Category: Uncategorized

Movie Review: Two Lovers

Two Lovers. Starring Joaquin Phoenix, Gwyneth Paltrow, Vinessa Shaw, Moni Moshonov, Isabella Rossellini, John Ortiz, Bob Ari, Julie Budd, and Elias Koteas. Written and directed by James Gray.

I’ve always respected Joaquin Phoenix’s acting ability, and I respect it even now, while he’s pretending to be mid-crazy, launching a fake rap career for Casey Affleck’s fake documentary—about Phoenix’s fake retirement from acting—and while he’s a full-bearded, drug-taking (that part’s real), mumbling, late night talk show phenom turned YouTube sensation. His documented fake freak-out definitely piqued my curiosity about his last film role, prior to his fake retirement from acting, Two Lovers. As it turned out, Phoenix’s brilliant performance, and the Brighton Beach, Brooklyn setting, were the only real reasons to keep watching this piece.

Leonard (Phoenix) is a medicated, suicidal mess of a person, who moved back in with his Jewish parents after his fiancé dumped him when it became apparent that they both carried a recessive gene that would prevent them from having children together. He helps his parents with their dry-cleaning business while also pursuing a half-hearted interest in photography. As his parents solidify a deal to sell the business, they set up their son with the daughter of their buyers. Enter Sandra (Vinessa Shaw), a pretty, sweet brunette who’s secretly liked Leonard ever since seeing him dance with his mother at the dry cleaner’s.

Around the time Leonard meets Sandra, he also coincidentally meets a gorgeous, glamorous blonde, Michelle (Gwyneth Paltrow), who just moved into his apartment building. Already as a viewer, I’m wondering how I’m supposed to believe that this guy, who just attempted suicide (again) at the beginning of the film, and who keeps a picture of his former fiancé on his nightstand, falls into a situation where he’s swimming in new vagina. Regardless, he’s most taken with the hot, fun blonde (shocking) who inhales drugs on her way to club-it-up in Manhattan and who lives the rest of her life in a codependent daze. Turns out, she’s a lawyer’s assistant, and—guess what—she’s fucking the lawyer!

Much to the dismay of Leonard (and me), Michelle lives in an apartment paid for by her married lawyer boyfriend, who’s planning to leave his wife for her, and who takes her to the opera an awful lot and other whatever. Michelle sees Leonard as “just a friend” and constantly asks him to do things for her, like, oh you know, tend to her after her miscarriage and etc, just like people who’ve been friends for two weeks often do. (That scene particularly bothered me, as it paints Michelle as not just codependent but completely manipulative and codependent exclusively on men. Where are her women friends?)

The worst part about all this is that the movie pretends these female characters have some complexity, by at least giving Paltrow some decent dialogue to work with, but the reality is that the characters are mired in clichés. It’s hard to overlook the fact that Leonard’s two relationship choices include a sensible, sweet brunette and a wild, drug-addicted, smokin’ hot blonde, which is so completely the opposite of subversive or interesting, and actually brings to mind the Madonna/Whore dichotomy. Also, we’re meant to believe that Sandra goes along with Leonard’s wishy-washiness because she just loves him that much, and, as she blatantly says to him, she understands him and just wants to take care of him. (Gag.)

Michelle, on the other hand, a character based entirely on the boss-screwing-his-hot-assistant cliché, goes from dumping her married boyfriend because he won’t leave his wife, to screwing Leonard on the roof of their apartment building, all in the span of a few hours. She is a sad character, and it’s never more evident than in this moment—her need to feel desired by men, to depend on them, to be taken care of by them, always overpowers anything else she may be feeling—it’s obvious she doesn’t care for Leonard as more than a friend, and yet she makes the decision to run away with him to San Francisco. (But don’t worry; he’s taking care of the tickets and any other necessary accommodations.)

I understand this film wants to give Leonard a choice and that Sandra represents a stable life, near his family, in partnership with her family, where he’ll enjoy a financially secure future, while also pleasing his parents, especially his very concerned mother. Conversely, Michelle represents his freedom from that life, and the literal escapes he makes with her—leaving grimy, unglamorous Brighton Beach to hang out with her in the big city—further illustrate his unwillingness to remain static. That’s the part of the film I love. Phoenix does the man-child bit in a way that isn’t a cliché taken straight from an Apatow film; he somehow makes you sympathize with Leonard and his dilemma.

Leonard’s obvious internal conflict with embracing his Jewish heritage—the choice Sandra represents (she’s almost a replacement mother for him)—and his desire to abandon his working-class neighborhood and subsequently the dry cleaning business—the choice Michelle represents—certainly save the film from replicating many recent comedy-dramas, where the slacker man-child lives out his slacker existence until falling in love with a gorgeous woman, way out of his league, who finally domesticates him, curing him of his adolescent slacker ways.

