Journal of Gender Studies

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Here’s looking at her: an intersectional analysis of

women, power and feminism in film

Jean-Anne Sutherland & Kathryn M. Feltey

To cite this article: Jean-Anne Sutherland & Kathryn M. Feltey (2017) Here’s looking at her: an
intersectional analysis of women, power and feminism in film, Journal of Gender Studies, 26:6,
618-631, DOI: 10.1080/09589236.2016.1152956

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/09589236.2016.1152956

Published online: 04 Mar 2016.

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Journal of Gender Studies, 2017
VOL. 26, NO. 6, 618–631
https://doi.org/10.1080/09589236.2016.1152956

Here’s looking at her: an intersectional analysis of women, power

and feminism in film
Jean-Anne Sutherlanda and Kathryn M. Felteyb
a
Department of Sociology and Criminology, University of North Carolina Wilmington, Wilmington, NC, USA;
b
Department of Sociology, University of Akron, Akron, OH, USA

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

While feminist film scholars have considered what makes a film feminist, Received 4 May 2015
we explore this question from a feminist sociological perspective with an Accepted 8 February 2016
emphasis on power and women in film. We take an intersectional approach KEYWORDS
to explore gender, race, ethnicity and social class in films about women. Feminism; women; film;
We draw from Amy Allen’s conception of power as the interrelated triad power; intersectionality
of domination (power-over), empowerment/resistance (power-to), and
solidarity (power-with). We then apply Sutherland’s elaboration on those
forms of power in terms of how they are depicted in film. Results reveal that
most feminist films revolve around stories about power-to; women finding
the courage to individually confront and challenge existing norms. Power-
to films are predominantly tales of white, middle class women. Women of
color are most likely to be featured in power-over films. Very few can be
considered power-with films that demonstrate solidarity among women.
We conclude that more women and men with feminist values behind the
camera is a necessary, but not sufficient, requirement to change cultural
representations of women and power in film.

Introduction
The question of what makes a film feminist is not new; it has been considered in film scholarship,
women’s studies classes, and popular culture. The answer depends in part on the disciplinary, ideo-
logical, and political stance of those considering the question. While feminist film theory has tackled
questions related to women and film for decades, our interest is linked to questions of power from a
feminist sociological perspective. Early (1970s) work on women in film from the US has been called the
‘Images of Women’ approach which attended to representations of women in film in historical context,
stereotypes, and whether film characters were positive ‘role models’ for women (Chaudhuri, 2006). Four
decades later we raise the question of how women are portrayed in films that are identified as feminist.
Our interest is in the ways women use power in the narrative context of the film. We draw from the work
of Allen (1998) and her conception of the interrelated triad of domination (power-over), empowerment/
resistance (power-to), and solidarity (power-with). Power, in this model is interactional, and more than
one set of actions/reactions can be found in any situation. Following Sutherland (2013) we apply Allen’s
conception of power to representations of women in film (see Table 1).

CONTACT  Jean-Anne Sutherland  sutherlandj@uncw.edu

© 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
 Journal of Gender Studies   619

Table 1. Power and powerful women in film (Sutherland 2013).

Power Defined In film

Power-over An actor can carry out his/her will over
another; Domination, empowerment
Power-to Sense of personal control; Self efficacy;
mastery
Power-with Coalition building that is necessary to
address oppression and inequality
(1)  Women become powerful by the adoption of masculine
characteristics
(2)  Masculine women often engage in the exploitation of
others
(3)  When women are physically strong, they are often highly
sexualized
(1)  Women experience life, culture and traditions as restrictive
(2)  Women find some agency where there was none
(3)  Women find they no longer need to be dependent upon
men
(1)  Women struggling within the constraints of oppressive
system
(2)  Women come to realize the extent of their oppression
(3)  Women work together to confront an oppressive system

Our research questions are: In what ways do women, in films identified as feminist, gain and put
power into action? What is it about the women and their stories that lead audience members to identify
particular films as feminist? What stories are told about power in these films and have these stories
changed over time?
To account for the time dimension, we analyze films over a 40-years period, from 1970 through 2012.
Our sample of films was generated through a survey and websites where individuals were asked to
identify films they consider to be feminist. We explore the question of different manifestations of power,
and link these cinematic themes to the time period of the film in terms of feminist politics. Before turning
to the specific methods of the research, we first consider the question of what defines a film as feminist.

What is a feminist film?

Much has been written about feminist influences on film making and content, as well as the ways that
feminist themes and characters are present or absent in film. Evaluating whether a film qualifies as ‘fem-
inist’ is a complicated matter and is often confused with assessing sexism in film. As Derr (2013) notes:
it’s perhaps most important to understand that the question of whether a film itself is feminist is often confused
with the question of whether it is sexist, whereas in reality the absence of the one does not imply the presence
of the other.
A popular tool for assessing feminism in film is the Bechdel test. The test includes two dimensions: two
women characters with names, who talk to each other about something other than men. As Zevallos
(2012) points out, this is an ‘explicit and simple way to show how film narratives normalize the domi-
nance of white heterosexual men’ by sidelining women and people of color.
In a more detailed analysis of how a film qualifies as feminist, Press and Liebes-Plesner (2004) identify
four key features: (1) women are present in central roles; (2) there is variation in age-range, size, sexuality,
race, and appearance of women on screen beyond the usual narrow parameters; (3) women are seen in
roles with power and status, and (4) there are variations from the hetero-normative depictions of family
(14). Aside from the occasional independent film, Hollywood, according to Press and Liebes-Plesner,
has not delivered feminism on the modern screen. Hollywood, in fact, ‘pays lip service to feminism’ by
inserting stronger women characters who are limited by sexist stereotypes (p. 16).
Strong women who do not also radiate traditionally feminine characteristics such as compassion
and sensitivity may be portrayed as successful in nontraditional roles, but they also pay the price in
loneliness and isolation (e.g. Meryl Streep’s character in The Devil Wears Prada). The resolution to this
dilemma often comes in the form of hetero-normative romance and motherhood, such as Diane Keaton’s
character in Baby Boom who combines her business acuity with her maternal instincts (which make
her a kinder, gentler woman) to start her own baby food company, allowing her to stay home full-time.
Another common trope is the ‘catfight’ where feminism (in the form of a ‘liberated’ woman) battles with
620    J.-A. Sutherland and K. M. Feltey

