Caroline Madden – Bitch Flicks

The Love That’s Really Real: ‘American Psycho’ as Romantic Comedy

Although primarily a horror film, ‘American Psycho’ has a satiric backbone that appropriates codes from the romantic comedy genre to expose the absurdities of our gender ideals. Director and co-writer Mary Harron’s lens skewers the qualities we find appealing in romantic comedies as terrifying.

This guest post written by Caroline Madden is an edited version of an article that originally appeared at Screenqueens. It is cross-posted with permission.

A 2006 YouTube video created a parody trailer envisioning American Psycho (2000) as romantic comedy. While the stark juxtapositions between the classic boy-meets-girl formula and a horrifying portrait of a serial murder are amusing, the sentiments between them are not so far-fetched. Although primarily a horror film, American Psycho has a satiric backbone that appropriates codes from the romantic comedy genre to expose the absurdities of our gender ideals. Director and co-writer Mary Harron’s lens skewers the qualities we find appealing in romantic comedies as terrifying.

Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale) is a concoction of the romantic comedy and drama archetype of “the bad boy.” He’s Julian Kaye (Richard Gere) in American Gigolo (1980) meets Fifty Shades of Grey’s (2014) Christian (Jamie Dornan). Near identical scenes portray their fetishistic consumption of high-class material goods. They inhabit modern-architecture utopias enveloped in glass windows and filled with famous artworks. They have closets full of immaculate designer suits that they softly glide their hands over as if they were ancient relics. These characters engage in sacred manscaping rituals and rigorous exercises to construct Herculean physiques. No strand of hair out of place, no wrinkles in sight. The hetero and bi female audience (and gay and bi male audience) ogles these perfect creatures who are made all the more enticing by their inscrutable personalities. Women are consistently told to fawn over this image of the handsome, cynical bachelor who can’t be tied down.

Christian Bale particularly modeled his performance off of the (former) rom-com icon Tom Cruise. Watching American Psycho, it becomes clear how well Bale infuses Cruise’s frenetic energy and high-watt smiles. The “Show me the money!”-esque freakout in the dry cleaners scene best exemplifies his influences. But beneath that charismatic veneer, Mary Harron said Bale observed an “intense friendliness with nothing behind the eyes,” which he extrapolated to account for Patrick Bateman’s alien disengagement from humanity. Furthermore, the iconic romantic Cruise character Jerry Maguire draws similar threads to Patrick. He is the “bad boy,” trading the stoicism of Christian (50 Shades of Grey) and Julian (American Gigolo) for a jackrabbit vivacity; he is the detached bachelor drowning in shallow ideals, easy flings, and over-commitment to his work.

The creator of the YouTube video, filmmaker Dan Riesser, stages Patrick as the aforementioned cynical bachelor figure in the American Psycho rom-com. We view a rapid-cut montage of all the women in his life: lovers, flings, and hook-ups. The video positions Chloë Sevigny’s character, the dowdy but doting secretary Jean, as the potential true love to change his Lothario ways. A close analysis of Patrick’s scenes with various women throughout the film reveals that these romantic comedy elements are no trick of the YouTube editor but rather clearly infused in director Harron’s construction.

Jean is the sweet, shy girl due for a makeover, a trope seen in countless romantic comedies, such as She’s All That (1999). Jean’s mousy image opposes Patrick’s cool, aloof, bad boy; he is the one that could encourage her to break out of her shell — in other words, the plot of Fifty Shades of Grey. Patrick encourages her to dress prettier, to wear skirts and heels instead of boxy pantsuits; Jean is shown dutifully following his request in the next scene. She shows clear interest in Patrick as she pitifully asks if he has something romantic planned for his dinner reservations.

Patrick eventually asks Jean out on a date and they meet at first at his apartment. We know the real undertones to Patrick’s intentions as he slyly fetches duct tape and a knife. There’s a head in the freezer next to the ice cream he offers. Patrick tries to make a joke about Ted Bundy but Jean doesn’t know who he is. Bale’s hilarious disappointed reaction is a reversion of Tom’s (Joseph Gordon Levitt) elation to find a girl who loves The Smiths in 500 Days of Summer (2009). If only Jean could love Ted Bundy as much as he did, maybe she could be the one. Patrick parrots the sweet-talk of romance films as he makes Jean feel special by asking questions about herself and telling her, “I just want to have a meaningful relationship with someone special.” Jean clearly is infatuated by this, unbeknownst that Patrick is holding a nail gun behind her head. He spares her after a message from his fiancée Evelyn (Reese Witherspoon) plays on the machine. He tells Jean that she should leave for he doesn’t know if he could control himself. Patrick is referring to his homicidal tendencies but Jean takes this as a sexual suggestion. She laments her penchant for unavailable men, she would not want to sleep with an engaged man. This exchange is a morbid doppelgänger of the double-entendres and miscommunications often found in the romantic comedy.

Romantic comedies often paint the “other woman,” who the male lead foolishly wastes his time and devotion on, as shrewd and vapid. The playboy bachelor may share some of those vapid qualities, but the female romantic lead can see the heart of gold waiting to be unearthed — rather, what Jean hopes to find in her quest to charm her indecipherable boss. Evelyn perfectly embodies the cliché of heartless fiancée in her ice-blue suits and obnoxious disregard for Patrick’s zen Walkman moments. She just doesn’t let him be himself! Patrick also wastes his time with a ridiculous fling, Courtney (Samantha Mathis), who drowns herself in pills.

Harron undercuts this satirical imagery of women with Patrick’s very real violence towards them. There is no Cinderella or Pygmalion story awaiting the sex workers at his home, no magic shopping trip to transform them into high society princesses. The serial killer is certainly not Richard Gere from Pretty Woman (1990). After a zealous threesome, Harron shows Patrick wielding a wire hanger and purveying various instruments of torture. Patrick Bateman may fit the playboy image, but he is not the handsome prince of our dreams.

Harron and co-writer Guinevere Turner employ a satiric focus on Patrick’s shallow, jaded, and interchangeable yuppie friends to critique self-aggrandizing collective masculinity. He and his three friends swap fetishistic knowledge of luxury brands and designer labels over cocktails like a gender-swapped version of Sex and the City (1999). Their subsequent discussion of a woman’s looks versus personalities is purported from classic rom-com ethos. They laugh and high-five each other after exclaiming in unison, “There are no girls with good personalities!” Craig McDermott (Josh Lucas) follows, “Listen, the only girls with good personalities who are smart or maybe funny or halfway intelligent or even talented — though God knows what the fuck that means — are ugly chicks because they have to make up for how fucking unattractive they are.” Although Harron mocks the male characters through this sardonic exchange, we cannot ignore that this comes from very real ideals avowed in the typical romantic comedy. It is eerily similar to an exchange from When Harry Met Sally (1989):

Jess: Yeah but you also said she has a good personality.
Harry: She has a good personality.
Harry: What?
Jess: When someone is not that attractive, they’re always described as having a good personality.
Harry: Look, if you would ask me, “What does she look like?” and I said, “She has a good personality.” That means she’s not attractive. But just because I happened to mention that she has a good personality, she could be either. She could be attractive with a good personality, or not attractive with a good personality.
Jess: So which one is she?
Harry: Attractive.
Jess: But not beautiful, right?

The group continues their disparaging remarks, David Van Patten (Bill Sage) says, “A good personality consists of a chick with a little, hard body who will satisfy all sexual demands without being too slutty about things and who will essentially keep her dumb fucking mouth shut.” We turn to the rom-com The Ugly Truth:

“You want a relationship; here’s how you get one: it’s called a Stairmaster. Get on it and get skinny and get some trashy lingerie while you’re at it because at the end of the day, all we’re interested in is looks. And no one falls in love with your personality at first sight. We fall in love with your tits and your ass. And we stick around because of what you’re willing to do with them. So you want to win a man over? You don’t need ten steps. You need one. And it’s called a blowjob.”

While the cynical bachelor of The Ugly Truth gets reformed, the toxic messages remain. This disturbing vision of gender relations categorizes women’s merit based purely on appearances and both shames and suppresses their independent sexual desire. Romantic comedies play on these ideals for laughs but they are inherently rooted in our societal subconscious. The men of American Psycho may be parodies, but we experience their dialogue and message on a tangible level throughout various films.

Ultimately, Mary Harron approaches the romantic comedy elements of American Psycho as Patrick Bateman approaches music. He waxes poetic about the underlying message of Huey Lewis’ “Hip to be Square” and Whitney Houston’s “The Greatest Love of All.” Seemingly saccharine self-love anthems or bopping pop grooves become a “universal message [that] crosses all boundaries and instills one with the hope that it’s not too late to better ourselves, to act kinder” and “not just about the pleasures of conformity and the importance of trends, it’s also a personal statement about the band itself.” On its surface, the romantic comedy is a confectionary salve for the mind. We crave the simple pleasures of these unrealistic fairy tales coupled with hearty laughs. Underneath, the genre often blankets the divisive and often sexist ideals of the “men are from Mars, women are from Venus” adage. Often the “bad boy” cliché of real life is an abusive and violent person, perhaps not on the level of Patrick Bateman but certainly sharing similar fearful and misogynist qualities. And a makeover should not be the defining quality that entices a man to fall for a woman. I wonder what Patrick Bateman would have to say about “Walking on Sunshine,” which he bops to in the hall. Perhaps the narrator is similar to the female figures in romantic comedies, waiting for her cynical bachelor by the mailbox and to be with her for more than a weekend. Romantic comedies teach us to look for “the love that’s really real” in all the wrong places.

See also at Bitch Flicks:

Mary Harron’s American Psycho: Rogue Feminism

Caroline Madden has an MA Cinema Studies from Savannah College of Art and Design. Other writing can be found on Screenqueens, Pop Matters, and her blog Cinematic Visions. Film and Bruce Springsteen are two of her most favorite things.

The Vietnam War Through a Teen Girl’s Eyes in ‘In Country’

This guest post written by Caroline Madden appears as part of our theme week on Ladies of the 1980s. | Spoilers ahead.

Norman Jewison’s 1989 film In Country is based on Bobbie Ann Mason’s young adult novel by the same name. The story revolves around eighteen-year-old Samantha Hughes (Emily Lloyd), a.k.a. Sam, during the summer after high school graduation in Hopewell, Kentucky. Sam struggles to understand her Vietnam veteran uncle as she tries to learn more about her father, who died in the Vietnam War before she was born. Sam’s Uncle Emmett (Bruce Willis) wrestles with the symptoms of his PTSD, but refuses to tell Sam about his triggers or experiences. She barely knows anything about her father; her mother only knew and was with him for a few months before he was sent off to war and now she rarely discusses him. Sam spends the summer trying to solve the mysteries of the Vietnam experience and the patriarchal figures in her life.