The family dynamic in particular plays out in Leonard’s choice between Sandra and Michelle. Sandra, a Jewish woman, has an obvious connection with her family. When Leonard asks her what her favorite movie is, she tells him it’s The Sound of Music, not because she thinks it’s a great movie, but because it reminds her of watching it with her family as a child. We see scenes with her and her family at her brother’s bar mitzvah, with Leonard there too, almost lurking in the background.

Michelle, however, is the opposite of Sandra, a blonde WASP, who only mentions her father once, when we hear him yelling off-screen at the beginning of the film. We never see any member of her family, and that certainly appeals to Leonard. If he chooses Michelle, he can avoid living a life his parents and Sandra’s parents seem to have already planned out for him, and Phoenix, a master at playing this type of emotionally wounded character, truly makes the audience sympathize with his struggle to get his life together.

But as much as I loved watching Joaquin work the screen, I absolutely despised the pseudo-complexity of Paltrow’s character. (They don’t even try to make Shaw’s character into anything more than Future Doting Wife.) Michelle’s codependence isn’t interesting— no matter how effortlessly Paltrow performs it—the blonde wild-child thing is tired at this point, and the over-the-top female insecurity just completely and unapologetically lacks inventiveness. (Women can demonstrate insecurity in ways other than becoming drug addicts, passing out in bar bathrooms, screwing their married bosses, and manipulating men, I promise.)

So what the hell? Ultimately, I’m left with this question: why does a film about a man’s attempt to pull himself out of a very real darkness have to rely so heavily on traditional clichés regarding women’s experiences, while simultaneously creating an actual interesting life for the male hero?

Rachel Getting Married: A Response

Last October, Stephanie reviewed Rachel Getting Married after seeing it in the theater. After rereading her post, I’d like to offer my response.


First, the poster is a poor representation of the film. While you could argue that Kym (Hathaway) is the main character, the movie is really about her and her sister, Rachel (DeWitt). The background of the movie is much more in the foreground, unlike the poster. All the characters in the film are complicated, conflicted, and ultimately complicit in the family tragedy. What Stephanie said about the anger and guilt rings true, as well as the unsentimental nature of the story. Each character behaves in cruel, selfish ways; Kym’s narcissistic, inappropriate speeches counter Rachel’s bratty outbursts of jealousy. Yet there are some weak points in an otherwise very, very good movie.

The mother, Abby (Winger), always stays on the periphery of the story, with both sisters desiring her comfort and love. Her inability to give her daughters what they want is realistic, but in a film where the two main characters change over the course of a weekend, and grow to accept each other in subtle ways, an unchanging, hard mother stands out and takes on the role of the ‘responsible party’ in the family’s tragedy. Her coldness and distance, compared to the father’s overbearing nurturing of his daughters (he’s constantly stroking faces and fixing food), makes her an easy target for blame. The reversal of stereotypical gender-based reactions to tragedy is particularly interesting, but I wonder if the flip is too complete, too easy. In other words, does the mother simply become the father? What kind of love are the sisters looking for from their mother? Do they need something from their father? If so, what?

Aside from what I see as the incomplete characterization of the mother, something that really bothered me is something I simultaneously love: the lack of back story. While it makes us more present in the film, it endlessly thwarts attempts at a reading. The documentary-style filming, too, frustrates viewers by hiding as much as it reveals. The family trauma is made abundantly clear, maybe too much so. In the first scene, we learn from a fellow rehab patient that Kym killed someone with a car. Once she gets home and stands for a moment in an empty child’s room, we can guess what has happened. We get several additional scenes that explain every detail of the accident. Yet, that’s not the source of her addiction. Kym was some sort of teen model, gracing the cover of Seventeen magazine while blasted on horse tranquilizers, and her family had the kind of money (whether it was hers or not) to send her to the premium rehab facilities.

Also, it’s impossible to ignore the multicultural cast of friends and family. We don’t know how a Connecticut WASP family came to be part of such a rockin’ crew, or how the bride and groom’s families all became so comfortable with each other on their very first meeting. While I admire the post-racial aspirations of the film, and thoroughly enjoyed the music, the actors seem more like Jonathan Demme’s crew than two families joining for the first time. The mixing of cultures (Caribbean and Hindu, specifically, with those intimate with “Connecticut’s complicated tax structure”) plays naturally in the movie, and never feels like a co-optation, but compared with the stark realism of the primary relationships, leaves viewers asking questions, testing our willing suspension of disbelief. I’d love to read the screenplay (written by Jenny Lumet), and see how my issues with the film manifest in the (original) script, and how much is Demme’s indulgence.

