Author: Bitch Flicks

Call for Writers: Women in Sports

For some reason, Netflix keeps giving me a list of Sports Movies I Might Like. It took me about nine years of scrolling through the list to find a single Sports Movie featuring a woman—A League of Their Own (which is also the only woman-centered film Complex included on their list of “25 Best Sports Movies Streaming on Netflix Right Now”).
A League of Their Own, however, is not the only Sports Movie ever made about women. (And not to knock it, but the most famous scene in the film revolves around a dude—a drunk Tom Hanks yelling “There’s no crying in baseball” at one of the players). The lack of availability of these films, though, especially on a large-scale platform like Netflix, is yet another instance of women’s stories not being taken seriously.
And while there are a number of important articles that appear when you google “women in sports movies,” the second hit that comes up (after Wikipedia) is “Top 10 Hottest Women in Sports, Movies, Television and Whatever.” The one after that? ESPN’s ridiculously titled, “Evil Women of Sports Movies.”
Gross.
There are, fortunately, so many amazing organizations counteracting this nonsense by supporting women and girls in sports, from the Women’s Sports Foundation to the Feminist Majority Foundation.
Of course, we couldn’t have this conversation at all if it weren’t for Title IX. The law, passed in 1972, states that:
No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.

This has undoubtedly influenced and empowered women and girls, and people are more willing to push back against discrimination now; Cassy Blythe’s Facebook page, “Let Her Play”—in honor of her 12-year-old daughter Maddy—has almost 50,000 likes.
But Dave Zirin wrote in his article for The Nation called, “Serena Williams and Getting ‘Emotional’ for Title IX” that in 1972, the majority of the public agreed with sports columnist Furman Bisher’s opinion of Title IX when he wrote:
What are we after, a race of Amazons? Do you want a companion or a broad that chews tobacco? What do you want for the darling daughter, a boudoir or a locker room full of cussing and bruises? A mother for your grandchildren or a hysterectomy?

Okay, bro.
We’ve certainly made great strides in girls’ and women’s participation in sports, but those stories aren’t showcased as often as they should be onscreen. Even when those stories are told, they tend to be problematic—either reducing women to objects or painting them as manly, tomboyish, and therefore unattractive. (There are notable exceptions, of course, and feel free to write about them. Just don’t feel bad for wanting to write a scathing piece about Adrian’s relationship with Rocky, for instance.) In order to more fully explore some common tropes about women in sports movies, male-centric films aren’t necessarily off limits—as long as the focus remains on how the women characters are most affected in the film.
Take a look at the oh-so-incomplete list below for general ideas about a potential topic. And if you’re especially feeling the Sports Theme, watch Julie Foudy, Olympic gold medalist and World Cup star, talk about the importance of Title IX and the necessity of educating our youth about its history.

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, August, 23rd.
–Include a 2-3 sentence bio for placement at the end of your piece.
Email us at btchflcks(at)gmail(dot)com if you’d like to contribute a review. We accept original pieces or cross-posts. We look forward to reading your submissions!

Here are some potential films to write about but please feel free to suggest your own:

Against the Ropes
The Bad News Bears
Bend It Like Beckham
Blue Crush
Bring It On
The Cutting Edge
Eddie
ESPN’s Nine for IX Series
Girlfight
Gracie
Heart Like a Wheel
The Hot Flashes
Ice Castles
Just Wright
A League of Their Own
Love & Basketball
The Mighty Macs
Million Dollar Baby
National Velvet
Off the Rez
Pat and Mike 
Personal Best
Quarterback Princess
She’s the Man
Soul Surfer
Trouble with the Curve
Venus and Serena
When Billie Beat Bobby
Whip It
Wildcats
Wimbledon

Like the Water

Like the Water, DP: Eve M. Cohen, Dir. Caroline von Kuhn
This is a guest post by Caroline von Kuhn.

Artists in every discipline play out our personal neuroses in our work, but there are few outlets as indulgent a playground as film.

My most pleasurable experience of a contemporary film in a theatre last year was Leos Carax’s Holy Motors, which I saw twice on the big screen. It raises the ultimate question of identity near and dear to my heart: is human existence a truth formed through an evolution of identities building on one another until we are whole? Or merely a series of empty performances conformed to our given circumstances? Do we evolve, dropping deeper into our Self with each relationship we enter or instead chip away until only an empty shell remains?

Carax houses these dark, looming questions in a delightful succession of dream-like vignettes. The film transpires over the course of one day in which M. Oscar (Denis Lavant) takes a series of appointments, each a distinct, if not surreal, homage to film and literature. We, like M. Oscar, get lost in the act, re-emerging to digest the one and prepare for the next: left to return to the question of his, of our, identity.

My first attempt at filmmaking was a collective autodidactic pursuit of the medium with a team of five other female artists. We set out to tell a story of self-identity and the even bigger struggle of self-acceptance in one’s 20s. We set out to tell a story of the imperfection of the Female. We set out to tell a story of that first taste of a contemporary’s mortality, which leaves youth grappling with grief in its rawest, ugliest, truest form. We set out to teach ourselves the craft of filmmaking through this story.

What results is our Like the Water.

Caitlin FitzGerald in Like the Water, DP: Eve M. Cohen, Dir. Caroline von Kuhn
The inspiration for our film stemmed from a deeply formative shared experience Caitlin FitzGerald, my lead actress and co-writer, and I had of losing childhood friends in our early 20s. We both found that encountering death at a young age – especially that of a contemporary – provoked a seismic shift in the way we came to understand the world. We not only shared experiences of grief but had turned to writing in a therapeutic attempt to capture and express something ultimately inchoate: the memory of a life.

The 20s prove to be a time of extraordinary growth – a fuller awareness, a deeper appreciation, of the world and the self. It was more or less around this transitional chapter that we six artists met and committed to exploring, perhaps exploiting, iterations of our story. One of the universal feminine, in a way that film never allows the feminine to be portrayed. The film that results is a product of this particular chorus of women’s voices. We discovered a shared urgency for us to tell this story with these women that summer because our voices were right for it at that moment.

On the set of Like the Water, photo by Lori Traikos
So we wrote a script, raised some money, cast our friends and family (yes, my parents are in my movie, as are many of our parents), assembled a great crew and went up to Maine. A very generous community of Mainers welcomed us into their fold and set us up to pull off this adventure. Within 16 months we had conceived, written, funded, shot, edited and premiered our first film – most of us first-timers in our positions.

With age does come wisdom, or, at the very least, a more weathered, cynical perspective. Maybe it was exactly this naivety that ultimately allowed us to pursue such an ambitious endeavor with such uninhibited sincerity and gusto. For the gift of directing my first film, I will forever be indebted to this group of women – for indulging me in the pursuit of our story.

And I look forward to this continued pursuit with the next.

Like the Water is written, produced, directed, stars, shot & edited by women. It can be viewed on Seed&Spark.
Caroline von Kuhn works as the Managing Director of the Camden International Film Festival and is producing The Fixer (Dir. Ian Olds).

[Photo Credit: Frances F. Denny]

Hey, Filmmakers! Athena Film Festival Accepting Submissions

We’re big (huge, ginormous…you get the idea) fans of the Athena Film Festival. A film fest that focuses on women and leadership? Of course we love it. Bitch Flicks has attended and covered it each and every year. So naturally we’re excited to attend the 4th Annual Athena Film Festival next year.
It’s incredibly powerful to attend the four-day festival. Inspiring filmmakers share their insight, advice and experience. You see a plethora of films showcasing diverse women leaders and celebrating women’s lives. Considering the overwhelming gender disparity in Hollywood, not to mention how rare it is to see queer women and women of color on-screen, it’s crucial to have a venue honoring women in film.
If you’re a filmmaker (of any gender), and your film (feature, documentary, or short) “features a woman in a leadership position at the center of the story,” now’s the time to submit your work. You have until September 15th to submit your film.

* Reveal the diverse narratives of women leaders from all walks of life — narratives of ambition, courage, strength and resilience.

* Showcase women leaders who help us interpret the reality of the modern world — captivating stories of truth, determination, innovation and vision.

* Highlight the talents of emerging artists — capturing a new generation’s take on what truly makes exemplary women leaders.

From Athena Film Festival:
Athena Film Festival — A Celebration of Women and Leadership is a festival of feature films, documentaries, and shorts dedicated to highlighting women’s leadership in real life and the fictional world. The 4th Annual Athena Film Festival, which includes conversations with producers, directors and Hollywood stars, as well as workshops for filmmakers, will take place at Barnard College in New York City from February 6-9, 2014. 
We are accepting submissions from June 15 – September 15. Criteria for submissions can be found here.

The Athena Film Festival is committed to ensuring that filmmakers across the globe have the opportunity to become involved in this festival. We would greatly appreciate it if you could spread the word about our call for submissions.

Please email athenafilmfestival@gmail.com if you have any questions.

So filmmakers, submit your films!

‘Star Trek: Deep Space Nine’ Explores Disability in "Melora"

This is a guest review by Jarrah Hodge. An earlier version appeared at her Tumblr, Trekkie Feminist.
“Melora” is one of many Star Trek episodes that uses an allegory about an alien to comment on an issue in our human society. In this case, Ensign Melora Pazlar comes to Deep Space Nine. She is unable to walk unassisted because she comes from a planet with very low gravity. 
There are some great moments in this episode, which was written by Evan Carlos Somers (and re-written by others), who himself uses a wheelchair. Somers has said:
“I always thought it would be nice to create a disabled character who’s accepted for what she is and doesn’t have to change…The best way to do that on Deep Space Nine was to have Bashir find a cure for the disability, and for the character to turn it down. That was the real driving force behind my wanting to do this episode.”

So how successful was it? I want to focus on a few key scenes featuring Melora and look at what they say about people with disabilities and expectations about their relationships with non-disabled people.
1. Bashir Can’t Wait to Meet Melora! 
Still from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
“Just think what she’s gone through to get here, Jadzia. What it must be like to adjust to our gravity after growing up on a planet with such low surface gravity,” Doctor Bashir effuses to Lieutenant Dax, who will be accompanying Melora on her surveying mission.
The crew sets up ramps for Melora to use, but there will still be places she can’t access in the wheelchair. Dax asks why they can’t just use the transporter.
O’Brien: It makes sense to me, but she sent word that it wouldn’t be acceptable to her.

Dax: I wonder why.

