Representations of trans women still remain few and far between in film and on television. Representations of trans women performed by actual trans women are even more rare. (‘Orange is the New Black’ and ‘Sense8’ are the most recent, popular exceptions to that rule, and, interestingly, both are series productions created by Netflix.)
Our theme week for November 2015 will be Depictions of Trans Women.
Representations of trans women still remain few and far between in film and on television. Representations of trans women performed by actual trans women are even more rare. (Orange is the New Black and Sense8 are the most recent, popular exceptions to that rule, and, interestingly, both are series productions created by Netflix.) Much like white actors dressing up in blackface or redface to interpret the experience of Black and Native characters, trans representation by non-trans actresses takes away the authenticity of the interpretation, no matter how sympathetic the storyline may be.
This is why we often see trans women as the punchline of a joke (Terror Firmer, Twin Peaks, Ace Ventura: Pet Detective) or the source of horror and revulsion (Sleepaway Camp, The Crying Game, The Silence of the Lambs). In more serious dramas, male actors have garnered critical praise for their depictions of trans women (Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor in The Crying Game and hotly contended Academy Award win for Best Supporting Actor in Dallas Buyers Club). This persistence in and even acclaim for insisting on interpreting the experience of trans women for trans women is a kind of violence and erasure in its own right.
Why aren’t trans women given the opportunity to represent themselves? Which interpretations of trans women have merit? What do these interpretations say about the experiences of trans women and trans identity? What do interpretations of trans women say about our society’s interplay with trans identity? Are representations of trans women getting better?
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While women (especially women of color) are constantly misrepresented, the trans* woman is without a doubt the most misrepresented minority group in existence. The horror genre frequently comes under fire for its formulaic uses of tropes and characters, and the “mentally ill trans* woman/psycho killer” is one we should really stop using.
Felissa Rose as Angela Baker in Sleepaway Camp
This guest post by BJ Colangelo previously appeared at her blog Day of the Woman and is cross-posted with permission.
While women (especially women of color) are constantly misrepresented, the trans* woman is without a doubt the most misrepresented minority group in existence. The horror genre frequently comes under fire for its formulaic uses of tropes and characters, and the “mentally ill trans* woman/psycho killer” is one we should really stop using. (NOTE: The asterisk at the end of “trans” is an umbrella term to encompass all non-cisgender gender identities including: transgender, transsexual, transvestite, genderqueer, genderfluid, non-binary, genderfuck, genderless, agender, non-gendered, third gender, two-spirit, bigender, and trans man and trans woman.)
The first thing that needs to be addressed is the depressing use of trans* women or cross dressers in horror and the fact filmmakers are treating the two like they’re interchangeable. For example: Norman Bates in Psychomay lose his cool and dress like his mother when he kills someone, but that doesn’t make him a trans* woman. However, Angela Baker in Sleepaway Camp is revealed as having male anatomy but then returns years later in the sequels happily living and identifying as a woman. I’d make the argument that Angela Baker is a trans* woman. Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs wanted to be a woman, I’d consider him a trans* woman, while The Bride in Black from Insidious and Insidious 2may have been struggling from an identity crisis caused by the years of abuse inflicted on him by his mother. It’s difficult to tell whether The Bride in Black wanted to castrate himself because he truly wanted to be a woman, or if it meant his mother would finally love him. That’s a complex issue and one that could easily constitute its own article.
Origin of The Black Bride in Insidious 2 (see: boy in a dress)
Mey Valdivia Rude is a trans* woman and contributing editor/author to Autostraddle who recently covered this very topic with an incredible article titled “Who’s Afraid Of The Big, Bad Trans* Woman? On Horror and Transfemininity.” Her article is highly informative, but it is her experiences as a trans* person and a horror fan that are truly telling of the impact film has on its audiences. In describing her theatrical experience watching Insidious 2 she states:
As the movie was ending, I sank down into my seat, hoping that no one would notice that I was trans*. I was afraid that if someone realized I was trans*, they might make the connection between me and the serial-killer-turned-ghost in the movie. After all, if you don’t know me, you might see me and (incorrectly) think that I’m just some man who is dressed up like a woman. According to the filmmakers behind Insidious Chapter 2, that makes me creepy, insane and dangerous.
When I think of women in horror films that I can identify with, I can respond with characters like the bodacious and brash Elvira, Mary from Hocus Pocus, and a handful of other sassy, independent women. For trans* women, they have motel owning serial killers, kidnapping lepidopterists, malicious ghosts, and slashers. Considering horror films are predominately made by men and the fact Western society heavily values men over women, it’s somewhat predictable that we’d have all of these “mentally ill” male characters dressing like women. Why would a man want to live as a woman? That’s just insane! Henry Lee Lucas was forced to dress like a girl when he was a kid, and look how he turned out! Mey Rude goes on in her article to say, “The same insanity that causes them to be transgender is the thing that causes them to become serial killers, and causes them to be seen as frightening.” It’s very difficult for the average cis-gendered male to understand what it feels like to misidentify with the gender their anatomy and society tells them they’re “supposed” to be. Film representation is very, very important. Think of it this way–if Jaws made people scared of the ocean andITmade people afraid of clowns, what sort of idea are we perpetuating about trans* women if they’re frequently shown as psychotic, violent, or perverted?
