‘Gone Girl’: How to Create the Perfect Female Villain

Seeing a female character like Dunne on screen is fantastic–a word she would deem “a little flippant,” but there has yet to be a female villain quite like her. Fincher draws us into this world, Dunne’s world, where everything is this perfect shade of monochrome with tungsten lighting, where the camera moves in slow and methodical push-ins and pull-outs just as calculating as Dunne is, where things change with such swiftness–a kiss to a tongue swab, just like real life. And as we return to real life, we have to wonder: What will Amy Elliott Dunne do next?

This is a guest post by Alize Emme

SPOILER ALERT.

Kudos to the 20th Century Fox exec who decided to market Gone Girl (2014) as a great date movie. This is not a date movie. This is a horror story about the sensationalized pitfalls of a doomed marriage.

As good horror stories go, this one has the perfect villain: Amy Elliott Dunne.

Calculating. Manipulative. Patient. Sinister. Genius. Female.

Dunne (Rosamund Pike) is perhaps one of the greatest female fictional villains portrayed on screen, with bonus points for doing something her male counterparts rarely ever achieve: getting away with it. Dunne, with the help of a highly colored narrative penned by Gillian Flynn, manipulates a vibrant cast of stereotypes as she weaves the perfect crime web and literally gets away with murder.

After feeling like her husband, Nick Dunne (Ben Affleck), has taken her “pride, dignity, hope, and money,” Dunne sets out with fierce discipline and a detective’s eye for detail to frame her unsuspecting husband for her own murder. She befriends “a local idiot,” tells tall tales about fear and the threat of violence, authors a journal’s worth of history–some true, some false, simulates a pregnancy, lights “a fire in July,” and sets the perfect crime scene. She transforms herself into someone “people will truly mourn.”

The premise of Gone Girl works because it plays off our preconceived notions about loss and tragedy. The Pretty Murdered Wife. We as an audience know this story: she’s missing, feared dead, might be pregnant. The narrative needs no back-story, but we do get a glimpse.

Nick Dunne. He is done. Gone. Finished. We know this about Nick the moment we meet him just by his name as he’s standing in the middle of the street next to garbage bins. He is something to be taken out and disposed of with the trash; he is never getting his life back, and Flynn wants us to be aware. The Nick Dunne we are introduced to is a schlubby, beer drinking, ice cream eating, 5 o’clock shadow kind of guy with a dissatisfied marriage and a concubine on the side.

The Smug Accused Husband
The Smug Accused Husband

 

When Dunne goes missing and morphs into the Pretty Murdered Wife stereotype, Nick Dunne’s general disposition puts him right into the Smug Accused Husband category. He’s too charming; he’s too arrogant; he’s too suspicious. He’s a man with secrets. “He’s being a good guy, so everyone can see him being a good guy,” Officer Gilpin (Patrick Fugit) observes. He’s a man whose marriage has taught him how to fake it, who happens to be surrounded by women. There’s lead detective Rhonda Boney (Kim Dickens) who gives him a fair run. A fictionalized Nancy Grace clone, Ellen Abbott, (Missi Pyle) who pulls him apart every night on her nationally syndicated television show, and his twin sister Margo (Carrie Coon) who’s been with him since before they “were even born” and offers a stable voice of reason.

“I am so sick of being picked apart by women,” Nick Dunne says. And he’s right, that’s exactly what’s happening now that he’s been labeled the Smug Accused Husband. This stereotype exists because there are men who do kill their pregnant wives and then go on TV and lie about it, and society remembers them. The case of Laci Peterson was one of the first things that came to my mind. And Affleck is clear to note that Scott Peterson was one of the models for his character. Even the “Missing” photo of Dunne is reminiscent of Laci’s with the bright smile, dangling earrings, and glossy lipstick. Gone Girl is a story that already lives on the edge of our thoughts.

As a couple, Nick and Amy have been pretending from the start. They have a perfect meet-cute, perfect dates, perfect celebratory rituals; they even buy the same sheets. He plays “hot, doting husband,” to her “sweet, loving spouse.” None of it is real; “I forged the man of my dreams,” Dunne says. And in doing so, she herself became the Cool Girl. Another stereotype of how women manipulate themselves to land a man.

Eating cold pizza, drinking beer, remaining “a size 2.” Dunne tailored herself to fit Nick’s taste. But “Nick got lazy.” Not holding up his end of the bargain was never the deal. When she sees that Nick’s sweet romantic gestures were not improvisations made up for her, but rather a well-rehearsed ruse easily tailored to the girl in front of him, Dunne makes a decision. She realizes her husband is no longer the man she married and decides to teach him a lesson he will never forget. “No fucking way,” she says, “He doesn’t get to win. Grown-ups suffer consequences.” She takes charge. She doesn’t let herself be walked on by this man. “Why should I die?” She asks, “I’m not the asshole.”

It’s an easy, cop-out that barely scratches the surface of accurate to diagnose Dunne as a psychopath. To say she’s an overly emotional, crazy woman who can’t handle daily life and descends into a PMS-filled rage, is falling pry to gender stereotypes. Dunne exhibits a perfectly cool demeanor, her emotions are consistently even, she is meticulous and complex. The layers of this character are masterful; she is the opposite of what every gender stereotype says women should be like. She is simply a great villain. “Show me that Darling Nicky smile,” Dunne coos like the Wicked Witch of the West as she stares at a video of her husband on a computer. She’s fascinated by her own work.

Amy Elliott Dunne, the perfect villain
Amy Elliott Dunne, the perfect villain

 

Pike’s performance is mesmerizing; she delivers Dunne’s words in this breathless manner like she’s seductively blowing out a candle. Pike makes us believe from the very beginning that Dunne is both sane and capable of deception. But seeing a female character portrayed so strongly on screen earns Dunne the unfortunate label of “controlling bitch.”

If Dunne were a man, none of these character and sanity accusations would hold true. Male characters that go on rampant murder sprees in movies are never labeled as psychopaths, when clearly they display the same behavior. Dunne is not a psychopath. Crazy people cannot mastermind murders and crimes and not get caught. Even her past acts of “insanity” should be taken with a grain of salt. The ex-boyfriend who calls Dunne a “mind fucker of the first degree,” still keeps a picture of her in his wallet. This woman has allegedly ruined his life, yet he’s still holding her image so close? This calls his authenticity into question while giving Dunne credibility.

Dunne is fiercely intelligent. She has plotted the perfect crime. And while she doesn’t succeed with her original plan, she still sets her husband up for decades of suffering with her pregnancy. For all the betrayed wives out there, Dunne is a hero with the perfect revenge. Her crime is personal, not random, which gets her sanity questioned. Flynn doesn’t touch the subject of Dunne’s mental state. She leaves that up to the audience. David Fincher also helms this story in a nonjudgmental way. He is respectful of Dunne and all the female characters. Dunne is never put on display as a woman, though several male characters make mention of her impressive physical attributes. The supporting female characters, which are all various stereotypes, are never blasted for it; they’re handled with care.

Detective Boney, for example, is the coffee drinking, slick talking lead on Dunne’s missing persons case. She’s an interesting foil to the other female characters that assume Nick Dunne is guilty from the start. Boney gives him the benefit of the doubt, refusing to arrest him because some “blonde dunce” on TV says so. Instead it’s her male partner, Officer Gilpin, who immediately makes up his mind when finding blood splatter in The Dunne’s kitchen that he is guilty.

Through Boney, we are offered the idea that not all women jump to conclusions and hate men. But as the story progresses, we discover that Boney didn’t properly handle her case. “We stained the rug,” she says “with a national spotlight” on her. Had Nick Dunne been left in Boney’s “deeply incompetent hands,” he would be on death row, Dunne conveniently points out. Therefore, Boney’s word is useless in bringing Dunne to justice. Men botch investigations all the time, but for Boney to do so, it’s suggesting a woman can’t properly handle the responsibly of performing a traditionally male job.

Noelle Hawthorne (Casey Wilson) is the wonderfully entertaining suburban mom down the street with triplets and another baby on the way. We know this woman. Everyone has that one inquisitive neighbor that if something were to happen, she would be the first one knocking on the squad car window trying to help the cops. There’s a sense of comedy to this hyperbolic character and her triple-decker stroller, but she is never mocked. We take her seriously. It’s a real feat.

Nick Dunne’s twin, Margo, is a cool girl who’s not the Cool Girl. She drinks bourbon with her brother at ten in the morning, she covers his back with Dunne’s mother, she knows the truth but that doesn’t change her opinion of him. She always speaks the truth with her perfectly snarky comments. “You look like hammered shit,” she tells Nick. He likes her. We like her. She is perhaps the one female character that deviates from a hardened stereotype and could exist in the real world.

Somewhat of a mysterious supporting character, Greta (Lola Kirke) acts as a catalyst for Dunne. She’s complex and calculating just like Dunne; she sees an opportunity, and she seizes it. “Did he put you up to this?” Dunne asks as Greta and her male accomplice rob her blind, “I put him up to it,” she replies. She’s a survivalist and essentially forces Dunne to abort her plan and switch to survival mode herself. Yes, Dunne then murders a man and fakes a sexual assault, but in the world of a villain, she’s just adapting to survive. And as someone who is “skilled in the art of vengeance,” Dunne doesn’t just survive; she thrives.

Dunne, as Nick asks: What are you thinking?
Dunne, as Nick asks: What are you thinking?

 

Seeing a female character like Dunne on screen is fantastic–a word she would deem “a little flippant,” but there has yet to be a female villain quite like her. Fincher draws us into this world, Dunne’s world, where everything is this perfect shade of monochrome with tungsten lighting, where the camera moves in slow and methodical push-ins and pull-outs just as calculating as Dunne is, where things change with such swiftness–a kiss to a tongue swab, just like real life. And as we return to real life, we have to wonder: What will Amy Elliott Dunne do next? We’re left with the image of her head, just where we started, much like a few scenes earlier; we are left with Nick Dunne standing before trash cans, just like we started. So much has happened, but what do we really know? And more important, what will we learn next?

 


Alize Emme is a writer and filmmaker living in Los Angeles. She holds a B.A. in Film & Television from NYU and tweets at @alizeemme.

‘Gone Girl’: Scathing Gender Commentary While Reinforcing Rape and Domestic Violence Myths

I wish I could say that ‘Gone Girl’ is a subversive feminist film exposing myriad gender biases and generating a much-needed dialogue on rape and domestic violence. Yet it reinforces dangerous myths rather than shattering them.

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Written by Megan Kearns. | Spoilers ahead.

[Trigger Warning: Discussion of rape and intimate partner violence]


Is Gone Girl a misandry fest, a subversive feminist masterpiece, or a misogynistic mess? All of the above?

I loved Gone Girl. It intrigued me with its labyrinthine plot, complex characters and noir motif. It simultaneously enthralled and enraged me. There is so much to unpack regarding gender. While a whodunit mystery revolving around the disappearance of Amy Dunne (Rosamund Pike), and whether or not her husband Nick (Ben Affleck) is the culprit, the crux of the film is the dissolution and destructive unraveling of a marriage. It begs the question: Do you ever really know the person you marry?

Deftly written by Gillian Flynn (who wrote the novel as well) and expertly directed by David Fincher, it’s an uncomfortable film that boldly examines the underbelly of love and marriage and how the media shapes perception. Told from the perspectives of both Amy (often through her diary) and Nick, Gone Girl cracks wide open and shines a spotlight on the often gendered expectations within a heteronormative marriage. Society pressures women to be flawless, never wavering in an aura of perfection. Gone Girl takes a sledge hammer to that.

In an outstanding and riveting performance by Rosamund Pike, Amy is a fascinating character. She’s brilliant, pragmatic and narcissistic. We watch her shift effortlessly from a devoted and then fearful wife to a calculating and fearlessly manipulative villain. A ruthless, Machiavellian anti-hero, Amy morphs into whatever persona she needs to don to obtain her objective. She wears personalities like a cloak, shrouding her true nature and intentions. Filled with rage, she discards the role of the docile wife. She’s not going to live on her husband’s or any man’s terms. She refuses to fulfill society’s expectations.

