Pinning down what makes the camera use a female gaze can be a little tricky, as we have all lived within the male gaze for so long. It is commonplace to see women on display disproportionately while male characters go fully clothed. The gaze’s assumption of heterosexuality also carries over to the infrequently used female gaze, making it slightly more visible. It is this consumption of the male body in ‘The Guest’ which initially establishes the film’s gaze as female.
David and his beautiful baby blues.
This guest post by Deirdre Crimmins appears as part of our theme week on The Female Gaze.
Whether you consider it an homage to 1980s thrillers, or a throwback to action films of the 1990s, it is clear that The Guest has much more meat in it than your typical fast-moving fun flick. Watching the film unfold before you—with both literal and metaphorical guns blazing—it feels intentionally crafted to simultaneously occupy the same space as action films and to also coyly toy with the audience’s expectations of those films. One of the ways that The Guest intentionally subverts audience expectations is its assumption of the female gaze.
Pinning down what makes the camera use a female gaze can be a little tricky, as we have all lived within the male gaze for so long. It is commonplace to see women on display disproportionately while male characters go fully clothed. The gaze’s assumption of heterosexuality also carries over to the infrequently used female gaze, making it slightly more visible. It is this consumption of the male body in The Guest which initially establishes the film’s gaze as female.
Dan Stevens plays the main character, David. Stevens was most well-known to audiences as the romantic and strong cousin Matthew in Downtown Abbey. Matthew made many women in the television show swoon with his soft blond hair and blue eyes. Stevens’s role in the program was decidedly British. From the accent to the tuxedos to living in an honest castle there was a level of exoticness to him. His casting in The Guest adds a level of this “otherness” to a firmly American character.
Just your average American psycho coming home from war.
David is a good old boy. Returning home from Afghanistan he first visits the family of a fallen soldier to pay his respects and carry out the dying man’s wishes. While staying with the Peterson family David quickly establishes himself as their protector, whether they want the help or not. The daughter, Anna (Maika Monroe) seems uncertain at first, but one thing wins her over to David’s good graces: his body.
A quick encounter in the hallway before heading out to a friend’s birthday party put Anna face to pecs with David’s patriotic and glistening muscles. He was just getting out of the shower before dressing for the party, though his timing seems more intentional than fortuitous. David’s towel is slung low, below his hips, and the hot shower has left his body shining in the hallway lights. Anna stutters and can barely get a few words out before recoiling to her bedroom.
With David in his towel the camera’s gaze is firmly female. Not only does it linger across his body, slicing him up into distinct regions of rippling muscle rather than showing him as a whole person, but the entire experience is filmed with sympathy to Anna’s experience. It is in Anna’s reaction we see to the hunk in the hallway. The editing and music in this scene are clearly geared toward aligning with Anna’s pleasure in the sight. She is delighting in seeing this beautiful man in her own home. Though she is slightly embarrassed by her inability to concentrate when faced with such a specimen, she is not ashamed by her desire. Anna’s sexual longing for David’s ripped abs, paired with the audience’s similar want, is presented as a certainty.
This is the most striking visual representation of the female gaze in The Guest, but there are elements in the story that also align the audience with the female characters, rather than the male characters.
When we first meet David he is running. Running down an empty road, toward the Peterson’s house. The mother, Laura (Sheila Kelley), is the only one home to meet him for the first time. As David is an outsider coming in to their town and home, the film establishes itself as coming from the perspective of Laura. The first shot we see of David is from her view of opening the door to meet him. The film’s frame is the same as Laura’s gaze. During their first conversation we follow Laura in and out of her kitchen and we too are initially suspicious of this handsome stranger. As David wins over Laura with his charm and stories from her dead son, we too are won over.
Near the end of The Guest, the film’s tone shifts from that of a thriller with escalating tension to something that resembles a slasher film. It never fully mutates into the horror genre, but the final stand-off between Anna and David is very similar to a cat-and-mouse chase that you would find between serial killer and final victim. Shifting Anna from an actively sexual female gaze to being a near final girl works especially well here because she was never the one being objectified in the film. The audience has always associated its gaze with that of Anna. The typical final girl story first associates itself with the killer, but then pivots to identifying with the last living character. This final girl then bests the killer, with the support of the audience. But in The Guest we have never associated with the killer. We have always kept an emotional distance from David and seen the story from the female perspective.
David’s final stand.
It is not surprise that The Guest takes on a female gaze, given the history of the filmmakers. Director Adam Wingard and writer Simon Barrett have collaborated on many films over the last five years. They first worked together on A Horrible Way to Die and more recently on You’re Next. You’re Next has been widely discussed as not only one the best horror films of the last decade, but also one of the most feminist.
Wingard and Barrett’s creation of these feminist films (that are still damn good and fun too) can be read as refreshed vision of films made by filmmakers with the female gaze. The female gaze in The Guest makes for a more natural story than the converse. (Objectifying and being seduced by David, the exotic “other,” in the secluded hometown has more likely narrative flow than gazing on Anna or Laura.) And in the end, that should be the goal for any filmmaker. Have enough respect for the story and belief in both your characters and the audience to tell the story as it should be told, from the appropriate perspective, regardless of the gendered gaze.
Deirdre Crimmins lives in Boston with her husband and two black cats. She wrote her Master’s thesis on George Romero and is a staff writer forAll Things Horror. You can find her on Twitter at @dedecrim.
Recognizing the function of Ice Prince/Wolf in YA SARCom implies the continual defeat of the Whore as structural necessity in male writings also – as a pursuing character she must be resisted to generate sexual tension, regardless of whether the male author is Team Madonna or Team Whore. The destructive impact on the self-image of female viewers is pure collateral damage, just as our SARCom is poisonously emasculating for male viewers.
This repost by Brigit McCone appears as part of our theme week on The Female Gaze.
YA Supernatural Action Romantic Comedy (SARCom) was created in 1987 by the manga artist Rumiko Takahashi’s Ranma 1/2. Her mixture of kung-fu demon-of-the-week fights, romance and comedy, with a supernaturally strong heroine, dual shapeshifting supernaturally strong love interests and sarcastically quipping sidekicks, was then a completely unique format and rapidly became popular in the West and Japan. Takahashi’s creative control as visual and story artist (particularly after the success of the slapstick Urusei Yatsura) meant that the aesthetics of SARCom were shaped by the female gaze from the outset. Among its innovations, Ranma 1/2 introduces an Ice Prince/Wolf love rivalry between the hero Ranma and his rival Ryoga, a trope Takahashi would develop in her next SARCom Inuyasha. Joss Whedon’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer popularized the SARCom in mainstream Western culture, developing its own Ice Prince/Wolf rivalry with the characters Angel and Spike. The Ice Prince/Wolf dynamic now dominates teen girl cinema, after Catherine Hardwicke’s Twilight set a new record for commercially successful female directors.
Hardwicke’s camera continually privileges Kristen Stewart’s female gaze as Bella Swan, moving with her and focusing on her lip-biting lustful reactions, while offering Robert Pattinson’s Edward Cullen as erotic spectacle, the camera panning over him lovingly. Twilight also almost fails a reverse-Bechdel through the intense Bellacentrism of all its characters. Male viewers react with defensive ridicule to the uncomfortable sensation that they are supposed to be lustful fourteen-year-old girls when watching this film. In this moment, they have a brief sensation of what it is to be the female spectator of 90% of Hollywood films, uncomfortably reminded by the Male Gaze that you are somehow supposed to have the reactions and expectations of a heterosexual man. Their unfamiliarity with the mechanics of the female gaze became obvious when Hardwicke was replaced in Twilight sequels by male directors, who fumbled uncomfortably to recapture her intensity. Not only excluded as unintended spectator, the male viewer of SARCom is more likely to identify with the always defeated “Wolf” (sexual pursuer, equivalent to female “Whore”), the vulnerable, openly desiring rival. The victory of the unrealistic “Ice Prince” (sexual resistor, equivalent to female “Madonna”) is therefore destructive to the male viewer’s ego, often provoking a hostility barely concealed under sneering ridicule, just as the Male Gaze’s Madonna/Whore logic has always been destructive to the female ego. So what, actually, is going on?
Celebrating Celibacy: The “Ice Prince” Archetype
The defining characteristic of the “Ice Prince” is his combination of emotional fidelity and sexual unavailability, which amplifies gazing female desire and sexual frustration simultaneously, and is generally accompanied by his emphasized superiority and/or physical threat. That is, his sexual unavailability becomes a symptom of his overall domination. Ranma, the hero of Ranma 1/2, not only rivals the heroine Akane in martial arts, but periodically transforms into a girl more sexually attractive than she is. This tantalizing superiority enhances the character’s sexual unavailability; the world of Ranma 1/2 plays with gender but is strictly heteronormative with biological sex. Ranma 1/2 occupies an intermediate position between the shounen (boys’ manga) harem plot of Takahashi’s previous Urusei Yatsura and the love rivalries of her later Inuyasha: as a shounen hero, Ranma is the center of a harem of sex-crazed women, but as a shoujo (girls’ manga) hero, he must be sexually attracted to none of them. The sexual friction from these conflicting genre demands seems to have accidentally invented the “ice prince” archetype.
Inuyasha tames its threateningly feral hero, while maintaining his sexual unavailability, by making him frustratingly in love with a previous incarnation of the heroine Kagome – thus, he loves Kagome as a reincarnation, but cannot consummate this love due to his frustrating fidelity to her original.
