Tank Girl is much more pop punk and Warped Tour, at least aesthetically than Johnny Mnemonic (I’m still trying to understand Johnny Mnemonic‘s vibe). As the “punk” in Cyberpunk, Tank Girl is definitely Riot Girrl (including the amazing L7 on the soundtrack put together by Courtney Love).
Besides that both Tank Girl and Johnny Mnemonic were released in 1995, there’s another connection between the two films:
Ice-T
In both he plays a character that is part of a “rebel alliance” of sorts fighting the corporate oligarchs. His roles in both very much reflect Ice-T’s persona – a critic of the system with righteous and justified anger at it. They are both supporting cast roles, that emerge as potential allies in later acts in the films.
For context on Ice-T, this is before his work on Law & Order SVU, though after 1991’s New Jack City. He’s already had a successful music career, and his rap metal band Body Count has already had two albums come out.
Other interesting bits on Tank Girl:
- As this post points out, Tank Girl and the Deadpool films share many common elements.
- For more on the music and vibes of Tank Girl have a look at Mapping the music and style of Tank Girl (with a comparison of Tank Girl’s look and it’s potential influence on Gwen Stefani).
- I came across this student abstract from a Stanford film course: Tank Girl = Riot Grrl? Explorations of Tank Girl as Third Wave Feminism and Punk Grrl Culture by Julie Gardner. Julie if you are out there and this got published, I would love to read it!