| This study concentrates on two rhetorical sites that have been used to secure the space of knowledge about women, thereby (re)positioning them and their roles: film and the female action hero. Specifically, it focuses on the interaction of the content and style used in connection with these sites which create particular meaning and symbolic structures for audiences-the rhetorical construction. A combination of critical rhetoric and feminist rhetorical criticism, with the addition of feminist film, film genre, and ideological theories, are employed to study the character in the films G. I. Jane (1997), The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996), and Alien Resurrection (1997).;In sum, the dissertation answers how the female action hero maintains or disrupts patriarchal conventions and ideologies which can create symbolic spaces that support or counter the dominant system. Although these filmic depictions are not representative of the lived realities of women, they do perpetuate ways to understand women---who they are, how they can behave, and how they are expected to act. In the end, the majority of the rhetorical constructions of the female action hero perpetuate traditional, oppressive, and/or patriarchal prescriptions. Although some symbolic space is offered as a site of resistance, the cultural space of the dominant structure is not threatened. |