Buffalo Bill putting on lip makeup in The Silence of the Lambs
A recent study showcased that trans* people across the U.S. experience three times as much police violence as non-transgender individuals. Even more terrifying, when trans* gender people were the victims of hate crimes, 48 percent reported receiving mistreatment from the police when they went for help. These statistics are the true horrors. Mey Rude sums it up perfectly:
When people look to pop culture and see trans* women portrayed as dangerous impostors that they should be afraid of, they cease to see trans* women as people and start seeing them as monsters. In the fictional world of movies it may be the trans* women who are frightening and menacing killers, but in real life, those trans* women are far, far more likely to be the victims of horrific and violent murders.
To my knowledge, there is really only one horror movie that showcases trans* women in a positive light, and even then the film showcases drag queens…not trans* women. (Pro-tip, not all drag queens are trans* women and not all trans* women are drag queens.) Ticked-Off Trannies with Knives is a tongue-in-cheek rape revenge film meant to be an entertaining film of empowerment a la I Spit on Your Grave. GLAAD (Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) protested the film at its original Tribeca screening, but opinions on the film are extremely polarized. Considering the somewhat cartoonish film is the only real positive representation trans* women have in horror, I can sympathize with the anger from the trans* community. At the end of the day, I can’t hate the player but I will hate the game. Hollywood (horror in particular) needs a makeover on its portrayal of trans* women, and fast.
Just picture Jamie Clayton as a Final Girl real quick. THAT is a film I want to see.
If horror were to take a page from the books of dramatic films like Dog Day Afternoon, Dallas Buyers Club, or even the smash hit TV series Orange Is the New Black, we can start showcasing trans* women as actual people with feelings and complex thoughts and not just an easy way to tell an audience “this guy is supposed to be a weirdo, so we put him in a dress.” There are amazing trans* women actresses, and they would be amazing additions to the female horror cannon as much more than a punch line or a quick villain. Laverne Cox, Harmony Santana, Jamie Clayton, and Candis Cayne are just a few working actresses that would completely dominate in the horror world. Trans* women deserve proper representation in horror, and it’s about time someone does something about it.
BJ Colangelo is the woman behind the keyboard for “Day of the Woman: A blog for the feminine side of fear” and a contributing writer for Icons of Fright. She’s been published in books, magazines, numerous online publications, all while frantically applying for day jobs. She’s a recovering former child beauty queen and a die-hard horror fanatic. You can follow her on Twitter at @BJColangelo.
Possessing mass and cult appeal, the bilingual, Yale-educated Foster has, moreover, been popular with both mainstream and indie audiences. Although the adult Foster fulfills conventional ideals of female beauty, she has never been a traditional Hollywood sex symbol. She has been both a figure of identification and desire. In many of her roles, she personifies female independence, heroism and resistance. As an actress, she brings a naturalism, intensity, and integrity to her performances. She engages audiences both intellectually and emotionally.
Jodie Foster
Written by Rachael Johnson as part of our theme week on The Great Actresses.
Jodie Foster occupies a unique place in modern American cinema. She is an exceptional, award-winning actress, charismatic movie star, pop culture heroine and feminist icon. Fêted for her memorable, ground-breaking roles in films like The Silence of the Lambs (1991)and The Accused (1988), Foster has dramaticized American femininity for decades. She was, of course, a gifted child actress–often playing precocious, self-possessed, street-smart girls–before making a highly successful transition to adult performing, and winning two Best Actress Academy Awards in her 20s. Very few actresses have, in fact, enjoyed Foster‘s international, inter-generational and cross-gender esteem and popularity. Possessing mass and cult appeal, the bilingual, Yale-educated Foster has, moreover, been popular with both mainstream and indie audiences. Although the adult Foster fulfills conventional ideals of female beauty, she has never been a traditional Hollywood sex symbol. She has been both a figure of identification and desire. In many of her roles, she personifies female independence, heroism and resistance. As an actress, she brings a naturalism, intensity, and integrity to her performances. She engages audiences both intellectually and emotionally.
There have been bad and mediocre movies, of course, like Stealing Home (1988), but Foster has starred in a string of good and great films. The Silence of The Lambs (1991) and Taxi Driver (1976) are, simply, masterpieces. Foster has worked with the likes of Martin Scorsese, Spike Lee, David Fincher, Jonathan Demme, and Neil Jordan. But although she has chosen American auteurs, she has not, interestingly enough, shown great interest in avant-garde and experimental cinema. The California native is, it seems, a populist. A child of the movies. In her autobiography, My Life So Far, Jane Fonda explains that she adheres to David Hare’s belief that “the best place to be a radical is at the center.” Foster has, of course, never been as politically engaged as Fonda in her public life, but perhaps she feels that cultural representations of femininity can be transformed from the center. Although there have been historical films, such as Sommersby (1993) and Anna and the King (1999), most of her films are set in modern America. Foster has always been of her time. Dramas, crime films, psychological and action thrillers appear to dominate her filmography (at least as an adult) although she has performed effectively in more comic roles. She is amusing and engaging in both Maverick (1994) and Nim’s Island (2008).
