Sarah Connor: THE Action Heroine

Paper by Phill Hunziker. Viewed on Netflix.

Female action heroines have come in many forms. From the vengeful woman in Blaxploitation films to the costumed super heroine in comic book adaptions, women have been represented on-screen as the one who saves the day. Unfortunately, many of these heroines have fallen victim to sexualization, stereotypes and many other negatives that have always plagued women on screen. It’s difficult to find a heroine who can fully escape these injustices, but one woman can make a very strong case: Sarah Connor from Terminator 2: Judgement Day (James Cameron,1991). Her backstory, plot significance, motives, physique, personality, wardrobe, dialogue and cultural significance give hope for women on-screen.

It is important to note that Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) is not technically the star of the film. That designation belongs to the super-jacked cybernetic titular character, T-800 (Arnold Schwarzenegger). While that character is certainly one of the most iconic badasses of all time, the point should be made that he is not the most traditionally ‘masculine’ character in the film. That seems like an absurd statement, but it has truth to it. First off, the T-800 is not human. Therefore, the physical, emotional and intellectual properties he possesses are artificial and do not hold a candle to the natural ones that Sarah Connor has developed. Her physique and technique have been crafted and mastered through rigorous workouts and training. Her intellectual properties have come about through years of research, field-testing and experience. Her emotional state comes from real trauma. Her determination is fueled by true love for her son and species. His properties are mechanically and computer generated. Secondly, as the film goes on, Sarah becomes more and more ‘masculine’ as she essentially gets ready for a war. Meanwhile, the T-800 tries to get in touch with emotion it does not possess. In “American Cinema of the 1990s : Themes and Variations”, Chris Holmund describes it best:

“As she hardens, her surface closed like a shell, her eyes concealed by aviator sunglasses, her body draped with weapons, he softens, becoming increasingly obsessed with the human emotions that he lacks. We might almost say that— to take an extreme angle on this odd couple— as she becomes increasingly “butch,” the Terminator is “femme-inized.””

An unfortunate result of her on-screen dominance is the fact that many people will just label her as becoming “butch” or “masculine”. The whole concept of masculinity and what defines it is something that absolutely needs to be reformed. The same goes for a man who isn’t stereotypically masculine or is in touch with their emotions; they must be gay or feminine then? It’s a crap system. Just because a woman is powerful and dominant, physically and mentally, that doesn’t mean they can’t be in touch with their ‘feminine” aspects as well. Sarah Connor is a stone-cold badass, but she’s also a mother and a human being with emotions such as empathy, fear and kindness. The fact that she is a mother can be considered a weakness by simple-minded ones, but it is actually on of her greatest strengths. Her love for her son and need to protect him at any cost is what fuels her throughout the entire film. With the T-1000 (Robert Patrick) approaching, she sends her son off on the conveyor belt, essentially sacrificing herself to protect him. The T-1000 stabs her in the shoulder, threatens her with a self-created blade to her face and demands that she call to her son. Her response? “Fuck you” That is badass and not something you will usually see done by a woman on-screen. Her motherly instincts constantly have her thinking of her son, even when she is in captivity in a mental hospital. While some of her motives for ensuring his survival involve the fact that she trained him all his live to become the eventual leader of the human resistance against Skynet, her love for him is the ultimate reason. Her compassion goes further than just her motherly instincts, as she shows mercy for the man who is essentially (unknowingly) responsible for Judgement Day, Miles Dyson. She breaks into his home after missing him with a sniper, shoots him and with a gun pointed at him and his family, is unable to pull the trigger. She then cries and embraces her son and tells her she loves him. That, along with her motherly instincts, is proof that a strong, ‘masculine’ character can still have ‘feminine’ characteristics. It’s unfortunate that a strong woman who doesn’t depend on a man is described as ‘masculine’ or stereotyped as a lesbian. It’s similar to how a female athlete is automatically thought of as possibly/probably being a lesbian. Dayna Daniels perfectly describes the generalizations many make about the subject in “You Throw Like a Girl: Sport and Misogyny on the Silver Screen.”:

“If the athlete epitomizes masculinity, then the female athlete must be masculine. If the female athlete is masculine or wants to participate in masculine activities, then maybe she really wants to be a man.”

It’s a simple-minded generalization and one that could be easily applied to many female action heroines, including Sarah Connor. A way to deflect that garbage is to dive into her core traits, the things that make her the complex character that she is. Her core traits should not simply be defined as ‘masculine’, but rather as traits that every person should try to emulate. She is a strong, compassionate and independent mother, something that is not often seen in on-screen female characters. She doesn’t depend on a man, or anybody for that matter. When John and the T-1000 rescue her from the mental facility (even though she essentially breaks out on her own), she scolds him for coming after her, claiming she doesn’t need his help and that he was stupid to risk his very important life. That can be seen as being too proud, but what she said says is true and contrary to the ‘damsel in distress’ situation that has appeared in so many stories. She doesn’t just proclaim her independence, she backs it up. That is a prime characteristic of an action heroine. In speaking of action heroines, Jeffrey Brown accurately describes them in “Dangerous Curves: Action Heroines, Gender, Fetishism, and Popular Culture”:

“She commands the narrative and controls her own destiny, makes her own decisions and fights her own battles. She is inquisitive and intelligent, physically and emotionally strong, and is clearly portrayed as a heroic ideal with which audience members identify.”

