Campus Chronicle

Issue date: 7/15/03 Section: Arts & Leisure

Media Credit: Photo provided The promo poster features a shot of the actors´ backsides instead of their faces.

Cameron Diaz, Lucy Liu and Drew Barrymore kick serious ass, whether they're riding mechanical bulls, gyrating in strip shows or dressed in overfetished getups. And they never break a nail. Is this feminism evolved, or objectification by another name?

The actors have faced this question many times since the release of Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle. And they have the answer well rehearsed. The movies show that women can be both feminine and tough, they say.

The movie makes the definition of "feminine" very clear. The actors are thin and conventionally attractive. They simply have to flirt and show a bit of charm - or skin - and a man suddenly forgets about those keys hanging from his side leading to the very important item that the Angels seek.

Of course, the Angels do their fair share of "masculine" stunts. They skydive, race dirt bikes and often take their famous "kick-ass pose." But do people see this as "women can do anything men can do," or simply as the cute antics of those even cuter Angels?

Strong women in film and television have become somewhat trendy, particularly since the 1997 debut of the now-retired TV show, "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." But Buffy never had to strip or flirt information out of a man. She just beat him up. The X-Men sequel released earlier this summer - despite its name - featured strong, independent female characters who showed very little skin. And yet even these pieces had their flaws. It was hard at times to accept the petite Sarah Michelle Gellar as the world's only vampire slayer. And apparently mutation also negates any genes that may make one overweight or conventionally unattractive.

Charlie's Angels has its own hurdles to overcome. The TV show on which the movies are based was known as a "jiggle show" where the Angels conquered "male chauvinists" for a living after they were taken away from the woman-hostile police academy to do the bidding of a multi-millionaire man. The movie sequel even played homage to the pimp/prostitute jokes that plagued the show.

Not only were the Angels never allowed to meet Charlie, but they even needed a male intermediary - Bosley - to talk to him. The movies preserve most of this storyline, despite the inferiority of women that it represents.

Then there's Demi Moore. A rogue Angel with an unbelievably-perfect and well-flaunted body, Moore's character is deemed bad not only because of her activities in the film but because she works independently. The morale of the story: teamwork. "We're a family here," Charlie tells Moore over the infamous intercom just before she shoots it from across the room - the most feminist moment in the movie.

The Angels are a family, and Charlie is the patriarch.

When asked her views on feminism, Barrymore - also a producer of the Charlie's Angels movies - often scoffs. She's an "equalist," as she once said. She doesn't believe in "man-bashing." Her movies are meant to show that women can be both attractive and strong, just like men.

I can't remember the last time I saw James Bond strip to get information.

And what if a woman isn't conventionally attractive? Or thin? Or is actually an average woman? Beautiful and strong has not only become "okay" in Hollywood - it has become required. Accept no substitutes.

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