Movie Review : G.I Jane (1997)
Feminism is something difficult to understand for white men because we have historically tried to control everything that's not like us. It's difficult for us to understand how bad we have to get out of the way. It's why we have novels and movies to educate ourselves and I had the opportunity of doing something I should've done almost two decades ago in that regard: watch G.I JANE. It was a bit of a surreal, heavily mediated experience because it was co-written, directed (and probably financed) by men, but I thought it was a bit of a by-numbers breakdown that could serve nicely as an introduction to a feminism class for dummies.
After publicly criticizing a candidate to the Secretary of the Navy position, U.S Senator Lilian DeHaven (Anne Bancroft) plans to boost her status in the public opinion by enrolling a woman in Navy Seal training. The operation is nothing more than a public relations stunt and the candidate is expected to fail quite early in the process, except that Jordan O'Neill (Demi Moore) has no intention to. She's been waiting for an opportunity like this all her life and she's not afraid to go through hell to make it. She becomes kind of a problem for everybody involved in this operation, but in the process she's also becoming a Navy Seal.
G.I JANE is not a subtle movie. It isn't an allegory for anything, it's a fictionalized feminist breakthrough. While I'm not sure if a woman ever made it through Navy Seal training in real life, there is anything in G.I JANE that is implausible. It would've been an easy mistake to put an evil sociopath rapist character in the barracks, but not even. Some of the soldiers Jordan trains with are dicks, but they are worried about things members of a narrow-minded institution would plausibly worry about, like the overall toughness of a woman in combat.
It gets awkwardly erotic at times.
Of course, there is a rape scene in G.I JANE, a memorable one on top of that. It is cleverly brought up, though. It happens during the Navy SERE training and of course, the scene portrays the threat of imminent rape and not the act itself. I thought it was interesting, because rape is a horrible ordeal to inflict on anybody and it is indeed used as a weapon in wars, both against men and women. The rape scene in G.I JANE is amazing because it is quite tasteful for what it is and everything that happens in it can be interpreted in the context of training and yet Jordan O'Neill's reaction was suited both for the moment and for a real combat situation.
G.I JANE gets weird in a couple scenes where Jordan trains on her own. Everything about her physical transformation is oddly sexual, to be honest. Demi Moore is a gorgeous woman and I have a weak spot for chicks who are in terrific shape, but some of these scenes were so blatantly devoid of purpose aside from getting guys turned on by Moore's sweaty body, it felt queasy. It reminded me of Rocky Balboa training scenes, except they had no clear purpose. I'm all about celebrating the female body as much as the next guy, but I thought it clashed with the overall purpose of G.I JANE which is well-executed for the most part.
I'm no expert on the topic of feminism. Understanding it from a male's perspective is kind of a life project for me, but I thought G.I JANE gave it a good overview in two hours: it's about equality. Everybody is different and nobody, men or women, really are born equal but everyone should have an equal opportunity to do what they want, assuming that they know what they want to do with their lives. Women might be physically smaller than men, but they are infinitely more resourceful in other ways and I though G.I JANE illustrated that efficiently despite the oddly sexy training scene. It's a movie that beat father time well.
6.8/10
* 2022 update: I’m aware this review unwittingly got a lot of traction for the keyword "GI Jane rape", so if you’re here because it’s exactly what you just Googled, get help.
