Consider, for a moment, these titles: Romancing the Stone, The Mummy, and Indiana Jones & the Temple of Doom. Now let's think about what these films all have in common, shall we? I'll start us off.
- Pretty decent special effects.
- Lots of khaki.
- Many large, unique weapons and displays of brawn.
- Good versus Evil.
- Well-meaning but flaky women who get themselves into some kind of life-threatening conundrum and must be saved by the burly, cunning man in the hat. (Am I wrong?)
It's this fifth element which gives me pause. It isn't so much that the women in these action flicks invariably loathe these men on sight and then end up falling in love with them over the next couple of hours that bothers me (although the fact that I've become so accepting of the inevitable, trite love story emerging from the action does disturb.) What I find most irritating involves costume. Not, mind you, the movies' designers in general, but what becomes of these women's wardrobes around the midpoint of the film.
In a nutshell, here is what happens:
The central couple, or group, must journey into some foreign territory, battling any number and variety of obstacles along the way -- this is dirty traveling. When the initial struggles are behind them, those who are left to finish the journey/hunt/mission arrive in some quaint or backward town somewhere just east of the pop-culture barrier, all torn, tired and filthy.
It is at this point that two things occur.
- The woman is separated from the man or men for a period of time. Sometimes the men then proceed to clean up a little, maybe rustle up some grub, but they always formulate a new plan here, sans femme. Before they lose too much light to travel by, or when it's dark enough to go, or whatever, the woman returns. But she doesn't just return; she returns in style. Apparently, all the elder women in all the villages in all of these movies have an agenda. They all have second professions that involve spiriting away the women of American bravados for the day and throwing a makeover party every single time. The woman emerges from some low, unassuming building, pushed forth into the light by her captoresses, not only clean and changed, but wearing some upscale rendition of the traditional costume of whatever region of the universe they happen to have stumbled into. (And may I point out that, in many of these recurring scenarios, the travelers have lost all of their possessions, presumably including cash?)
- Here is where the burly, khaki man in question has a moment, the woman bats her eyelashes, and she then proceeds to sport this new ensemble throughout the rest of their adventure. (My personal favorite was the silver belly dancer getup in Indiana Jones.) The woman exhibits no character change up until this point, when she apparently, due to her miraculous transformation that could only have taken place at this moment, in this place, decides that the whole quest is worth potential death or dismemberment because she is with this guy and probably wearing sequins.
Must I ask the obvious questions?
How does this work? Why do we need this woman to bear cleavage and thigh in order to watch her ride a camel into the desert or hop a mining cart through antiquated tunnels? Yes, I get it; women are sexually objectified by nature, right. My response to that goes a little like this: bite me. Why is she so thrilled about wearing glitter and veils and off-the-shoulder blouses while trying to outrun the bad guys? I do not know. Although I have never had to run for my life or battle the undead, I think I'd want to stick with rubber soles and jeans to do so, personally, sex appeal aside.
I cannot, of course, fully explain my worries over popular culture in fewer than two hundred pages, and if I am the only one, then that number has just tripled and the world is in far more jeopardy than I originally thought. If this particular observation fails to at least make you stop and say "huh...Interesting," then the point is lost forever.