Inside Man
Foster has a distinctive screen persona. In films such as The Silence of the Lambs (1991) and Contact (1997), she has memorably personified female heroism and self-determination. Her characters destabilise old-fashioned ideals of girlhood and womanhood, and contest reactionary cultural attitudes. Audiences are accustomed to seeing Foster’s characters occupy professions traditionally dominated by men. She plays a scientist in Contact (1997), an aircraft engineer in Flightplan (2005), and a power broker in Inside Man (2006).
Foster, of course, plays an FBI agent in The Silence of the Lambs, Jonathan Demme’s masterful adaptation of Thomas Harris’s novel about a young woman’s hunt for a serial killer. Clarice Starling is a pioneering character in mainstream American cinema. Female protagonists have been traditionally rare in the thriller and horror genres and Clarice challenges masculinist power and privilege as well as traditional expectations of gender. Uncommon for a female character in the thriller and horror genres, she is an intelligent, resourceful, independent woman graced with self-will and self-control. Clarice is unusual in other ways. A woman of physical and moral courage, she makes goodness interesting. This is remarkably rare in cinema. Silence also deals with myths and sexuality in Gothic fashion and Clarice encounters two powerful charismatic father-figures on her quest. Clarice’s boss acts as a kind of paternal figure as well as mentor, and the man who helps her catch the killer, Buffalo Bill, is a seductive, patrician psychiatrist and cannibal serial-killer called Hannibal Lecter. Foster’s Clarice has an appealing sincerity and humanity, and her more naturalistic interpretation of the character contrasts beautifully with Anthony Hopkins’s theatrical incarnation of Lecter. We know, as Lecter knows, that Clarice will never give in and never sell out. The strongest and most moral character in the film, she treats everyone she meets with compassion and respect. Most of all, she represents the female victims of Buffalo Bill while embodying the aspirations of her fellow working-class women. For the orphaned Clarice’s origins are modest and her history is also marked by tragedy.
Contact
Foster‘s choices and performances reveal an awareness of outcasts and outsiders as well as an empathy with victims. She has played privileged women in films like Panic Room (2003), The Beaver (2011), Inside Man (2006) and Carnage (2011) but she has, I feel, secured her greatest performances playing women with disadvantaged backgrounds. Although they are often victims of patriarchy, male sexual exploitation and violence, they are not devoid of hope and strength. In Taxi Driver (1976), Foster plays a child prostitute and gives her character, Iris, both spirit and vulnerability. It is a performance that both impresses and disturbs. The actress was in her early teens at the time. The young woman of The Accused (1988), Sarah Tobias, is even less advantaged than Clarice and enjoys none of her esteem and authority. In The Accused, Foster personalizes working-class female pain. Based on a true story, Jonathan Kaplan’s drama is about a waitress who is gang-raped in a bar. The harrowing film chronicles Sarah’s fight for justice. It is one of Foster’s most socially-aware roles and fully-realised performances. Although a victim, Sarah is committed to bringing the men who witnessed and were complicit in the rape to trial. The film itself formally resembles a television drama but the characterization of the female protagonist is strong. Sarah is simultaneously vulnerable, child-like, spirited, all-too-human, tough and moral. Foster interprets her with understanding and humanity. It is an extraordinarily sensitive and multi-layered performance.
Panic Room
In the first decade of the Millenium, Foster’s iconic reputation as a figure of female independence and defiance was further consolidated. Panic Room (2002), Flightplan (2006) and The Brave One (2008) are all about women fighting back. In Panic Room, Foster’s privileged yet vulnerable character suffers a home invasion. Intruders, in fact, break into the Manhattan brownstone of the newly-divorced Meg Altman (her husband has left her for another woman) and her child the night they move in. The mother and daughter retreat to a panic room. Directed by David Fincher, Panic Room is a better, more stylish film than Flightplan and The Brave One. It is thrilling, and satisfying, watching Foster’s character outwit and defend herself, and her child, against the men. For the majority of the film, she is alone with them and when her ex-husband finally arrives to check in after being contacted, he is injured and disempowered by the intruders. It is, therefore, Altman who plays the dominant parental and conventionally heroic role. Flightplan is about a widowed aircraft engineer whose child disappears on a flight to the United States. The film replays Hollywood clichés- Foster is entirely alone and no one believes that she even has a child- and the plot, unfortunately, disintegrates. The role is, also, a somewhat reheated, more narcissistic, version of the part she plays in Panic Room. The Brave One is the tale of a talk show host who turns into a vigilante after her fiancé is killed in a street attack. Neil Jordan’s New York set film is politically suspect and lacks credibility, to say the least, and Foster’s character’s fate is highly unlikely. The actor is, of course, watchable in both Flightplan and The Brave One. She also exhibits a credible screen athleticism in the three films. But it is Foster’s turn as a fixer in Spike Lee’s Inside Man that is, arguably, her most interesting role of the last decade. Sleek, elegantly-attired, bare-legged, playful and ruthless, Madeleine White is, perhaps, the actor’s most seductive performance.
