Witness Her
On Charlize Theron’s Ascendance to the Action Star Throne
This is the Sunday edition of Paging Dr. Lesbian. Plus, this week’s dispatch from the lesbian internet. If you like this type of thing, subscribe! A note: this post is too long to fit in a single email – you might consider reading it on-site.
Over her two-decade-long career, South African actor Charlize Theron has been known as many things – an ingenue, a “cool girl,” a bombshell, a bitch. But over the last several years, she has become known as something else – one of today’s preeminent (female) action stars. While the term “female action star” is at best redundant, its tautology also reveals the relative rarity of Theron’s position. Indeed, part of the reason Theron has been able to gain traction as an action hero is through her increasingly powerful role as a producer in the films she stars in. Though she is by no means the first prominent female action star, her ascension to such a position reflects how this role functions in an increasingly diversified televisual landscape.
There is a long legacy of the female action star prior to Theron’s entrance on the scene, many of whom have paved the way for the work she has been able to do today. One of the first – and still to this day, one of the most popular – action heroines is Sigourney Weaver in the Alien franchise. While the Alien films might align more closely with the horror or sci-fi genres, Weaver undoubtedly deserves a place in the conversation, particularly when you consider the intense physicality of her role and the way this aligns with the appeal of action stars writ large. Weaver also played the role of Ellen Ripley from the age of 30 to the age of 48, a feat that would likely still be considered an anomaly in today’s world. (This also goes back to the power her physicality commands in these films, something that is particularly on display in Alien: Resurrection, the last Alien movie she starred in).
Pre-dating Weaver’s turn in Alien is Pam Grier, who I think could conceivably be called the first female action star in American cinema. During the 1970s Grier primarily starred in blaxploitation films such as Coffy (1973), and Foxy Brown (1974), as well as several women-in-prison films. Because these films were not as popular with non-black audiences as the Alien films were, Grier’s significance in this history often isn’t considered as much as it should be.
In the 1980s we had Linda Hamilton in the Terminator movies (though she only appears in the first, second, and sixth in the franchise, a grave oversight on the part of producers, in my opinion). Milla Jovovich arrived on the scene in the Bruce Willis-led film The Fith Element (1997), and continued on to star in the Resident Evil series. We might also include Uma Thurman here for her iconic role in the Kill Bill series, but she didn’t do more action after her work with Tarantino (perhaps because of how he treated her on set).
I will also mention Jennifer Garner and her criminally underrated performance in the J.J. Abrams series Alias (as well as the universally panned Elektra (2005) and Peppermint (2008)), but her action career never quite flourished either. Similarly, we could have had an action superstar with Nikita’s excellent Maggie Q, but she was not quite able to break into the action genre in the way (I think) she deserved.
Certainly, we cannot leave Angelina Jolie out of this conversation. Her famous roles are, of course, in Mr. and Mrs. Smith (2005) and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001), as well as Salt (2010) and Wanted (2008). (She also has a new film out right now). Interestingly enough, Jolie and Theron are the exact same age (they were both born in 1975), but Jolie clearly got a head start as a bankable action star, known for her bad-ass antics as much as her sex appeal. Additionally, while most of the women I just mentioned (save Pam Grier) are primarily known for a singular franchise, both Jolie and Theron have had a varied action career spanning numerous different films.
Theron’s road to becoming an action hero has been a winding one. As Anne Helen Peterson notes in her profile of Theron, her public image has gone through numerous revisions throughout her career. Peterson tracks Theron’s transition from the “rural cool girl,” to the vamp, to the bitch, to the broad. With Theron’s “broad” persona – which she supposedly inhabits now – Peterson compares her to women like Bette Davis and Katherine Hepburn, both of whom insisted on defying expectations for female stars in Hollywood. But, because she has also refused to participate in Hollywood niceties (such as playfully answering rude or sexist interview questions), she has been labeled a “bitch” or a “diva.”
Nonetheless, her ability to get around these expectations that have been placed on her – and to pave her own way in Hollywood – is made possible by the very thing that spurred her rise to fame: her beauty. As Peterson notes, “She’s only been able to refuse niceness, onscreen and off, because of her beauty: It’s the capital she keeps cashing in order to get interesting roles that will de-emphasize, or at least trouble, the privileges that attend being a thin, white, straight woman in today’s society.”
