Bitch Flicks – Page 164 – The radical notion that women like good movies

Wedding Week: ‘Father of the Bride’ Values Relationships With Women

Steve Martin and Kimberly Williams-Paisley in Father of the Bride

This is a guest review by Mab Ryan.

Father of the Bride (1991) is aptly named, as its focus is not on the wedding itself or the couple involved but on the titular character’s neuroses and journey to maturity. The wedding is the backdrop and the incident that provokes growth in the main character; it follows the wedding script in toto, so if you’re unfamiliar with any of the conventions of a traditional US wedding, this movie is a great primer. It’s an outrageously expensive, white wedding for thin, wealthy, white folks. People of color and gay men exist as support staff and magical queers. But the movie’s take on gender roles is constructive. Despite its focus on a male character, the movie is really about the affection a father feels for his daughter. He’s always recognized her as an individual person; now he must recognize her as an individual adult person.

The opening credits roll over champagne bubbles, flower petals, and the flotsam of a finished wedding strewn about the house, before honing in on George Banks (Steve Martin), the narrator and protagonist. He speaks directly to the camera, rubbing his weary feet, sitting in a floral armchair, surrounded by pale pink and ecru, a color scheme prevalent throughout the movie. Weddings are womanish, the décor screams. But that’s okay, because femininity is never portrayed negatively.

George narrates amidst girly wedding décor

George reminisces about his daughter Annie (Kimberly Williams), now 22, as a little girl, then refers darkly to her first signs of adolescence. He engages in a little gender essentialism, stating that boys are only after one thing because it’s the same thing he was after at their age; and the only thing worse than a daughter meeting the wrong guy is her meeting the right guy. That sentiment could come off as creepy if it wasn’t followed quickly with: “Because then you lose her.”

George hates change, he tells us, expounding lustfully on his comfortable, familiar life. Banks is not a misnomer; from my vantage point it’s difficult to tell the difference between middle class and rich, but this family falls somewhere in between. Annie has been studying architecture in Rome, George owns his own athletic shoe factory, and the family resides in a large home in Los Angeles. The factory is full of smiling (mostly) white people, so I guess we should think of George as a good guy, keeping jobs in America rather than opening sweat shops in Malaysia, though I don’t know that the filmmakers thought any more deeply about it than indulging in our shared fantasy that the materials we consume are the product of happy white labor, rather than deleterious off-shoring.

The Banks’ million-dollar house

Annie has come home with news she can’t quite figure out how to say. It is just so awkward to come out to your parents as … engaged … in a heterosexual relationship. Sorry non-heteros! If you want a movie that hits closer to home, feel free to imagine that fiancé Brian is a lady. Honestly, it feels like the movie was written about a gay couple, but they couldn’t sell it unless they changed one of the characters to a different gender. (I’m thinking it’s time for an update on this movie, but considering that Behind the Candelabra couldn’t land a theater release, I’m not holding out much hope.)

Despite cleaving to traditional wedding customs with sexist origins, the characters show signs of social awareness. “I thought you didn’t believe in marriage,” George says to Annie, “I thought it meant that a woman lost her identity.” He’s obviously repeating a line of thought she originated. Annie’s feelings have evolved to accept an egalitarian marriage, which is fine. It’s great that she’s thinking about this stuff and that she’s developed in an environment supportive of her aspirations and self-worth.

Supportiveness has its limits, apparently. After a fight in which George declares that Annie is not getting married and that’s final, the two make peace over a game of basketball. As a girl who grew up shooting hoops, it is this scene, more than any other, that I find redemptive of George. Rather than treat sports as a “boy thing,” George has obviously spent years playing with his daughter. Each performs a goofy dance when they score a goal, and slow-mo high fives are de rigueur. It feels real and comfortable.

Annie and George come together by facing off in basketball

Brian scores a good first impression with Annie’s mother Nina (Diane Keaton) when he declares his desire to marry and produce children and grandchildren. Nina is predictably thrilled with his promise to follow a normative script. Annie points out that he’s willing to move wherever her career takes her. Score one, Brian.

If you think the Banks are well off, wait ‘til you meet the new in-laws in Bel-Air. “We could have parked our whole house in the foyer,” George narrates. Yet, he refuses to accept contributions from this family in paying for the wedding because it is traditionally the duty of the bride’s father to pay for everything, including flying some of the groom’s family in from Denmark, one of whom is large enough to require two seats. “She can lop into the aisle for all I care,” says George. This cousin later lifts him off his feet in an unexpected hug. Fat people: always disrespecting peoples’ boundaries, amirite?

George meets the groom’s family in a dark sport coat, while the décor and everyone else’s clothes are pale, muted pastels, making it obvious how out of place George and his feelings about the wedding are. Brian’s father conveniently lays out the lesson that George must learn by the end of the movie: “Sooner or later you have to just let your kids go and hope you brought them up right.” Hijinks ensue as George does some snooping and winds up chased off a balcony by the resident Dobermans. The dogs are deep black, the only other dark color like George’s coat, drawing a parallel between their snarling reaction to an intruder and George’s reaction to this wedding.

Franck is flamboyant

No wedding movie would be complete without an over-the-top, flamboyantly gay character. This movie features two as wedding consultants. Howard Weinstein is actually played by gay Chinese-American actor BD Wong and is the only person of color with a speaking role (and he’s just the assistant to the help). Franck (Martin Short) has an indeterminate European accent that the women have no difficulty penetrating but that George finds unintelligible. Foreign people are so funny! Gay people are also so funny! Of course, neither character’s sexuality is explicitly stated. In 1991 it was perfectly acceptable to laugh at quirky gay people and let them help accessorize us so long as we don’t have to consider them as real people with feelings or desires or (shudder) romantic lives.

The cost and the hassle of preparing for the wedding drives George to freak out and wind up in jail. Nina bails him out but not before reasoning with him to act his age. She has a huge smile on her face and speaks to him patiently, when most women would be rightfully furious. But this isn’t her movie. She exists to coax George along his journey to maturity.

Good news, George! Annie calls off the wedding because that sexist asshole Brian bought her a … blender? Maybe it’s because I never really used a blender until after age 21 that I don’t understand this as an allusion to a 1950’s housewife mentality. All it says to me is daiquiris, and I’d be thrilled to receive a functioning model (Do all of your blenders also break after two uses? Just me?), but Annie has to be reassured that Brian didn’t mean this in a regressive get-thee-to-the-kitchen-wench kind of way before we’re back on again. The highlight is that this is not a bitches-be-crazy message. Instead it’s explicitly portrayed as a character flaw she inherited directly from her father, while Brian provides emotional stability like Nina does. That’s actually a fantastic message, separating personality traits from gender.

The night before the wedding, George shares a moment with his son, apologizing for ignoring him the whole movie. It’s definitely a reversal to see the relationship between father and daughter receive the emphasis over father and son. I think this placing of the (non-sexual) relationship with a woman as central—rather than the wedding theme—is what makes a movie a “chick-flick” and therefore unsuitable for Manly Men™

Wedding in Father of the Bride

George once again daydreams about Annie as a small child, but this time it launches into a montage of her growing into a teen, and then a woman. She’s grown up, and he’s finally recognizing that. But that doesn’t mean their special parent/child relationship is over, which is delightfully represented by Annie walking down the aisle in the pair of wedding sneakers her father designed for her.

Has George grown up as well? It’s hard to say. At the actual wedding, he cares only about being there for his daughter (though events conspire to keep him away). We never do see him return to the chair from which he began narrating the movie as a flashback. But every snide and petulant remark was made after the events of the movie occurred. Perhaps George was just being honest about his feelings at the time. I’m not convinced he’s really changed but merely suffered through one life-altering event. The existence of a sequel seems to confirm this. But if the sequel continues this trend of showcasing the value of relationships with women, I might have to dig up a copy.

Mab Ryan is a fat, geeky, queerish, rainbow-haired feminist currently studying Art and Creative Writing at Roanoke College.

You Say Evil Like It’s A Bad Thing

Written by Myrna Waldron.

Maleficent appears at King Stefan’s castle

Last year I wrote a fairly well-received piece defending the Disney Princesses from a feminist perspective, “You Say Princess Like It’s A Bad Thing.” It was always my plan to write a sequel/companion piece to it. I like Belle and Ariel, but I admit that it’s the villainesses that keep me coming back. I get chills watching Maleficent demonstrate her infinite power. I sit in awe as Queen Grimhilde controls the very forces of nature to create her disguise potion. And, as a plus-size woman, I love the confidence Ursula has about her every curve. Yes, the Disney Villainesses are examples of strong female characters…who don’t have to be protagonists. Sometimes, it’s so good to be so bad.

“A thunderbolt! To mix it well. Now…begin thy magic spell.”

Queen Grimhilde:

Otherwise known as the Wicked Queen or The Witch, she is, of course, the very first villain in the Disney canon. And by god, is she memorable. Her face has a cold beauty enveloped in a dark headdress and a billowing violet cape. She is notably vain, but who can blame her? The Queen cannot be more than 40something at the most, and yet the Dwarfs, who must be positively ancient, refer to her as the “Old Queen.” Old? OLD? Not a wrinkle on her face and yet a group of dumpy, tiny old men consider her old. To hell with that. It’s quite obvious she lives in a world not so different from our own. A world where the only kind of beauty that is valued is the youthful kind. She fears the encroaching inevitability that one day her looks will fade, and then all that she has worked for–respect, power–will vanish and be transferred to her preteen stepdaughter. Her husband, the King, is noticeably absent, meaning that she is probably a regent. Her power is temporary, just like her beauty. The real tragedy of her death is that she has left her kingdom without a ruler. Snow White’s scampered off to go be with her Prince, and obviously doesn’t care about her birthright.

The Dwarfs speak of her talents with black magic. This is a brilliant woman. Deliciously bloodthirsty. The skeleton in her dungeon shows that she has killed before. This is not a woman to be trifled with. Her dungeon is full of books, tomes, instruments, and devices. In another world she would have been a scientific genius. As the Witch, she is an enormously quick thinker, and a rather effective actress. It is impossible for her to completely hide her malice towards Snow White, and yet see how ingeniously she tricks her into eating that poisoned apple. Note how she checked for an antidote to the poisoned apple, a sign of tremendous genre savvy. How was she to know that the Dwarfs would display Snow White’s body above ground as if she was some sort of attraction? Appreciate her enormous amount of power. How she could distill fear into liquid. How she could command the winds and lightning itself. Such a powerful, commanding woman. What a wonderful precedent she set.

