The Female Assassin Trope, Explained

i'm the switchblade in the carters i'm surprised they never see coming why are we so drawn to women who killed what does she know we've seen various kinds of dangerous women over the decades but perhaps none have proved so alluring as the female assassin she's a character who terrifies us as much as she attracts us going on bloody rampages in skin-tight outfits and cloaking her dark intentions with a sexy smirk and she's funny total package she can be spotted by some key characteristics unlike her male counterparts the female assassin is almost always an object of desire she's a beautiful badass and she uses her sex appeal to seduce and manipulate her prey you trick men into death with your body she is mysterious you like living with a ghost you know you never tell me anything she keeps her true self hidden making it impossible to know who she really is she's confident and highly skilled having been expertly trained in the art of killing now hit girl we always keep our backs to the wall daddy i know and she's also determined whether out of an unquenchable thirst for revenge or because she's been left with no other choice but to fight i was nine when he had my parents killed in front of me as a killer the female assassin rejects nearly everything that society expects of women this makes her an unnerving yet liberating character one who challenges the assumptions that women are predominantly caring or inherently good it's mercy compassion and forgiveness i lack not rationality here's our take on the female assassin and this complex role she plays for women as well as the moral quandary she presents by being a murderer we feel compelled to root for how many more like you are there like me none [Music] you're watching the take thanks for watching and be sure to share and subscribe this video is brought to you by mubi a curated streaming service showing exceptional films from around the globe it's like your own personal film festival streaming anytime anywhere [Music] the criteria for playing a female assassin tends to be simple someone who looks gorgeous holding a gun in this the character has her roots in the classic femme fatales of film noir you won't need much of anybody's help you're good chiefly your eyes i think in that throb you get in your voice when you say things like be generous mr spade the femme fatale was an expression of men's fear of a woman's sexuality and its capacity for deceit and after the haze code of 1934 decreed that these kinds of women were immoral they were only allowed on screen if they ended up in jail or dead goodbye baby the female assassin's predecessors can also be found in stories of women spies like the infamous matahari the exotic dancer accused of seducing men for their secrets and sending some 50 000 soldiers to their deaths put out that one too the madonna's lamp yes but don't you understand that it's a holy lamp that i swore to keep it burning you wouldn't do that for me but however powerful these women were like the femme fatale they remained beholden to the men who used them and those men ensured she paid the price for her duplicity the female assassin as we know her began to take shape in films like francois truffaut's the bride wore black about a grief-stricken widow who methodically dispatches the men responsible for her husband's death [Music] again her rampage is intrinsically tied to men denied marriage and the chance at a traditional family life she loses all sense of morality and once she's completed her mission she's made to suffer for it this trend would continue through the 1980s female assassins like grace jones's mayday and a view to a kill or kathleen turner's irene and pritzy's honor may have been deadly yet they were always secondary to male killers and even decades after the haze code was lifted they still weren't allowed to go without paying for their crimes [Music] the female assassin gradually began to take center stage in the 1990s and while she became even more overtly sexualized she also became more independent the title character of 1990s left nikita is taught how to dress and act like a woman that men would desire and even though nikita is headstrong and highly skilled both her handler and her fiance attempt to possess and control her but in the end nikita makes the choice to disappear leaving both of her lives and her men behind in favor of protecting herself when the character resurfaced in the cw's update nikita she was fighting not just for her freedom but other women just like her you seriously think you can burn down division all on your own who says i'm on my own still while the female assassin may free herself from controlling men she still struggles to escape the male gaze after all before nikita can start kicking ass in the pilot of her tv series she has to put on a tiny red bikini it's just that this is gonna make taking your bodyguard out so much harder halle berry's jinx in the james bond film die another day is similarly tough quick-witted and self-reliant proving herself to be every bit double07s deadly equal i can read your every move yet she too was introduced in a revealing swimsuit that both bond and the camera drool over magnificent view it is isn't it the female assassin can be empowering to watch because she unleashes all of the tough violent qualities that women are encouraged to suppress yet she remains a complicated feminist figure because she also tends to be sexually objectified in 2018's red sparrow jennifer lawrence plays a russian ballerina who is recruited into the cold war game of sexbionage my uncle gave me a choice die or become a sparrow eventually she is able to turn the tables reclaiming some of the power that the men in her life have continually taken from her yet the film also spends most of its time lingering over her naked body your body belongs to the state as ann bilson points out in the guardian it's said that once a woman gets past 40 she becomes invisible so the most effective contract killer would be a clumpy shoe to rose a club no one would look twice at but male studio executives don't want to sleep with cleb james bonds nemesis in from russia with love and they don't think male audiences do either take off your dress but from another perspective the female assassin is liberating because she is so sexual watching women kill men while donning corsets stockings and stilettos offers a refreshing alternate reality a world where women can feel strong wearing these things rather than vulnerable