Bitch Flicks – Page 147 – The radical notion that women like good movies

‘The Counselor’ and the Feminist Commentary of Ferrari Fucking

The honesty of a man saying, “What the hell was that?” when a woman is trying to do what society expects her to do to be sexy is a pretty clear indication of how our raunch culture makes fools out of women who try to fit into it.
If Reiner had loved it, I think I would have found that scene incredibly Problematic From a Feminist Perspective™. But he didn’t. This otherwise misogynistic character was baffled and troubled by this kind of display.

The Counselor poster — *The Counselor* poster

Written by Leigh Kolb

As press began trickling out about The Counselor, headlines about how “Cameron Diaz fucks a car” (a Ferrari) dominated my news feeds.

I did not expect that scene to be brilliant. But it kind of was.

The Counselor is by no means the “worst movie ever made.” The writing–Cormac McCarthy’s first screenplay venture–was lovely, if at times a bit much (as one might imagine a script by a novelist would be). The acting was incredible. Ridley Scott’s direction is poignant. This also isn’t the best film ever made, but it has enough strong points.

The two prominent women characters did fit into the problematic virgin/whore dichotomy, but overall I was surprisingly pleased at the depictions of female sexuality on screen, and the larger meaning of those scenes.

The opening scene (which The New York Times describes in loving detail) finds the audience in bed with our protagonist, the Counselor (Michael Fassbender) and his soon-to-be fiancée, Laura (Penélope Cruz). Their exchange is intimate, and he wants her to tell him what to do to her. While she’s slightly shy and hesitant, they are comfortable together. He retreats downward to perform oral sex on her, and she orgasms. Enthusiastically.

In the opening scene, we see a focus on female pleasure that is often foreign in heavily masculine films like this. They have just woken up, but he doesn’t want her to “tidy up.” Their white-sheet-wrapped love seems meaningful and real.

The bulk of the film, of course, follows the Counselor (he is nameless; other characters refer to him only in relation to his identity as a lawyer) and his decision to enter into a drug deal to make some fast money. This descent into a different world happens toward the beginning of the film, and what follows is a classic morality play, in which our prince falls, bringing those around him down with him. The dialogue, like the morality play itself, is Shakespearean, which is a bit much for most modern audiences. (There is a lot of talking…)

Hero, moral dilemma, advice from dubious sources, downfall, pile of dead bodies. Yeah, sounds pretty Shakespearean.

The two women characters are also quite Shakespearean with their subtle complexities and clear contrasts, which push us to consider what feminine power is and how we are supposed to judge the characters who surround them by their relationship with women. The Counselor deeply loves Laura and acts baffled when Reiner (Javier Bardem) speaks with disrespect/bawdiness about women. The Counselor loves giving women pleasure. Reiner sees women as dangerous liabilities.

Malkina, left, and Laura reveal their characters as they discuss diamonds and sex.

Reiner’s girlfriend–who we meet as she’s riding a horse across the desert with a cheetah by their side–is Malkina (Cameron Diaz). She is certainly a cheetah herself–gorgeous, fast, sleek, frightening, and threatening. Her role is impressive and important.

But about that Ferrari scene.

We see the scene as a flashback while Reiner is talking to the Counselor about something he’d “like to forget.” That something is the time that Malkina fucked his yellow Ferrari.

Malkina is trying really hard. Really hard. She slips off her panties and tells him she’s going to fuck his car. She climbs up on the windshield, descends into the splits, and goes to town right above Reiner’s face.

This scene–in which a gorgeous woman has sex with a luxury automobile to try to be really sexy and get off (on the luxury itself?)–is telling in how absolutely ludicrous it is. Reiner is “stunned”–and it doesn’t seem like he’s stunned in a good way. It’s just ridiculous.

(And OK, Reiner’s “catfish” description from his vantage point was funny–when he talks about the “gynecological” display upon the glass in terms of one of those “bottom feeders you see going up the way of the aquarium sucking its way up the glass,” that just intensifies how stupid the whole thing is.) Variety has the dialogue from that scene.

LOL — In its stupidity lies its feminist commentary.

Malkina’s immorality is essential in this morality story. The power she wields is significant–she’s certainly more malicious and skillful than our leading men. However, we are not supposed to be rooting for Malkina (even though we can find her wiles pretty amazing).

The symbolism of her fucking a Ferrari, and getting off in the process (the Counselor is very interested in whether or not she was able to orgasm), shows us just how materialistic she is. It’s not about human pleasure, it’s about object pleasure.

It’s not about genuine, self-aware female sexuality. It is ridiculous. And Reiner’s description of the fish on the aquarium? That’s exactly what it would look like. So dammit, I think it’s hilarious. The honesty of a man saying, “What the hell was that?” when a woman is trying to do what society expects her to do to be sexy is a pretty clear indication of how our raunch culture makes fools out of women who try to fit into it.

If Reiner had loved it, I think I would have found that scene incredibly Problematic From a Feminist Perspective™. But he didn’t. This otherwise misogynistic character was baffled and troubled by this kind of display.

Laura and Malkina aren’t as fully developed as they probably could have been (early on it’s clear that Laura=good and Malkina=bad when the two are having a conversation and Malkina can give Laura all of the details about Laura’s engagement diamond–and Laura doesn’t even want to know how much it’s worth–and their conversations about sexuality make Malkina seem the whore and Laura seem virginal).

In the promo stills, the men were allowed to have wrinkles, the women were not.

I did appreciate, though, how the women were their age. As disturbing as the marketing for the film was, these women are presented as neither younger than they actually are nor trying to be younger. While they are beautiful, they have wrinkles. While they are sexy, they are not 20. This is refreshing.

The Counselor isn’t the best–or the worst–film ever made. However, its artistic merit as a modern-day morality play and its representation of and commentary about femininity and female sexuality make it stand out.

__________________________________________________________

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

Bitch Flicks’ Weekly Picks

The feminism of Working Girl, “respectability politics” in 12 Years a Slave, female filmmakers on Twitter, comedy and reproductive rights, female sexuality on primetime, “Black Actress” on YouTube, and a comic about abortion laws… check out what we’ve been reading this week, and let us know what you’ve been reading and writing in the comments!

Acting Right Around White Folks: on “12 Years a Slave” and “Respectability Politics,” by ReBecca Theodore-Vachon at RogerEbert.com

Amy Poehler introduces TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD at Alamo Drafthouse! at Drafthouse.com

Why female pleasure–not sex–is the real taboo on primetime television by Monica Nickelsburg at The Week

Carrie: A Possibly Unnecessary Remake of a Still-Resonant Horror Story by Andi Zeisler at Bitch Media

Healing from Historic Trauma: “12 Years a Slave” by Janell Hobson at Ms.

40 Female Filmmakers to Follow on Twitter: A Crowdsourced List by Paula Bernstein at Indiewire

The Hollywood Reporter Announced the Top 50 Showrunners by Kerensa Cadenas at Women and Hollywood

Black Girl ‘Geeks’ Want To See More Of Themselves In Comics at NPR

Carol Burnett Cracks Up Washington by Ashley Southall at The New York Times

Call for Applications: Her Film Project Marketing Grant for Women Filmmakers by Kyna Morgan at Her Film

Everything I Know About Feminism I Learned From Working Girl by Rosemary Counter at Jezebel

‘Black Actress’ Web Series Premieres on Issa Rae’s YouTube Channel by Von Diaz at Colorlines

Comedy, Women, and Reproductive Rights: An Interview with Lizz Winstead by Hannah Strom at NARAL Pro-Choice Oregon

Purity Culture as Rape Culture: Why the Theological Is Political by Dianna E. Anderson at RH Reality Check

Stealth Attack: What You Need to Know About the New Abortion Laws (Comic) by Jen Sorensen at ACLU

What have you been reading/writing this week? Tell us in the comments!

‘Enough Said’: The Ex-Wife, the Masseuse, and Her Lover

James Gandolfini as Albert and Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Eva

This is a guest post by Heather Brown.

