Author: Bitch Flicks

Women and Gender in Musicals Week: The Roundup

Even though its finest moments all boil down to well-intentioned, high energy karaoke numbers, and its script (co-written by Justin Theroux) left more cheese in the recipe than what was called for, Rock of Ages is still great fun. Really, it’s like a longer, louder version of Glee or American Idol, but with actors who can’t sing rather than singers who can’t act. Plus, it rocks you like a hurricane.

The Funny Face Always Gets the Big Number: on Funny Girl by Jessica Freeman-Slade

I imagine that at least once a day somewhere in America, some little Jewish girl (or girls with big noses, close-set eyes, skinny legs, and less than model looks) has a benevolent mother, sister, or aunt who pops in a DVD and tells her to sit down. She squirms a bit, but her mom says “Just trust me.” And then up on the screen pops a wildly unself-conscious, funny, brazenly self-confident woman with a voice to stop traffic. Even though she’s seen Glee and watched Lea Michele emote her way through many of these songs, nothing compares to this other creature, the one and only Barbra Streisand, in her debut film, the incomparable Funny Girl.

Mulan: The Twinkie Defense by Karina Wilson

Mulan is peppered with crass jokes about Chinese food orders (because that’s what Americans can relate to about Chinese culture, right?), disrespectful references to ancestor worship, superficial homage to Buddhist practice and some kung-fu styling, of the Carradine kind.  Given that Wu Xia is a rich, diverse, centuries old storytelling tradition, it also seems a shame that the writers didn’t draw more deeply on those perspectives.  Instead, they send Mulan on a tired, Western Hero’s Journey, plugging her variables into the 12-step formula tried and tested by countless Hollywood protagonists. 

The Lion King: Just Good, or Feminist Good? by FeministDisney

When it comes to Nala, her role has always frustrated me a lot. Ignoring that it might not work with the plot already in place, it was quite disappointing that Nala did not take over partially or fully in Simba’s absence. She is always shown, especially early on in the film, to be Simba’s equal, and she is perhaps even more intelligent, or at least a more naturally sound leader throughout the film, while Simba tends to be comparatively a bit more immature and in need of multiple characters propelling him into responsible/rightful action. This isn’t a critique of Simba’s likeability or abilities, but merely to say that in all aspects, Nala would have made at least a decent fill-in.

The Reception of Corpse Bride by Myrna Waldron

The film is fairly feminist for a horror-comedy, but it’s not perfect. There are at least two fat jokes in the story – a mean-spirited form of discrimination that needs to just end already. I was particularly annoyed that Mrs. Van Dort is portrayed as not being aware just how fat she is. Let’s set the record straight – if someone’s fat, they KNOW, thank you. There are also no people of colour in the cast at all. I suppose this is partly justified in that it takes place in Victorian Eastern Europe, and the aesthetic of the living village is severe whites, blacks, and greys, but there’s no reason there couldn’t have been minorities in the underworld village.

Bros Before Hoes, or How Kidnapping Makes for Great Dance Numbers: on Seven Brides for Seven Brothers by Jessica Freeman-Slade

The enlivening force of Seven Brides is male longing, and it makes for great theater. The Pontipee brothers have lived hard, but falling in love is what softens and civilizes them. But all that civilization is for nothing when Adam, modern man that he is, devises a brilliant scheme, pulled straight out of Millie’s copy of Plutarch’s Lives. Why not do like the Romans did with the Sabine women?

And then comes the merriest song about rape ever.

Chicago by Clint Waters

Not that female murders are anything new, but I enjoy that Chicago features nothing but. While we’re on the subject, there are exceedingly few main male characters in the film (one being Roxie’s dope of a husband and the other being a smarmy lawyer out for money), which is awesome and doesn’t happen all that often in movies dealing with murder. Let alone a musical movie dealing with murder. However, where I believe the film falls short is the fact that none of these characters has redeeming qualities.

Accidental Feminism in Mary Poppins by Megan Kearns

Interestingly, this bastion of film feminism occurred accidentally. Glynis Johns thought she was the one getting the role of Mary Poppins, not Julie Andrews. In order to assuage her potential furor over this fuck-up, Walt Disney told Johns that she had a phenomenal solo. To cover his ass, Disney called up songwriters Robert B. and Richard M. Sherman and said (while Johns was in earshot) that she couldn’t wait to hear the song. The Sherman Brothers quickly researched women’s movements in 1910 England, and wrote “Sister Suffragette” so Johns could hear the song after her lunch with Disney. 

The Princess and the Frog by Janyce Denise Glasper

When compared to the other Disney princesses, Tiana’s story is a bunch of BS. She didn’t have an evil stepfamily, eat a poisoned apple, have graceful legs instead of fins, receive many hours of beauty rest, or become a madmen’s “love” slave.
Does that make her luckier? I think not.
None of those women would wish to be a frog with long, batty eyelashes.
Nope. Not one.

The Nightmare Before Christmas by Jessica Critcher

According to Wikipedia, the two witches aren’t given names in the film, only later in a video game. But even without the name part, they only talk to and about Jack. This sends the message to boys and girls alike that female characters do not have anything substantial to contribute to the dialogue or the plot of the film. Girls and women do not, apparently, have anything interesting or relevant to say to one another, and children internalize that very deeply. While this was probably unintentional, the effect is still the same.

The Little Mermaid by Ana Mardoll

I like The Little Mermaid. I like a lot of things that are problematic, and I don’t think there’s anything necessarily wrong with liking problematic things as long as a certain awareness is maintained that Problems Abound Therein. Art is complicated like that. But I like The Little Mermaid and I think it’s compatible with valuable feminist messages. Certainly, it was my first introduction into a feminist narrative and I have always considered the problematic romance storyline to be camouflage for the real story. But we’ll see whether or not you agree.

Singin’ In the Rain by Deirdre Crimmins

While the genre can whisk you away to foreign lands, and domestic bliss, it is also historically problematic when it comes it its representations of women, and gender in general. Though the men are singing and dancing, they are always men’s men, expressing their gender through ruggedness and emotional unavailability. The women are often window dressing, and pawns in the plot, rather than autonomous people who have actual emotions and ambitions. Singin’ In The Rain suffers from some of the same issues that many musicals have with their treatment of genders, but it does have a surprisingly progressive character as well. 

The Rocky Horror Picture Show and the Pitchfork of Puritanism by Leigh Kolb

Of course, we aren’t supposed to walk away from a midnight showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show feeling utterly meaningless. O’Brien himself self-identifies as transgender, and has been outspoken about how society should not “dictate” gender roles. He said in a recent interview, “If society allowed you to grow up feeling it was normal to be what you are, there wouldn’t be a problem. I don’t think the term ‘transvestite’ or ‘transsexual’ would exist: you’d just be another human being.” 

Female Friendship, Madonna/Whore Stereotypes and Rape Culture in West Side Story by Megan Kearns

It’s interesting how other characters treat women in the film. In “America,” the Sharks sing about the xenophobia and racism they experience while the women sing about their aspirations and the promise of a  better life in NYC. One of the Jets exasperatedly wonders why they’re fooling around with “dumb broads.” To which Graziella retorts, “Velma and I ain’t dumb.” Anybodys is the tomboy who desperately longs to be in the Jets. She hangs around the guys, spits on the ground and insults women, and sees the male gender as far more desirable. But rather than depicting gender variance or even a trans character, the Jets view Anybodys as a defective female. Some of the Jets taunt her that no one would want to sleep with her. Because apparently to them (and patriarchal society at large), a woman’s status resides only in her beauty, sexuality and desirability. 

James and the Giant Peach by Libby White

The Aunts are horrific caretakers; starving, beating, and emotionally abusing James relentlessly. Mind you, this is a movie for children. And like in most children’s movies, the Aunts’ outward appearance reflects their inner evil. Both women are made to look terrifyingly cruel and yet simultaneously clown-like, dressed in orange-red wigs and slathered on make-up. During their first 20 minutes on screen, the two women participate in dozens of morally reprehensible practices, everything from shameless vanity to verbally attacking a woman and her children.

Cinderella by Olivia Bernal

Watching Cinderella again for the first time since I was a child, it was amazing to me that time and again Disney portrays women as either bitches or victims. Ursula, Maleficent, Snow White’s Queen, the Queen of Hearts and of course Cinderella’s stepmother Lady Tremaine are all evil women, jealous of the beauty and innocence of their younger counterparts. One by one they seek to quell romance, passion, and everything else good from the lives of the eventual princesses by seeking power, wealth, and beauty of their own. Only a man can save these women from their pitiful disputes, damaging though they are. Perhaps the notion of a man wielding this type of power over a young, beautiful woman was a little too akin to rape for Disney’s taste. Either way, the Disney-fication of evil into an older, vindictive woman promotes an attitude that women are either a victim or seeking to be a victim; a mentality that when unleashed in the real world leads to horrific statements like, “She was asking for it.”

Phantom of the Opera: Great Music, Terrible Feminism by Myrna Waldron

Emmy Rossum’s Christine Daae is a lovely young woman with a pretty (if not exactly operatic) voice, and possibly the most spineless personality I’ve ever seen from a female protagonist. The love triangle between herself, the Phantom and Raoul is the central conflict of the story. Her preference for Raoul, her childhood sweetheart, is one of only two personal choices she makes throughout the entire story.  Neither The Phantom nor Raoul ever seem to take Christine’s wants into account. I know I’m supposed to root for her to end up with at least one of the suitors, (the 26-year shipping wars notwithstanding) but honestly? Run away, Christine. RUN AWAY.