Sam is an underrated, if not widely unknown 1980s heroine. She serves as a symbol for America’s 1980s attempt to reconcile with its most controversial war. The 1980s experienced a boom in Vietnam War films, as the temporal distance from the war allowed filmmakers to fully deconstruct the experience. Rarely is the locus of these films a woman. Sam’s character manages to break through the barriers of a primarily masculine film genre. In Country uniquely explores both the female and child experience of the Vietnam War and its aftermath. This is a departure from the wide variety of films depicting the male veteran’s assimilation into post-Vietnam life, such as Born on the Fourth of July (1989) or First Blood (1982).

The exclusion of the female is central to both real life and cinematic Vietnam War narratives. As laid out in Susan Jeffords’ seminal gender study of Vietnam, The Remasculinization of America: Gender and the Vietnam War, she discusses this idea of male bonding, or male collectivity. Men’s fellowship is predicated upon the segregation of the woman — they must bond together to reclaim their lost masculinity from the war. “Why don’t any of the vets I know get along with women?” Sam asks Emmett’s friend Tom. Sam hears the same mantra from various veteran characters throughout the film, “You ain’t never going to understand it. You don’t want to,” Emmett says. “Well, you weren’t there. So you can’t understand it,” says Tom. To the veterans of In Country, Sam will never share in their communal brotherhood of war and thus they must always exclude her. Sam frequently witnesses the impairment in the veteran’s post-war masculinity that keeps them from connecting and actively disengaging from women in primarily romantic and even friendly ways, such as her uncle’s rejection of Sam’s set-up with a local nurse and Tom’s inability to sexually perform.

Women in Vietnam War films are often pushed away from men who refuse to discuss the war. However, many of these characters remain passive and do not pressure them to divulge information. In Country portrays a woman as an active investigator that truly longs to understand the men’s minds. Sam constantly engages with her uncle and his friends about the war, but any of her sincere questioning about their wounds or memories are met with sarcastic jokes or proclamations that she would not understand. Just as Emmett and his friends dismiss Samantha, her father, Dwayne, also excludes her from the dead. Her friend Dawn finds a box of his letters, photographs and war memorabilia. The text of the letters revolves around soldier camaraderie, emphasizing the bonds of brotherhood. Dwayne excludes his female reader by insisting, “Don’t ask me to tell you how it is here. You don’t want to know.” This feminine segregation, a key component of most Vietnam narratives, is mobilized by all the men in In Country.

These letters begin to change Sam’s idea of her father, who was once a phantom figure in her life, now becomes idealized and heroic. Since Sam is not able to see the ramifications of Vietnam in her father’s post-war life, she can only picture him as a romantic war hero with a good heart. She pins his photograph onto her mirror and speaks to it, “You missed everything. You missed Watergate, E.T., the Bruce Springsteen concert. You were just a country boy and you never knew me.” By defining him as a ‘country boy,’ she envisions him as the embodiment of wholesome heartland America, a beacon of innocence who was harshly victimized after being thrown unwittingly into the dangers of Vietnam. The image of her father becomes as revered as that of a pop star — akin to the Bruce Springsteen posters that loom over her — an unattainable figure which exists as a pure, steadfast body of goodness that is constantly present but ultimately unreachable.

Sam mourns that her father has not only missed her entire life, but that her father never got to see what life has been like for Americans in 1980s post-Vietnam. She prioritizes Watergate, which changed American political culture forever, and iconic 1980s pop culture. Sam particularly engages with the rock icon Bruce Springsteen, whose career skyrocketed in 1984. Although his presence is more prevalent in the novel, the film still positions Springsteen as important to Sam. It is necessary to consider In Country’s engagement with the text of Springsteen’s hit song “Born in The U.S.A.,” which no doubt speaks to Sam’s observations of the Vietnam veteran’s predicament. The song discusses veterans’ disillusionment and disappointment upon returning to America after fighting its unpopular war, which Sam sees daily living with Emmett. Part of the song’s lyrics reflect his state of being, “You end up like a dog that’s been beat too much/Till you spend half your life just covering up.” Emmett has been both literally and metaphorically covering up. He fears the outside world, confining himself to the home, remaining unemployed, and refusing to work at the tire plant. He is plastered to the couch playing Pac-Man or spends his time digging a hideaway hole under the house. To Sam, Emmett is a living embodiment of Springsteen’s struggling small-town and blue-collar protagonist.

Another song off the iconic 1980s album is used non-diegetically in the film, “I’m On Fire.” The lyrics play as Sam jogs throughout the town. The lyrics, “Hey, little girl is your daddy home?/Did he go away and leave you all alone?” is an on-the-nose reference to Sam’s absent father. The amalgam of the song’s sexual nature and reference to a patriarchal figure reflects Sam’s complex sexual relationship with the significantly older Vietnam veteran Tom, who she attempts to sleep with after a dance. Tom is both an agent of her growing sexuality, as she develops into a young woman, and a platform for Sam to mediate her lost childhood role of father’s daughter, for Tom can be seen as more of a father figure than a potential boyfriend. Her connection and relationship to him can be read as a strange way for her to reconnect with her father. Sam is torn, particularly in this relation to Tom, between seeing herself as the little girl within the family she never got to have and growing up as a young woman.

In addition to understanding the Vietnam experience, In Country depicts a young woman at a crossroads in her life that many can relate to. All throughout the film, characters ask Sam if she is going to marry her boyfriend Lonnie. Her mother married her father and got pregnant at a young age, and now that Sam is freshly graduated from high school, many expect her to follow in those footsteps. Sam repeatedly tells her interrogators she has “other things on her mind.” It never occurs to them that she could have other ideas for her future, such as college or a career. Sam’s conflicts of these feminine roles are embodied in the character of Dawn, her friend that deals with an unplanned pregnancy. Dawn serves as a reflection of Sam’s alternate path, to marry Lonnie and start a family, and of the past, her mother’s young marriage and pregnancy.

Interactions with Dawn also trigger Sam’s unrest about her familial relationships. In one scene, Dawn pierces her ears and asks if her mother will be upset. Sam insists that her mother is “provincial and misguided” and brags that Emmett lets her do anything she wants to do, including let her boyfriend sleep over. Dawn responds that her father would never let her do that. Dawn’s insistence at having a protective father rubs salt in Sam’s wound about her own father’s absence. Sam does not truly celebrate her absent and misguided parental figures, (as her mother lives with her stepfather and half-sister in the city) they have left her unmoored and bereft. There are no parental figures that care enough to stop and discipline Sam from having sleepovers with her boyfriend. Sam is torn between attending college in the fall and marrying her boyfriend — two seemingly disparate feminine ideals. But overall, she is conflicted because she has never been able to see herself as a daughter within a nuclear family.

Sam’s volleying between the female roles of daughter and independent young woman and her struggle to relate to the Vietnam veterans in her life are resolved within the finale. Throughout the film, Sam had been constructing an idealized picture of her father as a perfect war hero. She obtains his war diaries from her grandparents, and their candor causes her to confront the reality of his wartime experiences and his ultimate humanity. The diaries describe his unremorseful killings of the Vietnamese enemy. Up until now, the letters she has read have only been of fraternizing with his war buddies or fantasizing about home. It never occurred to Sam that her father had to kill, the equation of murder and war was far from her mind as she envisioned her heroic father fighting for his country. Sam spent the majority of the film trying to determine why the Vietnam veterans she knows are so troubled, what happened over there to cause their problems. But when the truth of Vietnam is exposed to her through her father’s experience, she recoils, frightened and upset. It tarnishes her sainted image of the innocent ‘country boy.’ As Sam reveals this to Emmett, he finally unloads the memories that he has been keeping inside, the wounds in which he spent the film “covering up.” The uncovering of these wounds allows Sam to recognize just how Vietnam’s turmoil affected those she loves, unraveling the romantic notions of her father while allowing her to fully support her troubled uncle. Through this confession, the Vietnam veteran’s feminine exclusion, regulated through silence and hostility, is finally closed off.

In the final scene, Sam and Emmett travel to the Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial. Sam leaves a portrait of herself at her father’s spot on the wall. At the end of one of his letters, Dwayne said he wanted to see a picture of his child. This gesture allows her closure in the lack of connection she felt to him. Now, Dwayne is able to “see” the picture of his child, fulfilling his wish and thereby “acknowledging” her as his daughter. This allows Sam to fully heal and move on. We learn that she decides to attend college in the fall, pursuing her passion for higher education instead of others’ wishes for her to become a young housewife.

What is important about In Country is that it depicts a 1980s female protagonist with agency who carves out a path for herself, makes choices amidst the confusion and pressures of dominant ideologies and complex relationships. Sam Hughes is neither iconic nor well-remembered, but she should be. In Country depicts perhaps the most delicate time in a woman’s life: the transition from girl to young woman. Furthermore, it places the feminine experience within the canon of the Vietnam veteran film, a genre in which male narratives are overwhelmingly present and female characters are often reduced to largely invisible or supporting characters.

Caroline Madden has a BFA in Acting from Shenandoah Conservatory and is currently an MA Cinema Studies student at Savannah College of Art and Design. Other writing can be found on Screenqueens, Pop Matters, and her blog Cinematic Visions. Film and Bruce Springsteen are two of her most favorite things.

Sugar, Spice, and Things Not Nice: Violent Girlhood in ‘Violet & Daisy’

The character of Daisy personifies the film’s juxtaposition of violence and girlhood. Daisy loves cute animals and doesn’t understand Violet’s dirty jokes. The twist is even that she has not really killed anyone, thus remaining innocent of all crimes. The opening scene displays the most daring oppositional iconography — the young girls dress as nuns, the ultimate image of pure goodness, while having a shoot ‘em up with a gang.

This guest post by Caroline Madden appears as part of our theme week on Violent Women.

Violet & Daisy is written and directed by Geoffrey Fletcher (Oscar-winner for Precious) and stars Alexis Bledel and Saoirse Ronan as the title characters. The stylized Tarantino-esque film, inspired by Thelma and Louise, oscillates between genres. Mostly, it is a coming-of-age story of two teenage assassins, with a play-like structure, scenes with heavy dialogue occurring one room between the girls and the man they’ve been sent to kill, played by James Gandolfini. The snafu is that they grow to care for him, making it hard to get the job done. And they need the money to buy dresses from their favorite celebrity line, Barbie Sunday.

Violet & Daisy subverts the notion that girls are not a part of such nastiness–the mafia, crime organizations, robberies, and murder. Fletcher magnifies the girlish and childlike imagery to challenge the viewer on this. It is clear from the poster–two girls holding bright cherry red lollipops, and the tagline “Too much sugar can kill you”–that the film will be fetishizing juvenile images.

These images run rampant throughout the film: blowing bubblegum, playing patty cake, yo-yo tricks, dressing as uniformed schoolgirls. One scene shows them lusting after the oatmeal cookies Gandolfini’s character bakes. They gulp down glasses of milk and reveal their milk mustaches. The character of Daisy personifies the film’s juxtaposition of violence and girlhood. Daisy loves cute animals and doesn’t understand Violet’s dirty jokes. The twist is even that she has not really killed anyone, thus remaining innocent of all crimes. The opening scene displays the most daring oppositional iconography — the young girls dress as nuns, the ultimate image of pure goodness, while having a shoot ‘em up with a gang.

