Tura Satana and the new woman

This week, Tura Satana passed away. She was most famous for her work in the 1965 underground cult hit, Faster, Pussycat! Kill, Kill!. The film is a wonderfully campy ride about three gogo dancers killing and kidnapping during their off hours. Her character was iconic in that a woman could be just as deadly as she was beautiful Directed by Russ Meyers, the film gives a first impression of being nothing more than a excuse to show busty women driving fast cars. Although the film can definitely be argued as sexploitation it is backed up by all the wrong reasons. I personally feel that the sexism comes from the actions of the women rather than the image. Here are three independent women. They drive fast cars, drink, smoke, and have foul mouths. They own their sexuality by being able to make the first move. As far as their clothing goes, the most you see is one of them with her midriff showing. So in being that they are owning themselves they are portrayed as amoral and therefore must be destroyed. Conversely, the girl who is kidnapped and is supposed to be the good is introduced wearing nothing but her bikini. She is referred to as a girl rather than a woman, and is very much defined by her relationships with men. In fact she really doesn't do anything except act perky until her boyfriend is bumped off and then she just sits their silently waiting for an other gut to save her. Of course in the end the gogo dancers are killed off and thus saving everybody, for me that is the real disappointment of the movie. I would have liked to see those continue with their reign of terror. The real sexism is in the fact there seems to be a message that women who own themselves should be punished, but I wonder if that was really Russ Meyers' view. Most of Meyers' film do deal with women as sexual beings and while this one does have that element, I believe that Meyers thinks that women should embrace themselves as such. In the beginning of the film a voice over talks, in almost a mocking tone, about the a new kind of woman. One who claims power for themselves and could be anybody you know. Are they talking about women wanting more autonomy ? Faster, Faster was made at beginning of the women's liberation movement and the women are very much unapologetic. Sometimes it almost seems that this film is mockery of all the old spy films. Was Meyers' showing the audience how vacuous  James Bond really is?  I don't know if the film is really that deep, but I think there is more to it than its surface.