You see, I'm going to let you in on a little secret: Jurassic Park is probably my favorite movie of all time. Because I'm earning my PhD in English literature, most people don't expect that; they expect my answer to be something literary, like The English Patient, or at least something classic, like Casablanca or something by Hitchcock. And I love those movies (okay, so not The English Patient), but when it comes to my cinematic equivalent of comfort food, it's Jurassic Park every time.
I usually explain my choice to my questioners by talking about its quality of filmmaking; after all, it and Jaws represent Spielberg doing what he does in top form. The special effects that still look miraculously good twenty years on. The careful visual composition of shots. The suspense. The velociraptors.
But it wasn't until very recently that I thought I'd try and give some more thought to why exactly this movie has such a hold on my imagination. I love a good creature feature, to be sure. In fact, I'll watch bad creature features (SHARKNADO!) just for the fun of watching animals eat people in ludicrous ways. But there's more to my deep and abiding love for Jurassic Park than that, and I think I've figured it out.
You see, Jurassic Park is really an excellent example of feminist filmmaking.
To begin with: the story itself. Michael Crichton isn't exactly the first name one thinks of when one thinks "feminist storyteller," I know. But the adaptation in Spielberg's film really is, and there's more than one reason for that.
The most obvious is the main theme, if you will, of the plot: arrogance kills. Okay, dinosaurs kill. But arrogance made the dinosaurs. Ian Malcolm explains it thus: "God creates dinosaurs. God destroys dinosaurs. God creates man. Man destroys God. Man creates dinosaurs." Ellie Sattler adds: "Dinosaurs eat man. Woman inherits the earth."
Ian Malcolm, the rockstar-emulating mathematician, explains his objections to the park's project early on, and this is the film's first real foray into feminist thinking. While John Hammond and the "bloodsucking lawyer" Gennaro are giggling over how awesome they are and how much cash they'll rake in, Malcolm is deeply concerned with the authority Hammond and his scientists are attempting to wield over nature. This authority is unconsidered, required "no discipline to attain," and rests on assumptions of human control and superiority that are rightly called out later by Sattler as "illusion." These objections are actually very much in tune with ecofeminist thought, such as that expressed by Val Plumwood in her fantastic essay, "Being Prey," in which she meditates on her narrow escape from a crocodile attack and what the experience taught her about her relationship to the world. If you haven't read it already, go read it now. Go ahead. I'll wait.
Okay, now that you're back (and wasn't that wonderful?), you can probably see what I mean. Plumwood's main point, like many other ecofeminist philosophers, is that the patriarchal systems that separate "man" from the rest of nature are imaginary and harmful, both to us and to the other inhabitants of nature. Plumwood saw her experience as "a humbling and cautionary tale about our relationship with the earth, about the need to acknowledge our own animality and ecological vulnerability." We're animals; we're prey. Crocodiles attack us when we arrogantly venture into their territory, armored only in our own delusions of superiority, and we're the ones to blame for that. It's really the same for T-Rexes.
Malcolm's other point is, perhaps ironically given the amount of money Jurassic Park earned at the box office, that Hammond's use of scientific power is wrong because it's exploitative, based in capitalism rather than the quest for knowledge. Malcolm, Grant, and Sattler are academics, so it's not as though the film is anti-intellectual. Rather, Hammond's greed is the problem. Grant and Sattler are shown awestruck with delight when they first see the living dinosaurs; for them, this is scientific knowledge made manifest, but it's also just really cool. They work with what they do because they love it and want to understand it. Hammond does his work to take a power trip and rake in money. Crucially, he doesn't understand the extent of his own power: Malcolm points out that his scientists didn't even understand what they had really done, they just "patented it, and slapped it on a plastic lunchbox, and now, bam, you want to sell it." Putting profit above people kills, just as many philosophers have said it does; it's just here, it kills you with dinosaurs.
If Jurassic Park had been made in 2013 instead of 1993, the black-leather-wearing, open-shirted Ian Malcolm would probably be the main character, saving everyone while looking hip and macho and cracking wise-ass jokes. But instead, he's very quickly injured, rescued (by Sattler) and holed up for the remainder of the film in a bunker, unable to take direct action. This sidelining of the figure audiences might expect to be the hero of an action-adventure is a fascinating move, because it allows for other characters to take center-stage, none of whom is more interesting to me as a feminist than Ellie Sattler.
