chuck accidentally downloads the Intersect into his brain, a top-secret security

technology that encodes vast amounts of data, and becomes an unwilling asset of U.S.

intelligence. Walker and NSA Agent John Casey (Adam Baldwin) are assigned to protect

Chuck and also use the knowledge he’s downloaded to complete missions. Chuck and

Walker also end up married by the season finale.

In spite of the years that passed between them, the new love buddy narratives

aren’t necessarily more progressive than the previous ones. They play on many of the

same issues regarding the threat love poses for the empowered woman and the

male/female negotiations onscreen that emerged from the 1980s narratives and vacillate

between progressive and regressive, but the representations of these issues has changed.

The questions of female success have been downplayed. Also, these newer stories reflect

an increase in television violence and different hetero-intimacy standards that have

implications for today’s love buddy feminist-friendly ideal, which I will address in this

section.

As contemporary love buddy narratives, Bones, Castle, and Chuck include

fighting female protagonists who are far more violent than their 1980s counterparts. From

the very first episode of Bones, Brennan shows she can take care of herself and fight

criminals. In the pilot, she wields a bat against an assumed intruder. Another time, she

shoots a criminal in the leg to keep him from destroying evidence, proving her comfort

wielding firepower (01.02). As recently as the season nine finale, Brennan saves her

partner and husband, Booth—who’s pinned down in a gun fight in their shared home—by

“toting a shotgun like a boss” as one excited fan reports (Mitovich, emphasis in the

original). She also knows three kinds of martial arts (01.19). Brennan is actually less

combat-oriented than the other two love buddy fighting females, and she’s the only one

who has not specifically trained as an agent or cop. Beckett shoots to kill in the line of

duty, throws punches, and chases down and tackles perps (wearing stilettos no less) so

many times that a list would be impractical. As a trained CIA agent, Walker regularly

kicks some serious criminal ass, punching, kicking, and shooting people almost every

episode (also often in stilettos). As probably the most violent, Walker even kills an

unarmed villain at one point (02.11).

These three fighting females, moreover, can take a beating in ways that their

1980s counterparts didn’t, which indicates an increase in primetime audience tolerance

for female violence, not only in what women perpetrate but what they can handle as part

of their strength and independence. In addition to the normal scrapes and bruises that

come from physical battles, all three of the women are shot (Beckett and Brennan) or

otherwise hospitalized from injuries (Walker) at some point during the series, and they

make full recoveries. Hence, they continue to reflect gender-bending qualities of the

fighting female and also reinforce the compatibility between strength and femininity that

has become more and more apparent in onscreen female characters.

Variations on a Theme

As with the early narratives, these three love buddy series also focus on the

fighting female negotiating the threat of heterosexual intimacy for the successful, driven

professional woman addressed in the earlier narratives. Still, there are some important

modifications that indicate a shift in fantasies about empowered women in general that

relate to the feminist-friendly love potential in these more recent series. First, these new

characters represent the empowered woman as highly successful as well as authoritative

in her career, unlike her predecessors, whose empowerment was still under explicit

interrogation and thus represented more ambiguously. The shows characterize the female

protagonists as brilliant women in fields that are male-dominated. Brennan is one of the

foremost forensic anthropologists in the country, holds three doctorates, and speaks six

languages. She is also a novelist, and her own character is based on an actual

anthropologist and writer, Kathy Reichs. Beckett has the honor of being the youngest

person to make detective in the NYPD (04.01). She’s college-educated, highly intelligent,

and she speaks Russian from a semester between her junior and senior year spent abroad

(02.01). She’s eventually promoted to work for the Attorney General in Washington, D.C

(06.01), and by season eight, Beckett is Captain of the precinct. Walker is experienced,

talented, fluent in several languages, and regularly praised as an excellent spy by her

colleagues and superior throughout the series. The hard-to-impress Casey even calls

Walker the “best damn partner” he’s ever had (02.18). Her talent was noted early on by

the CIA, who recruited her when she was still in high school (02.04).

As the women in these three shows are part of a larger group of accomplished

female characters being broadcast on television and in film,

they also no longer occupy

only token—and therefore more tentative—power positions the way Maddie and Laura

do. Brennan regularly works with two other talented female “squints”: Angela

Montenegro (Michaela Conlin), an artist who renders forensic reconstructions and knows

all things cyber-tech, and Dr. Camille Saroyan (Tamara Taylor), the head of the forensic

anthropology division. Beckett works with medical examiner Dr. Lanie Parrish (Tamala

Jones) and Captain Victoria Gates (Penny Johnson Jerald) who joins the precinct in

season four after the death of the previous captain, until Beckett becomes Captain;

Castle’s daughter and mother are both portrayed as driven and successful women,

particularly as the show progresses when Alexis (Molly Quinn) becomes Castle’s PI

protégé; and the series includes a bevvy of other successful crime-fighting women with

whom Beckett and Castle join forces, including female FBI and CIA agents. Walker

becomes friends with Chuck’s sister, the accomplished doctor and occasional CIA asset,

Ellie Woodcomb (Sarah Lancaster), and Walker was once a member of an elite squad

including three other kick-ass women. Chuck’s mother, Mary Bartowski (Linda

Hamilton) turns out to be a deep-cover CIA agent.

The second important change that’s occurred in the love buddy narrative is the

focus on the marriage and family aspects in the partners’ lives, as opposed to just the

wooing phase or romance and sex that occupied the earlier two series. After Brennan and

For example, How to Get Away with Murder (2014- ), Scandal (2012- ), Grey’s

Anatomy (2005-), The Closer (2005-2012), The Good Wife (2009-), Parks and Recreation

(2009-2015), Damages (2007-2012), Dexter (2006-2013), and Body of Proof (2011-

2013) are all programs with women in positions of power and/or management that have

run at the same time.

Booth fall in love, they end up having a baby together and get married, and rather than

signaling the end of the series, they continue their crime-fighting partnership even as they

work on the complications of parenthood. We get to see them negotiate parenting styles,

like when their daughter, Christine (Sunny Pelant) begins cursing (10.07), and they

disagree about it being a problem. After a few seasons of wedded bliss, they have to face

Booth’s gambling addiction, and Brennan kicks him out when his debts endanger the

family (10.19), though they are able to work it out by the end of the season. They also

have to decide about changing their careers, together, which I discuss in more detail later.

Beckett’s partner in crime-fighting and love, Castle, comes with his own ready-

made family—a teenage daughter and a mother who live with him during the early

seasons of the show. Even before Beckett and Castle become an item, Beckett gives

Castle parenting advice, and his daughter Alexis readily accepts Beckett into her life

when Beckett and Castle affirm their love. The problems they face in their romance, like

Brennan and Booth, are very much reflective of “real” relationship problems involving

two independent people making their lives work. For example, Beckett is offered a job

working for the Attorney General in Washington, D.C. (05.23) and Castle proposes

(05.24)—not, as he makes clear, to keep her with him but to ensure that they can stay

together after she takes the job, which he encourages her to do. Thus, the two have to

decide how to work out long distance. In a testament to how well the love buddy

narrative has absorbed the career woman ideal into the fantasy, there is never a question

that Beckett must choose one or the other. Instead, the partners make it work.

Family plays an important part in Walker’s story, too, as we get to know more

about her background. Raised primarily by her paternal grandmother when her grifter

father is in jail or away on a scheme, she and her father become estranged when a young

Walker rebels and joins the CIA (able to use the grifting skills she learned growing up in

her work as a spy). She reunites with both her father and her mother during the series

(whom Walker had also become estranged from, but only in order to protect a refugee she

adopted as a sister, whom she left in her mother’s care). But her real family, as the series

progresses, is her partner and eventual husband Chuck and his family, including his sister

and his sister’s fiancé (and later husband) with whom Chuck lives for a few seasons, and

Chuck’s best friend, Morgan Grimes (Joshua Gomez). Eventually, Walker and her other

partner, Casey, become like family, too, in spite of Casey’s professed distaste for all

things personal and emotional (which begins to change when he discovers he has a grown

daughter later in the series and when he becomes Morgan’s handler, taking a

comparatively nurturing role to help Morgan ease into his agent responsibilities and

protect him). Walker and Chuck also marry in the season four finale, while continuing

their work/love partnership for the final fifth season. Their relationship trials are less

“realistic” in the sense that Walker ends up being brainwashed and turned against Chuck

(though some of us have probably had experiences with exes that could only be explained

by a brainwashing theory), but they do remain together and still are married in the end, in

spite of the difficulties.

The will-they-won’t-they allure of the love buddy narrative remains an important

part of each series as a whole. In this way, little has changed from the time of

Moonlighting and Remington Steele, whose producers reportedly agreed that “keep[ing]

relationships interesting and honest is the trickiest element of producing a continuing

series in which romantic tension is a critical element” (Holston). Walker’s relationship

with Chuck is very much up in the air for the first three seasons as she considers a

romance with another spy, and he meets other love interests. Brennan and Booth each

have romances with other people, ignoring the sparks between them and their growing

intimacy. Beckett and Castle play an infuriating amount of back and forth: he proves

ready and interested in a relationship, but she gets a new boyfriend; then she’s ready, just

after he reconciles with an ex-wife; he tells her he loves her (but doesn’t know if she is

aware because she was shot and bleeding out at the time), and by the time she’s ready to

acknowledge she did hear and say it back, he’s moved on again. The wedding part is also

drawn out for all series, as a number of professional issues interfere. Villains always pop

up at some inopportune time to prevent smooth nuptials. Beckett learns she didn’t

properly annul a previous marriage. Castle is kidnapped on their first planned wedding

day. A serial killer blackmails Booth to postpone the wedding (without an explanation to

Brennan or anyone) to prevent the death of five innocent people. Walker is poisoned right

before the wedding and relies on Chuck and Casey to find the antidote. Thus, the

narrative relationship tensions remain intact, only expanded to allow for what these

shows assume is the natural progression after wooing and consummating—the wedding.

In 1986, writing about the way “Sexual Tension Teases Stars and Viewers,” Noel

Holston voices a common question about the will-they-won’t-they plot and whether or

not showing “commitment would fundamentally alter the relationship, perhaps destroying

what made them popular.” Critics would often cite the lackluster relationship between

Sam and Diane on Cheers as an example of how commitment ruins the storyline. By the

new century, as we see in the contemporary narratives, the answer to this question seems

to be a resounding ‘no.’ That’s because tensions remain an integral part of the storyline

and still invoke the tentative nature of the empowered woman’s romantic future, as with

the early love buddy series. They’re just varied tensions that reflect more contemporary

popular culture.

Having it All-or-Nothing

One such variance indicated by the love buddy narrative development of family

and marriage symbolizes the influence that the have-it-all ideal has had on the concept of

feminist-friendly love, an ideal based on popular media interpretations of feminist

agendas. The concept had only just emerged in the 1980s.

While there had been women

juggling family and work in lower-income households for literally ages, this was not

considered a noteworthy feat until women had the option to choose their careers and

work as professionals, either in addition to or instead of marriage and a family. Movies

like Baby Boom (1987) and successful career moms in television shows like Family Ties

(1982-89), Who’s the Boss? (1984-1992), and The Cosby Show (1984-92) brought images

of the mother-nurturer/careerwoman-achiever into many families homes. However, these

women, while certainly not stereotypical, were not fighting females and thus didn’t

reflect the same challenge to gender norms as Maddie and Laura from the same period.

They existed in a time when, in order for women to be able to have it all,

audiences had to first imagine them having a successful romance and a successful career,

both of which had not been combined in crime-fighting narratives. As I have shown,

neither early narrative was able to completely represent that combination. Laura and

One of the first uses was in the title of Helen Gurley Brown’s book Having It All:

Love, Success, Sex, Money . . . Even if You’re Starting With Nothing. There was also a

film in 1982 titled Having It All, starring Dyan Cannon as a successful businesswoman

juggling two husbands (one on each coast, no less!)

Remington did end up in bed together, and Maddie almost had a child (as well as a brief,

ill-considered marriage), but they never went beyond the most uncertain early stages. The

relatively swift cultural reorientation of a woman’s success in love and life toward having

it all that followed the 1980s both reflects and reinforces the ideal of the empowered

woman, in that only a strong, independent woman has the necessary resources to juggle

both the career and family that are supposed to define having it all. By achieving this, the

love buddy fighting female of today reassures audiences it is possible, which thus paints a

picture that the mass media fantasy banks on and constructs the allure of this possibility.

At the same time, however, the lingering attributes of intimacy-based tensions in

today’s storylines—not just in the question of their getting together but their staying

together and having a family, the themes of interference keeping them apart, making

them even question each other’s loyalty—reflect the more recent realization in certain

arenas of the popular imagination that the “have it all” dream is just that, a dream. The

twenty-first-century love buddy narratives emerged after this dream had not only been

inflated as the goal of the contemporary empowered woman but also deflated by a good

deal of media scrutiny involving the unrealistic fantasy it offers.

For some, the idea of

women having it all became less a goal and more an obstacle.

Probably one of the first critics of having it all to gain popular attention was Arlie

Hochschild, the author of The Second Shift, who pointed out that as women attained more

responsibility in and access to the public sphere and becoming part of a dual-earner

The scrutiny to which I refer here is not in terms of backlash tactics meant to

undermine feminist social gains by concluding that women don’t need or shouldn’t have

it all—tactics meant to privilege a return to traditional gender roles and the heterosexual

contract. I’m referring to scrutiny from feminists who don’t question the validity of

having a career, romance, and a family, if so desired, but rather question what stands in

the way of it happening or how the concept can even be a backlash tool.

partnership, their home life responsibilities didn’t budge. In essence, women doubled

their work time and responsibilities by balancing career and family (an issue that will

crop up in the romaction fighting female narratives I discuss in chapter two). More

recently, Deborah L. Spar argues that the dream of having it all made possible by

feminism has become a nightmare of perfectionism. Young women set unrealistic goals

for themselves and take the responsibility for success wholly on themselves without

being aware of the social, cultural, political, and biological limitations that make those

goals incredibly difficult to achieve for even the smartest and most capable women.

Thirty years ago, the Superwoman identity was invented. She could raise her children,

take over the corporate world, and even find a nice, sensitive man who would stand by

and watch her succeed (but contribute startlingly little to either endeavor). Today, more

critics recognize the mystique behind this concept (Martin). Yet, it remains an alluring

fantasy, one still associated with an idealized goal for women’s liberation.

The contemporary love buddy narratives navigate both sides of the dream and

walk a very fine line by both giving these fighting females everything their heart might

desire—the fantasy—but also reflecting the complications of this fantasy. Ultimately, as

tentative as the notion of “having it all” remains, as problematic as this ideal might prove

to be, and as fraught as putting the woman back in the family narrative to which she has

long been linked might also be,

the very presence of popular female characters who are

accepted to possess a range of roles represents a change in certain areas of the mass

media that is in keeping with many feminist interests. Now, we have feminists who can

rightfully argue for both the importance of the career woman and for the woman as stay-

See Szalai.

at-home parent while recognizing women’s abilities to be both at once or at different

times in their lives. There are feminists who tout the advantages of remaining single or

ending up coupled or going back and forth between the two. At the very least, this change

authorizes the presence of new mass media identities for women; thus, the change can be

seen to reflect an increased acceptance in certain arenas of popular culture of women as

capable contributors in the workplace but also an acceptance that a woman who is strong

and independent on the job can still be a wife and/or mother—even if this acceptance

exists in conjunction with media examples to the contrary in other arenas of popular

culture.

The latest love buddy narratives resolve the tensions associated with the

empowered identities they produce in ways that are unique in recent programming: by

creating narrative worlds where the fighting females can have it all by turning the

workspace into a home and creating one big happy career-oriented family revolving

around the partner-couple. This brings me to the third distinction between early and

contemporary love buddy narratives, in that today, the lines that once divided the crime-

fighting drama from the family drama blur. Both David R. Coon and Ien Ang address the

budding trend, which Ang notes beginning in the 1980s, of personal struggles becoming

part of workplace dramas, like L.A. Law or Cagney & Lacey (more recent examples

include shows like NYPD Blue or Grey’s Anatomy). However, as Coon observes, while

“these series move easily between the domestic and professional spheres, they generally

maintain a distinction between them” because doctors and lawyers don’t deal with

patients or clients in the home, and police and detective business tends to remain only in

the public sphere (241). In love buddy narratives, there is no retreat for the fighting

female from work or home, the public and private.

The public sphere and the private sphere collide in two ways for her. First, work

becomes a home away from home and colleagues become family either in addition to or

in place of actual relatives. Beckett and Castle’s colleagues at the precinct—her best

friend Lanie, and their other partners, Detectives Javier “Espo” Esposito (Jon Huertas),

and Kevin Ryan (Seamus Deever)—support each other through good and bad. They stand

by each other, fiercely loyal. When Beckett suffers from PTSD after being shot by a

sniper, and she freezes when faced with taking down a sniper during a later episode, Espo

talks her through it and helps her face her fears (04.09). When Beckett takes a dark turn

while investigating her mother’s murder and goes rogue, all of her partners support her,

even after she alienates them. Espo, Ryan, and Castle don’t tell on her to Captain Gates.

The one time Ryan does inform Gates, after Beckett’s gone off alone to face the sniper

who shot her, it becomes a source of contention between Ryan and Espo, who thinks

Ryan betrayed Beckett. But Ryan’s betrayal was in service of their friendship and

actually allows him to save Beckett from falling off a building. It also gives them all a

chance to talk it out as friends later (04.23). Beckett also spends her free time with her

colleagues outside of the workplace as they regularly end cases with plans to meet at the

bar, and none of them are presented as having any friends outside of each other. Ryan

even proposes to his girlfriend Jenny in the middle of the precinct and, of course,

everyone is part of the wedding party later on that season (03.11).

The same goes for Brennan and Booth’s colleagues at the Jeffersonian and for

Chuck and Walker’s colleagues. Their colleagues are also their main source of social and

emotional life. Many of Chuck and Walker’s dates and social events occur in the

apartment Chuck shares with Ellie and Devon, and each season, there’s a Thanksgiving

episode revolving around completing the mission in time to attend the family dinner.

Before Ellie marries Devon in season two, Chuck makes it his mission—literally, as he

ends up using CIA resources—to find their long-lost father to walk Ellie down the aisle.

In these shows, characters all attend each other’s weddings, celebrate births, and mourn

losses together, as when the character Lance Sweets (John Francis Daley) on Bones was

murdered by the serial killer Pelant. Everyone rallies together to not only take Pelant

down but to also help Daisy Wick (Carla Gallo), Sweet’s girlfriend and the mother of

their unborn child. At one point, when Brennan asks Daisy if she has any family who can

help out, Daisy replies, “it’s here [the lab]” and that they are all her “family” (10.02). In

fact, the characters in each of these series refer to each other as family, as when Beckett

tells Espo, Ryan, and Castle that “no one outside of this immediate family” could know

of Captain Montgomery’s betrayal (03.24). In other words, there are multiple forms of

intimacy being explored in these shows, in conjunction with the love buddy relationship,

though the couple relationship remains central.

Because of this, the second collision of the public and private occurs: personal

problems enter the workspace and professional problems enter the homespace. A good

example of this is when colleagues discuss relationships as they work, as when Beckett

talks to Lanie about the men they date inbetween discussing clues revealed by a body

Lanie autopsies while they chat. Castle also talks with his friends Espo and Ryan about

relationship issues. Castle often seeks the advice of Beckett, Espo, and Ryan when faced

with parenting conflicts. And everyone comes together to help Beckett find her mother’s

killer—a woman who murdered while investigating political corruption—which indicates

how the professional and the personal have been a mix for her from the beginning of her

career. This, however, is not unusual in the way that many series bring personal

relationships into the workspace.

It’s when the homespace becomes part of the worksphere that establishes the

difference in the love buddy. There are times during the series when Castle’s family is

threatened, as when Alexis is inadvertently taken when her friend is kidnapped for

ransom, and Beckett and the team work to save her (05.16), or when Beckett’s apartment

blows up during a failed attempt to assassinate her (02.18). Both Castle and Beckett set

up their own separate workstations in their separate homes to continue investigating

Beckett’s mother’s murder. Alexis even works an internship for Dr. Parish when Alexis

tries to decide what she wants to study in college, bringing the family directly into the

precinct and at crime scenes. The job and home overlap in these instances, and even

moreso when Alexis starts to actually help solve crimes.

Similar meldings occur in Bones, as when the wedding gets postponed due by a

psychopath dictating that he’ll kill people if Booth marries Brennan (08.24).

Additionally, their home becomes the setting of a nasty gunfight after Booth is mistaken

for an assassin and set up for murder (09.24). Chuck’s apartment is invaded throughout

the series—the first time by Sarah before they began working with each other, when she

was tasked to steal his computer. Walker’s father helps out on missions, using his con-

man skills. By the end of the series, not only Chuck but also Casey, Morgan, Ellie and

Devon all live in the same apartment complex at some point. Civilians Ellie, Devon, and

Morgan, are regularly—often unwittingly—ensnared within missions. Morgan becomes

an agent on Team Bartowski with some training from Casey. Ellie becomes an asset,

briefly, for a group she thinks is the CIA. Devon is mistaken as a spy and has to help on a

mission. Chuck and Ellie’s parents even turn out to be spies. By the end of the series, not

only has home been occupied by work, but work has been occupied by home, as the

whole family regularly spends time in “The Castle,” the spy team’s secret base located

under a Buy More store, where Chuck works his cover job.

Role Play & The Changing Workplace

These collisions of public/private interests and experiences have two effects that

reinforce the way the love buddy partnership attempts to conceive and capitalize on a

fantasy of feminist-friendly love by undermining the traditional heterosexual contract. In

this public/private mingling, the lines dividing the sex roles through the separate spheres

blur. David Coon notes this kind of blurring in Alias (a narrative I address in chapter

four), but his conclusion relates to the gender work occurring in the love buddy narratives

as well.

By using the home as a setting for professional concerns and the

workplace as a location for familial battles and negotiations, Alias

challenges the binaristic view that imagines separation between the

domestic and professional spheres. In doing this, the series also breaks

down the gender division that parallels the split between spheres. Both

men and women are free to move through domestic and professional

spaces. (“Putting Women in Their Place” 242)

Because of this freer access, both sexes move through domestic and professional

roles interchangeably. Nurturing emotional labor focused on relationships and connection

(presumed to be the central work of the domestic, private sphere) coincides with

intellectual and service labor focused on developing society (presumed to be the central

work of the public sphere). The work is also shared by both sexes in tandem instead of

separately. This indicates the ways that gender roles are not static and that the gender

divide itself is specious. Consequently, we can see that the impetus to protect (considered

a primary masculine trait) is actually an impetus to nurture (considered a primary

feminine trait) and that the presumed strength of the former is compatible with the latter.

So, there are times when Beckett saves Castle, Castle helps save Beckett, Ryan and Espo

save Beckett and Castle, and vice versa. One episode, after Beckett saves Castle, he jokes

that this is her eighth time saving him, but he’s saved her nine (04.07).

All of these

characters are all impelled not just by their professional duty (as detectives) or their

creative passions (for Castle as a writer) but also by their love for each other.

The protection dynamic with Brennan and Booth is a little different in that they

are not always out in the field together when it comes time to bring down the villain.

They both perform generally equal protective roles in their work as crime-fighters, and

they both save each other from the Gravedigger serial killer (Booth saves Brennan—

02.09—and Brennan saves Booth—04.14). As the series progresses and they become the

parents of two small children, both of them also work in the field less and don’t really

The Castle wikia took the joke seriously and actually added up the total number of

saves (though it’s unclear how many seasons this includes), with Beckett saving Castle

only seven, Castle saving Beckett eleven—though his saves tend to be more

happenstance and less violent than hers. Castle saves other characters three times, and

Beckett saves others four times (“Who Has Saved Whom?”).

participate in combat to bring down the bad guys anymore (Booth takes a desk job and

Brennan works almost entirely in the lab). Booth’s protective skills are his instincts and

emotional intelligence, his ability to rely on his gut. Thus, he functions as the

predominant nurturer and often saves Brennan not physically but emotionally. When

she’s upset over the loss of the dog Ripley (04.04) or when one of her most favored

interns, Zack, is found guilty of aiding a murderer (03.15), Booth supports her. His

protection tends to focus on nurturing Brennan’s emotional growth, as the show regularly

establishes that much of her cold, logical demeanor reflects an attempt to cope with

difficulty. But even though Brennan may lack obvious markers of nurturing, her

dedication to Booth and her friends and her tireless energy for solving crime and

identifying bodies (indicated more than once by her remaining at the lab alone at the end

of an episode to identify unclaimed remains and give families closure) reflect the blurred

lines between protection and nurturing.

In Chuck, Walker and Casey are literally assigned to protect Chuck, and Chuck is

the primary nurturer. He has talks with both Walker and Casey about the importance of

sharing their feelings, while early in the series, both tend to see “feelings as liabilities,” as

Walker says (02.09). This dynamic also changes throughout the series, as their protection

and nurturing blend. Even Casey, a hard-nosed NSA agent with a soft-spot for Ronald

Reagan and the good-old Cold War days, exhibits the protector/nurturer combo when he

recognizes Chuck’s feelings of inadequacy as an asset (from witnessing Walker and

Casey in full action all the time doing things Chuck can’t do for himself), and Casey lets

Chuck appear more competent in front of people Chuck wants to impress by giving

Chuck spy-cred (02.04 and 02.06). Even when Walker can’t express her own feelings for

Chuck, she still makes an effort to protect Chuck’s ego and to help smooth family

squabbles (which often arise when his sister or Morgan gets upset when Chuck misses an

important event because he was on a mission he couldn’t tell them about). Chuck’s

nurturing tendencies eventually extend beyond emotional care into physical protection

work when he gets an Intersect upgrade to learn combat skills, so he relies less on being

saved. Blurring public and private in this way at once privileges collective action between

men and women as it highlights the interdependence between the personal and the social,

rejecting the notion that the public sphere is the primary site of social development. Both

of these notions coincide with key feminist beliefs about social justice and equality.

Additionally, blurring spheres justifies the assumption that dedication to work

means long hours. Once upon a time, this assumption justified the sex sphere/role divide.

There could be only one career in a traditional household because the dedication required

for success required personal sacrifice—something that men were assumed better-suited

to do because women, as nurturers, were the champions of hearth and home. However,

now, introducing private, personal issues into the workday turns this rationalization for

living to work into a rationalization for women’s success in the workspace because it

seems to eradicate the need for personal sacrifice. Women can have it all because the

workspace can be an appropriate place for intimacy, because both kinship and coupling

can fit in with a career, providing multiple sites for identity.

This has implications for both male and female roles, which brings us back to the

tie-in between the early and the contemporary love buddy representations. Both relied on

a combination of a new type of empowered female identity and a new type of supportive

male in order to produce an idealized co-protector identity for both. Thus, on one hand,

the love buddy narrative conjures aspects of the fighting female identity to at least give it

some basis outside of her intimate relations; her strength and independence indicate that

she has no need for a man to support her or to protect her. Brennan, Beckett, and Walker

all have a life and a career on their own, like Maddie and Laura. Each is also a dedicated

crime-fighter who won’t sacrifice her career for her relationship, indicating that justice is

as much a passion—or more—for her as the love that the narratives also emphasize.

Relationships for her, then, are not about dependence but about desire and choice and

thus function as a symbolic representation of women’s liberation. The only difference we

see over time is that today’s love buddy narratives assure audiences that a woman can

achieve success on her own in her chosen field, offering a feminist-friendly ideal that the

early love buddy series couldn’t quite obtain. The authority of Brennan, Beckett, and

Walker as professionals isn’t as subject to doubt in today’s narratives.

On the other hand, the love buddy narrative offers the ideal mate for the

empowered woman. David and Remington were sensitive, more emotionally open, and

attracted to (rather than put off by) strong women, which was no small thing in the 1980s.

Neither of them portrayed traditional male roles. Booth, Castle, and Chuck share these

qualities, but these men offer more respect for the fighting female’s authority, count on it

even, making them symbolize stronger versions of the co-protector partner and equal,

making the sex-power divide less stark than it was in the 1980s narratives. Today’s men

also have more drive and personal success. Booth already has a thriving career in the FBI

when he starts working with Brennan. He is neither reluctant to work, inept, nor comical,

and he is anxious to work with Brennan because of her expertise, which leads him to

pursue her as a partner. She helps him catch criminals, making her an asset in his goals to

fight crime. Castle also has an established and prosperous occupation as a popular crime

writer. He seeks out Beckett because of her own successes as a detective. Since he is not

a cop and has no professional detecting skills (until season seven), he relies on her

expertise as well as her professional standing, not only so that he can earn the satisfaction

of fighting crime but also so that he can continue his writing. After all, Beckett is the

inspiration for his most successful character, Nikki Heat.

Both these men stand on their own throughout the series in their careers. Booth

receives commendations and promotions that still never interfere with his ability to

support Brennan as a partner. Even when the opportunity to become the head of a new

German field office presents itself to Booth, he is reluctant because he doesn’t want to

break up the team and have his career interfere with Brennan’s ability to work for the

Jeffersonian. Brennan is the one who has to convince him to take the position, which she

does by reminding him that she can have just about any job she wants because her talents

are in demand. After Castle and Beckett marry (07.06), Castle is forced out of consulting

for the NYPD because of a scandal, and he becomes a real private investigator, keeping

both his equal status as a crime-fighter and independent character (07.11). In comparison,

David and Remington are far less driven. Remington wants to enjoy the fruits of Laura’s

labor to live well. David just wants to have a place to party—he had never had a client

before Maddie showed up. Both are less capable as business people and rely on Maddie

and Laura to keep the books and run the company; their careers before the women enter

their lives are dubious at best, or in the case of David, were entirely based on Maddie’s

patronage. The power divide was much more explicit.

The one exception is in these relationships is Chuck. When the series begins,

Chuck works as a nerd herd computer technician for Buy More. He had to drop out of

Stanford for a cheating scandal (that later turns out to be a set up). He has a brilliant mind

for computers but is decidedly not accomplished in anything but being a good brother and

best friend. But thanks to a classified computer system he accidentally uploaded into his

brain—an accident responsible for bringing Sarah into his life—he becomes an asset.

Sarah, as a CIA operative, is sent to protect the asset, and Chuck readily accepts the

protection. Much of the series shows him developing his skills to become a spy.

Consequently, he becomes successful by learning from his agent partners Walker and

Casey; he becomes a trustworthy partner in crime-fighting and eventually the perfect

romance partner for Walker, who because of the secretive nature of her job could never

have an effective relationship with a civilian. In fact, a significant portion of season three

hinges on whether or not Chuck will pass his spy exam because he thinks being a spy will

allow Walker to finally acknowledge and consummate their mutual attraction.

What Chuck does share with Booth, Castle, and to a lesser extent David and

Remington, is emotional intelligence or openness, which is another key to their being an

ideal mate for the fighting female. David and Remington do get to express more of their

personalities more freely, as I have discussed previously, because they have the luxury of

male privilege, but they don’t present the most reliable choices for romance because they

aren’t stable. Fun and charming? Yes. Ready for commitment and a relationship beyond

sex? We’re not really sure. They do grow to some extent by the end of the series, as

Remington finally shares his story with Laura and David, thanks to becoming an

accidental Lamaze partner to a stranger, wants to step up to help Maddie with the baby.

The more recent shows, however, emphasize the way these men not only accept and

appreciate their partners’ strength and independence but also emphasize the men’s roles

as emotionally stable people who are skilled in intimacy, even when they lack in other

skills, like Chuck. All three men either seek out or gladly accept the work partnership

before their female partner does. They recognize their feelings for their partners first.

They pursue, and are rejected by, the fighting females—in the case of Castle and Chuck,

several times.

The emotional intelligence is the biggest contribution these men make in their

partnerships with the fighting females, which reflects the overlap of nurturing and

protection elements. The starkest example of this is between Brennan and Booth.

Brennan is an analytical thinker of the highest degree. She is extremely literal, practical,

and logical. Her blunt and often careless comments, particularly in the beginning of the

series, make her seem like she’s on the spectrum for Asperger’s. She doesn’t understand

people very well. A good example of this is that she struggles when talking to the

families of victims because she tends to tell too many gory details. At some point in the

series, she belittles each of her very intelligent and capable colleagues—

unintentionally—because she believes her own intelligence to be superior. Sometimes,

what she belittles are things that are deeply important to them, like mocking Booth’s faith

in God (he’s Catholic, she’s an atheist) or constantly disparaging psychology as a “soft

science” when she talks to Sweets, a psychologist and agent for the FBI. She doesn’t

apologize easily, again, because she believes she is always in the right.

Booth is almost her polar opposite in that he is much more sensitive and attuned

to people. Brennan herself characterizes their difference in the pilot when she identifies

him as a “heart person” and herself as a “brain person.” Booth relies on gut feelings for

his investigations and comes up with theories about motives that constantly irritate

Brennan because they lack any evidence. He puts a lot of faith in faith—whether

religious or personal. Also in the pilot episode, Booth offers Brennan her first lesson on

emotional intelligence by encouraging her to lie to spare the feelings of the parents of a

murder victim. She displays her ability to learn from him when in episode three, she

makes an effort to say something nice to a victim’s mother, for which Booth later

congratulates her. At the end of the pilot, he schools her in social interaction by saying

that if she’s going to ask someone a personal question, she needs to “offer something” of

herself first. She then obliges, and he responds in kind. In episode two, Booth teaches

Brennan that “partners share things” in order to get her to be more of a team player.

Neither Beckett nor Walker is as insensitive to the same degree. However, both

exhibit a reluctance to be emotionally open, much like Maddie and Laura. They worry

about getting involved with their partners because they fear vulnerability. At the end of

the season three finale, Castle tells Beckett he loves her, as she is critically wounded from

a gunshot. Throughout season four, she pretends that she can’t remember anything.

During sessions with her therapist, required by the department after she’s shot, she

frankly explains that she can’t indulge her emotional attachments while she’s still

consumed with finding her mother’s killer. Beckett also tends to be a very serious

professional, a trait of which we are reminded when Captain Montgomery tells her the

reason he assigned Castle to consult with her in the first place was because was because

as good a cop as she is, she wasn’t having any “fun” with her job until Castle came along

(03.24).

Walker’s fears stem as much from her belief that emotional attachments are a

problem for spies as from belief that she can’t be involved with Chuck because he’s

basically a civilian, and she will never be able to be her real self with him. During

“Chuck Versus the Sizzling Shrimp,” Chuck is desperate to learn something about her

that’s real because, after all, her cover role is as his girlfriend, and they have to work

together (01.05). She balks, saying it’s for security reasons, but really, it’s a personal

struggle. Walker can’t even tell him her real middle name—she can only whisper it,

looking forlorn, after he is out of earshot. She has dark secrets from her past that she

can’t willingly share, not without his coaxing or being forced to by circumstances beyond

her control, as when Chuck meets her father because he shows up out of the blue. Walker

is also vulnerable and afraid to open up because her last partner, who was also her

boyfriend, was killed.

Both Castle and Chuck, like Booth, are responsible for helping the women

embrace their emotional vulnerability, indulge their fun sides, and learn the value of not

just trust but intimacy as part of their partnership. They are the “heart” of the team (a

term used in episodes to describe both Booth and Chuck). Of course, it’s both progressive

and problematic that in these narratives the male partner mentors the female partner in

emotional growth. After all, attributing emotional intelligence to men who value

attachment and commitment certainly breaks down the binaries apparent in more

traditional thinking about male/female relationship roles. Showing that a heterosexual

relationship isn’t the primary motivator for the female character, that she won’t go to any

length to “get her man,” does the same thing. Plus, finding a male partner in love is now

being touted as one of the primary ways women achieve having it all—the career success,

the intimacy, the family life, a claim that successful corporate entrepreneurs Sheryl

Sandberg and Ursula Burns have both made and that is more recently becoming a bigger

part of discussions about women’s success in the working world.

The male partner does not dominate the female through his knowledge, at least in

terms of crime-fighting. Also, other characters in the shows act as emotional counsel for

the fighting females, like Brennan’s best friend Angela, Beckett’s friends and partners,

and Chuck’s best friend and his family helping out Walker. And there are also examples

of emotionally stunted men who have the same problem as the fighting females, like

Casey in Chuck or Zack in Bones. Still, in general, the male love buddy partner comes off

as the more open-minded and well-rounded person in comparison and contains the

smidge of a suggestion that Douglas sees in the enlightened male trope, “that it is smart,

modern men who will set women free” (214 Where the Girls Are), though these men are

a far cry from the distant, paternal Charlie, of Charlie’s Angels, whom Douglas uses to

make this assertion. Nevertheless, the fact that these love buddy male partners are able to

comfortably accept their feelings and make attempts not only toward intimacy but also

toward commitment while nevertheless being a productive, skilled, and capable figure

implies that “having it all” comes more easily to him. The fact that he entered the

partnership with his emotional skills, rather than having to learn them through the

partnership, indicates that his identity is somehow whole from the beginning.

Now, instead of the woman’s position as an authoritative, successful career figure

being questioned, it’s her ability to open up, to be whole—there is still a sense of lack in

Both highlight the important role their partners played in their success, Sandberg in her

book, Lean In, and Burns in interviews where she discusses her appointment as the Xerox

corporation CEO and the first black woman CEO of a Fortune 500 company (Berman).

the narratives about these otherwise amazing fighting females who do not “need” a man.

In the end, the fantasy tells us that yes, she is able to overcome her limitations. However,

the love buddy fighting female is portrayed as an engaging as a character before she

develops these traits, which occur over the long course of different series that must bank

on the fact that she has enough appeal to keep audience interest. Additionally, as I

mentioned when discussing the way nurturing and protection skills blur, her emotional

intelligence isn’t always as weak as it seems. Finally, she is always desirable to the

leading male, even before she can open up (in her most callous, driven, and serious state,

as with Maddie, Brennan, and Beckett), which further reinforces the idea that there is

more to her than just her ability to feel; immediate accessibility and approachability (a

personality trait long required for a woman to be appreciated) is not a requisite for her

value. In fact, access to her has to be earned by the male partner, as he proves himself

worthy of her trust. The fantasy works because it allows us to believe that women have

changed to correlate with our desire for empowered female models but also that men

have changed to make room for that empowerment and meet women’s desires for

partnership, as intimates and colleagues. The love buddy narratives cater to these beliefs.

Still, after over thirty years since the first love buddy narrative premiered, it all

comes down to two sides of the same concerns about women in the workplace in relation

to the heterosexual contract. After all, the fantasy developed amidst many other media

attempting to interrogate both the efficacy and the desirability of female breadwinners,

and this interrogation has not ceased. It has just taken on new forms. The idea of women

“opting out” of their career goals to become mothers and homemakers is one of the more

recent popular interrogations of women’s place in the workforce. Opting out has been

presumed to result from the impossibility of women achieving “work/life balance.”

Rather than directly question women’s aptitude (because that would be offensive since

we all know women can achieve whatever they want) the assertion is that they might

prefer to be with their families or prefer not to sacrifice their personal lives.

So, there is the problematic part of the fantasy of the empowered woman who gets

her career and her man (and today, a family to boot). Getting it all happens only thanks to

the presence of enlightened colleagues, a husband who’s in the business, and a 24-hour

workday, not thanks to changing workforce policies that make parenting on the job

easier. So, her success relies on an apparently gender-liberated space that looks nothing

like a real job. Getting it all also happens for her only after learning to trust her partner in

work and then working through the threats that intimacy present to her work partnership,

only after she learns how to be vulnerable and intimate. However much their power and

abilities can be more readily assumed, there remains an ambiguity about whether or not

they can deal with their empowerment, whether or not the strength and independence of

the modern woman’s identity, the authority they’ve achieved, and their accomplishments

require too much sacrifice or struggle.

Likewise, there is the problem of implied questioning of women in the workplace

being stunted emotionally, their identity fractured, without male guidance. This is tricky

because the narratives don’t question women being in the workplace—these

contemporary love buddy fighting females are presented unequivocally as effective

partners. Rather, they subtly privilege the male as complete, more integrated, by making

the female a constant work in progress. This preserves a mysterious sense of male

experience and knowledge, upholding some sense of male authority, even as his authority

in other areas, like being the sole protector and provider, becomes less assured.

We Can’t Forget the Fans

Feminist-Friendly Intimacy and Viewing Pleasure

As Susan Douglas rightly explains in Enlightened Sexism, popular culture is full

of embedded feminism, much more so than even thirty years ago, and requires us to ever

more deeply interrogate any seemingly feminist-oriented fantasies we see. This is

because “what the media giveth with one hand (which is why we love them), they taketh

away with the other hand (which is why they endlessly piss us off)” (9). The mass media

creates images of rebellion and enlightenment right along with images of conformity and

tradition, endlessly crafting contradictory messages about who women are (or who

women should be or want to be). The effect is an assumption that because there are

representations of liberated women onscreen that the culture at large readily embraces

women’s liberation, that equality has been achieved because we see it being enacted on

screen. Thus, nothing needs to be done to change reality because it’s expressed in the

fantasy.

