Disabilities Week: One Woman Holds The Breakthrough Key In ‘The Miracle Worker’

The Miracle Worker film poster.

The Miracle Worker summarizes the turbulent beginnings of one of the most remarkably profound relationships in history–Anne Sullivan and her pupil/mentee Helen Keller. Various films have been made about this duo, but nothing quite compares to the original 1962 adaptation of William Gibson’s stage play. Both Broadway actresses, Anne Bancroft and Patty Duke, reprise their respective lead roles as Anne Sullivan and Helen Keller.

The first scene ends on Kate Keller screaming in outlandish revulsion at the shocking discovery of having a blind daughter, as though the crib contained a grisly, terrifying monster straight out of her nightmares. Helen’s discrepancies are depicted in extreme exaggeration on the film poster–an open mouth on blurred face looking possessed by devil’s agony while a calm, serene woman holds her steady, showcasing psychological depth rather than horror thriller.
Helen’s parents spoil instead of nurture–Captain Arthur Keller (Victor Rory) and Kate Keller (Inga Swenson).
Years pass by and despite being rich, slave-owning Southerners, the Kellers have searched far and wide for solutions in curing their deaf, blind and mute child. The family has somewhat accepted Helen, coddling her ignorance. They hover and pet her like a wild animal, but do not educate further while Helen desires to learn and comprehend the world around her.
“Put her in an insane asylum!” protests Jimmy, Helen’s half brother, after Helen accidentally knocks down the baby’s crib–with baby still inside.
It is easy to place an incomprehensible diagnosis inside a box and throw away logic. Back in the turn of 19th century, people of Helen’s delicate condition would have been sentenced inside “madhouses” because no one knew how to communicate with them or even try. Jimmy is oblivious in seeing that Helen’s manic outbursts are not signs of mental disorder. Helen’s incoherent mumbles, cries, and physical punches stem from frustrations of an isolated mind desiring to learn how to address humankind–not doctors, needles, and shock therapy. It doesn’t help that Kate wants to keep Helen just to baby her and Captain Keller simply obliges Kate’s wishes to have their daughter close. They love her, but none of them realize what Helen sincerely needs.
Helen has a mind dying to be nurtured, but the Kellers don’t know to broaden her horizons.
Helen (Patty Duke) explores Anne’s (Anne Bancroft) suitcase.
In comes Anne Sullivan the answer to their troubles. She is a freshly graduated valedictorian tormented by events of a troubling past. She often remembers desiring to learn amongst strict caretakers who believed her incapable due to blindness. That lifelong quest for knowledge is a trait companionable to Helen’s silent plight. When Anne greets her young protégé on the porch, Helen immediately touches both Anne’s suitcase and her face, feeling Anne’s entire structures with curiously wandering hands, knowing instantly that she is a new person.  Helen picks up the suitcase, slaps Anne who tries taking it away, and takes her suitcase inside house and up the stairs–signs of both kindness and gracious hospitality. Helen’s joy slips away suddenly at Anne’s stern ways of teachings, in a stricter fashion than Helen is unused to. The angry, spoiled child locks Anne into her room and hides the key, revealing a sneaky intelligence and fiery spirit.
Captain Keller, however, is displeased with Anne’s age and appearance, especially her rounded black spectacles.
“Why does she wear those glasses?” Captain Keller asks.
“She had nine operations on her eyes,” Kate says. “One just before she left.”
“Blind! Good heavens! They expect one blind child to teach another?” He asks, very disapproved. “Even a house full of grown adults can’t cope with a child. How can an inexperienced half blind Yankee school girl manage?”
Anne (Anne Bancroft) and Helen (Patty Duke).
Anne manages, and she manages well.
In the breakfast scene of severe sound and action, in moments of brutally charged, disturbing pandemonium, Anne single-handedly demonstrates powerful mastery over Helen’s wildly aggressive tendencies by battling fire with fire instead of pampering her. Anne is trying desperately to get Helen to eat with a spoon instead of the barbaric, uncivilized audacity to eat off her family’s plates with bare hands. Helen bites, slaps, spits, and bangs on locked doors, fighting stubbornly against new lessons, but Anne is forceful and undeterred, pushing Helen into unlearning childish behavior. Glasses shatter and food is spilled everywhere, but Anne has made an alarming advancement.
“The room is a wreck but her napkin is folded,” she reveals to Kate.
Kate beams with pure joy at this statement, but Captain Keller doesn’t see why.
“What in heaven’s name is so extraordinary about folding a napkin?” He asks.
“It’s more than you’ve ever done,” Kate replies.
The real life Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan.
Men appear to be damaging catalysts–undermining Anne’s progress in every which way since she arrived. From first appearances alone, Captain Keller believes Anne to be young and inept, but after giving her a chance to prove diligence he wants to fire her because she’s not docile and kind like fair sex allots. In fact, she tells him what to do on many occasions and it infuriates him. On the other hand, Jimmy wants Anne to give up and see that Helen is a creature that needs pity, but with being typical male, in the same breath he also says, “You could be handsome if it weren’t for your eye.”  These two characters appear to be more angered by the fact that she’s a woman and that threatens their authority. Captain Keller just wants another instructor while Jimmy still insists that Helen be institutionalized.
However, Anne sees the true thorn in the Keller household and it’s not just the men making circumstances problematic.
Slowly Helen (Patty Duke) is learning from Anne’s (Anne Bancroft) unorthodox methods.
“Mrs. Keller, I don’t think Helen’s greatest handicap is deafness or blindness,” Anne reveals to Kate, her devout champion. “I think it’s your love and pity. All these years you’ve felt so sorry for her you’ve kept her like a pet. Well, even a dog you housebreak.”
Surprisingly, she doesn’t include the hired help. Although slavery has been abolished (15 years before Helen was born), they too are considered lower housebroken beings, hardworking “dogs” that labor for the wealthy family. They don’t get the same favorable treatment as Helen due to their skin color and a cruelly unjust class system. When Anne forces a black child to get up out of bed and factors him into her lessons with Helen, he winces in fright. This demonstrates that the child is expendable and however much Helen hurts him, no one would care.
Anne gets permission to teach Helen for two weeks outside of Keller custody. Helen is upset to be alone with her, but in a couple of days, Anne’s instructions and experiences start sinking in as well as emotional components of joy, excitement, and humor. Manic episodes diminish slowly and engaging happiness brightens Helen’s once timid disposition.
Helen’s (Patty Duke) remarkable breakthrough of water thanks to Anne (Anne Bancroft).
Unfortunately, Kate doesn’t agree with Anne’s need for more time alone with Helen, claiming to miss her daughter and saying that obedience is enough. It’s off-putting. Anne wants to teach Helen, but iron gates have once again been placed around Helen as though she were a living doll to adore and not a person worthy of truly learning about words and meanings behind them.
Back at home, Helen is determined to revert back to her old ways, but Anne wants her not to forget all that she has taught and thanks to Jimmy’s surprising aid she does just that. It is just as she is refilling the pitcher, water covering her hands, that Helen makes a most impressive breakthrough.
“She knows!” Anne shouts joyously.
And in a bittersweet exchange, towards the end in an utterly touching display of symbolic affection, Helen finally gives Anne back the key to her locked room.
The Miracle Worker is a wonderful portrayal of two strong women, and Bancroft and Duke won Academy Awards for their leading and supportive roles. Anne and Helen impacted the world by not letting blindness or deafness confine them into a shelled prison sentence. They relied solely on one another. Partly due to Anne’s vigorous aide, Helen–a writer, activist and lecturer–went on to become the first deaf blind person to earn a bachelor’s degree. Together Anne and Helen used these unique circumstances as stepping stones toward helping others find their worthiness, showing that though the world appears black and soundless, this is not a hindrance or burden.
Helen (Patty Duke) touches her parents (Victor Fury and Inga Swenson) in a beguiling discovery. 
Their friendship may have faced tempestuous struggle and staggering barriers, but Anne Sullivan and Helen Keller concluded 40 years of camaraderie with compelling milestones that continue to be worth honoring today.

‘Star Trek: Deep Space Nine’ Explores Disability in "Melora"

This is a guest review by Jarrah Hodge. An earlier version appeared at her Tumblr, Trekkie Feminist.
“Melora” is one of many Star Trek episodes that uses an allegory about an alien to comment on an issue in our human society. In this case, Ensign Melora Pazlar comes to Deep Space Nine. She is unable to walk unassisted because she comes from a planet with very low gravity. 
There are some great moments in this episode, which was written by Evan Carlos Somers (and re-written by others), who himself uses a wheelchair. Somers has said:
“I always thought it would be nice to create a disabled character who’s accepted for what she is and doesn’t have to change…The best way to do that on Deep Space Nine was to have Bashir find a cure for the disability, and for the character to turn it down. That was the real driving force behind my wanting to do this episode.”

So how successful was it? I want to focus on a few key scenes featuring Melora and look at what they say about people with disabilities and expectations about their relationships with non-disabled people.
1. Bashir Can’t Wait to Meet Melora! 
Still from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
“Just think what she’s gone through to get here, Jadzia. What it must be like to adjust to our gravity after growing up on a planet with such low surface gravity,” Doctor Bashir effuses to Lieutenant Dax, who will be accompanying Melora on her surveying mission.
The crew sets up ramps for Melora to use, but there will still be places she can’t access in the wheelchair. Dax asks why they can’t just use the transporter.
O’Brien: It makes sense to me, but she sent word that it wouldn’t be acceptable to her.

Dax: I wonder why.

Bashir: I know exactly why. She went through the Academy the same way. Once her basic needs are met, she refuses any special assistance. She’s extraordinary.

There’s an implication here that people with disabilities are supposed to be self-reliant and avoid inconveniencing others … 

2. But Not Too Self-reliant

Melora from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Turns out Melora has a big chip on her shoulder. She’s fed up with people treating her as less capable, which makes what she’s saying totally understandable. For example, when she meets Commander Sisko she’s upset because the senior officers were discussing her mission without her. Sisko explains that’s normal and she replies:
Melora: I’m sorry if I seem overly sensitive, but I’m used to being shut out of the Melora problem. The truth is, there is no Melora problem until people create one. This may sound ungrateful, because Doctor Bashir has been wonderfully helpful in the preparations for my arrival, but frankly, I wonder why a medical opinion is necessary in this discussion.

Dax: Julian [Bashir] knows more of your capabilities than any of us.

Melora: I don’t need a medical opinion to tell me my own capabilities.

This is a great call-out of the medical model, which treats disability as an illness that needs to be cured (by contrast, the social model sees society as not adequately accommodating people with disabilities’ needs).

Unfortunately, after all of her outbursts, all the main characters get this look that seems to say, “Whoa! This lady is totally overreacting. What’s with the attitude?” One commenter on my original post said she thought the flawed response of the crew was written deliberately to reflect what many people with disabilities encounter today. That might be true, but I would’ve liked it to be more obviously challenged.


3. The Doctor Finds a Way In
Bashir and Melora
Bashir tells Melora he’s no longer her doctor, but he’s still trying to fix her by drawing attention to the way she uses sarcasm and criticism to stay at a distance from others.
He softens her up a bit and asks her to dinner. At the Klingon restaurant on the promenade, Melora surprises him by ordering in Klingon, definitely a good attempt to add a bit more complexity to the character.

