I didn't have much interest in the film when it was released in 2008 but when I found out the premise I admit I was intrigued. Basically, the story revolves around John Hancock, a troubled superhero who, while performing his 'duties' (i.e., saving people) as expected, does so in a rather haphazard manner. You get the impression that he'd rather be downing a bottle of whiskey in his trailer than helping people. When Hancock saves Ray, a PR exec, he offers to reform his tarnished public image through press conferences and incarceration/rehabilitation. As Hancock becomes immersed in Ray's life, we find an odd tension/attraction between him and Ray's wife Mary. One night, after Ray has passed out drunkenly, Hancock finds himself alone with Mary in the kitchen where they almost kiss. At this moment, we discover that Mary also has super powers! In a show of extreme aggression and rejection, she throws the fridge and Hancock right through the living room window. For reasons that are still somewhat unclear to me, we learn, as does Hancock due to some kind of memory loss, that he and Mary were once a couple, 'a pair' as she calls it. (This is where the story gets a little fuzzy and perhaps some more details should have been ironed out by the writers but alas, maybe that's expecting too much.) Mary informs Hancock that they are the two last surviving 'superheroes' as the rest of them died once they paired off. She makes it rather clear that she wants nothing more to do with Hancock, arguing that she is happy now in her life with Ray and his son (from a previous marriage). Hancock seems to have trouble accepting this but upon almost losing Mary during a violent attack in the hospital where he is recovering from an injury, he struggles to move on as well, and in the process enables her life to continue as it was before. The film ends with everyone seemingly content and satisfied in their 'chosen roles' - Hancock as reformed superhero and Mary as devoted wife and mother.
In recent years, there have been a number of articles written by feminists, celebrating contemporary representations of female superheroes as empowering 'ass-kickers' (i.e., 'Buffy') who are just as strong - mentally and physically - as their male counterparts. While these images might be still somewhat limited in their scope and diversity (i.e., most are still white, able-bodied, conform to beauty norms), they clearly have proved pleasurable for many female, and even male viewers. For many years I have found these images of strong, and some might even argue, violent women enjoyable as they speak to certain desires and feelings of powerlessness I continue to harbour. I understand this about myself and recognize that these unresolvable feelings make it easier to overlook problematic aspects of these images but when we start to consider them as part of a continuum of representations, over time, a different viewpoint takes shape. Specifically, this image seems to fit in with a number of other current images of women in popular culture that have blossomed within postfeminist media culture. These representations often play on anxieties about women and their place within the current socio-political and economic climate and tend to either reject and/or minimize feminism as 'passe' and/or responsible for women's ongoing struggles in both the public and private spheres. Feminist media scholar Diane Negra has identified a particular theme within postfeminist media culture, what she refers to as 'retreatism', where career-minded female urban dwellers leave their fast-paced life in order to return to their hometown, either to help family or for romantic love. While Negra focuses mostly on romantic comedies and television dramas, she does note that in other genres like horror and action, women are often punished and/or are defined by familial loss; in other words, they are haunted because they have chosen to leave home against their family's wishes or because they have no 'home' to speak of (i.e., Alias). This latter point is interesting as Negra notes that the global citizen is often gendered to read male, while women are often aligned with the local or national. She also explores how news reporting sensationalizes stories of women who reject the retreatist narrative (i.e., the runaway bride) and conversely hype up stories of women who 'choose' to leave their professions in order to focus on family. Negra does stress that these images aren't created in a vacuum but speak to the socio-economic realities of women's lives, where work culture is still heavily defined in masculinist terms with very little desire to accommodate and/or support the working mother. Rather than focusing on these issues, emphasis is placed upon the working woman's 'choice' to leave the professional world, which then becomes heralded as the (postfeminist) solution to a very complex and long-standing problem for working mothers. So the retreatist narrative plays into these anxieties and struggles by romanticizing and legitimating 'opting out' as a common sense and necessary choice if women are to find happiness and fulfillment in their lives. As Negra states: "Whether named as 'downshifting,' an 'opt-out revolution' or the mommy or daughter track, retreatism heavily negotiates current economic and social dilemmas that disproportionately impact on women, while its romanticizing alibi, the hometown fantasy, remains distinctly evasive to social and economic realities" (2009: 46).