Jesus Christ Superstar: Feminism and Crosscasting by Barrett Vann

Though this is intended to examine the show through a feminist lens, intersectionality is key, and so mention must be given to race. Though the practise of colourblind casting has been open to some debate as to whether or not it’s actually a good thing (allowing, for instance, such un-self-aware gaffes as all-white productions of The Wiz with the argument that they’re being colourblind, they’re being progressive), in the 1973 film of JCS, it’s practised about as truly as I have ever seen. The ensemble of disciples is about as diverse racially as they are among gender lines, and of what one might term the ‘main’ cast, Judas and Simon Zealotes are played by black men, Mary Magdalene a woman of mixed Irish, Chinese, and Japanese descent, and the actor who plays Herod is Jewish. Somewhat ironically, come to that. Actors of colour are not relegated to unimportant side characters; they can be anyone.

The Surprising Feminism of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by Myrna Waldron

Yes, the film is flawed, especially if taken at its apparently anti-feminist face value. But contextually, I feel that this film’s depiction of women is quite fair for its day. Yes, it would be nice if the girls weren’t stereotypes and Lorelei wasn’t a blatant golddigger, but then, where would the plot be? Not only are its stars, Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell, important landmarks in feminist history, but their characters are too. Their friendship is absolutely ironclad – they put each other first, even though both are looking for love in different ways. Their confidence in their intelligence, lifestyle, and sexuality is incredibly liberated for what was supposedly a time of suffocatingly patriarchal morality.

“I Am Woman, Hear Me Roar … ish” by Lady T

Mostly, though, I’m curious about the reasons behind writing these “Hear Me Roar…ish” songs, especially the two numbers from the Rodgers & Hammerstein musicals. If the women are just going to end up with the men they’re declaring independence from, what’s the point of these songs at all? Did Rodgers and Hammerstein realize in both cases that they didn’t have a big musical number for all of the women in the show, and write these songs to give their female chorus members something to do? Did they decide that three solo songs and two duets for Mary Martin were not enough, and want to give her yet another number? (If that’s the case, I really can’t blame them for that, because Mary Martin is made of magic.) 

Tangled by Whitney Mollenhauer

In the end, I think it makes a good case for women’s “proper place” NOT being just in the home, but out in the world/public sphere!  I’m not sure how you could get any other moral out of it.  Even in Mulan, after she saves China, she ends up returning home, and (we suspect) marrying the army captain guy, instead of taking a job with the emperor.  In Tangled, the movie’s premise is centered around the idea that it’s wrong and horrible to expect a woman to spend her whole life at home.

Aladdin by Lia Gallitano

Essentially, all of the women are defined by their attractiveness to men. “Ugly” women, then, are used as comic relief. In one of the first scenes, when a woman opens the door and says of Aladdin, “Still I think he’s rather tasty!”, everybody in the audience is supposed to laugh. Aladdin looks at the woman (who is quite large) and jumps in surprise and disgust. Oh, silly fat woman, you can’t have feelings because you’re ugly! We’re supposed to laugh at how ridiculous her thinking Aladdin is “tasty” is—because fat women and ugly women are not supposed to have sexual desires. Only when the sexy women do this is it okay—nobody is laughing at Jasmine’s proclamations of love for Aladdin, because it doesn’t seem ridiculous now. Aladdin is attractive, she is attractive, so they can be in love. 

Glee! by Cali Loria

Having a character on TV who does not fit into the mold of being a perfect Westernized ideal of beauty would, in someone else’s hands, be refreshing. Glee, however, focuses on the extremes of women, enjoying the overt and campy hyperbolization of its characters which, in essence, detracts from actual storylines and only serves to render the women flat and one-dimensional: Jewish starlet, slut, dumb blonde, conniving cheerleader, sassy black woman, an Asian, and, now, a full-fleshed female. Glee has a recipe with every ingredient, but stirred together it’s one big lump of heterogeneous stereotypes.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs by Rebecca Cohen

At every turn, Snow White embodies old-fashioned, small town American ideals. She helps a baby bird not just back to its nest, but back to its “momma and poppa” (because every creature should properly be part of a traditional nuclear family, of course). When she arrives at the dwarfs’ cottage in the woods, her first instinct is to clean up. She assumes, in keeping with traditional gender roles, that the children who live there must not have a mother. That’s the only possible way to explain how their house could be so dirty. Not only does she clean up the place, she enlists the help of the woodland fauna. Indeed, Snow White domesticates everyone and everything around her, spreading the conservative ideals of cleanliness, hard work, and unquestioning acceptance of the status quo even to the animals. She civilizes the dwarfs as well, refusing to feed them until they’ve washed up. 

Despite an Intelligent Heroine, Beauty Obsession, Sexism & Stockholm Syndrome Taint Disney’s Beauty and the Beast by Megan Kearns

The only other female characters in the movie are Mrs. Potts (I heart Angela Lansbury!), the wardrobe (who has no personality) and the French maid feather duster. A grandmotherly type and a sexpot. Of course Disney does their notorious matricide in the form of the protagonist’s mother either dead or non-existent. They demonize stepmothers and solely focus on both daughters’ and sons’ relationships with their fathers. Seriously, Disney, what the hell have you got against mothers?? And yep, I’m aware Mrs. Potts is Chips’s mother. Doesn’t count. Not only is she not Belle’s mother, she’s a fucking teapot for most of the film. Belle has no female friends, no mother, no sister, no female role model. The importance of female camaraderie and sisterly bonding remain absent from the film. 

My Top 6 Favorite Female Empowerment Songs in Musicals by Megan Kearns

As much as I adore musicals, most songs are about men, either men singing them or women singing about men — men they desire or men who have done them wrong. Where are the songs belted out by the ladies for the ladies?? After perusing my DVD collection, Broadway ticket stubs and good ole’ google, I’ve compiled a list. In no particular order, here are my favorite powerful women anthems in musical film.

That Glee Photo Shoot by Fannie

I could also talk about how annoyingly predictable it is that, of all of Glee’s diverse cast members, it is the two women who most conform to conventional Hollywood beauty standards who have been granted the empowerful privilege of being sexified for a men’s mag. For, despite Glee’s idealistic and uplifting message that It’s What’s On the Inside That Counts, the show’s resident Fat Black Girl With A Soulful Voice is noticeably absent from the shoot.

Carousel: A Fairytale Screen Adaptation of the 2012 Republican Anti-Woman Agenda by Stephanie Rogers

Re-watching it this week—for the purpose of writing about how much I admired the way it handled domestic violence issues (in 1956, no less)—I realized my 13-year-old self understood jack shit about misogyny in film, and she certainly didn’t understand what constitutes successfully raising awareness about violence against women.

The only thing I can think to say about Carousel now, as a 34-year-old woman who’s been both a witness to and a victim of physical abuse at the hands of men, isn’t just that I’m appalled by its sexism or the blasé nature in which it deals with physical abuse (I am), but that I’m seriously freaked out by how a movie musical from sixty years ago manages to feel like a fairytale screen adaptation of the 2012 Republican anti-woman agenda.

 

Call for Writers: Women in Horror Films

Jamie Lee Curtis in Halloween

Last year’s Horror Week was so awesome that we’re doing it again this year!

Confession: I love horror films. Sometimes I endlessly scroll through Netflix in search of the film that will most scare the shit out of me. Of course, many horror films subject their women characters to endless torture, brutal deaths (usually as punishment for engaging in sexual relationships with men), and gratuitous nudity as they inevitably fall seventeen times while running from the Almost Always Male killer. I struggle to reconcile the sexism-induced rage I often experience while watching horror films–especially with this recent eruption of the “torture porn” genre–with my need to get the shit scared out of me. (You can play The Never-Ending Story on repeat only so many times before The Nothing starts ruining your life For Real.) We can’t, however, ignore Carol J. Clover’s Final Girl theory. She argues in her book Men, Women and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film, that horror films are actually obsessed with feminism in that they force male viewers to identify with the Final Girl, the lone girl who doesn’t die, who gets her shit together, who kills the killer (or at least escapes him). I can think of several Final Girl films off the top of my head: Halloween, Scream, Friday the 13th, and many more exist. Others believe Clover’s theory doesn’t hold up, arguing that the Final Girl theory excuses the audience’s sadism.

Well, Bitch Flicks is interested in reading your perspectives on women in horror films. We’ve compiled a list of women-centered horror-esque flicks from last year’s theme week for your perusal (see below). Note that “women-centered” doesn’t necessarily mean “feminist,” and the film you choose might in fact be anti-feminist; but as for guidelines, reviews should be from a feminist perspective (and you can certainly choose not to discuss the Final Girl theory in your review).  

Feel free to take a look at last year’s reviews for some ideas:

Sleepaway Camp by Carrie Nelson

The Silence of the Lambs by Jeff Vorndam

The Sexiness of Slaughter: The Sexualization of Women in Slasher Films by Cali Loria

Amanda Young, Gender Erasure, and Saw’s Unexpected Pro-Woman Attitude by Elizabeth Ray

Hellraiser by Tatiana Christian

Drag Me To Hell by Stephanie Rogers

The Blair Witch Project by Alex DeBonis

The Descent by Robin Hitchcock

The Madwoman’s Journey from the Attic into the Television – The Female Gothic Novel and its Influence on Modern Horror Films by Sobia

Let This Feminist Vampire In by Natalie Wilson

House of 1000 Corpses by Dierdre Crimmins

A Feminist Reading of The Ring by Sobia

Ellen Ripley, A Feminist Film Icon, Battles Horrifying Aliens…And Patriarchy by Megan Kearns

Rosemary’s Baby: Marriage Can Be Terrifying by Stephanie Brown

As a reminder, these are a few basic guidelines for guest writers on our site: 
>–We like most of our pieces to be 1,000 – 2,000 words, preferably with some images and links.
>–Please send your piece in the text of an email, including links to all images, no later than Friday, October 19th.
>–Include a 2-3 sentence bio for placement at the end of your piece. 

Women and Gender in Musicals Week: That Glee Photo Shoot

This piece by Fannie previously appeared at Bitch Flicks on October 27, 2010.