in movies like atomic blonde glamorous bombshells get to be the kind of action heroes that were once exclusively reserved for rugged dudes am i a [ __ ] now and they're alluring not just because of their appearance but their swaggering confidence we've also seen the female assassin used to question and subvert our gendered assumptions through women who play off those ideals of soft femininity to disguise their darker motives the assassin's targets believe that as a woman she must be weak and she turns this against them it's okay killing eve's villanelle directly plays off her image as a demure helpless woman to convince people to drop their guard so she can get the drop on them please i need someone to help me get out of here without him seeing me if i could i could just walk behind you and she deliberately uses female beauty products like perfume and hair pins to dispatch her victims [Music] these things don't even seem like threats until it's too late [Music] [Applause] while the classic femme fatale was punished by the end of her film we often see the female assassin punished from the very beginning her immoral acts are usually couched as a response to some horrible trauma that's been visited upon her how much would it cost to hire someone to get those dirt bags killed my brother in short the female assassin can only be empowered by first being disempowered and in many cases this means robbing her of her femininity and sometimes even her humanity whatever nightmares the future holds are dreams compared to what's behind me many of our earliest female assassin stories are rape revenge fantasies carried out by women whose murderous rampages are quests to regain the agency that's been taken from them in 1981's miss 45 the mute seamstress thana is sexually assaulted twice in the same night reinforcing her vulnerability in a male-dominated world she also finds herself fending off unwanted advances from men in the street and even her own boss what's wrong thana begins hunting and killing men as a means of reasserting herself applying red lipstick and dressing in dark sleek outfits as a hypnotic ritual of reclaiming her femininity one that not only weaponizes her sexuality but restores her sense of ownership of her own body [Music] kill bill offers another even more literal realization of this idea when the bride awakens from her coma to discover that hospital orderly has been selling her body to men she begins her quest for vengeance by retaking control of her body one appendage at a time wiggle your big toe in these stories we're made to feel as though the female assassin is justified in doling out brutal violence because she's had to endure it herself that woman deserves her revenge and we deserve to die in 2011's columbiana we see how the merciless killing machine catalya witnessing her parents murder at a young age robs her of any chance at a normal life i want to be a killer can you help for yuki in 1973's lady snow blood that chance was lost before she was even born yuki was trained from early childhood to be a killer and to seek revenge against the men who killed her father and brother and assaulted her mother these female assassins become wrath incarnate and in a way the retribution they deliver feels like a collective response to the fear and violence that all women are forced to suffer while the bride's rape is the inciting incident for her rampage her true motivation to kill bill is the desire to avenge the daughter he's taken from her [Music] this is a common theme of the female assassin's story that she's not able to be both a killer and a mother or anything else we traditionally associate with being a woman the assassin tsuki in 2017's the villain s longs for these traditional markers of womanhood like becoming a wife and mother but the men who control her life repeatedly deny them to her emphasizing that suki can never be allowed to lead a normal life in the avengers we learn that beneath her tough and sexy exterior black widow is living with an inherent emptiness is this love agent romanov love is for children i owe him the death she was sterilized as part of her assassin's training symbolically stripped away of an essential part of her femininity one less thing to worry about the one thing that might matter more than a mission and while game of thrones arya stark starts out spurning stereotypically feminine interests like sowing or marriage it's notable that in order to join the assassins cult of the faceless men arya has to sacrifice not just her femininity but her entire identity a girl has no name by robbing the female assassin of her femininity and her humanity while often positing trauma as the true source of her strength these depictions perpetuate a power imbalance that's faced increasing criticism of weight in 2018 the actress jessica chastain called out kill bill director quentin tarantino for suggesting rape and suffering is what made the bride stronger arguing we don't need abuse in order to be powerful we already are watching the female assassin fight back against her disempowerment can offer us a vicarious thrill and the feeling that justice is being restored your name is buck right and you came here right but there's a fallacy to this as well as laura stash argues in the rhetorical construction of female empowerment the avenging woman narrative in popular television and film although it constructs a pleasurable tale of justice and revenge the avenging woman text can also be read as an example of how a rhetoric of female empowerment is problematic when it does not support political changes within a patriarchal system when fortune smiles on something as violent and ugly as revenge it seems proof like no other that not only does god exist you're doing his will promisingly the recent rash of me too inspired female revenge movies has given us a different kind of female assassin one who retains her femininity and who no longer is a reactive victim she's more of a proactive huntress carrying out a calculated reckoning against a world of violent men every week i go to a club i act like i'm too drunk to stand and every week a nice guy comes over to see if i'm okay okay films such as emerald fennell's promising young woman in natalya latest mfa deliver some of those same cathartic female vigilante thrills but notably told from the perspective of a woman filmmaker they go beyond the male fantasies of sexy ass kickers to deal with the systemic problems in a society that's been conditioned to doubt victims and protect