MAPACA

Mid-Atlantic Popular &
American Culture Association

Jurassic World broke two box office records this month, becoming the highest grossing opening movie in history both domestically and globally. However, despite its popularity Jurassic World has come under fire for its traditional gender roles and tired, heteronormative plot. Joss Whedon criticized the film for its “70’s era sexism” and Dana Stevens, of Slate Magazine, calls it an “ickily retrograde gender parable.” Most critiques agree that Claire Dearing is a stock character. Dressed in all white and wearing three-inch heels in the jungle, Claire prioritizes her career over family, calls the dinosaurs “assets” instead of animals, and shuns the interest of charismatic Jurassic World hero (and velociraptor Alpha) Owen Grady. Claire is the typical ball-busting ice queen. Unsurprisingly the majority of the narrative serves as a corrective for Claire. By the end of the movie she has learned that nothing is more important than taking care of her nephews (read:mothering), except, of course, the love of a good man. Although the critiques of Jurassic World have pointed toward the blockbuster’s sexism, none of them have attempted a critical reading of the tropes. In fact, many of the critiques of Jurassic World fall into the same trap that the New York Times’ Manohla Dargis accuses Jurassic World writers of falling into: thinking that “merely acknowledging [clichés] were a critical move.” For example, very little attention has been paid to the ways Jurassic World aligns together—and argues against—feminism, capitalism, and the military machine as undesirable kinds of progress. This paper undertakes just such a critical reading. I examine the ways Jurassic World demonizes feminism by putting it into conversation with capitalism and military might, and then defines it against a by-default desirable masculine, primitivistic naturalism.