No
So, there is this. View the slideshow (warning: might not be safe for some workplaces).

I love Glee. I sometimes am annoyed by it, but generally, I appreciate its ode to geekiness. I also do sometimes like looking at photos of attractive women (and men), if the photos are tastefully done and don’t seem like they’re completely exploiting the person. And subtlety is good. Subtext, to me, is often sexier than in-your-face displays of sexual availability.

Those disclaimers aside, I could now go on about how these photos at once infantilize adult women by portraying female actresses as sexy schoolgirls while also inappropriately sexualizing these characters, who are supposed to be under the age of 18.

I could also talk about how annoyingly predictable it is that, of all of Glee’s diverse cast members, it is the two women who most conform to conventional Hollywood beauty standards who have been granted the empowerful privilege of being sexified for a men’s mag. For, despite Glee’s idealistic and uplifting message that It’s What’s On the Inside That Counts, the show’s resident Fat Black Girl With A Soulful Voice is noticeably absent from the shoot.

And then there’s the fact that it’s titled Glee Gone Wild! a not-so-subtle allusion to that paragon of klassy art that made Joe Francis a pimp wealthy man. Yeah, I could talk about how that’s not my favorite.

We could also explore how the photos are clearly intended for the heterosexual male gaze (or, say, the gaze of a sexually abusive photographer who talks about how his “boner” compels him to want to “dominate” girls) and his sexual fantasies.

And I will talk about that for a minute, actually.

GQ is a men’s magazine, so while some lesbians and bisexual women might be titillated by such images, they should not be so naive as to think it is they who are the intended recipients of these images. Finn, the football player, is perhaps the one dude on the show who Average Joes most identify with. In GQ’s slideshow, he is almost fully clothed in regular streetwear throughout and often adorned with the Ultimate Straight Male Fantasy of not one, but two, hot chicks who might first make out with each other and then subsequently have sex with him.

As for the women depicted, the images predominately feature the two actors wearing the sexy-lady Halloween costume known as Sexually Available Schoolgirl, thus letting gay men know that this photo shoot about characters in a musical TV show is not intended for them, either.

Which brings me to the self-indulgent, possibly shallow, item I really want to talk about.

See, well, Glee used to be our thing.

The geeks, the losers, the queers, the disabled, the atheists, the dudely jock who likes to sing and dance, the pregnant girl, the teen diva, and the male Asian actor who is supposed to be geeky-cool but who never gets a speaking part in Glee solo. The popularity of Glee has been Revenge of the Nerds all the way and for that reason it has been pretty, dare I say, special to a lot of marginalized people and teenagers in all its campy dorkwad glory.

But now, the GQ photo shoot has subverted geekiness to give heterosexual men yet another thing in this world that can be, erm, special to them. And what’s supposed to special about Quinn and Rachel in these photos is not their voices, their struggles, their dorkiness, their self-centeredness, their insecurities, or their dreams, but rather, the never-been-done-before message that it’s women! Who are hot! And young! And thin! Who men want to fuck!

GQ, on behalf of its straight male readership, flaunts Rachel and Quinn in these photos like Sue Sylvester boastingly displays her ginormous cheerleading trophies as yet another reminder to the geeks that “not everyone can be champions” because some people are meant to dominate and others to be dominated. The photos are the equivalent of a major studio finally producing a Xena movie, writing in that long-awaited for Xena/Gabby actual make-out scene, and then having the two main characters end up married. To men, that is. Because what heterosexual men would like to see happen to two female characters is, let’s face it, always what is most important when it comes to TV and film and to hell with any other major fan base.

Glee should know better.

Trying to be popular by catering to the “I only watch shows with multiple major female characters if they’re hot” crowd might make a couple of dorks cool for a while, but it’s also why the rest us can’t have nice things.

———-


Fannie, author of Fannie’s Room, who, when not hanging out at her blog, can probably be found planning the homosexual agenda, twirling her mustache, plotting a leftist feminist takeover of the universe, and coordinating the recruitment effort of the lesbian branch of the Gay Mafia. Her days are busy.



Women and Gender in Musicals Week: That ‘Glee’ Photo Shoot

This piece by Fannie previously appeared at Bitch Flicks on October 27, 2010.

No
So, there is this. View the slideshow (warning: might not be safe for some workplaces).

I love Glee. I sometimes am annoyed by it, but generally, I appreciate its ode to geekiness. I also do sometimes like looking at photos of attractive women (and men), if the photos are tastefully done and don’t seem like they’re completely exploiting the person. And subtlety is good. Subtext, to me, is often sexier than in-your-face displays of sexual availability.

Those disclaimers aside, I could now go on about how these photos at once infantilize adult women by portraying female actresses as sexy schoolgirls while also inappropriately sexualizing these characters, who are supposed to be under the age of 18.

I could also talk about how annoyingly predictable it is that, of all of Glee’s diverse cast members, it is the two women who most conform to conventional Hollywood beauty standards who have been granted the empowerful privilege of being sexified for a men’s mag. For, despite Glee’s idealistic and uplifting message that It’s What’s On the Inside That Counts, the show’s resident Fat Black Girl With A Soulful Voice is noticeably absent from the shoot.

And then there’s the fact that it’s titled Glee Gone Wild! a not-so-subtle allusion to that paragon of klassy art that made Joe Francis a pimp wealthy man. Yeah, I could talk about how that’s not my favorite.

We could also explore how the photos are clearly intended for the heterosexual male gaze (or, say, the gaze of a sexually abusive photographer who talks about how his “boner” compels him to want to “dominate” girls) and his sexual fantasies.

And I will talk about that for a minute, actually.

GQ is a men’s magazine, so while some lesbians and bisexual women might be titillated by such images, they should not be so naive as to think it is they who are the intended recipients of these images. Finn, the football player, is perhaps the one dude on the show who Average Joes most identify with. In GQ’s slideshow, he is almost fully clothed in regular streetwear throughout and often adorned with the Ultimate Straight Male Fantasy of not one, but two, hot chicks who might first make out with each other and then subsequently have sex with him.

As for the women depicted, the images predominately feature the two actors wearing the sexy-lady Halloween costume known as Sexually Available Schoolgirl, thus letting gay men know that this photo shoot about characters in a musical TV show is not intended for them, either.

Which brings me to the self-indulgent, possibly shallow, item I really want to talk about.

See, well, Glee used to be our thing.

The geeks, the losers, the queers, the disabled, the atheists, the dudely jock who likes to sing and dance, the pregnant girl, the teen diva, and the male Asian actor who is supposed to be geeky-cool but who never gets a speaking part in Glee solo. The popularity of Glee has been Revenge of the Nerds all the way and for that reason it has been pretty, dare I say, special to a lot of marginalized people and teenagers in all its campy dorkwad glory.

But now, the GQ photo shoot has subverted geekiness to give heterosexual men yet another thing in this world that can be, erm, special to them. And what’s supposed to special about Quinn and Rachel in these photos is not their voices, their struggles, their dorkiness, their self-centeredness, their insecurities, or their dreams, but rather, the never-been-done-before message that it’s women! Who are hot! And young! And thin! Who men want to fuck!

GQ, on behalf of its straight male readership, flaunts Rachel and Quinn in these photos like Sue Sylvester boastingly displays her ginormous cheerleading trophies as yet another reminder to the geeks that “not everyone can be champions” because some people are meant to dominate and others to be dominated. The photos are the equivalent of a major studio finally producing a Xena movie, writing in that long-awaited for Xena/Gabby actual make-out scene, and then having the two main characters end up married. To men, that is. Because what heterosexual men would like to see happen to two female characters is, let’s face it, always what is most important when it comes to TV and film and to hell with any other major fan base.

Glee should know better.

Trying to be popular by catering to the “I only watch shows with multiple major female characters if they’re hot” crowd might make a couple of dorks cool for a while, but it’s also why the rest us can’t have nice things.

———-


Fannie, author of Fannie’s Room, who, when not hanging out at her blog, can probably be found planning the homosexual agenda, twirling her mustache, plotting a leftist feminist takeover of the universe, and coordinating the recruitment effort of the lesbian branch of the Gay Mafia. Her days are busy.



Women and Gender in Musicals Week: Despite an Intelligent Heroine, Sexism Taints Disney’s ‘Beauty and the Beast’

This review by Megan Kearns previously appeared at Bitch Flicks as part of our series on Animated Children’s Films.

An intelligent, strong-willed, female protagonist. Who reads books. And seeks adventure. With a heroine like Belle, Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, must be a feminist-minded film. Right?? At first, I thought so too. But appearances can be deceiving…

Hailed by critics as a touching romance and one of the greatest animated films ever made, Beauty and the Beast became the first animated movie to be nominated for a Best Picture Oscar. When I watched it in the theatre years ago, I too fell under its spell, seduced by its lush animation, whimsical tunes and of course Belle.

It felt refreshing to see an intelligent, outspoken, animated heroine who loved to read. Outspoken and loved books? I was outspoken and loved books! I saw myself in Belle. She was a misunderstood misfit, wanting “more than this provincial life” to which she had been born. I too felt like an outcast, yearning for adventure and freedom. We were kindred spirits.

But it wasn’t until years later that I saw the crack in the veneer. As I got older and embraced myself as a feminist, I began to question things more diligently. Once you start to see sexism, you can’t NOT see it. Sadly, it’s everywhere, including children’s films. Actually it’s possibly most prevalent in children’s films, which often reinforce tired and oppressive gender roles and stereotypes. 