The most extreme “Ice Prince” archetype in Takahashi’s work is Sesshomaru, the haughty, aristocratic pureblood demon introduced as a villain, accompanied by a sycophantic toady, who is attempting to cheat his socially inferior, half-brother Inuyasha out of his inheritance; that is, almost exactly the set-up of Fitzwilliam Darcy in Pride & Prejudice. She may have intended to create a villain, but Takahashi falls into Austen’s tried and tested Darcy arc: Sesshomaru meets an open-hearted, mischievous and unintimidated girl whom he struggles to scorn as inferior; his flaws are contextualized by introducing his controlling, snobbish mother; finally, he risk everything to rescue the redeemer-girl. Introducing a poison-clawed Demon Dog Darcy, with the power to raise the dead and blast his enemies to hell as a supporting character, unbalances Inuyasha: Sesshomaru’s well-written redemption arc commences just as Inuyasha’s own arc grinds to a halt, spending a hundred chapters randomly upgrading his sword while the fandom sways toward the narratively marginalized Sesshomaru. Demon Dog Darcy is then forced to hand his emotionally-earned powers over to Inuyasha in an exasperatingly contrived plot twist. But Sesshomaru’s very marginalization in Inuyasha‘s narrative, and total detachment from the main heroine, function to intensify fangirl emotional and sexual frustration: the ultimate aim of any Ice Prince. Although Demon Dog Darcy progressively thaws emotionally, the character’s sexual unavailability is emphasized by spiked armor encircling his chest and maintained by filling the “Elizabeth Bennet” role with a pre-pubescent girl.
In Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel loves and saves Buffy but is made sexually unavailable by a curse that he will lose his soul if he has sex with her. This loss of soul also allows the intensification of Angel’s dominating physical threat and sadism, while permitting the “real” Angel to remain a dutiful lover. Twilight likewise presents Edward Cullen as a deeply loving and loyal “Ice Prince” who threatens Bella repeatedly by mentioning his urge to devour her and, of course, is sexually unavailable through his fear of ‘losing control’. All these narrative devices intensify friction, rather than satisfaction. However, since a female viewer can never fulfil her own sexual desires for a fictional construct, her experience of frustrated sexual tension is most satisfyingly expressed by sexual tension within the narrative. Also, because society constructs men as permanent sexual pursuers, a woman is relieved of her need to resist, and able to fully and extravagantly express her lust in a safer space, when the male is reimagined as loving resistor.
Demon-in-Distress: The “Wolf” Archetype
The defining characteristic of the “Wolf,” the eternally rejected sexual pursuer, is his combination of desperate emotional and sexual availability with repeatedly emphasized vulnerability and animalism. The most exaggeratedly vulnerable is Ranma 1/2‘s Ryoga, a little boy lost in the literal sense that he farcically lacks any sense of direction. The fanged, impulsive Ryoga’s regular transformations into a small, cute piglet add to his vulnerability. His inability to tell the heroine Akane of his true nature and feelings, out of fear of losing his privileged access as her pet pig, forms a near-perfect satire of the “Friendzone” phenomenon.
Inuyasha‘s impulsive, hotheaded Koga is a wolf-demon. In contrast to the elusive, emotionally conflicted hero Inuyasha, Koga falls for the heroine Kagome almost immediately and pursues her consistently. The manga is notable for constantly placing Koga in helpless “demon-in-distress” situations requiring rescue, and for counterbalancing Sesshomaru’s spiked, hug-repellent armor and Inuyasha’s loose robes with Koga’s skimpy armor and furred micro-miniskirt, concealing his crotch only by careful choice of viewing angle. This ogling display of male flesh is characteristic of the Wolf, maximizing the friction between his overt desirability and the need to resist him.
Although Buffy‘s Spike is a vampire, theoretically an “ice prince” archetype, the character bears a dog’s name and typical “wolf” impulsiveness and romantic vulnerability. In his second season introduction, he is confined to a wheelchair and forced to watch his beloved Drusilla seduced by ‘Ice Prince’ rival Angel. In the third season, he’s pathetically dumped and weeping. In the fourth, he’s neutered by a brain chip that zaps him for attacking, so “he doesn’t chase the other puppies anymore.” In the fifth, the trope of Spike’s muscular nakedness is introduced as vulnerability; he bares his chest to Buffy’s stake and confesses his love. This sequence is revealed as Spike’s dream; he is stripped and Buffy is fully clothed even in his own sexual fantasies. Spike is also stripped and tortured for love of Buffy by the dominant, female deity Glory in this season. In the sixth, after their first sexual encounter, Buffy is again fully clothed, abusing Spike verbally while he sprawls naked and defenseless. She repeatedly violates his sexual boundaries from a position of dominance; his attempt to force himself on her is presented as a crime of pathetic desperation. Though ‘Ice Prince’ Angel wishes to torment and kill Buffy when he is soulless, Spike’s soulless state is no obstacle to his love – the emotional dependence of the “Wolf” knows no bounds.
Twilight’s Jacob Black is another wolf defined by constant loyalty, before attempting to force himself onto Bella in an act portrayed as pathetic desperation. Where Edward’s brief moment of toplessness is a dramatic, suicidal act that will dazzle a watching crowd, Jacob’s muscular toplessness and skimpy attire are chronic, underlining his tantalizing availability and maximizing mental friction in the female spectators, as the heroine resists.
Shishihokodan! Or, Why Team Jacob Loses
Comparing the fandom of all four series reveals an interesting trend: fangirls are roughly equally divided between Team Jacob and Team Edward, Team Spike and Team Angel, Team Ryoga and Team Ranma, Team Koga and Team Inuyasha; nonetheless, the “Ice Prince” always gets the girl. It would be easy to blame the creators. Yet, Stephenie Meyer claims to be “Team Jacob.” Both Marti Noxon and Jane Espenson, Buffy‘s major female writer/directors, have made statements in support of the Buffy/Spike (“Spuffy”) romance. Rumiko Takahashi’s writings in the romcom genre, Maison Ikkoku and One Pound Gospel, also reward and root for heroes in the vulnerable “Wolf” mode, and it is Takahashi who provides a structural explanation for ‘ice prince’ triumph with Ranma 1/2‘s Shishihokodan arc.
The “Shishihokodan” is a blast of energy which enables perpetual loser Ryoga to defeat the hero Ranma by harnessing his own heartbreak. Ranma attempts to defeat the all-powerful Shishihokodan with a confidence-blast, but can only triumph by giving Ryoga momentary hope of sexual opportunity. In other words, Ryoga loses not because he is inferior, but because losing is the paradoxical source of his power. Any woman attracted to the “Wolf'” archetype is inherently drawn to vulnerability; her attraction is intensified by the wolf’s heartbroken rejection, her frustration intensified by the heroine’s resistance. Any woman attracted to the “Ice Prince” is inherently drawn to dominance; her attraction would be reduced by his loss of mastery if he were defeated. As such, pursuing the resistant hero, and resisting the pursuing hero, create positively and negatively charged polarities to an explosive battery of sexual tension; a narrative trap which dooms the “wolf,” as Takahashi showed herself sympathetically aware with the Shishihokodan arc.
The wolf is difficult to dispose of: any alternative love interest would undermine his painful availability, thus one could only be introduced with unsatisfactory suddenness at the last minute to make a weak consolation price. The sudden arrival of a pig-fetishist marks Ryoga’s sidelining in Ranma 1/2; a wolf-girl for Koga is a last-minute addition to the Inuyasha anime, while Koga simply loses his previously foolhardy fighting spirit, forgets his long-established vengeance vendetta and slinks out of the original manga after admitting that Kagome should be with Inuyasha. Abandoning pursuit annihilates a Wolf’s narrative role. Most disturbingly, the newly arrived love interest for Jacob Black is literally newly-arrived as a newborn; his obsessive need to psychologically groom an infant into a future bride doesn’t bother the infant’s parents, presumably merely relieved that the wolf has been disposed of. More satisfyingly, rather than slinking away Koga-style, Spike’s acceptance that Buffy can’t love him “but thanks for saying” allows him to destroy the Hellmouth and be redeemed, incinerating himself in a spectacular blast of purest self-destructive Shishihokodan.
Shishihokodaaan!!
Recognizing the function of Ice Prince/Wolf in YA SARCom implies the continual defeat of the Whore as structural necessity in male writings also – as a pursuing character she must be resisted to generate sexual tension, regardless of whether the male author is Team Madonna or Team Whore. The destructive impact on the self-image of female viewers is pure collateral damage, just as our SARCom is poisonously emasculating for male viewers. In fact, mankind’s Whore is generally more empowered than womankind’s Wolf, probably because culture sees male sexuality as common weakness but female sexuality as social rebellion. It is the female gaze’s model of dominant-resistor/submissive-pursuer that aligns the rivalry dynamic of triumphant dominant with the love dynamic of triumphant resistor in a perfect feedback loop, structurally maximizing sexual tension (hence the squealing). But the collateral damage for a male viewer is the destruction of the character he most identifies with, in a blast of purest Shishihokodan. As women well know, it sucks to be the unintended spectator.
This is more than just a “companion series” to ‘The Walking Dead’; it’s a second chance.
Fear the Walking Dead would be an idiotic title for a series if the original The Walking Dead didn’t exist. It’s even more idiotic because The Walking Dead does exist, and the people who created Fear the Walking Dead were so uncertain of our cognitive abilities that they thought they had to put the whole title of the old show in the title of the new show, or we might miss the connection. Plus, fear them as opposed to what? What else were we going to do about the walking dead?
The ad campaign, while seemingly more thoughtful than that title, is a bit too subtle — coy, even — in seeming to suggest that this new show might be kind of like Where’s Waldo with zombies. Hey, there he is in the background of those kids playing basketball! There he is down that dark hallway! My favorite is the “Footprints in the Sand” one. “Why, when I needed you most, was there only one set of footprints?” “That’s when zombie Jesus was carrying you!”
