Quote(s) of the Day: Geena Davis and Abigail Disney

At the Social Good Summit a couple of weeks ago, a panel was held called, “Women and Girls Lead: Where Storytelling, Gaming, and Public Media Converge,” and the entire thing rocked my world. It’s moderated by Aaron Sherinian, Vice President of Communications and Public Relations of the United Nations Foundation, and the members of the panel include Geena Davis, founder of the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media; Paula Kerger, President and CEO of PBS; Abigail Disney, Executive Producer of the film Women, War & Peace; and Asi Burak, Co-President of Games for Change.
I want to include two quotes from the panel, the first from Geena Davis—regarding gender representations in media, particularly programming for children—and the second from Abigail Disney, in which she discusses women and rape, and how men need to become more involved in its prevention. (I’ll post the video as well, but it’s always difficult to know if and when it’ll be taken down. That said, if you’re able to watch it, please watch it. And pass it on!)
Geena Davis, on changing society’s perceptions of women and girls
I think the problem is very broad, that in media in general, all that we’ve seen from when we were little kids, and all that’s shown now, are very, very imbalanced fictional worlds where there are far more male characters than female characters, and the female characters don’t really get to do a lot. So kids take this in, they internalize it, and they end up not being able to picture women doing interesting and unusual things because they’ve never seen it before. You can only accept it and take it in as a reality if you’ve seen it. So what we need to do is, first of all, add a lot more female characters because we really do take up half the planet, and we’re not like a rare subgroup like we’re shown in movies and television. And also, to show a breadth of occupations and aspirations and interests in these characters, so that boys and girls get used to seeing girls doing interesting and challenging things.   

Abigail Disney, on men becoming more involved in rape prevention
[responding to how members of the audience can get involved with the Women and Girls Lead projectan upcoming documentary series from PBS that deals with issues affecting girls and women]
Well, I guess I’ll divide the audience into women and men, and I’ll say to the women: Come! Help me. Be my sisters, and help me do this because this is really important. And for the men: Don’t be afraid. We love you; we like you; we want you. We asked Matt Damon to narrate the Bosnia episode, and the Bosnia episode is a lot about sexual violence. I know that sounds counter-intuitive, but here’s why we did it: I’ve spent my adult life working on these issues, and I’ve heard a lot of women, and the sound of what it is when they’re indignant about a woman being raped. And I don’t hear that from men. I would like to hear a man’s voice in indignation around the rape of women. If you think about social movements through history, you know, nothing has ever really shifted until people have involved themselves in movements that they had nothing to gain by succeeding—white people in the North going to the South to help in the civil rights movements; yuppies in California protesting for the end of apartheid. We need you guys. You are really important. Because the fact is that women are still being raped in the United States and sexually harassed in the United States in the same numbers they were being raped in the 1960s and 70s. Until you guys come with us, the world just won’t shift.

Cracked.com Makes Obnoxious Assumptions While Critiquing Hollywood’s Obnoxious Assumptions

Last week, I somehow ended up on Cracked.com reading a post called, “6 Obnoxious Assumptions Hollywood Makes About Women.” It’s no surprise that I ended up there, given that I write for Bitch Flicks and have a vested interest in Hollywood’s Obnoxious Assumptions, of which there are many. But. Cracked.com seriously failed with a couple of items in this piece. I considered not even writing about it, but then I realized it had more than a million page views, at least two thousand comments, and more than nine thousand Facebook shares. (Kind of like the readership we get at Bitch Flicks. Wait … no … that’s not quite right … ). With so many people out there reading such a well-intentioned yet problematic piece, I believe it deserves some analysis here.* I know Cracked.com promotes itself as a humor site, and—as hard as this is to believe coming from a feminist—I love humor. Honestly. Ask anyone who knows me—I promise I’m the most hilarious person everyone knows. Humor, however, or the attempt at humor, doesn’t give someone license to say offensive shit under the guise of hilarity. I will say that I agree with most of the Obnoxious Assumptions on the list; my issue resides with the ways in which the author attempts to critique two of those assumptions in particular.

The piece begins with an introduction citing a classic in Hollywood cinema: the sexual objectification of women. Yay, good point! Wait, no. Because after that acknowledgment, we immediately get, “That’s annoying, but it least it makes sense. They’re pandering to men, or they’re sexist, or whatever.” I felt myself cringe a little there, considering objectification of women on screen triggers more than mere “annoyance” for me and exists as one of the main reasons women in general still deal with an assload of inequality—it’s hard to see a woman portrayed as someone who only exists for your pleasure (be it visual or otherwise) as your equal, right? But, red flag aside, I decided to give the author the benefit of the doubt; her main point after all is that Hollywood screenwriters try to make up for the stuff that’s “just for the guys” (like naked women) by giving women something they want—an “everywoman” character who’s just like them! I’m still trying to figure out where women who aren’t white and heterosexual fit into all this.

You can check out the article on Cracked.com if you want to see the list in its entirety, but I’m only focusing on the two most offensive instances here. 


Worrying About Being Fat When You’re Not

I’m 100% with the author on this one (at first). She uses perfect examples—like, we’re really supposed to identify with Julia Roberts as “fat” in Eat Pray Love? Or with Toni Collette as the “fat, ugly sister” in In Her Shoes? It’s offensive and ridiculous and, yes, I’m in agreement! But then, we get this: “Look, I totally get it that nobody wants to see actual fat people on a screen for two hours and Hollywood has to trot out skinny actresses because that’s what the audience wants.” Oh, really? That’s an interesting and Obnoxious Assumption. In fact, I don’t think I’d mind at all seeing Actual Fat Women on screen. That might—what?—start to maybe challenge Obnoxious Assumptions About Fat Women? Because the author didn’t mean “Actual Fat People,” did she; she meant “Actual Fat Women.” Fat men are all over the damned screen, and they’re all sleeping with Kristen Bell and Elizabeth Banks and Kali Hawk and Katherine Heigl and Reese Witherspoon and Julia Roberts and Halle Berry. Cracked.com’s Obnoxious Assumption? No One Wants to See Fat Women in Movies 

Getting Angry For No Reason

Okay, no. I don’t know how something that starts off only mildly offensive manages to derail so … impressively in a matter of a few sentences. I have no doubt, again, that this Obnoxious Hollywood Assumption probably does exist. The author’s take, paraphrased: movies often rely on the idea that in order to showcase a woman as strong and independent, the script must call for her to flip out on men at random, without sufficient motivation. In all honesty, I haven’t thought much about this. I’m sure if I did, I could come up with a few examples of very anti-feminist films and Straw Feminist characters that fall into that trap, but the examples the author uses here—that Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and Jennifer Garner in Daredevil physically attack men for no reason—don’t seem to take into account the fact that Kevin Costner and Ben Affleck were both behaving like fucking stalkers, in which case I’d hardly call their ass-beatings unprovoked. The author then hypothesizes about the writers of these films, guessing that “Their only picture of a ‘tough’ woman is of a bitchy militant feminist who will scream at you for saying ‘Congressman’ instead of ‘Congressperson.’” That, naturally, is accompanied by a photo of a woman beating a man with flowers, and the caption: “Did you just say hi to me? RAPIST! RAPIST!!!”

