The suspense thriller, Copycat takes place in the present time and stars Sigourney Weaver and Holly Hunter. In a role switch of sorts, Weaver plays a paranoid agoraphobe and Hunter plays a aggressive and tough detective. In previous movies, Weaver has played the tough alien-fighter in the Alien series and Hunter has played neurotic workaholics in movies such as Broadcast News and, recently, Home for the Holidays.
In Copycat, Weaver, a criminal psychologist who specializes in serial murderers, has been stalked and scared by a subject (played by Harry Connick, Jr.). She cannot leave the house and has trouble sleeping. In order to alleviate her fear and engage with the outside world, Weaver uses modern technology and carries on various computer mediated relationships. Although her counterparts know about her fears and psychological troubles, Weaver feels safe with the words on the screen until the newest serial murderer (William McNamara) contacts her via her computer linked connection to the outside world. It is this connection that threatens to literally "historicize" Weaver. McNamara is a "copycat" murderer. In other words, he models exactly the work of previous famous serial murderers. Weaver, next on the list, will become the next "copied body" and her connection to technology determines her vulnerability. Yet, Weaver also uses the technology to fight back. Although her body is ineffective outside of her apartment (she has panic attacks when she steps foot outside of her door), Weaver reroutes the murderers threats and uses them to trace him. Technology alternately takes the place of, threatens and recuperates the body.
Meanwhile, Weaver and Hunter spar and finally reconcile throughout the progression of the movie, adding another lens to an analysis of women in current pop science fiction films: women's friendships. The women contrast each other not only through their on-the-screen personalities but also in their extra-filmic careers, as mentioned above. It is only through their reconciliation, I might add, that they eventually bag the bad guy.
Yet, the "worse" guy (Connick, Jr.) prevails, and guess how? He is not relying on E-mail or chat rooms. Rather, in the last scene, the sneaky Connick, Jr. uses snail mail to convert outsiders to his dark obsession with Weaver, promising more McNamara-like sicko's in the future. Weaver may have recuperated the use of her physical body via technological manipulation but it is the denial of technological advance that (destructively) endures.
What does this movie say about women's bodies versus relationships? T. Pascal, in his review of Copycat states, "Sigourney Weaver doesn't even seem to be a woman, and she proves it in this one...Sig's come a long way since Gorillas up the Butt Mist. Not. And Holly Hunter needs to learn to open her mouth when she speaks." (Pascal) Needless, to say, T. Pascal is quite clear that he did not like the movie nor the actors. However, his sarcastic suggestion of Weaver's ambiguous womanhood and mention of Weaver's previous works (that would be, Gorillas in the Mist, by the way), reveal that Weaver's history of strong female roles calls into question notions of a coherent or definable "Woman." Meanwhile, reducing Hunter's work to a body part, specifically her mouth, reflects the use of narrative cinema to reduce women to the components of their bodies.
Stone
connects the idea of transgender and an affinity for new forms of technology. Copycat
complicates the representations of gender/sex-ambiguous bodies on various screens.
Bibliography
Introduction
Johnny MnemonicStrange DaysVirtuosityThe Net