Tag: Leigh Kolb

Blindness, Race, and Love in ‘A Patch of Blue’

Fifty years later, portraying disability on screen with empathy and respect is still rare. Showing an interracial couple is also extremely rare (Green says that some people sent terrible letters to him about the kissing scene; in fact, it’s reported that in some areas in the south the scene was edited out for theaters).

‘A Patch of Blue’ manages to weave together themes of disability, race, socioeconomic issues and family dynamics with beauty and grace.

A Patch of Blue movie poster.


This repost by Leigh Kolb appears as part of our theme week on Interracial Relationships. 

Director Guy Green said of the premise of A Patch of Blue: “basically it’s a very corny story, a blind girl falling in love with a Black man.” He credits the writing of the novel it was based upon (Be Ready With Bells and Drums, by Elizabeth Kata) for ensuring that the story, and resulting film, were not corny at all.
The 1965 film centers around a young blind woman, Selina (Elizabeth Hartman), who has been abused and sheltered, and neglected any formal education, by her family–her mother, Rose-Ann (Shelley Winters) and her grandfather, Ole Pa (Wallace Ford). She’s befriended by a Black man, Gordon (Sidney Poitier), and they form a deep relationship, which centers on Gordon’s desire to help Selina lift herself up.
It would be easy to read that synopsis–blind girl falls in love with a Black man–and come to any number of conclusions about the film, especially since it was released at the height of the civil rights movement, but the film manages to capture something much deeper than being a superficial morality play on racism, and it treats Selina’s blindness with care and dignity.
When Selina was five, her father came home unexpectedly while Rose-Ann was sleeping with another man (it’s insinuated that she worked as a prostitute, and still does). Her father killed the man, and when Rose-Ann threw a bottle–a chemical-laden cosmetic–from her dresser at him, it hit Selina in the face, scarring her eyes and leaving her blind.
Elizabeth Hartman wore opaque contacts to simulate Selina’s damaged eyes. Rose-Ann is the only one who berates her “ugliness”; even her grandfather explains that it’s just that people are nosy, not that she is ugly.
Selina’s life circumstances are desperate and miserable, but she is not. The opening shot of the film focuses on Selina’s hands, stringing together beaded necklaces–that’s what she does during the day to help her family (Mr. Faber, her boss, is presented as an important support person in her life). She yearns to spend more time in the park, and Mr. Faber takes her when he can.
It’s in the park that she meets Gordon (a caterpillar dropped down the back of her shirt and she needed help–a problem not reserved for a person who can’t see–and he helps her retrieve it). He’s friendly and gentle without being condescending, and his generosity helps strike up a quick friendship. He buys her sunglasses because she’s self-conscious about her scarred eyes and tells her she looks perfect with them on (this is presented as a generous act for her confidence, not because he actually feels she needs them).
He’s shocked that she’s never heard of braille and was never formally educated: “You haven’t heard of all blind people can do?” he asks, and she is self-deprecating yet unashamed of her lot in life.
Gordon and Selina eat lunch.
While Selina is uneducated (Gordon corrects her grammar when they first meet) and cannot live outside of her home independently, the audience never feels pity for her because she is blind and helpless. Instead, the focus of our pity is on her lack of support–she has an abusive home life and has been neglected. Her blindness isn’t pitiful; her family is.
When Selina is shown doing tasks that she’s been entrusted with–changing linens, washing dishes, cooking, cleaning–she does so perfectly. This is a reminder that her blindness hasn’t been a hindrance to her life and that she is capable of doing what she’s allowed to do.
Hartman, in studying for the part, spent time at a school for the blind to be able to accurately get into character. She wore opaque contacts (Green said they helped because they naturally obstructed her vision), and her family says she wore them constantly and never left character while she was filming.
This careful and empathetic approach to “acting” blind paid off. Hartman’s performance was incredibly convincing and she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress (A Patch of Blue was Hartman’s first film).
Gordon helps Selina find directions by the sun’s location.
In the film, Gordon attempts to feel as Selina must feel shortly after meeting her. He’s shown at his job–working as a night-shift reporter–getting up from his desk, walking across the room, and attempting to return to his desk with closed eyes (he is unsuccessful, and runs into his coworker’s desk). This short scene is poignant in that it further reminds Gordon–and the audience–what it must feel like to be Selina, if only for a few moments.
Gordon never tries to do things for Selina. From the beginning, he teaches her and empowers her to be able to completely take care of herself. Since it’s clear her limitations are environmental, not innate, she is capable. Her disability–caused and amplified by her family–is not what’s in her way. Her poverty and lack of support system are detrimental to her growth and development.
Gordon could have easily met Selina, befriended her, seen that she could clean and cook, and want to marry her, keeping her dependent and living simply for him. And while his romantic feelings for her are conflicted, he wants her to be independent and educated more than he wants her for himself.
Gordon gives Selina very practical advice (counting steps, listening for traffic) so she can navigate streets by herself–which she finally does, after realizing she doesn’t have to take her home life anymore.
Gordon never belittles or gets frustrates with Selina.
Gordon and Selina’s kiss–one of the first on-screen interracial kisses–was at the same time innocent and deeply passionate. When Selina references the fact that she’d been raped, and wishes she hadn’t so she could be with Gordon, he convinces her that she is not “bad” or “dirty,” like she worries she is. (Someone in 1965 understood how to not blame the victim.)
Their kiss was one of the first on-screen interracial kisses.
The filmography often focuses on Selina’s point of view, and is effective in portraying the sensory details she enjoys (the canned peaches or the music box), and the terrors she lives through–her time alone for the first time on the street, or the memory of being raped (we “see” the man from her perspective–what she could have seen, but only felt).
The racial components of the film are also nuanced and effective. When Gordon tells Selina that “tolerance” is one of his favorite words (and explains that it’s not just putting up with something, but that you don’t “knock your neighbor just because he thinks or looks different than you”), she tells him that he must be full of tolerance. He quietly shakes his head and says that he’s not. He looks deeply affected when white people stare and glare at him and Selina walking together, and clearly has deep inner conflict being a Black man in America in 1965 (of course, these aspects of the film don’t seem nearly as dated as they should be). His brother, a doctor, criticizes Gordon’s desire to help and educate Selina because she is white, and comments on the fact that she comes from a “trash heap” (to which Gordon responds, “She may, but she’s not trash”). Underneath the surface of the film is the fact that socioeconomic factors and family support systems are what determine a person’s opportunities.
Rose-Ann is, unsurprisingly, violently racist. We know that she forbade Selina from spending time with the only friend she ever made because the little girl was Black, so we also know that when Rose-Ann sees Selina and Gordon together, she will erupt–which she does.
The characters to be despised are racist, abusive and neglectful. But Selina and Gordon aren’t perfect–they are complex, sympathetic characters who struggle with their own shortcomings and emotions. Selina is only 18, so her naivety and her quickness to fall deeply in love are believable. Gordon loves Selina as a friend, but is unsure of anything beyond that. He says he’s snapped back into reality after getting lost in their embrace. He deals with anger and frustration, too–not only because of his experiences at the hands of racism, but also because of the injustice of Selina’s mistreatment.
By the end of the film, even the crowd of white people (who before had glared), realize that Gordon is no threat to Selina; Rose-Ann is.
The ending is hopeful, but not saccharine-sweet. The realness of the characters, their struggles and their emotions are highlighted by sparse, black-and-white film and a beautiful soundtrack.
Gordon has called a school for the blind and set up a space for Selina. Before the bus comes to pick her up, she is nervous, and wishes they could just get married. Gordon promises that in a year, they could see if their love has anything to do with marriage. He sits her down to tell her that he’s black, but she already knows.
She says, “I know everything I need to know about you.” As she feels his face she continues: “I know you’re good, and kind, and that you’re colored; and I think you’re beautiful.”
He’s shocked that she knows, and responds “Beautiful? Most people would say the opposite.”
“That’s because they don’t know you,” she answers.
A Patch of Blue portrays disability as a part of a woman’s life that only defines her because she’s grown up with an abusive and neglectful family. As soon as she gets access to a world (literally and figuratively) outside of their little apartment, she thrives, and we know she’s just going to continue to grow. She’s beginning her life–a life that won’t be defined by her blindness.
Her relationship with Gordon allows him to also redefine his own life and helps him see himself for who he is–a beautiful, kind and generous man, who knows how to share life with someone who’s never experienced it.
Fifty years later, portraying disability on screen with empathy and respect is still rare. Showing an interracial couple is also extremely rare (Green says that some people sent terrible letters to him about the kissing scene; in fact, it’s reported that in some areas in the south the scene was edited out for theaters).
A Patch of Blue manages to weave together themes of disability, race, socioeconomic issues and family dynamics with beauty and grace. It was nominated for multiple Golden Globes and Academy Awards; Shelley Winters won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar, and notably, Sidney Poitier was nominated for the Golden Globe, but not an Academy Award.
A Patch of Blue is one of those films that manages to stay with you for years after you see it; and then, when you see it again, it’s just as beautiful as you remembered.
Leigh Kolb is a composition, literature and journalism instructor at a community college in rural Missouri.

‘Sons of Anarchy’: Female Violence, Feminist Care

At the end of season 6, Gemma violently clashes the spheres of power. She’s in the kitchen. She’s using an iron, and a carving fork. Using tools of the feminine sphere, she brutally murders Tara, because she fears that Tara is about to take control and dismantle the club—the life, the style of mothering and living—that she brought home with her so many years ago.

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Mothers of Anarchy

This repost by Leigh Kolb originally appeared at And Philosophy and appears now as part of our theme week on Violent Women.

Sons of Anarchy revolves around the chaotic yet highly methodical world of a motorcycle club and the forces around them—from law enforcement and crooked cops to gangs and organized crime rings. The entire series focuses on politics, power, violence, and authority in incredibly masculine spaces.

However, these are sons. And to be a son is not only to be a son of a father—the cornerstone for so many monomyths in Western literature—but also to be a son of a mother. While Sons of Anarchy was ostensibly about Jax’s atonement with his dead father and monstrous father figure (thus the countless accurate comparisons to Hamlet), who really is “anarchy” in this world?

If we look at the definition of anarchy— “a state of disorder due to absence or nonrecognition of authority”—and focus in on the word “nonrecognition,” we can think about how throughout Sons of Anarchy, Gemma has been an authority figure in the domestic sphere—”fiercely” mothering her biological and nonbiological sons (she references wanting to have had a dozen sons in the final season, and really, she managed to do so through the MC), cooking meals, managing paperwork, and tending to children, all in the feminine sphere. Though she cannot ride, she and is seen as the ultimate “old lady.” She has power, and the men of SAMCRO, on some level, fear her.

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Gemma’s violence

Her true authority, however, is not recognized. From the beginning, we understand her power in Charming. She ran off when she was a teenager, and, as Wayne Unser says, came back “ten years later with a baby and a motorcycle club.” There is implied ownership here; the club is Gemma’s. In reality, Gemma herself can be seen as embodying and perpetuating anarchy—in that she is an authority figure, but not recognized as such. The masculine sphere—the bikes, the guns, the gavel, the long table (hello, phalluses)—is seen as powerful. Violence, politics, gun deals, drug deals, more violence: masculine. Powerful.