Lady Tremaine figures out that Cinderella was the woman at the ball

Lady Tremaine:

Another early villainess and Wicked Stepmother whose name is underused (she is only referred to as Lady Tremaine at the ball when her daughters are being introduced). Cold green eyes and meticulously neat grey hair are the most recognizable features of a woman who is not to be trifled with. She has a dangerously quick, brilliant mind, and considering she named her horrible cat after the devil himself, apparently a sense of humour as well. The narrator tells us that she and her daughters are bitterly jealous of Cinderella. Can we really blame them? The daughters are plain, but hardly hideous, and yet the Prince and Duke act like they’re the ugliest women they’ve ever seen. The Prince actually rolls his eyes at them, an incredibly rude act considering that all he knows of them is that they came when summoned to the ball. The Duke shudders when Anastasia tries to show polite deference to him. Asshole. These two men are powerful, so Lady Tremaine has no choice but to be ambitious and try every opportunity possible to get her daughters to a higher station. She’d naturally be jealous of the stepdaughter who will get ahead mostly on the strength of her looks. As for the scene when the daughters rip apart Cinderella’s dress, although they tremendously overreacted, she IS wearing stolen jewelry and fabric. Is the movie seriously trying to tell me that after years of doing their laundry, Cinderella can’t recognize her own stepsisters’ belongings, and didn’t question where the mice got the materials to make the dress with? Come on now. And as for Lucifer, Disney, you are not going to convince me that a cat is evil just because he hunts house mice. I mean, how DARE a cat act according to its biology! Mice are destructive, noisy, disease ridden pests, and their talking and singing in this film has still never endeared me to them. Cat lover for life here.

Lady Tremaine herself is an amazingly effective villainess. The first of two Disney villains voiced by Eleanor Audley (who has to be one of the all-time greatest voice actors), I really love watching her brilliant mind work out details, and how quickly she reacts to things. I love the scene where she tells her daughters to control their tempers, and then immediately loses her own temper when she is interrupted by Cinderella. Her eyes are penetrating, and when she walks upstairs to lock Cinderella in her room, you follow her eyes the entire time. Her satisfied smirk when she believes she has succeeded over Little Miss Perfect. I also rather enjoy the touch of sarcasm and spite hidden in faux-affection when she refers to the clearly adult Cinderella as “Child.” Ah, if only all the Wicked Stepmothers in the innumerable adaptations of Cinderella were half as much fun as Lady Tremaine is.

“Now shall you deal with ME, O Prince. And all the powers of HELL!”

Maleficent:

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that Maleficent has got to be Disney’s most popular villain, and probably one of their most popular characters, period. When I asked for nominations of favourite Disney villainess, her name came up more often than anyone else’s. And I absolutely love the hell (pun intended) out of her myself. Her iconic design, combining the horns of Chernabog (the Devil in Fantasia) with a purple and green motif, defines the ultimate Disney villainess. Her infinite power is fascinating to watch. She can make a castle shake and blow hurricane-like winds even before she’s entered the room. Character-wise, like Lady Tremaine, she also has a sick sense of humour. Her curse on Aurora isn’t out of jealousy (let’s not pretend she really gives a shit about whether she was invited to the christening or not) but just because she can. She even kills the Three Fairies’ flowers with frost for the fun of it. And, upon learning that her moronic followers had been searching for a baby for sixteen years, she lets out insane laughter that almost completely conceals her rage boiling within.

A commander of all sorts of demons and dragons, she can bend reality itself–her trademark fire is acid green, not red. She also possesses incredible poetry in her speech, once again provided by the amazing Eleanor Audley. “I lay my trap for a peasant and LO! I catch a Prince!” And I don’t think anyone can forget her immortal, iconic, incredible line, “Now shall you deal with ME, O Prince. And all the powers of HELL!” She used the h-word in a Disney film! AND GOT AWAY WITH IT! She also weaves a sarcastic tale to Prince Philip about how she intends to keep him in her dungeon for 100 years, and that when the extremely elderly (if even still alive) Prince finally comes to awaken his Princess, she’ll still be young and beautiful and he’ll be old and withered. She ends her tale with a sarcastic, “Proving true love conquers ALL!” and can’t keep herself from laughing at the idea. She’s aware she’s in a fairy tale. That’s how powerful she is. And, as a Disney Channel special on Disney Villains pointed out to me, she would have won if it had been a fair fight. The Fairies magicked away everything possibly fatal to Prince Philip. The only part he did himself was hacking away at the thorny brambles, which, in comparison to the rocks and boiling pitch, were not a real threat. He didn’t even really strike the final blow. No, in my preferred ending to Sleeping Beauty, Maleficent swallows the Prince and Fairies whole and then goes to get that restful sleep she’s been lacking for 16 years. She deserves it.

Fearing being discovered by the police, Cruella demands that the puppies be killed quickly

Cruella De Vil:

There may be a wide variety of evil women detailed today, but Cruella’s kind of evil is, well…particularly nasty. First she purchases an enormous number of dalmatian puppies, then, just to get back at an old friend, kidnaps 15 more puppies to bring the number to 99. And, of course, what does she want to do with them? Make spotted dogskin coats! She’s quite obviously deranged, and has clearly pulled off this sort of thing before, judging by Anita’s comment about Cruella’s “new” fur coat, and how she addresses Jasper & Horace. But really, can we blame her for losing her mind a little? Her parents literally named her Cruel Devil. It’s like they were expecting her to turn out bad. Plus, her skunk hairdo and literally pointed cheekbones haven’t done her looks any favours. As she says, her only true love is furs–it’s the only way she can feel confident.

You have to admire her car. And mourn it when she wrecks the hell out of it. I can only shake my head at the 50-year-old attempt at “humour” with the “Crazy woman driver” bit, but then again, she was trying to make a moving van tip over. That takes some destructive ingenuity. Also, I can somewhat sympathize with her contempt for Roger. He does look stupid with that pipe. I also am in awe of her fantastically vindictive temper. Her suggestions for violently offing the puppies are without any restraint, and she even throws a bottle of wine into a fire, barely even reacting when it explodes. Another trait that makes her a well-developed villain is her verbal tic for calling people idiots. It’s like her favourite insult. She likes calling people fools and imbeciles a lot too. A proper British lady. And what of that song Roger wrote about her? Those lyrics have got to be slanderous, and yet he gets away with it. No human actually finds out it was Cruella who stole the puppies, so there’s no evidence supporting his lyrics. Poor Cruella. Loses that awesome car and now she has to listen to herself being insulted on the radio.

Lyrics from “Poor Unfortunate Souls” in which Ursula tries to persuade Ariel

Ursula:

Oh, Ursula. The world is a better place with you in it. A fantastic villain, with a curvaceous octopus frame and a deep voice to match. Like Eleanor Audley, I love just listening to Pat Carroll talk. Woman’s in her 80s and she still happily voices Ursula every time. Ursula may be a villain, but speaking as a fat woman, she is a tremendously important character to me. She’s big, and she doesn’t care. She loves herself, and is pure confidence in an aquatic frame. She does transform herself into a slim woman to become Vanessa, but I think that was more of a “trying to look like Ariel” thing than “trying to be skinny to attract a man” thing. C’mon. Like Ursula doesn’t know she’s sexy in her own way. “BOOODYYYY LAAAANGUAAAAGE, HAH!” I also enjoy her pets, Flotsam and Jetsam. Horrible icky-looking eels, and yet she dearly loves her “little poopsies.”

She’s also very, very capable. Look how easily she played Ariel for every step of her story. I’m going to consider the Broadway musical’s plot point that she and Triton are siblings non-canonical for today, but her revenge plan went almost perfectly. When she gets the trident and now commands the entire ocean, her display of sheer unbridled power rivals Maleficent’s transformation into the dragon. That’s not just Triton’s power she’s using, she’s combining it with her own. And oh, what a sweet talker she is. She is the master of the Faustian Bargain. I particularly love her deliberate dramatic irony when she tries to convince Ariel that men don’t care what women have to say. I also love watching her work with her cauldron. Those colours. Those explosions and smoke trails. This is a formidable lady, and an absolutely incredible villainess.

Yzma visualizes turning Kuzco into a flea, then smashing him with a hammer

Yzma:

The Emperor’s New Groove came out during that kinda awkward time where I was “too old” for Disney movies, (Hah!) so this was my first viewing of this film. And wow, I wish I’d watched it earlier. Yzma is a twist on all the other villainesses in that she is not only not very good at the whole evil thing, she’s hilarious. And really, it’s kinda evil to try to assassinate an emperor, but he also kinda deserved it. She probably wouldn’t have been a much better ruler than Kuzco was, but her usage of “Peasant” as a pejorative would have at least been memorable. Her looks are a bizarre combination of Maleficent, Ursula, and…Zirconia from Sailor Moon. Seriously, GIS her if you’re not a Moonie. Incredible resemblance. She’s ancient and skinny as a rail with spider-like eyelashes, and yet dresses almost like a Vegas showgirl. Yzma shot up to one of my favourite Disney villains very quickly. The Adam West version of Batman has always been my favourite, so her being voiced by Eartha Kitt made me miss her tremendously.

She has a similarity to Queen Grimhilde in that she has her own “secret” lab. And it’s actually a lab this time! She wears a lab coat and goggles and everything! Hey, look at that. A woman of science. Lord knows why she specializes in animal transmogrification potions, but whatever. She has so many funny little quirks that make her a three-dimensional character. Her strong dislike of gravy. Her acquiescing to have dessert and coffee before getting rid of an unconscious Kuzco. Her inexplicable decision to have a lever open a trap door to an alligator-infested moat (which even she doesn’t understand). Her insult that finally makes her assistant Kronk turn on her–that she never liked his spinach puffs–well, honey, I can sympathize. I don’t like spinach either. And, honestly, I was rooting for her the entire time. To heck with Kuzco.

Lyrics from “Mother Knows Best” where Mother Gothel attempts to scare Rapunzel into obedience

Mother Gothel:

She’s a very recent villainness since Tangled came out only a few years ago, but she definitely made her mark on this film. Her chief trait is her utter fear of growing old and dying, which, to be fair, is a reasonable fear. What wasn’t so reasonable was her hogging the sunlight flower so only she could benefit from its gifts. But there’s a villainess for ya. Besides Queen Grimhilde, she’s possibly one of the most attractive villainesses Disney has created. Her wavy raven hair is striking, as are her wine red gown and wide grey eyes. Her joke about being a beautiful young woman isn’t all that far off. I can understand wanting to hold on to that. And really, she tried not to be completely evil. Is it her fault that cutting a lock of Rapunzel’s hair severs its magical properties?

