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Spy, the newish action comedy, written and directed by Paul Feig, and starring the ever-brilliant Melissa McCarthy has been garnering accolades as a ground-breaking film. A. O. Scott lauded the “blithe feminism that makes Spy feel at once revolutionary and like no big deal.” And, a recent exchange between A. O. Scott and Manohla Dargis on the state of women’s roles in film had Dargis trumpeting the 60% female turn out for the film, “…all hail Melissa McCarthy—long may she wreck beautiful havoc on screen and at the box office…Her stardom affirms how certain viewers can alter our representational choices.”
**Yes, there are no end of spoilers. The movie has been out for over a month, people, deal with it.**
I don’t disagree that Melissa McCarthy is a comic genius (I laud her dramatic skills as well, which are evident even in this zany film), nor do I disagree that the movie is entertaining and even kind of empowering for women. In an action film world notoriously dominated by men both in front of and behind the camera, it was refreshing to watch someone (other than Angelina Jolie) throw herself into all manner of physically daring feats and cow various villains with her sharp retorts and increasing confidence. And, there are some clear feminist themes to be sure; the most powerful of which may well be near the movie’s ending which finds McCarthy’s character, Susan Cooper, choosing a “girl’s night” with her refreshingly off-beat CIA pal over having dinner with the James Bond lite caricature played by Jude Law (a man who admires his own reflection asks her repeatedly in the beginning of the film: “Who’s the fairest of them all?” to which she squeals “you are!”).
But hold on: The movie appears to move beyond the findings of a recent content analysis of violent female action heroes over half of which were found to be submissive to a male lead and just under half of which were found to be romantically involved with him. However, the primary conceit of the film is that Cooper’s romantic feelings for her colleague motivate her bravery to go “into the field” to avenge his ostensible death. It also drives her valiant behavior at the end of the film to protect him when she realizes he’s alive. Further, moments before her girl’s night decision, she happily accepts a future dinner invitation from a different man who has been sexually harassing her throughout the film (more on this below) but was apparently just undercover as a sleazy Italian agent (or was he, and cue national stereotypes here). And, the final sight gag of the movie shows her in bed after a night of champagne with the film’s bumbling if hilarious delusional narcissist (Jason Statham, in a send up of some of his own action roles) who quips when she reacts in horror: “stop screaming, you loved it.”
A colleague pointed out that the coterie of uniformly infantile and incompetent men in the film may be a more unusual turn than the strong female roles. It is an interesting choice, although somewhat remarkably, a few of these men still manage to preserve traditional power dynamics in spite of their ridiculousness. Further, oafish and adolescent characterizations of men in the media have been increasing in the last few decades, hardly a service to young boys and men. It may also suggest that women’s multidimensionality comes at the expense of men’s, which is a bit zero sum.
There are at least three other disturbingly sexist themes in the film that should give us pause:
1. The movie follows a seemingly timeless tradition of pitting female “types” against each other, and of dichotomizing beauty and brains. The latter may be have been an attempt to flip the more common trope of a hyper-glamorous action hero, but nevertheless serves to shore up the very dynamic it may be trying to critique (e.g., defining women on the basis of their appearance). Literally all of the traditionally slim and glamorous women in the film are superficial, spoiled, heartless, and conniving, in sharp contrast to Cooper’s initially hapless, low self-esteem persona and her delightful but even more awkward co-worker (who murmurs to some young attractive club goers at one point “keep laughing, looks fade”). There is a brief sense of camaraderie across the lines by the end, as Cooper and Rayna exchange affectionate “Fuck yous,” but on the whole the stratifications remain in place.
Next, Allison Janney plays a humorless, no-nonsense boss who appears to have broken the glass ceiling in the CIA only to unempathically chide Cooper for allowing herself to be exploited (“sniped”) by her showboat of a male counterpart. When Cooper weakly defends her position, Janney’s character quickly scoffs: “women” and then changes the subject. She also continues to give Cooper aliases that are unflattering images of single women, which is perhaps meant as a commentary about professional double standards—Cooper complains that her male colleague routinely gets to play dashing business men. However, in response to the “crazy cat lady” persona (“ten cats? Is that even legal?”), she laments that she may as well have a T-shirt that says “I have never been touched by a man.” This seems less a critique of the one-dimensional stereotype than Cooper’s chagrin at being given one to play.
2. The film uses sexual harassment both as a recurring joke and a form of courtship. In not one but two scenes, unwanted physical contact is used as a drawn out sight gag in which men end up face down with their groins just over women’s heads against her will: multiple dead men fall in this position on top of a disgusted Rayna; and the “Italian” CIA agent positions himself similarly while attempting to untie Cooper’s hands with his mouth. He explains that his “penis may be giving [her] little kisses,” to her mild horror. She later jokes she doesn’t want to know why her neck is wet. It is perhaps an attempt at tit-for-tat when the female CIA agents ogle a penis selfie on a confiscated camera, one even tsking “he’s dead? What a waste.” It fits with the general “if you can’t beat em, join em” ethos of the film, but I’m not sure that approach is quite as progressive as it might appear. [Research shows that men’s body image concerns are on the rise, in step with increased objectification practices in the media.]