This is more than just a “companion series” (for some reason, “prequel” and “spin-off” are considered incorrect) to The Walking Dead; it’s a second chance. It’s a chance to take our beloved zombie genre in an all-new direction, correct past mistakes, and right past wrongs. They hired some very good actors for this show, most prominently Kim Dickens (Deadwood, Treme), who probably wouldn’t play a character as poorly conceived as Lori Grimes or Andrea Harrison. Or at least, I’d hope not.
What I’m getting at is, Fear the Walking Dead offered an opportunity for the creators to address the criticism of the first couple of seasons of the original series, which, if subsequent seasons are any indication, the creative people behind TWD were sensitive to, even if they didn’t quite know how to address them.
Casting Dickens certainly opened up an opportunity to feature a strong, complex woman character on the show, and setting it in Los Angeles presented an opportunity to feature Black and Latino characters more prominently and realistically than the unfortunate T-Dog. So far, though, there are no major Latino characters (Ruben Blades will make his series debut next episode), and the two most prominent Black characters on the show are either dead or missing and presumed dead by the end of the pilot.
So far, this “companion series” is mostly about the kids. Are they going after the CW audience? It might be worthwhile if they had anything compelling to say about what young people’s lives are like in 2015. So far, that’s not the case. Carl and his stupid hat are bad enough. Do we really need a Zombie Diaries or a 9021-Dead?
Dickens is fine as Madison, a high school guidance counselor who’s just moved in with her boyfriend, English teacher Travis (Cliff Curtis). There’s that horrible cliche early on, where Travis is fixing the leaky sink on his own, while Madison wants to call the plumber. We get it, “Travis is a fixer,” co-creator Dave Erickson tells us in this interview, but you might have found a more original way to spell that out for us than a routine that felt a little tired by the time they did something like it on The Honeymooners.
They both work at the school, though not much of interest happens there. There are a lot of kids and teachers out sick, but that doesn’t really jibe with where the contagion is at this point in the show. Are those people zombies already? Do they just have some idea something bad is going on so they’re staying home? Are they running for the hills? Then why do most of the locals seem so oblivious? There’s only one kid, Tobias (Lincoln A. Castellanos), who looks like he’s 35, but actually seems to have a clue. He brings a knife to school, and when Madison catches him with it, they have a chat in her office, after she covers for him with the school security guards. When pressed, Tobias expresses impossible certainty that the world, as we know it, is coming to an end. It’s like he’s already been watching The Walking Dead for five seasons. What is this kid seeing that we, the viewers, don’t see?
Anyway, solid as Dickens and Curtis are, the focus is more on Madison’s son Nick (British actor Frank Dillane), a junkie, and her daughter, Alicia (Australian actor Alycia Debnam-Carey), the kind of television-style genius/rebel who skips class frequently, and never has much intelligent to say, but is somehow accepted into UC Berkeley. Of course, Alicia has a terrible attitude toward her mom and presumed stepdad-to-be, but that’s mostly just surface teen petulance. Over the course of the episode, we see her genuine concern for her family, including her troubled older brother. Alicia has a sweet, artistic boyfriend, Matt (Maestro Harrell) who happens to be Black, so we hope you didn’t grow attached.
Nick is more problematic. Like Debnam-Carey, Dillane is a good-looking kid, kind of like the love child of Johnny Depp and James Franco, but as Nick is supposed to be a junkie living on the streets of Los Angeles, his well-scrubbed attractiveness strains credulity. Dillane overplays Nick’s dishevelment to the point of slapstick comedy, so he’s admittedly kind of fun to watch. There’s probably some tragic backstory to explain that limp, but what could explain Nick’s frequent agape looks of terror and confusion. Drugs are bad, kids, I guess.
Drugs are bad and drug dens are dangerous places, but when the hospitalized Nick tells Travis that he might have been hallucinating, but that he saw a dead junkie woman eating someone at an artfully abandoned church that doubles as a shooting gallery, Travis decides to investigate, on his own, in the middle of the night. Now, I am the type of horror movie watcher that gets annoyed at viewers who complain that the person onscreen is stupid to go outside in the middle of the night to see what that strange noise was. When you hear a strange noise outside your house in the middle of the night, you go see what it is, unless you know you are in a horror movie. Usually, the characters don’t know. Travis’ decision to traipse around a known drug den, a decrepit shithole where murder and cannibalism have allegedly taken place earlier that day, seems a bit beyond the realm of normal human behavior. That’s more post-apocalyptic behavior than pre-apocalyptic-something-kind-of-strange-seems-to-be-going-on behavior.
There are a few effective sequences, but even the real scares, as with that first zombie-chomping scene in the church, are sloppily edited and drawn-out, and the false-alarm jump-scares are waaay overplayed, as when Madison slowly walks up to the hunched over principal at school and ominous music plays (he’s just eavesdropping on his teachers to evaluate them(?)) or, worse yet, when Travis explores the church and finds, behind a door, a screaming, gibbering, terrified junkie. It’s meant to be a shock and then a relief but it’s so overblown in every aspect (other than Curtis’ performance) that it just comes off as comical.
Calvin (Keith Powers) is an interesting case. When Madison and Travis go looking for Nick, who’s escaped from the hospital after fleeing a zombie and running into traffic, they find the chipper Calvin at his parents’ house, and he does this Eddie Haskell thing where he convincingly acts like a stand-up guy who doesn’t hang with Nick much since Nick went bad. Some time later, Nick meets Calvin at a diner, where the man has been transformed into a taciturn thug, quick to decide to murder his childhood buddy Nick because Nick might have told his mom that Calvin is a drug dealer, even though Madison gave no indication that she had any idea what Calvin did for a living. Cal is a hard man, but somehow Nick, a skinny, strung-out junkie in the midst of withdrawal, manages to overpower him when Nick sees that gun that that a badass like Calvin probably should have known to keep hidden until he was ready to use it. Anyway, it’s horrifyingly unsurprising that the first major character to be killed on the show is Black. So much for progress from the original series.
It’s pretty obvious that thematically, Nick’s half-dead. That zombie-like shuffle and his demented wide-eyed looks suggest that he is very close to turning. The actual zombies on the first episode are a fellow addict, an accident victim who goes “bath salts” crazy and is shot dead by the cops, and, eventually, Calvin. It makes sense that the show would depict this contagion spreading among working and lower-class people — the discarded, the ignored, the voiceless of East Los Angeles — while the rest of the city is quick to demonize and slow to take action. That’s not what the show depicts, though. Instead, it settles for a facile metaphor, likening drug addiction and drug culture to a kind of voluntary zombie-ism. “Drugs” seems a simplistic and inapt target, and it’s certainly an inauspicious start to a series about the eventual breakdown of society.
The show’s not all bad. It has Dickens, for one thing, and she makes us care about Madison. Dillane is ridiculous, but actually genuinely fun to watch. The idea of giving us time to get to know these characters while the horror gradually ramps up could be a good one, if anyone writing this show was good at writing characters and dialogue. I still think it has the potential to surpass the first couple of seasons of The Walking Dead.
And I don’t buy the excuse that Gray gives by calling these women story criticisms “side stories.” He showed Snoop Dogg in the film twice, and even had Tupac Shakur ( A.k.a. 2Pac) in a scene. Wouldn’t they be considered side stories too? Also, the movie is already long, so adding three minutes just to give us a glimpse of Yo-Yo with Cube, or a kick ass scene with The Lady of Rage in the sound booth rapping “Afro Puffs” with Snoop couldn’t hurt the narrative flow or length. It would take so little to show the world that women were there and are a part of N.W.A.’s legacy.
Straight Outta Compton poster featuring actors and original members of N.W.A.
“To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all of the time” – James Baldwin
“To be a woman who loves hip hop at times is to be in love with your abuser. Because the music was and is that. And yet the culture is ours.” – Ava DuVernay after viewing Straight Outta Compton
To love hip hop as a woman, and as a Black woman in particular, is to wage a continuous battle of cognitive dissonance. One can love the beats and artistry of music production, head bob with the best of them while marveling at the creative lexicon spit over a mic, while also cringing at the ubiquitous violence, sexism, misogyny, and mysogynoir. This has always been the burden of women who love rap. And yet we still listen and participate in all its incarnations as a culture. It has redefined music, dance, art, and fashion.
I remember my middle sister bringing home her first N.W.A. album by Ruthless Records. I was already knee deep into East Coast rap, and was initially put off by the antagonism towards women. When the Straight Outta Compton album dropped, I heard it on full blast everywhere when visiting relatives in Los Angeles. I was a fan of Ice Cube’s vocal confidence and that indignant anger he carried in all his rhymes. When he went solo, I used to laugh and marvel at his storytelling skills on his albums. They were at times hyperbolic performative masculinity comedies to me. Street poetry as hardcore storytelling.
Top: Ice Cube, Director F. Gary Gray and Dr. Dre. Below: O’Shea Jackson Jr., Jason Mitchell, and Corey Hawkins.
I was young, but smart enough to know that flinging terms like “bitches” and “hoes” was a reflection of male rappers’ insecurities with women, and the learned behavior of patriarchy. Rappers were no more, sexist, violent, or homophobic than America as a whole. But it was annoying to watch teen boys take on the negative mannerisms and posturing of their new rap Gods. Gangster rap blew up, and the only issues I had with the growth of that subgenre of rap is that it dominated everything. Instead of hearing a variety of rap styles and unique tall tales on wax and cassette, everybody wanted to be “hard” and a thug. Rap became boring. I had to leave for a minute to enjoy Fishbone, Living Colour, and the new music coming from the Black British R&B scene.
