Babes on Bikes: Shame, Rape Revenge, and a Woman on a Motorcycle as an Action Heroine

Abstract

The association between motorcycles and sex, and motorcycles and action, is highly gendered and very few action films star women on motorcycles. This chapter examines little-known Australian film, Shame (1988) and the American made-for-television remake Shame (1992) as rare examples of films starring heroic women on motorcycles. The protagonist of both films is a motorbike-riding lawyer (Cadell) who rides into a country town blighted by an endemic rape culture. The film(s) have been largely overlooked in critical discussions about gender and action films. This chapter utilises scholarship about gender and action films, and about the rape revenge genre to explore how Cadell is cast as feminist avenger and agent of change. Rather than being a bombshell or a babe, in the tradition of Ellen Ripley and Sarah Connor, Cadell is a tough action chick who embodies (female) heroism. She, as Sara Ahmed (2017) would describe it, snaps, and that snap prompts viewers to examine misogyny, rape, revenge and shame.

Citation

Johinke, R. (2022), "Babes on Bikes: Shame, Rape Revenge, and a Woman on a Motorcycle as an Action Heroine", Gerrard, S. and Middlemost, R. (Ed.) Gender and Action Films 1980-2000 (Emerald Studies in Popular Culture and Gender), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 91-102. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-80117-506-720221007