Yes, Belle is intelligent, courageous, curious, opinionated…all the things I admire in female protagonists. Disney was painfully aware of the criticism against The Little Mermaid’s Ariel giving up her family, her life, hell even her voice all for a stupid prince. Linda Woolverton, Beauty and the Beast’s screenwriter, drew inspiration for Belle from tomboyish, book-loving, outspoken Jo in Little Women. Belle’s feisty independence heralded a new kind of Disney heroine, paving the way for Jasmine, Pocahontas and Mulan. And yes, we often see the world from her vantage point, another plus. Although the film begins and ends with the Beast, who also happens to go through the biggest transformation (literally and figuratively) in the film. Despite her awesomeness, there’s still a huge problem with Belle.

Even though Belle possesses admirable traits, her merit still comes down to her looks. The Beast, Gaston, the villagers and the enchanted servants all exclaim she’s beautiful, gorgeous, pretty and “her looks have no parallel.” Girls and women should be valued for their intellect, skills and kindness. But no one in the movie is raving about Belle’s inner beauty. Not only is Belle stunning, which of course all Disney “princesses” must be, and white and thin (god we need some diversity in films). It’s her name. Her fucking name is “BELLE,” which in French means “beautiful!” Despite her intelligence and bibliophile ways, even her fucking name revolves around her looks. Once again, women are subjugated and reduced to their appearances. Disney says sure, it’s okay to be smart, bookish, even a weird outcast…as long as you’re pretty. Ugh. 

In fact, the whole goddamn movie revolves around beauty. Symbols of beauty (mirrors and roses), permeate the film. Ironic since the intended moral of the fairy tale is looking past appearances to seek true inner beauty. But here’s the kicker. Beauty and the Beast would never have been made with a woman as a beast. Again reinforcing that yep, beauty is only skin deep…if you’re a dude. If you’re a woman, you’d best be gorgeous.

The only other female characters in the movie are Mrs. Potts (I heart Angela Lansbury!), the wardrobe (who has no personality) and the French maid feather duster. A grandmotherly type and a sexpot. Of course Disney does their notorious matricide in the form of the protagonist’s mother either dead or non-existent. They demonize stepmothers and solely focus on both daughters’ and sons’ relationships with their fathers. Seriously, Disney, what the hell have you got against mothers?? And yep, I’m aware Mrs. Potts is Chips’s mother. Doesn’t count. Not only is she not Belle’s mother, she’s a fucking teapot for most of the film. Belle has no female friends, no mother, no sister, no female role model. The importance of female camaraderie and sisterly bonding remain absent from the film.

Unlike many female characters in animated films (or annoying rom-coms for that matter), Belle isn’t looking to be rescued or waiting around for her prince. Two reasons that make Belle a feminist in Woolverton’s eyes. Belle rejects the sexist chauvinist Gaston and his numerous marriage proposals, finding him “boorish” and “brainless.” She wants more out of life than shining that jerk’s boots and popping out his babies. But Belle rebuffs one dysfunctional suitor for another.

A cursed spoiled prince, the Beast imprisons Belle’s father, Maurice, for trespassing. When Belle comes to his rescue, she sacrifices her cherished freedom, for his release. As a “guest” prisoner in the castle, the Beast demands Belle attend dinner with him and forbids her from the West Wing. He screams and throws things at her, his selfish temper raging out of control. Oh, I forgot…the Beast is a romanticized tortured soul. So it’s okay if he’s an abrasive douchebag!

Sure, the sympathetic Beast eventually becomes nicer, giving Belle access to his library and letting birds treat him like a bird feeder. And I do like that Belle and the Beast become friends first before falling in love, which rarely happens in fairy tales. Except for one teeny tiny thing. He’s her captor. Falling in love with the guy who imprisons you, holds you hostage, tells you when to eat, where to go and doesn’t let you see your family?! That’s not love. That’s Stockholm Syndrome, sweetie. 

 
Poisonous messages about love and relationships plague Beauty and the Beast. Don’t worry, ladies…if you suffer and stick by him long enough, your man will change. Just be patient with a guy who’s controlling or abusive. In her lifetime, 1 in 4 women will suffer domestic violence. More and more teenage girls contend with dating violence. Love should not hurt. Ever. But this movie (and sooooo many others) insidiously tells girls that when they grow up, they should stand by their man. Even if he treats you like shit.

I’ll admit Belle as a female character is a step in the right direction. She’s smart, stubborn, kind and ambitious. But Belle gives up her entire life to live forever in a castle with an asshat prince. What about her goals? Her dreams?? Oh that’s right. She becomes a princess! Yet another princess in the pantheon of princesses clogging up girlie-girl media.

Films and books reinforce gender roles and with a lack of female characters, imply that girls and women don’t count. Out of Disney’s 51 theatrically-released animated movies, only 13 feature a female character as a protagonist (16 if you count co-protagonists), most of them princesses. Princesses only care about their clothes and hair. Their looks matter more than their personalities. It seems society would rather teach girls to obsess over their appearance and how to snag a man.

Couldn’t Belle have opened up a bookshop/café or started a book drive or something?? When Belle sang about wanting “more than this provincial life,” I simply refuse to believe twirling around a ballroom in a pretty gown is what she had in mind.

People might think I’m being silly or overreacting about a Disney movie. Fair enough. But I call bullshit. Listen, when we’re young, books, music, movies, TV shows, advertisements and even toys teach us gender roles and identity. Little boys pretend they’re kings or aspire to be president while little girls yearn not to lead like queens, but to be passive princesses. One film probably won’t have much impact. But when the same sexist messages repeat over and over and over and over…well, then it seeps in.

I’m not going to lie. I still watch Beauty and the Beast, singing along to the songs. When I discovered Disney World was building a Beauty and the Beast themed restaurant and attraction, I admit I felt giddy with excitement. But look beyond the gorgeous animation, catchy show tunes and unique heroine.

Sadly, you’ll see yet another fabulous film tainted by sexism, spreading toxic messages that reinforce damaging beauty norms, violence against women and suffocating gender stereotypes.

Not all that glitters is gold. Unwrapping the beautiful package can sometimes yield an ugly core. 

———-
Megan Kearns is a Bitch Flicks Staff Writer and Editor. She’s a feminist vegan blogger and freelance writer living in Boston. Megan blogs at The Opinioness of the World, a feminist vegan site she founded in 2010 which focuses on gender equality and living cruelty-free. She writes about gender and media as a Regular Blogger at Fem2pt0, a site uniting social issues with women’s voices. She’s also a podcast contributor to Feminist Magazine on KPFK radio, a weekly radio show, where she writes and performs her monthly Feminist Films segment. Megan’s work has also appeared at Arts & Opinion, Feministing’s Community Blog, Italianieuropei, Open Letters Monthly, A Safe World for Women and Women and Hollywood. She earned her B.A. in Anthropology and Sociology from UMass Amherst and a Graduate Certificate in Women and Politics and Public Policy from UMass Boston. You can follow all of Megan’s unapologetically opinionated thoughts — such as Leslie Knope’s awesomeness, the idiocy of anti-choice legislation, and where to find the best vegan doughnuts — on Twitter at @OpinionessWorld.

Women and Gender in Musicals Week: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

This review by Rebecca Cohen previously appeared at Bitch Flicks as part of our series on Animated Children’s Films.

At first blush, a feminist reading of Disney’s 1937 classic Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs seems almost too obvious to bother with. Nearing its 75th birthday, the film naturally reflects the antiquated gender politics of its era. So we should expect nothing less than a passive female protagonist, completely helpless until she is rescued and married. It makes as much sense to criticize these outdated ideals as it does to abuse your 75-year-old grandmother when she wonders if you’ll ever be happy without a husband and children. Sometimes you just have to move on, right?
Well, yes and no. Snow White is still of interest to feminist media critics for several reasons, not the least of which is the continued prominence of the main character in contemporary popular culture. In fact, Snow White’s image is almost as iconic as that of the Mouse himself in identifying the Disney brand. She is commonly featured in the hugely popular Disney Princess line of products aimed at young girls. There is no question that little girls today are still feeling the influence of Walt’s 1937 vision of feminine purity.

And the film has exercised a less overt influence as well. As the first feature-length animated feature to come out of the Disney studio, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs established a formula for the Disney “princess movie,” as well as template for Disney storytelling which persisted for decades, and from which in many ways the studio is still trying to break free.

At the core of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs are deeply conservative, specifically American values. Although “Snow White” is a German tale, and the setting of the movie is a vaguely medieval, vaguely European fantasy world, the heroine herself is decidedly American. The Wicked Queen isn’t exactly English, but her pronunciation is nevertheless distinctly aristocratic (Mid-Atlantic, perhaps?). Yet the sweet little princess sounds fresh out of Iowa – if a voice can possibly sound corn-fed, hers does.

At every turn, Snow White embodies old-fashioned, small town American ideals. She helps a baby bird not just back to its nest, but back to its “momma and poppa” (because every creature should properly be part of a traditional nuclear family, of course). When she arrives at the dwarfs’ cottage in the woods, her first instinct is to clean up. She assumes, in keeping with traditional gender roles, that the children who live there must not have a mother. That’s the only possible way to explain how their house could be so dirty. Not only does she clean up the place, she enlists the help of the woodland fauna. Indeed, Snow White domesticates everyone and everything around her, spreading the conservative ideals of cleanliness, hard work, and unquestioning acceptance of the status quo even to the animals. She civilizes the dwarfs as well, refusing to feed them until they’ve washed up.

Snow White quickly takes on all the tasks of a wife/mother, cooking and cleaning, staying home and baking pies (as all-American as you can get!), while the little men go off to work during the day. She transforms their cottage in the woods into an idealized suburban American household.

Although Snow White is happy to civilize and suburbanize the dwarfs, it’s clear that she longs for a stable heterosexual union with one man. Yet she remains perpetually passive and never takes steps to achieve that. She expresses what she wants through the song “Some Day My Prince Will Come,” but of course even that is phrased passively; he will come to her, someday. She’ll just have to wait. Although, as princess, she has a rightful claim to the throne, she betrays no shred of ambition in that direction. In fact, the only active step she ever takes in trying to bring about her own happy ending is to make a wish upon the Witch’s “wishing apple.” And look where that gets her!