Violet and Daisy use their girlhood to their advantage; the men around them underestimate their skill or cannot fathom their participation in such acts. The girls often sneak past the cops right under their noses. After a hit, they throw their nun disguises in the trash and round the corner in new matching gym outfits, playing swords with sticks (another child image). When Violet is in a store after a shoot-up, the cop questions her as a witness. Violet taunts him by asking, “What makes you think a girl can’t be in on it?” The cop obliterated any idea of her involvement because of her sex and young appearance. The rival gang that is also after Gandolfini’s character, dangerous and hardboiled men, mock Violet and her boss. They joke that he must have been too deep into the economic depression to “send a cunt like you to do a man’s job.” We have male characters erasing or overlooking Violet and Daisy’s actions because of their sex and gender, assuming that it defines their capabilities. Violet and Daisy prove themselves to be more than capable of their job, taking it seriously and referring to themselves as “career women.”

Violet and Daisy are primarily detached from their hits, usually murdering men who have committed a crime or a grievance against their boss. However, there is one instance of vengeance violence. It is revealed, through Daisy’s initial misunderstanding then realization, that Violet was raped by the rival male gang- all significantly older men. Violet does end up murdering these characters- though out of mere circumstance rather than seeking them out in order to enact revenge. They are also after Gandolfini’s character, coming to his home and threatening him and Daisy. Violet saves the day by sneaking up behind them and shooting them all. The film does not frame incredible emphasis on this aspect of vengeance, for she seems to be enjoy inflicting death no matter who it is. This unnecessary trope could have easily been left out of the narrative, there are other ways to establish a rival group of assassins. However, I do appreciate that there was no exploitative flashback scene depicting the act.

We are disturbed by women who commit violence; they violate our culture mores and assert their independence and agency in threatening ways. Our disturbance is greater when it is a young girl, expected to be pedestals of purity and unwavering goodness. This is evident in the film’s R MPAA rating, for not only violence but “disturbing behavior.” Naturally, their fear is manifested in these child-like young women who gleefully and willingly glorify murder. One scene features the girls stepping on dead bodies, exclaiming joyfully time for the “internal bleeding dance!” The most violent scene features Alexis Bleldel wielding a fire extinguisher as a weapon, the blood splattering on screen as we hear the thunk of metal hitting bodies. However, most of the violence–even the ramifications of the fire extinguisher–is off-screen. Thus the idea of young women doing this is just as disturbing as viewing it.

Yet while some may be disturbed by violence in girlhood performance, we have seen other similar characters on screen. We turn to Natalie Portman’s performance in The Professional and Chloe Moretz in Kick Ass. In The Professional, do we accept the world-weary child, who dares Leon to sniper shoot the passerby, because she evokes adulthood via mannerisms? Hit Girl from Kick Ass seems to be played for farcical shock, and is far more violent than anything seen in Violet and Daisy. Audience members marvel that an 11 year old girl, who should be playing with Barbie dolls, is instead calling men cunts, stabbing swords through their chests and cutting off their legs. A.O. Scott’s New York Times review of Violet & Daisy scolds it for “hav[ing] nothing to respond to beyond the spectacle of girls with guns.” While I do not think Violet & Daisy is nearly as exploitative as Sucker Punch, we must consider its elements. Sucker Punch reads as a masturbatory fantasy of girls wielding guns and swords as a means of giving themselves agency and vengeance over the men who exploit them. The main character, Baby Doll, also appropriates girlish imagery, creating this strange eternal child who is taken advantage of repeatedly in highly sexual ways. It is a spectacle in every way imaginable, but I do not think Violet & Daisy fetishizes violence nearly as much, for the plot is centered on tripping up their physical ruthlessness by forming a genuine emotional connection with their victim.

Violet & Daisy is a film that plays with its genre and is hard to read. Is it a fantasy? Or a commentary on violence? Should we take it seriously? One thing is clear- it deliberately engages with child-like motifs to challenge our views about girlhood, depicting young girls as capable agents enacting violent acts. Child or childlike assassins have been used in film before to comment on both societal terrors and curiosities. Looking at Violet & Daisy, I feel that it uses child-like imagery to amplify our cultural fear of violent women, as evident by the men who underestimate their mental and physical capabilities. A woman wielding a gun is terrifying, but a young girl wielding one is even more so, and Fletcher augments that taboo by pervading the film with childlike imagery.

Caroline Madden has a BFA in Acting from Shenandoah Conservatory and is currently an MA Cinema Studies student at Savannah College of Art and Design. She writes about film at Geek Juice, Screenqueens, and her blog. You can usually find her watching movies or listening to Bruce Springsteen.

Women in a Man’s World: ‘Mad Men’ and the Female Gaze

In fact, many of the clients grow to appreciate the benefit of the female gaze, making their products truly (for the most part) appealing to women. This makes more profit than the false patriarchal ideas of a woman’s wants and needs. With the character of Peggy, Weiner is able to let us see the advertising world from the female gaze to criticize the falsehood that lies in selling female products with a male gaze.

This guest post by Caroline Madden appears as part of our theme week on The Female Gaze.

Mad Men is a remarkable portrayal of the 1960s that explores the office and home lives of workers in the New York City advertising industry over the course of a decade. The 60s was a particularly patriarchal and sexist period of history, as was the profession that Mad Men depicts. Advertising, even for women’s products, was driven by the male gaze. Mad Men aims to portray the decade and the world of Madison Avenue advertising as accurately as possible, but does not view it from the patriarchal standpoint of the time.

In the Establishing Mad Men documentary, creator Matthew Weiner states that Mad Men “is about conflicting desires in the American male, and the people who pay the price for that are women.” The leading women in the series who pay that price are Peggy Olson, Joan Harris, and Betty Draper. The struggles of Mad Men’s male characters have ramifications on them. Weiner uses the female gaze of these women to criticize the sexism of the era and profession they inhabit, while rendering fully realized and dynamic female characters. Peggy, Joan, and Betty are depicted as sexual, complicated, and diverse human beings.

In the first season of Mad Men especially, much of the dialogue shows the vast amount of overt sexism in the workplace. The Sterling Cooper secretaries are a smorgasbord available for men’s consumption, objects they can use for their amusement or lust. For most audience members of the 2000s, this blatant sexism is baffling, and some may find it oddly humorous just how much was acceptable or tolerated back then.

We experience this sexism through the eyes and gaze of Peggy Olson, who, much like the audience, is being introduced to the world of Sterling Cooper in the first episode. Peggy ends up being the female character most tied with the nature of advertising- making her way from Don Draper’s secretary to copywriter and then copy chief. But at first she is just another secretary, a new piece of fresh meat for the men. Peggy has never worked in an office before; she is straight out of secretarial school. Raised in a strict Catholic family, Peggy has likely never experienced male ogling at quite this level. By Episode 2, “Ladies’ Room,” Peggy is already fed up: “Honestly, why is it that every time a man takes you out to lunch around here, you’re…you’re the dessert!” she bemoans to Joan. Matthew Weiner uses the female gaze purposefully in the following scene where the camera allows the audience to identify with Peggy as the men’s prey. As Peggy sits at her desk on the typewriter, the camera cuts to many different men in slow-motion gazing at her, with reverse low angle-shots of Peggy. The multiple and unrelenting gazes of men echoes Peggy’s dialogue from minutes before: “It’s constant from every corner.” The low-angle on Peggy heightens her overwhelming feeling of their gaze.

Peggy’s role puts her in the position of seeing not only the advertising world firsthand, but also the male point of view that it so actively employs, and from her first account, she begins to challenge that point of view. Peggy’s rise in advertising begins with a Belle Jolie lipstick campaign. The Sterling Cooper secretaries are treated to a testing session (viewed by the men behind a two-way mirror) where they can try on as many Belle Jolie lipsticks as they please. The gaggle of secretaries are thrilled, but Peggy sits there unhappily. The camera shows Peggy watching the girls try on lipsticks in slow motion, the seeds of her first copy pitch planting in her brain. Freddy Rumsen asks Peggy why she didn’t try on any lipsticks. Peggy tells him that they didn’t have her color, that she is very particular: “I don’t think anyone wants to be one of a hundred colors in a box.” The men are failing to see the individuality in women, and instead choosing to see them as a limited whole. Peggy’s observations leads her to be promoted to copywriter for that campaign.

In Season 3, Peggy continues to challenge the male gaze in advertising. In a campaign for Patio, the clients want a shot-for-shot reenactment Bye Bye Birdie’s opening: “She’s throwing herself at the camera. No one seems to care that it speaks to men. Not the people that drink diet drinks.” Peggy asks Don about the faux Ann-Margaret. “It’s not about making women feel fat. It’s ‘look how happy I am drinking Patio. I’m young and excited and desperate for a man,’” Don replies. “I don’t mind fantasies, but shouldn’t it be a female one?” Peggy asks. “Peggy, you understand how this works: men want her, women want to be her.” Don is subtly insisting to Peggy that advertising, even for women’s products, is aimed for men. Don is also hinting to Peggy that if she keeps up the criticisms about the male gaze in advertising, she will lose her job.

Another example is the Playtex ad from Season 2 Episode 6’s “Maidenform.” Kinsey comes up with an idea that every woman is either a Jackie or Marilyn. He points to various women in the office pinpointing which one they are. “I don’t know if all women are a Jackie or a Marilyn. Maybe men seem them that way,” Peggy counters. “Bras are for men. Women want to see themselves the way men see them,” Kinsey insists.

As the series progresses into the mid-60s, we see the gradual shift into (slightly) more open-minded ideals about the roles of women in the workplace. Peggy is promoted and works on many campaigns. In fact, many of the clients grow to appreciate the benefit of the female gaze, making their products truly (for the most part) appealing to women. This makes more profit than the false patriarchal ideas of a woman’s wants and needs. With the character of Peggy, Weiner is able to let us see the advertising world from the female gaze to criticize the falsehood that lies in selling female products with a male gaze.

Peggy makes the biggest change as the series goes on, from a meek, mousy girl to a headstrong woman, though her evolution is no surprise upon reflection. Outside of the office, Peggy is seen many times exerting control over her own sexuality and choice of sexual partners. Peggy’s struggles of putting career over having a family are honestly and sensitively executed by Weiner.

Another female character tied to Sterling Cooper is Joan Holloway (later Harris). No other character experiences the male gaze as much as Joan. In the beginning seasons, the camera flatters and accentuates every curve of Hendricks’s voluptuous body. We see her as the men in the office see her. But one scene turns this on its head, in Season 1’s “Babylon,” at the Belle Jolie lipstick testing. Joan oversees the secretaries wearing a gorgeous skin-tight red dress. The camera views Joan (as the men view her) as she walks across the table, slyly looking at the two-way mirror. The camera then glides over to and fixes on Joan’s bottom as she bends over. Cut to Joan smirking, turning around and looking squarely at the mirror, almost straight into the camera. Joan knows the men are gazing at her, and she takes possession of that gaze by giving them what they want to see. The men think they have the power in being able to gaze at her unknowingly, but the power lies in Joan’s hands as she presents herself to be looked at. When Joan looks into the camera, it is almost as if she is also challenging the audience as well.