At the end of season 6, Gemma violently clashes the spheres of power. She’s in the kitchen. She’s using an iron, and a carving fork. Using tools of the feminine sphere, she brutally murders Tara, because she fears that Tara is about to take control and dismantle the club—the life, the style of mothering and living—that she brought home with her so many years ago.

Anarchy is then truly unleashed; both parts of the definition resound throughout the final season. Jax’s authority is misguided (some might say absent) as he leads the club down a path of disorder and destruction. Because no one—not Jax, not Unser, not Sheriff Jarry—could recognize Gemma’s capabilities for brutality., Her authority, or rather her control of the situation, is left unchecked for most of the season. Had Abel not overheard her confess, she may well have gotten away with it. The Sons all underestimate the capabilities of women.

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Tara cannot escape Gemma

In “Anarchism: The Feminist Connection,” Peggy Kornegger points out that

“Anarchism has been maligned and misinterpreted for so long that maybe the most important thing to begin with is an explanation of what it is and isn’t. Probably the most prevalent stereotype of the anarchist is a malevolent-looking man hiding a lighted bomb beneath a black cape, ready to destroy or assassinate everything and everybody in his path. This image engenders fear and revulsion in most people, regardless of their politics; consequently, anarchism is dismissed as ugly, violent, and extreme. Another misconception is the anarchist as impractical idealist, dealing in useless, Utopian abstractions and out of touch with concrete reality. The result: anarchism is once again dismissed, this time as an ‘impossible dream.’”

This anarchy dichotomy is at the heart of the central conflict of Sons of Anarchy: the “malevolent” club that Clay and Gemma wanted versus the “impossible dream” club that John Teller and Jax wanted. We now know that John Teller’s death was at his own hand (albeit somewhat forced), when he realized that the former was the fate of SAMCRO. As Jax rose up the ranks of SAMCRO leadership, he wasn’t just fighting Clay’s philosophy of anarchy—he was also fighting Gemma’s. After Jax killed Clay, the fight wasn’t over, even though he initially thought it was. But the club wasn’t his. Anarchy was his mother.

As Tara plots and schemes to get herself and her sons away from the world Gemma had created and helped sustain, Gemma sees her as a threat, and resorts to fully embodying that destructive, violent anarchy that could uphold the status quo.

Because she has operated within this culture of masculine violence, Gemma adopts the patriarchal problem-solver of violent destruction. Since Tara is a threat to the malevolent anarchy that Clay and Gemma desired, she—in Gemma’s mind—had to be eliminated. Whereas Tara worked with other women as she was trying to make her plans to escape Charming with Abel and Thomas, Gemma consistently alienated herself from other women.

In “Socialism, Anarchism And Feminism,” by Carol Ehrlich, she says that the “debate over ‘strong women’” is closely related to leadership, and summarizes radical feminists’ position to include the following:

“1. Women have been kept down because they are isolated from each other and are paired off with men in relationships of dominance and submission. 2. Men will not liberate women; women must liberate themselves. This cannot happen if each woman tries to liberate herself alone. Thus, women must work together on a model of mutual aid. 3. ‘Sisterhood is powerful,’ but women cannot be sisters if they recapitulate masculine patterns of dominance and submission.”

Tara could have checked off all of those goals easily; she was of a new generation of old ladies. Gemma, on the other hand, isolates herself, acts alone, and in attempting to be dominant and in control, adopts masculine ways of doing so. Clay, as a harbinger of evil, wanted Tara dead. But the other Sons accepted and respected her. Her role wasn’t club mother, it was club healer. The power that she held—that she could and did save Sons’ lives (and Abel’s life in the series pilot)—was a restorative power that ran counter to what Gemma offered. And the more Tara worked with other women, the more of a threat she became to Gemma and the club.

Gemma embodies Sigmund Freud’s “masculinity complex,” which posits that girls identify with their fathers but eventually must assume female social roles. Gemma’s mother, Rose, died of the same heart defect that Gemma has and that her son Thomas died from. Gemma remembers Rose in a conflicted way, and says in season 7 that she thinks Rose had never wanted to be a mother. Gemma, by contrast, says that all she ever wanted to do was to be a mother (to sons).

Her father, Nate, was a pastor. She speaks of him with love and admiration, and one can easily see (just as easily as critics have seen the Oedipal parallels with Jax and Gemma) her own Electra complex—the Jungian theory that girls identify with and have a fixation with their fathers. While Nate leads a church and congregants, Gemma leads an outlaw club and outlaws—her dozen sons are different kinds of apostles.

In Sigmund Freud’s lecture, “Femininity,” he says,

“A mother is only brought unlimited satisfaction by her relationship to a son; this is altogether the most perfect, the most free from ambivalence of all human relationships. A mother can transfer to her son the ambition which she has been obliged to suppress in herself, and she can expect from him the satisfaction of all that has been left over in her of her masculinity complex.”

In making Jax believe the Chinese killed Tara, Gemma is both preserving herself and continuing—whether consciously or not—the legacy that Clay would have wanted: destruction, violence, and chaos. She wants her son to live out her ambitions, to fully give himself up to the anarchy of her rebellious desires.

Tara’s rebellion—that Gemma could not seem to get over—is the antithesis of Gemma’s. Tara left Charming as a teenager, leaving Jax and the club because she wanted to escape. She became a talented doctor, and later returned to Charming. When she wanted to “transfer to her son(s) the ambition which she has been obliged to suppress in herself”—escaping Charming and the grasp of SAMCRO, Gemma sees this desire as running counter to her own ambition for her son and grandsons: to stay in Charming, and to stay in the MC.

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Wendy and Tara collaborate

Both Tara and Gemma are underestimated by the men, in terms of the lengths they will go to in order to preserve their desires for their lives and their sons. Because women aren’t included in the ultra-violent, masculine club scene (and are instead relegated to being porn stars, escorts, or old ladies—all very “private” roles), Tara’s plots shock Jax. Gemma brutally killing Tara is out of the realm of possibility for feminine force.

Freud added in the aforementioned lecture:

“There is one particularly constant relation between femininity and instinctual life which we do not want to overlook. Suppression of women’s aggressiveness which is prescribed for them constitutionally and imposed on them socially favors the development of powerful masochistic impulses, which succeed, as we know, in binding erotically the destructive trends which have been divested inwards. Thus masochism, as people say, is truly feminine.”

Gemma almost got away with murder because the expectation of women is that they are nonviolent and are not aggressive. Specifically, the brutal way she killed Tara was, according to law enforcement and Jax, in keeping with gang violence because it was so horrifying and malicious. When Gemma and Juice convince Jax that it was one of Lin’s men who killed Tara, Jax kills him in the same way Tara was killed, thinking he was enacting just revenge. He was, instead, simply doing as his mother taught him.

Showrunner Kurt Sutter said, “This is a story about the queen and the prince.” It seemed as if Jax had been trying to reconcile with his father and father figure all of these years; instead, we realize he needs to reconcile with his mother. When he finally realizes this, it’s too late—Gemma has killed Tara, Juice killed Eli to protect her, and they lied and set off a series of massacres and gang violence. Everyone immediately believed Lin’s crew was responsible for Tara’s death, because it looked like brutal gang violence—certainly not something a woman could do. There was no Mayhem vote for Gemma, because she isn’t at the table. However, even in her final moments, Gemma gives Jax permission to kill her, because she knows it must be done. She’s mothering—and controlling—until the very end.

As Hannah Arendt points out in On Violence, “Violence can always destroy power. Out of the barrel of a gun grows the most effective command, resulting in the most instant and perfect obedience. What never can grow out of it is power.” As soon as Gemma kills Tara, her power starts rapidly declining. A conglomeration of Gertrude and Lady Macbeth, Gemma vacillates between justifying her actions and apologizing for them (but mostly justifying). As soon as she sets the stage for Jax to enact revenge upon the Chinese, his rage and misplaced revenge—without the understanding or agreement of the club—makes him less and less powerful. In the last episode, as he ties up all of his loose ends (see: killing everyone), he is losing power. By the end, he gives up himself, and his power—just like his father did—and commits suicide. Violence robs Gemma and Jax both of their power, their dignity, and their lives.

So who—and what—wins in this modern Shakespearean tale? Certainly not those who rely on a sense of vengeful justice and violence to ride through this life. In a patriarchal framework of understanding, these actions are seen as desirable and just. Instead, we must work toward a feminist ethic of care. Feminist psychologist and philosopher Carol Gilligan defines a feminist ethic of care as

“an ethic of resistance to the injustices inherent in patriarchy (the association of care and caring with women rather than with humans, the feminization of care work, the rendering of care as subsidiary to justice—a matter of special obligations or interpersonal relationships). A feminist ethic of care guides the historic struggle to free democracy from patriarchy; it is the ethic of a democratic society, it transcends the gender binaries and hierarchies that structure patriarchal institutions and cultures. An ethics of care is key to human survival and also to the realization of a global society.”

Gilligan’s research has shown that traditionally “feminine” approaches to care are about more than the individual—connectedness and care override a sense of individualism and justice. In Sons of Anarchy, the characters who most exemplify this care ethic are Nero and Wendy, who, at the end, are riding together to parent their children—biological and non—far away from Charming. They are friends, not lovers, and their goals are not for themselves, but for the safety of one another and their sons—sons who they desperately want to keep away from the individualistic, vengeful anarchy they were coming to know. Nero and Wendy are coincidentally both recovering addicts. In their recovery—from the literal and figurative drugs of their past—they care more deeply about one another and those around them than they care about their individual desires.

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Wendy’s eventual ethic of care

Tara desired this kind of care for her sons, but couldn’t attain it in her lifetime because of the pull of Gemma and Jax’s patriarchal anarchy. After Gemma’s death, Jax is freed to fulfill Tara’s wishes, and legally makes Wendy the boys’ mother. As in so many Shakespearean dramas, women must die so that men will learn. However, what remains constant throughout Sons of Anarchy is that when the masculine ideals dissolve, and individuals cry, love, and care (exemplified in Tig and Venus’s powerful love scene in “Faith and Despondency”), intimacy and growth are possible.

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Wendy and Nero escape with their sons, embodying the feminist ethic of care

As Nero and Wendy leave Charming, it’s clear that this, then, is the preferred way to ride—not “all alone,” as Jax does—but all together. Gemma stands by her way of mothering until the end. She’s distrustful and dismissive of teachers and school (whereas Wendy is passionate about Abel attending school), and she covertly gives Abel his grandfather’s SON ring, which he wears at the end of the finale. Jax, however, sees the dire need for care, not anarchy. “It’s not too late for my boys,” he says. “They will never know this life of chaos.” Ultimately, Jax is a tragic hero because he realizes that care, not justice, will heal and raise his children.

