Beowulf's Femme Fatale

Ray Winstone as Beowulf and Angelina Jolie as Grendel's Mother

When I saw this ad on a billboard for the movie 'Beowulf', (directed by Robert Zemeckis 2007) I just had to see it. This film was created with digital animation and the whole thing has the look of a video game. I enjoyed it; no great work of art but it's kind of fun. Ray Winstone must have found it very flattering to have his short, stocky physique transformed into a buff nordic god.

However, the Beowulf story is evidence that the devouring female versus passive victim dichotomy is not confined to classical mythology alone. (This was discussed in an earlier post 'The Rock of Doom') .

Angelina Jolie appears nude as Grendel's mother in Beowulf

In Beowulf, Angelina Jolie plays the monster Grendel's mother. She appears nude except for a thin coating of liquid gold. She has a tail and sexy high heels (I didn't know you could get shoes like that in 6th century Denmark!). She is the archetypal femme fatale; half alluring woman, half devouring beast. She proves to be the nemesis of King Hrothgar (Anthony Hopkins) and then to Beowulf himself. The 'woman as victim' is Queen Wealthow, played by Robin Wright Penn. She endures a loveless marriage with a much older man (King Hrothgar) and then endures marriage to a husband (Beowulf) with a younger and publicly acknowledged mistress Ursula (Alison Lohman).

Again; the female charaters are relegated to stereotypes; victim and monster. The fact that the monster has a certain number of hybrid beast attributes is certainly a metaphor for a dangerous sexuality. Sure, you're attracted to the femme fatale but the quiet, passive girl is the one you'd take home to mother. Only the male characters in the story; Beowulf, Hrothgar, Unferth (John Malkovich) have any true individuality or personality.

So if this flick is just bit of harmeless fun, why is such sexual stereotyping a problem? It is a problem because this view of women as secondary entities continues to pervade our conscious and subconscious minds. These ideas are deeply entrenched in myth, history and conditioning and need a huge amount of rethinking and re-interpretation before women have any hope of equality.

Norse god: monster slayer Beowulf

The real Ray Winstone: a bit of a monster