‘Girl Most Likely’ to Not Meet Expectations

Kristen Wiig as Imogene in Girl Most Likely

Written by Lady T.    

There’s a certain risk involved in being excited for a film. High expectations often lead to disappointment, especially when anticipating the film for two years.
Such was the case with me and Girl Most Likely. When I first heard about this film, it was called Imogene and still in pre-production. The premise intrigued me immediately: a female playwright fakes a suicide attempt and is forced into the custody of her overbearing mother.
I wasn’t just eager for this film. I was pumped, and not just because of DARREN CRISS OMG. The premise had “dark comedy” written all over it. I expected Imogene to be the next Young Adult and give us the next great comic antiheroine. With the combined talents of Kristen Wiig, Annette Bening, Matt Dillon, and Darren Criss, Imogene was going to be a brilliant dark comedy that would immediately make its way onto my DVD shelf, be completely ignored by the Academy Awards, and prompt another scathing blog post from me criticizing the Oscars for disrespecting comedy and not recognizing great female characters.

These two women in the same movie? Sign me up!

Instead, Imogene was a movie called Girl Most Likely, a quirky film about a woman in New York City whose life falls apart, and she has to return home to her family in New Jersey. At first, she resents having to go back to a life that she didn’t care for, and doesn’t like living with her quirky and strange family, but eventually, she Learns to Appreciate the Important Things in Life and reject all those New York snobs who didn’t really care about her as a person.
So, kind of like Sweet Home Alabama, except in New Jersey. Not exactly the great dark comedy I was looking for.
Now, I still enjoyed a lot of things about the movie. The script is often unfocused, but contains a lot of sharp writing and clever dialogue. Imogene’s family is delightful, and I was immediately charmed by her younger brother Ralph (Christopher Fitzgerald), a mollusk aficionado. I loved the relationship between Zelda (Bening) and “George Bush” (Matt Dillon), two weird, offbeat people who adored each other. (I also love that Zelda being older than “George” was not mentioned at all – extremely rare in depictions of relationships between older women and younger men.) Bening, Fitzgerald, and Dillon are consistently funny, and Darren Criss is charming and sexy as a singer/performer in a Backstreet Boys cover band.

I’m sorry, I lost my train of thought for a minute.
Because there was a lot to enjoy about Girl Most Likely, I tried not to be overly critical just because it wasn’t the movie I expected. In the wise words of Marlo Stanfield from The Wire, “You want it to be one way. But it’s the other way.” It’s not the film’s fault that I expected something different after reading the premise. I tried to judge the movie for what it was, not for what I wanted it to be.
But even after putting my expectations aside, I couldn’t help but notice two glaring flaws in the film: 1) Imogene isn’t likable, and 2) the story trivializes suicide.
Regarding flaw #1 – I recognize that female characters are often held to a higher “likability standard” than male characters. (Theater critic and my good friend Carey Purcell has a great article about likability on her website.) I don’t need all, or even most, of my female characters to be likable. But I got a very strong sense from the script that Imogene was supposed to be likable – and she’s not.
And whether the character is male, female, or genderqueer, if the writer wants us to like the character and we don’t…well, that’s A Problem. 
There are very few times in the film where I genuinely like Imogene, and all of those scenes involve her interactions with Ralph. She’s affectionate to Ralph and supportive of him, and as a big sister of brothers, I have a soft spot for sister characters who are nice to their brothers. 

Imogene talks to her brother’s crush. (Don’t get too excited to see Natasha Lyonne – this is, like, her only scene in the movie.)

But when Imogene interacts with any other character in the film, I have to wonder, “Why are these people wasting their time with this woman?”

When Imogene talks to her mother, I want Zelda to stop being so nice and yell at her daughter for being an ungrateful brat. When Imogene hangs out with Lee, I can’t help wondering what he sees in her. When Imogene finally confronts her absent father (Bob Balaban), the father character is written as such an over-the-top intellectual snob stereotype that I can’t take Imogene’s pain seriously. 

But the main reason I find Imogene unlikable ties directly into Glaring Flaw #2 – the movie trivializes suicide.

Remember, Imogene fakes a suicide attempt to get her ex-boyfriend back. She fakes a suicide attempt to get her ex-boyfriend back.
In the real world, threatening to kill oneself to get a partner or ex-partner to stay with you is an act of emotional abuse. But for Imogene, it’s just a sign that she really needs help, poor thing.

Lee is really into her, for some reason.
And when Imogene confronts her ex-boyfriend and snobby fake friend at a book launch party, we’re supposed to recognize that these people are jerks and cheer her on. Because gasp – her ex-boyfriend didn’t even check in on her after she tried to kill herself! And he was totally cheating on her before he dumped her!

And we’re supposed to be outraged about this – except, considering that the suicide attempt was fake, I don’t think Imogene has any leg to stand on.

And if a screenwriter wants us to sympathize with the main character, I shouldn’t watch the big confrontational scene between the main character and her snobby fake friends and think, “Uh, the snobs kind of have a point here.” 

More problematic, though, is the way a faked suicide is portrayed as another quirky character flaw in a film filled with quirky people. It’s just like Ralph’s fondness for mollusks, or Zelda’s penchant for gambling, or Lee’s Backstreet Boys cover band, or “George Bush” having been struck by lightning three times. 

I don’t think I need to explain why portraying a faked suicide as a mere sitcommy quirk is a problem, do I? Good.

Imogene is depressed. So am I, but for a different reason.

And this goes right back to my initial point about my expectations for Imogene and the movie that Girl Most Likely turned out to be.
It’s not a bad thing that Girl Most Likely wasn’t the movie that I expected. It’s not the screenwriter’s job to write a dark comedy about an antiheroine just because that’s a movie I want to see.
But while a faked suicide attempt is a great inciting incident for a dark comedy about an antiheroine, it doesn’t work as well for a quirky comedy about a woman who needs to pull herself up and learn to appreciate her family. 
And if Girl Most Likely would rather be a quirky comedy than a dark comedy, that’s fine. But I can think of about ten different inciting incidents to bring Imogene back to New Jersey that don’t involve trivializing suicide or pretending that emotional abuse is just a quirk. Would it have been so hard to have Imogene reluctantly go back home because of Ralph’s birthday, a dead grandparent, or just because she left the first draft of the play she was most proud of in her mother’s basement?


