The reviews are in for Jurassic World, and they’re good. But when footage was first released, some voiced disquiet at what they perceived as old-fashioned gender stereotyping. Avengers director Joss Whedon called one clip involving Claire, an uptight park manager and Owen, a laid-back animal-wrangler, “70s-era sexist”. “She’s a stiff, he’s a life-force,” he wrote. “Really? Still?”
Even the film’s director, Colin Trevorrow, said he could understand Whedon’s feelings, and wondered why such a clip had been chosen.
[It] shows an isolated situation within a movie that has an internal logic. That starts with characters that are almost archetypes, stereotypes that are deconstructed as the story progresses.
The real protagonist of the movie is Claire and we embrace her femininity in the story’s progression. There’s no need for a female character that does things like a male character, that’s not what makes interesting female characters in my view. Bryce and I have talked a lot about these concepts and aspects of her character.
Here are the film’s key female characters, assessed for sexism.
Minor spoilers follow.
Indominus Rex
Despite the name, the film’s driving force is female: a genetically-modified killing machine raised in isolation after she eats her sibling. Rex may be only a matter of months old but she displays immense intellectual prowess, magnificent physical ingenuity – and a top body. Her taste for raw meat and take-no-prisoners approach are attributes more commonly associated with men at the movies. Usually when women lash out, it’s to protect their young. Rex is only in it for herself, and she couldn’t give a damn about collateral damage.
Sexismometer: 1/10
Blue, a young raptor
The most fleshed-out of the all-female raptor trio is brave, plucky and able to swiftly compute competing loyalties and come to complicated conclusions. She also has a highly-developed sense of compassion – a traditionally female attribute – as well as a less gender-conventional blood-lust when faced with a baddie.
Sexismometer: 2/10
Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard)
Jurassic World’s real protagonist, according to its director, begins the film almost rigid with bitchiness: hair stiff, lips ambitious, white power suit concealing festering unfeminine soul. She’s failed to book the day off work to show her nephews round the park she manages and can’t even remember how old they are. She’s rude and officious to valuable male staff. She was, we learn, off-puttingly organised on a date, denies her own sex drive and routinely places corporate profit over human safety.
But as the film progresses and crisis worsens, Claire sheds her inhibitions as well as her clothes. She softens towards Owen as species survival becomes more critical, and towards her nephews as her own inadequacy as an aunt (as well as a potential mother) is exposed. Although she largely cowers behind a man when in danger, on a couple of key occasions she takes the lead, to impressive effect. She also wears six-inch stilettos throughout.
Sexismometer: 5/10
Karen (Judy Greer)
Claire’s sister is worried about the safety of her sons before they depart from the island, and does a lot of sobbing down the phone when they do indeed fall into trouble. That’s basically it for her character.
Sexismometer: 8/10
Zara (Katie McGrath)
The bored, British, Blackberry-fixated assistant on whom Claire palms off her nephews is snooty, incompetent – and duly rewarded.
Sexismometer: 6/10
Vivian (Lauren Lapkus)
One of the computer technicians in the theme park HQ is good at her job but, it’s implied, hasn’t been entirely straight with a colleague about her relationship status.
Sexismometer: 4/10
Average score: 4.3/10
Final verdict: Although some of the human characters are crudely-drawn, Jurassic World’s insistence on the gender of its reptilian heroines saves the day.