A recent essay by Sophia McDougall (which you should also read, but not, like, right now) argues that "Strong Female Character" is often just a label for a female character who's shoddily written and glossed up with some sort of action detail. What I love about Ellie Sattler in this movie is that she's complex; she's not just an "SFC" for show. Sure, she's an action hero, athletic, able to kick some dino butt and get the power back on in the park. But she's introduced to us as an intellectual. The first shot of her we see is her skillfully excavating a dinosaur skeleton, and she's referred to as the "top mind" in her academic field, a status which is proven by her extensive knowledge of botany (demonstrated several times in the film). She's also tenacious, a problem-solver, willing to dig shoulder-deep into a heap of triceratops poop in order to get answers (a feat which leaves both Malcolm and Alan Grant hanging back and making "eww" faces). The film directly addresses her status as female action hero late in the film, when she decides that she needs to take action to get the park's power back on. Hammond hesitantly suggests that "But it really ought to be me going," and when Sattler asks him why, he stammers: "Because I'm a--- and you're a---" In reply, Sattler pulls a face and says, "Look, we can discuss sexism in survival situations when I get back," and then heads out to get the job done (which she does).
For a generic SFC, those would be the defining traits: kick-ass and smart. But this movie gives Sattler more, which is one of the things that helps make this movie the feminist classic I'm arguing it to be. In addition to her physical and mental prowess, Sattler is also emotional. She loves kids and thinks about having one of her own; she forms an emotional connection with Alex and Tim and helps defend them from the dinosaurs. At one point she breaks into tears thinking about Grant and the kids being out alone in the park. And this behavior, rather than being painted as something too unstable and "feminine" for the "real" heroes, is portrayed as essential. It's what's missing in Hammond's calculations, and it's why his park fails. Hammond is shown to manipulate people as well as nature in his attempts to play god; he rushes the park into operation despite knowing that it has safety issues; he underpays his employees in his quest for profit. He believes that he can rebuild Jurassic Park better, stronger, faster; he believes he'll have control again, and "next time, it'll be flawless." Except that perfection of authority isn't true of humans, and Sattler knows that: "You never have control, that's the illusion! I was overwhelmed by the power of this place, but I didn't have enough respect for that power and it's out now." Much like Malcolm, Sattler understands the importance of understanding that humans are only a part of nature, and that our attempts to assert unquestioned dominance over it are doomed to harm and to fail. Yet this understanding doesn't make her cold or distant; she is shown to deeply and emotionally value her relationships with other people.
This emotional comfort forms a major part of the other principal character's story arc: Alan Grant has to learn to be okay with kids, and specifically, the emotional connection they require of him. In a memorable scene early in the film, Grant is shown almost literally eviscerating a child not suitably impressed by a velociraptor skeleton, sarcastically snipping at him with both words and a fossilized raptor claw. He's awkward and distant around pretty much everyone but Sattler, trying to avoid any kind of connection with young Tim, who idolizes him, and preteen Alex, who appears to develop a rapid crush on him. The story forces him to take on the role of a father/protector to these two, but rather than making Grant more stereotypically "masculine" (read: punching everything), this arc requires him to get more in touch with his feelings. In addition to physically protecting them, he serves as emotional comforter to the kids, assuring them he'll watch over them and letting them snuggle against him to sleep. He has to learn to encourage them to keep going. In a subtle touch, he's shown throwing away his fossilized raptor claw as the children lean on him after a close escape; rather than distancing himself from others, he's learning to allow intimacy, and this is proposed in the film as positive growth for his character. Both he and Sattler are allowed a balance between physical action and emotional stability that just isn't present in most characters (of either sex, really) in movies today, and that balance is, I'd argue, very feminist.
Tellingly, characters who fare badly in the movie lack this balance. The slimy lawyer Gennaro chooses to save his own skin rather than staying to help the others and ends up as T-Rex chow. Programmer Dennis Nedry, feeling underappreciated by Hammond's cheapness, attempts to steal the power of the park for himself and fails to adequately respect the wildlife he's confronted with; he ends up as a dilophosaurus's chew-toy. Even Robert Muldoon, probably the film's most literal representation of the Action Hero (those shorts, am I right?), winds up hoist with his own petard when he overestimates his superiority to his prey and is bested and eaten by a group of velociraptors (teamwork for the win!). The only reason Hammond survives is because he has a group of people who take care of him and he appears at the end to have learned his lesson.