This caution readily applies to images of fighting females and their hetero-

romances.

Still, even with the ambiguous representations of female empowerment as the

ideal and the questionable assertions of heterosexual intimacy as the source of female

transformation or male emotional authority, key elements of the love buddy fighting

female’s relationships do support what I have termed feminist-friendly love and indicate

a growing presence of seeing feminist-related identities being desirable rather than

See also Douglas Where the Girls Are.

punishable. A female protagonist who is assured in her identity as a smart, accomplished,

strong, capable, physical, sexual person doesn’t rely on a relationship to orient her sense

of self, give her life purpose or direction. Additionally, positioning heterosexual intimacy

within a sphere of multiple intimacies undermines the limitation of the isolated couple.

The couple may remain primary but does not have to be the only source of affection,

closeness, or even emotional security. And as the love buddy moved into the twenty-first

century, the fighting female’s intimacies began to include not only supportive male

characters but also female characters (a trend we’ll see again in chapter four). They were

no longer tokens, and many of these supportive females are themselves strong and

independent. All of these narratives pass the Bechdel Test and the elements respond to

vital concerns of feminists who question traditional notions that romance is assumed to

be the primary source of women’s identity or experience, as I addressed in the

introduction.

Also, encouraging women and men to relate as partners, to develop trust and

intimacy, to protect each other, to come together from shared values that include equality

and justice is essential to the ideal of egalitarian intimacy that would reduce relying on

traditional sex roles that are inherently hierarchical—another concern feminists I’ve

mentioned before now have had about romance and heterosexuality subjugating women.

This partnership orientation goes a long way toward undermining the heterosexual

contract and undermining characteristics that have long been tied definitions of female

identity because it relies on definitions of femininity that connote strength and

independence. Watching the love buddy fighting female in narrative after narrative

negotiate the fine line between independence and intimacy, engaging with the pleasant

titillations of will-they-won’t-they narratives, gives us a more rounded version of female

identity and helps us imagine the possibility of feminist-friendly love even as it reminds

us that such a love is at best hard-won, and we still have work to do.

The love buddy fighting female reveals both cultural fantasies and anxieties about

the empowered woman that coordinate with the growing number of fans like Brenda

Holmes (the Laura Holt fan) and myself who seek strong female roles onscreen who do

find real partners. The interplay between the fantasy and the fears can make for cautious

viewing but doesn’t erase the power of the fighting female. Problems aside, the

contemporary love buddy fighting female does get to have it all, falling more on the side

of fantasy-fulfilling than fear-mongering. Having it all in a culture that makes work/life

balance so difficult is the ultimate fantasy erasure of the reality that many people

experience in balancing their personal and professional lives or in breaking relationship

traditions.

For many women, such an idealized hetero-partnership is just a fantasy. Few of us

are anywhere near as attractive as these five leading ladies—one was a model (Cybil

Shepherd) and one plays a character who was a model before she was a cop (Stania

Katic)—and we are not all forgiven for our gender transgressions as readily. Also, many

women don’t have partners who are as enlightened or desiring of a strong, independent

woman as these leading men. The fantasy makes egalitarian intimacy seem like the way

to be, like it’s already the new status quo, so if it’s not a woman’s reality, then it can be

easy to assume the problem is unique to her (or her responsibility alone).

The love buddy fighting female character inclines more toward the “superwoman”

whom Douglas describes (“the size-six CEO with a Ph.D., two perfect children, a doting

husband, not a line on her face, and the ability to rebuild the car’s engine on the

weekends”) than the “bionic bimbo” pop version of the liberated female (a “superhuman

woman with lots of power, maybe even a gun, flouncy hair, a mellifluous voice, and erect

nipples”) (211 Where the Girls Are). Yet, not everything comes easily to her—her

triumphs are always hard won—and nothing in her life is actually perfect (except, of

course, for her looks). Presenting such an ideal does more than create a feel-good

smokescreen because it nonetheless asserts an ideal that’s alternative to lingering

traditional representations of hetero-relationships and gender roles. Sometimes, we need

to see a fantasy working before we can embrace it as a reality. All in all, the love buddy

fighting female remains a unique character. She constructs an empowered female identity

as a co-protector and a successful working woman that defies the longtime stereotypes of

heterosexual women onscreen and has immense appeal for female and male viewers.

The popularity of the love buddy helped usher in a variety of different television

programs featuring men and women in partnerships. In addition to the contemporary love

buddy narratives I’ve mentioned, there have been at least twenty-two different series

since 2000 that have relied on male and female partners, many of whom are platonic but

still intimate, a rare pairing before now. There are shows with a dual leads, like

Elementary (2012- ), Sleepy Hollow (2013- ), and Warehouse 13 (2009-14), with a

primary female character with a male partner like Veronica Mars (2004-07), In Plain

Sight (2008-12), or Covert Affairs (2010-14), or a primary male character with a female

partner like or Burn Notice (2007-13) or 24 (2001-10). Not all of them promote the same

fantasies of feminist-friendly love or are equally progressive, which isn’t to say they

aren’t compelling in different ways. These types of narratives are absolutely important

100

for showing men and women being able to work and succeed together, to show strong

women not as strident man-haters or villains or sidekicks but as equal partners who can

be independent and still enjoy hetero-intimacy. Conceiving such an interdependent

relationship belies the inaccessible, separatist, man-hating feminist stereotype that still

maintains an unfortunate hold in the cultural imagination, for as I discuss in chapter one,

these fighting females often function as the media archetype of a feminist; even if they

never apply the term to themselves, they perform as a liberated and liberating character.

Considering the female partner as hero, then, proves to be as essential as discussing

narratives focusing on just women as the hero. Interrogating onscreen hetero-romances as

part of that partnership might reveal representations of female empowerment as a double-

edged sword, but it’s at least a sword that she gets to wield while wearing her heart on

her sleeve.

101

CHAPTER THREE

Love Warrior: The Romaction Fighting Female on the Homefront

We are strong; no one can tell us we’re wrong.

Searchin’ our hearts for so long

Both of us knowing

Love is a battlefield.

—Pat Benatar, “Love Is a Battlefield,” 1983

This chapter addresses fighting females in the Romaction, a hybrid film genre that

combines the plots of both the romantic-comedy and action. While it has antecedents in

the 1980s and 1990s, it first emerged in 2005 with the blockbuster Mr. and Mrs. Smith. In

2010, three additional Romactions hit the screen: Date Night, Killers, and Knight and

Day. The Romaction fighting female (RFF) shares the lead with a male co-star as

partners in action and love. The Romaction is symbolically similar to the love-buddy

narratives addressed in chapter two because the Romaction also establishes the liberated

quality of the male/female pairing. For love buddies, the effect comes from storylines that

revolve around the public sphere and foster a fantasy of an egalitarian workplace that

maintains feminist-friendly hetero-intimacy for the strong, independent woman. In

Romactions, the storylines revolve primarily around the couple’s domestic life, often

taking place directly within their home, and construct a fantasy of an egalitarian domestic

partnership ideal wherein an empowered woman can thrive. In other words, the hybrid

genre attempts to envision a successful heterosexual relationship that stresses what

sociologist Kathleen Gerson refers to as a “flexible, egalitarian partnership with

considerable room for personal autonomy,” which her research leads her to claim both

men and women seek, and which I argue throughout this study has become essential to

feminist-friendly media iterations of women’s empowerment (11).

102

Like the other fighting female types I address, the RFF are all career women, and

most are portrayed at some point as natural aggressors who step up to the challenge of the

action plot and can at least throw a good punch, even though Romaction heroines exhibit

very wide-ranging levels of violence, from professional assassin to amateur civilian.

Unlike the other fighting females in this study, the RFFs are also generally associated

with the most traditional feminine role: that of homemaker and/or caretaker. The unusual

combination of combatant and nurturer is probably the clearest indicator that certain

arenas of American popular culture over the last few decades have begun to incorporate

the strong, independent woman ideal into female identity. The result, however, is not

without problems, as the more the narrative highlights the character’s nurturing qualities

and emotional work, the more likely she reinforces her male costar’s authority and takes

a back seat in the action, though this is not true for all RFFs.

The increased attention to the RFF’s role in the home is key to any potential

feminist-friendly love fantasies that might emerge through Romaction narratives. These

fantasies expose and endeavor to resolve male/female antagonisms prompted by a

changing domestic sphere, the flip side of women’s greater participation in the workforce

and the corresponding love-buddy fantasies. The Romaction achieves this resolution in

three feminist-informed ways. First, it appears to indict traditional forms of hetero-

romance for defying egalitarian partnerships that would serve both women and men.

Throughout the different Romactions, certain themes can be interpreted as attempts to

present more progressive and liberated co-leads who do not easily fit into a gender

hierarchy that privileges male authority, who reject stereotypical domestic roles, and

whose antagonists often espouse old-fashioned notions about hetero-relations. Second,

103

the Romaction resolution asserts an empowered female identity: the love warrior woman,

whose strength and independence work in conjunction with her role as wife (and

sometimes mother). This identity authorizes her to take down threats not only against

herself but also against her partner—in other words, she’s a woman who can fight for

love as her primary goal. Being able to function as a fighting female co-lead is integral to

this identity and reflects a position of parity for her character with male action heroes

who have characteristically been in charge of fighting for love, in one way or another.

Third, the Romaction resolutions seem to emphasize gender flexibility for men and

women and similarities between men and women as the basis of their hetero-

compatibility. In the ideal Romaction fantasy, both the female and male characters must

embody aggressive and nurturing abilities, both must pursue and protect the relationship

through emotional work and physical combat.

Before I examine these themes, I will first briefly explain how combining

plotlines from two genres, action and romantic-comedy, relates to the egalitarian hetero-

intimacy fantasy. I argue that the hybrid increases the narrative tension regarding the

Romaction couple’s domestic life to reflect a sense of crisis in hetero-intimacy that the

story can then remedy. In the next section, I outline the progression of the action film

toward the Romaction in relation to the fighting female’s evolution as a romantic interest

and capable combatant through the 1980s and 1990s. My analysis follows this outline,

focusing on the way Romaction, at its best, constructs hetero-intimacy as a level playing

field where the women are empowered and the men are enlightened and both are equally

capable of love and heroism. However, as I address in my final two sections, the

Romaction genre tends to remain problematic in terms of feminist-friendly romance.

104

First, the majority of the Romaction narratives cannot portray a truly egalitarian ideal.

Second, even the most egalitarian Romaction featuring the most accomplished female

love warrior identity renders a somewhat paradoxical version of liberating love because

of the way non-traditional, egalitarian intimacies intersect with implications of

heterosexual romance as a war of the sexes.

Hybridity

Where Oppositions Meet

In June of 2010, Washington Post staff writer Ann Hornaday explored the

budding Romaction trend in Hollywood films noting, “Action and romance are tying the

knot, brought together by a movie industry desperate for product that will appeal not just

to one demographic group (say, teenage boys) but two (teenage boys and their girlfriends,

sisters or even moms).” For Hornaday and the Hollywood studio execs she later quotes,

the hybrid genre merely represents another blockbuster gambit that says more about

production companies’ desires to fill the seats than their desires for unique plot lines.

However, the Romaction does more than direct women’s increased box-office

spending toward the action blockbuster. Rather, the hybrid both responds to and

constructs expectations that have arisen in certain areas of American culture for

representations of liberating love, which I believe can be achieved in narratives that

include more equally matched couples and that assert shared authority, or dependent

autonomy, as central to hetero-intimacy. By including fighting females in the romance

narrative and relying on tropes of romance as partnership, the Romaction continues and

contributes to the still burgeoning post-feminist discourse that suggests the desirability

and achievability of feminist-friendly intimacy for women and men. In the article

105

“Action-Adventure as Ideology,” Gina Marchetti offers some insight into both my

assumptions regarding the function of the Romaction as hybrid and my reading of

Romaction’s development when she explains how

[p]articular genres tend to be popular at certain points in time because they

somehow embody and work through those social contradictions the

culture needs to come to grips with and may not be able to deal with

except in the realm of fantasy. As such, popular genres often function in a

way similar to the way myth functions—to work through social

contradictions in the form of a narrative so that very real problems can be

transposed to the realm of fantasy and apparently solved there. (187)

What particular contradictions does the Romaction work through? Today, many

men and women don’t want their roles or behaviors to be dictated by their gender, yet

they still want to be free to choose conventional roles if it suits them. Some women want

to take care of themselves but also be able to depend on men when necessary. Some

women want to be seen as nurturing wives and capable mothers but not be defined purely

by their domestic roles. Some men want to be more nurturing and sensitive, yet they want

to identify themselves as masculine and tough. Also, like many women, some men may

also want to take on more responsibilities in the domestic sphere but also not be purely

defined by the role. It was only a few decades ago that reconciling these perspectives was

not possible, and it often remains a problem because traditional ideas about separate

spheres and gender roles in heterosexual relationships are still prevalent. Even feminists

and feminist allies who believe wholeheartedly in complete male and female equality

struggle to reconcile their personal and professional lives, their independent and

106

interdependent selves, and the ideals of equality they seek with the experiences of

inequality they often experience or witness. Essentially, there remains a sense of conflict

for anyone who desires to benefit from new identities that are more gender flexible and

from different possibilities for hetero-relational behavior that don’t rely on gender-

divisive roles.

An illustration of the entrenched conflicts between liberation and tradition can be

noted in the way the mass media addressed the recent economic downturn. The recession

in 2007-08, dubbed a “mancession” by Catherine Rampell writing for The New York

Times in 2009, rearranged male/female divisions of labor and intimate relations in the

home, and recharged many people’s uncertainty about gender roles. For a time, the jobs

where women have the larger presence, in sectors like health care and education, fared

better, while jobs like construction and manufacturing, where more men work, fared

worse. Men were characterized as at-risk by much of the media. Then, in 2011, as the

economy showed signs of improvement, it turned out that men fared better overall than

women. Rampell coined the term “hecovery” to reflect this phenomenon because men

gained jobs not only faster than women but women ended up with fewer jobs than before

the recession. The disparity retrained focus on women’s still precarious position in the

workplace. Rather than simply asserting a sense of competition between the sexes, the

reports of how “men’s jobs” and “women’s jobs” fared differently provided constant

reminders of men and women’s divided roles in the workforce left an impression that

hetero-relations had degraded as a result. In effect, the media response to the economic

downturn was filled with a sense of impending doom for men and women on a personal

level.

107

One of the most common concerns addressed by commentators and reported on

by journalists was the family burden caused as much by the challenge to both sexes in

their roles at work and at home as by the loss of financial security. In particular, the

media fixated on the ways men’s mental health suffered from a loss of the breadwinner

identity or from the humiliation of becoming dependent on their wives. Even stories that

reported men’s increasing appreciation for their role as a father or full-time parent still

addressed their emotional struggles and the toll that takes on the family.

Conversely,

those reporting on women’s small gains in economic influence generally qualified the

reports with reminders that women still don’t share an equal place in the workforce, at

least in terms of management and high-ranking careers.

All in all, the mass-media’s

treatment of the recession and its effects addressed both men and women but did so by

treating it as a gender-divisive issue. In so doing, the coverage added another facet to the

general sense of crisis for heterosexual relations that has been a regular theme post-

feminism.

These private and social conflicts are an example of the “very real problems”

Marchetti mentions that the Romaction fantasy attempts to work through and resolve.

The Romaction addresses individual conflicts in intimacy brought about by two equal,

independent, desiring people trying to negotiate interdependence without losing any of

their authority or agency. It also addresses public conflicts regarding intimacy caused by

the traditional ideas, values, and expectations about gender and sexuality that many still

hold and that can interfere with a couple’s efforts to achieve a more egalitarian

relationship. In other words, the contemporary Romaction hybrid offers a different

See Pappas; Mindy et. al.; and Griffin.

See Mulligan; Morello and Keating

108

ideological space in which to imagine the fighting female and also to work through what

Gerson identifies as “tensions between changing lives and resistant institutions [that]

have created dilemmas for everyone,” including in particular the ways “entrenched

conflicts between work and family life place mounting strains on adult partnerships” (6).

The Romaction’s dual plot structure and combination of two typically gender-

divided genres allows for the possibility of a unique resolution, which is the key aspect of

the cultural work occurring in the Romaction film-as-myth and central to any potential

feminist-friendly fantasy it may portray. By combining comic circumstances and

romantic action with a more equally-matched female and male protagonist than the

average action film and portraying more explosive, fast-paced action than the average

romance, the Romaction hybrid enacts the way today’s bigger intimacy conflicts need

bigger bangs to resolve them. Additionally, by offering two equally developed plot lines,

the Romaction doubles the impact of the resolution: that of the threat to the couple’s lives

through the action and the threat to their intimacy through the romance. Kiss, Kiss! Bang,

Bang!

Romaction Emerges

The Rise of Female Love Warriors

The ideological work accomplished by Romaction hybrids would not be possible

without the inclusion of a fighting female in the narrative. The empowered female

identity of the love warrior she represents is, conversely, enabled by the hybrid, which

requires her to face two crises (one internal to the couple and one external) and fight for

life and love, equally. Romantic comedies have always required hetero-co-leads, but the

109

action genre has always been more male-centric, and in both genres, the male tends to be

more responsible for ensuring the future of the romance, either fighting to get the girl

back or to save the girl, respectively. The action genre has also often marginalized

women’s positions in the narrative and tended to rely on traditional stereotypes in

women’s roles, where the female character inclines toward passivity and victimization. In

order for the Romaction hybrid to work, and her empowered identity to be enacted, a co-

lead fighting female needed to be introduced into, and remain throughout, the narrative—

at the very least so that she could be there throughout the action to participate in the

relationship drama (instead of hidden off screen until the hero’s triumphant finale when

he saves her).

Romancing the Stone (1984) and Jewel of the Nile (1985) probably come to mind

for many as 1980s Romaction films, as they did for Hornaday. Both films do certainly

provide a fighting female, and Joan Wilder (Kathleen Turner) is most certainly a co-lead

as opposed to a sidekick or supporting role, which was extremely rare—if not brand

new—in an action film when the movies were released. Plus, a romance novelist who

refuses to give up her search for the right man seems good candidate for a love warrior.

However, both of the movies better fit into the more typical action-adventure genre where

the story’s motivating influence is some quest or mission, and the romance occurs as a

consequence of rather than an equal or even primary motivator for the events. Joan

doesn’t fight for love; she fights to save her sister, who has been kidnapped by a

Columbian drug cartel. Additionally, Michael Douglas’ character tends to be responsible

for most of the fighting and saving, until the film’s end. Consider these two films in

relation to the Indiana Jones franchise, the Alain Quartermain movies, and the like. The

110

women in these are fighters and ready definitely for adventure. Yet, they contribute little

to the action and even less to heroic resolution of the plot; they must regularly be saved

as much from their misguided assumptions of invulnerability as from harm; and love is

always a subplot.

Kathleen Turner’s character grows from a mousy, house-bound novelist into a

feisty heroine, and she does shoot the bad guy at the end of Romancing, so she certainly

fits the fighting female bill. Still, she’s a far cry from the passionate, calculating, and

substantially more violent character she plays in the lesser-known but critically acclaimed

1985 film Prizzi’s Honor. With the film’s more supposedly masculine-characterized ties

to the mafia/gangster/crime film being combined with a central story of romance, it was

really the only 1980s film that included the kind of male/female couple dynamic that

would become integral to later Romactions and that are central to the feminist-friendly

fantasy of hetero-intimacy they attempt to enact. Turner’s character Irene Walker is a

freelance mafia assassin, and her paramour, Charley Partana (Jack Nicholson), is an

enforcer for the mob. They are essentially equals as professionals and in their violent

capabilities, which reflects the Romaction theme of gender-flexibility and non-

stereotypical gender roles as a basis for hetero-attraction. However, Walker pays dearly

for her abilities and gets killed by her husband Charley, who has been ordered by the Don

to take her out (for the good of the family). Ultimately, her fate implies that the cultural

imagination of the 1980s was not yet able to envision a fighting female fantasy in which

the violent woman is not deviant and does not pay for her transgressions. In the end,

111

Irene’s fate parallels that other notorious 1980s twisted femme fatale: Alex Forrest, from

Fatal Attraction (1987).

In general, the 1980s were a decade when the mass media struggled to find a

place for the fighting female in love, even if the character had achieved a modicum of

popularity in narratives that didn’t involve romance.

The 1990s were really when the

first versions of violent fighting females in love emerged in a few proto-Romaction-type

movies, but almost none of the women held co-star status. In 1992, the third Lethal

Weapon franchise was the first to introduce a fighting female action character who was a

successful love interest: Rene Russo’s tough, high-kicking Lorna Cole. But she’s far from

a leading protagonist in the film—her name didn’t make it on the poster head, and her

romance with Martin Riggs (Mel Gibson) stays firmly in subplot territory, on the margins

with Riggs’ previous supporting ladies (keeping good company with his partner

Murtaugh’s family and with Holly McClaine from the Die Hard films).

The Lethal Weapon franchise did, however, introduce one element that created an

inroad to the Romaction narrative by bringing the domestic sphere into the action: not by

putting the ladies in danger, which had been done before in the first and second films

with Murtaugh’s daughter and Rigg’s paramours). It literally brought the family abode

into the picture. Murtaugh’s house gets blown up in the movies as much as the family

station wagon gets totaled. Situating the action in the private sphere, instead of some

random public or foreign place, reflects what Elizabeth Abele describes as “a reclamation

Turner’s next most violent female role, Barbara Rose in War of the Roses (1989) also

died for her violence, but then, so did her husband.

For the most part, the most violent fighting female action protagonists in the 1980s

were single females like Sigourney Weaver’s Lt. Ripley, but she didn’t kill people, only

aliens.

112

of home, creating a place for the hero at the hearth, in a more intimate community, with

less restrictive gender and racial boundaries,” which I see as an important advent in

action and the development of both the Romaction fantasy and its love warrior woman

(9).

Additionally, like Prizzi’s Honor, Lethal Weapon 3 emphasizes the similarities

between romance partners as a positive basis for their relationship, rather than as a source

for conflict or dislike. Riggs and Cole are equally stubborn, gruff, and non-nurturing;

both tend to be loners; and both are capable fighters who use a lot of martial arts moves.

They aren’t particularly well-liked by their colleagues. They’ll both do whatever it takes

to get the bad guy. They have similar battle scars, which they compare during a moment

of intimacy (a move that would reappear in the first Romaction, Mr. and Mrs. Smith).

The film also emphasizes that Riggs is attracted to Cole’s fighting ability and trusts her to

take care of herself. When some thugs they are questioning accost Riggs, Murtaugh, and

Cole, Murtaugh wants to help Cole, but Riggs stops him, saying, “No, I want you to see

something. She has a gift. Watch this.” Lorna then proceeds to take down five guys,

breaking bones and destroying property, in true Riggs style. Ultimately, the movie

depicts the first version of a truly violent fighting female in a hetero-romance who gets to

have the happy romantic ending (and by Lethal Weapon 4, who gets to have it all when

she and Riggs have a baby). Still, Cole’s character still remains firmly on the sidelines of

both films featuring her.

The same sidelining occurs for Jaime Lee Curtis’ character, Helen Tasker, in True

Lies (1994). Yet, the movie is important in the Romaction development timeline again for

integrating the hero’s home life into the action narrative. Harry Tasker (played by classic

113

action hero Arnold Schwarzenegger) has to deal with an unruly daughter, family dinners,

and a typical family routines, which establish Harry as not just a super-spy but also an

average Joe. Furthermore, the home life enters Harry’s workplace when he uses his CIA

resources to help with his marital issues and when his wife Helen becomes a spy and his

partner for the same government agency where Harry works at the end of the film. True

Lies also establishes some important tropes that are replayed in Romaction themes and

that set the movie apart from other action or romantic-comedy genres. First, and most

important, the double-threat: the marital relationship is rocky, and the family’s lives are

endangered by terrorists. The action resolves both. Specifically, the marriage has become

dull, routine, and because of this, Helen lets herself be enticed into a (fake) spy scheme

by Simon (Bill Paxton), a car salesman who pretends to be an agent to pick up women.

When Harry learns of her boredom, he decides to set up his own scheme to rekindle the

romance. In a sense, their relationship puts Helen, and later, their daughter, in mortal

danger because he accidentally put her on the enemy’s radar with his plan to seduce

Helen using the agency’s safe house. He must act to save both the romance and the world

with the action by fighting the terrorists who have his family. Thus, the internal

relationship work and the external problems entwine in a dual narrative.

The movie also projects an assumption that even the most unassuming, domestic

women prove to be natural, enthusiastic fighters, tying two opposing roles together.

Helen seems more than prepared for a more exciting life outside of domesticity and the

humdrum of her clerical job. That’s why she agrees first to Simon’s ridiculous scheme

and then later the mission she thinks she’s being given by the government (even though

it’s actually her husband creating a ruse to romance her). As soon as the going gets tough,

114

Helen has no problem kicking balls, punching her husband (for lying to her), smashing

chairs against mirrors (or a phone against a face, again, her husband’s), slapping a villain,

or handling a gun (even if she handles it poorly). When Harry sees a room full of dead

men, thinking that Helen was responsible for killing them all (even though it was a

random act committed by an Uzi tumbling the stairs), he is visibly impressed. Helen is

violent mainly by accident, but by the end of the film, she has become a full-fledged

agent and partner to her husband, gaining an important egalitarian position from which

the RFF would later climb. This resolution establishes another important Romaction

theme, where violence acts as the precursor to rekindled passion. The fighting female

must prove herself capable of action violence before she can be a fit match for the action

hero so the romance can gain narrative prominence.

However, True Lies remains firmly in the proto-Romaction territory because it

lacks the full egalitarian basis of co-leads who work together throughout the narrative—a

lack also made apparent by the movie’s production details. After all, as great as Curtis is

in her supporting role, True Lies is undeniably a Schwarzenegger film (only his face and

name grace the cover of the movie poster and VHS/DVD cover). Additionally, the film

focuses more on masculine crisis than on the couple’s shared struggle toward egalitarian

intimacy. The overarching theme is that Harry is not man enough to have a full work and

home life, that he is to blame for his wife’s boredom and his daughter’s disrespect, and

that he must fulfill his masculine role as protector to make things better.

Schwarzenegger’s position as the primary hero is highlighted by the fact that near the

final climax, he leaves his wife to save their daughter, without even informing Helen that

their daughter has been kidnapped. As he flies away, Helen has a bewildered look on her

115

face. So, aside from the machine-gun misfire incident, she never has a chance to save

him, and she has no input in the fight. In other words, she contributes almost nothing to

the action and never quite enacts the love warrior identity. One might say this is because

she’s an amateur, but that doesn’t stop some of the later Romaction heroines from at least

being given the chance. The box-office successes of Lethal Weapon 3 & 4 and True Lies

certainly contributed to their influence as test cases for the love warrior woman—after

all, as Hornaday mentions, Hollywood likes to pursue the tried and true. Still, in my

opinion, the imbalances in these proto-Romactions qualify the egalitarian potential of the

intimate relationships and the requisite basis of gender-flexibility for a successful hetero-

romance the later Romaction films attempt to present. Thus, they undermine the fantasy

the fighting female portrays overcoming obstacles to feminist success in order to imagine

the strong, independent woman in love.

The only killer woman character who gets to have it all as a co-star came out a

year after Lethal Weapon 3: the box-office disaster, Undercover Blues (1993). The

fighting female, played again by Kathleen Turner as Jane Blue, is capable of as much

violence as her husband, Jeff Blue (Dennis Quaid). They are both spies who are happily

retired after the birth of their daughter. The film paints an idyllic picture of their marriage

as true equals, emphasizing the similarity in both characters’ gender-flexibility as they

take turns caring for the baby and shooting bad guys. Only the film has no romance

drama; it has no inflections of the crisis in hetero-relations that are integral to

interrogations of hetero-intimacy in the Romaction. They are happily married at the start,

and they don’t have a single fight with each other. It’s really more of an action film that

just happens to have a married couple as protagonists. Unfortunately, not very many

116

people enjoyed it as much as I did. The film didn’t make much of an impact on general

audiences and received lackluster reviews as “a perfectly enjoyable, completely

forgettable hour and a half” (Horwitz). Its poor box office returns ensured that studio

executives would not see it as a template for success on which to base future action

movies. Still, the fact that it included a co-lead violent fighting female in a happy

relationship was notable and in keeping with the other experiments with fighting females

in love during the decade.

What we see happening in the early 1990s is evidence of the difficulty action had

being extracted from the traditions of its genre, at least in terms of female representation.

None of these women are love warriors and tend more toward the sidekick position. Still,

the narratives attempt to navigate the fighting female character who gained more status

during the latter part of the decade, but until the 2005 release of Mr. and Mrs. Smith, the

majority of the fighting females in the period tended toward the lone-wolf hero, a point I

will address more in chapter four. Hilary Neroni overviews a few exceptions to the single

fighting female during this period, including Juliette Lewis in Natural Born Killers,

Angela Bassett’s character in Strange Days (1995), Frances McDormand in Fargo

(1996), and Geena Davis in The Long Kiss Goodnight (1997). All of these women play

fighting females (and three of them are extremely violent) who all end in successful

romances. However, as Neroni’s excellent analysis points out, the narratives go to great

lengths to erase the “trauma” of their violence and make them suitable partners, including

disjointed narratives, separating their violence from their femininity, or flipping gender

roles with their paramours rather than blending them (113). Also, only two of the

narratives had the fighting female sharing the lead with her love interest. In Fargo and

117

The Long Kiss Goodnight, the romance was all on the margins. It wasn’t until Mr. and

Mrs. Smith that a fighting female shared a co-lead position where both characters shared

gender-flexibility, finally breaking down the action genre’s gender hierarchy and

tendency to rely on traditional depictions of hetero-intimacy. In 2010, three additional

Romactions hit theaters: Killers, Date Night, and Knight and Day, each presenting a

variation on the Mr. and Mrs. Smith theme. Before turning to these most recent

Romactions, I will first focus in detail on Mr. and Mrs. Smith to establish its position as

the Romaction standard that presents a feminist-friendly love fantasy based on an

egalitarian couple and the new conflicts they face together.

The Egalitarian Couple

Hot and Deadly

Mr. and Mrs. Smith differs from most of the preceding narratives first in that the

stars are on equal footing as co-leads in the film. Brad Pitt and Angeline Jolie received

equal salaries of $20 million, each, for their roles. They are both on the movie posters and

VHS/DVD cases, posed as mirror reflections, aside from the wardrobe. From a

professional standpoint, they thus have equal status in the film’s production. They are

pictured together at the film’s beginning and ending, the majority of the scenes feature

both characters at the same time, and all of the plot advancement relies on both

characters. Additionally, the film is a true hybrid, seamlessly intertwining the rom-com

and action narratives by affording as much screen time to violence and action as to the

romance and reconciliation—even better, the latter occurs at the same time as the former.

As characters, Mr. and Mrs. Smith are equal in skill, equally responsible for the

misunderstandings that lead to their intimacy problems, and equal in efforts to repair the

118

relationship. They are both empowered individuals who empower each other as partners

throughout, and by the end, they come together to represent an enlightened couple

because they are liberated by egalitarian intimacy that matches their strong, independent

qualities. All of these aspects establish Mr. and Mrs. Smith as the über-Romaction.

To provide a quick précis of the film, the story begins “five or six years” into

John (Brad Pitt) and Jane’s (Angelina Jolie) marriage as they sit in a counselor’s office to

discuss the lost spark. Flashbacks show us that they met in a city under siege (Bogotá,

Columbia) and fell in love while a revolution raged in the background. Back in the states,

they have a short courtship and marry. Returning to the film’s present, the narrative

reveals that they both work as assassins for different firms and neither knows about the

other’s real job. Unfortunately, their companies are competing firms (like “Macy’s and

Gimball’s,” as one character later describes it), and the companies put bounties on the

couple’s heads to end the unsanctioned union. John and Jane, upon learning they are both

assassins, first have to learn to trust each other again before they can fight to save their

lives and their marriage, which they do, with a fantastic amount of carnage.

Since this is a study on fighting females, I will explore the first part of the

egalitarian couple, Jane Smith. Her character is depicted as one of the most violent

fighting females to ever find and keep true love on the big screen and be alive by the end,

at least at the time of the film’s release.

While her violence is justified by her work as

an assassin, she has no conflicts about her work—she enjoys it, she’s good at it, and she

has no regrets (and no trouble sleeping). I would argue that the full expression of the

This honor even extends to the small screen, where Sydney Vaughn (Jennifer Garner)

on Alias is probably the first excessively violent woman in love to stay in love by the

series’ end, but the series finale portraying this happy ending doesn’t occur until 2006.

119

Romaction hybrid as feminist-friendly love fantasy would not be possible without just

such a violently “empowered” woman as Jane represents. Her violence aside, she also

emblematizes the modern woman who has achieved full equality in life and has a strong,

independent identity.

Consequently, Jane suffers none of the crippling practical circumstances that

disempower women—for example, physical and intellectual constraints and economic

dependencies. Additionally, Jane offers a blend of typically masculine and feminine

traits, combining violent actions with allure, strength with beauty. Scenes where Jane

breaks a target’s neck with a swift but somehow delicate twist; where she calmly smashes

a stalling informant’s face with a telephone; where she refuses to fall apart after she

thinks her husband, John, tried to kill her; and where she tells John that she doesn’t even

have trouble sleeping after a kill confirm her physical prowess, emotional fortitude, and

her gender flexibility. She never once screams in fear, though she grunts and growls with

rage. The film casually celebrates and naturalizes her violence. Far from making her

seem threatening or transgressive for her easy killing ways, her violence defines part of

her personality as no-nonsense and powerful—and this is part of what makes her so

compelling as a character and so alluring to John, which I’ll explain more when I turn to

his character. The audience also sees that Jane is equally versed in complex technology

through her use of myriad computers, gadgets, and guns; in strategic planning based on

her ability to organize intricate assassinations with clockwork precision; and in current

events that keep her up late reading the newspaper and able to coolly answer a Jeopardy

question as she’s heading to complete an assassination. Jane has not just risen beyond the

glass ceiling; she has blasted through it with a tactical shotgun.

120

As if her capabilities needed any additional emphasis, the financial independence

and success in Jane’s work life as a professional killer—with a swank downtown New

York office and what seem to be several other brilliant and attractive female employees

or associates ready to follow her every command—appears to balance perfectly with her

idyllic suburban personal life. She has the white clapboard house, the lovely décor

(including new curtains that she wrangles from a “tea sandwich of a man” who also

wanted them), a big kitchen, and the requisite hubby. At every turn, she projects a version

of the superwoman who has and can do everything, including achieving the mythically

desirable balance of personal and professional success. She may have people to kill and

danger to face, but she will always have dinner on the table by seven or be home in time

for the Coleman’s party.

Further evidence of the empowered woman ideal informing Jane’s character is

that she not only proves to be non-maternal (shown by her clear discomfort with and lack

of interest in children when she is forced to hold a neighbor’s baby) and non-domestic

(when we find out later in the film that all of the dinners she “made” were actually made

by one of her employees because she “has never cooked a day in her life”), but that she

also does not have to suffer for her gender transgressions by dying or ending up alone.

When the façade of domestic bliss crumbles, her personal life actually improves, fitting

better than ever with her professional life, another point in the film’s narrative to which I

will return.

These are the fates that Neroni notes for the truly transgressive violent woman.

The traits don’t mean a woman can’t be maternal and domestic and still empowered.

Rather, they reflect an acceptance of her non-conformity, freeing her from traditional

conceptions of what an appropriate female candidate for romance should be like.

121

Lest I forget to mention an important part of the fighting female feminist-friendly

love fantasy, I must note how Jane manages to be and do it all while remaining

impeccably, effortlessly gorgeous and with a comfortable sense of her own sexuality—no

frumpy or frigid off-putting feminist stereotype here. While detailing Jolie’s own

attractiveness seems unnecessary, Jane’s appearance deserves notice, as her costumes

connote an intriguing mix of gender-blending influence. In one of the film’s early scenes,

we see her in a sheer white cotton tank and skirt—certainly appropriate for the

assassination work she apparently just completed as inferred from the sleek knife she

slips into a thigh holster resembling a white garter. Then, following another kill scene

where she dresses as a dominatrix in a black patent-leather merry-widow, the

accompanying thigh-high boots and fishnet hose become part of the pink and frilly outfit

she wears to the Coleman’s suburban mingler. For work, she wears visibly high-end,

designer power outfits—sleek, in monochrome beiges and blacks—with impossibly high

heels, and in the field, she wears sweat-stained camo with military-issue boots. Then,

there is the classic man’s suit that both John and Jane don for the climactic fight scene

(though hers covers a midriff-baring Kevlar)—chic, no-nonsense, and semi-androgynous.

The juxtaposition of her wardrobe styles, where masculine blends fashionably

with feminine, conservative mixes with sexy, emphasizes the posturing quality of

contemporary women’s clothes and aligns with feminist readings of gender as a

masquerade, a construction people slip into and out of with ease. The way Jane wears

each outfit, exuding confidence, unselfconsciously captivating, asserts her sexuality as

power, not something to be ashamed of or to hide in a way that would make Germaine

Greer or Madonna proud. From the outside in, Jane seems in complete control and fully

122

emancipated/empowered. She is the product of the feminist dream, or at least some

versions of it. All in all, Jane is a model example of Susan Hopkins’ girl hero, who “has

entered virtually every sphere of male power” and become “a heroic over-achiever—

active, ambitious, sexy and strong. She emerges as an unstoppable superhero, a savvy

super-model, a combative action chick” (1). What’s more, there is no question that her

sex or gender in any way holds her back, making her further proof of feminist success.

After all that, what better to top Jane’s tasty feminist sundae of a life than the

proverbial juicy cherry of a hot, progressive hubby? Enter male protagonist John Smith,

the man with everything to complement the woman who has it all, and the other integral

number to the egalitarian Romaction equation. The narrative portrays John as

independent and accomplished like Jane. He is a partner in another successful

assassination firm, he is equally skilled in guns and combat, and we know he contributes

a fair share of financial security to the home, as one might assume upon seeing the large

stash of cash he keeps literally “buried under the tool shed.” It might be fair to say that

the movie more explicitly emphasizes Jane’s success by showing all that she can do well,

but one could argue that what John does is not as important as who John is. Certainly, as I

pointed out, John proves himself talented in many of the same ways as Jane: there’s no

question of his own success, strength, intelligence, or his sex appeal. Instead, the

narrative focuses more on establishing his position as the new male, the complement to

Jane’s empowered fighting female, a character of distinctly gender-blended nuance who

functions to further empower his heroine partner.

With the metrosexual’s flare for nice clothes and good cigars and the action

hero’s total cool, he can kill four men without mussing his dapper business casual attire

123

(no bloody white tanks and bare feet for this John). Refreshingly sentimental, he can then

forgo piles of cash flying around in the violent aftermath for the engraved flask given to

him by Jane, “an anniversary present.” With the stud’s sexual appeal and the romantic

hero’s chivalry, he not only woos the independent and exciting Jane with his playful and

passionate sexuality, but he also sticks around to make her breakfast the next morning

(after the rest of the staff has fled because of the revolution—he jokes about having to

milk a goat to make her coffee). Jumping right into a marriage proposal after six weeks of

courtship, we see this new man isn’t afraid of commitment, and nary a stereotypical scene

of pre-wedding jitters or post-wedding regret spoils his enthusiasm. Even the

dissatisfaction or frustration he feels about married life, which Jane also feels, isn’t

something he experiences with cynicism about how awful marriage is supposed to be (a

stereotypical male refrain in much of popular culture). He is sad and ready to work to

improve things.

The narrative regularly emphasizes John’s own liberated masculinity (and thus

liberating, for her) by contrasting him with Eddie (Vince Vaughan), John’s friend, who is

a typical male chauvinist type: bitterly divorced and living with his mother, “Because

that’s the only woman [he’s] ever trusted.” Eddie as a sexist foil continually discourages

John’s impulses toward commitment and intimacy with his wife. Eddie stereotypically

denigrates Jane’s position as the ol’ ball and chain by asking John if he needs to “give her

a call in case you decide to scratch your ass…make sure she thinks it’s okay” when John

says he’ll “talk to the missus” about attending a barbeque at Eddie’s house that is for

“dudes only.” Eddie also eagerly calls for John to kill Jane, in return for her confused

attempt to kill John because wives “all try to kill you—slowly, painfully, cripplingly.”

124

Eddie’s exaggerated misogyny further highlights John’s position as a female-empowering

male. As John never once dignifies Eddie’s digs about John’s masculinity with any kind

of response, the audience can infer that the old relationship models and their related

conflict rules—which echo much of Eddie’s amusing, stereotypical rhetoric—don’t have

anything to do with John.

