The radical notion that women like good movies
Although primarily a horror film, ‘American Psycho’ has a satiric backbone that appropriates codes from the romantic comedy genre to expose the absurdities of our gender ideals. Director and co-writer Mary Harron’s lens skewers the qualities we find appealing in romantic comedies as terrifying.
Check out all of the 2016 Academy Award nominations with links to our reviews and articles providing feminist commentary!
Check out the 2016 Golden Globe nominations honoring film and television with links to our reviews and articles providing feminist commentary!
With all the talk of ’50 Shades of Grey’ in the past few weeks, boycotts and debates, and a planned re-release of the superior BDSM-romcom ‘Secretary,’ the film that has really been on my mind is ‘Marnie.’ The 1964 Hitchcock outing is about the capturing (through marriage) and breaking of a young, beautiful and damaged con artist, played by Tippi Hedren, the grandmother of ’50 Shades’ star Dakota Johnson. The cinematography is beautiful, the performances are captivating, but the story? Watching it, I keep expecting someone to jump out and scream that it was all a joke, that we weren’t expected to swallow this. Maybe it’s dated, but I want to believe that the relationship in ‘Marnie’ was recognized as horrific and abusive even then.
Check out what we’ve been reading this week–and let us know what you’ve been reading/writing in the comments!
From Aristophanes’ Lysistrata to contemporary men-are-from-Mars neurobabble, there has been a Western cultural tendency to view male-female relations in military terms, as a “battle of the sexes.” As a veteran of both teams, and even more so as a feminist who disputes gender essentialism, binarism, and cissexism, I find this framing deeply tiresome and hopelessly passé, and it’s hard to know what to with cultural products that revisit it.
In much of feminist literature from the past, kink is seen an act driven by patriarchy, with submissive women reproducing their oppressions in the bedroom and capitulating to gendered norms of women as silent and subservient. Even nowadays as the tide gradually changes, there is still a large amount of ire reserved for those who practice BDSM.
Simply put, sex positivity is the notion that sex between and among adults with enthusiastic consent is healthy. Practicing sex positivity means that we don’t judge ourselves or others when it comes to sex, not the type of sex we enjoy, the number of partners we choose, or the frequency with which we engage in sexual activity.
The Joker hit Harley and leaned in and leered at her. She held up a protective hand in front of her and looked up at him with absolute terror. In that moment, The Joker was not the clown, was not the humorous villain poking fun at Batman’s stoicism. In that moment, The Joker was something else, something it hadn’t occurred to me that he, or anyone, could be.
Nothing is glaringly wrong with this ‘Cinderella,’ but if our sole criteria for these middling, dull, straight-guy directors and writers is that they didn’t fuck up too much, we’re in trouble. This affirmative action for mostly mediocre, mostly white guys could also help explain the selection of this year’s Oscar nominees–and why the ratings for the ceremony, along with audience attendance at theaters, is rapidly shrinking.
Sex and sexuality are complicated, whether we believe it or not. Most of us have experienced some type of same-sex attraction or participated in some kinky activity in the bedroom. Movies often help us to make sense of these feelings and experiences. However, too often, female sexual pleasure and arousal are still deemed unfit for viewing by mainstream film and television. America has a bipolar and hypocritical relationship with female sexuality. Our culture consumes copious amounts of porn and then doesn’t hesitate to slut-shame the women who create and act in pornographic films. Is this because pornography can be seen as objectifying women, while mainstream film humanizes them? Why does the marriage of sexuality and human intimacy feel so dangerous?