Standing in contrast to Snow herself is her nemesis, the formidable Wicked Queen. The Queen embodies all the problems supposedly inherent when women occupy positions of power. She is vain and jealous, prioritizing insecurity about her looks above all other concerns. Surely she has a kingdom to run? Yet we never see her do anything except plot to kill her stepdaughter. The Queen’s imposing beauty is directly contrasted to Snow White’s childish innocence. The Queen is commanding, sophisticated, worldly – in short, dangerous.

The Queen is even something of an intellectual. When she disguises herself as a crone, she does so in a laboratory-like dungeon replete with test tubes, flasks and burners, not to mention shelves lined with books. She’s certainly the only character in the film ever seen reading a book. And her final attempt to kill the dwarfs involves use of a lever device, with which she tries to dislodge a boulder and crush them. But her resourcefulness and application of basic physics are to no avail. It’s no coincidence that her cleverness is foiled by a lightning bolt, a stroke of random luck. This anti-intellectualism is of a piece with the conservative American values suffused throughout the film.

Although Snow White’s passivity is evident, it’s notable that the only really effectual character, the Prince, is barely a character at all. He appears in two scenes and has maybe three speaking lines. In truth, he barely participates in the story, except to sweep in at the very end and wake the princess, after all the story action has already transpired. The movie isn’t at all about him or his ability to affect events. The dwarfs play a more prominent role and are constantly active, but they are essentially children – well meaning but utterly ineffective. It’s neither their agency nor their competence that wins the day. Rather it’s their essential goodness and perhaps more important, simplicity.

In the end, neither Snow White nor the Dwarfs ever question the feudalistic system that could allow an evil and dangerously shallow monarch to wield so much power over their lives. They simply live their lives by traditional values, and providence rids them of the unnaturally empowered female, replacing her with a wholesome heterosexual couple. This outcome is where Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is at its most fundamentally conservative. Through kindness, humility and the observance of traditional gender roles, our heroes ultimately triumph over evil, without ever having to question the system that let evil get the upper hand in the first place.

———-
Rebecca Cohen is the creator of the webcomic “The Adventures of Gyno-Star,” the world’s first (and possibly only) explicitly feminist superhero comic. 


Women and Gender in Musicals Week: Glee!

This review by Cali Loria previously appeared at Bitch Flicks as part of our Emmy Week 2011 series.
Not since E! has any one thing on television been so damn exclamatory. Glee! celebrated its everyman song-and-dance style before its slushy flying face-offs ever aired. After a Journey-style breakthrough and myriad episodes featuring pop music gone oh so right, the show ended its first Emmy award-winning season and began a second. Can the plotlines featuring teen pregnancy, teen love, and a bitter gym teacher make it with a little Britney Spears mixed in? The answer is: yes. However, following the line of Britney logic, all its women have had to suffer in the meantime: bitches be crazy (e.g. writing underdeveloped characters who become caricatures of themselves, ending in a mockery of those whose very geekiness Glee attempted to celebrate).

In the beginning Glee made a brand out of celebrating the insecurities, joy, and passions of a group of social outcasts. Quickly, however, Glee called into question its treatment of women, prompting the New York Post to ask “Does Glee! Hate women?” In season one alone a woman is shown to be conniving enough to fake a pregnancy to “keep her man” and another, this time a teenager, grappled with pregnancy until, poof, the storyline magically disappeared. Luckily Madonna’s “Papa Don’t Preach” was able to get into the mix first, or I would have been pissed.

Besides the stereotypical portrayals of women-as-girls-as-GQ-cover-models-being-schoolgirls that this show offers, Glee goes further by, perhaps unintentionally, mocking its characters. Vitriolic gym teacher Sue Sylvester (who eerily resembles my elementary school gym teacher) relies on her bitter use of the pretty girls and exploitation of the token special needs child as a means to succeed to her ultimate end. As their most fully fleshed-out character (and perhaps most accomplished actor) Jane Lynch does a great job being angry but does nothing for the stereotype of the angry lesbian gym teacher taunting kids to make herself feel better. Coach Beiset’s introduction furthered this by presenting this gem of a storyline: no man wanted to kiss her so what was a woman to do but become an angry, middle-aged football coach: the better to scream at you, my dears.

Mixed in with the older women who suffer to fall in and keep love and affection, the teens of Glee keep the teenage dreams coming faster than Katy Perry’s hits. Puck, the number one misogynist/baby daddy/Neil Diamond Crooner and the show’s resident sometimes Gothic sometimes snarky, always shown eating or wrestling, Lauren, are just one of many unconventional couples Glee has drummed up. Lauren’s morbid obesity might once have proven to be a means for character slander, as Puck himself proclaimed when he said to then pregnant Quinn “I’m not breaking up with you. I’m just saying please stop super-sizing because I don’t dig on fat chicks.” Now, however, it is the stuff of fetishistic pop preening. First, Puck serenades his new love interest with a rendition of “Fat Bottom Girls” and, shock, she finds it offensive. To make it better he sings the original number “Big Ass Heart” because it is okay for the organ that pumps our blood and, symbolically, falls us in love to have a “big ass” even though a heart has never won a pie eating contest or needed two seats in an airplane. We get it–there’s a size difference here.

Having a character on TV who does not fit into the mold of being a perfect Westernized ideal of beauty would, in someone else’s hands, be refreshing. Glee, however, focuses on the extremes of women, enjoying the overt and campy hyperbolization of its characters which, in essence, detracts from actual storylines and only serves to render the women flat and one-dimensional: Jewish starlet, slut, dumb blonde, conniving cheerleader, sassy black woman, an Asian, and, now, a full-fleshed female. Glee has a recipe with every ingredient, but stirred together it’s one big lump of heterogeneous stereotypes. I’m not saying this couple should not exist; I am simply implying that it may have been beneficial to give her a love interest that does not appear to be ten seconds from dumping pigs blood over her head at prom.

Two other prominent female characters central to Glee’s narrative arc are slutty Santana and dumb blonde Britney. These two rarely have lines, and, when they do, it is solely to enforce these two personas. What they do have, however, is a girl on girl on glee make out session. Of course Glee would need to have two of its beautiful, popular women fall in love and make out, why not? Glee loves Katy Perry and she kissed a girl and, damn it, she liked it. The issue is not girls kissing girls; it is the exploration of lesbianism in a trite and frivolous manner.

The trials and tribulations girls in high school are facing today are by no means easy. From eating disorders to bullying, the very struggle of learning who you are as a woman, inside, out, sexually, emotionally, is a process. Women today are barraged with images of who they should be, how they should act, and whom they should kiss. Glee, in an attempt to make it okay to be whomever you are, has simply created an hour of sing-along to the pain and pleasure of all the versions of themselves  that girls see when they look in the mirror. We are all sexy and scared, stupid and skinny, fat and fabulous–but fleshing out these various facets to frivolous plotlines and self-mocking monologues is akin to giving every girl a Barbie with adjective occupations. Women deserve more than this style of characterization. 

 
———-
Cali Loria is a thug with unbelievable scrabble skills. She is mother to a King and a lover of film, food, and feminism. 
 
 

Women and Gender in Musicals Week: ‘Glee!’

This review by Cali Loria previously appeared at Bitch Flicks as part of our Emmy Week 2011 series.
Not since E! has any one thing on television been so damn exclamatory. Glee! celebrated its everyman song-and-dance style before its slushy flying face-offs ever aired. After a Journey-style breakthrough and myriad episodes featuring pop music gone oh so right, the show ended its first Emmy award-winning season and began a second. Can the plotlines featuring teen pregnancy, teen love, and a bitter gym teacher make it with a little Britney Spears mixed in? The answer is: yes. However, following the line of Britney logic, all its women have had to suffer in the meantime: bitches be crazy (e.g. writing underdeveloped characters who become caricatures of themselves, ending in a mockery of those whose very geekiness Glee attempted to celebrate).

In the beginning Glee made a brand out of celebrating the insecurities, joy, and passions of a group of social outcasts. Quickly, however, Glee called into question its treatment of women, prompting the New York Post to ask “Does Glee! Hate women?” In season one alone a woman is shown to be conniving enough to fake a pregnancy to “keep her man” and another, this time a teenager, grappled with pregnancy until, poof, the storyline magically disappeared. Luckily Madonna’s “Papa Don’t Preach” was able to get into the mix first, or I would have been pissed.

Besides the stereotypical portrayals of women-as-girls-as-GQ-cover-models-being-schoolgirls that this show offers, Glee goes further by, perhaps unintentionally, mocking its characters. Vitriolic gym teacher Sue Sylvester (who eerily resembles my elementary school gym teacher) relies on her bitter use of the pretty girls and exploitation of the token special needs child as a means to succeed to her ultimate end. As their most fully fleshed-out character (and perhaps most accomplished actor) Jane Lynch does a great job being angry but does nothing for the stereotype of the angry lesbian gym teacher taunting kids to make herself feel better. Coach Beiset’s introduction furthered this by presenting this gem of a storyline: no man wanted to kiss her so what was a woman to do but become an angry, middle-aged football coach: the better to scream at you, my dears.

Mixed in with the older women who suffer to fall in and keep love and affection, the teens of Glee keep the teenage dreams coming faster than Katy Perry’s hits. Puck, the number one misogynist/baby daddy/Neil Diamond Crooner and the show’s resident sometimes Gothic sometimes snarky, always shown eating or wrestling, Lauren, are just one of many unconventional couples Glee has drummed up. Lauren’s morbid obesity might once have proven to be a means for character slander, as Puck himself proclaimed when he said to then pregnant Quinn “I’m not breaking up with you. I’m just saying please stop super-sizing because I don’t dig on fat chicks.” Now, however, it is the stuff of fetishistic pop preening. First, Puck serenades his new love interest with a rendition of “Fat Bottom Girls” and, shock, she finds it offensive. To make it better he sings the original number “Big Ass Heart” because it is okay for the organ that pumps our blood and, symbolically, falls us in love to have a “big ass” even though a heart has never won a pie eating contest or needed two seats in an airplane. We get it–there’s a size difference here.

