#tracey bonner

The women in Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle didn’t start off on the best foot. The first female character we see is Spencer’s Mum (Marin Hinkle), a paranoid, overprotective germaphobe. However, she is followed by Fridge’s Mum (Tracey Bonner) who seems to be a better example of a parent, firm but wanting the best for her son. Then we met Bethany (Madison Iseman), who is first seen agonising over the perfect, completely artificial selfie for Instagram. She is shown to be a social media addicted narcissist with very little empathy, who is obsessed with being noticed by a boy. The next character we meet is Martha (Morgan Turner), who is portrayed as a somewhat belligerent and self-important nerd, belittling her P.E. teacher’s life choices and becoming immediately confrontational with Bethany.

After this poor introduction, the girls quite quickly become amazing. They have a brief clash in which they point out each other’s flaws, but they honestly own up to them and work together from that point on. In contrast, the boys - Spencer (Alex Wolff) and Fridge (Ser’Darius Blain) - bicker continually, with Fridge actually pushing Spencer off a cliff at one point. Whilst they do make up eventually, I don’t think Fridge ever apologises to Spencer for saying it was his fault he got kicked off the team, when all Spencer did was white essays for him. So against this backdrop, the girls go from strength to strength. Martha agrees to go wildly out of her comfort zone for the sake of the team, and Bethany does what she can to help her. Bethany is continually supportive, defending Martha’s attempts from the boys’ criticism, “She’s never flirted before, give her a break,” and welcoming Martha back with wild praise, “You should be giving me lessons in kicking ass, give me a hug girlfriend!” This female support network is not something I was expecting to see in a dumb action movie.

Bethany’s character continues to develop extraordinarily, with her becoming willing to jeopardise herself to save her friends. She does not capitulate when captured and literally gives some of her in-game life to save fellow trapped teen, Alex (Mason Guccione), playing the character of Jefferson “Seaplane” McDonough (Nick Jonas). The latter is almost certainly because she fancies him, but as she does not know what he looks like in real life, this is still a progression from the image-obsessed Bethany we meet at the start.

Speaking of crushes, Martha does end up snogging Spencer, but I’m not too offended by the romance elements in Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, as Martha isn’t really ending the film any less independent than she was at the start, as all that was professed was, “like like”. Also, teenagers are, scientifically speaking, the horniest people on the planet, so it makes sense really.

Within the game itself, Martha’s avatar, Ruby Roundhouse (Karen Gillan), is the only character with a female body. As the vast majority of the film is set within this video game, this means that we only see one woman for a very long time. Her costume is ridiculous, which Martha immediately calls out, “Why am I wearing half a shirt and short shorts in a jungle?” Apparently, this is a homage to Lara Croft, but a pastiche and the character saying out loud that it’s bad doesn’t really make it any more acceptable. Ruby Roundhouse is exceptionally athletically capable and skilled in combat, but also possesses Martha’s intellect. Her first death is somewhat disappointing and seems arbitrary - she is shot off camera somewhere and dies suddenly of her wounds. However, she brings about her second death intentionally, using the knowledge of the in-game mechanics to willingly sacrifice one of her lives but ultimately save the day. Which was great, because when I saw her surrounded by snakes I was steeling myself for a gross, phallic, swarm death.

Ruby is the only physical female presence in the game because Bethany inhabits a male avatar, Professor Sheldon “Shelly” Oberon (Jack Black). I thought this was going to be a set up for Jack Black squealing about broken nails all the time, but I was pleasantly surprised. First of all, he played a teenage girl excellently and secondly, the film did actually address what it would be like for a girl to inhabit the body of a man. There was an extended scene where Bethany had to be taught how to pee, with her exclaiming in delight, “This is so much easier!” and in another instance she got an erection after hugging Alex, to which she responds, “Oh my god! These things are crazy!” As the physical signs of female arousal are so much more subtle than a man’s, I feel like it’s hardly ever acknowledged in cinema that teenage girls experience sexual lust as well as romantic love, whereas you can’t move in a coming-of-age comedy for boner jokes. So even though a male proxy was used, it was good to see a somewhat normalisation of female teenage sexual feelings. In all these circumstances, the boys were quite embarrassed, being obviously reticent about discussing it, whereas Bethany was very open, both in asking for the help she needed and just revelling in the experience. I can put together a small slideshow in my mind of body swaps where male characters instantly grab their new boobs and stare down their tops at their cleavages, but can’t conjure too many examples of the alternative, so thanks for this Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle.

Overall, the female characters in Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle really develop; they become not only better people but better friends, in a way that the boys just don’t. They achieve this through a combination of honesty and teamwork that I really wasn’t expecting. This being said, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle is still a very, very stupid film. Fun, but super dumb.

And now for some asides:

I love the idea of respawning in a game giving your enemy an advantage, like when Fridge fell thought the bazaar roof, allowing the bad bird to see in. I think death being punished by physical, negative changes in your environment could be a cool mechanic.

When they turned from the torch-lit path I really thought they were going to attempt to reach their goal the same way that I do in every Bethesda game, by going stubbornly sideways up a mountain.