Another important aspect of who John is in this new female-empowering male

persona involves his comfort with his wife’s many successes and abilities. Describing

Jane to Eddie, to justify his whirlwind proposal, John says, “I’m in love. She’s smart,

sexy.” Such a response seems fairly generic—who wouldn’t say as much about her or his

betrothed? But when he continues his explanation, he shows appreciation for her passion:

“She’s uninhibited, spontaneous, complicated.” Finally, he describes her professional

expertise—based on what he thinks her real job is when they start dating—by saying,

“She’s like Batman for computers,” his appreciation takes on more weight. After all, he

has just situated his respect for her by likening her abilities to a superhero—a male one at

that, with nary a concern about “masculinizing” her or, rather, emasculating himself by

association. Later in the film, after he has become acquainted with her violent profession

as an assassin for a rival company, his appreciation for her skills becomes the most

apparent. At different moments, he looks at her with a variety of pride, amusement,

appreciation, lust, and yes, some fear, as she exhibits her violent talents. None of this

changes his feelings for her or makes him feel she is unfit as a partner. He is perfectly

comfortable seeing her as a lover and a threat, a wife and a fighter, and as desirable,

independent, and capable. Such traits need not be mutually exclusive for the new man.

125

In addition to what I see as representations of gender flexibility that are important

to the feminist-friendly love fantasy, the narrative continually emphasizes similarities,

how Jane and John are alike, without apparent regard to their sex, specifically in terms of

their action-embedded intimate relations. This crucial element in the Romaction works

toward establishing their equality and contributes to readings of the liberated and

empowering nature of their union. They both take pleasure in what they do, as indicated

by shared moments of whimsy as they fight together in the warehouse store; by their

shared look of amusement when John breaches Jane’s workspace, and she cleverly

escapes; by their mutual flirtatious taunting, calling each other’s bluffs, when John falls

into Jane’s elevator trap. They also both take equal responsibility for the relationship

work. For instance, there are several decisive moments in their relationship trajectory,

places in the plot where the action and intimacy most thoroughly coincide where it would

be very easy to have one or the other protagonist take the lead (which was the typical tack

in the proto-Romactions I addressed and could signify a power imbalance that would

contradict the level partnership fantasy the narrative promotes).

First, when the couples meet for the first time in Bogotá, even though they are

strangers, they simultaneously approach each other in an unspoken, shared “cover” as a

couple to avoid police who are searching for “tourists traveling alone.” Quick close-ups

for the audience’s eyes only flash from Jane’s thigh, where she slides a knife into a

hidden holster, to John’s back, where he covers a gun sticking out of his belt. The

association of shared violent purposes and initial coupling stresses their similarities as

does the fact that they are both turned on by combat, either against others (as in Bogotá)

or against each other (in a later—dare I say epic—intimate fight scene in their own

126

home). Then, there’s the moment when near the film’s end the couple faces a final attack

from the mass of assassins their companies hired to kill them. John and Jane storm out of

their makeshift shelter together, having agreed to fight their way out as a team, defeating

the enemy not just as partners but almost as one—emphasized by the way their

movements are initially synchronized, then coordinated, like a violent dance.

Returning to the epic combat scene in their home as one of the decisive moments

for their fate as a couple, John does, in fact, initiate the ceasefire. The scene follows Jane

and John’s house-wrecking, fight-to-the-death cum foreplay-to-reconciliation. When face

to face and gun to gun, John lowers his weapon first, while Jane angrily yells,

“don’t…come on,” unwilling until the very last moment to concede to romance and the

powerful “key kiss.”

Admittedly, John’s refusal to “take the shot” could be seen as a

typical enactment of male privilege and control, where he feels an innate “masculine”

responsibility to protect her or where he steadfastly refuses to listen to what she says she

wants and denies her autonomy, respectively. Referring to just this kind of typical

masculine posturing in romantic comedies, Rubinfeld sees that such an “insistence on

male persistence, of course, reinforces male dominance, just as the heroine’s ‘giving in’

reinforces female deference” (10).

However, by the time this scene plays, the narrative and characterization have

established that Jane does not need to be protected. She can more than fend for herself

and even be a serious threat. She also very clearly loves John and has no intention of

actually killing him (otherwise, why would she have been upset when at one point in the

Rubinfeld defines the concept of the “key kiss” as “signifying an end to resistance, a

recognition of romantic love, a declaration of commitment, a portent of permanent union,

and a pleasurable closure to the narrative” (6).

127

film she thought he was actually dead?). She also doesn’t want him to leave when things

get really hot and she suggests they take their individually planned escapes (otherwise,

why would she have stuck with him so long in the conflict before suggesting the out?).

While I won’t deny readings of these characters as problematic, I still feel that in and of

themselves, they fall on the constructive side of fantasies about feminist intimacy that

leans toward modern romance as a place where couples meet and work together as

equals, not as traditional patriarch/wife or as two halves of a companionate whole. They

are each whole and capable, and they choose each other for their personal qualities, not

for the gender-prescriptive role each wants the other person to play. I would argue that

the hybrid nature of the Romaction makes such an emphasis on egalitarian compatibility

more feasible than the regular romantic comedy or action narrative structure. Love

occurring between equally talented men and women working together happens in both,

but the gender flexibility and balance of power tend not to have nearly the emphasis that

becomes possible in Romaction specifically because the partnership can be more

explicitly enacted through shared action prowess as much as actual characterization.

Liberating Conflict

New Relationship Rules

“Are you getting enough action at home?”

At the same time that Mr. and Mrs. Smith’s Romaction protagonists affirm the

modern egalitarian couple who are equally empowered and who are eventually freed

from constraints of unenlightened gender politics, the film satirizes conventional

domesticity and traditional intimacy roles thus underscoring restrictive cultural norms

Mr. and Mrs. Smith DVD insert

128

that, from the perspective of the narrative, encourage intimacy conflicts. Through this, the

Romaction demonstrates how feminist-friendly intimacy must authenticate itself against a

backdrop of restrictive cultural norms.

In the previous section, I mentioned that even though the Smiths seem to have it

all, something is missing: the perfect balance all turns out to be a charade—literally,

where John and Jane perform their married roles. Throughout the beginning of the film,

the narrative relates evidence of John and Jane’s dissatisfaction about and dissembling

within their marriage to scenes of traditional or “normal” relationship encounters like

couple’s therapy, where the more within the ranges of the norm they seem to be, the more

out of sync and unhappy they are. At the same time, those social norms are shown in

direct contrast to their private longings and interests as individuals and, thus, as part of a

liberated couple. Following a short opening scene where John and Jane have an initial

meeting with a couple’s therapist, the narrative flashes back to the couple meeting in

Bogotá amidst the dangerous chaos of revolution, the Romaction’s version of the “meet

cute.” They dance in the rain, finish a bottle of hard liquor together, and greet the

morning together drinking coffee while the walls of their hotel shake around them from

bombs going off nearby. They are happy being themselves, connecting through their

shared fearlessness and playfulness, and their interaction follows no traditional script for

either the romantic comedy or the action film. Surrounded by danger, they seem

comfortable, companionable and passionate, as though their individual danger-seeking

natures fit well together. I don’t know about other viewers, but I can say I generally don’t

associate the kind of people who would find this kind of risk exciting with the kind of

people who would attend couple’s therapy.

129

What happens between Bogotá and their first therapy session? John and Jane get

married. Only after marriage enters the relationship does the couple start to perform the

traditional gender roles that eventually translate into the conventional—and restrictive—

domesticity that dismantles the egalitarian basis of their intimacy. The first indicator of

trouble ahead, I would argue, is when John and Jane are on a date at the carnival. They

play a shooting game. Jane, after looking at John somewhat warily, pretends to not be

able to aim well during her first attempt—she misses all the shots deliberately. When

John takes a turn, he hits all but one target, claiming “beginner’s luck.” One could say

that Jane flubs her shots not to play the typical female role but to keep her assassin skills

secret and prevent John from being curious. If that is the case, then why, after John’s

turn, would she try again and hit every target (also citing, “beginner’s luck)? My answer

is that, either way, she ends by deferring to John—either in shooting poorly the first time

because she thought it would be expected of her or in waiting until he does well before

she can. During the courtship, she has already begun performing her role as the

traditional female who must nurture the male’s ego and not express any kind of alpha

tendencies. After the marriage, Jane takes this performance even further, where the only

real skills John sees—within the narrative frame—from Jane are domestic ones: cooking,

decorating, and dressing. Her “real” self has been effaced, and John has felt it. He is no

longer full of compliments about Jane’s skills as he was during their courtship; rather, he

is reduced to irregular, awkward compliments about dinner or about a dress he thinks is

pretty because he has no other way to relate to or appreciate her.

The rest of the early film scenes, before their secrets emerge, depict their marriage

as bogged down in a supposedly normal domestic routine implying that, because of this

130

and the role-playing, the marriage has gotten oppressive. The narrative emphasizes the

monotony first through a repetition that specifically implicates conventional domesticity

as the source of the inertia. For example, the phrase “dinner is at seven” (“it always is,”

John says at one point) gets repeated at least three times, as does the phrase “perfect

timing” (to which John once replies, “as always”), which is mentioned in relation to meal

times. These moments communicate, through repetition, an effect that Virginia Wexman

describes as “a quality of obsessive return that presents the characters as part of an

inflexible social and psychological milieu in which they feel trapped and helpless” (174).

As if the very fact that John and Jane replay an old marriage custom of the husband

returning home from work to dinner the wife (apparently) cooked is a kind of domestic

spontaneity suck. We see the same kind of repetition early in the movie when the camera

focuses on the spouses touching their wedding rings, either when they are putting them

on after returning from a “job” or fidgeting with them while they talk to the therapist

about their dissatisfaction.

Yes, for such “spontaneous” and thrill-seeking people, it seems odd that they

never really smile or laugh when they are together in their home, or even when they are

with each other after they have married (with the exception of the large, fake smile that

accompanies an equally fake sing-song greeting to their neighbors when they arrive at the

Coleman’s party). Not until their secrets are revealed and they begin fighting each other,

that is. When the rival companies that employ John and Jane find out that the two are

married, each is given 48 hours to take the other out, an outside threat that forces them to

face their personal marriage problems. This rising action allows two Romaction tropes to

happen: first, the emotional reconciling where they have to decide they really want to be

131

together (strictly romantic comedy stuff) and second, the enemy face-off where John and

Jane can choose to partner up (the core of action content).

Once the real action begins and the narrative combines the tension of the

unspoken question, “Will they get back together?” with, “Will they kill each other or be

killed?”, the audience gets reintroduced to the genuine Jane and John. They return to the

way they were when they met. They are playful, teasing as they egg each other on, each

daring the other to show what he or she’s got. They are delighted competitors, all sly

smiles and. They have finally stopped dissembling and playing the appropriate spouse

role and started acting like themselves. Again, while it could be seen that their secretive,

dangerous jobs as hired assassins necessitated John and Jane’s secrecy about their daily

life, that doesn’t explain why they would need to lie to each other about things as simple

as where he went to college (Notre Dame for art history, rather than MIT for his

engineering work cover) or that she is a Jewish orphan (who hired fake parents for the

wedding), unless one takes into account their assumptions about being a proper spouse.

Accordingly, only from this place of liberation through authenticity can they really

decide what their relationship is to be and who they want to be in it. Their decision,

interesting enough, ends up being to destroy their home and all that their domestic,

married life imposed upon them: deception, consumption, and boredom.

With the house in ruins, they can consummate their unconventional, liberated love

with a key kiss followed by passionate lovemaking. However, this is only a step toward

egalitarian partnership. There are still moments when, in spite of the inroads they are

making toward rejecting traditional romance roles, they falter and return to gender-

divisive behavior that keeps them out of sync. For example, when John and Jane have to

132

escape their house because it’s under siege from the assassins their company sent to kill

them, Jane balks at John handing her a smaller “girl gun,” and the delay this causes

almost gets them shot. The same thing happens when they argue over how to deal with

the guy they’ve taken hostage (who turned out to be bait put up by their companies), and

John warns Jane not to “undermine” him. The bickering slows down the interrogation; it

takes so long for them to learn that they’ve been set up that they almost get caught.

Not until they solidify their equal alliance by giving up the roles entirely do they

work in sync. This moment is symbolized in the moment they agree, together, that they

will face the enemy, together. This occurs in the toolshed scene, which comes only after

they faced the reality of their false marriage. Now, they are partners; now they can beat

their enemy in a spectacular showdown at, of all places, a large warehouse store called

Costmart—another consumption-and-domesticity-oriented space that ends up being

demolished. All of this violent chaos satisfies an audience’s craving for the exciting

action of defeating an enemy but the romance remains every bit a part of the events, for

even as Jane and John fight the seemingly endless stream of assassins targeting them,

they still have moments of tender sharing, made all the more tender for the peril

surrounding them. And as I mentioned earlier, the choreography of their showdown

shows them fully in sync, back-to-back, and side-by-side, one ducking to reload while the

other shoots, one shooting from the gun on the back of the other. It’s quite elegant. And

one must remember that all the action is in service of the romance because it was the very

act of their being together that brought the threat into their lives.

It takes very little stretch of the imagination to see in the Smiths’ intimate

predicament a mockery of traditional (or in some vocabularies, conservative) gender roles

133

that mirrors the kinds of critiques feminists like Betty Friedan and Shulamith Firestone

made about divided domestic and emotional labor. Neither John nor Jane really enjoy

their domestic bliss. Neither is really interested in the spoils of their suburban life: having

the perfect red oak floors, recovering the couch to match the new drapes, winning the

golf trophy, “again,” sitting through stories of a neighbor’s husband’s promotion, or

getting the zero-percent APR. But they seem compelled to continue playing along. After

all, “that’s marriage,” as the couple’s therapist states in response to Jane’s distressed

description of the chasm opening between her and her husband—a response that seems to

emphasize the therapist’s role in asserting a certain misery status quo, marriage as

deception and separation (as if that could cheer her up).

Rather, the narrative critiques just the kind of assumption the therapist makes

about what marriage is or should be, an assumption that continually reinscribes

stereotypical roles. The narrative also underlines how these assumptions are upheld by an

outmoded public—society at large—that is slow to progress and that hampers private

needs and desires for liberated individuals in love, like the Smiths, to structure the

relationship as they see fit. The therapist represents this public voice (his presence is

literally confined to his voice). Another traditional public voice comes from the

Colemans, the perfect suburban couple who seem to police the Smiths’ gender propriety

through praise (symbolized by Mr. Coleman’s comments about the red oak floors that he

admires) and disapproval (seen in Mrs. Coleman’s surprise when she sees fishnet hose

peek from under Jane’s pink dress). The Coleman’s also maintain a strictly divided

gender environment in their domestic sphere, as when they organize their party so the

women, wearing pretty pastels, congregate with the children and talk about their

134

husbands’ jobs and the men adjourn to separate rooms to joke separately about golf and

smoke cigars. This is the very environment that Jane and John found anathema to their

more gender-flexible and egalitarian personalities.

The biggest public voices about the gender impropriety of Jane and John’s union

are their bosses who assume that just because Jane and John work for rival companies,

they can’t be married. There was no mention of any rivalry in the companies before this,

no mention of either company attempting to kill those who worked for the rival company

until John and Jane. So, it’s specifically the supposed taboo nature of their relationship

that makes them targets. As the agent who plays the bait (to draw Jane and John in to be

killed) states, the companies can’t have “two competing agents living under the same

roof. It’s bad for business.” How’s that for an indictment not just of the two-person

working household (which has always been the case for all but the more privileged

economic classes) but also of the modern two-person professional household? Such a

household actually does represent an obstacle for many married couples who struggle to

balance their career desires with their intimate relations even as they must continue to

address lingering problems about sharing the household work and the process of making

a home while holding a job. The point ends up being that none of the outsiders get it

right, all of them play from an outdated set of rules, and they all try to control the

relationship by defining it in ways that align with old relationship caricatures that don’t

fit with the fantasy of equality for the contemporary couple the Smiths represent.

Again, the Romaction hybrid created by combining and reworking both action

and romantic-comedy themes enables a new vantage on heterosexual egalitarian intimacy

conflicts by encompassing multiple threats unsettling the couple. So, there tends to be an

135

element of internal, private emotional threat from within the couple caused by differing

desires. This is normal for romantic comedies—where the obstacles between men and

women tend to be about opposing ideas of commitment or dependence or love that the

couple overcomes by communicating or changing some aspect of themselves as

individuals. For example, they clear up some misunderstanding about who wants whom,

or the previously commitment-shy character decides to marry. Though in this case, our

protagonists actually share the same misunderstanding—that a successful marriage

requires a traditional gender division of labor and a stable home life.

Then, the action plot adds to the private conflict not only a social interference

external to the couple that comes between them (not unknown to romantic comedy plots)

but also a public problem in the form of a common enemy—who becomes an enemy

because of the couple’s nontraditional basis. The common enemy must be faced and

overcome by the couple as partners, acting together against this outside force that would

deny the new liberated couple’s autonomy, impose restrictive social roles, and/or bring

about the end of the relationship.

Here, then, is where the private and public conflicts

become most clearly aligned; one can’t be extricated from the other because the influence

of the public on the private is reinforced by private reenactment within the public realm.

From this perspective, the film clearly reflects a fantasy of social overhaul starting within

the couple.

See Neroni’s introduction for a useful elaboration of the transgressive possibilities

action film violence presents—specifically, violence by female protagonists. Most action

films portray themes where the protagonist acts counter to socially acceptable roles and

where the plot supports the renegade or rogue approach to a problem (involving the use

of violence). In romantic comedies, socially approved behaviors and resolutions tend to

be reinforced by bringing the rogue character back into the fold as he or she accepts the

proffered romance.

136

Throughout the film, the interaction between John and Jane as they struggle to

define their relationship for themselves reaffirms sociologist Linda A.M. Perry’s

conclusion that couples need to “move beyond sex-stereotype mandates to make possible

a true cultural paradigm shift into equality. This shift would free females and males from

blindly adhering to the difference perspective that relies on accepting socially mandated

rules and roles for each sex” (193). Audiences witness and maybe learn from the slippery

slope that threatens egalitarian possibilities for liberated couples in love when they decide

to “be married” if they enter marriage with expectations that they must act or appear a

certain way or that they should define their relationship the way society defines it. Thus,

the film critiques not marriage but rather the hypocrisy of today’s culture that continually

highlights the importance of individual autonomy while still clinging to restrictive and

discordant expectations about being married. Such hypocrisy makes of marriage, from

the film’s perspective, less an egalitarian partnership and more an obstacle to authentic

intimacy that happens when we “obey social rules by adopting social roles even when the

rules and roles may limit or damage our self-direction” in the very way we see those rules

and roles interfere with John and Jane’s happiness (Perry 189).

Just as the film assures audiences that society no longer has the right to determine

what interests one enjoys, what gender attributes they exhibit, it additionally leads us to

believe society no longer has the right to determine that intimacy in a heterosexual union

must be enacted based on defined gender scripts, which is ultimately the basis for reading

the film within a feminist-friendly ethos. In the case of Mr. and Mrs. Smith as Romaction,

the only happy ending to modern romance conflicts is one where both partners win and

outmoded society loses. As if the large body count the Smiths leave while taking out the

137

enemy weren’t enough, the film’s final scene emphasizes just how little society should

contribute to defining modern love by having Jane and John return to the therapist’s

office. This time, instead of listening to his commentary about marriage or answering his

questions aimed to help them define or rate their relationship, they interrupt him to share

what is important to them—they have rekindled the romance (by turning the house into

kindling). Yes, the Smiths have most certainly “re[done] the house” as Jane gleefully

informs the therapist, destroying not only the hold traditional domesticity had on them

but also the confining need for public validation and definition.

In the end, neither person in the couple has to conform to achieve love. Rather,

they have to reject conformity in favor of their true selves before they can resolve their

conflicts. This is what makes them both love warriors, an identity they can share and use

to face the challenges posed by a union that brings together an empowered woman and a

new female-empowering man. This is also what allows the Smiths to literally win back

their right to stay married, be passionate and in love, and keep their jobs (one assumes

from the fact that they return to therapy in the last scene, meaning they aren’t on the run

anymore). A hundred years of feminist struggle to have it all, or at least the possibility of

it all, condensed and reenacted in two hours of Romaction.

Trial and Error

The Year of the Romaction

I have devoted a significant portion of this Romaction analysis to Mr. and Mrs.

Smith because I believe the film’s success paved the way for the 2010 Romaction run, as

producers were encouraged by the success of the 2005 film. Additionally, the film

138

presents the most clearly imagined egalitarian space for the hybrid genre in which to

represent the feminist-friendly love fantasy because Jane Smith’s character is a very

capable fighting female. In fact, she is the only professional fighting female in the four

Romaction films that have been released. The remaining Romaction female protagonists

are amateurs who range in fighting ability from basically none, for Claire Foster (Tina

Fey) in Date Night, to a little for Jen Kornfeldt (Katherine Heigl) in Killers, to moderate

abilities for June Haven (Cameron Diaz) in Knight & Day. While Date Night, has two

protagonists who are essentially equally-matched civilians, in Killers and Knight and

Day, professional male action-heroes lead their civilian female costars through the fight. I

will return to Knight and Day in the next section. Here, I will address the other two films

fall short of the bar set by Mr. and Mrs. Smith in terms of representing the egalitarian

couple and the liberating conflict.

The Man with a Plan

In Date Night, Claire and Phil Foster (Steve Carell) are a typical suburban couple

with two careers and two children. They have a standing date night once a week for a

movie and dinner at the local steakhouse. One night, after the shock of learning that a

couple they have known for a long time is divorcing because the couple feels like they’ve

lost the spark and become just “really excellent roommates,” Claire and Phil decide to

dress up and upgrade their usual date night. They head to the big city for dinner at a

trendy restaurant (that requires reservations a month in advance). After stealing the

reservation of another couple who doesn’t show up (a couple who just happen to be in

trouble for blackmailing the state’s DA), Claire and Phil are mistaken for that couple by

139

dirty cops who then threaten them. The Fosters must run for their lives. As they fight to

save themselves, they come face to face with their own relationship problems and fears.

By the end of the night, the couple is both rejuvenated by the action they’ve faced and

reminded that their nice, boring suburban family life is exactly what they want.

Mr. and Mrs. Smith created a couple of equally-skilled assassins to enact the

symbolic egalitarian partnership as the basis of the modern romance fantasy; Date Night

uses a couple of equally inept and unskilled civilians to mark the same equal standing.

The level of parity between the two extends beyond their amateur status to indicate the

many other ways they are alike and, therefore, equal as individuals in the couple. They

are both, basically, normal individuals with a very normal life. In fact, the Fosters are

maybe the most lackluster couple to ever star in an action-adventure. Phil’s a tax lawyer

who tries to get his clients excited about opening an IRA with their refunds. Claire’s a

real estate agent trying to deal with reluctant buyers, a busted real estate bubble, and

plummeting housing prices. They both end up exhausted from work every day and

struggle to muster the energy to take care of their two children and go on their routine

date nights once a week. They both show visible dissatisfaction with the lack of romance

in the marriage, exemplified early on as they separately sneak a wistful look at an

affectionate married couple in the steak restaurant where the Fosters usually go. Each

feels overworked and under-appreciated.

Beyond the parity between them as individuals, there are moments in the action

when the narrative seems to emphasize their parity as partners, albeit bumbling partners,

in the battle. Phil takes the lead to get them out of the boathouse. Claire takes the lead to

steal files from a real estate office, breaking the window to do so, so they can find her

140

previous client Holbrooke Grant (Mark Wahlberg), who is a government security expert.

They are both behind the wheel during the car chase (in separate cars stuck together at the

bumper, so they literally share driving). They both have to “work that pole” in a strip club

to gain access to the DA in order to question him. Yet, the violent action comes almost

entirely from Phil. He hits the bad guys who hold them at gunpoint with an oar. He

wields a (defunct) antique gun that he stole to protect them and shoots it at the corrupt

cops. More importantly, Phil is the one who comes up with the plan to foil the bad guy,

while Claire remains clueless, or “lost” as she repeats in her confusion, over what

happens. So, he ends up saving the day, and what was an adventure for them as partners

ends up being his personal triumph.

This sense of the action empowering Phil rather than both of them, as a couple, is

emphasized by the way he comes up with a plan and executes it to save them, an act that

makes him the effective figure that he failed to be throughout the movie. Before Phil’s

success in the movie, Claire had repeatedly claimed that his “plans are the worst,” and he

himself said, “I’m not very good with plans generally.” He’s mocked by a thug character

for using weak “tough-guy lines” and is called Claire’s “androgynous friend” in the strip

club. In contrast, Claire is never expected to come up a plan. Her ability to plan or not is

never questioned, nor is her gender interrogated the same way. There is, in general, just

no sense of her part in fixing the relationship. There is, conversely, a deep sense of his

responsibility to make things right, whether it’s in pepping up date night by taking his

wife out to a better restaurant or in getting the bad guys arrested. This is an important

contrast between Phil Foster and John Smith. There’s a level of anxiety in Phil about

portraying an authority figure, particularly in comparison to the suave Holbrooke Grant

141

(Mark Wahlberg), that John never exhibits. Phil is intimidated by his wife’s obvious

attraction for Grant as well as Grant’s extensive knowledge and resources, which Phil and

Claire rely on to get them out of trouble. In fact, the film regularly offers comparisons

between Phil and Grant, where Phil doesn’t add up and is concerned about this. The

imbalance in character focus reduces the symbolic egalitarian basis of their relationship.

All of this undermines the portrayals of the enlightened couple overcoming the

domestic role gender divide at the base of the intimacy conflict in the movie. Traditional

gender roles are a problem, but not for Phil. They are a problem for Claire, who in turn

makes them a problem for Phil. Claire has undertaken the traditional homemaker role,

accepted that she is the one who must take care of everything in the house as well as her

job. She’s drained by a list of responsibilities that she lays out during an argument with

Phil in the car (while they are trying to escape the enemy), starting with making the

children breakfast to getting them into bed at night. Her being drained is the reason she

can’t “light up” for her husband—his one desire. Her one desire? To sit alone in an air-

conditioned room eating lunch without anyone touching her as she drinks a diet Sprite.

We are certainly encouraged to understand her plight, but not as much as we are

encouraged to understand Phil, who does portray a version of John Smith’s female-

empowering man because he is willing and interested in doing the emotional work it will

take to strengthen their marriage and improve their domestic life.

Phil asks Claire to put more trust in him to share the household duties, to let him

do things his way, so he can do his share and also reduce some of the stress she

experiences as the primary caretaker. He wants to be more of a partner in the home. We

also learn he takes part in a book night with Claire and her female friends—and reads the

142

whole book every time—because it’s important to Claire. He even uses a lesson he learns

from the most recent book club reading to come up with his plan to foil the bad guys. His

sensitivity increases sympathy for his character and emphasizes his role as the hero, but it

does so by decreasing sympathy for her character—because she isn’t letting him help. As

Phil claims, and as we see evidence for throughout the movie: “You have to do it all

yourself, your way. You got me screwing up before I even get a chance to come through

for you.” Additionally, the narrative does not emphasize any heroism on her part.

The effect of this character imbalance can be seen as an indictment of the post-

feminist superwoman character Claire embodies, the woman who has it all and takes it all

on because she knows she can, but who suffers for it. We see small clues that Claire

creates problems for herself throughout the film: Phil says he’ll make breakfast for the

kids in the first scene, but Claire ends up making it. She tells him what to get for a

birthday party their kids will go to, then says she’ll get it, it’s “easier.” He claims he’s

ready to do more in the house and make things easier for her, if she will “let” him. Her

super-capability then becomes an issue of excess control—she’s so empowered that it

overwhelms her. Thus, the source of the conflict falls on her, for not taking advantage of

his enlightenment—it’s not a conflict where they realize they are both at fault and must

both make amends to correct. Their dynamic at once spreads the enlightened message

that men should have more responsibility in the home, should undertake domestic

responsibilities, but it also implies that women are responsible for “letting” men in. In

other words, the fantasy rewrites Arle Hochschild’s “second shift” narrative that still

applies to many women who have careers outside of the home. The domestic life isn’t a

143

problem because men are bad partners in the home and the world around them didn’t

change but because women are bad partners and unable to let go.

Mr. and Mrs. Smith indicates that modifications had to be made by both people in

the couple but, more importantly, by those around the couple—the work place, friends

and colleagues, the therapist. Add to that how, in spite of Phil’s professed willingness to

do more, what we see and hear of his domestic work paints the stereotypical picture of

the inept man. In his own words, he “doesn’t know how to load the dishwasher,” or as

Claire points out after once again bruising her shins, “You never, ever, ever close any

drawer you ever open. Ever!” He says that he knows he can “surprise her” by stepping up

if she’d let him, but his domestic performance makes us wonder. Additionally, he’s

already exhausted from his work, indicated when he falls onto the couch twice upon

returning home during the early part of the movie, so tired he has to promise his son he’ll

play a game after he briefly lapses into a “mini-coma.” It’s hard to imagine him being

able to follow up on his promises. Thus, we have only a sense of him as an authority, the

savior, outside of the household, and her as the “total bitch,” the words she uses to

describe herself after she unloads her unhappiness on her husband.

Ultimately, Date Night paints a realistic picture of the modern family, with two

working parents struggling to navigate the domestic life. That’s what makes the film’s

inability to render a more balanced partnership for the couple in the action and intimacy

work so disappointing. The film betrays lopsided anxieties about a man’s ability to

protect his wife and family and a lopsided fantasy where his strength as a good husband

leaves more of an impression than her abilities as an empowered woman, leaving us with

a weak model of egalitarian intimacy. In the end, Phil comes off as the love warrior hero

144

who’s saving the day and the relationship, and she’s the wife. A similar problem with a

lack of parity in the male/female participation in the action and the emotional work—

leading to a narrative that ultimately problematizes hetero-partnerships and the potential

for feminist-friendly intimacy—occurs in Killers, by far the weakest Romaction for

relying on stereotypical depictions of domestic gender roles and maintaining a divided

power dynamic between the spouses.

The Overprotector

Spencer (Ashton Kutcher) and Jen of Killers meet and fall in love at the beginning

of the movie. They are in Nice, France, where Jen is on vacation with her parents after a

recent break up. Fast-forward to three years later, and they are married and live in a

typical suburb with friendly and prying neighbors. Jen is a successful business

professional who works in computer technology. Spencer, we also learn at the beginning

of the movie, is a spy who’s dissatisfied with his life and wants nothing more than to

settle down to the very life he finds with Jen in the suburbs. However, Spencer’s old

handler shows up unexpectedly and tries to get him back in the business. He rejects the

offer. Suddenly, everyone in his nice suburban fantasy—his friends, colleagues, and

neighbors—is trying to kill him. Because Jen returns home unexpectedly when she’s

supposed be on a business trip, she’s in danger along with him. They face numerous

enemies, showcasing Spencer’s fancy spy fighting skills. At the same time, Jen must face

the fact that her husband lied to her and the realization that she’s pregnant. Their

marriage and family are in jeopardy.

145

There was some real potential in this film for projecting couples rejecting

standard romance tropes and outdated gender roles. For example, Spencer is, again, an

enlightened man who doesn’t fear settling down and taking part in the family life—he in

fact seeks it, rejecting instead the macho, lone-wolf style life he had as a spy, with

glamorous travel, fast cars, beautiful women, and big explosions. He redecorates his

wife’s office, making it organized and attractive. He’s hesitant to accept his birthday gift

from Jen, a ticket to Nice, because he says, “I have everything I need right here.” He even

criticizes Jen’s imposing father—played by Tom Selleck—for acting like Jen’s a “fragile

doll,” saying “I depend on her, Sir. It’s not the other way around.” Unfortunately, this is

part of a scene where Spencer asks the father for permission to propose (reflecting a

romance throwback move that foreshadows the problems with the narrative to come). As

for Jen, she may not be a spy, but she is a very capable career woman whose boss

respects her more than her slovenly male colleagues. She can also throw a punch and

(poorly) shoot a gun. She doesn’t freak out when the action begins. Likewise, while she’s

not happy about it, she deals with the violence around her surprisingly well. She even

progresses by the end of the movie into a more mature and confident woman who can

stand up to her solicitous overbearing father and also make a decision about whether or

not the marriage works, now that she knows her husband’s secret. But that’s where the

progress ends.

Spencer does all of the action work. Jen does all of the emotional work. Spencer

saves her. She can’t shoot the gun she’s given properly (she shoots a bad guy in the arm

accidentally), she holds the gun like a rotten banana, and she carries it around in a child’s

stuffed animal backpack. Her one punch takes down a nosy neighbor, not an enemy. Her

146

independence is severely limited by the fact that she maintains close ties with parents

who take care of her, even financially (as we learn when Spencer cuts a tag off Jen’s

dress on their first date, and she freaks out saying that she can’t afford the dress, and she

was going to take it back, but now her dad will have to pay for it). Also, Jen only gains a

backbone once she learns she’s pregnant. Her goal is to protect the child, rightfully, but

she then turns into a stereotypical “Mama Bear,” as she calls it, suddenly snacking

incessantly. That’s not to say that women must be violent in order to be seen as strong

and that motherhood automatically undermines their empowerment. However, when

women enter into the action narrative, the tendency is always to play up stereotypical

personalities in ways that make women appear not only dependent but also often

comically incompetent (even in Date Night, where both Phil and Claire are incompetent,

Phil eventually gains competence that she doesn’t). The romantic comedy tendencies

tended to far overshadow the action implications in ways that reveal a heterosexual

power imbalance.

As the story heads toward the denouement, we learn Jen was never really in

danger anyway, except in her proximity to Spencer. Her father, it turns out, is a spy who

knows Spencer is a spy. Her father, who has some serious control issues, embedded

sleepers into their lives to protect his little girl should it turn out that Spencer returned to

the spy life. Thus, all of the violence and attacks were the father’s fault, but it’s chalked

up to simply being part of his dad persona. Dad is in no way held accountable for his

actions. Also, the narrative emphasizes Spencer’s similarities with the dad instead of

rejecting the male-protector stereotype. First, Jen says she “married the one man who is

exactly like my father.” Then, at the movie’s end, after they have the baby, Spencer

147

sports a thin version of his father-in-law’s moustache. Finally, the last shot of the film is

of the baby’s crib, in the dark, surrounded by an alarm grid, indicating Spencer’s father-

spy protection modus operandi is in full swing. All in all, this film has more in common

with Date Night and implies that the father must protect the family at all costs. Jen and

Spencer don’t even share domestic work as partners. She’s the one who decides to leave

without him for the sake of the baby because she feels he can’t keep her safe. She’s the

one who insists on a trust circle at the end of the movie and who requires her parents and

Spencer to promise to end the fighting for the baby’s sake. She changes little, realizes

nothing about her role. Yet, she is in control on the homefront. Spencer has to change his

work, but he had decided to do that anyway. Jen makes the choice to leave and to come

back without much discussion about it. It’s a good reflection on her independence, but

it’s a poor reflection on her potential as a love warrior. Her character, like Claire Foster’s,

simply reasserts the same fixed gender promoted by the action genre protector/protected

dynamic that the Romaction had the potential to undermine.

Missing the Mark

What happened to the Romaction?

What contributed to Romaction’s unfortunate regression from showcasing the

egalitarian couple to effectively replaying the typical hierarchy of male-as-action-

hero/female-as-love-interest? It would be easy to read the change as a backlash against

gender flexibility that proves that the action genre is not conducive to progressive politics

when it comes to conceiving the fighting female’s place in a co-lead romance narrative.

Maybe the idea of a romance on the big screen where both a man and a woman get to

fight for love and save each other just proves too transgressive. This might explain the

148

recent trend of female-led blockbuster action films like the Hunger Games and Divergent

franchises and why female characters continue to gain in the action genre—and hold their

reign in the romantic comedy genre

—as the Romaction fizzles. These movies, like their

action forbearers, tend to keep the romance on the sidelines and assert that there can only

be one hero fighting for love. I will address these films and this issue further in chapter

five.

Another possible reason for the change might be that as women gain more access

to the action sphere and the big and small screens depict more fantasies of female

empowerment, the ideological function of the Romaction is no longer necessary. Maybe

audiences no longer seek fantasies to resolve the conflict provoked by the notion of

strong, independent women in love because they don’t see a conflict there. After all,

Katniss Everdeen finds true love while leading a revolution. Yet, she faces serious

hardships as she negotiates her role as a fighter with her role as a lover. Not only do the

other fighting female narratives I analyze contradict any assumption that the sense of

conflict surrounding the empowered woman is gone but so do a good portion of the

relationship columns out there. Take, for example, the large number of websites and blog

posts dedicated either to answering the question “Can Strong Independent Women Find

Love?” (Rubinstein) or doling out advice to help men “Handle Strong Independent

Women” (Sama). There definitely remains a sense of hetero-crisis to resolve and a desire

for fantasies that provide the resolution in ways that assert the strong, independent

woman ideal.

In spite of the bromances that have cropped up over the last ten years, like The 40-

Year-Old Virgin (2005), Wedding Crashers (2005), Zoolander (2009), and The Hangover

franchise.

149

I would argue that the problem with the most recent Romaction narratives is that

they missed some mark for audience expectations, indicated by the fact that Date Night

and Killers, combined, earned barely half of what Mr. and Mrs. Smith did. This could be

seen to signify that audiences found something lacking or less appealing in the more

recent films. Both 2010 films had the blockbuster potential in terms of their action-

packed storylines (including explosions and car chases); additionally, they fit the hybrid

formula studio executives believed would draw in larger crowds. Of course, there are

many reasons for the variances in film success, ranging from publicity to development to

the draw of the actors involved. Critics of Killers almost unanimously panned it as an ill-

conceived and poorly written movie. Date Night received more favorable reviews,

however, and actually has a higher critic rating overall than Mr. and Mrs. Smith on

Rotten Tomatoes. The major star power of Brangelina could account in part for the

discrepancy. Katherine Heigl was following up on the success of Knocked Up (2007) and

both Steve Carell and Tina Fey were enjoying a good deal of media attention for their

work on The Office and SNL and 30 Rock, respectively (and the attention Fey received for

her uncanny Sarah Palin impressions during 2008 only further contributed to her

celebrity). However, none of these actors match the box-office allure of either Brad Pitt

or Angelina Jolie, much less the two of them together.

The Freedom to Experiment

I see two other related sources that account, at least somewhat, for the

discrepancy: first, Mr. and Mrs. Smith was essentially an experiment on the part of the

writer and director. Conceived by Simon Kinberg, an energetic young scriptwriter, the

150

film’s screenplay developed out of his MFA thesis for Columbia University’s film

program. The story was not developed in the executive boardroom with high returns in

mind. It was developed for originality and in an environment of academic inquiry.

Kinberg’s penchant was for action films, but his approach was shaped by what he

describes as Columbia’s

attention to character, drama, dialogue, emotion. […] Columbia forced me

to go deeper with every scene, every character. I wrote Mr. and Mrs.

Smith as my thesis project, and I know it never would have attracted

world-class actors and an innovative, indie-minded director if not for my

professors […] and students pushing me to explore the characters and

themes, challenging me to take the emotional drama seriously,

encouraging me to start a summer action movie with a scene of marriage

therapy. The questions and challenges at Columbia were never, “How do

you make it bigger or louder or faster?” They were, “How do you make it

deeper and truer and more original?”

The “indie-minded director” to whom Kinberg refers is the notoriously difficult

Doug Liman, who tends to insist that a film fit his vision no matter the cost or the input

from studio executives. He’s somewhat famous for “Limania,” an insistence on filming

or refilming scenes on his own time and dollar to get around the producers. The only

reason the studio allowed Liman to direct the Mr. and Mrs. Smith was because Brad Pitt

insisted on it. According to the long piece on Liman in New York Magazine, he was

basically a pariah for the trouble he caused on his previous film, The Bourne Identity

(Fishman). Even though Liman feels he lost his “indie credibility” after Mr. and Mrs.

151

Smith because it turned out to be a runaway box-office success, he didn’t approach the

film from the blockbuster aesthetic. He made the film according to what his interviewer

calls the “Liman aesthetic,” which produces “smart, stylish genre films that confound

their genre.” So both the writer and director’s initial impulses in conceiving the film had

less to do with creating a sure hit by relying on standard tropes and proven formulas and

more with aspirations to create something new. Thus, they were less beholden to the

conventions to which Hollywood tends to cling, which could have translated into a

willingness to envision a more egalitarian couple and unique plot.

