America: The Great Hustle (and Jennifer Lawrence)

Added on is the fact that American Hustle is less about the hustle and more about the American dream; each character portrays ambition and insecurities in the quest for more: a better community, more money, security, power, fame, recognition, leading to that great American end, excess.

The Fabulous Five: Bradley Cooper, Amy Adams, Christian Bale, Jennifer Lawrence, Jeremy Renner
The Fabulous Five: Bradley Cooper, Amy Adams, Christian Bale, Jennifer Lawrence, Jeremy Renner

Written by Rachel Redfern

Go and see American Hustle, the latest from director David O. Russell. Go and see it not just for the fantastically eclectic seventies soundtrack, but for the amazing acting by Jennifer Lawrence, Amy Adams, Christian Bale, Bradley Cooper, Jeremy Renner, and for surprise roles from Louis C.K. and Robert De Niro. Go especially for Jennifer Lawrence and Amy Adams in brilliantly funny and evocative character studies.

I didn’t grow up in the 70s, but perhaps that’s why Russell’s larger than life film about the FBI ABSCAM sting is infinitely more interesting and more colorful than your average con film.  Added on is the fact that American Hustle is less about the hustle and more about the American dream; each character portrays ambition and insecurities in the quest for more: a better community, more money, security, power, fame, recognition, leading to that great American end, excess.

In a film where everyone is ridiculous and almost a caricature, there is no true hero or protagonist, and the women of American Hustle are no exception; their big hair and red nails reveal a character just as selfish and flawed as any male counterpart. And the fact that the film exposes the deep insecurities and physical vanities of its male cast is an amazing reversal; in fact, they hold perhaps a larger role than female vanities–the opening sequence of the film featured three minutes of Bale’s morning hair routine, with his combover as the star, ending in one of the most amazing introductions to a character I’ve ever seen.

Jennifer Lawrence and Amy Adams gave brilliant performances; while the film doesn’t pass the Bechdel test, within the context of the plot, the female interactions cover material relevant to the characters, so it makes sense. And in their few interactions, the two women were volatile and terse, and captivatingly emotional.

Two women, amazing and emotional.
Two women, amazing and emotional.

Jennifer Lawrence was especially fantastic, at turns both hilarious and sad, a vain, silly woman on the surface, depressed and angry and confused at the core. It’s especially impressive since Lawrence just emerged from a very different role for The Hunger Games, and here showcases her skills as the best kind of actress and comedienne: sad hiding behind funny. Some are calling Adams and Lawrence’s performances Oscar-winning, and I’m inclined to agree; in fact, the entire cast was fantastic. While I find Christian Bale in some serious need of anger management, the man is a chameleon, becoming startlingly physically different for each role. And I’ve been a fan of Bradley Cooper since his Alias days, but this is his first film role that I found especially powerful, even more so than Silver Linings Playbook.  Obviously Lawrence and Bradley have found a fantastic director in David O. Russell, and hopefully this collaborative pairing will continue.

In American Hustle, Cooper, more than anyone, embodies the prime theme of the film, the need for more, and in that endeavor, becomes erratic, sexy, lustful, arrogant, angry.

Adams and Cooper’s interactions are built on a sickening chemistry that becomes more and more messed up as the film progresses; in the spirit of not spoiling the film, I’ll stop there,; but in one scene, Cooper loses control in front of Adams, and becomes terrifying and dangerous in just a few moments, with Adams attempting to calm him and keep herself safe.

While the film is a little heavy handed in its use of the “something rotten is necessary to make something even more beautiful” metaphor, the focus on re-invention, survival, power, ambition, vanity and mostly, wanting a better life, are what take this con movie to the next level: an expose of the black comedy that is the American life.

Go see the film, and listen for the amazing soundtrack and its fabulous augmentation of the characters and watch for all that was bad and good of 70s fashion.

[youtube_sc url=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhqP09uPR8c”]

Maternal Grief in ‘The Truth About Emanuel’

I have a thing for creepy/taboo relationships in fiction. All I had to hear was “baby obsession” and I was sold on The Truth About Emanuel. I’m also familiar with Kaya Scodelario from her Skins years and I was curious to find out if she had range beyond troubled teen queen. On that front I was a bit underwhelmed. Thankfully, the true focus of the story extended far beyond her.

The Truth About Emanuel poster.
The Truth About Emanuel poster.

Written by Erin Tatum.

I have a thing for creepy/taboo relationships in fiction. All I had to hear was “baby obsession” and I was sold on The Truth About Emanuel. I’m also familiar with Kaya Scodelario from her Skins years and I was curious to find out if she had range beyond troubled teen queen. On that front I was a bit underwhelmed. Thankfully, the true focus of the story extended far beyond her.

emreflects
Emanuel reflects on her tragic origins.

Scodelario plays 17-year-old Emmanuel, a jaded teen disillusioned by the death of her mother during her birth, resulting in perennial survivor’s guilt that always seems to crop up around her birthday. Guess what time of year it is! In her opening internal monologue, she describes how the doctor brought her back to life with “the same rhythmic motions he had used to jerk himself off that morning.” This is a nit picky thing, but I’m so sick of sexual omniscience and perversity being a marker of worldliness or psychopathic tendencies in teens. Psychology and sexuality do tend to go hand in hand (no pun intended), but did we really need such an irrelevant detail? Also, since when can you evoke suspected obscure third-party masturbation as a metaphor for your own sadness? She literally says “he came and I came… back to life.” That just sounds unsanitary. Was he masturbating and performing CPR on an infant at the same time?

Anyway, Emmanuel’s life is turned upside down by the arrival of her new neighbor Linda (Jessica Biel) and her baby daughter Chloe. Before that, we get a nice preview of the forthcoming dysfunction as Emanuel bizarrely accuses her stepmother Janice (Frances O’Connor) of thinking she’s a lesbian and passively aggressively insinuates that she has had sexual dreams about Janice. As someone who relishes queer undertones, even I have to say I was baffled by the repeated references to Emanuel’s supposed sexual ambiguity. Same-sex desire seems to exist to fan the flames of anxiety around the unfulfilled Oedipal complex. More on that later.

Linda is affectionate towards Emanuel.
Linda is affectionate towards Emanuel.

Linda is simultaneously evasive about Chloe, trusting Emanuel to be in the house alone with her despite never introducing the two. Linda and Emanuel bond one-on-one and it’s intentionally left unclear whether Emanuel is substituting her as a mother figure or developing romantic interest. The plot synopsis also piles on by pointing out the physical similarities between Linda and Emanuel’s late mother. Yes, because if I were mourning my dead mother and feeling responsible for her death, obviously the only logical way to cope with things would be to lust after her doppleganger. I’m fascinated by the thematic exploration of incest as arguably one of the deepest social taboos, but I’m really not feeling this compulsive equation of parental grief in itself to depraved Freudian sexual confusion.

Flakes on a Train – Emanuel and Claude.
Flakes on a Train – Emanuel and Claude.

To take some of the heat off the lesbian pseudo-incest, Emanuel has a boyfriend Claude (Aneurin Barnard) that she meets commuting on the train. It’s kind of a random place to have a romance and it screams try hard indie. The love interest aspect of this film in terms of Claude feels disjointed and doesn’t really add anything to the narrative, except to shore up Emanuel’s otherwise shaky heterosexuality. Clyde and Linda both spend a lot of time babbling reverent nonsense at Emanuel about her introverted mysteriousness to insist that the audience should continue to find her intriguing with very little character development. 21-year-old Scodelario has been stirring the rapidly cooling embers of stock manic pixie dream girl tropes (with the particularly offputting caveat of emotional unavailability) since she was 14, so the aloof informed attractiveness shtick is boring on a film-specific level and in the scope of her entire opus.

Linda cuddles her baby.
Linda cuddles her baby.

Something isn’t right about the baby from day one. Linda is initially reluctant to allow Emanuel to see Chloe and Emanuel frequently hallucinates ocean sounds or even rising water when near the nursery. We later learn this is an allusion to the peaceful swimming dream her mother had before starting fatal labor. It’s like a psychosis roulette! Emanuel soon discovers that “Chloe” is actually a lifelike doll, strangely contradicting a photograph she found earlier of Linda and her estranged husband holding a real baby. This is where a lot of critics checked out. The doll revelation is made 30 minutes in and the pacing of the remaining hour is admittedly clunky. If you can’t get past the LOL reflex of “I can’t believe they’re treating the doll like a real person,” this probably isn’t the film for you because everything after that becomes unbearably campy. And frankly, I think the impulse to treat things deemed inauthentic as laughable or not human exemplifies the callous ideology that the film is warning against. When viewed as a commentary on loss and mental illness, the story becomes poignant and heartbreaking.

Emanuel becomes increasingly occupied with caring for Chloe.
Emanuel becomes increasingly preoccupied with tending to Chloe.