antifeminism (the housewife and mother) (Douglas, 1994). The resolution lies in the elimination of trans-
gressive women, as seen in the ultimate defeat of Glenn Close’s character in Fatal Attraction (Lane, 2000).
The ‘either/or’ representation of women’s lives in film stems from the media’s perpetuation of ‘Western
codes’ of dualism (Beck, 1998, p. 140). The portrayal of feminists rooted in negative stereotypes has a
chilling effect on gender politics. Women may identify with the causes of feminism and/or assume we
are in a post-feminist era, yet maintain distance from the label. As Moi (2006) describes:
… young women who would never put up with legal or institutional injustice believe that if they were to call
themselves feminists, other people would think that they must be strident, domineering, aggressive, and intolerant
and – worst of all – that they must hate men (p. 50).
Even producers of feminist popular culture may claim the message at the same time they reject the
label. Acosta-Alzuru (2003), examining a popular telenova in Venezuela, found that the show’s storylines
‘criticize women’s oppression as they attempt to inform and empower women’ at the same time that
the show’s creators reject the term feminist (p. 284). Even as the show depicts strong women, manag-
ing multiple roles, and resisting patriarchal oppression, feminism is described as an extremist position
that includes man-hating and irrational bouts of anger. Feminism, in fact, is seen as an ‘inverted form
of machismo’ (p. 286).
Thornham (2007) points out that the process of producing text, the text itself, and the audience
reception become the ‘site of cultural negotiation’ (p. 9). Thus, there are multiple interpretations of the
text possible. Our research begins with audience identification of ‘feminist’ films. Their reading of the
film as feminist directed us to the text of the film and the ways that power are articulated.

Intersectionality and film

Hobson (2002, p. 48) ‘advocates a feminist film theory inclusive of race, class, and gender analyses …’
Early work on women and film reflected the second wave women’s movement view of woman as a
universal category uncomplicated by other identities or social positions such as race, class, sexuality, age,
and global location. In this paper, race and social class are included in the analysis. While an in-depth
analysis of sexuality is beyond the scope of the study, it is noted especially when it is a dimension of
the power dynamics portrayed.
A constant in Hollywood films is the absence or marginality of women of color, described by bell
hooks as ‘cinematic racism … the violent erasure of black womanhood’ (2003, p. 96). When Black women
are present in film, their roles bear little resemblance to the real lives of Black women. Perhaps not
surprisingly, in films created by and for white audiences, ‘Black people appear on-screen isolated from
their culture, their families and their iconography – except in the form of parody’ (Young, 1996, p. 192).
Manatu (2003) elaborates on the distinction between colorism and racism in media representa-
tions of black women. Accordingly, light-skinned black women are associated with femininity more so
than dark-skinned women who are often seen as possessing physical strength but lacking in cultural
definitions of ‘beauty’ and femininity (but interestingly depicted as more sexual). The proliferation of
images of light-skinned black women in film inevitably affects the perceptions of males and females as
they are influenced to associate lighter skin with femininity and beauty. European notions of beauty, in
the form of skin color, hair and, nose, have dominated film, denying dark-skinned women the cultural
opportunities to experience their stories on screen.
The concept of symbolic annihilation can be applied across ethnic and racial groups to under-
stand both the absence of particular groups, as well as the ways their portrayal trivializes or makes
their stories irrelevant (other than to highlight the dominant group) (Coleman and Yochim, 2008). For
example, Hagedorn (1997) describes how Asian women in Hollywood film are ‘objects of desire or
derision’ existing to add ‘sex, color, texture, in what is essentially a white man’s world’ (p. 37). Valdivia
(2000) describes the limited roles portraying Latinas, some of which (maid, welfare mother) overlap
with stereotypical African American images. She notes that the binary for Latinas is the ‘rosary-pray-
ing maid or devoted mother’ on the one hand, and the highly sexualized ‘spitfire’ on the other, both
 Journal of Gender Studies   621

speaking heavily accented English (p. 92). Social class is often conflated with ethnicity in a ‘classic case
of piggybacking undervalued positions’ (p. 97).
The overarching story of social class in the movies is the story of upward mobility with a focus on
individualism, (unlimited) opportunity, and attainment of the American Dream (Sutherland and Feltey,
2013). However, McLaughlin (1997) cautions that ‘feminist scholars may be unaware of the extent to
which they have embraced the liberal ideology of individual success and upward mobility in substi-
tuting status for class and gauging class position by the criteria of education and occupation’ (p. 37).
She notes that social class has been under-theorized in feminist scholarship on culture, treated as just
another group or identity category separate from capitalist modes and relations of production. While
class status might be noted for working-class women, for example, the ruling relations of power remain
hidden and unexamined.