When you look at the roles she has played over the years, this image-shaping becomes clear. Though her first credited film was 2 Days in The Valley (1996), her first “big break” was in the Tom Hanks-directed feature That Thing That You Do! (1996). This film opened up her career significantly, but afterward, she primarily played wives or girlfriends. In 2002 she starred in Trapped, in which Kevin Bacon and Courtney Love kidnap her daughter (played by Dakota Fanning). You could probably consider this film her first leading role in an “action” film, though it flopped at the box office. She was also featured in several other action-esque films during this period – the Ben Affleck film Reindeer Games (2000), the Robert Deniro crime thriller 15 Minutes (2001), The Italian Job (2003) – but she was primarily adjacent to the action in such films.
Her biggest career-defining role to date was in Monster (2003), for which she won the Oscar for Best Actress for her portrayal of serial killer Aileen Wuornos. (Theron also produced the film). Prior to Monster, Theron was considered one of the most beautiful women in the world but wasn’t getting any good parts. After the film, Theron’s acting skills were finally recognized, although much of the press around the film focused on her physical transformation rather than her impressive acting ability.
In 2005, Theron starred in Æon Flux, her first headlining action role. By most accounts, Æon Flux is not a very good movie (though this was likely not the fault of director Karyn Kusama), but Theron’s action chops shine through, particularly in the smooth, feline way she moves.
In 2012, Theron starred in another sci-fi film, Prometheus, a prequel to the Sigourney Weaver Alien films. That same year she starred in Snow White and the Huntsman (and its sequel in 2016), a PG-13 take on the classic fairytale. In both films, Theron played a steely blonde without regard for anything else but her own greed, an archetype that played into her image as a cool girl-turned stone-cold bitch.
Post-Monster, Theron’s biggest career-defining moment was her turn as Imperator Furiosa in George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road, in 2015. Once again, Theron shed her image of the bitchy blonde, instead inhabiting the gritty (literally) persona the role required. Her turn in Mad Max finally convinced audiences that she was capable of playing a no-frills, unmitigated badass, an image that would come to define her career following the release of the film, in many ways entirely eclipsing the personas that had come before.
In addition to finally launching Theron’s career as a bonafide action star, Mad Max also gained Theron a dedicated sapphic and queer following. (Though I’m sure some such following existed before the film as well). Obviously, Theron’s look in the film is very queer. (Buzzing one’s head is a queer right of passage, after all). Similarly, the fact that her image was clearly not made with the intention of pleasing a straight male audience makes her feel all the more special to those of us that do not fall into that category.
Certainly, action heroines have always been well regarded within sapphic culture. I imagine there must have been a substantial sapphic response to the Alien and Terminator films for similar reasons – neither woman is depicted glamorously in those films either, (thank god!), and in fact, both are quite butch. (If you do not think Terminator can be considered a queer franchise just know that I saw Terminator: Dark Fate in theaters without ever having seen another Terminator film because I saw Mackenzie Davis and Linda Hamilton on the poster). Angelina Jolie is also undoubtedly a huge part of this affinity, as she, along with being bisexual herself, has from the very beginning courted a strong sapphic fan base. Charlize’s action hero status is no different, except that she – in this way also like Jolie – can seamlessly shift from bloody hero into glamour icon, both modes being equally beloved by her fans.
Speaking of bloody glamour, in 2017 Theron starred in (as well as produced) Atomic Blonde, helmed by John Wick director David Leitch. (Theron also starred in The Fate of the Furious in 2017, but I do not have the time to comment on her dreadlocked role in this movie currently, thank you). In it Theron plays Lorraine Broughton, a spy tasked with acquiring a very important list in Berlin just days before the fall of the Berlin wall. Lorraine’s steely beauty is frequently marred by bruises and cuts and her character rarely (though perhaps with one notable exception) lets her guard down. As Manohla Dargis somewhat cheekily puts it in the New York Times, “the movie is an excuse to watch a beautiful, deviously clever female avatar as she is stripped naked, dolled up and repeatedly beaten down only to rise again.” Theron’s impressive stunt work (she did many of her own stunts) was the focus of much of the press for the film, a fact which gives her major cred as an action star. (Tom Cruise’s remarkable stunts are an enormous part of his action star persona, for example).
