Author: Amber Leab

Movie Review: Baby Mama

Just to put it out there, I love Tina Fey. Who doesn’t right now, with her Emmy-winning TV series 30 Rock returning soon, and her riotously funny return to Saturday Night Live as Sarah Palin? If you haven’t yet seen Baby Mama, starring (but not written by) Fey and Amy Poehler, rent it. It’s funny, it’s smart, and–as a bonus–it’s one of the few movies that passes the Bechdel Test.

Baby Mama opens with a monologue from Kate (Tina Fey) that states a central problem for women who value both work and family, and it’s worth quoting here at length:

I did everything that I was supposed to do. I didn’t cry in meetings, I didn’t wear short skirts, I put up with the weird upper-management guys that kiss you on the mouth at Christmas. Is it fair that to be the youngest VP in my company I will be the oldest mom at preschool? Not really, but that’s part of the deal. I made a choice. Some women got pregnant; I got promotions. And I still aspire to meet someone, and fall in love, and get married, but that is a very high risk scenario. And I want a baby now. I’m 37.

Everything that Kate was supposed to do is a negation—she actually did nothing she wasn’t supposed to do: she didn’t get emotional, she didn’t inappropriately use her sexuality, she didn’t reprimand her superiors for inappropriate behavior. In other words, she put up with sexism and accepted the lies about women in the workplace, like “choice,” and “fairness.” She didn’t argue and she didn’t speak up for herself. She was a Yes Woman.

The beginning of the movie sets a high standard—and high hopes—for what follows. The initial joke here is that her monologue doesn’t address us—the audience—but a date. A first date. At the same time as give us our first laugh, she establishes her character as smart and ambitious, and still a woman who wants a child.

The plot of the movie is rather traditional, with a few twists, but it isn’t the plot that makes the movie so good. It’s the inherent critiques of male-dominated institutions that are subtle enough to avoid sounding topical or preachy, but strong and effective enough to reach the film’s smart viewers.

Real Life and Business

First is a critique—that runs throughout the movie—of the corporate business model. Kate’s sister, Caroline (Maura Tierney) first introduces the divide between “business” and “real life” when she chides Kate that “having a baby isn’t like opening one of your stores.” Caroline, who represents the perfect “mommy” in the movie, thinks that Kate’s approach to having a baby is too business-like.

Further, Chaffee Bicknell (Sigourney Weaver), who runs the surrogacy institute, refers to surrogacy as “outsourcing” and a “growth market,” and takes serious note of Kate’s joke about women in third-world countries carrying babies for wealthy women. Bicknell equates a nanny with a surrogate; a nanny takes care of your baby after it’s born, a surrogate takes care of your baby before it’s born. The ironic twist is that Bicknell is fertile to the point of absurdity, and didn’t start the business out of empathy, but simply for capitalist reasons.

This divide between “real life” and “business” is affirmed further by a conversation between Angie (Poehler) and her common law husband, Carl (Dax Shepard). In a scene where Carl refers to Kate as “Katie,” Angie defends her relationship with Kate (a plot twist, which I won’t reveal here, initiates the conversation). Carl tells Angie “You think you guys would be friends in real life? She’s a business lady. It’s just business.”

So what does this all add up to? Kate is, in fact, an unapologetic business lady. When love interest Rob (Greg Kinnear) warns her against “the man,” Kate thinks he means the cops when, in fact, he’s talking about rival smoothie makers Jamba Juice. “Jamba Juice is the man?” she asks. Kate, VP of operations for a corporate organic grocery, is also “the man.” It’s not clear, however, whether she’s aware of this fact, or how important the fact really is—to Kate and to the movie. The movie certainly critiques (and parodies) her corporate culture, but it still celebrates her success within it.

Hip Hop Culture

Critique of the hip hop industry comes from two subtle moments in the movie. In the first, we meet Kate’s doorman, Oscar (Romany Malco), singing along with his iPod to a song objectifying women. Oscar, for me, is probably the most troubling issue with the movie. Not only is he perpetually popping up in scenes, but his characterization reeks of stereotype and is a little cringe-worthy at times. He delivers some smart, funny lines, but doesn’t become a fully-realized character. Yet, viewers recognize a silly divide between the man he is and the music he consumes.

Not long after, Carl rummages through Kate’s media drawer and, dissatisfied, asks “Don’t you get down with rap?” Kate replies “Boy, somewhere in there I have an old Salt-N-Pepa CD.” While Kate name-checks some 90s hip hop that’s certainly more female-friendly than most of today’s fare, the implication is that she wouldn’t listen to music that she could, in no way, relate to. Or, it may simply show how out-of-touch she is with popular culture. The latter could certainly be the case, as an evening out with Angie shows how rarely Kate lets loose for a good time.