Research methods
For this study we used a three-stage process to identify and analyze feminist films. In the first stage we
distributed a short survey, posted to Survey Monkey, in which we posed the open-ended questions:
‘Can you think of specific films that you would label feminist films?’; ‘In your opinion, what makes a
film a feminist film?’ and; ‘Can you think of specific films that portray powerful women?’ In addition,
we controlled for sex, age and occupation. Because the websites we also accessed (see below) did not
account for race, ethnicity or, social class we did not inquire about those statuses in our survey.
The survey was distributed to: (1) Melissa Silverstein at Women and Hollywood (http://womenand-
hollywood.com/) and (2) the editors at feministing.com. Both of these popular websites posted the link.
The link was also posted on the authors’ personal Facebook pages as well as to the Facebook page for
Cinematic Sociology: Social Life in Film. The link was tweeted by the editor of Online Therapy Institute.
Additionally, the women’s resource center at the first author’s university posted the survey link in a
mass email. These sampling efforts resulted in a total of 57 respondents; 93% identified as female and
the age range was 20 through 69.
To expand the pool of feminist films, we searched a number of film-related websites using the key-
word ‘feminist.’ Doing so revealed 11 ‘partial matches’ with sub-categories including ‘feminist-activism,’
‘feminist-movie,’ ‘anti-feminist’ and, ‘feminist-politics.’ ‘Approximate matches’ yielded eight additional
sub-categories including ‘Homophobic feminism,’ ‘feminine-hygiene’ and, ‘divine-feminism.’ Selecting
‘best feminist titles’ resulted in 444 titles that included documentaries, documentary shorts, television
movies and series and, movies. Refining the search to select movies resulted in a list of 139 film titles.
A blog entry at feministing.com had previously posed this question to readers: ‘what films might be
fun or interesting for a feminist to watch as entertainment?’ That very long thread produced over 100
film titles, which we added to our growing sample.
After collecting the list of films from survey respondents and websites, we narrowed the list to films
that were mentioned at least three times. We excluded made-for-TV movies and documentary titles.
Therefore, domestic and international films that were mentioned at least three times comprised the
final sample with a total of 134 films.
In the second stage of the research, we ordered the 134 films by year from 1970 to 2012. In addition,
we identified director by sex (34% of the films were directed by a woman) and the race and class of the
main characters. The number of films directed by women increased over the decades covered, as did
the racial and ethnic diversity of the main female characters and the representation of working class
female characters.
In the third stage of the research we sampled movies from each decade. We selected these films
for representation across the decade (early, mid and late) and to obtain race and class diversity in the
main characters of the films. We each viewed the 18 films at least once, paying particular attention to
power in manifest and latent context. For each film, we each took detailed notes and shared these with
each other for review and comment. Analysis of the data was consistent with ethnographic content
analysis methods developed by Altheide (1996) and applied by Carpenter (2009). We coded each film
622    J.-A. Sutherland and K. M. Feltey

by power-over, power-to, and power-with, and intersecting uses or manifestations of power. We present
our findings by these power dynamics, at the same time we acknowledge that, while these may be the
dominant theme, other dynamics are almost always part of the story.

Findings: women & power in feminist film

In our analysis we found that films presented stories of women’s lives where power became manifest
through action, decisions, hopes and dreams, and relationships. We also found that women’s lives
were bounded culturally and structurally in ways that made it more or less possible for women to act
powerfully on their own behalf and for others.

Power-over (dominance)
In the power-over model, women use, in Lorde’s terms (1984, p. 180), ‘the master’s tools’ for power,
control, revenge, and/or protection. Halberstam (1998) argues for the importance of studying female
masculinity. Considerations of masculinity, specifically as the property of white, heterosexual men, has
denied analyses of alternate forms of masculinity such as those possessed by heterosexual and lesbian
women. Power-over can be seen in film when women exhibit masculinity in their embodied presenta-
tion and interaction with others. Paradoxically, physical prowess is often coupled with highly (hetero)
sexual imagery. Toughness and muscular aggression in women is gender transgressive, but tolerable
when the women are ‘resolutely heterosexual’ (Halberstam, 1998). As noted in Table 2, power-over is
reflected in social class and race, with working class Black and white women most likely to exhibit this
type of power. In contrast, ‘naturally’ feminine women are more likely to be portrayed as upper/middle
class white women. The power-over films fit into three categories: Blaxploitation and the action heroine;
rape-revenge; and grrrrl power.

