In Theaters Now – Page 5

‘Mistress America’: Passing The Bechdel Test All The Way Through

I didn’t expect Gerwig and Baumbach together to create in the second film (‘Frances Ha’ was the first) the two offscreen romantic partners have written in which Gerwig plays the lead and Baumbach directs, a movie that (in spite of its terrible title) is one of the delights of this summer: ‘Mistress America’.

I haven’t seen a movie directed by Noah Baumbach since The Squid and the Whale, a film that made me hate every critic who praised it and made me mistrust any person who said, “I liked it.” For the past decade he has been one of the filmmakers whose career infuriates me; his output makes me think of all the more deserving work (much of it from women) which hasn’t been funded

I first took notice of Greta Gerwig when she was in the execrable Whit Stillman film Damsels in Distress. Although I walked out at the halfway point of a preview screening (past a standing figure in the dark by the doorway whom I now recognize was Stillman himself). I could see Gerwig’s talent underneath the ridiculously mannered dialogue and stilted action. I didn’t expect Gerwig and Baumbach together to create in the second film (Frances Ha was the first) the two offscreen romantic partners have written in which Gerwig plays the lead and Baumbach directs, a movie that (in spite of its terrible title) is one of the delights of this summer: Mistress America.

The protagonist, Tracy (played by Lola Kirke: sister of Girls’ Jemima Kirke: I wondered why she looked so familiar) is in her first semester at Barnard in New York City and is having trouble finding the fun and stimulation college life–and New York–is supposed to be brimming with. Her dorm-mate alternates between chastising her and making fun of her (much more realistic than Boyhood‘s dorm-mate, embarrassed but politely deferential when she walked into her own room and found her roommate’s brother in bed with his girlfriend) and Tracy falls asleep in one of her literature classes–which leads to her making her first college friend, Tony (Matthew Shear) who surreptitiously wakes her. The two of them share writing ambitions and commiserate over screwdrivers in his room when they both have stories rejected by the campus literary magazine. But when he gets a girlfriend, Nicolette (Jasmine Cephas Jones) Tracy finds herself alone again, and her mother suggests she call Brooke (Gerwig) the 30-year-old daughter of the man the mother is engaged to marry.

MistressParty — The two have a night that is full of everything Tracy feels she’s been missing

Brooke meets Tracy in the chaotic, tourist-ridden Times Square where Brooke has an apartment. She explains,”I got off the bus from Jersey. I thought this was the cool place to live.” The two have a night that is full of everything Tracy feels she’s been missing: they first have a good, cheap, dinner, get backstage passes for a band who invite Brooke to join them onstage (she makes out with the bass player at the afterparty while Tracy looks on). Brooke and Tracy dance and talk, not about boyfriends (except very briefly) but about their own ambitions: Brooke cobbles together a living with interior decorating, a little tutoring and as the teacher of a spin class, but she also has concrete plans to open a restaurant. After that first night (when Tracy crashes on the couch in Brooke’s apartment) they spend time together throughout the semester, which helps Tracy come out of her shell.
Brooke doesn’t just have cool friends and know the right places to go (not to mention the savvy to find a place in the middle of Times Square where she can live by herself for not much money) but is also hilariously, gloriously opinionated. When she’s caught on camera kissing the band’s bass player she says, “Must we document ourselves all the time? Must we?”

When an old high school classmate confronts Brooke in a bar about her treatment of her when they were younger, Brooke is dismissive, saying that she doesn’t care what the woman thinks of her–and the woman shouldn’t care either. In the middle of a confrontation between Tony, a jealous Nicolette and Tracy, Brooke says, “There’s no cheating when you’re 18, you should all be touching each other all the time.”

MistressAl0ne — The real revelation here is Lola Kirke, who, as Tracy, starts off unsure of herself but accrues confidence at a record pace.

Tracy writes the title short story, revolving around a very lightly fictionalized Brooke, “Claudia” which contains some truths that Tracy would never say to her face, an interesting development considering Baumbach wrote The Squid and The Whale about his own parents–and his portrait of them was not a flattering one. But Tracy’s story seems far too knowing and polished for an 18-year-old college student to have written: Gerwig and Baumbach missed an opportunity to parody a faux-sophisticated writing style as we hear Tracy read parts of the story as the film’s voiceover. Tracy also becomes less hesitant to express her opinions off the page: before she met Brooke , when Tony asked for “notes” on his story she had none, though he had plenty of suggestions for hers. Afterward she tells him he should stop trying for humor in his writing, because he doesn’t have a sense of humor in real life. At a later point he says to her, “You used to be so nice,” reminding us that, especially in describing young women “nice” is another way of saying “unformed”, “overly polite” or “afraid to say what she’s really thinking.”

I kept waiting for this film to go terribly wrong. The movies in which a younger man gloms onto an older one as an inspiration or role model usually show the older man has some great flaw, and free-living, fun women like Brooke in films (not just narrative ones) are usually punished, so I wondered if she would turn out to be a compulsive liar (since a lot of what she claims seems to be far-fetched) a drug addict or would have an untreated bipolar disorder and we would see her depressive side of in the latter half of the film. But Brooke’s downfall (which is more like a reckoning) doesn’t lie within herself but within the changes New York and other large cities have undergone in the past two or three decades. At one time someone like Brooke could make her way with nothing but ideas and ambition, but now young creative types and the places they like to hang out are at the mercy of the very rich, the only people who can afford to live in great swaths of those cities. The real-life restaurant where Brooke and Tracy have their first dinner closed one of their locations, unable to make a profit in today’s high-rent Manhattan.

Gerwig has, with Baumbach, written a role that she was born to play: her slightly spacy delivery serves as a disguise for Brooke’s razor-sharp observations. When a wealthy patron tells her that she’s funny and doesn’t know it, she corrects him, “”I know I’m funny. I know everything about myself.” But the real revelation here is Lola Kirke, who, as Tracy, starts off unsure of herself but accrues confidence at a record pace. In some ways, Tracy, with her brown shoulder-length hair in bulky, unflattering, outdated sweaters (which may be Baumbach reaching back to his own college years, the way the soundtrack includes familiar ’80s synth pop) is much more ordinary and natural than the young women we’re used to seeing in film but when she smiles and her eyes gleam at her newfound naughtiness, she burns a hole in the screen.

By the end both women have come into their own in a way films rarely acknowledge women do: the closest example I can think of is An Education but the focus in that film was on only one character. I would have liked to see this film explore the characters’ sexuality a little more: Tracy says (in the voiceover) that she’s “so in love” with “Claudia” and their chemistry together does seem to teeter to the non-platonic, though they never even kiss. Still I can’t complain when not just one but both of the main women characters end up single—and happy in their independence. When you leave the theater you’ll be smiling too.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6z8MCW16uZY” iv_load_policy=”3″]

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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

Meryl Streep Has a Blast in ‘Ricki and the Flash’ and You Will Too

Meryl Streep is having the time of her life in ‘Ricki and the Flash’ — playing rock star, acting alongside her daughter Mamie Gummer, macking on Rick Springfield, and wearing leather pants. Her joy is infectious, and lends an overall lighthearted tone to what could be a very sad movie about estranged families.

Written by Robin Hitchcock.

Meryl Streep is having the time of her life in Ricki and the Flash — playing rock star, acting alongside her daughter Mamie Gummer, macking on Rick Springfield, and wearing leather pants. Her joy is infectious, and lends an overall lighthearted tone to what could be a very sad movie about estranged families.

Streep plays Ricki Randazzo, formerly known as Linda Brummer back in her square suburban mother days. She left her marriage and her three children to escape intractable dissatisfaction; basically, imagine if Streep’s character in Kramer vs. Kramer went on to become frontwoman for a dive bar’s house band.

Ricki’s life is far from perfect: she struggles to get by with her cashier job at a Whole Foods stand-in, she won’t commit to her boyfriend/lead guitarist Greg, but she doesn’t seem to regret her life or her choices.

Then: a phone call. Her daughter Julie’s husband has abruptly left for her for another woman. She’s falling apart and “needs her mother,” a role Ricki hasn’t played in decades.

Mamie Gummer is fantastic in her role as Julie. She genuinely portrays the devastating depression of grief while milking plenty of humor from her character having absolutely zero fucks left to give. Streep and her daughter perfectly utilize their natural chemistry as Julie’s inability to play at normalcy jibes with Ricki’s counterculture vibe, both sticking out awkwardly behind the Brummer’s white picket fence.

There’s a fantastically tense dinner where Ricki’s also reunited with her sons Josh (Sebastian Stan) and Adam (Nick Westrate), who are revealed by Julie to be respectively engaged and gay, though they haven’t felt moved to tell their biological mother either of those things. As strained as Julie and Ricki’s relationship is, there’s a wider chasm between Ricki and her sons.