The only other Nicole Holofcener film I had seen before Enough Said (2013) was Walking and Talking (1996), a delightful indie movie about Gen X-ers trying to navigate love and friendship in NYC. Though there are many fans of the movies she made in between these two—and many compelling reviews—I wasn’t sure I needed to hurry up and watch them. I figured that I, like many viewers, pretty well know that rich, white people have problems just like the rest of us. Granted, most of us generally slog through life without quandaries like having to worry about why the maid insists on putting the hairbrush in the silverware drawer. But now that I’ve seen Holofcener’s latest you can bet that I’ll be moving other films like Please Give (2010) and Lovely and Amazing (2001) up on my Netflix queue.

Enough Said is set against the backdrop of people in L.A. with economic and social privilege that goes unremarked upon, but Holofcener does not dwell on these factors and instead shines a light on the flaws and vulnerabilities of middle-aged single parents in a way that is sympathetic and tender. It doesn’t hurt that one of these characters, Albert, is played by the late James Gandolfini, whose slobby charm is made even more winsome by fact that this was one of his final film performances. Albert is about as sweet and low-key as Tony Soprano was fierce and explosive, and it’s easy to see how the earthy masseuse Eva (played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus) finds him endearing.

Catherine Keener as Marianne and Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Eva in Enough Said — Catherine Keener as Marianne and Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Eva in *Enough Said*

As the story goes, Albert and Eva are introduced at a party, and later he asks her out to dinner. Unbeknownst to them both, the party that brought them together also put Eva in conversation with Albert’s ex-wife, Marianne, played by Catherine Keener. Marianne is a poet, which Eva finds intriguing. And as it happens, Marianne is also in need of a good masseuse. You know what happens next. Would that Albert and Marianne’s separation was an amicable one, perhaps there would be nothing to discuss about her ex as she lay prone on the massage table as Eva works her magic. Not so, of course. Once Eva realizes that the man she finds herself growing more and more attracted to is the very man Marianne can’t cease to skewer during each massage, trouble starts brewing.

What follows is Eva eagerly drinking in Marianne’s ire about Albert, as she reads Eva a list of his faults. Unsurprisingly, many of these shortcomings involve his eating, hygiene, dress, and home décor tendencies. (As Marianne tells her, “My ex-husband and I had zero in common, and I was completely repulsed by him sexually.”) Eva can’t seem to trust her own feelings and judgment and gets deeper into a one-sided friendship with Marianne, whose narcissism is almost too obvious for Eva to notice.

All that said, the plot really turns on Eva’s relationship with her daughter Ellen (Tracey Fairaway), and her impending departure to college on the opposite coast. Eva is having a difficult time losing her daughter to this inevitable next step (and indeed, so is Albert, whose daughter Tess, played by Eve Hawson, is also on her way out of the nest). Because we follow Eva’s story the closest, we, too, are put through the emotional ringer of seeing Eva express her desire to pull Ellen tighter by proxy of Ellen’s friend Chloe (Tavi Gevinson), who feels closer to Eva than she does her own mother. Ellen resents her mother’s misplaced neediness, and their conflict is handled with nuance and grace. And it’s not as if Eva’s married friends Will and Sarah (played by Ben Falcone and Toni Colette) have it figured out; Sarah, for instance, is obsessed with rearranging the furniture, which Will finds perplexing. Their exchanges are especially amusing, as is much of the film overall.

Still from Enough Said — Still from *Enough Said*

What I found most compelling about this film is Eva’s obsession with Albert’s physicality, but not for the reasons you might expect. Yes, Albert is clearly overweight and could stand to show up to a second date with a button-down instead of a T-shirt, but it’s the way that Eva tallies up his faults that shows her to be the one who could stand to do some work on herself. Audiences are quite used to seeing relationships in romantic comedies wherein men and women’s attractiveness is asymmetrical (see: almost every Judd Apatow film). If you’re like me, you find this troubling and tired and yet another example of Hollywood’s gendered double standard. But Enough Said calls into question Eva’s superficiality and preoccupation with Albert’s physical flaws (from his caloric intake to his loud, labored nose breathing) rather than condone her attitude as a reasonable response. Holofcener offers a subtle yet powerful critique of women’s tendencies to promote amongst themselves an ethos of moral superiority as expressed in physical health and well-being. After all, the central irony of Eva is that while her livelihood is to provide a healthful touch, she will not allow herself to be the recipient of the same tenderness. Practicing massage requires acceptance and kindness toward the body—something that does not come easy to her when it comes to letting herself connect with Albert.

Without spoiling the ending, let’s just say Enough Said leaves us with a sweetly unresolved last scene. It’s rare that a romantic-comedy hints that in fact, yes, it is possible for people to come together without the expectation that one or both people need to change in order to win the other’s affection. Holofcener’s film makes a refreshing case for suspending judgment for the sake of trusting one’s gut feeling—and the importance of following your own way.

Heather Brown lives in Chicago, Ill., and works as a freelance instructional designer and online writing instructor. She lives for feminism, movies, live music, road trips, and cheese.

The Power of the Feminine in ‘Sons of Anarchy’

It’s fascinating to see complex women characters who aren’t just good or just bad–aren’t just virgins or just whores. When we can have the same kind of conflicted and uncomfortable feelings for female characters that we do their male counterparts, that’s excellent (and feminist) writing.

Margaret, Wendy, Tara, and Ally plot against Gemma and the Sons.

Written by Leigh Kolb

Spoilers ahead (through “Sweet and Vaded,” which aired on Oct. 22)

Sons of Anarchy has always considered itself a modern-day morality play. The club doles out unlawful justice, and usually punishes enough really bad guys to make us feel like they are the good guys. However, the peripheral damage that the club is responsible for took us, the audience, to a breaking point early in season 6.

Some critics were concerned at the beginning of this season because Jax didn’t appear to feel enough remorse after the school shooting (which was made possible because the club ran guns). I argued that this was in keeping with the tradition of morality plays–because we are supposed to judge and question what constitutes virtue and vice, and Sons of Anarchy is forcing us to do that.

At this point in the season, the men have done what they could to stay straight–they’ve gotten out of the gun business and split ties with the Irish (after their clubhouse was bombed).

They’ve moved shop away from a heavily masculine auto repair center to an abandoned ice cream shop. By the end of “Sweet and Vaded” (which aired Oct. 22), the men are literally handing out candy to kids at their refurbished soda shop counter.

The men’s world seems almost ridiculous–motorcycles, a candy shop, giant wooden SOA signs, and leather cuts feel silly compared to the reality of the women’s lives around them.

In “Sweet and Vaded” we got to see the culmination of Tara’s plotting, which has been incredibly suspenseful throughout season 6. Her plans are working exactly as she wants them to. She’s using everything in her power to keep her sons safe and away from the club, and she’s doing so by exploiting her own femininity and collaborating with other strong and powerful women. While she gets limited help from Wayne (who doesn’t know what exactly she’s doing), Tara is able to protect and cleave her children from the outlaw world–at least, this is the first big step in that direction–by collaborating with women.

Tara is taking the reigns, with the help of other women.

Tara brings Wendy back in as the most trusted potential guardian for the boys.

Tara’s lawyer, Ally Lowen, pulls legal strings.

St. Thomas administrator Margaret Murphy has long been a support for Tara, and she helps her navigate the hospital’s part in Tara’s plans and is always there for the boys. (I would also theorize that Margaret has been giving Tara hcg shots to skew pregnancy test results–the doctor then would have seen a great deal of blood and nothing on an ultrasound, and assumed that she’d miscarried.)

This feminine collaboration is strong (which is rare to see in film and television), and they are able to work together against the dangers of the club and Gemma.

Tara’s staging of a pregnancy and miscarriage was jarring and unsettling. We are not used to seeing women (or “good” women) use measures like this to gain ground. “Dire circumstances require desperate measures,” Tara says, and means it.

What Tara did was horrifying, but she felt it was what she had to do. Her plans clearly aren’t finished, either.