Emanuel reacts to the doll with horror and disgust. Curiously, she stops short of questioning Linda, although she is mortified by and actively tries to thwart Linda’s attempts to introduce Chloe to the neighbors. Emanuel shrouds herself in secrecy as she and Linda develop a routine, caring for Chloe as if she were a normal infant. Her willingness to indulge Linda’s fantasy, perhaps a signal of her own dwindling sanity, increases as her infatuation with Linda intensifies. The parallel grieving metaphor here isn’t subtle. Emanuel always wondered what life would be like if her mom lived instead of her and she finds an unsettling possibility in Linda, surprisingly augmenting her guilt. By the same token, Linda states several times that she wants Chloe to grow up to be like Emanuel and sees Emanuel and Chloe as sisters, indicating that she perceives Emanuel as her child in a roundabout way. Emanuel appears to start independently believing in the realness of Chloe as she becomes more determined for her and Linda to rebuild their fractured families together, a shift cemented by her choosing to feed Chloe an actual bottle of milk when they are home alone.

Still, the lesbian element always remains forced back onto the periphery, for reasons I don’t understand. Emanuel’s stepmom even privately warns Linda that Emanuel might make a move because she didn’t have a mom and is therefore confused. Way to play on every gay stereotype ever. She awkwardly tries to confirm that Linda is straight and Linda hesitates for a second before we cut to the next scene. We get all of these cat-and-mouse subtextual moments throughout, but the weirdest thing is that none of it goes anywhere. Emanuel and Linda never act on their sexual tension, but it’s never denied or put to rest either. I question why that dynamic was included in the first place. Queer desire is demonized as facilitating incest and nothing more, which is extremely and almost needlessly unfortunate given the lack of narrative relevance.

Oh, and Janice (the stepmom) confides to Linda that she’s infertile and that’s part of the reason for her uneasiness with Emanuel. No one in this movie can have a positive relationship to childbirth.

Linda becomes distraught upon realizing that the doll isn't the real Chloe.
Linda becomes distraught upon realizing that the doll isn’t actually Chloe.

Things take an abrupt nosedive when Linda agrees to go on a date with Emanuel’s coworker, Arthur. Afterwards, she ignores Emanuel’s protests and excitedly suggests Arthur take a peek at the sleeping baby. He quickly points out that it’s a doll, shattering Linda’s carefully constructed bubble. She recognizes the baby as fake for the first time and immediately flies into a panic, demanding that Emanuel tell her Chloe’s true location and accusing her of stealing Chloe. I find it hard to believe that someone as delusional as Linda would snap back to reality the second someone brought up the tiniest shred of rational doubt, but Biel’s acting is phenomenal in this scene. Most intriguingly of all, Emanuel protectively cradles Chloe as both Arthur and Linda berate the doll as a lie, suggesting that she’s just as far gone if not more so than Linda.

Chloe comes to life at last.
Chloe comes to life at last.

Arthur drags Linda away and Emanuel curls up on the floor with the doll, suddenly finding herself swimming underwater. Emanuel’s mom appears in the distance and Chloe comes to life. The two of them swim away together, leaving Emanuel alone. After Emmanuel passes out and wakes up in the hospital, Linda’s husband explains that the doll was the culmination of Linda’s mental breakdown following the death of their infant daughter. Motherhood is just so healthy. Linda is sent to a mental institution.

Linda and Emanuel lay together calmly in the graveyard.
Linda and Emanuel lay together calmly in the graveyard.

Undeterred, Emanuel enlists the help of her boyfriend to break Linda out. She tells Linda that Chloe isn’t okay, but she shouldn’t worry because Chloe is with her mom now. Together, they bury the doll on top of Emanuel’s mom’s grave and gaze at the stars together, their broken pasts now finally at peace.

‘Philomena’: A Feminist Gender and Religion Critique

Philomena is based on the true story of Philomena Lee, an Irish woman who got pregnant as a teenager and was relegated to a convent where she was forced to perform grueling manual labor before her young son was sold to an adoptive US family. Fifty years later, Philomena works with a washed-up ex-journalist to find her son while he uncovers the dark truth behind her son’s adoption and the church’s betrayal. Overall, I’d say this is a feminist film that tries to expose oppressive gender roles that linger on today and allows its heroine, played by the exquisite Dame Judi Dench, to be her own person: a woman who makes her own decisions and mistakes while remaining irrepressibly full of humor and love.

Philomena Poster Alt

I wouldn’t exactly characterize Stephen Frears much-praised film Philomena as a comedy. I’d describe it as more of a dramatized exposé of the corruption of the Irish Catholic church with moments of levity that give a desolate story warmth and humanity. Philomena is based on the true story of Philomena Lee, an Irish woman who got pregnant as a teenager and was relegated to a convent where she was forced to perform grueling manual labor before her young son was sold to an adoptive US family. Fifty years later, Philomena works with a washed-up ex-journalist to find her son while he uncovers the dark truth behind her son’s adoption and the church’s betrayal. Overall, I’d say this is a feminist film that tries to expose oppressive gender roles that linger on today and allows its heroine, played by the exquisite Dame Judi Dench, to be her own person: a woman who makes her own decisions and mistakes while remaining irrepressibly full of humor and love.

[youtube_sc url=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DBPqcp6Hc4″]

Philomena is in the business of critiquing institutions; specifically: religion, gender, class, and media. The interactions between ex-journalist Martin and Philomena highlight class disparity. Sometimes the exposure is subtle. Martin flies to the convent while Philomena drives with her daughter. Philomena is giddy at the prospect of free champagne on the flight to America as well as the complimentary grand breakfast buffet and the posh hotel room. She doesn’t “get” Martin’s sense of humor or cultural references, and she reads romance formula fiction, never guessing at the “formula” obvious in all her books. These moments are designed to make the audience chuckle at the sweetness of Philomena’s naivete while underscoring her lack of privilege, education, and wealth.

Philomena feels "like the Pope" for being allowed to ride on the airport transport service.
Philomena feels like royalty for riding on the airport transport service.

Other times, the class disparity is stark and painful. Philomena realizes she could never have given her son the opportunities and lifestyle he enjoyed as a result of his adoption. Martin is, on occasion, cruel to her because the things that excite her are old hat for him; he’s jaded and has come to expect a life of comfort and privilege. He also mocks Philomena for her faith, insinuating that her class status is why she believes in a higher power (because he is too learned and intellectual to believe in anything). The movie shows that though Martin is more worldly, wealthier, and better educated than Philomena, he doesn’t enjoy life the way that she does. She refuses to be bitter or angry like he is. He begins to understand and accept the fact that Philomena needs him, with his connections and his status as an upper-crusty white man, to find out the truth about her son.

Martin rebuffs Philomena for her excitement about the hotel's omelet station
Martin rebuffs Philomena & her excitement about an omelet station

Philomena‘s religion and gender critique go hand-in-hand. Religion judges and punishes young women (some as young as 14) for giving in to “carnal” desires that they haven’t been educated about to even understand the potential consequences. The film also highlights forced labor along with constant recriminations to show how religious forces incite fear, shame, and blame that Philomena and countless others carry for over 50 years. Philomena experiences a particular guilt because she enjoyed the sexual encounter that led to her pregnancy. The church teaches that female bodies and female pleasure are sinful, and many of the nuns are revealed to be bitter and vengeful, a perfect example of patriarchy-complicit female figures of authority. There is no discussion of the culpability of the male cohorts whose sperm was a necessary part of the baby-making equation. Sound familiar? The religious right continues this mentality with its abstinence-only education while heaping stigma galore onto young women who become trapped in pregnancy, insisting that the female body is a breeding ground for impurity and that all the fault lies within the woman, who is, in many cases, forced to suffer all the consequences.

Young, inexperienced Philomena at the fair.
Young, inexperienced Philomena at the fair.

The kicker is that “female sin” is big business for the church in Philomena. The convent forces young women to “pay off” their debt/sin by working ungodly hours (pun intended) in the convent, and then they illegally sell the babies to the US for a great deal of money. The church destroys evidence and refuses to help families reunite even after 50 years of separation. The film claims that this was in part due to a continued resentment and desire to punish the sins of the young mothers, but it’s perhaps more true that the church is covering its tracks. Here, the church, a religious institution, takes advantage of the weak, the helpless, the poor, and the disenfranchised. Here, the church, targets women in particular using the notion of female sin to solidify their dogma and to reinforce their power (financial in this case). The exploitation of women by religious institutions is not new and continues today, as female reproductive rights are leveraged to cause divisiveness and to reinforce the power of political groups, religious groups, and the patriarchy.

The real-life Anthony with  a nun before he was sold.
The real-life Anthony with a nun before he was sold.