Lady T is a writer with two novels, a screenplay, and a collection of comedy sketches in progress. She hopes to one day be published and finish one of her projects (not in that order). You can find more of her writing at www.theresabasile.com.

‘Fruitvale Station’ Humanizes the Pigeonholed African American Father/Child Relationship

Fruitvale Station film poster.

“I got a daughter…” groans Oscar Grant. “He just shot me…”
Lying face down, a coward’s bullet inside his back, young Oscar’s black-brown eyes water, blood spews between his purple lips, redness staining bright white teeth that had smiled with an infinite amount of mesmerizing happiness prior to Oscar’s unjustly end.
One person dominates his mind, one little female of great importance.
In Fruitvale Station, Ryan Coogler’s first independent feature film, Oscar’s final words bring forth poignant honesty that dismantles the absentee black father, that negative stereotype surrounding black culture, haunting it like a skeletal ghost refusing to die. The precious gift of fatherhood is robbed from Oscar, shot into the perilous night by a senseless white police officer. It is the kind of tragedy seen every day in America–a young black man murdered, his life thrown into a casket and immediately glossed over, swept aside for the next victim without any real emphasis behind his personal story. Media would say a black man died today, talk about surviving relatives, and–like a conveyor belt moving fast inside a methodical slaughterhouse factory–another man takes his place.

Coogler focuses on the last day of Oscar Grant’s life, specifically his relationships between his mother, Wanda, his girlfriend, Sophina and their daughter, Tatiana–a definitive, commendable highlight. To Oscar, Tatiana is everything. Media portrays the African American father as never present and always on the hunt for sowing his wild oats. Despite its setting against horrendous ill-conceived logic, however, Fruitvale Station is no Pursuit of Happyness Will/Jaden Smith film either. There is no happy ending here. Set in an urban foundation, the bond between a father and his daughter is tested by a system designed to fail black men.

Tatianna (Arianna Neal) is the apple of Oscar’s (Michael B. Jordan) eye.

Now unfortunately, I’m all too familiar with the “black father not being around” stereotype. I grew up in a single-mother household, second oldest of five kids–three fathers between us. I breathed that negative stimulus of being a fatherless child all throughout my life. I admired my peers’ stick figure families with dads in them and hated whenever June came around. Eventually, I found my father, but it became even tougher to deal with the fact that I had five other siblings–all in different states. So yes, while it is tough to face difficult situations, one must move over the past and not become oppressed by it. Otherwise it becomes a pattern. 

Oscar’s biological father doesn’t appear to be around either, but the love offered from his supportive mother is tenderly passed down to his daughter and rendered with a remarkable tranquility that is difficult to turn away from. It is like a lesson has been passed down. That “I’ll do everything in my power not to be like my father” mentality is endearing and honestly portrayed. Laughter, pride and joy are magically threaded together, humanizing the reality of the American black father, showcasing his imperative role in the upbringing of a precociously bright daughter. I didn’t feel this extreme jealousy or envy while seeing him depicted as a strong, caring parent who adores and nurtures his child–that sustenance missing from my painful childhood. 

Oscar is no martyr, no betrayer. He is a catalyst. I sense hope for change, a harrowing desire for other filmmakers to portray the black man as a hero to be worshiped by his own offspring, to inspire a generation still believing the worst about his race, shooting him down just because his brown skin incites “fear.”
“Do you want her to come down here? See you like this?” Wanda asks, speaking of Tatiana, after Oscar has been jailed for the implied umpteenth time.
She moved me to tears in this scene when she abruptly admits she cannot take it, rises out of her seat, and boldly walks away. She almost breaks down, but her strength–that same tenacity flowing through Oscar’s veins–allows her to rein it all in. This solidifying moment, set just a year before Oscar’s death, defined Oscar’s passion to change, to truly make a genuine effort as a father. He knows that he cannot guide Tatiana from behind bars, that in order to be a good, responsible role model the most important rule is just to be present, and not take advantage of time.

Tomorrow is never ever promised, especially for a black man.

Coincidentally enough, black men are often penalized for killing each other–at times with no possibility for parole; but on the other hand, people of other races receive light sentences on killing black men because black men are still seen as expendable. Johannes Mehserle served eleven months out of a paltry two-year prison sentence for killing Oscar. George Zimmerman is free for shooting an armless teenager. These slap on the wrists transpire every single day. Throughout the course of America’s grisly racist history, families continue grieving lost loved ones, a mother’s mourning the most bereft because justice continues murdering her children and telling her it’s fair.

Tatiana (Arianna Neal) and her father (Michael B. Jordan).

Fruitvale Station is a film that confronts viewers with love–the love that a black man feels for his family, his friends, his girlfriend. This is not some ridiculous caricature with watermelons and fried chicken. These people eat lobster and celebrate life together. There’s no oppression or fodder. They are connected to one another through Oscar, who says “I love you” to everyone through words, laughter, and body language. When he tells his daughter stories, they are not inventive lies or tall tales, promises of a better life. He doesn’t say, “Yeah! We’re going to Disneyland tomorrow!” He may not be a wealthy man, he may be struggling a bit, but real unconditional love is what keeps him going, what sets him in a positive direction. 
After the death of a symbolic pit bull, a shining array of wisdom captures Oscar in a beguiling light. He sits on rocks and tosses a fat bag of weed into the river and doesn’t take any of his friend’s wad. Reflection has created a striking change in Oscar, an enlightened promise to become a better man, a better father, a respectful, worthy being. Before the credits roll, as he clings to life on his beeping hospital bed, viewers are left with what are possibly his concluding thoughts before death–that of Tatiana, his guiding light, his North Star in a world filled with darkness, in a world crueler than a black man selling dope in the street corners to survive and provide.

Tatiana’s (Arianna Neal) fear for Oscar (Michael B. Jordan) is a disheartening premonition.

