"A special kind of excess": The unruly woman of comedy and melodrama in Jane Campion's Sweetie

Abstract

This article offers a new way of reading Jane Campion's first feature film, <i>Sweetie</i>, through the figure of the unruly woman. In her celluloid manifestations, the unruly woman confronts audiences with the spectacle of the grotesque body or anarchistic performance in revolt against patriarchal constructions of femininity. While female unruliness has generally been theorised in relation to comedy, this article demonstrates the concomitant presence of the unruly woman in melodrama. By reading the character of Sweetie (Genevieve Lemon) as a melodramatic figure, while not discounting her role as a comic spectacle, I uncover resonances with the melodramatic mode that have been overlooked in readings of Campion's film based solely on considerations of 'black' or grotesque comedy. Framing unruliness in terms of melodrama as well as comedy - not in place of it - produces a more complex analysis of the rebellious nature of the unruly woman and the threat she poses to patriarchal control. This approach illuminates the parallels between comedy and melodrama in their depiction of women's struggles for self-determination. The unruly woman offers the spectacle of excess in rebellion against social conformity and patriarchal authority. In Campion's <i>Sweetie</i>, the unruly woman is a figure of upheaval, of rage and protest, trapped within the suburban family home.