I remember the N.W.A. split, the bitter rivalry, the first time I heard Ice Cube’s “No Vaseline,” the shock of the Dee Barnes‘ assault (and others like Michel’le Toussaint) and how I could never be comfortable with Dr. Dre ever again, even though his beats were always banging with his work on Death Row Records. I remember the shock of Eazy-E’s death from Aids. Heck, I was blasting “Fuck Tha Police” when the Rodney King verdict became the L.A. Uprising. Truth be told, I still blast it now with the current policing problems we face today. Shit ain’t changed. There was just so much rich drama and bad blood surrounding the rise and demise of N.W.A, I was not surprised that a Hollywood studio decided to tell their story with Straight Outta Compton. The movie is a myth-making bromance steeped in the erasure (and hierarchal colorism—the casting call was racist colorism at its worst) of Black women in the rap game. It also highlights the historic and systemic law enforcement aggressions Black people still face.
It’s also one of the best music biopics you’ll see in awhile.
I went to see it three times. Once at the first showing it opened on Friday with only five people in the audience. (It was early in the morning.) My second viewing was with my family and friends in a predominately Black and Mexican audience. The third time was in a rich white neighborhood where I was the only Black person in the audience. Don’t let Hollywood fool you. A culturally diverse audience with women representing many of the viewers went to see this film. I predicted on its second day that it would make at least $60 million dollars opening weekend. It did. It’s an origin story, a coming-of-age tale, a historic snapshot, and a rare glimpse into Black male friendships on the come up.
Jason Mitchell as Eazy-E.
Let’s be real: Ice Cube, Dr. Dre (and Eazy-E’s widow Tomica Woods-Wright) are executive producers, so there is bound to be a watering down of controversial or less than flattering portrayals of their legacy. With that said, Straight Outta Compton’s greatest strength (besides a slamming soundtrack) lies in the casting of its key players. It really helps that they are all relatively unknowns, and the two standout s in particular are Jason Mitchell (Eazy-E), and Ice Cube’s spitting image, and real-life son, O’Shea Jackson Jr. (Ice Cube). These two are the nucleus of the film, and quite honestly, I’m not sure if the film would’ve been as good to me if Jackson hadn’t been cast to play his own father. It’s such a meta film viewing experience to see Jackson’s version of Ice Cube telling a record executive that he’s about to have a baby (which was himself at that time). Jackson brings a low-key urgency to Cube’s persona within the movie version of the group’s dynamic. It is a wonderful contrast to Jason Mitchell’s vulnerable and playful depiction of Eazy-E.
O’Shea Jackson Jr. playing his father, Ice Cube.
The synergy of all the actors pop, and you find yourself rooting for their success. It’s typical rags to riches lore, and the plot hums along despite the two and a half hour length. In real life they may have been considered the World’s Most Dangerous Group, but in the soft focus light of film, there is no complexity or hard edges. Eazy-E was a drug dealer, but he’s the nicest drug dealer you’ll ever meet. He’ll act hard when he’s jammed up, probably compensating for his small frame, but that’s about it. Cube is the family man, fighting to earn his fair share of profits. Dre (Corey Hawkins) just wants to make music and hates having to choose between homeboys when the inevitable group break-up happens. The cops may be external antagonists in the film, constantly reminding us that Black men need to be kept down just for being Black and breathing, but it’s the in-fighting over money that is the root antagonist. Many a group has broken up over big egos and non-paydays.
DJ Yella (Neil Brown Jr.) and the obligatory booty shots.
Women in the film, not surprisingly, play small tertiary rolls as doting mothers, comforting wives/girlfriends, and of course playthings to be used and disposed of immediately. There’s the obligatory pool parties with plenty of low angle male gaze booty shots, the after parties in hotels and tour buses with groupies who are tossed aside, and locked out of rooms naked. It is what it is. A film made by men who want to see T and A and think it’s funny to use women as punchlines. Typical. A drawback of the film is the erasure of women artists who were part of the success of Ruthless Records and Death Row Records. Women like the rap group J.J. Fad (who performed at my highschool back in the day), whose album Ruthless Records released first, to great success, which solidified the company as a legitimate business in the eyes of the music industry. Their album paved the way for the Straight Outta Compton album to come through blazing. These ladies opened the door, but there is no mention of them. Nor is Yo-Yo who rapped with Ice Cube with his Lench Mob Crew, or The Lady of Rage (one of the best lyricists to represent the Death Row crew).
Missing from the story, the women of West Coast rap, Yo-Yo and The Lady of Rage.
Both the screenwriter Jonathan Herman and director F. Gary Gray have made comments regarding the lack of visibility and the importance of the women to the accurate portrayal of the group (F. Gary Gray’s remarks in this one was disappointing). In a recent Rolling Stone interview, Ice Cube said some things that made me question why he still holds onto an outdated binary of women and sexual agency.
As a screenwriter, I must concede that I understand that a movie can’t have everyone and everything in it. To get everything in would require this to become an HBO/Showtime mini-series (which would be dope as hell). The take on the group this time around is just focused on the group. Juggling several narrative/character strings is difficult, and Herman does a good job of helping us track the core group. Like I said, I get this. It keeps the script tight and the plot moving. But it lessens the power of the story in the end.
By tabling the real-life misogyny for a less complicated narrative that would force people to see the group as flawed humans like everyone else, we get a sanitized version that doesn’t interrupt the audience’s investment in their likeability. There is no complexity to them, and therefore no messiness. This lack of complexity in showing how patriarchal police brutality, American racism/sexism/classism create self-hate in Black men that is then projected onto Black women and their rap lyrics, keeps Straight Outta Compton from being a great film classic. And I don’t buy the excuse that Gray gives by calling these women story criticisms “side stories.” He showed Snoop Dogg in the film twice, and even had Tupac Shakur ( A.k.a. 2Pac) in a scene. Wouldn’t they be considered side stories too? Also, the movie is already long, so adding three minutes just to give us a glimpse of Yo-Yo with Cube, or a kick ass scene with The Lady of Rage in the sound booth rapping “Afro Puffs” with Snoop couldn’t hurt the narrative flow or length. It would take so little to show the world that women were there and are a part of N.W.A.’s legacy. Scenes with Dre’s future wife could’ve been cut to make room for women in the rap game. Those scenes added nothing to the story.
Ice Cube (O’Shea Jackson Jr.) facing everyday police harassment in Compton.
L.A. Uprising after the Rodney King verdict. The film shows the relevance of N.W.A.’s music and real life police aggression.
With the strength of its weekend haul, their viral marketing campaign, and great word of mouth, Straight Outta Compton should be in the top five successful films of 2015. I doubt if it will be nominated for any major awards because there are no slaves, maids, hookers or overly downtrodden Black people. (There may be director award nomination nods for Gray, maybe even screenwriting noms for Herman, but I don’t see them winning because of Hollywood’s notorious lack of diversity in the Academy and other big time film awards members.) This is a movie about young Black men with odds against them turning themselves into iconic rap legends. All because a young drug dealer took a chance on some friends who had talent, and invested in the possibility of being more than what they were, and more than what people thought them capable of. It’s a classic Horatio Alger story, with dynamic young actors bringing life to the fabled history of West Coast Rap. It does what it is supposed to do: entertain. Once again, I will live through my cognitive dissonance, lament not seeing my girls Yo-Yo and Rage, but admire the music, nostalgia and history Straight Outta Compton brings to the masses. It’s a film with heart and soul, not perfect or completely honest with itself, but so worth the viewing.
Though Dorothy’s relationship with her aunt improves at the end of the film narrative, she still keeps her “imaginative” self hidden from her. When Dorothy calls for her aunt to come and see Ozma, Oz’s daughter and heir, in the mirror, the blond girl just shakes her head and presses her finger to her lips. It’s a really telling a moment, a moment that opens a dialogue about the obvious division between adults and children.
This is a guest post by Ashley Barry.
When I was younger, I had an imagination that was overflowing with all manners of people and expansive lands. Entertained by my own thoughts and ideas, I would play by myself for hours and hours on end. I used to dread play dates because I much preferred the company of my rich imagination and the companions that resided within it. What was the point of interacting with an ordinary person my age when I could be taking a refreshing dip with mermaids or assisting a prince on his journey through a dense, dangerous jungle? My mother would frequently find me, an odd and pensive child, in the most peculiar places: sitting cross legged atop the kitchen counter, wedging myself behind the furnace, and, much to her dismay and frustration, climbing around in my dad’s tool closet.
I’m now an adult woman and, aside from getting a little taller and acquiring more responsibilities, not much has changed in terms of my colossal imagination and insatiable hunger for fiction. I’m a 27-year-old woman who still likes to play and pretend, a kind of mindset that we should never age out of but often do. Even when functioning within an adult sphere at my workplace, I occasionally glance out the skyscraper window and imagine there’s an enormous dragon peering in at me. I allowed my imagination, despite my age and what society may deem appropriate. Adults who continue to nourish their imaginations are, more often than not, negatively stigmatized because it’s juvenile and childish. Why? What’s wrong with stubbornly grasping onto that childlike part of ourselves? Having an imagination is one of the best things a person can possess. It should never be dismissed or considered useless. On the flip side of this issue, there are several mediums in which fictional adults attempt to rid children of their imaginations and imaginative thoughts. How come?
In Return to Oz, Dorothy Gale, the heroine of the film, is sent away by her aunt to receive shock therapy because she’s unable to sleep due to her memories of Oz. However, prior to her visit to the mental institution, there’s a moment where Dorothy presents a mysterious key to her aunt. She excitedly tells her aunt that the key bears the Oz symbol and yet her aunt dismisses her claim. Her aunt then goes on to remind Dorothy to not talk about Oz because it’s just her imagination. Rather than believing Dorothy’s claim, the scene further supports the idea that the imaginative child is a child that requires some kind of fixing. Though Dorothy’s relationship with her aunt improves at the end of the film narrative, she still keeps her “imaginative” self hidden from her. When Dorothy calls for her aunt to come and see Ozma, Oz’s daughter and heir, in the mirror, the blond girl just shakes her head and presses her finger to her lips. It’s a really telling a moment, a moment that opens a dialogue about the obvious division between adults and children.
