Author: Bitch Flicks

‘Buffy’ Season 9: Sci-Fi Pregnancies and the Story That Almost Was

Buffy talks to Spike about her pregnancy in the Season 9 comic

Guest post written by Pauline Holdsworth for our theme week on Infertility, Miscarriage, and Infant Loss. 

Nikki Wood—New York punk slayer and the mother of ex-Sunnydale High principal Robin Wood—had been absent from the Buffyverse for a long time. So it’s a bit of a surprise when she shows up in the opening scenes of “On Your Own,” the second volume of the Season 9 Buffy the Vampire Slayer comic books. She’s being held off the edge of a tall building by the throat, pumped full of sedatives that have taken away her powers for a Council-mandated rite of passage. She’s pregnant.

The vampire in question mocks her, saying he can smell the sedatives, he can smell the baby, and it’s going to be easy to kill them both. Cue vampire dust, and Nikki’s Watcher Crowley rushing over to make sure she’s alright. Crowley thinks it’s unbelievable that the Council made her go through with rite of passage, given that she’s in such a “delicate condition.” Nikki brushes it off, telling him that the job doesn’t stop because her life got in the way. “In the meanwhile, can you at least tell me…who the father is?” says Crowley.

Cut to Buffy, present day, who’s just been asked the same question by Dawn. “I have no idea,” she says.

When the end of the first volume of Season 9 ended with Buffy’s positive pregnancy test, my faith in the comic book extension of Buffy came rushing back. After the TV show ended in Season 7, Joss Whedon and a group of other writers returned to the story in comic book form, but Season 8 bit off more than it could chew. Taking advantage of the unlimited scope (and reduced production costs) this new medium gave them, the comic book writers dreamed up alternate realities to their hearts’ content, and Season 8, while intriguing, was often hard to follow.

Dawn comforts Buffy in Season 9

So far, Season 9 has had a much smaller, more intimate focus. The world lost its connection to magic at the end of the previous season, something Buffy is responsible for. She’s living in San Francisco, trying to make ends meet by making coffee. As far as tone goes, it’s very reminiscent of Season 6—it’s about dealing with fallout, navigating uncertainty, and trying to figure out what survival means when you`re talking about the everyday instead of slaying monsters.

Buffy’s relationship to her pregnancy was a trigger that had the potential to change the story and the characters’ world fundamentally. The only parallel I can think of that comes close is the way Buffy`s life changed after her mother died, and she sacrificed herself to save Dawn at the end of Season 5. In the same way that those events set up Season 6, which was an incredibly compelling engagement with loss, depression, addiction, and responsibility, Buffy`s pregnancy opened up a storyline that looked like it would be a smart and painful discussion of reproductive choices, motherhood, agency, and trying to understand the future.

But here’s the thing: Buffy’s not actually pregnant.

Instead (in a bizarre, inexplicable, and incredibly frustrating plot twist) her consciousness has been transplanted to the Buffybot by Andrew, who’s taken it upon himself to give her a “normal” life by hiding her body away in a 50s-esque suburban paradise while an assassin hunts her robot replacement—without checking in with her or letting her know someone’s hunting for her, of course. The positive pregnancy test was apparently a by-product of the robot technology, but that’s an explanation that’s still lost on me. And though this leads to some really interesting explorations of “normalcy,” it reads to me like a missed opportunity of massive proportions.

The book had opened with a Buffy who had no idea how she felt about her pregnancy. She blacked out at a party, and she has no idea what happened or what might have been done to her (this, it turns out, was when Andrew’s body-switching hijinks ensued). She was beginning to undertake the difficult work of deciding what she wanted to do with her future and her body, and trying to reconcile her long-standing desire for normalcy with her anxiety about the uncertain circumstances under which her pregnancy occurred and her identity as a Slayer—which she realizes isn’t just a duty, it’s a drive.

Buffy asks Robin Wood about having a Slayer for a mother

Buffy asks Robin Wood to give her his perspective on growing up with the Slayer for a mother. “If you want an easy answer, you won’t get it from me,” he tells her; his childhood was raw and painful, and he grew up knowing that his mother could have walked away from him, but she never could have walked away from the job. He tells her about learning about vampires and demons before he heard about the Tooth Fairy and about lying awake waiting for his mother to come home, about how he got more support and family from Nikki’s Watcher than he did from her. He’s not sure what to tell her. It’s fascinating watching Robin try to vocalize what he thinks his mother should have done—would he rather have had her put him up for adoption? Not try to have a family at all? He’s still harboring resentment toward his mother for the choices she made throughout his childhood, but he’s also not sure Buffy would be repeating history if she chose to keep her child—and he’s also deeply cognizant of the context in which his mother made the choices she did.

The difference between Nikki and Buffy, he explains, is that Buffy is willing to let people in. She’s spent years making the kind of collective, “chosen” family that’s so important to Whedon’s work and the Buffyverse’s larger thematic structure. The title of this volume is “On Your Own,” but Buffy’s not—she has Dawn and Xander and Spike, and they’ve been trying to figure out what their family looks like since Joyce died. This scene with Robin also suggests that reproductive choices don’t end with the decision to have or not have a child—for him, the painful aspects of his childhood didn’t necessarily come from her choice to keep him, but from the choices she made after he was born, about what her priorities were, what kind of family she wanted (or was able) to have, and what kind of relationship she would have with her son.

I loved this moment because it broadened the scope of the conversations we have about reproductive decisions to include the complexities of life after birth. For Nikki, and for Buffy, it’s not just about this do-or-die moment where you choose the kind of future you’re going to have. Reproductive choice is something that’s repeated and remade and takes on new weight throughout the years, and it’s just as applicable to questions about raising your child and choosing your family as it is to questions about adoption and abortion.

