We
live in a world full of sexism against women and men with fragile
masculinities, and unfortunately, with men having a great majority of the
power, that means that their depictions of things will tend to be pretty
biased. As a way beef their egos and channel their masculinity, men tend to
resort to taking any idea of a female antagonist and do one of two things with
it: either the female is made to be overly disgusting (“ugly” if you will) or
some sort of “sexed-up” seductress. In
many cases, it tends to be the latter, and this stereotypical depiction
devalues the female character, because it judges the character simply based on
appearance, as men often tend to do with women.
This
trend can easily be seen with Grendel’s Mother in her depictions in the
“Beowulf” movies that have come out in recent years. Her original descriptions
in Beowulf describe her as monstrous, hair, ugly and other similar characteristics.
Already, we can see the first depiction of a women, ugly and monstrous, from
the original material. In addition to this, she is also given the purpose of
exacting revenge for her fallen son, something which is very uncommon for women
to do in this time period. She is also given acidic blood, just to drive home
the monstrous factor. However, in the movies, the “monstrous” depiction is
thrown out the window in favor of the sex factor.
Take
for example this picture of 1999’s Grendel’s Mother. She is portrayed by a
blonde, obviously attractive woman in racy clothing. It’s pretty easy to see
that they are going for sexy vibe. And if you couldn’t tell from just looking
at her, the director’s actually CAST a playboy playmate to play her! Her
purpose in this movie is not revenge, but a form of child support. She shows up
and explains to everyone that she had an affair with Hrothgar and that the
resulting offspring was Grendel. Gone is the story of revenge for her murdered
son, and is instead replaced by a story about her seducing the king. Now her
character has transitioned from a grief stricken mother, to a malicious
seductress. How can it get worse? The answer: the 2007 version of Beowulf
They
aren’t even being subtle here. Here is Angelina Jolie, who had been named the
sexiest woman alive at one point, nude and covered in gold paint (not shown in
the picture is her high heels). If you weren’t sure that they were going for
sex appeal yet, I think this makes a pretty good argument. And they went even
farther; Grendel’s mother proceeds to seduce and sleep with Beowulf. It is then
revealed that Hrothgar also slept with her, and again we find out that Grendel
was the offspring born out of this. To be fair,
in this movie she actually does react out of revenge for her son and that the
whole point of sleeping with Beowulf is so she can bear another son, but this
still deviates from her actions in the original text.
These
two depictions represent the exact opposite of the original: she was wild,
grief-stricken, vengeful, monstrous in the original, but is now instead
depicted as calm, collected, and sexy in these movies. But why? She was perfectly fine in the original, but Hollywood
is so obsessed with appealing to men’s sense of sex that they threw out the source
material. And this is only one example of the use of sex in media. They are
many, many more.
If I am being completely honest here, I would have to choose the original mother of Grendel over these two star-crossed beauties, and for a good reason.
ReplyDeleteBeauty is often brought up for a monster nowadays because the audience demands something attractive to the eye. They want to feel the beast has a "human" heart, and will not listen to subtext to get it. So they search for that in looks.
And if they cannot find it, they seem to exchange it for "unobtainable beauty".
Ironic, given that is the same angle "Beauty and the Beast" by DISNEY follows, and people STILL prefer to see Prince Adam in his Beast form.
(So do I, but that's beside the point).
Point is that the audience, director included, want to make human something that is not, so they give it a human body and almost ethereal expectations and looks. That's why you get Angelina Jolie and Mrs. Cannot-Act-For-A-Dollar-Fifty being the mother being the Mother of Grendel.
They have a look. What they lack is the original motivation of being relatable by feeling.
And that is why these characters are not as powerful as the original Mother was.
Personally, I think that more than Grendel’s mother is sexualized in both of these movies.
ReplyDeleteIn the 1999 'Beowulf', (which is easily the worst thing I have ever watched) they completely changed Freawaru. The first time one meets her is when the King and his men are heading off to fight Grendel (the king is also wearing a full face shield that he cannot see through at all, but that’s a different story) and she demands that her father let her fight. All of the women are portrayed in Beowulf as helpless and delicate, so they could have been trying to add a little girl power to her. And they would have succeeded at doing so had they not costumed her in pants with laces up the side, bustiers, and a see through dress with a black bra and panties on underneath it. Was this appropriate?
I think you’re right; they defiantly sexed up Grendel’s Mother in both movies to a point that stopped making any kind of sense. I mean, why else have a Playmate cast in a movie who has less talent in her whole body than anyone of us could have in our little finger? Even if they do have a kind of motivation or “girl power”, the fact that they parade around wearing little to no clothing makes them even more of an object for men’s desires.
I agree with your opinion on how female antagonists are overly sexualized in cinema, but I like your opinion of how men use this to boost their egos. Another point you could have added could have been how overly masculine and sexualized Beowulf was in both movies. In the Zemeckis film Beowulf is designed to look like a herculean version of Brad Pitt. I mean why not, Beowulf needs to look Brad so it’s not weird that the Angelina Jolie monster wants to bang him. And don’t get me started on everything that blocks Brad’s phallic object is also phallic. In the 90’s version Beowulf transforms from a timeless hero into a generic 90’s action hero including wacky camera angels, darkness, stupid unnecessary back flips, and epic techno fighting music. Not only did these movies butcher the females by overly sexualizing them but also butchering the main character so that he fits in with other action heroes of the time.
ReplyDeleteFirst off, this reminded me of how wacky the MPAA is for giving the 2007 version a PG-13 rating in spite of how over-the-top the sexualization of Grendel's mother is in this version, as you rightly pointed out, as well as the fairly graphic violence. And it's ironic that Beowulf is so masculinized in that version, as the previous comment stated, as his voice actor is gruff and rotund British gangster/tough guy Ray Winstone. Conversely, I saw Christopher Lambert's take on the character as a sort of futuristic and more Westernized extension to his second most well-known role after Highlander, that being Raiden in the Mortal Kombat movie. I think these two adaptations of Beowulf not only sensationalize the gory bits and add sexy ones for good measure, but also water down the nuances of the story and the shades of gray that were an integral part of Danish society at the time, what with your warring kingdoms and descriptions of daring and legendary feats that still seem all too real.
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ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading up on this and agree with you and your opinion/views on this topic. I feel as if these depictions you brought up represent an opposing image and representation of the original. I feel the reason why is with these directors for big screen films, they often times will go on another path, more greed and interest in views and something to draw people in. Often times with big name stars and in this case, attractive actress with sex appeal to draw in the male viewers even more. It is unfortunate but the sad truth in today’s time it seems like.
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