Another distinctive character trait is just what a…loving mother she is. She’s basically a textbook example of the mentally/emotionally abusive parent. She compliments, then harshly criticizes. She raises Rapunzel to be terrified of the outside world. Gothel insists that Rapunzel is foolish, clumsy and helpless, and only she can protect her from the dangers of the world. She only reluctantly listens to Rapunzel’s wishes, and perhaps this is because she wants to make sure Rapunzel is still willing to sing for her. In a clever touch of subtlety, when she says, “I love you most,” to Rapunzel, it’s her hair she kisses. The interesting thing about Mother Gothel is that she’s obviously trying to straddle between being a decent mother and a cruel one, and she can’t help failing at it because she’s such a completely selfish person. Once Rapunzel’s kidnapping is discovered, Gothel snaps, and decides she is going to be the “bad guy” after all. Her fear of death is such that she’ll control Rapunzel literally forever, and won’t hesitate to kill if necessary. And when Rapunzel’s hair is completely cut and the flower’s spell fades, her incredibly rapid aging is pretty disturbing. She even does the trademark Disney thing of falling to her death…except that she’s already dead. She’s dust before she even hits the ground. Damn! Just how old WAS she?

The definition of the Strong Female Character differs from person to person, but I define it as: #1, She has realistic flaws, #2, She is in charge of her own destiny, #3, She acts with agency independently of male characters, and #4, Her story is compelling to watch. Pretty broad definition, I think, and hey, look at that. Every single one of these villainesses counts. A Strong Female Character does not have to be a protagonist. Sometimes it’s every bit as fun to root for a villain as it is to hope for the hero. And Disney, to their credit, has made some absolutely amazing villains. The ladies profiled here were a combination of my own personal favourites and some votes from my readers. And, I gotta say, I’ve had more fun writing this than I’ve had in a very long time. Viva la evil!

Myrna Waldron is a feminist writer/blogger with a particular emphasis on all things nerdy. She lives in Toronto and has studied English and Film at York University. Myrna has a particular interest in the animation medium, having written extensively on American, Canadian and Japanese animation. She also has a passion for Sci-Fi & Fantasy literature, pop culture literature such as cartoons/comics, and the gaming subculture. She maintains a personal collection of blog posts, rants, essays and musings at The Soapboxing Geek, and tweets with reckless pottymouthed abandon at @SoapboxingGeek.

Revisiting ‘Mermaids’: Identifying Connections With The Flax Women

Mermaids film poster.

Written by Janyce Denise Glasper

June Roberts’ screenplay of 1990’s Mermaids is adapted from Patty Dann’s novel and happens to be one of my all time favorite films.

As infectious retro soundtrack flares and mod dresses make scenes pop, I connect in certain respects to each Flax woman–Cher’s big-haired, mother hen, Mrs. Rachel Flax and her two daughters–Winona Ryder’s quirky, awkward, Charlotte and Christina Ricci’s sweet, future Olympic swimmer, Kate.

The film opens with the Flax women trio on eighteenth move–this time to Massachusetts. These habitual migrations stem from either Rachel’s failed relationships or embarrassment of becoming small town gossip fodder such as the case when Charlotte’s teacher believes her to have a mental disorder. Charlotte and Kate are primarily raised by flamboyant Rachel still living promiscuously and with shocking hoopla surrounding actress Kate Winslet’s third pregnancy; it’s imperative to note that Charlotte and Kate also have different fathers–one a product from teenage love and other from an affair with an athlete. In the sixties, this would be much more ostracized condemnation than now because middle class Mrs. Flax isn’t married and wealthy Mrs. Winslet is.

Rachel (Cher) and Lou (Bob Hospkins).

Rachel doesn’t cook and doesn’t like sitting around a table having traditional meal conversation, but she does enter countless relationships with various men including married ones.

While buying school staples, Rachel takes her daughters to a shoe store where she catches eye of charming Lou, the owner. He is attentive to Rachel’s whims, but she despises his “interference” in her daughter’s lives which possibly stems from desires to usually cut men off after having physical fill of them. In overprotective stance, especially of little Kate, Mama Bear Rachel obviously doesn’t want the female trio to include a missing male figure that isn’t one hundred percent reliable.

“I have never wanted to hit a woman the way I want to hit you right now,” Lou spits to Rachel.

Although he doesn’t throw a fist, this is such an ugly blow and he loses appeal quickly. It’s no excuse to do or say the words. Having moved from one disappointment to another still searching for that perfect, unmarred place to call home, Rachel has a justified reasoning for not wanting to surge Kate’s hopes of a father figure.

Rachel stays with Lou and allows further access. He influences more intimate times together and Rachel continues creating strange hors douerves as meals–her specialty being odd looking marshmallow kabobs.

Now my deepest connection is centered primarily in Charlotte, Rachel’s older daughter.

Charlotte (Winona Ryder) longs for Joe (Michael Schoeffling).

A naïve devotee to religion and born Jewish, Charlotte prays in Christian earnest, stares in awe at nuns while curiously wondering about their undergarments, and silently condemns her mother’s behavior–finding her wild ways altogether blasphemous. The most hysterical narration races inside Charlotte’s precociously engaged head as her large black brown eyes express desires for uncontrollable rationality that weave from the very person she is so dead set against becoming. Joe, a handsome convent caretaker and bus driver, ten years older, incites passions that ignite from the very moment she first sees him, but still, she clings desperately to God Almighty and hopes relentless pining suffices.

However, after witnessing her mother planting a New Year’s kiss on her beloved Joe, Charlotte feels threatened and insecure. Prior to losing virginity to him, it is quite apparent that she poufs up her hair, puts on tawdry makeup, dons her mother’s oversized black polka dotted pink dress, and downs alcohol, believing that embodying her sinful role model is the only way Joe would have her. It’s saddening because he didn’t explain why he kissed her mother and drove off in a big, macho huff as though Charlotte offended him, planting sordid competition to arise inside her.

Now Joe doesn’t seem to be this great, charming fiction that overly sentimental Charlotte dreamily continues telling herself and the audience. So often lust is confused for love, especially in youth, and Charlotte is clearly not thinking with the best intentions. In moments spent with him, this hormonal seventeen-year-old girl constantly wants kisses and to be tossed onto the ground to make a “Joe Jr.” Their connection is no deeper than a shallow appeal to his physical appearance and being cloistered in the place she yearned to be–alongside nuns.

“Why are you so set on repeating my mistakes?” Mrs. Flax asks.

Yes. Charlotte spends time in saintly shrines whispering pious pleas or fasting from her sinful inhibitions, but nothing changes the fact that she is her mother’s daughter and that she cannot reject blood filtering through veins. In the end, at high school, she’s less shy, growing popular with boys, and dressing differently while wearing her hair poufy.

It’s not just religious fervor or deepening fascination with a handsome bus driver bridging forth my strong connection to Charlotte’s character–though it’s a peculiar similarity. Her curiosity and ignorance struck a beautiful cord threading invisibly and Ryder’s gifted portrayal draws immediate replay. When Charlotte is distraught from kiss “pregnancy,” she drives off towards Connecticut and immerses herself with a television looking family in this minute mid-teenager life crisis. Her longing to know absentee father opened up my Pandora’s box of living with a single mother and rendered frustrations of not having that stout manly figure in my world. As she fibs to this family about him, anyone could see that she wishes that her stories were true, even those rapt listeners knowing them to be incredibly farfetched.

Kate, the last and littlest Flax is no ordinary girl.

She doesn’t play with Barbie dolls or dream of being a princess in a big castle waiting for a man to sweep her off dainty feet. Since age five, she has trained vigorously at swimming and is constantly trying to break the world record for holding breath under water inside the bathtub. This winner is the little force that unites the strained Rachel and Charlotte–delightfully enough Charlotte used to pretend that Kate was her baby. Despite horrendous climax in which Charlotte places a drunken Kate in treacherous peril–a nearly fatal drowning incident, she is bravely back in championship form and holds no traumatic scar save for a little loss of hearing.

Saint loving Charlotte (Winona Ryder), Mama Bear Rachel (Cher), and swimming cap covered Kate (Christina Ricci).

Parenting, however, is still Rachel’s struggle, but she grows maturely as does Charlotte.

“You two didn’t come with an instruction manual!” Rachel cries, confused by Charlotte’s ever growing silent treatment. “Just tell me and I’ll try my best.”

And she does.

She may make mistakes, but Rachel tries and wants to do right by her daughters.

Charlotte (Winona Ryder), Kate (Christina Ricci), and Rachel Flax (Cher).

Mermaids ends on a feel-good note. Three smiling, happily connected women dance and set the table to “If You Wanna Be Happy.” Times have certainly changed, and strained relationships have finally mended towards the exciting promise of something better–a start of stronger female foundation.

‘Man of Steel’: Wonderful Women, Super Masculinity

Movie poster for Man of Steel

This guest post by Natalie Wilson previously appeared at the Ms. Magazine Blog and is cross-posted with permission.

Amy Adams is amazing as Lois Lane in Man of Steel. Her version of Lois is fearless, witty and wise. Diane Lane and Ayelet Zurer as the respective mothers of Superman are also amazing, as is the fact that both Superman’s Kryptonian mother, Lara Lor-Van (played by Zurer), and his human mother, Martha Kent (played by Lane), are displayed as equal partners with equal power and say to his two fathers. Further, not only are the heroic females strongly played and given substantial dialog, but so, too, is the lead female villain, Faora-Ul (Antje Trau), second-in-command to the Kryptonian General, given just as much screen time, dialogue, and power (if not more) than Zod, the Kryptonian super-villain played by Michael Shannon.

Michael Shannon as General Zod in Man of Steel

In general, Man of Steel, the latest film iteration of the Superman story, conveys that women are just as key to the Superman narrative as men. This is true from the opening moment, when the birth scene of baby Kal-El, who will grow up to be Superman/Clark Kent, focuses on his mother Lara. Then, the decision to send their child to earth is equally shared by Lara and Jor-El (the Kryptonian scientist played by Russell Crowe). Once the movie shifts to the young Clark’s life on earth, his human parents, Martha and Jonathan Kent (Lane and Kevin Costner), are again equally featured. Lane is particularly strong as Martha, saving Clark from the monsters in his own head in an early scene, and later supporting him as he struggles with what the revelation of his identity has wrought. Part of the consequence of this revelation is the destruction of her home—but the only thing she worries about salvaging is the photo albums, telling Superman not to worry about the house, that “it’s only stuff.”

All of this may seem relatively minor, but it is rare for superhero movies to feature females in important, non-sexualized, non-damsel-in-distress roles (as recent articles and Twitter buzz has focused on, particularly in relation to the fact there is still no Wonder Woman movie). It is rare to depict women as non-materialistic and wise, not to mention portraying mothers as being alive (especially in Disney films!), let alone being as important as fathers are. As such, I had planned to focus on the females in the film for my review.

Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, and Antje Traue in Man of Steel

Alas, after looking up the cast of the film on IMDB in order to write this review and coming across the image of the young boy who plays 9-year-old Clark Kent (Cooper Timberline) posing with arms bent on hips, a stern look on his face and a cape flowing out behind him—an image that smacks of muscular masculinity—I was consumed by the image of my own son, age three or thereabouts, running around the house endlessly in his Superman costume. This, coupled with two very young boys who sat in front of me at the screening, astride their mother’s lap, asking questions like “Why isn’t Superman flying?” and “Where is Superman’s cape?” got me thinking: How does the iconic image of Superman shape young boys’ concepts of masculinity? And, given that Superman is generally viewed as the ideal super-hero model for boys (less dark than Batman, less conflicted than Spiderman, more memorable and enduring than Iron Man, Aquaman and so on), what does this new movie deliver in terms of modeling “super masculinity”?