Oscar makes mistakes, but he always set out to right wrongs and often speaks on future dreams.
It is hard to breathe in a society that programs us how to think, taking away the mentality of the colored person, reshaping them only to a fit comforting representation–the joking, laughing spectacle. The moment a black man, especially as a father, is shaped into a person experiencing real struggles and hardships, the jester masquerade is over. It is impossible for lips to crack a smile. An ugly illustration of residue is left behind. A suffering mother stares at the lifeless body she isn’t allowed to hold again, barred from nearness. Even death has become another prison cell. Then there’s the daughter. She knows that her father is not going to outrace her in front of schoolmates or take her to Chucky Cheese or let her sleep between him and her mother.
Fruitvale Station ends somberly, the note quiet and gut wrenching. Coogler is not only crying out for retribution, for understanding, but for dignity and honor for those black men murdered without any sense of decency or remorse for the lives they have touched–family, friends, passing strangers.
Most gently, however, Coogler gives black fathers their due. 

Call for Writers: Women in Sports

For some reason, Netflix keeps giving me a list of Sports Movies I Might Like. It took me about nine years of scrolling through the list to find a single Sports Movie featuring a woman—A League of Their Own (which is also the only woman-centered film Complex included on their list of “25 Best Sports Movies Streaming on Netflix Right Now”).
A League of Their Own, however, is not the only Sports Movie ever made about women. (And not to knock it, but the most famous scene in the film revolves around a dude—a drunk Tom Hanks yelling “There’s no crying in baseball” at one of the players). The lack of availability of these films, though, especially on a large-scale platform like Netflix, is yet another instance of women’s stories not being taken seriously.
And while there are a number of important articles that appear when you google “women in sports movies,” the second hit that comes up (after Wikipedia) is “Top 10 Hottest Women in Sports, Movies, Television and Whatever.” The one after that? ESPN’s ridiculously titled, “Evil Women of Sports Movies.”
Gross.
There are, fortunately, so many amazing organizations counteracting this nonsense by supporting women and girls in sports, from the Women’s Sports Foundation to the Feminist Majority Foundation.
Of course, we couldn’t have this conversation at all if it weren’t for Title IX. The law, passed in 1972, states that:
No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.

This has undoubtedly influenced and empowered women and girls, and people are more willing to push back against discrimination now; Cassy Blythe’s Facebook page, “Let Her Play”—in honor of her 12-year-old daughter Maddy—has almost 50,000 likes.
But Dave Zirin wrote in his article for The Nation called, “Serena Williams and Getting ‘Emotional’ for Title IX” that in 1972, the majority of the public agreed with sports columnist Furman Bisher’s opinion of Title IX when he wrote:
What are we after, a race of Amazons? Do you want a companion or a broad that chews tobacco? What do you want for the darling daughter, a boudoir or a locker room full of cussing and bruises? A mother for your grandchildren or a hysterectomy?

Okay, bro.
We’ve certainly made great strides in girls’ and women’s participation in sports, but those stories aren’t showcased as often as they should be onscreen. Even when those stories are told, they tend to be problematic—either reducing women to objects or painting them as manly, tomboyish, and therefore unattractive. (There are notable exceptions, of course, and feel free to write about them. Just don’t feel bad for wanting to write a scathing piece about Adrian’s relationship with Rocky, for instance.) In order to more fully explore some common tropes about women in sports movies, male-centric films aren’t necessarily off limits—as long as the focus remains on how the women characters are most affected in the film.
Take a look at the oh-so-incomplete list below for general ideas about a potential topic. And if you’re especially feeling the Sports Theme, watch Julie Foudy, Olympic gold medalist and World Cup star, talk about the importance of Title IX and the necessity of educating our youth about its history.

As a reminder, these are a few basic guidelines for guest writers on our site:
–We like most of our pieces to be 1,000 – 2,000 words, preferably with some images and links.
–Please send your piece in the text of an email, including links to all images, no later than Friday, August, 23rd.
–Include a 2-3 sentence bio for placement at the end of your piece.
Email us at btchflcks(at)gmail(dot)com if you’d like to contribute a review. We accept original pieces or cross-posts. We look forward to reading your submissions!

Here are some potential films to write about but please feel free to suggest your own:

Against the Ropes
The Bad News Bears
Bend It Like Beckham
Blue Crush
Bring It On
The Cutting Edge
Eddie
ESPN’s Nine for IX Series
Girlfight
Gracie
Heart Like a Wheel
The Hot Flashes
Ice Castles
Just Wright
A League of Their Own
Love & Basketball
The Mighty Macs
Million Dollar Baby
National Velvet
Off the Rez
Pat and Mike 
Personal Best
Quarterback Princess
She’s the Man
Soul Surfer
Trouble with the Curve
Venus and Serena
When Billie Beat Bobby
Whip It
Wildcats
Wimbledon

Welcome New Staff Writer Erin Tatum!

Written by Erin Tatum
Hey everyone! My name is Erin and I’m so excited to contribute to this awesome website. I just recently graduated from UC Berkeley with a major in Film and a minor in LGBT studies, so I think I win the award for the bachelor’s degree that is simultaneously the coolest and most irrelevant to just about any mainstream career path.
I’ve been addicted to television for years now, but my love for media hasn’t stopped me from noticing that television and film don’t always do right by women and other minorities. Although I definitely endorse television as escapism, I also think it’s critical that we don’t just shut our brains off. I am a bit of a trope analysis junkie. To put that more accurately, I live on TV Tropes. The fact that media representations fall into certain patterns fascinates me because I think it speaks volumes about how our society perceives a group at large. In particular, as a disabled woman, I am deeply invested in the representation of disability. Frankly, we have a lot of work to do. I also eagerly await the day when killing off both disabled and LGBT characters is no longer your run-of-the-mill resolution.
Don’t ever let anyone tell you that watching television is a waste of time. I was able to turn my love for the show Skins into a presentation at an academic conference and it was amazing! It really confirmed my commitment to obsessing over television in a professional context for the rest of forever. However, that doesn’t mean that I don’t have preferences for what I watch. I absolutely loathe love triangles and I think they’re the cheapest and most tired gimmick in the creativity handbook. Yes, we understand these things happen in real life and that happy relationships are supposedly boring to portray, but that doesn’t mean you have to beat that dead horse into glue every season. Part of the reason I get so attached to certain shows is because I am a sucker for innovation. I am easily seduced by strong performances and fresh ideas and I’m not ashamed.
I have an unhealthy obsession with the BBC. Some of the programs I watch include Orphan Black, My Mad Fat Diary, Fresh Meat, Bad Education, Orange is the New Black, Skins, Misfits, Downton Abbey, Futurama, Bomb Girls, Girls, and New Girl. Actually, I watch a lot of things with the word “girl” in it, which probably gives my blatant feminism away right off the bat.
In summary, if you ever want to talk to a bona fide TV fanatic fixated on improving representation of marginalized identities, I’m your girl.