The feminism of Sons of Anarchy has been not only its complex, three-dimensional female characters and Gemma’s role as the rare female antihero, but also its tragic depiction of the end game of violent, individualistic patriarchy. Wrapped up in the tragedy of masculine justice and violent revenge, Sons of Anarchy lifts up of the feminist ethic of care.

 

Leigh Kolb is an instructor at a community college in rural Missouri, where she teaches composition, journalism, and literature. She wrote “Mothers of Anarchy: Power, Control, and Care in the Feminine Sphere,” for Sons of Anarchy and Philosophy, and recapped the final season of Sons of Anarchy at Vulture. She is an editor and staff writer at Bitch Flicks, where she has written about the feminism of Sons of Anarchy.

‘The To Do List’: The Movie I’ve Been Waiting For

And then I saw it–a film that extols the importance of female agency and sexuality with a healthy dose of raunch, a film that includes a sexually experienced and supportive mother, a film that celebrates female friendship and quotes Gloria Steinem, a film that features Green Apple Pucker and multiple references to Pearl Jam and Hillary Clinton.
Yes. This is it.

Let’s get to work, vagina. – Brandy Klark, The To Do List

The To Do List
This repost by Leigh Kolb appears as part of our theme week on Sex Positivity.

 

I remember leaving the theater after seeing Superbad and asking my friends if any of us could imagine a film like that being made about young women–quirky best friend teenage girls who were on a quest for those things that so many teenagers are on a quest for.

We agreed that we couldn’t imagine it (and then I probably delivered a lecture on the great harm of stifling female sexuality).
That notion–that those teenage “cumming-of-age” stories are reserved for boys only–has been deeply ingrained in us through pop culture. When American Pie came out while I was in high school, the message was clear: there’s a myriad of ways that teenage boys get to claim and act out their sexuality, but if you’re a woman who does the same, you will be singled out and considered an oddity, a freak or simply a prize.
Even before that, I remember always noticing that young adult novels or films about teenage girls that I enjoyed often de-sexed the female protagonist. Teenage female sexuality was either nonexistent or an anathema, set apart to frighten girls or teach lessons. I never saw myself and my feelings truly and fully reflected back to me.
“Sisters before misters”–best friends Fiona (Alia Shawkat), Brandy (Aubrey Plaza) and Wendy (Sarah Steele).
When I saw the trailer for The To Do List, I started to get excited. Maybe this is it–what I’ve been waiting for all of these years.
It’s set in the early 90s. My heart rate quickens.
I see the soundtrack‘s track list. I just can’t even.
And then I saw it–a film that extols the importance of female agency and sexuality with a healthy dose of raunch, a film that includes a sexually experienced and supportive mother, a film that celebrates female friendship and quotes Gloria Steinem, a film that features Green Apple Pucker and multiple references to Pearl Jam and Hillary Clinton.
Yes. This is it.
 
It was everything I wanted.
 
I especially love how the “To Do List” itself wasn’t borne out of peer pressure. Brandy (Aubrey Plaza) is mildly affected when her peers shout “Virgin!” at her, but what makes her want to explore and understand her own sexuality is twofold: she wants to be able to be comfortable knowing what to do with hot guys (she’s the one who is attracted and drawn to the college guy), and it’s explained to her that college is like a sexual pop quiz, and she needs to study to ace it.
Brandy takes notes as her older, experienced sister (played by Rachel Bilson) talks about sex.
She understands studying. She understands her own blossoming sexual desires. So she opens up her Trapper Keeper, lines her paper into a grid, and makes a list of sexual acts she must complete before the end of summer, with the ultimate goal being “Intercourse.” (The fact that the film was set in 1993 is important not only for nostalgia’s sake but also for the fact that Brandy didn’t have the Internet and couldn’t easily look up the definitions of the “jobs” she was writing on her list.)
Brandy’s “To Do List” replaces buying shower shoes for the dorm with sexual exploits.
Early on in her journey, Brandy reads statistics about how few women achieve orgasm, and she’s incensed. She writes “Masturbation” on her list (and does so wearing a “Pro-Choice Pro-Clinton” T-shirt, which writer-director Maggie Carey said she wore frequently in high school). The masturbation scene is important because, as Carey says, “When you do see women masturbating, it’s usually a male fantasy about a woman masturbating, it’s not what actually happens.”
Brandy voices anger over the virgin/whore dichotomy, referencing Gloria Steinem. And yet as much as this film empowers female sexuality and independence, it does not do so at the expense of the men in the film. (Remarkable, how completely possible it is to have fully sympathetic male and female characters in a raunchy comedy.) Even Brandy’s father, a Rush Limbaugh-reading, overprotective man who is uncomfortable talking about sex, is portrayed in a sympathetic light.
The teenage boys have stereotypical sexual desires, but Brandy’s desire is always paramount. For the first time while watching a teen comedy, I got to reminisce and laugh from my own perspective–and oh, how I could taste that Pucker when I saw it on screen and feel those goosebumps when “Fade Into You” started playing–instead of imagining what life must have been like for boys I knew in high school.

The film also really has a “radical” message about virginity–not panicked, not preachy, but reasonable and realistic. Maybe most importantly, Brandy never has any regrets (“Teenagers don’t have regrets,” she says. “That’s for your 30s”). The To Do List is “nonchalantly” feminist from start to finish.

After she read the script for the first time, Aubrey Plaza said,

“When I read the script, I just thought it was funny, be it female or male, but I love that it was from a female perspective, and I’d honestly never seen anything that had explored the specifics of that time in a girl’s life when they’re experiencing all their firsts.”

This film is a first full of firsts.
And unlike most first-time sexual exploits, writer-director Maggie Carey knew what she was doing and made it really pleasurable for the audience.
“It’s a skort!”
(And who doesn’t want to make out to Mazzy Star?)
A teenage sex comedy that subverts what’s usually “reserved for the boys” and shows female sexuality and agency as, you know, an actual thing (while celebrating 90s pop culture)? Check.
And just as Brandy will want more and more of the final exploit she checks off, I want movies like this to keep coming and coming.
Leigh Kolb is a composition, literature, and journalism instructor at a community college in rural Missouri.

‘Je suis FEMEN’ (‘I am FEMEN’): The Story of Oksana Shachko and a Movement

While they disrupt a game, we see footage of the cheerleaders and female entertainers dancing and performing for male audiences. There were numerous charges filed against the Femen activists after Euro 2012. The scantily clad women that were in those spaces specifically for the male gaze, however, were welcomed.

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Written by Leigh Kolb.

As a young girl, Oksana Shachko became enraptured in her iconography classes and painted intricate portraits of religious figures. She even planned to join a convent at one point. In the documentary Je Suis FEMEN (I Am FEMEN), we see Oksana painting a Madonna and child, and we also see her painting what has become her life instead: bare breasts, masks, murals, and enormous protest signs. Oksana is one of the founding members of the Kiev, Ukraine-based protest group Femen.

While her vocations in life might appear contradictory (nun vs. topless activist), perhaps her calling has always been clear–to surround herself by women and effect change in heavily patriarchal spaces. Oksana is the “Je” (“I”) in the film–her story, as a dedicated artist and activist–dominates Swiss director Alain Margot’s film. I Am FEMEN refers not only to Oksana’s journey, but also a supportive and sympathetic point of view from behind the camera.

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Oksana Shachko

 

I Am FEMEN is a lovely, powerful film. It delves into the complexity of the movement, showing protests against coddled rapists, mistreated zoo animals, Ukrainian politicians, international sporting events, and Vladimir Putin. The audience gets a sense of the humanity of the women in Femen; Margot showcases their parents, and often shows the women in the more mundane aspects of their lives/activist work–paintings signs, cooking dumplings, working on the website.

There were a few moments that the film seemed be shot with the male gaze in mind. This is problematically, ironically reflected in a POV review:

“Veteran Swiss director Alain Margot’s vastly entertaining film I Am Femen offers an entrée into the FEMEN movement through a profile of Ms. Shachko. Looking like a cross between Simone Simon in the original Cat People and Anna Karina in Une Femme est une femme, Oksana Shachko combines an aloof beauty with a lithe physique, marking her as a natural fighter who seems to relish her endless skirmishes with the police.”

Yet I Am FEMEN seems to fully understand the contradictory nature of the male gaze in relation to Femen’s activism. In a poignant part of the film, the women are protesting the Ukraine-hosted Euro 2012 football championship (not the sport itself, they point out, but what goes in to hosting these events–displacing students to set up brothels, etc.). This comes toward the end of the film, when we’ve seen the women beaten, imprisoned, and held captive, and Oksana is concerned her apartment–which was ransacked–has been bugged. While they disrupt a game, we see footage of the cheerleaders and female entertainers dancing and performing for male audiences. There were numerous charges filed against the Femen activists after Euro 2012. The scantily clad women that were in those spaces specifically for the male gaze, however, were welcomed.

At the end of the film, behind-the-scenes activist and leader Anna and a small group appear in Kiev in 2013. She has been beaten, and they say that Russian and Ukrainian secret services have kept them from protesting. Anna joins her sister in Switzerland, and three prominent activists, including Oksana, seek asylum in France to continue their organization and activist training.

Activist training
Activist training

 

As well-shot, complex, and humanizing as I Am FEMEN is as a film, I couldn’t help but be uneasy. Because I’d seen and written about Ukraine is Not a Brothel, I wondered how I Am FEMEN would differ, since the subjects and timelines were similar. Filmmaker Kitty Green embedded herself with Femen–living with them as she shot Ukraine is Not a Brothel–and she famously “outed” Victor Svyatski as an abusive mastermind behind the scenes of Femen, whom the women eventually broke away from. He is interviewed in her film, and tells Green that the women are “weak” and that “getting girls” was part of his motivation for galvanizing the group.

In I Am FEMEN, Oksana flippantly mentions the infamous Victor, saying that he simply “supports our work,” and is a “feminist man.” While Margot told the story in front of him, if an audience member was familiar with Ukraine is Not a Brothel, the fleeting mention of Victor leaves many questions unanswered. Certainly Green’s storytelling was from a different perspective, as she lived with the women and became much more than a director. Green also focused more on Inna Shevchenko‘s journey, and Margot focuses on Oksana.

There is much to appreciate in I Am FEMEN, and much to be inspired by. Feminists in general have conflicting views of Femen, but we cannot deny the power of turning the sexual object into the angry subject. The current aim of the movement–an international reach, dubbing themselves as a “sextremist” group– is fascinating. While there are complex, complicated problems that are inherent in any activist group, attempting to subvert the male gaze–which enjoys provocative dancers yet beats and arrests topless activists–is, essentially, a forceful weapon.

Inna chainsaws down a large cross in Kiev before seeking asylum in Paris.
Inna chainsaws down a large cross in Kiev to protest the prosecution of Pussy Riot.