The last few episodes have also featured Venus Van Dam, a trans* woman (played by an excellent Walton Goggins). I was concerned at first (just like I was concerned when Lyla got an abortion), because I wondered how right a show like this could get sensitive subplots that most dramas don’t touch.

Gemma comforts Venus with sensitivity.

However, I didn’t need to worry, because Sons of Anarchy respected its trans* character with a poignant grace that seems rare.

Venus suffered horrific abuse (emotional and sexual) at the hands of her mother, Alice, who could not accept Venus’s true identity. Alice ran a child porn ring (which Venus was a victim of when she was a child), and the emotional accounts that Venus gives are heart wrenching and so incredibly important.

Venus has son, Joey, who thinks he’s her nephew. Venus isn’t ready to mother him, but wants him to be protected from the life that she endured.

Goggins and Kurt Sutter were aware of Venus’s importance, as Goggins says:

“This was always approached with much earnestness as we could muster and seriousness because it is very delicate. [We wanted to] participate in that argument, the conversation that is going on in this country about where we are as a society. And in my mind, if Venus Van Dam is able to help a young man or a young woman in America, in a small town, feel better about themselves because they see their story reflected dramatically, then I feel like we’ve done our job.”

Jax and the crew are recruited to help rescue Joey (Venus goes to Gemma, whose gentle performance as an ally to Venus is powerful and increases our sympathy with Gemma). They find him drugged in a warehouse that’s clearly used as the location for the child porn videos. Alice confronts Venus and is terrible–she verbally abuses her, and finally says that Joey will be devastated about “the awful thing that turned out to be his father.” When she spits that out, Jax shoots her in the head.

Once again, it’s clear to know who we are supposed to root for by what they are against. This hyper-masculine motorcycle club is against the abuse of all women.

They may do business in pornography, but torture porn and child porn leads them to kill for justice. Abuses against women–when sex work isn’t consensual, when gender identity is belittled and attacked, when a woman is raped (as Gemma is again when prison guards force her to have sex with Clay)–represent the vice in this morality play, and the Sons are virtuous.

It’s complicated, though, as it should be. Are we expected to love and respect Macbeth or Lady Macbeth? Or are we supposed to be swept into an amazing story about complicated, sometimes-sympathetic, sometimes-awful people?

These women are not meek and fragile, though, which is incredibly important to keep in mind in regard to Sons of Anarchy. Except for the violent revenge against Alice, the Sons are spending a lot of time regrouping in their little ice cream shop, while the women are collaborating against the dangers they see to protect one another and the children they love.

The beauty of Sons of Anarchy in part lies in its complicated, suspenseful plots involving women. Tara isn’t a character on the side with a subplot, she has a plot to herself, as Gemma always has. It would be easy to dismiss the show by just scratching its surface (masculine men with phallic playthings–motorcycles and guns–and their “old ladies,” who don’t ride or sit at the table).

But the complex and powerful women show us that Sons of Anarchy isn’t just another show by men about men. It’s about all of them.

In an interview, Goggins said about Venus:

“She’s a very courageous, very flawed, very strong woman — or let’s shoot right past that and say [that she’s a strong] person in the world.”

There are people on Sons of Anarchy–they may appear to conform to heteronormative gender roles–but they are not typecast. Bad-ass mothers–Gemma, Tara, Wendy, and Venus–show us that women, and the feminine, can be a powerful force in a sea of masculinity.

To have conflicting feelings about women characters–sympathy, disgust, pity, rage, and pride–feels good. They have prominent story lines and important roles.

The feminine, in all its complexity, is powerful and necessary–now there’s a good morality play.

__________________________________________________________

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

Crankytown Announces Winner of Crankyfest, a New (Film Fest) Cycle and Fundraising for ‘Femme Kits’

Earlier this year, we wrote about Crankytown’s unique period-themed website and its short film festival, Crankyfest.
Crankytown is an interactive site about periods that features videos, stories and poems, created by Canadian actresses Liane Balaban, Vanessa Matsui, and Jenna Wright. Crankytown partnered with Playback Digital Company of the Year, iThentic, to launch Crankyfest, a contest for videos about periods.

Co-founders of Crankytown.ca, from left, Vanessa Matsui, Jenna Wright and Liane Balaban. — Co-founders of Crankytown, from left, Vanessa Matsui, Jenna Wright and Liane Balaban.

Earlier this year, we wrote about Crankytown’s unique period-themed website and its short film festival, Crankyfest.

Crankytown is an interactive site about periods that features videos, stories and poems, created by Canadian actresses Liane Balaban, Vanessa Matsui, and Jenna Wright. Crankytown partnered with Playback Digital Company of the Year, iThentic, to launch Crankyfest, a contest for videos about periods.

Crankytown announced Laura Maxwell’s short film, First, was the winner of Crankyfest.

[youtube_sc url=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtLccR4P4pE&feature=share&list=PLRYhF0arr_OYFL2f7y37MSY7z_Vs6ThLJ”]

“First seduced me with its distinctive animation style and tender message of love and compassion… a girl’s dream come true!” said juror Jane Grenier from Conde Nast/Teen Vogue.

Still from Laura Maxwell's First, the Crankyfest winner. — Still from Laura Maxwell’s *First*, the Crankyfest winner.

Crankyfest has started a new cycle, and the deadline for submissions is March 3, 2014. See http://www.crankyfest.com/ for more details.

Winners will be chosen by celebrity jury Jay Baruchel (This Is The End), Denis Villeneuve (Oscar-nominated director of Incendies) Anna Silk (Lost Girl), Kevin Pollack (Usual Suspects) and Amanda Brugel (Seed).

Jay Baruchel Participates in Fundraising Campaign for Femme Kits

Crankytown released a video starring Jay Baruchel (Tropic Thunder, Million Dollar Baby) in honour of the UN’s International Day of the Girl Child (Oct. 11) to highlight the fact that their agenda for 2013 doesn’t address girls’ access to menstrual products in developing countries.

[youtube_sc url=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rgqjCHZmAo&feature=share&list=UU72gosZQ7n7arlwbbjvmv4g”]

Often girls are unable to attend school in developing countries because they do not have a means of managing their period. Addressing the issue of menstruation directly reduces rates of absenteeism among school girls. Unfortunately, this issue was not on the International Day of the Girl Child’s agenda for 2013.

So on Oct. 11, Crankytown and Your Box Club released an animated recounting of Baruchel’s early experiences with periods and puberty. Baruchel reflects on his family’s reaction to discussions of menstruation and his sisters growth into womanhood. The goal of the video, which was directed by Jenna Wright and produced by Ithentic.ca, is to help de-stigmatize conversations about periods and bring awareness to the issue of menstruation in developing countries.

“Menstruation is still a taboo topic. Our goal is to de-stigmatize periods because girls who are confident about their bodies are confident in their lives,” explains Crankytown co-founder Vanessa Matsui.

Crankytown and YourBoxClub.com partnered with Femme International, a Toronto-based NGO that provides girls in Kenya’s slums with a hygienic care kit, or Femme Kit, which contains a menstrual cup, an innovative and sustainable product that can be re-used for 10 years, giving young women the means to remain in school when they are menstruating.

According to Femme International’s home page, “Providing sanitary supplies to Kenyan schoolgirls reduces absenteeism by 75%, from 4.9 days to 1.2 days per month.”

Through this collaborative fundraiser, they were able to donate three Femme Kits.

For more information, to watch, compete, or donate, visit:

Crankytown – www.crankytown.com

Crankyfest – www.crankyfest.com

Your Box Club – www.yourboxclub.com

Femme International – www.femmeinternational.org

Why You Should Be Watching ‘Masters of Sex’

Masters of Sex is the most compelling period drama I’ve seen in quite some time, and trust me, I watch a lot of period pieces. I will admit that sometimes the stiffness of the dialogue and the character interaction can get a bit dry – the audience understands that social conventions were different in the past, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that everyone was robotic round-the-clock. I feel the writers have a tendency to use era authenticity as a cop-out for lack of emotional depth or creativity. Though it’s only been four episodes, Masters of Sex boldly rips the buttons off of the post-World War II stereotype of prudishness and conservatism. Below are just a few of the reasons why you should give the show a try, if you haven’t already.

