How Do We Interpret The Sexual Politics Of The Fifth Element In 2019?
Several characters in the classic sci fi film challenged gendered norms of the 90s. Let’s look at how they hold up today.
artwork by Shan Jiang
Tristan Young @talltristan
It’s insane that The Fifth Element even exists. It’s a film where flying cars, racing through a baroque and art deco version of a future Manhattan don’t really raise an eyebrow. The very notion of pure evil being represented by basically a big angry rock, Bruce Willis decked out in neon orange, interstellar sages that look like large metal ducks, and honestly just a lot of other weird shit exist in a harmonious equilibrium. Gary Oldman plays a character that is a cross between Pat Buchannan and Bugs Bunny with an accent best described as ‘future perfect Texan’. Even for Oldman, who is the undoubted chameleon of our time, it’s pretty out there. That this space fairing, race to save the world and also go to the blue lady opera ever made it from the mind of a teenage Luc Besson to the movie theatres of 1997 is kind of amazing. Sure it hasn’t aged well, and its sense of logic was pretty anemic even then but the sheer audacity of it all, played with a more or less straight face, is really something. In an increasingly risk averse Hollywood, one that is reluctant to invest in anything that isn’t an established franchise, this film probably couldn’t have been made today. Indeed, even back in the 1990s it wasn’t Hollywood that produced the Fifth Element, but rather European studio Gaumont that footed the bill. At a 90 million dollar budget, it remains the most expensive film outside of Hollywood ever made.
20 years later the combined effects of a retrograde production and comparatively bonkers concepts renders the film as a product that definitely looks of its time. The idea of it existing within the spectrum of modern films is absurd, even in a way that’s not for 90s genre films like Jurassic Park or Independence Day. It was so outside of contemporary tastes even back then, it would seem even more alienating amidst films produced today by much more conservative tastes. Still it’s worth considering how exactly The Fifth Element would be received in the year 2019. Or how we should interpret the film through modern sensibilities. Sure the effects don’t hold up, but what about character designs? The blue alien opera singer is still stylistically fantastic. For all its prophetic world ending stakes- that are all the rage these last few years- it’s story would likely be regarded as overly campy to the point of satire. It’s a lot to consider.
More importantly however, it’s the sexual and gender politics of The Fifth Element that are worth interpreting and extrapolating through a modern lens. Beneath the ridiculous art direction, it’s actual story was somewhat benign and standard. However, its representation of gender and sexual agency are much more complicated. This is both liberating and concerning, progressive and restrictive. The Fifth Element proves capable of showing a better way forward beyond our current status quo of films, while also being burdened with the worst traits that got us into the position we are in. The film’s representation of Mila Jovavich’s Leeloo and Chris Tucker’s Ruby Rhod provide an intersectional and conflicting picture of how movies in the 90s represented characters outside of the heroic white straight male stereotype. Furthermore, how those characters we’re received may say more about audiences today than it did back then. You might not like what it has to say. Like I said it’s complicated. But trying to get to the bottom of it is a lot more interesting than mining the film for historical lore behind the genesis of evil.
First things first, wow this film is 22 years old. There are very likely people who are much smarter and well versed in gender politics that have never seen the damn movie. A quick recap. Thousands of years in our past, the manifestation of pure evil (in the form of a living planet, more or less) tries to destroy Earth; centuries later, it is about to try again. To hold it at bay, five elemental constructs, representing all facets of life in earth must be activated together. The first four elements are simply stones that control a fundamental physical characteristic of reality: earth, wind, fire, and water. The fifth is much more mysterious. In the 2300s, when this film takes place, we find out that the fifth element is living super human, named Leeloo- and she’s a little eccentric. Bruce Willis’ character Corbin Dallas, must team up with Leeloo to track down the four stones that are in the custody of an alien opera singer (natch) and figure how to get them all to work. Meanwhile a gang of bounty hunters are on their trail, funded by an evil corporate tyrant under the malicious influence of the evil planet (Planet Evil?). That’s Gary Oldman. Before we continue, please take note that Bruce Willis does in fact spend both 1997 and 1998 stopping large rocks from hitting the earth. Things hitting the earth were a big deal pre millennium, and it was awesome.
In order to get close enough to those stones, Dallas ends up in the company of interstellar radio star Ruby Rhod, and herein lies the first character worth examining. Rhod is ostensibly very annoying. Yet his actions and character speak volumes about the how Besson thought male characters could be portrayed in films back then. Rhod is verifiably into women; there is a hint of interest in men based on his initial reactions to Dallas, but not much beyond that. Based partly on the appearance of Prince, Rhod’s persona is built on ideas of queer iconography. He is flamboyant to the extreme, wears ostentatious leotards adorned in leopard print or roses. They look fabulous. He operates in perpetual piercing register. He proudly revels in movements and intonations that in the past were traditionally considered ‘feminine’. His manliness, as it were, is completely devoid of action film stereotypes of what a man should be like. The Fifth Element confidently ejects such constraints, fully comfortable with his lavish ambiguity. One may assume, somewhat presumptuously that based on the way he dresses and acts he must be gay. However, the film makes quite clear his lust for women, and contextualizes that through the visual language we often associate with LGBTQ culture. The film smartly paints this as normalized, and totally fine. The rough and gruff typical action hero Dallas, has absolutely zero qualms about Rhod’s potentially ambiguous sexuality or expressions of such. If reception is any guide, Besson was on the mark as Rhod’s character quickly became a fan favorite, especially compared to the comparatively dull Dallas. He is so much fun.
