The Masculinity and Femininity Representations of Female Superheroes in Science Fiction Films

The Masculinity and Femininity Representations of Female Superheroes in Science Fiction Films

‘Masculinity’ is a term often used by today’s society to describe the physical character traits of an individual. Being ‘masculine’ does not necessarily refer to a person’s biological sex, but rather a person’s gender. The difference between biological sex and gender is that one does not have to be a male in order to be ‘masculine’. In modern society, an individual has the option to choose which gender they want to be referred to simply by changing their name, attitude, and look. Since the feminist movement started in the late nineteenth century, feminists have been fighting to equalize the relationship between men and women, as well as focusing on women’s reproductive rights. Feminism has made a large impact on film theory and the way women should be represented in society. Feminists use cinema as a cultural practice to represent the myths about women and femininity, as well as about men and masculinity. Before the feminist movement, women in Hollywood films were repressed, inferior, and were victims of stereotyping. Christine Holmlund, author of Impossible Bodies: Femininity and Masculinity at the Movies, she said:

The majority of Hollywood movies foreground gender (with entire genres structured around male and female characters, played by beloved stars, supported by familiar sidekicks, addressed to male or female audiences), moreover, engagement with ‘domestic’ issues becomes virtually de rigueur. (4)

Action movies, in particular, revolve around gender roles and the comparison between strength and weakness. However, women—in today’s film culture—has taken a step forward from being represented as the underdog of the male protagonist to being represented as more dominant, independent, and intelligent—especially  in action films such as the Marvel movies. The Marvel movies based on Marvel comics are an example of films that portray women with masculine characteristics whilst still being able to maintain their feminine figure. However, feminist film theory and criticism draws on the issues of representations of power and knowledge in cinema, the negative and positive impact on the female spectator, and sexual differences.

The issue of representations of women in film theory and criticism refers to the construction of cultural identities such as class, race, gender, and age. Cultural identities include issues such as the ‘the gaze’—how the images of women are viewed in films (“Media Representation”). The females in Marvel movies such as Thor, Captain America, Iron Man, The Avengers, and many more, are represented with characteristics of masculinity. Masculinity can often be represented as power (physically) and knowledge (mentally). For instance, take a look at the following short clip from Captain America:

The supporting female character in Captain America: The First Avenger, Peggy Carter, is an officer working with the Strategic Scientific Reserve. Her roles in the film involve her patrolling and leading a team of soldiers, which is often the role to be played by a male character. The representation of Peggy in Captain America indicates that she is a strong character with authority, which brings out her masculine characteristics. Cultural identities are crucial in terms of identifying an individual’s power, knowledge, and authority. Gender, age, and ethnicity are also influences of social structures and hierarchy. Brym et al., sociologists and authors of Sociology: Your Compass for a New World, argued that, “race is a socially defined category of people whose perceived physical markers are deemed significant” (242). What Brym et al. means by ‘physical markers’ is that “they are used to distinguish groups and create social inequality based on race through means of colonialism, slavery, etc.” (243). In films, actors who play the dominant role are usually white, in their mid-twenties to mid-thirties. In the clip shown above. Peggy Carter from Captain America: The First Avenger can be described as a white female in her mid-twenties. It is not the first time that women are represented with masculine characteristics, but it did have an impact on the way women are depicted in the film culture later on. Power, described by Michael Kaufman, is “indeed, in the key term when referring to hegemonic masculinities” (145). Kaufman argues that having characteristics of masculinity is more powerful than having characteristics of femininity, which is why female characters must possess physical strength to be respected as a leader—in films and in real life. Another example of Peggy Carter showing power and discourse is shown in the video clip below:

Peggy Carter is one of the few powerful characters in the Marvel movies to look the most conservative. Her outfit is not as revealing as the other female characters. In the short clip shown above, Peggy Carter is portrayed as aggressive. Through her aggressive actions of defending herself, she demasculinizes the soldier, which puts her in a position of higher authority; she is now acknowledged as a strong leader, rather than a sexualized object. However, if Peggy Carter were a male character, the soldier would have never made sly remarks against the officer due to the difference in gender power relations.

