Representation in Action Adventure Films

Task:
What would be positive and negative representations of women in action adventure films be like? What about for ethnic minorities?

Watch these clips/trailers

Who is being represented? How are they being represented? Is it generally positive or negative? Clip 1 Clip 2

Race
Villains are often non-white or foreigners in Hollywood Action Adventures.
The Mummy Egyptians

The Goonies the Fratellis (Italian)

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom Indians and Raiders of the Lost Ark Germans

Race
Asian (Chinese, Japanese etc) characters are often wise or skilled in martial arts (Karate Kid, Jackie Chan/Jet Li/ Bruce Lee films).

Blaxploitation
The 1970s also saw the emergence of black action cinema (sometimes called "blaxploitation") with both male and female heroes deploying violence, gun power, and martial arts against oppressive enemies and institutions.

YouTube - Shaft trailer (1971)

Many critics regard blaxploitation as a problematic mode of film production because it typically employed familiar but unwelcome racial and sexual stereotypes. Significantly, though, black action films of the 1970s strongly evince the influence of Hong Kong filmmaking on American cinema. In particular, the international stardom achieved by the Hong Kong cinema martial arts icon Bruce Lee (19401973) suggests the possibility of shifting the seemingly fixed association between heroism and whiteness in US cinema. Lee's premature death, in the same year that his first (and only) American production, Enter the Dragon (1973), scored a huge commercial hit, reinforced his iconic status.

Biracial casting
Just as 1970s blaxploitation deploys uncomfortable racial and sexual stereotypes, the 1980s variant of biracial buddy movies, such as 48 Hours (1982), the Lethal Weapon series (1987, 1989, 1992, 1998), and the Die Hard series (1988, 1990, 1995), has been read as a strategy to exploit and contain black male stars, such as Eddie Murphy. These films pair black and white stars in order to appeal to the widest audience demographic, and in the process black characters are typically portrayed within primarily (or entirely) white institutional contexts. More recently, Mary Beltrn considered Hollywood's deployment of biracial and multi-ethnic stars such as Vin Diesel and Keanu Reeves in terms of economic and cultural expediency

Die Hard

The cowardly/incompetent black side kick

Chris Tucker as Ruby Rap in The Fifth Element

Snails in Dungeons and Dragons (Marlon Wayans)

More recent improvements

Denzel Washington
Samual L Jackson

Wesley Snipes Will Smith

Gender

Women
Allowed to be tough, but still wear revealing clothes and are, for the most part, controlled by or need rescuing by men.

Angelina Jolie in Tomb Raider and Mr and Mrs Smith

Unnecessary shows of flesh such as this scene from Crocodile Dundee

Keira Knightley before and after being photoshop ped for King Arthur

Charlies Angels

marketing

Men
80s super macho men
Arnold Schwarzenegger in Conan the Barbarian and Commando

Sylvester Stallone in Rambo

More metrosexual heroes

Jack Sparrow slightly camp and very goofy

Spiderman he cries

Legolas (Orlando Bloom in Lord of the Rings) Bromance with Aragorn?

Ability/Disability
Villains are often disfigured or depicted as insane. Heroes are beautiful, graceful and gallant.

Jaws/Zbigniew Krycsiwiki in the Bond films The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) and Moonraker (1979) : YouTube - James Bond vs Jaws (Round 2) Jaws is meant to be Polish.

Bloefeld YouTube - Bond Villian Ernst Stavro Blofeld

Nick Nack in The Man with the Golden Gun

Rotten Tomatoes: Top 5 Bond Villains

Albinos
The Twins in Matrix Re-loaded

Silas in The Da Vinci Code

Bond Bloefeld

Bald
Robin Hood - Sir Godfrey

Damodar in Dungeons and Dragons

Pirates of the Caribbean At Worlds End Sao Feng (with facial scar also) The Mummy Returns - High Priest Imhotep

Alternative
Kill Bill female heroes and villains Daryll Hannah as Elle Driver

Demi Moore as Jordan ONeill in GI Jane

Point to consider
Is it possible to include positive representations of minority groups and still appeal to the mainstream? TASK use imdb to find out how successful the films with positive and negative representations are?
(See gross figure under Box Office)

What does this tell you about the audience?