Dangerous Dames. Heather Hundley

She uses lightning fast reflexes and squishes it between her bare toes as she leaves the blinded Elle in Budd’s trailer home with a deadly Black Mamba snake.¹⁰ In the Last Chapter: Face to Face, Bill met his demise when Beatrix performed the deadly five-point-palm exploding-heart technique that Pai Mei taught her. A lightning-quick, precise punch to the heart kills the recipient. Bill had heard about this method but was surprised that Pai Mei taught it to Beatrix; he was never afforded the opportunity to learn it himself. By presenting the feminine characters’ strength in an over-the-top manner that places them outside the realm of the real, these repeated violations of reality actually serve to mock and undermine women’s power and strength proclaimed by postfeminism. Despite Tarantino’s claim of providing positive portrayals for girls, his work counters his goal as the excess and spectacle of the hyperreal distract audiences from the traditional patriarchal ideologies embedded within the films.

      Modern Patriarchal Ideologies

      In concert with the films’ postfeminist and postmodern limitations, the Kill Bill films co-opt and repackage modern patriarchal ideologies. To begin with, hegemonic masculinity (Connell, 2001; Hundley, 2013; Trujillo, 1991) manifests in the Kill Bill films in numerous forms. Although the story is about a woman’s quest for revenge, a man’s forceful actions (Bill shooting Beatrix) catalyzes the narrative. If not for Bill’s decision, the story would never have taken place. Moreover, he shot her because he was jealous she was marrying another man. Hence, due to two men’s actions, myriad lives, including their own, were lost.

      ←32 | 33→

      Another signifier of hegemonic masculinity is that women submit to men, maintaining a patriarchal power structure in the Kill Bill films. The majority of DVAS were women, but a man remained at the top of the organizational hierarchy. Bill was the boss, and he directed the DVAS missions. His codename, Snake Charmer, reinforced his position of power as all of the assassins’ codenames are snake breeds (Black Mamba, Copperhead, Cottonmouth, California Mountain Snake), suggesting that he controlled them with his ability to “charm” them.¹¹

      In addition to a man being the center of action and the heterosexual overtones in their codenames, biological determinism cements women’s domestic role and the patriarchal culture embedded within the films. Beatrix’s quest for revenge takes place after she learns she lost her unborn child. The loss of the child fuels her rage and drives her revenge quest. Tasker (1998) argues that the heroic mother/wife motif is a common frame for female-bodied characters who risk themselves for their children’s safety and survival (Gilpatric, 2010). Like Katniss in The Hunger Games (Chapter 2) and Mary in Proud Mary (Chapter 4), Beatrix is no exception. Brunsdon (2013) concurs that maternal instincts are accepted as justifiable reasons for women to kick ass, drawing attention to female-bodied heroes in Aliens (1986), Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), Kill Bill (2003 & 2004), Xena: Warrior Princess (1995–2001), Alias (2001–2006), and Underworld: Awakening (2012), among others.

      Apparently, other female-bodied assassins also acquiesce to women’s inherent biological nature. For example, the female-bodied assassin sent to kill Beatrix disengages when she learns Beatrix is pregnant. In an earlier scene Beatrix allows a temporary truce when Vernita’s child exits the school bus and enters her ransacked home. These scenes suggest that when it comes to children, women’s “maternal instincts” supersede their violence and, even as assassins, their implied decorum protects children (also see Chapters 2 and 4).

      Unlike most action-oriented characters, Beatrix was not rewarded with a love interest at the films’ conclusion (also see Chapter 3 regarding Wonder Woman). Instead, she was “rewarded” with the return of her child to assume her “true” place in society—that of a mother. Unlike the reward of an adult sex partner, motherhood does not provide her with sexual pleasure or assistance raising the child; it annihilates her independence, ends her career, returns her to the domestic sphere, and forces her into a position of responsibility as a caretaker for another person. Indeed, her fate is sealed when the film concludes, and viewers see the following statement on screen: “The lioness has rejoined her cub and all is right in the jungle.”¹² This reifies the idea ←33 | 34→that women’s violence is permitted and forgiven if it is aimed at protecting children.

      Women’s traditionally subordinate and stereotypical roles are further naturalized by reaffirming gendered stereotypes of domesticity that maintain patriarchal dominance. Specifically, two of the powerfully deadly women leave their profession to settle down in domestic roles. Beatrix leaves DVAS to marry Tommy, give birth to her child, and work at a video store in El Paso, Texas. Similarly, Vernita departs DVAS, marries Dr. Bell, and becomes a housewife and stay-at-home mother in Pasadena, California. How these women, who were globally feared and at the top of their profession, were content (or would be content) as domestic dependents is never addressed.

      Even the fighting skills of female-bodied characters are partially demonstrated within the domestic sphere. For instance, two fights among women warriors occurred within homes—Vernita’s and Budd’s. In both instances, Beatrix prevailed. She defeated Vernita (an ex-DVAS colleague turned housewife and stay-at-home mother) in a fight beginning in the living room and ending in the kitchen, where pots, pans, and kitchen knives were employed as weapons. The fight culminated when Vernita secured a gun she had hidden and shot at Beatrix through a cereal box. After dodging the bullet, Beatrix retaliated by throwing a kitchen knife and ending Vernita’s life. In a later scene, Beatrix defeated Elle in Budd’s trailer home. While most of the fighting was hand-to-hand combat, Beatrix used a television antenna as a weapon, attempted to drown her in the toilet, and after resorting to katanas without the desired result, Beatrix ended up ripping out Elle’s remaining eye leaving her blinded in the company of a lethally venomous Black Mamba snake. In both scenes, Beatrix and her female-bodied adversaries channeled the weapons readily available to women in their stereotypical everyday life thereby demonstrating their comfort and superiority in domesticated space.

      Hegemonic masculine messages are further reinforced as (white) female-bodied colleagues compete for their boss’s admiration, attention, love, and release. The film’s narrative centers heteronormativity. To begin with, Beatrix’s attempt to move on from Bill and the DVAS by marrying another man is thwarted by Bill’s attempt to possess her, which is exacerbated when he finds out she was carrying his baby and shoots her out of jealousy. Moreover, while Bill and Beatrix’s prior romantic involvement is the story’s catalyst, Elle also displays signs of being in love with Bill and envying Beatrix’s past relationship with him. When Elle poses as a nurse and prepares to kill the comatose Beatrix, her action is motivated by her interest in Bill. ←34 | 35→Elle’s attempt to take out “the other woman” goes awry, however, when Bill calls Elle to direct her to abort the mission. Bill claims, “one thing we won’t do is sneak into her room in the night like a filthy rat and kill her in her sleep. And the reason we won’t do that thing is because…that thing would lower us.” Although disappointed, Elle acquiesces to his orders, but before ending the phone conversation confesses to Bill that she loved him. Thus, despite its postfeminist façade, the dangerous dames of Kill Bill still vie for the love and approval of a man (Dow, 2006). Portraying the love of a man as the ultimate prize—or in Kiddo’s case, love’s reversal in the form of revenge—naturalizes heteronormativity and constructs women’s motivations as determined by men’s affections.

      The Kill Bill