While this may seem like a negative review, the preceding are really my only complaints. I watched the movie twice, and liked it even better the second time around. I haven’t seen such a realistic family drama, with women who break common decency while ultimately remaining sympathetic characters. Further, I’m fascinated by stories that deal with the aftermath of the worst kinds of traumas, and that explore how we come to deal with the unfathomable, the unforgivable, and the unforgettable.

Ripley’s Rebuke: Vicky Cristina Barcelona

Welcome to the first installment of Ripley’s Rebuke, a series of reviews of films that pass Ripley’s Rule while remaining essentially misogynistic.
Written and directed by Woody Allen; starring Rebecca Hall, Scarlett Johansson, Javier Bardem, and Penelope Cruz.

I like Woody Allen, while admitting that his best work is (long) behind him. With all the accolades Vicky Cristina Barcelona has received, I decided to give it a shot.

Vicky (Hall) and Cristina (Johansson) are privileged college students spending two months of their summer in Barcelona; Vicky plans to study for her thesis on Catalan identity (despite not speaking a lick of Spanish), and Cristina tags along, hoping to find something about herself and art, after she devoted six months to making a 12-minute film she now hates (a humorous and revealing detail). Both young women fall for the same Spanish artist/lothario (Bardem), and a contemplation on the nature of love follows.

Vicky and Cristina represent the stereotypical blonde/brunette duo in film: the brunette is repressed, practical to a fault, cautious, and afraid; the blonde is adventurous, sexual, open, and fun. It’s almost as if these characters represent two halves of the same person. Vicky has a responsible businessman fiance back home in New York, while Cristina jumps into bed with the first Spanish man she meets–not knowing, of course, that Vicky is also hot for him. The three of them spend a weekend together, and a convenient little plot device ensures that Vicky will actually sleep with the artist first, but is soon left behind for the more sexually attractive (and less neurotic) Cristina.

Soon, Cristina moves in with Juan Antonio, and his ex-wife unexpectedly comes into the picture, providing the film some much-needed energy, and also its low point. Penelope Cruz as the seriously unstable Maria Elana barrels, shrieks, and smokes her way into a menage-a-trois relationship with Cristina and Juan Antonio. While the scenario sparks precious few laughs (in a film almost devoid of humor), a question haunts Cruz’s every scene: why did she win so much praise for this role? (For the record, Cruz won a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award, a Best Supporting Actress BAFTA Film Award, a Best Supporting Female Independent Spirit Award, Best Supporting Actress SAG Award, among others. The film also won Allen a Best Screenplay Independent Spirit Award and a Best Picture Golden Globe Award, along with numerous other nominations and wins.) Maria Elana’s hysteria is epic, almost nineteenth-century in its intensity, as she tries to commit suicide and murder during her limited screen time. We’re told she’s a better artist than her ex-husband (it’s worth noting that she accuses Juan Antonio of stealing her style, and he is the one who lives in the house they shared and who has artistic success), but also that she falls apart without him–and with him, until Cristina creates the triangularity that allows the relationship to work. And, yes boys, you get to see a brief scene of Scarlett Johansson and Penelope Cruz getting it on.

While all of Cristina’s sexy artistic madness happens, Vicky studies and regrets her choice of lifemate, Doug, who, despite his romantic gesture of flying to Barcelona for an impromptu marriage (with the promise of a lavish wedding back home, as previously planned), turns out to be a closed-minded dork. Vicky pines for Juan Antonio, endeared by his poet father and her surprise at perhaps (perhaps!) judging him too harshly. (Certainly there are no other sexy artists in Barcelona she could use to convince herself not to marry the man who planted that rock on her finger.)

In contrast to Penelope Cruz’s entire presence in the film, the high point, for me, comes at the end, when Cristina and Vicky head home, both resuming the lives they left behind, having come to no epiphany about the nature of love, having experienced no real growth or change of character. It’s bleak, it’s not funny, but it’s perhaps the most real and true moment of the entire film.

As for the need for a rebuke of this film, it (barely) passes the Bechdel Test, but does more to exploit its women than allow them to be full human beings. There are more than two named female characters, and they talk to each other, though almost every conversation is about men. There may be a brief line or two between Cristina and Maria Elana about photography, but soon after the conversation they kiss. And there’s nothing at all offensive about the kiss; it’s that there’s no believable passion–it seems like an act strictly performed for a male (ahem, Woody Allen) gaze. Further, Maria Elana objectifies herself for Cristina’s photography, posing as a prostitute in what passes for a rough part of town, mirroring the actual prostitutes that Cristina photographs while out with Juan Antonio.

Penelope Cruz deserved the Oscar for her role in Volver, not for her turn as a sexy shrieking cartoon character. The film deserves a rebuke for its pseudo-intellectualism about the meaning of love, and for the trite way it uses art and place. It deserves a rebuke for the flightiness and uncertainty of all of its female characters (including a weak turn from Patricia Clarkson, playing the ghost of Vicky’s future), while creating only confident, bold, male characters. Juan Antonio never seems to long for answers about love; he simply takes his conquests in stride, collecting lovers without thought. Women here don’t know what they want, and seem pathologically incapable of enjoying what they have or going after what they want.