Having a character on TV who does not fit into the mold of being a perfect Westernized ideal of beauty would, in someone else’s hands, be refreshing. Glee, however, focuses on the extremes of women, enjoying the overt and campy hyperbolization of its characters which, in essence, detracts from actual storylines and only serves to render the women flat and one-dimensional: Jewish starlet, slut, dumb blonde, conniving cheerleader, sassy black woman, an Asian, and, now, a full-fleshed female. Glee has a recipe with every ingredient, but stirred together it’s one big lump of heterogeneous stereotypes. I’m not saying this couple should not exist; I am simply implying that it may have been beneficial to give her a love interest that does not appear to be ten seconds from dumping pigs blood over her head at prom.

Two other prominent female characters central to Glee’s narrative arc are slutty Santana and dumb blonde Britney. These two rarely have lines, and, when they do, it is solely to enforce these two personas. What they do have, however, is a girl on girl on glee make out session. Of course Glee would need to have two of its beautiful, popular women fall in love and make out, why not? Glee loves Katy Perry and she kissed a girl and, damn it, she liked it. The issue is not girls kissing girls; it is the exploration of lesbianism in a trite and frivolous manner.

The trials and tribulations girls in high school are facing today are by no means easy. From eating disorders to bullying, the very struggle of learning who you are as a woman, inside, out, sexually, emotionally, is a process. Women today are barraged with images of who they should be, how they should act, and whom they should kiss. Glee, in an attempt to make it okay to be whomever you are, has simply created an hour of sing-along to the pain and pleasure of all the versions of themselves  that girls see when they look in the mirror. We are all sexy and scared, stupid and skinny, fat and fabulous–but fleshing out these various facets to frivolous plotlines and self-mocking monologues is akin to giving every girl a Barbie with adjective occupations. Women deserve more than this style of characterization. 

 
———-
Cali Loria is a thug with unbelievable scrabble skills. She is mother to a King and a lover of film, food, and feminism. 
 
 

Women and Gender in Musicals Week: Aladdin

This review previously appeared at Bitch Flicks as part of our series on Animated Children’s Films.
This movie is about a princess and a “street rat” who fall in love and must overcome the evil Jafar to get married. This movie is also about generalizing non-Western cultures (mainly Middle Eastern cultures) and perpetuating cartoonish stereotypes of Arabic peoples. As an added bonus, this movie masquerades as a girl power film when in fact, it enforces the traditional gender role of men as active/women as passive.
The first time I saw this children’s movie was over this past summer, when I was the assistant director of a summer production of the musical Disney’s Aladdin. I was the only person involved in the production that had not seen Aladdin when I was a child. Every single one of the children (almost entirely girls, ages 9-12 with one 7 year old) came in with ideas of what the show would look like, because they had all seen the movie and they knew every single song. Because they knew the music, we had more time to work on choreography. For a marketplace scene, I asked the kids to strike a pose to freeze in during dialogue. I was looking for marketplace-y poses: two people talking, maybe gesturing to another person, walking poses, etc. They immediately put their arms up with their palms together so that their arms framed their face and their necks were moved to one side (a pose associated with “Arabia” in pop-culture). They all wanted to do their hair in the “I Dream of Jeannie” hairdo, because it was “so Arabian”. I wondered, where did they get such a stereotypical view of the Middle East? And then I saw the movie and all of those questions were answered.

 

My director thought that this was a girl power movie. Look! At the end, the Sultan declares that Jasmine can marry whomever she chooses, when she chooses! And she rejects all of those suitors because she’s “not a prize to be won”! Girl power yeah! No. This movie is producing yet another hetero-romantic story where women sit there and men pursue them. She was naïve before Aladdin shows her a “whole new world”—she is the passive learner while he is the active teacher. How does she help with the defeat of Jafar? She kisses him—using her body to be attractive to men—the rest of the time she just kind of stands there while Aladdin fights Jafar. Again, she stands there lookin’ sexy and being passive, he fights actively. Even their body stance around each other assumes a dominant/submissive look—Aladdin’s body is tall and upright, Jasmine is leaning into him or sitting behind him or being held in his arms. He is also physically larger, aside from her hair (her ponytail is thicker than her waist), she is extremely thin and takes up very little space when compared to Aladdin’s broad shoulders and muscular body. And of course, what other characters in this movie are women? Oh that’s right, they are all men. Because women can only be in stories to be the object of men’s affections, not to fill other roles. There are some background women in the dance scenes, but those are the “harem girls” and other sexualized women (because foreign=exotic and sexy!)
Essentially, all of the women are defined by their attractiveness to men. “Ugly” women, then, are used as comic relief. In one of the first scenes, when a woman opens the door and says of Aladdin, “Still I think he’s rather tasty!”, everybody in the audience is supposed to laugh. Aladdin looks at the woman (who is quite large) and jumps in surprise and disgust. Oh, silly fat woman, you can’t have feelings because you’re ugly! We’re supposed to laugh at how ridiculous her thinking Aladdin is “tasty” is—because fat women and ugly women are not supposed to have sexual desires. Only when the sexy women do this is it okay—nobody is laughing at Jasmine’s proclamations of love for Aladdin, because it doesn’t seem ridiculous now. Aladdin is attractive, she is attractive, so they can be in love.

 

So doing this story where every single role had to be filled by a girl made this an interesting production. Some girls told us they didn’t want to be a male character. Some girls who were cast into men’s roles started acting like men—they lowered their voices and changed their body language to reflect a stereotypical man. Some girls who were cast into men’s roles adopted them to be women’s roles—the girl playing Jafar, for example, had no issue with being a female Jafar. The girl who played Aladdin, the title character, made it clear that she was acting like a man—I, personally, thought that it would have been fine for her to be a female Aladdin (but the lesbian love story was not an idea that they particularly were comfortable with, which is interesting given how comfortable they were with heterosexual love stories).
In fact, I think it would have made the movie better if Aladdin was a girl (and if all the racism was taken out). Suddenly, “A Whole New World” takes on a whole new meaning—but these movies with antiquated gender roles would not have been as widely accepted into culture if the relationship it portrayed was queer.
When watching this movie, it’s hard to not get depressed about the fact that this is what little girls are told to aspire to. Watch something else instead.

This is an anonymous review.

Women and Gender in Musicals Week: Tangled

This review by Whitney Mollenhauer previously appeared at Bitch Flicks as part of our series on Animated Children’s Films.

Last Friday, I saw Disney’s Tangled with my husband.  I thought it was a pretty good feminist-y movie, especially considering that it was a Disney princess-type movie. Because I am lazy, I have written my review in bullet-point form:
  • Rapunzel’s father (the king) cries on Rapunzel’s birthday as he remembers his kidnapped daughter.  It seems like usually in these kind of movies, you see the mom crying and the dad consoling her; but here, it’s the other way around.  Win!  Men can express emotion, too!
  • Rapunzel sews and bakes, but she also reads, does astronomy, and paints like no other.
  • She is so awesome with her hair!  She ties the male protagonist up, lets herself down from the tower, and climbs everywhere.  Seriously, it’s very impressive.  She can do just about anything with that hair–it’s not just for show. 
  • Rapunzel ends up with short hair!  Okay, that’s just a little thing, but have you ever seen a Disney princess with a pixie cut before?  Even Mulan had longer hair!
  • So yeah, the mom is the bad guy because she’s vain/wants to be young forever, blah blah blah.  But I don’t know how they could have had a male villain or some other way for the mom to be the villain without straying too far from the original.  But at least she gets some jokes.
  • The frying pan proves to be a superior weapon compared to the sword!  This might be getting a little too psychoanalytic, but I saw the frying pan as symbolizing a kind of feminine/transgressive power, while the sword represents traditional masculine power.  I just thought it was neat.  You don’t have to be a swashbuckling dude to kick butt.
  • Her story and her adventure starts not because the guy “whisks her away” or something; but rather, she plans and schemes: she catches him breaking into her tower, and strategically decides to use him to reach her goal of seeing the flying lanterns on her birthday.
  • Spoiler alert: in the end, she’s not “saved” because of her compassion, but in spite of it–her compassion might actually have been her downfall.  Unlike other movies/fairy tales where a woman’s only redeeming quality is self-sacrifice, this ending suggests that self-sacrifice isn’t always such a good thing–or at least that it’s not solely the domain of women.  Men can be self-sacrificing too!  (Didn’t want to reveal too much here.  Go see the movie if you want to figure out what on earth I’m talking about.)
  • I liked the ambivalent nature of how it shows her mom’s and her relationship when Rapunzel leaves the tower for the first time.  She feels guilty, but MAN is she happy and excited and brave!
  • She doesn’t get married at age 18!!!!
  • In my opinion, the relationship was not even really a central feature of the story, but rather a sub-plot.  The main plot was getting away from her mother, figuring out her actual identity, getting to the flying lanterns she wanted to see.
  • I felt like it was good and feminist because it was a major improvement from how Disney usually is.  Also, overt sexism did NOT distract me from what was otherwise a visually appealing, witty movie (as it usually does).  And that is really saying something.
  • Even the rich, hypermasculine stereotype is challenged–the male protagonist reveals his true name/identity, as an orphan, and she says she likes him better than the fictional (hypermasculine) character that he aspires to be like.  
  • In the end, I think it makes a good case for women’s “proper place” NOT being just in the home, but out in the world/public sphere!  I’m not sure how you could get any other moral out of it.  Even in Mulan, after she saves China, she ends up returning home, and (we suspect) marrying the army captain guy, instead of taking a job with the emperor.  In Tangled, the movie’s premise is centered around the idea that it’s wrong and horrible to expect a woman to spend her whole life at home.
  • When the male protagonist breaks into her tower, she kicks his butt; she stands up for herself in the bar; and she stands up to her mother in the end (about having been kidnapped).
  • At the end of the movie, SHE dips HIM and kisses him.  (I always hated it when guys would dip me.  If I want to kiss you, I am going to kiss you, so just let me stay on my own two feet.)
  • Body image stuff:   Okay, so Disney’s not breaking down any boundaries here.  Also, infantilization much?  Rapunzel’s face is that of a two-year-old.  
  • So, I’m not very good at remembering specifics, but I DO remember not getting angry at seeing her needing rescuing again and again and again.  It seemed like mostly she was able to save herself, and the guy didn’t save her a whole lot.
  • In the bar, Rapunzel and the guy (Flynn) meet a whole bunch of rough guys.  They sing a song about how everyone’s got a dream: the one tough guy says to Flynn, “Your dream stinks,” referring to his dream of getting rich.  The other tough guys have dreams of becoming mimes, finding love, being a pianist, becoming a baker–and one made little tiny unicorns.  Even tough guys have nuance and feminine qualities!
  • Rapunzel’s animal companion is Pascal the chameleon.  Pascal is super cute, and is possibly named after Blaise Pascal the mathematician (suggesting that Rapunzel is a math nerd like me, though that could just be me reading too much into it).  Pascal can’t talk, and I felt like that was a good thing (feminist-wise), so he couldn’t show her up and become the hero (remember Mushu the dragon in Mulan?) 
My points are random and some are not very significant. But still, small wins!  And when it comes to Disney princess movies, any hint at feminist ideology is a HUGE win. And if nothing else, it at least passes the Bechdel Test:

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Whitney Mollenhauer is a graduate student in California where she studies sociology. She has an awesome husband who doesn’t mind her running feminist commentary when they watch movies together. And, she loves cereal. 

Women and Gender in Musicals Week: ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’: Feminism and Crosscasting

This is a guest review by Barrett Vann. 
 
Initially, a feminist reading of Jesus Christ Superstar might not seem to turn out particularly in the musical’s favour. Although the ensemble is composed of men and women fairly equally, there is only one female character of any significance, Mary Magdalene. In addition to being the only named woman in the show, Mary is a prostitute, and in love with Jesus–the marks against her seem to add up. However, considering the show’s source text (the Bible, natch), this is not actually as bad as it sounds.

It’s a matter of loose scriptural interpretation as to whether the Biblical Mary was a prostitute, but this version of her is. It’s never stated outright, but it is alluded to, surprisingly not in a disrespectful fashion. When Judas sneers at her that ‘It’s not that [he objects] to her profession, but she doesn’t fit in well, with what you (Jesus) teach and say,’ Jesus immediately (and angrily, for JCS’s Jesus has something of a temper) slaps him down as a hypocrite. ‘When your slate is clean, then you may throw stones/ If your slate is not, then leave her alone!’ It’s notable, and unfortunate, that Mary doesn’t speak up for herself in this scene, instead allowing Jesus to come to her defence, but her profession–which it’s implied she still practises–is never shamed by the larger narrative.

Further, though she may be in love with Jesus, it’s not a one-dimensional, love-interest kind of emotion. Indeed, the show makes plain that she has no idea what to do with it. In her song aptly titled ‘I Don’t Know How to Love Him,’ she’s shown as someone used to being in control of a situation, in control of her own emotions. Again, her profession as a sex worker is referenced when she rationalises to herself that she’s had lots of men, she knows how to deal with men, Jesus ought merely be one more. But for some reason, he’s not, and that scares her. As the song goes on, she even says, ‘Yet, if he said he loved me/ I’d be lost, I’d be frightened/ I couldn’t cope/ Just couldn’t cope.’

Refreshingly, though we see the positive aspects of her love in her behaviour toward Jesus, it’s also portrayed as what love often is; an overwhelming emotion. Mary is an independent, rational, controlled woman with an inner life who is, frankly, freaked out and doesn’t know how to deal with her own reactions.

Mary (Yvonne Elliman) washes Jesus’s (Ted Neeley) feet in the 1973 film

Later in the show, Mary is the one who confronts Peter about his denial of Jesus, sure where he is scared, and in the film, they have a duet, ‘Could We Start Again Please?,’ in which they lament that things have gone too far, and beg an absent Jesus to let them start over and do it again. Although in the scene with Peter, Mary is the strong one, she’s still fallible and unsure, and while in previous scenes, she’s seemed separate from the Apostles, here she is Peter’s comrade.

So, for a show and film with only one real female character, not bad. Not amazing, but certainly not as bad as it could be. However, where JCS really becomes interesting is in other respects.

Though this is intended to examine the show through a feminist lens, intersectionality is key, and so mention must be given to race. Though the practise of colourblind casting has been open to some debate as to whether or not it’s actually a good thing (allowing, for instance, such un-self-aware gaffes as all-white productions of The Wiz with the argument that they’re being colourblind, they’re being progressive), in the 1973 film of JCS, it’s practised about as truly as I have ever seen. The ensemble of disciples is about as diverse racially as they are among gender lines, and of what one might term the ‘main’ cast, Judas and Simon Zealotes are played by black men, Mary Magdalene a woman of mixed Irish, Chinese, and Japanese descent, and the actor who plays Herod is Jewish. Somewhat ironically, come to that. Actors of colour are not relegated to unimportant side characters; they can be anyone.

Simon Zealotes (Larry Marshall) and a group of disciples encourage Jesus to a militant revolution against the Romans
 
Carl Anderson (Judas), Ted Neeley, and Yvonne Elliman on set
One of the things which I find most interesting, though, is that, due to the fact that many of the significant male parts are written for high tenors, the show has a not-insignificant history of crosscasting. I’ve seen productions in which Judas is played by a woman, another where Jesus is. I’ve heard of Herod being played by a woman. Something about the show means that people seem to feel no compunction about such castings, which raises the question, do they invite new readings of the core text, or simply emphasise qualities that are already there?

One such reading is the relationship between Jesus and Judas. In the show, Judas is the main character, flawed but sympathetic, a tragic tool of destiny. He is written explicitly as a foil to Mary Magdalene; they both love Jesus, but Judas is challenging, afraid, untrusting of Jesus’s ability to handle what he’s started; he even gets a reprise of her song, ‘I Don’t Know How to Love Him,’ as if the comparison wasn’t already clear. JCS makes it clear that Judas does love Jesus. Whether or not the role is crosscast, his scorn for Mary Magdalene is often played as the result of his jealousy over her. Some people might say that a crosscast show makes a strained romantic or sexual relationship between Jesus and Judas more obvious, but I would argue that a queer reading of a non-crosscast show is just as valid, and indeed it is occasionally played that way. Productions have been known to make Judas’s betraying kiss less a brotherly brush of the cheek, and more a desperate, angry, farewell kiss on the mouth.

When Jesus is crosscast, that also has the potential to change the relationship between himself and Mary Magdalene, as the only two women in a crowd of men. It also, perhaps more significantly, makes the prophet and leader of a cultural and religious movement female. It is all too common for works of fiction, as well as real-life movements, to revolve around men, and changing such a male leader to a female one is making a statement about gender and power, not to mention the trope of ‘the chosen one,’ a character type almost exclusively male. Thanks to ingrained cultural conventions about gender, it also changes the dynamic of things like the reasons behind the Sanhedrin’s decision to arrest Jesus, or the scene in which Pilate has him stripped and flogged. If Jesus is a woman rather than a man, such scenes will almost inevitably read differently.

The answer to my question, then, would be: both. Some things, mainly the interpersonal relationships, have precedent in the text, and crosscasting largely affects only how queer they are or aren’t, whereas larger societal issues which may crop up genuinely are not there in the original text.

Ultimately, Jesus Christ Superstar is interesting and feminist not necessarily because of what the text of the show itself presents, which may change from production to production, but because of the convention it carries which allows for queering of the text, of changing the gender of characters, of being free with the race of those cast. It would be difficult to imagine that happening with a show like The Secret Garden or Les Miserables.

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Barrett Vann is an English and Linguistics student at the University of Minnesota. An unabashed geek, she’s into cosplay, literary analysis, high fantasy, and queer theory. After she graduates in December, she hopes to tackle grad school for playwrighting or screenwriting, and become one of those starving artist types.

