“A woman must continually watch herself. She is always continually accompanied by her own image of herself.” This is because, as John Berger puts it in Ways of Seeing, “to be born a woman has to be born…into the keeping of men.” In male-dominated Hollywood, women’s careers are entirely in the keeping in men. Hollywood, after all, is all about looking. Unlike men’s careers, a woman’s success almost always relies on her youth, appearance, and sexual power. As a result, even that success, when achieved, is often limiting.
This makes Angelina Jolie’s career trajectory something like an empowerment narrative. Now a director, producer, renown philanthropist, and a former United Nations ambassador, she is best known for her start as an actress. How Jolie carefully navigated her career and carved out a niche as a woman in charge can be reflected in her choice of roles.
Jolie’s more recent brave moves included taking the originally male-intended lead in Salt and producing and playing the lead in Maleficent. But before then, there was Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Best known as the film where she first met former husband, Brad Pitt, Mr. And Mrs. Smith is about two spies/assassins who marry several years before they realize the other is their competition. With underlying themes about rejuvenating a dying marriage, Mr. And Mrs. Smith may not be Jolie’s strongest film, but it’s arguably underrated. And Jolie is “seen” in several different ways throughout the film, with her extensive wardrobe as her ultimate tool.
Introduced in a marriage counselor’s office with Pitt at her side, both actors play falsely unassuming characters, holding up the picture-perfect image of a suburban white couple. This ruse is soon uncovered to the audience, who are taken through how they first met. In this scene, Jolie as “Jane” sways through a hotel lobby toward Pitt, with Colombian authorities hounding her. She’s wearing, well, not much. Her stomach-revealing top matches with her leg-revealing skirt. Both are made of a very thin, white material that leaves little to the imagination.
This way of seeing is rather typical of the Hollywood aesthetic. Always, but especially as part of a sexy character, actresses’ clothing is expected to lend to the image of the body. Even though we don’t see Jolie anywhere near naked in Mr. And Mrs. Smith, the titillation perhaps holds even more power as the camera makes certain to keep hold of her skinny form. Jolie’s harried performance as Jane also lends itself to the appearance of her as a sort of damsel-in-distress, allowing Pitt as Mr. Smith to step in and rescue her from the situation. In doing so, the male part of the audience presumably projects itself onto Pitt, allowing them to rescue and eventually “marry” Jolie.
However, while many roles for actresses may begin and end in a scene like this, the role of Mrs. Smith as a co-star allows Jolie much more screen time and therefore freedom. Shortly after the full overview flashback of Jane and John’s courtship, the viewer is shown Jane receiving an assignment to kill a target. In order to complete this, she goes into her walk-in closet (the movie’s level of wealth porn in Mr. And Mrs. Smith’s house makes a fine competition with Jolie’s objectification) and dresses into a tight and crisp trench coat and heels. This outfit isn’t sexual, but what’s underneath certainly is.
Once at the target’s hotel room, Jolie takes off her coat to reveal a dominatrix uniform underneath, complete with fishnet stockings and a leather corset. This scene is brief, but it establishes an opportunity not available in a majority of female roles—it gives Jolie a true sense of control over herself and over others, which transfers to control over the audience. The writing within the scene is cheesy, filled with light bondage, minimum dirty talk, and some cropping before Jane snaps the target’s neck. But the way Jolie delivers her lines is, in fact, literally dominating.
This is not the only type of scene where Jolie gets to flex this muscle. Maleficent has a moment that is evocative of this choice in Mr. And Mrs. Smith, containing Jolie as Maleficent laughing and commanding the king to bow to her shortly after she curses his daughter. While most female roles are submissive to male characters, Jolie’s career is marked by her dominance. And, considering the character Maleficent’s positioning as a woman of power—a power not associated with Jolie’s attractiveness—throughout the film, this dominance transcends roles and is a consistent association with Jolie herself.
“Every one of [a woman’s] actions—whether its direct purpose or motivation—is also read as an indication of how she would like to be treated,” says Berger, which further explains how Jolie’s roles reflect on her person. With that, every part of her is associated with self-possession as well as attractiveness. And with this control extending toward every other part of her career, and even her personal life, it’s no surprise that she is now one of the best known celebrities of our day.
Ray is a contributor to Comics Bulletin, Women Write About Comics, and Loser City. Her favorite bread is Challah and white chocolate is the root of all evil. When not writing or training in Krav Maga, she likes to expand her queer comics knowledge and talk with fellow nerds on Twitter @RaySonne.
Leave a Reply