Spike Lee’s "Essential Films": More Annoying Than Your Average List

Filmmaker Spike Lee

 
Written by Robin Hitchcock

Any list of the “greatest” “essential” “best” “definitive” films (or books/tv shows/albums/Got Milk? ads/insert your pop cultural poison) is going to have its detractors. The controversy that inevitably follows these lists is a big part of the reason we make them in the first place. Dissecting a list’s failures and defending its bold choices is most of the fun. So I suppose I should thank Spike Lee for giving us all another opportunity to quibble, with his recently-released selection of 87 “essential” films he tells his NYU students every aspiring filmmaker must see. But mostly, I’m just so tired of this bullshit.

Spike Lee’s Milk ad, which is on my essential list.

The only movie on the list with a female director is City of God, co-directed by Katia Lund. Spike Lee thinks aspiring filmmakers will have the essentials even if they have only seen one movie with a female (co-)director.

Which I don’t have that much to say about. I am ZERO SURPRISED. The marginalization of women filmmakers is nothing new. Seeing it happen again annoys me, of course, but it also EXHAUSTS me. We keep telling male cultural arbiters, “HEY, DON’T IGNORE US” and they keep doing it.
And what makes me particularly upset in this case is that Spike Lee released this list in the context of trying to prove his genuine support of filmmakers excluded from the Hollywood power system.
Spike Lee is funding his latest project with Kickstarter. Like Rob Thomas’s and Zach Braff’s recent Kickstarter campaigns, this has generated a bit of controversy. Sure, we’re all excited there is going to be a Veronica Mars movie, but most of us have mixed feelings about established artists crowdsourcing their projects. It seems to co-opt the platform from the truly independent artists initially associated with Kickstarter, artists without access to the alternative resources (including, among other things, significant personal wealth) these established filmmakers could tap if necessary.

In the YouTube clip above, Spike Lee argues that criticism is a fallacy. Kickstarter isn’t a zero sum game, and he’s bringing people who have never even heard of Kickstarter, especially people of color, to the site and to the crowdfunding movement generally. I have no idea if that is true. He says there is data regarding Thomas’s and Braff’s Kickstarters bringing in first-time backers, but I haven’t actually seen that data. Anyway, it’s a plausible idea, and a nice one. I hope it is true.
But wishing doesn’t make it so. And when Spike Lee points out that he’s been crowdsourcing his movies his whole career, he seems to fail to recognize that so has every other independent filmmaker in the history of ever and the entire point of the Kickstarter revolution is to help out those people who don’t have the personal networks he refers to. [I know Spike Lee has had trouble with studios over fear of controversy, and that his films haven’t been huge financial successes, but he is a LIVING LEGEND. When he makes those phone calls, people will answer.]
In the same video defense, Spike Lee argues that he must be on the side of young filmmakers because he’s taught at NYU for fifteen years and has donated $20,000 to the Spike Lee production fund at NYU for young filmmakers. [Lee’s Kickstarter goal is $1,500,000.]
[He also name drops Mike Tyson as “his good friend.” I can’t tell if he is kidding?]
Lee shared this list, part of his curriculum for this students, as evidence of this “I just want to advance the medium” message. And then the list pretty much ignores women, and is surprisingly mainstream in a lot of other ways (choosing an “unexpected” Woody Allen movie isn’t really THAT outré). I’m not reassured by it at all.  
Though I’m guessing this additional angle of controversy brought more eyes to Spike Lee’s Kickstarter. Someone remind me when I’m famous and revered to use my immense media platform to argue that Gremlins 2: The New Batch is the greatest film of the 20th century so I can generate some hype through grumpy blog posts like this one. 

Robin Hitchcock is an American writer living in Cape Town who really does love Gremlins 2, even if it isn’t quite as good as Do the Right Thing.

Like the Water

Like the Water, DP: Eve M. Cohen, Dir. Caroline von Kuhn
This is a guest post by Caroline von Kuhn.

Artists in every discipline play out our personal neuroses in our work, but there are few outlets as indulgent a playground as film.

My most pleasurable experience of a contemporary film in a theatre last year was Leos Carax’s Holy Motors, which I saw twice on the big screen. It raises the ultimate question of identity near and dear to my heart: is human existence a truth formed through an evolution of identities building on one another until we are whole? Or merely a series of empty performances conformed to our given circumstances? Do we evolve, dropping deeper into our Self with each relationship we enter or instead chip away until only an empty shell remains?

Carax houses these dark, looming questions in a delightful succession of dream-like vignettes. The film transpires over the course of one day in which M. Oscar (Denis Lavant) takes a series of appointments, each a distinct, if not surreal, homage to film and literature. We, like M. Oscar, get lost in the act, re-emerging to digest the one and prepare for the next: left to return to the question of his, of our, identity.

My first attempt at filmmaking was a collective autodidactic pursuit of the medium with a team of five other female artists. We set out to tell a story of self-identity and the even bigger struggle of self-acceptance in one’s 20s. We set out to tell a story of the imperfection of the Female. We set out to tell a story of that first taste of a contemporary’s mortality, which leaves youth grappling with grief in its rawest, ugliest, truest form. We set out to teach ourselves the craft of filmmaking through this story.

What results is our Like the Water.

Caitlin FitzGerald in Like the Water, DP: Eve M. Cohen, Dir. Caroline von Kuhn
The inspiration for our film stemmed from a deeply formative shared experience Caitlin FitzGerald, my lead actress and co-writer, and I had of losing childhood friends in our early 20s. We both found that encountering death at a young age – especially that of a contemporary – provoked a seismic shift in the way we came to understand the world. We not only shared experiences of grief but had turned to writing in a therapeutic attempt to capture and express something ultimately inchoate: the memory of a life.

