The White Lifeguard ... when Hollywood racially defends feminism

Rogue, released in the US in August, starring actress Megan Fox, who stars as the leader of a group of mercenaries who travels to the jungles of Africa on a rescue mission, is a B movie (low-budget action and thriller).

In this report, published by the American magazine Foreignpolicy, writer Noah Berlatsky said that feminism and colonialism in this film are ideologically intertwined.

For a woman to star in an action movie is to be a white lifeguard, or a strong white woman like Tarzan, or ideally both.

The film revolves around Sam - who is the leader of a group of mercenaries - trying to rescue Asilia (played by Jessica Sutton), who was kidnapped by a group of people smugglers who hope to use her to pressure her father (the governor of the region).

After the plan failed in part due to Sam making the decision to rescue two other girls, the team took refuge in an abandoned farm to raise lions, and there Sam had to fight terrorist smugglers, defend her authority against those who challenged her, and work to prove that "females are the real killers."

Like many women in Hollywood, Fox is reported to have spoken out in recent years about sexism and misogyny in the film industry.

And in the movie Bad Boys II, she was asked to wear a bathing suit and 6-inch heels.

Then, in the "Transformers" movie series, director Michael Bay refused to give her any acting direction, except that she was "sexy only".

The writer noted that the movie "Rogue," directed by MG Bassett, is a partial response to the way in which male directors have tarnished Fox's image in the past.

In this work Fox filmed all of the scenes in combat gear without the slightest hint of any romantic subplot.

Contrary to director Bay's vision, Fox is not portrayed in this film as a mere foolish bicker, but rather a professional, brilliant, self-reliant fighter and the film's undisputed protagonist.

But Sam was not just a heroine because she was lonely and taciturn, but because she was saving white women from dangerous Africans who threatened them with torture and apparent sexual assault.

More generally, the film implicitly portrays cultural stereotypes regarding the innocence of white women and the threat that black and brown males embody.

In fact, these accounts have been poorly used to justify extrajudicial executions and racial violence against blacks, such as the 14-year-old boy Emmett Tal, who was falsely accused of whistling a white woman, or the Central Park case in which 5 young men were falsely convicted of raping a white woman in a year. 1989.

The writer explained that Hollywood still uses black and brown males to play the roles of traffickers and rapists to justify excessive violence, as happened in the movie "Taken" (released in 2008), or in the action and thriller film "Rambo: The Last Blood" (Rambo) : Last Blood) (released in 2019).

In "Rogue," many scenes are filmed of Sam committing extrajudicial murders of men of color threatening white girls.

The last shot of the movie is a general message about the misdeeds of overfishing and lion breeding.

Sam's bloody victory over African men conferred strength and ferocity historically associated with Africa.

In one scene, Sam saves a black man from Africa to assure him later that he has become a man, thus becoming the arbiter of black cultural traditions, and the savior of African wildlife that the selfish and narrow-minded Africans fail to appreciate, according to the movie.

Like Tarzan or Alan Catermen, or the figure of the ghost and other colonial heroes, Toxic White allows her to direct and embody African power more fully and honestly compared to black Africans themselves, according to the writer.

The writer mentioned that many critics have pointed out that two other prominent superhero movies in which women are taking the lead, such as "Wonder Woman" (released in 2017) and "Captain Marvel" (released) In 2019) they also use military and imperial coding in favor of women's empowerment.

In "The Superwoman" in Red, White, and Blue, the heroine deservedly wins in World War I with the help of her friend, an American fighter pilot, and rescues a group of multiracial Europeans.

Hollywood racism

As for Captain Marvel, who was previously a fighter pilot, the genocide planned by a group of shifting reptiles - which in turn seemed as uncomfortable as anti-Semitic stereotypes - prevented a fierce military race, according to the writer.

And the writer pointed out that the white women in these films symbolize valor by linking them to the US military intervention. They are strong, independent, wonderful, and good because they save vulnerable people.

Narratives that employ racism and colonialism to amplify some white heroics may seem stark and intense, because we are not used to seeing women as powerful in Hollywood action movies as such.

But it has empowered female protagonists simply by making them fulfill the roles normally played by white male heroes.

The writer touched on some films that do not reduce women's empowerment to racial colonial metaphors, avoiding works such as "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" (2000) by Ang Lee, and "Mad Max: The Path of Fury" (Mad Max: Fury Road) released in 2015, Hollywood fell short by aligning more explicitly into the feminist movement or featuring non-white heroes.

Indeed, despite some exceptions, Hollywood remains unable to imagine women's empowerment far from dominating marginalized or colonial peoples.

Just as global geopolitical power comes from the expropriation of other peoples' revolutions, so photographic empowerment arises from the exercise of life and death power over these peoples themselves.