Cooper Timberline as a young Clark Kent in Man of Steel

On the one hand, there are many positives. The film questions hyper-masculinity, militarism and other power-over models, or the reliance on brawn over brains. It condemns the sexual objectification of women, macho bravado and the bullying aspects of male culture.

On the other, though it is critical of hyper-masculinity and the violence it engenders, the film’s extended action-and-explosion-packed ending undercuts this critique. At the level of content, the film offers a feminist-friendly version of Superman, but its visuals—especially the extended fight scenes between Superman and Zod (which dominate the last 45 minutes or so)—contradict this narrative. The content says “Women and men are equally important and violence/domination is bad for everyone” but the visuals say “Let’s blow shit up and watch dudes punch each other through buildings!!”

Still from Man of Steel

Back to the positives, the film not only condemns sexual objectification and harassment of women, or the ways in which traditional masculinity harms women, but also denounces men’s bullying of and violence toward one another—the ways in which traditional masculinity also harms men. Near the start of the film, when a man slaps a waitress’ butt, Clark, working as a busboy, intervenes, calling out the man for his inappropriate behavior. The man then goads Clark with a “what are you gonna do about it” attitude, dumping a beer over his head. The other men at the bar snigger in approval. Rather than resorting to violence, though, Clark walks away. Similarly, later in the film, in a flashback to when Clark was in middle school, a group of boys attack him, prodding him to fight back, but he refuses. Again, the males act in pack fashion, spurring one another to be violent and criticizing those who do not “live up” to the violent ethos of being a “real” man.

The central male characters who champion violence are also rebuked in the film, but none more so than Zod for his imperialistic, genocidal and militaristic goals. The film deserves props here for showing that women can not only be just as good as men, they can also be just as bad as them—exemplified by Zod’s second in a command, a woman. In so doing, it de-genders violence, showing that it is not inherently male but rather that the power-over mentality is the problem, not the gender of the person who buys into it. The weapon-happy stance of the military is also reproached, as when Colonel Nathan Hardy (Christopher Meloni) calls for his soldiers to shoot at Superman, or when General Swanwick (Harry Lennix) is rebuked for sic’ing a surveillance drone on Superman (a very timely rebuke indeed!)

Soldiers in Man of Steel

In contrast to these power- and weapon-happy males, the film offers various representations of a kinder, gentler, more positive masculinity via Jor-El and Jonathan Kent, Superman’s two fathers. Both of these figures encourage Clark/Superman to act with integrity and empathy. Framing him as “the bridge between two worlds,” these fathers insist that Clark/Superman can “embody the best of both worlds” and bring a message of hope that insists “every person can be a force for good.”

Here, the film circulates around the fear of difference in ways that nod to the narrative that arguably undergrids the original comic—a narrative that has been read as criticizing racism and, in particular, anti-Semitism. The author, much like Clark in various iterations of the story, was bullied as a kid, and the original comics were penned during the years preceding World War II and the rise of the Nazi party in Germany. Thus it’s not a stretch to read Superman as a racialized underdog hero, an “alien” who is despised for his difference. His Kryptonian mother’s comment at the outset of the film underscore this reading. She worries that Kal (Clark’s Kryptonian name) will “be an outcast, a freak” on earth. His human parents share similar fears, encouraging him to hide his difference, to “pass” as human. But partway through the film, Kal/Clark sheds his closeted identity in order to save earth and its inhabitants.

Henry Cavill as Superman

In a pivotal scene, he confronts the military brass who have handcuffed him upon the discovery of his “alien-ness,” saying, “You’re scared of me because you can’t control me.” Here, a bevy of connotations arise—how violence is about control, how difference is controlled through violence so that those in power can maintain their power, how viewing difference as an alien threat leads to violence. But, as Superman insists, the inability to control him does not make him an enemy. (U.S. government and military leaders please take note: Just because we cannot control what other countries do, this does not make them our enemy.)

Here and elsewhere, this version of the Superman story questions the way in which power-over mentality, coupled with hyper-masculine bravado, will lead to planetary ruin. Metaphorically, the film questions the reliance on brawn (embodied by Zod and the military brass) over brains (embodied by Jor-el) and heart (embodied by Superman). Further, the Krypton/Earth binary can be seen as emblemmatic of traditional notions of male and female, with the powerful Krypton threatening to control and/or annihilate Earth. Instead of maintaining these dichotomies, the film suggests that both Kryptonians and humans, males and females, can be a “bridge” to a better world. The movie also takes pains to depict Lois and Superman as a team, rather than as a savior and his damsel in distress. This is particularly underscored near the end of the film when someone looks on at the pair after the near destruction of earth, and says “THEY saved us” not “He saved us” or “Superman saved us.”

Lois is depicted not only as a fearless, intrepid investigative journalist, but also adept at figuring out Kryptonian ships and carrying out plans of escape/survival. Near the end of the film, she tells Superman, “I know how to stop them” (Zod and company). As such, she is as much superhero as he, though she is human and he is super-human. To make her even more amazing, she is clearly cognizant of hyper-masculine posturing, as when she is waiting to be shown a Russian submarine the military thinks they have found and says to the brass, who are verbally trying to out-macho each other, “If we are done measuring dicks…can you show me what you found?”

Laurence Fischburne and Amy Adams in Man of Steel

On the less positive side, Superman, as the personification of “super masculinity,” is—as indicated by the reboot title—a hyper-muscular man of steel. His moniker suggests he is hard, unbreakable, impervious and made of muscle—notions that mesh well with the unattainable ideal of masculinity currently in circulation and which are embodied via his excessively built form. Though he uses his strength for good and resorts to violence only as a last resort, the overly-long excessive fight scene between he and General Zod contradicts the earlier narrative claims the movie makes regarding violence, militarism and power. If these things are bad (as the first three-quarters of the film suggests) why do we need to watch scene after scene of he and Zod punching each other, destroying buildings and displaying their uber-strength? Why was it necessary to destroy multiple buildings, cars, planes, semi-trucks, satellites and so on in a way that makes Spock’s overly-long fight scene with Khan in the recent Star Trek: Into Darkness seem short by comparison?

My sense is that those in charge of filming, editing and special effects were loathe to cut these visually arresting scenes. Which reminds me of some comments I heard walking out of the film: “I feel like I am on sensory overload,” “I feel like my senses have been assaulted,” and “After all those explosions, I think I lost some hearing.” As these comments suggest, these action scenes can in themselves be viewed as a form of assault on the audience—one that, admittedly, certain audiences crave—but one that nonetheless suggests that the way to be “super” (as a man or a film) is to be violent, to blow shit up, to be stronger than the other guy/gal.

Laurence Fishburne during some explosions in Man of Steel

As the fight scenes dragged on and on, the two young boys in front of me stopped squirming in their seats and stared at the explosive images on the screen—images that screamed the only way to “win” and be “super” is via violence and weaponry, or have a body that is itself a weapon. This is not the image I hold of my son running around in his Superman costume at age 3, nor of his smiling, dimpled face and curly-haired locks in his kindergarten picture (in which he’s wearing a Superman t-shirt). No, that boy liked the idea of flying, not killing. But with so many images that teach boys (and girls) that to be a “super-male” is to be one capable of violence, how can we expect our boys to soar in ways that promote messages of hope, inclusivity and an insistence “every person can be a force for good”?

I don’t have the answer. But I do know that my now-16-year-old-son, who attended the screening with me, had a key complaint about the film: “The fight scenes were way too excessive.” If a teenager raised in a culture that champions such scenes as “the stuff great blockbuster movies are made of” gets this, why the heck can’t Hollywood?

Natalie Wilson, PhD is a literature and women’s studies scholar, blogger, and author. She teaches at Cal State San Marcos and specializes in areas of gender studies, feminism, feminist theory, girl studies, militarism, body studies, boy culture and masculinity, contemporary literature, and popular culture. She is author of the blogs Professor, what if …? and Seduced by Twilight. She is a proud feminist mom of two feminist kids (one daughter, one son) and is an admitted pop-culture junkie. Her favorite food is chocolate.

Think There Aren’t Feminist Themes in ‘The Purge’? Think Again

Movie poster for The Purge

Spoiled by Stephanie Rogers.

Turns out, the best way to see the latest violent horror film is to watch it in a packed theater in Times Square. The audience laughed together, squealed together, shouted at the screen together, and collectively bonded over the most ridiculous features of the movie as well as the more progressive aspects.

As the credits rolled, a young Black woman sitting behind me stood up and yelled, “And the Black dude survives!” I mean, hadn’t we all been thinking it? We’re so used to filmmakers killing off characters of color, especially in horror films, that watching a Black dude walk into the sun at the end of a movie after saving a bunch of rich white people stood out as a fucking anomaly. The Purge is certainly problematic, but it surprised me to feel a sense of … hope at the end of it. Could this reversal of the white savior trope start a new trend in filmmaking? And did a film finally punish a Rich White Dude instead of celebrating his successes at the expense of others? And what would movies even be like if these became the new tenets of onscreen storytelling?

I like to do this thing sometimes where I show up at films with absolutely zero information about them. The Purge looked like a fun movie to try that with, and I’m glad I did it; if I’d known the premise of the movie in advance, I doubt I could’ve talked myself into paying 75 dollars to see it and spending 45 minutes slow-walking 3 blocks to the theater in the most crowded area of Manhattan. Luckily, the plot made itself clear within the first few minutes.

Video footage of the annual Purge

It takes place in the future, nine years from now in the United States, which boasts a government known as The New Founders of America (NFA). The New Founders have instituted an annual day of murder and mayhem dubbed The Purge, allowing anyone to roam the streets freely in search of people to violate so that they might purge themselves of their lurking hate and rage. It lasts twelve hours and during that time no emergency services or police officers exist, making it a free-for-all. Not everyone is required to participate, but people are encouraged at least to indicate their support of The Purge by placing a vase of blue baptisias (baptism, get it?) on their front doorstep in a gesture of solidarity. While the family the film focuses on, The Sandins, appears not to necessarily enjoy The Purge or participate in the “festivities,” they support its existence, mainly because the institution of The Purge lowered the once-staggering unemployment rate to 1%, saving the economy and making the annual crime rate almost nonexistent. The main characters see it as a tolerable, necessary evil, and besides—they’re the richest people in their state-of-the-art secured neighborhood; what’s the worst that could happen to them?

“Don’t forget to put the Baptisias on the porch, Honey!”