The Accused
Foster is a beautiful woman but the cinematic display of her sexuality has never been conspicuous- not in the traditional Hollywood sense, at least. Regarding her screen and star personae, Foster is feminine, boyish, androgynous, athletic, cerebral, articulate, rational, charismatic and engaging. The fact that Foster is a gay woman who has only recently disclosed her recently–I shall come to this later–adds an interesting complexity and mystique to the gender representation and sexuality of her roles.
Foster has never been an average female movie star. She has, for the most part, successfully evaded the standard, misogynist discourse surrounding other Hollywood actresses. She has not been a regular target of tabloid-concocted crap about failed relationships, lovelessness and inner emptiness. Equally, we don’t associate the actor with Oprahesque confessional narratives. Nor does she seem to suffer what many stars have suffered from over the ages: culturally-constructed psychological and physical female self-hatred. Foster has never played a highly visible public role and has always fiercely guarded her privacy. Personally, I am not greatly interested in the private lives of Hollywood stars and have always admired her refusal to indulge in daily self-exhibitionism. Her devotion to privacy only enhances her mystique and coolness, of course. It also means that we do not know that much about her.
Silence of the Lambs
Although Foster is, it seems, liberal, we know very little about her ideological beliefs. She is not politically engaged like Susan Sarandon, George Clooney, Sean Penn, and Maggie Gyllenhaal. Regarding gender representation and politics, her feminist reputation has issued, for the most part, from her roles. She has, of course, never been a gay role model in a public, politically engaged sense. In fact, this has been deeply problematic for some. Indeed, Foster has been criticized for not coming out earlier in her career. America was, of course, a less liberal place in the 80s and 90s, in terms of gay visibility and rights, and perhaps she thought such a move would jeopardize her career. Did her reluctance to come out publicly reflect pure self-interest and moral cowardice? Was it simply judicious or fundamentally a reflection of a long-cherished commitment to keep her private life private? This fierce regard for privacy is understandable in the light of John Hinckley’s attempted assassination of President Reagan in 1981. A mentally unbalanced man, Hinckley shot Reagan to make an impression on the young actress. Foster has become more open over the last decade, and she does not seem to mind relating fun things about her family life (she has two sons) in talk shows. She came out publicly at the Golden Globes in 2013 (she won the Cecil B. DeMille award last year) but even her coming out was executed in a somewhat idiosyncratic fashion. The speech is an interesting one. A little nutty and cryptic, it is also a quite powerful plea for privacy and understanding. Relating how she came out in private when she was younger to people close to her, she referred movingly to her very public childhood. Foster also seemed to quit acting in the speech but I am somewhat skeptical about entertainers’ public pronouncements about retiring.
Silence of the Lambs
Her public image, of late, has, in fact, been somewhat tarnished. Her professional relationship with Roman Polanski–he directed Foster in Carnage (2011) (as well as her friendship with Mel Gibson)–has considerably undermined her status as a feminist icon. Her decision to work with Polanski was all the more disappointing because she is a well-regarded, beloved feminist icon, of course. Discussions about the morality of the artist are thorny, and I am not generally a fan of boycotts of artists and censorship, for art is ultimately about knowledge, but I found the actor’s decision to work with Roman Polanski not only deeply troubling but also perplexing. Sarah Tobias is, after all, the most iconic rape victim in mainstream US cinema and The Accused, as Foster knows, was not just a movie. It sought to educate and change attitudes about rape. Sarah represents victims of sexual violence and she embodies all women. In this way, Foster’s choice constitutes a betrayal. I don’t think any entertainment journalist asked her any searching, intelligent questions regarding her decision. What does it all mean? What were her motivations? We can only hope that she will make wiser, saner choices in the future and console ourselves with the thought that her iconic feminist roles still belong to us.
Foster’s odyssey has been unique. Her immense cultural significance in modern Hollywood history cannot be overstated. Some of the most unforgettable representative roles of popular feminism have been played by Foster and her great, prized performances constitute invaluable contributions to cinema. A pioneer as a child and as a woman, she will always be a part of America’s social and cultural history. Foster has represented girls and women in America and around the world- for over forty years. She will always be Clarice, and she will always be ours.
This weekend at the Golden Globes, Jodie Foster will be honored with the Cecil B. DeMille Award to honor her lifetime achievement in cinema. At age 50, Jodie Foster is the fourth-youngest recipient of the award, but having started acting at only three years old, her career spans as long as many more senior actors, directors, and producers.
For many, Jodie Foster represents the ideal model for transitioning from child acting to an adult career. She’s also known for being one of the most private people in Hollywood, despite her nearly lifelong stardom and such high profile incidents as her stalker John Hinckley shooting President Reagan in 1981. Jodie Foster is the first “openly gay” woman to receive of the Cecil B. DeMille Award, but she has almost never publicly commented on her sexuality. She “came out” in a 2007 when she thanked then-partner Cydney Bernard while accepting an award. Foster still generally refuses to answer questions about her relationships and other aspects of her personal life, and in so doing has, against the odds, cultivated genuine movie stardom without the trappings of celebrity. This is a rare feat for anyone in Hollywood and even more unusual for a woman.
