Things That Bang

While watching Tarantino’s Death Proof, I found myself falling in love with his depiction of wild women, those who live the illusion of danger and those who actually are addicted to danger. The latter are hard to find; they are the female Gunslingers who rarely conform to the norms of society. These kinds of women are hard to pin down, rarely do we find them having families, generally they are perceived as either shrews with corporate iron crotches or eccentric male hating loners in modern times.

In the past they were considered to be female warriors, aberrations or freaks of the worst kind and yet accepted due to their strong charismatic personalities. Women like Elizabeth 1, Joan of Arc, Catherine the Great, Jhansi Ki Rani left their mark in the annals of male depicted history and others such as Margaret Thatcher or Indra Gandhi though widely disliked can hardly be ignored. All these women had one thing in common they were seen as men in women’s bodies.

Why can't women have the same qualities as men and yet not be perceived to be masculine? Take Princess Leia for example, she was a female Jedi, but in many ways different from Tarantino’s Beatrix Kiddo aka Black Mamba. One was driven by a higher cause and the other purely by revenge but together tied by a code of honor that only warriors understand. Like Durga, they emanated power yet retained the sensuousness of a woman’s grace and that was Stuntman Bob’s undoing in Death Proof when he picks three hot babes to kill but they turn out to be equally psychotic. The movie was a celebration of raw female power which in real life is hardly considered to be acceptable. In many ways, Death Proof was a tribute to the spurt of exploitative flicks of the 70s and 80s where women often took their revenge in the most gruesome manner possible.

Women who live lives like men are hardly accepted by society. Remember the US soldier who had a ciggie in her mouth and naked Iraqi prisoner on a leash? We squirmed as the picture flashed on our TVs, newspapers and seemed to be burned in our collective consciousness.

Can women be that evil in their hatred? No matter how much we may appreciate our female warriors but they do have their dark sides. They sell their souls to the devil to enjoy experiences that most women wouldn’t even dream of. The concept of conscious does not bother them, it all for the greater good. When corrupted by power they kill or direct to kill for to reach an objective. Indra Gandhi declared Emergency, Margret Thatcher invaded the Flaukner islands, the two ruled the respective countries as tight fisted as their sisters of the past.

Take the goddess Kali, while fighting the demons the blood lust took over and she went on a killing rampage. A psychopathic goddess venerated to this day despite the innocent blood shed by her madness. Isn’t that how we tend to treat our female warriors? We celebrate their blood thirst; be it in movies, mythologies or even in real life. When a woman hits back at an eve teaser those around her egg her on, appreciate her empowerment, they celebrate the goddess or the warrior residing within her but such acts are random since for most of us women it’s not a matter of survival as it was for Phoolan Devi The Bandit Queen who became part of the very pack that raped her.

In Kill Bill, Tarantino showed the maternal side of female mercenaries and even made a reference of one of the females in Death Proof being a mother yet in our minds the concept of maternal love being mish mashed with a thirst for blood doesn’t sit well. Phoolan Devi when reformed had two Great Danes and called them the loves of her life and some found that disconcerting. When male warriors can love and kill why can’t the female warriors do the same?

In the end, we are the same species but herein lies the difference - female warriors are few and be they Sith Lords or Jedi, we tend to follow their lives more closely than their male counterparts. They are the freaks of nature, the female forms of Shiva, the destroyers and procreators all rolled into one.