 

Inna recently penned an op/ed for The New Statesman. She says,

“With Femen’s topless protests, we succeeded in frightening many patriarchal institutions by taking away women’s naked bodies from the shining world of advertising, and taking them back to the political arena. Here, women’s bodies are no longer serving someone else’s demands or pleasing someone else, but are instead demanding their own rights. We revealed and highlighted the double standards of a world which easily accepts the use of female naked bodies in commercials, but roars in anger when topless women bare their political demands.”

It would be most compelling to watch the two Femen documentaries as a complementary pair. Ukraine is Not a Brothel and I Am FEMEN both beautifully delve into the past, present, and possible futures for a group that seeks to push and keep pushing. In an interview with VICE, Inna discusses the Victor revelations, and confidently asserts that they’ve moved on and now they’re independent. All of this–the literal and figurative nakedness of protest, the growth of a movement, the breaking free from the external and internal patriarchal structures–teaches us that in so many ways, the world thinks it owns women’s bodies. I Am FEMEN (and Ukraine is Not a Brothel) show the worth of this organization that’s out to change the world.

I Am FEMEN is available via First Run Features and iTunes.

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See also at Bitch Flicks: Ukraine is Not a Brothel: Intimate Storytelling and Complicated Feminism; Pussy Power and Control in Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer

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Leigh Kolb is a composition, literature, and journalism instructor at a community college in rural Missouri.

‘Advantageous’: The Future is Now

“Are women really going backwards going forward?”

Jacqueline Kim co-wrote the screenplay for Advantageous and also stars as its lead, Gwen Koh.
Jacqueline Kim co-wrote the screenplay for Advantageous and also stars as its lead, Gwen Koh.

 

A version of this post by Leigh Kolb previously appeared at Bitch Media and appears now as part of our theme week on Dystopias. Cross-posted with permission.

“Are women really going backwards going forward?”

Advantageous, the new film by Jennifer Phang, paints a dystopia that shows a version of the future that is regressive for women. Perhaps one of the most poignant aspects of the film is that it barely seems futuristic at all; when daughter Jules asks her mother, Gwen, “Are women really going backwards going forward?” we can’t help but involuntarily nod our heads yes, bombarded with the realities of the fictional world in front of us.

In the film, Gwen Koh (played by the incredible Jacqueline Kim) is a single mother to Jules (who is played with remarkable talent by Samantha Kim). Gwen is a corporate spokesperson for the ominous Center for Advanced Health and Living. As she pitches their new technology, she says, “So many of us enter this world with disadvantages beyond our control.” The Center for Advanced Health and Living isn’t limited to face lifts and breast augmentation. Its slogan—”Be the you you were meant to be”—doesn’t merely mean an enhanced you. Instead, this vague empowering message means their technology is ostensibly meant to give you control over your physical disadvantages.

The film—which was awarded a special jury prize at Sundance and started streaming on Netflix June 23—features stunning cinematography, excellent acting, and beautiful writing (albeit sometimes heavy-handed, which I’d prefer to writing that does not attempt to say anything). Advantageous tackles a laundry list of feminist concerns. Gwen is told that she has aged out of her role as a spokesperson, especially considering the “new you” technology they want to sell. It’s noteworthy that the head of the corporation—and the one who seems to have made the decision about letting Gwen go—is a woman of a similar age. Ms. Cryer (Jennifer Ehle) pulls the strings, which shows that it’s not just male forces that destruct and construct the feminine ideal. The world in Advantageous is one that has been designed by women, too, but it’s still a capital of misogyny—radio broadcasts reference the rise in child prostitution, middle-aged women are homeless due to unemployment, and employers prefer to hire men lest they dangerously roam the street. Gwen’s single motherhood is a source of sharp judgment from her peers and her parents. Many of these examples aren’t futuristic at all (see here, here, and here) and Advantageous does a compelling job of showing how while we may advance technologically, we have a lot of social progress to make.

Samantha Kim plays Jules, whose mother faces hard choices about how to give her the best opportunities.
Samantha Kim plays Jules, whose mother faces hard choices about how to give her the best opportunities.

 

Advantageous is billed as a science fiction film, but it doesn’t feel sci-fi much of the time. Every once in a while, a drone or flying vehicle will jet past, the buildings will look futuristic, or the person on the other end of a phone conversation is a hologram. But for the most part, Advantageous is that kind of chilling dystopian science fiction that looks incredibly familiar. One scene that felt like it could have been any period in the past or present comes when daughter Jules asks Gwen, “Are women really going backwards going forward?” We can’t help but involuntarily nod our heads yes, bombarded with the realities of the fictional world in front of us.

As Gwen is let go from her job and has difficulty obtaining any new prospects (except for selling her eggs, since fertility rates have sharply declined due to pollutants—another not-so-futuristic plot point)–she asks, “Am I too old to be of use?” Again, we nod our heads, agreeing that in the world she lives in—a world that looks much like ours—the answer is yes. The Center also tells Gwen that they are looking for a more “universal look” to be their spokesperson. We assume that means “white” (and young), and director Phang addresses this in an interview with The L Magazine:

“In my mind the phrase ‘universal look’ wasn’t exactly a euphemism for ‘white’ (though it often goes that way), but for a non-specific, multi-racial look. … Jacqueline Kim is Korean-American. The subtext is that Gwen’s look was a benefit to the company for a moment, but that moment had passed.”

This “universal” look that Gwen is supposed to embody is an interesting end game of beauty standards: while beauty ideals may move toward a multicultural aesthetic, they’re still impossible to obtain without the winning genetic lottery ticket. We can hope that whiteness equaling “universal” will eventually change in the future as our population changes, however, Advantageous suggests that almost everyone will always be born at a physical disadvantage in a society that worships the unattainability of eternal youth and beauty.

It’s important to note that in Phang’s created world, “otherness” is highlighted mostly through age, gender, and beauty, and less about ethnicity. At The Verge, Emily Yoshida points out that “Advantageous also happens to have a mostly Asian cast without overtly being about Asianness, which makes it some kind of rare unicorn.” Phang critiques the desire to conform to a universal ideal while at the same time providing an excellent example of how storytellers and filmmakers don’t have to cast white actors for a story to be universal.

Gwen’s ethnicity isn’t what is most disadvantageous to her—it’s her age. How can a naturally aging woman convincingly sell a technology that promises to stop aging? The “ideal woman,” then, is seen as incredibly young and ethnically ambiguous.

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 Gwen must change so she can save her career and afford opportunities for her daughter. In the film, a woman’s sacrifice and a mother’s sacrifice are woven together to reveal that society continually sacrifices women—older women especially—at the altar of “never good enough.” While Phang beautifully addresses so many issues facing women in our society, she has highlighted her focus on women’s pressure to change. She says:

“One of the deeper concerns that I wrestle with in my work is how women around the world are encouraged to change themselves in many ways to carve out a place and survive. But it was also important to me to investigate, through Gwen, whether the act of choosing to change your surface appearance somehow altered your inner qualities. I wondered whether our self-respect might become altered for better or worse after we commit to a surface change. And does our respect for others increase or decrease if they don’t follow our example? And then… is this a world we can be at peace with? Can we accept a world in which these concerns occupy so much of our energies and potential for productivity?”

In Advantageous, Phang asks many questions, not only of the characters, but also of our own culture. Can we accept this world? Advantageous—and certainly feminists—would resoundingly answer “no.”

 

Leigh Kolb is a composition, literature, and journalism instructor at a community college in rural Missouri.

‘Sex(ed)’: How America Learned About Sex

The footage could be overwhelming (Goodman analyzed 500 films), but she presents it all in a way that leaves the viewer satisfied but wanting more information–just like a good documentary should.

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Written by Leigh Kolb.

“How did you learn about sex?”

This is a question that can launch us all into stories of our own formative years. I remember my mother–a former home economics teacher–showing me a diagram of the uterus, and factually answering the (many) questions I had, and looking through the textbooks my father–a biology teacher–had strewn around the house. I remember my public elementary school, when in fifth grade girls and boys were separated, and we were taught about periods and given deodorant and pads all wrapped in pastel and hope. A year later, we were separated again, and we girls watched graphic slideshows of STI-ravaged genitals and were given gold plastic purity rings.

Unlike fractions or sentence fragments, our experiences with “official” sex education vary drastically, ranging from helpful, to hilarious, to heartbreaking. Likewise, unlike learning to cook pasta or change a tire, our families’ roles in teaching us about sex are typically not accompanied by cookbooks or users’ manuals. Sex ed in America has historically been the wild west.

Most of us, in recalling our formal sex education, have memories of the film reels shown to us in our pre-pubescent and pubescent school rooms. The history of sex-education films in America is fascinating, and tells us more about ourselves than one might expect. Brenda Goodman‘s documentary, Sex(ed): The Movie shows us a treasure trove of clips from sex-ed films through American history. From early 20th century “hygiene films” and wartime moral panic films, to Disney cartoons and obscure 70s masturbation celebrations, Sex(ed) takes us on a history of not only how we have approached sex ed, but also how we have approached STIs, women, masturbation, menstruation, homosexuality, and relationships. Sex(ed) tells America’s story through archival film clips and in-depth interviews with experts and individuals who have been affected–for better or worse–by their sex education.

Goodman covers a great deal of ground in a concise documentary. She does an excellent job of presenting the clips and interviews with a humanity that is often lacking in the films themselves. The hilarity that ensues from some of the old films is balanced with the tragic weight of anti-gay rhetoric films of the 1960s and the rise of toxic abstinence-only education in the 1990s. The footage could be overwhelming (Goodman analyzed 500 films), but she presents it all in a way that leaves the viewer satisfied but wanting more information–just like a good documentary should.

Watching Sex(ed) is like watching America’s answer to “How did you learn about sex?” What we learn is that what we learn–or don’t learn–can have devastating consequences. We should watch and learn more so that we can more adequately teach future generations about their bodies, sexuality, and relationships. When we answer how we learned about sex, we are also answering how we learned to be human. And as a society, we need to demand better lessons and better answers.

Sex(ed) is available at First Run Features and Amazon.

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Recommended Reading: “The Dramatic History of American Sex-Ed Films” by Sarah Mirk at Bitch Media

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Leigh Kolb is a composition, literature, and journalism instructor at a community college in rural Missouri.

‘The Killing’ and the Misogyny of Hating Bad Mothers

Vilifying mothers is a national pastime. Absent mothers, celebrity mothers, helicopter mothers, working mothers, stay-at-home mothers, mothers with too many children, mothers with too few children, women who don’t want to be or can’t be mothers–for women, there’s no clear way to do it right.

The Killing promotional still.

This repost by Leigh Kolb appears as part of our theme week on Bad Mothers.