Atomic Blonde also endeared Theron even further to sapphic fans, as her red-hot relationship with Sofia Boutella in the film will surely go down in history as one of the sexiest sapphic moments in mainstream film. Moreover, Theron took it upon herself to mercilessly flirt with Boutella throughout the press tour for the film (in addition to doing the same with Kristen Stewart during the press tour for Snow White), which, obviously, is another surefire way to gain a sapphic following. Just ask any Cate Blanchett fan about the press tour for Carol. (Apropos of nothing, Theron has also said she would love to star in a lesbian spin on Die Hard).
In 2020, Theron starred in and produced the Netflix film The Old Gaurd, which was directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood. In it, Theron plays the leader of a group of immortal mercenaries who must fight to preserve their secret. NPR calls The Old Gaurd “a smart blend of action and emotion,” which I think is also a fairly accurate way to describe Theron’s presence as an action star. Theron has been able to productively harness this “bitchy” persona she had been saddled with earlier in her career by playing characters whose steeliness is made all the more compelling when you consider what’s beneath it. As Dargis puts it, “This distance adds to her mystery and it also makes the eruptions of violence more electric.”
Theron’s action star ascension has clearly been hard-fought (no pun intended), and part of what she has fought for is the ability to have a say in the roles she chooses and the ways she is able to wield her influence. Her role as a producer – through her production company Denver & Delilah, which she launched in 2003 – has allowed her to do just that. She has produced several of her most famous films (Monster, Tully, Atomic Blonde, Bombshell, Old Gaurd), as well as numerous projects she does not star in, such as Netflix’s Mindhunter and Rosamund Pike’s A Private War (2018).
Theron clearly has some business acumen, particularly in regards to the potential longevity of her action star career. Both Atomic Blonde and Old Gaurd are slated for sequels, and if we’ve learned anything from action stars in years past, franchises are a surefire way to maintain relevancy, even years down the line. Theron having a starring role in not one but two action franchises (Mad Max is also technically a franchise, though Theron will not star in the upcoming Furiosa prequel) certainly bodes well for the longevity of her action reign.
Theron herself has spoken about the difficulty of defining and maintaining “success” in regard to women in action films. “We’ve had moments like this, where women really showcase themselves and kind of break glass ceilings. And then we don’t sustain it. Or there’s one movie that doesn’t do well, and all of a sudden, no one wants to make a female-driven film,” she says. Hopefully, with her role as a producer, doing what Peterson calls “manipulat[ing] her pretty privilege,” Theron will be able to sustain the momentum she has created over the last several years, finding new ways to revamp and rework the images she has embodied in the past. Long may she reign.
Welcome to this week’s dispatch from the lesbian internet.
On Monday, many things occurred. First, it was announced that fans have made a petition to rename Ronald Reagan Airport after the one and only JoJo Siwa. Siwa is on board with this. (Literally, how is there a JoJo update every week?) On the same day, Samira Wiley announced that she and her wife are new moms to a baby girl named George. (Pictured below).
In other lesbian mom news, popular YouTubers Rose and Rosie posted several photos from a maternity photoshoot on their respective Instagrams. It’s a lot!
In other news, actor Molly Gordon (most recently of Shiva Baby) might be gay? On Wednesday, HAIM wore these outfits (below) to the Brit Awards (where they won best International Group). I had this written in my notes app simply as: “haim outfits at the brits (fruity).”
Also on Wednesday, Ellen DeGeneres announced she is ending her talk show after 19 seasons, as Autostraddle puts it, “Amid Endless Backlash (But Reportedly Not Because of Backlash).” As Heather Hogan succinctly writes, “kindness is not justice, and being nice isn’t enough.” Anyways, please enjoy the very relevant meme below.
Lastly here and here is some crowdsourced information and resources about ways to support Palestinians in Sheikh Jarrah right now, here is a useful website about Palestine, and this a great free e-book I would personally recommend detailing the historic struggle of Palestinians.
That’s all for this week, folks! I will leave you with this photo of Angelina Jolie and Jenny Shimizu on the set of Foxfire (where they first met and fell in love), a movie that I think is highly underrated. See you next week!