Well, they could help a Black dude avoid getting murdered by a bunch of creepy, self-proclaimed “highly-educated” white people in their twenties, who roam the gated suburbs carrying machine guns and machetes and wearing masks like they just wandered off the set of The Strangers. Your bad, Sandins, your bad.

WTFWTFWTF

Let me take a step back.

The Sandins actually fucking suck for the most part, at least in the beginning. Ethan Hawke plays James Sandin, who works as a security developer and who clearly profits off the The Purge; the Sandins own the biggest house in their subdivision—a jealous woman neighbor sarcastically “jokes” that The Purge Survival Systems that James sold to everyone in the hood obviously paid for the new addition to the Sandins’ home—and James himself gloats during that night’s family dinner about his rise to the spot of Top Seller at his security firm. (Rich White Dudes profiting off the hardships of others … does that sound familiar to anyone?) Mary Sandin (Lena Headey) gives the impression she’s a homemaker; we see her cooking dinner and chiding her children (Zoey, a high schooler and Charlie, a younger teen) as she readies them for the pre-purge lockdown, and she leaves the house only to place the baptisias on the porch and speak with the neighbor who envies her family’s wealth. The Sandins seem truly clueless about the extreme jealousy all the less rich white people (minus the token, light-skinned woman of color) feel toward them, but the audience gets the message all over the place: Sandins, consider yourselves fucked.

Uh-Oh

On the surface, The Purge aims to critique the sick shit going on in our country right now, albeit very problematically. Dan Gainor, VP of Business and Culture at the Media Research Institute called The Purge “an obvious attack on the Tea Party and Christians” and also argued that:

… the movie is a direct attack on the NRA, an organization filled with millions of law-abiding gun owners. The loony left’s reflexive hatred of the 2nd Amendment is founded in the concept that people who don’t break the law are somehow evil for exercising the Constitutional rights.

Okay, Dan Gainor.

The truth? No anti-Christian or even anti-gun message exists in The Purge, although the director, James Monaco, has said in interviews that the film does, in fact, allude to an indictment of gun culture. In reality, The Purge employs extreme gory violence that undercuts any potential critique of violence, and the gruesome knife scenes and weaponless face shattering against tables stick out way more than the gun stuff. At times, The Purge even seems to support gun ownership; the Sandins wouldn’t have survived those twelve hours without guns, and owning a gun for the protection of oneself and one’s domestic space is a much-touted NRA message. The anti-Christian thing, too, is a reach. The characters worship money for sure, and the film critiques that, but neither Christianity nor any religion ever come up.

Unfortunately, The Purge becomes muddled in its message about government; Big Government runs amok here—an old school conservative’s nightmare—and The New Founders essentially sanction the murder of the have-nots, the people on the lower rungs who can’t afford James Sandin’s security system to cordon themselves off from the annual purgers. If anything, it supports the old school conservative argument against Big Government, and a viewer could easily read it as a cautionary tale for a federal government that holds too much influence over its citizens.

State-of-the-Art-Secured McMansion

On the other hand, neo-cons of 2013 seem to think they dislike Big Government while simultaneously inviting it into wombs all across America, so who the fuck even knows anymore. The point is, The Purge wants to yell from the rooftops, “How awful for the government to endorse the murder of its citizens!” but ultimately yells, “How awful for the government to endorse the murder of its citizens … but, wait, look how well it works when we rid the country of these homeless welfare seekers!” The Purge tries to have it both ways and fails to deliver any real cohesive message regarding guns, religion, or the role of government.

But I definitely heard the slam against the one-percenters loud and clear, and what a welcomed fucking change from the endless dumping of Hollywood Mancession films into the multiplex. The Purge imagines a science fiction-esque United States where the rich take over entirely and wage a violent war against the lower classes, even going so far as to pass a Constitutional Amendment (the 28th) to require its existence. (Most government officials naturally receive legal protection from harm during The Purge.) Simply put: this futuristic United States decides that murdering those most in need makes more sense than uniting together in support of them. In this way, the film does seem to offer a critique of the country’s current fringe groups (the Tea Party, most Republicans) by illustrating a worst-case scenario for a society that values capital over people—and fuck if it didn’t scare me a little.

This is the scariest person I’ve ever seen on film

Because this is a film about class relations and capitalism, the less rich (white people) end up turning on the super rich (white people) during the night—another nod to the idea that unregulated capitalism leads only to societal destruction. The end of the film includes audio of newscasts that play over the credits, with broadcasters reporting that the high number of deaths made that year’s Purge the most successful ever. So, while the film might not necessarily conclude with any real epiphany by the United States and its citizens (yay for killing the homeless!), it allows the audience a glimpse into the lives of a few one-percenters who try to destroy one another, all because of money. Oh, and because Charlie Sandin (a not-yet-sociopathic teen) decides to help a Black dude. “And the Black dude survives!”

As a feminist movie critic, I adored these flips on conventional horror tropes, and several of them exist.

Charlie uses his Robot Baby (omg) to help hide the Black dude from his parents

The White Savior: The Black dude, who seriously remains nameless, shows up in their neighborhood after the Sandins’ purge lockdown (where a hardcore security system barricades their entire home). Charlie Sandin hears gunfire in the streets and sees in the surveillance cameras the Black dude yelling for help, covering a bleeding wound. Charlie zooms in on the man’s terrified face and decides, “Duh, I need to help this guy.” So he unlocks the security system and yells for the shocked-as-hell Black dude to come inside, much to the dismay of his parents. At first, I thought, “This white savior trope again?!” but it didn’t last long. While Charlie helps the man, the older Sandins clearly want no part of it, especially after a group of asshole college kids (that I will forever refer to as “the highly-educated murderers”) threatens to break into their home if they refuse to release the Black dude back into the streets. See, “that homeless swine” belongs to them, and if they don’t get to kill him, they’re more than willing to kill the entire Sandin clan instead. So, duh, the parents torture the Black dude—in an effort to throw him back to the highly-educated murderers—while Zoey and Charlie freak the fuck out like, “WHAT ARE YOU DOING.”

Charlie watches the Black dude on surveillance cameras

The Protective Patriarch: All of this occurs in the name of James Sandin protecting his perfect, white nuclear family. He simultaneously apologize-stabs the Black dude several times while saying, “I’m sorry. I need to protect my family.” Mary Sandin, though, gets her, “James, you’re no better than the people out there!” on—because women and children always play the role of Moral Compass when men go astray. That trope unfortunately remains intact for the rest of the film, culminating with Mary’s decision not to murder her new home invaders (the less-rich jealous neighbors, at this point; did we NOT know they were gunning for the Sandins, too?). At one point Mary says, “Too many people have died tonight, so we’re going to end this night in fucking peace.” Or something. Even the Black dude says to James, “You need to protect your family,” offering up himself to the highly-educated murderers, but James experiences a swift change of heart and refuses to sacrifice him. Thanks to the women and children.

And in a way, I liked that the women and children felt compelled to protect the Black dude and not throw him to the wolves/preppies; I didn’t read their desire to do so as an employment of the white savior trope because these highly-educated murderers aimed to roll in there and kill everybody regardless. So the Sandins weren’t saving the Black dude as much as they were making it only slightly more difficult for him to get murdered. “And the Black dude survives!” in the end. And saves (most of) the Sandins. And walks off into the sun. After looking at Mary Sandin and saying, “Good luck” all deadpan. Ha.

Zoey secretly making out with the bro her dad hates

The Sexual Teenage Girl: Zoey Sandin interests me. Her character follows conventional horror film tropes from the get-go: she dates an older boy, much to the dismay of her disapproving dad because Daddy’s Little Girl. She sneaks around behind her family’s back, and her boyfriend even hides out in her room, staying put for the Sandins’ home lockdown. They make out on her bed while she wears a fucking schoolgirl outfit slash uniform; the scene screams INNOCENT VIRGIN about to HAVE SEX and then DIE because THIS IS A HORROR MOVIE. But. Her dad kills her boyfriend instead in a good ol’ Purge Family Shootout after her boyfriend pulls a gun on James out of nowhere (presumably to purge himself of the rage he feels for not being allowed to date Zoey), and James fires back in self defense. Zoey, a little devastated, runs off and hides for some reason, probably because THIS IS A HORROR MOVIE and groups never stick together.

Eventually, the highly-educated murderers breach the Sandin barricade, and we find Zoey hiding under her bed while—duh again—she sees one of them STOP beside her bed. THIS IS A HORROR MOVIE. While this happens, she overhears another murderer—who’s stroking a photo of Zoey—say, “Exquisite. Save her for me, won’t you?” I immediately thought, please don’t rape her please don’t rape her because THIS IS A HORROR MOVIE, and horror films dole out punishment to their sexually provocative heroines hardcore. But the true highlight of The Purge, for me at least, occurred when Zoey murdered the fuck out of the photo stroker, saving (most of) her family and flipping the Sexual Activity Is Punishable By Death convention on its ass.

Zoey hides under her bed (THIS IS A HORROR MOVIE)

So, all in all, and as unwieldy as The Purge gets (not unlike this review), I couldn’t help but enjoy most of it. The Rich White Dude gets punished, and the minority characters (including women) survive. That shouldn’t be a progressive movie ending in 2013. It is.

She-Ra: Kinda, Sorta Accidentally Feministy

She-Ra: Princess of Fucking Power

Written by Amanda Rodriguez

Confession: as a child of the 80’s, I refused to watch cartoons that didn’t have a significantly visible representation of women in them, and the more visible and the more badass, the better. GI Joe and Transformers were out, but Jem and the Holograms, Thundercats, and He-Man made the cut (don’t ask me to explain my little girl logic). Though Jem had a ton of women in it and I loved the series obsessively, She-Ra: Princess of Power was my favorite because, not only did the show have tons of women in it, but they were all kickass warriors. I still think about and talk about the show more than is probably considered “normal” (whatever that bullshit word means). Now as an adult looking back, I’m compelled to figure out why that show has been so prominent in my consciousness then, as an impressionable young girl, and now, as a feminist grown.First, we’ve got to compare He-Man and She-Ra, twins with magical, transformative, empowering swords. He-Man’s non-magical alter ego is Prince Adam, while She-Ra’s is Adora. Prince Adam takes on the persona of the lazy, whiny, spoiled, conceited prince who is generally a coward, while Adora is the smart, organized, capable, and charismatic leader of The Great Rebellion. While He-Man had to spend half his time pretending to be a fuck-up and to this day people mock Prince Adam (I strongly advise you to watch the video below for some serious yucks), Adora was an example of a tactically astute, benevolent leader who included the talents and ideas of others.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjVugzSR7HA”]

When the twins transform into their superhero selves, both have equally unmatched physical strength (though She-Ra is more prone to doing flips and super sweet spin kicks while shouting “Hee-Yah!”). The jewel in She-Ra’s sword isn’t the only difference between her and He-Man’s swords of birthright. Her sword can transform into nearly any physical object she commands (a shield, a lasso, a ladder, even a helmet that lets her breathe underwater).