The character of Joan is frequently seen as a sexual object by all those around her. Many of her storylines revolve around the harmful ramifications you experience when you are only viewed by how you look and your body. The men around her, and even Joan herself, tend to use that sexuality as a pawn. Joan knows she exactly how she is viewed and objectified by the men in the office, and she yields that power for better or for worse. Two significant plot points happen to Joan–the rape by her fiancé and the act of prostitution to obtain the Jaguar account and a higher position in the office. As she lies on the office floor with Greg on top of her, or as awful, the awful car salesman kisses her and takes off her fur coat, the camera fixes on only Joan in a close-up. By doing that we are able to empathize with only her instead of focusing on the act. Weiner visually does not reduce these scenes to moments of exploitation. We are not centered on the event itself, but on what Joan is going through.

The show itself does not reduce Joan to just a sexual object as much as the men around her would like her to be so. Joan is a very smart, capable woman that is excellent at her job, more so than some of the men are. She often goes unappreciated until she does obtain her higher-up position. The show’s finale shows Joan running a production company in her home while raising her son.

Outside of Sterling Cooper, but connected to leading man Don Draper, is Betty Draper (later Francis). Betty’s image is one of passive, docile sexuality and complete perfection. Throughout the series, we quickly learn that there is more beneath Betty’s Barbie Doll-esque façade, for Weiner delves deeper than the false image she presents. Betty’s character seems ripped straight out the pages of Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique, a visual personification of “the problem that has no name” that she studied in housewives. Betty’s character allows viewers of modern day to see the nature of those housewives’ lives; there are multiple scenes of the dull drudgery and loneliness Betty deals with day to day alone in the house.

We first get a glimpse at her underlying sexuality when she tells Don, “I want you so much. I thought about it all day. No I mean it. It’s all I think about…every day. Your car coming down the driveway. I put the kids to bed early. I make a grocery list. I cook butterscotch pudding. I never let my hands idle. Brushing my hair, drinking my milk…and it’s all in kind of a fog because I can’t stop thinking about this. I want you so badly.” From this we learn that Betty is very much at the whim of Don’s actions. One episode delves further into Betty’s brimming sexuality, when we see her pleasuring herself against a washing machine while fantasizing about making love to the air conditioner salesman. In Season 3, after seeing Don sleep with so many other women, there is a scene of Betty controlling her sexuality when she sleeps with a stranger from a bar. Matthew Weiner takes great care in telling her side of the story in the marriage and relation to Don. Betty is not shown to be the demure or child-like woman that Don or others may view her as.

Mad Men is one of the few shows that depicts a successful representation of the female gaze, despite taking place in an era and profession where female’s experiences were often devalued. Weiner does not reduce the women to just mere symbols of the decade’s movements but crafts them as complicated and dynamic human beings living in an equally complicated time. And this is not limited to just Peggy, Joan, and Betty. Mad Men has many women, good qualities and bad, older women, mothers, grandmothers, young girls, teenagers, within the show that Weiner manages–even through small parts–to finely craft. Weiner uses the female gaze as one of many ways to examine the fascinating decade.

Caroline Madden has a BFA in Acting from Shenandoah Conservatory and is working on an MA in Cinema Studies at Savannah College of Art and Design. She writes about film at Geek Juice, Screenqueens, and her blog. You can usually find her watching movies or listening to Bruce Springsteen.

‘Mad Men’: Masculinity and the Don Draper Image

Upon viewing the series after knowing the show’s finale, we see that the Don Draper arc reflects a small change in gender perspectives during that era. The Don of Season 1 would never act as the Don in the Season 7 finale. We see that Mad Men was all about shattering the hyper-masculine Don Draper mythos that he built and trapped himself within.

This guest post by Caroline Madden appears as part of our theme week on Masculinity.

Mad Men’s leading ad man, Don Draper, started out as an enigmatic and virile figure–a creative genius on the top of his career who has a beautiful wife and family and an insatiable sexual appetite fulfilled by many other mistresses. Don Draper, for audiences and the characters that surrounded him alike, was the ultimate male figure. Characters around him constantly likened him to matinee idols such as James Garner and Gregory Peck, or an astronaut, and even Batman. Don is constantly seen by others as handsome yet inscrutable, as he swaggers around the office winning pitches and charming clients, yet remaining distant and unwilling to share anything personal. No one, whether it be the clients at work or the beautiful women he seduced, could resist the Don Draper charm. But the seemingly infallible wall and perfect image that surrounds Don slowly diminishes as the series goes on. And we learn that it is just that: an image.

We discover early on in the show that Don Draper is really Dick Whitman- a poor farm boy from Pennsylvania. His mother was a prostitute who died in childbirth, his father a cruel drunk who died in front of him after being kicked by a horse. Dick moved with his stepmother and grew up in a whorehouse. Dick then volunteered for the Korean War to get out of his home. He accidentally killed his C.O., the real Don Draper, and switched dog tags with him in order to start a new life under his name. Ever since then, Dick has been constantly trying to escape his past by reinventing himself as a new man–a man who has, as Peggy Olson notes in the episode “The Fog,” “everything, and so much of it.” The farm boy now has more money than he knows what to do with and a beautiful home and family. Don tries to live the picturesque life that he conjures up in advertisements. But like most of advertising itself, it is false. Despite his new start, Don cannot escape his past and issues, it is constantly bubbling over and seeping into his life. Don’s seemingly perfect family life and ways of self-medication is, how Pete Campbell reflects on in his own monologue, a “temporary bandage on a permanent wound.”

Mad Men has seven seasons, and is set across an entire decade from 1960 to 1970. The show is rampant with the gender stereotypes of the era, and they are especially visible in the first seasons. The sexist attitudes of the era are shown in the dialogue and depiction of office and family life; there are far too many examples to name. We see these gender stereotypes reflected again and again in the brainstorming and final fruition of advertisements that Sterling Cooper creates. However, not only does Mad Men tell the stories of people who live in that time period, but the characters and story also end up symbolizing the turmoil and transformations of the decade itself. Upon viewing the series after knowing the show’s finale, we see that the Don Draper arc reflects a small change in gender perspectives during that era. The Don of Season 1 would never act as the Don in the Season 7 finale. We see that Mad Men was all about shattering the hyper-masculine Don Draper mythos that he built and trapped himself within.

Throughout the series, we have seen Don reach several small epiphanies and seemingly making some progress, only to circle around and revert back in the end. Much like the Springsteen song, Don was constantly moving “one step up, and two steps back.” In Season 4, Don loses control of himself after his divorce from Betty. Most notably in the episode “Waldorf Stories,” Don gets blackout drunk and ends up sleeping with two women in one night. He also shows up at a meeting where he drunkenly and sloppily pitches to Life Cereal. He even references the notion of “nostalgia,” which pathetically evokes the most poignant pitch of his career for Kodak. This is not the cool, calm, and collected Don of Season 1. Don remarries Megan to get himself back on track, and for a while it works. In Season 5, he was able to remain faithful and cut back on drinking. He was open with her about his past as Dick Whitman, his relationship with Anna Draper, everything. But by Season 6 he is having an affair with his neighbor and drinking heavily again.

The culmination of Season 6 is a major collapse of Don’s masculine, perfected, and guarded image. The charm and swagger that used to work so well for his business is losing its power. During a pitch for Hershey, we see Don his most vulnerable in front of other men. At first, Don tells a fake story of how he would mow the lawn for his father and be rewarded with a Hershey bar. The executives are pleased; it’s the exactly what they want to hear. But it’s a lie. Then, Don decides to sell the truth for once. He confesses,

“I was an orphan. I grew up in Pennsylvania in a whorehouse. I read about Milton Hershey and his school in Coronet magazine or some other crap the girls left by the toilet. And I read that some orphans had a different life there. I could picture it. I dreamt of it. Of being wanted. Because the woman who was forced to raise me would look at me every day like she hoped I would disappear. Closest I got to feeling wanted was from a girl who made me go through her john’s pockets while they screwed. If I collected more than a dollar, she’d buy me a Hershey bar. And I would eat it alone in my room with great ceremony, feeling like a normal kid. It said ‘sweet’ on the package. It was the only sweet thing in my life.”

Don continues this reveal of his true self to the ones he owes it the most, his children. He takes his children to see the decrepit house he grew up in. He attempts to break the circle of this false identity he has built for so long.

Upon reflection, the breakdown of Don’s persona seems a clear journey for this character, but to many audience members it is hard to see Don in weaker moments. Many prefer seeing Don as the alpha male of Season 1. In Matthew Weiner’s interview with Hanna Rosin at The Atlantic they remark that the audience has trouble when Don loses his confidence. Rosin comments that the audience “Could tolerate his wickedness if he was alpha. But if he cried, or lost his bearings-” To which Weiner replies that there have been other ‘weak’ moments for Don on the show: “He’s cried before. He lost his bearings in the Carousel scene at the end of the first season. That’s the most famous moment in the show. He was filled with regret and weeping over something very, very un-masculine. He ran to Rachel Menken and said, ‘Let’s run away,’ and could not have been weaker.” But the Hershey moment was remarkably different than these moments.

In the Season 7 finale, for Don has to finally hit rock bottom in order to truly shed his false persona. Don has ended up in California at the Esalen Institute, a therapeutic treatment center. He did not go willingly, but was brought by his acquaintance, Anna Draper’s niece Stephanie. During a class in one exercise, you are told to face another person and physically communicate with them how they feel. Don remains guarded with his arms crossed and brow furrowed, a gesture certainly fitting. Don has long felt psychology was false and a waste of time, and this is no different. Sharing your feelings was seen as weak, and Don was always telling others to stop crying or grieving.

However, eventually Don has a nervous breakdown. The culmination of Stephanie leaving him, telling him he is not her family, and news of Betty dying leaves him paralyzed with emotion. He calls Peggy on the phone, who fears that he is near suicidal. “I messed everything up. I’m not the man you think I am. I broke all my vows. I scandalized my child. I took another man’s name and made nothing of it.” He confesses. A kind woman takes him to a group therapy session, but he can only sit in a trance. Then, a nebbish man Leonard sits a chair and begins opening up: “It’s like no one cares that I’m gone. They should love me. I mean, maybe they do, but I don’t even know what it is. You spend your whole life thinking you’re not getting it, people aren’t giving it to you. Then you realize they’re trying and you don’t even know what it is.” The beginning of his speech gets Don’s attention, and by the end Don is standing up and walking over to embrace the sobbing Leonard. This scene is incredibly important for Don Draper’s character arc.

