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Cathy Hawkins
Culture, Media and Philosophy, Macquarie University

'An/Other Hero: New Territories of the Feminine in Popular Film'

In this paper I propose that an appropriation of the hero narrative is important for feminist criticism, and that it is time to explore new interpretations of the feminine in popular film. In order to so argue, I take the character of Ripley from the Alien movies as my example and draw on many of the insights into narrative processes proposed by Teresa de Lauretis in Alice Doesn't: Feminism, Semiotics, Cinema (1984). In contemporary as well as classical texts the position of the hero is almost always gendered as male. The narrative spaces remaining are left to the passive heroine, a female figure concerned with romantic, rather that heroic, outcomes. The acceptance of this critical position can be seen in many works dedicated to the criticism of popular genre cinema. Such readings often deconstruct the phallocentric nature of cinematic apparatus in which females are rendered marginal, existing to highlight the heroism and heterosexuality of the successful male hero. I wish to go beyond this level of analysis, in order to arrive at a new understanding of the female hero. We need to develop a viewing practice that sees gendered transgression taking place beyond a binary oppositional nexus. The female hero must challenge the way in which heroic values are traditionally applied to women. To do so, I suggest that we employ tactical reading practices developed through a feminist post-structuralist framework, informed by both postcolonial and queer theory. Once imagined, such characters can take us out of the realm of oppositional binary logic and fracture the Oedipal narrative, turning docile heroines into disruptive, transgressive and dangerous female heroes.

Bio: Cathy Hawkins is an honorary associate and a casual lecturer in film theory with both Women's Studies and Cultural Studies at Macquarie University. In 2001 she completed her PhD thesis, 'The Woman Who Saved the World: Re-imagining the Female Hero in 1950s Science Fiction Films'. Cathy has begun publishing in the field of feminist science fiction criticism.

<chawkins@scmp.mq.edu.au>