Amy uses her femininity to achieve her diabolical goals. She uses her sexuality, wielding it as a weapon. They are tools in her arsenal to ensnare and punish men. But just as she readily adopts stereotypical feminine traits when she needs them, she also utilizes stereotypical masculine traits of anger and violence. Her gender informs her actions and the way she perceives the world. However, Amy despises gender norms and doesn’t want to be constrained by them. She doesn’t want to be a satellite to a man. She wants to do whatever she pleases, regardless of the consequences.

We don’t get to see women as anti-heroes or villains nearly enough. As it is, we suffer a dearth of female protagonists in film. While an abundance of female anti-heroes in film reigned during the 1930s, we suffer a lack of female anti-heroes in film today. We do see more female anti-heroes on television: Patty Hewes (Damages), Olivia Pope (Scandal), Gemma Teller Morrow (Sons of Anarchy), Skyler White (Breaking Bad), Carrie Mathison (Homeland), Elizabeth Jennings (The Americans) and Claire Underwood (House of Cards). But we still see far more men in anti-hero roles on television.

Now, I don’t believe that female protagonists need to be “likable.” There’s a compelling argument by Roxane Gay as to why they shouldn’t be likable. Conventionally unlikable women don’t give a shit about what others think of them. And neither does Amy. That’s what makes Gone Girl somewhat refreshing. Here we see an unapologetically ruthless woman.

I have to applaud Amy’s rage and defiance. Although I’m horrified by her disturbing, sociopathic and misogynist tactics. This is why I relish Amy’s notorious “Cool Girl” speech. “The cool girl. The cool girl is hot. Cool girl doesn’t get angry. … And she presents her mouth for fucking.” This is a scathing commentary on how men see women as objects, as vessels, as accessories, not as entities unto themselves. I couldn’t help but say, “FUCK YEAH,” while Amy recited it. Her speech succinctly encapsulates the Male Gaze and hetero men’s expectations of women, while shattering the illusion that women are never angry and that women merely orbit men, suffocating their own needs and desires. Amy’s speech illustrates that society tells women to contort themselves to seek men’s approval.

As much as I cheer for the astute and searing commentary in the “Cool Girl” speech, Amy also condemns women complicit in this charade. She despises how women fall into their prescribed roles, all for the enjoyment of men. When Amy recites this speech, she’s driving in a car, gazing at myriad women passing by. As David Haglund points out, director David Fincher chose the images, not of men but of women, to coincide with Amy’s words. So while the words condemn men, the corresponding images implicate women, making everyone culpable. It becomes a condemnation of women themselves, that they shouldn’t fall into the trap of pantomiming this performance.

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What could have potentially been a feminist manifesto mutates into something ripped out of a misogynist’s or Men’s Rights Activist (MRA)’s warped fantasy.

The biggest problem with Gone Girl lies in the tactics Amy utilizes to punish men — by faking intimate partner violence and rape. Amy ties her wrists with rope, squeezing and tightening them while turning her wrists and she hits her face with a hammer to simulate abuse. She repeatedly shoves a wine bottle up her vagina to simulate the bruising and tearing from rape. Amy falsely accuses men of rape, stalking and abuse, all for her own ends. Amy convincingly plays the role of an abuse survivor. It’s scary because this is the kind of bullshit people believe — that women lie and make shit up to wreak vengeance on men.

Author/screenwriter Gillian Flynn said that Amy “knows all the tropes” and she can “play any role that she wants.” But therein lies the problem. Abuse victims and survivors are not merely “tropes” or “roles.” Amy pretends she is being abused in order to frame Nick by writing in her diary that she fears for her life and worries that her husband might kill her. She says she feels “disposable,” something that could be “jettisoned.” Women murdered at the hands of abusive partners are typically treated as disposable in our society. People tell victims/survivors that they should have known better, they must have provoked their abuse. People question why victims/survivors stay with abusive partners. People put the onus on women to prevent rape. These are the myths that films, TV series and news media reinforce. It’s extremely problematic to equate Amy playing “the role” of an abused rape victim with actual women abused and raped.

As a domestic violence survivor, I find the turn the film takes extremely offensive. This is the narrative too many people already have embedded in their minds — that women exaggerate, fabricate and lie about abuse and rape in order to trick or trap men in their web of lies. This is one of the biggest, most pervasive and most dangerous myths about abuse. Here’s the reality. One in four women in the U.S. report intimate partner violence. One in three women worldwide will experience partner abuse. One in five women report being raped. Yet here is this film (and book) contrasting reality and reifying rape culture.

We also see victim-blaming underscored in the film from Amy’s neighbor Greta. When they first meet, Greta comments on the bruise on Amy’s face saying, “Well, we have the same taste in men.” Yet when the two women are watching a news program on Amy’s disappearance and how the leading cause of death for pregnant women is homicide (it is), Greta calls on-screen Amy (feigning ignorance that the real Amy is right next to her) a “spoiled,” “rich bitch.” She goes on to say, “While she doesn’t deserve it, there are consequences.” While this is a commentary on privilege and Greta has survived abuse too, this also amounts to victim-blaming 101.

But the victim-blaming doesn’t stop there. One of Amy’s exes talks to Nick and tells him how she falsely accused him of rape and had a restraining order placed on him. He tells Nick that when he saw her on the news missing, “I thought there’s Amy. She’s gone from being raped to being murdered.” Again this underscores the myth that women lie about rape and abuse. But the numbers are so low for reports of false rape and domestic violence that they are almost non-existent.

Victim-blaming myths permeate every facet of our society. Janay Rice’s abuse and the resulting #WhyIStayed conversation recently highlighted the myriad myths people believe about intimate partner violence, particularly when it comes to women of color. People feel they need “proof” to verify or corroborate a victim/survivor’s trauma. Society perpetually places the onus on women for their abuse rather than on where it belongs: with the abuser. As we’ve seen with Marissa Alexander, the legal system doesn’t reward but rather punishes domestic violence survivors. This happens again and again, over and over. Women are not believed. And it’s dangerous to keep feeding this narrative.

Rape is “an epidemic.” Violence against women is an epidemic. We live in a rape culture that inculcates the abuse and objectification of women and dismisses violence against women. Society makes every excuse for abusers while it unilaterally shames and blames victims and survivors of intimate partner violence, rape and sexual assault.

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Some might try to assuage Gone Girl’s misogyny by declaring Amy’s misandry or by underscoring that there are two female characters – Detective Rhonda Boney and Margo Dunne – who are onto Amy’s game. But it doesn’t. When you have a protagonist doing despicable things, the film/TV series often straddles a fine line between condemnation and glorification. However, there is a way for a film/TV series to delineate their message: by the comments and perspectives of ancillary characters. Breaking Bad illustrates this beautifully. Despite what many fanboys got wrong, we are NOT supposed to identify with power-hungry, abusive, rapist Walter White. We may be fascinated by Walter’s fierce intelligence. But we are supposed to identify with Jesse and Skyler, both of whom are the heart and conscience of the show. They are the ones telling us the audience, both overtly and covertly, that Walter’s actions are despicable and monstrous.

In Gone Girl, almost every character condemns and despises Amy. They loathe her for her manipulations and how she has framed Nick. But no character comments on how Amy’s actions reinforce rape culture. Not one. Rhonda could have easily mentioned the stats for women reporting rape or domestic abuse, how few rape and abuse cases are brought to trial and even fewer convicted because of victim-blaming biases. Nick’s sister Margo could have said how horrible Amy’s schemes are not only for her brother but the implications for other women too. But everyone in the film only focuses on how Amy’s actions impact Nick. Nick even says at one point in the film, “I’m so sick of being picked apart by women.” (Boo hoo, poor Nick. Isn’t that every misogynist’s anthem??) So when Nick slams Amy’s head into the wall and calls her a “cunt” towards the end of the film — despite his abusive actions and misogynist language — we the audience are supposed to sympathize with him because he just wants to be a good dad, because he’s the one victimized by this manipulative shrew.

I wish I could love this film without reservations. I wish I could say that Gone Girl is a subversive feminist film exposing myriad gender biases and generating a much-needed dialogue on rape and domestic violence. Yet it reinforces dangerous myths rather than shattering them. The embedded “Cool Girl” speech rails against the patriarchal notion that women serve as nothing more than accessories and sexual objects to men. But the film falters by playing into a victim-blaming narrative reinforcing rape culture.

We need more complex female protagonists. We need more female anti-heroes and villains. If only we could have one in a film that doesn’t simultaneously perpetuate the misogynist notion that women lie about rape and abuse.


Megan Kearns is Bitch Flicks’ Social Media Director, a freelance writer and a feminist vegan blogger. She’s a member of the Boston Online Film Critics Association (BOFCA). She tweets at @OpinionessWorld.

‘Wetlands’: Vile Beauty, with Schnitzel

This visual powerhouse contains many explicit scenes depicting bodily functions and some of the more interesting aspects of human sexuality. But don’t be fooled, ‘Wetlands’ excels at using shocking imagery to break down walls and build our connection to the characters. The result is distinctly warm and expressive take on the female coming-of-age story.

U.S. release poster.
U.S. release poster.
Written by Andé Morgan.
Wetlands (2013) is the “most WTF, NSFW movie,” or at least that’s what its promotional materials can’t wait to tell you. So you might be forgiven for expecting a one-note gross-out film with copious amounts of Euronudity, and you would be (sort of) right. Explicit unsanitary behavior is the film’s party piece, but it’s much more than that. It’s the best kind of gimmick: the kind that works.
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Wetlands was written and directed by German auteur David Wnendt (Combat Girls, 2011). It was adapted from the 2008 book of the same name by Charlotte Roche (actually, Feuchtgebiete, if we’re going to keep it real Deutsch). The novel was a well-received bestseller, though some critics have described it (often while clutching their pearls) as erotic fiction or pornography.
The film was originally released at the Locarno Film Festival in 2013, and was shown at Sundance in 2014. It’s currently in limited release in the United States through October. The story follows Helen Memel (Carla Juri), a young woman with an almost pathological obsession with filth, as she hits common Bildungsroman beats, e.g., sex, friendship, rebellion, divorced parents, and family secrets.
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The films opens with Helen skateboarding barefoot down a grey street in a generic German city. She stops to apply hemorrhoid cream in what may be the filthiest abandoned subway restroom ever. Helen’s voiceover details her long suffering with the affliction, and we’re also told that her mother always says good hygiene Down There (in the wetlands, get it?) is important because a “pussy is dirtier than a penis.” Helen shows us her own feelings about hygiene by grinding her vulva in a circular motion around the dirty toilet seat.
This opening sequence also establishes three overarching elements:
1. Helen represents the antithesis of the modern western woman and her pedantic attention to personal hygiene fostered by years of exposure to patriarchal cultural norms and manipulative advertising.
2. The restroom is flooded, covered in two inches of chocolate-brown water filled with cigarette butts and other refuse. As she sits on the toilet, we see Helen’s bare feet firmly planted in the water. Her acts and the filthy water seem like part of a perverse baptism, one that rejects the symbolic purification and rebirth associated with traditional Christian baptism. Later, critical moments often involve Helen’s or someone else’s immersion in water in line with the more conventional symbology, culminating with Helen’s inundation in the final scene.
3. This film is pretty. For example, midway through the sequence we get a beautiful, slick opening credits animation that will ensure that you never think about pubic hair and pee stains in the same way. It also sets the precedent for the look of the rest of the film: simultaneously cozy and disorienting, with the commercial refinement of a car advertisement (BMW or Mercedes, of course).
The action quickly shifts to Helen’s hospital room (these scenes may have been filmed in the local IKEA’s nurse’s station). She’s recovering from surgery done to remove an anal fissure gained while she was shaving her anus. By this point, we’ve heard Helen expound favorably on men’s preferred vaginal discharge texture (cottage cheese, in her experience), so her desire to be completely clean shaven seems discordant. Through flashbacks, we learn her motivation for this act. We’re then introduced to her best friend and neighbor, Corinna (Marlen Kruse), who has recently been alienated at her high school due to her willingness to indulge her former boyfriend’s coprophilia. Helen instructs Corinna to dab some of her own vaginal secretions behind her ears to attract the attention of their mutual acquaintance and dealer, Toni (Ludger Bökelmann).
We also meet Helen’s divorced parents, played by Meret Becker and Axel Milberg. Quite unlike Helen, Becker’s character is tidy to a fault. She also suffers from depression and personality disorder, and once cut off 8-year-old Helen’s eyelashes to teach her a lesson about vanity. Milberg’s character is oblivious to the pain he causes his family by his self-centered nature. In another childhood flashback his inattentive and ineffective application of sunscreen to 8-year-old Helen’s back results in a severe sunburn. Another scene shows a young Helen delighted to be allowed to suck on her father’s used avocado pit, saying that it was “almost like they’d kissed.” This exemplifies her desperate desire for acknowledgment by her father. Present-day Helen’s only non-sex-and-drugs hobby is tending several avocado pits suspended in plastics water cups, a group she calls her “family.”
The balance of the story concerns Helen’s use of her hospital stay as the linchpin of a guileless scheme to get her parents to reconcile and remarry. She also courts Robin (Christoph Letkowski), the male nurse assigned to monitor her recovery. By court, I mean she alternates between crying out for relief from her loneliness and attempting to seduce Robin with faux Cool Girl grossness.
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Helen’s relationship with her mother doesn’t progress very far, but it is eventually implied that a family secret involving her mother may be the root cause of Helen’s self-destructive behavior. More dynamic is Helen and Corinna’s friendship. We see them share drugs, a bath, and, later, their used tampons. After swapping cotton, Helen runs her bloody fingers over Corinna’s face and deems her “blood sister.” Corinna reciprocates. What this scene lacks in subtlety it makes up for in impact.
While the first two acts imply otherwise, in the final act we learn that Helen is actually much more dependent on Corinna than vice versa. When she discovers that Corinna is pregnant by Toni, Helen, driven by her fear of loneliness, lashes out at her friend and contemplates suicide. Helen has recently been sterilized by choice because she refuses to perpetuate the mental illness that afflicts the women in her maternal lineage.
Helen’s graphic disregard for hygiene as a symbol of her rejection of conventional gender and familial norms does begin to feel a bit gimmicky towards the end of the film, but it is also very effective at relaying the impact of her mother’s illness and her parent’s divorce on her development. Some other symbolic imagery, like the surreal scene of an avocado plant growing from pit to several feet high from Helen’s vagina, is similarly heavy handed.
Other commentary on the plight of women include the male medical staffs’ casual disregard for Helen’s autonomy or ability to assess her own health. Following the surgery, Dr. Notz (Edgar Selge), laughs off Helen’s concerns about malpractice by saying “girls her age are prone to hysteria.” Later, a scene involving four men, a pizza, and some Olympics-level synchronized ejaculation evokes conventional concerns about the dehumanizing effects of pornography and subsequent propagation of rape culture by male viewers.
To his credit, Wnendt is largely successful in avoiding employment of the male gaze. The camera rarely lingers on Helen’s body during scenes with incidental nudity. Sex scenes depict both male and female nudity with either cozy familiarity or clinical coldness. So, while it is certainly explicit, and may be erotic, Wetlands is hardly pornographic.
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Don’t be fooled by reviews that focus on the bodily fluids and sex — Wetlands excels at using shocking imagery to break down walls and build our connection to the characters. The result is singular, warm take on the female coming-of-age story for the whole (very modern) family.