Men and Women, Talking

The movie’s men are all boyfriends, bosses, sidekicks—the standard roles for women in mainstream movies. While Kate’s boss, new-ager Barry, Carl, and Oscar are stereotypes, her love interest is a bit more round, even addressing gender during their first date. After Kate places a very specific Philly steak order, she says “I’m sorry. I’m a little overly thorough. Some people would say that I am bossy and controlling.” Rob replies “No, that’s just prejudice. They call you bossy and controlling ‘cause you’re a woman. But if you were a man doing the same stuff, you’d just be a dick.” The joke here is that he doesn’t say she’d be called “assertive” or the like; he actually insults her. While some enjoy this method of flirtation more than others, the recognition of a gender power dynamic is a cue for sympathetic viewers that he’s a smart match for Kate.

The real story of the movie isn’t the baby, of course, but the women. I love that about the movie. Kate and Angie fight, and are allowed real conflicts—in their own lives and with each other. There’s a nasty exchange of words between the two, where Kate reveals her classism, which had previously just shown up in comedic moments. A real friendship develops between them, and the movie is no less funny for it.

Documentary Preview: Generation M

A film from the Media Education Foundation:

From the MEF website:

Despite the achievements of the women’s movement over the past four decades, misogyny remains a persistent force in American culture. In this important documentary, Thomas Keith, professor of philosophy at California State University-Long Beach, looks specifically at misogyny and sexism in mainstream American media, exploring how negative definitions of femininity and hateful attitudes toward women get constructed and perpetuated at the very heart of our popular culture.

The film tracks the destructive dynamics of misogyny across a broad and disturbing range of media phenomena: including the hyper-sexualization of commercial products aimed at girls, the explosion of violence in video games aimed at boys, the near-hysterical sexist rants of hip-hop artists and talk radio shock jocks, and the harsh, patronizing caricatures of femininity and feminism that reverberate throughout the mainstream of American popular culture.

Along the way, Generation M forces us to confront the dangerous real-life consequences of misogyny in all its forms – making a compelling case that when we devalue more than half the population based on gender, we harm boys and men as well as women and girls.

Anyone seen this yet?

Update: You can watch the entire film–as a preview only–here.

Movie Review: Juno

It took me a long time to see the film Juno. I was thrilled when Diablo Cody won the Oscar for Best Screenplay, but at the same time suspicious about her little movie being so lauded. To win an Oscar, the film must be saying the “right” things to the “right” people, a dynamic that rarely favors progressive thinking (see the movie Crash as a recent example). In other words, when too many people love a movie, there’s probably something wrong.

Aside from critical praise and popularity, the topic of teen pregnancy is rarely done without a hefty dose of morality. While we are in a peculiar cultural gray area on the subject—consider the cover of OK Magazine, featuring smiling teen mom Jamie Lynn Spears, or the Republican VP nominee’s pregnant teenage daughter—there seems to be an anti-choice undercurrent running through pregnancy plots, not to mention the culture at large.

The expectations I had going in were also based on reading commentary about the ultra-hip dialogue and soundtrack of the film. While certainly not negative in themselves, coupled with a controversial topic, these features could be enough to couch a conservative, anti-woman message in a hip, fresh film.

It turns out, however, that after an initial adjustment period to the dialogue (and a question about whether the film is set in the early ‘90s), Juno turns out to be planted in a feminist worldview, and is a film that teenagers, especially, ought to see. It was thoroughly enjoyable, funny and touching. I liked it so much that I watched it again, but when I started to write about it, what I liked about the movie became all the more confusing. I loved the music, although Juno MacGuff is way hipper than I was (or am), and I saw a representation that reminded me of myself at that age. I saw a paternal relationship that I never had and a familial openness that I’ve also never had. I saw characters who I wanted as my childhood friends and family.

And while in Juno we have a strong, unconventional female character—and a lead character, at that—the film itself was very, very safe. And I worry whether that’s a good thing. It’s certainly understandable for a first film. A Hollywood outsider would have a much more difficult time making an overtly progressive movie about teen pregnancy, but if she plays the politics safe, and if her own personality is enough of a draw, she just might make it.

I was worried when Juno visited the dumpy abortion clinic and met her pro-life classmate protesting in the parking lot, and I was worried by the very dumpiness of the clinic. I was struck by the notion that a clinic like that would look and feel much more sterile—even in the lobby, as far as Juno went. The thought of fingernails sent her running out of the building. A detail like “fingernails” made the abortion too real for Juno, a teenager, I suppose. Is this a good or bad thing? I don’t know.