Masters of Sex logo.

Written by Erin Tatum.

Masters of Sex is the most compelling period drama I’ve seen in quite some time, and trust me, I watch a lot of period pieces. I will admit that sometimes the stiffness of the dialogue and the character interaction can get a bit dry – the audience understands that social conventions were different in the past, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that everyone was robotic round-the-clock. I feel the writers have a tendency to use era authenticity as a cop-out for lack of emotional depth or creativity. Though it’s only been four episodes, Masters of Sex boldly rips the buttons off of the post-World War II stereotype of prudishness and conservatism. Below are just a few of the reasons why you should give the show a try, if you haven’t already.

1. The show is based on real people.

Bill Masters and Virginia Johnson: fiction vs. reality.

William Masters and Virginia Johnson were a gynecologist and sexologist respectively who pioneered the first study of human sexual response. Their collaboration and the controversy of their subject matter is the basis of the show, which is in turn an adaptation of Master’s biography. Masters and Johnson were later married for 20 years and then divorced. This may or may not be a spoiler for their TV counterparts (played by Michael Sheen and Lizzy Caplan), judging by the rising belligerent sexual tension established between them. Not to mention they are responsible for much of our common sexual knowledge today.

2. Female sexuality literally takes center stage.

The women are a bit skeptical of Bill's contraption. — The women are a bit skeptical of Bill’s contraption.

Masters initially becomes curious about women in his study because he cannot fathom how or why a woman would fake an orgasm. He enlists the help of Betty (Annaleigh Ashford), a prostitute, who convinces the other women in her brothel to take part in the research. His primary goal is to delineate the stages of an orgasm, so he and Johnson spend a lot of time watching women masturbate. Admittedly, you should probably watch this show alone because to the unaware observer, it looks a hell of a lot like softcore porn. Also, there is some kind of giant glass dildo that’s similar to a space probe with a camera to observe physiological changes. Talk about invasive.

Joking aside, there are deeper dynamics at play here. Their time spent at the brothel gives the relatively affluent Masters and Johnson a gritty glimpse at working-class life in the struggle for survival. The myth of the ideal 1950s woman as an innocent, almost Victorian vessel of purity also starts to unravel as more and more women of all backgrounds begin to join the study and seem to know exactly what to do when prompted, albeit not without a little embarrassment.

It’s true that Masters solicits women partially because he thinks that no men would be interested in going solo for the study. However, the women turn out to be a gold mine of scientific revelations and sexual understanding.

3. Queer characters are humanized and perceived as equals worthy of respect.

Betty doesn't have time for your nonsense. — Betty doesn’t have time for your nonsense.

Really, if one more period piece hides behind the excuse of the era and cultural context to get away with another tired “masochistic gay, cue violins” plot I’m going to scream. Luckily for me, the instances of queerness that we do see are pretty bad ass, confident people. Betty happens to be a lesbian, a frank, self-admitted detail that Bill finds perplexing when she asks for the run-of-the-mill Playboy magazines to masturbate to. (Johnson quickly put an end to his grumbling by countering, “Isn’t an orgasm an orgasm?”) Betty even has a lover, although we never see her on screen. She develops a friendship with Johnson and particularly Masters, who both go out of their way to express concern that she isn’t being true to herself or her lover when she starts to contemplate marrying a man for financial stability.

Masters reacts with predictable uneasiness when Betty recruits gay male prostitutes to participate in his study without his knowledge. To his credit, he still doesn’t outright refuse when two of the men offer to “put on a show” for him. He throws a hissy fit about only having data from deviants after his study is repeatedly denied funding, but ultimately rallies to the defense of the everyday men who visit the hustlers, proving that male homosexuality isn’t as deranged as 1950s masculinity would like to believe.

4. The characters are realistically flawed without creating a black-and-white morality.

Bill Masters’ Achilles’ heel is that he’s married to his job and his job is all about sex, which naturally deflates his domestic life and his passion for his wife, Libby (Caitlin FitzGerald). Libby has the air of a fresh-faced Betty Draper before the bitterness and alcoholism took its toll. The main source of strain on their marriage is their struggle with infertility. They genuinely try to make the other happy, although Libby is definitely the stereotypical flower of a trophy wife withering under her husband’s lack of communication and emotional availability. She may appear to be a bauble of a woman, but she’s sensitive and perceptive. You aren’t exactly rooting for Bill to stray from her.

Johnson is a single mother of two who holds her head high despite being twice divorced. She doesn’t shy away from casual sex and she has no tolerance for that whiny friendzoned bullshit. She contemplates Masters’ preposition that they should sleep together “for the study.” On one hand, you want them to sleep together to act on their chemistry, but on the other, you hope Virginia is levelheaded and ethical enough to value her budding friendship with Libby over an exploratory one night stand that would lead to the most cliché collapse of bonds between women.

The narrative consistently confuses you since you find yourself supporting potentially bad decisions on the characters’ behalf because you understand their perspective. Sympathy and empathy with flaws in mind – the cornerstone of strong characterization!

5. Masters of Sex isn’t Mad Men…and that’s a good thing.

Due to the similarity of the time period, some have drawn comparisons between Masters of Sex and Mad Men. Yes, the style is drool-worthy and good ol’ boys club mentality is in full effect, but the comparisons should end there. There are a few formulaic echoes: the hard working introvert stuck in a dead end marriage partners up with the secretary to discover some deeper philosophy about the human experience via their collaboration. However, Masters of Sex isn’t afraid to display the chaos bubbling beneath the surface of the prim and proper pressures that society presents. Instead of having to hyper analyze every single glance or deadpan line of dialogue for hidden meaning, the characters wear their intentions on their sleeves. They’re lost and determined and uncertain and arrogant all at the same time. It’s glorious.

Masters of Sex is a breath of fresh air for the genre. Each episode is a relished, slow drag on a cigarette.

Seed & Spark: A Balancing Act: A Year of Film

At the same time I’d been reading a lot of reports about how underrepresented women filmmakers are. I’d seen a lot of fabulous films directed by women, but I recognized that there were many more women-made films I had yet to see. I actually had NO IDEA how true that was until I launched into this process, but that insight sparked my idea to create a year of film watching that focused on films made in the past ten years, and gender balanced my viewing. So here’s the vision: over the course of a year I’d watch films directed by women and men in equal number. Every day I’d see at least one feature film and one short. I chose to put my attention on films from the past decade, so I could tune in to the powerful energies of film creation arising on the planet at this time.

This is a guest post by Barbara Ann O’Leary.

I’m having a great year in film viewing. I attribute that in large part to my choice to take conscious charge of what I see. It’s a process, rocky at times, but it’s been an amazingly eye opening adventure. I call it A Yearlong Film Viewing Balancing Act.

Yes, that’s a clunky name with a cryptic hashtag #yfvba, but I rather like it. It’s a little strange and obsessive. I think I’m on to something.

I’m an enormous lover of film. I watch a LOT of films, but I’d started questioning what my film viewing choices were based on. Media hype? Friends’ suggestions? Whatever just happened to be showing at the local theater? Pressure I put on myself to be able to say I’d seen all the so-called great films?

Why not just dedicate myself to watching women-made films for a whole year? That would be a great project too. That might be what someone else needs to do, but for me it’s about inviting harmony. It’s about fostering balance in my own film-loving life, and it’s about recognizing that as an individual I have the power to impact the entire world of cinema through my film viewing choices.

What? Change the entire world by film watching?! Yes. I really think so.

When I launched A Yearlong Film Viewing Balancing Act on May 4th, which was the day the idea struck me, I created a manifesto of sorts. It started off like this:

“Today I begin a yearlong film viewing balancing act… where I dedicate myself to inviting authentic creative expression to flourish in the world in a balanced and harmonious way by bringing my attention to–and opening to receive–the creative motion picture outpourings of women and men filmmakers in equal measure.”