Andé Morgan lives in Tucson, Arizona, where they write about film, television, and current events. Follow them @andemorgan.

What’s Missing from the ‘Gone Girl’ Debate? Privilege!

‘Gone Girl’ has been called misogynist, an amalgamation of negative stereotypes of women, a text that perpetuates rape culture, and a narrative that fuels Men’s Rights Acivtists’ ugly depiction of the gender equality feminists are trying to achieve.

Putting the talent of the author aside – because I do think Gillian Flynn is an incredible writer – I want to address this feminist ire directed at ‘Gone Girl.’

To an extent, I agree with it. Yet, what is missing from the discussion is a focus on privilege.

This guest post by Natalie Wilson previously appeared in a shorter version at the Ms. Blog and is cross-posted with permission.

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WARNING: THIS PIECE CONTAINS SPOILERS!

Gone Girl has been called misogynist, an amalgamation of negative stereotypes of women, a text that perpetuates rape culture, and a narrative that fuels Men’s Rights Acivtists’ ugly depiction of the gender equality feminists are trying to achieve.

Putting the talent of the author aside – because I do think Gillian Flynn is an incredible writer – I want to address this feminist ire directed at Gone Girl.

To an extent, I agree with it. Yet, what is missing from the discussion is a focus on privilege.

Amy Elliot Dunne, the protagonist of Gone Girl, is white, wealthy, heterosexual, and conventionally attractive (many privileges which her creator, Gillian Flynn, shares).

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Yes, Amy is a female, but she is an EXCESSIVELY privileged one, so privileged, in fact, that she has the necessary funds, skills, know-how, and spare time to concoct a near iron-clad story in which she convinces the media, the law, her community, and her family that she has been raped, abused by her husband, kidnapped, imprisoned, and possibly murdered.

Flynn, even given the worldwide success of her writing, is, I would guess, not nearly as privileged as Amy. Plus, if details at the author’s website are correct, she worked odd jobs throughout high school; Amy is not the type of female that had to work in high school, and especially not at anything where she would be made to dress up as a cone of yogurt.

In addition to her privilege, is Amy in fact a compilation of the evils MRAs spout on about in relation to “strong” women? In ways, yes. But this is just it – she is able to be strong – and, yes, to be evil – because she has the privilege to do so. As the saying goes, idle hands make the devil’s work.

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Amy is narcissistic, vain, and shallow – and has enough time on her hands to fill her calendar with carefully labeled, color-coded post-its with details of her murder plot. And, once the plot is set in motion, handily has secured enough cash to buy a car, a new wardrobe, and keep her going for who knows how long. When that falls through, there is the very rich former boyfriend Dezi, who will put her up in his “lakehouse” – a spare house that makes many mansions look shabby.

Yes. This is fiction. Yes, it’s a dark, twisted, mystery. It is obviously meant to be. The author herself made it clear that she “wanted to write about the violence of women” after her first book, Sharp Objects. And this is not a problem – not at all – but what is vexing with Gone Girl is at the heart of its narrative is a woman that falsely accuses several men of rape and assault – and tries to frame one of them for murder. This story is a fiction. But rape and assault are at epidemic levels in our society – along with the horrible statistics is a pervasive narrative often called “blaming the victim.” At the heart of this narrative is the myth that females lie about rape. Not once in a blue moon. But often.

This is not what I want to focus on though – what I want to focus on is how privilege allows the fictional Amy to get away with all the atrocities she commits. If she “cried rape” (as MRAs and the media often suggest women do), would she be as readily believed if she were a woman of color? What if she were a prostitute? What if she committed murder and tried to convince the cops of her innocence via mere words? Would she be believed if she were, say, a young Black male? If she accused her partner of physical abuse and adultery would she become America’s media darling if she were not cisgender?

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The story of Kalief Browder, featured in The New Yorker, who served three years at Ryker’s Island, most of it in solitary confinement without trial before he was deemed innocent; of Renisha McBride; of Ferguson; is proof that innocence does not mean much for people of color in a society that frames those with non-white skin as born guilty (to borrow Dorothy Roberts claim made in her classic Killing the Black Body).

Gone Girl is not making a critique of privilege though, nor of how Amy’s whiteness and wealth – at least in ways – puts her above the law. Instead, Amy’s ability to frame others for crimes they did not commit and become America’s media darling has been acclaimed as a wonderfully concocted mystery by a talented author. As for Amy’s ability to pull off her fictive story within a story in the novel and the film adapation, this ability is never overtly linked to her privilege – unless you count the fact the film nods toward how wealthy she is, given her cat has its own bedroom. Rather, her success at framing others is presented as a very well-planned revenge plot carried out by a very smart, very malicious woman.

Admittedly, there are things the story does well in terms of critiquing societal problems. A key area in this regard is the portrayal of the media. As with the novel, the film delves into the media circus, giving us talking heads that spin hypotheses about Amy’s whereabouts and who is to blame for her disappearance – hypotheses that quickly lead to the narrative Amy intended: that her husband Nick is guilty, and she is the innocent, abused spouse all America should be routing (and praying) for.

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Amy clearly knows how to play straight into the hands of the of “The Ellen Abbot Show” – a fictionalized version of the likes of Nancy Grace. Amy notes, while concocting her plan, that “America loves pregnant women,” and, indeed, Ellen plays up Amy’s pregnancy to garner sympathy for her – and ire for her husband Nick. However, had Amy been a pregnant Latina, or working class, or a single woman, would she still be framed in this way by the real Ellen Abbots of the  world? Doubtful.

In fact, if Amy’s accusations of rape against not one, but three men, were to be reported in the real world media, it is likely she would blamed, interrogated, and have her reputation besmirched, especially if she lacked many of the privileges Amy’s character has. As noted in “Gone Girl and the Specter of Feminism,”

“Our society makes real-life survivors of rape into villains every single day. We assume ulterior motives. We invade and question their sexual history as if it’s relevant. We make rape survivors into whores and sluts, into evil, evil women who are only out to hurt and punish men. And that’s if we don’t ignore them altogether, or if they can summon the courage to report the rape at all.”

And though only 2 to 8 percent of reported rapes are determined to be unfounded, it is, as #2 reports, a “norm of the media to question the authenticity of rape victims that dare to step forward and seek justice.”

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In the film, Tanner Bolt , the big-shot lawyer defending Nick, is portrayed as particularly media savvy. He says of Amy, for example, that “she is telling the perfect story.” And though his race is not highlighted as a factor, his know-how of the media and the key role public perception plays can be read as shaping the story he tells the world in public appearances.

Tanner advises Nick to do the same, telling him, “This case is about what people think of you,” and emphasizes the need for a huge re-alignment of public perception. Tanner knows this, and Nick should (especially given his former work as a journalist). Read through the lens of race, however (a lens, let me emphasize, the narrative itself does NOT interrogate), one can argue Tanner has to be more savvy than Nick and that Nick is allowed to live in a privilege bubble, one that leads him to assume people are going to believe him.

What people think of Amy – and Nick – is largely determined by their privilege. They live in a huge house, she is a “housewife,” they are both former writers, they are attractive, white, heterosexual, and have the requisite pet – as well as aspirations –  on Nick’s part at least – to have children. They are the picture-perfect American couple.

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But, this image is a fiction. And the fact the story plays around this fictive construct of what perfection is – and what a perfect marriage is – is one of its most intriguing features. Amy’s diary, a mixture of truth and fiction, is key here. In one telling scene, Detective Boney (my favorite character by far, perhaps as she has the most feminist gumption) goes through Amy’s diary, now being used as police evidence, and asks Nick what is true and what is fiction. The mixture of lies and truth within the diary, and within the entire narrative, make it hard to discern any reliability.

As argued in “The Misogynistic Portrayal of Villainy in Gone Girl,” Amy makes a magnificent unreliable narrator. Sadly though, she is believed – by the media, by the community, even by us, the audience.

If only her believability was tied to her privilege, Flynn could have had a narrative that did something feminists could applaud – a narrative that pulled back the sham of “perfect femininity” and showed the ugly undersides of unfair societal dictates.

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Instead, Flynn gives us a character that shares her own privileges – and her own penchant for spinning fictions – rather than one who lays bare the injustices that make the likes of Ellen Abbott believe her, that have lawyers running to defend Nick pro bono, that result in a media machine feeding off this one tragedy while ignoring wider injustices – injustice the camera actually lingers on at the start of the film, making the Missouri of Gone Girl remind one of the Detroit featured in Michael Moore’s Roger and Me.

While the narrative condemns what director David Fincher calls the “tragedy vampirism” of the media, it never takes the next step of pointing out how the poverty and homelessness of the community in which the story takes place plays a role in why Amy becomes a media darling and allows her husband to plausibly suggest the “homeless” are to blame for Amy’s disappearance.

The narrative also never takes any step toward addressing the reality of widespread sexual violence and domestic abuse, instead using this device as just one more piece of grist for its suspenseful, plot-twisting mystery.

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In one scene, Amy creates the “proof” of her rapes via thrusting a wine bottle inside herself as she icily gazes in the mirror (a scene also in the book). This comes after we learn she has destroyed the life of a completely innocent man by also framing him for rape, merely because he lost interest in her. And, in the most fraudulent, unbelievable plot point, this man tells us he was about to be put away for 30 years on a first degree felony. Guess how often rapists are put away for 30 years? Not often.