4. The “Cure” 

Dax helps Melora after her fall
Melora falls attempting to get into a section of the station where there are no ramps. Dax finds and helps her to the infirmary.
There, Bashir (who’s now her doctor again, apparently) treats her and tells her she needs to let herself be dependent on others sometimes.
As he walks her back to her quarters, he says he thinks he might be able to adapt some previous work on “neuromuscular adaptation” that might be able to strengthen her muscles enough that she doesn’t have to use the chair.
She lets Bashir into her quarters and turns down the artificial gravity. Then they kiss and make out. My first thought was this is problematic because he’s her doctor again–he’s actually considering treating her disability!
On the other hand, the romance shows her as someone with sexual and romantic interests and desires, which helps counter the myth that all people with disabilities are uninterested in or incapable of sex.

5. Second Thoughts 
Bashir tries to “cure” Melora
Even though the treatments are starting to work, Melora has second thoughts, and the way that she expresses them gets at the idea that what might be seen as a disability can be part of who someone is–not something that can and should be “cured.”
Melora realizes how valuable she really is when she and Dax are taken hostage by a thuggish alien (part of the B plot in this episode).
The bad guy zaps her with a phaser, with Bashir and the crew in Operations watching via viewscreen, but somehow she revives. She turns off the gravity on the runabout and launches herself into the bad guy, saving the day. 
Melora stops the bad guy
It’s a neat little twist on what could’ve been a very damsel-in-distress-y scenario. It’s also cool that what had been seen as her disability was used in a powerful way. Unfortunately, it was kind of undermined by the explanation of why she survived the phaser blast: because of the neuro-stimulants she’d been receiving as part of her treatments to “fix” her mobility issues.

6. Melora and Bashir Part Ways
Melora and Bashir hold hands
Bashir and Melora have the final scene back in the Klingon restaurant. Bashir is disappointed that she won’t continue the treatment and Melora replies: 
“I like being independent, but to give up everything that I am to walk on land…Well, I might be more independent, but I wouldn’t be Elaysian anymore. I’m not sure what I’d be. Besides, maybe independence isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. I kind of like how it feels to depend on someone for a change. And I’m glad you got me to unlock the doors to my quarters so I could finally let someone into my life.”

And then we never hear Bashir mention her again for the rest of the series.
I think the motivation behind “Melora” was great, but overall I thought the messages were a little unclear. I saw that Melora doesn’t have to change her disability, but she does have to change her attitude. Ultimately, that personal transformation to being more “dependent” was what tied the story together more than a reaffirmation of her uniqueness.
There’s also the unfortunate fact that her relationship with Bashir can’t continue after she decides not to finish the treatments.
But ultimately, no matter what happened in this episode, you’re always going to have problems using a single character as a stand-in for an entire group of people. To really do justice to the diverse experiences of people with disabilities, we need more people with disabilities in TV shows generally (actors and characters), playing a range of parts, including recurring roles that give us a chance to see more complete and complex identities.

Jarrah Hodge is the founder of Gender Focus, a Canadian feminist blog. Jarrah also writes for Vancouver Observer and Huffington Post Canada and has been a guest blogger on “feminerd” culture for Bitch Magazine Blogs. Hailing from New Westminster, BC, she’s a fan of politics, crafts, boardgames, musical theatre, and brunch.

Disabilities Week: Blindness, Race and Love in ‘A Patch of Blue’

A Patch of Blue movie poster.


Written by Leigh Kolb

Director Guy Green said of the premise of A Patch of Blue: “basically it’s a very corny story, a blind girl falling in love with a black man.” He credits the writing of the novel it was based upon (Be Ready With Bells and Drums, by Elizabeth Kata) for ensuring that the story, and resulting film, were not corny in the least.


The 1965 film centers around a young blind woman, Selina (Elizabeth Hartman), who has been abused and sheltered, and neglected any formal education, by her family–her mother, Rose-Ann (Shelley Winters) and her grandfather, Ole Pa (Wallace Ford). 


She’s befriended by a black man, Gordon (Sidney Poitier), and they form a deep relationship, which centers on Gordon’s desire to help Selina lift herself up.

It would be easy to read that synopsis–blind girl falls in love with a black man–and come to any number of conclusions about the film, especially since it was released at the height of the civil rights movement, but the film manages to capture something much deeper than being a superficial morality play on racism, and it treats Selina’s blindness with care and dignity.
When Selina was five, her father came home unexpectedly while Rose-Ann was sleeping with another man (it’s insinuated that she worked as a prostitute, and still does). Her father killed the man, and when Rose-Ann threw a bottle–a chemical-laden cosmetic–from her dresser at him, it hit Selina in the face, scarring her eyes and leaving her blind.
Elizabeth Hartman wore opaque contacts to simulate Selina’s damaged eyes. Rose-Ann is the only one who berates her “ugliness”; even her grandfather explains that it’s just that people are nosy, not that she is ugly.
Selina’s life circumstances are desperate and miserable, but she is not. The opening shot of the film focuses on Selina’s hands, stringing together beaded necklaces–that’s what she does during the day to help her family (Mr. Faber, her boss, is presented as an important support person in her life). She yearns to spend more time in the park, and Mr. Faber takes her when he can.
It’s in the park that she meets Gordon (a caterpillar dropped down the back of her shirt and she needed help–a problem not reserved for a person who can’t see–and he helps her retrieve it). He’s friendly and gentle without being condescending, and his generosity helps strike up a quick friendship. He buys her sunglasses because she’s self-conscious about her scarred eyes and tells her she looks perfect with them on (this is presented as a generous act for her confidence, not because he actually feels she needs them).
He’s shocked that she’s never heard of braille and was never formally educated: “You haven’t heard of all blind people can do?” he asks, and she is self-deprecating yet unashamed of her lot in life. 
Gordon and Selina eat lunch.
While Selina is uneducated (Gordon corrects her grammar when they first meet) and cannot live outside of her home independently, the audience never feels pity for her because she is blind and helpless. Instead, the focus of our pity is on her lack of support–she has an abusive home life and has been neglected. Her blindness isn’t pitiful; her family is. 
When Selina is shown doing tasks that she’s been entrusted with–changing linens, washing dishes, cooking, cleaning–she does so perfectly. This is a reminder that her blindness hasn’t been a hindrance to her life and that she is capable of doing what she’s allowed to do.
Hartman, in studying for the part, spent time at a school for the blind to be able to accurately get into character. She wore opaque contacts (Green said they helped because they naturally obstructed her vision), and her family says she wore them constantly and never left character while she was filming.
This careful and empathetic approach to “acting” blind paid off. Hartman’s performance was incredibly convincing and she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress (A Patch of Blue was Hartman’s first film). 
Gordon helps Selina find directions by the sun’s location.
In the film, Gordon attempts to feel as Selina must feel shortly after meeting her. He’s shown at his job–working as a night-shift reporter–getting up from his desk, walking across the room, and attempting to return to his desk with closed eyes (he is unsuccessful, and runs into his coworker’s desk). This short scene is poignant in that it further reminds Gordon–and the audience–what it must feel like to be Selina, if only for a few moments. 
Gordon never tries to do things for Selina. From the beginning, he teaches her and empowers her to be able to completely take care of herself. Since it’s clear her limitations are environmental, not innate, she is capable. Her disability–caused and amplified by her family–is not what’s in her way. Her poverty and lack of support system are detrimental to her growth and development.
Gordon could have easily met Selina, befriended her, seen that she could clean and cook, and want to marry her, keeping her dependent and living simply for him. And while his romantic feelings for her are conflicted, he wants her to be independent and educated more than he wants her for himself. 
Gordon gives Selina very practical advice (counting steps, listening for traffic) so she can navigate streets by herself–which she finally does, after realizing she doesn’t have to take her home life anymore.
Gordon never belittles or gets frustrates with Selina.
Gordon and Selina’s kiss–one of the first on-screen interracial kisses–was at the same time innocent and deeply passionate. When Selina references the fact that she’d been raped, and wishes she hadn’t so she could be with Gordon, he convinces her that she is not “bad” or “dirty,” like she worries she is. (Someone in 1965 understood how to not blame the victim.) 
Their kiss was one of the first on-screen interracial kisses.
The filmography often focuses on Selina’s point of view, and is effective in portraying the sensory details she enjoys (the canned peaches or the music box), and the terrors she lives through–her time alone for the first time on the street, or the memory of being raped (we “see” the man from her perspective–what she could have seen, but only felt).
The racial components of the film are also nuanced and effective. When Gordon tells Selina that “tolerance” is one of his favorite words (and explains that it’s not just putting up with something, but that you don’t “knock your neighbor just because he thinks or looks different than you”), she tells him that he must be full of tolerance. He quietly shakes his head and says that he’s not. He looks deeply affected when white people stare and glare at him and Selina walking together, and clearly has deep inner conflict being a black man in America in 1965 (of course, these aspects of the film don’t seem nearly as dated as they should be). His brother, a doctor, criticizes Gordon’s desire to help and educate Selina because she is white, and comments on the fact that she comes from a “trash heap” (to which Gordon responds, “She may, but she’s not trash”). Underneath the surface of the film is the fact that socioeconomic factors and family support systems are what determine a person’s opportunities.  
Rose-Ann is, unsurprisingly, violently racist. We know that she forbade Selina from spending time with the only friend she ever made because the little girl was black, so we also know that when Rose-Ann sees Selina and Gordon together, she will erupt–which she does. 
The characters to be despised are racist, abusive and neglectful. But Selina and Gordon aren’t perfect–they are complex, sympathetic characters who struggle with their own shortcomings and emotions. Selina is only 18, so her naivety and her quickness to fall deeply in love are believable. Gordon loves Selina as a friend, but is unsure of anything beyond that. He says he’s snapped back into reality after getting lost in their embrace. He deals with anger and frustration, too–not only because of his experiences at the hands of racism, but also because of the injustice of Selina’s mistreatment. 
By the end of the film, even the crowd of white people (who before had glared), realize that Gordon is no threat to Selina; Rose-Ann is.
The ending is hopeful, but not saccharine-sweet. The realness of the characters, their struggles and their emotions are highlighted by sparse, black-and-white film and a beautiful soundtrack.
Gordon has called a school for the blind and set up a space for Selina. Before the bus comes to pick her up, she is nervous, and wishes they could just get married. Gordon promises that in a year, they could see if their love has anything to do with marriage. He sits her down to tell her that he’s black, but she already knows.
She says, “I know everything I need to know about you.” As she feels his face she continues: “I know you’re good, and kind, and that you’re colored; and I think you’re beautiful.”
He’s shocked that she knows, and responds “Beautiful? Most people would say the opposite.”
“That’s because they don’t know you,” she answers.
A Patch of Blue portrays disability as a part of a woman’s life that only defines her because she’s grown up with an abusive and neglectful family. As soon as she gets access to a world (literally and figuratively) outside of their little apartment, she thrives, and we know she’s just going to continue to grow. She’s beginning her life–a life that won’t be defined by her blindness. 
Her relationship with Gordon allows him to also redefine his own life and helps him see himself for who he is–a beautiful, kind and generous man, who knows how to share life with someone who’s never experienced it.
Fifty years later, portraying disability on screen with empathy and respect is still rare. Showing an interracial couple is also extremely rare (Green says that some people sent terrible letters to him about the kissing scene; in fact, it’s reported that in some areas in the south the scene was edited out for theaters). 
A Patch of Blue manages to weave together themes of disability, race, socioeconomic issues and family dynamics with beauty and grace. It was nominated for multiple Golden Globes and Academy Awards; Shelley Winters won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar, and notably, Sidney Poitier was nominated for the Golden Globe, but not an Academy Award. 
A Patch of Blue is one of those films that manages to stay with you for years after you see it; and then, when you see it again, it’s just as beautiful as you remembered.