Foster’s priceless response to Ricky Gervais’ jokes about her sexuality at last year’s Globes
And there can be no doubt this has made a direct contribution to Foster’s ability to practice her craft; the piece she authored for The Daily Beast responding to the tabloid spectacle surrounding (her Panic Room co-star) Kristen Stewart’s affair with director Rupert Sanders asserts, “if I were a young actor today I would quit before I started. If I had to grow up in this media culture, I don’t think I could survive it emotionally.” Foster elaborates:
Acting is all about communicating vulnerability, allowing the truth inside yourself to shine through regardless of whether it looks foolish or shameful. To open and give yourself completely. It is an act of freedom, love, connection. Actors long to be known in the deepest way for their subtleties of character, for their imperfections, their complexities, their instincts, their willingness to fall. The more fearless you are, the more truthful the performance. How can you do that if you know you will be personally judged, skewered, betrayed?
Jodie Foster has built her career on her ability to communicate vulnerability without diminishing her dignity, a compelling balance she is able to bring to her characters partially because her talent is not eclipsed by her celebrity.
Jodie Foster in The Accused
A recurring thread in Foster’s films is the issue of credibility: her characters often have to fight to have their voices heard and stories believed, and/or to be afforded the authority and status that they rightfully deserve. In The Accused, the first film for which Jodie Foster won a Golden Globe and an Academy Award for Best Actress, Foster plays Sarah Tobias, a victim of a brutal gang rape. The prosecuting attorney Kathryn Murphy (Kelly McGillis) makes a plea bargain deal with the perpetrators in part because she thinks Sarah makes a poor witness for a trial because she has a reputation for promiscuity and uses drugs and alcohol. Sarah has to continually reassert that she is worthy of justice and deserving of being heard, even to her ally Murphy. Ultimately, Sarah is given the platform to tell her story in the court and help secure some measure of justice toward those who assaulted her.
Jodie Foster as Clarice Starling in The Silence of the Lambs
Clarice Starling in Silence of the Lambs, perhaps Foster’s most celebrated role, is largely defined by her ability to command respect from a world that seems hell-bent on denying her equal status (as is astutely analyzed in this post by Jeff Vordham that previously appeared on Bitch Flicks.) Hannibal Lecter at first dismisses Clarice as a “rube,” but she wins his respect by forthrightly communicating with him through his constant attempts to play status games with her.
Like Clarice Starling, Ellie Arroway, Jodie Foster’s character in Contact, is not taken as seriously by her peers and colleagues despite her merit. Arroway has to passionately fight to keep funding for her search for extraterrestrial communications. Even after the value of her research is proven by her discovery of a message from outer space, she is kept on the periphery of the (largely white and male) “in-crowd” that responds to this development. In the film’s final act, Arroway’s experience travelling through a wormhole and speaking with a representative of the alien species who sent the message is officially disavowed due to lack of evidence, although it is clear most of the characters trust the veracity of her account. Again, Jodie Foster’s gift for credibility connects the audience to her character’s struggle to be accepted and believed.
Jodie Foster fights to be believed in Flightplan
This recurring theme of asserting one’s credibility and value in the face of denial and dismissal is a fundamentally feminist motif. When she appeared on Inside the Actors Studio, Jodie Foster discussed her role in Flightplan, which also hinges on her character’s questioned credibility. The character was originally written for a man to play, and when Foster lobbied for the role she specifically noted that this conflict is inherently female: “‘There’s a point in the film where she is so bereft that she has to consider that she’s lost her mind… Well that’s a scene a man could never play. A man in a crisis like this wouldn’t question his sanity, he’d question someone else’s.”
Jodie Foster understands that as women, each of her character’s credibility is considered inherently questionable by a sexist society. In film after film, Foster infuses her characters with an authority that silences those doubts. And as such, watching Jodie Foster’s characters is often immensely satisfying to the feminist viewer. It’s fantastic to see the Hollywood Foreign Press honor her remarkable career with the Cecil B. DeMille award. Congratulations, Jodie.
The shock of Sleepaway Camp’s ending relies on the cissexist assumption that one’s biological sex and gender presentation must always match. A person with a mismatched sex and gender presentation is someone to be distrusted and feared. Though the audience has identified with Peter throughout the movie, we are meant to turn on him and fear him at the end, as he’s not only a murderer – he’s a deceiver as well. But, as Tera points out, the only deception is the one in the minds of cisgender viewers who assume that Peter’s sex and gender must align in a specific, proper way. Were this not the point that the filmmakers wanted to make, they would have revealed the twist slightly earlier in the film, allowing time for the viewer to digest the information and realize that Peter is still a human being.
Starling must unfortunately endure many such difficulties because she works in the male-dominated institution of the FBI. As an attractive woman, Starling receives lascivious looks from nearly every male in the movie. When she and her roommate go jogging in one scene, a group of men jogging the other way turn around to ogle the women’s behinds. Earlier, when Starling is looking for Agent Crawford’s (her boss) office, the men gaze at her as if she were an exotic delicacy. Hannibal Lecter’s psychiatrist Dr. Chilton tries to pick her up initially, “Are you familiar with the Baltimore area? I could show you around.” When she explains she has a job to do, Chilton becomes angry, “Crawford sent you here for your looks–as bait.” Lecter surmises that Crawford fantasizes about Starling and that is why she was selected for the assignment. Even the bespectacled etymologist asks her out. In fact, it is only Lecter who is more interested in getting in her head than her pants.