                By depicting strong female characters in iconic action and sci-fi films like the Marvel movies, it poses both negative and positive impacts on the female spectator. In most cases, movies that portray women in an overly sexualized projection are often applied to the male gaze. However, in feminist film theory, female spectators are the main focus. Anneke Smelik, a professor of Visual Culture in the Department of Cultural Studies at Radboud University of Nijmegen, she said:

Mulvey [a feminist film theorist] elaborated on the notion of transsexual identification and spectatorship by pointing to the pre-oedipal and phallic fantasy of omnipotence that for girls is equally active as for boys, and hence, from a Freudian perspective, essentially ‘masculine’. In order to acquire ‘proper’ femininity, women will have to shed that active aspect of their early sexuality. Mulvey speculates that female spectators may negotiate the masculinisation of the spectatorial position in Hollywood cinema, because it signifies for them a pleasurable rediscovery of a lost aspect of their sexual identity. (494)

Smelik states that female spectators benefit from watching strong female characters who are overly sexualized in films to fulfill the missing sexual identity they lost as a child. Instead of a male gaze, where the spectators are men, it is a 'female gaze'. The traditional narrative structure of cinema distinguishes male characters as the powerful, dominant type, whereas the female characters are the powerless, submissive type—that makes the female an object of desire for men (Smelik 491). Marvel movies have demonstrated the change of roles of gender equality in films. Although, the female characters are still being overly sexualized, their power is equal to the male character. As discussed above, the strong female characters in Marvel movies possess power and characteristics of masculinity, but they do not physically ‘look’ masculine. For example, compare characters such as the Black Widow (of The Avengers) and Sif (a supporting character of Thor). Both these characters are played by attractive women with a feminine figure: Scarlett Johansson as the Black Widow and Jaimie Alexander as Sif.

The short clip shown above is a scene of the interrogation of the Black Widow from The Avengers. In the clip, it shows how the Black Widow was able to take on three men effortlessly whilst tied to a chair. The strength portrayed by the Black Widow is similar to the strength of a male character. Like most traditional narrative structures of cinema, Marvel productions continue the trend of having female characters maintain that feminine body figure. The Black Widow as a superhero is socially acceptable because she still conforms to the role of gender identities. Female spectators are affected by this because it poses unrealistic standards for women in ‘the real world’. It attracts female spectators because the female superheroes have become objects of desire—the desire to take control, be respected, and having the ideal body type. Sif is another example of the ideal female figure in action films:

In the clip shown above, Sif is seen to take control of the situation. The men in her team followed her orders to keep the enemy distracted while she heroically attacks it from behind. Not only does this scene demonstrate Sif’s power over the situation, it also demonstrates the respect she gains from her teammates. The fact that her teammates did what she asked (to distract the enemy), shows that they have trust in her judgments as a leader. The ideal image that Sif and the Black Widow addresses to the female spectator is self-worth. The desire to see a female character with such strength, confidence, and willpower, satisfies the female gaze.

                Sexual differences between gender identities affect the roles of men and women in cinema. As mentioned earlier, the characters’ sexual appearances are highly exaggerated in action and science fiction films, which is a form of scopophilia. Ruth Pezler said, “Benjamin spoke also of the ‘shock’ that watching films induces; for McLuhan the extension of the body which the media constitute turns the body ‘ecstatic’, even ‘electric’” (202). Pezler explains that cinema affects the audience with scopophilia, shock, and ecstatic, through hyperreal images—meaning the objects in cinema are objects of desire because it seems real enough to satisfy their craving. The reason why women are overly sexualized in sci-fi films is that, as Hall et al. says, “Individuals are positioned within particular discourses, then, as an effect of power upon them. This might work, for example, through the intensification of the pleasures of the body, its posture and movements and the solidifying of certain practices” (311). The pleasures through the gaze of the human body are enough to subject the viewers. Hall et al. also said:

On the one hand, the male characters were positioned as the bearer of the look (the active eye) in the film story, with the feminine coded as visual spectacle (passive object to be looked at). On the other hand, the look of the spectator was aligned with that of the male character. (314)