To me this was an act of power, a fierce awakening. What we put our attention on grows in our own lives and in the world at large. I’ve experienced that over and over again in my life. When I ask myself what I want to see flourish in the world I get this crystal clear answer: I want to live in a world where everyone’s authentic creative expression is honored, supported, and received fully. Film is my favorite form of artistic expression, so it’s a natural place for me to bring my awareness.

Through A Yearlong Film Viewing Balancing Act I’m making an unshakable commitment to be awake to what films I’m experiencing. I’m noticing and honoring who made them. The film world responds to viewer demand–not instantaneously, but over time–and I’m doing my part to call forth balance. Gender balance is not the only balance I value, but I’m inviting it to serve as a grounding force for balance in all other aspects of life.

Even if no one else is changed by this process, I know I will be. I already am, and I’m only halfway through the 365 day process. As I’ve been blogging, tweeting, Facebooking, and talking about the adventure with others, I am noticing that things are starting to shift in the wider world, so I’m gaining confidence that my actions are making a difference. That’s delightful to me.

Here are a few things that have already shifted in my life, because of this experience:

I have become aware that MANY women are in fact filmmaking. Five months ago I started a list on IMDb to help me find the world of Women Filmmakers: Active in the past decade. Astonishingly, without even making an effort, I’ve grown that list to 2,338 filmmakers. That’s just a start. Women do in fact make movies. And many of them tweet. I’ve located 863 so far and gathered them into a list.

Starting out on this adventure I’d feared that to keep my theatrical film viewing even I would have to struggle, but although women-made films are underrepresented in theaters, I have been able to go out to see an even number of movies directed by women and men without difficulty. Yes, it’s taken some focus and planning, but by combining multiplex, art house, and film festival viewings, I’ve been able to stay even. As of today I have seen 23 man-made films, 24 woman-made films, and 4 films by mixed gender directing teams out at theaters. Including films I’ve streamed, watched on disc or on TV, I’m up to 219 features. Men- and women-made films are running neck and neck.

It’s ridiculous to generalize about filmmakers by gender. Each filmmaker is unique and expresses her or his own vision of self and world. For instance, I’ve found both woman- and man-made films to be tender explorations of love and family. Jeff Nichols’ Mud, David Lowery’s Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, Ava DuVernay’s Middle of Nowhere, and Lake Bell’s In a World… come to mind. And women-made films can be as harsh as any man’s.

[youtube_sc url=”http://youtu.be/Vatw1xlgZJM” title=”Ava%20DuVernay%27s%20Middle%20of%20Nowhere%20trailer”]

Ava DuVernay’s Middle of Nowhere trailer

[youtube_sc url=”http://youtu.be/b_gGlYCMye4″ title=”David%20Lowery%27s%20Ain%27t%20Them%20Bodies%20Saints%20trailer”]

David Lowery’s Ain’t Them Bodies Saints trailer

I feel more centered and grounded when I’m saying YES to authentic creative expression that arises in a balanced way.

The journey is ongoing. If you’d like to join me, I’d love your company. Come find me at O’Leary’s Reel Life on Tumblr, Twitter, or Facebook , etc. Tell me how your film viewing adventures are unfolding. And stay tuned for my new podcast–under development.

Barbara Ann O’Leary, Indiana University Cinema’s Outreach Specialist, loves to help people engage authentically. Recent projects include: Every Everything: The Music, Life & Times of Grant Hart (Executive Producer), Indy Film Festival (Screening Committee), Indiana Filmmakers Network Made in Bloomington Film Series (Programmer), Bloomington Screenwriting Community (Founder/Facilitator). A Film Explorer/Blogger, Barbara shares her adventures in film and reports on her initiative A Yearlong Film Viewing Balancing Act at O’Leary’s Reel Life: http://olearysreellife.tumblr.com/

What Shakespeare Can Teach Us About Rape Culture

When Shakespeare wrote Titus Andronicus and The Rape of Lucrece in the late 1500s, women were quite literally the property of men (their fathers, then their husbands). The rape culture that plagues us in 2013 was essentially the same, although laws of coverture have dissolved and women are no longer legally property.

And Shakespeare understood the horror of rape. Shakespeare–more than 400 years ago–seemed to understand that patriarchy hurts women. Patriarchy kills women.

Patriarchy is rape culture.

Do not draw back, for we will mourn with thee

O, could our mourning ease thy misery! (2.4.56-57)

Shakespeare's depictions of rape are too familiar today. — Shakespeare’s depictions of rape are too familiar today. However, his messages about patriarchy and rape aren’t familiar enough.

Written by Leigh Kolb

When a story about a girl who was raped and subsequently shunned and blamed breaks, I’m no longer surprised. It’s familiar. Townspeople gathering behind the rapists–just like in Steubenville–seems like the natural course of things in our toxic rape culture. She shouldn’t have been so drunk. She couldn’t say no. These boys are promising young athletes.

The rapists in Julie Taymor's Titus--Demetrius and Chiron--are wild young men obsessed with violence and video games. — The rapists in Julie Taymor’s *Titus*–Demetrius and Chiron–are wild young men obsessed with violence, depraved sexuality and video games.

When Shakespeare wrote Titus Andronicus and The Rape of Lucrece in the late 1500s, women were quite literally the property of men (their fathers, then their husbands). The rape culture that plagues us in 2013 was essentially the same, although laws of coverture have dissolved and women are no longer legally property.

And Shakespeare understood the horror of rape. Shakespeare–more than 400 years ago–seemed to understand that patriarchy hurts women. Patriarchy kills women.

Patriarchy is rape culture.

Last week, I read about the Maryville case with the familiar dread that accompanies these too-frequent stories. When it happens in my state in a town that looks like mine, it’s even closer. But I’m never surprised.

As I was watching Titus with my Shakespeare class, I readied myself for the rape scene (which Julie Taymor handles brilliantly). When Lavinia’s uncle, Marcus, finds her brutalized, he delivers a long monologue, mourning the sexual violence that she has gone through.

At the end of the monologue, he says as she turns away,

“Do not draw back, for we will mourn with thee

O, could our mourning ease thy misery!” (2.4.56-57)

It took my breath away like it hadn’t before, and I checked the text to read the exact quote. I paused the film and asked my students if they’d heard of the Maryville case (in which the victim and her family were basically chased out of town after the case against the perpetrators was dropped). They hadn’t. I explained, and re-read the final couplet of Marcus’s monologue.

Is this how we respond to women who are raped in our culture?

No.

What if we did? What if we rallied behind not the rapists, but the one who was raped? What if we never said, “I am not saying she deserved to be raped, but…“

What if all of this happened immediately and swiftly in our own communities, and not after a case gets national attention?

In Shakespeare’s texts, it’s clear that the rapists are sub-human and villainous. Even when rape isn’t part of the plot, he shows the figurative and literal violence of patriarchy.

Hermia’s father is willing to kill her if she doesn’t marry who he wants her to marry in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. (“I would my father look’d but with my eyes,” she says.)

Hamlet‘s Ophelia commits suicide when she descends into madness being pushed and pulled by patriarchal pressures. (She says to her brother after he advises her to be chaste and virtuous, “Do not, as some ungracious pastors do, / Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven; / Whiles, like a puff’d and reckless libertine, / Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads, / And recks not his own rede.”)

Emilia’s views on the patriarchal constraints of marriage and sexuality in Othello seem radical today.

Shakespeare understood.

Why can’t we?

In Titus Andronicus, Lavinia is brutally raped and disfigured (including having her tongue cut out so she couldn’t speak). This nod to Philomela in Ovid’s Metamorphoses echoes the themes of the brutality of rape and the need for revenge. The women needed to name their rapists and share their stories (Lavinia writes in the sand; Philomela weaves a tapestry that tells her story). The women have as much power as they can in the confines of their society, and we the audience are meant to want justice and revenge.

Lavinia writes the rapists' names in the sand. The men surrounding her are not unlike Anonymous in the Maryville case. — Lavinia writes the rapists’ names in the sand. The men surrounding her are not unlike Anonymous in the Maryville case.

