![\"Anne](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/440\/2009\/08\/ella1.jpg\")
<\/a>Originally delivered as an address to the Midwest Conference on Language, Literature and Media (MCLLM) in DeKalb, Illinois. 2 April 2005.<\/p>\n
On the surface, no two films from 2004 would seem more oddly paired than Ella Enchanted <\/em>and Kill Bill: Volume 2<\/em>. The former is a PG-rated fantasy film marketed primarily towards adolescent and \u201ctweener\u201d girls; the latter is an R-rated, action movie from the uber-violent imagination of Quentin Tarantino. Ella Enchanted<\/em> centers on a protagonist who has been \u201cblessed\u201d by a magical spell that makes her obedient to every command given to her; The Bride is a powerful assassin on a mission to kill the man from whom she used to take orders. Despite these differences, I would argue that the films share one striking feature: on the surface, they both appear to advocate or celebrate female empowerment in their principle story lines. A comparison of the two, however, will reveal contrary or ambivalent feelings toward women\u2019s ability to discipline themselves and thus effectively wield power and\/or authority.<\/p>\n While both films address the issue of female empowerment, there is a key difference that warrants careful consideration when assessing the appropriate audiences for the respective movies: one film rather pointedly genders the virtues of obedience and subordination while the other treats these virtues more universally.<\/p>\n Ella Enchanted centers around a protagonist who is given the gift of obedience. Shortly after Ella\u2019s birth, her fairy godmother, Lucinda (more about her later) casts a spell on Ella that forces her to obey every command she receives. The focus of the plot involves Ella\u2019s attempts to find her fairy godmother in order to ask her to remove the spell. The plot reaches its climax when her step-sisters, Hattie and Olive, inform the regent, Edgar, about Ella\u2019s condition. He uses the information to order Ella to assassinate his nephew, Prince Char, the heir apparent to the throne. As Ella lifts the dagger, she hears a series of voice-overs reminding her of all the commands she has had to obey throughout her life, interspersed with a memory of her new deceased mother reminding her that \u201cwhat is inside\u201d of her is more powerful than any spell. Ella does not break through the spell through willpower, however. At this key point she sees herself in the mirror and commands herself, \u201cYou will no longer be obedient.\u201d Since the spell requires her to obey all commands, she must now obey the command to no longer be obedient.<\/p>\n So, are we looking at a film that celebrates freedom of conscience\u2013sending the message to young girls that heroes are the ones that learn to say \u201cno\u201d to authority (when it is corrupt) and make autonomous moral decisions? Maybe, maybe not. Jonathan Culler said \u201cto deconstruct a discourse is to show how it undermines the philosophy it asserts, or the hierarchical oppositions on which it relies.\u201d How does Ella Enchanted<\/em> undermine the philosophy of female empowerment?<\/p>\n We could begin to answer this question by looking at the scene in which Ella breaks the spell. Certainly it is worth noting that upon gaining her freedom the first major decision Ella makes is to resubordinate herself through marriage to Prince Char. The film may advocate freedom, but its inability to imagine what to do with that freedom is telling. This point becomes more significant when we consider the voice-over from Ella\u2019s mother\u2013her final words to Ella are, \u201cWhat\u2019s inside you is stronger than any spell.\u201d<\/p>\n I\u2019ve already mentioned that the film remains ambiguous about whether the spell is broken through the exercise of willpower (tied to the timely reminder of her mother\u2019s advice) or trickery (the timely exploitaiton of the nature of the spell at the sight of the mirror). In either case, however, the film brushes over the fact that both options have been open to Ella her whole life and are only exercised at the point that her curse threatens the life of Char. (In an earlier scene, Ella is nearly run over by a carriage because she can\u2019t\u2013or won\u2019t\u2013break the spell to save her own life.)<\/p>\n Of course, most fairy tales are bildungsromans, so in the genre we could\u2013in face I would<\/em>\u2013argue that we are supposed to look at the mother\u2019s dying words not as an instruction that goes unheeded for years but as a seed that will eventually bear fruit when Ella is ready. After all, if Ella were capable of breaking the spell at any time, there would be no reason for her mother to wait until her own death bed to tell her so. Therefore, there must be some hope that Ella will remember these words and be able to break the spell at an appropriate<\/em> time in the future. What does \u201cappropriate\u201d mean in this context, though? What must Ella learn before she can unleash the power that is \u201cinside her\u201d and break the spell?<\/p>\n I would argue that what Ella has to learn is to internalize the curse. She can only safely be free from the curse when it becomes superfluous because she has learned the lesson that female power is inherently untrustworthy and can only be unleashed or set free when it is subordinated to a higher power or authority. This reluctance\/inability to use one\u2019s own power is mirrored in Ella\u2019s aunt (played by Minnie Driver) who is revealed at the end of the film to, in fact, have had the power to release her own beloved from a book in which he has been trapped, but can only bring herself to do so when a safe social order has been established.