“Jurassic Park” Proves You Can’t Control Women
Feminism finds a way.
How do you hunt a world renowned big-game-hunter at the top of his game? Easy. Be a clever girl.
Written by Michael Crichton and David Koepp, and directed by Steven Spielberg, Jurassic Park (1993) is about a white haired billionaire who tries to play god by creating a theme park with actual living dinosaurs. Starring Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, and Samuel L. Jackson, Jurassic Park is chock full of sick outfits, chain smoking in a lab, ‘90s computer graphics, and furious women (the dinosaurs). Because Jurassic Park isn’t just a wildly successful blockbuster, it’s also a feminist text about the futility of trying to control women.
“Hold onto your butts.”
John Hammond has some real hubris with his whole Jurassic Park pipedream. Essentially, in order for the park to “work” and “be safe” his team of scientists has genetically engineered all of the dinosaurs in the park to be female. This corporate fantasy, and the entire system that supports it, is operating on the idea that an entirely female population won’t be able to breed and thus they, aka the men in power, will have total control over the world that is Jurassic Park. And what happens when you put women in cages?
“Life finds a way.”
“We can discuss sexism in survival situations when I get back.”
Hammond seems to clutch to this illusion of control with his menagerie of lady dinosaurs, despite having a 20 foot tall T.Rex and a trio of velociraptors that can run at 80 mph. What, because they all sit on the other side of an electric fence? Well, Hammond fucks around and find out.
Throughout the film, Ian Malcolm waxes poetic about the chaos theory in his leather jacket and shirt whose top 3 buttons are undone1, no less. And in the case of Jurassic Park, the chaos theory is actually a feminist rebellion. While the film tries (successfully) to be a fun popcorn flick, the underlying significance is potent. When the patriarchy tries to control reproductive rights–even if it’s just for dinosaurs–shit is going to go south faster than a herd of gallimimus trying to outrun a tyrannosaurus rex.
Man can’t control nature and in this futile attempt they have accidentally armed these dinosaurs with the gender fluid genes of frogs which gives them the ability to take their reproductive rights into their own claws and fight the system. Hammond’s efforts weren’t just about controlling reproduction, it was about eliminating chaos. So, in his effort to neuter power he only evolved it. Did this prehistoric zoo, helmed by men, ever stand a chance? Of course not. Women will always take back what’s theirs.
“You never had control, that's the illusion!”
The fallacy of control doesn’t stop with the dinosaurs. The true heroes of this story are our two female characters: Lex and Dr. Sattler. Lex Murphy, Hammond’s granddaughter, is introduced to us as just a scared little girl. While the main security admin was off trying to profit from his boss playing god, Lex locks in and does what no one else can. It’s her competence and beep beep boop beep hacking (complimentary) that restores the power grid and saves the humans from further dino-devastation.
Dr. Sattler is a jane of all trades, arguably too many but I digress. While Hammond slurps up hundreds of dollars worth of melting ice cream waiting for someone to come save him, Ellie advocates for taking action and saving the rest of the party that’s still out in the park being hunted. Jurassic Park gives her agency, and a voice to speak out against the sexism that she encounters throughout the film, even while elbow deep in a pile of dinosaur excrement.
“But with this place, I wanted to show them something that wasn't an illusion.”
Jurassic Park isn’t an anomaly, it’s a blueprint. And the reason it holds up, even today, is because it smuggles in feminism, disguised as a thrilling 122 minute adventure about dinosaurs.
Because when the system collapses, who picks up the pieces? The ones the system overlooked. Just like clever girls always do.
Bless.
time to rewatch this!!!