Atomic Blonde Film Analysis

In today’s society, we learn about many things, including ourselves, in the media, primarily through television and movies. We learn about what we dislike, what we like, what scares us, and mostly how the media portrays someone who is male, female, transgender, etc.. According to Aulette and Wittner (2012), “Television is a primary source of images of gender. Gender can be portrayed in a range of ways, but two kinds of images are dominant: hegemonic masculinity and emphasized femininity” (pg. 397). Atomic Blonde is an action packed movie with main character Charlize Theron kicking ass and taking names, literally. While I would love to argue that Atomic Blonde challenges the dominant images of hegemonic masculinity and emphasized femininity because of

I say this because if you exchange Theron with a fit male actor, you have a typical James Bond, Bourne Identity kind of movie. Lorraine Broughton displays many ‘masculine’ characteristics in this movie. She is violent, alone, seemingly unemotional, detached, tough, sauve, and dominant. Also, Theron is 5 feet 10 inches tall, and throughout the movie, she wears heels and boots, adding to her already tall stature. This is extremely tall compared to her male co-star, James McAvoy, who is 5 feet 7 inches tall, and female co-star, Sofia Boutella, who is 5 feet 5 inches tall. Even when watching the movie it can be seen that many of the men that Theron fight are her height, give or take an inch or two. It sends the message that women have to be the same size as men to get anything done. This just shows that even when you have an actress as the main character, they have to play into this seemingly masculine demeanor. It is not challenging the status quo, if a female is portraying the exact same qualities, without even the slightest change, that a ‘masculine’ male would in a