So, yes, Amy is a villain, some suggest a sociopath, but I heartily disagree that her horribleness could only come from a “female mind” – which is exactly what the actress who plays her – Rosamund Pike  – claims, that “the way her brain works is purely female.”

Instead, Amy’s villainy, and the fact she gets away with it, can be linked to her substantial wealth, her Ivy League schooling, her full immersion into the culture of “cool girls” and personality quizzes and, perhaps most of all, her sense of entitlement, revealed particularly in the way she expects to be treated, especially by Nick. In a key passage from the novel (also used in the film), Amy embodies the faux-feminism that defines her character, condemning constricting expectations of femininity on the one hand, but, on the other, hinting at  the narcissistic darkside of her anger:

“I hated Nick for being surprised when I became me. I hated him for not knowing it had to end, for truly believing he had married this creature, this figment of the imagination of a million masturbatory men, semen-fingered and self-satisfied. He truly seemed astonished when I asked him to listen to me. He couldn’t believe I didn’t love wax-stripping my pussy raw and blowing him on request. That I did mind when he didn’t show up for drinks with my friends… Can you imagine, finally showing your true self to your spouse, your soul mate, and having him not like you?

In ways, we want to applaud Amy for condemning the “cool girl” and demanding females deserve to be listened to – as this seems a feminist message. But, ultimately, Amy is far more like Ann Coulter than Amy Poehler.

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Though some might argue Amy is fully aware of and even using her privilege, I disagree. She is aware of being attractive, wealthy, and powerful, yes, but not any feminist way that questions or denounces or even deliberately deploys her privilege. One of the most telling parts of the narrative to display this is in her interactions with Greta, a working class character Amy assumes to be stupid and inept. Greta sees through Amy’s disguises though, and craftily separates her from her wad of cash (which is when Amy is forced to call on Desi to rescue her). The stark difference in the scope of their crimes can be linked to privilege – Amy’s excess verses Greta’s lack. Their experiences and attitudes toward violence are also telling, Greta is familiar with how common male violence against women is, where Amy is not – the violence she accuses men of is actually violence her privilege has protected her from. This is not to say priviledged women never experience violence – but Amy does not, at least not physical violence. Though this strand of the narrative has much feminist potential, the narrative overall does not offer a feminist critique of privilege, let alone violence.

Further, as argued in a post at Interrogating Media, there is a discernible backhanded attitude towards feminism littered throughout the novel. Amy condemns post-feminist men afraid of sexual roughness, for example. But, more than actual comments from Amy, there is a sort of post-feminist cheerleading in the narrative, one that is in keeping with Flynn’s discussion of why she is drawn to writing about the violence of women::

“Isn’t it time to acknowledge the ugly side? I’ve grown quite weary of the spunky heroines, brave rape victims, soul-searching fashionistas that stock so many books. I particularly mourn the lack of female villains — good, potent female villains. Not ill-tempered women who scheme about landing good men and better shoes (as if we had nothing more interesting to war over), not chilly WASP mothers (emotionally distant isn’t necessarily evil), not soapy vixens (merely bitchy doesn’t qualify either). I’m talking violent, wicked women. Scary women. Don’t tell me you don’t know some. The point is, women have spent so many years girl-powering ourselves — to the point of almost parodic encouragement — we’ve left no room to acknowledge our dark side.”

This passage seems to come from within a privilege bubble – one that allows the author to suggest that “fashionistas” or “WASP mothers” or “soapy vixens” – and of course “brave rape victims” – are rather dreary and boring, and that what is needed is to do away with this annoying “girl powering” so we can fill libraries with stories of generations of brutal women (something Flynn seems to envy about male stories). And, don’t get me wrong, like Flynn, I agree we need wicked queens and evil stepmothers and villainous women.  It is her reasoning I don’t agree with, that “women like to read about murderous mothers and lost little girls because it’s our only mainstream outlet to even begin discussing violence on a personal level.” Hello? Gillian? Have you heard of this little thing called feminism? Perhaps the phrase “the personal is political” rings a bell?

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You see, Flynn’s version of “girl-powering” feminism leaves out actual feminism. Like the stuff of an Ann Coulter dream, it points a finger at Amy, a “girl who has it all” and says, “look at what that women’s lib stuff has wrought!” What it does not point a finger at, not even give a quick passing glance, is those working in sweat shops to make the shoes the “fashionista” covets, the thousands of rapes that go unreported, not due to lack of bravery, but to do the complicated realities of living in a rape culture, the girls who don’t have access to the “parodic encouragement” of any sort of girl-power because they are poor, they are undocumented, or, to use Flynn’s fictive idea, they are nothing like the “Amazing Amys” of the world.

To be clear, I am not suggesting that all narratives need to pack a social justice punch. However, given that Flynn’s novel explores an extremely hot button issue, and created quite the intense feminist debate, it seems odd Flynn never directly addresses the key critique lobbied at Gone Girl, but instead made widely publicized claims the ending of Gone Girl would be changed in the film adaptation–suggesting the changes to the narrative would reframe the very things that angered readers. Though the screenplay is altered from the book, the ending remains the same overall – Amy is not arrested or even blamed – instead, she has manipulated Nick into staying with her and keeping mum about her guilt by impregnating herself with some of his semen she handily stored away. Ah, the privilege of access to sperm banks!

Such tales are not by any means unique in Hollywood – nor are they bad per se. Rather, Flynn’s keenness to defend her work while naming herself a feminist seems off somehow – at least – what seems missing – is a recognition of her own partial, and very privileged, viewpoint. Some women do in fact have  to discuss and think about violence all the time in order to survive, not to write bestselling novels. And I want her to keep writing – she is a great writer – but it would be wonderful if at some point she could address – specifically – some of the realities of the rape culture of our society in an interview or public appearance. Not addressing feminism is fine, but to do so in the vein of being so burnt out on “spunky heroines” and “brave rape victims”? Well, that doesn’t sit so well with this feminist.

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Perhaps the “parodic encouragement” Flynn refers to as defining feminism is her experience of feminism. Maybe this is partly what fueled the plot point in Gone Girl wherein Amy’s parents made their fortune via “Amazing Amy” books – a series whose main character is much like the real Amy, but better. In a sense, these books are parodying Amy’s life and encouraging her to be more amazing. A woman who has and does it all. A real go getter. This fact serves as an explanation as to why Amy “has never really felt like a person, but a product” (Gone Girl).

But, again, the story falls short of condemning this type of “you go girl” faux-feminism or the notion women can (and should) have it all. It also is not critical of celebrity, fame, and fortune – even though the fortune of Amy’s family comes at the expense of her happiness and sanity. Yes, at one point Amy notes that her parents exploited her childhood and she does seem bitter about this. But this exploitation, from parents she interestingly defines as feminist, is partly what leads to her ability to constantly be playing at being Amy – to live the role of cool girl, good wife, battered wife, and so on. We are not instructed to condemn Amy’s parents exploitation of her – instead we are encouraged to be angry at her parents for mismanaging their money and having to borrow from her trust fund – leaving poor Amy to survive in a Missouri mansion rather than a Manhatten brownstone.

Though much has been written about Flynn’s comments about feminism, her portrayal of women, and her writing, I have not come across her ever mentioning privilege being something she was interested in exploring, even though her characters and  her own discussions of why she chooses the focus matter she does drip with privilege.  Flynn comes from a privileged background herself, and perhaps this partly explains Gone Girl’s failure to own up to the role Amy’s privilege plays in her “success” in any overt way. Who knows. What I do know is this: not addressing Amy’s privilege directly – and Nick’s, and Dezi’s and Margot’s –  has the effect of making the novel seem to be – as argued in the “Gone Girl and the Specter of Feminism,” a piece that serves as a “crystallization of a thousand misogynist myths and fears about female behavior” as if we had “strapped a bunch of Men’s Rights Advocates to beds and downloaded their nightmares.”

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In The Guardian piece, “Gillian Flynn on her bestseller Gone Girl and accusations of misogyny”, Oliver Burkeman writes “This is a recurring theme in Flynn’s life: the psychological bungee-jump that permits an author to plunge into barbarity precisely because she’s securely moored in its opposite.” Detailing how Flynn locks herself away in her writing basement for hours, Burkeman notes that “In the early afternoons, she surfaces from the gloom into daylight, to play with her son for an hour or two.” Then, in Flynn’s own words, “It’s back down through the basement again, to write about murder.” Ah, the joys of a post-feminist life!

So, to wrap up this privileged take on Gone Girl: is it a good film? Yes and no. Fincher is great director and Flynn is a great writer – they both tell dark stories well. The movie is compelling and Pike is great as Amy, as is Kim Dickens as Detective Boney, the most feminist character of the film and the one I would most like to see a spinoff series about!

It is good as a film, but it is not a feminist film.

As Esther Bergdahl asks rhetorically in her post, “Is a film feminist if a female character vindicates every men’s rights activist on Reddit?” Of course not. But, just as obviously, this doesn’t mean feminists shouldn’t see it – and discuss it – in fact, just the opposite.

 


Natalie Wilson, PhD is a literature and women’s studies scholar, blogger, and author. She teaches at Cal State San Marcos and specializes in areas of gender studies, feminism, feminist theory, girl studies, militarism, body studies, boy culture and masculinity, contemporary literature, and popular culture. She is author of the blogs Professor, what if …? and Seduced by Twilight. She is a proud feminist mom of two feminist kids (one daughter, one son) and is an admitted pop-culture junkie. Her favorite food is chocolate.

 

‘Sin City: A Dame to Kill For’ Review

There is so much violence both toward men and women in the movie, but it is so over the top that teamed with the beautiful highly stylized cinematography it is hard to take seriously. This time around, the world of Sin City has a very ethereal dream-like quality that tempers its grittiness a little.

If you are thinking that it’s been a long time since the first Sin City movie came out, you would be right.  It first hit the screen in 2005, meaning it has nearly been a full decade before they have graced us with the sequel. A lot has happened in nine years; Brittany Murphy, who was in the original, passed away under mysterious circumstances. Devon Aioki’s brief reign as “Asian It Girl” has faded from our memories and people like Clive Owen and Josh Hartnett have found better things to do.

Despite myself I loved the first Sin City and on re-watching it I still do. I know it is deeply problematic–the lack of agency of the women in the movie, their constant portrayal as victims who must be rescued by big tough violent men, and their overt objectification are all things that drive me nuts.  The movie isn’t particularly kind to men either, the vast majority of whom are portrayed as greedy, callous, vicious lechers. Even the good guys are mostly anti-heroes. Overall however, the snappy dialogue and visually interesting hyper-stylized cinematography captured me, and I couldn’t help but love the sex workers of Old Town.  They are tough broads, ruled over by Gail played by Rosario Dawson, who live the way they choose, selling what they want and organizing and running their own turf where not even the dirty cops of Sin City can enter without their permission.  If there is going to be a third Sin City movie, can it please center on the sex workers of Old Town?  I feel like there could be many interesting stories to be told there.

Unfortunately Sin City: A Dame to Kill For woefully underutilizes the prodigious talents of Dawson. There are two core female characters: firstly, Ava Lord, played by Eva Green, who is the titular “dame to kill for” and Nancy Callahan, with Jessica Alba reprising her role from the first movie.  Both women, unsurprisingly (this is Frank Miller after all) are highly sexualized. Nancy still works as a dancer at the diner although she is no longer as wholesome as she once was having developed a drinking problem and dreams of revenge following the death of detective Hartigan.  Ava on the other hand is a classic femme fatale who uses her body and Dwight’s complete intoxication with her to further her own murderous ends.

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One could argue that there are some positives for women’s representation compared to the first movie. Nancy is no longer a passive victim; she turns herself into an avenging demoness in a very dramatic transformation scene and with the help of Marv manages to finally take out the overarching villain of both movies (something no man has ever been able to do despite plenty of trying). I think the whole Joseph Gordon Levitt storyline exists purely to illustrate just how untouchable Roark is and yet there he is, killed by little old Nancy Callahan, former victim of his son and current exotic dancer in the very diner where he plays his high-stakes poker games.