Hilarious.

In fairness to the author, I think she’s trying to critique the assumption that women aren’t, you know, insane by virtue of being women (the way Hollywood often portrays us), and I agree wholeheartedly with that; but the critique, regardless of the author’s actual intent, ultimately comes across as, “Look, not all women behave like those militant feminists who think all men want to rape them, so I wish Hollywood would stop making that Obnoxious Assumption,” which is just Cracked.com’s Obnoxious Assumption About Feminists. All in all, no. 


*So let me just get this over with: This Is Important. I almost didn’t write my analysis because the instinct for many readers is to say: “Why can’t you focus on Real things like Real issues that Real feminists focus on?” So I’ll say it again: This Is Important. This “minor stuff” illustrates a huge problem with why the “Real issues” take such a long fucking time to eradicate. The “we’ve got bigger fish to fry” argument doesn’t work with social activism (and I very much consider what we do here to be social activism) because “Real issues” for women, like rape and physical abuse, exist precisely because the “minor stuff” makes up their core. I can’t talk about rape and physical abuse without talking about media portrayals of women, whether they be in the form of offensive articles (see above), sexist film advertisements that degrade women sexually, or seemingly “harmless” movie trailers that linger a little too long on women’s breasts and backsides, just as I can’t talk about those things without also discussing the larger impact they have on women’s safety, self-esteem, and individual agency. They’re interconnected, and it works the same way for all forms of oppression. So, when more than a million people possibly uncritically read a piece that flaunts fat hatred and plays rape for laughs—believe me, that shit perpetuates fat hatred and rape culture in a very Real way. That’s why I called attention to this. Thanks for reading. 

Gay Christian Geek’s One-Year Blogiversary!

Guess what?! Gay Christian Geek turned one year old on Thursday, September 29th. Here’s a belated congratulations!

In addition to checking out her 5 most popular posts (which she links to on her blog), definitely re-read her wonderful analysis of No Country For Old Men from our 2008 Best Picture Nominee Review Series!

Keep blogging, Anna!

Fall Television Preview: The Answer Is No

No.
People have made a big deal out of the new Fall television shows because many of these new shows star women, either as leads or in ensemble casts. Some shows have yet to premiere, while others, like Whitney, 2 Broke Girls, and New Girl already debuted in early September. But, get this: I don’t have cable. I used to have cable, but then I realized I often watched 47 hours of television in one sitting, rather than the 25 I watch now (via Netflix streaming—even though Netflix refuses to offer hardly anything current, which makes their price-hike all the more infuriating). So I get my news from Twitter, my feminism from Blogs, and my TV from 1995.

Aside from thinking about how Monk could’ve been a really good show if it weren’t so sexist and racist, and how Roseanne got seriously crappy in its last two seasons, and how Ally McBeal might be the most horrendous televised display of faux-feminism slash enlightened sexism I’ve ever seen, I’ve spent some time going over these new Fall television shows by checking out their Web sites, reading their plot summaries, and—my favorite part—looking at how The People In Charge chose to market them. I noticed an overall trend: in addition to the increase in shows starring women, we’re about to be treated to a whole litany of Man-Shows.

When I say “Man-Shows,” I don’t mean television programming that merely stars men. I’m talking about some serious “Lest Anyone Forget—What With All These New Shows Starring Women—WE ARE STILL VERY POWERFUL MASCULINE MEN ON TV WE OWN EVERYTHING NO SERIOUSLY ROAR” Neanderthal action. I find it simultaneously hilarious and unacceptable. As always, both men and women get to see themselves as caricatures and stereotypes—courtesy of society’s regressive gender constraints—portrayed in television, particularly on network TV. Some of the more offensive “Man-Shows” this season include, Man Up!, How to Be a Gentleman, and Last Man Standing. In fact, NPR just published an excellent piece by Linda Holmes titled, “Congratulations, Television! You Are Even Worse at Masculinity Than Femininity!” in which she asks the following:

… Where, on television, are the men who both like football and remember birthdays? Where are the men who can have a highly insightful drink-and-talk with friends? Where are the men who are great dads, great husbands, great boyfriends? Where are the men who are dedicated to important jobs? Where are the men who aren’t seeking reassurance about what it means to be men? Where are, in short, all the men I rely on in my day-to-day life?

All good questions indeed.

I’m sure the male characters in these shows are total clichés portrayed in absolutes—or, as Holmes notes, “Men who are emotionally reactive … are weak; men who are emotionally inert … are clueless.” I also believe that the major force driving these narratives about manhood and masculinity is a direct result of our society’s fear and hatred of the feminine. In the very narrow worlds of film and television, isn’t it more often other men who label emotionally reactive men “weak,” … while women label emotionally inert men “clueless”? Men can’t win in these worlds; that’s certainly true. It starts at the beginning, with our collective call for boys to “stop acting like whiny little girls”—because, as boys and girls both learn, being a girl is The Worst.

My point? This very limited view of gender and gender expectations isn’t a new trend. And, while I agree with Holmes’ take in general, I don’t see these portrayals as having worsened in TV, either. I see them as possibly more overt this season, and I see the Man-Shows as an obvious reaction (i.e. backlash) against the increase in shows about women and the displays of femininity that accompany them. And if what Holmes says is in fact true, that “In both cases, women don’t want to have sex with them [weak and clueless men], even if they’re married to them,” I actually find it much easier to swallow than I do the Apatowian version of that story, where emotionally stunted man-children all across the globe end up living happily ever after (and sexually fulfilled) with Katherine Heigl and Elizabeth Banks.