The Power of Representation

Representing President Obama as a “Super-feminist” has ignited a debate over who the savior of feminism ought to be (see here for a good overview), and likely sold a lot of copies of Ms. magazine’s January edition. Praise for the new president’s political aspirations regarding women’s rights isn’t contended; it’s how the feminist magazine chose to portray Obama: tearing open his Clark Kent clothes to swoop in and rescue us. It’s the representation that has people peeved.

For our purposes here at BF, two articles were published last month–the weekend before the inauguration–about the impact the movies had on Obama’s election. Not that the movies got him elected, but how roles black American men play in the movies have a real effect on the people who see them, and how we can see, through the movies, our own cultural values reflected back on us.

If you ever question how important representation in film really is, I think these articles make the point well. While they specifically focus on male presidential aspirations (and on the unique history of black Americans), they also remind us how pop culture permeates our society and informs opinions and values.

The New York Times published “How the Movies Made a President,”written by A.O. Scott and Manhola Dargis, in their Film section. The article provides an overview of black male roles, from the “Black Everyman” of the ’60s to the “Black Messiah,” currently played and re-played by Will Smith.

Make no mistake: Hollywood’s historic refusal to embrace black artists and its insistence on racist caricatures and stereotypes linger to this day. Yet in the past 50 years — or, to be precise, in the 47 years since Mr. Obama was born — black men in the movies have traveled from the ghetto to the boardroom, from supporting roles in kitchens, liveries and social-problem movies to the rarefied summit of the Hollywood A-list. In those years the movies have helped images of black popular life emerge from behind what W. E. B. Du Bois called “a vast veil,” creating public spaces in which we could glimpse who we are and what we might become.

We hear from the likes of Elizabeth Banks and Katherine Heigl that the only roles really open to them—genuinely talented, lovely young actresses—are that of sidekick, buddy, and romantic object. It’s not that there haven’t been good, meaty roles for women; there have, for sure. But what movie roles do young girls imitate? What fictional figures can women look up to?

The Root’s “Hollywood’s Leading Man: From Sammy Davis Jr. to Dave Chappelle’s Black Bush, how pop culture tested the waters for a black president” offers a more nuanced and contrarian view of the power of pop culture (and reminds us of the egos of those who really believe their art makes a difference). The article surveys the satirical representations of a black president as representative of the racial divide in America, but cites the series 24 as a shift–although one not without its problems–and questions how television and cinema will change.

So now that we have a black president, how will we react to media portrayals? Will there be pressure among writers and producers to create black leaders who feel real and black-led administrations that feel plausible? Will we, as viewers, be able to enjoy over-the-top portrayals of black presidents, such as Terry Crews’ wig-wearing wrestler in Idiocracy, as merely fun entertainment, devoid of racial and social commentary?

Might we perhaps see a black actor playing the lead in a complex drama like The West Wing, or a romantic comedy along An American President, where the president gets to be a fully fleshed out human, and not a cardboard icon? And isn’t it about time that we saw a portrayal of an African-American president who just happens to be a woman, too?

I, too, would like to see that woman. And I think we’d all like to see her on the cover of Ms., wearing a t-shirt that reads “This is what a feminist looks like.”

Heigl’s in a RomCom?

Check out Shakesville for a discussion of the increasing number of embarrassing romantic comedies that continue to rehash the same stereotypical anti-woman crap Hollywood’s been dishing out for … ever?

This film would have us believe “the ugly truth” is that women love with their crazy little emotional centers and men love with their rascally cocks. But the real ugly truth is that there are people who treat that shit as actual fact—and the even uglier truth is that there are people who will pay good money to see this film because they find it “so true!”

Movie Review: Let the Right One In

Let the Right One In. Starring Kare Hedebrant, Lina Leandersson, Per Ragnar, Henrik Dahl, Karin Bergquist, Peter Carlberg, and Ika Nord. Written by John Ajvide Lindqvist. Directed by Tomas Alfredson.

I want to describe Let the Right One In as a vampire love story, but that wouldn’t nearly do it justice. That description wouldn’t, however, be entirely inaccurate either. The movie’s protagonist is a twelve-year-old boy named Oskar who lives in the Stockholm suburb of Blackeberg in 1982. We first encounter him pretending to defend himself against the school bullies who constantly berate him, but the reality is he doesn’t yet know how to stand up to them. Instead, he collects newspaper clippings of violent crimes and secretly files them away in a notebook, almost as revenge-fantasies. He sleeps with a knife and carries it with him everywhere, and the night he stands outside in the freezing cold, stabbing a tree while calling it “piggy” (the school bullies’ nickname for him), he encounters Eli.