The whores in horror are the signature flesh of the slasher flick. Women in this genre have long been given the cold shoulder: cold in as much as they are often lacking for clothing. Often a female character’s dearth of apparel becomes prominent at the pivotal point of slaughter: in cinema, women dress down to be killed. Filmmakers pair scopophilia with the gratuitous gore of killing–leaving viewers to male gaze their way into a media conundrum: When did sexual arousal and brutality towards women pair to become the penultimate money shot?
There are many things that set Amanda apart from most villains in horror movies, the most notable one being that she’s a woman. But more than that, she’s a woman who is not driven by: jealousy, vanity, or obsession over a man. She doesn’t indulge in vampiric, Sapphic tendencies meant to titillate male viewers. And she isn’t sexualized: while reasonably attractive, she isn’t a young, nubile twentysomething, and she dresses in plain, normal clothes, which neither accentuate nor hide her feminine features. And she isn’t demonized either: she’s a not a “bitch” or “whore” who deserves what’s coming to her. Her mundanity is what makes her so appealing: she’s not just an “everygirl,” she’s an everyperson, who, like Jigsaw, is a character that all genders can identify with and sympathize — but her femininity isn’t taken away from her in order to make her stronger or more appealing (she is not given a boyish nickname like “Chris” or “Billy” and doesn’t adopt masculine traits like Ripley did in Alien), which is the most important thing.
Julia is an interesting character because unlike Kirsty – who experienced a mutual loving relationship between both her father and Steven (her love interest) – Julia had no such thing. Instead, Julia experienced rejection from Frank, her main obsession/love interest and killed off all the men who showed any interest in her (Larry and her victims).
I vacillated between these two women throughout the movie, hating one and loving the other. After all, Christine merely made a decision to advance her career, a decision that a man in her position wouldn’t have had to face (because he wouldn’t have been expected to prove his lack of “weakness”). If her male coworker had given the mortgage extension, I doubt it would’ve necessarily been seen as a weak move. And even though Christine made a convincing argument to her boss for why the bank could help the woman (demonstrating her business awareness in the process), her boss still desired to see Christine lay the smack-down on Grandma Ganush. I sympathized with her predicament on one hand, and on the other, I found her extremely unlikable and ultimately “weak” for denying the loan.
But the film itself denigrates Heather because she accepts responsibility, almost agreeing with the taunts. The most famous scene in The Blair Witch Project is Heather’s tearful confession into the lens. The substance of this confession is that she is responsible for what’s happening to them, but it’s infuriating that Heather takes responsibility and does so at this point. The confession scene tries to make Heather an Ahab-like figure. On the one hand, her tendency to tape allows the narrative conceit of the film to operate. When events take a turn for the eerie and tense, Heather’s obsession with documenting the experience keeps the cameras rolling and allows us to see the ensuing tumult. On the other hand, it puts her energetic striving for a quality film on trial and coaxes from her a confession for a crime she doesn’t actually commit.
While a cave setting evokes female reproductive organs almost inherently, the set design here takes this metaphor to extremes. The women descend into the cave through a slit-shaped gash in the earth, and then must crawl head-first through a narrow passageway into the greater cave system, where the true danger of the monsters await.
The monsters, depicted as the products of evolution motivated only by a primal drive for survival, are the perfect elaboration of this cave-as-womb horror metaphor. And as a cherry on top, they rip the guts out of these women.
In their landmark study, “Madwoman in the Attic,” Gilbert and Gubar embraced the figure of Bertha Mason (the insane, ghostlike previous wife of Jane Eyre’s hero, Mr. Rochester, whom he has locked up inside the attic…apparently for her own good and out of the goodness of his heart!) as somewhat of an alternate literary heroine, and started to analyze exactly what was at work in the common themes found in the literature that women were writing during that time period. As women attempted to write themselves into the purely patriarchal forms of literature that they had grown up reading, they faced the limits of the representation of women in heroic roles. So the gothic heroine emerged as somewhat of a compromise: a heroine who is perpetually endangered and perpetually courageous in the face of that danger. This is the precursor of the modern horror movie heroine who, against all logic, insists on checking out that pesky sound in the middle of the night or following the creepy voices outside of her room.
While the original film was also excellent, it lacked some of the more overt gendered analysis of the U.S. version. Though this may be due to discrepancies in translation (I saw the film both in Swedish with English subtitles and dubbed in English), the bullying theme running throughout the narrative was framed very differently in the Swedish version. In it, the young male protagonist, Oskar, was repeatedly told to “squeal like a pig” by his tormentors. In contrast, the male protagonist in the U.S. version, now named Owen (played by Kodi Smit-McPhee), is attacked by bullies with taunts such as “Hey, little girl” and “Are you a little girl?”