Holmes also expresses concern over the “silly women” in Fall television but ultimately argues, “At least they are not presented as women who are being women incorrectly,” (you know, the way men are presented as being men incorrectly). I find that statement interesting. I mean, if you take a close look at the roles women play on these brand spankin’ new TV shows, the “at least women aren’t presented as being women incorrectly” argument doesn’t hold up. It’s funny, actually. Because the definitions of what these women are even allowed to be on television certainly trumps any notion of whether they’re being it correctly. (Besides, I’m about 175% sure that women judging women or men judging women for dressing too slutty or being bad moms/teachers/wives/sisters or gaining weight or not gaining weight or smiling or not smiling happens about three thousand times per episode. On each show.)


Here’s a list of woman-centered shows premiering September through November, along with the roles and/or occupations of the women (when I could find the information on the Web site): a murder witness (Ringer), a wife, career woman, and mom (Up All Night), a witch (The Secret Circle), waitresses (2 Broke Girls), Playboy bunnies (The Playboy Club), a teacher (New Girl), a homicide detective (Unforgettable), a vengeful woman (Revenge), beautiful detectives (Charlie’s Angels), an unmarried woman (Whitney), a homicide detective (Prime Suspect), flight attendants (Pan Am), a doctor (Hart of Dixie), a CIA agent (Homeland), clueless moms (I Hate My Teenage Daughter), a “crazy” health and beauty executive (Enlightened).

I look at this list, and my first instinct is to go, “Yay! Women get to be detectives, too!” And that’s certainly progress—if we’re comparing this Fall TV season to, like, the days of Leave It to Beaver. The rest of the roles on the list, with the exception of “doctor,” embody careers/roles traditionally held and/or performed by women. That isn’t to suggest anything inherently negative about those roles; I’m merely stating a fact. I wouldn’t doubt that most of the women characters in the male-dominated fields (homicide detective, doctor, CIA agent) also get the wonderful bonus of being The Lone Woman, spending 90% of her time surrounded by men (Smurfette Principal, anyone?) …

… shit, maybe I’m defining “woman-centered” too loosely, out of desperation.

Here’s a list of man-centered shows premiering September through November, along with the roles and/or occupations of the men (when I could find the information on the Web site): a former CIA agent (Person of Interest), a mysterious billionaire (Person of Interest), a surgeon (A Gifted Man), a writer (How to Be a Gentleman), a personal trainer (How to Be a Gentleman), a marketing director (Last Man Standing), an insurance salesman (Man Up!), a homicide detective (Grimm), a mayor (Boss), a soldier (Hell on Wheels).

Can I be a mysterious billionaire? I want that role. Or Mayor. Can I be Mayor? Ha. I think I need to step back. First, it stinks that TV wants to get in on that whole man-child bankability thing that the movie industry has relied on since, what, Animal House? But the man-child isn’t really a new thing for TV, is it? (See Friends, Arrested Development, The Big Bang Theory, Parks and Recreation, My Name Is Earl, Monk, et al.) Instead, the novel thing for Fall TV appears to be the man-child’s sudden mission to Reclaim His Masculinity—a popular yet very regressive and harmful version of masculinity that, let’s face it, kept George W. Bush in the White House for eight years.

Second, make no mistake, TV stinks big-time for women this season, too. I refuse to fall into the trap I used to always fall into. I’d say something like, “Look! More woman-centered shows! Progress for women!” But now I know better—it ain’t just about visibility. (See Palin, Bachmann, et al.) Women as Playboy bunnies? It’s 2011. You can take your nostalgia and shove it. A woman having a nervous breakdown to the laughter of audiences everywhere? I already do that every day in real life. (I just laughed out loud.) In conclusion, I’d like to get to a point in television where women can be more than crazy, vengeful, murder-witnessing waitresses babysitting a man-child.
 
Yes. This entire post was merely a lead-in to the phrase “murder-witnessing waitresses babysitting a man-child.” You’re welcome.


Documentary Preview: Women in the Dirt

Directed and produced by Carolann Stoney.
Okay, this documentary just looks cool.
Women in the Dirt is a new film that showcases seven landscape architects in California: Cheryl Barton, Andrea Cochran, Isabelle Greene, Mia Lehrer, Lauren Melendrez, Pamela Palmer, and Katherine Spitz
From the Web site: “Through conversations with the landscape architects in their offices, or in the stunning spaces they’ve designed, the film explores each woman’s personal aesthetics and approach to their discipline. Women in the Dirt shows how these ‘masters of the obvious’ create the sublime.”
An excerpt from a review by Lydia Schrufer:
Women in the Dirt reveals landscape architecture’s unique status as a modern profession founded by both men and women. This history is graciously deepened by vignettes of seven contemporary women landscape architects. Director Carolann Stoney has selected top landscape architects whose contributions to American landscapes will now receive their due. ‘Just as anyone can enjoy histories of women artists, Women in the Dirt is gendered in its subject, but not its audience,’ observes Katie Kingery-Page, Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture at Kansas State University.

The above is only one of many testimonials to which I wholeheartedly add my own; kudos to Carolann Stoney for an aesthetically challenging, thought-provoking, beautiful film.

Urban Gardens featured the film on their site back in January:

Women, the film demonstrates, are influencing the profession of landscape architecture more today than ever before. Though each of the landscape architects featured has a unique body of work, ‘their concerns overlap in the realm of sustainability and enduring design.’

By shaping our lives, transforming our cities, and nourishing the environment, landscape architecture, as the film shows, is more than the ‘simple arrangement of plants and flowers for corporate spaces and the gardens of rich people.’

The press photos on the site are breathtaking–definitely check them out. While the film appears to be screening in theaters, you can also purchase the DVD here.

Tropes vs. Women Spotlight

Anita Sarkeesian of the Web site Feminist Frequency, a site that analyzes pop culture from a feminist perspective, recently completed her fabulous, six-part video series on Tropes vs. Women. She explains that, “A trope is a common pattern in a story or a recognizable attribute in a character that conveys information to the audience. A trope becomes a cliche when it’s overused. Sadly, some of these tropes often perpetuate offensive stereotypes.”

I highly recommend watching each of these six videos. Sarkeesian possesses a strong ability to analyze often complicated issues regarding gender roles and the representations of women in film and television, and she breaks things down into more easily understandable ideas. The run time of each video is between five and ten minutes, with many television and movie clips incorporated as examples for the particular trope she’s highlighting. They helped me! Go watch them!