Ava Lord manages to manipulate all the men around her to get exactly what she wants by pretending to be what they want her to be–a fragile woman who needs rescuing from her terribly sad life, someone who needs to be protected from the filth of Sin City. Eva Green is masterful in her handling of the material and manages to bring tonality to what would otherwise be a two-dimensional caricature of a traditional noir vixen.  Ava Lord is a woman who is tired of living in a man’s world and so seeks to carve out a place of her own in it through any means necessary. She is also pretty twisted and appears to take much pleasure in the pain of others and is eventually punished for her sins. As far as wicked women go I’m pretty OK with Ava Lord.

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There is so much violence both toward men and women in the movie, but it is so over the top that teamed with the beautiful highly stylized cinematography it is hard to take seriously.  This time around, the world of Sin City has a very ethereal dream-like quality that tempers its grittiness a little.

We can all agree that Frank Miller is a misogynist toad, but I think Robert Rodriguez has managed to interpret the source material in a way that is not terrible, helped at least in part by his excellent casting decisions.  It’s definitely not going to win “most feminist movie of the year,” but for a big budget action movie, a genre that is notoriously terrible for the ways in which it depicts women, I found it to be pretty watchable.

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‘The Skeleton Twins’: Suicidal Siblings

The recommended treatment for attempted suicide in this film seems to be, “Give up your apartment and move across the country to live with a family member you haven’t spoken to for ten years. And whatever you do, don’t get any therapy!” Of course if these characters were introduced to a good therapist, just as when one particularly troubled character in ‘Cold Comfort Farm’ was, we wouldn’t have a movie–which maybe wouldn’t be such a bad thing.

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When I was a kid, adults (who had no idea I would grow up to be queer) would talk about how gay men killed themselves once they reached a certain age. The adults acted as if they were talking about some strange species of animal featured on a National Geographic special instead of the people they (whether the adults acknowledged them or not) passed on the street and interacted with every day. The “queers commit suicide” trope was a  film staple, one that Vito Russo denounced in The Celluloid Closet and shows up in clips from the documentary of the same name. Now that openly queer people (sometimes) get to write and direct their own films, the trope comes full circle with The Skeleton Twins, directed by out gay man Craig Johnson (who also wrote the script with Mark Heyman), which begins with a gay character (Milo, played by Bill Hader) turning the volume all the way up on Blondie’s “Denis in his Los Angeles apartment just before he gets into the bathtub and slits his wrists (cinematographer Reed Morano does a great job in this scene as well as the rest of the film).

We see Milo’s estranged twin sister, Maggie (Kristen Wiig), about to swallow a potentially fatal handful of pills when her disconcertingly cheery ringtone interrupts. The hospital is calling to inform her of Milo’s suicide attempt. So, in the manner of middling scripts through the ages, a character, Maggie, is able to take an unspecified time off work (with no notice), book a last minute flight across the country, invite her brother to recuperate at her home in upstate New York, then spring for an extra plane ticket for him. No one, not the hospital, nor later, her mother or husband seem in the least concerned that Milo could try to kill himself again, or that a suicide attempt is a symptom of an illness which should be treated to prevent the person from dying after a fresh, successful attempt.

The recommended treatment for attempted suicide in this film seems to be “Give up your apartment and move across the country to live with a family member you haven’t spoken to for 10 years. And whatever you do, don’t get any therapy!”  Of course if these characters were introduced to a good therapist, just as when one particularly troubled character in Cold Comfort Farm was, we wouldn’t have a movie–which maybe wouldn’t be such a bad thing.

Twins’ Milo and Maggie appear to come from a working-class background. Maggie is a dental hygienist (which requires training but not a four-year college degree) and Milo seems to have skipped college to try to become a “famous actor” in Los Angeles. Later we find out Milo’s childhood bully now works as an electrician. But neither Hader and especially not Wiig act or speak like the working class members of my own family or anyone else’s–though Wiig’s self tan, which makes her look as if she were rubbed with the shavings of a burnt-sienna crayon, makes her resemble some working class folks I know. Luke Wilson, on the other hand, is hilariously natural as Lance, Maggie’s good-natured, good-looking, but not terribly bright, blue-collar husband. When he announces he and Maggie are trying to have kids. Milo says,”I can’t wait to be the creepy gay uncle.”

Lance answers,”You’re hired!”

Another trope that appears in the film is: all the siblings’ problems (even their father’s suicide!) seems to be the fault of their mother (Joanna Gleason in a brief, badly written, poorly conceived role) whom we see having dinner with her children. Again, the mother’s New Age leanings as well as the home she maintains in Sedona  plus the ability to jet across the country for a meditation retreat are usually the provenance of the middle class and the wealthy, so the working class status of the family seems tacked-on.

Wiig has some nice moments outside of her comic rapport with Hader (all their best scenes are in the trailer) but she’s miscast. A person with this much to hide would probably present a sunnier facade to the world, the way politicians with draconian platforms cultivate a “friendly” persona. And the script doesn’t do Wiig any favors, calling on her character to smash a fish tank in not one, but two separate scenes to show her state of mind.

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Kristen Wiig as Maggie

Hader plays his queeny character convincingly (though perhaps not as skillfully as an out queer actor would), but Milo seems to have had pretty much no life during the 10 years he was estranged from Maggie (the decade seems to correspond with how long the characters have been out of high school–but Wiig is 41 and Hader is 36, which adds to the film’s dissonance). We see in Milo’s apartment at the beginning a tank of goldfish and a photo presumably with an ex and those two items are the sum of the years the twins have been separated. Maggie, has, on the other hand, acquired a steady job, a house, a husband, and a history.

The characters have a way of joking in a “just kidding (but not really)” way that frustrated people use to blow off steam, but the script doesn’t really explore this dynamic. When Milo is reading Marley and Me he asks his sister if she’s read it and she tells him she has and found it “sad.”  He asks why and she says, “You don’t know what happens?”

“What? Does the dog die at the end? Look how much I had left,” Milo spits, motioning to a few chapters worth of pages at the end as he tosses the book aside. He later tells her he knew all along that the dog died.

The jokes in the film are good, but there aren’t enough of them to carry the movie. They are disjointed, like skits (though they are better than the skits the two were in when they were both on Saturday Night Live), instead of a language the two siblings use to communicate with one another. We don’t need to know every detail of adult siblings’ background to believe in the characters bond and relationship: You Can Count On Me  made Laura Linney and Mark Ruffalo’s brother/sister pair seem real, even though we didn’t learn much about their shared past and Linney and Ruffalo, like Wiig and Hader, look nothing alike. The scene in which Maggie confesses to Milo she is cheating on her husband is very much like the (superior) one in which Linney’s character tells Ruffalo’s that she is sleeping with her married boss.

Skeleton piles on the tragedy, so it becomes ridiculous. Not only did their father kill himself, but their mother is an unfeeling bitch! And Milo’s teacher in high school sexually abused him! And both Milo and Maggie have more than one scene in which they try to kill themselves! Any one of these elements would have been enough to build a film around, but put together they become an unwitting joke, like the compounded tragedy (Incest! Dead best friend! Closeted football player boyfriend!) made The Perks of Being a Wallflower laughable in spite of some good main performances.

Skeleton Twins  is the second film I’ve seen (Mysterious Skin was the first) in which a gay man says the adult man who had sex with him when he was underage is the love of his life. In Mysterious Skin this claim made a little more sense: the audience heard it as evidence of how screwed up Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s character was. In Twins we don’t get the sense that Milo’s affection for his abuser is anything he should suppress, and Milo’s feelings of love don’t ring true. As I’ve noted before, no matter how “in love” they thought they were, minors who have sex with their teachers usually see, when they grow up, the power imbalance and manipulation in the relationship they were too young to perceive when they were students. Milo has had no such epiphany and for that reason alone–even without the suicide attempt–he should be seeing a therapist.

Fresh Air‘s Terry Gross, when she interviewed Tina Fey a few years back, asked about Saturday Night Live‘s checkered history with its women cast members, and Fey countered by saying that a lot of women had great opportunities to showcase their talents on SNL–and not many chances to put that talent to use elsewhere after they left the show. Although former cast member Wiig had a hit with (and co-wrote) Bridesmaids, subsequent films (which she had no hand in writing) like this one seem to have little idea what to do with her. She and Hader were not only on Saturday Night Live together but appeared in minor roles as the couple who ran the amusement park in the underrated (pre-Bridesmaids) Adventureland and I couldn’t help wishing someone had made a film that starred those characters–or another pre-Bridesmaids Wiig character, the one in Drew Barrymore’s Whip It–instead of Milo and Maggie.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhULZJDXLaE”]

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Ren Jender is a queer writer-performer/producer putting a film together. Her writing. besides appearing every week on Bitch Flicks, has also been published in The Toast, RH Reality Check, xoJane and the Feminist Wire. You can follow her on Twitter @renjender.

 

‘The Maze Runner’ Suffers from the Smurfette Principle and White Savior Trope

While watching ‘The Maze Runner,’ I couldn’t help thinking, wouldn’t this story have been so much more rich and interesting if it had been told from Minho’s or Teresa’s perspective? Why not feature a girl or a boy of color as the protagonist?

The Maze Runner

Written by Megan Kearns.

Like most Hollywood films, The Maze Runner — the latest young adult (YA) novel set in a dystopian future adapted for the screen — revolves around a white male protagonist. While mildly entertaining, rather than exploring new ideas and themes, it suffers from gender and racial tropes.

Echoing themes in Lord of the Flies (boys in the wild creating their own society) and The Hunger Games (dystopian setting, a treacherous obstacle course and adults manipulating children for a supposedly greater good), The Maze Runner follows Thomas, whose memories have been erased, as he’s transported into a community of boys living in a forest, called the Glade, in the middle of a fluctuating maze.

It’s a decent film. Nothing special, nothing great. Just fine. I couldn’t care less who lived or who died because all of the characters possess gossamer personalities. The beginning opens with disorientation dropping you right into the story. But beyond that, it didn’t really contain much suspense. Plus I was able to predict pretty much the entire plot about 20 minutes in. Despite a few similarities, The Maze Runner lacks the stellar acting, character development, gravitas and social commentary that helped catapult The Hunger Games to blockbuster success.

The racial diversity of the boys in the Glade pleasantly surprised me. Not only do we see multiple boys of color (who talk! who matter as characters!), it was fantastic to see boys of color in leadership positions: Albie, the group’s leader and the very first boy ever sent up, and Minho, the Keeper of the Runners. Now, I want to applaud this film for its diversity. However, the film (and the book too) can’t resist centering a white male protagonist who is considered “special” and “different” because he’s curious about things and asks questions. Of course, Thomas can figure out everything better and faster than everyone else, even the people who have been in the Glade for years. Sure, you could argue that perhaps that has to do with his repressed memories resurfacing. But I think the real reason is that heaven forbid we have a hero who isn’t white or male, aside from a few notable exceptions (Katniss in The Hunger Games, Tris in Divergent).

The Maze Runner maze

Even though there are white boys in the Glade, The Maze Runner feels akin to a White Savior narrative. Now, the White Savior trope is typically reserved for movies about Black people and slavery or Indigenous people, who need to be “saved” or “civilized” by a lone white hero. Yet it still parallels the trope as the boys in the Glade need the new white guy to teach them about the maze and to attempt an escape. Minho has been mapping out the maze for three years, no small feat since the maze changes every night. Yet it’s Thomas, not Minho, who figures out how to kill a Griever and the code to use at the end of the maze. It’s Thomas who motivates the others to try to escape when the others have become complacent.

Thankfully, Thomas doesn’t play a role in “establishing order and peace,” which Albie says they have achieved after the “dark days” of panic and fear. Author James Dashner was inspired by Lord of the Flies to write a series about boys depicting how “instead of killing each other and being animalistic, they would form a brotherhood and do whatever it took to protect each other.” The boys do all work cooperatively together. But Thomas is the only one who breaks the rules and enters the maze as it’s closing to try to save Albie and Minho. While Thomas doesn’t civilize the boys, he does demonstrate a sense of bravery and morality the others seem to ignore or repress. The film’s message seems to be that we should question things, not passively accept them, which Thomas’s presence in the Glade embodies.

So where are all the girls? The movie never explains that. And no one seems to ask that question. The boys are shocked to see a girl, Teresa, come up the elevator the day after Thomas arrives. She is the only girl to ever arrive in the Glade. Aside from an extremely brief performance by Patricia Clarkson, Teresa is the only female character we ever see.

