여성감독과 범죄영화: <블루 스틸>과 남성적 응시

Abstract

This paper tries to examine the representation of female identity by analyzing a Hollywood movie, Blue Steel (1990). The purpose of this paper is to figure out how this film constitutes female identities by employing the insubordinate desire to overcome the given female identity in a patriarchal society. Situating a female cop named Megan Turner (Jamie Lee Curtis) at the center of the narrative, Blue Steel illustrates how she finally becomes a victim in the patriarchal social system. The film depicts contradictory perceptions regarding female identity in a relation with the male gaze. On the one hand, Blue Steel seems to challenge the totalizing male gaze by representing a female cop as the person who attempts to overcome female identity constructed by the patriarchal system. On the other hand, it seems to legitimate this male gaze by providing an exotic pleasure that violent visuality and sexual objectification generate. Because of these two contradictory images, Blue Steel may be considered no more than a movie that places a woman at the center of the crime story. It may be especially significant to examine the representation of female identity in this movie, because this movie was directed by a woman, Kathlyn Bigelow, who has been evaluated as one of the most striking crime and action cinema directors and may be the only female filmmaker working in that genre today.