Definition: “The Manic Pixie Dream Girl is a cute, bubbly, young (usually white) woman who has recently entered the life of our brooding hero to teach him how to loosen up and enjoy life. While that might sound all well and good for the man, this trope leaves women as simply there to support the star on his journey of self discovery with no real life of her own.”
Example: “You might remember Zooey Deschanel in 500 Days of Summer, the non-committing love interest of the film’s star, Tom Hansen, played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt. The story follows Tom on his journey of falling in and out of love with Summer Finn. They have the classic Manic Pixie Dream Girl scene where they are frolicking around in the world, and the Manic Pixie teaches the uptight star how to embrace his inner child.” [accompanied by film clip]
Definition: “Women in Refrigerators is a trope identified by comic book fan (and now comic book writer) Gail Simone because she was sick of seeing “superheroines who have been either depowered, raped, or cut up and stuck in the refrigerator.”
Example: “While the Women in Refrigerators trope originated in the comic book genre, it can be applied across other pop culture mediums, such as video games, TV shows, and movies. For example, Libby and Shannon on Lost were murdered specifically to push the story arc of two male characters. Or how about all of these women from Heroes who were depicted as losing or being unable to control their powers.”
Definition: “The Smurfette Principle was named two decades ago by Katha Pollitt, when she noticed that there were a disproportionate amount of male characters in programming aimed at young people. Even in adult programming, when women do appear in the primary cast of a television show or movie, they are usually alone in a group of men. Sadly, this trope has made its way into the 21st century.”
Example: “Down in the 100-acre woods, we follow the adventures of Winnie the Pooh, Rabbit, Piglet, Eeyore, Owl, and Tiger–all dudes of course; in fact, there’s only one female character, Kanga, who shows up occasionally as the mother of little Roo. Even Jim Hensen didn’t seem too keen on the women; alongside Kermit, Gonzo, and Fozzie the Bear, Miss Piggy was the only female muppet. We can even see The Smurfette Principal outside of programming aimed at young people. So, for example, you have George Lucas’ original Star Wars trilogy, where Princess Leia is the only principle female character in the entire galactic empire.”

Definition: “The Evil Demon Seductress is a supernatural creature–usually a demon, alien, robot, vampire, etc.–who is most often disguised as a sexy human female. She uses her sexuality and sexual wiles to manipulate, seduce, kill, and often eat, poor, hapless men by luring them into her evil web.”
Example: “In Star Trek: First Contact, we have the Borg Queen trying to seduce Data. Keanu Reeves is taken advantage of by the Brides of Dracula. And then some years later, in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Giles meets these three sisters. In the science fiction show, Farscape, there’s the villain, Grayza, with her enchanting body sweat. There are the evil mermaids in Pirates of the Caribbean 4. And Mystique in X-Men often fulfills this trope.”

Definition: “The Mystical Pregnancy is a trope writers use to create drama and terror by invading, violating, and exploiting women’s reproductive capabilities. Often these female characters have their ovaries harvested by aliens or serve as human incubators for demon spawn. Sometimes, they are carrying the Messiah, and other times Satan himself.”
Example: “Remember back in the mid-90s on the X-Files when FBI Agent Dana Scully found herself abducted and forcibly impregnated, which, of course, later culminated in a hybrid human-alien child? More recently, on the second season of Battlestar Galactica, Starbuck had her ovaries harvested by the cyclons in an attempt to create human-cyclon embryos. Then we have Gwen Cooper, co-star of the Doctor Who spinoff, Torchwood, who is bitten by an alien one night, and the next morning she wakes up to find herself extremely pregnant with the alien’s spawn.”

Definition: “In television and movies, The Straw Feminist works by deliberately creating an exaggerated caricature of a feminist, which writers then fill with a bunch of oversimplifications, misrepresentations, and stereotypes to try to make it easy to discredit or delegitimize feminism. The goal is to make feminists and our movements look completely ridiculous, over the top, and unnecessary.”
Example: “The Straw Feminist trope is taken to a whole new level in adult animation shows such as South Park or Family Guy. In the episode, “I Am Peter, Hear Me Roar,” the Family Guy writers took a stab at feminist attorney Gloria Allred. Allred is known for taking on high-profile cases defending women who have been assaulted or harassed. In this attack, the Family Guy writers created a character coincidentally named Gloria Ironbox, who brainwashes Peter into thinking he is a woman after he’s accused of sexual assault. The emasculation and feminization of Peter–and his sudden transformation into a feminist–is played for laughs.”

This six-part video series also appeared at Bitch Magazine, and the comment threads–both at Bitch and at Feminist Frequency–always offer excellent discussions of the videos.

Quote of the Day: Barbara J. Berg

Visit Barbara J. Berg’s Web site for more information.
Yesterday, I wrote a piece analyzing two misogyny-filled reviews of I Don’t Know How She Does It. The process got me thinking quite a bit about the ways in which reputable movie critics choose to evaluate films, particularly woman-centered films. Most critics loved Bridesmaids, but that isn’t remotely shocking if you read Bridesmaids as another Apatow-branded gross-out fest that just happened to star women. Personally, I believe that reading shortchanges the film, but I also believe the undercurrent of all too familiar man-child humor helped Bridesmaids not only stake its claim at the top of the box office, but also transcend the dreaded “chick flick” label. Other movies showcasing women rarely get that kind of respect from critics, perhaps because they lack that Apatowian guy-cred, or perhaps because they’re generally just not taken seriously. 
Sexism in America: Alive, Well, and Ruining Our Future by Barbara J. Berg, Ph.D., was published in 2009, pre-Bridesmaids sensation. In chapter 19, “Missing at the Multiplex,” Berg discusses, well, what we discuss at Bitch Flicks: the objectification, silencing, and absence of women and girls in film and television. Her astute observations about the reaction by male critics (and men in general) to the release of Sex and the City: The Movie deserves a spotlight here–because it encapsulates a larger trend I see among male film critics to rake these woman-centered films over the fucking coals. Make no mistake, SATC was a shitty movie. Amber and I reviewed it, and we both agreed it was terribly shitty. But men have a strong tendency to approach many films about women–and I’m talking about movies that don’t qualify for that coveted injection of Apatow-sponsored Guy Approval (like the one Bridesmaids got)–with a disdain so palpable one can’t help but go, “What the fuck, man?”

Which brings me to our Quote of the Day.  

The one notable exception to the hailing males of Hollywood is the movie Sex and the City (SATC), a smash hit racking up fifty-seven million dollars on its opening weekend. Just about every reviewer mentioned the gal pals responsible for this spectacular success, just as they made much of male absence (except for gay men, who are presumably big fans).