Inevitably the college kids pick up a hitchhiker, which is where the plot starts to get interesting. This hitchhiker, Baby Firefly (played by Zombie’s wife Sheri Moon), seems odd and off in her own world. She messes with the radio and giggles at the college kids. Both Denise and Mary instantly despise her and are obviously threatened by her sexuality, and as expected both Bill and Jerry like her. While this little battle starts to play out, and Baby is loudly drumming on the car’s dashboard, the car gets a flat tire. Of course the sexy female hitchhiker is a local and her brother can help fix the car. It is when Baby insists that the whole gang come over to dinner that this story finally becomes interesting.
At the center of the mystery are Samara and her mother, Anna, both women whose sanity is questioned by the narrative. At first glance, the movie seems to be Anna’s creation, and it’s her face that we see in the images on the tape. Anna is implied to have been driven to the brink of insanity and eventually to suicide by Samara, who somehow creates images that burn themselves into the minds of those around her. Samara herself is an ambivalent figure that the movie does not seem to be sure about, which leaves her open to interpretation. While I was convinced of her pure evilness initially, subsequent viewings have made her emerge as a less sinister figure, especially given her portrayal in the Japanese version of the story.
While both Alien and Aliens straddle the sci-fi/horror divide, one of the horror elements apparent in Alien is Carol Clover’s notion of the “final girl.” In numerous horror films (Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween, The Descent), the resourceful woman remains the sole survivor, the audience intended to identify and sympathize with her. Oftentimes sexual overtones exist with the promiscuous victims and the virginal survivor. While Alien and Aliens display sexual themes (we’ll get to those in a moment), Ripley isn’t sexualized but remains the sole survivor in the first film. She’s also never masculinized as Clover suggests happens to final girls in order to survive.
Rosemary’s Baby is one scary movie. It’s about a woman’s lot in a hostile world. It is about a terrible marriage to a narcissistic and selfish person. It is about the fear of motherhood and giving birth. It is convincing as a terrifying movie about the supernatural, and as a life lesson about selling your soul to a metaphorical devil. I like horror to convince me that I have learned something about the dark side of human nature…not just play with gore, or supernatural themes, or catastrophic nightmares. It has to name a fear that we really have, or a truth we find hard to believe, and the best horror enlightens us by showing us the darkness that haunts our lives.
Thanks to all our Horror Week 2011 writers! (Previous Theme Weeks include Mad Men Week and Emmy Week 2011.)
This post by Jeff Vorndam is republished with permission.
The horror movie genre has historically exalted the objectification of women. In slasher movies, teen exploitation flicks, and even seemingly innocuous thrillers, women are cast for the purposes of screaming and disrobing. The antithesis within the horror/thriller genre is the 1991 Academy Award winning film The Silence of the Lambs. Although not thought of as a “women’s movie,” a feminist undercurrent is present in the film through its protagonist, a strong female character who contradicts previous genre stereotypes. Her scenes impart an objection to the objectification of women and depict the difficulty of working in a male-dominated institution. Furthermore, her character’s success in the movie is her own doing; there are no male rescuers or helpers.
Jodie Foster plays Special Agent Clarice Starling, the protagonist of The Silence of the Lambs. Starling is an autonomous woman; her mother died at childbirth, and her father was killed in the line of duty when she was ten. She is intelligent (graduated magna cum laude), skilled at her work, and intrepid. Significantly, the film opens with a shot of Starling running alone in the woods, completing an obstacle course in the type of dark sodden forest where one might expect to find a naked dead body. The viewer’s attention is immediately drawn to Starling, and we already sense that she will be in danger. It is the movie’s triumph that it sets our expectation to see her as a doomed victim, and then subverts it by establishing her as a multi-dimensional person in the following scenes.
Roger Ebert wrote about The Silence of the Lambs, “Never before in a movie have I been made more aware of the subtle sexual pressures placed upon women by men.” Ebert refers to the numerous scenes which, taken collectively, give viewers the uncomfortable knowledge that Starling is constantly subjected to stares, condescension, and harassment. By depicting Starling as an object rather than a person in certain scenes, the audience is transposed with her, and feels her apprehension. The first such scene occurs after she is pulled off the obstacle course to meet her superior. There is no dialogue, just a simple shot of Starling, standing 5 feet 2 inches tall in a blue jogging suit, dwarfed and surrounded in an elevator full of burly men over a foot taller than her. Starling stands out even further as an object because her blue sweat suit contrasts with the loud red outfits that each of the men are wearing. It is a situation that any of us would be nervous in, but Starling shows little trepidation. She copes well with the uneasy feeling of the men looming over her. The movie’s self-conscious attempt to display Starling as an object works, though. As an audience, we do feel trepidation.
The same concept applies to a scene in which Starling is holding a punching bag and must withstand the blows of her larger co-workers. The camera’s vantage point is that of the large man delivering the blows. The angle is shot downward so that Starling appears smaller and more vulnerable. Quickly, the viewer sees her as an object–as her male co-workers do as well. It is uncomfortable to watch Starling get hit, and we realize she is objectified this way all the time.
