Homocon

When questioned about the NRA and why a woman would ever feel the need to join such a traditionally male and stereotypically redneck organization as the National Rifle Association, Sandy Froman recalls a time when her car broke down in the middle of nowhere on a desolate Arizona highway, and she was forced to make a call from a phone booth — "Literally," she says, "the only light around for miles." As a strange truck drove by her solitary vigil at the phone-booth for a second, closer look, she says that she would have been much more worried for her personal safety if she hadn’t been legally armed (Arizona has a concealed firearms policy).

While Stop the Violence lefties cherry-pick their statistics to push their personal fantasies of a nanny-state government in complete control over an unarmed populace, many gun advocates like to note that an armed society guarantees a free and, at the very least, polite society; however, Froman feels it necessary to remind us that even among polite society, a citizenry still needs the ability to arm itself. “If you’re a criminal, you want to prey upon victims who are not likely to resist,” she says, especially the very politest, such as the lone Jewish female lawyer with a broken down car on a deserted Arizona highway type.

The equation changes, however, when the criminal minded are aware that the average law-abiding female, Jewish lawyer or suburban Soccer Mom, is permitted to pack her own heat (and no, we're not talking menopause).

Take a look at the recent spate of Hollywood heroines. There was a spontaneous burst of feminist applause when Gena Davis and Susan Sarandan challenged male stereotypes of the passive, helpless female when they blasted their way to their own self-determined fate in the gender-reversal road movie "Thelma & Louise"; Linda Hamilton and Sigourney Weaver tag-teamed in the sci-fi genre to define a brand new symbol of female power as they toted major military weaponry while protecting the ones they love from danger; Demi Moore tackled the argument of female weakness in the face of physical challenge and weapons know-how in the military fantasy "GI Jane"; and Angelina Jolie brings a sense of high-fashion glamor and sex appeal to female gun ownership for her roles in the two Lara Croft movies as well as the recent "Mr. & Mrs. Smith", while also going toe-to-toe and head-to-head with every high-powered male star in Hollywood. What's even more interesting is how the characters she plays resonate strongly with her female audience. I talked to a young female fan who said that she believes that Jolie could easily play softer, more stereo-typically feminine characters, but that she hopes she never does. "She's definitely a strong character," she said. "I like how independent and kick-ass she is in all her movies."

Angelina Jolie herself has stated on numerous occasions that she prefers roles with strong female characters at their core, and as a case in point, she was nominated for the Honorary (Annie) Oakley award for the month of May 2004 for her role as Hollywood's unofficial ambassador for female self-empowerment.

And this is what makes the uber-lib, gun-control Hollywood cocktail-party-crowd dizzy with confusion, because, really, how can they continue to mantra-chant that guns are evil and gun-owners are all redneck yahoos when nearly every camera angle in the box-office smash "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" is lovingly devoted to the indisputable fact that guns are sexy in a woman's hands -- not because the gun is sexy in itself, but because of the implied independence and self-empowerment that goes along with being able to take care of yourself. Who can forget a Sigourney Weaver facing down the alien queen in James Cameron's "Aliens", her machine-gun/flame thrower/grenade launcher combo strapped to her shoulder as she clutches an orphaned child? And what woman didn't thrill to the sight of Linda Hamilton locking and loading with one arm as she battled to prevent machines from taking over the world and killing her only son in Terminator 2?

“By the sheer number of science fiction and fantasy series featuring women in primary roles in the ‘90s," says Elyce Rae Helford, writing about the emergence of tough heroines such as Sigourney Weaver’s Ellen Ripley and Linda Hamilton’s Sarah Connor, "we can conclude that the tokenism of the past has given way to a recognition of a significant and appreciative audience for speculative programming that includes images of strong, independent women.”

So is it just a coincidence that these "strong, independent women" know their way around an assault rifle?

“The image of the western woman, as rendered by Hollywood, stands confused between the sentimental and mythological conception of the pure but weak and defenseless female, without any personality of her own, essentially dependent on the hero, and the titillatingly sexual and aggressive heroine,” state Fenin and Everson in their book, The Western: From Silents to the Seventies. While Colette Dowling, in her book "The Frailty Myth", describes the final stage of women's liberation this way -- "by making themselves physically equal, women can at last make themselves free." And a firearm in a woman's hand is, if nothing else, the great equalizer.

This is where the new NRA comes into play -- with a contemporary emphasis that's more on equality, both gender and social, and an articulate, self-possessed female president fully ensconced at its head, the contemporary National Rifle Association is poised to make itself the new defender of the entire Bill of Rights, not just the Second Amendment. Drawing upon the notion that the Second Amendment defends all the others (since the permissibility of an armed citizenry keeps governmental totalitarianism in check and inhibits the repeal of citizen's rights), it's as if the NRA is the ACLU for the 21st century (and not a moment too soon). With the growing interest in firearms as a basic right for both self-protection and social protection, an increased female enrollment in the NRA could very well catapult the organization into becoming the "National Rights Association", affording a law-abiding society as a whole, both male and female, the ability to maintain its liberty and independence while encouraging gender equalization across the board.

I mean, isn't that what Hollywood has been attempting to encompass all along? It seems like, lately, the ultimate liberal fear is a coming theocracy, a Bush autocracy or permanent female enslavement, yet lefties wring their hands over the presence of guns in American society, desperately attempting to shovel the enshrined rights of self-protection out the train window while wailing over alleged Conservative oppressions. I've often wondered at this, as it seems to me that the ultimate liberal cause would be ensuring a gun in every household in order to present any particular administration with the threat of popular revolt should a government's policies get out of hand . . . unless, of course, leftists ultimately want a citizenry that cannot revolt, or a female population that's cowed in fear of physical violence.

While Cindy Sheehan is the left's new poster-girl, a weeping mess of ultimate victimhood by the system, the existence of women like Julia Watson and Sandra Froman, plus Hollywood iconography such as Linda Hamilton as Sandra Connor and Angelina Jolie as Lara Croft (not to mention Halle Barry as a Bond Girl who was definitely able to more than take care of herself with her silenced revolver in hand), send out messages of distinct female empowerment that transcend the politics of limousine liberals. I had never before stopped to consider Hollywood as the ultimate big-budget advertisement for female membership in the NRA, but once you sit back and take a hard look at the imagery of female power in the latest blockbusters, could it be that the Hollywood subconscious is at odds with its own self-professed politics?

Like I said -- it's not your grandpappy's NRA anymore.