The Change Mariner

Women, Violence, Movies, Governor? - Just like Arnold

New York Times:

The weekend after Arnold Schwarzenegger was elected governor of California, the No. 1 movie in America was Quentin Tarantino's "Kill Bill: Vol. 1." Given the proximity of the two events, it is tempting to read them as a parable about women, violence and movies.

Mr. Schwarzenegger built his popularity on larger-than-life violent screen characters, then parlayed this power in the real world to mount his campaign for governor. On the stump, he sometimes reprised poses or lines from his movies. Despite accusations from women that he groped or sexually humiliated them, he got 43 percent of the female vote.

In "Kill Bill," which opened three days after the election, women rise to a level of brutality previously reserved for men like Mr. Schwarzenegger. Where women go in this movie, limbs fly. Heads roll. Blood spurts in three shades of red.

In one scene the actress Chiaki Kuriyama, wearing a plaid skirt and schoolgirl blazer, asks a man if he wants to have sex with her. When he says yes, she stabs him.

"Do you still want to penetrate me?" she asks, pushing the knife through his torso. "Or is it I who has penetrated you?"

If political clout follows from on-screen body count, as it seemed to in California, you can only wonder what sort of political career Ms. Kuriyama has in store. Payback, as they say, is a mother.

"Kill Bill," which presents its highly stylized violence as visual repartee, is just the latest in a growing body of movies and television shows featuring wild women wielding weapons. From the animated "Powerpuff Girls" to the ABC series "Alias," in which Jennifer Garner plays a deadly secret agent in stretch fabrics, women are wreaking damage in ways previously reserved for the hairier sex.