I always envied fictional children like Dorothy Gale and Alice Liddell. How could I not? They possessed agency in their own fantastical realms, befriended magical creatures, and experienced once-in-a-lifetime adventures (sometimes misadventures). Were their friends and experiences any less real than mine? Rather than looking to fictional adults for assistance and guidance, these fictional children oft rely on their wits and inner strengths. Whether it was Atreyu’s miserable trek through the swamp of sadness or Alice outsmarting an evil Queen that’s overly fond of beheading others, fictional children are just as capable and complex as adults, but they don’t always receive the proper credit or consideration they deserve. When operating as agents outside of their whimsical kingdoms, adults commonly other them.
When it comes to the representation of children in pop culture at large, most mediums commonly illustrate the dichotomy of power between adults and children. One of the more prominent examples that I can think of is the infamous power struggle in Matilda (1996). There’s a constant battle for power between Miss Trunchbull, a shockingly abusive school principal, and Matilda, a puny girl that can move objects with the power of her mind. There’s a scene in which Miss Trunchbull, large and horrible with her mess of teeth, loudly informs Matilda that she’s big and right and overall better than our exceptionally smart heroine:
“Even if you didn’t do it, I’m going to punish you because I’m big and you’re small and I’m right and you’re wrong and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
Matilda’s an interesting example because she’s mature and capable, but she’s still able to sustain her imagination and lose herself in a good book. She pushes against the idea that imaginative children are aloof, lost, or incapable. There’s a lovely instance in which Matilda, who’s much younger at this point in the film, is giggling in an oversized chair in the library, amused by whatever it is she’s reading. Viciously mean and dismissive of children and their ideas, Miss Trunchbull is a villain through and through. I always adored Roald Dahl because I felt that he was always rooting for the children in his novels. He crafted such detestable adult villains, adults that couldn’t be trusted or relied upon. He also created wonderful child characters that never lost sight of their imagination and used it as a way to succeed or solve problems.
Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland (2010) is very positive in its presentation of imaginative children and adults. Like Dorothy, Alice frequently wakes up at night because of her fanciful experiences in Wonderland. However, at the beginning of the film, there’s a moving scene between Alice when she’s a little girl and her father. When she tells him that she thinks she might be mad due to her memories of Wonderland, her father informs her that all the best people usually are. He’s one of the few fictional adults that believes in Alice and is on her side. He’s not at all dismissive of her and her “imagined” experiences.
I adore adult Alice because she’s a positive representation of a creative person with an endless imagination. Though some adults are dismissive of her and think her a dreamer, I see her as an innovator and a person who is more than capable of changing the world. When her mother discovers that her daughter isn’t wearing a corset or stockings, I couldn’t help but laugh and like her even more. She doesn’t adhere to norms or traditions, a sure sign of a person who thinks outside the box. There’s a spectacular instance at the end of the film when she’s standing atop the deck of a ship that’s about to depart. As a blue butterfly lands on her shoulder, a friend from Wonderland, she welcomes him and doesn’t deny or overlook his existence. She grows to accept that Wonderland is not a dream, but a fragment of her true self. The film is really about reacquainting oneself with a lost and or forgotten identity.
The NeverEnding Story (1984) is another film that celebrates creativity and imagination. Bastian, the boy protagonist, differs from the other fictional children in that he nearly destroys Fantasia because of what his father says in one of the first scenes. When the childlike Empress pleads for his help, frantically asking him why he doesn’t “do as he dreams,” he tells her that he has to keep his feet on the ground, which was the exact phrase his father had said to him at the beginning of the movie narrative. It’s a frightening instance because his father almost hammered his whimsical ways out of him. When he saves Fantasia and accepts himself as the dreamer that he is, he’s able to cross into Fantasia or bring the creatures of Fantasia into his own world. The ending montage is great because it shows a much happier Bastian riding Falkor, the luck dragon, in both worlds.
The children of Oz, Fantasia, and Wonderland prevailed over the adults that attempted to fix or dissuade them. These fictional children are innovative, ambitious, and victorious. If anything, their innovativeness got them through various obstacles. I’ll always fight against the stigmatization of imaginative adults and children. I sure as hell know I’ll forever have one foot in an imagined realm because that’s where I belong and love to be.
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.
Something not often explored in film and TV movie adaptations is that Mina and other female characters are often inadvertently endangered by the pride of the male protagonists. It is out of misguided respect for Mina that the male protagonists try so hard to protect her, and yet fail so miserably.
Bram Stoker’s Dracula, published in 1897, is an epistolary novel and the equivalent of found footage horror movies today. The protagonists, including Wilhelmina “Mina” Harker (née Murray), are tech-savvy and modern, using resources and skills such as phonographs and shorthand in their efforts to find and vanquish Dracula. As far as heroines of Victorian novels written by men go, Mina is a pretty decent heroine – smart, resourceful, (relatively) observant, and eager to protect those around her – particularly her best friend Lucy and her fiancé/husband Jonathan Harker. Mina reflects the “modern” woman of the time, as she is an employed young woman who is ambitious, determined, and an excellent archivist, gun brandisher, and coach-driver (I can’t overemphasize how big a deal that last one is!). She rightfully demands respect from her husband and the other male characters. She also treats others with respect, even the mentally ill, who were and are looked down upon by society. Due to her respectful treatment of the insane asylum inmate, Renfield (one of Dracula’s minions), he in turn gives a warning about Dracula’s plans, including the vampire’s dangerous plans for Mina.
Judi Bowker as Mina in Count Dracula (1977)
Something not often explored in film and TV movie adaptations is that Mina and other female characters are often inadvertently endangered by the pride of the male protagonists. It is out of misguided respect for Mina that the male protagonists try so hard to protect her, and yet fail so miserably. They fail so miserably that when I first read the novel, I confused my family by laughing out loud at Bram Stoker’s (what seems to be unintended) irony (and I learned that laughing out loud at a classic horror novel tends to raise eyebrows).
Allow me to summarize one particular section of the plot:
Male protagonists: “Let’s go hunt Dracula at his house, which is right next door to where we are!”
Mina (the female lead): “Yes, let’s go!”
Male protagonists: “No, Mina! We want to protect you by leaving you all alone and vulnerable in a house right next door to Dracula’s! All of us demand that you stay here! And try not to think about the warning Renfield gave about how Dracula, a being far more powerful than any of us combined and who can literally get into a room through a crack in the floor by turning himself into mist, is going to target you!”
Mina: “Fine! Ugh!” (Curls up in bed, trying not to feel paranoid.)
(Male protagonists show up at Dracula’s house.)
Male protagonists: “Well, here we are at Dracula’s house. ‘Guess Dracula’s not home. Weird. ‘Wonder where he could be. Ah, well. Good thing we protected Mina!”
(Male protagonists return home to find an ill-looking Mina unconscious with two puncture wounds in her neck, and mist everywhere.)
Male protagonists: “Aw, look! Mina was so worried about us that she cried herself to sleep. So cute! It’s a good thing we decided to protect Mina instead of treating her like an equal.”
Thus, the male protagonists inadvertently provide Dracula with the opportunity to assault Mina – which is oh just sort of reminiscent of how everyday sexism and benevolent sexism both directly and indirectly support rape culture. The very people who claim they desire to protect (White) women are the ones contributing to the danger. They have faulty logic, which can be funny at times, and yet that faulty logic is clearly harmful.
Louis Jourdan’s Dracula encourages Judi Bowker’s Mina to “feed” from him/please herself, encouraging her to “come” (pun implied).
The novel is heavy in racist, colonialist, and anti-immigration messages. Stoker heavily implies that Northern-European and American White people, especially if they’re Catholic (Stoker’s religion), are awesome, and they should totally be welcomed everywhere. Literally all other peoples (especially those who want to immigrate to Northern-Europe or America)? F*** those guys. (Especially if they’re “dark,” and certainly if they’re Roma.) Stoker demands that (White) men protect their (White) wives and love interests against “dark” men, particularly immigrants (in Dracula’s case, from Eastern Europe). These men are so sinisterly hedonistic in their values, they may actually corrupt a Victorian woman’s purity not only through sex, but by sexually pleasing the woman and not just themselves! (Gasp! Female orgasms?! The horror!) The chauvinism of the (White) male protagonists (three British, one Dutch, one Texan) and their masculine need to “protect” Mina nearly lead to her death, and almost result in her going full vampire.
Peta Wilson as Mina in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003)
Hollywood has a trend of attempting to make female characters seem more important to the story by making them more “badass,” and while I have no problems with the idea of seeing Mina hack up vampires, or seeing a heroic Vampire!Mina (thank you, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen), another way of empowering women and combating sexism other than positive representation of women is to point out everyday and even “benevolent” chauvinism. This is exactly the kind of sexism the male characters exhibit in Dracula – even Dracula himself, to an extent, with the female vampires who live in his castle and for whom he provides.