Eli appears out of nowhere behind their shared apartment building, watching Oskar. She’s got wide, creepy eyes, and Oskar tells her she smells funny. He also wonders why she isn’t cold, since she’s wearing only a t-shirt and standing in the snow barefoot. These questions hardly get resolved; when he asks her why she isn’t cold, she says, “I guess I’ve forgotten how.” They both leave their first meeting declaring that they don’t want to be friends, and that declaration more or less showcases just how “other” each of the characters feels—it’s easier to remain alone than to risk yet another person’s contempt.

It isn’t clear whether Hakan, the man who lives with Eli, is her father or her familiar. (In vampire myth, a familiar is a human who wishes to become a vampire by signing with the vampires through a blood oath.) Regardless, Hakan acts as Eli’s caretaker by slinking through the streets of Blackeberg in the middle of the night in search of a human to drain for blood. In each of his attempts, he screws up, and it provides several instances of black comedy in the film. But when Hakan can’t get the blood Eli needs to survive, she’s forced to go find it herself.

Watching such a small girl ravenously and violently latch onto a man who attempts to help her (she calls out to him, pretending she’s hurt, then buries her face and teeth into his neck), well, I jumped in my seat. It’s scary. And just as the audience begins to understand that, omg, she really is a vampire! she breaks her victim’s neck and leans over him sadly, almost apologetically, creating one of the many beautiful scene juxtapositions in the film, first exposing Eli as animal, then immediately highlighting her humanity. She kills because she needs to kill, not because she wants to.

From this moment on, the movie tackles several themes, one of which is violence, specifically the kid-on-kid violence Oskar experiences at the hands of his classmates, and how that plays against the vampire-on-human violence Eli’s responsible for. What does it say, for instance, that Eli, a killer by definition, experiences remorse for a necessary act of violence, while a group of young boys, most notably the leader of the pack, gets off on torturing and humiliating Oskar? As Eli and Oskar’s friendship develops, Eli ultimately convinces Oskar to stand up to the school bullies, and the consequences of his actions set the stage for the film’s finale.

At times, while watching the wonderful chemistry between the two young actors onscreen, it almost seemed as if the vampirism were a subplot rather than the main focus. The movie wants, after all, to tell us something about childhood, how lonely and alienated a child can feel, and how important it is to feel connected to someone. They toy with the idea of a romantic relationship somewhat—Oskar asks Eli “to go steady”—and she agrees, if it means keeping everything the same. This pretend-romance illustrates two things. One, that Oskar’s tale is a coming-of-age story, and two, that while Eli lives in the body of a twelve-year-old, she has in fact been “twelve” for quite a long time.

Without giving too much away, it’s important to mention both characters’ androgyny. When Eli says at the beginning of the film, “I’m not a girl,” we naturally assume she means she’s a vampire. Is it possible she means something else? And if so, how does that change the dynamic of their interactions? A brief screen shot of Eli’s scarred genitalia forces us to ask these questions. Ultimately, the shot reminds us that Eli will forever remain as she is, an outcast in a child’s body, while Oskar will grow up, perhaps even grow out of his current status as “other.”

Let the Right One In takes a story about a vampire and makes it sweet, and in the end, takes that sweetness and turns it right on its head. Many people won’t read the ending as so dark, and I can see how one might even interpret it as a happy ending. But everything that comes before: Eli’s incessant quest for blood, Oskar’s increasing reliance on her strength and approval, their shared loneliness, and each character’s saving of the other’s life (both literally and metaphorically), frames the final scene (and possibly the entire film) as much more sinister than sweet.

One has to wonder if Oskar has any real idea about what’s in store for him by running away with Eli. In the end, Eli needs a new familiar, a human who will actively kill for her. While I believe Eli consciously manipulates Oskar by playing on his vulnerability, I don’t necessarily think Oskar, as naïve as he may come across to Eli, is unaware of Eli’s plan for him. It’s an exchange of sorts, and it’s about need—Oskar’s need to feel unconditionally accepted by someone, and Eli’s very practical need for blood. But it’s the film’s interrogation of “the monster within the human,” that works so well, ultimately positioning the weak, fear-based (and sympathetic) hero as the monster, a transformation that Oskar, unlike Eli, accepts willingly.

Black Snake Moan: A Review in Conversation

Welcome to the first installment of a new feature on Bitch Flicks: Reviews in Conversation. We take a movie that’s worth talking about, and do just that.

“This is some revolutionary shit. We’re tying up white women in Mississippi.” –John Singleton, on filming Black Snake Moan in the South

Why does the revolution necessitate wholesale exploitation of women?