Even though Ricki does bond with Julie and with her ex-husband Pete (Kevin Kline), Diablo Cody’s smart script avoids excessive sentimentality; it is clear that Ricki can never make up for lost time, and that her children will always have a family she’s not entirely a part of, including their seemingly perfect stepmother Maureen (Audra McDonald). Maureen is stunningly polite and kind when she basically kicks Ricki out of her house, and subsequently reaches out to Ricki with an invite to Josh’s wedding. I really liked seeing these two women not hate each other despite their obvious conflict, and Audra McDonald is really good in her few scenes.

At the big wedding in the end, everyone gets along despite some awkward moments, and when Ricki and the Flash crash the wedding stage (sorry, other band!) they get all the uptight rich people in their boogie shoes. (The third act felt a bit like a condensed version of director Jonathan Demme’s previous wedding movie, Rachel Getting Married.) We know it can’t really be happily ever after for this family, but there is hope for much-less-unhappily ever after.

A significant portion of the film’s run time is Ricki’s band rocking out, so if that’s not your jam, you might get bored (my husband sure did). But director Jonathan Demme has made some incredible concert movies (Stop Making Sense and Neil Young: Heart of Gold), and he puts those talents to use here. And giving the band significant screen time allows us to see the joy in Ricki’s life, so she’s not just some pathetic deadbeat mother who ruined her life. And also lets us see Meryl Streep sing “Bad Romance,” which is worth the price of admission.

Ricki and the Flash is not a movie of great consequence, but it is nearly perfect for what it is. Unless you’re a weirdo like my husband who hates rock ‘n’ roll, you should see it.

Robin Hitchcock is a writer based in Pittsburgh who was born in the same hospital as Meryl Streep.

‘Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten’: Rock ‘n’ Roll, the ’60s and Genocide

Because no archival photos and footage of most of the Pol Pot era exists, films about the Cambodian genocide have had to use creative ways to tell what happened. The Oscar-nominated documentary ‘The Missing Picture’ from a couple of years ago used clay figurines as a visual complement to the narration. John Pirozzi’s ‘Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten’ uses the popular music of Cambodia in the ’60s and ’70s (and the artists who made it) to detail the country’s trajectory.

Do we need to see atrocities to fully absorb their horror? It’s a question I ask whenever a new video turns up showing a police officer killing an unarmed person. The answer for me is no: I don’t need to see suffering and death to believe they happen. But I know I’m not in the majority. A year ago the photos of Mike Brown’s body lying in the street and video of police gassing participants in the peaceful protests afterward were the catalyst for many to join protests of their own–though a much smaller band of activists had been exposing and protesting police violence, especially that against Black people, for decades.

The same way many police departments want to keep dashboard and body cameras far from their officers, The Pol Pot regime in Cambodia kept cameras–and “outsiders”–out of the country so that their slaughter of their own people (an estimated 3 million, over 25 percent of the population) could escape the notice of much of the rest of the world. Because no archival photos and footage of most of the Pol Pot era exists, films about the Cambodian genocide have had to use creative ways to tell what happened. The Oscar-nominated documentary The Missing Picture from a couple of years ago used clay figurines as a visual complement to the narration. John Pirozzi’s Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten uses the popular music of Cambodia in the ’60s and ’70s (and the artists who made it) to detail the country’s trajectory.

MadMenInCambodia — “Mad Men”–and women–in Cambodia.

We see a woman with high teased hair in a tight, tight dress singing as couples dance in the early ’60s (a lot of the pristine film footage is from the estate of King Sihanouk, Cambodia’s leader from when it first broke free from French colonial rule in 1955 to 1970), which could be a scene from the early seasons of Mad Men, except the people dancing are all Cambodian and even though they move their bodies like Westerners, their hands move more freely in graceful swooping gestures. The music seems familiar too: the way one of the main male stars Sinn Sisamouth, is posed (always wearing a suit or tux) on his records’ cover art and the type of songs he sang (and his lasting popularity) bring to mind Frank Sinatra–especially his later efforts to seem more relevant by collaborating with younger performers.

Musicians of the time tell us the capital, Phnom Penh “was the hub where bands from the countryside met.” The film spends as much time documenting the careers of women musicians as it does male ones–and the most knowlegable “fan” of the music interviewed (who was a teenager in Phnom Penh when the music was new) is also a woman, which should not be a rarity in films about contemporary, popular music, but is.

gogobootsForgotten — The film includes as many women as men in its story.

She tells us, “I was not a shy kid. I was like, ‘Just give me the music. I’ll dance.'” She shares with us details about the most popular woman singers of the time that a male fan might have left out. When she talks about the biggest woman star, Ros Serey Sothea she notes that she was a farm girl (her father had abandoned the family and she sang to support her mother and siblings) and that she was “dark-skinned” (which is not always apparent in early cover art for her records).

Like music from the ’60s in Britain and the US we see and hear (the film is chock full of songs from the era) the scene evolve with time, from kicky cocktail and Afro-Cuban style music in the early ’60s to poppy guitar bands with pretty boys in matching suits a few years later. Members of one of the first of these bands tell us they copied the choreographed moves of Cliff Richard and his band in the 1961 British film The Young Ones which we see confirmed as scenes of the Cambodian band’s live performances and scenes of performances in the film are intercut. Later in the ’60s and into the early ’70s we see Cambodian bands adopted more free-form fashions and dancing along with a harder rock sound. We hear a version of Santana’s “Oye Como Va” sung in Khmer that sounds as good if not better than the original.

Some of politics of the time we notice in subtext: early ’60s street footage shows children living in abject poverty: most of the musicians, besides Serey Sothea, were from wealthy families. We also hear explicitly from an American commentator that Cambodia was not a democracy and see Sihanouk, during an interview, coolly defend his execution of communists. But he apparently didn’t kill enough of them to satisfy the American government’s tastes (the US was fighting Communists just over the border in Vietnam) and Sihanouk was overthrown in a military coup, the leadership of which openly allied itself with the US (Sihanouk had declared Cambodia “neutral” in the Cold War). During this time the US relentlessly bombed Cambodia in a badly thought-out effort to destroy Communist strongholds: instead the bombing (which killed an estimated one million people) galvanized most of the people in the countryside to join the anti-Western communists, The Khmer Rouge (and Sihanouk in exile had, in desperation, allied himself with them too, in hopes of returning to power).

ForgottenRecordCoverArt — Ros Serey Sothea and Sinn Sisamouth,

The military leadership used singers Sisamouth and Serey Sothea in propaganda (we see Serey Sothea in military fatigues parachuting from a plane) but their popularity couldn’t counteract the devastation the bombing brought. Phnom Penh, the last holdout against Communists was eventually “liberated” by The Khmer Rouge and its leader Pol Pot. At first, the residents, including musicians, celebrated. But as a surviving member of the royal family tells us (in translated French) “If you want to eliminate values from past societies you have to eliminate the artists, because artists are influential.” The Western-influenced capital was evacuated and everyone who had lived there, including musicians, were put to work in rice fields and other manual labor in the countryside, much as we see the “decadent” gay men of Fidel Castro’s 1960s Cuba were put to work in the sugar cane fields in Before Night Falls.

I was hoping the film would employ a similar technique to How To Survive a Plague and show us musicians who survived the genocide but whom we had not yet seen in contemporary interviews. But the vast majority of musicians we come to know in the film (and sometimes even their children) were either killed for not following orders, for being affiliated with the previous government or for simply being a “bad” (counter-revolutionary) influence. Some, though they succeeded in escaping detection, died of starvation. One woman, whom we see dancing wildly and joyfully onstage as a member of a popular late ’60s band cries as she tells us that during Pol Pot’s reign when anyone asked about her past in the city, “I told them I was a banana seller… I lied to them. That saved my life.”

The musicians who survived thought they would be killed too, but when Vietnamese forces invaded the country in 1979, the genocide stopped. But because no records were kept, no one knows how most of those killed, including the most famous musicians, died or where their bodies are buried. Now not just the surviving musicians but the fans–as well as those of us in the audience–hear something deeper and more resonant than nostalgia in the music that came before Pol Pot (and which was banned under his regime). As the dedicated Phnom Penh fan tells us, when she and others worked the rice fields and no Khmer Rouge official could hear them, “We would sing.”

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ipq4FefX5Ps” iv_load_policy=”3″]

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The Dinosaur Struggle Is Real: Let’s Talk About Claire Dearing’s Bad Rep and Childhood Nostalgia

Does Claire have to forgo her more gentle side to have some form of agency in the corporate world? Does she have to exhibit traditionally masculine traits in order to operate within a male dominated realm? Is she less of a woman because she’s not very interested in kids or having kids? There’s a dichotomy going on here that’s worth exploring.