Bashir: I know exactly why. She went through the Academy the same way. Once her basic needs are met, she refuses any special assistance. She’s extraordinary.

There’s an implication here that people with disabilities are supposed to be self-reliant and avoid inconveniencing others … 

2. But Not Too Self-reliant

Melora from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Turns out Melora has a big chip on her shoulder. She’s fed up with people treating her as less capable, which makes what she’s saying totally understandable. For example, when she meets Commander Sisko she’s upset because the senior officers were discussing her mission without her. Sisko explains that’s normal and she replies:
Melora: I’m sorry if I seem overly sensitive, but I’m used to being shut out of the Melora problem. The truth is, there is no Melora problem until people create one. This may sound ungrateful, because Doctor Bashir has been wonderfully helpful in the preparations for my arrival, but frankly, I wonder why a medical opinion is necessary in this discussion.

Dax: Julian [Bashir] knows more of your capabilities than any of us.

Melora: I don’t need a medical opinion to tell me my own capabilities.

This is a great call-out of the medical model, which treats disability as an illness that needs to be cured (by contrast, the social model sees society as not adequately accommodating people with disabilities’ needs).

Unfortunately, after all of her outbursts, all the main characters get this look that seems to say, “Whoa! This lady is totally overreacting. What’s with the attitude?” One commenter on my original post said she thought the flawed response of the crew was written deliberately to reflect what many people with disabilities encounter today. That might be true, but I would’ve liked it to be more obviously challenged.


3. The Doctor Finds a Way In
Bashir and Melora
Bashir tells Melora he’s no longer her doctor, but he’s still trying to fix her by drawing attention to the way she uses sarcasm and criticism to stay at a distance from others.
He softens her up a bit and asks her to dinner. At the Klingon restaurant on the promenade, Melora surprises him by ordering in Klingon, definitely a good attempt to add a bit more complexity to the character.

4. The “Cure” 

Dax helps Melora after her fall
Melora falls attempting to get into a section of the station where there are no ramps. Dax finds and helps her to the infirmary.
There, Bashir (who’s now her doctor again, apparently) treats her and tells her she needs to let herself be dependent on others sometimes.
As he walks her back to her quarters, he says he thinks he might be able to adapt some previous work on “neuromuscular adaptation” that might be able to strengthen her muscles enough that she doesn’t have to use the chair.
She lets Bashir into her quarters and turns down the artificial gravity. Then they kiss and make out. My first thought was this is problematic because he’s her doctor again–he’s actually considering treating her disability!
On the other hand, the romance shows her as someone with sexual and romantic interests and desires, which helps counter the myth that all people with disabilities are uninterested in or incapable of sex.

5. Second Thoughts 
Bashir tries to “cure” Melora
Even though the treatments are starting to work, Melora has second thoughts, and the way that she expresses them gets at the idea that what might be seen as a disability can be part of who someone is–not something that can and should be “cured.”
Melora realizes how valuable she really is when she and Dax are taken hostage by a thuggish alien (part of the B plot in this episode).
The bad guy zaps her with a phaser, with Bashir and the crew in Operations watching via viewscreen, but somehow she revives. She turns off the gravity on the runabout and launches herself into the bad guy, saving the day. 
Melora stops the bad guy
It’s a neat little twist on what could’ve been a very damsel-in-distress-y scenario. It’s also cool that what had been seen as her disability was used in a powerful way. Unfortunately, it was kind of undermined by the explanation of why she survived the phaser blast: because of the neuro-stimulants she’d been receiving as part of her treatments to “fix” her mobility issues.

6. Melora and Bashir Part Ways
Melora and Bashir hold hands
Bashir and Melora have the final scene back in the Klingon restaurant. Bashir is disappointed that she won’t continue the treatment and Melora replies: 
“I like being independent, but to give up everything that I am to walk on land…Well, I might be more independent, but I wouldn’t be Elaysian anymore. I’m not sure what I’d be. Besides, maybe independence isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. I kind of like how it feels to depend on someone for a change. And I’m glad you got me to unlock the doors to my quarters so I could finally let someone into my life.”

And then we never hear Bashir mention her again for the rest of the series.
I think the motivation behind “Melora” was great, but overall I thought the messages were a little unclear. I saw that Melora doesn’t have to change her disability, but she does have to change her attitude. Ultimately, that personal transformation to being more “dependent” was what tied the story together more than a reaffirmation of her uniqueness.
There’s also the unfortunate fact that her relationship with Bashir can’t continue after she decides not to finish the treatments.
But ultimately, no matter what happened in this episode, you’re always going to have problems using a single character as a stand-in for an entire group of people. To really do justice to the diverse experiences of people with disabilities, we need more people with disabilities in TV shows generally (actors and characters), playing a range of parts, including recurring roles that give us a chance to see more complete and complex identities.

Jarrah Hodge is the founder of Gender Focus, a Canadian feminist blog. Jarrah also writes for Vancouver Observer and Huffington Post Canada and has been a guest blogger on “feminerd” culture for Bitch Magazine Blogs. Hailing from New Westminster, BC, she’s a fan of politics, crafts, boardgames, musical theatre, and brunch.

Disabilities Week: The Patronizingly "Adorable" Side of Schizophrenia in ‘Benny & Joon’

Movie poster for Benny & Joon

This is a guest review by Carleen Tibbetts.
When Bitch Flicks put out the call for reviews regarding the portrayal of “disabled” women, I had a mixed reaction. Most of the suggested films and TV series deal with both physical disabilities and mental illness, but there’s far greater stigma attached to anything psychological, especially when women are involved. The words “crazy” and “insane” get thrown around far too often and get a lot of mileage when it comes to women. It’s easy and dismissive to tell a woman her “craziness” is just a byproduct of her gender, and even more callous to tell a woman with a mental illness that she is thus, and seemingly unable to be helped, bettered, et cetera.
Jeremiah Chechlik’s 1993 film, Benny & Joon is the story of Joon (Mary Stuart Masterson), a twenty-something artist who lives under the care of her older brother, Benny (Aidan Quinn). Benny works full-time as an auto mechanic and has hired a string of “housekeepers,” as he calls them, to keep an eye on Joon during the day. When the last caregiver quits after Joon has an outburst, Benny must leave Joon home alone, where she is content to go about her routine that involves painting and making Captain Crunch and peanut butter smoothies. 
Mary Stuart Masterson as Joon and Aidan Quinn as Benny in Benny & Joon
At first, it appears as if Joon is just a bit quirky, or perhaps a stereotypical “temperamental artist.” Aside from the manic rate at which she produces her paintings, her need to adhere to routine, her idiosyncrasies, and her flat mannerisms suggest she might present as Autistic. Her extreme pickiness regarding food would be another indicator of being somewhere on the spectrum when, at one point in the film, she refuses to eat raisins in her tapioca pudding, claiming that they were “humiliated grapes” that “had a their life stolen.” When she leaves the house with a ping-pong paddle and scuba mask to direct traffic, however, this is more characteristic of a schizophrenic or bipolar episode.
Benny knows he can’t leave her unsupervised, but he’s torn about how to handle the situation. Joon’s psychiatrist suggests he place Joon in a group home that would enable her to socialize and perhaps even get a part-time job. His initial reaction is extremely defensive, and explaining that he is Joon’s only family, that he’s always cared for her, and that he’s not “farming her out.” Glimpses of Joon’s medical information (note the screen shots) don’t even indicate what condition or disorder she has been diagnosed with. All we know is that she is on some form of medication, and perhaps it isn’t working too well given her tantrums and erratic behavior. Joon tells Benny not to “underestimate the mentally ill,” yet he continuously undercuts her, treats her like a child, limits her autonomy and decision-making capacities. Further, Benny uses his situation with Joon as a convenient excuse to avoid any kind of romantic entanglements or committed relationships. Potential love interest waitress/apartment manager Ruthie (Julianne Moore) is extremely patient and understanding in her interactions with Joon, yet Benny initially shies away from anything too serious, claiming his life is too complicated and that there really isn’t any room for a woman in his life other than his sister. 
Joon’s medical intake form
Another part of Joon’s routine involves her tagging along to Benny’s regular poker nights with several friends. One night when she fills in for him, she ends up “winning” Sam (Johnny Depp), the barely literate, Buster Keaton-obsessed cousin of one of Benny’s friends. Benny agrees to take Sam in for an unspecified amount of time, hoping that Sam could take over “housekeeper” duties and babysit Joon. It really is a wonder that Benny has apparently taken care of her since they were teenagers. He’s so emotionally well-equipped! His thinking is so clear! He doesn’t need to take advice from mental health professionals! He can have an adorable vagabond with no credentials look after Joon!
Sam’s a different sort of socially awkward. He has a penchant for horrible slasher films, which he memorizes word for word, and has an almost sixth sense when it comes to knowing film trivia. It’s as if his brain functions like the IMDb database. Perhaps he’s somewhere on the spectrum. He also has a charming little Chaplinesque physical comedy routine going, complete with top hat, baggy trousers, and cane. Benny’s so impressed he tries to get Sam an agent to book him in comedy clubs. Sam’s blissful naivete serves as a complete counter to put-upon, worry-wart Benny. His presence in the house has a calming effect on Joon, and her whole demeanor changes. She’s met someone who “gets” her. Sam and Joon are kindred spirits. Sam gives Joon a sense of companionship and joy she’s been lacking for most of her adult life. Sam allows Joon to ease up on her routine, takes her out of the house (where Benny keeps her trapped and isolated), running little errands, socializing, basically integrating her into society in little baby steps. 
Joon directs traffic with a ping pong paddle
So, for a short time everything is hunky dory. Benny can work without worrying about Joon; he can date a woman who doesn’t demand he put her emotional needs before his responsibilities to his sister; Sam gets a job at a video store; and he and Joon begin to know each other. Biblically. When they break the news to Benny, it sends him into a rage. He tells Sam to get out of the house (being homeless, he just ends up living in a tree in their front yard…), and tells Joon he wants her to live in the group home. He turns all protector father figure, and Joon rebels as would any teenage girl. She tells Benny he wants to keep her sick, doesn’t want her to be happy, and the moment she is left alone, she sneaks out of the house and runs off with Sam.
The two quirky lovebirds get on a bus bound for “anywhere but here,” when Joon starts having an extreme anxiety attack. She starts crying and screaming, and her episode forces the driver to get everyone off the bus and call the paramedics. In a truly heartbreaking scene, Sam watches Joon pace the bus and scream until the paramedics escort her off and take her to a psych ward. She refuses to see anyone, yet Benny and Sam manage to break into the ward. Benny agrees not to put Joon in a group home but have her live in her own apartment (conveniently managed by his now-girlfriend, Ruthie) with Sam. EVERYTHING IS SUPER AWESOME FUN TIME! LOOK HOW ADORABLE SCHIZOPHRENIA CAN BE! The credits roll with Sam and Joon making little grilled cheese sandwiches with an iron! Yes! They’re going to make it on his video store wages and illiteracy, and she’s presumed jobless and in the care of another male authority figure! She doesn’t need professional treatment! She just needs a boyfriend! 
Benny watches Joon paint
Here is where the criticism beings … Benny & Joon deals far more with Benny’s “unfortunate” situation of having to care for his sister than it does with Joon herself. Yes, although it does speak to Joon’s creativity, her spirit, etc., it doesn’t address the fact that Benny’s kept her infantilized most of her adult life. It was suggested that Benny place her in a home where she’d be supervised and be able to look for work, yet we don’t know if Joon has a history of trying to unsuccessfully hold down jobs, or if Benny prevented her from ever trying to be responsible and autonomous in the first place. I can’t even begin to address his ridiculous decision to have Joon babysat by a series of non-credentialed “houskeepers” instead of attempting to integrate her into society. I wonder if he was granted power of attorney, legal guardianship, etc. I find it hard to believe that in a situation like that, he was allowed to care for Joon since they were teenagers. How did Social Services not step in at any point? How was he not charged with abandonment and neglect? 
Benny sneaks in to see Joon at the mental hospital
This movie is less about Joon herself than it is about her in relation to the men in her life. Yes, at the close it gives the impression that she’s going to be happy and productive but only under close watch of her boyfriend, her brother, and her brother’s girlfriend. Fine, maybe she doesn’t need to live in a group home, but it’s important that she go to some form of therapy and see positive examples of highly-functioning schizophrenics, and this is never brought up in the film! She can’t just have medication thrown at her and not pair it with any sort of cognitive and behavioral therapy. Making grilled cheese sandwiches with Johnny Depp doesn’t count.
When I searched for images to include in the piece in addition to the screen shots I took, the movie poster images I came across presented another issue: Joon herself is sidelined and literally sandwiched between the two men in her life: her lover and her brother. Alternate posters depict Johnny Depp alone on a stool. In fact, the Google image search yields more pictures of Johnny Depp than anything else! Where is Joon in all of this? The screen time given to Depp and all his quirky little gimmicks far outweighs scenes that focus on Joon’s interests, her paintings, etc. She’s a talented artist, yet Benny is more concerned with getting Sam work than he is with getting Joon’s art out in the world or enrolling her in an art therapy program, which would have been ideal for her. 
Sam and Joon make grilled cheese sandwiches with an iron
There is NOTHING adorable about mental illness. I take huge issue with this film. It trivializes and downplays a serious, crippling disorder. As a woman who was diagnosed bipolar roughly ten years ago and who has been hospitalized, watching scenes in which paramedics tranquilize and forcibly escort a woman to a psychiatric ward is particularly painful and all-too familiar. You cannot have your family members spring you from a psych ward. You cannot check in for a staycation and leave when you feel like it. You are there until the mental health professionals get your cocktail of meds just right, bring you back to a functioning level, and deem you fit for release. In this case, I would think Joon’s psychiatrist would not want to release her into the care of two men who broke into her room and who flagrantly disregarded her professional advice in the first place.
Living with mental illness means constantly having your state of mind questioned. It means family members and long-term friends not being able to understand or relate to your struggles, your episodes. This often leads to strained romantic relationships where genetics are even called into question. Say Joon and Sam keep going strong. If they chose to have children, is she capable of being a parent? Could she stay off her meds during her pregnancy without having another episode? My ex’s parents asked me at one point in our eight-year relationship if I could even have children, because they wanted grandkids in the worst way. It was one of the most callous, insensitive, and derogatory things anyone had ever said to me in relationship to my disorder. Obviously, the mentally “ill” are capable of having children, or else these conditions would cease to exist. 
Joon has a panic attack on the bus
Benny & Joon, despite all its charm and whimsy, really glosses over a serious, potentially debilitating condition. I’m not saying it doesn’t have its delightful moments, but it fails to realistically address Joon’s history or possible outcomes for her future well-being. Joon is defined in by the men in her life, and as a result, is stifled, crippled, and unable to break out on her own. She needs to be taken care of, coddled. Apparently, to quote the Proclaimers theme song that opens and closes the film, Joon just needs a man to fall down at her door. Yes, it’s Hollywood, and we all want happy endings, but the underlying message that all Joon really needs is a stable romantic relationship rather than a stable relationship with herself, especially in relation to functioning in the outside world, is completely misguided.

