May 19, 2008 04:54 PM
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In the new Indiana Jones movie, opening Thursday, Cate Blanchett wears kinky boots and gets Indy under her thumb in more ways than one. But is she actually the greatest dominatrix in science fiction history? We decided to see how Cate stacks up against the classics of the genre, from the villain of Devil Girl From Mars to the heroine of Gene Simmons' Dominatrix. (Plus great dommes from Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica.)
The bringers of pain and delight from Star Trek, "Spock's Brain". Has there ever been a band called "The Bringers Of Pain And Delight"? If not, why not? In any case, that's like the perfect summing up of the dominatrix aesthetic — and check out those kinky boots (in the pic up top.) They not only plunder Spock's precious noggin, they also take vicious pleasure in attaching the pain devices to Kirk and friends, and then firing up the zappy with their wrist controllers.
Servalan from Blake's 7. She starts out as the vaguely butch Supreme Commander of the Federation, but almost immediately Servalan uses a mixture of intense sexuality and evil bitchiness to get her way. She swerves between flirting and threatening with almost no pause — and she never hesitates to use her subordinates (and prisoners) for her sexual pleasure at the drop of a giant feathery hat.
Zeta from Zeta One. Zeta is the queen of an alien lesbian Amazon ant colony called Angvia (which is an anagram for a part of the female anatomy.) The Angvians are kidnapping Earth women to come join their society, but an evil Earth man wants to turn their latest "recruit" into a double agent. There's a lot of chasing and capturing and escaping — and the Angvians are armed with exploding Judo chops, as you can see from this Benny Hill-meets-Barbarella moment, posted online by Danforth Buzzkill. (Clip may not be work-safe.)
Nyah, from Devil Girl From Mars. She's dressed in a shiny black costume with a sort of Darth Vader helmet, and she's here to collect male specimens to repopulate Mars — because the Martians had a war between the sexes, and the women became the rulers, wiping out all the men in the process. (Remember, Joe Jackson says, "If there's war between the sexes, then there'll be no people left.") The only men she can find are a group of bedraggled alcoholics, including an astronomer and an escaped murderer, in a Scottish pub. Here's a video of highlights with some added music, and you can watch the entire goldang thing here.
Witch, from 1990: Bronx Warriors. It's the distant future, the year 1990, and everything has fallen into a dreadful post-apocalyptic mess. A gang of punky bikers rolls around terrorizing the countryside, including Witch, who stabs people with her long brass fingernails or strangles them with her bullwhip.
The T-X in Terminator 3: The Rise Of The Machines. Long before Summer Glau went around kicking other robots in the head, the Terminator films introduced the first female Terminator, who dresses in red leather (including boots). Says Metaphilm:
The dominatrix reference is furthered during one particular fight scene when the T-X is seen to swivel head and limbs until she is wrapped around Schwarzenegger's T-800 in a highly sexualized grip. She also has the ability to control other machines via use of a slender, needle-like probe.
Xenia Onatopp from GoldenEye. If you consider this James Bond movie about a killer satellite system to be science fiction, then Xenia definitely belongs on this list. She's a former Soviet agent who's now joined the Russian Mafia, and she gets a seuxal charge out of killing. Says Wikipedia:
Literally leaping atop the admiral, she straddles him and violently kisses, bites and scratches him before finally wrapping her muscular thighs around his chest and crushing it into powder, loudly achieving orgasm, while rubbing her naked body against him as he asphyxiates.(I love that description so much.) Plus Xenia Onatopp is like the ultimate dominatrix name. And she's Famke Janssen:
Elizia from Space 1999, "The Devil's Planet." Commander Koenig crash-lands on a prison planet, whose sadistic warden Elizia decides she wants him to be her love-puppy. When he refuses, she makes him the quarry in a hunt to the death. Check out the guards' uniforms, including whips: 
Captain Mother from Space Thing: this softcore porn scifi movie features a male hero, Captain Granilla, who crashes into an all-woman ship run by the cruel lesbian Captain Mother in the year 2069. (Link is NSFW, but awesome.) She swings her whip and shouts, "Maybe that'll teach you that men are off-limits!" But the Captain quickly introduces all of the lesbians, including Capt. Mother, to the joys of heterosexuality. Of course. The silver-boot-wearing Captain Mother tells him, "I order you to make love to me!" But Just check out the DVD cover: 
Princess Ardala from Buck Rogers. She doesn't wear kinky outfits, but she does take tremendous pleasure in her stable of sex slaves, including Tigerman and Pantherman, and probably Emuman as well, if she'd made it into the second season. My favorite Ardala moment is when she's planning to marry Buck, and she has a special remote-controlled shrinky collar, which shrinks to half its diameter, so she can behead him if he disobeys her or displeases her for even a moment. Plus those headpieces! 
Six from Battlestar Galactica. Just watch the way she tortures Baltar and various other men with total abandon. (Not to mention that actor Tricia Helfer is starring as a dominatrix in a new movie, Walk All Over Me. And hey, here's the trailer.)
Granny Goodness, from Jack Kirby's Fourth World comics. I didn't really think of Granny Goodness as a dominatrix until I saw her described that way here, but it totally fits. She's not exactly sexy, but she is totally evil and psycho behind a sweet facade. And she controls the Female Furies, a squad of killer women who are sort of dominatrix-y.
The Dominatrix from Gene Simmons' Dominatrix. I'm so glad I don't actually need to read this comic, because our own Graeme McMillan has reviewed it. Here's his summary:
A spy is so excited by his session with his dominatrix that he accidentally blurts out a secret so bad that he immediately gets kidnapped. But that's okay, because he has a magic pill that gives him superpowers - but he doesn't take it, he gives it to his dominatrix, because... um... well, just because! And then she beats this guy up! Because that's what dominatrixes do (There's even a caption where she feels guilty about it, because she's not getting paid to hurt him)! And then, after she beats up the bad guy, instead of trying to do anything about the guy she saw kidnapped, or the secret she's apparently learned that is so dangerous that said guy gets kidnapped, she goes home to have some tea. Only to get ambushed by a super sexy spy who's also dressed in fetish wear!Just in case you were wondering what goes through Gene Simmons' head when he sticks out his tongue.
The clone, from Dominatrix Waitrix. This is a queer scifi porn video released by Fatale Media, about "a sexually voracious, leather-clad human clone who takes over the bodies of overworked waiters and preys on their customers." Yes, really. I guess the clone takes over bedraggled service workers, and then channels their frustration with customers into some kind of non-consensual domination scene? I like the quote, "You cannot deny that waitresses and customers are natural enemies." It goes on to say the customer belongs "under the waitress' foot." Has anybody actually seen this movie? 
Send an email to Charlie Jane Anders, the author of this post, at charliejane@io9.com.
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