Shakespeare’s epic poem The Rape of Lucrece also follows a young woman who is raped and seeks revenge (although her speech is left intact).

While the death of the women at the end of the plays seems problematic to 21st-century feminists, we must remember that in Shakespeare’s Roman fictions, self-sacrifice or honor killing was honorable and dignified, thus leaving the women with as satisfying an end as they could hope for. There are cultural differences, of course, but the anti-rape and anti-misogyny messages in these centuries-old texts are gripping.

In these texts, the following messages are clear:

• Rapists are depraved misogynists who want some kind of power.

• Silencing of women is evil.

• Women aren’t always allies (see: Tamora, who mothers and encourages Rape and Murder) .

• Retribution is necessary for justice.

Four-hundred years later, we still can’t seem to grasp these realities.

We look to media for social norms and values. If we see objectification of women on screen, we can clearly see the if this objectification has deeper feminist implications if we are supposed to villainize the objectifiers. (This is, incidentally, why the sexism in The Big Bang Theory makes my skin crawl and Sons of Anarchy–in all of its vengeful Shakespearian glory–is one of my favorite shows.) Shakespeare’s women–who are victims of violent patriarchies–are the ones the audience is supposed to sympathize with. The tragedy of these tragedies is that this patriarchal social order creates hell on earth for many women.

At the beginning of Titus, Lavinia pours a vial of her tears in her father’s honor as he returns home from war. She mourns and rejoices with him and is able to express her emotions surrounding his losses and his victories.

Mourning with him comes naturally. It’s what we expect when men encounter battles.

And just as Marcus says that they must mourn with Lavinia, she must not withdraw, we need to learn to mourn with those who rape culture affects so deeply.

In 2013:

• Rapists are still misogynists who do not want sex, but want power.

• Women are still silenced. (And when they speak out, it is not without consequences.)

• Women still aren’t always allies.

• Retribution is still necessary, although we must fight to see it happen (and rely on online hackers and internet outrage to open up cases). Far too often we must wait for justice, if it ever comes.

When we can look to fiction from centuries ago and see common and familiar–almost radical–representations of the violent outcomes of restrictive patriarchies, we are doing something wrong.

Because the masses still don’t seem to understand that patriarchy hurts women. Patriarchy kills women.

Patriarchy is rape culture.

__________________________________________________________

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

Family, Identity, and the Transgender Heroine in ‘Hit & Miss’

A friend of mine turned me onto the show Hit & Miss, which is a six episode British series currently streaming on Netflix. Hit & Miss follows Mia, played by the ever-talented Chloë Sevigny. Mia is a transgender hit woman who finds she has an 11 year-old son, Ryan.

Written by Amanda Rodriguez

A friend of mine turned me onto the show Hit & Miss, which is a six episode British series currently streaming on Netflix. Hit & Miss follows Mia, played by the ever-talented Chloë Sevigny. Mia is a transgender hit woman who finds she has an 11-year-old son, Ryan. When Mia’s ex-girlfriend and Ryan’s mother dies unexpectedly, Mia must balance the demands of her brutal, secretive work while trying to build a family with her son and his three other siblings of whom Mia is also now the guardian.

[youtube_sc url=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpJzeGdlC0U”]

My strongest critique of the series is that the producers did not choose an actual transgender woman to play the role of Mia. Sevigny is, no doubt, an ally and advocate for trans rights as is evinced by her involvement with Hit & Miss as well as Boys Don’t Cry, and while her rendering of Mia is nuanced, strong, and sensitive, it’s just not enough. On Homorazzi.com, Sevigny is quoted as saying, “I was worried people would be angry that they didn’t cast a real person who was transitioning, I asked why they didn’t, and the producers said they didn’t find the right person. It’s a big responsibility toward that community, and I wanted to do them right.”

All I have to say is: bullshit. Bullshit they couldn’t find a capable transgender actress to give authenticity to the character and agency to the transgender community. Look at how amazingly gifted Laverne Cox is as Sophia on the women’s prison series Orange is the New Black. Cox’s portrayal has been successful, breathing life, humanity, and humor into Sophia, proving that there are plenty of transgender actors who are not only talented, but who audiences will receive positively. It’s time to give another under-represented and marginalized group the freedom to represent themselves. Blackface is offensive and is generally accepted as grotesque and hateful. In 20 years, how will people view our insistence that no transgender actors are capable of representing their own lives, struggles, weaknesses, and triumphs?

mia-on-a-job — Chloë Savigny as Mia on a job.

My second major critique of the series is that the camera is obsessed with Mia’s body. Her penis is shown in every single episode. She is often nude or getting dressed, and the audience is encouraged to stare at her body. The camera is fascinated with the incongruity between the curves of Mia’s female form and her (prosthetic) penis. It feels gratuitous and exploitative, objectifying an already marginalized character. The camera’s obsession with Mia’s body tells us two things: 1) Mia is her body; her body is her most important and defining attribute, and 2) Mia is abnormal. The way the camera lingers on her breasts and penis echoes carnival freakshows that insist audience members pruriently gaze at the Other. This isn’t a humanizing, inclusive technique. The camera should not internalize the judgements that Mia and much of the world put on her body because we, the audience, are effectively the camera, it guides our gaze, which should be one of acceptance of the integrity and beauty of its heroine.

My third major critique is the show’s rendering of Mia’s sexuality. She identifies as a straight woman trapped in the biological body of a man. That would be fine, but she also insists to the kids that she loved Wendy, their mother, and that they were happy together, claiming, “We’d probably still be together if I weren’t a transsexual.” (The use of the word “transsexual” makes me cringe…maybe it’s a British thing?) The idea seems to be that Mia was a straight man, and now she is a straight woman. That decomplicates human sexuality, not to mention trans sexuality, in a disappointing way. Why can’t Mia’s sexuality be fluid? The underlying assumption seems to be that it would make her less of a woman to be attracted to both men and women. That is deeply problematic not only to queer sexuality, but to trans sexuality.

I appreciate that Hit & Miss, however, allows Mia to be more than a gender stereotype. Though she is a very feminine woman (wearing make-up, dresses, lingerie, and cute cowgirl boots), Mia is skilled in weaponry and hand-to-hand combat. Some of the most touching sequences in the series are when Mia and her son, Ryan, work out together, bonding as she teaches him the discipline of fitness and boxing for self-defense.

Mia teaches her son, Ryan, to box. — Mia teaches her son, Ryan, to defend himself from bullies.

Not only that, but Mia is gratifyingly self-possessed when it comes to threats against her person. Watching her beat the ever-loving shit out of the waste-of-space, misogynistic, pedophile, rapist, dumb fuck landlord, John, as he threatens her and the kids is one of the most satisfying scenes of all time. He soooo had it coming.

mia-ass-kicking — Mia fucks John’s shit up. It couldn’t have happened to a nicer person.

Mia’s new lover, Ben, accuses her of still having “too much man left in” her because of her penchant for violence. She rightly tells him to fuck off. Her life is fraught with violence because of her profession and because of her dark, abusive upbringing on the carnival Fairgrounds. I also wonder if the show is saying that violence is inherent in transitioning. It is true that many transgender people face violence and the threat of violence as part of their daily lives. Being who they are is, for some reason, perceived as a threat to hegemony, and fear, aggression, and hate are all too common responses. Hit & Miss also, though, plays with the metaphor of rebirth, and the violent struggle that accompanies it. In a montage sequence, as the children don their sleeping bags (reminiscent of cocoons) to play their favorite game, a butterfly flits across Mia’s sniper rifle scope, causing her to miss her target, which changes her life forever. Mia is in the process of being reborn from a man to a woman, a loner to a family member, and a father to a mother.