Despite it all, Philomena remains a good-hearted person. She stands up to Martin when necessary, insisting that this is her story. She asserts that she’ll be the one who makes the decisions and that her reaction is her own, not his or a media that seeks only to capitalize on her tale of woe and exploit her for its own gain. She continues to love and accept her son regardless of the many things she learns about him that an old-fashioned religious person like herself could have found alienating. In the end, she forgives the convent, proving that she is the bigger person and more Christian than the nuns and religious institution that tormented her. While the circumstances of the film are tragic and devastating, Philomena’s doggedness, her bravery, and her journey have exposed wide-spread corruption and opened the door for other mothers to reunite with their long-lost children. Though she’s an ordinary woman without means, a fancy education, or influence, she stood up to a powerful institution steeped in centuries of history, and she said, “No more.” Philomena’s quest shows us that the personal is political and that one woman can make a difference in the the world.

Judi Dench sits with the real Philomena Lee.
Judi Dench sits with the real Philomena Lee.

——————
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. 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.

15 Men On A Mountain…and Evangeline Lilly in ‘The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug’

The addition of Evangeline Lilly (Lost) as Tauriel caused some concern among real LOTR fans, mostly because that character never existed in The Hobbit and no one wants to see a beloved a story messed with; but to be fair, if it wasn’t tinkered with and explored, then why go and see the film? You might as well just stay home and read the book then if you’re not interested on gaining a new perspective on the story.

Movie poster for 'The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug"
Movie poster for The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

Written by Rachel Redfern

Spoiler Alert

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug premiered on Friday, just in case you didn’t know. And while the film has pulled in $73.7 million and topped the box office this weekend, there have been some mixed reviews–it’s too long, too boring, too overdone, too much action, or it’s fun, it’s brilliant, it’s beautiful. The divisiveness is understandable. Tolkien is a necessary staple to any library and Jackson’s Lord of The Rings, really is a visually-stunning, incredibly acted epic series; in my re-watching of the films last week, I was struck with just how impressive the films still were, perhaps even more so now.

It makes sense that any spinoff of such a beloved and hefty series, could either be a magical dream true (hello, Stephen Colbert), or too much of a good thing.

And here, in this installment especially, there was bound to be naysayers. The addition of Evangeline Lilly (Lost) as Tauriel caused some concern among real LOTR fans, mostly because that character never existed in The Hobbit and no one wants to see a beloved a story messed with; but to be fair, if it wasn’t tinkered with and explored, then why go and see the film? You might as well just stay home and read the book then if you’re not interested on gaining a new perspective on the story. But as was the case with Game of Thrones (at least according to me, don’t get too angry), I thought that the TV show was better with some of the changes and additions to the story, especially in the fleshing out of Margery Tyrell and Shae, both of whom are far more fascinating and interesting in the show than they are in the book. Why couldn’t the same be true in The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug?

Amazingly hot, always awesome, Elves
Amazingly hot, always awesome, Elves

Tauriel is a playful Captain of the Guard whose fighting skills rival that of the great CGI scenes for Legolas; except seriously though, Lilly actually used to teach archery at summer camp. Besides that, Lilly has a beautiful poise that really is perfect for a Tolkien Elf, and while I don’t speak it so I can’t be sure, her Elvish sounded fantastic. As Lilly is a staunch fan of Tolkien she was worried about adding in a new character, but in one of my favorite quotes from 2013, stated that, “I keep repeatedly telling people that in this day and age, to put nine hours of cinema entertainment in theaters for young girls to go and watch, and not have one female character for them to watch is subliminally telling them, ‘you don’t count.’ You’re not important, and you’re not pivotal to story.”

Which is exactly the attitude that is essential for progress to be made in the representations of women on film and television, and it’s amazing that Lilly was so invested in a larger goal that she was willing to tamper with one of her favorite stories. And she took even one step further; according to Lilly, she originally agreed to the part under one condition: “One condition, and they agreed to the condition, and that condition was in place for two years. The condition was I will not be involved in a love triangle. Right? Because any of you who are fans of Lost, I’ve had it up to here with love triangles.”

But then, that changed, and while Lilly, Jackson, and Phillipa Boyens (writer) all agreed that the love triangle just sort of arose naturally during filming, it was still a bit disappointing (despite Kili [Aiden Turner] being a remarkable rare mix of adorable sexiness). Twilight, Vampire Diaries, Hunger Games–all uber-famous features that are centered around a love triangle, and mostly, it’s just sort of getting old: there are others ways of portraying love than two fantastically handsome men drooling over an unreachable average woman.

An assortment of testosterone.
An assortment of testosterone.

I agree with Jackson and Lilly in their decisions to bring in a female character and wish more could have been incorporated, because at it’s core, The Hobbit is just a hairy version of Band of Brothers with a lot of mountains. And in reality, after watching The Desolation of Smaug, I tried to dream up a female version of this film, and I wondered, what would it look like? How would those interactions have changed? And it was really difficult to imagine anyone producing a film about 15 very short women of vary levels of attractiveness, traveling through a forest to kill a dragon with their queen and bossy/optimistic sorceress in tow.

Generally in film, large group female interactions, with or without world-saving levels of adventure, tend to be characterized by passive-aggressive bitchiness. And I’m at a loss for any TV show, miniseries, or film, that has ever been about an all-female group trying to save the world, much less three four-hour films about said adventure.

In all seriousness, would you go to see that movie?

 

See also at Bitch Flicks: “How Love Triangles Perpetuate Misogyny,” by Erin Tatum; “‘The Hobbit’: A Totally Expected Bro-Fest,” by Erin Fenner; “‘The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey’: The Addition of Feminine Presence During a Quest for the Ages,” by Elise Schwartz; “Gendered Values and Women in Middle Earth,” by Barrett Vann

 

See ‘Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom’ for Naomie Harris’s Winnie Mandela

Where Long Walk to Freedom is able to offer something new and compelling is in its depiction of Winnie Mandela, played by Naomie Harris in a stunning, ferocious performance. Winnie’s story isn’t as well-known, and she’s not as saintly a figure, so the film is able to actually take a point of view in its portrayal of her.

Idris Elba and Naomie Harris as Nelson and Winnie Mandela
Idris Elba and Naomie Harris as Nelson and Winnie Mandela

Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom is such an old-fashioned, pro-forma biopic that it’s almost hard to believe it was made in 2013. We begin with a quick, symbolically loaded note from Madiba’s youth as he completes his Xhosa coming-of-age ritual, swiftly move to his entrance into anti-Apartheid activism, neatly transition into the second act with his arrest and 27 years as a political prisoner, and end with his release from prison and subsequent election as President.

I may have a slightly skewed perspective because I have lived in South Africa for the past year and a half, but I think most of the audience for this film comes in with this basic knowledge. Nelson Mandela’s life story is already a profoundly moving inspiration to people worldwide, without a dramatized cinematic portrayal. So seeing it played out note-by-note like this doesn’t have much value. It’s emotionally moving, but intellectually hollow. I’d much rather have seen a film like Spielberg’s Lincoln, focused on Mandela’s vital role in the reorganization South Africa as a free country.

Poster for Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom with tagline "The Leader You Knew, The Woman You Didn't"
Poster for Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom with tagline “The Leader You Knew, The Woman You Didn’t”

Where Long Walk to Freedom is able to offer something new and compelling is in its depiction of Winnie Mandela, played by Naomie Harris in a stunning, ferocious performance. Winnie’s story isn’t as well-known, and she’s not as saintly a figure, so the film is able to actually take a point of view in its portrayal of her. The film could have demonized Winnie for her radicalism to further beatify Mandela for his post-imprisonment commitment to peace. Instead, it presents her politics as an understandable reaction to the brutal oppression of Apartheid; and moreover, her particular persecution by the government, including her own imprisonment and a year and a half in solitary confinement. But Long Walk to Freedom does not gloss over Winnie’s endorsement of violence, including “necklacing,” brutal murders of suspected informants by setting tires around their necks on fire.

Naomi Harris as Winnie Mandela shortly after she is released from prison
Naomi Harris as Winnie Mandela shortly after she is released from prison

Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom’s nuanced depiction of Winnie Mandela owes a lot to Naomie Harris’s incredible performance. She should be a front-runner in this year’s Oscar race, although I am not sure if she’ll be put forward for the Best Actress or Best Supporting Actress category (the choice will probably depend on the rest of the field; although her role is certainly as substantive as what last year’s Best Actress Jennifer Lawrence had in Silver Linings Playbook).

Harris also benefits from playing a woman whose face isn’t as iconic as Nelson Mandela’s, even though she doesn’t much look like Winnie Mandela. One of the film’s significant problems is how Idris Elba can never quite disappear into his role because he looks nothing like Mandela, particularly in his later years, where Elba is saddled with extremely awkward age makeup.

Naomie Harris is barely aged when playing Winnie Mandela in the 1990s, but Idris Elba is buried under makeup.
Naomie Harris is barely aged when playing Winnie Mandela in the 1990s, but Idris Elba is buried under makeup.

