The moment she appears on that spacesuit you can't take your eyes off her; but as soon as she starts to peel off the suit while her body floats in the "first weightless striptease in movie history", you, straight male or not, are sure to be mesmerized by that figure. In his 1968 cult flick Roger Vadim had then girlfriend Jane Fonda as the Queen Of Galaxy, Barbarella. In that Fall Fonda's life would change, and Pop Culture would win the sexiest and wittiest of divas.
Last year I had the pleasure of reading Fonda's autobiography and knowing the production from her point of view. Back then there were not the overused CGI effects we have nowadays, so the crew had to invent most of the effects to the movie.
But it's not the campy filmmaking that excites me the most in Barbarella. It's her latent feminity and sexuality. At face value Barbarella is just a movie done to fulfill teen and middle-aged straight men's sexual fantasies, exploiting the sexy image of Fonda. Many feminists felt outraged by the way Barbarella uses sex to get away from troubles, but that's such a shallow way of seeing the movie that I of course ignore.In the movie, the Universe, in a far future, is in peace; that way it's implied that such concepts of misogyny and repressed sexuality are like museum pieces. Right after the marvelous striptease the President of Earth [Claude Dauphin] calls Barbarella for a mission and there she is normally naked as if the Apple and the Snake episodes on the Eden had never happened.
That easiness towards nudity and sexuality is for me groundbreaking. Watching Barbarella nowadays with anachronic eyes is kinda funny; in the midst of the sexual revolution, the fact that the main heroine is always saving her skin by baring herself may have shocked some people back then, but the fact that it still alarms them nowadays is somewhat ridiculous. Barbarella's world is an ideal world where sex is a normal thing.
The highlights for me are the campy pastiche of the planet SoGo [c'mon, the reference here is obvious] - the Essence of Man and the Orgasm Organ are iconic!! I need both of them in my apartment. I also love the Sex Pills and how Barbarella says "make love? But no one's done that for hundreds of centuries!" And of course I could not finish this paragraph without saying how hot John Phillip Law was.But why is she a feminism icon? In a society which women's sexuality is still repressed, Barbarella's naturalness about her body and sexuality is not only witty but kind of utopian; and that from a movie made in 1968, a time we still didn't have the advents of Madonna, Kylie Minogue and all these whore-divas we have nowdays. The role became Fonda's main icon and even if misogynistic fools try to use it to confuse the general public about Fonda's feminist image, only superficial eyes don't see how Barbarella is iconic for Woman Power.
That links me to my other favorite heroine: Bridget Jones. Yes! You might say she's not from an action movie, but is there more action for a modern woman than having a career, fighting against weight, being beautiful most of the time and trying to get a nice and decent boyfriend? Besides, in both of her movies Bridge battles her ego, runs against time, skydives, faces vile and ill intentioned men, goes to prison, wears costumes etc.
From most of the sexist point of view, feminists are men-hater women, mostly lesbians who wants to be men. We all know those are faux characteristics crystallized by this patriarchal society of ours. Feminists are also women who crave for love and men's attention as much as equal opportunities. Like Barbarella, Bridget is aware and pleased with her sexuality, but as a woman still far from the utopic future portrayed on the 1960's movie, she is absorbed by the 20th century concepts of love and sex. And alright, let's cut the anachronic talk and admit that at least most of us still desire for love and emotional stability with a person by our side. Bridget later also realizes that she needs no man to validate her, but it doesn't hurt to have someone else to share those beautiful ideas and, of course, the bed with.The way her story flirts with Jane Austen's Pride And Prejudice reinforces the feminist power contained in Jones's life. Eliza Bennet ahead-of-her-time looks on love is what Bridget learns to wish and go after; and what I, after learning about the lives of these gorgeous women [Fonda, Barbarella, Jones, Austen and Bennet], have set as my goals.
