mythical<\/span><\/a> \u201cbra burners,\u201d the \u201870s were the best of times and the worst of times for ladies. Director Ben Wheatley is no stranger to the decade, as evidenced by his last film, High-Rise<\/i>. It\u2019s in his latest, though, the hyper-violent Free Fire, <\/i>where \u201870s feminism is being explored with a 2017 mentality.<\/span><\/p>\nBrie Larson\u2019s Justine is the only female in Wheatley\u2019s drama. Like the rest of the characters present in the gun deal from hell that Wheatley (and co-screenwriter Amy Jump) reveal, Justine has a history with the others that\u2019s never explicated. She\u2019s worked with Ord (Armie Hammer) and Vernon (Sharlto Copely) on previous jobs, but otherwise her life is a closed book. Justine is no different from the men, at least from a professional standpoint.<\/span><\/p>\nFor a film set in the \u201870s, Wheatley and Jump refrain from overt declarations of misogyny towards Justine. The majority of the male characters fail to discuss her sex, with the exception of Vernon, who refers to Justine exclusively as \u201cbird,\u201d \u201cdoll,\u201d and other similar terms of endearment. Justine plays on Vernon\u2019s chauvinism, giving back what he dishes out. When Vernon gets shot, Justine emphasizes his presumed benevolence, declaring that he\u2019d never hurt her and is being unduly persecuted. Justine relies on both Vernon\u2019s indignation and their past personal connection to control the situation.<\/span><\/p>\nThat\u2019s not to say other characters aren\u2019t in line with the stereotypical \u201870s \u201cmale chauvinist pig.\u201d Sam Riley\u2019s Stevo\u2019s sexual assault of a young woman (discussed, not shown) acts as the catalyst for the ensuing firefight, a feminist spark that lights the powder keg. Wheatley and Jump don\u2019t have to write aggressively sexist male characters; instead they rely on ingrained, subtle chauvinism that ends up undermining the men\u2019s control of the situation. Vernon demands Justine be the one to get the money because no one will \u201cshoot the bird,\u201d a prediction that ends up being false and justifies Justine\u2019s own aggression. Considering how Justine is placed on the same level as the men, there\u2019s no doubt that she\u2019d fall back on shooting everyone for her own survival. <\/span><\/p>\nIt is this survival that\u2019s paramount to her character and isn\u2019t different from the men. They want to make it out with the money and\/or the guns; Justine wants the same, though the male characters see her as an innocent. When the violence intensifies, those left alive agree Justine should be allowed to leave under the auspice of calling for help. This logic makes sense narratively, but also illustrates the male characters\u2019 sense of chivalry, the \u201cwomen and children first\u201d mentality that sees females as pure and thus worthy of being spared from the senseless violence men perpetrate. This ends up being ironically comical, as it allows Justine to enact her own violence against the men and bonds the audience to her; her survival takes on greater stakes. Not only do the male characters want her safe due to her femininity, but the audience roots for her because of it as well.<\/span><\/p>\nWheatley and Jump send up the assumptions of the female heroine, both in the \u201870s and today. By removing overt displays of sexism that second-wave feminists responded to during the decade, they are able to comment on modern chauvinism predicated on feminine fragility, which Justine ends up overturning.<\/span><\/p>\nJustine adheres to heroines of the \u201870s like Jane Fonda\u2019s Kimberly Wells in 1979\u2019s The China Syndrome<\/i>. Kimberly does puff pieces for her news station because the higher-ups like how she looks. Like Justine, Kimberly is objectified, referred to as \u201cKimbo\u201d by her freewheeling cameraman (Michael Douglas), who has no compunction about sexually harassing her in the workplace (complete with a \u201cgood-natured\u201d slap on the ass). There\u2019s nothing bad about Douglas\u2019 character, but he still reverts to falling into clear gender roles of masculine and feminine, much like how Cillian Murphy\u2019s Chris in Free Fire <\/i>can\u2019t help but ask Justine out for a drink before things go sideways. Kimberly\u2019s perceived \u201cfragility\u201d ends up placing her at the forefront of reporting on a massive scandal involving a nuclear meltdown. She\u2019s given the story of a lifetime because the executives at the top assume she\u2019ll be treated with kid gloves. Later, upon interviewing Jack Lemmon\u2019s Jack Godell, she avoids injury not because she holds any power in the situation but because no one wants to be known for shooting the pretty reporter \u2014 proof of Vernon\u2019s \u201cno one will shoot the bird\u201d mentality.<\/span><\/p>\nComparisons can also be drawn between Justine and the cold-hearted Diana Christensen of Sidney Lumet\u2019s Network<\/i> (1976). Network<\/i> removes Diana\u2019s sex from the film, commenting that her mad drive for power and ratings de-feminizes her. This makes the men second-guess her in a desperate attempt to find her inner humanity (and femininity). The same can be said for Justine. Justine isn\u2019t perceived as a threat \u2014 the men are content to remove her from the equation entirely \u2014 yet when faced with her loaded gun it\u2019s hoped that she\u2019ll be a \u201cnice girl\u201d and not shoot them. Justine retorts, \u201cWe can\u2019t all be nice girls,\u201d a rallying cry not too far removed from what the women of second-wave feminism wanted in the \u201870s: an allowance to be less than pure. <\/span><\/p>\nSecond-wave feminism gets a bum rap nowadays, enhanced by a series of films in the \u201880s that acted as a backlash for the movement. Free Fire<\/i> is a flawed film, but by adhering to and subverting the past and celebrating the strides of second-wave feminism, Justine is a solid foundation for future female heroines.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nKristen Lopez<\/a> kicks butt in Sacramento.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Maybe it\u2019s the fashion or the facial hair, but Hollywood\u2019s got it bad for the \u201870s right now. From the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":467,"featured_media":7122,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1381,1400],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-movies","category-on-the-marquee"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/467"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7121\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}