Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
This month, the cheerleader classic Bring It On was added to Netflix, so I decided to treat myself to this hormone, sex, and dance-fueled watch. I’ve seen this sports comedy about cattiness, cheer stealing, and underlying socio-political injustice (seriously, would Red have ever stolen a routine from private school? I don’t think so) several times before, but this time when I watched, there was one person I couldn’t take my eyes off of — Kirsten Dunst. Both Dunst and Gabrielle Union are wonderful in the movie, blending a delightful mix of hyper seriousness and campiness into their characters. However, this movie finally made me realize why I love Kirsten Dunst so much. Her nuanced and at times over-the-top performances simultaneously work to cement and question women’s roles in film.
Dunst has always been an interesting actress, pretty enough to be constantly cast as the girl next door but with a soft onscreen presence that’s never overpowering yet always compelling. It’s that last part that makes her so interesting. Dunst is able to play meek and sweet pinnacles of femininity, but underneath that often glam exterior, there’s a calculated intensity that makes her characters feel … off. Take her role as Torrance in Bring It On. Torrance is our protagonist, though she’d likely be the villain in every other teen movie — the peppy, high-achieving cheerleader. In fact, even in this movie, she slips into role of well-meaning villain more than once. However, what’s interesting isn’t how Dunst portrays Torrance’s dueling desires to lead her team to victory and do the right thing. It’s Dunst’s mania. Torrance is so high energy and is characterized by such an intense brand of intelligent ditziness, she almost immediately becomes more of a caricature of how cheerleaders are portrayed than a believable character. It’s not just an enlightening portrayal; it’s an unsettling one.
Dunst’s film career is filled with dimensional interpretations of traditionally feminine characters like Torrance. Perhaps unsurprisingly because she’s a great director, Dunst has done some of her best genre-bending work with Sofia Coppola. Through Coppola and Dunst, The Virgin Suicides’ Lux wasn’t merely a repressed and promiscuous girl. She was a sad source of never-ending mystery, the most accessible point the boys had to the confusing world of girlhood. Marie Antoinette wasn’t a self-absorbed and all-powerful ruler. She was a confused and lonely girl. Likewise, Interview with a Vampire’s Claudia wasn’t a helpless child; she was a powerful seductress. Even Dunst most mainstream role as Mary Jane Watson in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man was laced with nuance, especially in Spider-Man 2. Mary Jane wasn’t just the doting girlfriend. She had aspirations of fame, and she was visibly jealous of her boyfriend’s, Peter Parker, growing fame.
In all of these examples, Dunst tackles a traditionally feminine film trope — the high school seductress, the helpless child, the ruling bitch, the devoted girlfriend — and saturates it with dimension. It’s through these nuanced portrayals that Dunst showcases how flat and frankly boring our traditional roles for women typically are. Essentially, Dunst has been exposing the sexism of Hollywood by giving every role her all and forcing us to pay attention.
Nowhere is Dunst’s brand of genre-bending feminism more clear than in Season Two of FX’s critically acclaimed drama, Fargo. Dunst should be nominated for all the awards for her portrayal of Peggy Blumquist, which is saying a lot for a series that is jam-packed with amazing actors and actresses performing at their A-games. At first glance, Peggy is the mousy, prim, and seemingly devoted housewife that we’ve seen in oh-so-many movies and shows. However, soon after seeing her reaction to a hit and run, it becomes apparent that Peggy is more than June Cleaver with a dark streak. She’s manipulative, aspirational to a fault, and completely uncaring about consequences as long as she gets her way. Peggy isn’t a loyal housewife. Peggy is a conniving villain who is scheming, not for the sake of any man, but to make her own life better. Beneath her pretty curls, rosy smile, and sleek jackets, Peggy is terrifying and formidable, and so is Dunst.
Photos: Everett Collection, FX