Vilifying mothers is a national pastime. Absent mothers, celebrity mothers, helicopter mothers, working mothers, stay-at-home mothers, mothers with too many children, mothers with too few children, women who don’t want to be or can’t be mothers–for women, there’s no clear way to do it right.
In AMC’s The Killing, “bad” mothers have been woven throughout all three seasons.
It would be easy to see this as a failing on the show’s part; instead, I think we can see it as a realistic depiction of how we treat mothers in our culture represented in both in the fictional world of the show and in critics’ responses to the series.
In the first two seasons of The Killing, the plot centers around the murder of Rosie Larsen, a 17-year-old girl. Her grieving parents–Mitch and Stan–have a difficult time (understandably) in the aftermath of her death and in the investigation. Mitch (Michelle Forbes), in the midst of a breakdown, leaves her two sons with Stan and her sister as she hits the road to try to heal or find something to ease the pain.
Mitch Larsen: bad mother.
In last year’s “The 10 Worst Moms on TV” on Yahoo TV, Mitch Larsen was featured as one of the worst. The critic wrote:

“Her daughter may or may not have been a prostitute or involved in some illegal doings at a casino. And she ended up dead seemingly because of it. But instead of hunkering down and paying more attention to her remaining children, Mitch left her sons to be raised by a depressed father and their hooker aunt while she went off to live in a motel and act creepy around wayward runaway girls.”

Mitch’s interaction with the runaway girl was a direct response to her feelings of inadequacy about her failings as a mother to Rosie. She was attempting to heal and grow. She mothered the runaway girl the best she knew how and was still abandoned and hurt. Mothering is difficult and complex–it’s not a simple equation of just being there all of the time.
In season 3, the victim pool has grown substantially–a number of teenage girls are found murdered, and the suspect appears to be a youth pastor at a homeless shelter.
One of the missing girls who is still unaccounted for, Kallie Leeds, has a terrible no-good single mother, Danette Leeds (Amy Seimetz), who seems to prioritize cigarettes, beer and getting laid over her difficult relationship with her daughter. Her neglect and indifference are seen as central to Kallie’s victimization.

Danette: bad mother.

 

As Danette and another mother of a missing girl sit next to each other at the police station, Danette notices that the other mother has a binder full of photographs and composite photos. She seems uncomfortable, as if she’s understanding the depth of her neglect. She recognizes that Kallie’s life trajectory closely mirrors her own, and the weight of that is pushing down on her. She was being the kind of parent she knew how to be, and she didn’t know how to be June Cleaver. Most mothers don’t.While these supporting characters’ relationships with their daughters are troubled, and it would be easy for the audience to “blame” the victimization of the daughters on their mothers, it wouldn’t be correct. We are so used to complex, fallible male characters that we are also conditioned to see them as complex and fallible, not good or evil. When we’re presented with women with the same depth of characterization–especially mothers–we don’t know what to do except what we’ve been conditioned to do: criticize them and blame them.

This is blatantly obvious when we consider the show’s protagonist, detective Sarah Linden (played by the amazing Mireille Enos).

Linden has consistently been portrayed as a terrible mother in critics’ reviews of the series. She is a realistic female lead character–she is good at her job, works tirelessly and struggles with her failings in her personal life and professional life. Complex female characters are a good thing, and The Killing consistently delivers them (it can’t hurt that the show’s producer and many of the writers are women).
In the first two seasons, Linden had custody of her young teenage son, Jack. Her work means long hours away from him and dinner from vending machines. Linden herself was a foster child and has difficulty negotiating her upbringing and being the kind of mother that she’s supposed to be, but cannot.  In the third season, Jack has moved to Chicago to live full-time with his father–he’s thriving, and living with his father. That’s good, right? No, Sarah Linden is evidently still a piece of shit mother.

Sarah Linden: bad mother.

 

In reviews of The Killing, writers often take an acerbic tone when mentioning her as a mother.
For example, this reviewer seems to think taking a jog makes her a bad mother:

“We all struggle with the work-life balance thing, and detective Sarah Linden is hardly an exception. Finding time to mother her son, for instance, seems to be a challenge. Jogging, however, she manages to squeeze in. And it’s a good thing, too. Because Linden (finally) got a major break in the case this week, and it’s all thanks to the fact that she prioritizes cardio over sleep, parenthood, marriage, friendship, or updating a sweater collection that appears to have been sourced from Dress Barn circa 1997.”

This reviewer fails to make the connection that she’s preoccupied by an intense case, so she needs to stay in Seattle (or maybe the fact that she’s putting her career first figures into this assessment):

“But she’s still the World’s Worst Mother — her son lives in Chicago and she won’t visit because, well, he’s the only person she knows there. Wow, Linden. Just, wow.”

In a Salon review from last year (which, remarkably, denounces The Killing for not being “fun” enough), the reviewer slips in, “Yes, it’s still raining, and Linden’s still a bad mother…”

Even the New York Times, in a review from the first season, comes to the conclusion that the “scariest aspect” of the show is the theme of absent motherhood. Crooked politicians, murders, prostitution… those don’t hold a candle to bad mothers.

“Sarah Linden refuses to accept that her inattentiveness is gravely affecting her son until she is forced to reckon with her absence around him. And in Mitch Larsen (Michelle Forbes) we bear witness to a character who is present in her daughter’s life and yet still positioned at a significant remove from the darkest secrets of her adolescence. In the end, of course, this is the scariest aspect of all.”

And in the aforementioned Yahoo TV list, Linden gets first place. The manifesto against her begins: “She’s not actively trying to kill her son, but she may end up doing so anyway.”
OK then.
I’m not going to try to defend Sarah Linden’s parenting. That would be ludicrous–she doesn’t need defending. She’s a complex, realistic character with real issues. 

At Bitch Flicks, Megan Kearns posted in the first season how it was “refreshing” to see this kind of character trying to navigate her different roles, and that “the lead character is an accomplished single mom striving to keep her son out of trouble all while maintaining her demanding career.” She manages to do that by the third season, but it’s still not good enough.

Instead, audiences and critics alike focus much too closely on the female protagonist’s failings as a mother. We do not do that with male protagonists. (OK, six seasons in, after an episode highlighting parenting, Jezebel posted about how Don Draper was a “shitty dad.”)

Is Dexter a good father? What about Rick Grimes? Walter White?

Certainly there are lists of “bad dads” in TV/film, but the tone is different, more tongue-in-cheek. And a focus on these characters’ fathering abilities doesn’t run throughout conversations about the show, especially not with the same venom we see about Linden. When there’s a bad father in the mix, it’s just a poignant piece of a Joseph Campbell hero’s journey. Bad mothers, however, deserve to be burned at the proverbial stake.

There is a dearth of female antiheroes in film and television. The response to Sarah Linden shows why this is. When audiences see female characters, they think primarily in critical terms, especially about their roles as mothers and wives. (Of course this extends past fictional characters; there’s consistent and persistent hand-wringing about real-life women working too much and not being good enough mothers.) Women aren’t perfect (especially within the narrow confines of perfection that our society has put in place). Female characters shouldn’t be perfect.

My son is doing fine and my sweaters are warm and comfortable, assholes.

Linden’s role as a parent, girlfriend and ex-wife is just one small part of the grand scheme of the show. Her partner, Stephen Holder, has a girlfriend this season. He forgets Valentine’s Day and is never home. He is not painted as a villain, because he’s out getting shit done. He’s doing his job. That is what is important in The Killing. So when critics focus (in depth, or just in passing) on how terrible a mother Linden is, that further erodes what should be good about having strong, complex female characters.

Sarah Linden may not be a full-time mother. But she’s a bad-ass mother, and that is what should matter the most.


Leigh Kolb is a composition, literature, and journalism instructor at a community college in rural Missouri.

‘Tales of the Grim Sleeper’ and ‘The Central Park Five’ Show Whose Lives Matter

These same voices weren’t heard or listened to in the various investigations conducted by the LAPD in the 1980s. The film tells the story of Enietra Washington, Franklin’s only known survivor. In 1988, after Franklin picked her up and attempted to kill her, she gave the police a description of Franklin’s car (an orange Pinto) and described his face to a sketch artist.

Pam Brooks guides filmmaker Nick Broomfield around her LA neighborhood in Tales of the Grim Sleeper.
Pam Brooks guides filmmaker Nick Broomfield around her LA neighborhood in Tales of the Grim Sleeper.

This post by Leigh Kolb previously appeared at Bitch Media and is cross-posted with permission. 

The chilling new documentary Tales of the Grim Sleeper makes it clear that our society values the lives of white people differently than Black people.

At the beginning of director Nick Broomfield’s new documentary, the audience sees a Google Map of Lonnie Franklin Jr.’s home in South Central Los Angeles. In 2010, Franklin was arrested and charged with 10 counts of murder and one count of attempted murder—he heads to trial this June. Many say, however, that Franklin killed more than 100 women in the 25 years since 1985. All of his alleged victims were Black. “How did this happen?” Broomfield asks in voice-over.

How could it happen? Later in the film, Pamela Brooks, a resident of the neighborhood and a former sex worker supplies the answer: “We don’t mean nothing to them. It’s Black women. I’m a Black woman. Who gives a fuck about me?” Brooks offers comic relief at times and hard, tragic truths at other times. She evaded Franklin’s attempts to lure her in one night. He would often pick up sex workers in the middle of the night—promising them crack—and then take them to his home to photograph them, assault them, and often kill them. The numerous cases that Franklin was allegedly involved in are referred to by police as “NHI” cases: “No Humans Involved”—as if killing a Black woman (especially a sex worker or drug addict) doesn’t involve a human.

Broomfield has worked on numerous intimate, low-budget films before, including documentaries about Sarah Palin, Tupac, and military killings of civilians in Iraq. In Tales of the Grim Sleeper, Broomfield could have easily constructed a film in which his authoritative voice drove a persuasive narrative. Instead, he allows the people—Franklin’s friends, victims, and neighborhood residents who fought for justice—to dominate the screen. Brooks’ knowledge and connections specifically give him access to the world that he, as a white British man, is not a part of.

Lonnie Franklin's booking photo, as seen in Tales of the Grim Sleeper.
Lonnie Franklin’s booking photo, as seen in Tales of the Grim Sleeper.

 

These same voices weren’t heard or listened to in the various investigations conducted by the LAPD in the 1980s. The film tells the story of Enietra Washington, Franklin’s only known survivor. In 1988, after Franklin picked her up and attempted to kill her, she gave the police a description of Franklin’s car (an orange Pinto) and described his face to a sketch artist. The sketch was never released and neither were details about his car. While Franklin was “hunting” women and killing them, the police didn’t even tell the public that the killings were the work of a serial murderer. Washington explains the role of racism in the police handling of the case. “Every Black woman is a hooker, don’t you know?” she says with a flippant resignation, explaining why the information wasn’t deemed relevant. It was 20 years before the public was shown the sketch and given details about the suspected serial killer.

To combat that lax institutional attitude, a neighborhood group called the Black Coalition Fighting Back Serial Murders formed in the 1980s to attempt to get more media and law enforcement attention on the crimes. One of the most powerful voices in Tales of the Grim Sleeper is Margaret Prescod, a leader of the Coalition. She deserves her own documentary and she makes delivers many of the most powerful truths in the film. “We’re here to say, loud and clear, that every life is of value. Could you imagine if these murders had happened in Beverly Hills?” she asks.