Of course, there’s the old adage in Tinsel Town that women will see a “male” movie, but not vice versa. Still, the way men dissed SATC (most without having seen it) hints at something deeper going on. Perfectly wonderful men shuddered in horror at the very mention of the movie. They seemed absolutely phobic, as though watching a movie about four devoted friends who together wielded power and authority was an affront to their manhood.

“In an Internet Movie Database poll, 7,197 men voted to give SATC an average score of 3.8–that puts it among the worst movies of the year,” reported Ramin Setoodeh in Newsweek (June 16, 2008). Male reviewers were particularly nasty. Anthony Lane wrote in The New Yorker that the movie “was more like a TV show on steroids. . . . All the film lacks is a subtitle, ‘The Lying, the Bitch and the Wardrobe.’ David Poland at Hot Button said, “The only genuinely emotional moment I experienced in this film came to pass in a moment where the characters actually shut up for a moment.”

SATC is the first movie in a long time to reverse the formula and put women, not men, at center stage. Is it a big surprise that many males immediately called for them to be silenced? Maybe they’re just pissed that SATC scored more at the box office than their favorite “dick flick,” Indiana Jones.

Thoughts?

 

I Don’t Know How She Does It: Most Misogynistic Film Reviews Ever

 
I Don’t Know How She Does It, starring Sarah Jessica Parker
I have no doubt that the recently released romantic comedy I Don’t Know How She Does It, starring Sarah Jessica Parker, reeks of the same sexist and misogynistic tropes that exist in most romantic comedies. However, the film probably at least attempts to make a complicated argument regarding how women with high-powered careers and a family struggle to balance both of them, especially in a society that still doesn’t offer pay equity, doesn’t insist on equal sharing of responsibilities in the domestic sphere (as evidenced by every study ever), and doesn’t fully embrace nontraditional roles in child-rearing (e.g. stay-at-home dads). Some reviewers even argue that this particular kind of film doesn’t matter anymore; we’re so far past this; it’s such an 80s issue. Because we’re so postfeminist, right? Um, wrong. The fact is, women in the workforce still, in 2011, contend with these issues. We’re asked to sacrifice our family for our career … or our career for our family … in a way that men have never been asked to do or, more importantly perhaps, have never been labeled Worst Father Ever for doing so.

I haven’t seen the film, so I can’t comment on how successfully or unsuccessfully it tackles these issues, or whether it ultimately validates the dominant ideology that women shouldn’t sacrifice family for career, or whether it works to move past its showcasing of upper-class privilege in an economic climate that certainly makes the career/family balancing act an important issue for all women. Unfortunately, I can, however, comment on how successfully or unsuccessfully film reviewers have discussed the film. Just reading the brief snippets of reviews on Rotten Tomatoes pissed me off. (You’ve been warned.) But two reviews in particular—Stephen Holden’s in the New York Times and David Cox’s in the Guardian—sent me over the fucking edge.

Holden begins his review by talking about Sarah Jessica Parker’s plague of “post-Carrie Parkeritis” and describes it as a curse “in which a star finds herself condemned to eke out the last drops of freshness from the role … that made her world famous eons ago.” He then goes on to compare Sarah Jessica Parker’s Sex and the City problem with Julia Roberts’ Pretty Woman problem, which he dubs “The Roberts Syndrome.” This is seriously problematic. Julia Roberts, since her role in Pretty Woman twenty years ago, has won an Oscar, has been nominated for several Oscars, has won several Golden Globes, has been nominated for two Critics’ Choice Awards (and won the Best Actress category), has been nominated for an Emmy and an Independent Spirit Award, has won about a million People’s Choice Awards, and is generally considered one of the most popular and talented actresses on the planet.

You don’t get to compare Julia Roberts’ entire career to Sarah Jessica Parker’s entire career just because they’re both women who became famous for playing a character the audience connected with. If we’re being honest about identifying a problem “in which a star [is] condemned to eke out the last drops of freshness from the role … [made] famous eons ago,” a more apt comparison might involve, oh, say … any successful male action star who keeps making the same action movies over and over and over and will only, forever, in his entire career, continue to make the same incessant action movies. Comparing one famous film star who has a vagina with another famous film star who has a vagina doesn’t make the comparison fucking true.

But it gets worse. Holden employs the most sexist language I’ve ever read in a New York Times film review. I’ll just pull some quotes, for starters, with the offending passages in bold:

“Although the movie is chock-full of smart one-liners, and Ms. Parker’s maniacally giddy Kate wages a full-scale charm offensive, the movie inadvertently makes Kate’s supposedly golden life look like a living hell.”

***
“The jittery momentum of the movie, directed by Douglas McGrath (“Emma,” “Infamous”), mirrors Kate’s frazzled state all too well.”

***
“But more often than not, Ms. Parker’s straining to be funny comes across as desperation to please.”

***
“Mr. Kinnear’s Richard is a near-cipher who reacts to Kate’s hysteria with mild exasperation, only raising his voice once (and not very loud).”

***
“A calm, enlightened, impossibly courtly, unattached widower who tolerates Kate’s every quirk and begins to fall in love with her, he is the polar opposite of a driven financial kingpin like Richard Fuld, the final former chief executive of Lehman Brothers.”

***
“The movie’s one unalloyed delight is Olivia Munn’s portrayal of Kate’s poker-faced assistant, Momo, a spiritual first cousin of Anna Kendrick’s Natalie Keener in “Up in the Air,” but icier and more robotic. Beneath Momo’s composure lurks a terror that leaks out when she learns she is pregnant.”

***
“Carrie Bradshaw flirted her way into mass consciousness in the late ’90s, when Ms. Parker was in her early 30s, and well before Sept. 11, two wars and a major recession dampened American exuberance. If Kate’s hyperkinetic cheer and shrill self-absorption are Carrie trademarks, 13 years after “Sex and the City” first appeared on television, their appeal has all but evaporated.”

Maniacally giddy. Full-scale charm offensive. Frazzled state. Desperation to please. Kate’s hysteria. Kate’s every quirk. A terror that leaks out when she learns she is pregnant. Icier and more robotic. Flirted her way into mass consciousness. Hyperkinetic cheer and shrill self-absorption. Straining to be funny. (Nice channeling of the douchebag Hitchens here.) Holden’s review employs sexist language—words and phrases traditionally used to define and identify the behavior of women—and unapologetically does so. Hysteria? Quirky? Frazzled? Shrill? No. Some people will inevitably argue (or silently think) that this isn’t a big deal. Make no mistake—these supposed “little” issues provide a fucking breeding ground for the “bigger,” more important issues women face daily. That’s just how it works.

