The Subversion Of The Stereotyped Female Gender Role

More closely tied to Luc Besson’s1990French film Nikita than the1997television series, La Femme Nikita, the TV series Nikita is a newly made TV series bythe CW Television Network. It soon gains millions of audiences all over the worldand people also begin to discuss feminism shown in this TV series. It brings theaudiences the positive portrayal of perspective for understanding gender role and thisalso becomes the subject of this thesis.From the perspective of Judith Butler’s theory of Performativity, this thesisargues that this TV series subverts the traditional stereotyped female gender roles asthe Other, the passive recipient of male talk and the object of desire by analyzing thefemale roles in the TV series Nikita.This thesis consists of three parts. The first part is an introduction, giving a briefreview on Nikita, previous studies on Nikita, studies on Judith Butler’s theory ofPerformativity, the aim and significance of the thesis and the structure of the thesis.The second part has three chapters, which focuses on the analysis of some femaleroles in this TV series. Chapter one aims to argue the subversion of stereotypedfemale gender role as the Other, explaining by Nikita, Amanda and Sonya; chaptertwo intends to argue the subversion of stereotyped female gender role as the passiverecipient of male talk, explaining by the female roles of Nikita, Amanda and Alex;chapter three argues for the subversion of stereotyped female gender role as the objectof desire, elaborating by Amanda and Ari’s love relationship, Nikita and Michael’slove relationship and Alex and Sean’s love relationship. The last part is the conclusion:the TV series of Nikita is the subversion of stereotyped female gender role by meansof showing that gender is performative rather than inborn and innate.