Sarah Connor is the epitome of that. In that same book, however,  Brown warns:

“On the other hand, the action heroine perpetuates the ideal of female beauty and sexuality that has always been the primary cultural value of women in our society.”

That is yet another thing that separates Connor from most. Her physical appearance is not like most other action heroines. She doesn’t have an over-sized chest like Laura Croft or Pam Grier. She isn’t inexplicably attractive like Charlie’s Angels or the other female stars who look like super models. The abilities and attitude that she possesses match her physique. Her first scene in the film presents her doing pull-ups. When she is called upon, she let’s go and is seen from behind standing in a particularly masculine state. She is extremely fit. She doesn’t wear a bikini or a pushup bra (or any bra at all). Her hair isn’t perfectly maintained or disheveled in a sexy way. It’s scraggily and messy, like someone’s hair should look when they’re doing the things that Sarah does. All in all, her physical appearance matches what the insides of her character and her actions. The same cannot be said for many female action heroes. As amazing as Uma Thurman and Pam Grier are, can we truly believe that they are physically capable of the things their characters can pull of? How about Scarlett Johansson or Angelina Jolie? What makes her an even more inspiring female character is that her body is hardly, if at all, sexualized. Characters who are believable in their roles, such as Carrie Anne Moss as Trinity in The Matrix franchise or even Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia in the Star Wars franchise, still have fallen victim to sexualization. Trinity is either in tight leather or naked throughout most of her screen time and Princess Leia is almost most remembered for her famous/iconic time spent in the unnecessary metal bikini. Sarah Connor Is anything but sexualized as her stature, physique and wardrobe more represent a soldier than a model or fantasy fixture. Sarah Connor is an attractive woman, by all means, but that is not one of her defining characteristics. Her existence is an important one as female action heroes, while being powerful individuals, are still looked upon as sexual objects. Trinity, Black Widow, The Bride, Charlie’s Angels, Lara Croft and many comic book super-heroines are complex and amazing characters, but too much attention is given to their sexualized physical appearance. Would audiences/readers/men give them as much ‘respect’ or attention if they were unattractive? It’s not a crime for these women to be attractive, but our society makes that a defining characteristic for them (the same happens to men), instead of giving more respect to their other far more important traits.

Our society has a long way to go in breaking away from stereotypes, sexualization and generalizations that continue to effect women every day. It’s important to have characters like Sarah Connor to show us that our views and subconscious prejudices are flawed and that we must reform. She is THE female action heroine. Instead of falling victim to cliches or female stereotypes, she rises above and becomes one of the most amazing characters to ever grace the screen. She joins the levels of characters such as Ellen Ripley from Alien(Ridley Scott, 1979) and Clarice Starling from The Silence of the Lambs(Jonathan Demme) as strong female characters whose intelligence, strength and complexity allow them to be much more than one-dimensional, unbelievable pieces of eye candy.

Work Cited

-Holmlund, Chris. American Cinema of the 1990s : Themes and Variations. New Brunswick, NJ, USA: Rutgers University Press, 2008. ProQuest ebrary. Web. 30 Novemeber 2014.

-This book is a critical look and iconic films of the 1990’s and the cultural impacts they had. It is a much deeper look than the average critical analysis, as it tries to analyze very specific scenes and how they are either flawed, accurate, or both in how they portray gender, race, religion, etc. For this paper, Holmlund’s analysis of Terminator 2: Judgement Day is applied and elaborated on, specifically for the contrasting of the characters T-800 and Sarah Connor.

-Brown, Jeffrey A. Dangerous Curves: Action Heroines, Gender, Fetishism, and Popular Culture. Jackson: U of Mississippi, 2011. Print.

-This book is a full on dissection of all that is the female action heroine. From numerous different depictions in film to the views of our society about them, this book gets into the past, present and future of the female action heroine and how their presence affect the world, and vice versa. For this paper, his description of what makes an action heroine is used to both describe Sarah Connor in that context as well as show how she separates herself from the pack.

-Daniels, Dayna B. “You Throw Like a Girl: Sport and Misogyny on the Silver Screen.” Film & History: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Film and Television Studies 35.1 (2005): 29-38. Web.

– This article is a look at female athletes and their representation on-screen. Daniels discusses the generalizations that are made of female athletes, the ‘insult’ of a man being compared to a girl when it comes to sports, and many sexist depictions of female athletes in film, amongst many other topics. For this paper, her description of the generalizations about female athletes being masculine and/or lesbian is compared to the generalizations made about strong female characters in film, specifically Sarah Connor.


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