It’s no secret that I lost a significant amount of respect for the New York Times when its botched coverage of a sexual assault did nothing more than condone rape and rape culture. In this case, Holden’s review perpetuates sexism and sexist attitudes in a much more subtle but no less significant way. I expect more than this from a supposedly progressive media organization such as the New York Times. (Sort of.) I also expect more from the fucking Guardian. What the hell, David Cox? If Holden’s sexism was subtle … Cox’s sexism is a full-frontal attack on women in the workforce:

“The family and the job keep making annoying demands, all of which she pluckily tries to meet.”

***
“He’s [Kate’s husband] trying to pursue a career of his own, but when junior falls down the stairs it’s Dad who has to take him to hospital, since Mom’s away on business yet again.”

***
“Hubby comes to appreciate that he’s got to do more of the housework. This surely is the way things ought to be … 

It’s not only Kate who thinks so. Highly advantaged women often seem to assume they’re entitled to total fulfilment both at work and at home … If they don’t get it, they’ve been robbed.”

***
Ambitious mums can try to turn their partners into house-husbands, but it would be only fair to tell them what they’re in for. Instead of expecting childless colleagues to cover for them, they could admit that mumps and nativity plays will come first, and accept the consequences, however unwelcome.” 

***
“It’s like this, Kate. If you want to have it all, it’s your job to work out how to do it. If you can’t, give something up. But don’t expect the rest of us to underwrite your bliss.”

Wow. Instead of analyzing this completely misogynistic, mean-spirited, and resentment-filled mess of a film “review,” I’ll do something that will blow your fucking mind. Pretend you’re browsing the internet. You’re interested in a new film that’s come out about how difficult it is for men to juggle both their families and their careers. (Don’t laugh.) You stumble upon a review in the Guardian. It looks something like this:

“The family and the job keep making annoying demands, all of which he pluckily tries to meet.”

***
“She’s [his wife] trying to pursue a career of her own, but when junior falls down the stairs it’s Mom who has to take him to hospital, since Dad’s away on business yet again.”

***
“Wifey comes to appreciate that she’s got to do more of the housework. This surely is the way things ought to be … 

It’s not only her husband who thinks so. Highly advantaged men often seem to assume they’re entitled to total fulfilment both at work and at home … If they don’t get it, they’ve been robbed.”

***
“Ambitious dads can try to turn their partners into house-wives, but it would be only fair to tell them what they’re in for. Instead of expecting childless colleagues to cover for them, they could admit that mumps and nativity plays will come first, and accept the consequences, however unwelcome.” 

***
“It’s like this, Man. If you want to have it all, it’s your job to work out how to do it. If you can’t, give something up. But don’t expect the rest of us to underwrite your bliss.”

This version of the “review” is funny, ridiculous, difficult to follow (not to mention imagine), and sad. It illustrates the fact that men don’t have to “assume they’re entitled to total fulfillment both at work and at home” because our society says they’re entitled to it. Ambitious dads don’t have to “try to turn their partners into house-[wives]” because our society still says in 2011 that it’s preferable for women—not men—to stay home with the children. Men in the workforce aren’t “expecting childless colleagues to cover for them” because our society doesn’t expect men to carry the brunt of childcare responsibilities—that’s still women’s work. If men “want to have it all” it’s not “[their] job to work out how to do it” because our society has already worked out how to do it, often at the expense of women’s happiness and individual autonomy. (Side note: I find it nothing less than cruel and unusual that these expectations of women still exist, yet access to birth control, reproductive healthcare, and abortion is becoming increasingly elusive.)

The language of these two film reviews says much more about the reviewers and their misogyny—regardless of whether they intended to come across as sexist—than it does about the actual film. I find it troubling that a movie attempting to explore an issue that women still struggle with (even if it ends up reinforcing rather than critiquing the problem) gets so much coverage, not of the success or failure of its subject matter, but of the pluckiness, giddiness, flirtatiousness, hysteria, and general over-reaching of its main woman character. As if that weren’t enough, and we needed a healthy dose of objectification thrown in for good measure, the free newspaper Metro made sure they had it covered.

Thanks Holden, Cox, and Metro! Truly great work here indeed.

Bitch Flicks’ Weekly Picks

Megan Kearns on The Feminist/Sexist See-Saw Ride of the 2011 Emmys from Fem2.0

Tearing Down the Celluloid Ceiling from Huffington Post

Under Siege: The Policing of Women and Girls in America from IndieGoGo

Joan Bakewell: Women Are Doing It For Themselves from The Telegraph

Turn of the Tide? Women and Television from Jacki Zehner

Hysteria TIFF Review: Tanya Wexler’s Successful Mixture of Laughter, History, and Feminism from Movies.com

New Study Finds Nitrites Decrease Gayness from Rage Against the Man-Chine

The Dawning Sky Is a Rare Japanese Feminist Film from GMA News

Bunnies, Babies, and Broads: What Is TV Trying to Tell Us About Women? from Washington Post

Men’s Television Protects Itself From the Female Threat from Oh No They Didn’t!

Film Personalizes Climate “Weathering” on Women from WeNews

A Few Women in Film at the Toronto International Film Festival from The Delphiad Blog

Leave your links in the comments!

Best Picture Nominee Review Series: 2009 Roundup

The Reader reviewed by Megan Kearns

“So often, we see a man playing the villainous role of a Nazi so it’s interesting to me that a woman embodies that role instead. Yet, I can’t shake the unease I feel with the portrayal. Hanna has no children, no family and never marries. This may not have been the intended consequence, yet it comes off as a cautionary tale. Hanna appears to possess no maternal instinct; rather than protect, she seduces a sweet and naïve boy, alternately treating him tenderly as a passionate lover or with curt callousness.  She stands trial for war crimes as a former SS guard, participating in the deaths of hundreds of women and girls.  I can’t shake the feeling that if she had been scripted to bear a child or to have lost a child, she wouldn’t have behaved this way.  Are single, childless women more cruel and apathetic? No, of course not. Yet Hollywood continually seems to reinforce the notion that women without children are cold and calculating.”

