Visual Representations of Violent Women

Abstract

Visual representations of violent women provoke a range of gender issues in contemporary consumer culture. The present study offers a critical visual analysis of violent women. Specifically, we examine the French Connection United Kingdom (FCUK) ad Fashion versus Style, the Quentin Tarantino film Kill Bill, and one of the Sisley ads. We discuss how violent women have been portrayed historically and how contemporary images are expressed in an art historical framework. Violent women in popular culture are often glamorized, trivialized, and sanitized. Their violence is desensitized and disinhibited, and it creates empowering images of women. It is argued, however, that images of violent women are constructed to signify an artificially masculinized female predator and a superficial marker of power transformation.

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