"Okay," I hear you saying, "but what about the fact that all the dinosaurs are female? Doesn't that create a psychological fear of the feminine as all-devouring force?" And I answer, of course it does. There's more than one way to read a dino. But even this can also be read as challenging the patriarchy, because it defies human attempts to assert an artificial control over forces that are larger than ourselves, a major concern of ecofeminism. As Malcolm puts it, "Life finds a way." Despite Hammond and Wu's best attempts at playing god, they can't ultimately outsmart or control nature, no matter how much money and power they throw at it. The island's very instability -- dinos swapping sexes, for example -- messes with that comfortable binary dichotomy discussed by Plumwood and others. It also disrupts our notions of sex and gender: if girl dinosaurs can spontaneously become boy dinosaurs, why should gender roles of humans be any more fixed?
Val Plumwood concludes her essay (which, seriously, if you didn't read it, go do that now) by reflecting on the general human unwillingness to recognize our vulnerability: "In my work as a philosopher, I see more and more reason to stress our failure to perceive this vulnerability, to realize how misguided we are to view ourselves as masters of a tamed and malleable nature." Weird though it may sound, Jurassic Park encourages the same sort of reflection, at least for me. Unlike the book, the film doesn't end with the humans reasserting control over the created ecosystem (trust me, there's a lot of nonsense with raptors and weapons), but leaving it to balance itself. The final shot of the film is Grant looking out the window of his helicopter and smiling thoughtfully at a flock of birds moving gracefully over the water, emphasizing not the monstrosity of nature but its beauty and its interconnectedness. After all, as Grant told that scared kid at the beginning, some dinosaurs evolved into birds, "So, you know, try to show a little respect."
Or, perhaps, a lot.
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This post is dedicated to Brandie Ashe, probably the only person in the world who understands the true extent of my affection for this movie. You can check out her work at True Classics.
Tellingly, characters who fare badly in the movie lack this balance. The slimy lawyer Gennaro chooses to save his own skin rather than staying to help the others and ends up as T-Rex chow. Programmer Dennis Nedry, feeling underappreciated by Hammond's cheapness, attempts to steal the power of the park for himself and fails to adequately respect the wildlife he's confronted with; he ends up as a dilophosaurus's chew-toy. Even Robert Muldoon, probably the film's most literal representation of the Action Hero (those shorts, am I right?), winds up hoist with his own petard when he overestimates his superiority to his prey and is bested and eaten by a group of velociraptors (teamwork for the win!). The only reason Hammond survives is because he has a group of people who take care of him and he appears at the end to have learned his lesson.
"Okay," I hear you saying, "but what about the fact that all the dinosaurs are female? Doesn't that create a psychological fear of the feminine as all-devouring force?" And I answer, of course it does. There's more than one way to read a dino. But even this can also be read as challenging the patriarchy, because it defies human attempts to assert an artificial control over forces that are larger than ourselves, a major concern of ecofeminism. As Malcolm puts it, "Life finds a way." Despite Hammond and Wu's best attempts at playing god, they can't ultimately outsmart or control nature, no matter how much money and power they throw at it. The island's very instability -- dinos swapping sexes, for example -- messes with that comfortable binary dichotomy discussed by Plumwood and others. It also disrupts our notions of sex and gender: if girl dinosaurs can spontaneously become boy dinosaurs, why should gender roles of humans be any more fixed?
Val Plumwood concludes her essay (which, seriously, if you didn't read it, go do that now) by reflecting on the general human unwillingness to recognize our vulnerability: "In my work as a philosopher, I see more and more reason to stress our failure to perceive this vulnerability, to realize how misguided we are to view ourselves as masters of a tamed and malleable nature." Weird though it may sound, Jurassic Park encourages the same sort of reflection, at least for me. Unlike the book, the film doesn't end with the humans reasserting control over the created ecosystem (trust me, there's a lot of nonsense with raptors and weapons), but leaving it to balance itself. The final shot of the film is Grant looking out the window of his helicopter and smiling thoughtfully at a flock of birds moving gracefully over the water, emphasizing not the monstrosity of nature but its beauty and its interconnectedness. After all, as Grant told that scared kid at the beginning, some dinosaurs evolved into birds, "So, you know, try to show a little respect."
Or, perhaps, a lot.
_____________
This post is dedicated to Brandie Ashe, probably the only person in the world who understands the true extent of my affection for this movie. You can check out her work at True Classics.
