Abby Perrin
T00685457
VISA 1500
Assignment #4
The most recent Hollywood action film I have watched is Netflix’s new release “Red Notice”. The film is a thief-based action thriller following the search for Cleopatra’s three eggs. The photo above is taken from a scene where the three thieves, John Hartley (Dwayne Johnson), Nolan Booth (Ryan Reynolds) and The Bishop (Gal Gadot) are all trying to steal the egg at the same time. During this scene, John and Nolan are working together and The Bishop is working solo. The scene is intense and despite the size and strength of the two men, The Bishop holds her own effortlessly and in heels. This portrayal of powerful women is often questioned: “Trends of women’s hypersexualization in media motivated scholars to consider whether this new powerful and violent female character typology offered empowerment to girls and women, particularly if she was also hypersexualized in the process. (Heldman, Frankel, Holmes, 2016). However, I find that The Bishop is very well portrayed in this film as what she is, a strong woman. The Bishop continuously comes out on top throughout this movie and is in a committed relationship with John. I personally found her to be quite empowering.
“Women and racial/ethnic minorities remain underrepresented in Hollywood, far below their proportion of the US population.” (Erigha, 2015). This is one of the main reasons I appreciated this film. Out of the three main protagonists, one was a woman, and one was a racial minority. To top it off, John and The Bishop were revealed to be working together the entire time leaving Nolan, the white man of the three, as the fool. The main cop in the movie is also a woman and the guy they are trying to steal the second egg from is also a racial minority. The amount of representation from the five most notable characters alone makes this Hollywood thriller stand out.
Despite the big names in this movie, it has not done so well in the box office. It is too early on for accurate statistics to be reported yet, but critic reviews are grim. However, the movie has an incredibly high audience score and has stayed in Netflix’s “Top 10” since its release date earlier this month. This movie is clearly resonating with audiences in a way that critics disagree with, and I think the big names and minority representation have a lot to do with that.
Erigha, M. (2015). “Race, Gender, Hollywood: Representation in Cultural Production and Digital Media’s Potential for Change.” Sociology Compass, 78–89. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/soc4.12237
Heldman, C., Frankel, L., & Holmes, J. (2016). “Hot, Black Leather, Whip”: The (De)evolution of Female Protagonists in Action Cinema, 1960–2014. Sexualization, Media & Society. Published. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2374623815627789
Red Notice (2021). (2021). Box Office Mojo. https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt7991608/credits/?ref_=bo_tt_tab#tabs