This is the line of questioning that drives Buffy’s reproductive decision. She’s been thinking about what kind of mother she could be, and whether she could turn away from her identity as the Slayer to pursue a different kind of future. That’s the decision that Nikki made when Robin was born, but her life away from slaying didn’t last long. “She got an itch before I was even a year old. And we ended up right back where Crowley didn’t want us,” Robin says. “Patrolling while I waited for the night she didn’t come home. It took me a long time to realize why. She was chosen, Buffy. Just like you. No matter where she went, no matter how much she wanted to be with me. She wasn’t strong enough to ignore it. She had to be a Slayer.”

A depiction of Buffy’s confusing universe in the Season 9 comic

Buffy decides she could navigate the dual responsibilities of slaying and motherhood, but she also realizes that it wasn’t the only thing on her mind. Her decision also had to be about where she is in her own life, and about the fallout and tense relationships and financial responsibility she’s still trying to understand. She takes stock of where she is, and she’s not sure she’s ready to expand her chosen family to one that includes a child.

“It’s not the slaying. It’s me,” she says, sitting on the side of an abandoned pool with Spike. She’s going to have an abortion, and she asks Spike to come with her when she does it. Spike stands up and reaches for her hand. “Yeah,” he says, and nothing more. It’s a lovely, simple scene that speaks volumes to both of their characters and to how Buffy’s life and support system has changed since the TV show ended.

What I don’t understand is why after doing all of this heavy lifting and complex narrative development the writers chose to walk away. I loved this storyline, and I wanted to see them follow through with it. I wanted to see how Buffy’s relationship to her choices would evolve. I wanted to hear more from Robin Wood about how the choices he and his mother made complicate his continued involvement in this world. Though we do get to see an interesting exploration of Buffy’s loss and confusion after she realizes she was never pregnant, the weird fake-robot-pregnancy explanation feels far too convenient—and it points to some of my larger frustrations with sci-fi pregnancy storylines.

In the world of science fiction, a pregnancy is much more likely to be a flimsy excuse for deus ex machina than the beginning of a complex and nuanced exploration. Pregnancies happen and gestate overnight, and they lead to spiders that claw their way out of stomachs and babies whose blood is the cure for specific kinds of cancer or which opens portals. More often than not, these stories skip over any kind of emotional exploration of pregnancy, choice, or loss and fail to recognize that pregnancy often involves a difficult engagement with people’s own families, pasts, and fears.

There are some notable exceptions. But pregnancy should not be treated as a one-episode storyline, and reproductive decisions shouldn’t be introduced as monster-of-the-week plot twists.

What’s more, there are a lot of parallels between the 24-hour sci-fi pregnancy and the Convenient Miscarriage trope, in which characters who don’t want to have a child but don’t want to have an abortion miscarry at an opportune moment in the plot so they don’t have to make a decision. It’s a cop-out of a plot device, and the fact that it’s one of the dominant representations of miscarriage in pop culture is deeply problematic. Convenient Miscarriages gloss over an event many people experience as deeply traumatic and have a complicated relationship with, even if they’d been considering having an abortion.

Buffy tells Spike she’s having an abortion

The rest of the comic wavers back and forth between this kind of Convenient Fake Pregnancy and a continued exploration of what this experience means for Buffy. She’s struggling to understand the loss of her pregnancy, and the writers’ exploration of what it means to lose a child you’d made the decision not to keep is compelling. She’s also sure this is one more piece of proof that she’s a failure at anything to do with the “real world,” and her coming to terms with the fact that what she thought was a real-world decision with real-world implications was just “more bizarre Slayer crap” is really moving.

And though I’m not wild about Buffy’s pregnancy being framed as a “fake problem,” I’m intrigued by this continued exploration of what she went through, even if it’s only happening in a partial and underdeveloped way. I just hope it has consequences for the story as a whole. This was a smart, complicated discussion of reproductive justice and what it means to make a family—until it wasn’t. I’m frustrated that in a plotline where Buffy was asked to make a decision about her body, she wasn’t even in her body, and the choice wasn’t actually hers to make. I wanted to see the scene where Buffy went to the clinic with Spike. I wanted to see if she chose something else. However interesting this exploration of normalcy and loss was, I wanted to see the writers commit to the way her pregnancy would have changed her fictional world, to follow through and show Buffy negotiating the trauma of her history and the uncertainty of her future. More than anything, I really, really wanted to read the story they just walked away from. 

———-
Pauline Holdsworth is a fourth-year English student at the University of Toronto, where she is the Editor-in-Chief of The Strand. She also covers women’s issues for Campus Progress. You can follow her on Twitter at @holdswo.

‘Inside’: French Pregnant Body Horror At Its Finest


Guest post written by Deirdre Crimmins for our theme week on Infertility, Miscarriage, and Infant Loss.

Content note: Discussion of violence directed at women and violent images ahead. Spoiler alert.

Horror films have a unique way of showcasing exactly what we fear, but they often do so in a subtle way. While is it goes without saying that ax-wielding maniacs are to be feared, these films often slyly expose the issues that our society is too shy to deal with head on. In the 2007 French horror film Inside (directed by Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury), fertility, reproduction, and infant loss are dealt with in a refreshingly direct and uncompromisingly bloody outcome, with no room for subtlety.
The film takes place during the course of Sarah’s last night alone before having her child’s delivery induced the next morning. Sarah (Alysson Paradis) lost her husband in a terrible car accident just a few weeks earlier. The crash is shown multiple times through the film, which illustrates the haunting presence of the loss in every moment of her day-to-day life. We see the crash from the perspective of her child in utero as well, which also frames this unborn child as a character in the film.
With the circumstances of Sarah’s pregnancy she is denied the typical rituals of birthing. She has no partner to help her pick out the child’s name. The birth date is decided by her doctor in a cold and clinical office, removing the excitement and surprise of delivery. Rather than spending the night before the birth readying the nursery and enjoying their last night together as a childless couple, Sarah is all alone.
That is, Sarah is alone until she is stalked by a mysterious stranger who appears at her door. The stranger is a woman (played by Béatrice Dalle) dressed all in black who tries everything she can to get Sarah to open the door. After an initial creepy stand-off, the woman forces her way in to the home, and the horror begins. This nameless woman wants Sarah’s child, and she is not waiting around for the birth.
The next hour of the film is a bloody cat and mouse chase between Sarah and this woman. The film is smart, and incredibly gory. Neither of these women hold back on violent acts to get, or keep, what they want.