Throughout the film, Cooper is on the receiving end of all manner of inappropriate verbal and physical behavior by the ostensible Italian CIA agent who is helping her out (and who has one aside to the camera to the tune of “One day, lady spy, I will fuck you”). She admonishes him, rolls her eyes, and says things like “did you just grab my butt?” and “Get your hands off my boobs!” It is nice to hear a woman explicitly rejecting that kind of treatment but it is clearly a vaguely feigned disapproval. And, beyond the seemingly trivial clucking the agent receives throughout the film, he turns out to also be a strong supporter of Cooper, admiring her skills and, at a critical moment, telling her “Susan, you are a good agent!” which seems to disproportionately lift her morale (her own earlier commentary to that effect “I’m not one to toot my own horn, but I’m gonna toot, I saved a lot of people back there…” seems less convincing to her than his). By the end of the movie, as noted earlier, he comes clean as a British CIA agent admitting to having gone overboard getting into character, and politely invites her to dinner next time she’s in England. She accepts with some amount of delight and poise. The sum total of all of this mixing and matching is that we may end up buying into a “boys will be boys” ethos with respect to inappropriate sexual behavior, and conceive of this kind of attention as not only harmless but ultimately effective and charming.
We could laud the attempt to portray McCarthy’s less than traditional movie star physique as “fair game” for sexual objectification; there are some scholars who argue that this kind of treatment may be a necessary step en route to more widespread acceptance (for women in our culture, not being seen as a sexual object can carry its own liabilities). However, besides the sexually harassing agent, McCarthy’s appearance continues to be a source of ridicule by other characters, male and female. In response to her attempted glamorous transformation to fit in at a high-class casino, she is met with incredulity that she might be aiming to seduce the villain (“Is that so hard to believe?” “Yes, you look like a flute player in a wedding band!”). Rayna repeatedly mocks her appearance (“We must discuss that hideous dress, it’s hysterical,” and “you have lipstick on your teeth; looks like you just ate a box of crayons”). Notably, they steer clear of commenting on her weight but the impact is still disparaging and appearance remains a focus.
3. Finally, Cooper’s transformation from meek basement agent to dashing field agent occurs by way of adopting a crass, sexist persona as she tries to convince Rayna that she’s a hired bodyguard. In retaliation for having been compared to Rayna’s mother, she hurls: “and fuck you for saying I look anything like that fuckin’ beast. No wonder your dad never got the son he wanted, you hit that once and you just walk away and drop the fuckin’ mic.” She later tells Rayna she “smell[s] like a dead hooker whose body washed up on shore after being missing for weeks” (something to that effect; she admits she went too far after Rayna tells her to take it down a notch. The implication is that she got carried away, but she clearly had fun doing it). And, she exerts power over Rayna’s young, pale, blond, male security guard by calling him a “Swedish bitch” and saying “you gonna cry, you Swiss fuckin’ pussy?” The lines are played for laughs, of course, and meant to showcase a more ferocious and naturally capable side of McCarthy’s character. However, it feels less like a triumphant display of confidence than a sexist stand-up rant and yet another example in the movie of a woman throwing another women (and a less traditionally masculine man) under the bus to carve out her own place. Part of the joke, I suppose, is that we don’t expert sexist slurs to come out of a woman’s mouth, but I find it hard to embrace the approach as a new form of feminism.
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As tempting as it may be to imagine that violent women in film are somehow evening the playing field, we might do well to consider the mountain of research that shows that exposure to media violence is associated with activation of aggression and desensitization to real world violence. Young girls and women are just as vulnerable to the detrimental effects of media violence as young boys and men, even if they are typically (though not in this case) less likely to consume it. Additionally, my work shows that idealizing a female action hero is linked to increased aggression among young women. It is likely that in addition to absorbing the positive qualities of our favorite characters (humor, intelligence, goofiness, warmth, confidence) we are also adopting the negative (sexism, violence, objectification) in any number of subtle ways.
And, as tempting as it might be to dismiss the disparaging comedy as clearly not meant to be taken seriously (can’t we take a joke?), we might consider research suggesting that exposure to put-down humor can disinhibit the expression of relevant prejudicial attitudes. Further, research I have done shows that even finding something as seemingly benign as a “dumb blonde” joke amusing is linked up to hostile attitudes towards women (among males and females) and to more benevolent but still paternalistic attitudes (e.g., a good woman should be put on a pedestal by her man) attitudes in males. One theory is that sexist individuals create “subtypes” of women; one group is to be revered if they stay in traditional bounds, and another is to be reviled if they step outside of them. These attitudes can also be directed toward just one woman, and embody what is termed "Ambivalent Sexism" (Glick and Fiske, 1996).
Entertainment media is riddled with ambivalence about women’s evolving roles ("Sex and the City," for one prime example). And perhaps if these kinds of themes spark dialogue and critique they are powerful in their own right. However, I think it is important to consider the broader cultural context; we are ambivalent about powerful women (Hillary Clinton is routinely chastised for not seeming more feminine and accessible). One of the ways that film and television creators appear to negotiate cultural anxiety around women’s agency is to reign in (or as a former professor at Wesleyan used to say: “claw back”) otherwise bold attempts to move outside the lines. Indeed, research has shown that female action heroes tend to embody both hyperfeminine (e.g., idealized beauty) and hypermasculine traits (e.g., violence). I have always wondered how successful "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" would have been if the titular character had not been a diminutive blonde who was bad at math and didn’t “look the part” (admittedly creator Joss Whedon’s main conceit in creating the role).
I understand that Spy may have tried to have its cake and eat it too with respect to capturing a mass audience and busting some stereotypes while reaffirming and/or reversing others. I also understand that entertainment media is in some ways a reflection, as well as a distortion and perpetuator, of cultural trends and tensions. But I can’t help but wonder how a similarly screwball, high production value Bond satire might have fared if McCarthy’s and her co-stars’ immense talent weren’t siphoned into so many all too familiar tropes.
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Many thanks to my Vassar colleague, April Beisaw, for her helpful insights on this piece.