Juno, in a rather nonchalant way, seeks permission of the baby’s father, her good friend Paulie Bleeker (Michael Cera), for the abortion. Or, rather, she seeks his opinion; she seems to want him to resist her plans. But his lack of resistance causes her to make the following decisions on her own. This straddles the line somewhat. She wants to be told what to do, and rather than seeking out someone smarter and more experienced than she is, she asks the boy whose approval she’s still seeking.

Juno wants her baby to have the perfect family; one unlike her own, which her mother abandoned. Her family now consists of her father, her stepmother Bren (Allison Janney), and her half-sister Liberty Bell. Juno doesn’t have a bad deal going. Her folks are markedly working class (they’re both members of the labor class, a group that doesn’t see much Hollywood recognition; he’s an HVAC repairman, she’s a nail technician). Yet Juno imagines a perfect life to consist of two loving parents and a McMansion.Why would she seek out people of this particular class? Is this a case of Juno’s lack of class awareness or the film’s?

The film’s real progressive moment comes when Juno realizes that her idea of perfection isn’t perfect. She realizes that a father who doesn’t want to be there would be as bad as a mother who hadn’t wanted to be there. She sees that a father isn’t a necessity–or perhaps simply that two parents aren’t a necessity. Yet what does this all add up to mean? There’s certainly a moment of female solidarity (and this isn’t the only one, certainly, in the film), and a difficult decision that she makes independently. But, as with other conclusions I’ve made, I’m left with the question of “So what?”

The film does love all of its characters, which is a refreshing change for a high school flick. Juno’s best friend, Leah, is a cheerleader who exhibits some flaky, teenage qualities (her crush on the chubby, bearded, middle-aged math teacher takes a cliché and gives it a twist), but the film loves her nonetheless. Vanessa Loring (Jennifer Garner) is an obsessional, middle-class mommy blogger type, but we see that she would be a good mother, and the film cares for her. We even have sympathy for Mark (Jason Bateman) who, through his relationship with Juno, realizes that he and his wife no longer want the same thing (if they ever did). There are cringe-worthy moments with Mark and Juno, but none that damn him completely. It’s a rare film that gives us no bad guys, which is a large part of its charm.

It’s easy to want to live in a world like this, where a pregnant sixteen-year-old seems to get by pretty well, with her parents’ support and a relationship with her baby’s adoptive family. She has a sweet teenage love affair and doesn’t seem to struggle much. While teen angst is the stuff of Hollywood cliché, things just seemed too easy for Juno. I wish my teenage years could’ve been a bit more like Juno’s. Hell, I wish my life now could be.

The final question remains, though, about whether we should criticize a movie like Juno. Representations of role models for American girls tend to inhabit the poles; either young girls are encouraged to be the beautiful bimbo or the chaste Christian. This film has a strong personality (that masquerades as strong values—even an ethic) without being preachy or moralistic. That can’t inherently be a bad thing. Yet I find myself asking for more, wanting more–something that steps outside of the realm of safety. Perhaps Juno isn’t the film to give me more.

In all, I fear Juno suffers from the same postmodern condition afflicting so many films today. It strives for a non-message in order not to offend anyone, thus allowing anti-choice advocates to cheer the film as loudly as pro-choice feminists. There’s a problem here. If a film that almost universally passes as hip and progressive is so murky in its values and allegiance that we’re not really sure what to think of it, how can a truly hip and progressive film make it today?

The Bechdel Rule, aka Ripley’s Rule

It seems there should be a test to evaluate the role of women in any given movie.

A comic, from 1985, lays out a simple set of criteria for its characters to choose a movie to see:

1. There must be two female characters (some say two named female characters)
2. Who talk to each other
3. About something other than men.

Check out the original comic below and click on it to visit Alison Bechdel’s blog and learn about the original source of the comic and idea. NPR’s All Things Considered ran a story on the Bechdel Rule and posted an entry on their pop-culture blog, Monkey See, about new Bechdel-like rules.

How many movies actually pass the test?

Thanks to Unapologetically Female for cuing us in!

Feminism 3.0?

Julia Barry writes of her experience with feminism in the media, and the ways some women have adopted tactics of the patriarchy to compete against other women. Not only is feminism the new “f-word,” but women have favored individual accomplishment over group activism. She claims that this isn’t simply a Hollywood problem:

Independent media supposedly eschews this world of profit values in order to communicate in a more free, honest, and genuine manner. But, as a female indie filmmaker/feminist activist, I have experienced sexism, aversion to “the f-word” – usually predicated on assumptions that feminists are either mean-spirited men-haters or naïve pot-smokers – and bureaucratic coldness like that found within the commercial film industry amongst colleagues and independent media makers. And what upsets me most is that the majority of these experiences have happened with other women. Why?