The relationship between discourse and masculinity, and the erotic passive object of femininity in narrative film, maintains the power relations between the male and female characters. For example, the clip shown below is a demonstration of power relationships between men and women:

Compared to previous clips of Peggy Carter, the one shown above represents her power in a different way. Instead of manipulating her masculinity to control the men, she uses her sexuality and bodily aspects. The red, revealing dress leads the male gaze towards her body, which causes her to become an object of desire to the viewers. Men in action and sci-fi films are also subjectified to the gaze. Robyn Wiegman, a Professor of Literature and Women’s Studies at Duke University, said in her essay called “Feminism, ‘The Boyz,’ and Other Matters Regarding the Male”:

In granting subjectivity through the power of the ‘look,’ the politics of visibility reiterate patriarchal organization, equating the male’s position as activator of the gaze with the transcendent subjectivity of universalized meaning. In the process, as most readers of this volume well know, the female body is cast as spectacle, reaffirming the primacy of the visible by emphasizing the sighting of difference while producing her as signifier of the masculine. (176)

Wiegman argues that society has conformed to the idea that superheroes always must ‘look’ a certain way—often male, big, and muscular. The clip shown below is an example of how men are subjectified to the gaze. 

This scene from Captain America: The First Avenger shows Steve Rogers (played by Chris Evans)—who is deemed ‘too skinny’ and ‘unfit’ to fight for the military service—volunteering to become the subject of a top secret government project to turn his scrawny self into a built, muscular, fighting soldier—and thus, becoming known as ‘Captain America’. During the transformation, Steve orders the team to continue the operation when they considered shutting down the machine after they thought it was too much for Steve to endure, which shows the determination a boy has for becoming the ideal image of a soldier or superhero. After Steve’s transformation, he has become the ideal symbol of America’s strength and morality as well as becoming “the male’s position as activator of the gaze with the transcendent subjectivity of universalized meaning”, as mentioned in the quote above by Wiegman. 

                The demand for strong female characters in action and sci-fi films are growing as feminists are fighting for gender equality. However, in traditional film narratives, both male and female characters are still exploited for their body image to satisfy the male and female gaze of the spectator. The examples shown above have demonstrated that masculinity is a universal term to describe one's—both male and female—power and dominion of hierarch, rather than just pure 'physical' (muscular, built) masculinity.

Works Cited

Brym et al. Sociology: Your Compass for a New World. Wadsworth: Nelson Education Ltd,

          2013. Print.

Captain America: The First Avenger. Dir. Joe Johnston. Perf. Chris Evans, Hayley Atwell. Paramount
          Pictures, 2011. Film.

Hall et al. Representation. 2nd ed. Los Angeles: SAGE: Publications Ltd, 2013. Print.

Holmlund, Christine. Impossible Bodies: Femininity and Masculinity at the Movies. New

          York: Routledge, 2002. Print.

Kaufman, Michael. “Men, Feminism, and Men’s Contradictory Experiences of Power.”

          Theorizing Masculinities. California: SAGE Publications Inc., 1994. 142-165. Print.

“Media Representation.” Aberystwyth University. n.p., n.d. Web. 2 Apr. 2014

Pezler, Ruth. "Technical Reproduction and its Significance." Exploring Visual Culture: Definitions,
          Concepts, Contexts. 2005. PDF file. 

Smelik, Anneke. “Feminist Film Theory.” The Cinema Book.  London: British Film Institute,
          2007. 491-504. Print.

The Avengers. Dir. Joss Whedon. Perf. Scarlett Johansson. Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures,
          2012. Film.

Thor. Dir. Kenneth Branagh, Joss Whedon. Perf. Jaimie Alexander. Paramount Pictures, 2011. Film.

Wiegman, Robyn. "Feminism, 'The Boyz,' and Other Matters Regarding the Male." Trans. Array.

          Screening the Male: Exploring Masculinities in Hollywood Cinema. London: Routledge, 1993.
          173-190. Print.