My life in books

Action Chicks New Images of Tough Women in Popular Culture, ed. Sherrie A Inness
Girls Who Bite Back: Witches, Mutants, Slayers and Freaks, ed. Emily Pohl-Weary

In case it isn't obvious, I have a rather well-developed interest in how women are portrayed in popular culture, and one aspect of images of women that I find of particular interest is the woman who gets to be the hero, who gets to do the stuff that is usually reserved for men, the physical, technical, action-oriented stuff, the stuff of comics and adventure films and space operas. Some of it is the social and cultural critic in me, but a lot of it comes from the very personal experience of wanting to be able to see someone like me - a girl, a woman - being that special, iconic, mythical hero, that human beings have been telling telling stories about since Beowulf and Rustrum and Heracles and all those other - male - heroes were invented.

There's something very satisfying about the idea of a mythical hero. Heroes do exciting things, they face unimaginable dangers with courage, they battle the most terrifying foes with skill and strength, they face evil with wisdom and conviction, and they (almost) always win, even if they have to sacrifice their own lives to do so. They are the best of us, in every way - physically, mentally, ethically, spiritually - even modern heroes, who have doubts and inner turmoil, face those inner demons and keep on fighting the way a hero should.

It's because of all these characteristics of the hero - including their perfected physicality and their battle skills - that I enjoy reading the stories of heroes, or watching portrayals of them on TV or in movies. But until fairly recently, there's been something that put up a wall between me and my heroes - the matter of gender.

Heroes are presented as the epitome of humanity. And almost all of them, until recently, have been men. (Heroines, you see, are something different - they may be the epitome of womankind, but it was men who got to represent the whole of the species, as usual.)

But the 20th century started seeing the occasional woman creep into that mythic, sprawling, brawling heroic role. Fantasy and science fiction, and to some extent comics, were in the forefront, as women like Jirel of Joiry and Red Sonja and Wonder Woman began to appear; by the mid-century, it wasn't exactly common, but it was no longer rare to find a woman who could go a-heroing with the best of the boys. There were, by Hera, action heroes who happened to be women, but who could do the same things as the men - whether it be with swords and in armour, or with blasters in spacesuits.

And over the last 30 to 40 years, other media forms have been catching up, with Emma Peel and Modesty Blaise, then Ellen Ripley and Sarah Connor, and now the glorious profusion of heroes in the 90s and beyond - Xena, Buffy, Ivanova, Lara Croft, Nikita, Storm and Aeryn Sun, and so many more, the women of TV and movies and comic books and video games, so many now that I can pick and choose among them for the ones that mean the most to me, rather than hunting each one down to feed my habit for action heroes who are women like me.

Which leads us to these two books. Because I'm an analytical sort, I like to think about what the presence and the presentation of these heroes, the context and the content of their stories, means in my context, my world. Does it send a message when Buffy kicks ass but looks anorexic? Why do the women of Dark Angel and Highlander: The Raven have to have male sidekicks (I refer to them as goat-boys) who sometimes get more screen time than the leads? Do Lara Croft's breasts (and those of almost any comic book hero who is female) undercut her heroism, turn her into just a sex object, rather than an action subject? What else are we taking into our psyches along with our images of women heroes in pop culture?

Action Chicks is a collection of critical essays that explore aspects of the contemporary woman action hero. They are thought-provoking, for the most part, even - or should that be especially - the ones that make me shout at the absent author "No, no, no, you're got it all wrong!"

The issue of the supposed "masculinisation" of heroic women of action gets a fair amount of consideration in some of these essays - the image of the aggressive, tough-talking, hard-fighting, sometimes sexually adventurous woman with muscles and big guns. Is this a "masculinised" woman, or is this a woman who is challenging gender stereotypes by saying that this is one kind of representation of an action hero, and it is as appropriate for a woman to be this kind of action hero as it is for a man?

Another question considered: is the kick-ass comic book hero in her eight-inch heels and skin-tight costume (what there is of it) and enormous, gravity-defying breasts a subversive image of independent and powerful women, or an oversexualised, adolescent wet dream - or could she be both?

Action Chicks is full of essays that pose answers and prompt questions.

Girls Who bite Back is a very different kind of collection, and one that was, as a whole, less interesting and less satisfying for me. An anthology of critical essays (not, alas, very many), personal essays, short stories, poetry, artwork, comics and thought experiments, the extreme range of styles and forms, as well as the variations in quality, made the whole rather disjointed and, to me, disappointing.

But there were some stand-out pieces, ones that I'm glad I found.

"'Cuz the Black Chick Always Gets It First: Dynamics of Race in Buffy the Vampire Slayer," by Candra K. Gill. I don't think anyone can deny that there were some real problems with the dynamics of race in BTVS, and this is an excellent look at some of the most problematic issues.

"The Smile on the Face," by Nalo Hopkinson. A very strong and moving story about an adolescent girl connecting with her power.

"Cinematic Superheroes Are Breakin' My Heart: It's Hard to Go All the Way with the New Breed of Lady Killers When They Just Won't Let Go of That Man," by Lisa Rundle. Part critical, part personal essay on the enforced femininity and heteronormativity of the pop culture action chick, and whether feminists should settle for flawed representations of women as heroes.

"Bond, Jane Bond," by Halli Villegas. A thought experiment/film treatment - what would Jane Bond be like - in what ways would she be like her counterpart, James, and in what ways would she be different?

To sum up, the two collections provide very different approaches to exploring the idea of the action hero who is also a woman; my preference is for the most traditional collection of critical essays, but there's something to think about in both.