Carleen Tibbetts lives in Oakland and edits at Similar:Peaks:: Her work has appeared in kill author, Word Riot, Metazen, Monkeybicycle, Coconut, H_NGM_N, horse less press, Boog City, The Rumpus, HTMLGIANT, and elsewhere.

Disabilities Week: ‘Glee’s Not So Gleeful Representation of Disabled Women

Glee poster, Season 3

This is a guest review by Erin Tatum.

It’s no secret that Glee is offensive to pretty much anyone who isn’t an able white male. While Glee has justifiably received a lot of flak for its treatment of certain communities – notable examples include Brittany breaking up with Santana only to be shoved into a nonsensical heterosexual relationship with Sam and relegating Tina and Mike to the background as self-aware Asian stereotypes – viewers have been relatively mum with respect to Glee’s treatment of disability. Artie is Glee‘s resident disabled character, whose rampant sexism is often played for laughs as he rehearses the trope of masculine entitlement no matter how ridiculous the conditions (in this case, the assumption that his disability should normally negate his sexuality, making his womanizing ways all the more ludicrous). Given that Artie’s disability is so wrapped up in issues of male privilege, I was curious to see if or how Glee would handle women with disabilities. Unsurprisingly, the two brief instances of women with physical disabilities were both heavily sexually coded and presented in ways that policed and shamed female sexuality.

Quinn seems to be Ryan Murphy’s favorite punching bag. I don’t understand how someone can get pregnant, give their baby up for adoption, get accepted to Yale, get into a car accident, and be disabled and then miraculously healed again in the span of four years, but Glee does have a knack for redefining the narratively impossible. After said car accident, Quinn makes an implausibly short recovery to return to school weeks later perfectly unscathed except for the presence of her wheelchair.

Quinn Fabray (Dianna Agron) and Artie Abrams (Kevin McHale) in Glee

Flanked by her new BFF Artie – which tells you that this is going to be a very special minority duo bonding episode! – Quinn tells a distraught Rachel that this is the happiest day of her life. I groaned then and there because I knew Quinn wouldn’t remain disabled and this was just going to be her 575th chance to get some perspective (what I like to call Drive-by Oppression as a tool for lazy character development) and realize the benefits of able privilege. The problem is that Quinn’s introductory episode with a disability – rather than highlighting all the strength of the disabled community, is really just a reaffirmation of everything able-bodied people find unsavory about disability and a justification for Quinn’s ableist prejudices.

Quinn and Artie sing “I’m Still Standing”

Quinn and Artie lip-synch to a particularly offensive duet of “I’m Still Standing,” which is meant to be an inspirational metaphor for staying strong and being glad you’re still alive and yada yada. Again, this might actually mean something if the entire episode weren’t devoted to Quinn proving to everyone how not disabled she is because it doesn’t fit her character trajectory. As we all know, just like in real life, those who start out able-bodied never become disabled because that doesn’t logically make sense with how they’re supposed to be!

Artie shows Quinn how to wheel up a ramp

The episode shows some obligatory wheelchair-based bonding between Quinn and Artie, such as Artie teaching Quinn how to wheel herself up a ramp. Can I say that I found the whole Artie as disability Yoda plotline doubly offensive because neither of the actors is disabled in real life? Stop pretending that sitting down in a wheelchair is all it takes to accurately portray disability. Anyway, Quinn gets offended the second Artie insinuates that she might have to plan for life with a disability long-term. As someone who has had a disability from birth, I can’t imagine the turmoil that formerly able-bodied people must go through after suffering an accident. That said, it’s another matter entirely to endorse Quinn’s pessimism as a means of reasserting ableist privilege over Artie because it sends a message that deep down, all people believe that the disabled lifestyle is limiting, tragic, and not all that viable when it comes to achieving overall life goals. Her interaction with Artie pretty much ends here, signaling the start of her ascent back into an able-bodied lifestyle.

Of course, Quinn couldn’t pass through her tenure with a disability without some good old-fashioned disabled sexuality shaming! Yes, Ryan Murphy has her take the stereotypical route of assuming that she’ll never be loved again because of her disgusting wheelchair. Nevertheless, sparks fly between her and dreadlocked, overzealous Christian Joe, a.k.a. Teen Jesus. Many of their fellow glee clubbers exchange knowing side-eyes and suppressed giggles when the duo shares a sensuous duet of “Saving All My Love for You.” The reaction to their performance stands in glaring contrast to those from Quinn’s past romantic duets in its distinctively patronizing tone, already signaling Quinn as an object of infantilism. Disabled sexuality can only ever hope to parody “legitimate” adult sexuality as a spectacle of able titillation.

Quinn uses her reflection in a hand dryer to apply her lipstick

The girls excitedly gossip about Joe’s obvious crush in the bathroom, where Quinn makes the best of her newly lowered height by stoically reapplying her lipstick in the reflection of the hand dryer. Quinn brushes off their teasing by announcing that she’s said goodbye to that part of her life because clearly no one would ever want her when she’s in a chair, as evidenced by Joe’s discomfort during a steamy moment in physical therapy (yes, really). The worst part is that her speedy recovery validates this mentality. It’s moments like this that make me sad for young viewers with disabilities who may actually perceive these characters as role models. For those who have lived with a disability and have no possibility of recovery, all scenes like this do is perpetuate the myth of disability as a sexless Siberia of perpetual isolation. Further, Quinn’s attitude is marketed as noble.