Fighting Females and Audience Expectations

The writer and director’s attention to originality may also have translated into

their willingness to incorporate a more capable fighting female, which I believe is the

second important divergence that accounts for the success of Mr. and Mrs. Smith’s

Romaction over its less progressive follow-ups. The more recent Romactions did not

exhibit the kind of fighting female many audiences have come to accept and/or expect in

their action films and thus, the more stereotypical roles held less draw. In the 1990s,

when the proto-Romactions gained some early traction, excessively violent fighting

females whose characters exhibited the same kind of fire power and “musculinity” as

male action heroes were far more controversial (Tasker). Take the response to Thelma

and Louise, which was released just a year before Lethal Weapon 3, and what some

viewers took as a “revenge killing” when Louise shot Thelma’s would-be rapist after he

Neither the writer nor director make any claims as feminist allies or for feminist

intentions with the film, but both are products of a post-feminist period—and Liman does

note that his sensibility is informed by an identity as a “liberal New Yorker involved in

politics” (Fishman).

152

had stopped his attempt. Hilary Neroni, briefly summing up the reactions, notes that

“[s]uch revenge killing gets little notice when committed by a male character,” but

Louise’s transgression received extreme attention, including in major magazines like

Newsweek and Time (77). Critics referred to the film as everything from “fascist” to “a

butt-kicking feminist manifesto” (Levy). Tiina Vares’ article on “Action Heroines and

Female Viewers” points to a similar discrepancy of views articulated by women she

interviews after watching Thelma and Louise. Some of the women felt that female

violence means women simply “imitate male standards of force” (223) in an anti-feminist

way. Others thought that film depicted “a wonderful fantasy” (235) and a liberating

version of “real women’s violence, not just action violence” (231). In fact, before 1991,

there was rarely a fighting female who enacted excessive violence and who lived to tell

about it, much less found love, a point I will address more in chapter four. For the most

part, the ones who lived existed in niche film genres like the final girls of horror,

avenging victims in rape-revenge, and Blaxploitation heroines, or the rare early first

leading-lady versions of traditional male movie genres (like Sigourney Weaver in the

Alien franchise or Linda Hamilton in the Terminator movies).

However, by 2005, the fighting female capable of spectacular violence had gained

a firm ground, and there were more versions of them than ever before on the big and

small screens; the number had only increased by 2010. Younger audiences, male and

female, the supposed demographic for both actions and romantic comedies, had been

raised on women who could more than hold their own and didn’t need to be protected, at

least no more than a man onscreen did. They had the fighting female forerunners

mentioned above, but they also grew up with Buffy and Xena, Sydney Bristow from

153

Alias, all of the Nikita films and television shows, and almost thirty years of hetero-

partner-couple programs. There had even been four blockbuster films that showcased a

professional and heroic fighting female mother, The Incredibles (2004), Spy Kids (2001),

and its two sequels. For audiences interested in blockbuster films who had been exposed

to, and enjoyed, these narratives and seen what women can do in them, the damsel-in-

distress oriented female character in action might have seemed less appealing.

Today, some viewers who seek or expect constructions of female identity that

cohere with expectations for the strong, independent woman who can take care of herself

and save others have less patience with uncomplicated stereotypical representations of

the utterly helpless female, no matter the genre. Philip Green, author of Cracks in the

Pedestal: Ideology and Gender in Hollywood, agues that there’s an “audience of ‘new

women,’ alerted by feminism to the new possibilities of spectatorship” who are

comfortable with seeing more women on screen, more women in leading roles, and who

tend to reject a more “traditional female protagonist who is passive or hysterical in the

face of attack, or who embraces her victimization rather than striking back against it”

(158-9). As part of this change in female audiences, I would add that more women find

the fighting female exhilarating to watch, that they have come to see the spectacle of

action as compatible with female heroics and simply enjoy identifying with female

characters who take charge in the kinds of plots that men have dominated for the past few

decades.

In addition to the “new women” Green notes, there’s an implied audience of new

men who are more comfortable not only with these new fighting female characters but

also with the concomitant changes in male characters with whom these women live, love,

154

and work. Young men today grew up watching movies starring violent women, male

characters who get saved by women, and male characters dealing with women who no

longer need their protection—who can save themselves. More importantly, they grew up

watching what Abele refers to as the “homefront hero” a more sensitive, family-oriented

male character in the action film genre who values personal relationships and rejects the

lone-wolf or the alienated action hero. As she points out, “the last decades of the 20

century saw more and more frequent constructions of a heroic figure equally capable of

romance, commitment, and family ties” with actors like Bruce Willis in the Die Hard

films “bridg[ing] the classical American divisions between the frontier and the hearth,

between movie viewing for ‘guys’ and ‘chicks’” (6).

In general, I would allow that some contemporary men seem to accept a fighting

female protagonist of equal stature in a story with a male protagonist in addition to a plot

with as much romance as action. On one hand, this allowance could be attributed to the

“more fluid definition of American heroism and masculinity” that the homefront hero

represented and the large number of films portraying love “as the primary value” in films

throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s (55). When romance takes a larger part in the

action, then it makes sense that the object of affection would as well. On the other hand,

the allowance, and the emergence of the homefront hero himself, could also be a result of

the way female characters gained more traction in the action. As Abele also points out,

“When women and minorities are portrayed as less dependent on the male protagonist

than in previous movies, the duties and the justifications for the white male protagonist

must also change” (11).

155

No matter which way the influence runs, the fact remains that even back in the

1980s, some men sought examples of female characters who could hold their own in the

action. Take, for example, Roger Ebert’s point in his review of Romancing the Stone.

Movies like this have a tendency to turn into a long series of scenes where

the man grabs the woman by the hand and leads her away from danger at a

desperate run. I always hate scenes like that. Why can’t the woman run by

herself? Don’t they both have a better chance if the guy doesn't have to

always be dragging her? What we’re really seeing is leftover sexism from

the days when women were portrayed as hapless victims. “Romancing the

Stone” doesn’t have too many scenes like that. It begins by being entirely

about the woman, and although Douglas takes charge after they meet,

that’s basically because he knows the local territory. Their relationship is

on an equal footing, and so is their love affair. We get the feeling they

really care about each other, and so the romance isn’t just a distraction

from the action.

The combination of love warrior woman with the homefront hero—a character who

functions similarly to what I call a love warrior—was a factor, from my perspective, to

the success of Mr. and Mrs. Smith, which, as Hornaday reports it, the studio execs behind

more recent Romactions were attempting to recreate.

Angelina Jolie as Jane is not a stereotypical representation of a woman in the

Romaction and much more effectively demonstrates the love warrior woman identity.

Tina Fey and Katherine Heigl are far more stereotypical and don’t quite capture the

essence of empowerment Jolie does, at least in terms of what’s required to make the mark

156

on the action part of the Romaction. This could possibly be because Jolie had already

established herself as an actor who embodied the kind of blockbuster action fighting

female who would work well as a partner. Before Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Jolie had not only

portrayed a fighting female as a cop and an FBI agent, but she had played Laura Croft,

Tomb Raider, twice, carrying the lead in the film and earning blockbuster status around

the globe for both movies. The careers of her proto-Romaction predecessors, Kathleen

Turner and Jamie Lee Curtis, also indicate the way an actor’s representation of violence

onscreen makes them more likely to be cast for fighting female roles. Turner’s ability to

portray a mildly violent Joan Wilder led to roles with more and more violence, ranging

from a vengeful ex-wife to private investigator V.I. Warshawski to serial killer in Serial

Mom (1994). Curtis was already established as one of horror’s first final girls, beginning

with Halloween (1978). Heigl and Fey had none of the action cred to back up their

performances, not that they needed it for the roles they played. For another example of

the relationship between an a Romaction film’s success and the fighting female’s ability

to exceed the traditional female role in not just the romance but also the action, I refer to

Cameron Diaz’s role in Knight and Day.

In Knight & Day, June Havens collides with Roy Miller (Tom Cruise) at the

airport. They are supposed to be on the same flight, but she gets bumped, and then she

gets put back on the flight. There are only three-four other passengers on the plane, and

June and Roy start talking, hitting it off. When she excuses herself to primp and give

herself a pep talk in the plane’s bathroom, we learn that everyone else on the plane is

trying to kill Roy. He’s a CIA agent thought to have gone rogue, but it’s a setup by his

corrupt partner. June ends up having to come along for the ride and for protection. As

157

Roy fights to clear his name, June learns more about him, comes to trust him, and works

to stimulate his affection and attention, even as they dodge bullets. In the end, she saves

him from the CIA, and they drive off to see Cape Horn, a stop on her bucket list.

This film differs from the other three: the protagonists aren’t married, and the

narrative doesn’t include reference to or the inclusion of the domestic sphere. However, it

contains equal parts romance and action, the relationship endangers the couple as much

as the external threats, and the co-leads work as partners to overcome both. Now, there

are weaknesses in Knight and Day that align it in some ways with the other two 2010

films. June does the brunt of the emotional work in that she initiates the relationship and

pursues it throughout the film, while Roy tends only to react to her advances. June, like

Claire and Jen, is a civilian, while Roy is the well-trained spy, and he must protect her

throughout the film. He very problematically drugs her without her knowledge. However,

June asks to be drugged another time to calm down, and she later drugs him to facilitate

their escape from the CIA. June can also throw a punch and wrestle, she stabs a bad guy

with a knife, and she has mad driving skills. She also partakes in an awesome shootout

while riding with Roy on a motorcycle, making her the most violent of the amateurs.

Additionally, Roy relates to her as a capable fighter. He constantly praises her violent

abilities and tells her she can handle things, that she’s doing a great job. He treats her like

she’s capable by expecting her to be able to handle the gun he gives her (which she does

not hold like rotten fruit) or when he needs her to shoot the cars following them on a

chase. When they first run into trouble, he forces her to come with him for her protection,

but then he stops forcing her and asks her make a choice about whether she wants to stay

158

with him. This makes them somewhat more egalitarian by equalizing their abilities and

authority and reducing the power hierarchy, but it doesn’t eradicate the divide.

The film fared better than its 2010 Romaction compatriots, earning close to what

the other two made combined. I would argue that this was, in part, because Cameron Diaz

at least has some action cred thanks to her roles in the two blockbuster Charlie’s Angels

films, in spite of her start as a romantic-comedy darling.

Additionally, much of the

publicity for Knight & Day references how both Diaz and Cruise did their own stunts,

including the complicated motorcycle chase scene. As for Diaz’s character, June

represents a much more non-stereotypical, gender-flexible female more along the lines of

Jane Smith. June is good with cars, owns a car restoration shop, and she wears more

androgynous clothing like plaid shirts and jeans (or big biker boots while trying on frilly

bridesmaid dresses). However, she fusses over her looks occasionally, is prone to

screaming shrilly during the early danger, and has a nurturing personality. She is gentle

with her younger sister and is restoring their dad’s old car to give her sister as a wedding

present. As a more effective fighting female, she better matches her partner (who, as with

the other Romaction males, was also portrayed as an enlightened, female-empowering

male).

Do all audiences respond to the fighting female’s appeal? Certainly not—just look

at the controversy caused by Charlize Theron’s character in Mad Max: Fury Road (2015).

As one disappointed, anti-feminist viewer notes, “Fury Road was not going to be a movie

made for men. It was going to be a feminist piece of propaganda posing as a guy flick”

She even made use of her good right hook in the rom-com The Holiday, punching a

cheating boyfriend, and her fighting cred as the voice of Fiona in the Shrek movies—

Fiona who proves to be quite a fighter

159

(Clarey). Plenty of viewers agree with the comments Mr. Clarey makes in his blog. But

judging by the number of articles written in high websites like The New York Post, The

Guardian, Salon, and Slate that praised the feminist impulses of the Fury Road (in spite

of problematic aspects) because of Theron’s character and the fact that the film earned

over 300 million dollars in its four months, there are plenty of viewers who were happy

to see a woman take charge in the über-masculine franchise film. Do all audiences

respond to non-normative depictions of gender in romance narratives? Again, no—even

outside of the action genre, there are plenty of plots involving hetero-intimacy that still

incline toward traditional depictions of love and romance and that maintain gender

divides, proving that gender conformity remains the dominant cultural narrative. My

point is that it’s not the only narrative, and that gender flexible portrayals of both heroism

and intimacy between men and women are gaining more influence that should be

recognized.

Critics like Hornaday often lament the lack of ingenuity in Hollywood and believe

the Romaction trend “can be traced to the twin impulses of love and fear: the movie

industry’s love of a sure thing and its equally strong fear of trying something new.” The

return of the gender-normative depictions of hetero-intimacy in the 2010 Romactions

would seem to prove the allure of tradition in Hollywood. However, Mr. and Mrs. Smith,

the ideal Romaction fantasy, offers something very new that had never been seen before

on the big screen: a seriously capable fighting female, violent and fierce and equal to her

male co-star fighter in every way who ends up in a hetero-romance. The movie’s success

proves that there are enough people in the audience who are ready for more.

160

Missed Opportunities

The Sex Wars Aren’t Sexy

“It’s like girls and boys are on different sides” (Thorne 65)

Ms. Hornaday’s conviction that the Romaction reflects a lack of ingenuity in

Hollywood film and a reliance on stereotypical narrative conventions, where the typical

conventions of action simply mash with the typical conventions of romantic comedies,

makes sense for the most recent Romaction experiments, but it also shows just how

unique Mr. and Mrs. Smith was as a film in terms of its feminist-friendly love fantasy.

The level of parity between the characters, their equal participation in the action and the

emotional work, and their progressive insistence that gender roles are a thing of the past

in the modern egalitarian romance, has not happened again in this genre. However, for all

the potential in Mr. and Mrs. Smith, for how differently the narrative imagines the

centrality of egalitarian intimacy and the equality of the characters, it does reflect one

pernicious assumption that, on some level, men and women will always be different, no

matter how liberated and enlightened people get, and that hetero-intimacy will always be

fostered by this difference.

At its best, the Romaction hybrid as performed in Mr. and Mrs. Smith represents

an expanded textual space where the complications of modern heterosexual intimacy get

worked through as the Romaction couple negotiates love’s modern minefield, scattered

with threats of domesticity, power struggles, and destabilized gender roles. Thanks in part

to the broader Romaction narrative space, all of the Romactions reflect an attempt to

imagine a logical and optimistic answer to the feminist question of what heterosexual

intimacy becomes when men and women achieve more egalitarian personal lives: love

warriors fighting together to promote and save egalitarian hetero-intimacy. We can see

161

this in each Romaction version. They all reflect a crisis of intimacy, played out by the

private threats to the relationship—a reckoning the couple has to face about their

relationship and resolve along with the external threats to their safety. All of the hybrids

attempt to locate the source of the threat to the egalitarian possibilities of modern

intimacy in the non-liberated public sphere with its reliance on outdated forms of

intimacy and romance to control the couple. They then provide the solution to this threat

in the film’s particular version of the enlightened Romaction couple, some more

successfully than others.

Nevertheless, my overarching interest in showing how the ideal Romaction

conveyed transgressive potential in espousing a generally positive version of feminist-

friendly love must be tempered by addressing a deeper, more destructive assumption

about sex relations that is as much a part of these Romactions as both the more

straightforward genres of romantic comedy and action because it is an assumption held

by society in general. First, the neat resolutions of all of the Romactions (similar to both

its romantic-comedy and action roots) tend to paint a too-rosy picture of modern

heterosexual intimate relations as equal. Accordingly, audiences may be seeing the kind

of equal couple they expect of modern media, but that doesn’t mean those representations

reflect the reality of intimate relations among men and women. In other words seeing it

on screen makes believing it easier, even if it is not true. The construction of the

egalitarian couple and the resolution affirming egalitarian intimacy may be more

appealing as an ideal, but the fantasy can also offer the comfort of a progressive,

liberating “reality” for love on screen that supplants the need to change real social

relations.

162

Melvin Donalson speaks to this reassuring aspect of film. Though his theory

focuses on interracial buddy narratives, his conclusion easily applies to the egalitarian

hetero-romance plot. Thus, the apparent gender flexibility and equality portrayed on

screen, like evidence of racial equality in “the interracial buddy film suggests that

democracy and equal treatment have been obtained because if it exists on the big screen,

it must exist in the world of those who watch. The tacit popular-culture maxim, both

powerful and flawed, seems to be: If something is expressed and/or performed in a

medium, then it must be true in reality” (11, emphasis in the original). Yet as reports

about men and women’s struggle with the changing economy and shifting house roles,

women’s continued salary disparity, the controversy of the Paycheck Awareness Act, and

advice columns reflecting male and female agony over competing alpha relationship roles

indicate, there are plenty of “real” relationships that can’t quite extract themselves from

the binds of assumptions about appropriate gender roles even if men’s and women’s daily

lives no longer reflect the kinds of traditional home/work divides that contributed so

much to the maintenance of those roles.

Second, in spite of its popular feminist savvy, the Romaction fails what some like

myself feel is one of feminism’s broader aims: not only imagining changes in the way

men and women relate to each other, our gendered behavior, but in the way we think

about each other as sexes. Even in films that challenge our gender assumptions and

promote egalitarian intimacy like Mr. and Mrs. Smith, audiences see that in spite of how

equitable we imagine hetero-relations to be we still require that this equity be established

by men and women encountering an unquestioned opposition that appears inherent to

male/female sex difference. Essentially, there must be a basis of conflict because men

163

and women are and always will be on opposite sex sides, no matter how similar their

genders become.

Ironically enough, there have been plenty of anti-feminist critics who

blame feminists for being man-haters and creating tension between the sexes, for ruining

the complementary ideal of the sexes filling each other out. But the opposition between

men and women has been part of the cultural imagination since at least Lysistrata—

where assumed differences lead to conflict (in the case of Lysistrata, women wanting

peace and family connection and men wanting war and glory). In this sense, both man-

hating and woman-hating have already been built into our notions of sex identity and

heterosexual intimacy, where fighting is normalized.

It is actually in spite of feminist inroads into the cultural imagination that the

long-constituted sex divide remains intact, and the assumption remains that sex difference

still has to be articulated for heterosexual intimacy to occur, meaning love between men

and women can only be achieved by fighting it out, whether literally or figuratively. The

Romaction is a genre that depends on this trope both explicitly and implicitly. What is

such an exaggerated form of conflict if not war? What characterizes the exaggerations

that lead to war if not consistently repeated aggravations and accumulated struggles, the

kind which describe the way that hetero-relations are portrayed by the media, even if

these conflicts get resolved by the end of the film (or the story or the song)? If we see

achieving intimacy between men and women in terms of winning a conflict, then,

logically, doesn’t that mean there is still a sex war? And how can war lead to feminist-

friendly love?

This basis also applies to certain of the love buddy narratives I discussed in chapter

two, particularly the competition that the narratives integrate into the romance storyline

that regularly positions the co-leads in opposition.

164

No matter the genre, romantic themes almost always arrange sex relations into an

ideological mold that takes for granted not only that intimate unions cannot be

understood in ways that exist outside power struggles but also that those power struggles

somehow lead to or inform our expectations of love. Thus, when we see John and Jane

Smith fighting (whether in witty repartee or well-choreographed blows), it reflects their

shared basis of equality, their independence, their desire to work together to resolve their

intimate problems in a kind of foam ‘bat therapy’ gone berserk.

Yet, their battles also

overtly seem to inspire their passion; because they can compete and fight, they are all the

more attracted to each other. John whacks Jane’s head back against a mirror as they tango

and argue, and Jane’s responding moan seems at once a response to the pain and possibly

something more. When Roy and June have one of their first intimate romantic moments,

it occurs after she has been fighting with him out of her anger at his, once again, drugging

her. She punches him, they wrestle, and the wrestle then turns into something sexier.

While this kind of violent crossover might offer a valid appeal for audiences with a taste

for S&M play in the safety of a trusting relationship, it was enacted when there was no

trust between John and Jane (they each suspected the other of being a spy who got into

the relationship to keep tabs on the enemy) or Roy and June. Additionally, such scenes

smack of domestic abuse, which could be seen as a very disconcerting result of their

fighting foreplay. It doesn’t matter if both people give the blows. Violence in love is not

sexy, it’s scary, and, again with exceptions for the S&M crowd, promoting it is obviously

problematic.

See Shoenewolf’s chapter “Games for Angry Couples.” He prescribes actual foam bat

combat, first in his office supervised and then at home, in the nude, to help couples

“channel aggression into sexuality” (121).

165

Our society’s inability to achieve truly equitable sex relations—indicated by this

destructive sex war theme that extends to other fighting female narrative types—shows

how our innate ideas about passion can contradict and counteract any more positive

inroads we make in audience feminist consciousness raising. In essence, our ideas about

love hold us all back. The problem with believing in the war of the sexes—a phrase that

still consistently used in any media text that speaks to male/female conflicts—is that it

presumes heterosexual encounters will always face incompatible wills and desires, where

men want one way, women want another, always in inverse proportion, where the

specific way isn’t as important as the variance between them. Thus, the driving force of

heterosexual union and the foundation of any subsequent intimacy must be tension, the

tension of difference to retain the thrill of romance. Yet, audiences expect that at the end

of a romance story’s passionate crusades, somehow, the casualties strewn about the

heterosexual combat zone will provide fodder to nurture the tender garden of intimacy.

John and Jane Smith make this same kind of miraculous leap from enemy to

lover, as do Roy and June, in a move perpetrated by many romance narratives.

Within

the transition, something important gets erased, namely, how one moves emotionally

from hatred and anger to love. On a user blog posted on Patheos, writer Libby Anne

shares a teacher’s Facebook post that speaks to the problem of the violence as love

tradition. The students tell the teacher that a four-year-old boy pulling a girl’s hair means

“he likes her!” and that a twelve-year-old boy wrestling a girl to the ground, even though

she’s not happy about it, is being “just how boys are.” But the students then think that an

eighteen-year old boy grabbing a girl’s arm is “not okay.” The teacher’s response is to

A move we’ll see in certain fraught fighting female narratives I’ll address in chapter

three.

166

say, “How would he know? How would she know? How would you know? You just told

me that for the first seventeen years of these children’s lives that you thought it was cute,

sweet, and natural, for a boy to grab a girl and be rough with her.” To some extent,

romance portrayed in any genre often equates roughness with intimate gestures. The only

difference is now that there are images of women who can be just a rough—they can be

rough together, and that apparently makes everything okay.

Rudman and Glick reveal the problem with this emotional leap when they

mention how “[n]o other groups are expected to transition from indifference or even

hostility (in childhood) to physical attraction (by adolescence) to sexual intimacy and

love (by early adulthood) in the course of their development. Because of these dramatic

changes, the transition is not always smooth, as is evident in the common expression that

there is a ‘war between the sexes’” (232). As children, we learn that men and women are

on different sides; as adults who somehow know better, we presume that men and women

are on the same side. But when we change the angle of the camera, it turns out that even

when men and women appear to stand next to each other in certain representations in the

mass media, there remains a very deep line separating them.

Considering the point Rudman and Glick make, the verbal sparring and name-

calling between John and Jane, the cat and mouse chasing, the destructive wrestling, all

of the elements audiences read as flirtatious, sound a lot like the descriptions of the

primary school games Barrie Thorne describes in Gender Play: Girls and Boys in School

as responsible for the ways children grow up understanding “boys and girls are defined as

rival teams with a socially distant, wary, and even hostile relationship.” What’s more, the

“heterosexual meanings add to the sense of polarization” (86), and, I would add, they end

167

up becoming both the justification for and the erasure of the transition Rudman and Glick

noted. Talk about a double bind. In other words, one’s presumed heterosexuality—by

sheer force of attraction—is what allows us to transition from hostility to affection. But

the supposed nature of differences that inform the “hetero” in some people’s sex are

continually presented to people as the source of hetero-opposition, for reasons no more

compelling or specific than, effectively, children’s claims like “boys are yucky” or “girls

have cooties.”

The tendency in the certain romance fantasies that have feminist-friendly

potential, including the most ideal version of Romaction in Mr. and Mrs. Smith, is to

present heterosexual intimacy as having it both ways, to count on surface gender truces to

cover a continued threat of sex battle underneath, thereby keeping assumptions about

intimate heterosexual relations mired in traditional divides. Keeping this in mind, I cite

Joan Scott’s well-known suggestion to “treat the opposition between male and female as

problematic rather than known, as something contextually defined, repeatedly

constructed” by “constantly ask[ing] not only what is at stake in proclamations or debates

that invoke gender to explain or justify their positions but also how implicit

understandings of gender are being invoked and reinscribed” (49). Only then can we

begin to understand what has been erased between men and women, why, and more

importantly, how we can use what we find to change our expectations about feminist-

friendly love and intimacy and reshape our future relations between the sexes.

168

CHAPTER FOUR

What Doesn’t Kill Her Makes Her Stronger:

Survival and the Fraught Fighting Female

Oh yes, I am wise

But it’s wisdom born of pain

Yes, I’ve paid the price

But look how much I gained

If I have to, I can do anything

I am strong

I am invincible

I am woman

—Helen Reddy, “I am Woman,” 1972

The stories of the love buddy and Romaction fighting females are generally

lighthearted, entertaining narratives where a strong, independent woman saves the day

and gets her man, achieving the have-it-all ideal. But popular culture has also presented

us with fighting females who don’t always get their man, whose hetero-relations are

much more troubled, and whose stories are much more disturbing or violent. In the

popular PBS series Prime Suspect, Detective Chief Inspector Jane Tennyson (Helen

Mirren) deals with sexism and corruption in her department, alcoholism, and a string of

broken relationships. Her American counterpart, Deputy Chief Brenda Leigh Johnson

(Kyra Sedgwick) in The Closer, also encounters sexism, problems balancing work with a

personal life, and a serial rapist-murderer who taunts and eventually attacks her. Nikita, a

character in two films and two popular television series, is a junkie who commits murder

and is forced to work as an assassin for a secret agency under threat of “cancellation;”

every relationship she has is controlled by the agency and beset by betrayal or duplicity.

In this chapter, I will address these and other examples of what I refer to as

fraught fighting females (FFF). While FFF have a few variations, the ones I will analyze

169

are all crime-fighters, primarily detectives and spies,

who battle to save themselves

and/or others, both physically—using their bodies or weapons—and intellectually, by

finding clues, solving crimes, planning missions, and executing strategies that allow them

to triumph over the enemy. The fraught fighting female, like the love buddy and the

Romaction fighting female, reflects a post-feminist media landscape that naturalizes

women’s strength and consequently functions as a cipher that reveals conflicting

expectations for and anxieties about the strong, independent woman archetype. However,

the FFF is distinct, as I will argue, both in the extremes of obstacles and limited agency

she must overcome and in her status as the primary protagonist and hero. For while her

relationships with other characters remain important elements of her story, it’s very much

her story, and the rest of the cast revolves around it.

Most significantly, unlike the characters I examined in my previous chapters, the

FFF doesn’t share the stage with a special male buddy or hetero-partner. This renders her

both more vulnerable and more formidable than the heroines of Romaction and love-

buddy narratives. On one hand, FFFs are more challenged in their everyday lives and

have to deal both externally and internally with a variety of dangers and susceptibilities.

On the other hand, they have exceptional fortitude, and any personal adversity or trauma

FFFs face empowers them, even if it first threatens to destroy their identities, their

relationships, or their lives. Through a unique narrative interplay of breakdowns and

comebacks, pains and successes, and male versus female, the FFF enacts an especially

complicated version of the strong, independent woman. She is a constrained hero whose

Detective here includes cops and FBI agents, where the primary role of the fighting

female hero is to both discover and apprehend the enemy. Spy heroes differ from the

detectives in that they spend less time identifying the criminal and more time organizing

and executing their defeat.

170

strength might be assured time and again, but only at great cost, and whose independence

is often limited in ways that make successful hetero-intimacies seem exceedingly

difficult, if not impossible.

Positioning the fighting female as a lead creates space for more problematic and

varied representations of hetero-relations within the narrative.

For every good male in

her life, there is at least one (but sometimes more) bad male; for every male ally, there is

a male enemy or nemesis. Even more confounding, sometimes her allies turn out to be

enemies and vice versa. These relational variations and instabilities are important with

regard to the versions of feminist-friendly love fantasies she plays out. While some of the

more recent love-buddy and Romaction narratives included multiple hetero-relations, the

males with whom the fighting female shared intimacies—whether romantic or platonic—

were clearly the good guys. Even in the most heightened conflict between the fighting

female and her leading man, like Mr. and Mrs. Smith where they are literally contracted

to take each other out, there is no question that he’s as much of a good guy as she is.

That’s the point. Proving they both can be the good guy, equally, together. These

optimistic narratives orient around establishing assurances of an empowered woman who

can be the equal of a man and still make an ideal hetero-partner. They also focus on

creating narrative space within which to imagine egalitarian intimacies that further

empower women. Those are the bases of the feminist-friendly love fantasies they project.

It also signifies a representational parity in male/female characterizations in crime-

fighting dramas. Only, the narratives base parity on proof of overcoming powerlessness

and limitations instead of on representations of similar abilities in terms of crime-

fighting. Yet, being fraught is a badge of difference, as the fighting female is not always

fraught in the same ways as males.

171

On the contrary, FFF fantasies generally develop from stories of

disempowerment, often implicating constrained agency as a seemingly unavoidable

aspect of women’s relations with men. In this way, these fantasies play on existing power

dynamics that regulate the sexes culturally, socially, and politically. The evidence of

disempowerment the FFF faces presents male domination and authority as an obstacle to

the hero’s well-being or success. This connection occurs within her closest hetero-

relations—whether personal, professional, or both—where the FFF is constrained by

oppression, abuse, persecution, or prejudice. Her stories function to constantly remind

viewers that the power she exerts is circumscribed by the power men exert over her, and

this dynamic defines much of her struggles as both a woman and professional. The FFF

draws more attention to a darker side of the perceived crisis in hetero-relations post-

feminism than what we see in the previous fighting female narratives.

The FFF demonstrates the many hostilities women still face and the dilemma of

representing female power. Her stories signify not only contradictory attitudes toward

female power and violence but also fears of male power and violence and the many ways

men can still control even empowered women, which often plays a part in the obstacles

fraught fighting females face in their intimate relationships with men. This isn’t to say

that the possibilities of feminist-friendly love are excluded from the FFF narratives, only

that they are much more, well, fraught: some render it a fiction, some reassert it in the

end, but they all subject it to some serious doubts. The relatively few instances in which

the FFF does end up happily coupled provide an interesting counterpoint to the majority

where she remains “consciously uncoupled,” to use Gwyneth Paltrow’s phrase.

172

The doubts cultivated by the FFF once again reinforce crucial questions

underpinning fighting female narratives: what compromises occur when representing

women’s strength and independence in relation to heterosexual intimacy? What do those

compromises say about the compatibility between the two? And are those compromises

feminist-friendly? However, FFF relationship narratives also encourage additional

inquiry: What happens when fighting female narratives constantly highlight female

vulnerability and male domination? Does it diminish ideals of women’s strength and

independence to constantly focus on constraints to their agency? Why are men generally

shown to be culpable for those constraints? What does it say about hetero-intimacies that

the FFF always gets her man, the bad guy, but she almost never gets a man—at least not

in the end? What does it say about the possibilities of feminist love and our expectations

of men that they can so easily occupy both the enemy and ally position, often moving

back and forth between them?

For my analysis in this chapter, I begin by exploring the cultural context from

which the FFF emerged. I then outline the ways she is fraught, focusing on themes of

constrained agency in detective and spy FFF narratives that invoke fears about male

power, that draw attention to abusive dynamics that implicate male dominance in

women’s oppression even as they function to assure us of the hero’s strength as she

overcomes the oppression, and that project conflicting messages about hetero-intimacy

for the empowered woman. These themes include sexism and objectification, sex-based

violence, paternal/patriarchal authority, and male-partner betrayals. From here, I analyze

resolution themes that capitalize on or allay those fears and that seem to promote more

173

progressive hetero-relations and emphasize feminist-friendly intimacy as the basis for

fighting male domination and empowering women.

Female Identity & the Interplay of Strength & Vulnerability in Popular Culture

Fraught fighting females face emotional and/or physical violence that can be

difficult to watch, and we cannot underestimate the impact that viewing the brutality they

face can have. Of course the hero in today’s action and thriller movies must be able to

fight, but the hero must also often be beaten before the final confrontation. And there are

still very gendered connotations that distinguish violence by men and against men from

violence by and against women. Before the 1960s with the invention of the female super

spy in The Avengers—and the dramatic increase of violence shown in the media—women

weren’t shown punching men (much less karate-chopping them). However, a woman

being punched straight in the face by a man during a fight was still unheard of, and even

the indomitable Emma Peel or Cathy Gale never took a hit on camera; they only doled

them out. Merely seeing a woman get slapped onscreen was enough to exact an

astonished gasp from audiences, and it still is depending on the genre of the

program/film. Before when women were hurt on screen (or usually off screen), it was

always effectively abuse. Only cruel men hurt women; heroes only fought cruel men.

Only women who were victims were hurt, and the heroes saved them. The lines were

fairly clear.

Now, it is possible to see a what Sarah Hagelin refers to as images of “abused

women who don’t want our pity, and images of bodies in pain that don’t register as

174

powerless” (4). Even on primetime television, a woman can be tortured and still be a

badass rather than automatically interpreted as an abused female. Today’s torture is often

also overt and goes beyond the torture women used to deal with onscreen, being tied up

or verbally threatened or slapped by an evil captor who wants to prove he means business

to the male hero meant to save the woman. In some of the more graphic FFF battles

today, they are shot, cut up, stabbed, raped, subjected to psychological distress, electro-

shock, and waterboarding; when they fight their captors, often by themselves, their

bloody, traumatized bodies exact an even bloodier payback. Still, they are women

experiencing this violence, and it’s still true seeing a female get hurt can be a

confounding experiences for audiences.

It could be argued that the way that the FFF narratives spend so much time

highlighting female victimization—either in the hero or in the victimization of other

female characters—lessens the impact of female empowerment and thus promotes a kind

of women-as-victim identity that is potentially regressive. Douglas pinpoints the

correlation of female power and victimization that occurred in 1974 with the “debut of

two new trends on television, one the mirror image of the other.” First, the development

of the female cop protagonist in shows like Police Woman and Get Christie Love, where

“the barrier against women having the title role in a cop show was broken.” Then, the end

of another “long-held TV taboo” when it became “OK to discuss and portray the crime of

rape, and soon women were getting raped everywhere” on television (Where the Girls

Are 209). The implication here is that assertions of female strength needs to be tempered

by assertions of vulnerability, a reminder of where women really stand. This mirroring

seems reminiscent of some FFF film and television shows that I’ll be addressing in the

175

next section, like Cagney & Lacey (1981-88), Prime Suspect (1991-2006), The Closer

(2005-2012), The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo films, and the mini-series Top of the Lake

(2013), where rape regularly plays a significant part in the female hero’s storyline.

For the most part, the heroes in these shows rarely exhibit physical aggression or

violence to counteract portrayals of male domination, even if the heroes otherwise act

aggressively. Most of the fighting for these detective females occurs at the level of

procedure: interrogations and crime-scene investigations. These procedures could be seen

as keeping the emphasis on the violence against the victim, the same way that

interactions with sexist colleagues keep the emphasis on the limits surrounding the hero.

When the fighting female is more violent, as in Lisbeth Salander’s case from The Girl

with the Dragon Tattoo series, when she exacts revenge on her rapist guardian, the

narrative more graphically depicts the spectacle of female victimization. Thus, overall,

these narratives reflect a tactic that Clover notes in “final girl” narratives of slasher films:

the development of the victimization occurs over an excessive amount of screen time in

comparison to either “extended frenzies of sadism” that occur in fight scenes with male

heroes or the actual final scenes where they triumph over the villain (18). Hence, female

victimization is a principal impression left by the narratives, even though the impression

of the hero’s strength in beating the bad guy leaves the final mark. Even this strength has

been seen as comparatively attenuated, particularly with regard to other male heroes

because many FFFs generally rely on guns during any violent act and then only

occasionally and without much spectacle. While critics like Yvonne Tasker have noted

that the gun symbolizes phallic power that women can appropriate,

in the increasingly

See Spectacular Bodies.

176

action-oriented crime-fighting popular media, male heroes more and more face the

criminals in physical fighting scenes, and hand-to-hand combat is something the majority

of the detective FFFs don’t do.

However, the same argument about countering progressive sexual politics by

overemphasizing the spectacle of female victimization cannot be made for all FFF

narratives I’ll address. Movies like La Femma Nikita (1991), Point of No Return (1993),

and Salt (2010) and television shows like La Femme Nikita (1997-2001), Alias (2001-

2006), and Nikita (2010-13) tend to include as many scenes of her “extended frenzies of

sadism” as those dramatizing the FFF’s limited agency and vulnerability to male

domination. These narratives give many more striking glimpses of female empowerment

in the form of women who fight the enemy repeatedly not only with guns and knives but

with their bodies as weapons, drawing blood, being bloodied, encountering explosions—

all in true action-genre demonstrations of power. Yet these particular FFFs are violent

fighters because they are constructed to be, by men, against their will or without their

knowledge, again raising the question of appropriated power at the same time as

portraying their combat abilities.

It is neither fair nor accurate to say that either one of these FFF versions is one

OR the other, vulnerable or strong, victimized or empowered, because they are all

BOTH. Ultimately, this is what is compelling and mystifying about their demonstrations

of empowerment because they embody vulnerability and strength, face limitations and

exert independence. They are certainly not helpless, but they aren’t necessarily powerful,

either. They are survivors. More specifically, they are survivors of men, of male-

dominated worlds. The woman-as-survivor identity constructed in the FFF narratives

177

grows out of and reflects the contradictory experiences of womanhood and the shifting

portrayals of contemporary femininity in arenas of the cultural imagination that assert the

strong, independent woman archetype as an ideal.

1980s: Woman-as-survivor hits primetime

Arguably the original primetime FFF narrative, Cagney & Lacey was the first to

showcase female heroes navigating the victim-agent divide in its interpretation of the

empowered woman ideal, and it did so in service of a specifically feminist-friendly

agenda on the part of the creators and writers. Barbara Avedon and Barbara Corday

devised the show after they read a book that stated there had never been a female buddy

film.

After sharing the book with producer Barney Rosenzweig, they wrote the script

for what would become the TV movie that launched the series in 1981. More than once,

Rosenzweig emphasized that the show was about “two women who happen to be cops,

not two cops who happen to be women,” which highlights the focus on the main

characters lives as women that would become central to later FFF narratives.

Cagney & Lacey, traversing the new ground of the primetime female-driven

detective melodrama, had the unique battle of promoting an overt feminist-friendly

agenda without seeming to—meaning without being too strident, pedantic, or

alienating—so it could maintain a broad audience appeal.

Other programs had

Molly Haskell’s 1974 book, From Reverence to Rape

He has since been very vocal supporter of the show, even today, and insists on its

influence on all female-driven cop shows to follow.

The dilemmas involved in representing such women as strong, independent female

heroes are reflected in the very public chronicle of the show’s production history. From

the beginning, the Cagney & Lacey concept was slow to be picked up, having been

178

attempted to capitalize on feminism before, but this program was attempting to promote

it. As such, there were high stakes involved in the show’s representation of female-

driven, feminist-friendly themes. As Douglas notes, television was “a highly contested

terrain in the struggle not just between feminism and antifeminism but over what type of

feminism was going to become accepted into the mainstream” (Where the Girls Are 202),

and the type of feminism to be accepted tied in directly to the empowered female identity

a show constructed. Recognizing this struggle is imperative to understanding more about

the mixed messages mass media portray about being a strong, independent woman in

American popular culture and the way the FFF navigates these messages.

Cagney & Lacey, with its premise of women bucking a sexist justice system and

its commitment to showcasing women’s vulnerability (including sexual harassment in the

workplace and date rape) and their strengths (as crime-fighters and also as women

overcoming numerous obstacles) provided a primer for the FFF narratives that would

follow. In fact, it the was first primetime show of which I am aware where a female

protagonist gets beaten (Lacey, in “Beyond the Golden Door” 01.03), shot (Cagney in

“Partners” 03.06 and Lacey in “Happiness Is a Warm Gun” 06.20), or date-raped

(Cagney in “Don’t I Know You?” 07.09). Additionally, the show offers multi-

dimensional female heroes who are imperfect, who make mistakes, and who are often

deeply troubled. Neither of the protagonists are paragons of virtue like heroines of the

past or perfect, one-dimensional heroes who triumph without struggle. Cagney, dealing

with stresses of losing her father, becomes an alcoholic later in the series. Lacey, the self-

described “mother-wife-cop” (01.01), even has a nervous breakdown at one point and

rejected by several studios. Then, the show gained the dubious distinction of being saved

from cancellation with highly publicized comebacks twice in its early years.

179

flees the city because she’s overwhelmed by efforts to balance her work and family

(“Burnout” 02.17). Still, both of women remain heroes, and their imperfections only

increased their popularity with their dedicated fan base, populated by many women who

shared, and were inspired by, their imperfections. I will provide more detail about these

FFF themes in coming sections when I analyze the specifics of the series. For now, I am

concerned with noting the show’s influence on American mass culture in the type of new

female identity it promoted, which emerged from both its status as a feminist-derived

popular television show and its construction of not one but two survivor protagonists.

