Seventeenth International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities

Abstract

Traditionally, women in action films are portrayed as the damsel in distress archetype. However, in a few early silent films and some contemporary films, women do not need saving, instead they have been the strong lead roles. This paper explores these unusually active/strong female characters, using The Perils of Pauline (1914, Louis Gasnier and Donald MacKenzie) and Atomic Blonde (2017, David Leitch) as case studies. The Perils of Pauline features the serial queen, Pearl White as Pauline, who revels in extravagant, masculine adventures until they are brought to a halt by the expectation for her to marry. After these features stopped, the representation of strong women leads disappeared in action films, until the turn of the century. In 2017, Atomic Blonde, featuring Charlize Theron as Lorraine Broughton, shows a complex woman who balances her femininity and her action adventures. The Perils of Pauline and Atomic Blonde both contain tenacious women but display different values of each century, showing the shift in the expectations of women. Building on the work of scholars like Jennifer Bean and Ben Singer, who discuss the feminist impact of serial queens, as well as Jennifer McClearen and Jeffrey A. Brown, who examine modern day women in action films, my work illustrated the ways in which Pauline and Lorraine are different and yet similar. This paper explains how females are treated in these strong roles and how this treatment has changed and offers a rare cultural analysis of the female action hero.