Quinn gets physical therapy from Teen Jesus

But there’s a bright spot, kids! It turns out Joe was only recoiling in horror from Quinn’s crippled body because he apparently has a nasty habit of getting boners around her. This catalyzes a spiritual crisis within him because he is against premarital sex. Quinn finds out via feeling his erection against her leg, causing her to smirk in self-satisfaction because she’s still got it. Joe then saves face by babbling some drivel about how beautiful she is and how she makes him question his faith. The audience is supposed to find his innocence and chastity in spite of boners endearing, making it perhaps the most pervy analog to I Kiss Your Hand ever. I know this show is going for the love after tragedy angle, but I can’t help but think it’s a little too convenient that they paired the abstinent Christian with the recently disabled girl. By coupling up the two characters that appear to be the most logically sexually repressed, the narrative supposedly gives them a happy ending while weaseling out of the obligation to show them actually having any physical intimacy that we could expect with any of the other couples. Perhaps in an inadvertent confirmation of this erasure, Quinn and Joe are not shown to be physically affectionate with each other during any point in their pseudo-relationship. Quinn regains the ability to walk after a measly five episodes, declaring herself a viable vixen once more as she returns to make out with Puck for no reason while never mentioning that Joe or her relationship with him existed.

Betty (Ali Stoker) and Artie in Glee

On the opposite end of the sexual expression spectrum, Betty is Emma’s disabled niece who appears for about three quarters of an episode for the sole purpose of having a one night stand with Artie while checking his ego. Artie barely greets her before she shuts him down with a swift “oh hell no.” Artie immediately whines that she is only rejecting him because he’s in a chair, which I must say is the first time I’ve heard internalized ableism as a reason for friendzoning someone. Of course, Glee would never have the chops to explore the social complexity of internalized ableism, especially in a romantic context, so you know right off the bat that we’re going to be treated to an abridged version of the nice guy chasing the uppity bitch.

Accordingly, Betty is 100% sass. She explains that she doesn’t date “losers in chairs” because she’s blonde, captain of the cheerleading squad, and has big boobs. I guess after Quinn, the writers were desperate to show how inclusive they could be, so they decided to make Betty represent every reverse disability stereotype dialed up to 11 in a single sentence. The problem is that reverse stereotypes usually only mock the given community more because they act as a wink wink nudge nudge to the audience that the original stereotypes are true since the reverse is hilariously unfathomable. Everything in this scene, from the way Betty coyly dismisses Artie to Artie’s dumbfounded expression after every new burn is played for laughs. The exchange is horribly uncomfortable to watch because it has the snide, childish undertone of “LOL, look at the disabled people who think they can have standards!” It’s also incredibly troubling and disappointing that Betty’s self-confidence as a disabled woman translates into her perceiving disabled men as unfit objects of desire, sending the message that even people with disabilities themselves view other people with disabilities as incapable of being romantic partners, which only validates the traditional able conception of our community. Why is it that transcending your minority into the social privilege of majority always involves perpetuating harmful stereotypes and internalized hate against your own community?

Betty and Artie at the dance

Artie confronts Betty later, claiming she is a terrible, mean girl who hates her chair. Betty scolds him for playing the disability card and argues that she did not reject him out of any self-loathing, but simply because he’s an idiot. Artie spends most of his time being a misogynistic douchebag, and it’s a shame that only a woman with a disability could come close to legitimately calling him out on it. Since the powers that be would rather light themselves on fire than let their precious white boys face any criticism, we are left with the formulaic nice guy taming the shrew resolution. A silly montage plays as they dance together how able-bodied people think disabled people should dance, which means swiveling their chairs in a lot of fancy complex choreography.

Betty and Artie after their one night stand

Just to hammer home the fact that disabled people are kidding themselves by trying to have a sex life, the post-coitus aftermath shows Artie and Betty sharing a chuckle over the fact that neither of them felt anything, so they can’t possibly determine if the sex was good or not.

So to sum up, women with disabilities are constantly compelled to address the elephant in the room that is their presumably absent sexuality. You are allowed two modes: sad, stoic, and sexless; or cruel, bitchy, and promiscuous. Both are media stereotypes that women have faced before, but it becomes especially problematic when disability is thrown into the mix. No matter how sexually active a given character is, trying to achieve and maintain healthy sexuality is seen as a futile pursuit because disabled people and especially disabled women can never hope to have the “real thing.” Unfortunately, Glee happily perpetuates the myth that the sexuality of ladies with disabilities is either tragic or hilarious for cheap pity or laughs where appropriate.

Ali Stroker and Dani Shay

In an awesome case of life giving the middle finger to art, the (actually disabled!) actress who plays Betty, Ali Stroker, is currently involved in a relationship with fellow former Glee Project contestant Dani Shay. Their relationship is beyond adorable and Dani even wrote a song for her, the music video for which lets us get up close and personal with some pretty sensual moments between the two. It is possible for women with disabilities to be involved in loving, serious relationships, and ironically, the personal life of the very actress Glee attempted to pigeonhole exemplifies just how wrong the media is about disabled sexuality. Like all women, we are perfectly capable of wielding our own sexual agency, and the media needs to start reflecting that.


Erin Tatum is a recent graduate of UC Berkeley, where she majored in film and minored in LGBT studies. She is incredibly interested in social justice, media representation, intersectional feminism, and queer theory. British television and Netflix consume way too much of her time. She is particularly fascinated by the portrayal of sexuality and ability in television. 

Disabilities Week: Crazy Bitches Versus Indulgent Little Girls: The Binary of Mad Women in ‘Girl, Interrupted’

Movie poster for Girl, Interrupted

This is a guest review by Sarah Domet.

At first glance, Girl, Interrupted appears to be Hollywood’s version of feminist nirvana. It’s a veritable oasis in an industry where only 23% of speaking roles belong to women, an industry that tends to only depict women as supporting characters for the ever-important leading men. This 1999 film adaptation of Susanna Kaysen’s memoir of the same title features a strong core cast of women, some of whom went on to bigger stardom in the aftermath of the commercial success of the film.

Set to the backdrop of the late 1960s, Girl, Interrupted chronicles a fictionalized Susanna’s (Winona Ryder) year-long stint in the woman’s ward at Claymore, a private mental institution, after her attempted suicide and subsequent “break” with reality. Susanna is diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, a diagnosis she reluctantly accepts and from which she eventually “recovers.” Throughout the year, Susanna comes face-to-face with the “real” crazies in the form of sociopathic Lisa (Angelia Jolie), pathologically lying Georgina (Clea DuVall), schizophrenic Polly (Elizabeth Moss), and cocktail-of-issues Daisy (Brittany Murphy) who grapples with eating disorders, OCD, and a history of sexual abuse. The film suggests, sometimes overtly, that Susanna, by comparison to her ward-mates, isn’t doing so badly. In fact, Nurse Valerie (Whoopi Goldberg), in one of the most emotionally resonant scenes of the film, declares Susanna is “not crazy” but instead “a lazy, self-indulgent little girl who is driving herself crazy.” At this point, viewers are likely nodding their heads. Certainly, we’ve all met that girl. Or maybe we are that girl. 

Winona Ryder as Susanna Kaysen in Girl, Interrupted
Thankfully, Girl, Interrupted decidedly positions itself as not a love story. In fact, all of Susanna’s romantic interests are purely sexual, involving little emotion, a ”symptom” that gets her labeled as a borderline in the first place. Instead, Girl, Interrupted explores a young woman’s coming of age as she struggles in an uncertain world, meditates upon what it really means to be “mentally ill,” and, ultimately, discovers her sense of self. The equation is simple: the almost all-female cast + a story of female self-discovery = a feminist victory in a male-dominated Hollywood, right?

Well, yes and no.

At its core, Girl, Interrupted strives to be a feminist film. However, I find the film’s representations of “mad women” problematic, particularly the ways in which mental illness becomes so closely linked with eroticized otherness. And here is where the film’s deep ambivalence comes into play: it attempts to dispel the myth of what it means to be a mentally ill woman, while at the same time reinforcing cultural stereotypes that portray mentally ill women as hypersexual, dangerous, amoral, or inherently unfeminine. In the end, Girl, Interrupted posits mental illness as a choice from which one, like Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, can always return.

As Susanna checks into Claymore, she catches a glimpse of her doctor’s case notes that indicate her “promiscuous” tendencies as one symptom of her ailment. Yes, she had an affair with a married man, and, yes, she slept with the brother of one of her classmates; she loves neither of these men. At one point Susanna notes, “What kind of sex isn’t casual?” Certainly, her disavowal of love as a necessary component of sex is a feminist gesture. In the free-loving 60s, that sweeping diagnosis—promiscuity—encompassed nearly every rally, march, or peace protest in America, or at least modern-day viewers might suspect from the comfort of our viewing couches.

The women of Girl, Interrupted
Yet, her “promiscuity” continues, even at Claymore where Susanna engages in a physical relationship with a doting orderly. When challenged on this point by her therapist, Susanna becomes indignant, and rightly so. She argues, “How many guys would a girl have to sleep with to be considered promiscuous? Three, four, ten? How many girls would a guy have to sleep with? Fifteen? Forty? A hundred and nine?” Feminists across America high five each other.

At several junctures, such as this one, Girl, Interrupted positions itself firmly as a feminist film, shattering assumptions that there exists one “proper” behavior for women. We sympathize with Susanna and with her plight against The Man, against a gendered, cultural understanding of what is and is not appropriate sexual behavior for a young woman. In many ways, her “illness” manifests itself in the typical American teenage coming-of-age way. Susanna asks herself questions we all have asked, at one time or another: Where do I fit in? Who am I? What do I value?

Throughout the film, Susanna’s character works to unravel stereotypes about what it means to be a woman with a mental illness: she’s beautiful; she’s smart; she’s never threatening. She’s much like any other young woman as we watch her negotiate friendships, write in her journal, sneak out at night with her friends, smoke cigarettes, and, generally, protest authority. In most ways, she’s an ordinary girl, just like you might find on the “outside.” The viewer begins to question if Susanna even really needs to be at Claymore in the first place.

Susanna Kaysen (Winona Ryder) and Nurse Valerie (Whoopi Goldberg)
Yet, if Girl, Interrupted creates a binary with Susanna on one side, dismantling preconceived notions about mental illness and female sexuality, on the other side lies Lisa, who reinforces cultural narratives about “crazy bitches.” Let’s face it: Lisa is the real villain of the movie, a sociopath with no real moral compass, a young woman who is manipulative and unnervingly magnetic all at once. The moment she enters the film, returning from one of her many attempted escapes, we’re to understand that she’s a threat. She pins Susanna in the corner of her room shouting at her, demanding to know where her friend Jamie had gone, until she is physically restrained.