Certain other narrative elements in Cagney & Lacey have been acknowledged to

be an important part of its feminist-friendly message, in particular the way the show

highlighted the friendship between the two female heroes and the agency they expressed

in their personal and professional lives, indicated by the narratives’ emphases on the

decision-making processes behind the resolution of their personal and ethical dilemmas.

These elements have been seen to play central roles in the show’s deliberate focus on

affirmative expressions of female empowerment. The female heroes thus exhibit strength

and independence because they make their own choices and take responsibility for

themselves (Clark 123).

Emphasizing agency and choice is a necessary component of any empowered

woman and feminist-friendly narrative, but the concepts of agency and choice are

themselves fraught and cannot be understood outside of the context wherein that agency

to choose is exercised. The emphasis on context in determining women’s choices, and the

way that male domination shapes context, was fundamental to the feminism in Cagney &

See also D’Acci.

180

Lacey, as well as the FFF storylines to follow it, as I will show. Looking at the particular

strategies used to exemplify limited agency and to create obstacles for the FFF heroes

clarifies: the limits to seeing choice alone as an expression of empowerment; where

disempowerment acts to empower fighting females; and the regressive and progressive

readings of empowerment through disempowerment. That’s why my analysis of FFF

characters orients more around the survivor identity they construct based on tropes of

female disempowerment and the ways female heroes are shown to be threatened or made

vulnerable by gendered power imbalances that then affect their identify and behavior

and/or control their choices.

1990s: Woman-As-Survivor and Mass Media

The popular media—television, newspapers, and journalistic representations of

current events—is often critiqued for backlash representations of women that undermine

feminist-friendly politics. However, the media also helped cultivate the very perception

of the woman as both strong yet vulnerable, a survivor, that has informed the

development and continued popularity of the fraught fighting female hero. While Cagney

& Lacey facilitated the entrance of the woman-as-survivor into mass culture and was a

cultural phenomenon that facilitated the FFF, there were three other noteworthy

contributors to changing perceptions of women from the early 1990s, the very time when

FFF characters emerged in greater numbers in popular culture. First, there was a minor

revolution in films in 1991, when three female-driven movies were released—two of

which earned blockbuster status by being in the top five gross earners for the year

(Terminator 2, at the number one spot, and Silence of the Lambs at the number five).

181

While not a top earner, the third earned a blockbuster reputation for its portrayal of

violent women on the lam in Thelma and Louise.

This was an unprecedented year for female heroes with guns in film, and the

protagonists of all three films offered different versions of FFFs who represented strong

and independent but also vulnerable women as heroes. These films showcased not only

the changing perspective of female heroes but ushered in a new era of notable female

heroes that included not only other FFF heroes but also Buffy, Xena, and GI Jane. Even

Cagney & Lacey picked up where it left off, returning with four made-for-TV movies

between 1994 and 1996 to explore a whole new set of problems for the aging woman

survivor of the justice system. These three influential films reflect the way “popular films

and TV in the 1990s begin to undermine assumptions about female vulnerability by

severing the link between vulnerability and powerlessness that earlier forms of cultural

production had trained audiences to expect” (Hagelin 10).

Additionally, the

controversies they sparked about transgressive female violence, for Thelma, the portrayal

of deviant homosexuality, for Silence of the Lambs, and about female guns—in this case,

protagonist Linda Hamilton’s chiseled arms and androgynous physique—for Terminator

2 further ensured their cultural impact. Feminist critics rushed to applaud, reject, or

problematize these films and debate about whether or not they represented feminist-

Hagelin doesn’t reference these three movies, only the cultural milieu of the 1990s in

general. She does, however, make an excellent case in chapter three of Reel Vulnerability

for the influence of the 1997 film G.I. Jane on later representations of abused females,

and she believes Ridley Scott’s work on Thelma and Louise enticed Demi Moore to

participate in the film. Relating to the gender transgressions and the controversies

sparked by the G.I. Jane, I would agree, though I still see these early 1990s films as

laying important cultural groundwork.

182

friendly interests.

The space for fighting females in the American imagination has only

continued to expand since.

Also in 1991, Anita Hill made possibly the most well-known accusation of sexual

harassment in American history when she testified that Supreme Court nominee Clarence

Thomas had repeatedly offended her with unwelcome sexual advances.

Through

televised testimonies, Americans became intimately familiar with the experiences of this

young, successful, composed lawyer and debated the possibility of whether or not her

accusations were true. The outcome of her testimony isn’t as important as the fact that her

experience was instrumental in spreading the image of the empowered and vulnerable

woman, whose very presence implied (to those of us who believed her) that if it could

happen to her, it could happen to other women.

In terms of impact, Marcia D. Greenberger, founder and co-president of the

National Women’s Law Center, explains that in 1991, sexual harassment “was an

invisible issue, until Anita testified” (qtd. by Noveck), and as Jocelyn Noveck writes,

“Not only did Hill’s testimony raise public consciousness about sexual harassment in the

workplace […] and spur other women to make claims, but only months later, the Civil

Rights Act of 1991, which addressed issues of employment discrimination, was passed

with strong support.” Furthermore, in the years between 1992-96, the Equal Employment

Opportunity Commission reports that there was a 50% increase in claims of sexual

harassment, not because of any actual increase in incidences but because of increased

I addressed some of these controversial responses to Thelma and Louise in chapter

three. Tasker’s chapter on “Action Heroines in the 1980s” also provides a useful analysis

of the different critical responses to Thelma and Louise and Terminator 2 (Spectacular)

The influence of the Hill testimony has been well-documented by feminist critics,

though not in relation to the victim/agent popular media construction of female identity.

183

reporting of harassment (Walsh). Women took heed and took a stand. The impact of Hill

still endures more than twenty years later, as evidenced by the release of the documentary

Anita (2013) which chronicles not only the dismal, offensive experiences Hill faced but

also her perseverance in staying her ground and trying to salvage her life and reputation

after the hearings.

Noting the cultural impact the Hill hearings had, particularly in terms of feminist

culture, is not new, and most analyses of this period refer to its reverberating effects.

However, there is an aspect of her experience that has not been as clearly noted: not just

the allegations of sexual harassment Hill made but the very way Hill was treated during

the hearings emphasized her contradictory position as a strong and independent but

oppressed and outnumbered woman who was subject to the limitations of a male political

and social hierarchy. As Hill notes in a 2014 interview, the “harsh contrast” in the visual

of her sitting before an all-white, male panel was “like Mad Men,” and “[i]t was a

reflection of their power and privilege” and her own distinct lack of both—a reflection

that seemed to resonate with a portion of the public who rallied behind her (qtd. in

Noveck). As Douglas explains, Hill’s treatment during the hearings exposed the “lie”

about patriarchy that some fighting female narratives depended upon, that “there was no

such thing as patriarchy, but if there was, it was beneficent and would protect women”

(Enlightened 298). In that panel, no one was there to protect Hill but herself. She,

therefore, embodied both the victim and the agent in her role.

As many other feminist critics have noted, support for the disenfranchised Hill,

and rejection of the backlash politics of the first Bush administration, helped usher in the

so-called “Year of the Woman” in 1992. Hill’s experience before that all-white, male

184

panel highlighted the political dominance of men in the Senate, and it moved an

unprecedented number of women to run for the available seats in both the Senate and the

House of Representatives during that year’s election. The mass media regularly invoked

the link between these two stories, how the candidates’ awareness of women’s unfair

treatments and unequal standing forced them to act. Of course, the “year of the woman”

label was extremely overstated; even though the election did result in the largest influx of

women into the Senate at the time, there were still only five to hold a seat. Yes, five. So,

there are two interrelating stories of the engagement between disempowerment and

empowerment in this period: first, women’s political response to the Hill/Thomas

hearing, a story of how disempowerment can’t hold strong, independent women down;

second, a story of how even after taking a stand and showing their strength, women’s

political position remained unequal and vulnerable. The fact that this was a momentous

event in election history certainly helped more people recognize not only the precarious

position women hold in Hollywood and in the workplace but also in America’s political

system. While these women represented empowered role models, their token status also

represented deep-rooted limitations to women’s enfranchisement.

In addition to the impact of these three occurrences, there were other cultural

representations during this time that navigated the tricky ground between portrayals of

the empowered but vulnerable woman, in effect solidifying the connection between

survival and strength. One of the biggest critical engagements came from arguments

about whether or not the have-it-all dream is really possible for women, much less

desirable. I address the cultural impact of this dream in chapters two and three, but its

influence on media constructions of female identity cannot be overstressed. Media

185

discussions about the mommy wars, the second shift, pay disparity, and the glass ceiling

all either highlighted or assumed how far women have come—being established as a part

of the workforce as successful professionals—but they also rely on depictions of how

they have far to go to achieve parity even in their very family lives, much less their work

lives. In other words, these stories rely on the assumption of women’s empowered

position in society, their general strength and independence in being able to become what

they want to be, but they also highlight their susceptibility. Overall, the have-it-all dream

is one with a very fraught underbelly that has been exposed all through the media for the

last twenty years.

Not only academic scholars but also critics in popular media, writers in Glamour,

Marie Claire, and Redbook, bloggers, songstresses, CEOs, and even advertisers have

seized on and/or exploited (depending on your perspective) the refrain that while women

can and should have it all, it won’t be easy because they are women. These people

anxiously identify the unfair standards women face and interrogate the ways in which

women remain vulnerable and the reasons power continues to elude them. Even the very

concept of empowerment has been argued to harm women by creating unrealizable

standards of perfection that are unique to women.

However, people addressing this

issue all maintain the assertion that women can, and should, be able to do what they want,

and by no means should women simply identify themselves as victims, even if they are

still vulnerable as a sex, because they are more than that. When political campaigns

around 2010 and again in 2015 embraced the “war on women” phrase that feminists have

been using since the late 1970s, the goal wasn’t to only address women’s unresolved

See Spar.

186

political, social, and economic disenfranchisement or help women see how they are still

victims of an unequal system. It was also to empower them to do something about it by

voting, getting involved in politics, seeking office and leadership positions. This has been

the popular tenor of the last twenty years. Thus, it seems that the woman-as-survivor

characterizes one perspective of women’s position that actually has the broadest appeal,

in part I imagine because it is so difficult to pin down. That the FFF would emerge out of

this chaos makes sense.

The woman-as-survivor identity is predicated on the male-as-dominator identity,

which makes it essential to discuss depictions of hetero-relations as part of the

construction of this identity. Again, as much as popular media is often and rightly

considered a tool wielded by patriarchy, it consistently reports on and represents

oppressions individual women experience which, when added together, indicates that

their oppression as a sex is a problem. These representations include workplace and

intimate examples of injury, exclusion, or manipulation emerging from the current

system of gender hierarchies and perpetrated by men. Myriad media fantasies and news

accounts incriminate men by identifying them as husbands whose careers come first and

who don’t share the domestic duties,

as fathers who embrace traditional roles once they

have children,

as bosses who don’t hire or promote women,

colleagues and strangers

who sexually harass women, as politicians who support legislation that directly harms

women,

or as sexual harassers, domestic abusers, and rapists.

See Sifferlin or Marcotte

See O’Neill or Cain Miller

See “40% of Managers” or “Toronto Woman”

See Steiger

187

Celebrity news headlines and popular daytime talk shows over the past two

decades convey stories and images of women who embody both empowerment and

vulnerability, strength and weakness as women who have been abused by men—like

Rhianna, Halle Berry, Madonna, Oprah, Lady Gaga, and Drew Barrymore. There’s a

section on a website entitled Ranker.com called “53 Celebrities Who Were Abused” that

lists celebrities who have experienced abuse and shared their stories (the vast majority of

whom are women). The introduction states, “Many of them speak of their past, so that

other victims can feel empowered to move past their experiences,” which links their

victimization to the agency they exercise in sharing their stories to help others. The

creation of Lifetime Network in 1984 (dubbed “Television for Women”) and its

continuation has contributed much to the popular woman-as-survivor identity. Not only

has it been a bastion for daytime talk shows and syndications of often female-driven

dramas (including Cagney & Lacey), but over the course of its thirty-year tenure, it has

also specialized in producing dramas and made-for-television movies that not only

feature women who are often survivors of male abuse but also true stories of their abuse

that are “ripped from actual news headlines,” like the 2014 Lifetime movie The Assault,

which dramatizes the infamous Steubenville rape case (Hess).

These popular culture representations of the uneven path women traverse in a

patriarchal society indicate an important realization at the basis of the FFF version of the

strong, independent woman archetype: that highlighting women’s victimization,

So-called “men’s rights advocates” glommed onto perceived media attacks against

their sex, initiated by feminism and the “liberal media,” based on just these kinds of

portrayals to prove how they are oppressed. Their resentment and backlash proves the

impact that the repeated man-as-dominator identity has had, even though this identity

makes up only one version in a media filled predominantly with other portrayals of male

power and awesome-man identities.

188

particularly at the hands of men, does not necessarily make women appear weak or belie

women’s desire to feel and need to project strength at all times in order to succeed. Doing

so is simply part of a growing representation of female protagonists in general, and FFF

in particular, that better reflects the complexity of women’s lives (and loves).

It’s why

FFF character types are the most common fighting female on screen these days. They hit

a nerve. They reflect the burgeoning dissatisfaction and disillusionment that correlate

with assertions of female empowerment, particularly the idea that has shaped all of the

fighting female narratives, that women can and will have it all. Much of this

dissatisfaction comes from recognition of the fact that empowerment and oppression go

hand in hand for many women—you can’t have it all if you can’t afford it, don’t have

time for it, are too battered to pursue it, or otherwise won’t be allowed to get it. This

recognition has been aided by representations of both real and fictional women in popular

culture where women’s victimization is highlighted in conjunction with stories of their

strength and independence.

Fighting for Justice, Fighting the System

Implicating difference in Fraught Fighting Female narratives

Sometimes, the victimization highlighted in FFF narratives emphasizes the female

hero’s sex difference and thus explicitly critiques hetero-gendered power dynamics, a

narrative trend that began in the 1980s with Cagney & Lacey. There are two common

themes of disempowerment I’ll address in this section that the FFF narratives like Cagney

& Lacey rely on to form this identity, including sex discrimination/harassment and sexual

O’Keefe’s article “TV’s Renaissance for Strong Women” from The Atlantic addresses

the increase in varied female character types in recent television.

189

assault. These themes reflect the dilemma of representing female power and negotiating

tensions between traditional views of hetero-relations and burgeoning expectations for

female empowerment, all while still appealing to audiences.

Sexism

Women facing sexism is a theme that shapes the entire Cagney & Lacey series,

beginning with the very first episode. Christine Cagney

and Mary Beth Lacey (Tyne

Daley) are the first female detectives in their precinct, and most of their male colleagues

are not welcoming. Their lieutenant, Bert Samuels (Al Waxman) complains about them

as the latest gimmick, stating that the last year it was “blacks,” this year it’s women.

Later that same episode, when the first drug-detection dogs are introduced to the precinct,

Samuels makes a similar crack about first having to get used to “broads” and now dogs.

Comparing female cops to animals further reinforces the kind of disdain the heroes face

by entering this department. Throughout the series, Cagney and Lacey also have to

contend with Detective Victor Isbecki’s (Karl Rove) machismo and blatant chauvinistic

comments. More than once, victims of crime on the show mention how unusual it is to be

helped by a female detective, and in “Better than Equal” (01.06), the final episode of the

short first season, one victim—an infamous female critic of the ERA who closely

resembles Phyllis Schlafly—outright objects to being protected by female detectives.

Hostility and reminders of their marginalized position define Cagney and Lacey’s

circumstances throughout the series, even as they continually prove their detractors

Christine Cagney was played by three different actresses: Loretta Swit in the original

TV movie in 1981; Meg Foster for the first televised season in 1982; Sharon Gless for the

remainder of the series from 1982-1988 and in the five made-for TV movies in the 1990s.

190

wrong, solve case after case, face and survive danger, and save others from danger. In

chapter two, I analyzed the inclusion of sexism in a narrative as a way to bolster the love

buddy fighting female’s authority in the 1980s programs even as it enacts a constant

reminder that she is not the master of her own fate—in other words, that her authority is

always circumscribed. So, Laura Holt’s monologue sets the scene for the show to remind

viewers every week that with each case she concluded, Holt proved wrong those clients

who sought a “decidedly masculine superior;” she is capable and good at her crime-

fighting profession. She can overcome the sexism and succeed.

At the same time, because she eventually has to take on a male partner without

any say in the matter, her success always reminds viewers that she can’t break free from

the sexism that has entirely organized her circumstances. She can only work within it.

The agency never becomes Laura Holt’s—it’s always Remington Steele’s. Here is where

the problem becomes apparent when relying on a woman’s ability to choose as an

indicator of autonomy. The only choice Holt can make here is to work with Steele

(thereby accepting limited agency) or close the business (maintaining her authority but

then being out of work). That aspect of the narrative doesn’t seem very liberating to me.

The difference between the sexism fighting females in the love buddy shows experience

and the sexism for FFFs is that the latter tend face more explicit, detrimental, and/or more

alienating sexist treatment. In Holt’s case, the prejudice she encounters is rarely enacted

in the actual narrative, and it is never hostile. Like I said, the show was a much more

lighthearted take on sexual politics. There was certainly feminist-friendly potential there,

but the way it glancingly implicated sexism comes off more as throwing a feminist bone

191

for an audience just beginning to take pleasure in the idea of strong women besting

outdated ideas than as necessarily interrogating the effects of sexism on the hero.

This is not true of the sexism in Cagney & Lacey, which the series deals with in

meaty chunks. The two heroes bump up against prejudice time and again, in different

forms, ranging from generic, sometimes unconscious, chauvinism toward female

detectives (being overlooked for promotions and certain cases) to female objectification

(the men in the department are fond of using prostitutes for practical jokes against other

men and having strippers for birthday, wedding, and retirement celebrations) to sexual

harassment (Cagney brings charges against a fellow officer who demanded sexual favors

for professional advancement). Even during the final episode of the television series

(before the series of made-for-TV movies that would come in the 1990s), after the heroes

had earned the respect of all in their precinct and even gained rank (Cagney makes

sergeant), the heroes still had doubts about their positions as women in the force. They

wonder if the reason they were assigned to a life-threatening “crap” detail—as Cagney

referred to it—and excluded from knowing about a related, ongoing undercover operation

was because of their enemies in the department who resented working with women.

Related FFF narratives also interrogate the constraining effects of sexism

regularly and/or explicitly, to varying degrees. These narratives include TV programs like

Prime Suspect,

The Closer (2005-12), and Top of the Lake (2013), as well as movies

like Blue Steel (1989), Silence of the Lambs (1991), Murder By Number (2002), and

Taking Lives (2004). All of these exhibit forms of sexism that differ from Cagney and

Lacey in degree if not in kind, including that from reluctant or actively hostile colleagues

Both the British version (1991-2006) and its brief US version (2011-12). I only discuss

the former in detail in this chapter, but I address the reboot in chapter five.

192

and old-boy networks. In fact Prime Suspect, much like Cagney & Lacey, was a product

of a female creator who was inspired by stories of female discrimination.

Lynda La

Plante devised the series after she learned that only a handful of female Detective Chief

Inspectors (DCI) worked in Scotland Yard. She interviewed one of them, DCI Jackie

Malton, and found stories about her difficulties and dedication so fascinating that she

created character DCI Jane Tennison based on Malton.

Also like Cagney & Lacey, the female hero is introduced as a woman under

professional constraints due to sexual discrimination. At the beginning of the first

episode, Tennison is passed over to lead a rape/murder investigation that should have

been assigned to her as the DCI on duty. When the male DCI who was put in charge of

the case dies suddenly of a heart attack, Tennison must maneuver her way into the lead to

avoid being passed over again. When she asks the Detective Chief Superintendent for the

chance to “prove” herself, he responds by saying it was the wrong time to “thrust

women’s rights” down his throat. She does get the lead, much to the very vocal dismay of

her colleagues, and it causes something of a fracas in the department. She generally faces

petty complaints and resistant colleagues who make her job harder, like the unbearable

Detective Sergeant Bill Otley (Tom Bell). Every step she takes toward advancement

through the series is met with male resistance and requires serious political finagling and

the occasional overstep into unethical or gray areas. As she gains in rank through the

series, eventually reaching Detective Superintendent, she gets assigned to less desirable

areas of the city.

There’s some speculation regarding the influence of Cagney & Lacey had for creator

La Plante. Sharon Gless reported in an interview in 2011 that La Plante wrote Prime

Suspect as an “homage to us” (Williams), but other writers have noted that La Plante

specifically attempted to avoid the melodrama of Cagney & Lacey (Cavender and Jurik).

193

In The Closer—which critics, the show’s creators, and its star have acknowledged

as “owing a debt” to Prime Suspect—Deputy Chief Brenda Leigh Johnson experiences

similar alienation from the squad she’s been tasked to lead as the new head of Major

Crimes Division. The squad resents her authority, and they all put in for transfer notices

as protest. Even though the objecting team includes a female detective, and they claim

only to object to the current head of the division, Captain Taylor (Robert Gossett), being

replaced, the squad’s treatment of Johnson clearly suggests resistance to her as a woman

because her brusque, aggressive manner transgresses traditional gender expectations.

From the beginning of the series, she marches in and begins giving orders to a group of

men who don’t look pleased to follow her demands. She confidently corrects the mistakes

of other detectives, sending one home, and asserts her authority over those who question

her experience and her right to the position she’s been given. She does so without

apologizing or asking for permission even from her supervisor because her job is to lead.

When one detective tells her not to be a bitch, she curtly replies, “If I liked being called a

bitch to my face, I’d still be married” (01.01). Thus, by rejecting her for expressing a less

genial, feminine form of authority, they indicate their own prejudices about women in

charge.

Which isn’t to say that Johnson isn’t feminine in other ways. She often looks feminine

in flowery dresses, heels, and bright lipstick with her curled hair flowing. She often

performs femininity when she interrogates suspects, putting on comforting, nurturing

airs, or professing ignorance. She also wields politeness and her Southern wiles in

difficult work situations, though it’s usually clear that she’s not entirely sincere, as when

she says a drawn out “thank yeeew” after giving an order to someone who’s not pleased

to follow. In general, the ruffles cover a gruff interior that is always present. As Mike

Hale describes her, Johnson is “[p]ainted as both a neurotic, narcissistic supercop and a

likable, nurturing den mother.”

194

Plus, when Captain Taylor argues with Assistant Police Chief Pope (J.K.

Simmons) about Johnson’s lack of experience in the precinct, Taylor refers to Johnson as

“this girl, person, woman, whatever it is we’re supposed to call them,” emphasizing a

touchiness about her sex. The two oldest members of the squad, Detective Lieutenants

Provenza (G.W. Bailey) and Flynn (Anthony Dennison), openly resent Johnson and being

under a woman’s authority. They, like Taylor, protest vocally, and lash out throughout

the early seasons, acting on their own and against her instructions, often causing

problems that Johnson later has to clean up. However, these two older men function as

something like court jesters, and their machismo and old-school ways often make them

look foolish. The narrative clearly mocks them, but in essence, they resist the same thing

that the rest of the squad resists—a woman in authority who doesn’t act like they expect a

woman to act. They are only more explicit about it and less quick to fall in line once

Johnson proves herself. The narrative additionally includes more insidious illustrations of

sexist treatment, as when Johnson puts up with investigations into her sex life and

allegations about sleeping her way to the top. This makes her colleagues question her

professionalism, even though it doesn’t affect the reputation of the man involved, who is

of higher rank.

In Top of the Lake, a miniseries that has likewise been identified as indebted to

Prime Suspect (Haglund), Detective Robin Griffin (Elizabeth Moss) is treated with a

similar disdain as a “female detective” from the all-male department to which she’s

temporarily assigned to investigate a case of a pregnant pre-teen named Tui (Jacqueline

Joe). Films like Blue Steel and Silence of the Lambs, where cop Megan Turner (Jamie

Lee Curtis) and FBI agent Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster), respectively, experience subtly

195

pernicious sexual discrimination, stress the alienation and isolation the heroes experience

for their token female status in a male justice system. In more recent films like Murder

By Number, and Taking Lives, the FFF cop heroes face explicit but less obtrusive sexism

enacted more like character flaws of unenlightened men, where their colleagues make

sexist cracks about them or other women that maintain a tension between the protagonist

and her colleagues. However, these narratives make sense of alienation the women

experience in their profession just as frankly apparent as the narratives of the previous

FFF texts.

These programs and films mark decades of FFF chronicles that emphasize: the

token position of women and the sexist basis of a criminal-justice system that designates

men as the primary protectors; the attendant tensions between male and female cops

working in this system; and, most relevant to my argument, the effects that underscoring

prejudiced environments and disrespectful male colleagues have on the strong,

independent woman image projected by female heroes. Highlighting sexism in the

fighting female’s fraughtness sows the seeds of unsettled gender dynamics into the

narrative and underscores tensions between men and women in the workplace

deliberately, not just in service of proving the hero’s strength in overcoming them but

specifically in service of imbuing a basis of doubt and mistrust between men and women

on screen as a source of female vulnerability. The FFF essentially can’t help being an

outsider simply because she’s a woman. She has no real choice in her marginalization,

except to choose to continue in spite of it. Her marginalization as a woman might be

reduced, as in Prime Suspect, or it might prove only an annoyance that she brushes off, as

in Murder by Numbers and Taking Lives. However, it remains part of her character’s

196

identity throughout, symbolizing her position as, at best, a survivor or at worst an outcast,

as susceptible in ways that male heroes aren’t.

The Closer, in contrast, focuses throughout the series on the way men learn to

respect Johnson and downplay the sexism as the series progresses taking us far afield of

the alienation inspired by Prime Suspect’s finale. Johnson proves herself to her squad in

the first episode, when they see her in action in the interrogation room and look on her

with respect. She eventually even proves herself to Captain Taylor, the most reluctant to

accept her. Still, the ending plays up her sense of her exclusion along with her sense of

belonging. She leaves Major Crimes to begin a position with the DA, but she took the

position in response to a reprimand she received from the department. Her ultimatum was

either they remove the reprimand or she leaves. The reprimand was not removed because

it served Taylor’s desire to restructure Major Crimes. Her sex is not implicated in this

decision, as she’s replaced by another woman. However, Johnson essentially loses the

battle for the same reason she was initially rejected by the squad: because of her

aggressive tactics and no-holds-barred approach to authority or taking down criminals,

behaviors commonly attributed to male cops who don’t receive anything more than a

dressing down or a slap on the wrist.

Each of these narratives makes the sexism the FFF faces one of the first things we

learn about her, in the opening scenes when she’s introduced on screen. The repetitive

nature of this trope makes it seem as if sex-discrimination is an inherent part of being a

female detective, even in the shows developed in the last ten years. She and her

performance as a hero are accordingly marked by an intrinsically gendered obstacle and

by the perceptions of the prejudiced men around her. The prejudiced men are also marked

197

by their chauvinism. Whether or not they change their mind about the hero, whether or

not the narrative mocks them, the discriminatory behavior comes off as an unavoidable

first response—purely reactionary and automatic. Marking the characters in this way

imbues the subsequent representations of hetero professional relations with the power

struggles attendant to hierarchical sex divides.

Assault & Violence Against Women

Another theme of female disempowerment in these particular FFF dramas

reproduces this same kind of sex-based marginalization—sexual assault and sex-based

violence. The most common form is rape, though this is not the only one. Cagney &

Lacey includes probably the widest focus with episodes on rape, child abuse, sexual

harassment, and domestic violence. The episode “Fathers and Daughters” (04.05) deals

with the murder of a father who had sexually abused his daughter, and “Child Witness”

(04.01) features a child who’s been abused by her babysitter. In the episode “A Cry for

Help” (02.21), Lacey learns that a colleague from her police academy days beats his wife.

In the episode “Revenge” (06.09), a husband who abuses his wife ends up murdered, and

it turns out he was a suspect for the rape and murder of Detective Petrie’s (Carl Lumbly)

sister fourteen years earlier.

Additionally, there are four specific episodes in Cagney & Lacey that include

rape—two revolving around the rape of other women during season two (02.14, 02.16),

and two that revolve around Cagney’s date rape in season seven (07.09, 07.19), a form of

assault that was relatively new to 1980s media. Even after years of watching violent

crime-based dramas that often include female victims of rape, when I watched this show

198

for my research, I was unprepared to see a cop face her own rape. It’s equally surprising

that Cagney suffered the rape, as she is clearly portrayed as the toughest, more aggressive

and, frankly, hard-assed of the pair. This was a powerful choice on the part of the show’s

creative team, certainly an interesting one in terms of understanding the connotations of

rape as a threat that only women face and the effects of rape on a fighting female hero.

The narrative includes dialogue that specifically links Cagney’s victimization to the

victimization of the other women she and Lacey help during the series. Cagney does not

fight back. She submits out of fear for her life because the rapist said he would kill her if

she didn’t. She does not pursue the rapist with her gun after the fact. Also, she must

defend this choice to her male interrogators and colleagues after the fact and argue, “I did

submit because I wanted to stay alive. Damn it, it’s my body. He had no right.”

It might be tempting to read Cagney’s rape as a warning against female

promiscuity, as a “punishment” for her refusal to marry of for being an actively sexual

single woman—choices she makes throughout the series. Look at Fatal Attraction (1987)

and the earlier independent-woman cautionary tale Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977). The

crazy and/or misguided promiscuous woman who asserts her desires is clearly

represented as deviant, and her death in these narratives comes as an almost inevitable

conclusion for a woman who doesn’t know her place in the traditional hetero-relational

scheme. But Cagney & Lacey takes a much more sympathetic view of Cagney’s situation

by showing just how negatively rape victims are often treated in the aftermath and

associating the tendency to blame or not believe the victim with this poor treatment. It’s

interesting to note that one of the arguments that the rapist and his lawyer mistakenly

makes about Cagney—that she regretted their one night stand and decided to call it a

199

rape—is one that Cagney assumes about a victim in the episode “Date Rape” from season

two. Of course, by the end of that season two episode, Cagney changes her tune and

becomes much more respectful of the victim’s situation. Also, in the season seven

episode “Don’t I Know You?,” the audience doesn’t witness Cagney’s rape. Considering

its primetime schedule, this isn’t unusual, but there is no evidence of the attack or any

violence even hinted at during the scene. The scene cuts from her date returning to her

apartment with complaints of car trouble to Cagney calling Lacey early in the morning to

come over. This intentional cut can be seen to leave the viewer questioning Cagney’s

accusation, but only if one doesn’t take into consideration that throughout the series,

Cagney has had previous one-night experiences that she neither regrets nor lies about. To

think that she would suddenly become ashamed or make accusations would not be in

keeping with her character development.

Essentially, Cagney is the most stereotypical portrayal of the “strong, independent

woman” archetype on the show because she is what audiences had generally been

schooled by popular media to identify as such—single, aggressive, career-driven, and

physically feisty. This makes her character’s rape experience a distinct rejection of the

common representations of the strong, independent woman-as-impervious (like the

excessively empowered earlier versions of fighting females like Emma Peel or Wonder

Woman). Additionally, her experience defies stereotypes of the rape victim as a prostitute

or “loose” woman (who was assumed to be asking for it) or as helpless (who was

assumed to be unable to prevent it) that were, and still are, often employed in film and

Clark also believes that avoiding any representation of the rape is evidence of the

show’s “focus on the social and political implications of rape without objectifying a

woman” (129).

200

television. Cagney’s experience, and the narrative’s obvious sympathy with her over the

coarse and disrespectful treatment she receives, manages to show how no matter how

strong a woman might be, she is still subject to the same vulnerability that most women

feel at some point in their lives. In so doing, the show capitalizes on the difference

between the fraught female and male hero: that a female cop dealing with a rapist sends a

more distinctive message about female victimization than a male cop sends by dealing

with the same. He might be offended. He might seek revenge for sexual assaults on his

loved ones. But his body has not been rendered susceptible with the introduction of a

rapist into the criminal narrative. The male hero does not inhabit what Kevin J. Ferguson

notes is “the troubling identificatory space between female victims and female

detectives.” The female hero’s body, however, is susceptible, but, crucially, her body is

allowed to be resilient, tough at the same time, to be the same body to catch the

perpetrator. Her vulnerability does not reduce the intimations of her strength, but it does

set her apart from the other male cops.

In both Blue Steel and Top of the Lake, the fighting female heroes are also rape

victims. In the former film, Turner’s rapist is an obsessive psychopath named Eugene

Hunt (Ron Silver) whom she later shoots and kills. The rape occurs before the final

showdown and associates her triumph with an element of revenge. Top of the Lake’s

Detective Griffin also faces down at least one of the four rapists who attacked her when

she was a teenager while she was still living in the small town where she has returned for

this series to investigate young Tui’s pregnancy. There may also be a possibility that

Griffin was raped by Detective Al Parker (David Wenham) the night that he drugged her

when she was over for dinner at her house—a night that she doesn’t remember, the same

201

way that Tui and the other girls don’t remember. In fact, Griffin figures out what

happened to Tui after she associates Tui’s lost memory with her own later on in the

series.

Both narratives include an additional focus on domestic abuse, as both Turner and

Griffin’s mothers suffer abuse from their fathers (or stepfather, in Griffin’s case). The

narratives in Murder By Numbers and Taking Lives, also address domestic abuse. In

Murder By Numbers, Detective Cassie Mayweather’s (Sandra Bullock) abusive ex-

husband once stabbed her and left her for dead, which we learn through a flashback. In

Taking Lives, the climactic, violent showdown between FBI Profiler Ileana Scott

(Angelina Jolie) and the serial killer she’s been hunting takes place in a cozy kitchen,

with Scott wearing a nightgown and apparently pregnant with the killer’s child. When the

killer knocks her around and threatens her life, the scene clearly makes reference to

scenes of domestic abuse that further associates Scott with vulnerability. The hero

Lisbeth Salander of the recently popular Steig Larsson Girl trilogy also had a mother who

was abused by her father, and Salander is arguably one of the more famous rape victims

in recent popular culture FFF texts.

Salander is an unsanctioned detective, unlike the

cops and FBI agents in the other FFF narratives mentioned, but the contribution of this

narrative to the FFF hero rape/abuse theme can be seen as significant, considering how

popular the novel trilogy and two film versions have been. Salander is a ward of the state

and an amazing researcher and hacker who helps reporter Mikael Blomkvist

track down

Noomi Rapace portrays this character in the three Swedish versions of the Girl films

from 2009 and by Rooney Mara in the 2011 American version of The Girl with the

Dragon Tattoo.

Played by Michael Nyqvist and Daniel Craig in the Swedish and American versions,

respectively.

202

a serial killer and rapist (in the first film) and then help expose a sex-trafficking ring in

the second and third.

However, Salander is also a deeply disturbed young woman who had a traumatic

childhood, which led to her attempted murder of her abusive father and her subsequent

legal guardianship following her release from a mental institution. Sadly, for her, the

trauma is not confined to her past. When her first legal guardian dies, a man whom

Salander had grown to trust, another guardian is appointed, and this man controls her

money, her time, and sexually assaults her before he’ll grant her favors (like giving her

access to her own money). In one scene, he forces her to fellate him. In another scene,

thinking she was going to set him up by recording him asking her for another sexual

favor, he actually handcuffs and brutally rapes her. This scene is by far the most graphic

depiction of rape or abuse in any of these FFF narratives, more akin to rape revenge

films. As the most recent film in the FFF narratives I’m addressing, it indicates how

enduring the male domination trope is.

In other storylines, the FFFs also aren’t directly victimized by sexual assault or

gendered violence, but they act to protect other female victims of sex-based crimes,

which in some cases associates them with a parallel victim position. In Prime Suspect,

Tennison puts away a rapist-murderer during the first season but must revisit the case in

season four when similar crimes begin occurring (and turn out to be the copycat crimes of

a woman-hating prison guard who was influenced by the criminal caught in season one).

In the course of her interrogations, Tennison meets with prostitutes to ask about the

The original Swedish title for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo—Men Who Hate

Women—captures this trope explicitly. The novel’s inception has its own basis in female

trauma, inspired as it was by Larsson’s experience as a teenager watching a young girl

named Lisbeth get gang-raped by three boys—an experience that haunted him thereafter.

203

victims. She is always very respectful and sympathetic in her talks with them. Such

meetings happen twice, and both times, even though she is not undercover, a potential

“John” seeking her company mistakes her for a prostitute. In this way, the scenes

associate her with the group being victimized.

The beginning of the first episode in

season two also addresses rape. Tennison appears to be interrogating a suspect accused of

rape. However, she’s actually leading a demonstration for other cops. Tennison concludes

the session by addressing myths about why women are raped and discussing the dismal

number of rape cases that are reported in comparison with the actual number of rapes that

occur. Then, it turns out that Tennison is having an affair with the officer who portrayed

the rapist in the demo.

In The Closer, Johnson faces several rape and domestic violence cases. In

“Fantasy Date,” a man who responds to a personal ad from a woman seeking to act out a

rape fantasy mistakes Johnson for the woman. She’s punched in the face before she

responds with a head butt and a gun to the man’s stomach (01.01). In the episode “Cherry

Bomb” (04.03), Johnson charges a man not only for the rape of a young suicide victim

but for the rape of other women whom he and his friends had assaulted as part of an

atrocious “cherry picking” game. In the tense season five finale episode, Captain Raydor

(Mary McDonnell) approaches Johnson to help with a potential domestic abuse case of a

female police officer that goes awry when the officer shoots her abusive husband. The

most important case, and the one where Johnson herself becomes the potential victim,

begins when Johnson first meets a serial rapist-murderer nemesis in season four. He is a

lawyer named Philip Stroh (Billy Burke), and for the show’s final three seasons, he

A point Jermyn also argues and backs up with the observation that Tennison “is

recurrently framed against pictures of [the victims’] corpses” (64).

204

regularly appears to taunt Johnson and eventually has her reprimanded for harassment

when she refuses to stop pursuing him because she’s (rightly) convinced he’s the culprit.

Eventually, Stroh does attack Johnson in her own home during the series finale. She’s

tipped off when she returns home and finds indicators that match the previous crime

scenes of Stroh’s murdered rape victims—in other words, he has set her up to receive the

same fate, creating a sense of her possible violation and victimization. However, she ends

up shooting him, through her purse no less, and saving herself and a young witness she

had brought home with her.

While the crimes Starling investigates in Silence of the Lambs don’t involve rape,

they do involve sex-based violence. A serial murderer nicknamed Buffalo Bill targets

women in order to create a woman-suit from their skin. The way he violates their bodies

is not sexual, but it is sex-based. They are targets because they are women, and he wants

to be a woman. Due to a diagnosis of psychological instability, Bill can’t get a sex-

reassignment surgery. When Starling faces the culprit alone in his hidden lair, the lair that

remained undetected by her male colleagues, the camera positions her as a possible

victim of this predator who stalked other women by having him watch and follow

Starling wearing night-vision goggles. She stumbles around, blind in the dark, while we

hear his breathing and feel the violent predatory implications of his pursuit, until she fires

into the dark and takes him down.

The overlap of sexism and sex-based violence, where the threat exists for the FFF

even on the job, indicates how a woman’s vulnerability doesn’t necessarily change when

she takes a non-traditional role, like a cop, and promotes a sense that the strength to

survive, to overcome the victimization that follows women, as women, is a must for all

205

women. Implicating sexism and sexual assault in obstacles the FFF faces personally

and/or professionally thus not only sets the female hero apart from the male, but it also

adds another dimension to their fraught hetero-relations. Basically, half of the

aforementioned FFF characters are actual victims of abuse by men, and they all fight

against women’s abuse by men. So, on one hand, male colleagues—the men they are

supposed to be able to trust with their lives as fellow cops and agents—pose potential

threats at the workplace, rendering them psychologically vulnerable to hostility and the

effects of limited agency. On the other hand, male criminals pose physical threats and

render their bodies—all female bodies—vulnerable. Both of these character positions—

the sexist and the rapist—mark them as women’s enemies who share one commonality—

their maleness. Now to be clear, the narratives don’t conflate the sexist cops with the

abusive criminals. Rather, they combine to create a sense that the isolated female hero

exists within a generally hostile male environment, where “[m]isogyny lies in the

mundane” (Jermyn 63).

In other words, these narratives can be seen reflecting a

women-against-men-who-are-against-women approach to sexual politics.

These FFF themes that associate the hero with victimization at the hands of men

clearly indicate feminist-friendly influences on the narrative in terms of presenting

women as objects of male domination through physical and sexual violence and as

subjects who undermine that domination. What makes the themes noteworthy in terms of

discussions about the strong, independent woman archetype is that such themes rely on

representations of men and women that are often assumed to be off-putting for audiences,

Regarding Prime Suspect, Jermyn makes this statement specifically to conflate the

cops with the rapist-murderer George Marlowe (John Bowe), saying that “difference” in

the sexism exhibited by the officers and the “spectacular excess of George’s crimes […]

is one of degree rather than nature” (63).