The 20s prove to be a time of extraordinary growth – a fuller awareness, a deeper appreciation, of the world and the self. It was more or less around this transitional chapter that we six artists met and committed to exploring, perhaps exploiting, iterations of our story. One of the universal feminine, in a way that film never allows the feminine to be portrayed. The film that results is a product of this particular chorus of women’s voices. We discovered a shared urgency for us to tell this story with these women that summer because our voices were right for it at that moment.

On the set of Like the Water, photo by Lori Traikos
So we wrote a script, raised some money, cast our friends and family (yes, my parents are in my movie, as are many of our parents), assembled a great crew and went up to Maine. A very generous community of Mainers welcomed us into their fold and set us up to pull off this adventure. Within 16 months we had conceived, written, funded, shot, edited and premiered our first film – most of us first-timers in our positions.

With age does come wisdom, or, at the very least, a more weathered, cynical perspective. Maybe it was exactly this naivety that ultimately allowed us to pursue such an ambitious endeavor with such uninhibited sincerity and gusto. For the gift of directing my first film, I will forever be indebted to this group of women – for indulging me in the pursuit of our story.

And I look forward to this continued pursuit with the next.

Like the Water is written, produced, directed, stars, shot & edited by women. It can be viewed on Seed&Spark.
Caroline von Kuhn works as the Managing Director of the Camden International Film Festival and is producing The Fixer (Dir. Ian Olds).

[Photo Credit: Frances F. Denny]

‘Fruitvale Station’: White Audiences Need to Look, Not Look Away

Fruitvale Station movie poster.


Written by Leigh Kolb

Fruitvale Station, unlike most feature films, is not told from and for the perspective of the white gaze. For white audiences, this is startling, uncomfortable and heartbreaking. It should be.

The film is a harrowing re-telling of the true story of Oscar Grant, who was killed by a police officer in the early morning hours of New Year’s Day 2009.

Oscar’s murder (the 22-year-old was unarmed) was in the national spotlight and incited protests, both peaceful and violent, surrounding the racial profiling and violence that perpetually victimizes black men.
A black man is killed by police or vigilantes every 28 hours.

Fruitvale Station provides a snapshot into the last day of Oscar Grant’s life without turning him into a martyr or villain, but depicting him as an individual–imperfect yet deserving to live.
The film opens with real-life cellphone video footage of the arrest and shooting that was taken by a bystander. There’s screaming, there’s police brutality and there’s a shot. Audience members gasped. It was shocking. It should be. We are forced to look at reality.
However, the shock and terror that we feel at that scene is part of an American historical context that has perpetually reminded young black men, especially, but really all black people, that their lives are not only in danger from white supremacists, but also from those who are supposed to be protecting them.
Oscar Grant (Michael B. Jordan) and girlfriend Sophina (Melonie Diaz).
While Oscar (Michael B. Jordan) is a man, his relationship with his mother (played by Octavia Spencer) is highlighted–in flashbacks when she visits him in prison, when she scolds him for talking on the phone while driving and when she pleads with him to take the train instead of drinking and driving when he and his girlfriend Sophina (Melonie Diaz) go out for New Year’s Eve. Emphasizing their relationship reminds viewers that Oscar’s age–22–is technically in adulthood, but he’s still growing and needing guidance (as most of us do in our early 20s). In a recent article for Jet, bell hooks, addressing Trayvon Martin’s death, explains:

“…black children in this country have never been safe. I think it’s really important that we remember the four little black girls killed in Birmingham and realize that’s where the type of white supremacist, terrorist assault began. That killing sent a message to black people that our children are not safe. I think we have to be careful not to act like this is some kind of new world that’s been created but that this is the world we already existed in.”

Oscar’s death was just another part of this world that hooks is talking about. The remarkable difference about his legacy is that it is now a feature film in more than 1,000 movie theaters across America (it was in the top 10 in box office numbers in its opening weekend). Fruitvale Station humanizes Oscar Grant and makes audiences look instead of look away.
Oscar’s mother (played by Octavia Spencer).

“By the time the credits roll, Oscar Grant has become one of the rarest artifacts in American culture: a three-dimensional portrait of a young black male—a human being. Which raises the question: If Grant was a real person, what about all these other young black males rendered as cardboard cutouts by our merciless culture? What other humanity are we missing?”

In one (fictionalized) scene, Oscar is approached by a stray pit bull at a gas station. Oscar loves on him (there appears to be a marking around the dog’s neck that could signify he was used in fights, or chained up) and the dog goes on its way. A few minutes later, the dog is hit by a car, and the vehicle speeds away, leaving it in the street. Oscar runs and cradles the dog, calling for help, and moves him out of the street. No one comes. The dog dies. All Oscar can do is pull down his stocking cap and get in his car.
This scene was heart-wrenching, of course, but as viewers we can’t help but see this as foreshadowing, knowing what’s to come at the end of Oscar’s day. On a larger scale, the dog scene symbolizes what so often happens with these stories of young black men dying–there’s a hit, there’s a run, no one responds and no one is punished. As a white viewer, I understood that angle, because the driver in this allegory has usually been one of us. Even if we don’t perpetuate violence, we continuously look away from the violent reality of being black in America, which is directly borne from a long history that is often belittled or ignored.
On his inspiration for that scene, writer-director Ryan Coogler said:

“Oscar was always talking about getting a house and one of the reasons he wanted to get a house is because he’d have a backyard for the first time and he could own a dog… And he wanted a pit bull. That was the kind of dog that he likes … it’s interesting because when you hear about pit bulls in the media, what do you hear about? When you hear about them in the media, you hear about them doing horrible things. You never hear about a pit bull doing anything good in the media. And they have a stigma to them … and, in many ways, pit bulls are like young African-American males. Whenever you see us in the news, it’s for getting shot and killed or shooting and killing somebody — for being a stereotype. And that’s what you see for African-Americans in the media and the news.…So, there’s a commonality with us and pit bulls — often we die in the street. Do you know what I mean? That’s where we die.”