Read Barry’s article, posted on the MediaRights website, here.

NYT Recognizes a Problem

Manohla Dargis, New York Times film critic, writes about the lack of women in this summer’s blockbuster fare, and the way new Hollywood has become a post-female Hollywood.

All you have to do is look at the movies themselves — at the decorative blondes and brunettes smiling and simpering at the edge of the frame — to see just how irrelevant we have become.

Read the full article, titled “Come Summer, Is There a Real Woman in This Multiplex?” here.

Documentary Review: Paris Was a Woman

Paris Was a Woman (1996)

Paris Was a Woman is a documentary about artists living in Paris during the time between the wars–specifically in the 1920s. Paris has always been a place for artists, but at this time, Prohibition, inexpensive living, and a general openness to different lifestyles and art made American women flock to the Left Bank area of the city. The film looks at Gertrude Stein, Alice Toklas, Colette, Djuna Barnes, Berenice Abbott, Gisele Freund, and Janet Flanner, among others.

The film will certainly be of interest to fans of these writers, artists, and other literary figures—in particular of Stein. There is home movie footage that most of us have probably never seen, and interviews with people intimate with the women in their Parisian heyday–and a lot of information from a housekeeper. One problem with the film, though, is that it’s really about lesbians living in Paris in the 1920s, which perpetuates the untruthful equation of lesbianism and feminism. Part of the problem might be that the film was released in 1995, and mainstream attitudes have changed to the extent that it may no longer be necessary to disguise a film about lesbian artists. In other words, I would like the film better if it wasn’t pretending to be something other than what it is.

In terms of quality, the film has its high and low points. One of my favorite things was a map of the homes, shops, and meeting places of the women—updated each time someone new was introduced. This visual really drives home the point about their close proximity, and makes me wonder how many neighborhoods—full of amazing artists—exist today. There are probably many, but with our fragmented modern lives, I don’t know of any. The quality of the film left something to be desired (making it look older than it is), and it seemed pretty disorganized, overall. This likely has to do with the fact that Paris Was a Woman was first a book, and was then turned into a documentary.

Perhaps the best part of the film was its emphasis on two women and their bookshops. Sylvia Beach was the owner of Shakespeare & Company, perhaps best known for publishing the first edition of James Joyce’s Ulysses, which had been deemed obscene, making it unpublishible by mainstream houses. A sad irony is that, later, Joyce never paid Beach, who was virtually bankrupted by her action. Adrienne Monnier lent books to women who couldn’t afford to purchase them from her bookstore, La Maison des Amis des Livres, which was located across the street from Shakespeare & Company. Monnier and Beach also translated T.S. Eliot’s “The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock” into French for the first time.

Women nurturing—and even launching—the careers of men is nothing new. I think we often forget–or even never learn–to what extent, however. Ernest Hemingway served as an errand boy to Gertrude Stein before he became a published writer. She also bought paintings by Pablo Picasso when few other people would purchase his strange work. Despite my formalist reservations about the film (organization, film quality, clearness of content), it was amazing to see such a strong community of female artists living, working, and even making love together. It teaches us not only about these particular women, but about a city, an era, and, in some sense, about how to be an artist–as all good art, on some level, should.

Movie Review: Norma Rae

Sally Field’s career, honestly, hasn’t meant much to me. Aside from recent Boniva commercials, Forrest Gump, and Steel Magnolias, I haven’t seen much of her work. She’s always struck me as a respectable actress, but not someone I seek out from a personal interest. Not being familiar with her early career, her so-called serious turn in Norma Rae was lost on me. What wasn’t lost, however, was an honest portrayal of a working woman, and a social issue that continues to dog women and men (though women, I suspect, suffer more from lack of unions) everywhere.

A primary question about social fiction is whether the story remains relevant, or if the sociopolitical situation remains mired in the past. Norma Rae does retain relevance, though she’d likely be working in Wal-Mart today instead of a textile mill (as I watched, I wondered how many textile mills still operate in the U.S.). While the movie seems to be a window on a past time in working America, it’s still relevant—and progressive—on many levels.