However, like many “crazy bitches” of cinema (Nina Sayers in Black Swan, Alex Forrest in Fatal Attraction) she exudes sexuality and charisma, deepened only by her sense of danger. As Susanna and Lisa spend time together, their growing friendship feels more like a courtship. Susanna herself can’t help but be drawn in by those pouty lips, her playfulness, her rabble rousing and bravado. At one point, as Susanna and Lisa are on the lam from Claymore, the two share a kiss. The moment is innocent enough, but the implications become clear. Lisa represents the eroticized other, the taboo, the forbidden, dark and amoral mad woman.

Angelina Jolie in her Oscar-winning role as Lisa in Girl, Interrupted
This stereotype becomes clearer a few moments later, in a pivotal scene of the film, when Lisa and Susanna crash at the apartment of Daisy, who has been newly released from Claymore. Susanna sits mute as Lisa taunts Daisy, exposing her deepest vulnerabilities. Lisa points out the cuts on Daisy’s arm, accuses Daisy of enjoying the sexual abuses of her father: “Everyone knows your father fucks you, what they don’t know is that you like it.” Lisa speaks the unspeakable, and Susanna watches doe-eyed, stunned at Lisa’s capacity for cruelty. The next morning, upon witnessing Daisy’s limp and lifeless body—she hanged herself—Lisa calls her an idiot, then picks her pocket for cash. Lisa, Susanna finally learns, has no capacity for emotion, no nurturing feelings at all. If anything makes her less than human—less than woman—it is this fact.
This scene in the movie, arguably the most important one, pits Lisa and Susanna against each other. But it also pits “good” against “evil,” and “feminine” against “unfeminine,” which is tied up in representations of mental illness. Susanna is faced with a choice: continue life with Lisa, a life that will certainly lead to chaos and casual sex and countercultural adventures, or return to Claymore to truly invest in her recovery. It’s a choice.
Brittany Murphy as Daisy in Girl, Interrupted
But is mental illness always a choice? And if so, between what and what?

Here’s a statistic: nearly 1 in 5 Americans suffers from mental illness of some sort, and a majority of these cases are women. This alarming number becomes even more important when recognizing that the film industry plays an important role in shaping public or cultural perception. In light of this, I wonder how detrimental a film such as Girl, Interrupted might be when questioning the legitimacy of mental illness and perpetuating stereotypes of those who suffer from these invisible diseases. Susanna’s renewed commitment to get better situates itself as a choice, and not necessarily one between health and illness or between one treatment and another. Instead, Susanna’s choice is oddly contingent upon morality, what’s right and wrong. Will she choose to return to Claymore? Or will she tread the darker path, represented by the villainous Lisa?

Which brings us back to Nurse Valerie’s diagnoses that Susanna is “not crazy” but, instead, “a lazy, self-indulgent little girl who is driving herself crazy.” The idea that Susanna is not really sick—that her invisible illness is a complete manifestation of her imagination or her culture—may be true. But it may be equally true that she, and young girls like her, are not just lazy and self-indulgent. That no amount of “trying harder” or “choosing to be well” necessarily helps, without the proper intervention. The movie wants to suggest that, yes, Susanna is a little confused, uncertain, depressed, even, but at least she doesn’t burn her face, or hide chicken bones under her bed, or require the padded room for her outbursts. At least she’s not crazy-crazy. Not like “them.” Girl, Interrupted paints a world where mental illness is not an invisible illness. Invisibility means conformity means health, and only when one adapts more culturally-sanctioned “moral” or “feminine” behavior will she be considered well again.

Susanna (Winona Ryder) and Lisa (Angelina Jolie) share a kiss
I wonder, too, why films depicting men with mental illness rarely cast their subjects in the same light. Films like A Beautiful Mind, or One Flew Over the Cuckcoo’s Nest, for example, present their flawed heroes as just that: heroes. Sure, these flawed fellows need treatment, but they are brilliant, misunderstood, complicated men. They are sympathetic precisely because of their mental states, not despite them. Viewers are never lead to question the sexuality, morality, or masculinity of these leading men. Moreover, films such as these don’t portray mental illness as a choice or a course of action, but as a circumstance. Hollywood afflicts male protagonists with insanity as a cross to bear, which makes them all the more heroic.

Susanna’s heroism, however, comes distinctly from her choice to overcome her diagnosis. To be fair, in real life, choice does play a legitimate aspect in the treatment of diseases. One can choose to be in treatment, or not to be. However, Susanna doesn’t simply learn to live with her personality disorder, she defeats it entirely. Toward the end of the film, the TV in Claymore’s living room flashes a scene from The Wizard of Oz as Glenda the Good Witch says, “You’ve always had the power to go back home.” Here, the film’s message reveals itself clearly: the power of recovery has always been with Susanna. 

Angelina Jolie and Winona Ryder in Girl, Interrupted
Susanna’s declared “recovered” by her doctors and ultimately joins the ranks of the “outside” world where she now belongs. It’s fitting that her penultimate scene at Claymore shows her applying make-up to look more suitably feminine. Her final act at Claymore is to polish the nails of a now drugged and restrained Lisa. “I’m not really dead,” Lisa says—and so the movie leaves us with a glimmer of hope that she, too, can choose to go home. If only all women could be cured of mental illnesses by clicking their heels together three times, painting on some Cotton Candy No. 7—and believing.

Viewers should be happy for Susanna, and I think most root for her. I know I do. But even as she’s being driven away from Claymore in the final scene, I wonder if she, herself, downplays the magnitude of the year she’s just spent under professional care. Perhaps she’s doing this because in the “outside” world, it’s still not okay to talk about such things or to admit to a mental illness without suffering stigmatization, or sideway glances, or nervous, sympathetic looks. 

Lisa (Angelina Jolie) confronts Susanna (Winona Ryder) on her first day at Claymore
She notes, “Being crazy isn’t being broken or swallowing a dark secret. It’s you or me, amplified.” That’s a nice thought. Mental illness is a reality for many, a part of their very composition, what makes many individuals unique, or creative, or sensitive. But the problem in the film—just like the problem in our real world, our post-Adam Lanza world—is that we must find ways to have conversations about mental illness, and not just within the confines of hospitals or therapy rooms. In real life. In the “outside” world. Susanna calls herself a “girl, interrupted,” and not a girl with a history of mental illness. What might the need for this euphemism say about the world that she’s rejoining? If 20% of Americans suffer from mental illness, a majority of these women, this issue is not just a cultural problem, but a feminist one.

Sarah Domet is the author of 90 Days to Your Novel. She writes fiction and nonfiction and currently teaches at Georgia Southern University.

When Opportunity Knocks

Shooting Fog City
This is a guest post by Liz O’Neal.

I am not a traditional filmmaker, and to be honest, I was not an experienced filmmaker until I produced Fog City. I moved to SF a year ago to manage a video studio – from operations and client services and video production — for a large corporation. At one of those too-large-and-somewhat-dull conferences that we’ve all been to, I serendipitously stumbled upon the Seed&Spark team. They were amazing to meet, and within several days of meeting Liam Brady, we knew that we wanted to work together. He brought the creative energy, and I brought the focus and project management.

Liam and I have been on an extraordinary journey together.

Our first Seed&Spark campaign went toward pre-production. In the first 30 days, we raised $6K from our friends and family members; it’s hard for them to say no! The development was moving along as planned. We used the funds carefully, printing postcards and hosting local script workshops.

When it came time to create the production budget for our second campaign, the goal was much larger: $50K.

On the set of Fog City

Quickly realizing that the budget and timeline were incompatible with each other – an important lesson that should be learned by all aspiring filmmakers – we did what no filmmaker should do when crowdfunding: in order to stay on schedule, we slashed our budget without fully considering the consequences. The final numbers: we raised $32K in 30 days, but inevitably our film still cost us close to $50K. We are now backfilling with personal funds and hoping to raise enough in our next campaign to reconcile the difference.

To gain followers for our crowdfunding campaign, I carefully developed a social calendar – tweets, Facebook posts, video updates – to include all-things SF, baseball and war veterans. I assumed that we could rally support through hash tags and local associations but severely underestimated how challenging it was to translate support into donations (we needed $1K per day).

Halfway through our campaign, we hadn’t even hit 30%. I went into full-blown panic mode. Why hadn’t I organized a live auction or a fundraising softball tournament? The clock was ticking, and I was running out of options. Through a series of desperate tweets, Facebook posts and personal phone calls to friends and family members who had “always wanted to support our film” but hadn’t yet, we gained some late momentum and, thankfully, finished the campaign with enough funds to shoot the film. Phew.

I learned that you need to spend your money wisely, and some things are worth splurging on. For example, we flew a steadicam operator and his gear out from NYC because he had worked with our crew before, and I was told he was a rockstar – I was hesitant to spend the money on this, but he made all the difference in the caliber of our film.

As a student project, we were fortunate enough to have insurance from NYU and were given student rates for all of our locations. NYU wanted us to have signed location agreements before they would issue any insurance, and our SF locations wouldn’t consider signing any forms without seeing proof of insurance – I ended up in an endless cycle of Catch 22 with 8 locations. Several emails and phone calls later, NYU begrudgingly issued insurance on the promise of location agreements ASAP.

Still from Fog City

The most bizarre part about this is that we received insurance that expired on July 1st, 2013 (our shoot was June 28 – July 8); we learned that NYU’s policy expires over the summer and was being renewed in the middle of our shoot – a strange and awful coincidence that has probably never happened to anyone else because students tend to shoot during the year. So now, I have void insurance for more than half of my shoot, my locations will not give me permits, and the rental houses will not rent us equipment. One of our NYU team members sent a very stern, yet pleading, email to the insurance department explaining that they were single handedly derailing our entire production and that they needed to help us. Meanwhile, I scrambled to take out my own insurance policies for each location and rental house (something we did not have the budget for). 48 hours before we were supposed to start shooting, we were notified that NYU had taken out temporary insurance policies from another company to backfill our gap. My rental houses and locations were confused by the hubbub but accepted the dual insurance policies.

