Throwing Down the Gauntlet: Defiant Women, Decadent Men, Objects of Power, and Witchblade

Abstract

The TNT network sci-fi/fantasy series Witchblade constructs a great tough woman—a woman who defies masculinist power while wielding it—in its action heroine Sarah Pezzini (Yancy Butler), a tough New York City homicide detective. Lynda Carter’s 1970s Wonder Woman may have had her bullet-deflecting bracelets, but Sarah Pezzini has something even more inventive and powerful: the titular Witchblade, a bracelet with a stone center that seethes to liquid-fire life when it grants her premonitory glimpses into the murders she investigates with the help of her partner, Danny, and the rookie cop they are training, Jake. When Sarah is in danger, the bracelet transforms into an ancient gauntlet, an arm-length metal sheath that deflects enemy fire as its protruding blade punctures foes. In addition to its many other skills, the Blade is a great choreographer, allowing her to leap and hurtle through the air with strobe-lit glamour as bullets ricochet off the gleaming, lustrous metal. When the Witchblade is activated, she throws down a metaphorical and a literal gauntlet against her enemies, who are usually but not always male. Rather, Sarah threw down the gauntlet: Like Dark Angel, Witchblade was abruptly cancelled in 2002 after two seemingly successful seasons; Birds of Prey lasted only a few weeks before it, too, was cancelled.