The plot of Norma Rae is inspired by the real life experience of Crystal Lee Jordan, a woman who worked in a North Carolina mill to unionize its employees, spurred on by an out-of-town organizer, until being fired on a bogus charge of “insubordination.” Norma Rae (played by Field, who won the Best Actress Oscar for the role) lives with her parents in the beginning of the movie, and reunites with an old friend who she marries after a brief courtship. As Norma Rae becomes more involved with union activities, the she experiences the usual relationship (romantic, familial, and work) strains, but doesn’t quit until the mill bosses force her out. It’s at this time she makes her famous stand; she refuses to leave, scrawls “UNION” on a piece of cardboard, stands on a table in the middle of a busy factory floor, and stoically remains–in an exhilarating climax to the film–until all her fellow employees shut down their machines and stand with her. She’s arrested and fired in the end, but finishes what she started and believed in.

It’s true that Field gives a standout performance, and the union-organizer Rueben (played by Ron Liebman) isn’t bad either. But what stands out for me in the film–and what makes this, in my opinion, a good piece of feminist muckraking–is the character’s relationship with men. We don’t learn too much about her relationship with other women, but what’s striking about her relationship with men is the lack of romanticism involved. Norma Rae has a couple of kids from a couple of different men–neither of whom are present in their lives–and when she marries Sonny, it’s for entirely pragmatic reasons. He proposes while on a date with both their children present, and makes his case to her that he’s a good man and that their lives might be easier if they lived them together. There’s no grand romance, and it’s refreshing to see marriage represented as the economic institution that it essentially is–particularly in the face of contemporary Hollywood, which just can’t seem to make a movie without a romantic sub-plot geared toward female viewers.

The other–and more prominent–relationship in the movie is between Norma Rae and Rueben. I admit that while watching the movie I waited for romance to blossom between these two characters, but felt great relief when it never happened. We see their relationship go from cautious skepticism to a fully fledged friendship, as Norma Rae becomes dedicated to the union cause. There are few representations of purely intellectual relationships (not to mention asexual friendships) between men and women that come to mind in movies, and though one could certainly argue that there is sexual antagonism underlying their interaction, it’s an emotion that stays below the surface, never consummated–all the way to their farewell handshake at the end of the movie.
Norma Rae isn’t a super mother, nor does she fit the description of a woman we’re typically supposed to look up to. She’s made mistakes in her life and she’ll probably make a few more. She’s not looking to move away from her roots and improve her life based on others’ terms; she doesn’t act out of selfish desire. In other words, she’s a rarity in film: a real woman.

Welcome to Bitch Flicks

What is Bitch Flicks?

Bitch Flicks is a website devoted to reviewing films through a feminist lens. We’re interested in conversation about movies—good and bad—and the roles that women play in them. We strongly believe that movies both shape and reflect social values, and that the post-feminist leanings of many women today are misguided.

Not all movies we’ll review are feminist. We love all kinds of movies; whether blockbuster, foreign, independent, comedy, romance, period piece, art house, western, drama, thriller, horror, experimental, or science fiction—or any combination of these—we’ll treat movies with the same kind of respect they show their viewers. We might even look at TV shows.

It’s also worth noting that we’re not interested in reviewing only new movies–we’re not in the business of getting you out to spend money at the theater. We see movies at the theater and on dvd from the video store, online, and the library. We’re also not concerned with “spoilers.” While we’ll try not to give away twists in new movies, we believe that a movie’s plot is often its least interesting element, especially when thinking about implications for women.

The bottom line is that we need feminism, and we also need Bitch Flicks.

Why Bitch Flicks?

We love movies—and watch so many that we thought we’d try to turn our movie watching into something productive. What we don’t love about movies, however, is how rarely we see smart, complex women represented.

In October 2007, Jeff Robinov—President of Production at Warner Brothers Films—declared that the company would no longer greenlight films with female leads. Whether this remains official company policy isn’t as important as the implications of this statement: women are seen as a liability—unless, of course, they play second string to a male character.

We—and you—know all too well the kind of women’s movies out there: chick flicks. When asked to describe a “chick flick,” perhaps the first definition that comes to mind is that it’s a movie a man wouldn’t want to watch. And a movie many women wouldn’t want to watch, incidentally, either.

A majority of so-called serious films today—and in the past—are shockingly unconcerned about women, and some seem to exist in a world completely inhabited by men. Yet women are generally expected to see and like these “great” films.

Bitch Flicks seeks to bridge the gulf between these two extremes. We want to give women a unique voice, and we want to engage women and men in conversations about persistent sexism in film. We also wish to publicly demand that Hollywood and filmmakers across the United States and the world stop pandering to inaccurate and sexist views about who women are and what women want—in regards to movies, at least.

A Note about Our Web Address

Plug the term Bitch Flicks into a search engine, and you’ll likely be taken to porn. We’re a different kind of bitch, existing somewhere between romantic fluff and pornography. We’ve taken the “i”s out of our address, because it’s not about us. It’s about all of us.