Sarah

To begin to examine a horror film, there are several questions that can aid in the dissection of its purpose. When looking at Inside it can be helpful to pose this question: Where is the horror? By looking at the source of horror in the film, we can better understand what we are to fear.

Clearly the first level of horror in Inside is in the intruder. Her bloodlust for Sarah’s unborn child drives her violence. Initially, it is this desire for the child that is problematic. We find out later in the film that not only was this woman pregnant recently, but that she lost her child in the same car accident that killed Sarah’s husband. This unveiling in the plot is what shows the complicated relationship that Inside has with infant loss.
With this we see that another dimension of the horror in the film lies in the intruder’s loss of her pregnancy. She was nearly full term, and we see the car accident from inside her womb. The well-developed, though unborn, child is distressed by the jolt the crash delivered, and reacts as the amniotic fluid clouds up with blood. One can only imagine the pain suffered by the loss of a pregnancy at this stage, however the emotional havoc she sustains cannot justify her attack on Sarah, can it? Sarah was driving the car, after all. Is it too much of a stretch to demand from Sarah what Sarah took from her? It obviously is too much to ask, however the logical leap is not a far one to make.
Outside of the blame for the lost child lies a classic example of body horror. Films that contain plenty of gore are often, though not exclusively, “body horror” films. Here it is the body itself that is the source of the horror. The pain, blood, dismemberment, and other organic fluids in the film are definite sources of horror in Inside. The fact that the intruder is treating Sarah like merely a vessel that holds a child, and treats Sarah’s body with so little respect that this is clear, is horrific. Sarah is chased, tortured, and ultimately given a non-consensual cesarean, all to the horror of the audience. This treatment of Sarah and the fact that her body, and in particular her pregnant body, is the source of much of the horror in the film, that makes this a body horror film.
Despite the horror of two women battling one another for an unborn child, the film is quite feminist. Both of these women are smart (deranged and depressed respectively, but both make choices to further their own agendas in constructive ways). Sarah does have men who show up to attempt to rescue her, but with each effort these rescuers are outsmarted and brutally killed by the woman in black. Also, neither Sarah nor the intruder are ever shown as weak due to their womanhood. Both are shown as strong, self-sufficient people who just so happen to disagree over who should get to keep Sarah’s child.
Woman in Black

Though Inside deals with the horrors of the body, and the emotional response to losing a child, it does not treat pregnancy with romanticism or nostalgia. Sarah and the intruder are treated as believable characters that are each reacting to the extreme situations that they have found themselves in. It is this even-handed treatment of pregnant women as still functioning members of society, and not dainty figurines that have no autonomy, which makes the film a horror that you can empathize with. By putting well rounded, relatable characters in (hopefully) unrelatable situations you can just sit back and watch the blood flow.

Deirdre Crimmins lives in Boston with her husband and two black cats. She wrote her Master’s thesis on George Romero and works too much.

The “Plague” of Infertility in Alfonso Cuarón’s ‘Children of Men’

Dire times in Children of Men as “The World Has Collapsed”

Guest post written by Carleen Tibbetts for our theme week on Infertility, Miscarriage, and Infant Loss.

Women can’t get pregnant anymore and nobody knows why. This the central lamentation in Alfonso Cuaron’s 2006 dystopian film Children of Men, based on P.D. James’s novel. Set in England in the year 2027, this is the story of the human race entering its final phase. Cuaron brings us into Orwellian territory in which nations worldwide have fallen as a result of war, disease, and famine. Britain remains a sort of lucrative last bastion in these end times and people across the globe are scrambling to get in. Foreign immigrants are referred to as “fugees,” and, borrowing from Hitler’s playbook, the British government rounds them up, cages them, and sends them to zoned and policed ghettos and camps. To hire, sell to, or even feed fugees is a crime. Avoiding fertility tests when the human race is dying out is also a crime. There are no more sounds of children laughing. There are sirens. There are bombs. There is gunfire. There are government-provided suicide kits. There is the wailing and gnashing of teeth, especially since an eighteen year old, the youngest human on the planet, has just died.
The film opens with the main character, Theo (Clive Owen), getting coffee at a local café. Café patrons look on inconsolably as the news program on the café’s TV breaks the story that “Baby Diego,” the world’s youngest person, was shot because he refused to sign an autograph. The title of “world’s youngest person” now passes to a woman older than Diego by a matter of months. Theo exits the coffee shop and within seconds, it blows up. He makes his way to his government job though, ears ringing, completely accustomed to daily violence at this level.
All the workers in Theo’s office are glued to their computer screens, weeping as Diego “in memoriam” slideshows are played. Theo plays the grief card to skip out on work and visit his longtime liberal activist friend, Jasper (Michael Caine), and his wife, who MI-5 tortured into a state of catatonia for her radical photojournalism. It is here we learn that Theo is a former radical who was married to another radical, Julian (Julianne Moore), yet the death of their young son years ago wedged them apart.

Theo, his former spouse, Julian, and their son.

Jasper begins telling Theo about “The Human Project,” a seemingly mythic organization aimed at getting to the root problem of the infertility pandemic. Theo remains apathetic and unmoved by Jasper’s enthusiasm for this cause. He’s unconvinced they exist and claims that even if they do find a cure for infertility, it’s too late, because the world “went to shit” already. There is always blame associated with infertility, and it’s usually placed on the woman, as if somehow she is not doing her part, as if her “defunct” biology renders her useless, as if her sole purpose is procreation. These future scientists don’t know if it’s due to pollution, radiation, pesticides, global warming, or even low-sperm count (lest we forget that men are not always completely virile), and the fanatical religious right element views the infertility pandemic as a righteous punishment handed down from God. For them, it’s just another pit stop on the road to Armageddon.