Strangely, Harris is barely aged through the course of the film, despite her role spanning 40-odd years of history. While this decision smacks of sexism, suggesting the filmmakers’ unwillingness to depict an older woman on screen, Harris’s performance ultimately benefits from the absence of distractingly bad age makeup.

So while Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom is far from a perfect movie, Naomie Harris’s near-perfect performance saves it from total mediocrity. The power of her acting and the complex depiction of Winnie Mandela are almost entirely what makes the film worth seeing, unless you know nothing of Nelson Mandela’s story.

‘The Punk Singer’ and a Room of Her–and Our–Own

…the beauty of riot grrrl lies in the fact that we do get to remake our girlhoods, inserting anger and rioting where before there was quiet sadness and loneliness. It’s easy to flip back and forth between Bikini Kill and The Julie Ruin (and everything in between) and be catapulted back to a moment or into a moment. This idea that we can rewrite our histories and revise our futures by pressing “play” is woven throughout The Punk Singer. Creating ourselves in our rooms, and then stepping outside of our rooms and talking to one another and listening to one another is essential.

Written by Leigh Kolb

The Punk Singer, the Sini Anderson-directed Kathleen Hanna documentary released Nov. 30, is ostensibly about Hanna–the iconic feminist and  punk artist, and iconic feminist punk artist. It is also, however, about the power of women collaborating. From Kathy Acker’s advice to Tobi Vail and Kathi Wilcox’s encouragement to Johanna Fateman’s zines and friendship, Hanna’s career trajectory from feminist punk singer to feminist pop singer to her current project, The Julie Ruin (a perfect combination of feminist punk and pop), has been shaped by female creative power and collaboration.

Hanna stresses the importance of not only girls’ individual power and creativity, but also the need for us to talk–and sing–to one another and to truly listen and believe. This is something that feminism consistently struggles with.

A sexist USA Today article by a female reporter about Bikini Kill and riot grrrl from the early 1990s was featured as a turning point in Hannah’s career. Hanna and her bandmates began a press blackout after the USA Today article and other mainstream press outlets framed the band and the movement around the performers’ bodies and clothes and focused in on their sexuality/sexual pasts.

How disappointing, then, that an NPR article about the new documentary and her project’s new album (The Julie Ruin’s Run Fast), leads with her “bra and panties” past, sexual abuse, and her looks (“She’s striking, with her jet-black hair, oval Modigliani face, pale Liz Taylor eyes…”). Even a Bitch Media reviewer says, while analyzing how riot grrrl was exclusive to white women, that Hanna’s beauty is “the elephant in the room” in the film (“She is one drop-dead-gorgeous-looking woman, both as a teenager and now as an adult. I would argue that it was her physical attractiveness helped her music get mainstream attention”).

Most interviews and reviews have steered clear of focusing on Hanna’s physicality and sexuality, thankfully, but it’s still disheartening and distracting to see any publication bringing up her looks as a source of commentary (and both are by female journalists). Indeed, the media blackout that Bikini Kill led in the 1990s isn’t needed now–Hanna brings up the changed media landscape in multiple interviews–and Hanna has been granting a great number of interviews in recent months as a lead-up to The Punk Singer and Run Fast.

[youtube_sc url=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwrXC5OXqgc”]

We are lucky to be hearing Hanna’s voice as much as we are. She was diagnosed with late-stage Lyme disease in 2010 after suffering without a diagnosis for six years. The Punk Singer spends a great deal of time chronicling her illness–how it ended her musical career after Le Tigre (she says that she made the excuse that she was done with her music because she had nothing left to say instead of facing that she might not be able to do what she loved so much anymore).

Director Sini Anderson and Kathleen Hanna

The Punk Singer is a powerful showcase of the last three decades of not only Hanna’s life, but also the relationships and collaborations that shaped a  generation of third-wave feminists and beyond. Footage from live performances and interviews, and personal films/photos  are interwoven with interviews from Hanna’s contemporaries, bandmates, and journalists to tell a story about a feminist icon and a movement that would shape the future of music and feminism. Lynn Breedlove, Ann Powers, Corin Tucker, Kim Gordon, Joan Jett, and Adam Horovitz (her husband), among others, add powerful reflections to the history of the riot grrrl movement and Hanna’s professional and personal life.

Hanna speaking about her illness and the desire it gave her to make more music.

The term riot grrrl itself had its origins in collaboration–Jen Smith (of Bratmobile and The Quails) talked about the need for a girl riot, and Bikini Kill’s Tobi Vail wrote about angry grrrls. The two terms combined to name a movement of in-your-face feminist punk music that fought against patriarchy and sexual assault with the motto “girls to the front” defining the ideology and the concert space–which was/is often a masculine, hostile space for women.

Breedlove–who provided some of the most poignant sound bites in the film–says that riot grrrl was about “girls going back to their girlhood… reclaiming their girlhood,” and pledging to “relive” their girlhood with power. Perhaps that’s one of the reasons that so many of us can plug in a Bikini Kill album at 20, 30, 40 and beyond, and feel catapulted back into a poster-filled bedroom, imagining ourselves as girls with power and strength, and revising our histories inside and outside of our girlhood rooms.

The goal of riot grrrl, Hanna and others in the DC-based movement said, was that women anywhere could take it and “run with it”–making it mean what it needed to mean for them. This one-flexible-size-fits-all goal of feminist activism is often difficult to actually manage, but for a moment in the 90s, there was a worthy effort. The repeated importance of fanzines highlights the importance of both collaboration and women’s authentic voices (even ones with “Valley Girl” accents).

The effort of the waves of feminism are highlighted in the documentary in a brief foray into history. While short and somewhat superficial (which is appropriate for the scope of the film), it was interesting and important that the coverage of first- and second-wave feminism noted that women “turned race consciousness on themselves” during the abolitionist movement of the first wave and the civil rights movement of the second wave. Savvy viewers will take that and understand what that means to the historical context of Western feminism (a meaning that is complex and problematic).

Collaboration hasn’t been a strong point for feminists throughout history. The air of critique surrounding Hanna’s beauty and privilege combined with the relative whiteness of riot grrrl both serve to create divisions and otherness within our own ranks. The job of this documentary isn’t to serve as an investigative piece into the beautiful whiteness of feminism–it’s to tell the story of one woman and her personal, professional, and political past and present.

When Bikini Kill broke up in 1997, Hanna recorded the album Julie Ruin under an assumed name (to “escape” what had happened to her in prior years–the bad, sexist press, the threats, the physical attacks).

Hanna says that in Bikini Kill, she was singing to the “elusive asshole” male. With Julie Ruin, she wanted to “start singing directly to other women.” She recorded the entire album in her bedroom, which she points out was purposeful and meaningful. She says that girls’ bedrooms are spaces of “creativity” and great power–but these rooms are set apart from one another; girls have this creativity and personhood in separated, “cut out” spaces. She wanted her album to feel like it was from a girl in her bedroom to girls in their bedrooms, and she succeeded.

She went on to form bands and perform with Le Tigre and The Julie Ruin, constantly revising and evolving the concept of feminist art and performance.

Kathleen Hanna

Throughout the documentary, Virginia Woolf’s words kept ringing in my ears–that women need “a room of one’s own” to create and be independent. For too long, women who have had the undeniable privilege of having rooms of their own have been doing so behind closed doors, apart from one another, as Hanna talks about in regard to Julie Ruin and how girls have these safe, powerful spaces that are set apart from one another.

And as Breedlove points out, the beauty of riot grrrl lies in the fact that we do get to remake our girlhoods, inserting anger and rioting where before there was quiet sadness and loneliness. It’s easy to flip back and forth between Bikini Kill and The Julie Ruin (and everything in between) and be catapulted back to a moment or into a moment. This idea that we can rewrite our histories and revise our futures by pressing “play” is woven throughout The Punk Singer. Creating ourselves in our rooms, and then stepping outside of our rooms and talking to one another and listening to one another is essential.

Continuous moving–rioting, dancing, singing, shouting, collaborating–is how we will survive and thrive, just as Hanna has. Her contributions to feminism and feminist culture (and great music) are undeniable, and The Punk Singer does a beautiful job of inviting us into her room, and making it our own.

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The Punk Singer is available on Video on Demand and in select theaters.

Recommended Links: Interview with Kathleen Hanna on the Strength It Takes to Get On Stage, by Sarah Mirk at Bitch MediaForget ’empowered’ pop stars–we need more riot grrrls, by Daisy Buchanan at The GuardianPunk Icon Kathleen Hanna Brings Riot Grrl Back To The Spotlight, by Katherine Brooks at The Huffington Post13 Reasons Every Feminist Needs To Watch “The Punk Singer,” by Ariane Lange at Buzzfeed; Film Review: ‘The Punk Singer,’ by Dennis Harvey at VarietyQ. & A. Kathleen Hanna on Love, Illness and the Life-Affirming Joy of Punk Rock, by Matt Diehl at The New York TimesKathleen Hanna and ‘The Punk Singer’ Director On New Doc, Riot Grrl and Why People Hate on Feminism, by Bryce J. Renniger at Indiewire; Riot Grrrl in the Media Timeline at Feminist Memory; Kathleen Hanna Reading “The Riot Grrrl Manifesto” at Henry Review; Don’t Need You – The Herstory of Riot Grrrl


Leigh Kolb is a composition, literature and journalism instructor at a community college in rural Missouri. 

