Girl on a Motorcycle
In a film that is characterized as one that flaunts women’s independence, that independence is drastically lacking. The film Girl on a Motorcycle is centered on men and how they control women through their actions and the ways in which they dominate the main female characters’ every move and thought. While there may be certain points in the movie where Rebecca attempts to portray a free woman, such as riding her motorcycle cross country, leaving her husband, and having relationships with two men, there are also many parts of the movie in which the freedom she is attempting to have has been overshadowed by the reasons she wants to be free. Phallocentrism is central to the main theme, as the movie is focused on Rebecca leaving one man for another. Her fate (not to be seen as the same as her freedom) is determined by the men she is attached to- she considers herself to be free of Raymond, her husband, only to be trapped in an affair with a man who will not love her and who appears to have a great deal of control over her. Her thoughts are constantly dominated by the two men she is involved with and their feelings and actions. She is seen as a sexual object by her lover, and is portrayed that way throughout the entire film, even to other characters, as she dons a tight-fitting leather motorcycle suit, which causes her to encounter many male stares along her trip.
A film cannot be liberating for women if the entire film is controlled by men’s desires and their ability to control women. The male gaze and phallocentrism are prevalent and recurring themes throughout this film, neither of which allow for women to truly be free. In order for this to be considered liberating for women, it would have to completely factor out males as being anything remotely sexually related- or make the women be the dominant role within the story.