<\/p>\n That female power is inherently dangerous because females are intrinsically less disciplined is a message that permeates the film\u2019s portrayal of other characters as well. The clearest examples are Lucinda, the fairy godmother, Hattie, and Olive.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Lucinda is a true foil for Ella\u2013a warning of what happens to females who are prematurely liberated from external constraints. Lucinda is both self-destructive and dangerous to others. When Ella begins her search for Lucinda, she asks the magic book to show her Lucinda\u2019s location. We are told in a pointed aside that Lucinda has been pulled over for an \u201cFWI\u201d (flying while intoxicated). Later we are told that Lucinda has checked in to a rehab clinic, and it is intimated that there is a high rate of alcoholism (or other addictions necessitating rehabilitation) among the fairies. This inability to discipline one\u2019s own desires is subtly but clearly portrayed as being the natural outcome of unsubordinated female power.<\/p>\n Another trait exemplified in Lucinda, and echoed in Hattie, is impulsiveness. Lucinda is clearly shown as giving the gift of obedience to the baby Ella because she (Lucinda) is irritated by the baby\u2019s crying. Her inability to deal with frustration or irritation is a trait that is tied to her always getting\u00a0 her own way. The trait of obstinacy is further gendered when the narrator, played by Eric Idle, tells us that Ella \u201cnever stopped fighting\u201d to have her own way. This quote suggests\u2013to me, anyway\u2013that Ella\u2019s natural willfullness is no different from Hattie\u2019s or Lucinda\u2019s. The only real difference between the female characters, then, has been their situations. Whereas Ella\u2019s has had constraints put on her and become a compassionate, loving, young adult, Hattie and Lucinda have experienced relative freedom and have become selfish, impatient, impulsive, and reckless withces and bitches.<\/p>\n It is also significant to note that the environment of freedom or subordination apparently operates differently on males and females in the film. Almost immediately after the curse is given to Ella we\u00a0 are told by the narrator that Ella\u2019s mother and aunt decided not to tell anyone about Ella\u2019s gift, and, we are specifically and pointedly told, they deliberately decided not to tell her father.<\/p>\n The point here is that Ella\u2019s gift makes her vulnerable\u2013and it does. Blind obedience can be, and often is, manipulated by the unscrupulous. But the insinuation is that Ella\u2019s obedience makes her particularly vulnerable to men\u2013that even relatively good men would not be able to resist the temptation to abuse absolute power over another human being. It is here that the film most clearly undercuts itself, since it is Hattie and Olive who most frequently abuse Ella and take advantage of her powerlessness. Ella\u2019s father, because he is kept in the dark, and his obliviousness hurts Ella because he is unable to use whatever social or domestic power he has to protect or help her.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The dissonance between the expectation and reality in the film\u2019s treatment of male power is similarly mirrored in the character of Prince Char, Ella\u2019s love interest. Char\u2019s father has been killed and Char has been told that a band of Ogres was responsible. Yet when Char rescues Ella\u2019s from a party of Ogres, he does not take vengeance on them, instead saying, \u201cI\u2019ll spare your lives where you did not spare [my father\u2019s].\u201d The significance of this quote is that in the case of the male character, the relative freedom from constraints has not had the same corrupting effects it has had on the female characters. Char is able to wield power and authority instinctively and benignly. When Char listens to a part of Giants at a wedding, Ella says, \u201cYou are a natural <\/em>at this.\u201d\u00a0 The word \u201cnatural\u201d is significant\u2013male dominance is a natural state, not merely because it is the way things are in nature but because it is the logical fulfillment of the natural characters of both genders. Lacking an external power to corrupt or dissuade, the male\u2019s natural goodness and integrity will create stability; lacking an external power to subordinate or discipline, the female\u2019s natural selfishness and impetuosity will create anarchy and suffering.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Ella Enchanted<\/em> is not the only film of 2004 that grapples with the theme of female empowerment. Beatrix Kiddo, a.k.a. The Bride, is the heroine of a very different movie with a very different intended audience. Like Ella Enchanted<\/em>, Kill Bill: Volume 2<\/em> presents a character who, although she appears empowered on the surface, has been subordinate most of her life. After Volume 1 has spent time establishing The Bride as an autonomous and lethal power in her own right, Volume 2 gives us a back story that tells us not only why she is seeking to kill Bill but how she acuired her awesome martial arts skill and the power that accompanies it.<\/p>\n Not surprisingly, it was through a sustained subordination to male power, in this case to Pai Mei, a wizened martial arts expert to whom Bill\u2013gives?\u2013lends?\u2013recommends?\u2013Beatrix for training. After he physically bests Beatrix, Pai Mei reminds her that the power to destroy a thing is the ultimate form of ownership and that, hence, he now \u201cowns\u201d Beatrix. This ownership is corporeally symbolized by her arm, which he threatens to break if she does not acknowledge his ownership of it by\u2013hmm, who does this sound like?