The 'Salt' Identity

Interesting piece, from Luisita Lopez Torregrosa, at LAT:

[Angelina] Jolie, who made her action-hero mark as the leather-clad archaeologist Lara Croft in the box-office hit "Tomb Raider" movies, has turned the action up several notches as an icy-hot American operative accused of being a Russian sleeper agent. She had joked about wanting to play James Bond but may have gotten something better: a role originally written for Tom Cruise. Jolie transforms the testosterone-and-octane Salt into a more compelling and intriguing character than any of the action-hero boys could've done — yes, even more exciting than Jason Bourne, on whom Salt is pretty much modeled ....

Are these women the new models of millennial femininity? Do they sacrifice being "real" women — with boyfriends, husbands, kids — to fit a male fantasy ( Phillip Noyce's, the director of "Salt," and Larsson's, respectively)? Or are Salt and Salander the right ideal: brainy, independent, physically and emotionally tough, sexual but coldblooded? The movie critic Owen Gleiberman declared them "the new normal." But are they?

While a Tom Cruise action character could have a wife and kids, Evelyn Salt could not. Mothers define attachments; they aren't free to run for their lives. No mother would walk on a narrow ledge way above the ground or jump from a bridge railing onto a speeding truck below or wipe out a gang of Russian killers without breaking a sweat, mowing them down like a row of toy ducks at the country fair, after she watches them kill her husband with a shot to the head. Evelyn Salt had to be childless and a widow. Among reviewers and bloggers and commenters and my friends, women are split on this thing about Salt and Salander. Men swoon over Salt and back up Salander, but women are not so sure. Some adore Salander and, to a lesser extent, Salt. Some see them as weird, narcissistic and heartless, putting their careers — killing (mostly) bad people, saving the world — above the gentler pleasures of womanhood. And many women, while applauding Salt's guts and Salander's sang-froid, take it all in as just pulse-racing entertainment, a Saturday matinee fantasy.

Salander is Lisbeth Salander, who stars in "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo," directed by Stieg Larsson.