I’ve now seen a few commercials for Ben Affleck’s new action movie directed by John Woo, Paycheck. In a post-Kill Bill world, isn’t there something insulting, if not borderline offensive, about having Uma Thurman play the traditional semi-tough female second-banana role? Particularly when the first banana is The Asshole from Fashionable Male?
One of the near-countless great things about Kill Bill was/is how the fact that Thurman’s character is a woman is not commented upon in the usual ways. No male character snickers about the idea of a woman thinking she could defeat him, then gets his comeuppance, and aren’t we feminist, blah blah blah. It’s taken for granted that the Bride, and her many female opponents, are brilliant warriors. Her femininity is an issue–she is called the Bride, after all, and she’s attempting to avenge the death of her unborn child; in so doing she attempts to spare several young female characters (Vernita’s daughter, Go-Go Yubari) any pain–but never is it set up as a potentially detrimental attribute to be overcome. As a matter of fact, during her conversation with Vernita, the Bride makes a point of saying that her former mentor and current would-be murderer, Bill, would never qualify a description of her prowess by saying she was the best of her gender. Even the baddest of the bad guys in the film’s world sees her for her abilities first, and for her gender as an afterthought.
Meanwhile, you can just tell from the commercials that in Paycheck, we’re all supposed to sit around and be impressed when Uma does something macho, as though this compensates for her womanhood, not flows from it naturally. Boo. Hiss.