Action Heroines in the 21st CenturySisters in Arms
£24.99
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Published 26 February 2027
About this book
Examines the collective agency of women in post-millennial action-led genres from television and cinema
- First book to focus on groups of women in action-led genres
- Has an international approach including Indian, South Korean, Icelandic-Ukrainian, American and British films and television
- Is intersectional - addresses age, race, gender and sexuality
- Thematically diverse and timely topics including eco-criticism and LGBTQ+ perspectives
Action Heroines in the Twenty-First Century highlights the changing representation of female protagonists in recent action-led genres. It responds to an upturn in women-centred narratives over the past two decades, specifically, those that involve groups of women in action. The work demonstrates how this collective agency reflects an increasingly global rejection of violence towards women (illustrated through initiatives such as the #MeToo movement, and the united reactions to the deaths of Sarah Everard, Sabina Nessa and the deaths of young Iranian women detained by security forces in Iran in 2022). It is against this backdrop that an escalating number of action films released over recent years counter contemporaneous perceptions of women as victims in the face of threat and enable progressive media representations of women.
This book charts such representations from a diverse range of national cinemas and genres, moving from remakes of Charlie’s Angels through to the Western, eco-activism, action-comedy and Marvel’s superheroines, thus providing a broad platform for its argument and highlighting the growing significance of action heroines operating collectively.
Reviews
Interrogating recent trends in screen iterations of the action heroine and offering a global perspective in doing so, the unique focus of Action Heroines in the 21st Century on groups and partnerships of women marks it out from existing work on this cultural figure. Essential reading for anyone interested in the intersection of gender and genre in contemporary film and television.
Table of contents
List of Figures
Notes on Contributors
Acknowledgements
Foreword - Lisa Purse
Introduction - Christa van Raalte and Fran Pheasant-Kelly
Part One Collectivity and Agency
1. Sisters in Arms, or How Collectivity Facilitates an Individual’s Agency - Alicja Bemben
2. Agency and Sisterhood in the Revisionist Western: The Missing (2003), The Keeping Room (2014) and Godless (2017) as Feminist Westerns - Frances Pheasant-Kelly
3. Gangs or Vigilantes: Locating Action and the ‘Angry Young Women’ of Bollywood in Gulaab Gang (2014) - Gauri Durga Chakraborty
4. The ‘Mountain Woman’ in Woman at War (2018): An Eco-Activist Action Heroine and her Sister(s)-in-Arms - Lavinia Brydon
Part Two Feminisms and Feminites
5. ‘Once upon a time there were three little girls’: Violence, Glamour, and Working Women in Charlie’s Angels - Lucy Bolton
6. Exploring the Second Closet: Femininity and Power in Charlie’s Angels (2019) - Aviva Dove-Viebahn
7. ‘I Know My Value’: Feminism, Femininity and Transgression in Marvel’s Agent Carter - Laura Crossley
8. Harley Quinn: Trickster, Action Heroine, and a Reluctant Team Player - Helena Bassil-Morozow
Part three Resistance and Recuperation
9. Friendship, Fashion, and Action Comedy: Female Partnerships in US Action Cinema - Yvonne Tasker
10. The Girlfriend Action Flick - Christopher Holliday
11. Armed and Dangerous: Policewomen in TV Series: A New Equality of Arms - Mathieu Arbogast
12. Sisters in Arms in Terminator: Dark Fate (2019) - Marianne Kac-Vergne
Part Four Intersectionality and the Evolving Action Heroine
13. Passing the Baton: Age, Action and Mentorship in Three Hollywood Films - Christa van Raalte
14. Be Gay, Do Crime? The Construction of Ocean’s 8 as a Lesbian Heist Movie - Esmé Fransen
15. ‘Nubian Queen Rise’: The Black Queer Action Heroine, Sisterhood and the Closet in Captain Marvel (2019) and The Harder They Fall (2021) - Jenny Alexander
16. The Old Guard’s (2020) New Order: Gina Prince-Bythewood, Andy and Nile, and ‘the opportunity to put a young Black female hero into the world’ - Deborah Jermyn
Index