Since Black Snake Moan was one of the initial movies (along with Hustle & Flow…maybe we should officially thank Craig Brewer for the inspiration) that made us want to start this site, it’s fitting that we discuss the movie in our first Review in Conversation segment.

Here’s the IMDb summary:

In Mississippi, the former blues man Lazarus is in crisis, missing his wife that has just left him. He finds the town slut and nymphomaniac Rae dumped on the road nearby his little farm, drugged, beaten and almost dead. Lazarus brings her home, giving medicine and nursing and nourishing her like a father, keeping her chained to control her heat. When her boyfriend Ronnie is discharged from the army due to his anxiety issue, he misunderstands the relationship of Lazarus and Rae, and tries to kill him. (Claudio Carvalho)

Before I address the film’s atrocious sexism, which the above summary characterizes well, I’d like to say what I love about BSM. The music, first and foremost, is outstanding. Brewer calls this a movie about the blues, and I’d like to take that a step further and say the movie is the blues. Or it tries to be, at least. The movie and its story are too small, conflicted, and tone-deaf to achieve greatness. It tries to be the blues and ends up being a blues music video, where Lazarus (Samuel L. Jackson) is the tortured and tired star, and Rae (Christina Ricci) is the video vixen, shaking her ass for the camera.

This is a movie that I want to love. It’s gritty, unique, and aware of class and race—a rare combination. However, there is no female perspective in the movie. Is it really too much to ask for a sharp film to also be sharp about gender? Is it right for a film like BSM to claim gender as a theme, while not really exploring women at all? Rae is the only female character (brief appearances by Lazarus’ wife, Rae’s mother, and a kind pharmacist easily fit into the angel/monster dichotomy), but she isn’t quite a real person. What is wrong with her? She is talked about as a nymphomaniac, and has strange, demonic fits of desire, but she’s really a victim of rape and abuse. Lazarus, whose trauma is that his wife aborted his baby and left for his younger brother, takes it upon himself to “cure” her by chaining her to a radiator. Even if the movie isn’t to be taken literally (but as a metaphor of sorts), why are the other characters so human and she so other, so animal?

Response by Stephanie R.

I, too, fell in love with the music in this film. It complements the key themes—race and class, as you mentioned, religion, and I’d also take it a step further to include sex. The scenes with Ricci shaking her ass for the camera are wonderfully sexy, and I found myself wavering back and forth during those scenes, wondering, is this just another female character being exploited by the camera? Or, is this a female character finally owning her sexuality?

Early on, she’s portrayed as a woman who’s at the mercy of her untamable sexual desires, and I didn’t ever get the feeling that she enjoyed them. She’s often shown squirming around on the ground, rubbing her hands all over her body, and moaning, like she’s struggling to fend off an attack. It’s at that point that she must find someone, anyone to screw, in order to make that feeling go away.

Later though, after Lazarus “cures” her by wrapping a giant chain around her waist and attaching it to a radiator, Rae is allowed to enter society again, showing up at a bar with Lazarus, drinking, rubbing up against everyone on the dance floor while Lazarus watches her from the stage, almost approvingly. What’s going on here? I truly want to read this as much more complicated than a man giving a woman permission to flaunt her sexuality, and I think it is.

But I also can’t help getting a little unnerved by the frivolity with which her sexuality is treated earlier in the film, when she’s portrayed as nothing more than the town whore. (At one point, the local mechanic says, “It’s already noon, Rae. Do you think those shorts should still be on?”) And when she’s described as “having the sickness” by another character (meaning nymphomania), it’s impossible not to think about the double-standard we still hold for men and women, especially when it comes to sexual desires.

As you mentioned, she is portrayed as “other,” often animalistic in her sexual conquests. Since I don’t think a film like this would work at all if a man were the one with the sexual “disease” (it’s natural for men to have uncontrollable sex drives, after all) then what does one make of using the myth of nymphomania to drive the plot? (See Peter Green’s “All Sexed Up,” a review of Carol Groneman’s 2000 book Nymphomania: A History, for a brief discussion of the myth.)

Response by Amber L.

I agree that the scene in the bar was very sexy, and I think I agree with what you said about that being a moment of Rae owning her sexuality. I think we’re supposed to understand that scene as a very important moment in which both characters are owning something that they’d lost—or lost control of. For whatever reason, Lazarus had lost his music (and I suspect it had to do with his wilting marriage), and Rae had lost control of her sexuality. However, that scene was exhilarating, and I think it has to do with reclamation and individual victory.

But back to the way gender and sex intersect. If nymphomania is itself largely fictitious, the strange way Rae’s fits were portrayed—moments in the film that were suspended between fear and comedy—reveals some of the ideological confusion of the film. If not for her nearly-naked body, battered and bruised and constantly displayed, I might have more sympathy for the film’s motivations. Add that to Rae’s moment of catharsis where she beats the shit out of her mother with a mop handle (for allowing Rae to be raped, either by her father or another male figure in her home), and we see women destroyed by sex who we’re supposed to sympathize with.