Matthew Weiner remarked in his interview with the New York Public Library that they studied videos from Esalen: “These guys have had it. Even if they’re not veterans, they are just—the alienation that was created by success, political, racial tension, the technology, which is I think what’s happening right now, the isolation, these guys were like they’re going to crack, and it’s not like they haven’t always done that, but it was really something that I felt that was part of the story of the era of the sixties.” The era of the ’60s is ending, as well as Don’s journey. Don has had it; he has cracked and cannot take it any longer. The story of the characters end up reflecting the era they’re living in.

Don Draper is from The Silent Generation, where children were taught to be seen and not heard, especially male children. And especially Don, whose stepmother hated him. Boys were (and still are today) taught never to cry, or express their feelings. Being emotional is seen as being feminine, which men of that era would never want to be been seen as. It is a harmful stereotype for all men, leaving them stunted and suppressing their emotions. This expectation for men to remain these silent heroes, doubled by the false perfect persona that Dick Whitman puts on as Don Draper, is what leads him to make so many of his mistakes and fuels his turbulent emotional problems.

The Mad Men finale, as well as Don’s entire journey, demonstrates how destructive the rules of “being a man” can be. Especially during a time when sexism was so open, when the lines were so clearly drawn between what made a man and what made a woman. We had seen Don cry or open up emotionally a handful of times, but for the most part Don remained so closed off from everyone, folding his arms to the world. The finale shows the first time he finally opens them and embraces, both literally and figuratively, not only himself, but another man suffering the same problems as well. It is an incredibly important moment for Don. Don begins as a man unable to express himself and forced to uphold unwavering masculinity due to his upbringing, the era he lived in, and the persona he crafted for himself. He ends by rejecting those notions, which allows him to fully connect with others around him and make peace with his inner conflicts and past.

‘The Babadook’ and the Horrors of Motherhood

Amelia didn’t need to be possessed to have feelings of vitriol towards her son; they were already there, lurking inside her at the beginning. Rarely, if ever, is a mother depicted in film this way. Mothers are expected to be completely accepting and loving towards their child 24/7, despite any hardships or challenges their child presents to them.

This guest post by Caroline Madden appears as part of our theme week on Bad Mothers.

The Australian horror film The Babadook is a chilling story that takes you on an insanely thrilling and mentally stimulating ride, shot in striking gothic charcoal hues. The best part of The Babadook is its contribution to telling an honest and complex female story. The Babadook subverts common horror tropes in electrifying ways. While The Babadook has many themes, such as the monster being a metaphor for depression and grief, but one it particularly touches on is motherhood. Director/writer Jennifer Kent uses The Babadook to question the meaning of what it means to be a mother. “I’m not saying we all want to go and kill our kids, but a lot of women struggle. And it is a very taboo subject, to say that motherhood is anything but a perfect experience for women,” she said in an interview.

The story of The Babadook centers on a woman, Amelia (a powerhouse performance from actress Essie Davis) who is the mother of a little boy, Samuel. Samuel has violent tendencies and frequent temper tantrums. He is constantly getting in trouble in school. Amelia is left utterly exhausted, coming home from a long day at work to a child who is relentlessly difficult. Amelia’s sister has a strong disdain for Samuel and the way Amelia raises him. Samuel also gets in trouble by accidentally hurting his cousin. Trouble follows him everywhere and it seems Amelia can never get a break with him.

Aside from his behavior problems, Samuel’s mere existence comes with a lot of baggage for her. Samuel was born the day his father died–in a car accident on the way to the hospital. Amelia is not over her husband’s death, and this will always darkly shadow her feelings for Samuel. “I can’t stand being around your son,” her sister Claire says to her in one scene. “And you can’t stand being around him yourself.” Amelia does not deny it. There’s a scene where Samuel lingers sadly by the bed asking for food while Amelia screams about needing sleep. Samuel keeps her up every night hiding from monsters. She later corners him growling, “You don’t know how many times I wished it was you, not him, that died.” “I just want you to be happy,” Samuel replies.

The audience’s feelings are constantly being juggled between Amelia and Samuel. We can empathize with Amelia for being frustrated with her challenging child, but at the same time we are offered glimpses that remind us that Samuel is just a child; he can’t help the way he came into the world.

Often, mothers in horror films are either the saviors of the child or the villain, taking the bad mother trope to a whole other level. We recall the terrified Wendy Torrance scuffling Danny out of the bathroom to stay and face the ax-wielding Johnny in The Shining, or Kathy running from her demon-possessed husband in The Amityville Horror. As for mother villains, we’ve had the famous mother from Stephen King’s Carrie, or Jason’s in Friday the 13^th.

The Babadook is unique in making the vessel of evil be the mother, or having the mother be possessed and her child as the victim. But The Babadook subverts this even further for Amelia’s antagonist feelings towards her son have been there in the beginning, before any evil presence or possession. Amelia didn’t need to be possessed to have feelings of vitriol towards her son; they were already there, lurking inside her at the beginning. Rarely, if ever, is a mother depicted in film this way. Mothers are expected to be completely accepting and loving towards their child 24/7, despite any hardships or challenges their child presents to them. A mother’s love for her child must be unwavering; to be acknowledged as anything else is not permitted in society’s eyes. It is refreshing to have a film that depicts motherhood in a way that is rarely seen but is felt by many women everywhere.

The Babadook is unique for it portrays the true (but often overlooked, or afraid to be touched upon notion) that motherhood is not always the greatest. That sometimes loving your child can be difficult. Children are not always perfect and it is not an easy or always enjoyable feat to raise them. The Babadook is a brave and human look at what it means to be a mother, led by a well-crafted and fully fleshed-out female protagonist that is rarely seen in horror, let alone film at all. The fact that her actions cannot entirely be wholly attributed to demonic possession is what makes The Babadook both frightening, thought provoking, and one of the most original and exciting horror films in recent history.

The Real Hated Housewives of TV

Naturally, we are all on these anti-heroes’ sides, despite their bad deeds. And Tony Soprano, Don Draper, and Walter White all have an antagonist: their wives. They call their husbands out on their lies, moral failings, and oppose them. Thus, they are seen as the nagging wife that everyone hates.

This guest post by Caroline Madden appears as part of our theme week on Unlikable Women.

On August 23, 2013 Anna Gunn, who starred as Skyler White on Breaking Bad, published an article in The New York Times titled “I Have A Character Issue.” Her article discussed the cruel and sexist online backlash that her character–and even Anna herself–received.

She wrote, “My character, to judge from the popularity of Web sites and Facebook pages devoted to hating her, has become a flash point for many people’s feelings about strong, non-submissive, ill-treated women. As the hatred of Skyler blurred into loathing for me as a person, I saw glimpses of an anger that, at first, simply bewildered me.” She continues, “It’s notable that viewers have expressed similar feelings about other complex TV wives — Carmela Soprano of The Sopranos, Betty Draper of Mad Men. Male characters don’t seem to inspire this kind of public venting and vitriol.”

Gunn writes that she understands that since Walt is the shows protagonist, the audience will root for him. These male anti-hero dramas and character studies started with The Sopranos, and Mad Men, and Breaking Bad continued on with the genius success that changed television forever. Naturally, we are all on these anti-heroes’ sides, despite their bad deeds. And Tony Soprano, Don Draper, and Walter White all have an antagonist: their wives. They call their husbands out on their lies, moral failings, and oppose them. Thus, they are seen as the nagging wife that everyone hates.

Anna Gunn as Skyler White in Breaking Bad — Anna Gunn as Skyler White in *Breaking Bad*

There are many hate groups for Skyler White, including the “I Hate Skyler White” Facebook page with over 30,000 likes. On these boards you can find typical comments like Skyler is a “controlling shrew,” and a “shrieking, hypocritical harpy who doesn’t deserve the great life she has.” (Umm…what? Did you even watch the show? Their life got progressively worse each episode.) And that she “needs to die, hate her strongly.” They even remark on Gunn’s appearance, saying how Skyler “got fatter as the show progressed.” So the consensus among viewers is that Skyler was a drag, a ball-and-chain, and overall an annoying bitch. All because, in Anna Gunn’s words, “Skyler didn’t conform to a comfortable ideal of the archetypical female, she had become a kind of Rorschach test for society, a measure of our attitudes toward genders.” And that attitude looks pretty horrible.

But Skyler’s arc of the show is just as captivating as Walter’s Mr. Chips-to-Scarface transformation. She had a loving husband and a quiet suburban life in a nice home, while still struggling to make ends meet. And then by the end she’s the shell of her former, self- trapped in a shitty apartment with two children. Her reputation is ruined, her brother-in-law killed, and her sister she loved dearly now hates her. Her life turned completely upside down. All because of Walt.

Of course Skyler is not without flaws or faults; she had an affair to deal with her shattered home life, and she was insensitive to Walt’s feelings when he did not want to receive cancer treatment. She and Walt already had underlying tensions in the marriage before he broke bad. But Walt has just a few more faults with all that murder, manipulation, and that little meth cooking habit. Think of all the lies she had to deal with, over and over again from Walt.

All she was doing was trying to protect her family from the danger, and what more of a dilemma when that danger is someone they all once knew and loved. How do you make the right choice in that situation? Why do audiences not even give her ANY shred of understanding? Why is she just vehemently hated? Viewers cannot put themselves in her shoes and think of how they would handle those life-changing events? Nope, she’s just a bitch.

January Jones as Betty Draper in Mad Men — January Jones as Betty Draper in *Mad Men*

Betty Draper is not only hated as a character, but many hate January Jones’ acting. Many feel that she is a bad actress, too wooden, bland, one-note and cold. But regardless of your opinion on her acting, I think she is good at the part, for Betty is cold and blank. Now whether this is intentional on January’s part or it just ends up fitting because January is wooden all on her own, that’s up for debate.

Betty Draper receives tons of online hate, bloggers calling her to be killed off, articles entitled “No Sympathy for Betty Draper” and montages of Betty’s worst parenting moments titled “Ugly Betty.” Online comments on Reddit and other sites include a high number of c-bombs, and comments like “Betty is a fucking, annoying, immature, bitch.” and “I want to slap that bitch every time she is on the screen”

It is very easy to dislike Betty Draper. Is Betty a bad mom? Yes, she is 90 percent of the time. But Don Draper’s a bad dad. Is Betty terrible to most people? Yes. Isn’t Don just as terrible to people? Answer: most definitely yes. With Don being the main character, we are able to see flashbacks of his childhood, letting the audience understand why Don causes so much damage to his family and friends, and why his inner psyche is so troubled. But we do hear from Betty’s as well. And if you’re really listening, you can see why she is the way she is.

Her mother focused terribly on her appearance, telling her “You’re painting a masterpiece, make sure to hide the brushstrokes.” In other words, you can be nothing but perfect. Isn’t that a lot of pressure to put on a child? Can’t you see how that would affect Betty? We do see that throughout the show. Betty must always maintain her trophy wife status, meaning be beautiful and thin. (She has extremely disordered eating habits throughout the show.)