Tales of the Grim Sleeper aired on HBO on April 27, but I first saw it at the True/False Film Festival in Columbia, Mo. After the film, both Broomfield and Brooks took the stage. Brooks received wild applause, which intensified after she said that she was still clean and sober. She commented on the institutional cycle that allowed the murders to continue for so long. Broomfield added that the issues presented in the documentary and the issues that were unveiled in Ferguson are national issues, revealing “systematic institutional racism.”

While watching Tales of the Grim Sleeper, I couldn’t stop thinking about 2012 documentary The Central Park Five, a film by Sarah Burns, Ken Burns, and David McMahon that tells the story of the five men wrongfully convicted for raping and beating a jogger in Central Park in 1989. The jogger was a young, white woman who worked as an investment banker. The crime made national news—that year, Donald Trump took out full-page ads in New York newspapers demanding the return of the death penalty for “criminals of every age.” Four Black men and one Hispanic man were convicted of the crime. In 2002—after the young men had served years of prison time—a serial rapist admitted to the rape and DNA tests corroborated his confession. In contrast to their trials, the vacating of the five young men’s convictions was quiet.

The New York Daily News front page reporting on the 1989 beating. Via PBS.
The New York Daily News front page reporting on the 1989 beating. Via PBS.

 

Pairing these films creates a powerful narrative that reveals something about whose lives matter in our society. Contrasting every part of these cases—both of which originated in the 1980s, but have been working through the police and justice system for 20 years—shows how law enforcement and media help shape the narrative that Black lives matter less. Certainly more people know about the Central Park Jogger than they do about the dozens of women in South Central Los Angeles who were beaten, raped, strangled, and shot. These women, it would seem, are disposable. And more people know about the “Central Park Five”—Kharey “Korey” Wise, Kevin Richardson, Antron McCray, Yusef Salaam, and Raymond Santana—being convicted, rather than their innocence.

While the films chronicle events that happen on the opposite sides of America, the strength in both of the films is that people are allowed to speak for themselves and we are held responsible as not-so-innocent bystanders. At the end of Tales of the Grim Sleeper, photos of Black women—Franklin’s victims—flash by on the screen, just slowly enough that we feel properly uncomfortable and ashamed of the society we live in.

In an interview with The New York Times in 2012, The Central Park Five co-director Sarah Burns said of her film, “Part of our goal is simply to inform people about what happened in this case. But we also want people to think about how this happened.”

Broomfield clearly attempts—and succeeds—to reach that same goal in Tales of the Grim Sleeper. He asks at the beginning of the film, “How did this happen?” The answer is much greater than Los Angeles—the answer stretches from Los Angeles, to Ferguson, to New York City. It’s America’s problem.

 

Leigh Kolb is a composition, literature, and journalism instructor at a community college in rural Missouri.

True Beauty in ‘A Day in Eden’

This moment, of course, is true beauty. They are vulnerable with one another, and that erases the walls that we constantly build up between generations, religions, and genders.

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Written by Leigh Kolb.

“What is beauty?”
“I have a thousand brilliant lies for the question.”

Assal Ghawami’s short film, A Day in Eden, quietly reflects upon the question of beauty. The first images we see in the film are in a nursing home–an elderly man in a wheelchair, a nurse roughly scrubbing a resident. The workers seem harsh, and the residents seem disconnected. All this unfolds as the narrator asks, “What is beauty?”

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6gDCer30wc”]

A volunteer cellist, Fereshde (Briana Marin), who is unmistakably conventionally beautiful, is led into the room of Mr. Hammacher (Stewart Steinberg). The nurse tells Fereshde that he has no friends or family. Fereshde, in her headscarf, sits and takes out her cello to play for him. There is a crucifix hanging above his bed. The contrast of youth and beauty and age and decay is clear in every shot. But the concept of “beauty” is much deeper than the skin.

A Day in Eden: the contrast of the headscarf and crucifix
A Day in Eden: the contrast of the headscarf and crucifix

 

Mr. Hammacher is angry and combative, but finds himself in an incredibly vulnerable position (even more so than before) when he soils himself. “Please don’t tell,” he says to Fereshde. “I just want to go home.” They embrace, and she gently, with great care and compassion, changes his pants. “It’s OK,” she says.

This moment, of course, is true beauty. They are vulnerable with one another, and that erases the walls that we constantly build up between generations, religions, and genders.

While she was making the film, Ghawami wrote about her work advocating for the Elder Justice Act (which became law in 2010). She said,

“To help pass this piece of legislation I produced and edited more than 50 interviews with victims of elderly abuse that were presented to Congress in 2010. I hope that A Day in Eden will continue to shed light on the issue of elder abuse and inspire more people to fight for the rights of our elders.”

On its surface, A Day in Eden is not overtly an activist film. The residents seem neglected and the workers seem cold, and we need to question how normal that seems. The deep humanity with which Fereshde treats Mr. Hammacher transforms him. Ghawami’s message is clear, then: only through compassionate humanity can we heal and be healed.

A Day in Eden is beautiful not only in its message, but also in its cinematography, editing, soundtrack, and acting. Beauty can be defined in a thousand different subjective ways. But A Day in Eden’s beauty lies in its truth.

Visit http://www.assalghawami.com/ for the director’s reel and upcoming screenings.

 

See also at Bitch Flicks: The Yellow Room and the Timeless Locking Up of Women’s Experiences

Leigh Kolb is a composition, literature, and journalism instructor at a community college in rural Missouri.

‘House of Cards’ Season 3: There’s Only One Seat in the Oval Office

“I’ve been in the passenger seat for decades. It’s time for me to get behind the wheel.”

Walking side by side in this season 3 promo still.
Walking side by side in this season 3 promo still.

 

Written by Leigh Kolb.

Season 3 Spoilers Ahead!

See also: “Ruthless, Pragmatic Feminism in House of Cards“

Season 3 of House of Cards, released Feb. 27 on Netflix, ends abruptly, as we dangle on the edge.

As Claire gives her blood in Iowa–literally for the Red Cross for a nice photo op and figuratively for Frank’s career–she gets lightheaded, and tells their biographer that she thinks about jumping of a bridge. Before she passes out, she tells him that when Frank proposed, she’d told him that “every seven years, if it’s still good enough,” they’d stay married for another seven years before reassessing the marriage.

They’ve been married for 28 years. And it’s time to take stock of the partnership, which has been feeling less and less like a marriage of equals. There’s only one seat in the Oval Office, after all.

Season 3, at its core, is about a series of clashes. Not only are the Underwoods clashing, but so also are countries, special interests, and air and water temperatures. These clashes of powers and contrasts of ideologies can be violent, but season 3 is less shocking, less violent, less sexy, than seasons past. Frank and Claire Underwood were maneuvering and clawing their ways to the top, but now they’re there. Or at least, Frank’s there. Season 3 concerns the delicate and perhaps less passionate dance of staying at the top, when the only place you have to go is down.

Because of this, Frank and Claire seem decidedly less evil than they have in the first two seasons. All of the characters are complex and none is simply good or evil–the show has always been excellent that way, and that writing certainly lends itself to being decidedly feminist, as I’ve argued for the last two seasons. Frank even seems like a tragic hero sometimes, more disheveled, more pitiful than he was while he was violently rising the ranks. Of course, he opens the season by pissing on his father’s grave–so Frank is still Frank–but his desperation to hold onto power weakens him.

Claire accomplishes very little on her own in season 3. She needs Frank’s help to appoint her as UN ambassador when she can’t get the votes from Congress. Her role as First Lady repeatedly overshadows her own goals, and she eventually must resign her UN role because President Putin Petrov bullies Frank. She then must launch full-force into First Lady mode, dying her hair to please focus groups, kissing babies, shaking hands, living and working solely for Frank. This is not Claire Underwood. She knows that this is not who she is. By the end of the season, she’s acknowledged this, and is leaving the White House. “Claire!” Frank shouts as she announces that she’s leaving him, and the credits immediately roll.

Claire must exist to support Frank.
Claire must exist to support Frank.

 

As is suggested by the promo shots for season 3, Claire is becoming more and more an equal player in House of Cards (in season 1’s promos, she didn’t appear; in season 2’s, she sat behind Frank; in season 3’s, they are walking side by side, as they often do in the episodes). However, her role in the White House had to be for Frank, and it–and he–wasn’t enough. When Frank yells out for her to not leave at the end of the season, it’s because he also knows that he’s not enough. Without her, there will be no White House.

There are, as always, some incredible moments woven throughout this remarkably feminist political drama. Here are some of them:

Episode 1: They are sleeping in different bedrooms, and it’s clear that Claire is being left behind. She requests an appointment to be the UN ambassador, because the work of a First Lady is “not the same as contributing in a real way.” She says, “I’ve been in the passenger seat for decades. It’s time for me to get behind the wheel.”

Episode 2: Claire channels Hillary Clinton in during her nomination hearing, snapping that the “US military is irrelevant.” Of course, it’s taken completely out of context, just as Clinton’s “What difference does it make” statement was during the Benghazi hearings (the nods to current events in season 3 seem clearer than ever before). Claire is attempting to secure an incredibly important position in the UN, and at the same time, she has to pick two Easter Egg designs for the yearly Easter Egg Roll–a First Lady duty. The contrast between world power and decorative pleasantries is stark. “It’s too pink,” she says of one egg. “Girls like pink,” responds the woman with the eggs. Claire does not choose the pink egg.

Episode 3: Pussy Riot! Le Tigre! Russian President Petrov represents a time when “men were men.” He and Frank smoke Cubans and jockey for power while Ambassador Claire Underwood and Secretary of State Cathy Durant play beer pong and work toward peace. The masculine old guard often looks silly–the gifts, the games, the pride–but they too often still wield the power. By the end of the episode, Frank is lauding Pussy Riot and is flanked by Claire and Cathy (certainly not the last time he’s flanked by more powerful women in this season).

Episode 4: Solicitor General Heather Dunbar rises to power early on in the season. Frank asks her to consider his nomination for Supreme Court Justice, but she quickly realizes she wants to run for President instead. This episode deals with the US’s drone strike policies, and challenges the idea that killing innocent people to stop one guilty person is just. Meanwhile, a gay American activist is arrested and detained in Russia. In a bit of a heavy handed scene, Frank speaks with a priest in the church about justice and love, and ends up alone in the sanctuary, where he spits in Jesus’ face. The statue falls and breaks into a hundred pieces after he goes to wipe the spit off.

Episode 5: Dunbar starts campaigning, and takes the gay activist’s husband with her. She comes out strong on social issues that Frank has stayed moderate on. Frank’s dismantling of entitlement programs and his approach with America Works is Tea Party politics compared to the D next to his name. A powerful female reporter from The Telegraph replaces the former reporter whom Seth Grayson kicks out. He tries to silence one woman who asks challenging questions, and is faced instead with someone who is even more threatening. When Dunbar learns that Claire lied about her abortion on national TV, she says, “I would never do that to another woman,” in re: using the information against her. And in an incredibly powerful scene, Claire makes the Russian ambassador meet her in the woman’s bathroom while she puts on makeup, and then urinates with the door open. He’s uncomfortable, and she’s in control.

