Paper #2

Charissa Kerr

Prof. Lydia Hearn

EWRT2

February 10th, 2013

Women Burned Instead of Their Bras

The paradox of historical settings with modern behavior is the key to

understanding how Gretel, a woman without class status, can get away with head-

butting a sheriff as a form of rebuttal. Don’t start clapping for her “femchismo” just yet,

for she will pay dearly for that act when her brother is not there to protect her. Despite

the female characters of the movie Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters displaying the

echoes of feminism through job roles, language use, and socio-economic status, this

movie subjugates women’s empowerment, rights, and value by demoralizing and

negatively stereotyping female characters throughout its entirety.

Equality in the workplace has been an issue for female empowerment, and this

movie uses the job positions of women as a means to disempower them. Dressed in her

power-suit of dark leather, Gretel echoes the modern business woman as she attends

an informal meeting in the town square, standing before a mob to make a presentation

about the H&G witch-hunting service expertise. After positing that Gretel is self-

empowered by giving her a male-dominated job position and having the first shot at

communicating to the public, the movie suddenly decides it is time to step back a few

centuries in how it will respond to Gretel’s sell.

The demoralizing verbal abuse and threat of physical violence by the town’s

sheriff is viciously directed at Gretel with symbolic silence from the crowd, the mayor

who hired her, and the woman she is defending. Fast forward to the modern kick-ass

woman of the 21st century so we can see how Gretel takes that deflation of her self-

empowerment - insert the aforementioned head-butt - and then back-peddle a couple

centuries yet again to see that the final resolution is handled by Hansel, for he is

resolves the conflict and closes the deal by brandishing his over-sized phallic shaped

gun and manhandling of the accused witch to demonstrates his authority and expertise

Gretel has attempted to do. Gretel’s equality as a business partner is thereby

diminished by her own partner and brother, employer, and potential clients. Gretel

handles this result with silent acceptance.

However, Gretel’s nemeses are not her oppressors. It is the other independent

women that have a non-traditional job role that she is matched against. Witchcraft was

a historically respected job position in pre-Christian times that consisted of selling

products and services of a magical nature to local residents. However, this aspect of

witchcraft is entirely absent from the movie, and thereby demeans their job positions as

having no worth. This worthlessness is further supported by their symbolic drain on the

society as they kidnap children from the town. In addition, their meetings to negotiate

business are negatively depicted as unorganized and incompetent. In one scene, the

leading female mistreats her subordinate by holding the woman’s hand over a flame to

see if it would burn. This seems like an obvious statement that one businesswoman will

burn another if it means she can achieve her goals. The message of women’s inability

to network socially in the workplace is constantly broadcasted by this lack of solidarity

between them in the majority of scenes.

The movie stoops to demoralize the position of the single-mother as a

homemaker as well. Again, it is woman against woman here as a witch uses her

powers to cause a woman’s son to kill his mother with a shotgun while the mother is

trying to protect her children. The absence of a husband seems strengthened by this

scenes positioning of the mother and son on opposite sides of the room with children

between them in the back room. The mother, positioned alone and standing helplessly

as her son slowly points the shotgun towards her, shows her as incompetent to care for

her children if she is alone. The irony in this scene is that the powers the witch uses to

force the physical movement of the son to kill his mother and to explode the home’s wall

for a get-away exit suddenly disappear when she is being attacked.

The implied physical inferiority of women to men is expressed in scenes showing

male violence towards females. The witch in the previously mentioned scene had

power to kill the mother and take the girl child but is brutally punched and beaten by

Hansel and barely escapes. His physical superiority is further noted when Gretel

invades the home of a witch who does gravity and time-defying stunts to doge the

automatic-fire of arrows Gretel shoots at her, escaping out the window to be knocked

out by the ever-present over-sized gun Hansel wields as she exits. In the last scene of

the movie, a wheelbarrow of dead female bodies is drawn behind him by the male ogre.

The shot of these bodies focuses on a bloody foot hanging limply from the cart,

symbolic of the women's inability to outrun or fight him. Even the youthful side-kick is

given dominance over Gretel when he takes her unconscious body back to his home

and molests her breasts as he physically cares for her. Though Gretel grabs his hand,

she does not reprimand him for this sexual violence against her.

The fondling of her breasts is significant in that it points out how a woman’s body

is portrayed as valuable only if it is exposed in a sexually desirable way, for Gretel is

ignored sexually during all other scenes. A white witch explains to Gretel that only “bad”

witches are appear monstrous because their actions and moral character are expressed

in their physical appearance. This same witch, who happens to be beautiful, constantly

throws herself at Hansel and exposes herself to him in full nudity as she seduces him.

She also has hair is light-colored and left unbound and long, as it is the stereotypical

component of a beautiful woman. Her clean clothes are light-colored and border on

provocative while the “bad” witches have hair that is matted or short, are dressed in

rags or dark clothes, and whose skin is either grey, ash-white, or blotchy.

Gretel’s physical appearance is beautiful but her clothing is made of leather and

metals. The only non-violent attention she receives is from the side-kick and her

brother, so while her physical beauty is due to her being a white-witch too, the symbolic

masculinity in her attire isolates her from her fellow women and for suitors she would be

interested in. This suggests social punishment for not displaying yourself in an inviting

way. For a women wishing to be taken seriously and also be accepted, it causes a

dilemma of trying to dress in order to please society. Besides attire, appearance also

encompasses facial expressions. The seriousness of Gretel is conveyed by a lack of

facial expressions whereas the other white witch that has Hansel’s attention has a

constant expression of helplessness with a parted mouth and raised brows.

Because the film incorporates modern elements, the demoralizing actions

against women serves as a sexist attack on women instead of trying to be historically

relevant. For men and women being entertained by this movie, it gives them a fictional

setting in which this behavior is accepted, so the discomfort of viewing violence against

women is diminished. These should all be warning signs, but the biggest one of all is

that this movie made over one-hundred million dollars in profit.