Betty is literally a character ripped from the true-life 1950s/early 60s housewives Betty Friedan studied in her book The Feminine Mystique. Like many housewives of that time, Betty Draper went to college, (anthropology at Bryn Mawr) just to buffer the time until she found a man, and then went on to literally do nothing with that degree. Taken from Freidan’s book, “Each suburban wife struggles with it alone. As she made the beds, shopped for groceries, matched slipcover material, ate peanut butter sandwiches with her children, chauffeured Cub Scouts and Brownies, lay beside her husband at night- she was afraid to ask even of herself the silent question– ‘Is this all?”

We see Betty’s trapped in the confines of domesticity described above in the earlier seasons. Don convinces her it’s better for her not to work at modeling, so we see Betty’s ‘busy day’ at home. Breakfast for kids, a load of laundry and housework done by 1 o’clock, then sitting alone smoking and drinking wine at the kitchen table. This is the monotony of her day, nothing to do with her life but wait until Don comes home. If he even comes home that night.

That blankness that Betty has is exactly described in The Feminine Mystique, the hundreds of housewives she interviewed who were trapped in their homes with nothing to feed their minds, just like Betty. I think why people loathe Betty the most is because she doesn’t change. She starts out as a frail oppressed housewife filled with anger and bitterness, but never combats her oppression. Even with a new husband and new life, she still gets worse. She doesn’t learn from her mistakes.

But neither has Don, really. He makes small steps throughout the show, but he still has a long way to go. Mad Men seems to be culminating in the idea that although times and decades may change, people don’t. And both Don and Betty are on that same trajectory. It may be easy to hate Betty because of the way she acts, but she has inner wounds as Don does. And they both have moments of cruelty and honesty, steps back and forward.

Edie Falco as Carmela Soprano in The Sopranos — Edie Falco as Carmela Soprano in *The Sopranos*

The online community was not as potent in the late 90s early 2000s as it is today, so viewers did not have a platform to express their negative opinions as much as they do today. But there are still comments to be found, from DVD rewatches, like, “I wanted nothing more then to see Carmela shot in the face!” or “She should have been whacked from the start!” And, “Carmela Soprano, the whiny bitch who deludes herself into thinking she can have a mafia boss husband and expect her family to lead a moral life at the same time. She wants the luxury but not the consequences. It’s hard to imagine somebody to be so dense, and it hurts the show in my opinion.”

Hard to imagine? Hurts the show? How can someone not see Carmela Soprano as a complex, intriguing character? She is a woman who deals with Catholic guilt over Tony’s sins; she knows she is just as guilty as he is for standing by him. Carmela Soprano is dense? This woman knows her husband has sex with nearly everything that walks. She knows that all those old friends aren’t in the witness protection program- they’re dead. And that is her whole inner conflict. She knows all this but chooses to stand by Tony anyway. No one’s interested in that dynamic? At all? If Carmela was whacked from the start where would the show even go?

These sexist jabs show that some fans have the inner desire for the show to be all whacking all the time. No diversion into the “soap opera” marriage and family boring stuff. And it’s hard to separate that from sexism, since relationship stories are considered “girly things” These viewers are deluded if they think the family stories were a waste of time. Some of Tony and Carmela’s arguments are incredible works of acting from Edie Falco and James Gandolfini, such as this one.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9oY7zpan18″]

Without these familial conflicts (in addition to his childhood flashbacks and explorations) why would Tony even be in therapy, the entire point of the show itself? Carmela Soprano “hurts the show”? I think not.

I’m not denying that the men, despite all their flaws are complex characters, they truly are, and are a testament to the rich and nuanced writing of these brilliant television shows, Breaking Bad, The Sopranos, and Mad Men. But the wives are, too. Without these women, where is Tony Soprano’s story? Don Drapers? Walter White?

Walter’s loving family is what drives him to start the meth business. At the beginning his only defense is that he did it all to “take care of his family.” Don Draper’s arc and story about the effects of his childhood on his relationships with women and family is nothing without his wife Betty. Tony Soprano’s therapy sessions, the crux of the show, deal with his conflicts between his two families- the mafia, and his wife Carmela.

Online, you can see tons of battles between these female characters of who is the bigger bitch, Skyler Vs. Carmela Vs. Betty. You certainly don’t see who is the bigger Dick? Tony Vs. Walt Vs. Don anywhere. One has to wonder if we had complex shows where female characters were the protagonists, the flawed anti-heroes…would their husbands receive such hate online?

You can hate a character, and you can hate a female character. But do you have to express that hate with such highly sexist remarks? These sexist remarks are oversimplifying these complex female characters that the brilliant writers of The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, and Mad Men have given us. These comments show why audiences can’t handle a complex female character, which Carmela, Betty and Skyler are.

Tony Soprano, Don Draper, and Walter White will forever remain heralded as the most complex and fascinating television characters of all time. But the women? Just a bunch of bitches.

Caroline Madden writes about film at Geek Juice, Screenqueens, and her blog. You can usually find her watching movies or listening to Bruce Springsteen. She has a BFA in Acting from Shenandoah Conservatory.

‘The Conjuring’: When Motherhood Meets Demonic Possession

Punishment is the main objective of the demon Bathsheba in ‘The Conjuring,’ and specifically she seeks to punish the mother figure of a family. The hauntings and road to possession begin when in 1971, Roger and Carolyn Perron move into an old farmhouse in Rhode Island with their five daughters. Slowly, they begin to experience paranormal disturbances.

This guest post by Caroline Madden appears as part of our theme week on Demon and Spirit Possession.

Punishment is the main objective of the demon Bathsheba in The Conjuring; specifically, she seeks to punish the mother figure of a family. The hauntings and road to possession begin when in 1971, Roger and Carolyn Perron move into an old farmhouse in Rhode Island with their five daughters. Slowly, they begin to experience paranormal disturbances.

Carolyn, the mother, is the most affected and punished by these disturbances. She is physically punished when she wakes up one morning to see bruises on her back. Other bodily harm occurs throughout the hauntings. The spirit goes so far as to pretend to be Carolyn’s daughter when playing a family game with her. She is then dragged to the cellar and attacked.

Carolyn is the only one who is constantly singled out by the demon. The father is not dealt with at all. While the daughters are also horrified and attacked by the spirit, punishing the daughters is just another way for the demon to get at Carolyn. Carolyn cares for her daughters, and it is devastating for her to see them attacked. This is quite a simplistic characterization, for Carolyn is written to merely serve the theme of the story rather than as a dynamic female character. Being a mother is her main characteristic, but she is established as warm and caring one, thus allowing the demon to prey and try to destroy her strong bond with her daughters.

But why is the demon attempting to destroy this relationship between mother and child? Why is the demon trying to attack this loving family and destroy their content life? When Carolyn brings in paranormal investigators Lorraine and Ed Warren, with some research they discover that the demon is that of a woman named Bathsheba. They learn that in the 1850s, Bathsheba was married to a rich farmer named Sherman. Together they had a child, and when it was a week old the father caught Bathsheba sacrificing her baby to the devil. Bathsheba then hanged herself after proclaiming her love for Satan, cursing anyone who tried to take her land. Carolyn learns that Bathsheba specifically seeks out the punishment of mothers, all who have lived on this property before her, in order to have them sacrifice their children to the devil.

While female characters are often the ones singled out for possession, The Conjuring takes another interpretation by viewing possession through the lens of motherhood. We have often had possessed fathers who go on to wreak havoc on their family, such as The Amityville Horror (who the real-life Warrens also investigated) and The Shining. The mother character is often the one to protect her child against the man. (Most notably, Shelley Duvall as Wendy Torrance in The Shining.)

It is perhaps more believable and less horrifying when a father figure turns on their family, for it is more common or widely seen for fathers or stepfathers to be abusive to a family. While mother abuse does happen, it is thought to be quite rare. It is far more horrifying for a once loving mother to turn into an evil, abusive, and psychotic one. When we hear of heartbreaking stories of child abuse or murder at a mother’s hand we often exclaim, “How could a mother EVER do that?” whereas if we hear about a man committing abuse, it is merely shrugged upon and seen as something that always happens. In reality, women who hurt children are not worse than men who hurt children; both are equally awful.

Motherhood in society is more often debated upon and mothers are seen as the sole caretakers for a child. Mothers have to live up to often highly unrealistic standards. If they fail, they are criticized and condemned. Those who rise to those magic standards are seen as noble, for they are doing “the most important job a woman can do.” It is more “acceptable” for a father to walk out on a family or fail to rise to the occasion of fatherhood; you won’t hear much criticism or outcries. But if a mother does, she is deemed horrible and selfish. So in all, it is seen as more shocking and thrilling for a mother to turn against her children in violent and horrifying ways.

After being attacked by Bathsheba, Carolyn is eventually possessed by her. When she wakes up from a nap, she sees Bathsheba lying on top of her. Bathsheba then vomits in her mouth in order to get inside Carolyn and possess her to elicit her last final punishment. Bathsheba will use Carolyn to kill her children and sacrifice them to the devil, as she has so many times before with other mothers. The now possessed Carolyn behaves as normal, conspiring with her husband and the Warren’s to take the children back to the hotel where they will be safe. Then we see Carolyn take two of her daughters, Christine and April, back to the house. The girls are frightened and do not know what is wrong with their mother.

The Warrens and Carolyn’s husband rush back to the house where they find Carolyn trying to stab her daughter Christine with scissors. They eventually are able to tie the possessed Carolyn to a chair to perform an exorcism. Despite being tied up, Bathsheba continues to punish Carolyn with the most painful physical abuse thus far. Carolyn spits and vomits huge amounts of blood, nearly choking on it. When anyone tries to take her outside, Bathsheba makes Carolyn’s skin sizzle and mottle with severe burns. Bathsheba levitates the chair and quickly slams it down on the hard concrete basement floor. Her husband begs Carolyn to “be strong” and “fight” against the demon, but it is clear that it is beyond her power to try and stop this.

The possessed Carolyn eventually escapes and goes to try and kill her other daughter April, who is hiding under the floorboards. Lorraine Warren tries the final act to bring Carolyn back. Lorraine recounts a special memory with her daughters at a lovely day on the beach. Through the power of the special relationship between mother and child, Ed Warren is able to complete the exorcism and Carolyn is able to return to her normal self. For at her heart, Carolyn is a good and caring mother, and there can be nothing to sever that.

The demon attempts to destroy (what is seen as from society) the most sacred bond, the bond between a mother and child. The demon wants to completely destroy all of those relationships, as she had destroyed that idea of motherhood when she killed her child for Satan. But in the end Bathsheba still slightly wins. Even if she was exorcised and Carolyn’s role as a caring mother won out in the end, her daughters still have scarring memories of their mother while she was possessed. Although only for one night, they still suffered from the hands of abuse. Those memories may linger on and alter the viewings of their mother. Bathsheba was still able to alter the mother and daughter relationship but not in the way that she had hoped.

The Conjuring is one of the unique horror films where possession is examined through the eyes of motherhood. We have seen possessed fathers wreaking havoc and terror on their families but not as many mothers. A violent and uncaring mother will always be scarier than a father. An abusive and evil father, we see those horrors more often in everyday life. The Conjuring plays on the already pre-existing attitudes we have to see violence inflicted by mothers on their children as to be of a most evil nature.