Julian has her activists kidnap Theo and she persuades him to use his governmental connections to sneak a fugee past checkpoints and out of the country. It’s obvious that he’s still in love with her, and although she’s keeping him in the dark as to her motives, he agrees to do it. Theo asks Julian how she got over their son’s death so quickly, to which she abruptly and angrily replies, “You don’t have a monopoly on grief,” and that Dylan’s death is something that haunts her on a daily basis. They meet up with fellow activists, including former gynecologic nurse, Miriam (Pam Ferris) to transport Kee (Clare-Hope Ashitey) past British borders and into the hands of The Human Project. En route to a supposedly safe location, they are accosted, and Julian is killed. Miriam, Theo, and Kee stay the night in a remote English farmhouse with the other activists who have rallied to ensure Kee’s safe departure. 
Theo has absolutely no idea what’s going on. He doesn’t completely trust these people and wonders why everyone is risking their lives for this young woman. Sensing Theo needs convincing, Kee disrobes and we see that she is extremely pregnant. Now Theo has a purpose. Something to live for. Now the entire human race has something to live for. Once skeptical about The Human Project, he realizes what’s at stake, playing a sort of Joseph figure to Kee’s Mary. Although this isn’t his baby, it’s sort of everyone’s baby. Kee admits she doesn’t know who got her pregnant, but she’s definitely portrayed in a pure sort of light. The scene where she reveals her pregnancy to Theo takes place in a barn surrounded by hay and cows—heavy with Biblical overtones.

Kee reveals her pregnancy
Kee wants to have the baby at the farm, but Theo overhears the radicals plotting to execute him as soon as he gets Kee past the checkpoints, and he realizes they want to use her baby as a political bargaining chip to advocate for illegal immigrants’ rights. Theo, Miriam, and Kee escape to Jasper’s, where he tells them his old friend in the army can get them into a refugee camp. Once inside, they can get a boat out to sea where The Human Project ship, The Tomorrow, will take Kee to safety. 
Kee had never seen a pregnant woman, had no idea what was happening to her, and felt “like a freak” when she saw her body change. When she felt the baby kick, she knew it was alive, and that she was, too. Jasper tells Kee about Dylan’s death, and that Theo’s fate lost out to chance. But isn’t this what conception is all about? Chance? Isn’t life itself a game of chance? Is parenthood an obligation? A choice? Is a child a blessing or a burden? With all the atrocities we’ve carried out and all the violence we’ve enacted on one another, do we deserve to exist? Do we need to bring new life into this mess? And suppose Kee had not wanted this baby?
Other than being presented with where she would like to have her baby, nobody asks Kee if she wanted any of this to begin with. Perhaps the fate of the human race resting on Kee’s shoulders, or, more appropriately, in her uterus, and perhaps the key to fertility being something unique to her genetic makeup is motivation enough for her to unquestioningly continue her pregnancy. Jasper’s fate vs. chance statement brings up a great deal of unanswered existential questions, not only as they pertain to the film’s characters, but for us living in a world where, for example, China has a one-child-per family limit, or where a friend jokingly told me that I’d get a better income tax refund if I got knocked up. 
Theo, Kee, and Miriam escape Jasper’s just as the authorities arrive and kill him. The three of them plan to rendezvous with Jasper’s military connection at one of many now-defunct elementary schools —how bizarrely apropos! A In a haunting scene, Theo walks the school’s hallways and a lone deer runs down a corridor. Earlier in the movie, there were dogs all over the farmhouse property. Kee stood in pen of young cows when she showed Theo her stomach. Animals are able to procreate, so why is infertility only affecting the human population? This isn’t brought up at any point during the film. Shouldn’t all species be on their last legs? Miriam says, “As the sounds of the playground faded, the despair set in.” She reminisces how women at her clinic were miscarrying sooner and sooner until pregnancies just stopped occurring altogether.
Jasper’s connection “arrests” them for being “foreigners” (how can anyone mistake Clive Owen for anything other than British????), and on the bus ride into the camp, Kee’s water breaks. In order to avoid the authorities catching on to Kee’s labor pains, Miriam distracts them and the guards remove her from the bus and execute her.

Theo delivers baby Dylan

Once in the camp, Theo and Kee find sheltered room. Kee lies on a squalid mattress and Theo pours alcohol on his hands to deliver her daughter in a matter of minutes. The slightly premature (and horribly CGI-enhanced) baby Dylan (named after Theo and Julian’s son) is presumably healthy. Like most birth scenes, this one is completely ludicrous. Why do most directors hold back when depicting birth scenes? We see so much senseless violence (and this film is violent from beginning to end) and so much life leaving the world, so what’s wrong with showing the realistic way in which life enters the world? Kee is surprisingly light on her feet when she and Theo find out they have to evacuate STAT because the government is planning to wipe that camp off the map. Granted, her legs are caked in blood and afterbirth from the delivery. That was believable. Although it’s hard to nurse in a war-torn ghetto, there are no shots of Kee feeding Dylan—kind of central to the baby’s survival and mother-child bonding. 

A mortally wounded Theo manages to escort Kee and Dylan to safety, and as Dylan begins to cry amid all the rockets and gunfire, everything comes to a halt. Angelic music begins to play. Other fugees break into tears at the sight of the baby and reach out to try to touch her. Soldiers who had entered the tenement housing with guns aimed at all the fugees immediately lower their weapons, drop to their knees, and make the sign of the cross. Theo and Kee get into their boat and make it to sea right before the camp is obliterated. Adrift on the open water, the dying Theo shows Kee how to hold Dylan to soothe her and stop her crying. He bleeds out and slumps over just as The Tomorrow sails toward them. The Human Project does exist. Yet, what is in store for Kee, Dylan, and the human race remains a mystery as the screen abruptly goes black.