We survived a series of crises throughout our 8 day shoot: our Red Epic broke on Day 1 and had to be replaced overnight – pushing our entire schedule and robbing us of a day off on July 4th. I had to let go of a crew member, and we were nearly kicked off location for not following the location agreement (note: don’t drink bottled beer on a beach!). With each unexpected incident, I had to be a calm and confident leader. There were times that I panicked in front of crew members, but I quickly realized that spreading my anxiety was damaging and counterproductive.

By the end of the week, I had learned to take a deep breath and take my triage center (i.e. laptop and cell phone) to another room. I would have private conversations with one person who could help, without letting everyone know that we had a big problem on our hands; isolating the chaos is just as important as finding the solution. I learned that being a producer is like being a perpetual problem solver; it’s never easy but always necessary. I’m happy and proud to say that we wrapped last week and have stunning footage that I couldn’t be more proud of.

Filmmaker Liz O’Neal

I now know that things happen for a reason. It’s important to trust your gut, to seize every great opportunity, and to know that you can, and will, overcome any obstacle that comes in the way of your film. Liam and I will soon begin phase two of our journey: fundraising for post-production and festival submissions. I will be better prepared for fundraising this time and can’t wait to see our final product in the fall.

Liz O’Neal is a Connecticut raised Syracuse Grad living in San Francisco. She recently accepted the role of Creative Director at Six Spoke Media and is in post-production for her first short film, Fog City. To find out more about the film, please visit http://www.seedandspark.com/studio/fog-city and follower her @LizONeal.

2013 Emmy Nominations: Get Your Feminist Commentary Here!

Outstanding Comedy Series

30 Rock (NBC): “Goodbye Forever, 30 Rock“ by Max Thornton

The Big Bang Theory (CBS): “The Evolution of The Big Bang Theory“ by Rachel Redfern

Girls (HBO): “Girls and Sex and the City Both Handle Abortion With Humor” by Megan Kearns

Louie (FX): “Listening and the Art of Good Storytelling in Louis C.K.’s Louie“ by Leigh Kolb

Modern Family (ABC): “‘Pregnancy Brain’ in Sitcoms” by Lady T

Veep (HBO): “Political Humor and Humanity in HBO’s Veep“ by Rachel Redfern

Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series

Jason Bateman, Arrested Development: “Arrested Development‘s Mancession: Economic and Gender Meltdowns in Season 4″ by Leigh Kolb

Jim Parsons, The Big Bang Theory: “Big Bang Bust” by Melissa McEwan

Matt LeBlanc, Episodes

Don Cheadle, House of Lies

Louis C.K., Louie

Alec Baldwin, 30 Rock: “The Casual Feminism of 30 Rock“ by Peggy Cooke

Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series

Laura Dern, Enlightened

Lena Dunham, Girls: “Let’s All Take a Deep Breath and Calm the Fuck Down About Lena Dunham” by Stephanie Rogers

Edie Falco, Nurse Jackie: “Nurse Jackie as Feminist Id?” by Natalie Wilson

Amy Poehler, Parks and Recreation: “Why We Need Leslie Knope and What Her Election on Parks and Rec Means for Women and Girls” by Megan Kearns

Tina Fey, 30 Rock: “Liz Lemon: The Every Woman of Prime Time” by Lisa Mathews

Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Veep

Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series

Adam Driver, Girls

Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Modern Family

Ed O’Neill, Modern Family

Ty Burrell, Modern Family

Bill Hader, Saturday Night Live

Tony Hale, Veep

Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series

Mayim Bialik, The Big Bang Theory

Jane Lynch, Glee: “Glee!” by Cali Loria

Sofia Vergara, Modern Family

Julie Bowen, Modern Family

Merritt Wever, Nurse Jackie

Jane Krakowski, 30 Rock: “Jane Krakowski and the Dedicated Ignorance of Jenna Maroney” by Kyle Sanders

Anna Chlumsky, Veep

Outstanding Drama Series

Breaking Bad (AMC): “‘Yo Bitch’: The Complicated Feminism of Breaking Bad“ by Leigh Kolb

Downton Abbey (PBS): “A Gilded Cage: A Feminist Critique of the Downton Abbey Christmas Special” by Amanda Civitello

Game of Thrones (HBO): “Gratuitous Nudity and Complex Female Characters in Game of Thrones“ by Lady T

Homeland (Showtime): “Homeland‘s Carrie Mathison: A Pulsing Beat of Jazz and ‘Crazy Genius” by Leigh Kolb

House of Cards (Netflix): “The Complex, Unlikable Women of House of Cards: Daddy Issues, Menopause and Female Power” by Leigh Kolb

Mad Men (AMC): “Mad Men: Gender, Race, and the Death Knell of White Patriarchy” by Leigh Kolb

Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series

Bryan Cranston, Breaking Bad: “Seeking the Alpha in Breaking Bad and Sons of Anarchy“ by Rachel Redfern

Hugh Bonneville, Downton Abbey

Damian Lewis, Homeland

Kevin Spacey, House of Cards

Jon Hamm, Mad Men: “Hey, Brian McGreevy: Vampire Pam Beats Don Draper Any Day” by Tami Winfrey Harris

Jeff Daniels, The Newsroom: “The Newsroom: Misogyny 2.0″ by Leigh Kolb

Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series

Vera Farmiga, Bates Motel

Michelle Dockery, Downton Abbey

Claire Danes, Homeland: “Homeland‘s Carrie Mathison” by Cali Loria

Robin Wright, House of Cards: “Claire Underwood: The Queen Bee on House of Cards“ by
Amanda Rodriguez

Elisabeth Moss, Mad Men: “Mad Men and the Role of Nostalgia” by Amber Leab

Connie Britton, Nashville: “Quote of the Day: Screenwriter/Director Callie Khouri Weighs In on How TV Is Friendlier to Women” by Leigh Kolb

Kerry Washington, Scandal: “Mammy, Sapphire, or Jezebel, Olivia Pope Is Not: A Review of Scandal“ by Atima Omara-Alwala 

Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series

Bobby Cannavale, Boardwalk Empire: “Boardwalk Empire: Margaret Thompson, Margaret Sanger, and the Cultural Commentary of Historical Fiction” by Leigh Kolb

Jonathan Banks, Breaking Bad

Aaron Paul, Breaking Bad

Jim Carter, Downton Abbey

Peter Dinklage, Game of Thrones: “The Occasional Purposeful Nudity on Game of Thrones“ by Lady T

Mandy Patinkin, Homeland

Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series

Anna Gunn, Breaking Bad

Maggie Smith, Downton Abbey

Emilia Clarke, Game of Thrones: “The Mother of Dragons is Taking Down the Patriarchy” by Megan Kearns

Christine Baranski, The Good Wife: “So, Is There Racial Bias on The Good Wife?” by Melanie Wanga

Morena Baccarin, Homeland

Christina Hendricks, Mad Men: “Is Mad Men the Most Feminist Show on TV?” by Megan Kearns

Outstanding Miniseries or Movie
 
American Horror Story: Asylum (FX): “‘That Crazy Bitch’: Women and Mental Illness Tropes in Horror” by Megan Kearns

Behind the Candelabra (HBO)

The Bible (History)

Phil Spector (HBO)

Political Animals (USA)

Top of the Lake (Sundance Channel): “Not Peggy Olson: Rape Culture in Top of the Lake“ by Lauren C. Byrd

Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie

Michael Douglas, Behind the Candelabra

Matt Damon, Behind the Candelabra

Toby Jones, The Girl: “Too Many Hitchcocks” by Robin Hitchcock

Benedict Cumberbatch, Parade’s End

Al Pacino, Phil Spector

Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie

Jessica Lange, American Horror Story: Asylum

Laura Linney, The Big C: Hereafter

Helen Mirren, Phil Spector

Sigourney Weaver, Political Animals

Elisabeth Moss, Top of the Lake

Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie

James Cromwell, American Horror Story: Asylum

Zachary Quinto, American Horror Story: Asylum

Scott Bakula, Behind the Candelabra

John Benjamin Hickey, The Big C: Hereafter

Peter Mullan, Top of the Lake

Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie

Sarah Paulson, American Horror Story: Asylum

Imelda Staunton, The Girl

Ellen Burstyn, Political Animals

Charlotte Rampling, Restless

Alfre Woodard, Steel Magnolias

Outstanding Variety Series

The Colbert Report (Comedy Central)

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (Comedy Central): “YouTube Break: Too Many Dicks on The Daily Show“ by Amber Leab

Jimmy Kimmel Live (ABC)

Late Night With Jimmy Fallon (NBC)

Real Time with Bill Maher (HBO)

Saturday Night Live (NBC)

Outstanding Host for a Reality or Reality-Competition Program

Ryan Seacrest, American Idol

Betty White, Betty White’s Off Their Rockers

Tom Bergeron, Dancing with the Stars

Heidi Klum and Tim Gunn, Project Runway

Cat Deeley, So You Think You Can Dance

Anthony Bourdain, The Taste

Outstanding Reality-Competition Program

The Amazing Race (CBS)

Dancing with the Stars (ABC)

Project Runway (Lifetime)

So You Think You Can Dance (Fox)

Top Chef (Bravo)

The Voice (NBC)

Outstanding Reality Program

Antiques Roadshow (PBS)

Deadliest Catch (Discovery Channel)

Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives (Food Network)

MythBusters (Discovery Channel)

Shark Tank (ABC)

Undercover Boss (CBS)

Outstanding Animated Program

Bob’s Burgers (Fox)

Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness (Nickelodeon)

Regular Show (Cartoon Network)

