My New Love Affair With Pamela Anderson (And Action Movies)
Barb Wire is the treasure of the 90s that unlocked a genre.
Barb Wire is basically a Casablanca remake set in the far-off future of 2017, but instead of sitting around being sad, Humphrey Bogart has giant tits and blows things up.
I never understood action movies before. Too many things would be happening and so I never relaxed. Barb Wire is different because it is the first action movie I have seen with a female action star.
I had to double-check and make sure I got this right: Barb Wire is the first action movie that I have seen with a lady action star. Yes, actually.
Tomb Raider is an action movie, but the point is to watch a taciturn hot lady struggle around in the dirt, mostly alone. Wonder Woman was interesting, but like Catwoman, is mostly an origin story of a woman solving problems by growing confident and discovering herself. Vibing off of Alien, Underwater with Kirsten Stewart follows a capable engineer as she works with her crew to save everybody, but the problems-to-solutions ratio is suboptimal as it is a horror movie.
Meanwhile, Barb Wire is unashamedly a Bond-style action movie. Ms. Wire is a bounty hunter who owns a bar, has a complicated romantic backstory, and owns a Batman-esque trove of weapons. She is a competent woman who encounters problems and then solves those problems with finesse. That is it.
The entire point of the film is to watch a cool woman do cool things, and this is something about action movies that I never appreciated until I watched a woman play the central role. I finally got the experience that men talk about; just sitting back, relaxing, and watching somebody really cool just handle things.
Barb is a boss I wish I’d have, a big sister I never had, a best friend, a role model, an ideal of myself in the future. The sorts of things that James Bond represents for men, that Wonder Woman and Lara Croft failed to represent to me, I can finally enjoy with Pamela Anderson as Barb Wire. I just wish there were more movies like this.
The noisiness of action movies is now comprehensible to me. The little scenes all have a point because they are enjoyable in themselves. I had fun watching Pamela kick the leg off a table and shoot some henchmen, take a bath, and jump out of a window holding a hostage. A very natural, embodied joy emerged up my muscles as I watched all this happen in front of me. My nervous system calmed.
Barb Wire is also the first action film that I have seen where the woman’s sexuality isn’t at best an object for man’s attention and at worst a way to get killed (James Bond) or something to be remarked on but ultimately ignored (Wonder Woman). Barb’s sexuality is overt, in the same way that James Bond’s sexuality is overt—and it is a concrete source of her power.
She is not portrayed as a conniving hustler any more than James Bond is. Rather, she knows her sexuality is hot and real, other characters notice her sexuality and are either intimidated by it, scared of it, or if they befriend her—get to benefit from it. It is not secret or demure.
It is impossible to put Pamela Anderson in a black leather leotard without the understanding that men would like it. To say that the movie was not made for men may be a stretch. But it does not feel like Barb Wire was a creation under somebody else’s supervision. It does not feel like she was created in a director’s Monster-Matic. (This is, in part, due to Pamela’s own stage presence). What this means is that in my viewing experience of Barb, I am relieved from following the puppet strings to a man’s fingers.
This is very important for my ability to relax. In looking at Barb, I am looking at Barb, not tracing an invisible empathetic line to the man who wanted or created Barb. I am thus able to look at a woman, instead of looking at a man through an image of a woman.
What this means is that a lot of awkwardness and discomfort vanishes. It is sometimes weird to be looking at a woman on screen and actually be looking at a man’s heretofore unexpressed yearnings. I do not think that women get jealous, per-se, when faced with an idealized expression of what a man wants. My hunch is that women, sitting down for these movies eager for an entertainment experience, have nothing to do. “Cool, you find that woman hot. Uh? What’s the fun for me here?” Certain buttons that could get pushed if they were able to identify viscerally with the male lead or the male director do not get pushed.
It is the reason I could not enjoy Scarlett Johansson in The Island. Nothing was wrong with her performance, but she was not given anything to do. I was left watching her run around behind the male lead and on occasion be caught in danger. While it may be cool for a male viewer to watch a man do cool things and protect his sexy pet, I could not identify with either the male lead, or the woman in any visceral sense.
Barb Wire was the first action movie (that is a pure action movie, unlike the action-comedy Bullet Train) that registered in my deep system as pure fun.
I am not sure what this means. I had spent three decades on earth without knowing what the appeal of action movies was. This feels like the day I learned about Enrique Iglesias. What else falls into this category of entire textural experience that I have not found were accessible to me? Please send me your ideas!
Thank you, Pamela!
Watch the trailer here.