One nice change from most YA movies is the lack of a predictable love triangle or the emergence of a love story. With the presence of one girl, the film could have easily fallen into that trap. Love stories aren’t in and of themselves bad. In fact, I love them. It annoys me how often media denigrates love stories, typically because women and girls are the primary intended audiences. No, I’m glad no love story exists because it usually reduces a female character’s role to nothing more than an object of desire for the dudes in the film. It also typically reifies heteronormative relationships, also queer diversity would have been great to see here.

The Maze Runner Teresa

Teresa is the epitome of the Smurfette Principle. She is the only girl amongst 50 or so boys. Lacking true agency and personality, Teresa’s sole purpose in the film appears to be to potentially create confusion and chaos amongst the boys and to inspire Thomas. Sure, we see her acting feisty as she throws items off of a tower and tosses a torch at a Griever. But ultimately, her role only matters in how it relates to and impacts the male characters. Yes, Teresa tells Thomas that maybe there’s a reason they’re both different. And she encourages him that they should escape. But that’s about it. If I had any hopes for Teresa’s growth in the subsequent films in the trilogy (four books if you count the prequel), this article on the sexism in the books dashed that.

The Smurfette Principle remains so problematic because it reinforces the notion that “boys are the norm,” only their perspectives matter and society values girls only in their relation to boys. Talking about the film adaptation and gender, The Maze Runner author James Dashner said, “It’s refreshing to have the main character be a male for once, seems like there’s been a lot of female leads.”

Ummmmmm, pardon me? No, no, no. Just. No. That’s an extremely problematic statement. So because there have been a few female-centric film franchises based on YA novels it’s “refreshing” for the main character to be male? Uh oh, lady movies have been doing well at the box office. Gasp! BRING BACK THE BOY MOVIES.

No, there is nothing “refreshing” about having a male protagonist. We are inundated with media revolving around cis, straight, white men and boys. Lest you think books overflow with female protagonists, they don’t. In fact, a chasmic gender gap exists in children’s literature. In YA-adapted films, for every Katniss, Bella and Tris, we see myriad male protagonists — Harry Potter, Ender’s Game, Eragon, Percy Jackson and the Olympians, I Am Number Four, Hugo, The Seeker: Dark is Rising, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Giver. Not only does a dearth of female protagonists exist in films and TV overall, but also in films geared specifically towards children and television programs for children.

It matters that girls (and all genders) see diverse representations (gender, race, sexuality, age, body size, people with disabilities, etc.) on-screen. It matters that girls see themselves reflected in media.

While watching The Maze Runner, I couldn’t help thinking, wouldn’t this story have been so much more rich and interesting if it had been told from Minho’s or Teresa’s perspective? Why not feature a girl or a boy of color as the protagonist? Even though it’s framed as a male-centric story, it still could have contained complex, nuanced fully developed female characters. It could have made an intriguing commentary on constricting, stereotypical gender roles or the toxicity of hyper masculinity. It could have explored how gender and race impact social structures and people’s experiences. Maybe I expect too much from my movies.

Despite its racial diversity, instead of forging a new trail, The Maze Runner follows a fairly formulaic and familiar story filled with tired tropes.


Megan Kearns is Bitch Flicks’ Social Media Director, a freelance writer and a feminist vegan blogger. She’s a member of the Boston Online Film Critics Association (BOFCA). She tweets at @OpinionessWorld.

 

‘Pride’: A Fun “Feel Good” Movie About A Very “Feel Bad” Time

Although director Matthew Warchus isn’t gay, the screenwriter Stephen Beresford is, which, after seeing the film, my gaydar told me even before I looked up his bio. The film starts and ends with the queer characters, not the working class (mostly) straight people, as the focus. Mark (Ben Schnetzer, who’s from the U.S. but went to drama school in London) keeps a huge, “Thatcher Out” banner hanging from the windows of his flat, rallies his friends and closeted newbie Joe (George MacKay) to collect money for striking coal miners as Lesbians and Gays Support The Miners–LGSM (because in those days most queer groups didn’t acknowledge the participation of bisexual and trans people). “Mining communities are being bullied just like we are,” Mark explains to the others, and the group ends up befriending one village’s striking Welsh miners and their families.

pridecover

The “feel good” British comedy that also has working-class characters overcoming their homophobia was, for a time,  a popular enough genre that it could’ve had its own section in video stores, which were also plentiful then.  I’m thinking of films like Kinky Boots, which is now a Broadway musical and starred a pre-12 Years a Slave Chiwetel Ejiofor as the drag queen designer who saves the factory of the working class town, and The Full Monty whose lineup of mostly working-class, bored, unemployed guys-turned-strippers by the end included a couple in love. Although I enjoyed The Full Monty (which had an acute enough take on class that it played like a comedic version of Das Kapital–with flashes of skin) by the time Kinky Boots came out, in 2005,  I’d had enough of twinkle-eyed, straight characters smiling at their new-found “tolerance.” So I was hesitant to see Pride (which opens Sept. 26) with a plot synopsis (queer people help striking miners in Thatcherite Britain, loosely based on a true story), title, and even a movie poster that easily could have come from the ’90s.

Although director Matthew Warchus isn’t gay, the screenwriter Stephen Beresford is, which, after seeing the film, my gaydar told me even before I looked up his bio. The film starts and ends with the queer characters, not the working-class, (mostly) straight people, as the focus. Mark (Ben Schnetzer, who’s from the US but went to drama school in London) keeps a huge, “Thatcher Out” banner hanging from the windows of his flat and rallies his friends and closeted newbie Joe (George MacKay) to collect money for striking coal miners as Lesbians and Gays Support The Miners–LGSM (because in those days most queer groups didn’t acknowledge the participation of bisexual and trans people). “Mining communities are being bullied just like we are,” Mark explains to the others, and the group ends up befriending one Welsh village’s striking miners and their families.

LatentPRIDE
The beginnings of LGSM

I lived in London six months before the events in the film start and Pride gets the period exactly right: the music of The Smiths plays at a queer party and Pete Shelley’s “Homosapien” and Dead or Alive’s “You Spin Me Round” play at the queer clubs. Post-punk fashions are popular among the queers (as they were among many young Londoners then) but we see the era’s big earrings, shiny shirts, stonewashed jeans, permed hair, and Bo Derek braids (!) on queer characters too. The miners’ strike was big news: when I was back in the US more than one British import record, popular on college radio, included snippets of speeches from striking miners. And, as I’ve written elsewhere, people from most walks of British life had a fierce, abiding hatred of Margaret Thatcher.

Because the film doesn’t have only one or two queers to focus on, its characters, like Dear White People‘s Black characters, show a range of different personalities and life experiences that we’re not used to seeing in mainstream films. Mark is a funny, committed activist with the gift of gab who looks great in a black leather motorcycle jacket. He asks a crowd, when remarking on how the police have started beating up striking miners instead of harassing patrons of queer clubs, “Do you think they got sick of all that Donna Summer?” Reticent, neatly dressed, 20-year-old Joe is a college student who lives with his parents, so even though he spends much of his time doing work with an openly queer group he is not out to any of his family. We even meet a few queer women: Steph (Faye Marsay) in a mohawk and heavy eyeliner becomes Joe’s best friend and two women who are a couple join the group after they hear a rousing speech in a queer London club from village miner Dai (Paddy Considine in an unflattering period haircut).

We first meet Jonathan (Dominic West who played Jimmy on The Wire) trashed and in full drag, who, after a full day and night celebrating Pride, doesn’t quite succeed, despite persistent, enthusiastic attempts, in blowing the whistle around his neck. In spite of Jonathan being the kind of  camp character whom other films (especially those made by straight people) rarely use for anything more than a few good quips and some attitude, he does turn out to have a political conscience. And some of the loveliest moments in the film are glimpses of  his tender relationship with his partner: quiet, serious Gethin (out gay actor Andrew Scott whom some may recognize played Moriarty on Sherlock), the owner of the gay bookstore where the group meets. West, playing against type, makes us believe in Jonathan as a whole person, not just a caricature, though in one showy scene he can’t quite stop himself from dancing more like a straight man than a queenie, gay guy.

The film also shows nuanced portraits of the women villagers: Sian (Jessica Gunning) looks like a miner’s wife: short and busty, her pretty face framed by a mullet (in those days not just a hairstyle for older lesbians). But she doesn’t act like the little woman. She, along with Dai are the first villagers to argue that the queer group should be invited to the local hall just as the other groups who have supported the miners have been. “Your gays have arrived,” one of the older women from the village tells the two of them when the group comes to town in a van.

The women from the village
The women from the village

During their visit Jonathan coaches Sian on the legal ins and outs of being stopped and arrested for no reason (until relatively recently, police regularly harassed and arrested white queer people as they now do with Black people and trans women of color). Sian then goes to the jail and gets the police to release the illegally detained miners. We also see Imelda Staunton as Hefina show off her considerable comic abilities, quite a change from her work in movies like Vera Drake. The cast is uniformly excellent: Bill Nighy is also on hand, barely recognizable here as a slick-haired, slouched, shy villager.

Films about activism, especially queer activism, usually skip the part about it being great fun as well as a good way to get laid. We see the joy the group gets out of their work and Joe hooks up with the cute guy who asks him at  “Pits and Perverts” (which would have been a better title for the movie) a benefit concert organized by LGSM, “Are you going to take my picture too?”

In many ways Pride is a very conventional film. Its script has the regulation triumph-setback-triumph structure that keeps many mainstream films from having the twists and complications that make documentaries like Stories We Tell and One Cut, One Life great. But the mix of real-life characters and events keeps Pride from becoming saccharine. The miners were striking to return to hard work that meant an early death for many of them (as well as repercussions for the environment), but they knew that work and the union were all they had. When they lost the strike the mining communities became impoverished and, with the eventual closure of the mines, remain so to this day.

Unlike a lot of films and TV shows that take place in the past, Pride‘s portrait of the ’80s isn’t clouded by nostalgia. The film shows that being shunned or kicked out of one’s family for being queer was the norm back then (though in best case scenarios the rift was temporary). A record company receptionist tells the group (when they are looking for bands for the benefit) that they don’t have any queer artists on their label–as we see posters of Elton John (who many forget was briefly married to a woman in the ’80s) and Soft Cell in the hall. And although the screenwriter is a politically aware gay man, he still gets feminism wrong. The script seems to disparage the women who form a separate group the same way the core characters do. But in the 90s I belonged to a queer activist group and gay men talked right over the women, even as we packed up and left to strike out on our own.

In a postscript we find out one of the real-life characters in LGSM died of AIDS two years after the last events of the film–as much of the queer community did in the 80s and 90s. But another real-life character goes back to school and eventually becomes a member of Parliament, continuing to serve there today. Although many will insist on calling the film “feel good” the same way they mischaracterized another film based on a true story, The King’s Speech, the real-life events of both films defy the glibness of any marketing label and in the end prove deeper, more complex and more poignant.

[youtube_sc url=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsFY0wHpR5o”]

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Ren Jender is a queer writer-performer/producer putting a film together. Her writing. besides appearing every week on Bitch Flicks, has also been published in The Toast, RH Reality Check, xoJane and the Feminist Wire. You can follow her on Twitter @renjender.

‘Finding Vivian Maier’: The Greatest Art Mystery of the 20th Century

However, Vivian Maier–besides being an obvious genius–remains a mystery. ‘Finding Vivian Maier’ follows the narrative mystery as we pursue the reclusive and eccentric Vivian (or her personas of Ms. Meier, Mayer, Meyer, Meyers, Maier) across the US and through the streets of the 1950s and 1960s, attempting to discover more of a woman who is still unknowable.

Written by Rachel Redfern.

[youtube_sc url=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2o2nBhQ67Zc”]

In April of 2009, one of the greatest street photographers of the 20th century died in a Chicago nursing home. Her passing was quiet and seemingly without notice, and the photographs that she left behind were dusty unknowns, auctioned off at a storage locker in Chicago. The buyer, John Maloof, began posting the photos on the Internet, hopeful that someone would recognize their quality. When the photographs went viral, Maloof began searching for the photographer, just a handwritten name on a few receipts stuck into the boxes, and stumbled upon a woman as fascinating as the art she produced.