This is a guest post by Ashley Barry.

Jurassic World‘s opening cinematic had me starry eyed and shivering with excitement. The familiar but epic score accompanied by grand, sweeping shots of Costa Rica transported me right back to my childhood. I’m surprised my face didn’t fracture because a smile was perpetually plastered on it during the entire length of the introductory cinematic. I was home and temporarily lost in the labyrinth of my own nostalgia.

The first installment of the series was released in 1993 and, for some unknown reason, my parents allowed me to watch it. I was five years old and an easily spooked kid (I was afraid of shower drains for crying out loud). With the exception of the infamous tyrannosaurus rex scene, during which I hid underneath a heavy blanket I couldn’t see through, I was blown away by the idea of a dinosaur park and I idolized Ellie Sattler. The franchise itself later evolved into a familial tradition, my dad toting home the newest installment from the rental store whenever I came down with some form of the plague.

It’s difficult to outdo the original movie and, at times, Jurassic World seemed like it was trying to do just that. Though Jurassic World was filled with throwbacks, even going so far as to revisit the original park, I preferred the first film because it didn’t focus so much on gender politics. They were in a crisis situation and there was no time to argue or zone in on such things. Anybody could be a dinosaur’s dinner. Jurassic Park was the first of its kind and, for me at least, the character development was more organic and believable.

Ellie, an empowering character, was never required to forgo her femininity or empathy to be strong and capable. Though she adhered to the final girl trope during the scene in which she had to override the controls in the control room (the most inconveniently placed control room ever), she was an expert in her field and, whether she was working in the dirt or reaching into a colossal pile of triceratops dung, she was unafraid to literally dirty her hands. Though she was just as capable as her male counterparts and coworkers, she still rocked her neatly pinned hair and cut off shorts.

Ellie was never criticized for having a career or not being maternal enough, as if there’s some kind of scale in existence that makes such a determination. She was able to retain her femininity and empathy whereas Claire, in Jurassic World, switched from a hardened non-maternal figure to a maternal figure, a transition that felt forced. I truly believe Claire was assigned a negative and unforgiving reputation. Whether it was the digs at her femininity or her disinterest in having children of her own, it was an unfair reputation she didn’t deserve.

Claire Dearing, the parks operations manager, is a great example of a modern if not progressive woman in that she’s highly career-oriented and ambitious. I reveled in the fact that she’s a female identifying person who’s in a position of power in the corporate world, which is a typically male-dominated space. It’s great to see her acting as her own agent, but in selecting a career over a family, Claire is often distracted and, at times, disconnected from what’s really going on behind the scenes. She’s usually awkward around and sometimes indifferent toward her nephews, which the film presents as a flaw. Does Claire have to forgo her more gentle side to have some form of agency in the corporate world? Does she have to exhibit traditionally masculine traits in order to operate within a male dominated realm? Is she less of a woman because she’s not very interested in kids or having kids? There’s a dichotomy going on here that’s worth exploring.

Claire is either presented as cold and uptight, seeing the dinosaurs as investments rather than actual animals, or she’s warm and caring and inherently maternal. It’s problematic because the film reinforces the idea that all women are inherently maternal and to unlock a woman’s maternal instinct is as simple as triggering an on/off switch. At the beginning of the film narrative, Claire not only forgets how old her nephews are, but she leaves them in the care of her assistant due to her hectic schedule. Is it really a problem? Is it really her problem? Why are the other characters passing such harsh judgment on her? Are they exempt from judgment? Consider, for a moment, the reality of how busy Claire must be. Her career is obviously important to her but she’s also in an authoritative position, meaning she’s likely under a lot of stress. Why are her duties cast aside? Despite her success, the other characters often scrutinize her for not being maternal enough.

There’s a scene in which she has a heated discussion with her sister, Karen. When Karen stresses the importance of close familial ties, she’s operating under the assumption that Claire will have children someday. Claire’s response is short and to the point, but firm. Not all women want children and that should never be viewed as a shameful or selfish want. Motherhood does not make a woman. Though Claire corrects her sister, she’s still viewed as the quasi-villain of the film. She’s under constant scrutiny from other characters, characters that want to alter her in some way.

“When you have kids of your own—“

“’If,’ not ‘when.’”

There’s a shift at one point in the film when the hybrid dinosaur escapes its enclosure and becomes a real threat. Claire’s transition from cold business woman to maternal figure is more apparent at this point. I recall a moment where Claire looks at one of the security monitors and watches a mother comfort her child. This instance may or may not be the thing that triggers Claire’s inherent maternalness. However, the unlocking of Claire’s inherent maternalness aligns with the trope of the fierce or ferociously protective mother. When Claire presents as an active agent of the corporate world, she relies on her intelligence to carry her through. When her maternal side is unlocked, she goes from being an uptight business woman to a sexy action hero. It raises a few questions. Is her womanhood only a cause for celebration when she accepts her maternal side? Is she more of a woman now that she has taken on the protective role of the mother figure?

After luring the t-rex out of its enclosure, there’s a sexualized shot of Claire lying on her side. The shot itself is clearly intended for the male gaze. With her red hair all mussed and her arms bare, the audience is viewing and consuming a very different version of Claire. It’s a version that doesn’t quite line up with her original character. Does she want to revel in her sexuality? Does she even have time to do so? In becoming a more protective figure, she has become more traditionally feminine. Is she only able to loosen up when adopting a more protective role?

There has been a lot of backlash in regards to Claire’s outfit, especially her stiletto footwear. She’s receiving backlash from both the fictional people in her own world and real life movie-goers. It’s a hard and definitely unfair burden to bear. Visually, Claire is dressed in all white towards the start of the film, which might be a nod to John Hammond but it’s also the very picture of sterility. This image circles back to Claire not wanting children and could be read as a visual representation of her neutralized attitude towards them. When she commits to saving her nephews, she ties her shirt in a fashion that’s similar to Ellie’s shirt. Though my childhood self appreciates the throw back, especially because it’s a throw back to my idol, Owen ruined it for me because he made fun of her “impractical” outfit. Instead of being taken seriously, she became the punch line of a joke and it’s not the first instance in which she served as the punch line of a joke. Is that her only purpose? Is she there to be poked, prodded, and laughed at?

Lastly, there’s something to be said about her stiletto footwear. Too often we’re taught to view and interpret symbols of femininity as things that are weak, vain, and impractical. Personally, I would have rolled my ankles had I been running away from dinosaurs in those heels. Claire impressed me with how well she managed in those nude colored heels of hers. It might have been a painful experience, but she endured the pain to not only save her own skin but to save others as well. There’s a kind of strength in that and it’s a strength that needs to be acknowledged and celebrated.

Claire isn’t a bad character. She’s smart and strong, but she operates in a world that wants to change her and back her into a wall. Ellie was feminine and caring, but that was OK. Though Jurassic World had some great parts, I struggled with the film as a whole because everyone was trying to make a villain out of Claire and a hero out of Owen. Oddly enough, I felt as though the first installment was more progressive in its presentation of deeply developed male and female characters. It’s 2015. Shouldn’t we be moving in a forward direction?

Ashley Barry works at a publishing house in Boston and holds a master’s degree in children’s literature. Though her background is in the book business, she loves writing about all mediums. She’s also a contributing writer for a video game website called Not Your Mama’s Gamer. She can be reached at abarry4099@gmail.com.

The Women of the ‘Mission Impossible’ Franchise

‘Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation’ is kicking it at the box office and getting great reviews. And I can confirm that it is fantastic. If you like action movies or spy thrillers at all, you should see it. You’ll love it. But after you see it, I would like to spoil your fun by unfurling my feminist criticism by looking back at the previous entries in the nearly 20-years-running Mission Impossible franchise to see how women have fared overall. The news isn’t great.

Rebecca Ferguson and Tom Cruise in 'Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation" — Rebecca Ferguson and Tom Cruise in *Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation*

Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation is kicking it at the box office and getting great reviews. And I can confirm that it is fantastic. If you like action movies or spy thrillers at all, you should see it. You’ll love it. But after you see it, I would like to spoil your fun by unfurling my feminist criticism.

Rogue Nation has a great central female character in Rebecca Ferguson’s Ilsa Faust. The Daily Beast calls Ferguson “The Second Coming of Lauren Bacall” and, astonishingly, that passes the smell test. Ilsa is the kind of gal who can run at breakneck speed in heels but is also practical enough to take them off before jumping off a roof: the perfect spy movie fantasy of a woman. And Ferguson plays her with enough mystique we spend the whole movie never quite sure which side of the Bond Girl Axis (good girl who is actually bad vs. bad girl who is actually good) she’ll land on. Ilsa is so captivating that I didn’t even notice until I got home that she was the only named female character in the movie. The only other woman with any dialogue, “Shop Girl,” is killed off within a minute or so. Rogue Nation is the perfect example of a movie that fails the Bechdel Test BADLY, while patting itself on the back for presenting a “strong female character.”