\u2013being perfectly obedient to his every command. In a typical exchange, Pai Mei punches through a block of wood three inches away. He then says, \u201cSince your arm now belongs to me, I want it strong. Can you do that?\u201d Beatrix responds that she cannot, and Pai Mei orders her to continue to try, subordinating her own pain and potential injury to his command.<\/p>\n In both Kill Bill: Volume 2<\/em> and Ella Enchanted<\/em>, training and initiation\u2013whether it be formal or informal, requires of the female protagonist that she subordinate not merely her body but her will to a superior power before she can be deemed worthy of, or safe for, having power bestowed upon her.<\/p>\n The Christian theological label for such an attitude towards female subordination is called \u201ccomplementarianism.\u201d Based on an interpretation of passages such as Genesis 3:16 (\u201cYour desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you\u201d) or Ephesians 5:22 (\u201cWives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord), complementarianism (and yes, I know I\u2019m oversimplifying here for time and effect) holds that gender differences are innate and that the subordination of females to males is ordained by God. In some forms of complementarianism, there is a belief that part of the reason for the subordination is grounded in the greater weakness of the female character\u2013a weakness that is not merely physical but also pervades her morals and her will. It is my argument that Ella Enchanted<\/em>, despite its wink-wink \u201cYou will no longer be obedient\u201d feminist gloss, depicts a thoroughly complementarian world view and hence retains an appeal to fundamentalist (or socially conservative evangelical) Christian audiences who can support a film that simultaneously purports to champion female empowerment while continuing to reinforce all the stereotypes and assumptions that undergird the correctness of male domination.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Kill Bill: Volume 2<\/em> is a bit more complicated, though, because while it clearly present Beatrix\u2019s subordination to Pai Mei as a good thing (Beatrix\u2019s training saves her life several times), the goal of eventual freedom from tyrannical (and not coincidentally, male) authority is the purpose of temporary subordination.<\/p>\n As an aside here, I am tempted to discuss to what extent Beatrix\u2019s submission, in comparison to Ella\u2019s, is a willing one. Both films leave some room for argument about whether either character had the power to choose to reject subordination, and, if so, at what point. I turn aside from that tangent to note in passing that Beatrix\u2019s willingness to accept subordination to unusual extent ends up being a saving grace at least twice in the film. First, when she is buried alive by Bud, her acceptance of the \u201ccruel tutelage of Pai Mei\u201d empowered her to escape from a circumstance that would otherwise have been beyond her ability. Later, when Beatrix defeats Elle Driver, it is revealed that Elle, while receiving some training from Pai Mei, was unable or unwilling to accept subordination to the same degree as Beatrix and hence was not privy to some of the training that Beatrix was.<\/p>\n More telling, for me, are the final scenes between Beatrix and Bill, since they explicitly reveal that her subordination to Pai Mei did not result in an internalization of the principle of subordination but in a new found independence from other, more corrupt, male authority. While it was apparently Bill\u2019s hope that Beatrix would remain subordinate to him after her training\u2013and she does for a time\u2013he eventually discovers that Pai Mei has equipped Beatrix to make an independent choice. He has taught her the \u201cfive point palm exploding heart technique,\u201d a martial arts move that Bill explicitly says Pai Mei has not taught to him. After Beatrix has used this technique on Bill, but before he takes the five steps that will result in his death, he asks her, \u201cWhy didn\u2019t you tell me?\u201d Beatrix\u2019s reply\u2013\u201cI don\u2019t know\u2026because I\u2019m a bad person\u201d makes perfect sense in the context of complementarianism\u2013where by definition an empowered woman is a bad woman. But the fact that Pai Mei teaches this technique to Beatrix (and, apparently, only to her) underscores the film\u2019s rejection of the complementarian argument for subordination\u2013Beatrix does not need to continue to submit to Bill after she has submitted to Pai Mei precisely because the level of her submission to Pai Mei has evidenced a degree of self-discipline and self-control that are absent in the gender that has ostensibly been ordained to lead.<\/p>\n Consider Bill\u2019s reply when Beatrix finally poses him the question of why he and assassination suqad killed Beatrix\u2019s fiance and tried to murder her. Bill says: \u201cI\u2019m a killer. A murdering bastard. You know that. And there are consequences to breaking the heart of a murdering bastard.\u201d So while subordination is portrayed as a good thing, it is not gendered in Kill Bill<\/em> the way it is in Ella Enchanted<\/em>. It is also not permanent. Bill\u2019s inability to subordinate his own will to anything higher than himself leads to a lack of impulse control that prompts the shootout at the wedding chapel and eventually initiates a chain of events culminating in his own destruction. Beatrix\u2019s worthiness to wield power is grounded not in an ordained judgment of her gender but a personal response to her character. Unlike in Ella Enchanted, female power is not just celebrated (only to be undercut) it is validated<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/a>