Charlie’s Angels
This film is such a joy. As action movies go, there aren’t many that star women, and even fewer that star only women and are directed and written by women. But this movie ticks all those boxes and is funny and badass to boot.
The obvious should be stated from the get-go. Everyone in this movie is ridiculously attractive. And it certainly doesn’t hurt the film. But the thing is, it’s largely irrelevant to the movie that they’re attractive and have great bodies. Again, something we’ve talked about many times already this month, the male gaze is more or less non-existent in this movie. We see these women use their bodies for practical reasons, we see their strength and capability, and it’s refreshing to see them take charge of their own fate. Even in this scene, where they are literally just having fun dancing at a club, the focus isn’t on their sexy curves, but just on their general movement.
I don’t want to spoil the movie for anyone who hasn’t seen it yet, so please go watch it before you read the rest of my post. Because the thing is, the only heroes in this movie are the women. There are support characters that happen to be men, that help and are a part of the overall victory, but every integral character who’s doing the work and getting shit done is a woman.
We see a huge range of different women too. Not only a range of cultural and ethnic identities, but also different countenances. Naomi Scott’s character Elena throws up when she encounters her first car chase/gun fight and death. She’s softer than the other two main characters, Jane (Ella Balinska) and Sabina (Kristen Stewart), and she’s never shamed for it or teased. It’s just something that’s part of her growth.
We also see represented the way women are so often treated, in any industry, by the men who are in charge of them. Elena is coddled and dismissed by her supervisor, despite the fact that her concerns about their invention are completely valid and should be heard. Boz is also made to feel inferior and less of a real Boz than Patrick Stewart’s character, just because she used to be an angel. He refers to her as ‘Rebecca’ and ‘angel’ instead of her proper title, ‘Bosley’.
There are so many incredible moments in this film. Sabina and Jane learning to be friends and actually helping each other, Elena learning that she can be strong, even if it’s in a different way to her new friends, even finding out that Charlie is a woman. ‘Send the love’ is the perfect catch phrase for these amazing women, because that’s what this is all about. Women working together to achieve their goals, in spite of the men who keep getting in their way.
Don’t think this film is man-hating either, because there are at least four men in this film that have relatively significant roles as support for the women in the film, and they are certainly cast in a positive light. So no, it’s not trying to paint all men as evil. It’s just reporting the reality: the majority of crime, including assault and abuse, is perpetrated by men. It shows just what can happen when men do become obsessed with their own hubris and getting more and more power, but it also shows what the opposite can look like.
This fight scene, between Jane and the creepy assassin Hodak, actually serves as a great metaphor for how a lot of men view their lives, in contrast to how most women do. Jane talks about how, the last two times they fought, she ‘was learning’, not losing. She adjusted to his fighting style, she learnt how to act around him, how to tailor her fighting style to beat him. ‘You have seven moves,’ she says, and it’s a perfect metaphor for how men who don’t acknowledge their privilege so often go about life. They don’t notice when people make accomodations for them, but so many women are thinking about this constantly because that is what we’ve been taught to do. Don’t upset him, don’t make him angry, make sure he thinks you’re nice and pretty and friendly. We don’t have the luxury of letting our guard down and not worrying about it.
There are a lot of moments like that in this film, and it contributes to the reason why I think this film is so wonderful. A lot of people made arguments about how this movie was too in your face with the feminism, but the thing is, men have hundreds of movies just like this, and it’s refreshing to see it turned around for once. I legitimately cried when I finished this film for the first time, because it was something else to watch a film starring women that looks the way this one does. I loved it, and I definitely recommend it. I also recommend that, if you have seen it and didn’t like it, you examine the reasons for that and maybe think about watching it again in a different light.
Charlie’s Angels is available to stream in Australia on Amazon Prime, in the UK on Now TV and on Starz in the US. It’s available to rent or buy everywhere on Amazon Prime, YouTube, Google Play and Apple TV.