Caroline Madden is a recent graduate with a BFA in Acting from Shenandoah Conservatory. She writes about film at Geek Juice, Screenqueens, and her blog. You can usually find her watching movies or listening to Bruce Springsteen.

You’ll Never Walk Alone: ‘Heavenly Creatures’ and the Power of Teenage Friendship

Peter Jackson shows the girls interacting and playing in these worlds. “The Fourth World” is a beautiful garden. Borvonia is a dark and delightfully wicked world of castle intrigue and courtly love. Seeing the girls in the worlds they’ve created demonstrates the extent of the fantasies and the pleasures their imaginative and playful friendship brings. Pauline and Juliet have an intense friendship; they don’t want anyone to stand in their way of spending time together or stop the joy that it brings for them.

This guest post by Caroline Madden appears as part of our theme week on Female Friendship.

1950s New Zealand was rocked by a sensational crime committed by two teenage girls who were best friends. Represented in Peter Jackson’s Oscar-nominated Heavenly Creatures, the power of female friendship drives of the story. Although the film is not representative of a typical female friendship, it nonetheless portrays the power and wonders of friendship between girls.

Screenwriter Fran Walsh said in an interview, “I’ve had very intense adolescent friendships. They were very positive, affectionate and funny, and I understood to a large degree what was so exciting, so magical about the friendship. And though it ended in a killing, the friendship itself is something people would identify with, particularly women.”

Kate Winslet and Melanie Lynskey play the friends Pauline Parker and Juliet Hulme. When Juliet is the new girl in school, Pauline begins to admire her because she’s so much that she is not–she’s from a well-born family, has freedom, and is rebellious. Her upbringing is complete opposite of Pauline’s humble home, one that is always overcrowded with boarders so her embarrassing working class family can have more money. The two quickly become fast friends. Their interactions in Heavenly Creatures pass the Bechdel test with flying colors. It is one of the few films that both passes this test and lets the audience in on the innermost thoughts of female lead characters.

While there is a scene where Pauline discusses her first sexual experience with a man, the girls want little to do with men, or even care what they think. Their bond and friendship is the sole driving force of their psyche and actions. The only man they really care about is Mario Lanza. They share an affection and obsession for the Italian crooner, fawning over him and erecting a shrine in his honor.

Juliet and Pauline talk about so much more than men. They talk of their past, frustrations with their family, feelings of abandonment, and their hopes and dreams of traveling the world. The girls share everything under the sun–their passions and desires, what excites or frightens them. There’s no room for just talk of men; their conversations encompass so much about life, for female friendship holds so much more than that.

The most important aspect of Juliet and Pauline’s friendship is their imagination and love for creativity. Together, they create an imaginary world, “The Fourth World,” that they can escape to and be happy. The girls also invent imaginary characters with an intricate history of royal lineage, stories of the kingdom of Borvonia. They make plans to create novels of their detailed stories, a soap-opera tale of romantic intrigue. They construct their royal characters out of clay, play-acting their characters.

There is an often-debated issue of whether or not the girls were lesbians, something famously conjured up during the case. With female friendship, girls are allowed to be close, unlike male friendship where men don’t physically show affection (which would be seen as demeaning themselves by displaying femininity). Girls can give each other a kiss or hold hands and usually nothing is thought of it.

Female friendship is often allowed to have more of a physically close expression.

In the film, Pauline and Juliet are shown giving chaste kisses, holding hands, and cuddling. The parents are fine with it at first, but as time goes on they begin worrying that their friendship is becoming– filmed in a mocking close-up of them saying –“unwholesome.”

The film mocking the parental concern can be representative of Jackson’s own views on the girls’ relationship. He has said, “I don’t think their relationship was sexually based. I think there was a lot of exalted play acting and experimentation involved and, to be perfect honest, I don’t think it’s a relevant issue.” Peter Jackson has also been quoted stating that the question of the girls’ sexual orientation is more of a “red herring.”

Certain of his views, Jackson does not choose to draw conclusions about the girls’ friendship; he does not attempt to categorize them or try and discover what they affections for one another really were. The film deliberately attempts to leave the exact nature of their bond, homoerotic or not, open to interpretation. While there is a scene where there are in bed together, naked and kissing, it reads as more affectionate than sexual, overall ambiguous.

Peter Jackson uses the fantastical elements of their imaginative world put the film in a space that is not a realist drama, but more of an objective truth. He also uses his flourishing cinematic embellishment as a way to get inside the heads of young teenage girls, swept away by the magic of youth and allure of close friendship. These girls were all but 16, a time when friendships and events can feel like life or death, or the world ending. He was interviewed saying, “What attracted me to this story was that it was complicated, about two people who are not evil, not psychopaths but totally out of their depth. Their emotions got out of control. They were devoted to each other and felt no one else in the entire world understood them. They felt their world would fall apart if they were separated.”

Heavenly Creatures refuses to connect the girls’ murderous impulses to a deviant sexuality. There is no moment in the film where the friendship turns from innocent to dangerous. In the real-life trial, psychologists and lawyers were trying to prove that the girls were lesbians in order to convict them as “insane,” since homosexuality was considered a mental illness at the time. The headline-grabbing accusations may have truth to them, who is to say? But Jackson makes the right choice (and most likely more truthful choice) for portraying them in the light of a close friendship rather than a crazy-lesbians trope.

Heavenly Creatures may not show a “normal” female friendship, but Jackson does portray, before the madness of the murder descends, young women who have so much more to do than talk about boys. Pauline and Juliet are complex girls with fantasies, dreams, and wild imaginations. Heavenly Creatures shows the joy that the bond of a deep and powerful friendship between young women can bring.

What They’re Going Through: The Brat Pack Gave Teens a Voice

Whatever the Brat Pack actors did with their fame in real life does not reflect the impact they ingrained on our culture. They helped put a face and a voice to teen struggles. These talented young actors gave teenagers an identity and platform for their problems that will stand the test of time. We will always thank the Brat Pack for that.

This guest post by Caroline Madden appears as part of our theme week on The Brat Pack.

The Breakfast Club opens with a title card quoting David Bowie’s “Changes”:

The song lyrics express what The Breakfast Club and many of the Brat Pack films were portraying–that teenagers have as much of an understanding, inner conflict, and a place in this world as adults do. Their characters fight the ignorance of their principals, teachers, and parents who don’t bother to listen to what they’re dealing with inside.

David Blum’s 1985 article “The Birth of Hollywood’s Brat Pack” had him acting just like the adults Bowie sang about. He spit upon the young actors of the beloved teen films, and undermined them because they were young. He believed they were not entitled to fame and money and that their talent was not valid, all because of their youth.

The phrase for the group stuck, but Blum was met with scathing criticism from actors and journalists alike. Emilio Estevez, Judd Nelson, and Rob Lowe were the focus of the article, with mentions of other actors. The who’s who of the Brat Pack varies, but most consider those who star in both The Breakfast Club and/or St. Elmo’s Fire. After the article’s release, the Brat Pack actors were angry and humiliated. Their group refused to hang out together anymore, feeling that their reputation as a group was tarnished. Reading the article, it’s easy to see why they were so mad. It paints all of the young actors in the same brush stroke, making them all out to be shallow and money-hungry narcissists.

John Hughes himself even expressed distaste for the group name in a 1986 Seventeen magazine interview with Molly Ringwald interviewing him.

JH: I think that this clever moniker was slapped on these young actors, and I think it’s unfair. It’s a label.
MR: People my age were just beginning to be respected because of recent films such as yours, and now it’s like someone had to bring them down a peg or two, don’t you think?
JH: There is definitely a little adult envy. The young actors get hit harder because of their age. Because “Rat Pack” – which Brat Pack is clearly a parody of – was not negative. “Brat Pack” is. It suggests unruly, arrogant young people, and that description isn’t true of these people. And the label has been stuck on people who never even spoke to the reporter who coined it.
MR: Such as myself. I’ve been called the Women’s Auxiliary of the Brat Pack.
JH: To label somebody that! It’s harmful to people’s careers. At any rate, young people support the movie business, and its only fair that their stories be told.

David Blum admonishes the actors for their lack of formal training, addressing how they do not idolize or try to live up to famous method actors Pacino and De Niro: “If I were a Hollywood star I would spend more time working on my craft instead of chasing girls as the Hard Rock.” But even the most famous well-crafted actors also occasionally enjoy the perks of fame.

And so what if they’re not method actors? All you have to do is watch the scene in The Breakfast Club where they all describe how they got detention (which was completely improvised by all of them) to see their impressive talent, regardless of training or not. Blum acts as if they were handed everything on a silver platter, as if they didn’t work hard or even care about their profession.

He goes on about their fame and wealth: “They make major movies with big directors and get fat contracts and limousines. They have top agents and protective P.R. people. They have legions of fans who write them letters, buy them drinks, follow them home. And, most important, they sell movie tickets. Their films are often major hits, and the bigger the hit, the more money they make, and the more money they make, the more like stars they become.” Did the young Brat Pack actors enjoy the perks it came with being Hollywood stars? Of course they did, and that’s nothing new. We’ve seen it time and time again with some of the most famous and well-respected stars.

It is overall an ugly article that portrays them in an unflattering light. Most importantly, what David Blum fails to see is why those films were such big hits, why they were selling so many tickets. People have always been fascinated with the celebrity life, but what the fans cared about more than their off-screen lives was the people that they portrayed onscreen. That is why they were drawn to them in the first place. The Brat Pack actors portrayed the types of characters that teenagers of that time could relate to. They were the faces of thousands of all the teens out there, bringing to life the stories that they had all been dying to hear.

Before the 80s, teen movies were often good vs. evil stories, such as Rebel Without A Cause, or nostalgic looks at teenage lives of the past, such as American Graffiti. Films were rarely marketed or made for teens because executives felt that audiences didn’t care about them, and teenagers weren’t taken seriously. John Hughes comments on this in his Seventeen magazine interview: “My generation had to be taken seriously because we were stopping things and burning things. We were able to initiate change, because we had such vast numbers. We were part of the baby boom, and when we moved, everything moved with us. But now, there are fewer teens, and they aren’t taken as seriously as we were.”

80s teen films expressed the plights and anxieties of that Regan-era generation, the ones who grew up after Woodstock and before YouTube; there was a huge lack of respect for their generation. 1980s America was suffering from high divorce rates and economic setbacks and unemployment that led to an obsession with money and a huge divide of class distinctions.

1980s teens were very aware of who had money and who didn’t and how painful that divide can be. That is the crux of Blaine and Andie’s relationship in John Hughes’ Pretty in Pink. She’s poor and he’s a rich yuppie–how could it work? Duckie and Andie drive through a ritzy neighborhood as Andie exclaims about how beautiful a house is: “You know what the really sad thing is? I bet the people that live there don’t think it’s half as pretty as I do.” The Breakfast Club also focuses on that divide, especially between rich girl Claire and rebel Bender over an argument about her earrings. Bender says, “I bet he bought those for you! I bet those are a Christmas gift! Right? You know what I got for Christmas this year? It was a banner fuckin’ year at the old Bender family! I got a carton of cigarettes.”

