Vasquez: An Original Active Female on Screen
Vasquez has the biggest gun of the bunch.
The cultural attitude towards gender has often been a contested hot topic within our society. Today, a more liberal zeitgeist applies less stigma towards ideas of trans, fluid, and non-binary genders. Although this progressive perspective is only just becoming more widespread, it is interesting to find early representations of transgressive gender within mainstream media.
In particular, the 1980s was an interesting decade for gender politics within Hollywood cinema. The dominant on-screen image consisted of hyper-masculine figures often portrayed by the hard-bodied muscular male stars: Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone. This dominant image essentially acted as a backlash to second-wave feminism castrating outdated masculine ideals.
The Active Female On-Screen
As well as ‘hard-body’ masculinity, changes in the representation of femininity were also apparent as women became more “active” on-screen. The iconic heroine that embodied this being Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) of the Alien franchise. On the whole, the franchise provides a goldmine of progressive feminist values as well as being a pinnacle of mainstream cinema. The most progressive film in terms of gender ideology within the franchise, and perhaps the cinematic decade, is Aliens (1986).
Aliens provides two interesting and different representations of a more active female on-screen. Although Ripley is extremely important within the progression of femininity on-screen, more attention has to be paid to the other strong female presence within the film, Vasquez (Jenette Goldstein). She is the constructed gender image of the ‘in-between’, the ‘designer dyke’: a hyper-masculine female.
The physical representation of Vasquez is an extreme subversion of the passive ‘to-be-looked-at’ female of classical Hollywood. Her jarhead haircut and rippling physique make her as powerful and ‘active’ as the1980’s ‘hard-bodies’. The first image we see of Vasquez is a mid-shot of her performing pull-ups. Just like the Schwarzenegger’s and Stallone’s of the era, the muscular body dominates the focus of the shot. Her costume is arguably also similar, as her red bandana could be read as a homage to John Rambo (Sylvester Stallone) of First Blood (1982).
The Symbolic Order
Due to her powerful image, Vasquez is accepted into the masculine regiment, “one of the boys”. She obtains all the attributes of the alpha male while obtaining her feminine identity. Judith Halberstaim labels the character Vasquez as one of Hollywood’s ‘fantasy butches’. Halberstaim observes that;
Vasquez displays her butch iconicity in this film through an elaborate ritual of physical prowess, smart talk, and her ability to handle firearms.
Interestingly, Halberstaim’s final point of firearms connoting masculinity is exaggerated within the representation of Vasquez. A clear symbolic order of phallic symbolism is portrayed with the use of the outrageously huge prop of the “smart gun”. Without putting it crudely… Vasquez has the biggest gun of the bunch.
A Different ‘Gaze’
Furthermore, Vasquez’ positioning in terms of the symbolic order is similar to that of the active male voyeur. Laura Mulvey observes that:
active and passive roles in film narrative are divided along sex lines.
One example in which Vaquez is positioned among the active males is that she provides a subjective ‘male gaze’ for the male viewer. The camera brushes up against her point of view as Ripley is wandering around the cabin in her underwear. She gazes at Ripley in a sexual manner as she reacts to the image by commenting “que bonita” (what a beauty).
One of Mulvey’s key theories is that classical Hollywood cinema is aimed at a presumed male spectator, who identifies with a male character’s gaze. In this example for the male spectator to gratify with the gaze, they must identify with the gaze of a female character. Therefore the positioning, in this case, provides a subversion to the classical gaze, not a male heterosexual gaze, but in fact a homosexual gaze.
Masculinity Provoked
Although Vasquez is mostly accepted by the battalion, her “butch” identity does undergo some mockery by one of her more ignorant fellow soldiers. Hudson (Bill Paxton) mocks Vasquez by questioning her gender with the infamous remark; “has anyone ever mistaken you for a man”. Although Vaquez is essentially “one of the boys”, her “butch” identity is still considered as “Other” amongst the male-dominated group of soldiers. This is due to the lesbian threat towards masculinity with Vasquez’s machismo. The spectacle of her muscled arms and shoulders rather than her cleavage establishes her as the lesbian Other within the subjected male gaze. According to Barbara Creed:
One does not need a specific kind of body to become-or to be seen as a lesbian. All female bodies represent the threat or potential- depending on how you see it- of lesbianism. Within homophobic cultural practices, the lesbian body is constructed as monstrous in relation to male fantasies.
Masculinity as the Monster
Due to the fact that Vasquez is a powerful active female figure on-screen, and a large threat to the male gaze, she is inevitably punished. The antagonists of the films, the Xenomorphs, are represented as an anthropomorphic extreme of masculine identity. Not only are they terrifying, but the aliens also are tremendously strong, extremely volatile, and have phallic-like statures; particularly with their long heads with penetrating tongues.
Vasquez is caught within a fight and power struggle with this hyper-masculine figure and essentially ends up on the losing end. Judith Halberstaim notes that; ‘[n]either pull-ups nor a moment of butch bonding with a male marine can pull her from the jaws of death, and this butch meets a gory untimely end.’ However, as an active female on screen, Vasquez does not go down without a fight. Right until her dying breath, she fights off the masculine oppression of the Xenomorphs and adds to her kill count that can only be rivaled by fellow active female, Ripley.
Originally published at https://reelrundown.com on March 3, 2021.
