Recently I was watching the trailer for the forthcoming reboot of Tomb Raider. I’m iffy about it. As an Angelina Jolie fan, I loved the original franchise, and the new adaptation has more changes than just the lead actress.
This rendition with Alicia Vikander features a Lara Croft who is more person than pixel with sinewy strength and without the video-game curves. The trailer speeds along to a punchy version of “Survivor” (originally by Destiny’s Child). At one point, Vikander-as-Croft says, “I’m not a superhero.” To me, it could not be clearer that this movie is being marketed to echo the current female-positive movements in popular culture. The silver screen and the celebrities on it are now attempting to mirror real life, where women are pushing to have their voices heard and inequalities addressed. Audiences are subtly encouraged to watch this next-generation Laura Croft fight for her family and her life as if they were their own, perhaps poising her as a role model who would find the accusation that she “fights like a girl” complimentary. Queue the cheers of approval.
In Street’s article, the author points to a study by Kathleen Rockhill, who focused on the politics and power of literacy among Hispanic women in Los Angeles. Street summarizes Rockhill’s findings briefly: “[The women’s] faith in the symbolic power of literacy and education represents a threat to their male partners and to traditional domestic authority relations: but it also represents a threat to the women themselves as they abandon local relations and networks to enter the alienating world of middle-class America.” (Street 435).
I had the news on as I was reading Street’s article and thought Rockhill’s conclusions on the assumed power of literacy applied to the narrative of female empowerment sold by Hollywood pretty perfectly. Is the celebrity-led rally against misogyny a threat to lower- and middle-class women as they abandon their local constructs to enter the alienating world of Hollywood? While this is a pervasive issue that is applicable to women everywhere, it often feels like the only time it’s given a platform is when those speaking of the abuses suffered are clad in couture, cameras pointed and applause to follow. “Look at how much fun we’re having resisting,” the diverse groups of female celebrities seemed to say to the flashing lights. From my own less-lauded perch of resistance (aka my couch), however, their displays of power felt entirely symbolic. The faith we ordinary women place in the celebrity as a figurehead and a mouthpiece is a threat to ourselves as much as the patriarchy.
As Croft leaves her bad guy dangling from a cliff, I leave mine with a cliffhanger dangling, knowing the potential cost an outright refusal could have on my less-than-larger-than life.
We’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto.
I couldn’t agree more. I think that we often make the mistake of casting celebrities as social activists. Rather than engaging with the issues that directly affect ourselves and our immediate community, we become engaged in the disembodied issues of celebrities and more visible industries. Street warns against this use of symbolic literacy as a way of removing oneself from your community. I think that she’s arguing for a more grounded understanding of how this symbolic literacy shouldn’t be used as a way of removing ourselves from our communities, but to engage us within them.