Returning to Hancock, it appears that the film invokes a retreatist narrative to explain Mary's rejection of her superhero (re: professional) identity. While she is not returning to her hometown like the romantic comedies discussed by Negra, she is retreating from the very masculinist world of 'superheroedom' because as she states over and over again to Hancock, she has truly found happiness now in her 'normal' life with Ray and his son. After reading Negra's piece, I find it fascinating that traces of this narrative have even infiltrated a comic book film adaptation. Of course, the film also raises questions about Mary and Hancock's interracial relationship and why their inability to be together is couched in such fatalistic terms (i.e., if they stay together they will literally die). Indeed, by the end of the film, Hancock, as he finally hunkers down and becomes the transnational superhero he is destined to be (re: the new global man), is also resigned to carry out this work alone, sans companion.
However, while thinking about Hancock, superheroes, retreatism, and postfeminist media culture, I was reminded of an animated feature I watched during the holidays with my partner and his two young nieces, Dreamworks' Monsters vs. Aliens (2009). We are introduced to a young woman named Susan Murphy, who is about to get married but gets held up on the way when she is hit by a meteor which turns her into a giant monster. The government whisks her away to a top secret compound where she meets and becomes friends with other non-human creatures, and they rename her Ginormica. All the while she longs to be with her estranged fiancee and to have the 'normal' life she used to lead. Later on, a robot threatens to destroy the planter and under the orders of the President, Ginormica and her friends are sent on a mission to save the world from the evil robot. While she has trouble accepting her new identity at first, she quickly learns how to make the most of her new powers and stature and works with her monster posse to destroy the robot. Realizing she can return home, she quickly does so with the hopes of reuniting with her fiancee. Once she returns home she finds that things have changed as her fiancee informs her that he cannot be with her anymore as her new-found 'monster celebrity' threatens to overshadow his career as a news anchor. At first, Ginormica is hurt by this but quickly comes to the realization that she is better off without him, and quickly settles into a life of independence and new found strength (both internal and external). However, things do not end here and she soon finds herself kidnapped by another evil creature, Gallaxhar who steals the source of her towering size, thus reducing her to human-size once again. She realizes that her friends are unable to rescue her, so she convinces Gallaxhar to let them go and in the process regains her giant status by taking quantonium. Thus, the second time around, she makes a conscious decision to become Ginormica, realizing that is what truly makes her happy. In the end, her ex-fiancee tries to get back together with her in order to get an exclusive interview with the new superheroine but she knowingly rebuffs his attempts and instead makes a fool of him on air.
Upon reflection, this film imparts a rather feminist message to its young female viewers, encouraging them to pursue other interests outside those of the normative social script (i.e., marriage). Susan thought that's what she wanted until other possibilities and ways of being were introduced to her; until she became Ginormica. Here, we find a representation of the female superhero that fits with my earlier comments about the feminist-inspired, girl-power touting woman who has, as the film advert above states, both "brains and brawn" suggesting that the modern gal doesn't have to sacrifice one for the other (and 'good' romantic partners wouldn't expect that). Needless to say, what I assumed would be a boring, simplistic children's film turned out to be one of the most captivating films, at least where the politics of representation are concerned, I've seen in a long time. However, I wonder why we have to look to a children's film to find such empowering images and progressive gender politics, and by the time we get to a film like Hancock, much of this work is undone and contested. What conflicting and contradictory messages we are sending to young girls and women! When you are young it's ok to imagine or fantasize a world where young girls are just as capable, just as strong, just as smart as any boy but womanhood, as imagined in popular culture, becomes an exhaustive battlefield where resistance becomes futile in the face of preordained biological destiny. Monsters also seems to convey a positive understanding of citizenship: that we are responsible to others around us and that we must work collectively in order to enact positive change in the world. Hancock suggests that women, especially those with extraordinary powers, are not needed to maintain peace and order in the world but rather their obligations lie in upholding the roles of wife and mother and maintaining order in the domestic sphere. Is this part of postfeminism's ambivalent relationship to feminism? Sigh. I wonder what kinds of discussions Ginormica and Mary would have about these issues. :)