Blaxploitation and the action heroine

Two of the three power-over feminist films featuring Black women were Blaxploitation movies produced
in the early 1970s, Cleopatra Jones (1973) and Foxy Brown (1974). Prior to the Blaxploitation period,
African American women were primarily found in the stereotypical roles of Mammy, Aunt Jemima,
Sapphire, and Jezebel (Hobson, 2002; Jewel, 1993). The Black Power and Women’s movements produced
the cultural context for the ‘tough, no-nonsense women’ who changed the representation of Black
women in film during this era (Sims, 2006, p. 30). One of the legacies of the ‘ghetto action film explosion
of the 1970’s,’ according to Dunn (2008) was the hypermasculine machismo that dominated the screen,
devaluing women to ‘bitches’ and ‘hos.’ Powerful black woman such as Cleopatra Jones and Foxy Brown
turned this image on its head by offering a protagonist who confronted patriarchy and racism using
justifiable violence. In terms of the depiction of power, we see these two characters adopting a kind of
masculinity (power over others) while, at the same time their physical strength is sexualized.
Pam Grier (Foxy) and Tamara Dobson (Cleopatra) were two of the most notable ‘action heroines’ of
the Blaxploitation era (Siefert, 2012, p. 3). However, they had different perspectives on the politics of
their characters; Grier felt that she had the freedom to be a feminist in her early roles (Sangweni, 2013),
while Tamara Dobson claimed that Cleopatra Jones was ‘not a women’s libber’ (Siefert, 2012, p. 1). Grier’s

Table 2. Power model and social class in films identified as feminist.

Power-over Power-to Power-with No power

Lower class W = 2 B = 1, W = 2 B = 2 n = 7
Working class B = 3, W = 15 W = 12, H = 1 W = 5 W = 1 n = 37
Middle class A = 1, H = 1, W = 5 A = 1, I = 1, NZ = 1, H = 1, W = 39 A = 1, W = 8 W = 2 n = 61
Upper middle/upper class W = 1 W = 16 W = 2 W = 1 n = 20
n = 28 n = 75 n = 18 n = 4 N = 125
Notes: A = Asian (3); B = Black (6); H = Hispanic (3); I = Indian (1); NZ = New Zealand (1); W = White (111).
 Journal of Gender Studies   623

movie characters used power to get revenge for personal tragedies, which according to Brody (1999),
meant she was focused on ‘private matters’ rather than fighting against ‘systemic oppression’ (p. 96).
Cleopatra, on the other hand, fought for the African American community and against systemic racism.
Regardless, both have been seen as emblematic of both the Black power and Black feminist movements.
As Gates (2011) noted, Blaxploitation action stars were ‘empowered, self-determining, and intelligent,’
representing ‘revolutionary possibilities in terms of both gender and race’ (pp. 119–120; italics in original).
One criticism of the portrayal of women and power in Grier and Dobson’s films is that there was an
antagonism between women along the lines of race, sexuality, and gender that was ‘instrumental to the
limiting of real female coalition building at a time when women’s liberation threatened male domination’
(Siefert, 2012, p. 12). Gender-based solidarity between women that would contribute to what we call
power-with was undermined by the oppositional positioning of women particularly in terms of race
(black/white) and sexuality (straight/lesbian). In the Blaxploitation films, the heroines were portrayed
as (hetero)sexually provocative and feminine. However, as Dunn (2008) notes, to focus squarely on the
presentation of sexuality in Cleopatra Jones takes much away from the ‘feminist as well as racial and
patriarchal implications of the characters’ (p. 87). The character, Cleopatra Jones, according to Dunn,
was a key figure for black women, feminism and popular culture in the 1970’s.
According to Goren (2009), the African-American heroines of Blaxploitation paved the way for white
action heroines in the late 1980s and early 1990s, such as Sigourney Weaver as (Ellen) Ripley in the Alien
series (1979, 1986, 1992) and Linda Hamilton as Sarah Connor in the Terminator (1984, 1991) films. White
action heroines, in contrast to strong (but feminine) Black action heroines, were more androgynous
in physical appearance and behavior. Their bodies were muscular, their clothing was masculine, and
their actions more significant than their sexual appeal to men. While there is some discussion in the
literature about the development of the maternal ‘instinct’ in these women in later films, the feminist
designation of these films seems to lie in the image of women as de-feminized warriors. In Connell’s
(2000) terms these women were aligned with elements of hegemonic masculinity, including physical
strength, calculated decision-making, and dominance over subordinate men.
Two other 1990s films we categorized as power-over, also directed by Ridley Scott, were Thelma and
Louise (1991) and GI Jane (1997). In GI Jane, Demi Moore’s character, Jordan O’Neil is transformed when
she is assigned to the all-male Navy SEALS training as a test case for women in combat. According to
Scott, Moore ‘put on 25 pounds of muscle’ for the part and, by enduring extreme physical conditions and
abuse, proves ‘certain women can perform any job a man can’ (Ollove, 1997). Jordan develops physical
strength and emotional restraint during training. In a pivotal scene where she is badly beaten by a
training officer, she utters ‘Suck my dick,’ through bruised and swollen lips, signifying the completion
of her transformation from woman to Navy SEAL with the requisite phallus. In keeping with hegemonic
masculinity, she claims the dominant position by subordinating the hypothetical gay ‘other’ in a show
of sexualized bravado. She is the man, and the man with power.

