This page is referenced by:

• 1 2019-03-13T22:01:27-07:00 Female Hardbody 10 What is Body? (3/5) plain 2019-03-19T06:03:17-07:00 The muscular action heroine, though not solely a product of the 1980s, emerged as a central figure specifically in the 1980s in relation to women's growing involvement in bodybuilding. [10] The male hardbody, defined equally by the physical musculature and our gazes of it, is seen and defined roughly within the same decade. Hardbody, in both cases, is branded as hypermasculinity taking place in the action genre. It denotes heroism to the audience in the aesthetic of the muscular unclothed body, supported by a certain level of "necessary" violence done unto the self to achieve this, and supplemented by a fetishization of weaponry.
  
  Achieving the hardbody gaze walks the line of sexuality. It would be sexualization were it not for the emphasis on self-torture that shifts the focus to body as sport. Sexual desire lingers on the periphery. These male action heroes, such as Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis, and Jean-Claude Van Damme, are often given undeveloped female love interests in their films that highlight this connection between the hardbody and sexual prowess. The spectacle of their hypermasculinity, then, becomes one to desire for power and not erotically.
  
  When female action heroines are filmed in the same vein, are they then liberated?
  
  The first instance of identifying myself in the female hardbody came when I saw Sarah Connor's remarkable transformation in Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991). She no longer needed saving. She decided for herself that she would change her fate. She answered to no one but herself, used others' underestimations of her to her advantage, and harnessed the power of her body. She was my feminist icon, just like Joan Jett was, who I believed followed a similar path in the arena of rock n' roll. Yet, if the same hardbody rules apply to Sarah Connor and thereby render her a "phallic woman," [11] is it at all a "male ruse" for her to be liberated only through the means of masculinity?
  
  The image of the female hardbody transgresses the limits of female presentation on screen. But in doing so, it adopts characteristics that are conventionally considered masculine. Who judges the qualities of this physique?
  
  At the same time, could this not be countered by an inclusion of the female hardbody into the repertoire of femininity? Cinema gives power to the male hero by undercutting the agency of his female love interest. On the other hand, violence done unto the female hardbody can also include sexual violence, as with the rape in Thelma and Louise (1991). The articulation of both physical vulnerability and invulnerability can, and I think should, serve as a springboard for defining femaleness. When the female body is masculine, it is not not-feminine. The hardbody transformation of Sarah Connor doesn't signify a female becoming a female heroine. Power can be mapped onto the female body when the female body is a multitude of bodies.