Women and Gender in Musicals Week: ‘Phantom of the Opera’: Great Music, Terrible Feminism

This review by Myrna Waldron previously appeared at Bitch Flicks on September 6, 2012. 
Phantom of the Opera Movie Poster (Source: Wikipedia.org)
The Phantom of the Opera was my first musical; I saw it for the first time when I was 4 years old during its now legendary decade-long run in Toronto. I remember very little from that event (though the shaking chandelier during the Overture stayed with me), but I’ve been a huge fan of the soundtrack ever since. Premiering in 1986, the musical adaptation of Gaston Leroux’s Gothic Romance novel was written specifically for Andrew Lloyd Webber’s then-wife Sarah Brightman. It’s easily one of the most popular stage musicals ever; after the early 2000s revival of the musical film genre, it was a natural choice for a feature film adaptation in 2004 (though it had languished in development hell since the 80s), directed by Joel Schumacher.
Superhero film fans know Schumacher’s name simply by reputation; it is no exaggeration that he is known for cheesy, schlocky and silly films. The fourth Batman film, Batman and Robin, was so poorly received it single-handedly killed the Batman franchise for a decade and still carries a tremendous amount of infamy. So is it any surprise that his adaptation of Phantom is astoundingly cheesy, even for musical standards? We have a cast of mostly inexperienced singers talking in implausibly varied accents. Some of the actors attempt fake accents (Minnie Driver and Miranda Richardson put on exaggerated Italian and French accents, respectively) and others don’t even try (I have a hard time believing that someone whose title is Vicomte de Chagny would have a modern American accent in Victorian Paris). Some of the directing choices are bizarre, too; The Phantom conjures a horse out of nowhere when leading Christine to his lair, and several scenes have honest-to-god “dramatic” slow motion in them.
But the really big problem with Phantom of the Opera isn’t its cheesiness, but its total lack of feminism. Honestly, if the music wasn’t so good I’d never watch Phantom again, but I don’t know if I should blame its film adaptation, Broadway version, or original novel, since I haven’t seen the stage version in 20+ years, nor have I read Leroux’s novel. Emmy Rossum’s Christine Daae is a lovely young woman with a pretty (if not exactly operatic) voice, and possibly the most spineless personality I’ve ever seen from a female protagonist. The love triangle between herself, the Phantom and Raoul is the central conflict of the story. Her preference for Raoul, her childhood sweetheart, is one of only two personal choices she makes throughout the entire story.  Neither The Phantom nor Raoul ever seem to take Christine’s wants into account. I know I’m supposed to root for her to end up with at least one of the suitors, (the 26-year shipping wars notwithstanding) but honestly? Run away, Christine. RUN AWAY.

Gerard Butler as The Phantom (Source: Fanpop.com)
The Phantom is a fairly archetypal Byronic hero; brooding, moody, dangerous, and artistically talented. Whether it’s because he grew up in isolation or because he’s a dangerous lunatic, he is incredibly controlling over Christine. He exploits her grief over her father’s death to pretend that he is the Angel of Music that her dying father said he would send to her; he has been giving Christine vocal lessons at least since she was a child. He then expects total submission and romantic affection from her for his helping her launch her professional career. Hmm, now, where have I heard “Guy volunteers favors for girl he is attracted to, then flies into a rage when she doesn’t return his romantic attention” before? Can we say Nice Guy Syndrome?
The extent of The Phantom’s control over Christine is very disturbing and often hypocritical. He explodes with anger when she takes off his mask and exposes his facial deformity; apparently he can violate Christine’s privacy all he wants by following and watching her everywhere around the Opera House, but he damns and curses her for violating his privacy. He repeatedly attempts to force Christine into marriage, (to the point where he builds a dummy of her and dresses it up in a bridal gown) and it is even implied near the end of the film that he intends to force her into sex. His power over Christine is such that he can hypnotize her; he may be shown seducing Christine during the “Music of the Night” sequence, but I have to seriously question the amount of consent Christine is offering. It’s kind of abhorrent that so many fans seem to prefer the Phantom to Raoul, even to the point that the sequel musical, Love Never Dies, invents some ridiculous contrivances to have Christine end up with the Phantom (and let us never speak of the sequel again). It’s like they’ve forgotten that the Phantom has committed at least three murders, two kidnappings, arson, and has threatened physical and sexual violence against Christine. There’s sympathizing for the isolation and discrimination the Phantom faced throughout his life, and then there’s excusing him entirely.
Unfortunately, the winning suitor, Raoul, is only preferable in that he isn’t violent like The Phantom is. He controls Christine in a much less forceful but still very paternalistic way. When they reunite, he does not ask her to come to dinner with him, he says, “And now, we go to supper.” How much of this is “I’m the rich guy so I get to decide what you do” and how much of this is “I’m the man so I get to tell you what to do?” He also dismisses Christine’s very real fears of the Phantom, saying that there is no Phantom despite the fact that he knows she has already been kidnapped once, he has received letters from the Phantom, he has heard the Phantom’s voice, and has even seen a stagehand murdered (though perhaps he assumes the murder was an accident). He later tries to force Christine to show affection for him publicly by questioning why she is hiding their engagement, while still dismissing her fears. After finally seeing the Phantom, Raoul becomes so overly protective of her that Christine must sneak by him while he’s asleep in order to visit her father’s mausoleum (the second personal choice she makes, and predictably, it’s one that lands her in danger). Really, one especially creepy thing about this “love” story is that there is an Electra Complex issue going on with both suitors; the Phantom pretends he is the spirit of Christine’s father, and Raoul acts like a father. Both are very possessive over Christine.

Raoul (Patrick Wilson) and Christine (Emmy Rossum) waltzing (Source: Fanpop.com)
Raoul is supposed to be the suitor whose love for Christine is pure, but it bothered me that at the end when he’s pleading for her freedom, it’s because he loves her, not because he wants her to be happy. When the Phantom overwhelms Raoul, he forces Christine to either choose to become his lover, or watch as he strangles Raoul. Christine wills herself to stay with the Phantom – a choice she must make that is really no choice at all. The Phantom then releases both of them after finally feeling guilt over her sacrifice, and Christine inexplicably gives the Phantom her engagement ring. Why is it supposed to be touching that she gave him a symbol of her choosing someone else? Why does a serial murderer get given a memento just because he taught her how to sing? At the end of the film, which takes place in the 1930s, an elderly Raoul purchases the Phantom’s music box and places it on Christine’s grave. A red rose with the engagement ring on it is already on the headstone. Even after death, Christine is still subject to her suitors’ whims, and is “gifted” with an eternal reminder of her kidnapping.

As for Christine herself, because there isn’t really much to her personality besides her spinelessness, I took notice that there’s a lot of symbolic and sexist meaning in the clothes she wears. Her rival, Carlotta (more about her in a minute) wears brightly and brashly coloured outfits, but Christine is always clad in whites, soft pinks, and the occasional red. Christine’s outfits are so unlike Carlotta’s that, when she becomes Carlotta’s understudy, it didn’t even look like they were playing the same part. When the Phantom kidnaps her for the first time, she’s wearing a lacy white nightgown that is both low cut and slit up to her thigh. Pretty sure that wasn’t the fashion in Victorian Paris! But after he returns her, she’s never in pure white again, leading to the unfortunate subtextual conclusion that she might not be so virginal anymore. The Phantom himself wears bright red in one scene, so I can only conclude that Christine’s switch from white to pink is a sign that the Phantom has “tainted” her.

Besides Christine, there are three other named female characters. Carlotta, the literal prima donna, Madame Giry, the ballet instructor, and Meg Giry, her daughter and Christine’s best friend. Unfortunately, the script does not get a full Bechdel Test pass; the few times that the female characters talk to each other, it is always about the Phantom. There is also some rather nasty pitting of the women against each other. Christine and Carlotta follow a pretty rigid virgin/whore dichotomy, though while Carlotta is not shown as being promiscuous, she is contrasted with Christine through her vanity, short temper, jealousy, supposed lack of talent (though she actually does sound like an opera vocalist, whereas Christine does not), and general brash demeanour. There is also a contrasting of a young woman versus an “old” woman; both the Opera House owners and the Phantom strongly want to emphasize Christine’s youth. The Phantom even says that Carlotta is “seasons past her prime” when she can’t be older than her late 30s. Christine is also pitted against her best friend, and this one I find particularly loathsome. Madame Giry was the one who brought the Phantom to the Opera House in the first place; as such, she knows not only about his deformity, but also about his artistic talents and his obsession with Christine. She excuses the Phantom’s crimes both out of pity and admiration for him, which is pretty sickening because Christine is supposed to be like an adoptive daughter to her. It’s quite obvious which young woman Madame Giry cares about and which one she doesn’t, as twice she goes out of her way to keep Meg away from the Phantom and never once does she try to protect Christine.

Unmasked Phantom (Gerard Butler) holding a struggling Christine (Emmy Rossum) (Source: Fanpop.com)
Lastly, though it is unfortunately not surprising for a film taking place in 1870 Paris, there are zero people of colour in the major cast. The only people of colour in the film at all are supposed to be Romani (and they’re, of course, called “gypsies” here). They are in a single flashback scene to the Phantom and Madame Giry’s childhoods, where she finds him cruelly caged and used as a sideshow freak act in a traveling caravan. The scene is incredibly racist, as the “Gypsies” are shown to be filthy, violent, strange and cruel. They are always photographed in the darkest lighting possible to emphasize their (what I’m guessing is supposed to be) “evil swarthiness.” The child Phantom’s subsequent strangulation of his keeper is presented as sympathetically as possible. I have never been able to keep a straight face through the sequence where the Phantom’s first murder is discovered, as it depicts another “Gypsy” coming across the keeper’s body and incredulously shouting “Murder!” in slow motion.
All in all, what a mess. It’s still better than Batman and Robin, but that’s not saying much. Awful acting, mediocre singing and cheesy directing choices are the least of the film’s problems. At its core, Phantom of the Opera is the supposedly romantic story of two controlling men fighting over a spineless and personality-devoid woman. Hmm…sounds like Twilight. Christine is given absolutely no agency throughout the entire story, and can’t seem to do anything without a man to tell her what to do. She’s symbolically valued solely for her virginity, and other women in the cast are considered inferior to her, except when Madame Giry values her own daughter’s safety vastly more than Christine’s. For a musical I love this much, it’s quite shocking how anti-feminist the story is. With all things considered, I think I’ll just stick to listening to the soundtrack.

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Myrna Waldron is a feminist writer/blogger with a particular emphasis on all things nerdy. She lives in Toronto and has studied English and Film at York University. Myrna has a particular interest in the animation medium, having written extensively on American, Canadian and Japanese animation. She also has a passion for Sci-Fi & Fantasy literature, pop culture literature such as cartoons/comics, and the gaming subculture. She maintains a personal collection of blog posts, rants, essays and musings at The Soapboxing Geek, and tweets with reckless pottymouthed abandon at @SoapboxingGeek.