Rape-revenge
Thelma and Louise hailed as a feminist milestone in film, may be categorized as a rape-revenge film in
that the journey of the two women played by Susan Sarandon (Louise) and Geena Davis (Thelma) begins
in earnest after Louise shoots the man who sexually assaulted Thelma. However, as Heller-Nicholas
(2011) points out, ‘the oppression they rally against is more insidious than sexual violence alone; it is
against a tyranny that dominates them on many levels across a range of contexts’ (p. 107). She notes
that it is only after Thelma’s assailant yells, ‘Suck my cock,’ to reassert dominance that Louise takes aim
and shoots him, telling him to watch his mouth.
Heller-Nicholas (2012) asserts that while Thelma and Louise is a movie that confronts women’s
responses to abuse and oppression, importantly it also offers a feminist narrative ‘emphasizing friend-
ship, love and unity among women’ (p. 110). In some ways this represents a cross-over between power-to
and power-with since the story is ‘about transformation and liberation’ that is both ‘intensely personal
and deeply political’ (Lipsitz, 2011). Most importantly it is a film in which the relationship between two
women is central and the men matter only in their connection to Thelma and/or Louise. The ending
624    J.-A. Sutherland and K. M. Feltey

is not a cultural trope of ‘happily ever after;’ Thelma and Louise would rather drive off a cliff together
than return to life before liberation. As the screenwriter, Callie Khouri explained, the ending was not
intended to be literal (as in a suicide pact), but rather symbolic: ‘Women who are completely free from
all the shackles that restrain them have no place in this world. The world is not big enough to support
them’ (cited in Lipsitz, 2011).
According to Read (2000), rape-revenge films are best understood, not as a genre of film, but as
a narrative structure that can be found in films from the silent era to the present. She notes that the
rape-revenge structure was most widely disseminated in film in the wake of the 1970s women’s move-
ment and beyond. In addition to Thelma and Louise, other rape-revenge films in our sample included
I Spit on Your Grave (1978, remade in 2010) and Guncrazy (1992).
Both Guncrazy and I Spit on Your Grave were remakes of earlier films. In Guncrazy (1992, original
in 1950), 16-year old Anita (Drew Barrymore) kills her absent mother’s boyfriend who has raped her
repeatedly for years. Living in a trailer park, abandoned by her mother, her primary relationship is with
her prison-inmate pen-pal, a young man who was brutally abused by his father. Together they form a
‘Bonnie and Clyde’ fugitive couple, but their union does not constitute an escape route from the violence
and poverty that contextualize their respective histories and life together.
I Spit on Your Grave has been controversial since the release of the original (which was banned in a
number of countries). The storyline remains the same in the two films: an educated independent woman
rents a house outside of New York City to write her next book; she is gang raped by four men; she exacts
revenge, killing each of them in turn. Despite the horrified reaction of many reviewers, including Roger
Ebert (who referred to the film as a ‘vile bag of garbage’ 1980), some reviewers saw the original film as
feminist, pointing to the original title, ‘Day of the Woman,’ to make the point that the movie was about a
woman’s lived experience of rape, ‘an unflinching, powerful, and for some, subversive meditation upon
the reality of sexual violence’ (Heller-Nicholas, 2011, p. 35). In contrast, the remake has been criticized
for shifting the perspective from the woman to the rapists, and led one horror-movie researcher to
claim, ‘revenge is not a feminist act’ (Edwards-Behi, 2010).
The Kill Bill films (2003, 2004) feature the revenge narrative. Beatrix Kiddo played by Uma Thurman,
survives being sexually assaulted and raped (while in a coma) to extract revenge on her assailants in
gruesome detail for the majority of the film (nearly five hours for both volumes) (Smelek, 2007). Inspired,
in part, by the Blaxploitation films with roles like Cleopatra Jones, Kiddo hones her warrior skills and
systematically kills her opponents (Coulthard, 2007). Unlike Cleopatra who is fighting against systemic
racism, however, Kiddo has no political agenda. As Coulthard (2007, p. 167) points out, women’s violence
in film is ‘contained within some individualized, apolitical frame.’
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo films (based on the trilogy by Steig Larsson) are also revenge tales, but
Lisbeth Salander’s real victory is in exposing the systematic institutional violence of corrupt political,
legal, and mental health systems. She is a feminist heroine because of her intellectual genius, techno-
logical mastery, physical prowess, and ability to defend herself and extract revenge on her assailants.
While there are noted differences between the Swedish film released in 2009 and the 2011 American
version, both portray Salander as a woman who survives the abuse of individual men (her father, brother,
guardian/parole officer), gains control, and takes down not just these individuals but the systems that
make possible their abuse of power.
The source of Salander’s survival and triumph goes beyond her own individual efforts, however,
linking this film to the power-with films discussed below. According to Ritzenhoff (2012), ‘It is solidarity
with women and men (who love and support women)’ that gives Salander the power to fight ‘on behalf
of all women abused by men who hate women’ (p. 30). While she uses power-over in her intellect and
physical strength and agility, she does so in the context of relationships and with a critical analysis of
not just individual-level violence, but systemic violence against women.

Grrrl power
Films included as grrrl power in the power-over category are stories of young women confronting their
lived experiences of violence, subordination, and inequality. The term ‘grrrrl power’ comes from the
 Journal of Gender Studies   625