Winona Ryder’s Mina is the reincarnated wife of Gary Oldman’s Dracula in Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992)
More Mina representation seems to be on its way, with the reboot of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen evidently to be “female-centric.” Hollywood is always cranking out more Dracula adaptations, but just how many have there been that point out benevolent sexism? How many feature Mina getting frustrated with the male protagonists, delivering them an angry monologue in which she points out all the ways they’ve almost led to her death? Instead of this, Hollywood has been repeatedlyattempting to make Dracula, her attacker, redeemable – a tragic anti-hero, often on a quest to find the reincarnation of his long-lost love, who is revealed to be Mina. Wait, so reincarnation is supposed to justify sexual assault? No, Hollywood. No. Nor is stalking romantic (even if it’s done through the magic of musical theatre, Frank Wildhorn).
As this book review points out, there are no films entitled with Mina’s name, while there are many with Dracula’s and at least one with Van Helsing’s. Though not the only protagonist to be left out of titles, most notably Jonathan (the leading male protagonist), Mina deserves a film completely centered on her. And hopefully this Dracula adaptation, unlike most (if not all) adaptations (I’m looking at you, Dracula Untold), finds a way to rid itself of the novel’s racist, colonialist, and anti-immigration messages.
Children are “the hope” of any culture. When entire generations of youth are traumatized or killed by the church and state, what is the remedy? ‘Older Than America’ looks for answers to this key question.
This is a guest post by Laura Shamas.
In July 2015, Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission released a major report entitled “Honoring the Truth, Reconciling for the Future” about the cultural genocide against aboriginal children, due to abuse in Canadian residential boarding schools run by churches and funded by the state. The report is based on testimony from over 6,000 survivors; there are 94 proposals for reparation recommended. The Canadian Broadcasting System notes that the odds of dying in a native residential school in Canada (“1 in 25”) were higher than dying as a Canadian serving in World War II (“1 in 26”).
One female-helmed film that directly addresses the horrific psychological, cultural, and spiritual legacy of native boarding schools on indigenous families in the United States is Older Than America, a 2008 release, directed and produced by and starring Georgina Lightning, from a script by Lightning and Christine Kunewa Walker. Lightning is a Canadian First Nations filmmaker, and a Maskwacis Cree, registered with the Samson Cree Nation. As the film begins, a graphic informs us: “This story is inspired by actual events.”
Tracing the devastating intergenerational effects of cultural and physical genocide, as part of colonialism, in a film about native people is difficult and daunting, but Lightning’s approach is original and compelling, aided by a strong ensemble cast that features native actors. The film begins on the Fond Du Lac reservation in northern Minnesota, as schoolteacher Rain O’Rourke (Lightning), awakes in the middle of the night from an ominous dream about a young man in a Sun Dance ceremony. Rain lives with her longtime boyfriend, reservation Police Officer Johnny Goodfeather (Adam Beach). She mentions to Johnny that they need to secure the door latch; it’s clear that “something” is getting in.
The film’s storyline is bifurcated, propelled by time; the plot of the present is jarringly interrupted by traumatic, haunting memories of the past, depicted in grey flashbacks. And the present is also connected to the future, as few are able to take action until the truth about the past is acknowledged. Ghosts also populate the present, filmed in color.
We follow Rain, the film’s protagonist, as she comes to terms with her past through visions and dreams, and her future, too, when she learns the disturbing truth about what happened to her mother and uncle at the nearby Catholic native residential school. Rain’s journey is part of the collective story of her community and her tribe; until the facts about what happened to native students locked in a school cellar in the 1950s are revealed and the children properly mourned, Rain and the future of her tribe are in jeopardy. Children are “the hope” of any culture. When entire generations of youth are traumatized or killed by the church and state, what is the remedy? Older Than America looks for answers to this key question.
As Rain works in her job as a schoolteacher on the rez, she begins to have upsetting flashback episodes. An adult male spirit (Dan Harrison), the same one who was in her initial Sun Dance dream, appears more often, as her guide.
The importance and condemnation of the Catholic church, in regards to what happened to the community, is explored early in the film. Rain’s guardian, Auntie “Apple” (Tantoo Cardinal), consults in confession with Father Bartoli (Stephen Yoakam). We learn that Apple feels guilty for helping to commit Rain’s mother Irene (Rose Berens) to the Penrose Psychiatric Hospital. Father Bartoli says that Irene is delusional and must remain there for her own good.
Luke (Bradley Cooper), a geologist from Minneapolis, embodies the “non-native” perspective in the film; as an outsider, Luke functions as a device to help a non-native audience understand what’s happening on the reservation, since he can ask a lot of questions. He arrives to investigate a strange earthquake near a cemetery on the old residential boarding school property on the outskirts of town—now closed and condemned. Luke connects with policeman Goodfeather, whose father Pete is the tribe’s medicine man (Dennis Banks). Luke has his own vision in his car when he suddenly sees a former college roommate with a gun to his head. A significant line of dialogue in the film is said by Pete to Luke: “Some stories never make the history books.”
Luke has a theory about “plate collisions” that he’s exploring through his research in the region—a concept with metaphorical resonance throughout the rest of the film, applicable to the tension between: native and white cultures; physical and spiritual worlds; Christianity and traditional native beliefs.
It turns out that a wealthy developer is working with the current mayor of the town to turn the boarding school property into a deluxe resort. Luke continues his research at the Historical Society of Penrose County, where he eventually uncovers another earthquake story related to the school from the 1950s, involving native students who died in a cellar.
The haunting ghosts of these dead native students populate the film, and there’s a key line of dialogue that emphasizes “ghosts coming out of the closet.” Atrocities depicted in the film include a child being forced to swallow soap because she spoke in her native language, and native children called “base savages” and then beaten.
The old school site affects Luke, as he goes back later to investigate the quake. He descends into a haunted cellar, where he finds an weathered sign inscribed with General Richard H. Pratt’s famous motto: “Kill the Indian – Save the Man.” Pratt is the founder of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School; it’s considered the prototype for all native residential schools in the United States, and based on a military model.
Luke asks Johnny, “Do you believe in spirits?” It’s revealed that Luke once had a native American college roommate who killed himself, after the roommate’s father killed himself. Here, the theme of intergenerational native suicide, due to the fracturing of families, is noted by a non-native character.
Throughout the film, Lightning explores what happens when the trauma of genocide is disbelieved or forcibly silenced. We learn that it is Father Bartoli, aided by a complicit Auntie Apple, who is responsible for Rain’s mother Irene receiving electric shock treatments, for revealing what happened at the Catholic native residential school. Irene was silenced through the shock treatments and sedation, and Rain realizes how wrong this is: “You want to talk about crazy…”
Medicine man Pete educates outsider Luke on how cultural genocide works on families and identity, starting with taking children right from their mothers’ arms: “They tried to beat the Indian right out of us.” And: “There are two ways to conquer a nation: kill ‘em or take away everything that defines who they are.” A mysterious murder near the school grounds in the present day is hushed up, related to what happened at the native school years ago and Christianity.
One poignant part in the Third Act illustrates why Rain didn’t marry earlier in her life: out of fear, because she thought there was something wrong with her and her fractured family. But she comes to understand that it was due to the unreported abuse from the boarding school – as Rain, too, was separated from her mother by Father Bartoli and Apple when Irene tried to out the abuse. Rain finally confronts Apple, whose name means in native culture “red on the outside, white on the inside.” Eventually, Rain frees Irene, and ensures that the children who had been killed at the native school in the 1950s are given a proper burial.
One of the important themes of this film is how to heal from a century of cultural and physical genocide—a topic entirely relevant to what’s happening in the world right now. Writer-director-actor Lightning provides several answers: truth, ceremony, and honoring the old ways – “things that are older than America.” In a sweat lodge ceremony, Rain learns that the adult male spirit who has guided her journey was her uncle, Walter Many Lightnings, who was punished at the school (Dan Harrison). In the sweat lodge, Rain is told, “Our dreams and our spirits cannot be taken.” Rain also learns the power of forgiveness: “The truths of the past…Forgive these people for what they don’t understand.”
Near the end of the film, rez radio announcer Richard Two Rivers (Wes Studi) observes, “Everything we Indians do is in a circle.” As Rain finally welcomes her mother Irene home, everyone gathers for a ceremony. Apple and Irene hug, a start on the road to forgiveness. But a card at the film’s end reminds us of grim facts: native Americans were forced to enroll in boarding schools are recently as 1975, and Amnesty International reports that the death rate of the native population is six times higher than any other ethnic group.
Older Than America traces the collective intergenerational trauma that cannot heal until the truth of it comes to consciousness, in a country, a community, a tribe, and in a family. The bond between mother and daughter is the main connection that galvanizes the reckoning of truth in Older Than America. Rain and Irene are united at the end, and we see the ghosts of the native school children and Uncle Walter fade away into the woods.
This film has been categorized as horror and sold under the title American Evil in the United Kingdom for its 2012 DVD release, probably because of its use of supernatural ghost characters. The atrocities that have been committed at native residential schools in the U.S. are horrific. The United States of America should follow Canada’s example and begin serious discussions about reparation in America for abuse at native residential schools. It is long overdue.
Laura Shamas, Ph.D., is a writer and mythologist. She is a member of the Chickasaw Nation. In 2014, she was part of “The Undisciplined Research Project” at the Autry Museum in Los Angeles and wrote about researching native boarding schools: “Memories That Haunt and Reaffirm.” Website: laurashamas.com.
Unlike most things, injustice appears bigger when it is further away.
“Geographical morality by which the duties of men… are not to be governed by… their relations to men, but by climates, degrees of longitude and latitude… As if, when you have crossed the equinoctial line, all the virtues die.” – Edmund Burke
The 18th century Irish politician Edmund Burke coined the term “geographical morality” to slam Britain’s Governor General of India, Warren Hastings, for excusing his own corruption by claiming it met Indian cultural norms. Burke fought a 10-year campaign to hold Hastings accountable for the colonial exploitation of India, under the belief that “there is no action which would pass for an act of extortion and of oppression in England, that is not an act of extortion and oppression in Europe, Asia, Africa and all the world over.” Such criticism of geographical morality challenges ideas of cultural relativism. Yet, it was Burke who debunked his peers’ assumptions about the Oriental barbarism of the Koran, by an extensive study that demonstrated that it could serve as a culturally appropriate guarantor of civil rights. He aimed to oppose geographical morality through the defense of personal liberty worldwide, while respecting established cultures rather than imposing foreign norms.