Kee and baby Dylan

I did not read James’s novel, and therefore, don’t know how closely Cuaron’s version followed the book. Perhaps the book delved into more of the science or other global issues that occurred at the onset of the mass infertility. One of the main issues for me was that it was unclear whether women were unable to get pregnant, whether men were unable to get them pregnant, or if there was just complete reproductive failure for both sexes. The fact that infertility was limited strictly to humans also didn’t make sense. The fact that outspoken female activists like Julian and Jasper’s wife were brutally hunted and tortured for their resistance was sort of glossed over, as was the strain that Dylan’s death had on Julian and her marriage to Theo. I’d have liked more backstory there.

When I sat down to write this review, I vowed not to use the words “belly,” “bump,” “baby bump,” “preggo,” or “preggers.” I only used “knocked up” because I was quoting a friend of mine when she made the joke about children as tax deductions. I’ve just entered my thirties, and the majority of the women I went to high school with are mothers now. I shouldn’t internalize that there’s something wrong with me because I’m not a mother, but every time I see a picture of a pregnant stomach or a sonogram on Facebook, a little twinge goes through me. Should I want this? Why? Why does fertility turn into yet another unhealthy competition for women? Nobody should be “blamed” for infertility, regardless of gender. It does not make anyone less a woman or a man if they cannot make babies. Instead of obsessing over own biological clocks running down (yes, there are even iPhone apps for that!) or our “completeness” via parenthood, we should focus on shaping the kind of world we want to bring children into.
Carleen Tibbetts lives in Oakland. Her poems and reviews have appeared or are forthcoming in Word Riot, Metazen, Monkeybicycle, Coconut, H_NGM_N, The Rumpus, and other journals.

Bitch Flicks’ Weekly Picks

Rosario Dawson Gives Some Real Talk on the Reality for Actresses by Kerensa Cadenas via Women and Hollywood
Why I Wrote a ‘Mad Men’ Episode with Negroes by Erika Alexander via Racialicious
Spotlight on Women Directors at Tribeca Film Festival by Paula Schwartz via Reel Life with Jane
Some Depressing Stats about Female Comedy Directors by Diana Wright via Women and Hollywood
Top of the Lake: A Non-Watered Down Depiction of Rape Culture by Natalie Wilson via Ms. Magazine’s Blog
What have you been reading or writing this week?? Tell us in the comments!

Fight to See Yourself On Screen

This is a guest post by Joyce Wu.

I’ve always loved movies. When I was a kid, nothing brought me greater pleasure than walking across those sticky floors to find the perfect seat, the scent of stale popcorn hanging in the air. My dad, my big brother, and I would always share a box of Sour Patch Kids. I loved spending those two hours inside the theater on thrilling adventures, falling in love, traveling to exotic locales, suffering terrible tragedies.

But Asian Americans didn’t seem to go on these adventures; they didn’t seem to fall in love; they didn’t travel to exotic locales. If anything, they were merely set decoration when the real protagonists of the stories got to those places. People of Asian descent didn’t seem to exist on screen at all, and when they did appear, bucktoothed and bumbling, their fleeting presence filled me with a burning shame, as if watching a family member humiliate himself in front of someone I was trying to impress.

When you hardly ever see anyone who looks like you on screen, and when the only people who look like you don’t seem like people at all, you begin to have a very limited notion of your own possibilities. This nagging insecurity I’ve lived with my whole life (and truthfully, what will always be a part of me and what drives my work) was nagging particularly loudly a few weeks ago.

Still from Screaming in Asian

I was at CAAMfest, an Asian American film festival in San Francisco. For the last two years, I’ve been trying to raise the money to make my first feature film, The Real Mikado, a comedy about an out-of-work Asian American actress who moves back in with her parents and directs a production of Gilbert & Sullivan’s opera The Mikado to try and save the community theater. I was at the festival to sceen the first ten minutes of the film as a short and to pitch the feature for the chance at a grant.

The day before the pitch, all of the filmmakers did a practice run-through of the event, and I was the last to present. I saw these passionate, talented people pitch their films about victims of war and impoverished children, and when it was my turn, I couldn’t find my words. All I could think was, “Why should anyone care about me or my stupid movie?” After years of struggling, I was so exhausted from pretending to be far more confident than I really was and so frustrated and hurt by the constant rejection that it all finally got to me.

Still from Screaming in Asian

I did the one thing that a woman who wants to be taken seriously is never supposed to do. I cried. I couldn’t even hold it together long enough to wait until I was in the privacy of a bathroom stall. I did it in front of everyone. Fortunately, the other filmmakers were incredibly supportive. Some of them cried too. That night, I stayed up all night revising and rehearsing my pitch. I stood in front of a mirror staring into my own bloodshot eyes and tried to convince myself that my movie was worth making.

The next morning, on about two hours of sleep, I walked up to the podium and told a panel of judges and an audience of about 70 people about The Real Mikado. I summoned everything I had from the deepest places of my soul and gave those people everything I could about who I am and why my film needs to be made. I killed it. I did as well as I possibly could have.

Short film teaser for The Real Mikado

Even though I gave it my all, I didn’t win the grant (that went to a wonderful documentary), but when I finished, a throng of young women from the Center for Asian American Media student delegate program came up to me and told me how excited they were about my film. They asked to take pictures with me and for advice on how to be an actor and whether or not I would watch their videos on YouTube and give feedback. One of them exclaimed, “Everything you said is what I feel!”

I had been feeling so defeated and so trivial that I failed to remember how powerful movies can be in shaping a person’s imagination and sense of self. These young women are yearning for the same thing I did and do: they want to see themselves as protagonists in their own stories; they want to go into a theater and see themselves.

Maybe this is too simple or wide-sweeping a generalization about white male privilege, but I doubt that Wes Anderson or Noah Baumbach ever wondered if their stories deserved to be told. The fact that I was filled with so much self-doubt speaks to a vicious cycle we’re all in, and we need to work together to stop it. How can we expect young girls (especially those of color) to grow up with enough confidence to be filmmakers when everything they watch is telling them that they are not valuable and that their stories don’t matter?