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

Disabilities Week: The Patronizingly "Adorable" Side of Schizophrenia in ‘Benny & Joon’

Movie poster for Benny & Joon

This is a guest review by Carleen Tibbetts.
When Bitch Flicks put out the call for reviews regarding the portrayal of “disabled” women, I had a mixed reaction. Most of the suggested films and TV series deal with both physical disabilities and mental illness, but there’s far greater stigma attached to anything psychological, especially when women are involved. The words “crazy” and “insane” get thrown around far too often and get a lot of mileage when it comes to women. It’s easy and dismissive to tell a woman her “craziness” is just a byproduct of her gender, and even more callous to tell a woman with a mental illness that she is thus, and seemingly unable to be helped, bettered, et cetera.
Jeremiah Chechlik’s 1993 film, Benny & Joon is the story of Joon (Mary Stuart Masterson), a twenty-something artist who lives under the care of her older brother, Benny (Aidan Quinn). Benny works full-time as an auto mechanic and has hired a string of “housekeepers,” as he calls them, to keep an eye on Joon during the day. When the last caregiver quits after Joon has an outburst, Benny must leave Joon home alone, where she is content to go about her routine that involves painting and making Captain Crunch and peanut butter smoothies. 
Mary Stuart Masterson as Joon and Aidan Quinn as Benny in Benny & Joon
At first, it appears as if Joon is just a bit quirky, or perhaps a stereotypical “temperamental artist.” Aside from the manic rate at which she produces her paintings, her need to adhere to routine, her idiosyncrasies, and her flat mannerisms suggest she might present as Autistic. Her extreme pickiness regarding food would be another indicator of being somewhere on the spectrum when, at one point in the film, she refuses to eat raisins in her tapioca pudding, claiming that they were “humiliated grapes” that “had a their life stolen.” When she leaves the house with a ping-pong paddle and scuba mask to direct traffic, however, this is more characteristic of a schizophrenic or bipolar episode.
Benny knows he can’t leave her unsupervised, but he’s torn about how to handle the situation. Joon’s psychiatrist suggests he place Joon in a group home that would enable her to socialize and perhaps even get a part-time job. His initial reaction is extremely defensive, and explaining that he is Joon’s only family, that he’s always cared for her, and that he’s not “farming her out.” Glimpses of Joon’s medical information (note the screen shots) don’t even indicate what condition or disorder she has been diagnosed with. All we know is that she is on some form of medication, and perhaps it isn’t working too well given her tantrums and erratic behavior. Joon tells Benny not to “underestimate the mentally ill,” yet he continuously undercuts her, treats her like a child, limits her autonomy and decision-making capacities. Further, Benny uses his situation with Joon as a convenient excuse to avoid any kind of romantic entanglements or committed relationships. Potential love interest waitress/apartment manager Ruthie (Julianne Moore) is extremely patient and understanding in her interactions with Joon, yet Benny initially shies away from anything too serious, claiming his life is too complicated and that there really isn’t any room for a woman in his life other than his sister. 
Joon’s medical intake form
Another part of Joon’s routine involves her tagging along to Benny’s regular poker nights with several friends. One night when she fills in for him, she ends up “winning” Sam (Johnny Depp), the barely literate, Buster Keaton-obsessed cousin of one of Benny’s friends. Benny agrees to take Sam in for an unspecified amount of time, hoping that Sam could take over “housekeeper” duties and babysit Joon. It really is a wonder that Benny has apparently taken care of her since they were teenagers. He’s so emotionally well-equipped! His thinking is so clear! He doesn’t need to take advice from mental health professionals! He can have an adorable vagabond with no credentials look after Joon!
Sam’s a different sort of socially awkward. He has a penchant for horrible slasher films, which he memorizes word for word, and has an almost sixth sense when it comes to knowing film trivia. It’s as if his brain functions like the IMDb database. Perhaps he’s somewhere on the spectrum. He also has a charming little Chaplinesque physical comedy routine going, complete with top hat, baggy trousers, and cane. Benny’s so impressed he tries to get Sam an agent to book him in comedy clubs. Sam’s blissful naivete serves as a complete counter to put-upon, worry-wart Benny. His presence in the house has a calming effect on Joon, and her whole demeanor changes. She’s met someone who “gets” her. Sam and Joon are kindred spirits. Sam gives Joon a sense of companionship and joy she’s been lacking for most of her adult life. Sam allows Joon to ease up on her routine, takes her out of the house (where Benny keeps her trapped and isolated), running little errands, socializing, basically integrating her into society in little baby steps. 
Joon directs traffic with a ping pong paddle
So, for a short time everything is hunky dory. Benny can work without worrying about Joon; he can date a woman who doesn’t demand he put her emotional needs before his responsibilities to his sister; Sam gets a job at a video store; and he and Joon begin to know each other. Biblically. When they break the news to Benny, it sends him into a rage. He tells Sam to get out of the house (being homeless, he just ends up living in a tree in their front yard…), and tells Joon he wants her to live in the group home. He turns all protector father figure, and Joon rebels as would any teenage girl. She tells Benny he wants to keep her sick, doesn’t want her to be happy, and the moment she is left alone, she sneaks out of the house and runs off with Sam.
The two quirky lovebirds get on a bus bound for “anywhere but here,” when Joon starts having an extreme anxiety attack. She starts crying and screaming, and her episode forces the driver to get everyone off the bus and call the paramedics. In a truly heartbreaking scene, Sam watches Joon pace the bus and scream until the paramedics escort her off and take her to a psych ward. She refuses to see anyone, yet Benny and Sam manage to break into the ward. Benny agrees not to put Joon in a group home but have her live in her own apartment (conveniently managed by his now-girlfriend, Ruthie) with Sam. EVERYTHING IS SUPER AWESOME FUN TIME! LOOK HOW ADORABLE SCHIZOPHRENIA CAN BE! The credits roll with Sam and Joon making little grilled cheese sandwiches with an iron! Yes! They’re going to make it on his video store wages and illiteracy, and she’s presumed jobless and in the care of another male authority figure! She doesn’t need professional treatment! She just needs a boyfriend! 
Benny watches Joon paint
Here is where the criticism beings … Benny & Joon deals far more with Benny’s “unfortunate” situation of having to care for his sister than it does with Joon herself. Yes, although it does speak to Joon’s creativity, her spirit, etc., it doesn’t address the fact that Benny’s kept her infantilized most of her adult life. It was suggested that Benny place her in a home where she’d be supervised and be able to look for work, yet we don’t know if Joon has a history of trying to unsuccessfully hold down jobs, or if Benny prevented her from ever trying to be responsible and autonomous in the first place. I can’t even begin to address his ridiculous decision to have Joon babysat by a series of non-credentialed “houskeepers” instead of attempting to integrate her into society. I wonder if he was granted power of attorney, legal guardianship, etc. I find it hard to believe that in a situation like that, he was allowed to care for Joon since they were teenagers. How did Social Services not step in at any point? How was he not charged with abandonment and neglect? 
Benny sneaks in to see Joon at the mental hospital
This movie is less about Joon herself than it is about her in relation to the men in her life. Yes, at the close it gives the impression that she’s going to be happy and productive but only under close watch of her boyfriend, her brother, and her brother’s girlfriend. Fine, maybe she doesn’t need to live in a group home, but it’s important that she go to some form of therapy and see positive examples of highly-functioning schizophrenics, and this is never brought up in the film! She can’t just have medication thrown at her and not pair it with any sort of cognitive and behavioral therapy. Making grilled cheese sandwiches with Johnny Depp doesn’t count.
When I searched for images to include in the piece in addition to the screen shots I took, the movie poster images I came across presented another issue: Joon herself is sidelined and literally sandwiched between the two men in her life: her lover and her brother. Alternate posters depict Johnny Depp alone on a stool. In fact, the Google image search yields more pictures of Johnny Depp than anything else! Where is Joon in all of this? The screen time given to Depp and all his quirky little gimmicks far outweighs scenes that focus on Joon’s interests, her paintings, etc. She’s a talented artist, yet Benny is more concerned with getting Sam work than he is with getting Joon’s art out in the world or enrolling her in an art therapy program, which would have been ideal for her. 
Sam and Joon make grilled cheese sandwiches with an iron
There is NOTHING adorable about mental illness. I take huge issue with this film. It trivializes and downplays a serious, crippling disorder. As a woman who was diagnosed bipolar roughly ten years ago and who has been hospitalized, watching scenes in which paramedics tranquilize and forcibly escort a woman to a psychiatric ward is particularly painful and all-too familiar. You cannot have your family members spring you from a psych ward. You cannot check in for a staycation and leave when you feel like it. You are there until the mental health professionals get your cocktail of meds just right, bring you back to a functioning level, and deem you fit for release. In this case, I would think Joon’s psychiatrist would not want to release her into the care of two men who broke into her room and who flagrantly disregarded her professional advice in the first place.
Living with mental illness means constantly having your state of mind questioned. It means family members and long-term friends not being able to understand or relate to your struggles, your episodes. This often leads to strained romantic relationships where genetics are even called into question. Say Joon and Sam keep going strong. If they chose to have children, is she capable of being a parent? Could she stay off her meds during her pregnancy without having another episode? My ex’s parents asked me at one point in our eight-year relationship if I could even have children, because they wanted grandkids in the worst way. It was one of the most callous, insensitive, and derogatory things anyone had ever said to me in relationship to my disorder. Obviously, the mentally “ill” are capable of having children, or else these conditions would cease to exist. 
Joon has a panic attack on the bus
Benny & Joon, despite all its charm and whimsy, really glosses over a serious, potentially debilitating condition. I’m not saying it doesn’t have its delightful moments, but it fails to realistically address Joon’s history or possible outcomes for her future well-being. Joon is defined in by the men in her life, and as a result, is stifled, crippled, and unable to break out on her own. She needs to be taken care of, coddled. Apparently, to quote the Proclaimers theme song that opens and closes the film, Joon just needs a man to fall down at her door. Yes, it’s Hollywood, and we all want happy endings, but the underlying message that all Joon really needs is a stable romantic relationship rather than a stable relationship with herself, especially in relation to functioning in the outside world, is completely misguided.

Carleen Tibbetts lives in Oakland and edits at Similar:Peaks:: Her work has appeared in kill author, Word Riot, Metazen, Monkeybicycle, Coconut, H_NGM_N, horse less press, Boog City, The Rumpus, HTMLGIANT, and elsewhere.

