5. Compare the representation and narrative position of Lisbeth Salander in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo to two other action heroines from films referenced
on the course.

Order Description
5. Compare the representation and narrative position of Lisbeth Salander in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo to two other action heroines from films referenced on the
course.
Please choose the other two heroines film from the powerpoint i uploaded
Must upload an essay plan before 23:00p.m. 07/05/2017 (UK Time) at least 100words
Angels of Vengeance, Hackers and Action Heroines: Women in Contemporary Action Films and Thrillers.
Screening: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009) Niels Arden Oplev
The action heroine started life in 1910s cinema, with serial queens such as The Perils of Pauline and The Hazards of Helen. As such, cinema has always made space for
women capable of looking after themselves, but has more often cast them as victims of male violence and even women who are given action status, such as Lara Croft, are
often highly sexualised. This session will examine cinema’s ambivalent relationship with the powerful and independent woman from the 1980s ‘Reagonite’ career woman in
films such as Nine to Five (1980) and the conservatism of films such as Fatal Attraction (1987) to female cops, soldiers and space explorers in films such as Alien
(1979) to Avatar (2009) and question the extent to which women are both empowered and punished for their status in these films. We will look at the representation of
the powerful female body, as both object of desire and fear, and question to whom these films are ultimately designed to appeal.
Reading
Item 11 in the course reader
Yvonne Tasker, ‘Action Heroines in the 1980s: The Limits of Musculinity’ in Spectacular Bodies: Gender, Genre and the Action Film (London: Comedia/Routledge, 1993)
Extra reading
Yvonne Tasker ‘Vision and Visibility: Women Filmmakers, Contemporary Authorship and Feminist Film Studies’ in Reclaiming the Archive: Feminism and Film History ed.
Vicki Callahan (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2010)
Yvonne Tasker, Action and Adventure Cinema (New York: Routledge, 2004)
Yvonne Tasker, Working Girls: Gender and Sexuality in Popular Cinema (London and New York: Routledge, 1998)
Carol J. Clover Men, Women and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film (London: British Film Institute, 1992)
Andrea Weiss, Vampires and Violets: Lesbians in Film (New York: Penguin, 1992)

Further viewing
La Femme Nikita, Luc Besson (1990), Lara Croft, Simon West (2001), Kick-Ass Matthew Vaughn (2010), Terminator 2: Judgement Day James Cameron (1991), Thelma and Louise
Ridley Scott (1991), Tank Girl Rachel Talalay (1995).