206

for different reasons. In the 1980s, studio executives for Cagney & Lacey thought the

show’s audiences wouldn’t respond to the feminist issues it addressed. The series was

under constant threat of cancellation—in spite of fan response, ratings, and awards—

because it was always transgressive, but it found a foothold with audiences who sought

complex female heroes who had more complicated lives.

Since the 1990s, in addition to

lingering concerns about explicit feminism executives might still have, audiences have

also been assumed to believe that feminism has served its purpose, meaning that issues

like sex-discrimination are supposedly passé, relics of a bygone era. To show

contemporary a woman dealing with it is generally considered a drag and also

unnecessary since we are all supposedly more enlightened about women.

Likewise is the surprising replay of the sexual assault theme (including in other

narratives like long-running Law and Order SVU and its varied permutations), which

comes dangerously close to the dreaded and controversial representation of America as a

“rape culture.” Essentially, sexism and assault FFF themes predominantly present women

as victims of men and highlight male misogyny and prejudice. Neither of these are

assumed to sit well with the majority of the popular culture population and have been

argued to alienate film and television viewers, both men who may be uncomfortable

identifying with the perpetrator and women who may be uncomfortable identifying with

helplessness or perceiving that there might be a cultural conspiracy to hurt them. Of

Not all critics of the show would agree with this, as many felt that after either replacing

Meg Foster with Sharon Gless for the Cagney character or the distinct change in styles on

the show in season four, the feminist-friendly potential was severely restricted (D’Acci).

Some viewers do hold this view, like Melissa Silverstein, who believes the 2011

American version of Prime Suspect died because, “in 2011 too much time had passed and

the aggressive male behavior in the pilot towards Maria Bello who played the American

version, Jane Timoney just didn't work. It was too much. Way too over the top.”

207

course, by locating these repetitive themes in crime-fighting dramas where the hero

eventually does catch the culprit, face her trauma, or get revenge, these narratives can

also be seen as cathartic in that they displace the threat from real life onto onscreen life,

where it can be resolved. Yet, in order to do so, the stories still constantly invoke the

threats.

One could assume that the presence of sexism and sexual assault establishes an

alibi for the FFF’s transgressive violence and aggression or establishes a “reason” for her

to become a fighter, particularly for FFFs who faced trauma before the narrative begins,

like Lisbeth Salander and Detective Griffin, or Megan Turner who grew up watching her

father abuse her mother. Similar judgments have been cast on the “final girl” heroine in

slasher films as well as rape-revenge heroines. After all, combatting the violence of

sexual assault against women has become what Jacinda Read calls “perhaps the

quintessential feminist issue” that would justify the credibility of the violent actions of

even the most typical female, i.e., a non-heroic woman (6, emphasis in the original).

However, the remainder of the FFFs discussed here experience their victimization on the

job, after they have made their decisions to be crime-fighters. And more importantly, the

final girl generally fights for herself, whereas the FFFs I discuss have all chosen the life

of a crime-fighter, chosen to work through their vulnerabilities in order to not just save

themselves but to also save others. Vulnerability and victimhood are only fractions of the

tale the FFF tells, and both in service of assuring her strength as a protector and hero. She

is not a drag; the instances of victimization are the drag, and viewers can see beyond

those moments to embrace her overall identity, while being inspired by her ability to

survive. That is the basis of her appeal, and it indicates a willingness to engage in much

208

more complex thinking about female characters, at least in certain arenas of American

popular culture.

You Made Me This Way

Domination & the Fraught Fighting Female

The stories in the FFF narratives I’ve discussed explicitly construct the hero’s

identity as a survivor of sex-based violence. However, other FFF fantasies construct a

survivor identity, highlighting the conjunction of female vulnerability and heroism, by

emphasizing her limited agency under more implicit forms of male domination. Instead

of the shared tropes of sex-discrimination and sexual assault, these FFF narratives

emphasize paternalistic authority and male-partner betrayals. These forms of domination

further clarify the obstacles that define the character’s strength and independence, what

those obstacles symbolize in their hetero relations, and the conflicting messages they

send about female empowerment through a survivor identity.

Paternalism

The FFF narratives I plan to analyze here include four Nikita stories: the original

film La Femme Nikita movie (1990), its American remake Point of No Return (1993), the

USA Network television series La Femme Nikita (1997-2001), and the CW Network

series Nikita (2010-13). I will also include the ABC network series Alias (2001-06) and

the movie Salt (2010). All of these FFF narratives share a similar storyline: the hero is a

cultivated secret agent—either unwittingly or unwillingly—whose compliance is ensured

by threat of death, for both herself and her loved ones. Over the course of the narrative,

209

she eventually chooses either to escape or to fight back against the organization that

threatens her freedom, her life, and the lives of others. One of the two sources of tension

for these FFFs is some form of paternalistic authority that limits her autonomy, forces her

to make painful choices, and threatens to or actually harms her loved ones.

In a way, all of these stories can be seen as variations on a theme established by

writer and director Luc Besson’s original film, La Femme Nikita. The hero Nikita (Anne

Parrilaud) starts out as a violent young junkie who kills a cop during a botched robbery

and ends up in prison. A kind of black-ops government agency called The Centre fakes

her death in order to recruit her. She has to choose whether or not to be trained by and

work for them as an assassin. If not, she will be killed. She initially tries to escape, and

she gets shot in the leg for her troubles. Following this, she reluctantly chooses the life of

an assassin. In the course of her instruction and under the tutelage of various trainers,

including the chic and cold Amande (Jeanne Moreau), Nikita becomes a deadly,

sophisticated beauty. However, in spite of being a quick study and having an almost

natural ability for the work (a point that is emphasized not only in all four Nikita versions

but also in Alias and Salt), Nikita hates killing and longs for freedom.

One purveyor of paternalistic authority in the original film is a man named Bob

(Tchéky Karyo), the man who introduces Nikita to The Centre and who shoots her for

trying to escape. There is also a nameless older man to whom Bob reports who is the one

who decides if she lives or dies. Finally, there is a cleaner named Victor (Jean Reno) who

takes over the first mission Nikita runs on her own. With a few differences here and

there, the general storyline holds for the remaining three Nikita narratives, with some

slight differences regarding Nikita’s origin story; also, both of the television series going

210

into more depth.

No matter the version, all Nikita narratives put a man in charge of

Nikita, a division of the organization, and in later stories, the organization as a whole that

essentially kidnaps and trains criminals to become assassins, like Nikita. In Point of No

Return, her original contact is also a man named Bob (Gabriel Byrne) who shoots her,

there is a cleaner named Victor (Harvey Keitel), and the nameless head of the division is

now called Kaufman (Miguel Ferrer), and he, like his original, has little patience with

Nikita’s rebelliousness and is ready to “cancel” her.

The films, which focus more on Nikita, never really introduce or develop

anything about the organization where she works. However, the television programs,

which are able to cultivate the Nikita myth with much more depth, are also able to

include much more detail about the organization and its workings and, thereby, the tenor

of male domination. In the television La Femme Nikita, Nikita has a trainer/supervisor

named Michael Samuelle (Roy Dupuis), the division of The Center where she works is

called Section One under the command of Operations (Eugene Robert Blazer), and the

head of The Center is Mr. Jones (Edward Woodward). In the television series Nikita, her

trainer/supervisor is Michael Bishop (Shane West), and the organization she works for,

called Division, is under the charge of Percy Rose (Xander Berkeley). Division, under

Percy, eventually starts working for Phillip Jones (David S. Lee), the head of the group

The Invisible Hand (a.k.a., The Shop). When the rogue Nikita defeats Percy and the

American government takes over Division, Nikita is then under her ally Ryan Fletcher

(Noah Bean). All of these Center permutations imply a male chain-of-command that

For example, in the television La Femme Nikita, Nikita isn’t a junkie-murderer; she’s

framed for the murder of another man who isn’t a cop. Also in this show, the cleaner is

not one man but a man and a woman who remain nameless throughout the series. And in

Nikita, there are many cleaners, men and women.

211

essentially controls what happens to Nikita (and in later stories, her friends and

colleagues).

Alias includes a similar organizing structure, and has actually been identified by

fans as a knockoff of the La Femme Nikita franchise.

However, there are several

organizations (both criminal and not) the FFF hero, Sydney Bristow (Jennifer Garner)

must help or fight. There are also some other differences. For example, Syd was recruited

fresh out of college to work for the clandestine government agency, SD-6. She was not

forced or threatened with death (at least, not in the beginning of her career). When she

learns that SD-6 is in fact a criminal organization, she chooses to become a double agent

working for the CIA to take down SD-6 and the organization under which it functions,

The Alliance of Twelve. At the CIA, she works under a male handler, named Michael

Vaughn (Michael Vartan). This show is full of male-dominated splinter-cell groups, both

legal and illegal, including Authorized Personnel Only (APO), a CIA black-ops group run

mainly by different men, Prophet Five (a group like the Alliance of Twelve) and its

divisions called The Shed (cells like SD-6), which also feigned an association with the

CIA to recruit operatives. All of her mentors and superiors, then, are men. There are

many threads throughout these groups that generally weave together to form a clear

picture of not only male domination but also male corruption.

Finally, in Salt, the FFF Evelyn Salt (Angelina Jolie) works as an agent for the

CIA. However, she turns out to be a sleeper agent who was taken from her family as a

child, brainwashed, and raised to be a soldier and assassin for Oleg Vasilyevich Orlov

The 2010 Nikita complicates this male hierarchy later in the series when a female

president is introduced, and I will address that later in this chapter.

For some convincing comparisons, see “Nikita (2010) vs. Alias” and Doux, who

compares the 1997 Nikita and Alias.

212

(Daniel Olbrychski). Oleg is not a member of any specific terrorist group; he is a rogue

agent with his own mission. Flashbacks show Salt as a young girl being “raised” by Oleg

in an orphanage-type home environment receiving training, listening to propaganda and,

effectively, being brainwashed. Every night before bed, she and the other child recruits

would kiss his ring, making clear the implications of his dominance over her. He

represents a specific kind of paternalistic authority that is reflected in several of these

FFF spy narratives: the father-figure. This is an older man with whom the hero has

intimate ties, generally from either growing up around the person, as with Salt and Oleg,

or from actual blood ties. The father-figure also has questionable or nefarious intentions

for the hero/daughter-figure.

In the 1997 television show La Femme Nikita, Mr. Jones, the leader of The

Center, turns out to be Nikita’s long-lost father. He had her framed for murder, kidnapped

into Section One, and trained to be an assassin because he wanted to groom her to take

over The Center in his place. It was not until the final season that Nikita learns this; she

spent all of the previous seasons agonizing over why she was framed, planning how she

could escape Section One, and attempting to reconcile her morals with her position as an

assassin. Jones never asked for her input or gave her a choice to be taken. Syd, from

Alias, has two father-figures. First, Jack Bristow (Victor Garber), her actual father who is

also her superior at SD-6 and in the CIA. Before she turns on SD-6, she learns that Jack

also works for the organization in a much higher position, as Director of Operations,

under the head of the cell, Arvin Sloane (Ron Rifkin), who is Syd’s other father-figure.

Arvin and his wife Emily were her temporary guardians when she was a child, and

throughout the series, they treat her like the daughter they never had. However, both

213

father-figures have a dubious relationship with Syd, and she regularly confronts her lack

of trust for both of them.

Like Mr. Jones, both of Syd’s father-figures presume to know what is best for her

and regularly assure her and each other they want only to ensure Syd’s safety. Also like

Mr. Jones, both of the men take questionable steps to do so. Arvin recruited Syd into SD-

6, without Jack’s knowledge, because he wanted her to be a part of his work family, so to

speak. Jack subjected Syd to an experimental government program called Project

Christmas when she was a child that essentially hardwired her to be a spy, which can be

seen as a type of brainwashing. Arvin grooms Syd because he thinks she is part of a

prediction forecast by Milo Rimbaldi (a fictional prophet who combines elements of

DaVinci and Nostradamus). To further drive home the point of Arvin’s depraved sense of

paternalism, he uses his own actual daughter (whom he learns about later in the series) to

fulfill Rimbaldi’s prophecies. Arvin orders the death of Syd’s fiancé, and Jack was aware

of this order. Arvin also assigns an agent to kill Syd in season one when he thinks she has

become a threat to the organization, though she is eventually able to convince him that

she is loyal, mainly through emotional appeals. Both of these father-figures lie to Syd

multiple times, whether they state it’s for her own good, because she’s not ready, or to

carry out other plans they have determined take precedence.

By the end of the series, the full justification for Syd’s distrust of Arvin becomes

apparent, as the audience learns that all along, no matter how much he had appeared to

change, how much he professed his dedication to Syd and his own daughter, he was

always working to fulfill his plans to achieve immortality using the Rimbaldi device at

any cost. He is a corrupt father-figure, undoubtedly—one who might struggle

214

emotionally and have redeeming moments, but ultimately, one whose uses his power and

his sense of entitlement for his own goals. Jack, on the other hand, is presented by the

final events as being validated in his fatherhood, as proving that he just wants the best for

his daughter—when he gives his life to end Arvin’s. Thus, it would seem that all of Syd’s

doubts prove incorrect. However, we cannot forget a very important part of the narrative

that still places Jack firmly on the side of paternalistic authority that is implicated in

Syd’s fraughtness, even if he works to redeem himself (a point to which I will return):

Syd’s brainwashing as a child, based on Jack’s decision to have her participate in

“Project Christmas,” a government operation intended to raise the perfect spy using child

subjects, one that the government eventually disbands for ethical issues.

The brainwashing incident epitomizes the way the narrative implicates all forms

of paternalistic authority, including the benevolent, in the struggles the FFF hero endures

and the limits to her agency that come through male domination. When Syd learns of her

brainwashing under Jack, she becomes rightfully incensed, and the knowledge drives one

of many wedges between them. She is angry because he violates her agncy; she feels she

had no choice but to pursue her life as a spy, a life that has caused her only heartache.

Both her fiancé and her best friend die, while another close friend has his life threatened

and has to take on a new identity and disappear from her life. She suffers from isolation,

a lack of confidantes, and from not knowing whom to trust across much of the series. In

season three, the story implies that her childhood brainwashing—again, authorized by her

father—prevented Syd from being successfully brainwashed by The Covenant when she

was kidnapped. So, it could seem like all of her pain was justified, that it served to make

her stronger and actually protect her autonomy from being undermined by an enemy.

215

However, had she not been programmed as a child, she might not have chosen the career

where she was then subject to brainwashing by The Covenant. So, there are legitimate

and clear implications that this brainwashing is most certainly a violation, and from one

who supposedly loves her more than anyone. It’s a violation that prevents the hero from

being able to choose the life she wants to live, just like the glorified abduction of the

other FFF spy heroines that the men in charge justify as a valid means to their idea of the

just end.

Paternalistic authority, then, is exposed in the male-dominated terrorist and

criminal organizations the hero fights against, in the male-dominated crime-fighting

organizations she fights for, and in authoritative father-figures. Each of these

representations of authority in some way fail, injure, or betray the FFF in ways that

define her as a crime-fighter. While the narratives clearly portray the criminal

organizations as evil, the same can’t always be said for the crime-fighting organizations

and father figures. Both tend to relate to the FFF in terms of protection, opportunity, and

support. A recurrent refrain in the Nikita storylines is that The Center/Division groups

give her a second chance, that without their intervention, she would be dead or rotting in

jail, that now she has an opportunity to do some good in society. The loss of her personal

freedom is necessary for her opportunity. She’s been protected, and she’s being taught

how to protect. Of course, Jack and Arvin supposedly want only what’s best for Syd, both

claiming their actions are for her own protection. This urge toward protection of the

fighting female, who proves over and over that she is capable of taking care of herself or

that she doesn’t want what they offer as protection, thus seems outdated and unnecessary

and at times causing more problems than it solves. We clearly see the protection impulse

216

of the paternalistic authority figures for what it partly is—a desire to control the hero. At

best, the questionable protective impulses over the strong woman become a form of what

Hagelin refers to as “insidious condescension” because it reflects sentimental versions of

male/female relationships that are less reflective of today’s empowered women (89).

worst, it’s a violation.

The paternalism representations also add up to negatively portray the sexual

politics that still inform a mostly corrupt old-boys network and that make up assumptions

about male authority in general that uses physical force, emotional manipulation, and

deception to control an empowered woman. Now, it would be easy to claim that these

FFFs deal with the same kinds of villainous organizations and male bureaucracies that

male characters have faced for some time.

After all, in a world of war, espionage, and

power-hungry violence, men are the primary perpetrators because they have been the

primary participants. So, a certain kind of heroic parity is apparent. However, that same

world, because of the involvement of only a small number of female heroes present, is

much more vividly patriarchal. Thus, there is a definite gendered dynamic in the way

these men dominate the FFF hero that epitomizes a critical fantasy problematizing

patriarchal institutions and assumptions.

Betrayal

As if the constant threat and betrayal by the so-called men in charge weren’t

enough, some of the narratives increase the hetero-relation tensions for the FFF hero by

Which Hagelin asserts in her reading of the movie GI Jane (1997).

See D’Acci.

217

introducing partners who betray her (or seem to betray her) or who are her enemy at some

point. Television’s 1997 La Femme Nikita probably makes the most explicit use of this

theme. Nikita’s trainer, supervisor, and eventual partner Michael Samuelle is as

problematic as they come. He plays a skilled lothario who uses his ability to woo women

to gain their trust and then, eventually, betray them. He does this in a long-term

undercover case (where he marries a woman and even fathers a child with her for his

cover), in several short-term operations, and with Nikita herself. They end up sleeping

with each other and having something of an affair, until Nikita learns that he was ordered

to do so to gauge her loyalty and keep an eye on her. This happens not once, not twice,

but several times throughout the early years of the series. The question for audiences is

not the typical will-they-won’t-they get together but rather is-he-isn’t-he lying again?

Does Michael mean it this time? His betrayals are real and repeated and cause a great

deal of emotional stress for Nikita, who already feels isolated and angry about being an

unwilling assassin.

In the 2010 television series Nikita, Nikita (Maggie Q) also ends up in a

relationship with her handler Michael Bishop. However, for the first part of the series,

Bishop is explicitly tasked to take her out as an enemy and traitor. This latest version of

the Nikita myth begins three years after Nikita has escaped Division. Nikita has made it

her mission to take down Division and rescue the other recruits. During most of the first

season, Bishop is her enemy. However, in flashbacks to the time when Nikita was still

working in Division, we see that they have feelings for each other—though they don’t act

on them at the time. When she leaves, he follows orders from Percy and continues

functioning under Division rules. In spite of his feelings, he is willing to take her down.

218

Eventually, however, Bishop’s feelings for Nikita, and what he learns about Division

going rogue and working against the US government, turn him into an ally. In Salt,

Evelyn Salt’s CIA partner Agent Ted Winter (Liev Schreiber) turns out to be, like her, a

sleeper agent whom Oleg tasks to aid Salt in taking down the Russian president and

creating a nuclear standoff between the US, Russia, and the Middle East. Winter’s

betrayal is not only in keeping his sleeper identity a secret from Salt—she was unaware

that he had been one of Oleg’s minions, too—but also in his being the one to recommend

that Oleg not only blow Salt’s cover with the CIA but also to kill her husband Michael

Krause (August Diehl). When he finds out that she has betrayed Oleg and the other

sleeper agents, he says he will make her a patsy for the destruction about to ensue and

becomes her obvious enemy.

Alias does not include partner betrayal so much as it plays on the drama of

relationship misrepresentation and deception that characterizes either the other FFF

narrative partner betrayals or themes of paternalistic authority. When Syd and her

handler, Michael Vaughn, finally declare their love for each other and make plans to

marry at the end of season four, he reveals that he is not the person he thought she was.

Before he can explain, the car they’re driving is hit, and Vaughn gets abducted (though

Syd believes he is dead). When season five opens, Syd and the rest of the APO question

Vaughn’s loyalty when they learn his real name is Andre Michaux, and he’s been

working with a rogue and criminal named Renée Rienne to learn about his father’s death.

Syd was unaware of any of this. While Vaughn’s deception is decidedly less dangerous

or emotionally abusive than that of Michael Samuelle in the 1997 La Femme Nikita,

considering Vaughn is a character with which Syd had the longest, most open, and

219

supportive relationship on the show, the fact that even he is dishonest seems to contribute

to an overall perception of the ease with which male allies are implicated as

untrustworthy in FFF narratives.

Pinpointing explicit feminist implications in the themes highlighting the FFFs

vulnerability is not as straightforward as it is when analyzing the FFFs who faced sexism

and sex-based violence. When other feminist critics evaluate certain of these narratives I

address in this section, they tend to focus on either the ways these spy heroes represent

women’s empowerment, particularly with regard to gender-blending tactics and with

regard to their fighting abilities, as Goodwill does. Conversely, critics like Tung also

focus on how these shows contribute to women’s disempowerment, usually in the way

they reinforce hierarchical gender divisions that assume women’s subordinate position, in

spite of any viewing pleasures they might offer that are based on the assumption of their

empowerment. Other concerns are the ways some of the women rely heavily on male

authority, as Schubart notes (in her chapter on “Daddy’s Action Girl”). Mellencamp and

Inness read the narratives as reasserting femininity as desirable over strength, and critics

like Douglas indicate that these narratives continue to foster female objectification by

tempering the violent transgressions with tiny costumes and a focus on the fighting

female’s beauty (Enlightened Sexism). Each of these critics makes valid points,

particularly Douglas, though the other claims are somewhat incomplete.

These critics have fully not recognized that these female heroes are themselves

disempowered in their interactions with men specifically but not portrayed as simply

weak, how the narratives affirm this as part of the heroes’ obstacles in a way that sets

them apart from male heroes, and how through the thematic repetition, these shows make

220

feminist-friendly assertions that problematize male domination and implicate male

behaviors in female oppression. Consequently, in spite of their differences, in the ways

they address explicit or implicit male domination, both types of FFF narratives send a

similar message: when women are involved in a man’s world, they become more prone to

violation. When women work to protect other women from men, they run the risk of

being violated or threatened with violation. Also, men in power may not be trustworthy

because they may attempt to control women and use other men to do it. In general,

associating with men is inevitable, but it may hold specific dangers for women, and it

requires vigilance. So while the actual sexism and sexual assaults present in the previous

FFF narratives isn’t included in these narratives, the sense of men violating women often

is—not only violations by the boss or a superior but also the father-figure, the lover, the

partner. There is a sense that these women have difficulty finding refuge in any of their

hetero-relations. This lack of refuge in men emphasizes a refuge in the strength of the

empowered woman who fights to overcome the obstacles she faces, even if that strength

is presented in contradictory ways.

Not All Men Are Created Equal

What audiences are left with in terms of the repetition of male threats and abuses

in the FFF narratives is similar to what Clover sees in the final girl narratives: a number

of “individual acts of domination add[ing] up to pervasive structural misogyny” (144). To

be clear, making men the bad guys isn’t the feminist-friendly part—that would assert

more of a one-dimensional man-hating intention to the FFF narrative that has nothing to

do with the character or most versions of feminism. The narratives identify specific male

221

behaviors as the problem, behaviors that not all men adopt (and some women do). Still,

the fact that gendered power dynamics that are oppressive to women, and enacted by

men, are so deeply embedded in these two FFF storylines, despite their differences,

shows just how difficult it is to imagine the FFF without hetero-relation tensions as part

of her difficulties and just how gendered her character’s heroism still is, in spite of the

inroads toward parity that she also represents. In light of this, there seems little room left

to imagine feminist-friendly hetero-intimacy in these narratives.

On the surface, the majority of the FFF texts don’t seem to offer a very optimistic

view of the FFF’s intimate life. The most common ending for the FFF paints an

ambiguous picture of the life of an empowered woman. DSI Tennison is alone, retired,

isolated from her family, and the series ends on a shot of her walking down a street alone

in a vision that critics have noted is particularly bleak (Jermyn 108). A shot of Nikita

from behind, walking away from her home and toward a life on the run, ends Point of No

Return. First a shot of a teary-faced Nikita standing alone at the train station, watching

Michael Samuelle’s train leave, and then a shot of a steely-faced Nikita sitting alone at

her desk at Division One ends the 1997 La Femme Nikita series. Blue Steel ends with

Turner sitting alone in her car, a close-up on her tired and worn-looking face, after she’s

finally bested Hunt by gunning him down in a shootout. Silence of the Lambs closes on a

dismayed Starling who is left with the knowledge that a psychopathic killer has been

turned lose into the world again. A final shot of Scott alone in her isolated house

concludes Taking Lives, as a shot of Mayweather walking down a court hall alone to face

her past concludes Murder By Numbers. The last shot of Salt is of her jumping out of a

helicopter and running off into the woods alone, on the run, to continue seeking justice.

222

And Lisbeth Salander drives off alone into the night, presumably hurt after watching

Blomkvist drive off with another woman (in the American version). Each of these FFF

endings leave very clear reminders of each FFF hero’s susceptibility and segregation in

the wake of their triumph. They all started the narrative isolated, they often fight alone,

and even though they all succeed, they all end in isolation.

Just because there is little optimism and a lot of ambiguity in the endings doesn’t

mean, however, that a non-couple oriented ending must be read pessimistically. These

endings can be read as transgressive or regressive, depending on an audience member’s

perspectives on empowered female characters. Certainly, having the FFF end up alone

can be read as an “absence of social connections,” as Cavender and Jurik note in relation

to DSI Tennison, that is “consistent with the type of postfeminist discourse that raises

anxieties concerning women’s ability to have both a meaningful career and a fulfilling

personal life” (121). In this case, the fantasy is that the hero will indeed have to choose

one or the other, that this is a burden of her strength and independence. This does not

necessarily disprove her empowerment and representation as a hero in general, but it does

reinforce a stereotypical threat for women in particular. Women can be dedicated to

careers, can really succeed and even protect the world from criminals and evildoers, but if

they do it, they will probably end up doing it alone (whether or not they want to).

Considering that the majority of the single FFF heroes above do at some time or another

in the narrative have or attempt meaningful hetero-intimacies—and that ending these

intimacies causes them a great deal of pain—the assumption is that being without friends

and/or loved ones is not their preferred ending. The uncoupled FFFs represent the women

who might want it all but just can’t get it because having it all is a fiction for such

223

transgressive women. For the viewer who agrees with this viewpoint, this can be

appealing because such an ending does not threaten the more traditional expectations of

gender roles that the strong, independent woman archetype problematizes. In other

words, one could argue that there is no room for feminist-friendly hetero-romance

possible in most of these fantasies—the hero’s adherence to a strong, independent ideal

can only go so far before it leads to alienation.

Another aspect of the FFF’s character that supports this pessimistic reading of her

as punished for her transgressions as women capable of violence, of fighting crime, is

that many of them suffer from a variety of mental vulnerabilities or psychological issues

from the traumas they face. Both Tennison and Cagney suffer from drinking problems

that affect their personal lives. Both Mayweather and Salander are anti-social, at best, and

suffer from post-traumatic emotional crises. Both Syd and Salt lose a fiancé and husband,

respectively, because of their jobs and must carry the guilt along with the grieving.

Lacey, as mentioned, has a nervous breakdown. Many of the FFFs have nightmares—

especially those who have been subject to brainwashing or sexual assault—or panic

attacks. Even the milder issues Johnson deals with that seem more like personality

quirks—her complicated relationship with food (her obvious love for and fear of sweets)

and anxieties about aging and her lack of housekeeping—connote more complex

problems like self-policing and feelings of inadequacy.

These characters are all, at some point, troubled, anxious, depressed, and these

often interfere with their abilities to have successful relationships. Over the course of

three different seasons, Tennison has three failed affairs. Unlike the proud-to-be-single

Cagney, Tennison does not choose to end them. Both Turner in Blue Steel and Scott in

224

Taking Lives are attracted to criminals who almost kill them. Mayweather from Murder

By Numbers, almost killed by an abusive husband before the movie begins, can only have

a series of shallow sexual affairs and fears intimacy, like Salander’s character in The Girl

with the Dragon Tattoo, who attempts to be dominant in her sexual encounters with

women and men and treat them coldly after sex (until her feelings for Blomkvist grow, in

the American version). Top of the Lake’s Griffin has a difficult back-and-forth with her

love interest, whom she has trouble trusting because he was a helpless bystander at the

scene of her rape long ago. Because of the difficulties these heroes face, the narratives

could be said to be compensating for the woman’s heroism and strength not only by

making her romances uncertain, temporary, and/or trying but also by crippling her

emotionally.

However, being an emotional mess can also be said to make the characters more

realistic and easy to identify with, as many of the women who enjoy these programs

might themselves be troubled. Likewise, the “warning” of a troubled psyche or of the

need to choose between success in a career or romance for the single, career-driven

woman mentioned above alternatively can be read as a liberating assertion of the hero’s

independence in one of a few ways. First, ending alone suggests parity with other male

lone-wolf heroes. Men have long been presumed to have the strength and independence

to bear the burdens of the isolated protector, and now women can be imagined as such.

Such an ending was very common for both the classic male detective, like Philip

Marlowe, or the classic action hero and spy, like Rambo or Bond. They are also allowed

to be anti-heroes or heroes with deep problems, again like Rambo, or like Walter from

Breaking Bad. Being a mess and a hero, being an imperfect woman who at least gets to

225

be great at her job, even if she doesn’t find love, is a luxury in the world of women

characters, where being likable has long tended to be a required personality trait. We may

not like all of the FFF characters Salander, Tennison, Cagney, or Salt, but who likes

Rambo or Dirty Harry? It’s what they do that counts. We watch them because we can

sympathize with their losses and troubles and because we want to see them triumph,

problems and all.

Second, ending alone liberates the FFF from the traditional romance narrative, a

view that as I mentioned in chapter one is most-associated with a feminist-friendly

perspective. Whether or not she has a man in her life can be seen as irrelevant, meaning

that being alone transgresses traditional expectations for her as a female character, which

in and of itself can be inspiring for viewers who seek their own such alternatives. On a

related note, ending alone can liberate the FFF hero from hetero-normative readings

either in favor of homo-relational intimacies or in the possibility of imagining such

intimacies outside the narrative. This is true not only of narratives that explicitly make

this connection with dual-protagonist FFF heroes (like Cagney & Lacey or its twenty-first

century counterparts, Rizzoli and Isles and the movie The Heat) but also lone-wolf FFF

heroes who have few intimate hetero-relations in the narrative like Clarice Starling.

100

fact, one of the most common critiques of the American version of The Girl with the

Dragon Tattoo is that Salander’s homosexual relationships end up trumped by a more

typically romantic imagining of her relationship with Blomkvist (“Softening and

Sexualizing Lisbeth Salander”). This response exemplifies the view of those who find the

non-normative endings more open and, therefore, more emancipating for viewers.

100

See Gates references to lesbian viewing pleasures related to Silence of the Lambs.

226

As for the FFFs who do end up with men, even if the men are not involved with

or alluded to in the ending, the narratives allow more imaginative wiggle room in terms

of the feminist-friendly hetero-intimacy fantasy. Take, for example, two of the four FFF

characters who do end up as part of a happy couple, Lacey and Johnson. Both have

happy, generally healthy personal relationships that are presented throughout the series,

even if both relationships have rocky patches. These relationships remain intact at the end

of the shows, but the shows end depicting the FFF either with her partner (for Lacey) or

alone (for Johnson), instead of in a scene with her husband. By not including their

husbands in the endings, the narrative reasserts that this is the female hero’s tale,

something that still remains a rarity in terms of female heroes on screen. In essence, this

FFF storyline finds a way to have it all, to show women who get the fulfilling job and the

fulfilling personal life, but without resorting to tying the hero’s finale to her relationships,

again liberating her from the romance narrative without having to preclude romance

entirely.

This ending reiterates the job’s importance as a source of meaning for the hero,

and in Johnson’s case, as her first love—a point asserted by her first words at the

beginning of the series (when she enters a crime scene) and her last words at the end of

the series (in the elevator): “It looks like love” (07.21). This associates the work itself as

something she loves and to some extent portrays that as a valid feeling for a woman by

orienting her narrative around it, rather than her romantic partnership. The Cagney &

Lacey ending also makes this association for both of its heroes, possibly offering even

more validation for the lifestyle possibilities for independent women. One hero, Lacey is

married, but Cagney remains single, and has done so with intention, wanting to put her

227

career first and having passed up marriage proposals and relationships with nice men to

do so because they weren’t her priority. Making the final scene for the television series

about them foregrounds the friendship and partnership without casting any doubt on their

personal lives.

Still, ambiguity remains a part of the endings for both Johnson and Lacey. Both

leave under fraught circumstances. As I mentioned previously, in The Closer, Johnson

has taken a prestigious position in the DA’s office, but only because her bosses wouldn’t

back her up. The story closes on a shot of her alone in an elevator, leaving a job she feels

forced to leave, eating her beloved Ding Dongs that were a gift from her squad (but that

represent a guilty pleasure food that she would eat primarily when she was stressed).

Even the series’ framing phrase, “It looks like love,” seems ambiguous. It still signals her

love for the work she does and the love she comes to share with her squad members, but

it also signals a fraught love, one with dangers for the transgressive female. After all, the

murder victim Johnson looks at in the first episode’s crime scene when she says the

phrase is a lesbian, who was living as a man, and who was killed by a homophobic

woman who had fallen in love with a person she thought was a man. Johnson says, “it

looks like love” to explain her verdict that love led to the murder. Johnson’s use of the

phrase “it looks like love” in the elevator thus can be seen as another sad verdict of love

leading to loss for another woman.

As for the germinal Cagney & Lacey, both stand together in the final shot, but the

final scene preceding this picture indicates more frustration and more battles awaiting

them. They argue about wanting to do what’s right and tell the press about a cover-up in

the department over an arms deal gone awry. But they have been told in no uncertain

228

terms that if they do so, they will not only lose the promotions they just received (to

encourage them to keep their mouths shut), but they will probably lose their jobs. They

ask Lieutenant Samuels for advice. He tells them to “put yourselves in a win-win

position” by accepting that if they share the story, they will either leave a “legacy” of

achieving the promotion they’ve been warned they won’t get or they will at least get a

newly painted women’s restroom, which they’ve been campaigning for during most of

the series and he’s now offering (07.22). This final scene, like The Closer’s, signifies

both triumph and tribulation. Cagney and Lacey have also earned the respect of their own

squad and become an integral part of the precinct, but rough roads lie ahead. These FFF

endings reinforce the narrative trends in all of the shows, to both assert the hero’s

difference as a woman and negate that difference in her position as a crime-fighting hero,

in order to engender a sense of her identity as a survivor and protector, as empowered and

vulnerable.

The two FFF narratives where the endings include the hero and her husband assert

more of an egalitarian and optimistic perspective between the hero and her intimate

partner, similar to the love buddy and Romaction fighting female narratives. As such, it

negates the hero’s difference, deemphasizes her vulnerability as a woman in favor of

reasserting her empowerment as part of a hetero-couple. First, the final scene in Alias

shows Syd and Vaughn living in a beach house with their two children. Syd’s old partner

Marcus Dixon (Carl Lumbly) shows up, and he’s now the deputy director of the CIA. He

wants them to lead an op to track down an old nemesis in Paris, saying that his other

agents are unavailable for the mission. Vaughn says they can discuss it after dinner,

implying that they are interested, and then the couple, their kids, and Dixon all go outside

229

to walk on the beach and watch the sunset. One big, happy family. The ending of the

2010 Nikita series ends on a similar upbeat, love-conquers-all note. Nikita and Bishop

have eloped and are on a beach in South America. They sit enjoying drinks, while Nikita

notices a young boy being harassed by a man saying to the boy that they are at war, and

they need soldiers. The man wants the boy, who looks scared, to take the gun. Nikita says

she knows what she and Bishop can do for their honeymoon, and she gets up to follow

the man. Bishop looks surprised, gets up, and follows. In a final voice-over, as they walk

away from the beach, Nikita says, “The real gift isn’t freedom. It’s what we get to do

with it.”

The basis for these two endings is predicated on another similarity between the

narratives: both of the husbands started out as the FFF’s handler, became her partner, and

are rendered vulnerable and victimized within the narrative. Vaughn lost his father as a

child but was led to believe his father is still alive, causing him to go rogue from the

team, deceive Syd, and even injure Dixon. Unfortunately, his father actually is dead;

Vaughn was himself deceived to aid one of the criminal organizations. Additionally,

Vaughn is himself betrayed, by the woman he married in season two (when Syd was

missing and presumed dead for two years). His wife turns out to be a double agent who

uses and deceives him, leaving him heartbroken and a mess.

Likewise, Bishop, in Nikita turns out to be an unwitting pawn for Percy’s

deceptions and criminal intent—meaning the times Bishop sought out and fought against

Nikita for Division, he was doing so under false pretenses. His enemy position is thus

rendered moot when he learns of Percy’s schemes and joins Nikita in her rogue mission

to take down Division and free all of the other agents. During flashbacks, we learn that

230

Bishop entered Division because he lost his wife and daughter—Percy encouraged him to

join, saving Michael from overdosing on morphine in his grief. Later in the series, Bishop

ends up gravely injured and loses his hand during a mission—Nikita has to chop it off to

save his life from an imminent explosion. He struggles for the better part of a season to

come to terms with his physical crippling, becoming emotionally unstable and insecure.

As the narratives render both men vulnerable, they offer redemptive parallels that

equalize the men with the FFF heroes and render any betrayals on the men’s part if not

harmless then, at final count, at least non-threatening, dominating, or paternal. The

narratives encourage the audience to question the men’s loyalties, believe in the

likelihood of their betrayals, but ultimately, they offer reparations for any wrongdoings

they commit in order to create space for their intimacy with the FFFs.

The redemptive parallel symbolizes a trend of male conversion in certain of the

FFF narratives that suggests a creative negotiation to undermine the negative portrayal of

men and create hetero allies, if not always intimates, who contrast from the male

dominators. As I said at the beginning of the chapter, for every male enemy the FFF

faces, there is a male ally—even if that alliance is somewhat ambiguous. The redemptive

parallel also reflects the problematic trend of effacing what I have noted in chapter three

is a naturalization of sex conflict—a female-versus-male inclination—inherent to hetero-

romance narratives that even the more feminist-friendly, gender-bending fighting female

romances replicate. Yet, it also suggests another interesting trend as a theme that asserts

vulnerability in strong men as an equalizing factor, which further reinforces the

possibility that women can still be perceived as empowered even when they are not all-

powerful. The inclusion of strong, vulnerable men in the FFF stories makes the strongest

231

claim against reading the extreme focus on male domination as just another feminist

attempt to degrade men, for it creates narrative opportunities to counteract the man-hating

stereotype associated with feminist-friendly characters. It allows for room to recognize

that not all men are bad and also the room to assert that the men who work well with the

female characters are simply the ones who support them, respect them, and trust them.

In other words, the redemptive parallel offers a version of male identity that is not

only non-dominating but that is often itself powerless on its own, without the support of

the FFF as a partner. After all, without the help of either Syd or Nikita, Vaughn and

Bishop (respectively) may not have emerged from their personal traumas in tact—part of

this help involved a lot of emotional interrogation and self-analysis of the kind that is not

necessarily apparent in the average male heroic tale, where much of the narrative focuses

on overcoming problems through action. Hagelin addresses the trend toward increasing

“resistant vulnerabilities” in female characters that have started to replace “sentimental

vulnerabilities” where either women embody the susceptible victim or the male’s

vulnerabilities are transferred onto a female or feminine body. As part of this trend

toward resistant vulnerabilities, these FFF narratives offer alternative, transgressive

masculinities as much as they encourage an alternative femininity that emphasizes

strength and independence.

101

I will discuss the feminist-friendly male and the

transgressive masculinities that fighting female romance narratives construct in further

detail in chapter five.

101

Douglas makes a similar conclusion about competing masculinities offered by certain

“warrior women” narratives, which includes Alias and La Femme Nikita, stating that they

proclaim patriarchy as “destructive, inhumane, heartless” and promote “men touched by

feminism” who reflect “hope for a new, improved masculinity” (98).

232

The Potential in the Survivor Identity

Providing a fantasy through which to navigate femininity and feminism by putting

them in concert rather than in conflict, ultimately, is the pleasure that these FFF

narratives afford. This fantasy is the function of the woman-as-survivor identity that

combines empowerment and vulnerability, making room for the FFF to perform the

protector and the victim. Instead of merely capitalizing on assumptions of women’s

vulnerability by underemphasizing her empowerment or capitalizing on assumptions of

women’s strength and independence by overemphasizing her empowerment,

102

it reflects

her complex, contradictory identity. Of course, in the end, the woman is victorious. While

the representation of her victory—often accomplished alone—is compelling and

necessary, it is not without its problems. Namely, it may be part of a trend of naturalizing

women’s susceptibility in such a way that a survivor identity becomes inextricable from

expressions of empowerment. In other words, the proof of her strength can only be

assured by what she must overcome to express it. Such themes can be considered a

102

Tactics used in earlier versions of fighting females, particularly during the 1960s and

70s. Overemphasizing the fighting female’s abilities by creating a sense of her as an

indestructible protector. This overemphasis occurred in television shows like The

Avengers, The Bionic Woman, and Wonder Woman. The overemphasis also happened in

certain Blaxploitation films with heroines, like the two Cleopatra Jones sagas and T.N.T.