Disabilities Week: ‘Glee’s Not So Gleeful Representation of Disabled Women

Glee poster, Season 3

This is a guest review by Erin Tatum.

It’s no secret that Glee is offensive to pretty much anyone who isn’t an able white male. While Glee has justifiably received a lot of flak for its treatment of certain communities – notable examples include Brittany breaking up with Santana only to be shoved into a nonsensical heterosexual relationship with Sam and relegating Tina and Mike to the background as self-aware Asian stereotypes – viewers have been relatively mum with respect to Glee’s treatment of disability. Artie is Glee‘s resident disabled character, whose rampant sexism is often played for laughs as he rehearses the trope of masculine entitlement no matter how ridiculous the conditions (in this case, the assumption that his disability should normally negate his sexuality, making his womanizing ways all the more ludicrous). Given that Artie’s disability is so wrapped up in issues of male privilege, I was curious to see if or how Glee would handle women with disabilities. Unsurprisingly, the two brief instances of women with physical disabilities were both heavily sexually coded and presented in ways that policed and shamed female sexuality.

Quinn seems to be Ryan Murphy’s favorite punching bag. I don’t understand how someone can get pregnant, give their baby up for adoption, get accepted to Yale, get into a car accident, and be disabled and then miraculously healed again in the span of four years, but Glee does have a knack for redefining the narratively impossible. After said car accident, Quinn makes an implausibly short recovery to return to school weeks later perfectly unscathed except for the presence of her wheelchair.

Quinn Fabray (Dianna Agron) and Artie Abrams (Kevin McHale) in Glee

Flanked by her new BFF Artie – which tells you that this is going to be a very special minority duo bonding episode! – Quinn tells a distraught Rachel that this is the happiest day of her life. I groaned then and there because I knew Quinn wouldn’t remain disabled and this was just going to be her 575th chance to get some perspective (what I like to call Drive-by Oppression as a tool for lazy character development) and realize the benefits of able privilege. The problem is that Quinn’s introductory episode with a disability – rather than highlighting all the strength of the disabled community, is really just a reaffirmation of everything able-bodied people find unsavory about disability and a justification for Quinn’s ableist prejudices.

Quinn and Artie sing “I’m Still Standing”

Quinn and Artie lip-synch to a particularly offensive duet of “I’m Still Standing,” which is meant to be an inspirational metaphor for staying strong and being glad you’re still alive and yada yada. Again, this might actually mean something if the entire episode weren’t devoted to Quinn proving to everyone how not disabled she is because it doesn’t fit her character trajectory. As we all know, just like in real life, those who start out able-bodied never become disabled because that doesn’t logically make sense with how they’re supposed to be!

Artie shows Quinn how to wheel up a ramp

The episode shows some obligatory wheelchair-based bonding between Quinn and Artie, such as Artie teaching Quinn how to wheel herself up a ramp. Can I say that I found the whole Artie as disability Yoda plotline doubly offensive because neither of the actors is disabled in real life? Stop pretending that sitting down in a wheelchair is all it takes to accurately portray disability. Anyway, Quinn gets offended the second Artie insinuates that she might have to plan for life with a disability long-term. As someone who has had a disability from birth, I can’t imagine the turmoil that formerly able-bodied people must go through after suffering an accident. That said, it’s another matter entirely to endorse Quinn’s pessimism as a means of reasserting ableist privilege over Artie because it sends a message that deep down, all people believe that the disabled lifestyle is limiting, tragic, and not all that viable when it comes to achieving overall life goals. Her interaction with Artie pretty much ends here, signaling the start of her ascent back into an able-bodied lifestyle.

Of course, Quinn couldn’t pass through her tenure with a disability without some good old-fashioned disabled sexuality shaming! Yes, Ryan Murphy has her take the stereotypical route of assuming that she’ll never be loved again because of her disgusting wheelchair. Nevertheless, sparks fly between her and dreadlocked, overzealous Christian Joe, a.k.a. Teen Jesus. Many of their fellow glee clubbers exchange knowing side-eyes and suppressed giggles when the duo shares a sensuous duet of “Saving All My Love for You.” The reaction to their performance stands in glaring contrast to those from Quinn’s past romantic duets in its distinctively patronizing tone, already signaling Quinn as an object of infantilism. Disabled sexuality can only ever hope to parody “legitimate” adult sexuality as a spectacle of able titillation.

Quinn uses her reflection in a hand dryer to apply her lipstick

The girls excitedly gossip about Joe’s obvious crush in the bathroom, where Quinn makes the best of her newly lowered height by stoically reapplying her lipstick in the reflection of the hand dryer. Quinn brushes off their teasing by announcing that she’s said goodbye to that part of her life because clearly no one would ever want her when she’s in a chair, as evidenced by Joe’s discomfort during a steamy moment in physical therapy (yes, really). The worst part is that her speedy recovery validates this mentality. It’s moments like this that make me sad for young viewers with disabilities who may actually perceive these characters as role models. For those who have lived with a disability and have no possibility of recovery, all scenes like this do is perpetuate the myth of disability as a sexless Siberia of perpetual isolation. Further, Quinn’s attitude is marketed as noble.

Quinn gets physical therapy from Teen Jesus

But there’s a bright spot, kids! It turns out Joe was only recoiling in horror from Quinn’s crippled body because he apparently has a nasty habit of getting boners around her. This catalyzes a spiritual crisis within him because he is against premarital sex. Quinn finds out via feeling his erection against her leg, causing her to smirk in self-satisfaction because she’s still got it. Joe then saves face by babbling some drivel about how beautiful she is and how she makes him question his faith. The audience is supposed to find his innocence and chastity in spite of boners endearing, making it perhaps the most pervy analog to I Kiss Your Hand ever. I know this show is going for the love after tragedy angle, but I can’t help but think it’s a little too convenient that they paired the abstinent Christian with the recently disabled girl. By coupling up the two characters that appear to be the most logically sexually repressed, the narrative supposedly gives them a happy ending while weaseling out of the obligation to show them actually having any physical intimacy that we could expect with any of the other couples. Perhaps in an inadvertent confirmation of this erasure, Quinn and Joe are not shown to be physically affectionate with each other during any point in their pseudo-relationship. Quinn regains the ability to walk after a measly five episodes, declaring herself a viable vixen once more as she returns to make out with Puck for no reason while never mentioning that Joe or her relationship with him existed.

Betty (Ali Stoker) and Artie in Glee

On the opposite end of the sexual expression spectrum, Betty is Emma’s disabled niece who appears for about three quarters of an episode for the sole purpose of having a one night stand with Artie while checking his ego. Artie barely greets her before she shuts him down with a swift “oh hell no.” Artie immediately whines that she is only rejecting him because he’s in a chair, which I must say is the first time I’ve heard internalized ableism as a reason for friendzoning someone. Of course, Glee would never have the chops to explore the social complexity of internalized ableism, especially in a romantic context, so you know right off the bat that we’re going to be treated to an abridged version of the nice guy chasing the uppity bitch.

Accordingly, Betty is 100% sass. She explains that she doesn’t date “losers in chairs” because she’s blonde, captain of the cheerleading squad, and has big boobs. I guess after Quinn, the writers were desperate to show how inclusive they could be, so they decided to make Betty represent every reverse disability stereotype dialed up to 11 in a single sentence. The problem is that reverse stereotypes usually only mock the given community more because they act as a wink wink nudge nudge to the audience that the original stereotypes are true since the reverse is hilariously unfathomable. Everything in this scene, from the way Betty coyly dismisses Artie to Artie’s dumbfounded expression after every new burn is played for laughs. The exchange is horribly uncomfortable to watch because it has the snide, childish undertone of “LOL, look at the disabled people who think they can have standards!” It’s also incredibly troubling and disappointing that Betty’s self-confidence as a disabled woman translates into her perceiving disabled men as unfit objects of desire, sending the message that even people with disabilities themselves view other people with disabilities as incapable of being romantic partners, which only validates the traditional able conception of our community. Why is it that transcending your minority into the social privilege of majority always involves perpetuating harmful stereotypes and internalized hate against your own community?

Betty and Artie at the dance

Artie confronts Betty later, claiming she is a terrible, mean girl who hates her chair. Betty scolds him for playing the disability card and argues that she did not reject him out of any self-loathing, but simply because he’s an idiot. Artie spends most of his time being a misogynistic douchebag, and it’s a shame that only a woman with a disability could come close to legitimately calling him out on it. Since the powers that be would rather light themselves on fire than let their precious white boys face any criticism, we are left with the formulaic nice guy taming the shrew resolution. A silly montage plays as they dance together how able-bodied people think disabled people should dance, which means swiveling their chairs in a lot of fancy complex choreography.

Betty and Artie after their one night stand

Just to hammer home the fact that disabled people are kidding themselves by trying to have a sex life, the post-coitus aftermath shows Artie and Betty sharing a chuckle over the fact that neither of them felt anything, so they can’t possibly determine if the sex was good or not.

So to sum up, women with disabilities are constantly compelled to address the elephant in the room that is their presumably absent sexuality. You are allowed two modes: sad, stoic, and sexless; or cruel, bitchy, and promiscuous. Both are media stereotypes that women have faced before, but it becomes especially problematic when disability is thrown into the mix. No matter how sexually active a given character is, trying to achieve and maintain healthy sexuality is seen as a futile pursuit because disabled people and especially disabled women can never hope to have the “real thing.” Unfortunately, Glee happily perpetuates the myth that the sexuality of ladies with disabilities is either tragic or hilarious for cheap pity or laughs where appropriate.

Ali Stroker and Dani Shay

In an awesome case of life giving the middle finger to art, the (actually disabled!) actress who plays Betty, Ali Stroker, is currently involved in a relationship with fellow former Glee Project contestant Dani Shay. Their relationship is beyond adorable and Dani even wrote a song for her, the music video for which lets us get up close and personal with some pretty sensual moments between the two. It is possible for women with disabilities to be involved in loving, serious relationships, and ironically, the personal life of the very actress Glee attempted to pigeonhole exemplifies just how wrong the media is about disabled sexuality. Like all women, we are perfectly capable of wielding our own sexual agency, and the media needs to start reflecting that.


Erin Tatum is a recent graduate of UC Berkeley, where she majored in film and minored in LGBT studies. She is incredibly interested in social justice, media representation, intersectional feminism, and queer theory. British television and Netflix consume way too much of her time. She is particularly fascinated by the portrayal of sexuality and ability in television. 

Disabilities Week: Crazy Bitches Versus Indulgent Little Girls: The Binary of Mad Women in ‘Girl, Interrupted’

Movie poster for Girl, Interrupted

This is a guest review by Sarah Domet.

At first glance, Girl, Interrupted appears to be Hollywood’s version of feminist nirvana. It’s a veritable oasis in an industry where only 23% of speaking roles belong to women, an industry that tends to only depict women as supporting characters for the ever-important leading men. This 1999 film adaptation of Susanna Kaysen’s memoir of the same title features a strong core cast of women, some of whom went on to bigger stardom in the aftermath of the commercial success of the film.