Directed by John Maloof and Charlie Siskel, Finding Vivian Maier is an award-winning documentary exploring the art and artist discovered on an auction house floor, and whose prolific work has been subsequently shown all over the world. During her life, Vivian Maier produced over 150,000 photographs, as well as films and audio recordings, and did so while keeping her talents and work completely hidden from the world—choosing instead to work as a nanny in New York City and Chicago.

However, Vivian Maier–besides being an obvious genius–remains a mystery. Finding Vivian Maier follows the narrative mystery as we pursue the reclusive and eccentric Vivian (or her personas of Ms. Meier, Mayer, Meyer, Meyers, Maier) across the US and through the streets of the 1950s and 1960s, attempting to discover more of a woman who is still unknowable.

 

A portrait of the artist--Vivian Meier
A portrait of the artist–Vivian Maier

Vivian Maier hid herself well during her life, and there has been some speculation: is it right to expose her now in death? Would Maier be pleased at the recognition of her talents? Her friends say no, but Maloof disagrees (for obvious financial reasons), arguing that since Maier corresponded with an art printer in France that she was obviously interested in displaying her work at some point.

Finding Vivian Maier embodies an art historian’s meta-dream of art exposing art and reveals the way that art can be lived in a person—empathetic, obviously political, socially conscious, occasionally gritty artwork, reflective of the woman behind the lens.

For photographers there is often the thought that we must be standing in front of the exotic to have something worth photographing; however, Maier exposes women, children, minorities, laborers, and other “background” faces in “normal” cities with a compelling charisma. As one historian states in Finding Vivian Maier, the fact that Maier was able to push so deeply into the personal space of her subjects and then photograph them with such an honest vulnerability, is remarkable. As an artist, her work is not a moment out of time, but instead occupies a contradictory grounded timelessness where we, the viewer, are included in a sympathetic, deeply personal interaction.

One of Meier's beautiful, inclusive moments from the streets of Chicago
One of Maier’s beautiful, inclusive moments from the streets of Chicago

Despite the occasional self-congratulatory tone of the Maier discovery, the documentary is exceptional. Finding Vivian Maier is paced like a mystery film and viewers are drawn in to explore the fractured pieces of Maier’s secretive life along with Maloof.  However, in a delicious, almost teasing way, after Finding Vivian Maier is finished, we’re still left with much to wonder about the enigmatic artist and spirited woman that was Vivian Maier.

Additionally, within the past few months a legal battle has surfaced over the right to print, publish, curate and sell Maier’s work by a Chicago lawyer (aptly) named Mr. Deal. Until the case is decided it seems that the unknowns surrounding Maier’s curious life and work will grow even more.

Finding Vivian Maier was released on DVD July 29 and can be viewed in theaters around the country. Collections of Maier’s photographs can be viewed at exhibitions in New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles and a host of other cities around the world. To view Vivian Maier’s work online, click here.

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Rachel is a traveler and teacher who spent the last few years living in Asia. Now back in her native California, she focuses on writing about media, culture, and feminism. While a big fan of campy 80s movies and eccentric sci-fi, she’s become a cable acolyte, spending most of her time watching HBO, AMC, and Showtime. For good stories about lions and bungee jumping, as well as rants about sexism and slow drivers, follow her on Twitter at @RachelRedfern2.

On Not Giving Women Filmmakers A “Free Pass”: ‘Kelly & Cal’

Many actresses, especially those in their 30s and older, find themselves relegated to playing “the mother” for much of their careers. Most of these films (like the recent indie hit ‘Boyhood’) seem to go out of their way to tell stories from anyone but the mother’s point of view. For a short time Jen McGowan’s ‘Kelly & Cal’ (also written by a woman: Amy Lowe Starbin) seems like it will be a welcome contrast to this norm.

KELLY-CALcover

Many actresses, especially those in their 30s and older, find themselves relegated to playing “the mother” for much of their careers. Most of these films (like the recent indie hit Boyhood) seem to go out of their way to tell stories from anyone but the mother’s point of view. For a short time Jen McGowan’s Kelly  & Cal (also written by a woman: Amy Lowe Starbin) seems like it will be a welcome contrast to this norm. At the beginning we see a closeup of the tired, stressed face of new mother, Kelly (Juliette Lewis), as we hear the pleasant, disembodied voice of Kelly’s OB/GYN, who indulges in the (relatively recent)  abhorrent practice of referring to women who are pregnant or have recently given birth as “Mom” (instead of calling them by their names) while she rushes Kelly through her six-week checkup. The doctor isn’t the only offender: “How was your day, Mommy?” Cybill Shepherd’s squeaky clean mother-in-law later asks when she visits for dinner.

We again see closeups of Kelly’s unhappy face as she (and we) hear her baby constantly crying, interrupting her even when she tries to masturbate–after her husband proves more interested in TV than in sex. We learn Kelly’s name only when she introduces herself to Cal. They meet over her fence as Kelly sneaks a cigarette and Cal asks if he can have one too. Cal is supposed to be 17 or l8, but the handsome and not untalented Jonny Weston, who plays him, is–and looks–26. Throughout the film, whenever he talks about attending high school I felt like correcting him, “Don’t you mean graduate school?” The actor visibly being well past his teens makes Cal’s  banter seem particularly inappropriate and creepy.

He tells Kelly (whom he’s just met) “You have great breasts,” then admonishes her that if she didn’t want him to comment on them she shouldn’t nurse her son with the curtains open (sort of like how some men feel free to advise celebrities never to pose for private nude photos if they don’t want the world to see them).

Kelly immediately tells him, “Get away from my house,” then sees he uses a wheelchair as he rolls back toward his own place. That evening she tells her husband she feels bad that she yelled at someone who is “handicapped,” the word used to describe Cal throughout the film, even though “people with disabilites” has been common parlance–including in the Americans With Disabilities Act–for over 25 years. I guess we should be grateful the film doesn’t have any queer characters, so we don’t have to hear them called “homosexuals.”

She used to be "wild"
She used to be “wild”

The movie really goes off the rails after Kelly appears at Cal’s garage apartment (his parents’ house hasn’t been equipped with ramps) as an apology, but quickly leaves (Juliette Lewis is quite funny in this scene; she’s better than the film deserves) when Cal continues to talk explicitly about sex (this time about his own prowess even after the accident that caused his spinal cord injury). Her actions are perfectly in keeping with everything else we’ve seen so far from Kelly. So the audience is left to wonder why, the next day, she goes back to visit Cal as if nothing has happened. If Kelly were meant to be a damaged character, a woman who felt that being in the company of someone who humiliates her by talking explicitly about her body (which he spied on while she was behind closed doors in her own house, feeding her son)–and then told her all the sexual things he could do to her–is all she deserves, I could accept this plot point. But as the part is written (up until that point in the film) and as Lewis plays her, Kelly is a level-headed sort, even if she feels lonely and out-of-place in her new role as a suburban stay-at-home mother. Kelly and Cal’s “friendship” in this context makes no sense and seems to bolster the philosophy of street harassers and “pickup artists” that talking explicitly to women they barely know (and who don’t seem open to their sexual attention) is the way to attract them.

For extended periods that follow, the film (which seems long but is actually only 110 minutes), in the tradition of soap operas, seems to forget Kelly has a baby. We see her freely drinking beer and other alcohol when before she had demurred explaining that she was still breast-feeding (if the TV series Please Like Me can be trusted, apparently breastfeeding mothers can pump their milk before the occasional drunken night out, but the movie doesn’t care enough to offer this explanation). She and Cal spend lots of time alone together, after which she often goes home to an empty house–when new parenthood means (as the start of movie makes clear, and shows is a major part of Kelly’s frustration), except for brief respites when others take over, the baby is always there.

No, really she was "wild"
No, really, she was “wild”

We get a tiny subplot that goes nowhere about Kelly once being “young and wild” and “in a band” which seems cribbed from a Wikipedia entry about “Riot Grrrl,” especially when the characters repeatedly mispronounce “Sleater-Kinney” as “Sleeter-Kinney.” The film also uses a Cyndi Lauper song, the polar opposite of “wild,” as one of of Kelly’s favorites. Kelly ends up kissing Cal because his harassment somehow ends up charming her. She also does a little breaking and entering and graffiti with him as foreplay.

Cal, on the other hand, inhabits the trope of the disabled character who feels like life is no longer worth living. A person with disabilities who becomes suicidal  is such a cliché that When Billy Broke His Head, a too-infrequently seen documentary about disability–directed by a disabled man–had a sequence that was a montage of disabled characters in film after film announcing their intentions to kill themselves. Audiences would object if every woman in films wanted to off herself–or if every person of color did. And we’re glad that modern queer characters in dramas like Weekend, Keep The Lights On, and Pariah survive to the credits because in the past the rule seemed to be that one (or more) of a film’s queer characters must die by the end. But the disabled character (and there’s usually only one), if he or she isn’t busy being an inspiration  to others, is, in too many films and TV shows otherwise on the brink of suicide. We could use more characters like Winston (Clifton Collins Jr.) in Sunshine Cleaning, who was missing an arm, but was neither depressed nor awe-inspiring, just a person trying to get through life.

A film with real distribution (it opens on Sept. 5)  directed by a woman as well as written by one is a rare enough occurrence that I wish I didn’t have to point out all that’s wrong with Kelly & Cal. But if a film has the same old sexist (not to mention ableist) tropes, we have remember why we wanted more films by women in the first place–and see that maybe this particular example isn’t solving the problem.

As Susan Sarandon (in The Celluloid Closet) said of their love scenes in The Hunger, no one needs to get drunk to kiss Catherine Deneuve. In the same way, nobody needs to lower their standards to love the films of women like Stacie Passon, Miranda July, Dee Rees, Sarah Polley, and Andrea Arnold. But film distributors still treat an acclaimed queer woman’s film about a queer woman, Concussion, as subpar: last year the rapturous reviews it received from a number of  influential critics came too late for it to have a real run in many cities that might have embraced it, (including mine which is full of art houses and is in the first state to legalize queer marriage). One Cut, One Life the documentary co-directed by and featuring Lucia Small was the best film I saw at the Independent Film Festival of Boston (where I saw Dear White People, Belle,  and Obvious Child) and probably the best documentary I’ve seen this year (a year that included Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me and Anita) but even though it plays at The New York Film Festival Sept. 29 it still doesn’t, as far as I know, have a distribution deal. The only way to fight against this tide is to keep praising good films by women–and not dilute that praise by heaping it onto other films that happen to have women’s names on them.

[youtube_sc url=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpasJxRqCjU”]

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Ren Jender is a queer writer-performer/producer putting a film together. Her writing. besides appearing every week on Bitch Flicks, has also been published in The Toast, RH Reality Check, xoJane and the Feminist Wire. You can follow her on Twitter @renjender.

‘To Be Takei’: Ohhh Myyy

Jennifer M. Kroot’s documentary ‘To Be Takei’ centers around the life, career, and activism of George Takei, the much beloved ‘Star Trek’ original series veteran helmsman Sulu. The real meat of Takei’s story, though, is his youthful imprisonment in a Japanese American internment camp during World War II and his coming out as a gay man, followed by his gay rights activism.

To Be Takei Poster Horizontal

Written by Amanda Rodriguez.


Jennifer M. Kroot‘s documentary To Be Takei centers around the life, career, and activism of George Takei, the much beloved Star Trek original series veteran helmsman (turned Captain) Hiraku Sulu. The film has a lot for Trekkies in it with its cast interviews: Nichelle Nichols (Black communications officer Nyota Uhura), Walter Koenig (Pavel Chekov with his ridiculous Russian accent), and William Shatner (infamous ham Captain James T. Kirk). The real meat of Takei’s story, though, is his youthful imprisonment in a Japanese American internment camp during World War II and his coming out as a gay man, followed by his gay rights activism.