I decided to look back at the previous entries in the nearly 20-years-running Mission Impossible franchise to see how women have fared overall. The news isn’t great.

Emmanuelle Béart in 'Mission Impossible' — Emmanuelle Béart in *Mission Impossible*

Mission Impossible (1996)

Number of named female characters: 4
Named female characters who survive the film: 1 (not main female character)
Women of color: 0
Bond Girl Axis: Good girl is actually bad.
Love Interest for Tom Cruise: Yes
Bechdel Test: Fail (second prong)

Thandie Newton in 'Mission Impossible II" — Thandie Newton in *Mission Impossible II*

Mission Impossible II (2000)

Number of named female characters: 1 (seriously, just one)
Named female characters who survive the film: 1
Women of color: 1 (main female character, obviously)
Bond Girl Axis: Bad girl is actually good.
Love Interest for Tom Cruise: Yes
Bechdel Test: Fail (first prong)

Maggie Q in 'Mission Impossible III' — Maggie Q in *Mission Impossible III*

Mission Impossible III (2006)

Number of named female characters: 3
Named female characters who survive the film: 2
Women of color: 1
Bond Girl Axis: Not applicable. All women are what they seem (all three good).
Love Interest for Tom Cruise: Yes
Bechdel Test: Fail (third prong)

Paula Patton in 'Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol' — Paula Patton in *Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol*

Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol (2011)

Number of named female characters: 3 (one a cameo, without dialogue)
Named female characters who survive the film: 2
Women of color: 1 (main female character)
Bond Girl Axis: Not applicable. All women are what they seem (two good, one bad).
Love Interest for Tom Cruise: Only in cameo
Bechdel Test: Near-pass (do grunts during a fight count as a conversation?)

Rebecca Ferguson as Ilsa Faust in 'Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation' — Rebecca Ferguson as Ilsa Faust in Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation

Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation (2015)

Number of named female characters: 1
Named female characters who survive the film: 1 (2 unnamed characters die)
Women of color: 0
Bond Girl Axis: [Spoiler] Morally ambiguous girl is actually good.
Love Interest for Tom Cruise: No
Bechdel Test: Fail (first prong)

Some obvious themes emerge: There are shockingly few women in the Mission Impossible movies, they generally don’t interact, and a lot of them die.

Keri Russell is killed off in the first act of 'Mission Impossible III' — Keri Russell is killed off in the first act of *Mission Impossible III*

What is worse is that even when female characters survive to the credits, they generally don’t appear in the following sequels (with no explanation of where they’ve gone). Thandie Newton’s Nyah, the only woman in Mission Impossible II, ends the film as the ally and lover of Cruise’s Ethan Hunt. She’s never spoken of again. Maggie Q’s Zhen in Mission Impossible III and Paula Patton’s Jane in Ghost Protocol were both women of color working alongside Ethan; they’re not secretly evil, they don’t die, they aren’t his love interest (maybe Nyah disappeared because it was a bad breakup?). But when the next movie comes around, they’re not on his team anymore. Sure, we never see the character Jonathan Rhys Meyers plays in Mission Impossible III again, either, but he is one of countless white dudes in the franchise. As you can see above, women in the franchise are so countable that a two-year-old would be like, “I got this.”

Michele Monaghan as Julia in 'Mission Impossible III', at gunpoint. — Michele Monaghan as Julia in *Mission Impossible III*, at gunpoint.

The only woman who appears in more than one Mission Impossible movie is Michelle Monaghan’s Julia, who marries Ethan in Mission Impossible: III and promptly becomes a damsel in distress. Bad Guy Philip Seymour Hoffman’s first words to Ethan are, “Do you have a wife or a girlfriend? Because if you do, I’m going to find her and I’m going to hurt her.” So even though Mission Impossible: III arguably does the best by women, it leans heavily on the trope of women in refrigerators (Ethan is also tormented by failing to save his protégé Lindsey Farris, played by Keri Russell). At the start of Ghost Protocol we’re led to believe Julia was killed off-screen between movies, but she is revealed to be secretly alive in the final scene. Not alive enough to have any dialogue, though. Which means surviving to make a silent cameo is the best any woman in five Mission Impossible movies has done.

Which doesn’t make me optimistic for Rebecca Ferguson’s future with the franchise. Even if she does show up in the next Mission Impossible movie (they are planning a sixth), it will be frustrating that a white woman is the first to manage that. Or maybe Jane and Zhen will team up with Ilsa and Nyah in the next movie to save Ethan from mortal peril? There’s still time to write that movie, Hollywood.

‘An Open Secret’ Many Don’t Want To Know

This time Berg focuses on sexual abuse of children in Hollywood, perpetrated specifically by managers and other adults in positions of authority over male child actors. The 13-year-old girl Polanski raped was an an aspiring model, who believed that he was going to put her photo in French ‘Vogue.’ The boys–now all grown men–interviewed in ‘Secret’ believed that their managers and other adults who abused them were key to their careers and would blackball them if they spoke up, so kept quiet.

Rape denialism is such a pervasive force that even those of us who consider ourselves informed feminists forget that Bill Cosby was the subject of rape charges (and paid settlements to victims) for many years before his actions had any effect on his career or reputation. Meanwhile, no actor in Hollywood seems to turn down an offer to be in the latest Woody Allen film, even though his daughter, Dylan Farrow has come forward as an adult to write that her father did indeed rape her when she was 7. Two decades ago, tabloids closely followed this police investigation until its conclusion, in which the State of Connecticut said they had probable cause but would not charge Allen. Acclaimed director Roman Polanski is a convicted rapist of a 13-year-old girl, whom he plied with alcohol and drugs beforehand. After he fled the US to avoid serving prison time he worked freely in Europe and even won an Academy Award, eventually spending a short time under “house arrest” in luxurious Swiss digs–but never extradited to the US to serve real prison time.

The last example is the one that is perhaps the most relevant to the new documentary, An Open Secret by Amy Berg, who was nominated for an Oscar for 2006’s Deliver Us From Evil about sexual abuse of children in the Catholic Church. This time Berg focuses on sexual abuse of children in Hollywood, perpetrated specifically by managers and other adults in positions of authority over male child actors. The 13-year-old girl Polanski raped was an an aspiring model, who believed that he was going to put her photo in French Vogue. The boys–now all grown men–interviewed in Secret believed that their managers and other adults who abused them were key to their careers and would blackball them if they spoke up, so kept quiet.

OpenSecretMichaelHarrah — Michael Harrah

About child sexual abuse, Hollywood stalwart and, until recently, the chair of The Young Performers Committee for SAG/AFTRA (the union all performers in major Hollywood commercials, television productions and films have to belong to) Michael Harrah (who managed child actors–some quite successful) says, “It wasn’t uncommon,” of his own time as a child actor. Harrah has also always had some of his underage clients live at his house and late in the film is confronted by one, now an adult, who says, “I hated when you had me sleep in your bed and tried to touch me,” which Harrah tellingly does not deny (though later when confronted in an interview says he doesn’t remember the incident and says he’s “not particularly” attracted to young boys). Another one-time child actor confronts his former manager Marty Weiss (now a convicted child rapist, but who served very little prison time) on tape about his abuse. Like Harrah, Weiss brushes off the severity of what he did, saying the conversation he and his client (identified as Evan H. in the film, but articles about the film and case use his full name: Evan Henzi) had before he first abused him let him know that Evan was “interested.” Evan shoots back, “I was not interested at 12.”

If you think, in spite of its important subject matter, the film I’ve described so far seems at least a little exploitative and lurid, you’d be right. And structurally this film is a mess. Maybe because I’ve seen carefully crafted documentaries recently like (T)ERROR and Out in the Night, which combine multiple viewpoints into compelling and easily comprehensible story lines, I was frustrated at the muddle An Open Secret makes of its overlapping stories. I understood only after reading articles to follow up that Henzi was the main impetus behind Weiss’s conviction and that another interviewee, Michael Egan, was close friends and “coworkers” with Mark Ryan (who was a young adult at the time) at the estate where underage boys who wanted to succeed in show business were preyed on by rich and powerful men (which again is not just a rumor or “allegation”: the adult who owned the mansion is now a convicted child rapist–though he too fled to Europe to avoid prison time).

Egan’s presence in the film complicates it and may be one reason for its disjointedness. Egan sued director Bryan Singer (The Usual Suspects, X-Men) for sexual abuse and apparently an earlier cut of the film included many more mentions of Singer’s name and presence at the mansion. Now we just hear a few random mentions and see some footage of Singer promoting the business the adults at the estate ran: an online video production company whose “shows,” shot at the estate, featured underage boys. The clips we see of the shows are so bad the well-known investors–not just Singer but Michael Huffington and others–were likely paying for access to the young actors (Huffington as well as Singer spent time visiting the estate) rather than making a prudent business investment.

