Brutal Heroines

I saw the new Jurassic World (Rebirth) movie this week. It was... not good. It wasn't terrible. It just wasn't good.

Part of this is because it was painfully clear that the actors spent a large majority of their on-screen time trying to look awed by the blue props that they were actually interacting with. It's damn near impossible for an actor, no matter how good they are, to act under those conditions, I think. It didn't help that the blue screens themselves were fairly obvious to anyone who spent their childhood watching movies filmed on location with animatronics. There were differences in lighting between the actors and the background that gave me strong 2010-music-video vibes.

There were two things in Rebirth that I really appreciated. One was the the stoner boyfriend. He's one of the only characters that actually felt like a real person- weird, contradictory, often feckless, stupid, and lazy, but heroic when it matters. David Iacono did a fantastic job in the role, but it's likely that the character enabled a better performance- Xavier is not super bright, so he gets a pass when he fails to look awed enough while staring at a blue wall, and all of his best moments are in dialogue with other characters.

The second thing was the character design of Zora. The performance from Scarlett Johansson wasn't great (for reasons already mentioned, probably, rather than due to a lack of skill on her part), but the character design was excellent. To explain why, we need to take a look at some iconic films that have female leads. Before I do, it's worth noting that this is baseless speculation rooted in my personal experience as an infrequent movie-watcher, rather than a deep dive based on a huge amount of expertise.

In the 80's and 90's, it seemed like there was a strong shift toward tough female leads that culminated in films like Alien and characters like Sarah Conner. These movies took tropes normally reserved for male action heroes, tailored them a bit for the differences in biology (size, strength etc.) and slapped them onto female action heroes. This mostly worked great- when I'm watching a story about someone who went through hell and then became a badass, I want to feel it. I want people with some lean muscle, chapped lips, unkempt hair, chewed nails, a big gun, and a variety of canvas bags holding endless supplies of ass-kicking goodies.

Most importantly, I want someone weird. Living with violence makes people weird, even if they haven't lived with it quite as much as Sarah Conner. People who have adapted to violence jump at fireworks or have strange rules. They speak too bluntly or too casually about tragedies. They sit facing the entrance and get angry over things that seem trivial (unlocked doors, lights left on). They never stand in front of windows. They're scared of things no one else notices, and ignore things that everyone else is scared of. They are fundamentally unstable, but it's an instability that arises from adaptation, rather than biology. When this is done well in film, it gives the story a feel of plausibility that isn't easy to verbalize.

You notice it when it's gone though.

What movies like Aeon Flux or Black Widow don't do is show the audience someone who could plausibly exist. Heroines have perfect curls, perfect skin, and makeup that never runs. These women are presented as being a badass assassins, killers, spies, or soldiers, but there is no evidence that they've ever been emotionally or physically impacted by their profession. They're not weird, in the way I describe above, they have little muscle, no lines in their faces, and no callous on their hands.

Compare Michelle Rodriquez' characters in BloodRayne (Katarin, 2005) and Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (Holga, 2023). Holga is blunt, crude, square, muscular, scarred, burned, and often dirty. She's got lines in her face because Rodriquez is eighteen years older, but rather than try to conceal them, Rodriquez uses them to her advantage when depicting a character who absolutely would have lines in her face.

Holga was easily my favorite character in Honor Among Thieves, because she was so well designed.

Everything about the character highlights that she's a violent woman who has done and seen some serious shit. The film is still a lighthearted fantasy story, so there are obviously any number of things wrong with her costume (I've read too many posts by ACOUP to believe this armor is realistic), but aesthetically, it works. It's made out of leather and furs and ragged little odds and ends. She has tattoos and scars (some deliberate, some not) and a weathered tan.

Compare all of that to Katarin in the movie BloodRayne, and you immediately see the difference. Katarin is slimmer and less muscular, her skin is smooth and unblemished, her hair looks like it was recently washed and combed, and all of her equipment is scratch-free. I'm not even sure her pants have pockets. She looks like a nineteen year old girl going to a halloween party.

Zora Bennett in Jurassic World: Rebirth is a mercenary. She's supposed to be some flavor of ex-military, now working as a fixer who can move sensitive material and people into and out of locations where they're not supposed to be, often while dealing with hostile actors of one sort or another. She's been doing it for decades.

And blue-screen acting aside, everything about her fits with the image of a middle aged women who has been through hell repeatedly and shot her way back out. I really, really can't express how much I appreciate this sort of design.

I like tits, ass, and beautiful women as much as the next (straight) guy, and I even like it in my movies. But don't ruin my immersion by forcing it on a character when it doesn't make any sense. If a movie about gangsters has a scene in a strip club, there are going to be a lot of beautiful women with perfect breasts and round asses walking around in lingerie. That's awesome. I'm here for it.

But if the character isn't a stripper? If her life is hard, demanding, violent, and dirty? Then for fucks sake, give her some scars. Give her pockets. Make her skin look rough. Give her bedraggled hair. Have her cuss, mumble, grunt, and spit. Give her wrinkles.

If I want lingerie and flawless skin, I can get as much of that as I want. I have unlimited access to the internet. When I want stories, good stories, stories that pull me in and make me believe in another world for two hours, that's a much more difficult proposition. I sincerely, deeply appreciate the people who can create those stories, and do it well. For a few hours the other day, despite everything else that was wrong with the film (which was almost everything) Scarlett Johansson did that.