Jackson. All of these characters are so completely powerful that their fluency as

protectors was the predominant impression they gave. Underemphasize her fighting

abilities by giving women a superficial position as crime-fighters that made them

convenient targets and victims to be protected by men happened in The Girl from

U.N.C.L.E, Get Smart, McMillan and Wife, and Hart to Hart. These women were

basically narrative objects who were almost completely dependent and relied on male

partners and bosses to do the actual protecting—hence perpetuating assumptions for

feminist critics about the problem that male partners pose for independent fighting

females in the first place.

233

problem in that they redirect focus away from changing society (to remove the obstacles)

to simply encouraging individual women (to overcome those obstacles).

At this point in time, I don’t know that naturalizing women’s susceptibility is as

important a concern when one considers the transgressive assertion that a woman’s

strength and independence can work in concert with her vulnerability and limited agency

in an American society where male political and economic dominance remains the reality

and primary cultural narrative. In fact, it may be a necessary step toward the sex parity

that some feminists pursue because it constructs a female identity that avoids the trap of

either/or thinking: either a woman is vulnerable and therefore weak, or she is strong and

therefore invulnerable. The FFF, while problematic because of its own mixed messages,

does at least offer an alternative that can be seen to combat the division between the

victim/agent divide by constructing the woman-as-survivor identity. The character can

still be celebrated on many levels because she’s the hero; she takes down the villain(s).

That appeal is clear. However, she also appeals because she faces and overcomes male

domination in a way that allows her to embody feminist femininity, to eradicate the

divide. Even moreso, the FFF appeals to us as an often emotionally unstable or imperfect

woman who still has enough reserves of strength to do the work required of her and to

seek to right the wrongs done against others. We can’t underestimate the power of seeing

a mess of a woman—one who struggles with work-life balance, suffers emotionally from

her trauma, or even strains to just not eat the tempting donut—be a hero. Through these

appeals, the FFF both reflects and constructs a complex, non-dualistic identity that

234

coordinates with what some critics’ identify as progressive possibilities lurking within the

ambiguous positions that female characters might inhabit.

103

The woman-as-survivor identity doesn’t reject ideals of empowerment, but it does

attempt to eradicate the mystique surrounding that empowerment, the diffuse pro-woman

ideal that leaves little room for the realities of external oppression and internal struggles

many women face. The survivor identity ultimately supercedes, but does not erase, the

victimization and its effects on the hero. Also, removing narrow conceptions about what

it takes to be a victim or a hero leaves more room for agency, for not disparaging the

woman who takes risks, who makes herself vulnerable, and thus, seems the perfect way

to categorize the FFF. In other words, there is little mistaking that these characters are

susceptible to being a victim—no matter how strong they are and no matter whether or

not they have put themselves in a position to be victimized—and our sympathy still lies

with them. Finally, by asserting ways that men can and should help women survive,

through the representation of nurturing hetero-intimacies

104

as well as more egalitarian

hetero-partnerships, the FFF storyline removes the problem of emphasizing individual

responsibility and action in the fight against inequality. Even when the FFF doesn’t end

up achieving successful hetero-intimacy, she still presents an identity that encourages the

audience to accept and “understand that the contradictions in women’s stories do not

cancel each other out but rather reveal the intricate textures and the nuances of women’s

hetero-relational lives” (Phillips 32).

103

Douglas refers to the ambiguity arising from contradictory female experience as both

“what it means to be an American woman” and “what it means to be a feminist”

(Enlightened 20). See also Genz’s work on the “postfeminist woman” and Bell’s work on

the “Desiring Woman” psychological ideal.

104

Of which there are other platonic examples throughout the FFFs I’ve discussed that go

beyond the scope of this chapter’s focus.

235

CHAPTER FIVE

Fighting Females: The Men Who Love Them &

the Women Who Will Lead Them All

She got her own thing

That’s why I love her

Miss independent

Won’t you come and spend a little time?

—Kelly Clarkson, “Miss

Independent,” 2003

In this study, I have explored mass media indications of three new female

identities enacted by different fighting females who embody a “strong, independent

woman” archetype: the love buddy, the love warrior, and the survivor. Each of these

identities emerges from a narrative that negotiates tensions, for women, between intimacy

and autonomy by representing and addressing the empowered protagonist’s heterosexual

relationship successes and failures. In these popular culture narratives, I’ve argued, we

can find on one hand an optimistic “fantasy” about the possibilities of love relationships

in which female strength and independence co-exist with intimacy and male support, as

in Mr. and Mrs. Smith or Castle and Bones. On the other hand, there remains space for

some continuing, very realistic worries about the threats posed by hetero-relations based

on patriarchal gender imbalances and old patterns of dependency, as seen in the fraught

fighting female narratives, like Alias and the Nikita stories.

I have also maintained that certain fighting female romance narratives expand

representations of femininity. Being tough, autonomous, intelligent, aggressive, and

rational is now more compatible with being vulnerable, emotional, and interdependent, at

least in some arenas of popular culture. We see this expansion most clearly in characters

who can be violent protectors—thus transgressing typical gender boundaries—but also

236

lovers, wives, and mothers. Such characters promote the idea that women can liberate

themselves—from would-be enemies and obstacles—but they can also be liberated

through egalitarian intimacies that enact feminist-friendly romance. However, some

fighting female romance narratives have also helped expand representations of

masculinity. Female heroes prove more and more that they don’t need men to protect or

save them. In order for any feminist-friendly romance fantasy to work, the men who love

them must prove they can be compatible with such a fierce, powerful, and unafraid

agents.

To some extent, I have addressed male characters in each chapter. In chapters two

and three, I detail aspects of the love buddy and Romaction male co-leads who enhance

(or degrade) evidence of the fighting female’s empowerment. Many, though not all, of

the examples I analyze assert a sensitive, enlightened male partner who can work in

concert with a strong, independent female. In the previous chapter on fraught fighting

females, I explored the construction of the male-as-enemy but also briefly addressed how

the vulnerable male partner emerged as a new masculine position that would be

compatible with the woman-as-survivor. In this chapter, I will look briefly at other male

roles that occur more frequently in twenty-first century fighting female narratives and

that indicate more progressive alternatives for hetero-intimacies that range from familial

to platonic to romantic. I conclude by linking these alternative roles to an emerging new

female identity of the young woman as leader.

237

The Times Are Changing and So Are Men

“If they keep up the sexism thing, it will get old.”

—sieglinde, 2011

In 2011, NBC created an American reboot of Prime Suspect. Like her British

counterpart, Detective Jane Timoney, played by the critically lauded Maria Bello, must

deal with the sexist and exclusionist views of “the beef trust” in the New York City

homicide squad (the name the men in the squad give themselves). Also, like Tennison,

Timoney is aggressive and comfortable asserting herself when she’s treated unfairly, and

she’s actually more violent than Tennison, running after and tackling perps and more

frequently wielding her gun. Unlike DCI Tennison, Timoney has a much more solid

homelife.

In the pilot, which opens with Timoney on the phone with her boyfriend Matt

Webb (Kenny Johnson), we learn that the most difficult adjustment she has with her

relationship is child-proofing their home for visits from Matt’s son from a past marriage.

At the end of the episode, when Timoney again faces acrimony and rejection from the

chauvinistic male squad, she returns home and cries in Matt’s arms as he comforts her. In

later episodes, when Timoney has to cancel plans with Matt for work, he never

complains. He simply tells her to “be safe” and that he loves her (01.13). He’s even

happy to buy her a “big gun” for Christmas with new income he earns from a new

construction job (01.10). Overall, Timoney’s relationship with Matt is mundane and sits

comfortably on the margins of her story. They play cards at home with Timoney’s father

and Matt’s son, Matt makes breakfast for her, and they fool around from time-to-time.

He’s not in the crime-fighting business. He’s not a tough guy. He’s just a man who loves

238

his son and his kick-ass girlfriend. Matt’s a clear contrast from Tom, the boyfriend who

couldn’t handle Tennison’s dedication to work and resented when she cancelled plans.

While the developers and writers of the reboot decided to maintain the original

atmosphere of good ol’ boy misogyny, they created a nice, sensitive, supportive love

interest for her, one who can stand by her, which the original Jane never found. These

choices indicate the difficulty of characterizing male identity in a post-feminist era where

those identities are expanding along with women’s identities. Essentially, the show

seemed to uneasily straddle two eras: one when men could more easily be imagined as

the enemy who stood between women and progress, when women had to make more

personal sacrifices, and one when men were more enlightened allies who supported and

even aided women’s progress, when women could have it all.

A Plea for Nuance

Numerous critics and audience members found the sexism problematic in the

American version—far too explicit for a modern story about a woman cop. Writing for

The New York Post, Linda Stasi notes, “Twenty years ago, when the original debuted,

police departments were sexism central, and, as such, the idea of a woman rising to the

top was riveting. […] But recreating that only-boys-allowed premise in NYC in 2011 is

about 15 years too late.” Viewer NormStansfiel is less generous in his critique. He

predicts that “the horsesh*t [sic] narrative about misogynistic male cops discriminating

against the lone woman in their midst” would “doom” the show. Echoing other viewers

who felt the sexism wasn’t appropriate for 2011, NormStansfiel continues, “Sorry, but

239

this is neither the 50s, nor downtown Kabul. It’s just impossible for anyone living and

working in the US today to buy into that premise.”

Twenty years ago, the original Prime Suspect became a hit with both British and

American audiences in part because of the way it addressed institutional sexism. As noted

in the previous chapter, the sexism was integral to the show’s origins, based on creator

and writer Linda La Plante’s desire to showcase the very real struggles women detectives

faced as an extremely marginalized minority in the London police force. This point was

mentioned specifically in major reviews, like those by John J. O’ Connor (he mentions it

in three reviews between 1992 and 1994) and William Grimes in 1993 in The New York

Times television section. Grimes points out that the “sexual double standard […] has

struck a chord with women in the audience” and quotes Mirren as saying, “All the

women I’ve talked to say, ‘I can’t believe how accurate this is as a description of what I

face in my professional life.’”

Now, even viewers with feminist perspectives who do believe that such misogyny

exists thought the sexism in the reboot was too much, like Fake TV Critic, who claims

“the overt and exaggerated misogyny Timoney faces is borderline offensive” because it

feels so “dated” and “unbelievable.” It turns out that NormStansfiel’s prediction, that the

pilot doomed the new version, might have had merit, as it was cancelled after 13 episodes

(and predicted to do so a mere three weeks after the pilot). Writer Melissa Silverstein,

who was very sorry to see the show go, explains it all ties back to the sexism:

The problem with the show started at the pilot. Remember the first Prime

Suspect took place in 1991. That’s 20 years ago. What else happened 20

years ago? Anita Hill. Sexual harassment, while happening all over the

240

place, was given a name and a face by Ms. Hill and when we saw how

Mirren’s Jane Tennison was treated by her male colleagues we got it. But

in 2011 too much time had passed and the aggressive male behavior in the

pilot towards Maria Bello who played the American version, Jane

Timoney just didn't work. It was too much. Way too over the top.

The discomfort with the sexism in the most recent version could easily be

explained as evidence that post-feminist American culture subscribes to the assumption

that women are liberated, for good or bad, and sexism has ended. But there’s more to the

criticisms lobbied by critics and viewers. The problem many had with the misogyny

wasn’t so much that it was present as much as that it was heavy-handed, not subtle

enough. Twenty years ago, showing a woman dealing with a bunch of sexist blowhards

felt more realistic, but today, audiences have a harder time accepting the in-your-face

woman-hating. The New York Times reviewer Alessandra Stanley nails the difference

with her point, “[T]he overt hostility and crude sexism Jane encounters from her all-male

squad seem a little dated. Today’s finest may still harbor reservations about women on

the force, but if so, they have been sensitivity-trained to hide it better.” With exceptions,

like NormStansfiel, there are still viewers and critics who accept that misogyny continues

to exist, but in a popular culture with at least forty years of feminist awareness behind it,

it’s more subtle, pernicious, and often harder to pinpoint. Or else, evidence of sexism is

more irreverent and taken less seriously these days, a point that Susan Douglas makes in

Enlightened Sexism, where the cushion of women’s “progress because of feminism”

makes evidence of sexism amusing, non-threatening (9). The gritty depiction the 2011

Prime Suspect affords it just doesn’t fit.

241

To further demonstrate the contrast, I refer to The Closer, which I mentioned in

the previous chapter was inspired in some part by Prime Suspect. Deputy Chief Brenda

Leigh Johnson encountered sexism when she was appointed to head the new Major

Crimes division of the LAPD. However, the only explicit sexists were two detectives

who were over sixty (Flynn and Provenza) and who were regularly mocked by the

narrative for their outdated views. No one paid any heed to their open sexist antics or

chauvinist views. The rest of the sexism—the resistance to her authority and feminine

demeanor—was implicit. Brenda also had male allies from the beginning, her superior

officer, the Assistant Chief who hired her and stood by her, and an old connection from

the FBI, who eventually became her husband. Additionally, there was another woman in

the squad. Essentially, The Closer offered what the new Prime Suspect didn’t: a more

nuanced vision of the workplace and alternative male identities that didn’t rely on

stereotypical masculinity. A show like The Closer indicates the negotiation the fighting

female fantasy must make between traditional and newly emerging forms of masculinity

that combine more elements of support, nurturing, and interdependence. This, I believe,

is what made The Closer seem less disjointed than the 2011 Prime Suspect, more of a

reflection of the shades of change between the two eras rather than a mashing of them.

Still, the more recent Prime Suspect does reflect a noteworthy trend in the way

Matt’s character was constructed as a male love interest for a female hero, a trend that is

worth analyzing in a study on the relationship between romance and female

empowerment in the mass media. Just as popular representations of female identity adjust

for expectations of the empowered woman of today, thereby presenting a more complex

version of femininity that includes strength and independence, so have representations of

242

men adjusted to offer alternatives of ideal male behaviors and values that fit well with

progressive femininities. We can see the movement toward this when we compare not

only characters like Tom from the original Prime Suspect and the considerably more

liberated Matt in the reboot but also when we compare the men in both shows with those

in The Closer. As a fraught fighting female narrative, The Closer certainly kept female

victimization at the hands of men on the forefront, as I demonstrated in chapter four, but

it also gives more credit to the male allies and offers several varied male roles in ways

that reflect more common representations of alternative masculinity in twenty-first

century fighting female narratives.

The Closer provides a suitable example of the emerging progressive masculinities

not only for the variety but for the role her love interest plays. At times, Special Agent

Fritz Howard (Jon Tenney) works as a crime-fighting sidekick when Brenda needs his

FBI expertise or connections, but throughout, he generally remains on the margins of the

story, often appearing only briefly and often at home, in support of her role as the hero.

The key word here is support, and it is what sets him, and his characterization of

masculinity, apart from the partner narratives for love buddy and Romaction fighting

females. Like John Smith from Mr. and Mrs. Smith or Seeley Booth from Bones, Fritz is

definitely an enlightened male, but unlike them, he is only one part of the hero’s story.

He gives depth to Brenda’s character because he is part of her personal life, but the story

could still go on without him. Such male characters are rare in the mass media. In Cagney

& Lacey, Harvey Lacey did the same for Mary Beth—when he was unemployed, he was

the main caretaker of the children and home. He cooked and cleaned. He listened to her

and gave her advice. But Harvey also suffered from insecurities about his masculinities,

243

which the series made clear in the second episode when he was embarrassed that his wife

stood up against a bullying male neighbor. Harvey also fretted about his abilities as a

provider for the family, a recurrent theme throughout the show. Still, Harvey was

arguably the first of his kind, in a cop show, or any fighting female narrative for that

matter. That was the 1980s, though, and Cagney & Lacey tread a very delicate line,

attempting to empower women without appearing to emasculate men.

Fritz is like Harvey, only without the insecurities. He is confident, tough, and

capable, but he is also nurturing and vulnerable. He characterizes the ideal stand-by-your-

woman man, the kind of supportive partner that CEOs like Sheryl Sandberg and Ursula

Burns laud when they talk about their husbands making it possible for them to do what

they do, as I mentioned in chapter two. Fritz respects Brenda’s love for her job and

because of this he exhibits impressive amounts of patience when her work interferes with

their relationship as they progress from dating to, eventually, marriage. For example, in

“Show Yourself” (01.04), Fritz and Brenda are supposed to go to dinner, but she

convinces him to follow a suspect while she hides in the backseat and tells him what do

to. In the next episode, Brenda forgets to cancel their date, but instead of fighting, he

takes the news with little friction, and they end up kissing before she heads back to work.

She cancels another date with him a few episodes later (01.08) because she has to work,

and instead of using basketball tickets he has, he decides to wait, pick up Brenda’s cat

from the vet, and bring her dinner at home. Of course, this is because Fritz is also a

professional with his own responsibilities; his ability to accept her behavior is logical

because he can see it in terms of his own experiences. The best indicator of this

understanding occurs in the days leading up to wedding in “Double Blind” (04.15). Fritz

244

must work on a big case—he has to run off, he can’t make it home for dinner, and he

needs Brenda to take care of his visiting sister (as he once did with her mother). Brenda is

happy about this because she can focus on a new murder investigation. As his sister says

while officiating the ceremony at the end of the episode, Fritz “never gives up on the

people he loves,” and Brenda “never gives up on anything,” and they are thus made for

each other. Immediately following the ceremony, Fritz has to run back to work after the

ceremony, so Brenda does, too.

Not only does he respect her work life, he accepts her authority in her position

and sometimes lets it dictate his behavior as a professional—several times, he finds

information for her under the radar that helps her cases, even though it could get him in

trouble, because he wants to help her seek justice. He never complains that her work gets

in the way of their relationship—in fact, he explicitly refuses to let it do so. On one of the

first cases where they are actually assigned to work together in “L.A. Woman” (01.11),

they clash over the case because Brenda wants a woman from Iran to end up in jail for

murdering her husband, but the FBI wants to give the woman to the CIA and send her to

Iran as an asset, and Fritz has to comply. As the episode ends, Brenda attempts to evade

Fritz’s touch because she’s mad at him. He grabs her coat and hands it to her while

saying, “You know what would make me upset? Is if this whole working together thing

screwed up our whole other thing.” She takes the coat and says, “Fine, let’s go to dinner.”

He is, in a sense, the one in charge of nurturing the relationship, the emotional work.

All through the series, Fritz shows not only patience and a willingness to support

her position as a very busy deputy chief, he solidly affirms his commitment to her and his

desire for the relationship to progress. He is the one to suggest they move in together

245

(02.01). He is also the one who helps her realize that she needs to extricate herself

completely from her past relationship with Pope (which happened before the show

began). Sure, Fritz is jealous and bothered by her “lack of clarity” (02.12), but he also

wants her to know where she stands since she seems to be waffling, and he says as much

when he tells her she needs to clarify. He ends up sleeping on the couch that night, and

she both talks to Pope and gets rid of memorabilia from their relationship. She leaves a

note for Fritz that says, “I LOVE YOU. PS, Can you cancel my credit cards for me

today?” (she had lost her purse). At once, she responds to his need, showing that she

respects his request, and at the same time, she asserts something that she needs. This

reminds us that she can rely on his assistance outside of work so she can do her work.

This note exemplifies just how much their relationship exists outside of traditional

relationship norms, where Fritz occupies a position that verges into realms of traditional

femininity, as much as Brenda’s verges into realms of traditional masculinity. That’s not

to say that they switch positions—instead, they both blend. They are both made for each

other—they are both the same and different.

105

One of the most useful elements of

analyzing the male love interest identity in the fighting female romance narratives is that

it shows how much the feminist-friendly love fantasy relies on both men and women to

more fluidly inhabit roles and transgress gender boundaries, that that is the basis of a

healthy intimacy where female empowerment can blossom. That certainly promotes an

optimistic view for the possibilities of liberated romance.

106

105

This theme crops up in a few of each fighting female identity I’ve outlined, but it’s

necessary to remember that Fritz is a supporting character, not a co-star. There are even

episodes where he is barely apparent.

106

A view that Woman of the Year (1942), Adam’s Rib (1949), and other films of the late

1930s and early 1940s depicted, only without a fighting female protagonist. In other

246

Signs of Progress

The existence and success of a show like The Closer—which was in its sixth

season when the American Prime Suspect premiered—and other crime-fighting

narratives with women at the helm, may have even contributed to some people’s

perceptions that men and women have come too far in this post-feminist era to return to

stark depictions of misogyny. In general, I think that fighting female romance narratives

have had a major impact on the development of male identities.

107

In the 1970s, when

crime-fighting shows like McMillan and Wife or Hart to Hart emerged, the wife sidekick

oriented around her husband, who did all of the action and usually ended up having to

save the wife. These were the kinds of stories that prompted the outrage of feminist-

oriented critics. When the female character started to get in on the action, writers had to

conceive of male identities that would fit the change. It’s one thing to simply turn all of

the male characters into ineffectual wimps or bad guys, or have the female hero fight

women, or keep the hero’s identity a secret, as happened for lone-wolf fighting females

like Wonder Woman, the Bionic Woman, Lt. Ripley from Alien or Foxy Brown and

Cleopatra Jones. This was because the woman’s strength and independence, her physical

power and ability to take care of herself, was more generally accepted as emasculating

behavior. Her hetero-relations compensated for that. It’s another thing entirely to have a

male character who could be secondary to the female hero, either in crime-fighting skills

words, this liberated romance is not entirely new. Today’s examples reconfigure an ideal

that the 1950s and 60s domestic romances swept away. Only now, the liberated romance

less frequently shows the male protagonist developing a progressive consciousness to

accommodate the woman’s empowerment and the attendant role upheavals. His

acceptance is usually fully intact.

107

Abele makes a related assertion about male identities changing in American action

films, which I addressed in chapter three.

247

or in terms of being only part of her personal, and not her professional, life. The change

indicates that in certain constructions, and for some audiences at least, female power

doesn’t have to be developed at the cost of male power.

Thanks to characters like Remington Steele, David Addison, and Harvey Lacey,

it’s now possible to imagine Fritz and Rick Castle and Chuck Bartowski, rakishly

attractive fellows with skills of their own and enough security and enlightenment to offer

believable male love interests. The best offer balance and parity with their fighting

female and manage to perform an inclusive masculinity that allows them to be more

dependent than traditional masculinity maintains and still be portrayed as desirable

romance partners (much as today’s fighting females are portrayed as desirable not in spite

of but often because of characteristics that transgress stereotypical gender boundaries). I

would further argue that the progression of enlightened male love interests over the last

forty years has even helped contribute to hetero-relations in fighting female narratives

that don’t revolve around romance with the hero but that function nonetheless to support

her position.

The number of supporting male cast members who are friends and confidantes

with the hero has only risen over the last decade: Kate Beckett has Espo and Ryan in

Castle; Temperance Brennan has Jack Hodgins (T.J. Thyne) and Sweets in Bones; Sarah

Walker has John Casey and Morgan Grimes in Chuck; Nikita (in the 2010 version) has

Seymour Birkhoff (Aaron Stanford), Owen Elliot (Devon Sawa), and Ryan Fletcher

(Noah Bean). The rise is not at the expense of female characters, who have also actually

increased over the last few years in particular, which you can also see in each of the

aforementioned series. Now, there are even platonic pairings of men with fighting

248

females in shows I have not previously addressed, like Continuum, Covert Affairs, Rizzoli

& Isles, Orphan Black, Elementary, Sleepy Hollow, Grimm, Quantico, Agents of Shield,

Agent Carter, The Flash, Arrow, and The Mysteries of Laura. Some of these shows have

women in the lead, some have men, some have co-leads, but they all exhibit more varied

male identities. Additionally, there are more shows where male characters work under

women who are in charge as the bosses or high-ranking officer. Over the course of

Castle, Beckett becomes captain of her own precinct. Brenda Leigh Johnson is the deputy

chief over the major crimes division. In Major Crimes, the series that picked up where

The Closer left off in 2012, Captain Sharon Raydor (Mary McDonnell) runs the division

and is the main character. The impact of this change cannot be emphasized enough—

envisioning a woman as leader with power over men as a desirable character who may

not always have romance in her life (like Captain Raydor) but who isn’t portrayed as

lacking or lonely because of it proves that there are pockets of popular culture that have

truly evolved in terms of plausible authoritative female identities and male identities that

can not only co-exist with female power but can also heed that power. There may be

problematic aspects to even the most enlightened seeming female identity or her

relationships that sustain that identity, but the narratives provide much to look forward to,

not only in terms of imagining the empowered female on screen but also for empowering

males through new roles and new relational possibilities that don’t subject them to

traditional masculine ideals.

249

Future Femininities

My persuasion can build a nation

Endless power, the love we can devour

You’ll do anything for me

Who run the world? Girls (girls)

—Beyoncé, “Run the World (Girls),” 2011

One of the elements that I’ve argued contributed in part to some of the audience

resistance to the American Prime Suspect remake is that it didn’t reflect the kind of

feminist-friendly fantasy contemporary audiences can find believable. Many people

expect more nuanced male identities because the ideas some people have about who men

are, what men can be, has changed as their ideas of women have changed. Another part

of the problem is that there is an entirely new generation of viewers, young women and

men who were just being born around the time the original Prime Suspect premiered in

1991. Some children and teens of the 70s and early 80s grew up along with the fighting

female character, which helped certain arenas of popular culture subscribe to notions of

empowered women and non-traditional hetero-relations. It makes sense that these

viewers would be more likely to seek feminist-friendly fantasies that are in keeping with

that, fantasies that negotiate the difficulties of being a woman in a system that has long

excluded them—and they had seen the proof of women’s lack of presence or in the lack

of their strength and independence. The youngsters of the late 1980s and early 1990s

grew into a popular culture where the fighting female had been around for a while: her

enactments of empowered female identities weren’t so new, and her feminist-friendly

romance fantasies were not necessarily the norm, but they at least existed.

The feminist-friendly fantasy doesn’t necessarily appeal to new viewers, at least

not in the same way or for the same reasons. They grew up with Buffy the Vampire

250

Slayer, Xena the Warrior Princess, Mulan, the PowerPuff Girls, and Veronica Mars. They

had riot grrrls and Spice Girls and Girl Power; they were a generation who grew up with

more mothers who worked outside the home than ever before. By the time they became

aware of politics and the economy, they had Hilary, Condoleeza Rice, and the Notorious

RBG as role models, not to mention athletes Mia Hamm, Nancy Kerrigan, and Sheryl

Swopes. The trend only continues in the twenty-first century, as more female athletes,

politicians, CEOs, and celebrities provide more surface evidence that women have “come

a long way, baby.”

Additionally, new viewers see less evidence of overt sexism and of women in

general being oppressed; the sexism they grew up with was more “enlightened,” to use

Susan Douglas’ term. It was playful, done with a knowing wink that implied, “we know

better now, so let’s have fun with it.” So, the sexist, evil preacher who was one of Buffy’s

final adversaries in the show’s last season was comically misogynistic and his sexism far

more harmless than his demonic intentions. More importantly, children of the 1990s grew

up in an era when power feminism became popularized. Authors like Naomi Wolf,

Camille Paglia, and Christina Hoff Sommers promoted the idea that women were in and

of themselves empowered and capable of overcoming any obstacle on their own merit,

that if women were being subjugated, it was because they had the wrong attitude or made

the wrong choices. These women eschewed characterizing women as victims in favor of

viewing women as masters of their own destinies, and they had more readily available

examples of women in power (politically, economically, and socially) to prove their

point. They no longer claimed female sex as a liability in a patriarchal culture; instead,

they championed it as a source of power over men. Changes like these ushered in a new

251

wave of post-feminism. No longer simply a historical marker designating a period

following the widespread awareness of the feminist movement and its more public issues,

the term post-feminist began to apply to both an attitude that takes feminist gains for

granted and an idea that feminism has accomplished what it set out to do—give women

an equal chance.

108

It’s easier for young people who grew up with these role models, took their

influences to heart, and who were encouraged to embrace progressive ideas about female

power to see women’s strength and independence as characteristics that are consistent

with their femininity. It’s not necessarily a feminist-informed femininity for them, as it

might seem for older audiences, but just femininity.

109

Even young people who would not

describe themselves as feminists or necessarily subscribe to feminist gender critiques

would find the kind of useless damsel in distress position of pseudo-empowered

characters like Jennifer Hart from Hart to Hart laughable. Young viewers have been

informed by and are drawn to different versions of female power. They seek stories and

characters who reflect this strength and independence in ways that speak to their

expectations as audience members for whom the allure of the fighting female, and her

representation of female empowerment, is a given. They are, in a sense, a culture primed

to be at least feminist allies.

All of these changes make it possible to envision a new empowered female

identity: the young woman leader. This girl character can all be classified as a young

fighting female, a fledgling hero who ranges from teen to college age. She reflects the

108

For an extensive overview of the uses and applications of the term post-feminist (or

postfeminism), see Gamble or Genz and Brabon.

109

Making the feminist versus feminine opposition less relevant to discussions of

contemporary popular culture.

252

extent to which the strong, independent woman archetype has become so entrenched in

the mass media that even girl characters are depicted as capable of saving themselves and

protecting others, including adults. The woman leader narratives introduce girls with

great gifts and destinies, and they take us through her journey not only toward accepting

the responsibilities that come with being strong and independent but also acting on those

responsibilities to make the world a better place.

The New Stories

In 1997, Buffy Summers (Sarah Michelle-Gellar), a young blond cheerleader who

wielded a mean roundhouse and had a knack for killing vampires and demons, became

the first teenage girl to kick some serious ass on the small screen.

110

Not long after the

series began, Buffy the Vampire Slayer proved a formidable enough hit that it helped The

WB, a new network providing shows for teens and young adults, overcome its ratings

struggles and gain a strong foothold on cable programming. Over the next seven seasons,

BTVS earned a major following with fans of all ages and sexes. It launched one WB spin-

off program, Angel, comic books, websites, fan fiction, a slew of academic articles,

anthologies, and monographs, and even a yearly international conference. Buffy was

arguably the first incarnation of the young woman leader—a woman who used her power

not only to save the world but to lead a group of her most trusted allies, men and women,

into the fight.

Eighteen years later, such strong, independent girl characters have only become

more popular. Today, there are fairy tale heroines who are now reimagined as fighting

110

In 1992, a film version of BTVS debuted, but it was not particularly well received.

253

heroes, leading others to safety and a new, brighter future. Alice Kingsleigh (Mia

Wasikowska) in Alice in Wonderland (2010) dons armor to fight a dragon and free

Underland from the terror inflicted by the pathologically insecure Red Queen and her

army (a sequel where Alice once again returns for the fight will be released in 2016).

Today’s Snow White (Kristen Stewart) in Snow White and the Hunstman (2012) no

longer sits back while her prince fights to save her from evil—she dons her own armor to

slay the queen, save her people, and become a benevolent ruler. Female fairy tale villains

have gotten rewrites, like the titular character in Maleficent (2014, played by Ella Purnell,

Isobelle Molloy, and Angelina Jolie), who turns out not to be so evil after all; she actually

saves the kingdom and Sleeping Beauty (Ella Fanning) from the evil king by fighting his

army and restoring order. In the television show Once Upon a Time (2011- ), the evil

queen makes a similar transformation after a few seasons. Even girls in cartoons are

picking up arrows and using magical powers to fight the bad guys, like Anna in Frozen

(2013) or Princess Merida in Brave (2012), as part of their preparations to become

leaders of their people.

We also have dystopian revolutionary Tris Prior (Shailene Woodley) in Divergent

(2014) and Insurgent (2015) who fights to unite the people of her city by saving them

from the tyranny of the militant Erudite faction. The two final installments of the film

series (based on a popular novel trilogy written by Veronica Roth) will be released in

2016 and 2017. Last, but not least, there’s the other dystopian revolutionary Katniss

Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) from The Hunger Games quadrilogy (2012-15). This

movie franchise is based on the highly successful novel series by Suzanne Collins, whose

first three movie installments grossed over a billion dollars, and whose most recent

254

installment opened as number one in the box office and earned, worldwide, over half a

billion in less than a month. Katniss is not only a fighter, but she is also a champion, one

chosen by the rebels of Panem to lead them into a revolution against the Capitol.

Katniss, and her story, is perhaps the most appropriate example to address in

terms of emerging femininities and masculinities in twenty-first-century fighting female

narratives because of her immense popularity. Her character represents a fluidity that

fulfills both a post-feminist and a feminist-friendly empowerment. I believe this is why

her story has immense cross-generational appeal and why Catching Fire, the second

Hunger Games, was the first blockbuster film with a female lead to reach number one for

the year it was released since The Exorcist in 1973 (Han). I will provide an overview of

Katniss’ qualities as an empowered female identity, as well as portrayals of new

masculinity in relation to that identity, before I conclude with a reflection on fantasies of

contemporary female empowerment.

Changing the Rules of the Game

In many regards, Katniss embodies the ultimate post-feminist hero whose strength

and independence are assured from the beginning of her story. She seems refreshingly

free of the trappings of any single gender characteristics but also free from the

stereotypical “tomboy” position usually assigned to gender-bending women. She

combines a very nurturing, protective, peace-loving attitude with a very bold, calculating,

and fierce determination and a deadly aim with her bow and arrow. She has an incredibly

serious demeanor and as the films progress, smiles less and less. She often acts cold,

aloof, but she is very loving to her family, and she feels any loss deeply. She wants

255

nothing more than to protect people, both her family and the innocent civilians caught up

in the rebellion against the Capitol of Panem. Yet, she knows the only way to do that is to

fight the enemy, and that fight requires being hard and ready to step up. The first time we

meet Katniss, she is comforting her young sister, Prim (Willow Shields), who has

awakened from a nightmare. Katniss sings a sweet lullaby to send Prim back to sleep.

Then, she gets dressed and heads off to hunt to provide for the family. After Katniss

volunteers as tribute to replace her sister in the Hunger Games, she grabs her mother and

adamantly tells her she can’t “tune out” like she did after Katniss’ father died. Katniss

seems both cold and angry, afraid and vulnerable as she demands her mother take care of

Prim, since Katniss had been doing it for so long, as caretaker, protector, and provider.

Katniss is beautiful but utterly unconcerned with her looks or being attractive. She

spends the majority of the movies completely covered up and wearing no makeup, her

hair in a simple braid. When she does dress up, it’s only because she’s forced to as part of

her role in the Hunger Games, and even then, the clothing is generally modest, more

decorative than alluring. She has little interest in being likable or playing a role that

doesn’t reflect what she feels, but again, when it comes time to improve her audience

appeal—whether it’s to rally the troops to revolt or gain favor with the viewers of the

game, she can comply. Effectively, she shows that she can be and act any way she wants

or needs to survive, and her gender identity is never really clear. For the majority of the

film franchise, it’s difficult to even tell who she is attracted to, as she moves between

Gale Hawthorne (Liam Helmsworth) and Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson) in each film,

never fawning or playing coy but rather just being herself, a confused young girl who is

trying to figure out who she is and what she wants.

256

As the hero on whom the fate of Panem rests, Katniss is fiercely autonomous.

This plays out in three key ways to reflect a post-feminist fantasy of female

empowerment. First, like the fraught fighting female, her autonomy is constrained by her

circumstances. Unlike the FFF, she faces a challenge of a larger threat to her existence

that cannot be directly related to sex- or gender-based subordination; in a word, these

threats are more “universal.” In her world, being a woman is not problematic. It’s her

class. Class has become the new equalizer for fighting females, a problem that doesn’t

make a female hero stand out as a female. She is one of many oppressed people, men and

women, old and young, and the enemy is wealth and corruption and divisiveness. In

facing the challenge, she still fights inequality, she fights for herself and for her society,

and her liberation is the liberation of all men and women from the constraints of their

origin.

The second way her autonomy plays into the fantasy is in her self-authorization,

an empowerment that emerges as she decides things for herself. She has her own

opinions that are guided by a clear moral compass and are not swayed by others. She has

allies who support her, both men and women, but none of them proves an authority over

her for long. She kills only to survive or to remove an immediate threat. Even after Peeta

is tortured and her sister dies, she never takes a life out of revenge or justice because she

cannot act outside of her principles. Additionally, she does not seek validation of her

opinions. For example, in the final film installments, Mockingjay Part 1 & 2, the rebels,

led by self-proclaimed President Coin (Julianne Moore), consistently try to convince

Katniss that sacrificing innocent people is part of war, that it’s a necessary evil. She

refuses to believe this and maintains that the only way to win the war is to show that all

257

of the citizens of Panem, in each of the districts, share a common oppression and must be

allies in the fight against President Snow’s (Donald Sutherland) tyranny. She defies

authority and acts outside of the different systems of rules and regulations that constrain

her, both in the games and in the rebellion. At the end of the first film, she’s willing to

commit suicide rather than kill Peeta and win the game according to Snow’s rules. At the

end of the second film, she shoots an exploding arrow at the dome surrounding the arena

to end the game, rather than, again, killing her opponents. At the end of the final film, in

complete defiance of President Coin’s orders, Katniss does not execute President Snow.

She executes President Coin, who had proven to be just as power-hungry and

manipulative as Snow (Katniss leaves Snow’s death to the angry citizens).

Finally, for all of her autonomy, Katniss does not reject alliances and aid. She

reflects a strong-willed, completely independent person who, at the same time, learns to

recognize that she needs others as much as they need her and that cooperation and

alliances can be a source of her power as a fighter and a leader. The way she fights

combines caring with justice. The way she maintains her relationships and allows those

relationships to help her succeed stands out. Often, the fight becomes a way to bring

people together, and they are loyal to her because she is loyal to them. She doesn’t

believe in sacrificing others, showing it’s not her choice to make, though she is willing to

sacrifice herself—in true heroic fashion. In the final film, President Coin has a plan that

will require, effectively, a suicide mission from the rebels in district two. The leader of

this district, Commander Paylor (Patina Miller) balks and says she can’t send her people

to die, and Katniss agrees. Katniss believes that the lives of all civilians and rebels are

258

equally important, that they are all allies, and they only need to be enlightened on their

common goal.

Her adamant refusal to play the war game and to fight according to her principles

is what earns her people’s respect and gives her the power she uses to lead them. The

very first indication of this occurs after Katniss volunteers to replace Prim in the reaping

for the games in film one. As Katniss stands stunned on the stage, the crowd in front of

her raises three fingers in salute—a gesture that becomes a signal for the rebellion

throughout the series. The salute also signifies the first act of unity between the districts.

The second time we see the gesture, it’s after Katniss tries to save Rue (Amandla

Stenberg), a very young girl sent to the games who became Katniss’ ally. The people of

Rue’s district, watching Katniss set flowers next to Rue’s body, salute with three fingers,

and one of the crowd, presumably Rue’s father, attacks a peacekeeper (the Capitol’s

police), instigating a small riot, the first in the revolution.

Ultimately, the community empowers Katniss; partnership with and trust in others

help her face down the Capitol. She also empowers others as her influence grows—that’s

what is so important in her speeches to the districts as she helps the rebels in episodes

three and four of the series. In a way, her position as the face and voice of the rebellion

signifies her position as an activist for change, and her activism, at once personal and

public, expresses her empowered position as a young woman leader.

“We saved each other”

Love and intimacy are very important aspects of Katniss’ story, as her reason for

fighting is not just to save the world but also to save the ones she cares about—she is

259

very much motivated by compassion in her fight. She volunteers for the games to save

her sister. She demands a raid on the capital to save Peeta and the other players who were

left behind when she was saved at the end of the second film. The person she chooses to

love ends up being the one who is just as compassionate—Peeta. She chooses him over

Gale, the boy she grew up with, the boy who helps take care of her family while she’s

gone, the boy who stands behind her all the way. Both Peeta and Gale offer remarkable

new constructions of masculinity that reflect a shift in male/female power dynamics

onscreen. Both characters orient around Katniss’ empowered young woman leader in a

secondary position. They both enable her leadership and respect her strength as well as

her autonomy. They are both capable in their own rights. However, they are quite

different in certain telling aspects.

Gale is more like Katniss. He comes on intensely, and he has many strengths—

combat, hunting, providing for his family. He is dedicated to his loved ones and wants to

protect them. Gale is primed to become a rebel against the Capitol. He makes his

rebellious stance known in the first film, when he tries to convince Katniss to run away

with him to escape the reaping for the Hunger Games. Once war breaks out, he joins the

combat as a soldier and proves talented with military strategy. When we first see him in

the final film installment, he’s planning strategy for a sneak bomb attack against the

Capitol—one that Katniss notes would have a very high civilian casualty rate. Gale

accepts this, believing effectively that all’s fair in war. Here, we see his philosophy

diverge from Katniss in an important way, to which I will return.