Some people have referred to Egan, who has had legal troubles of his own, as “discredited” but I would urge those people to watch the excellent The Boys of St. Vincent (originally a miniseries, based on Catholic priests’ sexual abuse of children in Canada and their subsequent trials) to see that victims of sexual abuse are often very troubled adults who can easily cross into illegal activity themselves, including perpetuating the cycle of abuse–which is not the crime Egan is accused of, but does seem to be what Harrah is confessing in the phone call with a former client.

Secret uses clips from a “very special” episode of Diff’rent Strokes to intersperse with an interview of co-star Todd Bridges talking about his experience of abuse at the hands of adults in power when he was a child actor. The film could do with an infusion of other narrative clips about sexual abuse of children. When the film in voiceover described the process of grooming I thought back to Brian Cox’s character in the great L.I.E. and his interplay with his potential victim (who is the main character of the film) played by a young Paul Dano. What that film got right is something missing from Berg’s: that even if Dano’s character was gay (as he seemed to be) and willingly spent time with Cox’s character what Cox was trying to do with him was still wrong. None of the grown men in Secret out themselves as queer, which leaves the film open to perceptions of homophobia (which I don’t share) since Huffington and Singer (along with some other men alleged to consort with the young boys at the estate) are some of the most powerful out gay men in Southern California.

Although all the victims in this film are boys (now grown men), I was not surprised to see the advocates for them in this film are women; BizParentz’ Anne Henry, the prosecutor in the Weiss case and Berg herself–because most women are very familiar with the attempts to “discredit” survivors of child sexual abuse and other forms of rape. Still I would have liked to have seen at least one girl (now a grown woman) survivor, though maybe they were all afraid of the same notoriety that has followed the now grown woman Polanski raped. As with most of the survivors of sexual abuse Berg interviews she “left the business,” never to appear as herself (as opposed to a much talked about rape survivor) in a magazine, a film, or on TV ever again.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JpHUaMBARU” iv_load_policy=”3″]

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Trans Women of Color In a Theater Near You: ‘Mala Mala’ and ‘Tangerine’

Whenever people who aren’t queer make a film about queers, I’m always very wary about seeing it. Over 30 years ago, I had made up my mind to go to my first queer bar, but stopped in a revival movie house to see a film beforehand, which contained a surprise: an explicit male-male rape scene. The victim was the main character, in a jailhouse. His attacker was his cell mate, a grotesque, possibly mentally disabled, bald giant who had some teeth missing: he smiled as he came and sent a shiver of revulsion through the audience. No reviewer had warned about this scene, probably because this portrayal of a queer character was typical for the time. After the film was over I didn’t go to the bar. I just headed home instead.

Maybe sitting through years of shitty queer characters in films and TV has sensitized me, because, even though I’m not trans*, I often get a similar, sickly feeling about films and TV with trans* characters made by people who aren’t trans*, most recently the two (or maybe it was one and a half) episodes of the Emmy-nominated Transparent I watched when (cis) people I respect raved about it. The trans women I’ve known seem very unlike the long-suffering main character (played by a man in a dress: Jeffrey Tambor, who is winning awards for the role). They also don’t seem like the martyr played by Jared Leto (another award-winning man in a dress) in the clips I’ve seen from Dallas Buyers Club. The trans women I’ve known also aren’t the metaphorical punching bag Transamerica‘s Felicity Huffman (for once a woman– though a cis one–in a dress: perhaps why she didn’t win as many awards) played either.

In the first few scenes of the recently released documentary Mala Mala (directed by Antonio Santini and Dan Sickles) about trans* women in Puerto Rico I briefly had some trepidation when the camera (the striking cinematography is by Adam Uhl) couldn’t resist (like director Abdellatif Kechiche with his star in Blue Is The Warmest Color) an objectifying focus on the ass of trans activist Ivana. She tells us she wanted her hips and thighs to resemble those of the Latina women she admired, even though her frame is quite slender. Though proud to be Puerto Rican (and often acting as a spokesperson for trans rights there) Ivana considers herself “made in Ecuador” where she had her procedures done.

ZaharaNonDrag — “Zahara Montiere” out of drag

But the film has enough different types of trans* people (including some drag queens and others who don’t consider themselves women: I would have liked to see interviews with the dark-skinned Afro-Latinas we see in performance) and spends a lot of time letting us get to know them (without seeming to waste a moment) that I forgot about the fascination with Ivana’s butt. We first meet Ivana when she is distributing condoms to trans women sex workers on the street. We get the low-down on what sex work is like for trans women from Sandy who tells us she and other trans women have to be more beautiful than the cis women sex workers on the street or they won’t attract clients.

Some of the trans* people we also get to know are: an older woman who laments what she sees as a lack of reflection in younger trans women, a drag queen with an interest in corporate law whose role model is Marilyn Monroe, a trans guy who isn’t able to get testosterone, and a drag queen who carefully differentiates herself from “prostitutes” and becomes a contestant on RuPaul’s Drag Race. By focusing on nine people who often have differing opinions, the film gives us a taste of the richness and variety found within the trans* community. And because the film stays focused on these nine, we see them go through transformations that transcend the physical. Sex worker Sandy allies herself with Ivana, while also wondering why the funds set aside for trans* women in Puerto Rico don’t do more for them. They band together with other trans* women to form a new trans* rights group with Sandy telling us that they will wear shirts up to her necks and pants that cover their legs (in contrast to her usual short, low-cut dresses) so legislators will focus on their faces and what they have to say. Kickstarter-funded and executive-produced by veteran of the New Queer Cinema Christine Vachon, Mala Mala is beautiful to look at (from Puerto Rico’s green hills and blue ocean to neon tinted street scenes) and is one of the best and most moving films–narrative or documentary–I’ve seen all year.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rftiozFCa8″ iv_load_policy=”3″]

Tangerine, a comedy (directed by Sean Baker who also co-wrote the script with Chris Bergoch) that had its premiere at Sundance is about trans women of color sex workers and has been getting some surprisingly glowing reviews. Maybe because I kept comparing it to Mala Mala, I was disappointed. I can see what people reacted to: the two main characters, Sin-Dee (Kitana Kiki Rodriguez) and Alexandra (Mya Taylor) are vivid and funny (and played by talented, trans women). The film is also stunning to look at: co-cinematographers Baker and Radium Cheung give us a Los Angeles that has never looked more crisp and unforgiving in its sunniness, especially amazing considering the film was shot entirely on iPhones (equipped with special lenses, but still). Perhaps those who love this film were reminded of the early work of John Waters or Pedro Almodóvar, but those two, at least before they became big-time directors were part of milieu they made films about, which isn’t the impression I get about Baker (who has also worked as a TV producer). Some of the interplay between the characters seems pretty generic: the plot, if there is one, focuses on Sin-Dee trying to track down the woman (“A real bitch with vagina and everything”) Sin-Dee’s pimp, Chester, “cheated” on her with. Waters and Almodóvar didn’t have the tightest plots in their early films either (one of Waters’ films centered on Divine getting “cha-cha heels”), but the details seemed more acutely observed–and nobody said about their films, when they were first released, that they seemed like anyone else’s.

Tangerine has some good comic moments: I was especially taken with a scene, shot from the inside of the front windshield, of a blow job received during a car wash and Rodriguez’s peerless reading of lines like “I promise, I promise” in response to Alexandra asking her to not cause “drama” But we see how little we know about Alexandra and Sin-Dee’s interior lives when we spend time with Armenian immigrant cab-driver, Razmik (Karren Karagulian). Unlike the rest of the characters, Razmik has the ability to surprise us and to make us wonder what he’s thinking–or what he’ll do next. A film with trans women actresses this good shouldn’t have a cis man be its most interesting character. If trans women start making their own films with iPhones, maybe we’ll see characters that match these women’s talents.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALSwWTb88ZU” iv_load_policy=”3″]

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The Feminist’s Box Office Call of Duty

Confession time: I really want to see ‘Ant-Man’ this weekend. But I feel it is my duty as a feminist to go see ‘Trainwreck,’ and moreover, to NOT see ‘Ant-Man.’

Confession time: I really want to see Ant-Man this weekend. But I feel it is my duty as a feminist to go see Trainwreck, and moreover, to NOT see Ant-Man.

I’ve got a busy weekend. It’s my wedding anniversary, I’m performing in two shows, plus your standard weekend social obligations. At best I can squeeze in a Sunday matinee. There can be only one.

