July 25, 2010 01:01
I have long come to accept that, when it comes to issues of gender equality, most movies are like Iron Man 2. If you’ll remember, that’s the film in which Gwynneth Paltrow said she was better suited to be a secretary than a CEO, Scarlett Johansson beat up an army but only because she was given permission ahead of time by a very manly Samuel L. Jackson, Jr., and the world was saved because Robert Downey, Jr. made peace with the patriarchy. While the inherent sexism of most movies has never ceased to bother me, I’ve come to accept it because I love film.
(For the record, I enjoyed Iron Man 2 even if I did roll my eyes more than once.)
Still, hope continues to rest at the bottom of Pandora’s box. With the year only a little more than a half over, American movie screens have played host to a handful of unusually strong and independent female characters. (It’s the independence that sets them apart.) From Jennifer Lawrence in Winter’s Bone to Katie Jarvis in Fish Tank to even Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning in the Runaways, they have challenged the standard movie stereotype of the weak, ultimately helpless female. The best known of them is, of course, Noomi Rapace as Lisbeth in The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and its sequels. However, if the Girl With the Dragon Tattoo features the strongest woman to appear on American movie screen this year, the just-released Salt features the second strongest.
In Salt, Angelina Jolie plays Evelyn Salt, a CIA agent who is married to Mike (August Diehl), a nice guy who happens to be the world’s leading authority on spiders. On the day of her wedding anniversary, Salt finds herself tasked with interrogating a Russian defector named Orlov. As Salt listens (and her fellow agents watch), Orlov tells a story of how, decades earlier, hundreds of Russian children were secretly smuggled into the U.S. where they served as “sleeper” agents, working their way into American society until such time as they might be activated. Orlov goes to explain that one of these sleeper agents is going to assassinate the President of Russia. That agent, Orlov adds, is named “Evelyn Salt.” While Salt’s co-workers react to this accusation by attempting to arrest her, Salt reacts by escaping from custody and fleeing in an attempt to both find her husband, who has mysteriously disappeared, and prove her innocence.
Or is she? There’s a lot of twists and turns in Salt’s plot and while they don’t always make sense, they’re a lot of fun to watch. Director Phillip Noyce keeps the action moving and, in the lead role, Angelina Jolie brings a wonderful sense of moral ambiguity to the character that you’re never quite sure whose side she is really on. Jolie makes the character seem real even when she’s jumping off a bridge and landing on top of a speeding truck without so much as even a bruise as a result.
Admittedly, I enjoyed Salt for much the same reason that I enjoyed the far superior Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. It was fun to not only see a woman in a movie do stuff that usually only a man is allowed to do but also manage to do all of it a lot more convincingly than most contemporary male action heroes. With the exception of a very intense torture scene at the start of the film, Salt is never shown with tears in her eyes. She is never shown begging for mercy. Most importantly, she is never portrayed as being helpless. Considering just how much importance society puts into the idea of all women being inherently helpless, movies like Salt are a refreshing change of pace.
Of course, that doesn’t change the fact that pretty much everything Salt did in the film was basically done to save her marriage. As strong a character as Salt was, its unfortunate that the film had to make sure we understood that it was all due to the purifying love of one man. It’s as if the filmmakers were worried that if they made Salt too independent, they’d lose the audience and they were probably right.
Still, 2010 may very well be remembered as the year that women in movies were finally allowed to kick some ass. After an eternity of serving as decorations (with their every action governed by some male filmmaker’s infantile Whore/Madonna complex), women are finally being allowed to do something other than scream and wait to be rescued. Will this trend continue? Probably not. It’s a bit much to ask of a country that can’t even bring itself elect a female President. However, while it lasts, I’m enjoying the trend and I’ll miss it once it’s over.
Posted by Lisa Marie Bowman
Categories: Film, Film Review
Tags: Angelina Jolie, espionage, Film, Fish Tank, Iron Man 2, Lisa Marie Bowman, movie, Phillip Noyce, review, Salt, spy, The Girl With Dragon Tattoo, The Runaways, Winter's Bone, women in film
Mobile Site | Full Site
Get a free blog at WordPress.com Theme: WordPress Mobile Edition by Alex King.
I still need to see this and probably will next week. I have to agree with you that this year has been the year of the woman when it comes to some very strong roles. In addition to mentioning Jolie, Rapace and Lawrence I would also add one even younger in Moretz who was literally the most capable and badass character in Kick-Ass.
I think with Moretz’s character of Hit-Girl she, like Rapace as Lisbeth Salander, wasn’t diminished by anything to allow her male counterparts to get their time in the sun. Hit-Girl didn’t need Kick-Ass, but she knew that she wouldn’t have minded his help. She even says the line that if he wasn’t going to help then she’d do it on her own knowing it was a suicide mission if she did.
One interesting tidbit is that Moretz took the role of Hit-Girl after seeing a billboard with Angelina Jolie from Wanted. She wanted to be just like her. An female action-hero who got to do everything the boys and men got to do and do it better.
I actually think that female action heroes would be accepted more in Hollywood if they were treated as equals with the men. The films you mentioned bear this out. In fact, they’re the ones both men and women in the audience remember long after they leave the theater.
Next year’s Sucker Punch by Snyder looks to be an action flick that’s going to be all women. I’m all for that. 🙂
LikeLike
By R-Lee on July 25, 2010 at 01:24
You’re right on Moretz. I should have included her there. 🙂
In alll fairness to Hollywood, its hard to think of any other mainstream, “star” actress who can match Jolie when it comes to being believable while kicking ass in an action film. For instance, Jennifer Aniston could never have played Salt.
LikeLike
By Lisa Marie Bowman on July 25, 2010 at 01:40
I think Jolie just has the mentality to be a very believable kick-ass on-screen. People always seem to think she’s not a good actor when in reality she’s very good. It’s just that she’s been very uneven about roles she takes. When she’s in a role that demands some great dramatic acting she pulls it off. Changeling wasn’t one of Eastwood’s best of late, but she was electric in that role. I think as she gets older we’ll see her take on even more serious roles that shold showcase just how good she really is. Though I hope she never stops taking roles where she shows her kick-ass side.
LikeLike
By R-Lee on July 25, 2010 at 02:05
When people criticize her acting, what they’re really saying is that they don’t know how to handle the fact that she’s been open about her estrangement with her father and her experimentation with drugs, self-mutilation, and bisexuality. She doesn’t conform to what society has defined as being necessary to be a “worthwhile,” “domesticated,” woman and for that, she’s punished with innuendo and criticism.
Ah, Changeling. I had such high hopes for that movie, I was really hoping it would be as good as I thought it would be. *sigh* Jolie was, however, brilliant in it.
LikeLike
By Lisa Marie Bowman on July 25, 2010 at 02:14
[…] free her crew, it’s a great moment, comparable to Angelina Jolie taking out Liev Schreiber in Salt or Milla Jovovich kicking zombie ass in a Resident Evil film. Unfortunately, director Renny […]
LikeLike
By Film Review: Cutthroat Island (dir by Renny Harlin) | Through the Shattered Lens on September 19, 2018 at 08:23
[…] Ava commits the sin of taking itself too seriously. Check out John Stockwell’s In The Blood or Phillip Noyce’s Salt instead. […]
LikeLike
By The Films of 2020: Ava (dir by Tate Taylor) | Through the Shattered Lens on December 25, 2020 at 00:31
2026 perspective: it’s funny how a film can make a huge impression on you when you see it and be totally forgotten in just a few years.
LikeLike
By Lisa Marie Bowman on April 26, 2026 at 05:19