Peeling back the layers of this scene even further–beyond a white audience member’s reaction into the director’s thoughts and Oscar’s aspirations–reveals even more depth to what is at the core of Fruitvale Station: Oscar Grant’s humanity and how it fits into the woven-together history of what it means to be a young black man in America.
There is a focus on Oscar’s relationship with his daughter, Tatiana (Ariana Neal).
The police officer who shot Oscar was sentenced to two years in prison, and served less than one. Just a few years later, in Florida, George Zimmerman was found not guilty in Trayvon Martin’s death. In the aftermath of that verdict, the most common and pervasive displays of racism I saw were white people insisting that the case had nothing to do with race, or arguing that the media needed to shut up about the case. It was revealed that the jury never discussed race while deliberating.
While Grant’s and Martin’s deaths and their killers’ court cases weren’t the same (although they bring up both sides of the aforementioned police-brutality and vigilante-justice coin and one critic noted that Fruitvale Station served as a eulogy to both young men), they both share the quality of being able to be ignored, dismissed or forgotten by white audiences. The dismissal of the disproportionate violence against (and mass incarceration of) young black men is our generation’s Jim Crow.
Next to discrimination and violence, looking away is one of the most racist things whites can do.
Fruitvale Station also quietly shows, through a young white woman named Katie, the ways in which whites can or should be allies.
Early in the film, Katie is shopping at the same fish counter as Oscar (who is buying crabs for his mother’s birthday dinner), and it’s clear that she has no idea what she’s doing. She wants to fry fish for her boyfriend, who loves Southern food, but she doesn’t know what she’s looking for or how to do it. When Oscar approaches her, she seems uncomfortable, and when he asks if her boyfriend is black (because of his food preferences) she laughs and says, “He’s white, but he knows a lot of black people I guess.” (Katie, at this point, is virtually playing “Problematic White Lady Bingo.”) “I don’t know what I’ve gotten myself into,” she laughs.
Oscar calls his Grandma Bonnie and puts her on the phone with Katie. Grandma Bonnie teaches her what she needs to know about frying fish.
While this scene is ostensibly about frying fish, it can be read as a lesson to white people in regard to race relations (stay with me here). At first, Katie feels uncomfortable. But after talking to someone who knows more than she does, she’s enlightened.
Too often, white feminists don’t do this. We have a long history of marginalizing and ignoring women of color–caring about racism, but not pulling in those whom it affects. Just last week the turmoil over a blog post showed how completely tone deaf white feminists can be in regard to talking about race. (Read a response to it by Jamilah Lemieux at Ebony and this history lesson by Anthea Butler right now.) We talk, but we don’t listen.
By the end of the film, Katie sees Oscar again on the train, beaming at him and calling him over to her. When he’s arrested and brutalized, she is enraged and doesn’t understand, but takes a video on her cell phone. She’s pushed back onto the train, and is taken away from the scene.
The black men are profiled and taken off the train car (while the white man in the fight remains on the train), accused and arrested. Oscar is killed.
This happens too. For white allies, when that veil is lifted, and we are in a place of truly listening and caring, we feel like Katie must have felt–enraged but separated. Protected, privileged and safe, but unable to take clear action against what we see around us.
But we need to keep trying. We need to listen more. We need to learn history and look hard at the world around us and figure out what we can do to help fix it. It might be having a conversation. It might be recording injustice. It might be teaching others what we learn and encouraging them to seek out authentic voices. But we need to listen first. More than anything, it needs to be not looking away.
The success of Fruitvale Station (before its box office success, it won awards at Cannes and Sundance) will hopefully usher in more films that challenge the white gaze. Because now, perhaps more than ever, American society is at a dangerous crossroads. Too many want to forget the past and move forward to a future where white hegemony is intact. This denial and erasure of what our society was built upon is the utmost form of racism and white privilege.
White allies will never be able to fully empathize, and we shouldn’t pretend like we can. In an incredible essay, Jessie-Lane Metz addresses “Ally-phobia: On the Trayvon Martin Ruling, White Feminism, and the Worst of Best Intentions.” She quotes Audre Lorde, who wrote,

“Some problems we share as women, some we do not. You fear your children will grow up to join the patriarchy and testify against you, we fear our children will be dragged from a car and shot down in the street, and you will turn your backs upon the reasons they are dying.”

When I was crying at the end of the film, I wasn’t crying the same tears as the black woman behind me was. White allies can’t fully understand that fear and pain that Lorde speaks of, but we need to listen to those who can. We can only create a better and safer world for all of us and all of our children if we listen. After we listen, we can speak.
Fruitvale Station, in humanizing and presenting a three-dimensional young black man, is, remarkably, groundbreaking in 2013. We’ve kept our backs turned too long on stories like his. Films allow us to see the world differently, and that kind of media representation is desperately needed. So we need to ask, listen, watch and learn. We need to look.
Recommended reading: 
Timeline of real events.
Leigh Kolb is a composition, literature and journalism instructor at a community college in rural Missouri.

’20 Something’: Youth and the American Dream

20 Something Documentary Poster

Written by Amanda Rodriguez

The documentary 20 Something is a labor of love for its creator Lanze Spears.With a non-existent budget while sleeping on floors as he filmed, Spears followed and actualized his dream, which is exactly what 20 Something is about.

20 Something trailer.
The documentary follows a handful of early “twenty somethings” who are struggling to “make it” in the world. Spears isn’t documenting any aspiring teachers, accountants or chefs, though; his subjects’ dreams are of fame, fortune, stardom and critical acclaim. We’ve got a model, a painter, an actress, an indie filmmaker and an artist working through communication and digital design. 
I was disappointed that the two women Spears followed were interested in professions that placed a very high premium on physical appearance (the model and actress), and I kept thinking even the inclusion of a dancer would mix things up a bit because, despite the fact that her carefully sculpted body would continue to be paramount, she would be using hard-earned physical prowess, technique, and discipline. It turns out that Spears’ follow-up in his series is 20 Something New York, following a trio of, you guessed it, dancers, all of whom are women! Though more limited in its exploration, I’d definitely be interested in seeing Spears’ take on the New York dance scene, the struggles of female dancers to make it in that business, and get a chance to see how accurate Black Swan‘s depictions of ballet life really is.
(To be fair, the model, Clare, like the male communications specialist and graphic designer Taylor, finds her passion in advertising and graphic design with a more nuanced perspective on success in the “real world,” unlike her foundering starlet cohort Anastasia.)
The documentary stylistically reminded me of a more compassionate version of MTV’s The Real World. It was a bit too hip, didn’t always delve deep enough, and had some painfully artistic shots and stomach-turning use of camera filters. I wanted the film to critique the American Dream more than it did because success isn’t out there for everyone. Everyone can’t be rich and famous. Sometimes how hard you work doesn’t make a dent, and that is just how life is.
However, 20 Something very much captured that bittersweet 20 something feel, caught between dreams and the real world, one’s perception of one’s potential and the cold need to earn money to survive. Some of our stars compromise their dreams (Anastasia gives up on LA, deciding to teach English as a second language, hopefully in France in order to get involved the French film scene) while others expand their vision (Sean begins to imagine curating art, his and others, in a gallery dedicated to medium inclusivity as well as human diversity). The cast’s slowly dwindling naivete made me sad for them, forced me to roll my eyes at their self-absorption, lingering like baby fat, and inspired me a bit to dream again, as it reminded me what it was like when I was that age and the future held so many possibilities.