Her new lover, Ben, struggles with his own sexuality and masculinity as they relate to Mia’s transition. To prove his straightness, masculinity, and capacity for intimacy, Ben cheats on Mia. He makes a point of performing oral sex on his fling; the significance of which is obvious, but it is also important because Mia isn’t comfortable with Ben touching her penis (understandably so because Mia doesn’t feel her penis is part of her identity). On the morning after the woman has left, Ben finds a handful of hair extensions in his bed. This moment was very compelling for me as a feminist because it is saying that to some degree femininity is a performance even for cis women. This posits the query, “What makes a real woman?” This scene questions the validity that any such creature exists. It subtly asserts that genitalia is as arbitrary as hair length for determining who is and who is not a woman.

mia-and-ben-hook-up — Mia and Ben have sex for the first time.

“Family’s got fuck all to do with blood.” – Mia

That is the best quote of the entire series, and it is one of the major themes of the show. If I had to pick one word to describe the series, it would be: bleak. Hit & Miss is full of violence, trauma, and despair. These are highly damaged people, but together they form a unique family and a new life. Mia pulls them together with her strength, her vulnerability, and her love. By the end of the series, Mia has drawn all the wounded characters together. She senses their need for love and safety, and she gives it freely, in spite of how many curses and slurs they hurl her way. In the depths of darkness, Mia’s indomitable spirit is a beacon, guiding all of them towards hope.

: Mia’s new family

This show has a lot going on; I even question whether or not it’s got too much going on. The primary characters have complex inner lives with myriad painful issues that stem from poverty, neglect, and abuse. A fledgling family getting to know and learning to love each other while navigating these landmine issues; a trans woman learning she has a son, owning her identity, finding romance and family in unexpected places; a hitwoman balancing her seedy career with a desire to give, belong, and build a wholesome life for her family…each of these could be its own storyline. Is it too much to make Mia a hitwoman? Is it purposely sensationalist in order to draw attention to the meat of its tale: family and identity? Is making Mia a hitwoman underscoring Chloë Sevigny’s sentiment that, “There’s a lot more going on with her than just her gender”? Or is an ambitious, often contentious, and always thought-provoking short series like Hit & Miss that’s packed with meaning, metaphor, and depth exactly what we need?

In Praise of ‘The Fall’s Uber Cool Feminist Heroine: Gillian Anderson’s Stella Gibson

The Fall is one of 2013’s television success stories. The five-part BBC crime drama is a compelling, well-crafted production with a fine cast and a terrific lead performance by Gillian Anderson. Set in present-day Belfast–and also shot on location in the Northern Ireland capital–The Fall chronicles the police hunt for a serial killer of attractive, professional women in their thirties. It is created and written by Allan Cubitt–who scripted Prime Suspect 2 (1992, UK)–and directed by Jakob Verbruggen.

Detective Superintendent Stella Gibson (Gillian Anderson)

Written by Rachael Johnson

The Fall is one of 2013’s television success stories. The five-part BBC crime drama is a compelling, well-crafted production with a fine cast and a terrific lead performance by Gillian Anderson. Set in present-day Belfast–and also shot on location in the Northern Ireland capital–The Fall chronicles the police hunt for a serial killer of attractive, professional women in their thirties. It is created and written by Allan Cubitt–who scripted Prime Suspect 2 (1992, UK)–and directed by Jakob Verbruggen.

Anderson plays Detective Superintendent Stella Gibson, an Englishwoman called in from the London Metropolitan Police to review a high profile PSNI (Police Service of Northern Ireland) investigation into the murder of an architect. When another woman of similar looks and background is found murdered, Gibson takes charge of the investigation. The Fall is not a whodunit like Forbrydelsen (2007, DK) or The Killing. We know the identity of the murderer, a certain Paul Spector, from the very first episode. The viewer’s interest lies instead in studying the killer and watching Stella pursue the case.

The serial killer’s personal and professional lives are “normal”: Spector is a young man in a caring profession with a hard-working wife and two small children. He is a bereavement counselor. She is a neonatal nurse. Capably played by Jamie Dornan, Spector is slender, good-looking and athletic. A good family man, he seems to have a loving relationship with his children. His sweet, sensitive daughter adores him. Spector’s wife, Sally Anne (Bronagh Waugh) does not know that she is sleeping with a killer of women. He does not reveal violent, misogynist tendencies in his family life. Nor does he show evidence of any psycho-sexual hang-ups in his marital relations. Returning home from violating the domestic space of a potential victim, he falls into bed and makes love with his wife. Possessing, it seems, a split personality, Spector leads two very different lives. At times, these lives are sustained simultaneously. In one unnerving scene, he stalks a potential victim in a park with his young daughter in tow. At first, Dornan’s Spector struck me as a little too normal to be credible but there is an intensity and arrogance to his character that suggests a darker side. There have been serial killers from very average backgrounds and the makers of The Fall consistently underline Spector’s chilling ordinariness in their observational study of the killer. The writer Allan Cubitt has created a man–not a monster.

As a writer of a series that introduced the world to Helen Mirren’s Detective Chief Inspector Jane Tennison, Allan Cubitt is, of course, well-acquainted with strong female characters. His Stella is a particularly striking, commanding protagonist. Clad in pencil skirts, silk blouses and stilettos, she cuts an elegant, glamorous figure. Amusingly, Stella’s silk shirts have become a fashion column and pop culture talking point in the UK. The character’s ultra-feminine looks, it must be said, aim to signify authority rather than slavishness to an ideal of femininity. Stella is self-governing and goal-oriented. The English outsider has, in fact, an almost patrician manner at times. Her leadership style cannot be characterized as either buddy-buddy or maternal. Stella is a cool rather than cold woman, however. This is apparent when we see her calmly help a male co-worker recover from a traumatic incident. We admire her poise and intelligence. Stella also shows interest in the lives of her female co-workers. Most importantly, she possesses a feminist consciousness: she exposes misogyny while combating male violence against women.

Murderer and Family Man, Paul Spector (Jamie Dornan) — Murderer and family man, Paul Spector (Jamie Dornan)

Entirely at ease in her skin, Stella is, also, very much a sexual woman. One scene in particular stands out. Spotting a good-looking cop at a crime scene, Stella asks her female companion, police constable Danielle Ferrington (Niamh McGrady) to introduce her to him. When he asks her how long the review will take, Stella tells him point-blank: “I’m staying at the Hilton. Room 203.” It is an impressive, amusing display of female sexual sway. They enjoy their night together but when he makes the mistake of texting a sexy selfie the day after, Stella breaks off contact. She has no interest in pursuing a relationship. Stella is also unafraid of exposing sexual double standards. The one night stand becomes a potentially compromising issue for her male co-workers as the plot develops. Stella, however, detects the underlying reasons for their unease. She puts them in the picture: “That’s what really bothers you, isn’t it? The one night stand. Man fucks woman. Subject man, verb fucks, object woman. That’s ok. Woman fucks man, woman subject, man object. That’s not so comfortable for you, is it?”

Police Constable Danielle Ferrington (Niamh McGrady)

Stella is a rational, self-directed, sexual woman. What is unfortunate is that this particular combination of characteristics in a female protagonist is still rare in mainstream film and television. Unusually, the makers of The Fall have not given Stella a troubled back story or a comforting vulnerable side. She does not appear to be haunted by her past and there is no evidence of alcoholism or other psychological problems. Happily, the script does not seem to support the outdated, bogus belief that successful, professional women can only attain real happiness by marrying and having children. Stella does not seem to be mourning a lost love. Nor does she seem to ache for a child. These tendencies, it must be said, invariably surface in Hollywood and mainstream US television’s characterizations of strong women and it is commendable that The Fall does not take that route.