Set to the backdrop of the late 1960s, Girl, Interrupted chronicles a fictionalized Susanna’s (Winona Ryder) year-long stint in the woman’s ward at Claymore, a private mental institution, after her attempted suicide and subsequent “break” with reality. Susanna is diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, a diagnosis she reluctantly accepts and from which she eventually “recovers.” Throughout the year, Susanna comes face-to-face with the “real” crazies in the form of sociopathic Lisa (Angelia Jolie), pathologically lying Georgina (Clea DuVall), schizophrenic Polly (Elizabeth Moss), and cocktail-of-issues Daisy (Brittany Murphy) who grapples with eating disorders, OCD, and a history of sexual abuse. The film suggests, sometimes overtly, that Susanna, by comparison to her ward-mates, isn’t doing so badly. In fact, Nurse Valerie (Whoopi Goldberg), in one of the most emotionally resonant scenes of the film, declares Susanna is “not crazy” but instead “a lazy, self-indulgent little girl who is driving herself crazy.” At this point, viewers are likely nodding their heads. Certainly, we’ve all met that girl. Or maybe we are that girl. 

Winona Ryder as Susanna Kaysen in Girl, Interrupted
Thankfully, Girl, Interrupted decidedly positions itself as not a love story. In fact, all of Susanna’s romantic interests are purely sexual, involving little emotion, a ”symptom” that gets her labeled as a borderline in the first place. Instead, Girl, Interrupted explores a young woman’s coming of age as she struggles in an uncertain world, meditates upon what it really means to be “mentally ill,” and, ultimately, discovers her sense of self. The equation is simple: the almost all-female cast + a story of female self-discovery = a feminist victory in a male-dominated Hollywood, right?

Well, yes and no.

At its core, Girl, Interrupted strives to be a feminist film. However, I find the film’s representations of “mad women” problematic, particularly the ways in which mental illness becomes so closely linked with eroticized otherness. And here is where the film’s deep ambivalence comes into play: it attempts to dispel the myth of what it means to be a mentally ill woman, while at the same time reinforcing cultural stereotypes that portray mentally ill women as hypersexual, dangerous, amoral, or inherently unfeminine. In the end, Girl, Interrupted posits mental illness as a choice from which one, like Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, can always return.

As Susanna checks into Claymore, she catches a glimpse of her doctor’s case notes that indicate her “promiscuous” tendencies as one symptom of her ailment. Yes, she had an affair with a married man, and, yes, she slept with the brother of one of her classmates; she loves neither of these men. At one point Susanna notes, “What kind of sex isn’t casual?” Certainly, her disavowal of love as a necessary component of sex is a feminist gesture. In the free-loving 60s, that sweeping diagnosis—promiscuity—encompassed nearly every rally, march, or peace protest in America, or at least modern-day viewers might suspect from the comfort of our viewing couches.

The women of Girl, Interrupted
Yet, her “promiscuity” continues, even at Claymore where Susanna engages in a physical relationship with a doting orderly. When challenged on this point by her therapist, Susanna becomes indignant, and rightly so. She argues, “How many guys would a girl have to sleep with to be considered promiscuous? Three, four, ten? How many girls would a guy have to sleep with? Fifteen? Forty? A hundred and nine?” Feminists across America high five each other.

At several junctures, such as this one, Girl, Interrupted positions itself firmly as a feminist film, shattering assumptions that there exists one “proper” behavior for women. We sympathize with Susanna and with her plight against The Man, against a gendered, cultural understanding of what is and is not appropriate sexual behavior for a young woman. In many ways, her “illness” manifests itself in the typical American teenage coming-of-age way. Susanna asks herself questions we all have asked, at one time or another: Where do I fit in? Who am I? What do I value?

Throughout the film, Susanna’s character works to unravel stereotypes about what it means to be a woman with a mental illness: she’s beautiful; she’s smart; she’s never threatening. She’s much like any other young woman as we watch her negotiate friendships, write in her journal, sneak out at night with her friends, smoke cigarettes, and, generally, protest authority. In most ways, she’s an ordinary girl, just like you might find on the “outside.” The viewer begins to question if Susanna even really needs to be at Claymore in the first place.

Susanna Kaysen (Winona Ryder) and Nurse Valerie (Whoopi Goldberg)
Yet, if Girl, Interrupted creates a binary with Susanna on one side, dismantling preconceived notions about mental illness and female sexuality, on the other side lies Lisa, who reinforces cultural narratives about “crazy bitches.” Let’s face it: Lisa is the real villain of the movie, a sociopath with no real moral compass, a young woman who is manipulative and unnervingly magnetic all at once. The moment she enters the film, returning from one of her many attempted escapes, we’re to understand that she’s a threat. She pins Susanna in the corner of her room shouting at her, demanding to know where her friend Jamie had gone, until she is physically restrained.

However, like many “crazy bitches” of cinema (Nina Sayers in Black Swan, Alex Forrest in Fatal Attraction) she exudes sexuality and charisma, deepened only by her sense of danger. As Susanna and Lisa spend time together, their growing friendship feels more like a courtship. Susanna herself can’t help but be drawn in by those pouty lips, her playfulness, her rabble rousing and bravado. At one point, as Susanna and Lisa are on the lam from Claymore, the two share a kiss. The moment is innocent enough, but the implications become clear. Lisa represents the eroticized other, the taboo, the forbidden, dark and amoral mad woman.

Angelina Jolie in her Oscar-winning role as Lisa in Girl, Interrupted
This stereotype becomes clearer a few moments later, in a pivotal scene of the film, when Lisa and Susanna crash at the apartment of Daisy, who has been newly released from Claymore. Susanna sits mute as Lisa taunts Daisy, exposing her deepest vulnerabilities. Lisa points out the cuts on Daisy’s arm, accuses Daisy of enjoying the sexual abuses of her father: “Everyone knows your father fucks you, what they don’t know is that you like it.” Lisa speaks the unspeakable, and Susanna watches doe-eyed, stunned at Lisa’s capacity for cruelty. The next morning, upon witnessing Daisy’s limp and lifeless body—she hanged herself—Lisa calls her an idiot, then picks her pocket for cash. Lisa, Susanna finally learns, has no capacity for emotion, no nurturing feelings at all. If anything makes her less than human—less than woman—it is this fact.
This scene in the movie, arguably the most important one, pits Lisa and Susanna against each other. But it also pits “good” against “evil,” and “feminine” against “unfeminine,” which is tied up in representations of mental illness. Susanna is faced with a choice: continue life with Lisa, a life that will certainly lead to chaos and casual sex and countercultural adventures, or return to Claymore to truly invest in her recovery. It’s a choice.
Brittany Murphy as Daisy in Girl, Interrupted
But is mental illness always a choice? And if so, between what and what?

Here’s a statistic: nearly 1 in 5 Americans suffers from mental illness of some sort, and a majority of these cases are women. This alarming number becomes even more important when recognizing that the film industry plays an important role in shaping public or cultural perception. In light of this, I wonder how detrimental a film such as Girl, Interrupted might be when questioning the legitimacy of mental illness and perpetuating stereotypes of those who suffer from these invisible diseases. Susanna’s renewed commitment to get better situates itself as a choice, and not necessarily one between health and illness or between one treatment and another. Instead, Susanna’s choice is oddly contingent upon morality, what’s right and wrong. Will she choose to return to Claymore? Or will she tread the darker path, represented by the villainous Lisa?

Which brings us back to Nurse Valerie’s diagnoses that Susanna is “not crazy” but, instead, “a lazy, self-indulgent little girl who is driving herself crazy.” The idea that Susanna is not really sick—that her invisible illness is a complete manifestation of her imagination or her culture—may be true. But it may be equally true that she, and young girls like her, are not just lazy and self-indulgent. That no amount of “trying harder” or “choosing to be well” necessarily helps, without the proper intervention. The movie wants to suggest that, yes, Susanna is a little confused, uncertain, depressed, even, but at least she doesn’t burn her face, or hide chicken bones under her bed, or require the padded room for her outbursts. At least she’s not crazy-crazy. Not like “them.” Girl, Interrupted paints a world where mental illness is not an invisible illness. Invisibility means conformity means health, and only when one adapts more culturally-sanctioned “moral” or “feminine” behavior will she be considered well again.

Susanna (Winona Ryder) and Lisa (Angelina Jolie) share a kiss
I wonder, too, why films depicting men with mental illness rarely cast their subjects in the same light. Films like A Beautiful Mind, or One Flew Over the Cuckcoo’s Nest, for example, present their flawed heroes as just that: heroes. Sure, these flawed fellows need treatment, but they are brilliant, misunderstood, complicated men. They are sympathetic precisely because of their mental states, not despite them. Viewers are never lead to question the sexuality, morality, or masculinity of these leading men. Moreover, films such as these don’t portray mental illness as a choice or a course of action, but as a circumstance. Hollywood afflicts male protagonists with insanity as a cross to bear, which makes them all the more heroic.

Susanna’s heroism, however, comes distinctly from her choice to overcome her diagnosis. To be fair, in real life, choice does play a legitimate aspect in the treatment of diseases. One can choose to be in treatment, or not to be. However, Susanna doesn’t simply learn to live with her personality disorder, she defeats it entirely. Toward the end of the film, the TV in Claymore’s living room flashes a scene from The Wizard of Oz as Glenda the Good Witch says, “You’ve always had the power to go back home.” Here, the film’s message reveals itself clearly: the power of recovery has always been with Susanna. 

Angelina Jolie and Winona Ryder in Girl, Interrupted
Susanna’s declared “recovered” by her doctors and ultimately joins the ranks of the “outside” world where she now belongs. It’s fitting that her penultimate scene at Claymore shows her applying make-up to look more suitably feminine. Her final act at Claymore is to polish the nails of a now drugged and restrained Lisa. “I’m not really dead,” Lisa says—and so the movie leaves us with a glimmer of hope that she, too, can choose to go home. If only all women could be cured of mental illnesses by clicking their heels together three times, painting on some Cotton Candy No. 7—and believing.

Viewers should be happy for Susanna, and I think most root for her. I know I do. But even as she’s being driven away from Claymore in the final scene, I wonder if she, herself, downplays the magnitude of the year she’s just spent under professional care. Perhaps she’s doing this because in the “outside” world, it’s still not okay to talk about such things or to admit to a mental illness without suffering stigmatization, or sideway glances, or nervous, sympathetic looks. 

Lisa (Angelina Jolie) confronts Susanna (Winona Ryder) on her first day at Claymore
She notes, “Being crazy isn’t being broken or swallowing a dark secret. It’s you or me, amplified.” That’s a nice thought. Mental illness is a reality for many, a part of their very composition, what makes many individuals unique, or creative, or sensitive. But the problem in the film—just like the problem in our real world, our post-Adam Lanza world—is that we must find ways to have conversations about mental illness, and not just within the confines of hospitals or therapy rooms. In real life. In the “outside” world. Susanna calls herself a “girl, interrupted,” and not a girl with a history of mental illness. What might the need for this euphemism say about the world that she’s rejoining? If 20% of Americans suffer from mental illness, a majority of these women, this issue is not just a cultural problem, but a feminist one.