Episode 6: Claire goes with Frank to Russia to meet with Michael Corrigan, the imprisoned activist. They have a compelling conversation about marriage. Claire is unable to talk him into reading the prepared speech to be let free (he would have to apologize to President Petrov and Russia for parading nontraditional sexual ideas). Instead, he commits suicide while Claire sleeps in the cell, and he uses her scarf. She speaks out for him at the press conference–much to Frank and Petrov’s horror. “He had more courage than you’ll ever have,” she tells Frank.  “I should have never made you ambassador,” Frank says. She responds, “I should never have made you president.”

Episode 7: Tibetan monks will work for weeks on intricate sand paintings, mandalas, and then ritualistically destroy it to symbolize the impermanence of the material world. A group of Tibetan monks are in the Underwoods’ White House as part of a cultural exchange. The gorgeous, time-consuming nature of their work, and the beautiful destruction of it, serves as a backdrop to Claire and Frank deciding to renew their vows. Claire changes her hair color to the dark shade it was when they first met. She’s being honored by GLAAD and other gay rights organizations. They must show the world that they are a team, but they are feeling less and less like one. Frank visits the FDR Memorial and reflects upon their similarities to the Roosevelts (his revamped “New Deal” and Claire’s human rights and United Nations activities). Claire rises again in this episode, and while they renew their vows and sleep in the same bed again, the monks poured all of that beautiful sand down a flowing river. Nothing lasts forever.

During episode 7, Claire and Frank sit at the breakfast table reading the newspaper, reminiscent of this scene from Citizen Kane. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
During episode 7, Claire and Frank sit at the breakfast table reading the newspaper, reminiscent of this scene from Citizen Kane. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

 

Episode 8: A hurricane is brewing, and it’s being narrated by two voices: novelist Tom Yates, whom Frank has asked to be his biographer; and Kate Baldwin, the enterprising Telegraph reporter. The feminine and masculine (not necessarily female and male) are frequently clashing in House of Cards. These forces–whether they be stereotypical ideals of compassion and power or embodied in figures like Tom and Kate themselves–are often at their best when combined. Freddy is back in this episode, and delivers a powerful message to his grandson after meeting with Frank: “He lied to you. You’ll never be president,” he says. “It’s good to have dreams, as long as they’re not fantasies.”

Episode 9: The women are always on top in season 3’s sex scenes. The sex scenes are less exciting than season 2’s, but this positioning doesn’t go unnoticed. On the campaign trail, Dunbar is taking a decidedly feminist approach: raising the minimum wage, fighting for gay rights, and ending corporate greed. Frank, on the other hand, chants “You are entitled to nothing,” and toes the individualistic, masculine line. Remy is faced with racism–from an Iowa lobbyist and the police. Doug–whose story line is terrifying and constantly uncomfortable, except for a few warm moments with his brother–is working for Dunbar to get info for Frank.

Episode 10: Claire sits between Israel and Palestine–she’s a powerful force. She’s tricked by Petrov, however (who has always clearly been threatened by her or anyone/anything that threatens the traditional order), and her fake intel leads to a US troop’s death. When Petrov and Frank meet in the Jordan Valley (the House of Cards version of the Gaza Strip), it’s a masculine scene–guns, ammo, tanks, kevlar, camo. Petrov tells Frank that Claire must not be an ambassador anymore. Frank agrees. This, then, is the beginning of what was already an end in sight. By the end of the episode, Claire is looking at a history of headshots, agreeing to go blonde because “Iowa in particular likes the blonde.” In what has become a necessity for each season, ambiguous sexual tension takes place between Tom and Frank. Tom admits that he used to “turn tricks” with men for a living, and got addicted to hearing their stories. They hold hands for a moment–it’s an incredibly intimate scene–and then it’s over. As others have noted, it’s refreshing to see sexuality treated with such nuance.

Claire Underwood
Claire Underwood

 

Episode 11: Blonde Claire gives a campaign speech at a fancy little ladies’ luncheon, quite the opposite of negotiating peace talks as she had been just days before. Claire is so much like Hurricane Faith, which was poised to make a huge difference, but then did nothing. Frank can’t control the weather, but he’s trying to control Claire. Jackie Sharp is also running in the Democratic primary, but only to split the vote to eventually be Frank’s VP. She doesn’t want to do what Frank tells her to–calling Dunbar sexist or bringing Dunbar’s children into the debate–but she does when Dunbar won’t promise her Secretary of Defense. So Jackie pulls the sexism card and pulls the private school card during the debate, and Frank attacks her for it. Shortly after, Jackie suspends her campaign and endorses Dunbar. Seth calls her a “Judas Bitch,” and Remy resigns as Frank’s Chief of Staff. Players are choosing sides, and Frank must rely on Claire’s likability to get the numbers he needs for Iowa. She’s reading children a book at story time now instead of attempting to broker peace between Israel and Palestine.

Episode 12: Claire is told to be more and more in the spotlight, even answering Q&As. She’s “favorable” to voters, and there are moments where it looks as if she’s the one running for president, and she certainly feels the sting of that not being the case. “I’ll keep waving my pom-poms,” she says. She spends time with a young mother in Iowa on the campaign trail. The Underwood signs in the yard are her husband’s, though. “I wish you were running for president,” she tells Claire. The exhausted young mother talks about her unhappy marriage, and laments to Claire that if it weren’t for the baby they took out two mortgages to have via IVF, that she would leave. Moments later, Frank calls Claire to tell her that Dunbar knows about her journal and the truth about her abortions. “No, Francis. This can’t happen. Whatever you have to do, fix it.” Doug brings the journal to Frank and burns the page, promising that he’d just gotten close to Dunbar to prove his loyalty to Frank. He requests, and gets, the position of Chief of Staff. Claire is rightfully furious, considering her reproductive choices have been used as political pawns by other people. Frank has stopped seeing Claire as an equal; as soon as he was in the Oval Office, she was just the First Lady.

Episode 13: Doug’s subplot of using Gavin to find Rachel climaxes in the last episode, as he buys a trash-heap of a white van to drive to her and avenge the fact that she’d beaten him almost to death in season 2 (after she had assumed–probably rightfully so–that he was going to kill her). These awful scenes are made more tragic by the fact that Rachel has escaped her former life and is helping other abuse victims in the process. Doug comes close to love and compassion when his brother stays with him while he gets clean, but he doesn’t come close enough. Claire tries to get Frank to “fuck her,” to “be rough,” but he won’t. He sends her back to DC, and we hear the screams and clapping for him campaigning while she gets back to the White House alone. Frank wins Iowa without her there, but he knows that she must be by his side for him to be successful. When he gets back, she’s sitting in his chair in the Oval Office–where she, and probably he, knows she should be. “For all these years,” she says, “I thought we were in this together. This is not what I thought it would be. It’s your office. You make the decisions.” He snaps back that she can’t have it both ways–to be an equal partner, and for men to control her (bringing up the sex scene in a powerful way). She feels “weak” and “small” and can’t feel like that any longer.

“Without me, you are nothing,” Frank snaps at her. “It’s time for you to do your job. You will be the First Lady.”

She looks at the picture of the Tibetan mandala–capturing a moment that was destroyed–and she packs her bags, but not for the campaign trail. Claire Underwood was meant to be first, not First Lady.

 

Leigh Kolb is a composition, literature, and journalism instructor at a community college in rural Missouri. 

 

Ruthless, Pragmatic Feminism in ‘House of Cards’

Claire is a horrible human being for many, many reasons–but her abortions aren’t included in those reasons. The show makes that clear.

house-of-cards-season-2

This repost by Leigh Kolb appears as part of our theme week on Unlikable Women.

Season 2 spoilers ahead! Season 3 will be released on Netflix on Feb. 27, 2015.

Novelist Elmore Leonard said, “If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.” I think about that often when looking for or critiquing the dearth of feminist film and television. We often wring our hands over the Bechdel Test and the lack of “Strong Female Characters.”

Ideal feminist media would be like Leonard’s ideal writing–films and shows that don’t feel like they’re trying to be feminist. They just are. Complex women and women’s stories that aren’t just pieces of the whole, but are woven in seamlessly throughout the narrative–that’s what I want.

House of Cards delivers.

After Season 1 debuted on Netflix to critical and popular acclaim, Amanda Rodriguez and I both wrote about House of Cards and the wonderfully complex female characters (see: “The Complex, Unlikable Women of House of Cards” and “Claire Underwood: The Queen Bee in House of Cards“). The simultaneously awful and wonderful female characters whose stories were essential to the action in every single episode. Nothing ever felt forced, and the fact that these women were both sympathetic and loathsome was an absolute delight for those of us feminist viewers who are tired of “strong female characters” who pay lip service to some kind of surface-level inequality.

giphy

House of Cards’s feminism is remarkable, because it feels wholly unremarkable.

Season 2 debuted on Feb. 14, 2014, and although Netflix doesn’t reveal exact numbers, Variety reports that the viewership in the first few hours “soared,” with many subscribers watching multiple episodes at once.

And since the only Olympic-style sport we are interested in in our home is the long-form binge watch, we were finished with season 2 by Saturday night. Within the first two episodes, I was fairly certain this was the most feminist TV drama I’ve seen–because what we want (complexity, equality, and representation) is woven in seamlessly. House of Cards is not primarily about a man. It’s not primarily about a woman. It’s about people.

In the promo materials for season 1, we saw Frank Underwood sitting alone in Lincoln’s monument. Ostensibly, he’s the show’s protagonist. And in season 1, I suppose it did often feel that way.

However, the season 2 poster features Frank again sitting in Lincoln’s seat, but Claire is sitting on top of it also. From the first shot of season 2–Frank and Claire running together–we know that Frank isn’t really our sole protagonist at all anymore.

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The first two episodes tie up many loose ends from season 1, and introduce new ones for season 2. In the first episode, Claire picks up her appointment with the fertility doctor not, as we learn, to become pregnant herself, but to find out more about the drug that Gillian is on so she can threaten to withhold her insurance from her, thus getting what she wants from Gillian. “I’m willing to let your child wither and die within you,” Claire says to Gillian. Frank pushes Zoe Barnes into the path of an ongoing train, and she is killed. Frank, who has taken his place as vice president, courts Jackie Sharp to be the House Majority Whip. Why? Her military record of having to order strikes and kill people (including women and children) shows Frank that she is a bastion of ruthless pragmatism, which is how he and Claire move forward; and with this, season 2 begins.

In the following episodes, Claire faces her rapist (who assaulted her in college, and now Frank must give him an award for his military service), and honestly tells Frank how she wants to “smash things” and how much she wants to talk about it. These scenes were excellent because she didn’t let Frank be the vengeful husband. She stopped him, and then kept her power by talking about the assault. It wasn’t presented as if her sexuality was Frank’s to protect; the experience was hers. She wants to let her husband in, but she doesn’t want him to avenge her honor. That’s her job.