1990s riot grrrl movement; the spelling of grrrl denoting the confrontational style of the movement
(Zeisler, 2008). As Darms (2013) explained, the ‘Riot Grrrl movement empowered young women across
the country to speak out against sexist oppression, creating a powerful new force of liberation and
unity within and outside of the women’s movement.’
Feminist film reviewer Linda Lopez McAlister’s ‘private title’ for the film Girls Town (1997) was ‘Third
Wave goes to the movies.’ As she explained, Girls Town was one of the first widely-distributed feature
films representing third wave feminist politics which are ‘more like guerilla warfare than organizing
and fighting a coordinated campaign.’ The story focuses on three high school girls who discover that
the fourth member of their group who committed suicide was raped. This mixed-race group of friends
(two are white, two are Black) also represents different family structures and social classes. Their friend’s
suicide opens up the question of gendered-violence in each of their lives and they take action to expose
the perpetrators. In contrast to earlier power-over films, the young women in Girls Town act together,
in support of one another and to make a public statement about violence against women, connecting
this film to the power-with category.
Foxfire (1996) is set in a small town in upstate New York. The story is about a 1950s girl gang, bonded
by their shared experience of sexual harassment by a male teacher. Suspended from school for defend-
ing themselves against the teacher, they set up a proto-feminist community at the edge of town in an
abandoned house. Reflecting the time period, they vote against Black members joining their gang,
although the group is not completely without diversity since one of their members is Asian-American.
This rejection of racial ‘others’ could be read as a masculinized exploitation of others in their attempt
to attain power. In the end, their circle falls apart as they go their separate ways, but the message of
challenging sexual exploitation in the context of female-solidarity is clear. Emphasizing the feminism
in the film, the soundtrack for Foxfire, like Girls Town, is music by ‘assertively feminist performers’ whose
lyrics reinforce the ‘girl-centered themes’ of the film (Kearny, 2002).
Two other power-over grrrl films are from the horror genre, Teeth and Ginger Snaps. Both films
feature teen girls and the story focuses on their burgeoning sexuality. In Teeth (2007), the head of the
high school abstinence club, Dawn (Jess Weixler) is unknowingly afflicted with the mythical condition
of vagina dentata (toothed vagina). Interestingly, her vagina only ‘attacks’ with nonconsensual, forced
entry (rape), leaving her boyfriend, gynecologist, and a male friend penis-less. The overarching theme
of the film is the only safe sex is consensual sex.
Ginger Snaps (2000) is less direct in its message, but no less horror-filled. The film is the story of Ginger
and her sister, and the changes they experience as Ginger begins menstruating. Ginger discovers that her
body is changing not only in the process of maturation, but she is also affected by lycanthropy. Just as
her period occurs monthly, she transforms into a werewolf in a lunar cycle. According to Nielsen (2004),
Ginger’s transformation ‘signals the collapse of the border that separates civilization from primitivism,
animal from human, child from adult, rational from aggressive, active from passive, and feminine from
masculine.’ In other words, her transformation opens the exploration of ‘normal’ adolescent sexuality
and the binary traps that limit and control the lives of teenage girls.

Power-to (empowerment and resistance)

We found themes of empowerment and/or resistance to patriarchal power across the decades and in
the majority of the films we examined. In our sample, power-to films are overwhelmingly white and
middle-class, followed by white working-class women. The theme of power-to was most obvious in rep-
resentations of women overcoming obstacles and defying social norms as they struggle to establish an
independent, autonomous identity outside of institutions like marriage and the pink-collar labor force.

Overcoming obstacles
In the early 1970s, in the midst of the 2nd wave Women’s Movement, there were a number of movies
calling into question the desirability of conventional marriage for women. Starting out the decade, Tina
Basler (Carrie Snodgrass) endures denigration and disregard from her husband and children in Diary
626    J.-A. Sutherland and K. M. Feltey

of a Mad Housewife (1970). Having an affair only puts her in bed with someone much like her husband,
at least in terms of his self-centeredness and verbal denigration. As the narrative voice, Tina’s anger
and frustration escalates through the film. The question of what she has to complain about given her
lifestyle is raised in her therapy group. But, the question of whether marriage and motherhood might
leave something to be desired was also raised throughout the film, as well as the ongoing effects of
abuse on women as wives and daughters.
Not surprisingly, reactions to the film included blaming Tina for her circumstances; Ebert (1970)
described Tina as ‘masochist’ and ‘self-destructive’ because she does not leave her husband. Blaming
the victim, especially women as victims, draws attention away from the underlying feminist critique
of ‘the problem with no name’ that Betty Friedan articulated in The Feminine Mystique (1963). This
critique is apparent in other films from this time period, including A Doll’s House (1973), which evoked
conservative outrage that Jane Fonda was ‘espousing her feminist dogma’ through her role as Nora
Helmer (New York Times 1973).
Other 1970s films did portray women making the choice to leave, but the ‘happy ending’ included
finding love and romance with a good man. In Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (1974) Alice finds a man
(albeit a much nicer man than her husband and other lovers had been); thus, the critique is not structural
or institutional, but advocates a ‘choose better’ solution to women’s economic and social dependence.
Women can break free, but only from individual circumstances since the ‘social constraints placed upon
contemporary girls and women are deemed inconsequential’ or at least manageable through individual
effort and will (Gwynne and Muller, 2013, p. 2).
In the 1980’s several films portrayed women overcoming obstacles, whether personal or institutional.
Bagdad Café (1987), released in 1987 is the story of two women who break free from their tempestuous
marriages. Jasmin (Marianne Sägebrecht) a West German tourist in America (who has never seen a black
person) meets Brenda (C.C.H. Pounder), an unhappy, short-tempered black woman who owns a café
in an isolated, desert town. When Jasmin begins working at the café, the two women strike an unlikely
friendship across cultural and racial boundaries and both of their lives are transformed. While on the
surface this is a film about women finding personal power across race and class, there is familiarity in
the theme of the white savior arriving to straighten out the community, in this case with coffee, clean-
ing supplies and magic tricks. However, the alliance between the two women is important since many
of the power-to films separated women so their successes (when they occurred) were solitary, often
adversarial, and left patriarchal systems unchanged.
Working Girl (1988) is a case in point. Tess McGill (Melanie Griffith) achieves upward mobility from the
secretarial pool to the executive corner office. Although she is smart, there are a number of obstacles in
her path, including her lack of cultural capital and the trappings of her working class status as seen in her
presentation of self. Tess is determined to beat the odds and move out of the secretarial pool and into
the corner office. She tells her best friend, ‘I’m not gonna spend the rest of my life working my ass off and
getting nowhere just because I followed rules that I had nothing to do with setting up.’ Tess has never
worked for a woman before and she quickly learns that her boss, Katherine Parker (Sigourney Weaver)
exploits others for her own success. Tess adapts and uses Katherine’s absence from work to pursue her
own goals. However, reformulating her identity is dependent upon narratives that limit agency and
capacity for transformative change (Thornham, 2007). Getting the desirable guy (Katherine’s beau) is
as important as moving out of the secretarial pool. As one reviewer wrote, the lesson of Working Girl
isn’t that women succeed by working together, but rather ‘women have to destroy each other to ensure
only middling success’ (O’Keefe, 2012). While women compete with each other for seemingly limited
resources (there cannot be two successful women in management at brokerage firm Petty-Marsh), the
men maintain power and continue to exploit the women around them with impunity.