Sarah Domet is the author of 90 Days to Your Novel. She writes fiction and nonfiction and currently teaches at Georgia Southern University.

In The Hardest Of Moments, Susanne Bier Proves That "Love Is All You Need"

Love Is All You Need film poster.

Amongst the lush beautiful paradise of scenic Italy, a wedding is underway in Oscar-winner Susanne Bier’s Love Is All You Need or as the original title translates--The Bald Hairdresser.
Danish, English, and Italian languages weave a trilingual story about Ida, a mother of two who is excited about her daughter’s upcoming nuptials whilst in the throes of battling cancer. As a hairdresser, she is a caretaker catering to styling client heads, but hides hair loss obtained from chemotherapy treatments underneath a sleek blond wig.
Director/co-writer Susanne Bier with Pierce Brosnan (Phillip) and Trine Dyrholm (Ida).

In a world where hair reigns supreme, when a woman known for long locks makes headlines just for getting a haircut, Bier sheds a light on this important commodity for a woman’s beauty–often at the top of the hierarchy because strands identify, individualize, and tantalize the male gaze. It calls to mind the short film at Lunafest where Kim, a bold, unafraid cancer patient, gets a henna tattoo on her bald head … or the empowered alopecia survivor, Sheila Bridges in Good Hair who proudly prefers staying away from wigs and weaves. Ida’s blond wig protects her in a traditional way from pity or scrutiny, and it doesn’t make her ugly or insecure. Just human. She could have easily quit her hair styling profession but chose to continue doing what made her happy. However, harrowing strength and dignity cannot save her from Leif, her husband who sexes it up on the couch with his young assistant, Thilde–a woman their daughter’s age–who he’s been having an affair with for quite a while, even during Ida’s screenings and treatments!
Ida (Trine Dyrholm) isn’t pleased to see Thilde (Christiane Schaumburg-Müller) at her daughter’s wedding party and for good reason.

As Ida makes way to Italy alone, at the airport, her car accidentally encounters the grouchy, rich fruit-growing widower, Phillip, who just so happens to be the father of her daughter’s fiancé. He yells angrily at her, but she gives right back calling him “stupid and mean” and goes as far as asking, “Why would anyone work for you?” Although Ida’s day worsens when her suitcase is lost, she still doesn’t seem upset or unnerved. Just calm and optimistic. Phillip shares his background story with Ida–that his wife was killed in a winter car accident–and he still holds bitterness that grows even as the wedding is taking place where he once lived with her. Ida and Phillip’s relationship, which started off as sour as his orchard lemons, eventually warms into a blossomed camaraderie.

Their relationship deepens after one scene of raw poignancy. Phillip sees Ida swimming completely naked and free, and immediately comes to her “aide.” But she doesn’t need rescue from the sea. Out of the water, starkly bare, bald with breasts noticeably slashed and scarred, it is he who cannot stop eying her head to toe. From head to toe, he simply gazes everywhere. Her discomfort at his staring speaks to the audience. It is invasive and rude and even as she tells him to turn around so that she could put back on her clothes, he still takes a glimpse. It isn’t a lust induced fixation, but a quiet, serene moment cloaked in an honest portrait of struggling with the guttural shame cancer brings to a woman’s body and a man who doesn’t see the disease.

Mother and daughter: Ida (Trine Dyrholm) and Astrid (Molly Blixt Egelind).

Astrid, Ida’s daughter, has a lot to stress about. She is to marry Patrick and is in love with him, but she doesn’t think that he loves her because they haven’t had sex. Their kisses are short and sweet, but Patrick does seem to lack a real genuine ardor for her. Yes, he obviously cares a great deal, but their relationship is missing something. His secrets are especially clear in the moment wine stains Astrid’s dress and he rubs at it simultaneously with another man–Alessandro, who has a crush on him. Camera focuses heavily on those two hands working vigorously against this mar near Astrid’s genitalia; showcasing not her sexuality, but that of the two men whose lust for each other sparks.

Three’s a crowd for Alessandro (Ciro Petrone), Astrid (Molly Blixt Egelind), and Patrick (Sebastian Jessen).
Astrid is devastated by the treacherous events that cause an extravagant wedding not to take place, but thanks to Ida, her pain can be healed over time. Love is a thread that ties together mother and daughter, lacing forth a strength that cannot be severed. Leif’s affair and Patrick’s astonishing revelations are occurrences never expected to happen in these women’s worlds, but they did. It is only believable that Ida and Astrid turn to each other for a comforting bond that is always constant, nonjudgmental, and supportive. That when pain crashes down, it is best to seek solace in arms that will hold and nurture–what Ida brings to her daughter as they leave the saddened events of Italy behind them.

Leif, on the other hand, is such a callous bastard and way too many men share his behavioral traits. He has the audacity to bring Thilde to the wedding, and she has the nerve to introduce herself to all the guests as his fiancée. It’s funny that their son questions Thilde on why she is with Leif when the same could be asked of Ida–too strong of a character to be with such a self-centered coward. Once Ida comes out to the wedding party in an alluring red dress and dances with Phillip, Leif gets rid of Thilde and dances with his wife, seeming to be awakened by desire. Ida returns home with him, but her heart is in Italy.

Mother (Trine Dyrholm) and daughter (Molly Blixt Egelind) hugging it out. 

Bier’s co-writing and direction effort is a treat for women, and performance-wise, Trine Dyrholm takes the cake by rendering a softened beauty in Ida. Dyrholm brings forth a brave, spirited portrayal that hurls cancer’s cruelty into a darkened shadow and lets all the lights of life’s little joys come right inside to bring sunshine. What a powerful performance! Also Paprika Steen brings hilarious delight as Phillip’s horrible, overly talkative sister-in-law, Benedikte, who mistakenly thinks she has a chance with Phillip, but continually berates and shames her teenage daughter (including horrendous fat shaming) and mocks Ida. It only serves her right to get thrown up on and ridiculed by Phillip! It’s wonderful to note that Ida ignored Benedikte’s malicious comments or Thilde’s childish antics. Life is simply too short to wallow in shallow manners, and Ida simply continues to stride onward.
Ida (Trine Dyrholm) in the infamous red dress dances with Phillip (Pierce Brosnan).

At the film’s tranquil end, after another doctor’s visit, Ida finally leaves Leif with only her purse in hand, travels back to Phillip, and hands him over the envelope with her results from a lump testing. They share a tender, passionate kiss and open it together–leaving the conclusions to them alone. The audience doesn’t need to see how much time Ida has left.

Does Hollywood Revolve Around Men? ‘One Man’ Video Says Yes

Deathwish‘s Charles Bronson, doing what dudes do

Is Hollywood really churning out the same movies, with the same stories over and over, revolving around men?? Yes, yes and yes. Geez, it’s called diversity, Hollywood. 

This “One Man” movie trailer supercut video posted on Upworthy (and sent to us by the fabulous writer Soraya Chemaly…thanks, Soraya!) splices together clips from trailers containing voiceovers. Watch it…

…and you’ll notice a disturbing trend. 
It’s all about THE MEN!!! 
Men saving the world. Men doing what no one else can. Men, men, men. Oh yeah, and it’s almost exclusively white men. Sure, two women do make an appearance as the focus of the narrator — “one reporter” and “one woman,” aka Linda Fiorentina … in one frame holding panties. But in that sea of men, seeing only two women doesn’t really cut it. Men are not the only ones whose stories are worth telling. They’re not the only ones making a difference or saving the world. But you’d never know it.
Writing about the video, Joseph Lamour said, “This montage of movie trailers may seem like just another funny supercut, but to me it plays like a highlight reel for what’s wrong with American cinema.”
I thought it was a bit strange that all the movies in this video are about 20 years old or older. But has that much really changed? Of the top 250 grossing films in the U.S. in 2012, 9% were directed by women and 15% of the scripts were written by women. Of the top 250 films, women comprise 18% of all directors, executive producers, producers, writers, cinematographers, and editors. Only 33% of speaking roles in movies belong to women.
You might also be thinking, “But these are just trailers. Who cares about the trailers??” But movie trailers, just like advertising in general, affect us. As I’ve written before about the prevalent sexism with Super Bowl ads: “Most people think they can ignore ads or that marketing is harmless. But advertisements splatter across billboards, buses, magazines, TV, radio and the internet. In Jean Kilbourne’s groundbreaking book Can’t Buy My Love: How Advertising Changes the Way We Think and Feel, she argues sexist and misogynistic imagery bombards us, inundating our senses even on a subconscious level. Whether we realize it or not, ads impact our choices and views.”

When we see movie after movie, ad after ad, revolving around men, it implies and reinforces the message that women don’t matter as much as men.

We talk A LOT at Bitch Flicks about the need for more women in film. More female protagonists, heroes, anti-heroes and villains. More films passing the Bechdel Test. More films focusing on mothers and daughters, sisters and female friendships. More female directors and screenwriters. More women of color. More queer women. More women of different sizes, ages, socioeconomic statuses, personalities, etc, etc, etc. More, more, more. We desperately need more.

Listen up, Hollywood. We’re tired of the same shit. We want to see more of all of our stories reflected on-screen. Not just white dudes.

When Opportunity Knocks

Shooting Fog City
This is a guest post by Liz O’Neal.

I am not a traditional filmmaker, and to be honest, I was not an experienced filmmaker until I produced Fog City. I moved to SF a year ago to manage a video studio – from operations and client services and video production — for a large corporation. At one of those too-large-and-somewhat-dull conferences that we’ve all been to, I serendipitously stumbled upon the Seed&Spark team. They were amazing to meet, and within several days of meeting Liam Brady, we knew that we wanted to work together. He brought the creative energy, and I brought the focus and project management.

Liam and I have been on an extraordinary journey together.

Our first Seed&Spark campaign went toward pre-production. In the first 30 days, we raised $6K from our friends and family members; it’s hard for them to say no! The development was moving along as planned. We used the funds carefully, printing postcards and hosting local script workshops.

When it came time to create the production budget for our second campaign, the goal was much larger: $50K.

On the set of Fog City

Quickly realizing that the budget and timeline were incompatible with each other – an important lesson that should be learned by all aspiring filmmakers – we did what no filmmaker should do when crowdfunding: in order to stay on schedule, we slashed our budget without fully considering the consequences. The final numbers: we raised $32K in 30 days, but inevitably our film still cost us close to $50K. We are now backfilling with personal funds and hoping to raise enough in our next campaign to reconcile the difference.

To gain followers for our crowdfunding campaign, I carefully developed a social calendar – tweets, Facebook posts, video updates – to include all-things SF, baseball and war veterans. I assumed that we could rally support through hash tags and local associations but severely underestimated how challenging it was to translate support into donations (we needed $1K per day).

Halfway through our campaign, we hadn’t even hit 30%. I went into full-blown panic mode. Why hadn’t I organized a live auction or a fundraising softball tournament? The clock was ticking, and I was running out of options. Through a series of desperate tweets, Facebook posts and personal phone calls to friends and family members who had “always wanted to support our film” but hadn’t yet, we gained some late momentum and, thankfully, finished the campaign with enough funds to shoot the film. Phew.

