Con Air

Queer Watchlion

The film's treatment of women cuts both ways. There are only two adult women in the film: no-nonsense guard Bishop and Cameron's wife Tricia, who just wants her husband back. DEA man Malloy makes himself especially unpopular when he doesn't "give a shit about the bitch guard", for whose sake the other government officials are reluctant to shoot down the hijacked plane. This takes the phrase to an extreme, as Malloy does not know Bishop, nor can he have anything against her. On the other hand, it is doubtful whether this offsets the intolerable situation in US American films, that women are, more and more, being generalised as bitches. [In the German version, the word "bitch", for which German has no satisfactory equivalent, is translated by a word that means "slut" - translator.]

WARNING: The fate of one character is revealed in the following paragraph.

As expected, this con(vict) film contains references to homosexuality, but not, surprisingly, as a sexual threat or forced homosexuality. One of the quick-witted convicts answers the charge that he is just talking shit with the half-way original put-down, "He told me he loved me." Later the gay "Sally Can't Dance" (Renoly) comes aboard, who, after years of forced loneliness, is at last in for a grope again. Surprisingly she does not have to reckon with enmity from either the other convicts or the government officials. Indeed, she becomes Cyrus "The Virus'" personal bodyguard. But she is not a hard fighter: she is willing, but one box on the ear is all that is needed to get her out of the way. Sally Can't Dance is portrayed so much larger-than-life, that she almost reaches cult status. With a lilac-dotted dress flapping she steps, terminating, out of the plane with an enormous shooter, almost bigger than herself, glad to see all the men in uniform (the cops) waiting for her. Oh, well, this is not supposed to be a poster for a Gay Pride parade, so, for once, we can enjoy this image.

ki, Berlin
picture ©: Buena Vista International
translation: andrew

Review

Deutsche Version

copyright: Queer View, 12. Juni 1997