Amy Schumer and Bill Hader in 'Trainwreck' — Amy Schumer and Bill Hader in *Trainwreck*

And I must see Trainwreck to support women in comedy, specifically the rising stardom of Amy Schumer, whose Comedy Central series is refreshingly, delightfully, overtly feminist. I must do my part, spend my $10.50, help prove that female-driven movies can kill it at the box office. That romcoms can be summer tentpoles. I don’t know how sex-positive Trainwreck will turn out to be, but I should find out, and write a timely new-release Bitch Flicks piece about it. I must answer the call.

Ok, ok! I'll go see 'Trainwreck' — Ok, ok! I’ll go see *Trainwreck*

Conversely, I must reject Ant-Man. Not only to highlight the relative (hopeful) success of Trainwreck (my guess is Minions will carry the weekend again anyway). Because Ant-Man is the tipping point in Marvel’s frustrating over-reliance on white male superheroes, trotting out C-list characters before Captain Marvel and Black Panther (both flicks pushed back to accommodate the utterly pointless third go at Spider-Man, blerg), and with no Black Widow movie on the horizon. Because the #JanetVanCrime of fridging Wasp, a founding member of the Avengers. Because a sympathetic portrayal of Hank Pym might actually make my blood boil (OK, well, not literally, but it could spike my blood pressure to dangerous levels).

Janet Van Dyne aka Wasp named the Avengers, but she's being erased in the Marvel Cinematic Universe — Janet Van Dyne aka Wasp named the Avengers, but she’s being erased in the Marvel Cinematic Universe

But I wannnnaaaaa see Ant-Man. I love superhero movies. And heist movies. Ant-Man is both. Matt Zoller Seitz, possibly my most trusted critic at present, says it is really good. It’s got some Honey, I Shrunk the Kids perspective stuff, which is always fun (probably less fun when it relies on CGI, but still). I’ve had a crush on Paul Rudd for 20 years. Twenty years! TWO THIRDS OF MY LIFE. And the post-credits sequence teases Captain America: Civil War, which I have been eagerly anticipating since, well, the post-credits sequence of Captain America: The Winter Soldier*. I don’t know if I’m strong enough to resist the Marvel machine.

Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.

So I start talking myself into how it is OK for me to go see Ant-Man. The superhero movie bubble is going to pop, but I’m not ready for that to happen yet. Not before Captain Marvel and Black Panther start filming. And Hera forbid this spilling over into the DC side of the superhero movie industry before Wonder Woman.

And if I had to pick the pin that would pop the bubble, it would be the new Spider-Man, or as I like to call it, Spider-Why. Three white boy Peter Parkers in 15 years? WHY. WHY. WHY. (I said it three times even though that’s painfully redundant. See what I did there?) So I should support Ant-Man to make the new Spider-Man look worse. That makes sense, right? OK, I’m really grasping at straws.

I'd rather see the superhero movie bubble pop with the third white boy Spider-Man — I’d rather see the superhero movie bubble pop with the third white boy Spider-Man

As I wrestle with which wide-release big studio movie I am going to see, I am reminded of the heroic efforts of some feminists to ONLY support female-directed or written movies. Or at least actively seek them out and promote them, instead of drinking whatever sand Hollywood just poured over the masses. I recognize applying feminist critiques to mainstream movies isn’t enough. This conundrum I’ve imposed on myself highlights the cracks in my feminism. (For what it’s worth, Amy Schumer wrote the screenplay for Trainwreck, so even though its advertising says “From the guy who brought you Bridesmaids” [also written by women!], I think it is fair to call Trainwreck is a film by a woman.)

Trainwreck promo image says "from the guy who brought you Bridesmaids", even though both films were written by women — Trainwreck promo image says “from the guy who brought you *Bridesmaids,*” even though both films were written by women

The compromise I will make is to see Trainwreck this weekend and hold off on Ant-Man for at least another week. And then seek out some of the latest independent films directed by women. I will fulfill my feminist call of duty to the best of my ability.

Ant-Man gives a thumbs up. — Ant-Man gives my plan a thumbs up.

(*For those of you who think it is ridiculous to want to see a movie in part for its post-credits sequence, well, you are totally right. But let me remind you of a simpler time, before YouTube, when Meet Joe Black got a box office bump just from running the trailer for Star Wars Episode I. Geeks do silly things.)

Robin Hitchcock is a writer based in Pittsburgh who saw Meet Joe Black in the theater for reasons other than the Phantom Menace trailer. She has since improved her life choices.

Five Amazing Movies I Just Made Up to Repeat the Same Magic as ‘Spy’

I would pay real money to watch any of these movies. The larger point though, is that I bet, if we actually tried, we could come up with amazing projects for lots of women in Hollywood that aren’t based on assuming that the only thing we want to watch them do is act sexy (or crazy). There’s no shortage of talent in the film industry, so, maybe rather than waiting for screenwriters to craft great starring roles for women at large, Hollywood could also take a closer look at the stars who are already there and custom build some awesome ‘Spy’-like films for them.

Written by Katherine Murray.

A few weeks ago on Pop Culture Happy Hour, Audie Cornish succinctly explained what’s so great about Spy: that it’s a movie custom built to use Melissa McCarthy’s talents, by a director she’s worked with for years. “The director showed us what he loves about her,” she said. Paul Feig was telling us, “Oh, I see something in this person that is so fantastic, and I’m gonna make it so the audience sees that, too.”

McCarthy shines in Spy partly because Spy was built for her to shine in – that’s not to take anything away from her performance; movies are tailored to fit A-list stars all the time. Finding a great actor and creating the right role for them is just as valid a strategy as creating a great role and then finding the right actor. That said, watching Spy reminded me that there are other female actors I’d love to see starring in custom-built projects – these are the first five that come to mind.

Emily Blunt as a True Detective
Emily Blunt has been improving every film she’s been a part of since The Devil Wears Prada. Despite being friendly and cheerful in interviews, she has a gravitas and intensity on screen that makes us believe she could be a hardened soldier who kills squid aliens. More importantly, she exudes a quiet, self-assured kind of confidence that doesn’t involve a lot of posturing.

So far, most of Blunt’s big roles have been opposite protagonists played by somebody else – Tom Cruise in Edge of Tomorrow, Joseph Gordon-Levitt in Looper – but it would be great to see her as the central character in a similar high-concept science fiction movie. Even better, though, her grounded, more-beneath-the-surface stoicism could also make her the perfect candidate to star in a grimdark detective movie. Or, if you want my heart to explode from happiness – let her solve crimes (maybe partnered with Jessica Chastain) in season three of True Detective.

Zoe Saldana in Pirates of the Caribbean 6: The Sequel That’s Actually Good
Zoe Saldana is an awfully good sport. She was the hot alien in Avatar, the hot alien in Guardians of the Galaxy, and the hot human who meets aliens in Star Trek (2009). And, while I’m aware that she was also given the lead role in Colombiana, that was also mostly about being hot. Because I haven’t seen her earlier work, there’s a certain sense in which I’m taking it on faith that she has more acting chops than this but, as someone who’s been more than willing to pay $14 to see her be someone’s hot girlfriend a whole bunch of times, I’d also be willing to pay $14 to see her as something else.

The most obvious choice would be to make a better version of Colombiana – what Salt was to Angelina Jolie’s turn in Tomb Raider – an action movie that isn’t about looking sexy and stuff. But what I’d really like to see is – if we’re making a thousand million billion sequels anyway – a legitimate, well-written, exciting spin-off to Pirates of the Caribbean about Anamaria’s adventures on the high seas. I get that Johnny Depp is single-handedly the thing that saved Curse of the Black Pearl from sucking, but if they gave it an honest try and brought in Jennifer Lee as a writer, Disney could make this work.

Lucy Liu in a Quentin Tarantino Robot Movie or a Good Romantic Comedy (I’ll Take What I Can Get)
In the category of Missed Opportunities I Won’t Stop Complaining About, Lucy Liu, a thousand times over, should have been cast as Sherlock Holmes in Elementary. Ever since she showed up on Ally McBeal she’s had the rare ability to play a total asshole while making us all kind of love her. Also, we love her when she’s collecting people’s heads (NSFW). Despite this, she’s also shown us that she’s capable of playing warm and funny in addition to tough-as-nails, murderous, and cold.

One dream scenario would be for Quentin Tarantino to fully embrace his love of Asian cinema, and make that almost-all-Mandarin-Chinese-language action movie (set in the future, with robots) that you know he’s always wanted to make. Lucy Liu could totally go on a quest for revenge as the star of that movie. Failing that, I’d settle for a nice romantic comedy where Liu stars as a woman who’s smart and driven and a little bit acerbic, but doesn’t need to get over herself somehow or act dumb in order to fall in love.