She-Ra: “Sword to ice-maker.” Great for making ice cream or freezing over lakes to go skating on warm summer days.

She-Ra also has innate powers that are denied He-Man. She can communicate via telepathy with animals. Not only that but she can heal the injured with a good old-fashioned laying on of hands. It’s easy to see some of her additional powers as the writers attempting to feminize the character. Her empathic communication with animals and healing powers could certainly be coded as “nurturing” and therefore more traditionally feminine, but at the same time, She-Ra is just as strong as He-Man. Let’s face it, with her extra abilities, she’s an even bigger badass than he is.

Then we’ve got to consider the sheer number of female heroes in She-Ra.

From left to right: Glimmer, Angella, Castaspella, She-Ra, Frosta, and the villainous Cat-Ra

Like most shows geared toward young girls around that era, there were a lot of female characters and a notable dearth of male characters. In fact, Bow was She-Ra’s only regularly featured male hero to be included in The Great Rebellion. I also remember She-Ra more consistently involving and more fully featuring its wide range of female characters than, say, My Little Ponies or Rainbow Brite.

In part because of the huge female cast, She-Ra also showcased tons of Bechdel test-passing female friendships.

From left to right: Perfuma, Castaspella, Mermista, She-Ra, Glimmer, Angella, Frosta

These women all work as a team for a noble common cause under a female leader, Adora. Glimmer and Angella are even an inter-generational mother-daughter duo with a profoundly strong connection as shown in the He-Man/She-Ra feature-length film The Secret of the Sword wherein She-Ra is introduced to the He-Man universe and must rescue Queen Angella from a minion of The Evil Horde. Glimmer is also clearly Adora’s best friend. In all actuality, the general lack of female rivalry should be attributed to the pre-sexualized nature of the show’s target audience. Though there are some crushes throughout the series, they are all harmless and never consummated (even with a kiss).

Unlike many superheroine mythologies, She-Ra isn’t the only one with astounding abilities. In fact, her friends possess a plethora of mystical qualities that make them assets to The Great Rebellion. Though the female characters are not diverse in their race or in their slim and buxom builds, they are diverse in their talents. Flight, clairvoyance, teleportation, creation of energy shields, spell casting, uncanny aptitude for disguises, power over frost, and physical transformations are just a handful of the amazing strengths She-Ra’s friends possess. To a woman, they are all brave, leaders in their own right, and capable of working as part of a collective.

She-Ra: “Ladies…um, and Bow, let’s kick some ass!”

Let us not forget that The Great Rebellion is a predominantly female rebellion from its leaders to its foot soldiers to the monarch they hope to enthrone. Glimmer’s mother, Angella is the Queen of Bright Moon and is considered the “rightful ruler of Etheria”. A benevolent matriarch, She-Ra and The Great Rebellion fight the evil Horde in order to restore Angella’s kingdom. All these women have joined together to fight Hordak who is a symbol of the tyranny and oppression of the patriarchy. Don’t believe me? Just think about it: in the film The Secret of the Sword when we meet Adora, she is known as Force Captain Adora, and Hordak is a father figure to her. He has indoctrinated her into the Horde, leading her to believe that the Horde is just and the rebels evil. Hordak also surrounds himself with patriarchy-complicit women like Cat-Ra, Entrapta, Scorpia, and even the mother figure, Shadow Weaver who casts her spells to subdue Adora to the will of Hordak. Essentially, Hordak has lied to Adora about reality. Once she becomes aware of his lies, Adora turns against Hordak, discovers her true, empowered identity as She-Ra, joins a band of women, and fights to supplant him with a matriarchy.

She-Ra…for…the…win…

Yes, all the women of She-Ra are white (except for a handful of obscure cameos by Netossa), and they’re all scantily clad, thin ladies with big boobies. Yes, She-Ra is a calculated He-Man spin-off designed to bring in a female audience and sell more toys in the never-ending quest for more money. And, yes, it’s probably an accident that the girl power vibe and transparent anti-patriarchy theme are so strong. Whatever the studio’s reasoning, the end result is a network of powerful women who not only like each other, but they support each other, organize a rebellion against an oppressive patriarchal regime, and get shit done. The example this powerful group of women set for impressionable girls like myself is tremendous. In the 80’s, I had a glittery She-Ra sword that I felt completely justified in swinging around because I, like She-Ra, was the heroine of my own story.

PS: Mom, sorry about that lamp I broke.

The Women of ‘Man of Steel’ and the Toxicity of Hyper-Masculinity

Amy Adams as Lois Lane in Man of Steel

Written by Megan Kearns.

I’ve never been a huge fan of Superman. Sure I grew up watching and liking the Christopher Reeve films. And I sure as fuck am NOT a fan of Zack Snyder and his frequent faux female empowerment, despite his protestations to the contrary. But I do adore Lois Lane. An intrepid, fast-talking, driven reporter? How could I not?

Lois has had many incarnations: feminist women’s libber, lovelorn damsel in distress, tough business woman. And she’s often a mélange of these traits. She has an extensive feminist history and “she has always reflected conflicting attitudes toward women, especially talented, independent women.” Throughout her history, it seems Lois has always been a crystallization of a woman immersed in a world dominated by patriarchy and sexism. So does Man of Steel give us “a Lois Lane we deserve?”

Lois is a smart, spunky, hard-hitting, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. In her first scene in Man of Steel, when there’s some bro-tastic bullshit being spewed, Lois replies, “Now that we’re done having a dick measuring contest.” Fuck yeah!! Love this Lois! When Lois is shown her Spartan quarters at a military outpost in the Arctic, she questions, “Where do I tinkle?” Did Lois really use the word “tinkle?” Since it was juxtaposed after her awesome “dick-measuring” throwdown, I believe it’s intended as a subtle commentary on how society views women as weak, coddled and needing lots of amenities. But who knows, maybe I’m giving the film too much credit.

Lois writes a story about the mysterious stranger who saves her in the Arctic, believing he is not of this world. When her editor Perry White (Laurence Fishburne, the first African-American to play the role…and sadly one of the few people of color in the film, which is a shame considering “Superman’s identity as a transnational adoptee”), won’t publish her story, she persists and leaks it to an online site. Lois refuses to let anyone get in the way of her career. And that’s incredibly admirable.

In the Superman films with Margot Kidder and Christopher Reeve, Lois is a better reporter than Clark. He can type faster but she’s a shrewd investigative journalist. He has the brawn while she has the brains. But both share a morality: he wants to save people in danger; she wants to tell stories to inform the public and expose injustice. Because of this, both are fairly equal despite Superman’s superhero, god-like powers. There’s an interesting change in Lois’ role in Man of Steel. In the comics and previous films, Lois suspects but doesn’t know Clark is Superman, or if she does know, Clark erases her memory of his true identity. But here she discovers the truth early on. It puts the two characters on more equal ground.

Lois (Amy Adams) in Man of Steel

Producer Deborah Snyder says Lois and Superman in Man of Steel save each other – he saves her physically while she saves him emotionally. Does that sate my need for equality? Notsomuch. Yes, it’s a step in the right direction. Yet it makes me uneasy as it relegates men and women to stereotypical gender roles. That men handle the “tough stuff,” while women the touchy-feely world of emotions.

I like that Lois makes up her mind and has an insatiable curiosity and is career-driven. Yet her life still revolves around Superman. Now some people will argue with me saying, “But the movie is named Superman, NOT Lois Lane!” Yeah, I know. I don’t give a shit. I want women in films to have their own personalities, their own lives, their own identities. Of course Lois’ path is intertwined with Superman’s or she wouldn’t even be in this film. But why must women continuously be reduced to damsels in distress, sidekicks or love interests? Wielding a gun or throwing a punch, isn’t automatically synonymous with power or agency.

Some will argue that Lois fights, playing a pivotal role in defeating General Zod. And she does. But it’s not her ingenuity or skills that enable her achievements. It’s Superman’s daddy via fancy hologram-consciousness instructing her how to defeat Superman’s enemies. Okay, so she can carry out orders. Is that really an improvement? It’s not her ingenuity or intelligence. And of course Lois still remains the love interest and frequent damsel in distress.

Faora (Antje Traue) in Man of Steel

What about Faora, Superman’s female Kryptonian, man-hating (in the comics) nemesis? She kicks some serious ass with a compelling fighting style. And it’s awesome. But again, she merely follows Zod, a dude, serving as his second in command. Why couldn’t she be in charge as the head villain? While she doesn’t have much personality, she does have an interesting exchange with Superman when she tells him he will always lose because he suffers the flaw of morality which she and her brethren have evolved past.

I initially thought this would be an annoyingly bro-tastic film with guidance and support strictly coming from the men in Clark/Kal-El’s life. But women play an equal role in the film. Unlike Star Trek Into Darkness where women remain mostly invisible or as sex objects, we see women in the military, women journalists besides Lois, and women on Krypton in leadership positions. “All of this may seem relatively minor, but it is rare for superhero movies to feature females in important, non-sexualized, non-damsel-in-distress roles.”

What is interesting though is Man of Steel’s commentary on masculinity. Throughout the film, Clark/Kal-El must wrangle with his emotions of identity and belonging. He wants to help people but his father keeps telling him he must hide his powers for people fear what they don’t understand, further underscoring the themes of immigration and xenophobia. When Clark is a young boy, he gets bullied. But he doesn’t fight back; he merely endures. He tells his father he wanted to hit the boy. His father nods and says that part of him wanted him to hit the bully. His father inquires, “But what would that accomplish?” When Clark is much older, traveling around and bouncing from job to job in anonymity, he again encounters a bully objectifying a female co-worker. He endures the bully’s taunts and walks away. There’s a continually dueling masculinity happening on-screen — a mature, calm and rational male who turns the other cheek and a toxic, aggressive, hyper-masculine male vying for supremacy.

Clark/Kal-El (Henry Cavill) and Martha Kent (Diane Lane) in Man of Steel

Both sets of parents — Jor-El and Lara Lor-Van and Jonathan and Martha Kent — influence their son. Man of Steel shows how Clark/Kal-El benefits from the influence of both his adoptive and biological father and mother. Although it would have been nice to see Lara’s consciousness in the Fortress of Solitude, not just Jor-El. Through much of the film, it’s Jor-El and Jonathon Kent providing guidance. But Martha Kent provides as strong an impact on Clark. She teaches her son to silence all of the chaos in his mind (brought on by his superpower senses of hearing, sight and smell), to focus only on the sound of her voice. In a genre that often features “absent mothers,” it’s great to see the power of motherhood here.