The Golden Age of Television: Boys Only

Written by Rachel Redfern

The rise of the anti-hero has most TV and media reviewers heralding the past ten years as revolutionary, a “golden age of television.”

And I think it’s true, great television seems to be popping out of the seams of my TV and an ever-expanding “To Watch” list on my desk. In fact, looking at the recent figures for big summer blockbusters (most of which seem to have failed miserably) some (myself included) are wondering if Hollywood studios might be fading into the shadows of networks such as AMC and HBO.

TV, because of its much longer time allowances (12-20 hours of viewing per season) and recently-improved watching options (Hulu, Netflix, DVD releases and, let’s face it, illegal streaming and downloading) seem to create far more interesting characters and way more space for subtle scheming and intrigue in their plot lines. Increasingly, Hollywood opts for a bigger explosion to counteract its total lack of originality and character development.

So, in a word, I would argue yes, I find higher quality entertainment and better stories about life and humanity in television than I do at the movies.

But I don’t see many women in these shows either. 

Some of Brett Martin’s “Difficult Men”
GQ writer Brett Martin’s new book Difficult Men: Behind the Scenes of a Creative Revolution from ‘The Sopranos’ and ‘The Wire’ to ‘Mad Men’ and ‘Breaking Bad’ is all about the fabulously conflicted male characters springing up in television: Walter White, Don Draper, Al Swearengen and the others that are the front men for this great revolution. And writing about these complex male characters is important, but the book’s content reveals one of the major flaws within this golden age–where are all the conflicted, complex women and the TV shows that center on their lives?
I can think of only two (please add to this list though in the comments if you can think of any more): Homeland and Weeds, although Game of Thrones has several interesting female characters running around. (It perhaps has one of the better ratios of compelling female and male characters.)
Claire Danes as Carrie Mathison in Homeland
I’m not sure that blaming the producers and writers of these shows is going to get us anywhere because the problem is obviously much deeper than that, and it begs the question, why aren’t women’s stories interesting to producers and writers? Why aren’t female protagonists fascinating and complex?

Do audiences consider stories with female protagonists un-relatable? Uninteresting? Too unbelievable? Or does this lack merely reflect life in that there aren’t any women doing enough “complex” and “darkly-human” things to model the character after?

I don’t believe any of that is true, but that doesn’t change the amount of women headlining an AMC show. In thinking about my favorite shows, I can only think of a few female characters that I would consider unique and groundbreaking. Consider Breaking Bad: while Skyler is an interesting enough character, she’s far less compelling (and obviously secondary) to the character development that Walt is showcasing, often being seen as no more than a “nag” or “hen-pecking shrew” to many viewers (not this one).  In fact, the backlash against Skyler (Anna Gunn) has been so intense (consider the meme below as a common example of how the internet seems to view the poor woman) that Gilligan actually addressed the problem in a recent interview.

One of the nicer internet memes for Skyler White (Anna Gunn)
However, as a whole, with the story centering on and following a female protagonist, the number is proportionately small.

So ladies, either we are far too flat and boring to be on TV, or as it has been for so long, our stories and interactions are still being undervalued. Therefore, we should set some goals for ourselves: be marvelously interesting (sarcasm) and (more importantly) continue to write, produce, direct and support more TV shows about women–because I don’t see many others doing it for us.

Rachel Redfern has an MA in English literature, where she conducted research on modern American literature and film and its intersection; however, she spends most of her time watching HBO shows, traveling, and blogging and reading about feminism.

Hey, Filmmakers! Athena Film Festival Accepting Submissions

We’re big (huge, ginormous…you get the idea) fans of the Athena Film Festival. A film fest that focuses on women and leadership? Of course we love it. Bitch Flicks has attended and covered it each and every year. So naturally we’re excited to attend the 4th Annual Athena Film Festival next year.
It’s incredibly powerful to attend the four-day festival. Inspiring filmmakers share their insight, advice and experience. You see a plethora of films showcasing diverse women leaders and celebrating women’s lives. Considering the overwhelming gender disparity in Hollywood, not to mention how rare it is to see queer women and women of color on-screen, it’s crucial to have a venue honoring women in film.
If you’re a filmmaker (of any gender), and your film (feature, documentary, or short) “features a woman in a leadership position at the center of the story,” now’s the time to submit your work. You have until September 15th to submit your film.

* Reveal the diverse narratives of women leaders from all walks of life — narratives of ambition, courage, strength and resilience.

* Showcase women leaders who help us interpret the reality of the modern world — captivating stories of truth, determination, innovation and vision.

* Highlight the talents of emerging artists — capturing a new generation’s take on what truly makes exemplary women leaders.

From Athena Film Festival:
Athena Film Festival — A Celebration of Women and Leadership is a festival of feature films, documentaries, and shorts dedicated to highlighting women’s leadership in real life and the fictional world. The 4th Annual Athena Film Festival, which includes conversations with producers, directors and Hollywood stars, as well as workshops for filmmakers, will take place at Barnard College in New York City from February 6-9, 2014. 
We are accepting submissions from June 15 – September 15. Criteria for submissions can be found here.

The Athena Film Festival is committed to ensuring that filmmakers across the globe have the opportunity to become involved in this festival. We would greatly appreciate it if you could spread the word about our call for submissions.

Please email athenafilmfestival@gmail.com if you have any questions.