The final topic I want to bring up is religion. We can’t deny the role Christianity plays in the film. From the name of the main character to the supporting cast (which includes a preacher), the issue of faith (and a very certain brand of faith) comes up again and again. If the movie is a metaphor for “anxiety, fear, and unconditional love,” according to Brewer himself, then religion is the element that holds it all together. The instantiations of religion, however, are clunky at best; the radiator is God, the chain is faith, et cetera. I don’t really know where to go from here, except to acknowledge the large role of religion, although it plays out in hackneyed ways.

Response by Stephanie R

While I would like to see both characters in this film actually achieve some level of reclamation and individual victory, I think it fails for the most part, but the film especially fails Rae. She remains “chained” in a metaphorical sense, even in the final scenes. I don’t believe her character discovers much, or achieves much of an arc; she remains, for me, completely static. In fact, the film pretty much uses her as a vehicle to showcase the success of Lazarus, (which is yet another example of female exploitation that Brewer has either no awareness of or no desire to address).

I was left feeling no hope for Rae in that final scene—she’s imprisoned, (in a stuffy car, surrounded by semi-trucks) stuck in a relationship with a man who’s essentially a child needing to be coddled, with only the memory of her radiator-chain to keep her from jumping from the vehicle and fucking her way across the interstate. But Lazarus has his music again. He’s managed to overcome his anger about his wife leaving him, and he’s even got a nice new chick to look after him. See how chaining up a white woman in Mississippi can revolutionize an entire worldview?

The truth is I never gave a shit about Rae. I could’ve cared for her, if Brewer hadn’t used her sexuality against her—it’s filmed as if the abuse she suffers is deserved. (See what you get when you go around whoring yourself? Tsk, tsk.) By the time we get to know her character, when, as you mentioned, she divulges her history of sexual abuse, then beats the shit out of her mother with a mop handle, it’s way too late for sympathy. By that point, Brewer has already managed to turn a young woman’s sexuality into a cross between sketch comedy and porn, where nothing about it feels real.

In that moment of catharsis with her mother, I found myself detached. Instead of sympathizing with Rae and coming to some kind of realization myself, I just rolled my eyes at the ridiculous, clichéd consequences of her abuse—girl gets raped by father-figure while mother does nothing to stop it, girl develops low self-esteem, girl becomes town slut, girl develops a fictional sex disease, girl gets chained to radiator by religious black man. Wait, what? Ah religion, how you never cease to reinforce the second-class citizenship of women, perpetually punishing them for their godless desire to fuck.

So Rae is possessed by an evil sex demon, and, at one freaky moment, Lazarus’s ex-wife. Lazarus and his brother are Cain and Abel. There’s adultery, lust, preachers, fire-and-brimstone, bible passages, and judgmental townsfolk. Basically, the religious themes receive the same clichéd treatment as women’s sexuality. Rae is pretty much “saved” by Lazarus, and Lazarus pretty much gets his shit together and “rises from the dead” (as Lazarus in the bible).

And, after this conversation, I’m starting to wonder if I’m the problem, if I made the mistake of taking this film seriously, when what it really wants to be is one big sensationalist metaphor. A metaphor for what, though? I’ll conclude with something Brewer says in an interview.

“I’m not writing from a place of progress. I’m not writing a movie that I want people to necessarily intellectualize. And I think that really messes with people who feel that they need to make a statement against this, and they don’t quite know what it is they’re against. Because man alive, you look at this imagery on this poster, and I’m so obviously banging this drum. It’s like, you really believe that I believe this? That women need to be chained up? Can we not think metaphorically once race and gender are introduced?”

Rent Black Snake Moan from Netflix
Read Carol Groseman’s article, “Nymphomania: The Historical Construction of Female Sexuality,” published in Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society
Read the Salon.com interview with Craig Brewer

‘One Woman, One Vote’: A Documentary Review

Seneca Falls. Susan B. Anthony. Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Alice Paul. Lucy Burns. Iconic American names that we recognize from our last history course, but often without knowledge of the full extent of their courage and suffering. The suffrage movement is one filled with small victories, setbacks, and defeats, and with men and women of often clashing ideas and ideologies.

Women’s suffrage was a 72-year movement that finally attained nation-wide victory in 1920 with the ratification of the 19th constitutional amendment prohibiting sex discrimination at the polls. Up to this point, women met, organized, marched, fought amongst themselves, lobbied, and protested. They were threatened, ridiculed, attacked, beaten, tried, arrested, and placed in solitary confinement for their actions. In retaliation, they fought harder. They organized hunger strikes in prison. They surrounded the White House in protest, despite angry mobs of men who dragged them to the ground and tore not only their banners, but also clothing from their bodies.