By showcasing the strength of his bonds with his father and mother, the film asserts that men need both feminine and masculine spheres in their lives. Superman finds inner peace when he learns of his past and when Lois believes in him. The men in Clark/Kal-El’s life teach him outer strength while the women in his life teach him inner strength.

The message underscoring the film is choice. That we can choose our destiny, choose the lives we lead. I found this especially compelling considering 2013 is shaping up to be the worst year for reproductive rights and the film’s subtle reproductive justice theme as Jor-El and Lara defy the laws of Krypton to conceive Kal-El/Clark. They choose to defy the eugenics of their society and have a child who can choose his own path, not merely follow the one laid out for him by society. They also choose to jettison their child to Earth in order to save his life. While we get to see Jor-El in all kinds of action scenes, Lara is the one who chooses to push the button launching Kal-El when her husband is threatened. By the end of Man of Steel, Superman must make a choice. He must choose Krypton or Earth. And he ultimately decides through a surprising violent act that runs counter to Superman’s moral code. When he breaks down because of his decision, Lois is there to comfort him.

Lara Lor-Van (Ayelet Zurer) in Man of Steel

While I liked it and it’s by far my favorite Snyder film (although trust and believe, that’s not saying much), it’s kind of a mess with tissue-thin characters and not being able to decide what it wanted to be. While it’s “criticial of hyper-masculinity and the violence it engenders” and “condemns sexual objectification and harassment of women,” the film’s last third contained such an onslaught of non-stop violent action it seems to contradict the theme of the perils of violence and aggression. Yet it’s nice to see a film argue that “choice saves the world.”

What does this mean? That men should choose to be gentle? That they should connect with femininity? That men should choose to use violence only when “necessary”? Perhaps it means that men don’t have to be aggressive bullies. They can choose another way as restraint, compassion and tenderness don’t strip men of their masculinity.

While it’s fantastic Man of Steel reinforces the importance of both femininity and masculinity and attempts to deconstruct hyper-masculinity, it’s unfortunate that the film still says women’s lives revolve around men through its failure of the Bechdel Test. Yeah, I don’t really count one-sided conversations of journalist Jenny saying to Lois, “Come see this,” or Faora instructing Lois about her breathing device. What’s annoying is that these conversations could have been fleshed out, along with the discussion between Martha Kent and Lois who talk to each other…but of course about Superman.

Some have hailed Man of Steel “the most feminist action film of the year.” Yes, it depicts women in various roles, boasts an intelligent female love interest and a kickass female villain, and questions toxic hyper-masculinity. Despite all its strides, can a film truly be feminist if it ultimately revolves around dudes?

Superman (Henry Cavill) and Lois (Amy Adams) in Man of Steel

I’m getting really fucking sick and tired of complaining about blockbuster films, particularly superhero films. I love this genre. I love comic books, sci-fi and action films. I want so desperately to have these films be awesome. And feminist. Which would make them even more awesome.

While we’re seeing more women-centric blockbusters like The Hunger Games, Bridesmaids, Twilight and the upcoming The Heat, we desperately need more, especially women in superhero movies (Wonder Woman, She-Hulk, Black Widow, etc, etc, etc). Hollywood has “pretty much entirely devoted itself to telling men’s stories.” It seems like filmmakers are kinda sorta beginning to listen to audiences’ desire for more empowered women on-screen. Yet I’m continuously annoyed that even when filmmakers claim their female roles will be more proactive or empowered, their attempts at appeasement still fail. They still don’t get it.

Some filmmakers and studios think merely increasing the number of women, featuring a female sidekick, or giving a woman a gun solves everything. How about some real empowerment? How about seeing complex female characters with agency? How about we see their perspective, hear their voice and see their struggles?

Man of Steel gets so many things right. Yet it still fails to portray nuanced female characters with agendas of their own who don’t exist to aid in the self-actualization of the men in their lives — roles Lois, Martha, Lara and Faora all serve. It’s a shame especially when you have an iconic feminist female role already embedded in the story.

Romantic Comedy (and Female Friendship) ‘Arranged’ Marriage Style

Written by Rachel Redfern

Arranged is a 2007 romantic comedy by Diane Crespo and Stefan Schaefer about two women, one a Muslim woman, the other Jewish, finding love in an unusual way. Setting a romantic comedy within two disparate but highly developed communities of Orthodox Judaism and Islam in New York City offered a unique perspective on the normally tired genre.

Zoe Lister-Jones is Rochel, a twenty-two year-old Jewish woman from New York, just beginning her new job as a special education teacher at a public school. Francis Benhamou is Nasira, an independent young Muslim woman also beginning her career teaching the fourth grade at the same school. Because of their shared students and more conservative beliefs, the two women become friends and help each other through their prospective arranged marriages. Both women are at a crossroads in their lives as they try to please their families and maintain their faith, while also seeking their own happiness.

As a quick side note, Schaefar and Crespo did an astounding job of placing the film within a religious setting and really giving the film a deep center in tradition and devout faith. During the opening credits, the film establishes itself within these religious neighborhoods in such a way that for the first five minutes I didn’t realize the movie was set in the United States until a character specifically stated it.

Original movie posted for ‘Arranged’

In one strong and fabulous aspect, Arranged is a feminist triumph; the film’s portrayal of female friendships might be at the very top (it also passes the Bechdel Test). These two women meet through a shared passion in their careers and their struggles to find their place and fit into their new school. But it is their ability to connect beyond their faith that is most striking; in one scene, a distraught Rochel desperately asks Nasira to join her at the cemetery and stand near her while she prays for guidance and peace. The image is one of generosity and love, since Nasira cannot participate in the ritual and must just stand by and watch her. But both women are intensely supportive of the other and it’s a positive portrayal of the ways that women build each other up in communities.

Similarly, the film is mostly women and mainly centers on the interactions among mothers and daughters, sisters and friends and the ways that they struggle to understand one another through the lenses of their own experience. I found the mother-daughter relationship between Rochel and Nasira and their mothers to be especially poignant. Rochel’s mother, Sheli (Mimi Lieber), and Nasira’s mother, Amina (Gina Schmuckler), are both incredibly sympathetic to their daughters, obviously wanting what’s best for them—Sheli is even willing to support Rochel in her decision to wait, against the judgments of the matchmaker and neighborhood women; however, they’re also dynamic forces in their daughters’ lives, fighting and pushing them to a decision they think is best. It’s simultaneously both frustrating and heartening to watch but also very realistic in how it captured many female, familial relationships.

Arranged is very focused on proving that modern ideals of love and dating are not always best and obviously wants to show that many women in these same situations are independent and beloved by their families, while also having a choice in who they marry. Unfortunately, the film does end up undercutting its own intentions to show that these women have a choice, but should they make the choice not to marry or choose someone other than a person their family approves of, it’s stated that Rochel (and probably Nasira) would have to leave their families and would ultimately be disowned.

Zoe Lister-Jones and Francis Benhamou in Arranged

Ideas about arranged marriages in the United States vary, from deeply traditional communities still using matchmakers and choosing for their children, to critics, both in and outside of these communities, who say that choices are still limited for women and believe that arranged marriages have similar levels of distress and unhappiness. No one knows the exact amount of marriages in the U.S. that are arranged (or forced for that matter), but researchers believe the number of arranged marriages globally to be around fifty percent.

The film attempts to show that love can build and grow from an arranged marriage since it belies the transience of infatuation, but by the end of the film, it feels like a too-convenient tying up of loose ends. I had hoped to see more exploration in one or two of the couples learning to love each other, or perhaps one of the women making the choice to wait or not to marry. It would have been productive to see how two very good actresses and their devout and intelligent characters would have dealt with such a situation.

It was also unfortunate that three of the four secular characters in the film were caricatures of western insensitivity, and it is sad to think that many intelligent and good people of faith, especially of more orthodox religions, have to deal with such harsh judgment (I’m guilty as well, I confess). But, the other characters seemed to be painted with a quick brush that was pretty heavy on the “airhead.” None of these characters was very informed or particularly smart, a glaring group of character flaws that need some more subtlety and diversity. The female principal of their school (Marcia Jean Kurtz) is especially inappropriate and condescending in the way that she speaks to Rochel and Nasira about their religions (in a way that I think no public school principal in New York City could act and still keep her job).

It’s interesting since this film was made over fifty years ago, but The Fiddler on The Roof is still more of a hard-hitting exploration in tradition vs. modernity, arranged marriage vs. choice, religion vs. race than Arranged.

Yet, all in all, Arranged is a sweet and uplifting film about the power of female friendship with great actresses, a beautiful score, and a uniquely positive portrayal of women. I would definitely recommend this film for a Sunday afternoon.

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

The Grifters; Yeuch

Written by Robin Hitchcock

The Grifters poster

The Grifters (1990) is a movie that’s been on my “to see” list for years. I knew it had epic critical acclaim at the time of its release. I’ve liked nearly every film I’ve seen by director Stephan Frears. I absolutely adore all three members of the main cast (Anjelica Huston, John Cusack, and Annette Bening). And it gets bonus points for having two women as central characters.

But when I finally caught The Grifters this week, it was a big disappointment. There are plenty of things to recommend about this film: It’s not quite like anything I’ve seen before even though it’s in the trope-heavy noir genre. There is some wonderful acting, with Anjelica Huston in particular delivering a riveting performance. Frears brings in some directorial flourishes worthy of the opening credit “A Martin Scorsese Production,” but others feel awkwardly dated, such as the disjointed flashback sequences.

What overshadows these good qualities is that The Grifters is incredibly unpleasant to watch. Unlike most con artist movies, there is no outsider “mark” character to identify with. Roy (John Cusack), his mother Lilly (Anjelica Huston), and his paramour Myra (Annette Bening) are all in the game. The question becomes, as the poster reads, “Who’s conning who?” [sic, I think; I went to public school ;)]

Seductress Myra (Annette Bening)

But the question is actually a distraction from the real plot of the movie, a relationship-focused tragedy. None of the players is naive enough to trust anyone else, so no one gets conned. When Myra suggests to Roy that they team up, he flat out refuses. The inevitable betrayals and violence are all crimes of passion, not the planned schemes we’d expect.

Small-time con Roy (John Cusack)

Seeing this play out is an exercise in misery. And here is where I must issue spoilery trigger warnings for incest and violence against women. One scene that turned my stomach so badly I did not recover for the rest of the film depicts Lilly being intimidated by her racketeering boss Bobo Justus (how’s that for a character name with “sub”textual meaning?) after she fails at the odds-fixing racetrack scheme she works for him. I can’t even bring myself to type a description of the scene, but it is available streaming online if you want to look for it. Lilly is clearly terrified of Bobo (with good reason), but treats him with a kind humility; she hopes her sweetness and deference can save her life. The terrible thing is that it’s clear her actions and demeanor aren’t what let her survive the confrontation, but rather the whims of the man terrorizing her.