But for all the statements they made about teenage life in the 80s, these stories are timeless. They changed the world then and remain renowned today. The Breakfast Club is nearly 30 years old and still relatable to teens of this generation. These films had teens that were here to say, “Even though I’m young with my whole life ahead of me, there are things that I have to deal with and I have problems that affect me too.”

These characters talked about how their parents have failed them or hurt them, the pressure to do well in school or have the right friends. Just look at the heartbreaking scene in The Breakfast Club when Bender describes his abusive dad. Or Andrew the jock screaming about how his father so desperately needs him to “Win! Win! Win!” Think of how many kids in that audience could relate to that. They saw the Brat Pack actors up on the screen, speaking aloud something that they were struggling similarly with deep down inside.

Teenagers are often seen as self-centered brats, and it certainly doesn’t help if they’re also rich and famous. David Blum saw them as brats, as most adults see those who are younger than them. So yes, they are a pack of young kids. But the word “brat” doesn’t have to refer to what they are, but what they’re seen as. Call them brats all you want, but that’s not what they are inside.

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Caroline Madden is a recent graduate with a BFA in Acting from Shenandoah Conservatory. She writes about film at Geek Juice, Screenqueens, and her blog. You can usually find her watching movies or listening to Bruce Springsteen.

The Sounds of Change and Confusion in ‘The Graduate’

Mike Nichol’s ‘The Graduate’ has one of the most popular soundtracks of all-time. The songs reveal the dynamics of a character, theme, and a moment without the use of dialogue or a backstory, but simply through the lyrics of a Simon and Garfunkel song.

This guest post by Caroline Madden appears as part of our theme week on Movie Soundtracks.

The marriage of two different art forms- the sounds in our ears and the image on screen- can take a scene far beyond what was written on paper. With a well-placed song, a moment in film can be experienced on all levels, staying in our head long after the credits roll. Lyrics to a song can provide an insight into a character’s mind on a deeper level than just dialogue. Mike Nichols’s The Graduate has one of the most popular soundtracks of all time. The songs reveal the dynamics of a character, theme, and a moment without the use of dialogue or a backstory, but simply through the lyrics of a Simon and Garfunkel song.

The most renowned song used in the film is “The Sound of Silence,” which acts as the soliloquy of film’s protagonist, Benjamin Braddock. Inspired by the Kennedy assassination, the song became a popular hit associated with the 1960s counterculture and antiwar protests. “The Sound of Silence” holds what is the ongoing and overarching theme of the film–youths rebelling against the middle-class values of their parents’ generation. It also most representative of the inner turmoil Benjamin finds himself on upon graduating college and embarking on his new journey to “the real world.”

The first time the song plays is during the opening scene. The song kicks in after Benjamin’s plane has landed in Los Angeles. The pace of the song follows the speed of Ben’s monotonous progress through the airport. It peaks as he rides an escalator to meet his family and then fades out as the scene dissolves into a close-up shot of Ben at home, sitting unhappily in front of his fish tank, ready for his new life.

The next few scenes play out the lyrics we have just heard in the opening.

And in the naked light I saw

Ten thousand people, maybe more

People talking without speaking, people hearing without listening

People writing songs that voices never share

And no one dared disturb the sound of silence.

“Fools,” said I, “You do not know –Silence like a cancer grows.

Hear my words that I might teach you.

Take my arms that I might reach you.”

But my words like silent raindrops fell

and echoed in the wells of silence.

These lyrics echo the graduation party, where Benjamin is surrounded by a stifling crowd of his parents’ friends, all talking and asking him about his future without bothering to hear his answer. No one listens to his concerns or apprehensions. Benjamin wants to make sense of his world first before worrying about his future, but adults want him to have a plan. In the film’s most famous line, a family friend suggests Benjamin goes plastics.

The older generation wants the younger generation to follow in their footsteps, to conform for the sake of safety and tradition. This is the reasoning for all of Benjamin’s aimlessness and disaffectedness, seeing that his only option seems to be unhappily working in a sterile corporate setting until middle-age. His zombie-like drone in the airport opening reflects the future Benjamin pictures if he follows in his elders’ lead.

“The Sound of Silence” is also featured in a second montage. The song plays right after Benjamin has shut the hotel door to have sex with Mrs. Robinson, his first time. The montage begins with brilliant dissolves and intercuts as Benjamin monotonously (just like the airport opening) goes through the motions of his days at home with his parents over his shoulder and nights alone with Mrs. Robinson. The affair is not the answer he is looking for, though. He still suffers through “the sounds of silence” with no one around to understand or hear him. The song is played again because Benjamin is still as confused as he was at the beginning of the story.

Although “The Sound of Silence” has been told through Benjamin’s point of view, the lyrics can also reflect Mrs. Robinson’s state of being. We learn that she got pregnant before marriage, and that is why she is with Mr. Robinson. Mrs. Robinson was raised in the 30s, 40s, and 50s, and the mindset of that upbringing gave her no other choice. The consequences of her actions were that she had to live her life being with a man she did not want to truly be with.

Not only was she stuck in a marriage she did not want, she also makes it clear throughout the movie that she regrets letting her education go to waste. It is a sore spot for Mrs. Robinson, she goes from “I don’t like art” to “I studied art in college” in a matter of minutes.

“Hear my words that I might teach you.

Take my arms that I might reach you.”

But my words like silent raindrops fell

and echoed in the wells of silence.

Mrs. Robinson must have felt the truth of these words throughout the course of her life. Wanting to express to her parents how she did not love Mr. Robinson and did not want to be with him, how she wanted to continue her education. She was, and is, a woman in an unhappy marriage trying to make herself heard. But gender roles in the 1950s meant women were silenced, only expected to do their duties as a housewife, to serve their homes and husbands’ wills.

Mrs. Robinson’s unhappiness manifests itself within her actions in film. These changes in her actions were due to her increasing unhappiness in her mandated role as a housewife. These new ideals and changes of the 1960s led her to understand that women have just as many rights as men do, negating her ingrained mindset of the 1950s that women are supposed to bow to their superiors (men).

“The Sound of Silence” song ends, and “April Come She Will” quickly picks up as Benjamin lays in the hotel bed, cutting to him bored in his room and then leaving for the pool. The song ends with a clever match cut as Benjamin jumps off of a pool raft and into bed with Mrs. Robinson.

“April Come She Will” is a simple and bittersweet song that represents the seasons of Benjamin’s relationship with Mrs. Robinson.

April, comes she will,

When streams are ripe and swelled with rain

May, she will stay,

Resting in my arms again.

These lyrics represent how smitten Benjamin was with Mrs. Robinson at the beginning of their affair. Mrs. Robinson continues to stay, and their affair goes on for some time.

June, she’ll change her tune.

In restless walks she’ll prowl the night.

July, she will fly,

And give no warning to her flight.

However, their relationship is beginning to change after Benjamin being pressured by his parents and Mr. Robinson to go on a date with their daughter, Elaine.

August, die she must.

The autumn winds blow chilly and cold.

September, I’ll remember.

A love once new has now grown old.

Their relationship is coming to an end, and though the affair was exciting and new at first, it cannot go on forever it will soon dissolve.

The third song in the film is “Scarborough Fair,” and is played several times. It first plays as Benjamin is driving to Berkeley to find Elaine, who he is now newly smitten with.

Are you going to Scarborough Fair?

Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme

Remember me to one who lives there

She once was a true love of mine.

This can be read as representative of his journey, Benjamin is searching for what he believes to be is his love, the answer to all of his uncertainty and meandering and questions of what to do with his life.

Between the salt water and the sea strands

(A soldier cleans and polishes a gun)

Then she’ll be a true love of mine

The war references represent the battle within him, the questions Benjamin is facing with his love life and whether or not he is going to do something about it. He is here in Berkeley to find Elaine and to convince her to be with him.

Are you going to Scarborough Fair?

These lyrics play as the film pans on Elaine, the first time we see her at Berkeley. The lyrics question if Benjamin is going to make the choice fight for what he believes he wants in his life? Is he going to go for it?

An early version of the chart-topping hit “Mrs. Robinson” is another highlight of the film’s soundtrack. Originally written about Mrs. Roosevelt, the title and character of the lyrics was changed to fit the film. The song plays several times throughout the film, most notably throughout the chase scenes as Benjamin heads to Elaine’s wedding.

The lyrics do not directly comment on what is happening on screen, but is instead a further reflection on Mrs. Robinson’s character. It is also a song that again reflects the theme of the film, the old generation vs. the new generation, and the ideals of the 50s vs. the changes of the 60s.

Hide it in the hiding place where no one ever goes.

Put it in your pantry with your cupcackes.

It’s a little secret just the Robinson affair.

Most of all you’ve got to hide it from the kids.

The entire older generation of the 60s was desperately trying to maintain an unmaintainable false image that they’ve been trying to hold up for years. Hide it from the kids, they’ll rip off the covers and expose everything that’s wrong with their generation’s ideals, which were forcing you to hide your true self or submit to a forced gender role. Work at a job you hate. Give up your education to get married because you are pregnant.

Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?

Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you.

Joe DiMaggio represents the heroes of the past, the traditional American values that were so highly honored in that time. But the ideals the past have given way to the upcoming changes, the defiance of gender roles and roles in society.

The Graduate begins and ends with the same song, “The Sound of Silence.” Elaine and Benjamin’s rebellion against their elders culminates here. Benjamin has stopped Elaine’s wedding and they leave together. They run onto the bus, their smiles and glee slowly turning to lost and forlorn looks as the music starts to play.

“The Sound of Silence” also speaks to Elaine’s character. Elaine has surely felt the “sounds of silence” as Benjamin has. She is also struggling with the idea of not wanting to spend her life being dictated and controlled by the ideas of her parent’s generations. Elaine must have felt pressure from her father and mother to marry this man, a perfect man to secure her future. Who needs an education from Berkeley when you can get married? But Elaine is not going to be doomed to repeat her mother’s mistake of being in a loveless marriage. What better way to out rightly and outrageously defy her parents than running away on her wedding day?

Although Benjamin and Elaine have succeeded in doing everything to defy their parents, now they ask “What are we left with?” What do they do now? Are they going to repeat the mistakes of the past and stay together without really loving or knowing each other? Benjamin’s questioning of what to do with his life is no different now than at the beginning of the film. He is just as confused and directionless as ever. The film ends as it began, book-ended with the famous Simon and Garfunkel tune.

The Graduate changed the world when it became one of the first films to reuse popular music for a film, as well as one of the first representations of counterculture youth. It proved that music could be used to comment and highlight themes and characters of a film. The songs impeccably fit with a film that first represented the future changes that would rock the country.

Caroline Madden is a recent graduate with a BFA in Acting from Shenandoah Conservatory. She writes about film at GeekJuice, Screenqueens, and her blog. You can usually find her watching movies or listening to Bruce Springsteen.