Conversely, Peeta is not a fighter or a rebel. In fact, he is by traditional masculine

standards emasculated in many ways, rendered weak and dependent. He is the son of

260

bakers who have little faith in him and treat him poorly. In the first film, we see his

mother hitting him on the head for burning bread as he looks sad and cowed. After the

reaping, he tells Katniss that his parents said District 12 may have its first champion, and

they didn’t mean him. He may have enough physical strength to throw a 100-pound sack

of flour, but his approach to fighting is often to hide and stay back, using his cake

decorating skills to camouflage himself to blend into the background. Instead of having

the chance to join the rebellion and fight as a soldier, he is taken captive by the Capitol

and brainwashed and needs to be rescued. When Katniss sees him after the rescue for the

first time at the end of the third movie, he is emaciated and broken. There is little

evidence of traditional masculinity in his slight appearance or frightened demeanor. He is

clearly a victim. He is also primarily defined by his kindness, his dedication to her, his

love of her strength and confidence (he was first attracted to her in school, when Katniss

was the first to raise her hand in class to show off her singing skills). If anything, he

thinks she is more capable than he, and he touts her skills often in the first two films. For

example, in the first installment, he brags about her ability to kill squirrels, getting an

arrow right in the eye each time (a most humane way to kill).

One of the main differences between Peeta and Gale stems not only from Peeta’s

general lack of violence but also from his refusal to lose his humanity. He shares this

hope with Katniss the night before the enter the first Hunger Games, saying he doesn’t

want to be changed by the games, that he wants to show that they don’t “own” him. For

Katniss, who struggles to do the same, he offers a positive influence that ultimately

allows her to fight with compassion, to not give in to her desire for revenge or to place

innocent people in danger. It’s why she goes to such great lengths to save Peeta over and

261

over. Katniss never has to save Gale—she has nothing she can really offer him the way

she can offer her strength and support to Peeta. Peeta is a partner in love and life. Gale is

a partner in battle. He eventually loses his humanity to the violence and, as the last film

implies, leads to the death of Prim, as Coin uses the strategy Gale came up with at the

beginning of the film to win the rebellion. Hundreds of children lost their lives—a loss

that Katniss could never approve of, even if it hadn’t led to her sister’s death.

Of course, like all fantasies, there is a flaw. Peeta seems to force the relationship

based on his own feelings. In the first movie, he publicizes his crush for her on screen

without telling her in person first. He makes up the story of their impending wedding and

baby in the second film. However, there is a real benefit to this, one that could be seen as

part of his strategy. Katniss is rightly upset when she learns about his feelings from the

television, but for the wrong reasons. She thinks his proclamation makes her “look

weak.” Hamish (Woody Harrelson)—the mentor assigned to Katniss and Peeta to prepare

them for the games—however, realizes it’s a good strategy because it makes her “look

desirable.”

As problematic as this claim is in terms of typical expectations of female

desirability—defined by men—it also highlights how Peeta was trying to make Katniss

appear more human, more likable, because she needed the favor of the people to get

sponsors. It’s a turn-around in the world of heroes. The female love interest for the male

hero is usually the one who humanizes him, but this time, it’s the opposite. Thus, it’s

possible to read Peeta’s move as that of a savvy navigator of human emotions, a skill to

262

manipulate the people.

111

Also, one could read it as an attempt to win the Hunger Games

through love. By creating a love story, he made it possible for the Gamemaker to change

the rules that would allow two victors instead of one. Love is the one thing he does fight

for—not for the rebels, not to save Panem, but to save Katniss. Also, in the end of the last

film, he wants her to decide whether or not she wants to be with him, and he does so by

asking whether or not the love she portrays is “real or not real?” By having Katniss

choose Peeta, the story makes a statement about desirable masculinity as behaviors that

not only support women’s strength and independence but that also defy masculine

privilege and dominant power.

Post-Feminist Fantasies

All in all, the post-feminist fantasy exemplified by The Hunger Games films is

that women can and should become leaders and practice compassionate justice, but they

must still negotiate the struggles between the idea that they can be both empowered and

oppressed at the same time. It coheres with the fraught fighting female fantasy of the

survivor as an empowered position that navigates the dualities that women today face

from expectations of strength and independence in an American culture still struggling to

imagine female identity outside of the constraints of rigid and traditional notions of

femininity. Looking at mass media attempts to navigate this divide is particularly relevant

in a period when ideas about female identity are changing, where increasing awareness of

women’s authority and ideals regarding women’s autonomy are being cultivated by the

111

Which also aligns him with the kind of male emotional intelligence we saw happening

in the love buddy narratives.

263

kind of heroic characters fighting females in general represent. These questions also

reflect existential struggles that real women face in coming to terms with experiences that

defy their authority and autonomy, with experiences that may remind them of their

weaknesses but also demand their strength to overcome those struggles.

A character like the young woman leader Katniss represents can certainly be seen

to contribute to this belief that young women may have the ultimate power—after all, she

helps lead a revolution. Still, she does so within limited circumstances, again, like the

fraught fighting female, with one important difference. The fraught fighting female

narratives addressed sexism and gender-based violence against women, creating a very

distinct sense of the woman in dual positions of victim and agent. As I demonstrated, the

fantasy of overcoming sex oppression might hold more appeal for certain older female

audiences aligned with feminist-friendly views because they can remember a time when

sexism was much more stark and easy to identify. The young woman leader fantasy

redirects toward a more “universal” experience with oppression and shows the majority

of men and women dealing with the victim/agent position. This fantasy could be more

appealing for an audience seeking more of a post-feminist fantasy of empowerment, one

that doesn’t align with the hero’s sex or gender. The story makes Katniss a hero, not a

woman hero. Thus, the female hero’s experience facing institutionalized obstacles (in this

case, class inequalities) reflects a problem to which many of today’s young women and

men can relate, and the basis of the fantasy’s appeal is in eradicating those obstacles

without making it about women in general.

The romance narrative maintained throughout The Hunger Games also makes an

interesting statement about the function of hetero-intimacies in the young woman leader’s

264

life. On one hand, the romance is on the side of the hero’s journey—her primary goal is

to survive, to take care of herself and follow her path, which is in this case to be an

inspiration to rebellion and a soldier against oppression. Romance is often the last thing

on Katniss’ mind and rightfully so. She has a rebellion to inspire and people to save. This

speaks to a progressive trend toward the ability to imagine an idealized form of

leadership that doesn’t just appeal to but relies on female participation and revolutionary

aims.

On the other hand, the romance is primary to her journey and helps her become a

better leader, and it’s intertwined with her quest to save Peeta. The story thus exemplifies

one expression of what the fantasy of having it all can mean for young women today (in

the end, we even see Katniss as a mother with two children). The fantasy is that “we

saved each other,” the statement Katniss makes to correct Peeta’s claim at the end of the

first movie that Katniss saved him. Peeta plays an equal to Katniss—one who must often

be saved, but who can save her in other meaningful ways. It means that men and women

are in the fight together to free other women and men who are oppressed. It reworks the

ideal of partnership in love as a partnership in liberation.

Back to the Beginning

As my project has progressed over the last few years, I have had more opportunity

to consider the struggle that women continue to face in conflicts between their personal

and professional agendas, between the lives they live for others and the lives they live for

themselves. The more I see women struggle, the more I am surprised that more women

don’t consider themselves feminists or see feminism as a way to help them navigate the

265

confusion they face when their ideas about being strong and independent conflict with

their desires for heterosexual relationships. In chapter one, I mentioned a post from

blogger Sara Dobie Bauer where she aligned feminism with an all-in version of female

strength that she felt didn’t apply to her because she isn’t an activist and because she likes

the idea of being saved by men. If I could share with Sara, and the many other women

who share her misapprehensions, what I have learned through this project, I would tell

her this:

Enjoying strong men, not being tough at times, and wanting to be saved

sometimes totally fits with being a feminist. There are so many kinds of feminists out

there! You don't identify yourself as a feminist, and that’s fine. I wouldn’t presume to tell

you your identity because that’s your place. But I would like to share a perspective about

feminism that broadens the term and helps undermine pernicious misapprehensions of

just what a feminist identity is that encourages others to be anti-feminist. Feminism is, in

part, about questioning black/white thinking about identity, about introducing nuance

into our understanding of the ways people live and even love. In terms of strength, no

person is ever always strong. We can't be; were all only human. The reason many

feminists promote the inclusion of more images of strong women, strong in ways that

extend beyond the limited mama bear, overbearing corporate ladies, or violent femme

types, is to recognize and celebrate the reality of diverse ways of being women.

In keeping with that, many feminists celebrate versions of men who don't always

have to be strong to be the fantasy or who can be strong in more nurturing ways. When

we consistently have narratives where men save women, we do two things. First, we limit

our understanding of women’s abilities to sometimes save themselves and others. Second,

266

the narratives reinforce an idea of masculinity that is just as static and underdeveloped

as the damsel theme often is. It’s overwhelming to be part of a sex that has been tasked as

the protector for, let’s face it, most of history. In essence, that’s the real problem many

feminists have who dislike the male/hero and female/victim story. It’s not only overdone,

but it’s done without nuance, without giving either characters something more. Sure,

some feminists might entirely discount any sign of female weakness and subscribe to the

women don’t need men thing. But that’s only one version of feminism.

Your version of male/female romance, where women get tired of taking care of

themselves and like the idea of partners to share the responsibility, to be gentle, loving,

supportive, in whatever way you need, aligns well with feminism and is actually a logical

perspective. I mean, we live in a society with men. Many of us love men, whether

romantically, platonically, or familially. It only makes sense that we find ways to allow

ourselves to be imperfect and rely on them and allow them the same courtesy. Being

dependent on someone doesn’t have to degrade our independence and vice versa. And

feminism isn’t about always being on the front lines of the fight or about being on at all

times. It’s about just wanting to do what you can in the ways that you can to foster

equality. It’s also about surrounding yourself whenever possible with allies who can help

you do more because equality is a social goal. What better ally than the person you love?

Who better to help you succeed? To support your strength?

That’s what so many of the fighting female romance narratives I’ve addressed

attempt to do. Some do it better than others. Yet, they all highlight how influential

intimate relations are to women’s success, and achieving success with male allies doesn’t

have to be degrading or weaken a woman’s power. Katniss made that assumption about

267

Peeta’s confession of love, that it would make her appear weak. But in the end, that love,

and the love she felt for her family and for the oppressed civilians of Panem, was a source

of strength. When I was sitting at the theater watching the last installment of The Hunger

Games, I remember thinking how amazing it would be to be a young girl sitting in that

very same audience watching Katniss loom large and powerful on the screen. I can’t

imagine what’s in store for her growing up as a woman in the twenty-first century. She’s

growing up in a time of female empowerment and a war against women—the world

remains an imperfect place, a place that threatens women constantly as well as men in

very different ways. Yet, I can imagine that young girl growing up knowing that the

world needs to be fixed and believing that she (of course!) has the strength to do it but

also knowing that she doesn’t have to do it alone. In addition to the support of like-

minded women, she can count on more like-minded men to fight with her, as an ally and

an intimate, whether the intimacy is romantic or not. There is a whole other kind of

strength in that.

Evolving Pleasures

I feel like I grew up with fighting female icons who became more prevalent and

multi-faceted as characters at the same time I became more complicated and engaged as a

human being. There was always a kick-ass woman who would inspire or empower me,

whom I could seek out for fantasies or validation of my frustrations. In those free and

easy years as a young media watcher, those characters brought me immense pleasure. But

as I got older I became a more critical viewer, as I started to learn about texts as

268

ideological constructions, about discourse and power, about culture and nature versus

nurture. All of my fighting females became tools of an oppressive and sexist system.

As a viewer, I had swung from unadulterated pleasure to constant critique. I felt

engulfed by oppressively sexist ideology every time I entered a movie theater or switched

on the TV—insipid plots, gender stereotypes, and don’t get me started on objectification.

I became one of those jaded people who wrinkled my nose when others would discuss

their favorite sitcoms, who would only rent independent films that still had plenty to

critique but seemed somehow more acceptable. I had hopped on the high art train. It was

like I was trying to run away from “influence,” as if being critical, deriding pleasure,

would help me achieve some state of ideology-free nirvana—even though I knew there

could be no escape.

Oddly enough, my continued study helped me rediscover the pleasure of popular

media. Not because I was being introduced to more nuanced studies about media and

culture that explored the notion that pleasure and critique might not be mutually

exclusive, though that was certainly happening. Rather, the more advanced my studies—

my coursework, the level of scholarship, the density of complex reading—the more I

found myself needing some kind of mindless escape. I gorged myself on explosions,

gratuitous fight scenes, one-liners, and cheesy puns. The more I watched, the more I

questioned my rejection of pop culture, and the more my own scholarship turned toward

understanding the transgressive potential in pleasure, toward understanding that popular

media is more complex than I had realized, and that scholarship aimed toward media

analysis and providing insights into the most prevalent aspect of the average Western

person’s life is extremely beneficial and necessary.

269

Eventually, my path led me back to the fighting female, who now inspires and

excites me both because of the many varied aspects of her representations and because

she is frankly a very difficult construct to interpret: for every skimpy costume, there’s a

respectable talent, for every perky breast, a clever mind. Knowing the pleasures she’s

brought me over the years gives my project meaning to me. Moreover, since my project

arouses a good deal of excitement and interest whenever I mention it to women and

men—inspiring them to wax nostalgic over beloved female characters, propose new

fighting female narratives, or chime in with their own frustrations regarding depictions of

strong, independent women—I think my work will have a lot of meaning to others as

well.

270

REFERENCES

“10 Celebrities Who Say They Aren’t Feminists.” Huffpost Celebrity.

TheHuffingtonPost.com. 17 Dec. 2013. Web. Web. 2 Nov. 2015.

“40% of Managers Avoid Hiring Younger Women to Get Around Maternity Leave.”

The Guardian. Guardian News and Media Limited. 11 Aug. 2014. Web. 3 Mar.

2015.

Abele, Elizabeth. Homefront Heroes: The Rise of a New Hollywood Archetype, 1988-

1999. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2014. Print.

Adams, Rebecca. “If You Feel Bad about Being Single, It’s Not Because You’re Single.”

Huffpost Women. TheHuffingtonPost.com. 29 May 2014. Web. 10 Mar. 2014.

Alias. Creator J.J. Abrams. ABC. Netflix. 2001. Web.

Anne, Libby. “That Just Means He Likes You.” Patheos. Patheos. 26 Mar. 2013. Web. 1

Dec. 2014.

Arons, Wendy. “‘If Her Stunning Beauty Doesn’t Bring You to Your Knees, Her Deadly

Drop Kick Will.’” Reel Knockouts: Violent Women in the Movies. Eds. Martha

McCaughey and Neal King. Austin: U of TX P, 2001. 27-43. Print.

Associated Press. “More Women Postponing Marriage” The New York Times. The New

York Times Company. 10 Dec. 1986. Web. 10 Mar. 2014.

Aymar, Jean Christian. “Is the Bechdel Test Overlooking Feminist Films?” Televisual. 30

Aug. 2010. Web. 2 Nov. 2015.

Bell, Leslie C. Hard to Get: Twenty-Something Women and the Paradox of Sexual

Freedom. Berkeley: U of California P, 2013. Print.

Blue Steel. Dir. Kathryn Bigelow. Lightning Pictures, 1990. DVD.

Box Office Mojo. “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 2.” IMDB.com, Inc. N.d. Web.

8 Jan. 2016.

Box Office Mojo. “Mr. and Mrs. Smith.” IMDB.com, Inc. N.d. Web. 1 Oct. 2012.

Berman, Jillian. “Xerox CEO Ursula Burns’ Advice for Young Women: ‘Marry Someone

Twenty Years Older.” Huffpost Business. TheHuffingtonPost.com. 20 Mar. 2013.

Web. 10 Mar. 2014.

Bones. Creator Hart Hanson. Fox. Hulu. 2005. Web.

271

Cagney and Lacey, Seasons 1-7. Creators Barbara Avedon and Barbara Corday. CBS.

1981. DVD.

Cain Miller, Claire. “Millenial Dads Aren’t the Dads They Thought They’d Be.” The

New York Times. The New York Times Company. 30 Jul. 2015. 3 Mar. 2015.

Castle. Creator Andrew W. Marlowe. ABC. Hulu. 2009. Web.

Cavender, Gray and Nancy Jurik. Justice Provocateur: Jane Tennison and Policing in

Prime Suspect. Champaign, IL: U of Illinois P, 2012. Print.

Chuck. Creators Josh Schwartz and Chris Fedak. NBC. Netflix. 2007. Web.

Clarey, Aaron. “Why You Should Not Go See ‘Mad Max: Feminist Road’.” Return of

Kings. Kings Media. 11 May 2015. Web. 1 Nov. 2015.

Clark. “Cagney & Lacey: Feminist Strategies of Detection.” Television & Women’s

Culture: The Politics of the Popular. Ed. Mary Ellen Brown. London: Sage, 1990.

117-133.

The Closer. Creators James Duff, Michael M. Robin, and Greer Shephard. TNT. Amazon

Prime. 2005. Web.

Clover, Carol. Men, Women, and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film.

Princeton: Princeton UP, 1992. Print.

D’Acci, Julie. Defining Women: Television and the Case of Cagney and Lacey. Chapel

Hill: U of NC P, 1994. Print.

Date Night. Dir. Shawn Levy. Twentieth-Century Fox, 2010. DVD.

Klauss, Cindy and Diane Hopkins. “Maddie Hayes.” Moonlighting.

DavidandMaddie.com. CYber SYtes, Inc. N.d. Web. 6 Mar. 2014.

de Beauvoir, Simone. The Second Sex. 1952. New York: Vintage, 1989. Print.

Depares, Ramona. “Mad Max: Fury Road—10 Reasons It Isn’t Actually Feminist.” What

Culture. 29 May. 2015. Web. 2 Nov. 2015.

DiBattista, Maria. Fast-Talking Dames. New Haven: Yale UP, 2001. Print.

Dobie Bauer, Sara. “Stephanie Meyer’s New Twilight Book Infuriates Me.” She Knows.

She Knows, LLC. 6 Oct. 2015. Web. 2 Nov. 2015.

Dockterman, Eliana. “Shailene Woodley on Why She’s Not a Feminist.” Time. Time, Inc.

05 May 2014. Web. 2 Nov. 2015.

272

Donalson, Melvin. Masculinity in the Interracial Buddy Film. Jefferson: McFarland,

2005. Print.

Douglas Susan. Enlightened Sexism: The Seductive Message that Feminism’s Work Is

Done. New York: Times Books, 2010. Print.

---. Where the Girls Are: Growing Up Female with the Mass Media. New York: Random

House, 1994. Print.

Doux, Billie. “Alias Versus La Femme Nikita.” Doux Reviews. N.d. Web. 24 Jan. 2015.

Dresner, Lisa. The Female Investigator in Literature, Film, and Popular Culture.

Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2007. Print.

Dunn, Stephane. “Baad Bitches” and Sassy Supermamas: Black Power Action Films.

Champaign, IL: U of Illinois P, 2008. Print.

Ebert, Roger. “Romancing the Stone.” RogerEbert.com. Ebert Digital, LLC. 1 Jan. 1984.

Web. 1 Oct. 2012.

Elijah Branch, Chester. “Nikita vs. Alias.” Parables Today. N.p. 5 Aug. 2013. Web. 16

Jan. 2014.

“Facts on Working Women.” Women’s Bureau. U.S. Department of Labor. No. 89. 5

Dec. 1989. Web. 10 Mar. 2014.

Fake TV Critic. “Pilot Review: Prime Suspect.” Blogspot. 25 Sep. 2011. Web. 8 Dec.

2015.

Faludi, Susan. Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women. New York:

Three Rivers, 1991. Print.

Ferguson, Kevin J. “Yuppie Devil: Villainy in Kathryn Bigelow’s Blue Steel.” Jumpcut:

A Review of Contemporary Media. Eds. John Hess, Chuck Kleinhans, and Julia

Lesage. 50. Spring 2008. Web. 3 Mar. 2015.

Fishman, Steve. “The Liman Identity.” New York Magazine. New York Media, LLC. 13

Jan. 2008. Web. 20 Oct. 2012.

Gamble, Sarah, Ed. The Routledge Companion to Feminism and Postfeminism. London:

Routledge, 2001.

Garber, Megan. “Call It ‘The Bechdel-Wallace Test’.” The Atlantic. The Atlantic

Monthly Group. 25 Aug. 2015. Web. 2 Nov. 2015.

273

Gates, Phillipa. Detecting Women: Gender and the Hollywood Detective Film. New

York: SUNY, 2011. Print.

Genz, Stéphanie and Benjamin A. Brabon. Postfeminism: Cultural Texts and Theories.

Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 2009. Print.

Gerson, Kathleen. The Unfinished Revolution: How a New Generation Is Reshaping

Family, Work, and Gender in America. New York: Oxford, 2010. Print.

Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Dir. Niels Arden Oplev. Yellow Bird, 2009. Netflix. Web.

Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Dir. David Fincher. Columbia Pictures, 2011. DVD.

Goldin, Claudia. “The Quiet Revolution That Transformed Women’s Employment,

Education, and Family.” American Economic Review. 96.2 (2006): 1-21. JStor.

Web. 6 Mar. 2014.

Goodwill, Joe. New Female Action Hero: An Analysis of Female Masculinity in the New

Female Action Hero in Recent Films and Television Shows. London: Brave New

World, 2011. Print.

Green, Philip. Cracks in the Pedestal: Ideology and Gender in Hollywood. Amherst: U

of MA P, 1998. Print.

Greer, William R. “The Changing Women’s Marriage Market: Later May Mean Never,

Study Says.” The New York Times. The New York Times Company. 22 Feb.

1986. Web. 24 Jan. 2015.

Griffin, Neil. “Losing Your Masculinity: The ‘Mancession’ and Men’s Health.” A

Canadian Naturalist. 18 Nov. 2012. Web. 1 Dec. 2012.

Grimes, William. William Grimes in 1992 in “Detective Tennison Develops a Swagger.”

The New York Times. The New York Times Company. 2 Feb. 1993. Web. 15 Jan

2016.

Gross, Jane. “Single Women: Coping with a Void.” The New York Times. The New York

Times Company. 28 Apr. 1987. Web. 10 Mar. 2014.

Grossi, Renata. “Romantic Love: A Feminist Conundrum.” The Feminist Wire. 2 Sep.

2013. Web. 2 Nov. 2015.

Hagelin, Sarah. Reel Vulnerability: Power, Pain, and Gender in Contemporary American

Film and Television. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers UP, 2013. Print.

274

Haglund, David. “Your Favorite Show Is Too Long: Why the Miniseries Is the Ideal

Form for Television.” Slate. The Slate Group, LLC. 18 Mar. 2013. Web. 3 Mar.

2015.

Halberstam, Judith. “Imagined Violence/Queer Violence: Representations of Rage and

Resistance.” Reel Knockouts: Violent Women in the Movies. Eds. Martha

McCaughey and Neal King. Austin: U of TX P, 2001. 244-66. Print.

Hale, Mike. “A Series Romance Comes Full Circle.” The New York Times. The New

York Times Company. 10 Aug. 2012. Web. 3 Mar. 2015.

Han, Angie. “‘The Hunger Games’ Becomes First Female-Led #1 Film Since ‘The

Exorcist’.” Film: Blogging the Reel World. /Film. 10 Jan. 2014. Web. 2 Nov.

2015.

Hess, Amanda. “Steubenville Gets the Lifetime Treatment (And Cheerleader Erupts into

Flames).” Slate. The Slate Group. 19. Sep. 2014. Web. 3 Mar. 2015.

Holmes, Brenda. “Stephanie Zimbalist Fan Page.” Facebook. 12 Nov. 2013. Web. 10

Mar. 2014

Holston, Noel. “Sexual Tension Teases Stars and Viewers.” Chicago Tribune. 9 Feb.

1986. Web. 10 Mar. 2014.

Hopkins, Susan. Girl Heroes: The New Force in Popular Culture. Annadale, NSW: Pluto

P, 2002. Print.

Hornaday, Ann. “Hit-hungry Hollywood Gambles on Litany of ‘Romaction’ Flicks,”

The Washington Post. 6 Jun. 2010. Web. 1 Oct. 2012.

Horwitz, Jane. “Undercover Blues.” The Washington Post. 10 Sep. 1993. Web. 1 Oct.

2012.

The Hunger Games. Dir. Gary Ross. Lionsgate, 2012. DVD.

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. Dir. Francis Lawrence, Lionsgate, 2013. DVD.

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 1. Dir. Francis Lawrence, Lionsgate, 2014. DVD.

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 2. Dir. Francis Lawrence, Lionsgate, 2015. DVD.

Illouz, Eva. Why Love Hurts: A Sociological Explanation. Cambridge, UK: Polity, 2012.

Print.

Inness, Sherri A. Tough Girls: Women Warriors and Wonder Women in Popular Culture.

Philadelphia: U of PA P, 1999. Print.

275

Jermyn, Deborah. Prime Suspect. London: British Film Institute, 2010. Print.

Jowett, Lorna. Sex and the Slayer: A Gender Studies Primer for the Buffy Fan.

Middleton, CT: Wesleyan UP, 2005. Print.

Braden, Maria. Women Politicians and the Media. Lexington, KY: U P of KY, 1996.

Print.

Kessler-Harris, Alice. “Working Women: Myths and Realities.” The New York Times.

The New York Times Company. 18 Aug. 1982. Web. 10 Mar. 2014.

Killers. Dir. Robert Kuketic. Katalyst Media, 2010. DVD.

Kinberg, Simon. “On the Film Program: Simon Kinberg.” Columbia University School of

the Arts. Columbia University School of the Arts. N.d. Web. 1 Oct. 2012.

Knight and Day. Dir. James Mangold. Regency Enterprises, 2010. DVD.

La Femme Nikita. Dir. Luc Besson. Gaumont, 1990. DVD.

La Femme Nikita. Creator Joel Surnow. USA. Amazon Prime. 1997. Web.

Landay, Lori. Madcaps, Screwballs, and Con Women: The Female Trickster in American

Culture. Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 1998. Print.

Langford, Wendy. Revolutions of the Heart: Gender, Power, and the Delusions of Love.

New York: Routledge, 1999. Print.

Lethal Weapon 3. Dir. Richard Donner. Silver Pictures, 1992. DVD.

Levy, Emanuel. “Thelma & Louise—Impact of Controversial Movie.” Emanuel Levy

Cinema 24/7. N.p. 29 Jan. 2011. Web. 1 Oct. 2012.

Linard, Laura. “Enterprising Women—A History.” Working Knowledge: The Thinking

that Leads. Harvard Business School. 18 Nov. 2002. Web. 10 Mar. 2014.

Lynch, KC. “Moonlighting: Gender in the Reagan Era.” Good, Dirty, or Else. 5 Apr.

2014. Web. 15 Apr. 2014.

Marchetti, Gina. “Action-Adventure as Ideology.” Cultural Politics in Contemporary

America. Eds. Ian Angus and Sut Jhally. New York: Routledge, 1989. Print.

Marcotte, Amanda. “Even When They Don’t Have Jobs, Men Do Less Work Than

Women.” XX Factor: What Women Really Think. The Slate Group. 6 Jan. 2015.

Web. 10 Jan 2015.

276

Martin, Courtney E. “Confront the Superwoman Mystique.” The New York Times

Opinion Pages. The New York Times Company. 4 Sep. 2013. Web. 10 Mar.

2014.

McCaughey, Martha and Neal King. “What’s a Mean Woman like You Doing in a Movie

like This?” Reel Knockouts: Violent Women in The Movies. Austin: U of Texas P,

2001. 1-24. Print.

McKenzie, Gracie. “Michelle Obama Says Books Are Better than Boys” Amy Poehler’s

Smart Girls. N.p. 12 Oct. 2015. Web. 20 Jan. 2016.

Mellencamp, Patricia. A Fine Romance: Five Ages of Film Feminism. Philadelphia:

Temple UP, 1995. Print.

Meyers, Ric. Films of Fury: The Kung Fu Movie Book. Guilford, CT: Eirini, 2011. Print.

Mindy, Ronald, Monique Jethwani, and Serena Klempin. “What the Recession Did to

American Fathers.” The Atlantic. The Atlantic Monthly Group. 1 Oct. 2012. Web.

1 Dec. 2015.

Mizejewski, Linda. Hardboiled and High Heeled: The Woman Detective in Popular

Culture. New York: Routledge, 2004. Print.

--. “Picturing the Female Dick: The Silence of the Lambs and Blue Steel.” Journal of Film

and Video 45.2/3 (1993) 6-23. Print.

Moonlighting. Creator Glenn Gordon Caron. ABC. DVD.

Morello, Carol and Dan Keating. “More U.S. Women Pull Down Big Bucks.” The

Washington Post. The Washington Post. 7 Oct. 2010. Web. 1 Oct. 2012.

Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Dir. Doug Liman. Regency Enterprises, 2005. DVD.

MSN. “Michelle Obama: Books before Boys, Girls.” News. 30 Sep. 2015. Microsoft.

Web. 20 Jan. 2016.

Mulligan, Casey B. “A Milestone for Working Women?” The New York Times. The New

York Times Company. 14 Jan. 2009. Web. 1 Oct. 2012.

Murder by Numbers. Dir. Barbet Schroeder. Castle Rock Entertainment, 2002. DVD.

Neroni, Hilary. The Violent Woman: Femininity, Narrative, and Violence in

Contemporary American Cinema. Albany: SUNY P, 2005. Print.

Nikita. Creator Joel Surnow. CW. Netflix. 2010. Web.

277

NormStansfiel. “Is This the Fedora that Will Doom NBC’s Prime Suspect?” TV.com.

CBS Interactive Inc. 3 Aug. 2011. Web. 14 Dec. 2015.

Noveck, Jocelyn. “Anita Hill in Spotlight Again as New Film Opens.” The Washington

Times. The Washington Times LLC. 21 Mar. 2014. Web. 4 Apr. 2014.

O’Keefe, Kevin. “TV’s Renaissance for Strong Women.” The Atlantic. The Atlantic

Monthly Group. 9 Oct. 2014. Web. 20 Nov. 2014.

O’Neill, Jennifer. “Why Men Become Sexist After Birth of Their First Baby.” Yahoo!

News. N.p. 28 Jul. 2015. Web. 1 Aug. 2015.

Pappas, Stephanie. “’Mancession’ Shifts Gender Roles.” Live Science. Purch. 23 Aug.

2011. Web. 1 Oct. 2012.

“Percentage of Women Who Are Managers.” Women in the Workforce. United States

Census Bureau. Census.gov. Web. 6 Mar. 2014.

Perry, Linda A. M. “Difference, Dominance, and Dialectics: A Call for Change” in

Differences that Make a Difference: Examining the Assumptions in Gender

Research. Eds. Lynn H. Turner and Helen M. Sterk. Westport: Bergin & Garvey,

1994.

Phillips, Lynne M. Flirting with Danger: Young Women’s Reflections on Sexuality and

Domination. New York: New York UP, 2000. Print.

Point of No Return. Dir. John Badham. Warner Bros., 1993. DVD.

Prime Suspect. Creator Lynda La Plante. PBS. Netflix. 1991. Web.

Prime Suspect. Creator Lynda La Plante. NBC. 2011. Television.

Prizzi’s Honor. Dir. John Huston. ABC Motion Pictures. 1985. DVD.

Rampell, Catherine. “The Mancession.” The New York Times: Economix. The New York

Times Company. 10 Aug. 2009. Web. 1 Oct. 2012.

---. “Mancession to He-covery.” The New York Times: Economix. The New York

Times Company. 6 Jul. 2011. Web. 1 Oct. 2012.

Read, Jacinda. The New Avengers: Feminism, Femininity, and the Rape-Revenge Cycle.

Manchester: Manchester UP, 2000. Print.

Remington Steele. Creators Robert Butler and Michael Gleason. NBC. 1982. DVD.

278

Roy, Jessica. ““Michelle Obama urges girls to forget boys and focus on education.” The

Cut. New York Media LLC. 1 Oct. 2015. Web. 20 Jan. 2016.

Rubinfeld, Mark D. Bound to Bond: Gender, Genre, and the Hollywood Romantic

Comedy. West Port, CT: Praeger, 2001. Print.

Rubinstein, Laura. “Can Strong Independent Women Find Love?” Your Tango. Tango

Media Corporation. 7 Jan. 2015. Web. 1 Oct. 2012.

Rudman, Laurie A. and Peter Glick. The Social Psychology of Gender: How Power and

Intimacy Shape Gender Relations. New York: Guilford, 2008. Print.

Salholz, Eloise. “Marriage Crunch: If You’re a Single Woman, Here are Your Chances of

Getting Married.” Newsweek. IBT Media. 2 Jun. 1986. Web. 2 Nov. 2015.

Salt. Dir. Phillip Noyce. Sony Pictures, 2010. DVD.

Sama, James Michael. “Power Couples: 10 Traits Men Need to Handle Strong

Independent Women.” Gulf Elite. Gulfelitemag.com. n.d. Web. 2 Nov. 2015.

Schubart, Rikki. Super Bitches and Action Babes: The Female Hero in Popular Cinema,

1970-2006. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2007. Print.

Scott, Joan. Gender and the Politics of History. New York: Columbia UP, 1999. Print.

Shoenewolf, Gerald. The Couples Guide to Erotic Games. New York: Citadel, 2006.

Print.

Siede, Caroline. “Hollywood’s Come a Long Way Baby—But It’s Definitely Not a

Meritocracy.” Quartz. N.p. 21 Sep. 2015. Web. 2 Nov. 2015.

sieglinde. “Prime Suspect: Pilot 9/22/11.” Now Playing: TV Talk Show. Jelsoft

Enterprises Ltd. 23 Sep. 2011. Web. 14 Dec. 2015.

Sifferlin, Alexandria. “Women Are Still Doing Most of the Housework.” Time. Time Inc.

18 Jun 2014. Web. 1 Jul. 2014.

Silverstein, Melissa. “The Sad Death of Prime Suspect.” Women and Hollywood.

Indiewire.com. 29 Nov. 2011. Web. 1 Dec. 2015.

Sims, Yvonne. Women of Blaxploitation: How the Black Action Film Heroine Changed

American Popular Culture. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2006. Print.

“Softening and Sexualizing Lisbeth Salander.” Oh No They Didn’t! LiveJournal. 30 Dec.

2011. Web. 4 Aug. 2014.

279

Stanley, Alessandra. “Female Detectives Revived: One Tough, Others Stylish.” The New

York Times Television. The New York Times Company. 21 Sep. 2011. Web. 4

Dec. 2015.

Stasi, Linda. “Jane on Top.” New York Post Entertainment. NYP Holdings. 22 Sep. 2011.

Web. 4 Dec. 2015.

Steiger, Kay. “Ted Cruz Just Laid Out the Most Anti-Woman Agenda Yet.”

ThinkProgress. Center for American Progress Action Fund. 23 Mar. 2015. Web.

10 Apr. 2015.

Stuller, Jennifer K. Ink Stained Amazons and Cinematic Warriors: Superwomen in

Modern Mythology. New York: I.B. Tauris, 2010. Print.

Szalai, Jennifer. “The Complicated Origins of ‘Having It All.’” The New York Times

Magazine. The New York Times Company. 2 Jan. 2015. Web. 6 Mar. 2015.

Taking Lives. Dir. D.J. Caruso. Warner Bros., 2004. DVD.

Tasker, Yvonne. Spectacular Bodies: Gender, Genre, and the Action Cinema. New York:

Routledge, 1993. Print.

Thorne, Barrie. Gender Play: Girls and Boys in School. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP,

1994. Print.

Top of the Lake. Creators Jane Campion and Gerard Lee. Sundance Channel. Netflix.

2013. Web.

“Toronto Woman Lyndsay Kirkham Live Tweets Alleged Sexist Conversation of IBM

Execs.” Huffpost Living Canada. TheHuffingtonPost.com. 23 Jul. 2014. Web. 24

Jul. 2014.

True Lies. Dir. James Cameron. Twentieth Century Fox, 1994. DVD.

Tung, Charlene. “Embodying an Image: Gender, Race, and Sexuality in La Femme

Nikita.” Action Chicks: New Images of Tough Women in Popular Culture. Ed.

Sherrie A. Inness. New York: Palgrave, 2004. 95-121. Print.

“NBC Prime Suspect Is Primed for Cancellation.” TV By The Numbers. Tribune

Broadcasting Website. 18 Oct. 2011. Web. 4 Dec. 2015.

“Useful Notes: The Bechdel Test.” TV Tropes. N.p. N.d. Web. 2 Nov. 2015.

Undercover Blues. Dir. Herbert Ross. MGM, 1993. DVD.

280

Vares, Tiina. “Action Heroines and Female Viewers: What Women Have to Say.” Reel

Knockouts: Violent Women in the Movies. Eds. Martha McCaughey and Neal

King. Austin: U of TX P, 2001. 219-43. Print.

Waletzko, Anna. “Why The Bechdel Test Fails Feminism.” Huffpost College.

TheHuffingtonPost.com. 27 Apr. 2015. Web. 2 Nov. 2015.

Walsh, David J. “Small Change: An Empirical Analysis of the Effect of Supreme Court

Precedents on Federal Appeals Court Decisions in Sexual Harassment Cases,

1993-2005.” Berkeley Journal of Employment & Labor Law 30.2 (2009) 461-525.

JStor. Web. 10 Jan. 2014.

Webb Mitovich, Matt. “Exclusive Bones Finale Sneak Peek: Is Booth Above the Law? Is

Brennan Slinging a Shotgun?” TV Line. TV Line Media, LLC. 15 May 2014.

Web. 20 May. 2014.

Wexman, Virginia Wright, Creating the Couple: Love, Marriage, and Hollywood

Performance. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1993. Print.

“Who Has Saved Whom?” Castle Wiki. Wikia. N.d. Web. 6 Mar. 2013.

Williams, Andrew. “Sharon Gless: Cagney & Lacey Has Given Me Lots of

Opportunities.” Metro. Associated Newspapers Limited. 20 Oct. 2011. Web. 4 Jan

2014.

Witt, Linda, Karen M. Paget, and Glenna Matthews. Running as a Woman: Gender and

Power in American Politics. New York: The Free Press, 1994.

Wittig, Monique. The Straight Mind and Other Essays. Boston: Beacon, 1992. Print.

“Women in the Labor Force.” Women's Bureau. U.S. Department of Labor. N.d. Web. 6

Mar. 2014.

281

VITA

Allison P. Palumbo

EDUCATION

• Graduate Certificate in Gender and Women’s Studies, University of Kentucky,

Lexington, KY (2012)

• M.A. English, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL (2005)

Thesis: “Writing the Inbetween: The Expressions of Écriture Féminine in

Henry Miller’s Tropics Trilogy.”

Advisor: Dr. Stanley Gontarski

• B.A. Magna Cum Laude, English, Women’s Studies minor, Weber State

University, Ogden, UT (2001)

TEACHING POSITIONS

• Graduate Instructor (2009 – 2016) Dept. of English, University of Kentucky.

Lexington, KY.

• Assistant Professor (2009) Dept. of English, Elizabethtown Community &

Technical College. Elizabethtown, KY.

• Instructor, Tenure Track (2006 - 2009) Dept. of English. Elizabethtown

Community & Technical College. Elizabethtown, KY.

• Graduate Instructor (2002 – 2003) Dept. of English, Florida State University.

Tallahassee, FL.

• Adjunct Instructor (2006; 2008) Dept. of English, Weber State University. Ogden,

UT.

AWARDS

• 2015: Jean G. Pival Outstanding Writing Teaching Assistant Award for Division

of Writing, Rhetoric, and Digital Studies, University of Kentucky.

• 2011: William J. Sowder Award for Best Graduate Student Paper, “Love and the

Sex Wars: Romaction, Popular Feminism, and Egalitarian Coupling in Mr. and

Mrs. Smith (2005),” University of Kentucky.

• 2009: Faculty Merit Award: Elizabethtown Community and Technical College.

• 2001: Outstanding Graduate Academic Achievement in English. Weber State

University.

• 2001: Award for Academic Excellence in Women’s Studies. Weber State

University.

PUBLICATIONS

• “Finding the Feminine: Rethinking Henry Miller’s Tropics Trilogy.” Nexus: The

International Henry Miller Journal. Vol. 7. Dunlap, IL: Nexus, 2010. 145-176.

• “Writing the In-Between: Expressions of l’Écriture Féminine in Henry Miller’s

Tropics Trilogy.” Café in Space: The Anaïs Nin Literary Journal. Vol. 6. Troy,

MI: Sky Blue, 2009. 59-73.