Octavia Spencer in a Dark Comedy about Hollywood
Octavia Spencer spent a long time being typecast as “that crazy lady” before she started to land more prominent roles. Even in The Help, for which she’s probably best known, she was still kind of “that crazy lady (who has a legitimate reason to be pissed off about racism [but she’s so funny when she talks about it that we don’t need to question our own attitudes and beliefs]).” And, while I had no problem taking her seriously in Snowpiercer, it’s true that she has some serious comedy chops.

I think the ideal movie for Octavia Spencer is actually something close to Spy – something that takes the way she’s been typecast throughout her career, and then uses her range as an actor to turn those expectations around. Maybe a dark comedy about a seemingly crazy lady who has more depth and sadness to her personality – like Funny People, but not so on-the-nose. Hell, it could even be a self-referential dark comedy about the way black actresses are cast in Hollywood. That would be kind of amazing.

Mila Kunis in an Emotionally-Driven Russian Spy Movie
Before you say it – yeah, I know. Mila Kunis is already a huge star, and Hollywood already clearly believes she’s a box office draw. Even so, I don’t think I’ve seen her yet in a role that’s tailor made for her strengths as an actor – Black Swan (which took advantage of the confident, knowing vibe she gives off on camera) came close, but that was a supporting role opposite Natalie Portman. Last year’s Jupiter Ascending didn’t seem to know what a goldmine it had in either Kunis or Channing Tatum and wrote them both to be boring as hell while it focussed on special effects.

While Kunis got her start on That 70s Show, there’s an edge to her delivery that seems wasted on straightforward comedy, and she seems to get swallowed in sci-fi and fantasy movies. If I were building the perfect film for Mila Kunis to star in, I think it would be a complex, semi-realistic espionage movie where she plays a Russian double-agent. The story would be grounded somehow in the complicated feelings the agent had about Russia – more in the tone of The Debt than Mission Impossible. Her natural charm would make her an expert at getting close to her targets, but her unexpectedly warm heart would make it hard to pull the trigger.

I would pay real money to watch any of these movies – so, there you go Hollywood. That’s a guaranteed $14 you’ll get back from your investment. The larger point though, is that I bet, if we actually tried, we could come up with amazing projects for lots of women in Hollywood that aren’t based on assuming that the only thing we want to watch them do is act sexy (or crazy). There’s no shortage of talent in the film industry, so, maybe rather than waiting for screenwriters to craft great starring roles for women at large, Hollywood could also take a closer look at the stars who are already there and custom build some awesome Spy-like films for them.

Katherine Murray is a Toronto-based writer who yells about movies and TV (both real and made up) on her blog.

‘Dope’: A High School Tall Tale Not About White Kids in Suburbia

White, straight boys in suburbia: I’m a white person who grew up in the suburbs and I’m sick of seeing you in films. I watched ‘Me and Earl and The Dying Girl’ (with its one cliché-ridden Black character) and if I’d been at home instead of at a theater I would have spent nearly the entire runtime saying aloud, “I don’t care. I don’t care. I don’t care.” I couldn’t stand the privileged behavior most straight, white, cis, able-bodied boys exhibited when I was in high school–and most other high school girls, even the straight ones, along with guys who weren’t straight–couldn’t stand it either. Together we formed a majority. My high school was so ordinary, I feel secure in extrapolating that most high schools are the same–but films about high school focus on the same people most of us tried to avoid.

White, straight boys in suburbia: I’m a white person who grew up in the suburbs and I’m sick of seeing you in films. I watched Me and Earl and The Dying Girl (with its one cliché-ridden Black character) and if I’d been at home instead of at a theater I would have spent nearly the entire runtime saying aloud, “I don’t care. I don’t care. I don’t care.” I couldn’t stand the privileged behavior most straight, white, cis, able-bodied boys exhibited when I was in high school–and most other high school girls, even the straight ones, along with guys who weren’t straight–couldn’t stand it either. Together we formed a majority. My high school was so ordinary, I feel secure in extrapolating that most high schools are the same–but films about high school focus on the same people most of us tried to avoid.

Television is a better place to see different types of high school kids. On The Fosters 14-year-old white best friends Jude and Connor have become an uncloseted couple, with support from Jude’s queer foster parents, (Lena, a Black school principal and Stef, a white cop) and resistance from Connor’s single, straight Dad. A couple of weeks ago Jude and Connor went to a queer prom, devised by teenager Cole (the platonic date of Jude’s older sister, Callie, for the event) a white trans character played by a young trans guy, Tom Phelan: we see his top surgery scars when he takes off his shirt to swim at a beach. The show, which in many other ways is just as soapy and contrived as other TV dramas, in these details reflects the world outside TV many of us recognize, which no one, if they had most “high school” movies as the only evidence, would guess existed.

We can see a portrait of high school life for kids who aren’t white, straight and suburban in Dope, the film written and directed by Rick Famuyiwa (whose parents are Nigerian immigrants) which focuses on a main character, Malcolm (Shameik Moore) who is a half-Nigerian, straight, high school senior, living with a single US-born mother (Kimberly Elise) in a “bad” Los Angeles neighborhood. He also happens to be a nerd who gets good grades, is obsessed with early 1990s hip-hop, clothing and hairstyles (he has a flattop fade) and has two friends in school who share his interests: Jib (Tony Revolori) and soft butch, Diggy (Kiersey Clemons). As the film tells us, some of the stereotypically “white” things the three like include Black alternative band TV on the Radio and Black actor and comedian Donald Glover.

Listening to Malcolm describe his neighborhood, where he and his friends have to avoid certain streets or the BMX bikes they use to get around will be stolen, or his high school, where we see his new sneakers taken off his feet by bullies is a refreshing change from the main character in Earl (and the many movies like it) endlessly droning on about the cliques in his boring, mostly white, suburban high school. But living in his neighborhood means Malcolm has contact with people many suburban, white teens don’t, like drug dealer Dom (A$ap Rocky) who takes a liking to Malcolm saying of him, “He’s probably got one of those photogenic brains.” Dom uses Malcolm as a go-between to the beautiful Nakia (Zoë Kravitz looking stunningly like her mother, Lisa Bonet, did in the late ’80s and early ’90s) who is studying for her GED. Nakia tells Malcolm she’ll go to Dom’s birthday party (at a club) if he will and so starts Malcolm’s fall down a rabbit hole of drugs, guns, car chases and intrigue, accompanied, for most of the journey, by Diggy and Jib.

DopeTrioClub — Malcolm, Jib and Diggy at the club

Although I would have liked to see more of her life apart from Malcolm, Laymons’ Diggy deserves special mention, a butch woman of color who is never a joke and doesn’t have any aspirations to be seen as tough. At the same time, she’s not a passive character: when Malcolm finds he has a bunch of molly (which back in the day was Exstasy or just “E”) that in one of the film’s turns of fancy, he is forced to sell, she’s the one who says, “”All we have to do is find the white people. Go to Coachella.” She also is the one who clips their (dull) stoner, white friend Will (Blake Anderson) on the ear every time he says the n-word, even the one time he negotiates permission. “It was a reflex,” she explains.

The film is a nice melange of an updated, John Hughes film (without the racist jokes) and early Tarantino (ditto) though the writing, while including some sharp humor in the comedic sequences, falls flat in the dramatic scenes. I should also point out that while the male characters (including the lead, Moore) are allowed to be many different shades of Black, all the women characters (save for the underused “Mom” Elise) could easily pass the paper-bag test. Still, I enjoyed the scenes with Korean American, Black model Chanel Iman as a bored rich girl, Lily. She’s a different type of femme fatale than we’re used to seeing. Shown in flimsy lingerie and topless, she doesn’t have breast implants, and she gets to shine in her later comic moments with some of the few bodily fluid jokes I’ve found funny–in any film.

Some prominent Black critics have made known their dislike of Dope, and I can guess why. The vein that runs through the plot, that even a harmless nerd like Malcolm, because of where he comes from, can’t avoid drug-running for powerful, corrupt dealers, is perilously close to what racists think about Black people in general (or Donald Trump thinks about Latinos). In an interview with Terry Gross on Fresh Air, Famuyiwa explained that he based the film on an encounter he had as a kid in his old neighborhood, accepting a ride in a drug dealer’s fancy car, only to be pulled over by the police. He wasn’t arrested (and wasn’t forced to deal drugs either), but if he had stuck to the facts in his script, this film probably wouldn’t have garnered the attention it has, including from producers Sean Combs, Forest Whitaker (who is also the narrator) and Pharrell Williams (who also wrote the film’s original songs: most of the rest of soundtrack is vintage hip-hop). Will anyone besides white guys ever allowed to be true, non-drug-dealing nerds in high school movies? Let’s hope so.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=strEm9amZuo” iv_load_policy=”3″]

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‘Amy’: Our Love Didn’t Do Her Any Favors

Mainstream media loves to watch when a famous woman–Courtney Love, Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan–breaks down in public. The posts and articles all feign “concern” but what they really do is exploit the problems of these women for clicks. Perhaps the most extreme recent example is Amy Winehouse, whose single “Rehab” was climbing up the charts at the same time that the paparazzi (particularly dogged and shameless in her native England, where tabloids have illegally hacked celebrity phones) captured her worsening alcoholism and addiction.