My film, like a lot of first features, is a personal one. It’s a little embarrassing to admit that I’m acting in and directing a movie that I wrote based on my own life. It feels more than a little self-involved to put myself on screen for all the world to see. But I realized a long time ago that if I don’t do it, no one else will.

Joyce Wu grew up outside of Detroit. Her short films have screened at festivals around the world. She was awarded a full-tuition scholarship to attend New York University’s prestigious graduate film program, where she completed her course work and is in pre-production on her first feature film, The Real Mikado. To find out more about the film, please visit: http://www.seedandspark.com/studio/real-mikado.

 

Bitch Flicks’ Weekly Picks

What Peggy Olson From ‘Mad Men’ Teaches Us That Sheryl Sandberg Doesn’t by Michelle Dean via The Nation

‘The Host’: Less Anti-Feminist than Twilight, but Hardly a Sisterhood Manifesta by Natalie Wilson via Ms. Magazine Blog

Five Striking Similarities Between Elisabeth Moss’ Roles on ‘Mad Men’ and ‘Top of the Lake’ by Beth Hanna via Thompson on Hollywood

Why Do “Good Girls” Need To “Go Bad?” by Yoonj Kim via Bitch Magazine Blog

Reel Women: On Inappropriate Reactions from the Audience and Where Responsibility Lies by Britt Hayes via Screen Crush

[Amplify] True Colors: Documentary Film Featuring LGBT Youth of Color in Love, Friendship, and Theater! via QWOC Media

Read Our Review and Watch a Clip of New Documentary ‘Free Angela [Davis] and All Political Prisoners by Randall Jenson via Bitch Media 

Are Female-Led Blockbusters Finally Here to Stay? by Mark Harrison via Den of Geek 

What have you been reading or writing this week?? Tell us in the coments!

In Her Words: Wonder Russell on Directing ‘Revelation’

This is a guest post written by Wonder Russell.

In 2011 I was captivated by a series of vignettes the New York Times created, called “Fourteen Actors Acting.” They were interesting but also campy; nevertheless, I enjoyed the idea behind them as a jumping off point. At the same time, I was journaling in an earnest way about finding my passion, my path, and creating artistic renewal. I was feeling burned out and over-commercialized after hyping, pitching, and paying for a short film I acted in and produced, The Summer Home.


THE SUMMER HOME – Short Film from First Sight Productions on Vimeo.

I previously worked on two projects that were hugely generative and thematic – one was a stage play, Emerald and the Love Song of Dead Fishermen, and one was a short film, Teething. Working from pure inspiration and discovery is scary but also hugely satisfying. I knew the open-ended process was an experience I craved and wanted to work with again.

Out of my journal came an idea, the image of many paths that lead to the same goal. I played with expressing this idea through the interconnected lives of several women. I found a theme to guide me into the new year, 2012, when the word ‘revelation’ flowed across my page. Suddenly I had my structure, my process, and my theme. Revelation’s inception moved swiftly after that moment.

Wonder Russell

I’m an actor myself, first and foremost, and I am blessed to know actors I admire deeply for their authenticity and bravery. I think acting is terribly brave. Great actors allow themselves to be open, raw, and vulnerable, even as villains. They can’t hold back – everything must be on the table. Openness doesn’t mean emoting all over set like a Vaudeville performer, it refers to a complete dedication to the life of the character, free of self-censorship. I am very lucky that I knew instantly who I wanted to work with, and that when I pitched the idea, all of the actors said, “Yes, let’s!” As far as I’m concerned, a director’s job is pretty much done at that point! Strong, reliable, fearless talent will always elevate a project.

True to the nature of generative work, we entered six weeks’ worth of rehearsals. Film rarely rehearses, and if they do, it’s usually focused on locking down performance rather than exploring relationship. The joy of rehearsing Revelation was that it was all exploration! We played with masks and characters, we played with rasa boxes. I brought in guest instructors to teach us to move differently and break down preconceived notions of how the stories “should” be physicalized. I challenged each actor to complete homework that included journaling from dreams or memories, or listening to a piece of music and responding purely from instinct. It was immensely freeing. But more importantly, it worked –stories developed and took shape. Sometimes the story an actor thought they were telling had changed drastically by the time we were ready to shoot.

My goal with rehearsals was to unlock the actor’s creativity, and to get to the heart of a revelation that resonated deeply for them. Once we found that bright kernel of truth, we worked on how to portray it on film and without dialogue by finding a physical expression or series of actions that represented the internal journey.

Bridget O’Neill in Revelation

Sometimes I didn’t know how we would pull off this film, or if it would be a giant failure. I remember having lunch with a more experienced director and telling him, “People will either be moved by it, or think it’s pretentious bullshit.” He laughed and said that I was probably on the right track if I could keep things realistic while taking such a big risk with experimental film.

I trusted the process, and I allowed myself to be surprised at whatever showed up instead of trying to force anything. I really felt like I took on a role of midwifery to the actors’ process. And perhaps that’s because as an actor, I like direction that is a mutual journey of discovery.

The day we finally stepped onto our set was absolutely magical. I attribute that to the amazing crew including Ty Migota, DP, red-headed and funny as hell AC Nick Davis, Kris Boustedt, fellow Producer and constant source of help, my boyfriend at the time Paul Vitulli who was producing and keeping me happy, sane, and productive, the amazing art team known to Seattle filmmakers simply as the Gore Sisters, our MUA Kari Baumann, and game-for-anything grip Forest Coughtry. That’s it. Small set. Small crew. Intimate.

By the time we were rolling cameras and I was actually “directing,” it was a dream come true. I felt completely in my element and deeply in-tune with each actor. Actors intrinsically want to be authentic and bring the best of themselves, and I felt grateful to help guide that process. My directing style grows organically out of my acting, and it’s no coincidence that I share a short-hand with the actors I cast. Specifically, we work best within very detailed, imagined circumstances that we call “Let-it-be-trues.”