Defying social norms

A common theme in films from the 1990’s was women defying social norms. In Fried Green Tomatoes
(1991) a story of ‘female empowerment and bonding’ (Barker, 2008, p. 102) in 1930s Alabama is told by
nursing home resident Ninny (Jessica Tandy) to Evelyn (Kathy Bates). It is Ninny’s story that begins to
 Journal of Gender Studies   627

free Evelyn, a middle-aged woman discontented with her life and marriage. She has been searching
for meaning but failing to find it; as she tells Ninny after going to a women’s empowerment meeting,
‘I can’t even look at my own vagina!’ Ninny tells the story of Idgie (Mary Stuart Masterson) rescuing a
pregnant Ruth (Mary-Louise Parker) from her abusive husband. It is the life and community that Ruth
and Idgie create together that inspires Evelyn to believe that change is possible. Central to the story is
food and this theme carries through the film, with Idgie feeding the homeless along the railroad line,
Idgie and Ruth feeding the community from the Whistle Stop Café, and the ‘special’ barbecue sauce
where the evidence of Ruth’s husband’s dead body was hidden.
Like Water for Chocolate (1992), one of the few Latina stories in our data, is also a story of women
and food. Tita (Lumi Cavazos) is heartbroken when her mother arranges marriage between the man
she loves and her older sister; tradition dictates that the younger sister must not marry first. Tita then
finds that her only solace is to pour her emotions into the food that she prepares and discovers that
her cooking has the strange effect of transferring those emotions to others (as with the wedding cake
she prepares which makes everyone at the wedding profoundly sad). While Tita’s power resides in the
domestic sphere of the kitchen, she is not shackled by this work. Rather, cooking and feeding others, the
work of women, becomes a source of power. As Ibsen (1995) suggests, ‘the appropriation of “feminine”
values … such as nurturing and selflessness’ can undermine the patriarchal order (p. 137).
Two films exemplifying power-to and defiance of social norms at the turn of the twenty-first century
are Girlfight (2000) and Bend it Like Beckham (2002). Both films center on young women who want to par-
ticipate in sports that have been the domain of men, specifically boxing and football (soccer). Through
their success in these arenas, the women defy and disrupt ‘the gendering processes evident in sport’
and claim the right to strong (nonfeminine) bodies (Caudwell, 2009, p. 256). Despite the privileging of
heterosexuality, sexuality as ‘organized and regulated by social relations to power’ is called into question
in both films. Directed by women, both films focus on race/ethnicity and social class in the narrative.

Power-with
The most significant kinds of power-with films are those that show women (and men) working together
to enact some form of social change (Sutherland, 2013). While power-over and power-to are both
preferred over images of powerless women, power-with films hold the promise and potential of com-
munities forming in solidarity and working towards societal change.
Most representations of power-with tell stories of strength and resilience that come from commu-
nities of women. In terms of time period, in our data these films were concentrated in the late 1980’s
through the 1990’s. The 1980’s brought two films that capture power-with in very different ways. Nine
to Five (1980) is a comedy that brings Jane Fonda, Dolly Parton, and Lily Tomlin together to confront a
sexist work environment. These three defy an oppressive boss and shed light on the need for sexual
harassment laws and progressive workplace policies. In fact, 9to5, a national organization for working
women collaborated on the film. Not surprisingly, the issues addressed by 9to5 included low pay, lack
of opportunities for advancement, medical leave, and racial and sexual harassment and discrimination
(Nussbaum, 2007). While a 1980 New York Times review was fairly negative, even referring to the film
as ‘militant,’ (Canby, 1980), it is counted as one of the 20th highest grossing comedy films (Wikepedia).
In the 1980s Steven Spielberg brought Alice Walker’s novel, The Color Purple (1985) to the screen.
Writing about films like The Color Purple, and the made-for-television film, The Women of Brewster Place
(1989), Bobo and Seiter (1996) note that these films were important to black female audiences because
they offered a view into Black women’s lives that was missing from mainstream (white) films, includ-
ing ‘an emphasis on the process and survival of grief, on community and on family ties not defined
exclusively by blood relation, and on women’s lifelong friendships as a survival mechanism’ (p. 155).
Both films addressed intimacy between women, although they shied away from the sexual bond made
explicit in the novels.
Daughters of the Dust (1991), Julie Dash’s first feature-length film, was the first made by an African-
American woman with a general theatrical release in the US. The film tells the story of early 1900’s
628    J.-A. Sutherland and K. M. Feltey