Because media covered Winehouse so relentlessly we have plenty of video of her during her bright, burning fame. She was young enough that even during her early teenage years–before she was famous–friends shot plenty of video of her (“Amy, give us a smile, then we can turn the camera off”) as well. In the new documentary Amy (which opens tomorrow, Friday, July 3) director Asif Kapadia doesn’t need to use “re-enactments” or the other types of visual filler we see in most documentaries. Instead, as audio interviews with her colleagues, friends, and family play we see Amy herself, first at 14, during a friend’s party, singing “Happy Birthday” like a torch song. Two years later we hear her sing an American songbook standard with the National Youth Orchestra, already sounding like an adult with a couple of albums under her belt. She signed her first major record deal when she was still a teenager and put out that prize-winning album when she was 20.

Winehouse was charming, opinionated, and funny: we see and hear her throw some epic shade on the singer Dido, fellow Grammy-nominee Justin Timberlake (Amy was the winner), and the company that put out her first album. But we also learn that even as a child she was very troubled. We hear her voice in an interview saying that when she was 9 years old, her father left the family and she decided no one could stop her from doing anything–including wearing makeup and other activities not usually associated with 9-year-olds. Her mother says that Amy chastised her later for not being tougher with her while she was growing up. Amy also told her mother early on about her bulimia, but in what would be a theme in Winehouse’s short life, no one thought fit to intervene.

Winehouse, who was as transparent in her interviews as she was in her songs (we find out that as in the famous lyric from the song “Rehab” she ended up not going to detox because her father didn’t think she needed it) also tells a journalist that she suffers from depression. Although she alludes to being on medication at one point, we don’t see any evidence that she ever saw a therapist.

A fiction that follows artists of all types is that somehow emotional turmoil is good for them, helping them to create great art and that the creation itself acts as a kind of therapy. One look at the number of acclaimed artists who have killed themselves should disabuse people of the notion that an artist’s work is “therapy,” any more than bookkeeping is “therapy” for an accountant.

We see Winehouse working on the album that will make her, at 23, world-famous, Back To Black. She looks chipper and healthy as she remarks after recording the vocal for the title track, “Oh it’s a bit upsetting at the end, isn’t it?” She wrote the songs on the record about her breakup with boyfriend (and eventual husband) Blake Fielder-Civil (referred to as Blake Fielder in the film) telling an interviewer, “I fell in love with someone I would have died for.”

Fielder-Civil admits he introduced her to heroin. But Winehouse talks about spending her days drinking and smoking weed before they ever met. Savvy enough to get a major label contract at 18, she probably knew that involvement with Fielder-Civil, who worked at a club that was a hangout for notorious addicts like musician (and one-time Kate Moss boyfriend) Pete Doherty, might lead to more drugs. Fielder-Civil’s addiction (and easy access to substances) might have been part of the attraction (because we certainly don’t see any other attractive qualities about him in the film). Once reunited the two were in a me-and-you-against-the-world relationship that addiction often fosters. A drug counselor who saw the couple says that he thought Fielder-Civil was holding Winehouse back from getting clean and sober; Fielder-Civil realized the relationship would end if the two of them no longer had drugs as a bond.

As Winehouse became more successful she, like Nina Simone, had more and more people financially dependent on her and fewer friends (at least two of the people closest to her had given her ultimatums over her drug and alcohol use–so-called “tough love” which, as with most addicts, didn’t work). She was also isolated because an army of photographers and film crews stalked her whenever she left her North London home; the white flashes and camera lights plus the cacophony of cameras and shouts that greet her whenever she opens a door seem like a bomb blast. We become complicit in this coverage as we see, from a paparazzo camera zooming in on the window of her home, her husband being arrested. Later we see footage of her, looking emotionally and physically devastated, still wearing her trademark beehive hairstyle, visiting the prison where he is held. After she becomes tabloid fodder, the same talk show hosts who applauded her when she sang “Rehab” on their shows make cheap jokes about her addiction in their opening monologues. In one of the last scenes we see paparazzi footage of family and friends sobbing outside her funeral.

amyFather — Amy Winehouse and her father

Her manager at the time of her death, like the other people who made their livelihood from her (including, sadly, her father, who visits her in St. Lucia with a reality camera crew in tow) always shrugged off confronting her about her deterioration (which included the bulimia, a factor in her death from alcohol poisoning). We see the police remove a body bag from the same home the paparazzi stalked and hear fans who loved her cry, but that love, as she says about Fielder-Civil’s “didn’t do me any favors.”

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Za3lZcrzzcM” iv_load_policy=”3″]

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‘Mad Max: Fury Road’ Allows Audiences to Both Enjoy and Problematize Hypermasculinity

As the evil dictator of the territory he occupies in a post-apocalyptic world, he demands more and more gasoline (which is in rare supply), while withholding water from his starved and sickly citizens. He also has a collection of women that he imprisons and uses for breeding purposes. In this single character we see some of the worst aspects of rampant hyper-masculinity condensed into one truly horrifying man.

This guest post by Elizabeth King appears as part of our theme week on Masculinity.

When I went to see Mad Max: Fury Road, I didn’t know anything about the film except that it was supposed to be “really, really good.” After leaving the movie theater, I was completely stunned. The film takes such a unique approach to a very common Hollywood action plot that it would be difficult not to be impressed with the creativity of Fury Road’s director, George Miller. Fury Road is also stunningly self-aware, and that alone makes it stand out in its genre. But the true creative genius is that the film includes all of the problematic, hyper-masculine core elements of action movies, but they are portrayed in such a way that audiences are not merely entertained by those elements, they also cannot help but to recognize them as problematic.

Hallmarks of a typical action movie are scenes and characters that include violence, destruction, bulging muscles, fire, fast cars, and attractive (but mostly irrelevant to the plot) women. Action movies revel in and glorify hyper-masculine imagery, particularly violence, and have little to no self-reflection regarding the destruction, havoc, and exploitation that results from uncritically embracing hyper-masculine values. Titles like Die Hard, The Matrix, and Terminator quickly come to mind as exemplars of this type of entertainment.

In Fury Road, oppressive violence and exploitation are personified in the legion of antagonists: the war boys and their villainous leader, Immortan Joe. Immortan is almost too perfect in this regard. As the evil dictator of the territory he occupies in a post-apocalyptic world, he demands more and more gasoline (which is in rare supply), while withholding water from his starved and sickly citizens. He also has a collection of women that he imprisons and uses for breeding purposes. In this single character we see some of the worst aspects of rampant hyper-masculinity condensed into one truly horrifying man.

What’s more is that Immortan Joe and his warboys all drive huge, emissions spewing, weaponized vehicles, designed to easily rip across their barren desert landscape and kill their enemies in many creative ways. They thrive off of consumption, exploitation of resources, and find glory in killing. They are (of course) all armed with excessively rigged-up guns, and when their war party of cars is assembled, the image is so on the nose that it is almost comical. There are entire scenes that are so overly masculinized that they become absurd.

But this is, in large part, the beauty of the film. Fury Road delivers all the high speed vehicles, bloodthirsty men, car chases, and explosions we want and expect in action movies, but these images are intentionally presented in such an extreme manner, rendering them absurd; the audience can’t help but have their exhilaration filtered through criticism. Fury Road is not escapist like so many other films in the action genre. On the contrary, it uses the spectacle of action tropes as a means of calling attention to the problems with those tropes.

The character of Max also fulfills many stereotypical masculine traits. He is stoic, quiet, a loner, and not afraid to wield a weapon. Much of his dialogue is grunting. While he demonstrates many masculine qualities, these traits are not pushed to the extreme limits like they are with Immortan Joe. In addition to being gruff and stoic, Max is also cooperative, level-headed, and willing to defer to the expertise and skills of women. Max’s masculinity is nuanced. It is the product of the state of the society he lives in, but he does not buy into the oppressive/ destructive narrative.

Max demonstrates that masculinity can embraced without it necessarily being brutish or a force force for destruction. Compared to Immortan and the warboys, Max’s character communicates that masculinity itself is not what creates oppression, but when the core features of traditional masculinity go unchecked and become dominant (a la Immortan Joe), it can only spell disaster.

Elizabeth King is a freelance writer based in Chicago, Ill. She is a feminist, environmentalist, and ice cream enthusiast. You can find her on Twitter @ekingc, and read more of her work on her website: www.elizabethcking.com.