Alexis Fleming

Dr. Okoomian

GEND 262-01

7 December 2021

Austin Power: International Man of Mystery: Comical or Degrading?

Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery is a 1997 film about a sex-positive spy

from 1960 who is cryogenically frozen for 30 years until his arch-nemesis Dr. Evil comes back

and tries to take over the word. He has to team up with Vanessa Kensington, who he frequently

tries to “shag”, in order to save the world. Although this movie is supposed to be comedic, is

there a line between comedy and objectification? This movie has lots of different aspects, it is

written in the 90’s about a man from the 30’s going to the 60’s, gender politics are sure to get

confusing. From social learning, to castration this movie shows these concepts in a “comedic”

way, but sometimes it may go a little too far. The Bechdel Test, Social Presence, Objectification,

Male Gaze, Scopophilia, Phallocentrism, Containment, Castration, and Social Learning will be

discussed.

In the first scene of the movie Austin is seen photographing women, then he is chased by

a large group of women fawning over him. I believe this scene and many others show aspects of

the male gaze, with both aspects of the audience looking at women, and the characters, mainly

Austin, looking at the women. Throughout the film the camera will focus in on women’s

features. Throughout the movie Austin is heard saying “yeah, baby, yeah” and “oh behave”

which I think have a negative annotation when applied to women he has just met. Although I

believe this behavior may be due to his social learning of social norms in the 30’s. Social

learning is “the process by which children are taught the rules of gender. and by which they are
taught to conform to them.” I believe growing up in a different time completely can mess up

social norms quite a bit. Applying these social norms in the 60’s he may seem a little out of

touch, but hey, he had been frozen for 30 years, gender politics are due to charge a little.

There are multiple scenes in which are phalocentric in nature. Phallocentrim “refers to a

culture or artifact that puts the phallus (a symbolic penis) at the center of power.” (Mulvey) One

scene in particular is near the end at Austin and Vanessa’s honeymoon, Vanessa is sitting down

and Austin is standing behind her and she blows up a balloon to look like a phalis, she also eats a

sausage that was placed where his phalis would be. Another example of phalocentrism is on

Austin Powers himself. His chest hair is cut in the shape of a phalis and is seen in many scenes

throughout the film.

In regards ot the Bechdal test, which consists of 3 components “ A) at least two women

characters, who B) talk to each other about C) something other than a man or men.” (Okoomian)

I do not believe that Austin Powers passes this test, although there are at least two women

characters, there are very few scenes where they are seen talking to each other, one of few is

when Vanessa calls her mother and they just talk about Austin. The entire time, all while Austin

is naked in the background with several different phallic symbols covering him phalis. Examples

include, a balloon being blown up, and a sausage being eaten.

I believe Austin's social presence, “the kind of power that visual representations of

men/women convey,”( Okoomian) is that of "King comedies" as Halberstam calls them. In an

article titled "Oh Behave! Austin Powers and the Drag Kings" she describes that these "king

comedies" were built around the surprising vulnerabilities of the English male body and psyche.

Indeed, the king comedy attempts to exploit not the power but the frailty of the male body for the

purpose of generating laughs at the hero's expense.” (Halberstam) Berger states that “ a man's
social presence conveys his power over others, and may be sexual, moral, physical, judicial, etc.”

but Austin’s social presence is somewhat different. Austin is exploited for the entertainment of

the audience, from jokes about his teeth, to embarrassing him with a "Swedish penis enlarger" in

front of his female co-worker whom he is trying to impress. I think these are great examples of

how Austin might internalize his insecurities and laugh along with the audience.

Objectification, “representing someone as an object rather than a human being,”

(Okoomian) is seen throughout the movie, one scene in particular is when Dr. Evil brings out his

“FemBots,” robots that look exactly like women, with guns in their boobs. This scene is a great

example of sexual objectification because it is not only a robot used to seduce the men, but they

were also weaponized as well. In this example Dr. Evil is turning women into weapons, not to

mention they were all super skinny, blonde, with blue eyes, and big boobs. I beleive this image

of the “perfect” women corrupts our idea of what it means to be beautiful.

When I first saw the main character I thought that she was going to be a strong

independent female lead, but to my surprise she is a prime example of objectification, and

containment. From first appearances she seems smart and eager to work, but slowly Austin starts

to make her fall in love with him. At first she seems to be successfully ignoring his moves on

her, but eventually she falls for him and ends up marrying him in the end of the movie.

I believe this is an example of containment which is “The act of limiting the "threat"

posed by feminism or by any dominated group. In cultural texts (like movies) women's power is

sometimes contained by showing them as weak, compromised, or ready to sacrifice their power;

this assuages men's unconscious fear that women will rise up and overthrow male power. If

women are represented in movies as being content with their dominated or second-class status,

viewers' unconscious fear of women's power in the real world is made to seem unfounded. If a
powerful woman is overthrown (she is killed, or fired from a job, or demoted) this also

"contains" the threat that she poses. The same is true if the powerful woman gives up her power

through sacrifice.” (Okoomian) I believe Vanessa marrying Austin in the end is in a way a form

of containment because she was domesticated, not only that but her power is taken away when it

is discovered that she was a FemBot and was controlled by Dr. Evil in order to mess with Austin.

You would think Austin would be upset, but the first thing that he says afterwards is “I’m

single”. This shows that Austin did not really care too much about Vanessa and that she was just

a hot woman who he wanted to shag. In the next movie there is no mention of Vanessa at all,

showing that she was not very important to him.

In conclusion, I think that this movie could be considered degrading because of the

multiple scenes with phalocentric imagery, camera gazes at women, sexual comments, and

constant “yeah, baby, yeah” coming from Austin. Although I do still enjoy this movie despite my

new look at gender politics, I can now understand how media can influence how we think about

the world through a gendered point of view. Although there is comedy in calling out these ideas,

did Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery take humor just a step too far?