abusers they put him on probation for probably like a week i don't even think he missed any of his games he graduates right on time is it hard to be bad not if you practice it's notable that we rarely put the same kind of baggage on male assassins movies and tv are rife with impossibly cool hitmen and suave male secret agents who carry out their kills without being forced to suffer through formative traumas or walk around in high heels while they certainly have their problems too male assassins are usually just allowed to be good at and even enjoy what they do although it's rare we have seen a few female assassins afforded the same privilege we've taken some strides toward equality for our killers letting female assassins lead somewhat normal multifaceted lives and maybe even have some fun the second time you tried to kill me oh come on it was just a little bond gina davis character in 1996's the long kiss goodnight is one such example of this normalized female assassin when we first meet her she's suffering from amnesia living a quiet suburban existence as a schoolteacher and mother but once she recovers her true identity as an expertly trained cia assassin she isn't forced to choose between her two lives she embraces her dangerous side while still remaining a devoted mom mommy we're gonna die oh no baby no you're not gonna die they are what's more she uses those assassin skills to protect her daughter and prepare her for the hardest parts of life life is pain get used to it angelina jolie's jane smith in 2005's mr and mrs smith similarly lives a double existence as both a bored housewife that was work that's so silly oh i got new curtains and a sexy killer have you been selling big guns to bad people when jane discovers that her husband is also an assassin and her employers assign her to kill him she too is asked to choose between her domestic life and her professional one but ultimately jane also finds a way to reconcile her two selves and doing so not only puts the spark back into her failing marriage it makes her even better at her job these stories don't disempower the female assassin and importantly they don't deny her humanity either they go beyond cliched trauma to examine the more complex emotions she's suppressing behind her white picket fence existence the fx series the americans chronicles the complicated marriage between two undercover kgb spies living in the suburbs i want us to be able to say what's true i want it to be real do you think that we could do that and we see how elizabeth jennings uses motherhood as the ultimate disguise and how she takes pains to compartmentalize her true self we can't do our jobs if we're emotional elizabeth's struggles humanize her she isn't just a cold-blooded killer but a woman living in a world that expects her to be both professional and nurturing and who can't relate to that likewise we're not drawn to killing eve's villanelle solely because she's a stylish quippy badass she may be a remorseless killer but she's also just a woman trying to figure out who she is and what she wants out of life and in this she becomes eerily recognizable what do you want normal stuff nice life cool flat someone to watch movies with the more normalized female assassin reflects many of the different facets of being a woman not just the sexuality they're expected to tamp down or the anger they feel at being oppressed in a man's world but the simple everyday act of balancing strength with vulnerability or the need to be there for their loved ones while also being really good at their job and that job just happens to be murder i'm kind of a big deal in this industry while she may seem like an outlandish hollywood invention the female assassin has been a part of our world for millennia even villanelle herself was inspired by the real life assassin idoya lopez riano otherwise known as latigressa who seduced and killed 23 people in spain in the 80s yet on screen the female assassin character continues to feel like an escapist fantasy a sexy exaggerated symbol more than a reflection of someone who could actually exist this is because despite a long history of real-life violent women we still expect a woman to be innocent and pure like those early femme fatales the female assassin is an expression of our society's fear and titillation at seeing a woman step outside those moral boundaries when you tell the truth you look different your eyes change thanks for the warning but in this she's also become someone to be admired not for her body count of course but how she carries herself you don't want to get hurt you have to be willing to do anything to protect yourself the female assassin represents an extreme sort of wish fulfillment for women a dark expression of the hope that they can fully be themselves in the world without trepidation or remorse she encourages us to see women for the many different things they can be not just what society wants them to be i roared i rampaged and i got bloody satisfaction if you're new here be sure to subscribe and hit the bell to be notified about all of our new videos this video is brought to you by mubi a streaming service we love every day movie premieres a new film whether it's a movie you've been dying to see or one you've never heard of before there is always something new to discover so in this world where it's very easy to spend hours debating what you should watch mubi is like having a really cool friend with amazing taste in movies making it so much easier for you they feature hard to come by masterpieces indie festival darlings influential art house and foreign films lesser known films by your favorite famous directors and more plus you can even download the films to watch offline and there are no ads ever to kick off the new year mubi is launching first films first an exclusive selection of directorial 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Channel: The Take

Views: 200,491

Keywords: female assassin, the avengers, black widow, scarlett johansson, killing eve, jodie comer, james bond, halle berry, charlize theron, atomic blonde, promising young woman, carey mulligan, kill bill, uma thurman, red sparrow, jennifer lawrence, zoe saldana, colombiana, taraji p. henson, femme fatale, guardians of the galaxy, the americans, angelina jolie, john wick, bourne identity, mission impossible, arya stark, game of thrones, jessica chastain, ava, nikita, proud mary

Id: UZ1S6QGQx0I

Length: 22min 6sec (1326 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 07 2021