Jillian Boshart in Revelation

My directing approach is to warm up with the actor, run through the vignette’s physicality at least once, and then narrow the imagined circumstances. For example, a let-it-be-true for one actor was that she had a younger sister who looked up to her, but was in a very dark place and nearly suicidal – then I asked the actor to look into the camera and let her (imaginary) sister know how perfect, and how loved, she truly was. The take was stunning.

We shot for two very long days (one location, thank goodness), and it felt like Christmas day – or maybe more appropriately my birthday – every day. Every moment felt free, inspired, and like a gift. I know that’s a rare experience, and I know how very lucky we were to have a dedicated team and minimal technical difficulties (I’m looking at you, dry ice!) Each actor’s story moved me to tears. My heart wanted to burst from love and compassion.

If this all sounds too good to be true for a first time director, I’m sure it is! I am no stranger to production horror stories, but this shoot was like breathing inspiration.

The biggest challenge I faced on set was accepting that I was in charge. As an actor I think I come from a place of asking for permission first, and the role reversal took me a bit by surprise. My initial reaction was that I didn’t want to offend anyone! I quickly realized that I did the set no favors by playing small, and needed to take charge. I had to own that part of my job and not just commune with the actors backstage, but to ask for certain shots or decide when it was time to move on.

That ownership carried me through a very long post-production process. I found the courage to be honest with my vision, so that I could give clear feedback on what was missing and what was working. Editor Lindy Boustedt  and composer Catherine Grealish were game to try different approaches as well as challenge me when they felt something needed to be fought for. My acting coach calls this “going to artistic war,” and taught me to welcome it as a way to find the solution that is in the film’s very best intentions. You have to be passionate in order to make the bold decisions that banish mediocrity.

Ultimately, Revelation stands out not only as my directorial debut, but the project I am most passionate and clear about. My vision carried me from those questing moments alone with my journal, through the realization of a work of art that will make me forever proud.

Watch Revelation:

 
REVELATION: Omnibus from Revelation Film Project on Vimeo.

Wonder Russell is an actor gaining recognition for her work in edgy indie dramas and quirky webcomedies. Revelation is her first professional directing project.

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Rick Ross, Don Draper, and the Fantasy World of Masculinity by Mychal Denzel Smith via Feministing

From ‘Californication’ To ‘Veep’ The TV Shows That Hired No Women Or Writers Of Color In 2011-2012 by Alyssa Rosenberg via ThinkProgress

Amy Pascal Asks Hollywood to Eliminate Gay Stereotypes from Films by Karensa Cadenas via Women and Hollywood 

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‘Game of Thrones’ Is Back and the Prostitutes Rule the Roost by Alex Cranz via FemPop

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Girls on Film: Hollywood Will Try Anything for a Superhero Movie — Except a Female Director by Monika Bartyzel via The Week 

What Women Want on TV via HuffPost Live

The Wage Gap in the Video Game Industry by Susana Polo via The Mary Sue

Enough with Jon Hamm’s Penis Already! by Flavia Dzodan via Tiger Beatdown

‘Mad Men’ Season 6: It’s 1968 and You Know What That Means by Chris Lombardi via Women’s Voices for Change 

Esquire Editor: We Show ‘Ornamental’ Women in Same Way as Cars by Mark Sweney via The Guardian

Women Film Festivals: Do We Need Them? by Signe Baumane via Women and Hollywood 

It’s Bigger Than Adria Richards by Jamilah King via Colorlines

The ‘Not Buying It’ App: Challenging Sexist Media via IndieGogo 

Three TV Shows that Feature Great Older Women by Jennifer Keishi via Bitch Magazine Blog

What Would Fully-Clothed Female Superheroes Look Like? by Ryan Broderick via Buzzfeed

What’s Behind ‘Downton Abbey’s Huge Popularity? Great Female Characters by Megan Burbank via Bitch Magazine Blog

We Heart John Legend for Being a Fearless Feminist by Liza Baskin via Ms. Magazine Blog 

Half Of 2013’s National Magazine Award Finalists Are Women, For Real, So Let’s Meet Them by Riese via Autostraddle

Jurassic Park Taught Me It Was Okay To Be a Feminist by Alex Cranz via FemPop

What have you been reading or writing this week?? Share in the comments!

‘The Sapphires’ and Solidarity Between People of Color

The Sapphires (2012)

 
This is a guest post written by Jaya Bedi.

I predict that this is going to be a very popular film. 
Well, it already is a popular film — in Australia. But I can already tell that its about to become a classic with me and my friends — up there with Mean Girls, Pride and Prejudice, and Bend it Like Beckham — and its only a matter of time before the rest of North America discovers what a gem this movie is. The fact that Bridesmaids actor Chris O’Dowd is one of the stars is only going to make it more popular, as is the fact that it passes the Bechdel Test with flying colors. But what’s really interesting about this film is its treatment of race and cultural identity. 
The Sapphires is about a group of four young Aboriginal women in 1968, who receive a career-making opportunity: travel to Vietnam and sing for the American troops fighting the war. We follow our heroines from their obscure beginnings, through their “discovery,” their rising fame, and the triumphant return home, and we meet a slew of predictable characters along the way. Make no mistake; this is not a film that breaks the rules of the music biopic genre. But what this film lacks in originality, it makes up with heart. The director never loses his compassion for the outlandish personalities he’s dealing with. We develop a deep appreciation for Cynthia, the hilarious sister with no personal boundaries; Gail, the overbearing mama bear of the group, and Dave, the hapless alcoholic manager/keyboardist, with whom we can’t help but fall in love.
While The Sapphires has the feel of a rollicking adventure, the film deals with some very serious issues, and does so with tact and grace. The film does not shy away from showing the blatant discrimination that the girls face because of the color of their skin — this is made clear at the beginning of the film, following Cynthia and Gail’s disastrous performance at an all-white country club. The film takes a firm stance on internalized racism as well — we see the shame that Kay feels at being associated with her black cousins, and her attempts to pass for white. But this isn’t so much a polemic about the prejudice and discrimination that Aboriginal Australians face as it is a coming-of-age tale, for Kay especially. Kay goes from feeling helpless in her despair at their situation, to feeling empowered by her identity as a woman of color; she learns to love being who she is, despite the hardships that being black entails. 
When the girls arrive in Saigon, they are immediately enraptured by the American men they see everywhere. Cynthia falls in love with an audience member immediately, and Kay develops a gigantic crush on a handsome soldier she meets at the hotel. What made me sit up and pay attention was the fact that not a single man the girls show interest in is white. From the second they get there, they are immersed in black American culture (they are, after all, singing soul music), and they have no desire to leave and fraternize with any of their white counterparts. This isn’t because they are barred from mingling with white soldiers by rule or custom — they don’t do it because they don’t want to do it. They specifically seek out black men as romantic partners because they feel a kinship to them. It was refreshing to see men of color depicted as genuinely romantically desirable, without the gross fetishization that usually occurs when black men and sex are involved.