Frost/Nixon reviewed by Stephanie Brown

“Ron Howard’s direction is straightforward, a “style of no style” that allows the actors and story to shine, but it’s full of wit and sly humor, such as a scene in which an unwatched TV is playing the ubiquitous and silly television commercial of the 1970’s which depicted a tear-stained American Indian man canoeing through a polluted river. The costumes and art direction give us the wide lapels, shag carpet, black limousines and white phones of the era and they look normal; no one is making fun of past lapses in taste—indeed, they look like totems of power. Frost/Nixon is a movie full of men who are talking, standing, sitting, and walking through halls on the way to important meetings. Charlotte Cushing, Pat Nixon, and Diane Sawyer are not central players, either in the cast or in the drama of the story. This is right and fitting at a time when Martha Mitchell was deemed crazy for truth telling about Watergate, and was alleged to have been drugged in order to keep her quiet. It was a man’s world, and it is their power as well as their corruption depicted here.” 

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button reviewed by Jesseca Cornelson

“Other than these very important magical elements, the universe of TCCOBB is relatively realistic, save for its gliding over of both the women’s movement and the Civil Rights Movement. What are we to make of this? The way I see it, since TCCOBB works hard to incorporate historic events like World Wars I & II and Hurricane Katrina, (1) the filmmakers don’t think that race and gender figure very largely in 20th century and early 21st century American history; (2) they imagine that in the same magical world where a baby can be born with the features and ailments of an old man, issues of gender and race are magically non-issues; or (3) since this is Benjamin Button’s story, he just doesn’t give a crap about race and gender. Choice three is definitely the least plausible. Benjamin Button is one very nice guy who definitely gives a crap! (Maybe the point is “Here is a really nice white guy!”) He loves his black momma Queenie (as portrayed by Taraji P. Henson)! He loves Cate Blanchett’s Daisy, even when she’s an unlovable prick. I sympathize with filmmakers and writers of all kinds, for that matter, who want to tell stories set in the historic south about something other than race. Must every story set in the historic south be about race? No, certainly, I don’t think so. But when race comes up—as it most definitely does here since Benjamin is adopted by an African-American woman—it seems strangely unrealistic to neglect the complexity of historic race relationships.”

Slumdog Millionaire reviewed by Tatiana Christian

Latika continues to be a rather passive and almost mute character as she follows our main characters around. The boys have found shelter in a gigantic crate, and it’s pouring while Latika stands in the rain, shivering. Jamal and Salim bicker over whether or not to let her in – and much like before – Latika is given permission to act as she crawls into the crate, soaking wet. 
The disempowerment of poor women in India is also reflected in this film. According to Rashimi Bhat, “Women and girls have less access to food, education and health care than men and boys. Hence, they may face poverty more severely than men.” This concept is seen when the children are discovered by Maman (played by Ankur Vikal), a man who rounds up children and forces them to act as beggars. Maman asks the children to sing for him, and those who can are blinded because they earn more money that way.

Milk reviewed by Drew Patrick Shannon

What struck me most about Milk at the time of its release was its celebration of the writer. The trailer proudly announced “Written by Dustin Lance Black” in huge blue letters, and the very fetching Mr. Black won a well-deserved Oscar for his efforts. His Academy Award speech, in which he pleaded for the acceptance of young gay men like himself, is already legendary, and in interviews with magazines like The Advocate, he chronicled his difficulties in getting the script written and his exhaustive research. Perhaps the best thing about his script is that it doesn’t venerate its subject: it would have been all too easy to turn Harvey Milk into a saintly angel in America, but he is instead presented by turns as charming and irritating, pleasant and cantankerous, open-minded and bull-headed. And despite the opening which announces his death, the film doesn’t belabor this inevitable trajectory: the focus of both the film and the characters is on the moment, or on a rosy future. Again, the film’s only flaw, to my mind, is that Milk still seems at arm’s length from me, and I craved a more intimate relationship with him. But perhaps this is the point.
You can also read reviews of all the Best Picture Nominees from 2008, 2010, and 2011.

Best Picture Nominee Review Series: Milk

 
I Need a Hero: Gus Van Sant’s Milk (2008)

