Resident Evil: Apocalypse was #1 at this week’s box office. I will probably go see it, mostly because I like Milla Jovovich 
. She is a hot (a combination of striking novelty and beauty). Yes, I know the plot will be thin, but the action should be OK, right?
Another woman splattering blood on screen, how unrealistic could that be? As Steve Sailer has said: “This is always hyped as feminist empowerment (a la “Charlie’s Angels”), but it’s driven far more by the adolescent male’s wish that sexy girls would stop being interested in all that boring girl stuff and start being interested in cool boy stuff like fighting and guns.” A few months back I defended female militarism in the recent King Arthur flick by appealing to historical precedents of Celtic women warriors: Boudicca, Mebh or the goddess of war, Morrigan. Looking cross-culturally, Athena was a goddess of war & wisdom. The Valkyries are often depicted as women warriors. The goddess Kali has a well known dark & bloody side. Artemis, also known as Ishtar and Astarte, manifested a peculiar interest in nonfeminine activities such as hunting (the Amazons worshipped her). Occassionally the cult of a woman warrior is focused upon a living individual, Joan of Arc, or the Trung sisters of ancient Vietnam. This is not to say that war has ever been a dominant element in any societies vision of the ideal female. It would be physically difficult for women to become involved in organized war because of the physical strength demands, a battle between two phalanxes was often just a pushing match between men with pikes. A Roman ranker was expected carry nearly his whole body weight as he marched so that he would fully equipped to set up camp in the middle of nowhere. Even when women have led in battle it is usually in a religio-messianic role or as an outgrowth of their temporal power. They are manifesting their class or caste origins rather than their gender (symbolized most obviously by Hatshepsut’s wearing of a fake beard). But, it seems that in light of the near absence of women as common soldiers, there are rather many female war goddesses and blood soaked dark ladies who serve as objects of devotion from men of arms. No matter the current cultural justification for the ‘buttkicking stereotype,’ I think there are deep seated evolutionary cognitive forces at work. Women and war become associated in a fictional or mythological setting in many different cultures, this isn’t the singular byproduct of Western patriarchy bringing in objectification through the backdoor of superficial empowerment.
First, we need to take a step back. Cognitive scientists Scott Atran, Pascal Boyer & Dan Sperber have formulated typologies which define [1]:
Intuitive knowledge domainsfolkmechanicsfolkpsychologyfolkbiologyOntological categoriesSubstancePersonAnimalPlantArtifactCertain knowledge domains apply to particular categories. For example, all three domains listed above could apply in various forms to “Person,” though only folkmechanics would apply to “Artifact.” These tendencies, or biases, are hardwired predispositions shaped by our evolutionary history. They are cross-cultural, and crucially, they display themselves from infancy onward. Infants react with bewilderment when they are shown an Artificat behaving and speaking as if it were a human being.
Some psychologists speculate that one of the functions of religion, or supernatural entities, is to transcend the typologies, in form if not in application. That is, God is not restricted by any of these categories. The “Holy Ghost” could fit into both Substance or Person, and one could imagine that Jesus and the Father are both forms of Person, but their existence and capacities do not really conform to personhood. Supernatural “facts” are confusing, jarring and they tend to destabilize our preconceptions. But our preconceptions can’t be jarred too much or we reject certain ideas, there needs to be a bridge toward reality and common sense. This is a sort of argument than many Christians make, in that Jesus became a man to connect in a more direct fashion than through avatars and emanations, and they argue that the more thorough monotheism of Muslims & Jews renders God too abstract.
Boyer & Atran have found that mildly counterintuitive ideas are the most memorable and most resilient to degradation (in their labs). That is, supernatural beings persist in our common mythology because they have an advantage over more banal and mundane concepts. Not only that, these domain and category defying mythologies often also tap into emotions like awe, fear or admiration, grafting the various elements of physical reaction together in a fashion that demands our attention and grabs a hold of our imagination.
These concepts aren’t just limited to religion & mythology. Larry Niven, a hard science fiction writer, has spoken of how one must balance reality and novelty in a precise fashion so as to keep the reader interested. If the tale is too banal they won’t want to continue reading, while if it is too confusing they won’t persist. At the other genre extreme, fantasy obviously defies ‘common sense’ and ‘reason,’ but novelists often deviate only mildly from our preconceptions. The protagonist might be able to hunt dragons and perform magic, but his name is “Jon” and he has sandy blonde hair.
Now the application to film and women warriors becomes more clear. Milla, Angelina Jolie and other acctresses who are playing the “sexy action heroines” of our day obviously do not comform to reality as feminists would like it. Both Jolie and Jovovich have commented on the proportions of the video game characters who serve as the basis for their roles. They’re basically playing strippers armed to the teeth. Nevertheless, the women remain women, and sometimes they will display female vulnerability. The heroines are well deviated away from reality, but they also don’t take the full plunge that their more progressive viewers might prefer. Violent, assertive and forceful, they are still ‘ladies’ on a salient level.
Today gender-equity feminism serves as the reason, but the basic process of constructing novel stories and myths continues as it always has, tweaking with our mental hardware and hijacking our biases. Just as examples of Athena or Kali led few women to a lifetime of bloodthirsty war and plunder, the new blood heroines will be politely ignored by most outside of the field of rhetoric. As in the ages past their main devotees will be young men, who explore the novel comingling of action-driven fury and sexual tension.
[1] For a full fleshing out of their ideas, their books would be a good starting point, In Gods We Trust, Religion Explained and Explaining Culture. You can also read many of their papers at their websites, follow the links to the side.
Posted by razib at 03:46 AM