So filmmakers, submit your films!

The Ten Most-Read Posts from June 2013

Did you miss these popular posts on Bitch Flicks? If so, here’s your chance to catch up.

“How New Girl‘s Jess and Nick Avoided Common Rom-Com Pitfalls” by Lady T

“Farah Goes Bang: A Love Letter to Female Friendships” by Amanda Rodriguez

“The Women of Man of Steel and the Toxicity of Hyper-Masculinity” by Megan Kearns

 “A Girl and a Gun: A Look at Women and Firearms in America” by Amanda Rodriguez

“Where Have You Gone, Sarah Connor?” by Holly Derr

“The Male/Female Gaze on BBC America’s First Season of Orphan Black“ by Ms Misantropia

“Think There Aren’t Feminist Themes in The Purge? Think Again” by Stephanie Rogers

“The Titillating Nature of Sex: Controversy in Blue is the Warmest Color“ by Rachel Redfern

“Not Peggy Olson: Rape Culture in Top of the Lake“ by Lauren C. Byrd

“She-Ra: Kinda, Sorta Accidentally Feministy” by Amanda Rodriguez

‘The To Do List’: The Movie I’ve Been Waiting For

Let’s get to work, vagina. – Brandy Klark, The To Do List

 

The To Do List.
Written by Leigh Kolb

 

I remember leaving the theater after seeing Superbad and asking my friends if any of us could imagine a film like that being made about young women–quirky best friend teenage girls who were on a quest for those things that so many teenagers are on a quest for.
We agreed that we couldn’t imagine it (and then I probably delivered a lecture on the great harm of stifling female sexuality).
That notion–that those teenage “cumming-of-age” stories are reserved for boys only–has been deeply ingrained in us through pop culture. When American Pie came out while I was in high school, the message was clear: there’s a myriad of ways that teenage boys get to claim and act out their sexuality, but if you’re a woman who does the same, you will be singled out and considered an oddity, a freak or simply a prize.
Even before that, I remember always noticing that young adult novels or films about teenage girls that I enjoyed often de-sexed the female protagonist. Teenage female sexuality was either nonexistent or an anathema, set apart to frighten girls or teach lessons. I never saw myself and my feelings truly and fully reflected back to me.
“Sisters before misters”–best friends Fiona (Alia Shawkat), Brandy (Aubrey Plaza) and Wendy (Sarah Steele).
When I saw the trailer for The To Do List, I started to get excited. Maybe this is it–what I’ve been waiting for all of these years.
It’s set in the early 90s. My heart rate quickens.
I see the soundtrack‘s track list. I just can’t even.
And then I saw it–a film that extols the importance of female agency and sexuality with a healthy dose of raunch, a film that includes a sexually experienced and supportive mother, a film that celebrates female friendship and quotes Gloria Steinem, a film that features Green Apple Pucker and multiple references to Pearl Jam and Hillary Clinton.
Yes. This is it.
 
It was everything I wanted.
 
I especially love how the “To Do List” itself wasn’t borne out of peer pressure. Brandy (Aubrey Plaza) is mildly affected when her peers shout “Virgin!” at her, but what makes her want to explore and understand her own sexuality is twofold: she wants to be able to be comfortable knowing what to do with hot guys (she’s the one who is attracted and drawn to the college guy), and it’s explained to her that college is like a sexual pop quiz, and she needs to study to ace it.
Brandy takes notes as her older, experienced sister (played by Rachel Bilson) talks about sex.
She understands studying. She understands her own blossoming sexual desires. So she opens up her Trapper Keeper, lines her paper into a grid, and makes a list of sexual acts she must complete before the end of summer, with the ultimate goal being “Intercourse.” (The fact that the film was set in 1993 is important not only for nostalgia’s sake but also for the fact that Brandy didn’t have the Internet and couldn’t easily look up the definitions of the “jobs” she was writing on her list.)
Brandy’s “To Do List” replaces buying shower shoes for the dorm with sexual exploits.
Early on in her journey, Brandy reads statistics about how few women achieve orgasm, and she’s incensed. She writes “Masturbation” on her list (and does so wearing a “Pro-Choice Pro-Clinton” T-shirt, which writer-director Maggie Carey said she wore frequently in high school). The masturbation scene is important because, as Carey says, “When you do see women masturbating, it’s usually a male fantasy about a woman masturbating, it’s not what actually happens.”
Brandy voices anger over the virgin/whore dichotomy, referencing Gloria Steinem. And yet as much as this film empowers female sexuality and independence, it does not do so at the expense of the men in the film. (Remarkable, how completely possible it is to have fully sympathetic male and female characters in a raunchy comedy.) Even Brandy’s father, a Rush Limbaugh-reading, overprotective man who is uncomfortable talking about sex, is portrayed in a sympathetic light.
The teenage boys have stereotypical sexual desires, but Brandy’s desire is always paramount. For the first time while watching a teen comedy, I got to reminisce and laugh from my own perspective–and oh, how I could taste that Pucker when I saw it on screen and feel those goosebumps when “Fade Into You” started playing–instead of imagining what life must have been like for boys I knew in high school.

The film also really has a “radical” message about virginity–not panicked, not preachy, but reasonable and realistic. Maybe most importantly, Brandy never has any regrets (“Teenagers don’t have regrets,” she says. “That’s for your 30s”). The To Do List is “nonchalantly” feminist from start to finish.

After she read the script for the first time, Aubrey Plaza said,

“When I read the script, I just thought it was funny, be it female or male, but I love that it was from a female perspective, and I’d honestly never seen anything that had explored the specifics of that time in a girl’s life when they’re experiencing all their firsts.”

This film is a first full of firsts.
And unlike most first-time sexual exploits, writer-director Maggie Carey knew what she was doing and made it really pleasurable for the audience.
“It’s a skort!”
(And who doesn’t want to make out to Mazzy Star?)
A teenage sex comedy that subverts what’s usually “reserved for the boys” and shows female sexuality and agency as, you know, an actual thing (while celebrating 90’s pop culture)? Check.
And just as Brandy will want more and more of the final exploit she checks off, I want movies like this to keep coming and coming.
Leigh Kolb is a composition, literature and journalism instructor at a community college in rural Missouri.