In Australia, Aboriginals are considered to be “black.”

 The girls feel connected to the black American soldiers whom they meet, because in Australia, Aboriginals are also considered to be “black.” To be black is to be hated, feared, and shunned — as it is all over the world. No wonder that their struggles as marginalized people in their own land would resonate so strongly with black soldiers, who faced similar discrimination back home. The story is a microcosm of the greater alliances that were being built between Australian Aboriginals and black Americans at the time. Black American soldiers on shore leave from the Vietnam War often spent time in Australia, and, fed up with the racist treatment they received from white Australians, would gravitate to the black neighborhoods, where they would share the latest in black American music and political ideas. Inspired by black American thinkers, Aboriginal activists launched a domestic Black Power movement in Australia, with the intention of reclaiming the pejorative implications of the word “black,” to turning it into something to be proud of, and to fighting for more self-governance and an end to racial discrimination within Australia. 

If I had one critique of the film — I wish we had seen a little more from the black men whom Cynthia and Kay date. I wish we could have seen their conversations. I wish as much attention was paid to Kay’s relationship with her boyfriend as was to Dave and Gail, who strike up a peculiar friendship. I wish we could have seen more of Kay’s transformation from self-hating white-identifier to being an Aboriginal woman with a strong sense of self, a proud woman of the Yorta Yorta clan. The change seemed rather sudden, not at all justified by the narrative. Kay’s boyfriend felt more like a foil for Kay’s character rather than an actual character in his own right, which is problematic when one of the things that helps Kay discover her identity is her relationship to a black American man, and to black American culture.

This is a story about American empire, in a way. After all, it takes place on the periphery of the Vietnam War, which was fought in order to strengthen the influence of the American empire on Southeast Asia. It’s a story in which representatives of two racist nation-states meet and exchange ideas — but in an ironic twist, the actors happen to be racially marginalized minorities. Instead of reinforcing the racist hegemony, these people of color resist by sharing ideas of self-love. And amid all the larger questions and issues that this film brings up — it is also an intensely human story, one of family ties and reconciliation, of falling in love, and remembering who you are. For these reasons, The Sapphires is ultimately successful. 

Jaya Bedi is a twenty-four year old blogger living in Connecticut. She likes to write about race, politics, and television. You can follow her on twitter at @anedumacation. 

The Ten Most-Read Posts from February 2013

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Call for Writers: Infertility, Miscarriage and Infant Loss in Film & Television Week

When we talk about motherhood and pregnancy in film and television, images of nurseries, strollers and rosy-cheeked cherubic newborns just might spring to mind. We may not think of the devastation of infertility, miscarriage or infant loss. Yet many people struggle with these hardships on their path to parenthood. 

It’s not that the media doesn’t depict infertility. They do. But too often laden with tropes such as the “Convenient Miscarriage” (so as not to have to depict the supposed controversy of abortion) or the “Law of Inverse Fertility” (that a couple’s fertility is relative to how badly they want a child). Infertility should be incorporated into films and television because it’s a painful reality many women face, not merely as a plot device or punishment or perpetuation of gender stereotypes. In our fertility obsessed culture, tabloids frequently report on female celebs’ baby bumps, reinforcing the notion that a woman’s worth is linked to her fertility. Society seems to view infertility and miscarriage as private and taboo. But the media should portray the full spectrum of reproductive choices and experiences.

So for our next theme week, we’re looking for analyses of Infertility, Miscarriage and Infant Loss in Film and Television. For more, check out:

What Really Happens After a Miscarriage via XO Jane

Inconceivable: Black Infertility via Crunk Feminist Collective

TV Parents and the Problem of Infertility via Acculturated

Here are some suggestions of films and TV series — but feel free to propose your own ideas!

Downton Abbey
Juno
Sex and the City
Baby Mama
Friends
Mother and Child
The Time Traveler’s Wife
Grey’s Anatomy
Prometheus
Children of Men
Gone with the Wind
Diary of a Mad Black Woman
The Other Woman
Mad Men
Julie & Julia
Secrets and Lies
Raising Arizona
The Help
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Marley & Me
Country Strong
For Colored Girls
What to Expect When You’re Expecting
Desperate Housewives
All in the Family
Orphan
Marley & Me
21 Grams
House, M.D.
The Tudors
Six Feet Under
The Handmaid’s Tale
American Horror Story
Brothers & Sisters
Away We Go 
Boardwalk Empire
The Odd Life of Timothy Green
Out of Africa
Up
Rabbit Hole

Here are some basic guidelines for guest writers:
–Pieces should be between 700 and 2,000 words.
–Include images (with captions) and links in your piece, along with a title for your article.
–Send your piece in the text of an email, attaching all images, no later than Friday, April 19th.
–Include a 2-3 sentence bio for placement at the end of your piece.

Email us at btchflcks(at)gmail(dot)com if you’d like to contribute a review. We accept original pieces or cross-posts. 
We look forward to reading your submissions!