Passing the baton: age, action and mentorship in three Hollywood films.

Abstract

Action narratives have long offered the ageing male star a role as mentor to a younger successor - passing on, as it were, the baton of patriarchal power, with a spot of Oedipal sparring along the way. His female counterpart, however, is largely absent from our screens. Indeed, where our female action heroes have the benefit of a mentor, that mentor is typically male, reinforcing a sense that her power is inherently masculine and provisional. When it comes to the relationship between an older woman and the younger woman preparing to replace her, Hollywood has traditionally portrayed them as jealous rivals rather than allies. Such relationships are haunted by the spectres of the ‘wicked stepmother’ of fairy tales or that of the dangerous usurper epitomised in Mankiewicz’s All About Eve (1950). This paper explores how traditional patterns are disrupted in three female-led action films: The Old Guard (‎Prince-Bythewood, 2020), Mulan (Caro, 2020) and Charlie’s Angels (‎Banks, 2019). Despite the generic and structural differences between them, all three challenge the trope of the jealous ‘older woman’ threatened by the usurping ingénue and replace it with a narrative of mentorship and intergenerational allegiance.