Packed, Stacked, and on the Attack

By J.R. Taylor

Dominique Mainon is our kind of feminist academic. Specifically, she doesn't seem anything like a feminist academic. Instead the bold blonde babe is plainly part of the Skindred with The Modern Amazons: Warrior Women on Screen (Limelight Editions). Along with co-writer James Ursini, Mainon has put together a pic-laden history of sexy tough gals in cinema--from Pam Grier (Picture: 1) to Sigourney Weaver (Picture: 1) to Angelina Jolie (Picture: 1).

She also shares Mr. Skin's obsession with telling the complete story. Just consider how the new book even crams in a shot of Kate Beckinsale (Picture: 1) from the very recent Underworld: Evolution (2006). "Oh gosh," laughs Mainon, "it was so bad. I was going crazy. Just about every time we'd finish, there would be some new film, and I'd be saying, 'Oh my God, we have to cover this one!' That's the point of the book. There are so many movies with strong women coming out now. We'll need a second edition by next year."

And Modern Amazons doesn't just cover all of the bad and the beautiful. There's also the unnerving, as seen by the bold inclusion of Dyanne Thorne (Picture: 1 - 2) and her Ilsa series. This was new territory for Mainon, although she endured the canon--from Ilsa, She Wolf of the S.S. (1974) to Ilsa, the Tigress of Siberia (1977)--in her quest for enlightenment.

"Those can make you feel dirty," concedes Mainon, "That's like, 'Okay, we've got Nazis and boots and all this stuff, but I'm going to finish watching this for the sake of the book. We actually had a more extensive section on the Ilsa films. There's a woman in Sweden who had written a great long piece on Ilsa, and we were going to put it in. Then the publisher felt it was too dark. It was, um, a different flavor than the rest of the book. Not everyone wants to hear all that about castration."

Thankfully Mainon doesn't feel that powerful women in cinema are entirely about cutting off men's figurative weenies. She's actually got a good attitude toward how we like strong women in skimpy outfits.

"Look at Raquel Welch (Picture: 1) in One Million Years B.C. (1966)," says Mainon, "with the classic fur bikini shot. The nation was still coming out of the June Cleaver period. Raquel was so aggressive in that bikini, and the cheesecake stuff was just a way to introduce it into society without alienating men. Linda Hamilton (Picture: 1) in Terminator 2 (1991) is strong and powerful at the same time, but they're still pulling the same act. It doesn't matter if the character's a fighter pilot; there's always sexiness. If they wanted to get these characters right, they'd all look really butch."

But there's nothing wrong with a soft butch, as Modern Amazons acknowledges by celebrating the greatness that is Cynthia Rothrock (Picture: 1 - 2). To Mainon's credit, the kung-fu champion touches a personal chord in the authoress.

"She's great," says Mainon. "She fights in skirts! At the time that Cynthia was getting started, there weren't any good white women who could fight--and she was blonde too! She's a world champion in five different martial arts, and you see that training on the screen. There were strong female figures like her in Hong Kong films, but not here. They'll always be giving her a hard time about her acting, but she's so powerful. Cynthia will always have the way that she presented herself in those movies. She just never got a good deal on the kinds of films she made. She could've been incredible in the right movie."

Mainon then confirms her status as a fan: "Have you seen her website lately? She's a brunette now, and she looks great."

But let's get back to how Modern Amazons celebrates warrior women in impractical outfits. The gold standard is currently Halle Berry (Picture: 1 - 2) in Catwoman (2004), and Mainon takes that in stride.

"So many of these films are crap," she explains. "People were outraged by Catwoman, but it's been that way forever, since the early days of comics. Now you've got it with your Jessica Albas (Picture: 1) and Jennifer Garners (Picture: 1) too. I'm not trying to explain why, but I definitely think that the fetish community and alternative lifestyles are becoming more predominate in media. The alternative lifestyle is like what being gay was twenty-five years ago. It's not mainstream enough yet--but it's creeping up there. Every little girl at the mall is wearing spiked belts and collars. People really want to dress like Kate Beckinsale in Underworld (2003)."

Mainon's book also addresses dedicated fetishism, examining the websites where men can see costumed superheroines getting stripped and beaten. The book includes an excerpt from a letter by noted comic-book illustrator George Perez, where he reveals his own dirty fantasies that had to be kept out of his work for DC Comics.

"I loved that letter," says Mainon, "especially finding the suggestions that the girl should be showing more emotion when she's punched in the belly. The whole world of comics is a time of adolescence, and we talk about that in the section about monsters. It's hard for teenagers to approach beautiful women. So they project these qualities on women by making them monstrous and superpowerful and aggressive. It's easier to have the woman saying, 'Come here, you!'"

Men also have wilder fantasies, of course, and Modern Amazons doesn't ignore that. "There's my section on Macrophilia in Media," adds Mainon, "with commercial art of tiny men lying at the crotch or at the feet of powerful women. That art keeps saying that man is overwhelmed by the woman. It's society projecting things upon the woman, and those characters showing those traits physically."

Still, Modern Amazons never gets so deep that it interferes with the fun of its subject matter. "We're probably a good team," explains the authoress, "because James has such thorough expertise in older films, and he's really good at having the scholarly information. With me, I basically have a degree from Regal Cinemas, you know? I know what I like, and I'm ignorant enough that I don't know what to think about some subjects. I just watch the movies and make my notes and look to see what the critics say later."

Mainon stops, laughs, and says what we need to hear to get even more excited about her next book on erotic thrillers: "We tried really hard to be sure we never used a word like 'transgress.'"For more skinfo, go now to: www.dominiquemainon.com