I learned that you need to spend your money wisely, and some things are worth splurging on. For example, we flew a steadicam operator and his gear out from NYC because he had worked with our crew before, and I was told he was a rockstar – I was hesitant to spend the money on this, but he made all the difference in the caliber of our film.

As a student project, we were fortunate enough to have insurance from NYU and were given student rates for all of our locations. NYU wanted us to have signed location agreements before they would issue any insurance, and our SF locations wouldn’t consider signing any forms without seeing proof of insurance – I ended up in an endless cycle of Catch 22 with 8 locations. Several emails and phone calls later, NYU begrudgingly issued insurance on the promise of location agreements ASAP.

Still from Fog City

The most bizarre part about this is that we received insurance that expired on July 1st, 2013 (our shoot was June 28 – July 8); we learned that NYU’s policy expires over the summer and was being renewed in the middle of our shoot – a strange and awful coincidence that has probably never happened to anyone else because students tend to shoot during the year. So now, I have void insurance for more than half of my shoot, my locations will not give me permits, and the rental houses will not rent us equipment. One of our NYU team members sent a very stern, yet pleading, email to the insurance department explaining that they were single handedly derailing our entire production and that they needed to help us. Meanwhile, I scrambled to take out my own insurance policies for each location and rental house (something we did not have the budget for). 48 hours before we were supposed to start shooting, we were notified that NYU had taken out temporary insurance policies from another company to backfill our gap. My rental houses and locations were confused by the hubbub but accepted the dual insurance policies.

We survived a series of crises throughout our 8 day shoot: our Red Epic broke on Day 1 and had to be replaced overnight – pushing our entire schedule and robbing us of a day off on July 4th. I had to let go of a crew member, and we were nearly kicked off location for not following the location agreement (note: don’t drink bottled beer on a beach!). With each unexpected incident, I had to be a calm and confident leader. There were times that I panicked in front of crew members, but I quickly realized that spreading my anxiety was damaging and counterproductive.

By the end of the week, I had learned to take a deep breath and take my triage center (i.e. laptop and cell phone) to another room. I would have private conversations with one person who could help, without letting everyone know that we had a big problem on our hands; isolating the chaos is just as important as finding the solution. I learned that being a producer is like being a perpetual problem solver; it’s never easy but always necessary. I’m happy and proud to say that we wrapped last week and have stunning footage that I couldn’t be more proud of.

Filmmaker Liz O’Neal

I now know that things happen for a reason. It’s important to trust your gut, to seize every great opportunity, and to know that you can, and will, overcome any obstacle that comes in the way of your film. Liam and I will soon begin phase two of our journey: fundraising for post-production and festival submissions. I will be better prepared for fundraising this time and can’t wait to see our final product in the fall.

Liz O’Neal is a Connecticut raised Syracuse Grad living in San Francisco. She recently accepted the role of Creative Director at Six Spoke Media and is in post-production for her first short film, Fog City. To find out more about the film, please visit http://www.seedandspark.com/studio/fog-city and follower her @LizONeal.

2013 Emmy Nominations: Get Your Feminist Commentary Here!

Outstanding Comedy Series

30 Rock (NBC): “Goodbye Forever, 30 Rock“ by Max Thornton

The Big Bang Theory (CBS): “The Evolution of The Big Bang Theory“ by Rachel Redfern

Girls (HBO): “Girls and Sex and the City Both Handle Abortion With Humor” by Megan Kearns

Louie (FX): “Listening and the Art of Good Storytelling in Louis C.K.’s Louie“ by Leigh Kolb

Modern Family (ABC): “‘Pregnancy Brain’ in Sitcoms” by Lady T

Veep (HBO): “Political Humor and Humanity in HBO’s Veep“ by Rachel Redfern

Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series

Jason Bateman, Arrested Development: “Arrested Development‘s Mancession: Economic and Gender Meltdowns in Season 4″ by Leigh Kolb

Jim Parsons, The Big Bang Theory: “Big Bang Bust” by Melissa McEwan

Matt LeBlanc, Episodes

Don Cheadle, House of Lies

Louis C.K., Louie

Alec Baldwin, 30 Rock: “The Casual Feminism of 30 Rock“ by Peggy Cooke

Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series

Laura Dern, Enlightened

Lena Dunham, Girls: “Let’s All Take a Deep Breath and Calm the Fuck Down About Lena Dunham” by Stephanie Rogers

Edie Falco, Nurse Jackie: “Nurse Jackie as Feminist Id?” by Natalie Wilson

Amy Poehler, Parks and Recreation: “Why We Need Leslie Knope and What Her Election on Parks and Rec Means for Women and Girls” by Megan Kearns

Tina Fey, 30 Rock: “Liz Lemon: The Every Woman of Prime Time” by Lisa Mathews

Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Veep

Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series

Adam Driver, Girls

Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Modern Family

Ed O’Neill, Modern Family

Ty Burrell, Modern Family

Bill Hader, Saturday Night Live

Tony Hale, Veep

Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series

Mayim Bialik, The Big Bang Theory

Jane Lynch, Glee: “Glee!” by Cali Loria

Sofia Vergara, Modern Family

Julie Bowen, Modern Family

Merritt Wever, Nurse Jackie

Jane Krakowski, 30 Rock: “Jane Krakowski and the Dedicated Ignorance of Jenna Maroney” by Kyle Sanders

Anna Chlumsky, Veep

Outstanding Drama Series

Breaking Bad (AMC): “‘Yo Bitch’: The Complicated Feminism of Breaking Bad“ by Leigh Kolb

Downton Abbey (PBS): “A Gilded Cage: A Feminist Critique of the Downton Abbey Christmas Special” by Amanda Civitello

Game of Thrones (HBO): “Gratuitous Nudity and Complex Female Characters in Game of Thrones“ by Lady T

Homeland (Showtime): “Homeland‘s Carrie Mathison: A Pulsing Beat of Jazz and ‘Crazy Genius” by Leigh Kolb

House of Cards (Netflix): “The Complex, Unlikable Women of House of Cards: Daddy Issues, Menopause and Female Power” by Leigh Kolb

Mad Men (AMC): “Mad Men: Gender, Race, and the Death Knell of White Patriarchy” by Leigh Kolb

Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series

Bryan Cranston, Breaking Bad: “Seeking the Alpha in Breaking Bad and Sons of Anarchy“ by Rachel Redfern

Hugh Bonneville, Downton Abbey

Damian Lewis, Homeland

Kevin Spacey, House of Cards

Jon Hamm, Mad Men: “Hey, Brian McGreevy: Vampire Pam Beats Don Draper Any Day” by Tami Winfrey Harris

Jeff Daniels, The Newsroom: “The Newsroom: Misogyny 2.0″ by Leigh Kolb

Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series

Vera Farmiga, Bates Motel

Michelle Dockery, Downton Abbey

Claire Danes, Homeland: “Homeland‘s Carrie Mathison” by Cali Loria

Robin Wright, House of Cards: “Claire Underwood: The Queen Bee on House of Cards“ by
Amanda Rodriguez

Elisabeth Moss, Mad Men: “Mad Men and the Role of Nostalgia” by Amber Leab

Connie Britton, Nashville: “Quote of the Day: Screenwriter/Director Callie Khouri Weighs In on How TV Is Friendlier to Women” by Leigh Kolb

Kerry Washington, Scandal: “Mammy, Sapphire, or Jezebel, Olivia Pope Is Not: A Review of Scandal“ by Atima Omara-Alwala 

Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series

Bobby Cannavale, Boardwalk Empire: “Boardwalk Empire: Margaret Thompson, Margaret Sanger, and the Cultural Commentary of Historical Fiction” by Leigh Kolb

Jonathan Banks, Breaking Bad

Aaron Paul, Breaking Bad

Jim Carter, Downton Abbey

Peter Dinklage, Game of Thrones: “The Occasional Purposeful Nudity on Game of Thrones“ by Lady T

Mandy Patinkin, Homeland

Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series

Anna Gunn, Breaking Bad

Maggie Smith, Downton Abbey

Emilia Clarke, Game of Thrones: “The Mother of Dragons is Taking Down the Patriarchy” by Megan Kearns

Christine Baranski, The Good Wife: “So, Is There Racial Bias on The Good Wife?” by Melanie Wanga

Morena Baccarin, Homeland

Christina Hendricks, Mad Men: “Is Mad Men the Most Feminist Show on TV?” by Megan Kearns

Outstanding Miniseries or Movie
 
American Horror Story: Asylum (FX): “‘That Crazy Bitch’: Women and Mental Illness Tropes in Horror” by Megan Kearns

Behind the Candelabra (HBO)

The Bible (History)

Phil Spector (HBO)

Political Animals (USA)

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

Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie

Michael Douglas, Behind the Candelabra

Matt Damon, Behind the Candelabra

Toby Jones, The Girl: “Too Many Hitchcocks” by Robin Hitchcock

Benedict Cumberbatch, Parade’s End

Al Pacino, Phil Spector

Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie

Jessica Lange, American Horror Story: Asylum

Laura Linney, The Big C: Hereafter

Helen Mirren, Phil Spector

Sigourney Weaver, Political Animals

Elisabeth Moss, Top of the Lake

Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie

James Cromwell, American Horror Story: Asylum

Zachary Quinto, American Horror Story: Asylum

Scott Bakula, Behind the Candelabra

John Benjamin Hickey, The Big C: Hereafter

Peter Mullan, Top of the Lake

Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie

Sarah Paulson, American Horror Story: Asylum

Imelda Staunton, The Girl

Ellen Burstyn, Political Animals

Charlotte Rampling, Restless

Alfre Woodard, Steel Magnolias

Outstanding Variety Series

The Colbert Report (Comedy Central)

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (Comedy Central): “YouTube Break: Too Many Dicks on The Daily Show“ by Amber Leab

Jimmy Kimmel Live (ABC)

Late Night With Jimmy Fallon (NBC)

Real Time with Bill Maher (HBO)

Saturday Night Live (NBC)

Outstanding Host for a Reality or Reality-Competition Program

Ryan Seacrest, American Idol

Betty White, Betty White’s Off Their Rockers

Tom Bergeron, Dancing with the Stars

Heidi Klum and Tim Gunn, Project Runway

Cat Deeley, So You Think You Can Dance

Anthony Bourdain, The Taste

Outstanding Reality-Competition Program

The Amazing Race (CBS)

Dancing with the Stars (ABC)

Project Runway (Lifetime)

So You Think You Can Dance (Fox)

Top Chef (Bravo)

The Voice (NBC)

Outstanding Reality Program

Antiques Roadshow (PBS)

Deadliest Catch (Discovery Channel)

Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives (Food Network)

MythBusters (Discovery Channel)

Shark Tank (ABC)

Undercover Boss (CBS)

Outstanding Animated Program

Bob’s Burgers (Fox)

Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness (Nickelodeon)

Regular Show (Cartoon Network)

The Simpsons: “Bart Simpson’s Feminine Side” by Lady T

South Park

Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series

Bob Newhart, The Big Bang Theory

Nathan Lane, Modern Family

Bobby Cannavale, Nurse Jackie

Louis C.K., Saturday Night Live

Justin Timberlake, Saturday Night Live

Will Forte, 30 Rock


Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series

Molly Shannon, Enlightened

Dot-Marie Jones, Glee

Melissa Leo, Louie

Melissa McCarthy, Saturday Night Live

Kristen Wiig, Saturday Night Live

Elaine Stritch, 30 Rock

Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series

Nathan Lane, The Good Wife

Michael J. Fox, The Good Wife

Rupert Friend, Homeland

Robert Morse, Mad Men

Harry Hamlin, Mad Men

Dan Bucatinsky, Scandal

Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series

Margo Martindale, The Americans

Diana Rigg, Game of Thrones

Carrie Preston, The Good Wife

Linda Cardellini, Mad Men

Jane Fonda, The Newsroom

Joan Cusack, Shameless

Cool Robots, Bad-Ass Monsters and Disappointment in ‘Pacific Rim’

Pacific Rim movie poster.