‘Frozen’: Disney’s First Foray into Feminism

I was surprised by Disney’s latest animated film “Frozen”. I was sure it was going to feed us Disney’s standard company line about princesses and marriage and girls needing to be rescued all the time. I was wrong. Though the film still showcases impossibly thin, rich, white girls who are princesses, this isn’t a story about romantic love or some dude rescuing a damsel in distress. “Frozen” is a story about sisterhood and the power that exists inside young women.

Act of Love Poster Frozen

Spoiler Alert

Frankly, I was surprised by Disney’s latest animated film Frozen. Even though it featured the voice of my beloved heroine Veronica Mars (or as she’s known in real life: Kristen Bell), I was pretty sure Frozen was going to feed us Disney’s standard company line about princesses and marriage and girls needing to be rescued all the time. I was wrong. Though the film still showcases impossibly thin, rich, white girls who are princesses, this isn’t a story about romantic love or some dude rescuing a damsel in distress. Not only does Frozen effortlessly pass the Bechdel Test within five minutes, it’s a story that’s centered around sisterhood and the power that exists inside young women.

The most important relationship in Frozen, the one that drives all the action, all the pathos, is that of Anna and her sister Elsa. The two of them love each other very deeply, but they struggle to connect. Snow Queen Elsa strives to protect her little sister from harm first by hiding her own amazing abilities to create/manipulate snow and ice and then by refusing to allow Anna to marry a man she’s only just met. Elsa has donned the mantle of big sister with a great deal of seriousness, including all the responsibility that comes with it. When Elsa’s powers are outed at court, Anna’s unflagging love and determination prompts her to go after her fleeing sister who holes up in a pristine snow castle. We learn that Elsa was right to protect her sister from a hasty marriage, which is a huge change from Disney’s traditional espousing of the myth of love-at-first-sight, but we also learn that Anna’s love and acceptance is the only thing that can save her reclusive sister.

Sisters Elsa and Anna join hands.
Sisters Elsa and Anna join hands.

In Frozen, female agency and power are paramount. Elsa has cosmically awesome winter powers (she should seriously consider a trip to Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters). Anna, our heroine, is normal, which is a refreshing change of pace from most fantasy stories where the lead is imbued with a striking talent or birthright. Though Anna has no unique skills or magical powers, it is her compassion that makes her extraordinary. Anna’s personality makes her special because she never gives up, never questions her own capability, and never thinks she can’t do something. With her courage and conviction, Anna is the driving force behind all the film’s action. The male characters are mostly along for the ride, lending support or acting as obstacles to the true goal of the film: the reconnection of two estranged sisters.

Let’s talk a little bit about Elsa’s winter superpowers. From adolescence, Elsa and her parents fear her growing powers. Elsa seeks to control, minimize, and hide her powers. With the “swirling storm inside”, Elsa loses her grip on her carefully guarded secret and outs herself at her coronation party. After fleeing the scene, she sings, “Conceal. Don’t feel. Don’t let them know,” before declaring she’s going to, “Let it go.” (Full song below.)

[youtube_sc url=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DQYdcUB0eg”]

Elsa’s abilities that are connected to her emotions and mature with age are obviously a metaphor for her powerful sexuality, and I’d even go so far as to argue that Elsa and her family struggle with her queer sexuality, her parents even fearing that she would infect her younger sister. Yes, I think there is general discomfort around female sexuality in all its forms. However, Anna is blossoming sexually, and there is not the same stigma or fear surrounding it because her conventional hetero sexuality gravitates towards marriage to a prince. There is no male love interest for Elsa (despite Anna having two suitors). Elsa’s queer sexuality is so foreign that her subjects are horrified, and she must isolate herself, becoming a literal ice queen. While Elsa feels free to be honest with herself and to feel her feelings within her isolated castle, she does not believe acceptance is possible nor that she can be a part of normal society.

Elsa tries to scare Anna away and even accidentally hurts her in the process.
Elsa tries to scare Anna away and even accidentally hurts her in the process.

When Elsa accidentally strikes Anna with a shard of her ice powers, Anna’s heart becomes frozen, and only “an act of true love” can thaw it and save her from death. Everyone in the film assumes true love’s kiss will cure her, but, frankly, I had my fingers crossed (literally) that Elsa would have to kiss her sister to save her (platonically, of course). We were all wrong. It turned out that Anna had to perform the act of true love, keeping her firmly in the self-actualized role of heroine, making her own choices, taking action, and creating her own destiny. That’s an even better plot twist than I could have imagined! Anna’s act of self-sacrifice shows Elsa that acceptance is possible, that Anna knew about her dark secret and loved her anyway. They’re not saved by a man or romantic love. This is an act of true love between sisters, and that act saves them both. One word: beautiful.

Beautiful sisterhood.
Beautiful sisterhood.

Disney was clearly doing their feminist homework when they came up with Frozen. They created a story about young women that didn’t revolve around men, where family and sisterhood trump everything else, where two sisters save each other. They even have Kristoff ask Anna for consent before he kisses her, and the movie doesn’t end with a wedding. Disney still has to work on its depiction of impossible female bodies that are usually white. They need to start telling stories about regular girls and not just richie-rich princesses. They need to be more open and honest about their queer characters instead of hiding them under metaphor, but all in all, Frozen is a huge leap forward for Disney. I’m glad I went to see it. I’m glad I took my six-year-old niece to see it with me, and though their white skin and privileged lifestyle doesn’t match hers, I think Frozen imparted an important lesson about sisterhood, love, and acceptance that is invaluable to young girls everywhere.
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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. 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.

‘Catching Fire’: Protect and Be Protected

It’s protecting these people that stops Katniss from running into the woods and away from her Important Role and Grave Duties. Using family in danger as motivator for heroes is a well-worn trope. Male heroes often “nobly” walk away form their love (see Peter Parker and his love interests in both 21st century film adaptations of Spider-Man) or lose them and are then motivated by their death (see Peter Parker and oh, every other hero ever).

In an inverse of the source material, Catching Fire is a much stronger movie than The Hunger Games. It looks better, the acting is stronger, and the trickiest story elementsincluding the Katniss-Peeta-Gale love triangle—are handled more gracefully. If you liked the books or the first film, go see Catching Fire immediately. Then come back and read this review, because I’m about to go on a spoiler spree.

Katniss and her sister Prim in Catching Fire
Katniss and her sister Prim in Catching Fire

Katniss: We know she’s an Action Hero because her family is in danger.

Katniss got into this situation through desire to protect her family: in the first book/film she volunteers to go to the Hunger Games in her sister Prim’s place. But as a survivor of the 74th Hunger Games and potential symbol of a revolution, every move Katniss makes is monitored by the Capitol. And she’s stubborn enough that she would rather defy their control and be killed. Until she’s reminded they can also hurt her family: her mother, her sister, her best friend/would-be lover Gale, and even her “management team” for her role as tribute/victor.

It’s protecting these people that stops Katniss from running into the woods and away from her Important Role and Grave Duties. Using family in danger as motivator for heroes is a well-worn trope. Male heroes often “nobly” walk away form their love (see Peter Parker and his love interests in both 21st century film adaptations of Spider-Man) or lose them and are then motivated by their death (see Peter Parker and oh, every other hero ever).

Too often female action heroes are a) not motivated at all, because they’re just “Fighting fuck toys” b) motivated only by their own survival, becoming heroes only by failing to become victims. So trite as it may be, seeing Katniss as the cliched tortured protector of her loved ones was satisfying for me.

BUT EVERYONE ELSE MUST PROTECT KATNISS!

Katniss, Peeta, and Haymitch walking between Capitol Peacekeepers
Katniss, Peeta, and Haymitch walking between Capitol Peacekeepers

While Katniss is busy trying to keep her loved ones alive, everyone else (with the exception of President Snow and the other sinister Capitol forces who want her dead) is focused on keeping her alive. Peeta volunteers for the Quarter Quell games to keep Katniss alive, even though that means his certain death. Haymitch and Effie both conspire behind the scenes to help Peeta keep Katniss alive, even though Haymitch promises to focus his efforts on saving Peeta. And then they’re all the people who don’t even know Katniss who are fixated on her survival because of her value to the rebellion in Panem: she’s their Mockingjay, a symbol of hope that the Captiol is not all-powerful. After the climax we learn that half the tributes (including the brash Johanna Mason and the sex symbol Finnick O’Dair) allied with Katniss and Peeta with the express goal of getting her out of the arena alive. Even the Head Gamemaker is a secret agent for the rebellion, which only makes sense if you want it to.