However, the film is also seemingly oblivious to Rhod’s sexual impropriety and using his position of power as means of non consensual dominance. One scene, played for laughs with rote sexual metaphors has him seducing a flight attendant on a journey through space. Despite her obvious reluctance and unease, Rhod persists in a creepily relentless manner. In doing so the film wrongly and perniciously tries to establish a correlation between non traditional sexual or gender orientations and sexual predation. This is super not cool, and something it likely would have been ripped apart for had The Fifth Element been released today. There’s also an earlier scene where he invades another character’s personal space in a supremely creepy way.
Rhod is of course, merely a secondary character there for comic relief. The focus of the film is on Dallas and Leeloo. At first, the way the scenario is set up is quite encouraging. After several expositional moments of a super natural being needing to be constructed to put into motion plans to save the world from Planet Evil, a pretty cool biological sequencer scene occurs. Making use of ancient genetic material believed to be the blue print for constructing this planetary savoir, all parties involved are a touch surprised when the person in question ends up being female. The person to save our world will not be a Schwarzenegger/Stallone type. It will not be the guy from Die Hard despite the guy from Die Hard being in this film, it will be this curious, ferocious woman. And, just like that, all characters are fine with it. The movie will go on to say things like she is perfect, physically and mentally superior to anyone else, and throughout the course of the film, she sure as shit proves it (at least to the extent that effects back then could offer). She leaps off sky scrapers, beats the hell out of a gang of marauders, often while her male counterparts are out maneuvered or struggle to keep up. Consider the other films of this era. The messiah complex adorned on the male in The Matrix, the heroic martyrdom of the guy in Armageddon (Willis again!). That The Fifth Element makes the case that a woman is every bit as capable of such feats is really quite progressive, at least back in 1997.
What’s tragic is that in 2019, it would still be considered progressive. I previously mentioned how the film would be shredded by critics for the sexual malfeasance of Ruby Rhod. If the hellscape that is the modern misogynistic and troll infested internet is any indication, it’s equally likely The Fifth Element would have been subject to huge backlash from the vocal minority of white male brats. Look no further than the petulant tirades men had against Captain Marvel, a film that confidently states that of course a woman can be the strongest person in the universe. Those that felt threatened by this totally fine sentiment grasped at the most pathetic of straws to deride the film, often before even seeing it. She doesn’t smile enough- because that’s a thing we are still saying. She doesn’t react enough, because the only level of reaction from a woman we can consider appropriate is defenceless hysteria. It’s bullshit that she is stronger than Thor or Hulk or someone, because the MCU has clearly gone to great lengths to precisely measure on a graph somewhere exactly how strong these characters are. All of these excuses are garbage, and they would have been levelled against The Fifth Element in one form another. If you think I’m exaggerating, there are internet fan theories out there that are giving Jon Snow, not Arya, credit for how things went down in EP3 of Game of Thrones this season. It’s madness. Whatever failings this film has about representation are not nearly as egregious as the climate of white male victimhood that fuels the most preposterous criticisms of movies that feature women or people of color in heroic roles.
And yet, The Fifth Element ultimately does stumble towards the end with its narrative arc for Leeloo. After multiple set pieces and Leeloo getting knocked out- it’s not super clear why- the likely hood of activating her intrinsic Planet Evil killing powers along with the elemental stones is put into jeopardy. Dallas has to then save Leeloo, who is the supreme being remember. It’s revealed that only when she experiences the love of Dallas, will her powers be unleashed. He tells her he loves her, kisses her while she is still unconscious, and then she vomits a big laser into the sky. This… doesn’t, make a ton of sense. Honestly it’s fine that Leeloo needed saving by Dallas at one point, lots of people need saving all the time. But when you couple that with the fact that she was basically defective until Dallas does his thing seems like lazy writing, specifically designed to give Dallas the key role in saving the world. Rather than being able to save the day of her own volition and ability, she is tool to be activated by Dallas. Outside of being problematic from a gendered perspective this is also just very lame.
Of course, Besson likely didn’t have such politics in mind when he first came up with this. The fact that The Fifth Element falters in some of these aspects should only be considered within the context of it actually trying in others. That’s a hell of a lot more than you can say for many of it’s contemporaries, or even of the action films of the modern age. Progressivism is a moving target, and while The Fifth Element may be far behind that target now, it recognized it could be within reach back then and gave it a shot. It’s still a joyously fun, silly movie. If it must be subject to derision, take aim at the honestly pretty bad effects. Except for the flamethrower, rocket launcher, net casting, self destruct buttoning gun. That thing was wicked.