“When writers, painters, musicians and filmmakers suspend their judgment and blindly yoke their art to the service of the nation, it’s time for all of us to sit up and worry.” – Arundhati Roy
One major risk of the defensive patriotism of colonized nations, is that it censors internal critics in the name of patriotic solidarity. 2004’s Moolaadéwas the final film of Ousmane Sembene, the “Father of African cinema,” who died in 2007. Sembene was an artist never intimidated by controversy, nor did his patriotism lead him to self-censorship. His 1975 film, Xala, confronted institutional corruption in his native Senegal. 1977’s Ceddo was controversially frank about sectarian conflict between Muslims, Christians, and traditional spirituality. His vision in Moolaadé is a culturally specific condemnation of West African practices of female genital mutilation (FGM), but also a universally relevant exploration of cultural inertia and the personal cost of change. Surely, no reader of Bitch Flicks needs to be told that the forced mutilation of a girl’s genitals is wrong. However, if we cannot see that this struggle goes on, in another form, in our own cultures, then we are lost in the imaginary superiority of geographical morality. Here in Ireland, we know that international outcry is vital to force decriminalization of abortion, yet it remains intensely uncomfortable to feel one’s own culture reduced to an inferior evil in a foreign onlooker’s rhetoric. But the Irish have long cited American gun laws, use of the death penalty and armed police force, to define and defend our own imaginary cultural superiority. Unlike most things, injustice appears bigger when it is further away.
Village girls, seeking self-determination
“By making films, we have the opportunity to view ourselves, for the first time, through a mirror made by ourselves.”– Ousmane Sembene
In a conservative, rural community that practices polygamy as well as the “purification” of FGM, Moolaadé opens with four girls fleeing the ceremony and seeking refuge with Mother Collé, who already resisted pressure to have her own daughter, Amsatou, cut. Collé does not defend the girls in the name of international human rights, nor in the name of the African Charter for Human Rights (the Banjul Charter), nor even in the name of existing laws prohibiting FGM in Burkina Faso, where Moolaadé is set. She defends them in the name of her village’s established cultural tradition of a protective spirit that can be evoked: the moolaadé. By wielding moolaadé to create a magical boundary around her compound, Collé declares herself, like Sembene, an equal inheritor of her own culture. Collé’s compound becomes a refuge, whose boundary rope even female goats can cross to escape rutting males. To force her to undo her spell, the village authorities are driven to whip Collé as “sacrificial lamb” on behalf of her community’s women, provoking the film’s climactic showdown.
As we try to unthink centuries of colonial ideology and develop respect for the self-determination of other societies, we never forget that the right to self-determination belongs not only to cultures, but to individuals and marginalized groups within those cultures. As the outsider, Mercenaire, is sacrificed for opposing violence against women in Moolaadé, we must ask how his freedom of conscience, or the self-determination of Collé’s girls, can be defended, if the authority of village elders is upheld? A White Savior’s approach would speak on behalf of its “saved,” just as the village elders seek to. The solution to Sembene’s “little tyrant” is the same as to White Saviors: amplifying the power of women and minorities to advocate for themselves. Defensive patriotism, that provokes the village men to oppose foreign contamination by destroying their radios, may be justifiably provoked by colonial stigma. In Ireland historically, and in Poland more recently, the disproportionate power of Catholic dogma stemmed from the Church’s role in resisting foreign oppression (British or Soviet), associating our patriotism with obedience to the social rulings of a celibate, exclusively male hierarchy. But culture is not a static concept that can be defended. It is a dynamic, living process of interpretation, and Collé Ardo’s conflict with the village elders strikes to its heart: who is empowered to interpret?
Collé, creating and transmitting female cultural precedent
“Indeed, culture may be the missing link in the development of Africa. Culture is dynamic and evolves over time, consciously discarding retrogressive traditions, like female genital mutilation (FGM), and embracing aspects that are good and useful.”– Dr. Wangari Maathai
Poised between the imported influences of Islam and the radio, the village debates what the men consider “a minor domestic issue” and Collé brands “a matter of life and death.” She bears the scars of a life-threatening Caesarean, forced by complications from her own cutting and stitching. A sister of one of the fleeing girls died from this procedure. As Amsatou’s prestigious fiancé is pressured to reject her because she is a bilakoro (uncut), we witness the fearful prospect of a daughter’s becoming unmarriageable and unprotected, which has inspired loving mothers down the ages to enforce the cutting of their daughters. Yet, as girls kill themselves rather than be cut, and yet another dies from the procedure, Sembene questions whether it is worth torturing and risking lives for the sake of marriage value. In the face of cultural inertia and the threat of becoming outcast, it is still society that must be somehow changed, not the bilakoro.
Somali supermodel Iman, whose parents, like Sembene’s fictional Collé, withstood cultural pressure to subject her to FGM, has spoken against the practice, while Somali supermodel and Bond girl Waris Dirie, who was traumatized by FGM at age five before fleeing forced marriage at thirteen, was appointed a UN Special Ambassador in the struggle against it. It is no coincidence that both are supermodels. Only truly extraordinary genetic perfection grants African women their global visibility.
This woman is 58 years old. Holy crap.
“Genital mutilation is not my thing… Listen, girls cannot go to school. I can’t tackle all the issues, otherwise I’m spreading myself too thin.” – Iman
Iman recently protested attempts to solicit her opinion yet again on FGM, in an interview focussed on her advocacy of education for girls. To question her priorities is to miss the point. There is a reason why Iman is expected to serve as the sole spokeswoman for, among other things, Somalia (any aspect thereof), the economic development of Africa (the entire continent), female education in Africa, female genital mutilation, and Black beauty. That reason is the widespread silencing and invisibility of African women’s perspectives in global culture. There is also a reason why so many young African girls have their genitals forcibly cut. By astonishing coincidence, that reason is also the widespread silencing and invisibility of African women’s perspectives in global culture. Waris Dirie is tackling FGM with her NGO, Desert Flower Foundation. But Iman also tackles the root causes of FGM, by addressing the neglect of girls’ education. Where Desert Flower Foundation understandably resorts to White Savior rhetoric in its pressing need for funds – “save a little Desert Flower!” – Iman tackles root causes of FGM, simply by existing as an assertive, outspoken and glamorously uncut African woman in the public eye, let alone by her packed schedule of activism. Conversely, when we accept the glaring absence of African women and their stories from our global culture (the legal struggles of Beatrice Mtetwa? The ongoing attacks against human rights defender Aminatou Haidar?) we are actively contributing to the root causes of FGM, by lowering the status of African women. Acknowledging that complicity feels less comfortable than the warm glow of donating to fight a foreign evil.
A harrowing scene from Moolaadé
“If a white man or woman saw a white child that is mutilated, there would be screaming. I guarantee it would end. This is abuse against a child, so to say it’s to do with your religion or race, it’s all wrong. This is about child protection,” – Waris Dirie
The wording of the Banjul Charter‘s Article 18 states, “the State shall have the duty to assist the family, which is the custodian of morals and traditional values recognized by the community… The State shall ensure the elimination of every discrimination against women.” The Irish Constitution has similar wording about the State’s duty to “protect” (read: enforce) family, used to prohibit divorce until 1996, to criminalize homosexuality until 1993, to coerce unmarried mothers into surrendering their children for adoption and to bar married women from the civil service. If family organization has been traditionally patriarchal, how can the upholding of its “morals and traditional values” avoid discrimination against women? Yet, the Banjul Charter’s Article 18 also explicitly forbids discrimination against women, allowing its interpretation as a tool of liberation: who will be empowered to interpret? Similarly, the Koran forbids compulsion in religion, but contains verses justifying battle against “infidels” (composed when Mohammed’s followers were actively persecuted by nonbelieving Arabs). It can be read as advocating women’s equality – “any of you who labors in My way, be it man or woman; each of you is equal to the other (3:195)” – but contains verses that support gender discrimination. The Koran even supports queer-positive readings. As Burke claimed, the Koran can be interpreted as a basis for liberation and just rule: but who is empowered to interpret? At the joyous climax of Moolaadé, Amsatou’s fiancé, heir to the village’s throne, unites with the village women to collectively withstand traditional authority and reject genital mutilation. They empower themselves to interpret.
“We were taught at school, or even in tales and legends, that the hero was the soldier. It’s the leader, the one who can kill, who comes back as a hero. However, to me, from a moral point of view, it takes much more honesty and courage to resist the everyday without getting tainted by it.” – Ousmane Sembene. R.I.P.
Director and Compton native F. Gary Gray and the two rappers, who also serve as the film’s producers, made sure to include some of their best male comrades like Snoop Dogg and Tupac, but there are no signs of the women they helped bring into the music scene.
Clip from “Murder She Wrote” (YouTube)
This guest post by Tamara Dunn previously appeared at Standard-Speaker. Cross-posted with permission.
Pioneer rap group NWA has its rise in the music business projected on the big screen in Straight Outta Compton. The young lives of Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, Eazy-E, MC Ren, and DJ Yella are illustrated with scenes from their upbringing on the unforgiving Compton, California, streets to NWA’s formation in the late 1980s. Any fan of “Rap City” on BET or “Yo! MTV Raps” was familiar with their music videos, depicting violent environments that reflected their rhymes and beats and the troubles of youths all over.