Everyone wants Katniss alive and she almost ends up dead around 30 times this movie. Even though she’s a badass who can shoot anything at any speed from any angle (and apparently generate arrows in her quiver through sheer willpower). I realize the Hunger Games arena—and the dystopia of Panem more generally—are horrifying deathscapes that kill plenty of badasses, but it’s frustrating that Katniss’s proven survival abilities are more or less dismissed by her many protectors. Meanwhile Peeta, who’s showcase survival skill is CAKE DECORATING, is pretty much left on his own and at one point better trusted to protect vital engineer Beetee (although that might be a ruse to actually protect Katniss? I’m confused on that point but either way, sheesh).

While Katniss is loveable and Important for the World, it does get a little tiresome having every person around her either trying to kill her or trying to save her. It takes away from the individual agency that makes the character so satisfying and iconic for us in the first place.

But this isn’t enough to take Catching Fire down. Katniss is still a great character and Jennifer Lawrence is even better than usual (which is saying something) in this role. The story is still fascinating and this installment of the film series is absolutely captivating. It would be wonderful if the next film continues this trend of improvement, and the bizarre network of protect-and-be-protected relationships in Panem is handled more delicately (and knowing where the story goes, I’m hopeful).

Does ‘Gravity’ Live Up to the Hype?

Gravity survives on the merit of its spectacle. It’s beautiful, terrifying, and gripping. The characters, while feeling real, are underdeveloped. The story itself is one big metaphor for Stone’s journey into isolation and despair after suffering personal tragedy. It is an epic allegory about the journey toward life, toward connection with the earth. I couldn’t tell you what kind of card player Stone is, though, or what made her want to become a doctor. Her life is a blank because she’s not an individual; she’s an archetype.

"Gravity" Movie Poster
Gravity Movie Poster

Written by Amanda Rodriguez
Spoiler Alert

Alfonso Curon’s Gravity is primarily an experience. It’s an edge-of-your-seat survival tale set in the vastness, the darkness, the solitude of space. I was eager to review this film because I love sci-fi, and I love women in sci-fi flicks. I can take or leave Sandra Bullock (mostly leave her), but her performance in Gravity‘s opening sequence sold me:

It’s silent in space. Astronauts are working on the exterior of a space satellite. George Clooney as astronaut Matt Kowalski  is floating about making pleasant conversation. We can hear the labored breathing of Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock). Her heart rate is elevated, and she’s not taking in the majesty of space because she’s too focused on her work, too focused on keeping herself under control. Dr. Stone is not an astronaut. She’s a civilian medical engineer who’s designed some special program that NASA wants to use. Trained solely for this mission, she’s fighting not to have a panic attack while perched outside the world, and then she is violently wrenched from that perch, from that narrow margin of the illusion of safety into…chaos.

Sandra Bullock as Dr. Ryan Stone desperately holds on as a debris storm destroys everything around her.
Sandra Bullock as Dr. Ryan Stone desperately holds on as a debris storm wreaks havoc.

No other film has communicated to me the desolation of space the way that Gravity does. Dr. Stone’s vulnerability and lack of awe translate into a visceral feeling within this audience member of the true terror and anxiety of being in space, the smallness of the human animal, and the rawness of her grip on survival.

Gravity‘s cinematography is stunningly beautiful. The film is shot with such a unique style, and its zero gravity environments faced so many challenges that the movie’s innovations are being lauded as “chang[ing] the vocabulary of filmmaking.” They used puppeteers for Christ’s sake! How cool is that? Some shots did seem indulgent, perhaps trying too hard to convey Cuaron’s metaphor. The best example being when Stone makes it into a damaged space station that still has air. She disrobes in slo-mo from her suit, and the exactness of her body’s poses are anime-esque in their echoing of the fetus in the womb and birth metaphors.

Though in booty shorts, Stone is never stripped to her bra & panties.
Though in booty shorts, Stone is never stripped to only her bra & panties.

I liked Ryan Stone’s vulnerability and her constant battle with blind panic (that she sometimes loses). It made her and her experience more accessible. It’s iffy whether or not Gravity, though, manages to be a feminist film. Gravity certainly doesn’t pass the Bechdel test, but to be fair, there are very few characters at all in the movie. The only personal detail we’re given about Stone is that she was once a mother who lost her daughter to a tragic accident. This irks me because it casts Stone as the grieving mother archetype. Boooorrriiiinggg. It too simply explains her unhappy adventure beyond the ends of the earth. It forgives her for being a woman who would give up familial ties to go into space because she, in fact, has already lost those ties. Because her loss consumes her, Stone’s despair and lack of connection, in fact, justify her trip.

Clooney's Kowalski calmly tows an oxygen deprived Stone to safety.
Clooney’s Kowalski calmly tows an oxygen deprived Stone to safety.

Veteran astronaut Kowalski is a bit too perfect, too in-control, and too optimistic. When we contrast his cool command with Stone’s panic attacks, freezing up, and bouts of giving up from which he must coax her, Kowalski seems like more of the hero. That leaves Stone to be the basketcase woman whom it is Kowalski’s chivalrous duty to rescue. Stone finally encounters a situation that seems unbeatable, and she resigns herself to death. She hallucinates Kowalski comes to rescue her and gives her the information lurking in the back of her memory that she needs to save herself. He is her savior even within her mind. Not only that, but as she rouses herself from her hallucination, she says something like, “Kowalski, you clever bastard.” This leaves open the interpretation to spiritual types that she may not have, in fact, hallucinated; instead she may have had a supernatural experience in which her friend’s ghost did save her life from beyond the grave deus ex machina style. Frankly, that is just poop. Either way, Clooney as the noble, infinitely calm and self-sacrificing astronaut dude is just spreading it on a bit too thick for my taste.

Kowalski helps a flustered Stone speed up her slow work.
Kowalski helps a flustered Stone speed up her slow work.

Gravity survives on the merit of its spectacle. It is beautiful, terrifying, and gripping. The characters, while feeling real, are underdeveloped. The story itself is one big metaphor for Stone’s journey into isolation and despair after suffering personal tragedy. It is an epic allegory about the journey toward life, toward connection with the earth, which is a poignant, compelling story, but I couldn’t tell you what kind of card player Stone is or what made her want to become a doctor. Her life is a blank because she’s not an individual; she’s an archetype. If Gravity could have accomplished its visual feats, told its epic story about survival and rediscovering the self all the while giving us rich characters, I would have loved this movie. Instead, I merely like it for its grandness of vision and its ideas; I like it in spite of its tepid storyline and lukewarm characterizations.

 

 

 

‘Runner Runner’ Runs on Empty

In terms of plot and character, Runner Runner leaves a lot to be desired. Justin Timberlake plays Richie Furst (Rich First, come on), an online gambler who has to risk it all to earn enough tuition to complete his master’s degree at Princeton. After realizing the scam behind a suspicious loss, he finds himself sucked into the seedy poker underbelly of Costa Rica and under the thumb of his ruthless American boss, Ivan Block (Ben Affleck). They get territorial over shared one-dimensional love interest Rebecca (Gemma Arterton) to add some manliness. An FBI agent (Anthony Mackle) tries to blackmail Richie with exile in order to take out Block. Eighty percent of the movie is Justin Timberlake looking confused or angry while other people monologue at him. We are supposed to really care about whether or not Richie makes it out of there before the house of cards comes crashing down, despite the fact that he has little to no character depth. Block really likes alligators. Conclusion: Internet poker is even more of a snooze fest than I originally thought.

Runner Runner promotional poster.
Runner Runner promotional poster.

 

Written by Erin Tatum.

In terms of plot and character, Runner Runner leaves a lot to be desired. Justin Timberlake plays Richie Furst (Rich First, come on), an online gambler who has to risk it all to earn enough tuition to complete his master’s degree at Princeton. After realizing the scam behind a suspicious loss, he finds himself sucked into the seedy poker underbelly of Costa Rica and under the thumb of his ruthless American boss, Ivan Block (Ben Affleck). They get territorial over shared one-dimensional love interest Rebecca (Gemma Arterton) to add some manliness. An FBI agent (Anthony Mackle) tries to blackmail Richie with exile in order to take out Block. Eighty percent of the movie is Justin Timberlake looking confused or angry while other people monologue at him. We are supposed to really care about whether or not Richie makes it out of there before the house of cards comes crashing down, despite the fact that he has little to no character depth. Block really likes alligators. Conclusion: Internet poker is even more of a snooze-fest than I originally thought.

Richie tries to play it cool.
Richie tries to play it cool.