“My name is Harvey Milk, and I’m here to recruit you,” yells a nearly unrecognizable Sean Penn in a pivotal scene in Gus Van Sant’s biopic Milk (2008). Wearing a tight red and white shirt and form-fitting slacks highlighting a noticeable bulge, Penn unnervingly inhabits the body of a man who was never handsome, never pretty, but who exuded an eye-twinkling sexiness which led numbers of attractive young men into his bed. It’s a transformation that is not merely surface, not merely costume and hairstyle and what appears to be a slight prosthesis on the nose: like Nicole Kidman’s portrayal of Virginia Woolf in The Hours, this is a full-bodied immersion in a character. Penn, always something of a chameleon in recent years, loses all traces of his own physicality, and portrays Harvey Milk with a buoyancy, a loose-limbed lightness that I’ve never seen in him before. The process seems to have liberated him as an actor—he’s behaving with an unbridled exuberance. His co-star, James Franco, reported that after their first kissing scene, Penn called up ex-wife Madonna and said, “I’ve just kissed my first man,” to which Madonna replied, “Honey, I’m so proud of you.” So are we.
In a recent piece on the Criterion Collection edition of the Oscar-winning 1984 documentary The Times of Harvey Milk (directed by Rob Epstein, later to direct The Celluloid Closet and Paragraph 175), photographer Daniel Nicoletta calls the documentary “Harvey Milk 101.” It would be fair to call Van Sant’s Milk “Harvey Milk 102”—the two films, viewed in order, represent a progression in the course sequence, but they’re primers, neither qualifying you for an advanced degree in the subject. For that, one must turn to the late Randy Shilts’s book The Mayor of Castro Street: The Life and Times of Harvey Milk (1983), which, to my mind, remains the definitive work on the man’s life and legacy. The Epstein documentary is primarily concerned with Milk’s political career; the Van Sant biopic fills in many of the biographical holes in the documentary and concentrates more on Milk’s personal life and relationships. My suggestion is that viewers watch both films—Times first, Milk second—and, if they yearn for more, to then turn to the Shilts book.
Milk begins with archival footage of police raids on gay bars in the 1950s and 60s, and is followed by Milk in 1977 reading his will into a tape recorder: he was convinced that he would soon be assassinated, a prediction that would shortly come true. Flash back to 1970, and Milk’s meeting with Scott Smith (Franco) in a New York subway, and the beginning of an on-again, off-again romance that would last the rest of Milk’s life. Dissatisfied with his grinding corporate-America job in New York, Milk moves with Smith to San Francisco in search of liberation and meaning. He opens a camera shop, becomes an exceedingly groovy bohemian, and ultimately becomes involved with gay rights and local politics, culminating in his election as a city supervisor—the first openly gay elected official in the United States. He is helped along the way by Smith and a band of friends and lovers who operate out of his camera store: Cleve Jones (Emile Hirsch), Jack Lira (Diego Luna), Anne Kronenberg (Alison Pill), and Dick Pabich (Joseph Cross). Once elected, he finds a staunch ally in Mayor George Moscone (Victor Garber) and a nemesis in Supervisor Dan White (Josh Brolin). White, after a series of public humiliations, assassinates Milk and Moscone in City Hall (Dianne Feinstein’s famous announcement of the event appears in the film), and later pleads insanity by using the notorious “Twinkie defense.”
More than a mere summary of events, Milk seeks to illuminate some of the depths of Milk’s character, which are left mostly untouched by The Times of Harvey Milk. And Penn’s performance is a marvel. But I’m left at the end of the film still not entirely knowing what made this man tick. I’m slightly in awe of him, I’m humbled by his passion, I’m drawn to his politics, I’m certainly attracted to him and can easily see myself getting talked into bed by him without much effort, but I still feel separate from him, as though his core has not been exposed. Perhaps this is more than a biopic can do, but my sense is that this is the film’s goal, and on that count it doesn’t quite deliver. The fault is neither Penn’s nor Van Sant’s nor the script’s—my guess is that capturing someone as mercurial as Harvey Milk on film is an impossibility.
Lest this sound as though I didn’t enjoy the film, let me hasten to add that Milk brilliantly recreates a period when gay sex was fun and free and easy and the specter of AIDS was a few years in the future. The cast looks resplendent in its period costumes; it’s alarming that clothes I once wore as a child now constitute “period attire.” And, apart from Penn, the cast is uniformly superb, as we might expect from Van Sant, who, after all, delivered amazing performances from the non-acting teens in 2003’s Elephant. James Franco demonstrates the fearlessness that led him shortly thereafter to take on the role of poet Allen Ginsberg in Howl, and proves why he’s one of his generation’s most interesting actors; his Scott Smith is sweet, sexy, charming, and loyal. Josh Brolin has the incredibly tough job of making Dan White a human being rather than the boogeyman of the piece. He looks uncannily like the real man, and he manages to imbue White with enough pathos that I was unable to hate him, or not entirely. Victor Garber is reliable as always as Moscone, and Diego Luna and Joseph Cross (the little boy from Northern Lights, with Diane Keaton) excel as bits of eye candy on the fringes of Milk’s world. Emile Hirsch has the gravitas to play the great Cleve Jones, whose activism continues to inspire today, and Alison Pill holds her own as the sole woman in this sea of gay men.
What struck me most about Milk at the time of its release was its celebration of the writer. The trailer proudly announced “Written by Dustin Lance Black” in huge blue letters, and the very fetching Mr. Black won a well-deserved Oscar for his efforts. His Academy Award speech, in which he pleaded for the acceptance of young gay men like himself, is already legendary, and in interviews with magazines like The Advocate, he chronicled his difficulties in getting the script written and his exhaustive research. Perhaps the best thing about his script is that it doesn’t venerate its subject: it would have been all too easy to turn Harvey Milk into a saintly angel in America, but he is instead presented by turns as charming and irritating, pleasant and cantankerous, open-minded and bull-headed. And despite the opening which announces his death, the film doesn’t belabor this inevitable trajectory: the focus of both the film and the characters is on the moment, or on a rosy future. Again, the film’s only flaw, to my mind, is that Milk still seems at arm’s length from me, and I craved a more intimate relationship with him. But perhaps this is the point.
I’m bothered by one last thing, completely apart from the film itself. In his bravura acceptance speech for Best Actor at the Oscars, Sean Penn drolly called the audience “You Commie, homo-loving sons of guns.” Perhaps, but we’re still dealing here with a film with a gay hero who dies. Is it significant that two other actors to have won Best Actor Oscars for playing gay men—William Hurt in Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985) and Tom Hanks in Philadelphia (1993)—were killed off by gunfire and AIDS? As producer Jan Oxenberg remarks in Rob Epstein’s The Celluloid Closet, it remains to be seen whether or not Hollywood will embrace—and indeed, deem worthy of an Oscar—a gay character who lives.
Drew Patrick Shannon received his Ph.D. in English from the University of Cincinnati, and currently teaches 19th and 20th century British literature at the College of Mount St. Joseph. He is at work on a novel and on a non-fiction book examining the diary of Virginia Woolf. He contributed a review of the 1986 film, Working Girls, to Bitch Flicks, which appeared in a previous version on his blog, atleswoolf

Call for Writers: Women in Horror Films

Some scary-looking pumpkins.

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

Well, Bitch Flicks is interested in reading your perspectives on women in horror films. We’ve compiled a list of women-centered horror-esque flicks that fascinate us, and we welcome your analysis. Note that “women-centered” doesn’t necessarily mean “feminist,” and the film you choose might in fact be anti-feminist; but as for guidelines, reviews should be from a feminist perspective (and you can certainly choose not to discuss the Final Girl theory in your review).  
If you’re still not sure, take a look at reviews in our Horror category, which include Drag Me To Hell and Let the Right One In
Email us at btchflcks(at)gmail(dot)com if you’d like to contribute a review. We accept original pieces or cross-posts. The DEADLINE for us to receive your finished review is Friday, October 21st.
Some of our film suggestions include (but are definitely not limited to) the following: 

Rosemary’s Baby – 1968
Open Water – 2003
The Mist – 2007
The Descent – 2005
Nightmare on Elm Street – 1984
A Tale of Two Sisters – 2003 (Taiwan)
The Silence of the Lambs – 1991
Pan’s Labyrinth – 2006
The Exorcist – 1973
Audition – 1999
Halloween – 1978
Alien – 1979
The Ring – 2002
Rec – 2007
Ju-on – 2000
Jennifer’s Body – 2009
Ginger Snaps – 2000
May – 2002
Slumber Party Massacre – 1982
Carrie – 1976
The Company of Wolves – 1984
Teeth – 2007
Day of the Woman – 1978
Scream – 1996
Gothika – 2003
When a Stranger Calls – 1979
The Others – 2001
The Orphanage – 2007
The Roommate – 2011
Single White Female – 1992
Mother’s Day – 1980
Insidious – 2011
Red Riding Hood – 2011
The Ward – 2011
Carnival of Souls – 1998
Die! Die! My Darling! – 1965
What Lies Beneath – 2000
The Blair Witch Project – 1999
Sorority Row – 2009
Case 39 – 2010
Paranormal Activity – 2007