One of the more shocking discoveries I had from watching One Woman, One Vote was that women were not united in the cause of suffrage. There were a number of women who believed that politics were corrupt, and that women would only participate in the corruption, and sully their clean, domestic image, by voting. There was even strong disagreement amongst the suffragettes; they divided and formed separate groups on different occasions, opposing each others’ strategies and tactics for earning the vote, and finally unified when ratification of the amendment seemed inevitable. There were many diverse opinions and motivations driving the movement and its opposition, including racism, temperance, religion, and cultural norms.

The documentary was made in 1995, but only the graphics seem dated (and, despite the fact that One Woman, One Vote is part of the PBS American Experience series, the film has no official website). Susan Sarandon narrates, and the film is full of varied voices, letters, film reels, photos, and cartoons. There are great clips of historic songs throughout, too, which are often funny, incisive, and scathing. I learned so much about a part of American and women’s history that is so often summarized into a single paragraph.

Here are a few highlights of the women who made the movement.

On November 5, 1872, Susan B. Anthony led a dozen women to the polls in Rochester, New York, and convinced the worker there to allow her and the others to vote—despite the fact that it was against the law. Four hours later, U.S. Marshals arrested and handcuffed Anthony. She was later convicted of a federal crime by an all-male jury–after being forbidden to testify on her own behalf (women were deemed incompetent to testify because of their sex). Before her sentencing, however, she was permitted a statement:

“In your ordered verdict of guilty, you have trampled underfoot every principle of our government: my natural rights, my civil rights, my political rights. I have been tried by law made by men, interpreted by men, administered by men, in favor of men, and against women. May it please, your honor, I shall never pay a dollar of your unjust penalty. Resistance to tyranny is obedience to God.”

African American women were quite unified in their support of suffrage. However, mainstream groups were seeking the support of Southern Democrats, who strongly opposed suffrage for black women, and thus largely left black women out of their cause. Mary Church Terrell was one of the few black women invited to speak at national conventions, and there she urged white suffragists not to forget black women:

“Not only are colored women handicapped on account of their sex, they are everywhere mocked on account of their race. We are asking that our sisters of the dominant race do all in their power to include in their resolutions the injustices to which colored people are victims.”

Despite the efforts of Terrell and other African American leaders, they never enjoyed mainstream acceptance from the suffrage movement. Regardless, they organized and grew their supporters to half a million members, including active support from men.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who first called for women’s rights at Seneca Falls (the right to vote was her most radical demand; the group met to call for property rights, divorce rights, and a woman’s right to her children), told her friend Susan B. Anthony that as she grew older, she grew more radical. Their relationship is widely considered one of the greatest relationships of the 19th century, and Stanton’s radicalism seems to be one of the few areas of disagreement–though it did not end their friendship. When Stanton was in her 70s, frustrated by women who still refused to join the suffrage movement, she denounced the church as responsible for the oppression of women.

“The Bible teaches that woman brought sin and death into the world. I don’t believe that any man ever talked with God. The Bible was written by man, out of his love of domination.”

She rewrote every section of the Bible that degraded women, and published The Woman’s Bible, which was translated into six languages. The Woman’s Suffrage Association denounced the work, and rebuked Stanton. After her death, Stanton’s daughter, Harriet Blatch, led the movement.

Alice Paul earned numerous academic degrees in her lifetime, and also served numerous prison sentences for acts of civil disobedience in her campaign for women’s suffrage. When she arrived in Washington in 1913, she was one of the few women in the United States who held a doctorate degree in political science. While in prison she led hunger strikes, and was tortured with forced-feedings:

“Dear Mama,
The forcible feeding was terrible. They tied me to a chair because I struggled. One wardress sat astride my knees, two others held my arms and hands while two doctors forced a tube five or six feet long through my nose, like driving a stake into the ground.”

Rather than defeat her, the experience only made Paul more determined to devote her life to the suffrage movement. Among her many accomplishments were the organization of a parade that essentially upstaged the inauguration of newly-elected president Woodrow Wilson and caused a riot in the streets that brought out the U.S. Cavalry, and a “perpetual delegation” of women who picketed outside the White House, six days a week, in which women from all backgrounds stood silently with banners protesting the administration’s refusal to support a federal amendment to enfranchise women, and even outrageously mocking the president’s hypocrisy. Finally, police began to arrest the silent protesters, who were regularly being physically attacked, and charged them with obstructing traffic and imprisoned them–sometimes for months at a time.

The year was 1917. It took an additional three years for the 19th amendment to be passed and ratified by all of the states.

Remember the women who fought for women like us. We’ve only had the vote for 88 years. Exercise your right: Vote today.

Rent One Woman, One Vote from Netflix.
Purchase the DVD from PBS.