 

Given the recent media frenzy around the series finale of Breaking Bad, I started to really think about about America’s obsession with (white) white collar crime. It’s no secret that many of our movies and television shows revolve around white guys pulling off meticulous financial schemes or smoothly sauntering their way through government corruption and drug rings. Part of the intended fascination with Runner Runner is the idea that Richie would have to resort to such desperate measures even as a Princeton man. Audiences (particularly white middle-class audiences) are captivated by the idea that all the privilege and power of whiteness and white masculinity sometimes isn’t enough to give you everything you want out of life or, shockingly, control fate. “Turning to the dark side” definitely has a racialized element. Since crime is almost always explicitly coded as nonwhite, especially in media, writers will often go to great lengths to differentiate their protagonist from your run-of-the-mill criminal. As a result, white characters are usually only involved in crimes that are highly cerebral and require an incredible amount of power networking and/or a ridiculously esoteric skill set. Weirdly, Richie represents the epitome of this mindset in his lazy execution. Who needs solid plot or a relatable cast when you get to watch an upper-middle-class white boy throwing his money and future around? Instant scandal!

Block propositions Richie.
Block propositions Richie.

 

The film takes this philosophy and runs with it (har har) in almost laughably stereotypical ways. Upon discovering that he lost all his money in a fixed online poker game, Richie immediately drops everything and flies straight to Costa Rica to confront Block. Block easily seduces him into staying by offering him a hefty salary. If only it were literal seduction, this film would have been a little more interesting. Within three months, Richie is living a comfortable life as Block’s right-hand man. Never mind that he went there not speaking a word of the language and specifically to get the money to pay for his degree. I guess we’re just supposed to assume that his exams and diploma are frozen indefinitely until he decides to return to New Jersey. Welcome to white boy land, where reality can be shaped to cater to your every whim! People of color, both male and female, are used to personify Costa Rica as the nexus of sex and sin. Every other shot shows Richie navigating through substance fueled parties, conversing with greasy, potbellied honchos as they halfheartedly grope gaggles of prostitutes teetering around with champagne. Notably, Richie resists all offers of indulgence with the exception of Rebecca (conveniently a white upper-class woman), designating himself as “pure” and leaving everyone else to be consumed by their own vices. The hypocrisy inherent in such a sentiment is best exemplified when Richie’s father, a doomed gambling addict, nobly offers to sacrifice himself to the bookies so that Richie no longer has baggage preventing his escape. In contrast, the vast majority of people of color who have their lives ruined by similar schemes are portrayed as getting their just desserts.

Rebecca spends a lot of time looking glamorous and contemplative.
Rebecca spends a lot of time looking glamorous and contemplative.

 

Women are also given the short end of the stick, to the point where there is almost nothing to analyze to begin with. Rebecca is the most watered down high-stakes damsel in distress that I’ve seen in recent memory. She may as well be a figment of Richie’s imagination because she only seems to float in and out when he needs advice or encouragement. They have sex once after a flurry of coy banter and beyond that share a few private conversations about the impending implosion of the scam while looking seductive. There is no basis for any alleged emotional connection between them at all. We’re told that Rebecca can’t leave Block and we are meant to feel sympathetic towards her plight, but the narrative never bothers to give her any background, motive, or ambition. Her sole purpose is to reinforce the hero/villain dichotomy between Richie and Block by exaggerating feminine vulnerability. It makes it hard to cheer when Richie and Rebecca finally escape Block’s clutches and fly off on a private jet into the sunset. This couple is about as compelling as a pair of used napkins.

If the film had actually taken the time to examine the inner workings of online gambling, it may have been suspenseful or at the very least informative. Instead, we are forced to contend with lukewarm machismo and endless male posturing from start to finish. Director Brad Furman really should’ve known when to fold.

 

‘Don Jon’: Manhood in the Digital Age

Barbara retains her mystique as long as she continues to refuse to sleep with Jon, meaning that he actually has to put effort into courting her. Upon discovering her fascination with romantic comedies, Jon playfully gripes in the voiceover about how she’s delusional and those things never happen in real life. From that point onward, like any good self-deprecating genre film, the same swelling music plays any time Jon and Barbara share a romantic moment. Additionally, the same thumping club music pops up whenever Jon sizes up a new conquest. Jon and Barbara both use media as a crutch to validate fantasies about relationships, yet are comically incapable of recognizing their shared escapism because they insist that the other’s pastime is a bastardization of social dynamics, which neither of them actually understand. Oh, you two!

Don Jon promotional poster.
 
Written by Erin Tatum.
I’m a big Joseph Gordon-Levitt fan, so needless to say I’ve been eagerly awaiting the arrival of Don Jon, which he wrote, directed, and starred in. From its premise, Don Jon sounds like an edgy deconstruction of the typical Hollywood love story: Jon (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), a porn addict, falls for Barbara (Scarlett Johansson), who is obsessed with romantic comedies. Naturally, both of them claim that the other’s fixation is unhealthy and fake. I was curious to see which genre would ultimately end up condemned, since these types of romances usually only work if one person “reforms” the other. The result is unexpected, but the film manages to pole vault over the stereotypical trappings of both the narrative and the genre.
Jon attends church with Barbara and his family.
First and foremost, Jon is a Jersey boy to the core. His family is strictly Italian Catholic and almost never shown outside of church or having family dinner over pasta in the living room. In particular, the presence of the church is ubiquitous throughout the film. Jon diligently attends confession every week, despite having no intention or desire to change his porn habits. His punishment is always the same – reciting 20 prayers. Later on, he even expresses disappointment that the consequence remains unchanged even after he truthfully admits that he hasn’t masturbated all week. The faceless, monotone priest allegedly giving him moral guidance on the other side of the sliding grate is a clear commentary on the apathy of religious institutions in terms of the lack of investment in the individual. For all his swagger, Jon is a man who craves structure and validation. His disillusionment with the church is the catalyst to his realization that maybe he isn’t the only one who sees what they want to see.
Jon wastes no time with seducing Barbara.
Jon’s porn addiction represents a merger between the instant gratification of the digital age with masculine entitlement, spawning his sexual existentialist crisis. He confesses to the audience he can’t understand why he doesn’t find real sex as satisfying as porn, even though he regularly gets laid. While he rationalizes this compulsion as a commonplace marker of manliness, his inability to get total pleasure from anything other than Internet clips also creates a distinct anxiety around his masculinity. As a result, Jon and his friends are predictably and almost methodically misogynistic as they routinely comb the clubs for the next conquest, rating women on a scale of one to the mythical perfect 10, which they call a “dime.” Barbara enters and captures Jon’s attention. She acts coquettish but resists Jon’s attempts to close the deal, leaving him intrigued. Of course, not immediately sleeping with someone signals a female character’s potential for exceptionalism to both the protagonist and the viewer, especially in a film where sex objects and exploitation are (excuse the pun) a dime a dozen. While the objectification of women rages unchecked, homophobia remains surprisingly absent or unmentioned, relegated to an offhand comment by Jon about how it’s annoying to accidentally climax right when the camera pans to the man.
Jon enjoys some “personal time.”
As a brief side note, while the film is primarily a critique on society’s relationship to women, sex, and pornography, I do admire Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s consistent examination of male objectification in film. I fell in love with his dorky charm in (500) Days of Summer (more on that phenomenon in a minute) and his understated suaveness in Inception. For someone who is so damn attractive, the man sure has a knack for making moments of supposed erotic titillation consciously unsexy. He turns the cinematic gaze back on itself. While we get plenty of cleavage, short dresses, and backside shots from the women, the voyeurism of Jon only goes as far as repeatedly watching him masturbate. It’s true that you could chalk this up to typical Hollywood gender conventions, but it’s worth noting that Joseph Gordon-Levitt implicates the viewer in Jon’s passive absorption of porn. There’s something more than a little intrusive about being forced to watch his blank faced expression until he ejaculates without emotion. It has none of the intimacy or romance of idealized sex in Hollywood. Perhaps Joseph Gordon-Levitt is suggesting that the general moviegoing experience is somewhat masturbatory in that many of us watch movies to escape reality and disconnect our brains, just as Jon uses porn to fuel unrealistic expectations of women and avoid emotional vulnerability.
Cue cheesy music.
Barbara retains her mystique as long as she continues to refuse to sleep with Jon, meaning that he actually has to put effort into courting her. Upon discovering her fascination with romantic comedies, Jon playfully gripes in the voiceover about how she’s delusional and those things never happen in real life. From that point onward, like any good self-deprecating genre film, the same swelling music plays any time Jon and Barbara share a romantic moment. Additionally, the same thumping club music pops up whenever Jon sizes up a new conquest. Jon and Barbara both use media as a crutch to validate fantasies about relationships, yet are comically incapable of recognizing their shared escapism because they insist that the other’s pastime is a bastardization of social dynamics, which neither of them actually understand. Oh, you two!
Never has a college discussion been this raunchy.
Their relationship progresses quickly, with Jon even introducing Barbara to his family. A great Don Jon drinking game would be to take a shot every time Joseph Gordon-Levitt or especially Scarlett Johansson call each other “baby”. Mother of God, these two drop the B-word more than a Justin Bieber music video. For a while, the plot veers toward your typical “good woman reforms troubled man” fanfare as she compels him to alter his way of life through subtle encouragements. Some of them seem a bit controlling, like her insistence that Jon can’t clean his own apartment anymore and must hire a maid. Others point towards Barbara acting as cheerleading girlfriend wanting her boyfriend to better himself. She convinces Jon to take a night class to further his education during a steamy dry humping session in the hallway outside her apartment, working him up until he agrees and then rewarding him by deliberately causing him to jizz his pants. Barbara exposes the hypocrisy in Jon’s perception of the Madonna/whore dichotomy. She might withhold sex, but that doesn’t mean that she’s above using seduction to manipulate people into getting what she wants. I just like the idea that rushing into sex isn’t classy, but intentionally making your boyfriend ejaculate in public is totally okay with them. What is this, a middle school dance?
Esther introduces herself to Jon.
Jon tries to hide his porn from Barbara even after they start sleeping together, knowing that she disapproves. She ultimately catches him in the act and dumps him. At the night class, Jon meets Esther (Julianne Moore), who mocks him for struggling to watch porn in secret on his phone. She gives him a classic German stag film in an attempt to broaden his horizons and increase his taste level. Given Esther’s aging flower child demeanor, I thought that she was just going to act as Jon’s porn Yoda until she rehabilitated him enough to send him running back to Barbara. Jon and Esther begin an unusual courtship that contains all of the physical spark and emotional intimacy that he was trying to convince himself he had with Barbara. Esther reminds him that sex is a two-way street and reveals that her husband and son recently died in a car accident. This confession leads into the most poignant sex scene of the film, signifying Jon finally “losing” himself and appreciating his partner. I can honestly say that I never thought I would see Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Julianne Moore in bed together, but they have excellent chemistry. It’s weird that Esther is the “true” love interest when the trailers largely never mentioned Moore.
Esther bonds with Jon.
What’s really peculiar is the flat resolution of Barbara’s character. Don Jon almost feels like two different films sutured together because of the complete mood shift between leading ladies. Rather than Esther serving as an introspective fling or love triangle fodder, she helps Jon realize that he wants nothing to do with Barbara. The exes have a brief conversation for closure at a café, during which Barbara appears vapid and callous. Jon scolds her for expecting her partner to sacrifice everything and do whatever she wants, a criticism she brushes off with pouting indifference before vanishing for good. It is disappointing that Barbara’s infatuation with romantic comedies was only used to create a zany opposites attract vibe with Jon’s porn addiction. I was anticipating a story about a couple working through their misunderstood idiosyncrasies together. We don’t really see Barbara’s perspective at all and in fact she is vilified as the delusional, overly controlling girlfriend while Jon is vindicated and gets the girl, albeit a different one than he expected.
Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the ending because I genuinely didn’t see it coming (no pun intended). Pigeonholing Barbara felt a little lazy and unnecessarily misogynistic, but Jon’s romance with Esther is refreshing and endearing. The parallels in Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s creative career choices are an interesting commentary on the spectrum of cultural misinterpretations of relationships. Just as Tom believes he’s fallen in love with Summer in (500) Days of Summer, Jon believes he’s fallen in love with Barbara. Viewers sympathize endlessly with Tom as the lovelorn nice guy and it would be easy to write Jon off as a sleazy womanizer. However, the two characters might have more in common than we’d like to admit. The flaw in the logic of both men is that they’re allowing women to stand in for projections of a given ideal (Summer for love and Barbara for sex) instead of actually falling in love with the women themselves. We shouldn’t go into relationships expecting other people to function as mere extensions of ourselves and our desires. If boy meets girl, it doesn’t necessarily mandate that they stay together, even on the silver screen. Sometimes, as Jon and Barbara suggest, they’re better off growing apart.