Gullah culture (with an emphasis on women, storytelling, and folklore) off the coast of South Carolina
and Georgia. According to Bambara (1996), the central themes in the film include: ‘colonized terrain,
family as liberated zone, women as source of value, and history as interpreted by Black people’ (p. 94).
In our data, it was a decade before the next power-with film was produced. The film North Country
(2005) was based on Jenson v. Eveleth Mines case, the first class-action sexual-harassment lawsuit in US
history. The theme of power-with emerges at the film’s conclusion when Josie (Charlon Theron) waits
in the courtroom to see if anyone will be brave enough to stand with her in her suit against sexual har-
assment in the mines. One-by-one the women who work in the mines stand; Josie’s father and other
men in the courtroom eventually join the women. In this cinematic moment we see the limitations
of individual struggles against injustice – and what happens when women and men stand together
(power-with). Ultimately, in the film we do not see the long-term effects of the real-life case (that took
25 years and three trials) in the policies adopted by ‘most companies, corporations and educational
institutions’ (Rosen, 2007). In cinematic style, we see Josie driving into the sunset freed from the mines
having received a settlement check. The story of individual victory over oppression is maintained even
in the context of collective action for social change.

Conclusion
When we consider the representation of power and, more broadly feminism in film, one concern is
the dearth of women directors, writers, and producers in Hollywood. In research funded by the Geena
Davis Institute on Gender in Media, Smith (2007) found that out of 112 films produced in 2007 only 3
were directed by women. In addition, she found that when women were involved with films as directors
and writers, the number of speaking roles for women and girls increased. Based on her examination of
100 popular films released in 2007, 70% of the characters were male and 30% were female, resulting
in a 2.35 ratio of male to female. Hankin (2007) found this scarcity not only in Hollywood films, but in
independent and documentary films as well. Clearly to have a woman’s story told, the number of women
behind the scenes needs to increase dramatically.
The lack of female representation is especially pronounced for black women; their stories are seldom
told (Hobson, 2002; hooks, 2003). While it has been said that Spike Lee films have contributed signifi-
cantly to white understanding of black culture (Harris, 1996), Lee’s representation of black women still
falls below the male stories he tends to tell. Breaux (2010) argues that Disney attempted to answer
criticism that their princesses lacked racial diversity in The Princess and the Frog. He notes that critics
‘have pointed to the companys’ and the animation industries’ long history of presenting non-whites as
racial stereotypes and women of color as helpless, sexual objects’ (p. 399). While the film lacks ‘teach-
able moments’ (p. 406), the film is an attempt by Disney to diversify their Princess stories. In general,
Hollywood film tends to disregard the stories of minority women and when they do include them in
films, they are often drawn as stereotypes (Eschholz, Bufkin, and Long, 2002).
In profit-driven Hollywood, empowerment is packaged as individualism; challenges are resolved
through individual perseverance, strength, and exceptionalism. Rare are the stories of collective strug-
gle for social justice; even rarer are stories about women’s collaborative efforts to challenge patriarchal
social structures. At the same time, significant social change as a result of the women’s movement has
occurred and beliefs and expectations about women and men at home, work, and leadership have
shifted over time to become more egalitarian (Cotter, Hermsen, and Vanneman, 2014).
We have also found that the stories of women and power are predominantly ‘power-to’ and are far
more likely to portray white, middle class women. Fewer stories are told of powerful minority women
and, when they are, it is more likely that the kind of power shown is ‘power-over.’ White, middle class
women are shown shedding their repressive roles and ‘finding themselves.’ Seldom does this happen
for black, Latina or low-income women. Women who ‘do not feature readily as “post-feminism” heroines,’
including older women, working-class women, young black and Asian women, are not represented as
having agency, choice, or power (Thornham, 2007, p .17).
 Journal of Gender Studies   629

Future research
Future research could yield deeper understanding of the portrayal of feminism and power in films about
women. Focus groups with feminists from different ‘waves’ of feminism would render more insight
into how feminism is defined and interpreted in film representations. This kind of methodology would
also capture more variations by race, ethnicity and age. In the process we might find that feminists
of different age cohorts have different interpretations of the deliberate use of the word ‘feminism’ in
film. In addition, a more nuanced intersectional examination of women in film would not only tells us
more about race, class, and gender but also sexuality. Hobson (2002, 48) calls for a ‘feminist film theory
inclusive of race, class, and gender analyses.’ Ultimately, we want to know how films as cultural products
resist, challenge, and (possibly) help change existing systems of inequality.

Acknowledgement
We wish to thank our anonymous reviewer for comments on this paper as those suggestions strengthened this work.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors
Jean-Anne Sutherland is an associate professor of sociology at University of North Carolina Wilmington. She is co-editor
(with Kathryn Feltey) of Cinematic Sociology: Social Life in Film (2013). Her research areas are sociology through film and
the sociology of mothering. She teaches Gender, Sociological Theory, and Sociology through Film.
Kathryn M. Feltey is an associate professor of sociology at the University of Akron and co-director of the Active Research
Methods Lab. Her research focuses on gender, family, and disruptive life experiences. She teacher Sociology through Film,
Sociology of The Hunger Games, and Sociology of Sex and Gender.

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