The Simpsons: “Bart Simpson’s Feminine Side” by Lady T

South Park

Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series

Bob Newhart, The Big Bang Theory

Nathan Lane, Modern Family

Bobby Cannavale, Nurse Jackie

Louis C.K., Saturday Night Live

Justin Timberlake, Saturday Night Live

Will Forte, 30 Rock


Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series

Molly Shannon, Enlightened

Dot-Marie Jones, Glee

Melissa Leo, Louie

Melissa McCarthy, Saturday Night Live

Kristen Wiig, Saturday Night Live

Elaine Stritch, 30 Rock

Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series

Nathan Lane, The Good Wife

Michael J. Fox, The Good Wife

Rupert Friend, Homeland

Robert Morse, Mad Men

Harry Hamlin, Mad Men

Dan Bucatinsky, Scandal

Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series

Margo Martindale, The Americans

Diana Rigg, Game of Thrones

Carrie Preston, The Good Wife

Linda Cardellini, Mad Men

Jane Fonda, The Newsroom

Joan Cusack, Shameless

‘The Bling Ring’: American Emptiness

Cast of The Bling Ring
This is a guest review by Marcia Herring.
In discussions of Sofia Coppola, nepotism is a long-covered topic. Regardless of early exposure in her acting career, I have no doubt that Coppola has ultimately benefited from the privilege of being surrounded by famous company. Without Francis Ford or Roman or Jason Schwartzman or Kirsten Dunst or Nicolas Cage would we be discussing a film written and directed by Sofia Coppola? Possibly–she is quite talented–however, while discussing that talent, we cannot ignore the methods by which that talent is displayed to us.
The Bling Ring, Coppola’s fifth film, follows the story of a group of Hollywood teens, spoiled and bored, who commit a series of celebrity robberies. The piece credited for inspiring the film is “The Suspects Wore Louboutins” by Nancy Jo Sales (now expanded into a full truth-based novel bearing the same title as the film. We dive into the brightly-lit suburbs on the tails of Marc (Israel Brussard, Flipped), the awkward new kid in town. Of course, his dad is in “the biz,” so he’s no stranger to the celebrity-saturated culture in which he now finds himself. Marc attends the area’s remedial school–he’s been held back because of missing classes–and while the students may be having difficulty succeeding at traditional subjects like math, they appear to do really well in subjects like underage drinking, parties, fashion, and clueless parents.
Katie Chang as Rebecca in The Bling Ring
Marc soon befriends aloof Rebecca (newcomer Katie Chang), and while the initial basis for their alliance seems to be rooted in traditionally queer-eye-for-the-straight-girl territory, the bond that develops goes deeper. At one point, Marc explains that his love for Rebecca is like a sister. One day, seemingly bored with their usual activities, Rebecca suggests that she and Marc commit a bit of robbery. The film lacks any but the barest suggestion of motive. Characters suggest that Rebecca is “obsessed” with these celebrities, that she wants to be them. What causes her to cross the line from coveting to claiming? Is it the hint of an unhappy home life, the incongruous image of the self compared to glossy magazines, the culture where becoming a celebrity is the highest honor (and a fully achievable one, given enough money, timing, and good clothes)?

Once the initial success wears off, and despite Marc’s jitters and (fully appropriate!) wariness at committing crimes, Rebecca is eager to try again, and to expand their crew. The rest of the “Bling Ring” is rounded out with Chloe (Claire Julien, another newcomer to film), Nicki (Emma Watson), and her adopted sister Sam (Taissa Farmiga, American Horror Story). Again, we don’t get much in the way of personality aside from Sam really liking leopard print, for example. The action quickly escalates, but in the slow, pondering way that only an indie film can truly manage. The group robs more celebs (Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, Orlando Bloom); they party in stolen clothes, spend stolen money, and snort stolen coke. They brag to friends. They post on Facebook. They get cocky, and not even security camera footage and a news story can deter them.
Emma Watson as Nicki in The Bling Ring
Of course, things come to an end. What had been an entertaining thrill ride dwindles out in courtroom sessions and talking heads. Whatever message Coppola seemed to strive for gets lost by the ending credits. After the film ended, I heard the girl seated in front of me ask her friend if the group was still in jail (sorry, is that a spoiler?). “I’m going to google Nicki,” she added, whipping out her phone. Perhaps that is the real question–how do we critique celebrity without adding to it; how do we ask questions in a way that might promote actual changes in attitude and behavior? These are questions, I think, that Coppola doesn’t have the answer to. There lies the conundrum: by telling this story, Coppola plays into the fame of the original “Bling Ring,” plays into our culture of voyeurism–not only do we want to watch celebrities, but we want to watch them get robbed. We want to sneak inside of their houses, watch their trials, and google them after watching fictionalized accounts of their lives. Of course, by telling this story, we also witness the factors that led to it.
Is it great to see a film written and directed by a woman, marketed as starring a woman, and led by a mostly-female cast do well in theaters? Abso-fucking-lutely. But no matter the highlights of The Bling Ring–the critique of excessive wealth, “sad white girl” culture, and the nature of celebrity–I cannot forget that Coppola is thriving off the very things she critiques.
Ladies of The Bling Ring
Other than the name changes, the major difference between the cast of The Bling Ring and the original gang is whiteness. Katie Chang does a stand-up job as Rebecca, but it is now-grown Emma Watson (Harry Potter, The Perks of Being a Wallflower) who fills advertisements and trailers for the film. She is playing the kind of girl who many fantasize about: sexual, liberated, rich. Nearly the polar opposite of Hermione Granger. She’ll flash cleavage and take a turn on the stripper pole. She’ll sell tickets.
And sure, we’ll laugh at dim-witted Nicki when she declares that she wants to be famous and run a charity organization, or that this “situation” was given to her as an opportunity. We’ll laugh, and then we’ll hit google. Maybe we’ll even try to find out when Watson will be out of town so we can take an unauthorized tour of her place.

Marcia Herring is a writer from Missouri. She is still working on her graduate degree, has a day job in retail, and writes freelance for the Lesbrary. She spends most of her free time watching television and movies. She wrote an analysis of Degrassi, Teens and Rape Apologism, contributed a review of X-Men First Class, V/H/S, and reviewed Atonement, Imagine Me & You and The Yellow Wallpaper for Bitch Flicks. 

On Stop Motion Animation and Starting a Project–Whether You’re Ready or Not

This is a guest post by Cait Davis.
In 2009 I wrote a series of short stories that were supposed to be a Halloween costume. My plan was to go as “The Unconscious” and hand out the stories as first person narratives for the receivers of said stories. But I didn’t make the costume and I was left with the stories. I loved them. They came from a different part of myself than what I am aware of in my everyday thinking, and I am fascinated with this part of myself, fascinated with this as a part of human nature. What is the river that runs beneath our every day meanderings? Who are we really? And what does that even mean–to be someone for real? These little glimpses of those sailing depths were what I held on to, and I wasn’t really sure what to do with the stories.
Photo of my old project binder

I took the nine short stories I had written, and I put them into script format. I printed the scripts out, and I looked at them and I put them in a binder, and then I made other movies. I told my friends that those scripts were for later in my career, when I could make them the right way. In part I meant when I could afford to make them, but I also meant when I felt ready to make them. That’s always a funny idea, when a person feels ready for something. It’s pretty abstract, but you know it when it’s there.



Stories of the Unconscious logo–an original lino print

About six months ago I launched a campaign using the film-centric crowd-funding website Seed&Spark. In collaboration with my friend and producer Sara Murphy, Stories of the Unconscious was launched onto the internet, and funding was successful. The campaign process sounds so simple when it’s written in two quick sentences, but it was an arduous task and a tale in and of itself that I’ll leave for some other time. 
Now is where we can come back and revisit the idea of being “ready,” because “feeling ready” meant only that I was ready to not feel quite ready, if that makes any sense. I was ready to feel nervous and push forward; I was ready to not know what was going to happen; I was ready to have anxiety and frustration; and I was ready to get excited and have confidence and experiment with new creative processes. And it even meant that I was ready to make this project even if I wasn’t sure I was ready, if all of this needs further unclarification…
One of the many ways we sold our souls for crowd-funding dollars
Sara and I had the money and now we were ready to make a movie. We organized the scripts from “easiest” to “most difficult” to ease our way into the production. We went on to film five of the stories over the next five months. There were confusions and stresses and things that needed figuring out and happy accidents and frustration and excitement and elation. 
A still from “The Statue,” one of the nine stories that make up Stories of the Unconscious. Cinematography by Alex Hill.
We’re now on the sixth film, and it’s going to take the longest amount of time to complete. This film is the only one in the series that is entirely stop-motion animation. I’m collaborating directly with my theater designer friend Damon Pelletier, and neither of us has any real experience with stop-motion animation.
The studio work table
Together, we collected reference images and discussed the look of the project. The central character of our story is made from wire and computer parts. Damon scoured the streets for tiny pieces of rusted metal, circuitry boards, discarded hard drives, and various interesting trinkets. We bought armature wire and watched online tutorial videos. Damon went through at least three versions of the character before he was satisfied with one.
A shot of the central character on the set of our stop motion animation
For the set construction, we decided on cardboard, a readily available material and one that doesn’t have to cost anything. Once again, Damon took to the streets, focusing on industrial buildings that discard more durable cardboard pieces. He also is not shy about diving into dumpsters and trash bins in search of the right material. Once acquired, he sorts the cardboard into different qualities and thicknesses. My favorite is when we walk down the street and he picks up a piece of cardboard and, holding it to his ear, he knocks on it and then says, “Oh, that’s a good piece of cardboard.” He’s turned into the cardboard expert. 
Damon making columns for the set of “In the Well”
Most recently, Damon and I have been working on a suburban sidewalk set that utilizes forced perspective. What this means is that each house in the set is actually smaller than the house before, creating the illusion of greater depth than what is actually there. This makes a space or a scene look larger than it really is.
Unveiling the trickery of forced perspective: the beginning of some urban house facades
For the rooftops of the houses Damon is peeling off the top thin layer of a standard piece of cardboard, exposing the ribbed interior and therefore creating a roof shingles-like texture. We haven’t figured out the backdrop yet, but it may be a painted sky or some sort of rear projection. At this time, we are required to vacate from our current studio and so have to move our set up into the basement of Big Irv’s. After we complete this short, we’ll have three more before the whole series is filmed.
I guess, at the end of all of this, the big lesson I’m learning is that you won’t ever really be ready, so you just have to go ahead and start doing it when you feel like it. It’s like Robert Rodriguez says, “So you want to be a filmmaker? Wrong. You are a filmmaker.” Or, as David Lynch says, “The beautiful thing is the doing and if you love your work, that’s the greatest blessing.”
Cait on the set of “Smells Like Chewing Rubber”
To follow the progress of ‘Stories of the Unconscious,’ click LIKE! on the official Facebook page. 
Cait Davis is a media creator of short films, installations and video experiments. She is co-creator of an experimental slide show shown at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian. A feature script written by Cait and her father, Derek Davis, was accepted into IFP 2010 Emerging Narrative program.