The Most Important Film of 2013: ‘After Tiller’

Though our adversaries might be impermeable to facts and logic, this thing isn’t unwinnable. We just have to use the right strategies to get through to people. If After Tiller can’t change the minds of anti-choice die-hards (and maybe it can! I haven’t asked any!), then it might at least be a mobilization tool for our side to recruit activists from among the undecided.

Written by Max Thornton.
 
One of the first classes of my master’s degree was called “Religion and Politics in the US,” and one of the assigned texts was Ziad W. Munson’s The Making of Pro-Life Activists: How Social Movement Mobilization Works. Rather to my surprise, I learned that anti-choice activism does not on the whole result from strong anti-choice convictions: in fact, movement involvement often precedes the formation of convictions. People come into contact with the movement at times of major life transition – through new friends at college, say – and begin their activism for primarily social reasons. Beliefs come later. This is not only a good poststructuralist account of subjectivity (holla at Foucault and my homegirl Judith Butler), but it’s also a useful lesson to those of us on the other side. Though our adversaries might be impermeable to facts and logic, this thing isn’t unwinnable. We just have to use the right strategies to get through to people. If After Tiller can’t change the minds of anti-choice die-hards (and maybe it can! I haven’t asked any!), then it might at least be a mobilization tool for our side to recruit activists from among the undecided.
 
I’m not kidding. I genuinely think After Tiller is the most important film that will be released this year.
Reproductive Justice League!
Directors Martha Shane and Lana Wilson portray the daily lives of four late-term abortion providers, LeRoy Carhart, Warren Hern, Susan Robinson, and Shelley Sella. They chose these doctors because they are the only providers of third-trimester abortions left in the United States. All four were friends and colleagues of Dr. Tiller, and all four clearly derive at least some of their professional motivation from the desire to pay appropriate tribute to the memory of his sacrifice. This is not a film about the anti-choice movement. As the directors state in their press notes:

We decided to represent the anti-abortion movement as it is experienced by the doctors themselves – as a constant presence in the background, whether standing outside their clinics in protest, or lurking in the air as a potential threat – but not as the main story.

This is a film about the individual human beings, the everyday heroes, who provide this essential service, and the daily workings of their clinics. It is their story, a project in which they chose to participate in order to be humanized in the eyes of those who would vilify them as “baby-killers.” I hope some anti-choice hardliners will see the film, because they surely couldn’t ignore the truth about these four doctors:
  • How good they are, providing a desperately needed service, and treating their patients with oceans of compassion.
  • How human they are, getting up daily and keeping at their work despite the dangers and psychological toll of the constant threat from anti-choice terrorists, and relying on the love and support of their families to keep them going.
  • How moral they are, clearly thinking about the issue deeply every day of their lives, and fully aware of the moral burden of being the last resort for pregnant people who don’t want to be pregnant. Even an unyielding anti-choicer would have to admit that these doctors are far from cheery baby-murderers. They all have backgrounds in midwifery or obstetrics. They like babies! They want babies to live and be loved and have wonderful lives! That’s why they provide this service, to spare the babies who wouldn’t live and be loved and have wonderful lives.
  • How feminist they are, living out their commitment to women’s rights, and trusting pregnant people’s personal moral reasoning. One doctor speaks very movingly of her absolute refusal to morally infantilize pregnant people, of her unwavering faith that anyone seeking a third-trimester abortion will have been through all the ethical legwork necessary to make such a heart-aching decision.
And make no mistake, this film is also the story of the patients. It’s gut-wrenching to hear the testimony of the parents-to-be whose desperately wanted baby is so ridden with fetal abnormalities as to be unviable; of the rape survivor who spent the early months of the pregnancy in traumatized denial; of the sixteen-year-old Catholic who doesn’t think she will ever forgive herself, but feels abortion is the least worst option for her at this time. All the patients have given this decision immense amounts of thought, and they all urgently need this service.
 
Worryingly, it’s not clear how much longer late-term abortions will be available in the US (and the filmmakers do not omit the fact that medical costs alone are far beyond the means of most people, let alone the price of traveling to either Albuquerque, Boulder, or Germantown, MD). None of these doctors are getting any younger, and there isn’t exactly a clamor to replace them. This is by far the most troubling aspect of the film. All of the doctors speak of formative experiences seeing the terrible impacts of criminalized abortion on both women (who suffer tremendously from DIY abortion attempts) and children (who, unwanted, are sometimes horrendously neglected and abused). Those of us who have only lived in a post-Roe world have not seen this firsthand; we don’t know that world and we don’t have that drive.
 
This film is a remarkable spur to much-needed action. I feel compelled to speak out to from my own context of mainline Christianity, which is too often evasively silent on the topic of reproductive justice. George Tiller, murdered on a Sunday as he served at his beloved Lutheran church, did not worship the forced-birther God of the anti-choicers, and neither do I.
Go Team Leftist Christians for reproductive justice!
 
Max Thornton blogs at Gay Christian Geek, tumbles as trans substantial, and is slowly learning to twitter at @RainicornMax. In case you couldn’t tell, he’s strongly pro-choice.