Stella Takes Charge — Stella takes charge

The Fall could be said to exhibit strong feminist principles. Of course, makers of serial killer dramas risk aestheticizing sexualised violence against women. Although they arguably represent an attempt to get into the mindset of the killer, some may find The Fall’s scenes of voyeurism and violence as suspect as those in more plainly exploitative productions. The Fall is, however, manifestly feminist in its refusal to portray Spector as a monstrous other and in its remarkable characterization of its heroine. It is also evident in the direct way it tackles the issue of victim-blaming. In a conversation with Jim Burns, the Assistant Chief Constable of the PSNI (John Lynch), Stella questions the use of the word ‘innocent’ in describing the killer’s victims:”‘Let’s not refer to them as innocent…What if he kills a prostitute next or a woman walking home drunk, late at night, in a short skirt? Will they be in some way less innocent, therefore less deserving? Culpable? The media loves to divide women into virgins and vamps, angels or whores. Let’s not encourage them.” There are other independent, resourceful women in The Fall and other instances of female solidarity. Stella has a good rapport with pathologist, Paula Reed Smith (played by Archie Panjabi) as well as PC Danielle. We see the latter stung with guilt that she was not able to save a potential victim. Danielle’s sisterly camaraderie even extends to removing the tell-tale signs of Stella’s one-night stand on an errand to her hotel room.

Stella with Pathologist Paula Reed Smith (Archie Panjabi) — Stella with pathologist Paula Reed Smith (Archie Panjabi)

The Fall is not without derivative elements and devices but it is a stylish and quite gritty series. A deeply engrossing thriller, it unsettles, frightens and moves its audience. The Fall’s setting is also interesting. Belfast provides a somewhat tense, moody backdrop. Sectarian conflict is not a distant memory and politics shapes everyday lives. While we may ask whether The Fall provides a particularly pioneering or remarkable study of male violence, it is admirable that its creators are not afraid to emphasize the killer’s normality and masculinity. Most importantly, The Fall has given us a new, über cool feminist heroine. The good news is that there will be another season.

‘Grimm’ Season 3 and the Darkness In Between

But the fairytale redux is also a hugely modern fascination, and a substantial moneymaker for TV and movies. To steep this article in some timely context, consider these popular and recent remakes of fairytale stories: Once Upon A Time, Once Upon A Time In Wonderland (save yourself and evening and don’t watch), and Sleepy Hollow. In film, there is Snow White and the Huntsman, Mirror Mirror, Hanna, Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters, The Brothers Grimm, and Jack and the Giant Killer (among others). There’s even a fabulous book of Politically Correct Bedtime Stories and a great series of photographs from Dina Goldstein called Fallen Princesses.

Little-Red-Riding-Hood-Parody-fairy-tales-and-fables-5123622-1280-800 — What a fairy tale is really trying to tell you

Written by Rachel Redfern

This Friday, October 25, just a few days before Halloween, is a timely beginning for the season 3 premiere of NBC’s Grimm, the crime drama with a dark fairy tale twist. The twist being that Detective Nick Burkhardt (David Guintoli) is a Grimm, a man who can see beyond the human masks of “Wessen,” the dark monsters who often peopled the Brothers’ Grimm fairy tales.

Fairytales and princess stories have come under fire the past 20 years because of the blatant sexism in so many of the stories. Most modern day retellings of these fairytales have reinforced narratives of beautiful, weak women waiting for men to save them, and over-ambitious wicked stepmothers (which is a stereotype rife with hatred of older women, women of power, and extends the “witch/harlot” conundrum).

But the fairytale redux is also a hugely modern fascination, and a substantial moneymaker for TV and movies. To steep this article in some timely context, consider these popular and recent remakes of fairytale stories: Once Upon A Time, Once Upon A Time In Wonderland (save yourself and evening and don’t watch), and Sleepy Hollow. In film, there is Snow White and the Huntsman, Mirror Mirror, Hanna, Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters, The Brothers Grimm, and Jack and the Giant Killer (among others). There’s even a fabulous book of Politically Correct Bedtime Stories and a great series of photographs from Dina Goldstein called Fallen Princesses.

But beyond the Hollywood blockbuster is the rich storytelling and deeply human morals that these ancient fairy tales often portrayed. These stories are just as relevant in today’s world, and we’re obviously still searching for answers about our own humanity and problems in the same places.

The original fairy tales were often disturbing with a straightforward moral: happy endings don’t always happen. Also, they included a lot of death. Grimm, while usually solving its episodic murder mystery, does still delve into the darkness inherent in many of these stories. And in doing so, exposes the continuation of many of the mythic themes that made the original stories so enduring.

Quote_203 — Irony? (Intro frame from *Grimm*.)

One of the biggest themes in fairy tales? Women’s sexuality. Consider the young little red riding hood being gobbled up by an aggressively large, male wolf. The beautiful Snow White (with her obviously virginal name) is literally poisoned by her stepmother; and of course, the overwhelming exquisite Sleeping Beauty is locked away until marriageable age. The whole thing reeks of repressed sexuality,

Since most of the fairy tales were about a deep fear of women’s sexuality, Grimm seems to echoes those. Again, this makes a lot of sense with all the insanity in the United States about abortion, the slut-shaming of Sandra Fluke, the pearl-clutching Victorianism towards Miley Cyrus, and the entire blessed cornucopia of society that thinks the world will implode into a steaming orgy should a women’s libido exist.

But Grimm does a good job of playing with and displaying that fear back at us.

**Beware: Spoilers ahead

The main female protagonist, Juliette (Bitsie Tulloch) falls under the witches’ spell (Sleeping Beauty story), but then becomes physically, chemically, lustfully obsessed with the man who wakes her. So much so, that the obsession, and the subsequent attempts to become physically intimate, become destructive and violent. This unbridled emotion towards each other is so dangerous that it must end in death, seeming to imply that consummation is a darker, more powerful act than dying.

It was a surprisingly meta-fictive moment for a network TV show, and I was startled to see the writers and producers playing so freely with the darker, sexual presence from the Sleeping Beauty fairytale.

In the hexenbeast Adalind Schade (Claire Coffee) plotline we see the scheming and vindictive side of a female nature as she brazenly seduces Detective Hank Griffin (Russel Hornsby) Captain Renard (Sasha Roiz) and his royal brother and then after she becomes pregnant, in her willingness to use her baby to regain her power. Maternity is often how we define female characters, so I always find it fascinating when mothers are cast in anti-maternal roles. Obviously in the case of Adalind (and even in the case with her own mother), the witches (or hexenbeast) are seen as intensely anti-mother, but not unfeminine. I suppose it’s an easy way to cast her as a villain, but I enjoy it regardless.

Of course, the power-hungry female “Wessen,” called “Musei” (meaning Muse), is a natural addition to this list. In the show she is not only the archetypal prostitute, her kind have literally been prostitutes in the past, but she draws power and pleasure from first creatively building up artists and then destroying them with obsessive sexual desire. This willfully enticing creature sets her sights upon the protagonist, needing him to fill the spot of her next plaything, until in a reversal of the Sleeping Beauty myth, true love’s kiss must awaken him from the spell.

It was a very circular moment for the show, since it mirrored an earlier plotline from the season, but with reversed genders. Instead of the female being the helpless one, the male “prince” must wait to be rescued.

Even in season one, the early episode “Lonely Hearts” is provocative in its dealings with rape and sexual assault since the women in question are literally begging to be kissed because of the rapist’s intense pheromones; but in spite of the “begging,” it was a situation still cast as absolute rape within the show, a plot device that seemed intent upon revealing the ridiculousness of that stupid phrase, “she was asking for it.”

Grimm’s awareness of the fear of female sexuality ties into the more general fear and exploration of the inner animal in all of us: the darker urges, manipulations, aggression, obsessions, temptations, and desires that religion and societal mores have been fighting against for ages. And strangely, that works very well within the framework of a police drama—the rule of law attempting balance and come to terms with the more volatile aspects of humanity.

So, besides an entirely ridiculous second season opening credits sequence, Grimm is exploring some provocative reversals and thematic elements.

In the end though, the show is also about transformation within the search for balance. Nick is transformed into a Grimm, slowly developing in a new kind of law-man, and Juliette, Adalind, Rosalee, and Monroe all show that development as well as they try to find this balance between light and dark for themselves.

[youtube_sc url=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUWivHe3bjY”]

Do you find the stories in Grimm intriguing and unique? Or is it merely replaying tired old stories? How does it stack up against shows like Once Upon A Time?