Men Who Hate Women and Women Who Kick Their Asses: Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy in Feminist Perspective

1. Always Ambivalent: Why Media Is Never Just Entertainment

3 1 Always Ambivalent Why Media Is Never Just Entertainment Abby L. Ferber I n this essay, I want to focus on the deep feeling of ambivalence I have about the Millennium trilogy. How can three books that I am so fond of be so upsetting? Feminist cultural critics often identify their feelings of ambivalence in analyzing popular culture (Douglas 2010; Henry 2007; Kennedy 2002). Diane Shoos (2010) highlights this in her examination of the “ongoing debates about the representation of, especially, the violated female body”and the central issue of visibility and invisibility in regards to violence against women (115). My own ambivalence revolves around these issues. While reading the Millennium trilogy, I was reminded of the words quoted by Maria Guajardo at a conference for educators in 2009: “Our job is to comfort the distressed, and distress the comfortable .”These powerful words have stayed with me since I heard them: they capture what I aim to do in my teaching, and what I struggle with each semester. Can we do both at the same time? It is a balancing act I have not yet perfected. In teaching extremely difficult topics, including the history of slavery, lynching, rape, and sexual assault, I am constantly aware of the emotional impact of the subject matter on my students, as well as the toll it takes on me. We become, in effect , “secondary witnesses” to the horrors we examine (Jacobs 2010, 8). I pay particular attention to the texts and films I select with this in mind. While my intent is to reveal these hidden histories to my students, their own gender and racial identities affect their particular experience of the class. I know that intent and impact are not always consistent. No matter what Stieg Larsson intended, I believe the 4 Men Who Hate Women and Women Who Kick Their Asses Millennium trilogy can potentially “distress the comfortable.” Yet at the same time, I am disturbed by its potential impact on those already distressed. There are many reasons I love reading these novels. First, they are populated by strong, complex women. In her analysis of Lara Croft, Helen Kennedy (2002) observes that many feminist scholars have welcomed the increasing appearance of “active female heroines”; Lisbeth Salander certainly falls within this category. Like Croft, she is a “fantasy female figure”who resonates with the recent media construct of “girlpower.” Regarding the mystery-thriller genre, which is largely a bastion of men heroes and protagonists, Kennedy observes that “the general absence of such characters is part of the reasons why fans become so invested in these characters. . . . [The woman hero’s] occupation of a traditionally masculine world, her rejection of particular patriarchal values and the norms of femininity . . . are all in direct contradiction of the typical location of femininity within the private or domestic space.” Larsson depicts women as equally capable as men, whether as news reporters, editors, police officers, lawyers, novelists, or board members. He also pays his dues to women writers. Whenever he mentions other authors in the trilogy, they are almost always women (including, for example, Sue Grafton, Val McDermid, Sara Paretsky, Elizabeth George, Astrid Lindgren, Dorothy L. Sayers, Agatha Christie, and Enid Blyton). The Millennium trilogy also depicts the reality of women’s lives and the positive impact of the women’s movement and feminism. Throughout the trilogy, feminism is often referred to in a positive light, which is unfortunately rare in pop culture. Larsson credits the women’s movement’s many successes in creating women’s shelters, rape crisis centers, hotlines, and other resources. In Dragon Tattoo, he refers to women who experience domestic violence and are forced to seek “help from the women’s crisis centre” (41). At another point, he writes, “Gottfried Vanger . . . was the father of four daughters, but in those days women didn’t really count. . . . It wasn’t until women won the right to vote, well into the twentieth century, that they were even allowed to attend the shareholders’ meetings” (170). Always Ambivalent 5 As numerous scholars have detailed, the mainstream media has generally embraced a postfeminist perspective, one that assumes gender equality has now been achieved and oppression of women is largely a thing of the past (Douglas 2010; McRobbie 2004). As Angela McRobbie observes,“There is little trace of the battles fought, of the power struggles embarked upon, or of the enduring inequities which still mark out the relations...