Aldis Hodge, from left, as MC Ren; Neil Brown, Jr. as DJ Yella; Jason Mitchell as Eazy-E; O’Shea Jackson, Jr. as Ice Cube; and Corey Hawkins as Dr. Dre, in the film Straight Outta Compton. (Jaimie Trueblood/Universal Pictures via AP)
Looking at the Straight Outta Compton cast members listed at Internet Movie Database, there’s a clear lack of women in the NWA biopic. There are relatives and some significant others who have small roles in the movie, but there are key people who are missing from the frame. As NWA was making their first records, Dr. Dre and Ice Cube produced solo female acts as part of the fledging empire. Director and Compton native F. Gary Gray and the two rappers, who also serve as the film’s producers, made sure to include some of their best male comrades like Snoop Dogg and Tupac, but there are no signs of the women they helped bring into the music scene.
Here are three influential women who didn’t make the cut:
Michel’le
R&B singer Michel’le (BET)
The songstress with the deep singing voice but high-pitched speaking voice was previously engaged to Dr. Dre and married to controversial music mogul Suge Knight. Michel’le appears as a Jackie Kennedy type figure to Dr. Dre’s John F. Kennedy in the 1989 music video “Express Yourself.” She also made her own music, with her 1989 debut album Michel’le going double platinum with Eazy-E’s Ruthless Records. In a March 20 interview with The Breakfast Club, from New York’s Power 105.1, Michel’le described the abuse she endured during her six-year relationship with Dr. Dre. She currently appears on the reality show R&B Divas: Los Angeles on TV One.
Rapper/actress Yo-Yo appears on the talk show Mo’Nique. (BET)
The Compton native broke out with anthems like “Can’t Play with My Yo-Yo” with producer and collaborator Ice Cube in 1990 and “Black Pearl” in 1992 long before Spice Girls were promoting girl power. Yo-Yo created songs and a new sound that contradicted hyper-masculine gangsta rap that NWA was making and released positive messages for women. Her rapping success led to acting roles in Boyz n the Hood and Menace II Society as well as television roles on Martin and The Jamie Foxx Show.
These days, Yo-Yo’s focus is on an organization promoting the performing arts and academics among young people called the Yo-Yo School of Hip Hop. According to IMDb, she also has two acting roles in the works.
Eazy-E and Tairrie B on the set of the “Murder She Wrote” video.
From Anaheim, California, Tairrie B is one of the first white female rappers in the 1980s and 1990s. Her music video for her 1990 single “Murder She Wrote” is a mix of Madonna’s “Vogue” laced with gangster cliches, but it shows that she can be just as tough as her producer Eazy-E. Tairrie has also accused Dr. Dre of physical abuse during the time she was recording her debut album Power of a Woman for newly formed Comptown Records. It was her only rap album with her labelmate. After Eazy-E’s death in 1995, Tairrie switched to alternative rock and metal, fronting various bands.
This year, Tairrie released her first rap album in 25 years titled Vintage Curses. With a deeper voice and years of forgiveness, she pays tribute to NWA and her former mentor. In a July 2 interview with the Daily Mail, Tairre shares no hard feelings and sees their impact on her music.
“Their music and lyrics had a significant impact on me, which has resonated for over two decades, much like it has with many people. They put gangster rap on the map and there is a reason NWA are considered a monument and the root of it all which makes their story hugely important.”
Her new album was released on the same day as Straight Outta Compton was released in theaters.
The failure to include their stories should come as no surprise following a damaging casting call released last year for the film. The call was for women ages 18-30 who lived in the Los Angeles area during the time of shooting. However, the women were classified and ranked according to skin color, hair, and size. In a July 17, 2014 Gawker article, the release described “A Girls” the top of the list, as the “hottest of the hottest” models of any race with real hair and no weave. On the opposite end were the “D Girls,” African-American women who were “medium or dark skin tone” and were “poor, not in good shape.” The casting call, from Sande Alessi Casting, went viral, with Internet users sharing their unfavorable opinions on TMZ and The Huffington Post.
There’s plenty of room for women in hip hop to be well portrayed in movies. While it may not be happening with Straight Outta Compton, it’s time for their light to shine in Hollywood.
Tamara Dunn is a card-carrying cinephile and the resident film expert at the Standard-Speaker. Her favorite films are The Battle of Algiers and Traffic.
The movie adaptation of the Stonewall Riot entitled ‘Stonewall,’ directed by Roland Emmerich, is harboring unprecedented criticism from the entire LGBTQI community. Countless blogs, online publications, and social media pages have each blasted the movie with comments on whitewashing and altering of the historical facts.
Huffington Post Gay Voices released an article with the headline title “#NotMyStonewall: Why I’m Not Giving the Movie “Stonewall” a Chance.” The bbc.com entertainment section focused on the petition against the movie that reached more than 20,000 signatures.
I personally feel embarrassed for the director. No matter how hard he and his team try to damage-control this situation, I don’t think they will have any way out.
Stonewall movie
This is a guest post by Jethro.
The movie adaptation of the Stonewall Riot entitled Stonewall, directed by Roland Emmerich, is harboring unprecedented criticism from the entire LGBTQI community. Countless blogs, online publications, and social media pages have each blasted the movie with comments on whitewashing and altering of the historical facts.
I personally feel embarrassed for the director. No matter how hard he and his team try to damage-control this situation, I don’t think they will have any way out. The director released this statement on his Facebook page:
“When I first learned about the Stonewall Riots through my work with the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center, I was struck that the circumstances that lead to LGBT youth homelessness today are pretty much the same as they were 45 years ago. The courageous actions of everyone who fought against injustice in 1969 inspired me to tell a compelling, fictionalized drama of those days centering on homeless LGBT youth, specifically a young midwestern gay man who is kicked out of his home for his sexuality and comes to New York, befriending the people who are actively involved in the events leading up to the riots and the riots themselves. I understand that following the release of our trailer there have been initial concerns about how this character’s involvement is portrayed, but when this film – which is truly a labor of love for me – finally comes to theaters, audiences will see that it deeply honors the real-life activists who were there — including Marsha P. Johnson, Sylvia Rivera, and Ray Castro — and all the brave people who sparked the civil rights movement which continues to this day. We are all the same in our struggle for acceptance.”
Marsha P. Johnson
No matter how he reassures his audience against his misappropriation of a widely known struggle for civil rights, it’s almost impossible to fictionalize an important and pivotal piece of LGBT history. This is utterly unforgivable in my opinion.
Where did this director grow up? Does he live on the same planet as us? Did the civil rights movement just pass him by, and he hardly even noticed?
As a filmmaker, I would seek to educate myself about historical movements that are intersectional or closely interrelated to what I am conveying in a movie, especially one that’s so pivotal in LGBT history.
This is not ignorance but unconscious racism on the part of the director and screenwriter, which plagues most big-budget Hollywood films. The first person that threw a brick at the Stonewall Riot is Marsha P. Johnson, an African-American, transgender woman. Why on earth would you replace her with a White, cisgender gay man?
Jose Sarria
This is not only dumbfounding but outrageous. Is it because White, cisgender gay men have more commercial value than African-American, transgender women?
Why is this still an issue we fight at our level of cultural awareness and gender identity critical-mindedness? It’s possible that this could be a reflection of a deeper problem that exists within our cultural consciousness. Interestingly, this parallels events that are taking place today, with most of the media transfixed on Caitlyn Jenner and Black Lives Matter.
I find it ironic that on one hand we have a transgender woman who single-handedly takes the world by storm, and on the other, black people continue to be brutally discriminated against, harassed, even killed by criminal authorities.
In the eyes of Hollywood, some historical events cannot be adapted into a multi-million dollar blockbuster movie. Perhaps, the Stonewall riot is one of them. It’s impossible to replace iconic personalities in history when the point is to cater to a wider audience. I consider this a crime.
Denying younger generations the truth of history only allows it to repeat. Sadly, this isn’t a new trend in the film industry. Hollywood is known to appropriate and alter history for the sake of profit. I believe this has to stop.
When dealing with history, filmmakers have a responsibility to be accurate about the facts and events. A movie adaptation such as the Stonewall is nothing short of a failure, and it’s downright disrespectful to a movement that is still continuing at present.
Imperial Council of San Francisco
Recently, I came across a short film that promises a more accurate portrayal of the Stonewall Riots, entitled Happy Birthday Marsha, written and directed by Reina Gossett and Sasha Wortzel. It’s a film about the transgender artist and activist, Marsha “Pay it No Mind” Johnson and her life in the hours before Stonewall.
Like any other historical event, the story of Stonewall did not start at the Riot itself. The LGBT movement had been brewing years before. In the 1960s, when it was illegal to be gay, there had been an insurgence and uprising against institutionalized discrimination both in the East and the West.
In San Francisco, a man named Jose Sarria became the first openly gay individual to run for public office in an attempt to counteract the hatred that was the norm. He later founded an organization called the Imperial Council of San Francisco, the oldest surviving LGBT charity organization in America, which later gave birth to the International Court System composing of 64 affiliates in the US, Canada, Hawaii, and Mexico.
My documentary film 50 Years of Fabulous: The Imperial Council Story chronicles the 50-year history of the organization that became the pioneering nonprofit organization fundraising millions of dollars for HIV and AIDS organizations and causes throughout the decades. The film is set for postproduction and is raising funds to finish.
Jethro is a filmmaker/video producer based in San Francisco, California. He is currently working for Adecco at Google producing marketing and training videos for Google Maps Street View and Business View. He is the director of the award winning documentary film My Revolutionary Mother and two upcoming documentaries 50 Years of Fabulous: The Imperial Council Story and My Name Is Protest.