Starling must unfortunately endure many such difficulties because she works in the male-dominated institution of the FBI. As an attractive woman, Starling receives lascivious looks from nearly every male in the movie. When she and her roommate go jogging in one scene, a group of men jogging the other way turn around to ogle the women’s behinds. Earlier, when Starling is looking for Agent Crawford’s (her boss) office, the men gaze at her as if she were an exotic delicacy. Hannibal Lecter’s psychiatrist Dr. Chilton tries to pick her up initially, “Are you familiar with the Baltimore area? I could show you around.” When she explains she has a job to do, Chilton becomes angry, “Crawford sent you here for your looks–as bait.” Lecter surmises that Crawford fantasizes about Starling and that is why she was selected for the assignment. Even the bespectacled etymologist asks her out. In fact, it is only Lecter who is more interested in getting in her head than her pants.
Starling does not simply accept the oppression of her job. Upon arriving at a small town where one of the murder victims has washed up, Starling and Crawford are waiting in a room full of local deputies to see the dead body. The deputies are all staring at Starling, wondering why a woman is with the FBI. Crawford announces it’s time to inspect the body, but adds that Starling may want to stay outside because it’s something that a lady shouldn’t see. Afterwards, in the car on the ride home, Crawford says he didn’t want to offend the local authorities. Starling excoriates him for not setting a better example. By reprimanding her superior officer (while still only a trainee), Starling exhibits her strong personality and stands up for herself. Not only does she rebuff her sexist colleagues though, she is victorious over them.
In most thriller or horror movies (Terminator 2, for example), even if the hero of the story is female, she frequently still requires assistance from males to succeed. In The Silence of the Lambs, Starling succeeds on her own, despite various male interlopers. She cracks the vital points of the case, locates and defeats the killer–with no help save from Lecter. It is arguable what type of “help” Lecter gives her. In exchange for clues to the murderer’s identity, Starling provides Lecter with personal information. Lecter only cooperates with Starling because she is the only person who has treated him with any respect. In fact, as Lecter learns more about Starling’s tragic personal history, he becomes even more impressed with her. In their first meeting he calls her a “rube–one generation up from white trash.” Starling admits that he is perceptive and responds, “…but can you turn that high-powered perception of yours inward on yourself, Dr. Lecter?” At this point, Lecter realizes that he is not dealing with just another suit who’s out to use him–Starling is trying to communicate with him on a personal level. Lecter now sees Starling as a person, and is ironically the only male who does. This is emphasized overtly when Starling finishes talking to Lecter. As she exits the prison, an inmate named Miggs two cells down from Lecter throws his semen at her. Earlier, as Starling makes her way to Lecter’s cell, Miggs screams, “I can smell your cunt!” By framing Starling’s first visit to Lecter with two grotesque symbols of male objectification of women, Lecter stands out further as an asexual mentor.
Critics still point out, however, that without Lecter’s cryptic clues Starling could not have solved the case. Moreover, Lecter uses Starling’s investigation to get himself out of jail. Most damning to the notion that Starling is wholly responsible for her success is the charge that Lecter was sexually attracted to her, and aided her out of lust. These claims are spurious. Recall that Lecter appears to be asexual, especially in comparison with Miggs and Dr. Chilton. Symbolically, Lecter is neither male nor female. He is death incarnate. Director Jonathan Demme always photographs Lecter with a harsh white light on his forehead, the rest of his body ensconsed in shadows. The effect is to give Lecter the appearance of a ghoul. In the only camera shot in which Starling and Lecter are shown together, Lecter’s wraithlike apparition grins like a skeleton next to Starling’s determined composure. When their fingers touch seductively at their last meeting, it is not a sexual advance on Lecter’s part, but the film’s chilling reminder that death’s icy grip is stalking Starling. The movie would not be as frightening without Lector’s embodiment of death.
The victim is the daughter of a female Senator, and, because she fights back against the killer, she is portrayed as strong and independent. In an earlier scene, the victim’s mother makes an announcement on television in which she keeps repeating her daughter’s name–Catherine. After watching the plea, Starling comments that it is good that the Senator kept repeating her daughter’s name, “If he sees her as a person and not an object, it will be harder to tear her up.” Unfortunately, as we see in the next scene, Buffalo Bill refers to Catherine as “it” at all times, even when talking to her: “It places the lotion on its skin.” His goal is to make a woman-suit out of women–the ultimate in objectification.
In the end, Starling purges herself of her inner demons and is victorious. The story vindicates Starling and punishes those who have wronged her. Shortly after Starling’s first visit with Lecter, Miggs chokes on his own tongue and dies. Starling shoots and kills Buffalo Bill. At the end of the film, after Lecter has escaped, he calls Starling to congratulate her. He implies that he is going to eat the sexist Dr. Chilton, “I’m having an old friend for dinner.” Because the “bad sexist” people meet grisly deaths, and Starling is rewarded, The Silence of the Lambs takes a clear stand on the evils of sexism in its denouement.
Jeff Vorndam is a film buff living in the Bay Area. In the past he has reviewed movies for AboutFilm and Cinemarati, but he just watches for fun now. His favorite horror movies include Rosemary’s Baby, Kwaidan, and Martin.
Leading up to the 2011 Oscars, we’ll showcase the past twenty years of Oscar Acceptance Speeches by Best Actress winners and Best Supporting Actress winners. (Note: In most cases, you’ll have to click through to YouTube in order to watch the speeches, as embedding has been disabled at the request of copyright owners.)