Written by Leigh Kolb

Spoilers ahead!

The theme at the core of Pacific Rim is that collaboration and trust lead to success. And while the sweeping visuals of human-team-led robots (Jeagers) fighting with ocean monster-aliens (Kaiju) left me surprisingly entertained and satisfied, the dialogue and plot relied heavily on tired tropes.
Pacific Rim, directed and co-written by Guillermo del Toro, treads lightly around commentary on humans’ environmental abuse of Earth and allowing women in combat roles, but the bulk of the plot relies on trope after trope to support the larger-than-life action sequences between the Jaegers and Kaiju.
Overall, the film works, and it continues to get great reviews; however, it could have worked so much better had the writers tried a little harder to stay away from clichés.
The film takes place just a decade in the future, in a world that’s been rocked and partially destroyed by the Kaiju coming from the depths of the Pacific Ocean and attacking cities. The international government is halting the Jaeger program (which puts two pilots–who must share a “neural handshake” mind-meld–in the driver’s seat of an enormous robot), and the crew has one more opportunity to fight the Kaiju. Marshall Stacker Pentecost (Idris Elba) leads a crew that includes his hand-picked choice of Raleigh Becket (Charlie Hunnam) and, eventually, Mako Mori (Rinko Kikuchi).
Stacker Pentecost.
Each of these three characters has an emotional weight–Pentecost feels protective of and responsible for Mori (he rescued and adopted her when her family was killed by the Kaiju), Becket lost his brother to the Kaiju while the two were mentally connected and fighting as co-pilots in a Jaeger, and Mori lost her family to the Kaiju when she was a little girl and has spent her life studying and training to become a pilot–and she’s “one of our brightest,” Pentecost says.
In his leadership position, however, Pentecost is concerned that Mori’s vengeance and difficult memories will impede her abilities to be a pilot, so he limits her career. Becket–who was literally in his brother’s mind when his brother was ripped from their Jaeger and brutally killed–and his memories are of no real concern to Pentecost.
Mako Mori.
While Pentecost’s fatherly feelings of protection and concern are justifiable, Becket is forceful in his desire to have Mori as a co-pilot. Her test numbers are strong and she fights him as an equal, which none of the male candidates could. With trepidation, Pentecost allows Mori to be Becket’s co-pilot.
The larger idea that women are “too emotional” for combat positions has been pervasive throughout the debate of women serving in combat positions (which the American military officially accepted in January 2013). Mori does get caught in her memories in her first major flight simulation with Becket; however, if she’s had hands all around her wringing about that possibility, certainly her anxiety over it would have helped push her over the edge. When anyone is told, over and over again, that she is fragile and emotional–chances are, some of that will be internalized.
Pentecost angrily dismisses her after her memory drift almost causes mass destruction (in fact, she asks to be dismissed, as she “respects” Pentecost, which she tells Becket is different than being “obedient”). Becket–after seeing her memories–tells Pentecost, “You rescued her, you raised her… now you’re holding her back.”
Mori is an equal to Becket.
Mori’s respect/obedience is troubling at times, but overall she is a strong female character. She’s excellent at what she does, and she is persistent at succeeding and meeting her goals. In fact, when Becket gets in a fight when another pilot is disrespectful to Mori, it feels odd and out of place–“nonsensical” and “unnecessary,” as Zev Chevat says at The Mary Sue. Otherwise, Becket is her greatest champion and leads with experience without being condescending.
And while the plot ebbs and flows in regard to its depiction of women (and I use that term broadly–Mori is really the only female character with lines), the film comes close to satisfying my desire for diversity and empowered female roles, but then it quickly regresses into tired tropes.
Becket is happy to see Mori is his co-pilot.
Becket seems to be the protagonist (and I almost thought at the beginning that there would be some interesting commentary on masculinity and military culture–from the monstrous masculine robots to the fact that Becket has to work in a dangerous menial construction job before being reassigned), but Mori is more fully developed, in terms of her memories and motivations. The two share a clear bond, and whether or not it’s a romantic one depends on the viewer (del Toro wasn’t totally sure, either).
At the end (after Pentecost has figured out that they need Mori and he asks her to “protect him”), Becket and Mori travel into the depths of the Pacific to Save Humanity. Once they get there to drop the bomb, their oxygen levels plummet and Becket tells Mori to retreat into a protective pod so he can drop the bomb. “I can finish this alone,” he says, giving her his oxygen.
So he does. His motivations are pure, but it still seems like a letdown to the viewer after all that Mori has accomplished. The final blow that does, indeed, Save Humanity, is dropped by our white male protagonist (the black man has sacrificed himself, and the Asian woman is protected in a little bubble).

 

I would have loved to at least see Mori giving Becket CPR to save him in the aftermath (instead of him just waking up), or something to level the heroism. Her role feels diminished at the end.
Becket and Mori are both heroes, but Becket is the default protagonist.
I don’t need a female protagonist in every film. However, when a film like this focuses on and develops the female lead without giving her the satisfaction of being a clear hero, something feels off. Either more needed to be done with Becket’s emotional baggage, or less with Mori’s. As it stands, the film perpetuated the notion that women’s emotions could be a hindrance in combat, and men’s emotions translate to strength in battle. Stuffing Mori into a pod at the climax of the film is symbolic of trying to shoo women back into their protected spaces so they don’t fly too close to the sun. I don’t think Becket as a character would have approved of that idea, nor would del Toro, probably. But that scene certainly left that taste in the viewer’s mouth–let the white guy finish the job!

I can’t stress enough how entertaining and well-done the visuals of this film are–and again, that’s coming from someone who did not expect to feel exhilarated while watching monsters fight robots. The lightly developed characters and don’t-blink-or-you’ll-miss-it female empowerment, however, left much to be desired. And while the optimistic ending and refreshing lack of American exceptionalism reinforce the idea that everyone–different ethnicities, genders, and races–needs to work together to succeed, the lackluster writing and reliance on tropes still sends the message that women’s emotions can be a hindrance and that they need to be protected.

Mori is instrumental in helping save the world–but she doesn’t get to set off the bomb. She’s not fully treated as a damsel in distress, but she comes too close for comfort. Maybe, just maybe, next time Becket can retreat to the pod while Mori fries the enemy.

In addition to having an almost-not-really female protagonist, Pacific Rim really only caters to the female gaze, in terms of mild sexual objectification. I guess I am simply perpetuating this.

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

‘Splash’: A Feminist Tail Tale?

Splash movie poster
Written by Amanda Rodriguez
I was completely in LOVE with Ron Howard’s 1984 film Splash when I was little. I was then and continue now to be obsessed with mermaids. My child brain even thought that in the way hair color changes as you get older, I could become a mermaid as naturally as all that. It’s probably even why I like swimming so much. For a brief moment while doing the butterfly, I can pretend I’m Madison diving into the ocean. Too bad my dolphin kick is for shit.

Jeepers, mermaids are cool.

When I thought about reviewing Splash, I latched onto some of its more surprising, potentially feminist qualities, but upon rewatching it, I found it was a more deeply layered film than I’d realized. One feminist aspect of the movie is that Daryl Hannah’s mermaid Madison overcomes her inability to speak (as dictated by Hans Christian Anderson’s original The Little Mermaid story) through her remarkable intelligence and adaptability. 
We watch Madison fall in love with the human world, and her innocent joy humanizes a potentially exotic character while making the audience take another look at many of the things we take for granted: speaking, dancing, ice skating, the gritty beauty of urban landscapes,

“What’s that? Pretty.” – Madison

the satisfaction of a fine meal,

“That’s how we eat lobster where I come from.” – Madison

and the luxury of a hot bath.

For fins: Add water, table salt, and land-legged mermaid.

Most interestingly, though, Madison shows us how influential media is in our perception of who we are and how we fit into our culture. Her first word is “Bloomingdale’s.” A saleswoman (Madison’s first interaction with another woman) even says of an outfit Madison touches, “I couldn’t get one leg in there. My daughter, on the other hand, is lucky; she’s anorexic.” Madison’s first internalization is of society’s definition of femininity, and that internalization goes hand-in-hand with commerce and capitalism. She proceeds to spend the entire day at the mall, buying things, learning English, and aerobicizing with Richard Simmons, using the televisions at an electronics studio. Madison’s first day as a human woman shows us that media dispenses our culture’s expectations, and we must buy into them literally. 
Another feminist aspect of Splash is that she doesn’t give up her world to be with a man, though she nearly does (because Tom Hanks’ Allen Bauer character refuses to let her go gracefully, he instead yells at her and derides her). Instead, Allen joins her underwater paradise, and Madison gets to be herself, fishtail and all, which I find intriguing because they make much of her sexual appetite and of how frequently she and Allen have sex…don’t see that happening anymore in the usual way. 

Underwater makeout scene.

Most importantly on the feminist front, Madison repeatedly rescues Allen. He is generally the damsel in distress, a complete novice in her world where he faces drowning without her. She rescues him twice from drowning and once from his sickhearted loneliness coupled with the complicatedness of a human world where he never really belonged. From Allen’s youth, he’s shown as a romantic, a dreamer. His adult life and the obligations of being a small business owner have distracted him from the simplicity of love and his soulmate, Madison. Even the way he talks about marriage is all about sidestepping immigration regulations and blood tests; the institution itself is just another symbol of the bureaucracy regulating his life. In the end, Madison frees him from that when she gives him an underwater kiss that allows him to breathe and be “safe.” Yes, it’s problematic to have a woman symbolize a lifestyle or quality of life toward which a man gravitates at the end of the film. 

Madison and Allen look on at her underwater civilization.

Do I think the film was intentionally critiquing consumerism and the capitalist, American ideal of femininity? Probably not. Ultimately, the film showed us the wonders of our world through fresh eyes, while drawing attention to its glaring faults (for example, the military force that studies Madison against her will and plans to dissect her). Madison’s goal throughout the film may have been love and a man, but it’s important to note that she began her journey to land only planning to spend a single week with him, valuing her life and home under the sea more than love. Even in love, she was always the strong one, never angry, hurtful, or vindictive as Allen was. Madison is a heroine. She saves people. She’s kind, sensitive, intelligent, motivated, and strong enough to rescue a man or fend off military attackers in scuba gear. She is most definitely not the perfect female heroine, but our heroines should be flawed and can be vulnerable. Regardless, Madison is hands-down the best mermaid EVER depicted on-screen, and that makes her my hero.