Wedding Week: The Roundup

Father of the Bride (1991) is aptly named, as its focus is not on the wedding itself or the couple involved but on the titular character’s neuroses and journey to maturity. The wedding is the backdrop and the incident that provokes growth in the main character; it follows the wedding script in toto, so if you’re unfamiliar with any of the conventions of a traditional US wedding, this movie is a great primer. It’s an outrageously expensive, white wedding for thin, wealthy, white folks. People of color and gay men exist as support staff and magical queers. But the movie’s take on gender roles is constructive. Despite its focus on a male character, the movie is really about the affection a father feels for his daughter. He’s always recognized her as an individual person; now he must recognize her as an individual adult person.

The plot is pretty predictable. Female subservience is challenged, but standards of female beauty aren’t. The characters aren’t remarkably complex, but their motives are clear and almost always understandable. That said, this is a romantic comedy. I don’t mean to demean the genre as a whole, but I think it’s safe to say most blockbuster romantic comedies are pretty damn problematic, so to have a romantic comedy that subverts the notion of valuing wives who are simply beautiful and submissive while featuring a predominantly black cast and depicting Africa positively, I’d say that’s a win.
And this is where the real problem comes in. We’re clearly supposed to feel bad for Jack’s plight and the DOMA-fueled injustice being heaped on him. But as things escalate and Jack suddenly falls for Spanish architect Mano (Maurice Compte), the casual viewer is more likely to feel bad for Ali, who has to deal with him gallivanting all over the place and not even trying to make their relationship seem remotely realistic. Her future is on the line right along with Jack’s, but Jack never seems to have an inkling of just how big of a risk they’re taking for his sake.
Weddings in the movies and in television always seem to be more elaborate than those we experience in reality. Fictional characters with traditionally low-paying jobs somehow find a way to have a wedding that would cost literally a million dollars in the real world. They’re often over-the-top with hundreds of guests, extravagant meals and elaborate ice sculptures–you know, fluff.
This is the second time I’ve seen Lizzy Caplan in her easy portrayal of the emotionally damaged wild child, the first being in Bachelorette where similarly, the wedding brings up all of her feelings about past relationships and a surprise pregnancy. It’s a character I like, one that while not original, is also not the most common of characters (similar to Natalie Portman in Friends With Benefits, Charlize Theron in Sweet November). But I like the character; it’s one where, rather than neurotic, and desperately searching for love and marriage, she’s the opposite–skittish and non-committal, frustrating and sexy.
No, in Bride Wars that brand of madness is entirely female. This says nothing good or particularly realistic about the state of mind of the modern adult female. I mean, yes, we get hurt and pissed off when our friends do something that seems designed to cause pain to us, but how many of us who are not mentally ill follow them around, actively trying to ruin one of the most significant and expensive days of their lives?
Kristen Wiig’s character goes through the same kinds of ordeals we all go through—the kind that make us question who we are and what life is about. And her struggles are so frustrating and so moving that I found myself actually sobbing through the middle of the movie. The crazy thing about it is that while I was sobbing, I also started laughing. I’ve laughed and cried in a movie, but I’ve never before done both at the same time, and I did both while watching this movie more than once. I always tell my students that over-the-top comedy only works if it is paired with real, honest emotion, and my response proves that is something Bridesmaids does really well.

Fiona’s self-loathing over her ogre self goes extremely deep. When she confesses that she’s an ogre to Donkey, she says that no one would want to marry a beast like her. Shrek overhears this, and believes she’s talking about him. When he confronts her about it, and throws her words back in her face, she immediately assumes he’s talking about her. Fiona has overheard Shrek make comments about his identity as an ogre and the issues that come with it, so it wouldn’t be a huge leap for her to consider the possibility that Shrek overheard her and thought she was talking about him. But Fiona’s self loathing runs so deep that she doesn’t even consider the possibility.

Revisiting this film five years later (as a happily paired person once again), I find myself chafing against the film even as I enjoy the drama. The choices and mistakes that Carrie make from the time that she and Big decide to marry to the moment he leaves her at the altar about a third of the way through the story are the choices and mistakes that many modern American women make: ignore the man and his wishes, allow friends to convince you that you need a fancier dress, venue, event, and become more enamored with the grandeur and history of a luxurious location over the real fears and concerns your partner has about a large, intimidating, and ostentatious event.

To make matters more homophobic, in a move that makes absolutely no sense, George is press-ganged into playing the part of Julianne’s fiancé. It’s really gross to watch a gay man forced to play beard to a straight woman, shoved into a closet to suit her conniving privilege. Kimmy hyperventilates in relief that Julianne is apparently no longer her competition, because nothing promises a more stable marriage than making sure there are no hot women around to tempt your man. George gets his revenge by telling apocryphal stories about meeting Julianne in a mental institution where she was receiving shock therapy, because we might as well add mocking the mentally ill to this movie’s list of sins.
Leonato’s denunciation of Hero is the most disturbing moment of the film, as it should be. Verbal and physical abuse at the hand of a lover or boyfriend is traumatizing and life-altering, but there is something profoundly and uniquely painful in suffering at the hands of a parent. The casting of Clark Gregg, aka everyone’s favorite Agent Coulson from The Avengers, is a particularly brilliant move; any fan of Joss Whedon’s is conditioned to see Gregg as a good guy, and the moment of betrayal feels particularly pointed when coming from the mouth of such a likable actor.
So, is this a feminist film? Well, I think it highlights the significance of female friendship, but Carrie falling comatose when she’s jilted at the altar seems a bit much. While Carrie hires an assistant to organize her life, romantic love seems to be the ultimate goal. Meanwhile, Carrie bonds with the separated Miranda by telling her that she’s “not alone,” she reaches an understanding with the anti-marriage Samantha, and she celebrates Charlotte’s baby-bliss, even as she mourns her relationship, which has not actually ended. The film has its moments, and Carrie overcomes her obstacles without the direction or approval of any man. However, the film’s bigoted lines and treatment of Louise as a modern-day slave leave a bad taste in my mouth.

Even though I had fun with it, I have to say if you are engaged, you should probably limit your exposure to wedding movies. Because so many of them end with broken engagements or dramatic jiltings at the altar, you’ll start seeing potential wedding saboteurs in all your friends, family, and hired wedding professionals. You’ll see the obviously doomed engagements at the start of those movies and worry that if those characters could be so deluded, are you and your partner as well? You’ll think spending thousands of dollars renting chairs is ok because at least you didn’t invite random strangers from your mother’s past for an ABBA-scored paternity-off.

Muriel’s Wedding is basically a cautionary tale about valuing status and reputation over real connection. Muriel knows that she’s happy with Rhonda in Sydney, but by fulfilling her fantasies of beauty, wealth, and romantic achievement, she forgets her real strength: her honesty, decency, and kindness. These strengths were all there in her mother, Betty, whose cruel fate turns the movie from a girly romp into something much more meditative. She is talked over, pushed around, and utterly ignored, invisible even in her own home. Betty barely gets a moment of self-determination before she commits suicide, and her presence is felt most deeply in the frightening image of the Heslop backyard: a swath of literally scorched earth, where nothing can grow if nothing is tended and cared for.

There is one redeeming quality in this movie, and that is when Emma–who is a people pleaser for much of the movie–eventually starts to grow a backbone, while Liv–who is pushy and determined–softens up by the end. I’m hoping that the audience can take from these character shifts that women can be both determined and compassionate and that it is not disadvantageous to be both.
Jumping the Broom focuses on two strong customs — one being jumping the broom that has predated slavery, which Jason’s mother Pamela strongly supports, and saving sex for marriage. Sabrina and Jason obviously have strong physical desires for one another, but they’re willing to postpone physical intercourse and are continuing to know each other on various intimate levels — emotional primarily. This isn’t essentially common in most romantic films, especially an African American centric film.
Twenty years after Four Weddings and a Funeral, it strikes me that very little has changed. If this film were made today, Gareth and Matthew could enter into a formal civil partnership, but regardless, Charles may not have realized just how deep and committed their relationship had been all along. It’s still very bitter and chilling that it was the committed gay couple that was separated by death. The real theme of this film isn’t weddings and marriage, it’s commitment. Twenty years later, there’s still so little representation of disabled people in films. I honestly can’t think of another film I’ve seen with a deaf-mute character. There should have been more racial minorities in the cast, even in minor roles, instead of just one 5-second shot of a black extra at the funeral. And as comparatively progressive as this film is, all it does is make me think how ridiculous American films look. A film made in a country with a fraction of the US population is more representative of minorities than most films made in a country with 316 million goddamn people.

People who claim to believe films and TV and pop culture moments like this are somehow disconnected from perpetuating rape need to take a step back and really think about the message this sends. I refuse to accept that a person could watch this scene from an iconic John Hughes film—where, after a party, a drunk woman is literally passed around by two men and photographed—and not see the connection between the Steubenville rape—where, after a party, a woman was literally passed around by two men and photographed.
These posts about wedding films previously appeared at Bitch Flicks:

Movie Review: Rachel Getting Married by Stephanie Rogers

Rachel Getting Married: A Response by Amber Leab

Documentary Preview: Arusi Persian Wedding by Amber Leab

Review in Conversation: Sex and the City: The Movie by Stephanie Rogers and Amber Leab

Bachelorette Proves Bad People Can Make Great Characters by Robin Hitchcock

Feminism in Aiyyaa and Why It Ain’t Such a Bad Movie by Rhea Daniel

Realistic Depictions of Women and Female Friendship in Muriel’s Wedding by Libby White

Romantic Comedy (and Female Friendship) Arranged Marriage Style by Rachel Redfern

Movie Review: Something Borrowed by Megan Kearns

Movie Review: Melancholia by Olivia Bernal

The Five-Year Engagement: Exploration of Gender Roles & Lovable Actors Can’t Save Rom-Com’s Subtly Anti-Feminist Message by Megan Kearns

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

Movie Review: Melancholia by Hannah Reck

Melissa McCarthy in Bridesmaids by Janyce Denise Glasper

“Love” Is “Actually” All Around Us (and Other Not-So-Deep Sentiments) by Lady T

Everything You Need to Know About Space: 10 Reasons to Watch (and Love!) Imagine Me & You by Marcia Herring

The Reception of Corpse Bride by Myrna Waldron

Movie Review: Room In Rome by Djelloul Marbrook

Movie Review: 500 Days of Summer by Stephanie Rogers

(95) Minutes of Pure Torture: 500 Days of Summer by Deborah Nadler

Gay Rights and Gay Times: Gender Commentary in Husbands by Rachel Redfern

Bridesmaids: Brunch, Brazilian Food, Baking, and Best Friends by Laura A. Shamas