When she goes on national television and admits to having an abortion, she says that it was to end the pregnancy that resulted from the sexual assault. She named her attacker, and a young woman called in to the show, saying that he had assaulted her as well. This kicks off a season-long story line about a military sexual assault bill that pits women against women and shows the politics of justice as being just that: politics.

Claire bares all–in her own way–on national television.
Claire bares all–in her own way–on national television.

 

But here’s the rub: Claire had three abortions, not one, and none were from the rape. She is matter-of-fact with her doctor and press secretary that she had three abortions, and we learn that one was during the campaign with Frank, and two were when she was a teenager. One could see these story lines as using infertility, rape, and abortion as plot points.

And you know what? It’s fantastic. I love that these typically silent or exploited topics get so much air time in House of Cards, and that Claire is more human for having gone through so much, yet she uses it all for political and personal gain. (A recent study showed that when female characters consider or have an abortion in film or TV, they are disproportionally killed or at least punished.)

When done properly, I applaud these female-specific plot points. These events are plot points in women’s lives, and they should be used well on screen. House of Cards does just that.

Historically, men have wars and external, political struggles to define and provide fodder for their journeys (both fictional and non). We see this represented with Frank’s visit to the Confederate re-enactors and his war miniatures. Women’s struggles and choices–infertility, sexual assault, and abortion–are widespread and underrepresented. To have Claire live through and use these experiences is refreshing and brilliant (and appropriately villainous).

The season goes on to show the fallout that Claire receives from admitting to having an abortion (even though she publicly says she had one after a rape), including an attempted bomb attack by a man whose wife had had an abortion, and the angry, vitriolic protesters outside her home. (She tells Megan, the young sexual assault victim at one point, “They’re loud, but I think we need to be louder.”) What a great message.

Claire is a horrible human being for many, many reasons–but her abortions aren’t included in those reasons. The show makes that clear.

Jackie–Frank’s replacement and sometimes-ally sometimes-adversary–is a force. She, in her relationship with Remy, is the one who initially isn’t interested at all in a relationship. She gets tattooed to help deal with the pain of the deaths she was responsible for in the military. She’s powerful and political, and we see her as both the enemy and ally throughout the season.

Jackie, adding on to her poppy tattoo (symbolic in its remembrance of bloodshed in war, and therapeutic in its pain).
Jackie, adding on to her poppy tattoo (symbolic in its remembrance of bloodshed in war, and therapeutic in its pain).

 

In addition to the complex shaping of women’s stories and the characters themselves, the way the show handles masculinity and sexuality seems revolutionary.

In season 1, it’s evident when Frank goes back to his alma mater that he had had a sexual relationship with a close male friend. There wasn’t much hoopla about this, it just was what it was. In season 2, Claire, Frank, and their bodyguard, Edward Meechum, have a threesome. The next day, Frank says to Meechum as he gets in the car, “It’s a beautiful day.” And that’s all there is to it. Meanwhile, Rachel has developed a relationship with Lisa, and it’s portrayed as a loving partnership (although the camera does linger on their sex scene while it artfully pans away from the aforementioned threesome).

There’s no moral focus or panic about people’s sexuality. It just–is what it is. No fanfare. And the fact that we get to see women having orgasms (in season 2, an especially steamy scene between Jackie and Remy) is a pleasant detour from the norm as well.

In what continues to be one of my favorite articles regarding feminist media, “I hate Strong Female Characters,” Sophia McDougall says,

“Nowadays the princesses all know kung fu, and yet they’re still the same princesses. They’re still love interests, still the one girl in a team of five boys, and they’re all kind of the same. They march on screen, punch someone to show how they don’t take no shit, throw around a couple of one-liners or forcibly kiss someone because getting consent is for wimps, and then with ladylike discretion they back out of the narrative’s way.”

The women of House of Cards are not “Strong Female Characters.” They are well-written characters with a great deal of power, which they wield alongside the men. They are integral parts of the narrative. When female complexity and power is written into the narrative, everything else–including passing the Bechdel Test–effortlessly falls into place.

This is ruthless pragmatism: feminist style, and it is excellent. In a sea of male anti-heroes on TV, it’s time that women share the stage. House of Cards shows its hand, and it’s a royal flush, with the queen right next to the king.

 

Leigh Kolb is a composition, literature, and journalism instructor at a community college in rural Missouri.

 

 

The Complex, Unlikable Women of ‘House of Cards’

These women are complex, if not likable, and that’s a good thing.

Daddy Issues, Menopause and Female Power
Daddy Issues, Menopause, and Female Power

This repost by Leigh Kolb appears as part of our theme week on Unlikable Women.

This article covers Season 1. See here for commentary on Season 2.

Frank Underwood (Kevin Spacey) is the vengeful House Majority Whip who lusts after power and is ambitious and unscrupulous in his attempts to get what he wants.

In fact, most of the characters fit that description.

We know that the anti-hero is in. Many of the protagonists in critically acclaimed dramas (Walter White, Nucky Thompson, Jax Teller, Dexter Morgan, Don Draper, the list goes on…) are not traditionally heroic and make decisions that are illegal and “immoral.”

Frank Underwood is a twenty-first century Iago, building his empire on a tenuous pile of cards. He looks at the camera and includes the audience in his thought process (much like Kenneth Branagh’s Iago in Othello). The Macbeth references also are clear, as Zoe Barnes (Kate Mara) scrubs a stain out of her carpet or as Claire Underwood (Robin Wright) is consistently associated with water.

Just as Frank conjures a centuries-old tradition of villainous pseudo-heroism, the women of House of Cards also represent the kind of ruthless ambition that we find so compelling in characters.

And as “The Women on House of Cards Are Just as Evil as the Men” points out:

“The show would be way less interesting if only the male characters were running around town sleeping with people they shouldn’t be sleeping with and bribing people they shouldn’t be bribing while their female partners and peers waited patiently at home.”

Zoe is a scrappy reporter when we first meet her, and she quickly transforms herself into a front-page journalist because she gets the right source.

In bed.

She draws him in with a photo, goes to his house in a push-up bra and a low-cut shirt, and gets tips of all kinds. In the first episode, the most powerful women have broken into power via cleavage, marriage and tokenism (the new White House Chief of Staff Linda Vasquez, who Frank helped promote because of her ethnicity and gender). It didn’t look so good at first, but like any good story, the characters unfold as the series goes on, revealing that Claire is ambitious at all costs, Zoe holds the cards in her relationship with Frank, and the women, at the end, are instrumental in upending and beginning to unravel Frank’s plans.

Zoe Barnes
Zoe Barnes

 

For Zoe, she is both empowered and disempowered by men who treat her like she is their child. When she shoots to stardom (via Frank) at The Washington Herald, Tom, her editor, is dismissive of her work and yet knows he needs to promote her and reward her because Margaret (his boss) wants her star-power, since Tom’s beloved hard-news print outlet is barely staying in business.

When Zoe and Tom get into a fight after she turns down the White House Correspondent gig, he accuses her of being arrogant.

Zoe: “You think when a woman asks to be respected she’s being arrogant?”
Tom: “Are you accusing me of sexism? No TV for a month.”

He’s limiting her TV appearances as punishment, but of course it sounds like he’s talking to a child and taking television away as a punishment. The line between father and boss is blurred.

Zoe’s understanding of respect is obviously convoluted as Frank constantly asks her about her parents, and her father, and if they know she lives like she does (in a shabby, dirty apartment). “Are you cared for,” he asks. “Do you have a man, who cares for you? An older man?”

When Frank visits Zoe on Father’s Day, he encourages her to call her father. While she’s still on the phone, she starts undressing him, he undresses her and goes down on her in the most graphic sex scene in the season. She’s breathless while she’s on the phone, and hangs up only after promising her father “I’m going to try and come, OK?” The line between father and lover is blurred.

Later in the season, Zoe establishes herself in a new lucrative job at Slugline, a woman-owned new media company where the reporters have free reign to post what and when they want and are not “tied to a desk.” Janine joins her after leaving The Washington Herald. Janine was her enemy at the Herald, and represents a somewhat older, jaded version of Zoe. When the two begin to work together, they make great strides. Zoe finishes her relationship with Frank and works with Janine to do real, legitimate reporting (which is quickly unraveling Frank’s web of lies). Zoe is poised to be the most successful and have the most journalistic integrity by letting go of the older men in her life (who represent a patriarchal power structure) and working with women and peer collaborators.

Meanwhile, Claire, who matches her husband in power and ambition, changes her company and re-evaluates her own life as the season progresses. She lays off half of the staff and her clean water nonprofit, including Evelyn, her office manager (after having her fire everyone). Evelyn desperately points out to Claire that she is in her late 50s, and she would have no job prospects. Claire doesn’t bend.

Claire Underwood
Claire Underwood

 

Shortly after, Claire goes to a coffee shop where an older woman is working the register, and can’t figure out how to ring her up. A young woman comes and shows her, as Claire looks at them, certainly thinking of Evelyn and her own possibilities.

She courts Gillian, a young, beautiful woman who has had individual success in clean water initiatives. Gillian resists the corporate atmosphere, and Claire says,

“I know what it is to be capable, beautiful and ambitious… I want to enable you, to clear the way for you.”

Gillian accepts.

And Claire starts getting hot flashes. “This is new to me,” she tells a female dinner party guest who sees her standing in front of the open refrigerator. Her coming menopause serves as a reminder that she is getting ready to enter a new phase of womanhood, which she doesn’t seem ready for.

Gillian, meanwhile, announces her pregnancy and Claire seems uncomfortable. Even though she tells Adam (her once and sometimes lover) when he asks why she and Frank didn’t have kids, “We just didn’t–it wasn’t some big conversation. I thought about it once or twice, but I don’t feel like there’s some void. We’re perfectly happy without.”

But by the end of the season, she’s visiting a doctor and having a consultation about her fertility. She doesn’t tell Frank, but the window of opportunity for her to have a baby isn’t closed yet.

Gillian goes against Claire’s orders, and Claire suggests she take some time off after Gillian snaps, “I threaten you, don’t I?” Gillian hires a lawyer and claims Claire fired her for being pregnant, trapping Claire in a potential legal battle that she cannot win. The youthful ambition she wanted to guide and empower didn’t want either.

No one is good (nor should they be, or the show wouldn’t work so well). Janine tells Zoe she “used to suck, screw and jerk anything that moved just to get a story.” And while she’s a working journalist, she obviously didn’t fuck her way to the top (nor did Zoe). They are on their way to the top, but it’s only because they’re working together.

Claire and Frank are in a surprisingly power-balanced relationship, and it only truly suffers when he puts his goals over hers. Claire elicits sympathy, disgust, anger and fear from the audience (sometimes all in one episode).

These women are complex, if not likable, and that’s a good thing. Zoe and Janine are close to the truth about Frank, Claire’s career and fertility hang in the balance and at any moment, the house of cards they’ve all helped build may come tumbling down.

 

Leigh Kolb is a composition, literature, and journalism instructor at a community college in rural Missouri.