"The Naked Time": Takei's favorite Star Trek episode

“The Naked Time”: Takei’s all-time favorite Star Trek episode

A pioneer for Asian American representation on television, George Takei is best known for his 1966 role as Star Trek‘s Mr. Sulu aboard the USS Enterprise. Though Takei has had a prolific acting career since, he still attends conventions and speaks with fondness about his Star Trek days. Believing in the “multi-ethnic” cast and boundary-pushing themes of the classic sci-fi series, Takei even confesses that he suggested to show creator Gene Roddenberry that the cast be expanded to include a gay officer. Alas, that didn’t happen, but it’s some consolation that many years later, the Star Trek franchise dealt with questions surrounding sexuality and same-sex marriage and equality, most notably in Deep Space Nine with its character Jadzia Dax.

Mr. Sulu at the helm

To Be Takei payed a great deal of attention to the ongoing feud between George Takei and William Shatner, as I’m sure fans have always been curious about it. The film even suggests that Shatner may be homophobic but never outright says it. Despite the discord between captain and helmsman, we see that Takei has formed life-long friendships with fellow cast members Nichelle Nichols and Walter Koenig who even attend and participate in his wedding to long-time love Brad Altman (now Brad Takei).

The Takei wedding ceremony

The Takei wedding ceremony

Throughout his life, George Takei has always been an activist. Now he spends much of his time at speaking engagements where he educates audiences on his experiences as a Japanese American prisoner of the US internment camps, explaining the harsh conditions and the stripping of rights and humanity that went on at the camps. Takei spent four years of his childhood in internment camps. He’s spent many years fighting for recognition and reparation for survivors. He’s even collaborated on a musical Allegiance that he refers to as his “legacy project,” which details the lives of survivors and life-long trauma caused by internment.

A quote from George Takei's father about his family's internment

A quote from George Takei’s father about his family’s internment used in the play Allegiance

Decades after his most popular film and television role as Mr. Sulu ended, George Takei has managed to become a pop culture icon. He’s become a radio and internet sensation, best known for his wildly popular Facebook page, which at present has nearly 7.5 million fans. Takei wields his online fanbase and notoriety, building and communicating with an activist base, to promote with humor the issues about which he cares. Most notably, Takei is ever more present and vocal about the gay rights movement, in particular, same-sex marriage equality. However, Takei uses his infamous humor to humanize LGBTQI people who are bullied, persecuted, and discriminated against. In fact, one of his most hilarious and impactful uses of social media to spark anti-hate activism, was his “It’s OK to be Takei” campaign:

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRkIWB3HIEs”]

Um…So. Much. Awesome.

To Be Takei also reveals some less shining examples of George Takei’s life. Though director Jennifer M. Kroot refers to George and Brad’s marriage as “charmingly functional-dysfunctional,” it’s safe to say Takei’s marriage may not be the healthiest relationship in the Alpha Quadrant. Not only that, but we see Takei’s unforgiving weightism, wherein he tells fellow Star Trek actor Wil Wheaton (Wesley Crusher) that he’s got to lose that weight he put on. Takei then mocks his husband Brad’s weight gain over the years, despite Brad’s insistence that he feels “sensitive about it.”

I, like so many others, am still enamored of this ever-rising ex-Star Trek actor. With his deep voiced oh my‘s and his dedication to humor and social progress, it’s hard not to overlook Takei’s faults. In spite of his very human shortcomings, George Takei is an amazingly energetic human being, using his growing fame to create real change in the world.


Read also at Bitch Flicks:

Trill Gender and Sexuality Metaphors in Star Trek


Bitch Flicks writer and editor Amanda Rodriguez is an environmental activist living in Asheville, North Carolina. She holds a BA from Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio and an MFA in fiction writing from Queens University in Charlotte, NC. Her short story “The Woman Who Fell in Love with a Mermaid” was published in Germ Magazine. She writes all about food and drinking games on her blog Booze and Baking. Fun fact: while living in Kyoto, Japan, her house was attacked by monkeys.


‘The One I Love’ and the World’s Strangest Marriage Retreat

If you’ve seen an ad or trailer for ‘The One I Love,’ you probably still don’t know much about it. After watching a trailer you’d think it’s a movie about a couple going in and out of doors. All of film’s advertising hinted at, but never revealed the Charlie Kaufman-esque twist at the heart of its story, telling intrigued audiences only that an amazing twist existed and that critics agreed that it would spoil the film to reveal it. Which is pretty odd, because the twist in question takes place only 20 minutes in. Right off the bat I should probably tell you I’m going to spoil this movie, mostly because I want to talk about it.

Poster for The One I Love
Poster for The One I Love

 

If you’ve seen an ad or trailer for The One I Love, you probably still don’t know much about it. After watching a trailer you’d think it’s a movie about a couple going in and out of doors. All of film’s advertising hinted at, but never revealed the Charlie Kaufman-esque twist at the heart of its story, telling intrigued audiences only that an amazing twist existed and that critics agreed it would spoil the film to reveal it.

Which is pretty odd, because the twist in question takes place only 20 minutes in. Right off the bat I should probably tell you I’m going to spoil this movie, mostly because I want to talk about it.

The One I Love, Charlie McDowell’s directorial debut, is a very small film on paper. The vast majority of the thing takes between lead actors Elisabeth Moss of Mad Men and Top of the Lake, and Mark Duplass (The League, Safety Not Guaranteed), who play Sophie and Ethan, a couple on the brink of divorce. Sophie is still reeling from the news of Ethan’s infidelity and for his part, Ethan is frustrated by his inability to recreate the romantic gestures that used to come so naturally. As Ted Danson, who steps in for about five minutes to play the couple’s marriage counselor, tells them, they are no longer in harmony. His prescription? A weekend at his idyllic country estate, supposedly to rekindle their romance.

 

Sophie and Ethan are a couple on the brink of divorce
Sophie and Ethan are a couple on the brink of divorce

 

McDowell and writer Justin Lader use this familiar set-up to lull viewers into false sense of comfort. It all seems on track to be another feel-good Hollywood fluff-fest in the tradition of Hope Springs and Couples Retreat.

And it is, but only for a short while. On the first night, Sophie and Ethan make dinner together, get high, have sex in the guesthouse, and rediscover the playful spontaneity of their earlier relationship. They seem to be back in sync, until Sophie returns to the main house and discovers Ethan remembers nothing about their night together. The next morning, Ethan wakes to find Sophie happily preparing his breakfast with no awareness of the previous night’s fight. He knows something truly strange is going on when he realizes the breakfast she’s made includes bacon (“You hate it when I eat bacon,” he accuses).

These strange confusions keep piling up until Sophie and Ethan realize that when one of them enters the guesthouse alone, they encounter a doppelgänger of their partner. It seems like an outrageous and complicated twist, but the gradual revelation, skilled direction and comedic dancing around the conclusion make it appear strangely natural.

Sophie and Ethan’s doppelgängers are not exact copies but idealized version of the couple. They each represent the fantasy each person has of their partner and what they have been missing. Fake Ethan is playful and athletic and wears contacts instead of the glasses Sophie hates. He’s sensitive. He likes to goof around and play little games and enjoys Sophie’s idiosyncrasies. Most importantly, he would never dream of cheating on her and even apologizes for Ethan’s cheating in a way that melts Sophie’s heart.

Fake Sophie is clearly inspired by Ethan’s attraction to 50s housewives. She rises early to cook him a full and very greasy breakfast, as she is clad in satin and lace and chirps at him with perpetual enthusiasm. However, Ethan never displays any sexual interest towards this version of Sophie, preventing her from being a fetishistic sex robot. Instead, it is Sophie who is tempted by Fake Ethan and displays both sexual and romantic attraction toward him. A love triangle quickly develops between Sophie and the two Ethans, with Fake Sophie swept off to the sidelines as a mere distraction.

 

Elisabeth Moss subtly portrays the differences between Real Sophie and Fake Sophie with slight changes in hairstyle and expression
Elisabeth Moss subtly portrays the differences between Real Sophie and Fake Sophie with slight changes in hairstyle and expression

 

Both actors portray two physically identical versions of their characters who seem completely different just based on their voices, facial expression and small differences in hairstyle. Through Moss gives a particularly impressive performance, softening her voice and giving flirtatious looks as Fake Sophie, she isn’t given nearly as much opportunity to shine as Duplass. Moss is able to hint at hidden depths in both her characters, transforming them from mere hero and villain to three dimensional characters.

For his part, Duplass is great, highlighting the difference between schlubby real Ethan and cunning Fake Ethan just by adding or removing his glasses, mussing up his hair and subtly contorting his face. Sophie quickly falls in love with Fake Ethan and it’s easy to see why. He gives her the understanding she craves, allows romantic moments to unfold without contrivance and tells her exactly what she wants to hear about Ethan’s reasons for being unfaithful. It’s clear  that the gulf between the man Sophie wants him to be and the man really he is ever widening. More and more, Fake Ethan seems like the man she should be with. Especially as the real Ethan spies on their time together, after agreeing to give her her privacy and pretending to be Fake Ethan to seduce her, a betrayal which makes Sophie feel violated.

As the conflict worsens, the film focuses on Ethan’s point of view, shifting away from the original marital conflict and into a more standard love triangle plot, only with Ethan competing against himself for his wife’s affection.

 

Ethan grows jealous of Sophie’s attraction to Fake Ethan and spies on them together
Ethan grows jealous of Sophie’s attraction to Fake Ethan and spies on them together

 

As Ethan and Sophie’s relationship weakens, the doppelgängers get stronger and are allowed more free movement, eventually leaving the guesthouse and acquiring cell phones. The whole thing is turned upside down midway through when the real couple are confronted by their doubles and the most awkward double date in history ensues.

Interestingly, the doppelgängers appear to be actual people with their own concerns and lives, which do not revolve around Ethan and Sophie. Like real Ethan, Fake Sophie feels she is losing the love of her life to another and her point of view is given just enough space in the film to be tantalizing.

 

Fake Sophie, reminiscent of a 50s housewife, is an intriguing character and a wasted opportunity
Fake Sophie, reminiscent of a 50s housewife, is an intriguing character and a wasted opportunity

 

This is where I felt the film went off the rails.

I breathed a sign of relief early on when the film appeared to abandon the always unsatisfying path of trying to explain the supernatural element. Unfortunately the last third of the film stumbles around through establishing a mythology. Here, filmmakers appear to have grown bored with exploring Sophie and Ethan’s crippled marriage; instead The One I Love becomes full-on science fiction and a creeping sense of dread falls over the proceedings, though the film never commits to making the situation seem truly dangerous instead of goofy dangerous. An explanation for the magic of the guesthouse is hastily introduced, leaving more questions than it answers, as well as a frustrating amount of plot holes. Based on the care put into making the doubles feel natural, I didn’t feel the film needed any sort of explanation. Indeed, it stripes away the naturalness from Ethan and Sophie’s conversations, forcing them into repetitive arguments.

 

Ethan’s doppelgänger seems like a perfect match for Sophie
Ethan’s doppelgänger seems like a perfect match for Sophie

 

The last few minutes are particularly unsatisfying and confusing, giving us a variation of the cliche “shoot her!” “no, shoot her!” from most doppelgänger stories.

Overall, the film’s eventual shift to toward sci-fi dilutes the message it intends to convey. Rather than ending on the relationship and our concerns of whether harmony has been restored, viewers are left questioning one last sci-fi twist that seems plucked from an entirely different movie. In the end, the film doesn’t deliver on the message its premise implies: that we must come to terms with the flaws in our partners and learn that if they were perfect, they would be a stranger to us. But I’m not sure if the long strange trip of the film wasn’t all the better for subverting this expectation.

After watching the film it’s amusing to see how slyly the film’s promotion alluded to the twist. The film’s poster shows Sophie and Ethan half submerged in water, so their reflection take up half the available space. And official summaries for the film describe the purpose of the retreat as an attempt to “discover their better selves.”

While the ending got quite muddled, the story was full of twists and turns and glided smoothly from plot shift to plot shift. Moss and Duplass deliver captivating performances as both Sophie and Ethan and their mirror images, complementing each other perfectly. It is a joy to watch them deftly portray subtle changes in personality and opinion.

They are aided by a creative script and skilled direction, which dare the viewer to think (perhaps uncomfortably) about their own relationships and the self they present to the world.

Where the film missteps, with its attempt to explain where the doppelgängers come from, could have been avoided with a lesson from Sophie. After discovering their doubles, she suggests it’s just a magic trick–the best experience comes from enjoying the mystery.

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Elizabeth Kiy is a Canadian writer and journalist living in Toronto, Ontario.