Lilly (Anjelica Huston)

Then there is the shocking violence of the third act, with such graphic gore as a woman with her face blown off on a morgue table. The Oedipal twinge to Roy’s relationship with Lilly, who had him when she was only 14 years old, comes to the fore in one of the film’s final scenes. I don’t enjoy incestual themes in any circumstances, but I found Lilly’s attempted seduction of Roy especially disturbing because she does it as a last-ditch effort to convince him to give her the cash she needs to flee Bobo’s wrath. It’s mutually non-consensual. It gets no further than a kiss, but that relief is immediately side-swept by more graphic violence.

And so The Grifters is a well-made and fantastically-acted movie that I would never recommend. Certainly some people will have a stronger tolerance than I do for its dark themes. My guess is that it’s easier to be entertained by this sort of thing when you are at the top of the kyriarchy like most film critics from the early 90’s (and sadly, today as well). But everyone else comes from a position of heightened awareness of their own vulnerability to violence and sexual assault. And that makes a movie like The Grifters seem more like a psychological weapon than a great film.

Robin Hitchcock is an American writer living in Cape Town, South Africa.

‘Arrested Development’s Mancession: Economic and Gender Meltdowns in Season 4

Arrested Development promo.

Written by Leigh Kolb
Spoilers ahead!

When Arrested Development first aired in 2003, the news cycle was heavy with stories of Enron-like corporate scandals and the escalating Iraq War. The first run of the series–from 2003 to 2006–relied heavily on inspiration from news stories about crooked corporations and wartime scandals to draw the Bluth family and their “riches-to-rags” story.

After a seven-year hiatus, during which rabid fans hoped, speculated and begged for more, the fourth season of Arrested Development debuted on Netflix on May 26, 2013.

During the hiatus, America has dealt with the housing bubble and economic collapse, high unemployment, sweeping legislation against reproductive rights and a lot of hand-wringing over the “Mancession” and the supposed “end of men” in American culture. There is plenty of comedy fodder buried in the depths of societal despair, and Mitch Hurwitz and company took full advantage.

In the first three seasons of the show, Michael Bluth was our good guy–the ethical, self-aware, hardworking man in a sea of familial dysfunction.

Michael considers his failings while a vulture watches on.

In the first episode of season 4, however, we first see Michael drunkenly ascend the stairs of the stair car (now emblazoned with the “Austero Bluth Company” logo) to try to settle a debt with Lucille 2. Sally Sitwell makes a snide comment about how she’s glad she didn’t marry him, and Michael attempts to seduce Lucille 2 for the money.

Michael is not the golden son we knew before. And while everyone in the Bluth family is, on some level, remarkably terrible, Michael’s fall from grace is especially jarring–and it’s supposed to be.

Lucille 2 is not interested in Michael’s desperate advances.

He’s living in George Michael’s dorm room and taking classes through the University of Phoenix. He’s clueless and desperate, lost after the housing market crashed and he loses control of his company. He tries to construct a new subdivision, but it doesn’t have the proper utilities. He can’t quite get anything right.

Arrested Development‘s new season is a comical, satirical look at the idea of the Mancession and the threat to traditional American masculine identity that writers and pundits have been analyzing and panicking about for the last few years. Jobs that have typically been held by men–construction and manufacturing, as well as finance–disappeared during the recession. Michael’s fall from grace echoes the fall from dominance that men in his position seem to have suffered during the recession.

The patriarch of the family, George Sr., is also a “victim” of emasculation in this season. Living in a commune-turned-corporate retreat with Oscar, a 21st century Roger Sterling and his female companions, George Sr. partakes in maca root that is downhill from a porta-potty. (A reddit commenter noted that the maca was probably affected by women who were on birth control pills using the toilet, which is a common anti-birth-control battle cry.) George Sr. is indeed feminized by his drug use, and a doctor confirms that he has the estrogen levels of a normal, healthy woman, and that he has almost no testosterone. He cries, feels weak, complains that he hates the way he looks and worries about looking fat (Lucille 2 responds by calling him a “drama queen”).

Her?

George Sr.’s continuous fall from power into obscurity is shown by his becoming more and more like a woman. While on another show this might be unbelievably offensive, it works on Arrested Development because we are laughing at the characters, and their dysfunction is highlighted by sexist remarks, cultural appropriation and casual racism.

Perhaps most noteworthy about Michael and George Sr.’s descents is that the two men have little to no control over what’s happening to them or around them. A hallmark of the recession’s effect on men, and the proceeding news that women are increasingly breadwinners and are out-pacing men in college and rising in the ranks in the workforce is just that: a desperate feeling of a lack of control. This is why pundits on Fox News engage in “man-panic” and try to say that science shows men are superior. This is why bloggers list all of the ways the “American man” is threatened by the changing economy.

The other men are involved in sub-plots dealing with masculinity and homosexuality. George Michael (who hates his name and tries to disconnect himself from his father) studies in Spain, growing a mustache and having an affair with a Spanish woman who he works as a nanny for. Gob’s episode is a spoof on the masculine-fueled Entourage, and he struggles with aging out of the youthful party scene. Gob and Tony Wonder, trying to enact revenge upon each other, fall in friendly love and blur the lines between friendship and romance. When George Michael says that his name is “George Maharis,” he chose the name of an actor who in 1974 was arrested for having sex with a male hairdresser named Perfecto Telles (the name of Maeby’s under-aged boyfriend).

For a brand of men for whom being emasculated is pretty terrifying, they are subjected to a great deal of it in season 4.

Buster, who grows from a “mother boy” to a “mother man,” has an affair with the wife of a politician (Herbert Love, a black Tea Party-inspired politician who is strongly against birth control coverage). He re-joins the Army and becomes a drone pilot, thinking he’s getting unlimited juice boxes and playing video games. His inability to kill a kitten, however, gets him discharged.

Arrested Development manages to parody everything–even drone strikes–and make it work.

Tony Wonder plays gay for his act, but he and Gob share an intimate relationship that evolves into a game of sexual chicken. Speaking of chickens, here’s a National Geographic post that analyzes the Bluths’ chicken dances. Amazing.

Hannah Rosin turned her Atlantic piece, “The End of Men,” into the book, The End of Men: And the Rise of Women. She examines the changing roles of men in society, and how women are taking charge at home and at work.The women of Arrested Development often have a sense of agency and control that women don’t always have in comedic sitcoms. Lady T, who looked at the main female characters through a feminist lens in her piece for Bitch Flicks, says,

“The Bluth-Funke women make up some of the most entertaining, well-rounded characters on television. They provide just as much laughs as the male characters on Arrested Development and help to dispel the ridiculous claims that ‘women aren’t funny.'”

Lucille (1 and 2), Lindsay, Maeby and even Ann are powerful figures in season 4 and figure prominently in plot lines involving the leading men. I think it’s safe to say that compared to the male characters, we feel less sympathy for the women, because they are, on the whole, less pitiful.

Lucille on The Real Asian Prison Housewives of the Orange County White Collar Prison System.

Lucille Bluth and Lindsay are both shallow and conniving as ever. Lindsay’s spiritual journey is laughable (“I read some of Eat, Pray, Love,” she says), but she does what she wants, just like Lucille, who manages to infiltrate a gang of Asian women in prison. In flashbacks, Kristen Wiig is amazing as a young Lucille.

“I’m surrounded by squalor and death and I still can’t be happy.”

Lucille Austero is running for office against Herbert Love, and has a powerful corporate position.

Maeby, attempting to finish high school and feeling insecure about the fact that she hasn’t and the fact that her career in film production is ending, pimps out her mother and runs an aggressive PR campaign for George Michael’s fake FakeBlock.

Maeby’s film career gets cut short, so she gets creative.

Ann had a child with Tony Wonder and is planning on marrying Gob, but he backs out, and she manages to get back at both of them.

In short, the women of Arrested Development continue to have a great deal of twisted power, just as they did in previous seasons.

George Michael and his father have been dating the same woman, Rebel, and the two come to blows at the end of the season. George Michael rejects his name and punches his father, and enters himself into the canon of men with daddy issues in film and media, including his own father and grandfather.

This third generation of Bluths–George Michael and Maeby–are products of the arrested development of their family and are fulfilling the roles that have been laid out for them, even as they try to rebel.

The way that Arrested Development tackles–no, skewers–current issues and societal woes makes it brilliant and surprisingly timeless. From corporate fraud to war scandals to economic crashes to gender norms, the same issues and problems arise time and time again. Society is, indeed, one big roofie circle.

You can catch Tobias on the evangelical television network.

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

Brit Marling Co-Writes and Stars in the Murky Yet Gripping Drama, ‘The East’

Sarah (Brit Marling)

This guest post by Candice Frederick previously appeared at her blog Reel Talk and is cross-posted with permission.

Brit Marling is one of the most authentic actresses of her generation. Remarkably so. She’s not a method actor, not someone who is particularly possessed by a character. Rather, her performances are organic, like they’re peeled from her own person, and not a distant portrayal. No matter how flawed her characters are, she plays them with the same amount of caress and kinship as if they were all varied parts of one whole.

And that’s just the type of actress needed to serve as the ambiguous moral compass in the riveting new drama, The East. In a film that right from its start questions its own intent, Marling (who co-wrote the script with the film’s director, Zal Batmanglij, who also teamed with her for 2011’s Sound of My Voice) quietly yet fiercely redefines the political drama genre in which it exists. Marling plays Sarah, a smart, recent college grad who’s just landed a job at an elite private intelligence firm. Her first task? To infiltrate a dissident group of individuals, a freegan collective, whose sole mission it is to punish and take down various pharmaceutical companies that they feel have indirectly poisoned consumers with their products (in a sense, giving them a taste of their own medicine). The East refers to their latest, largest, target company in which they have a more personal interest.

Despite their cause and their ultimate actions, this cartel, so to speak, isn’t an aggressive batch. They live not too far away from the political heartland, Washington D.C., in a wall-less house torched several years ago by their leader, Benji (Alexander Skarsgård in a solemn yet passionate role), who once lived there as a young boy. They munch on earthly cuisine mostly found on the ground or in dumpsters and avoid any processed or store-brought items to eat, wear, or consume in any way. Needless to say, they appear as vagrants, even though they consist of once-valued members of society who played their parts in the America machine. When one of them, Doc (Toby Kebbell), a physician, experiences first hand the effects of the industry’s conspiracy, he completely changes his life focus to join the cause. Each of the players, including Izzy (Ellen Page), who’s a little feisty firecracker, have had similar paths where the cause has affected them personally.

Izzy (Ellen Page) and Benji (Alexander Skarsgard)

It is Sarah’s job to learn their tactics and plans and report back to Sharon (Patricia Clarkson), her manager at Hiller Brood in D.C. But things change once she learns the truth behind their efforts.

What The East does that makes it more interesting than many other films that have saturated the political genre is its distinct intangibility. It doesn’t set out with a particular purpose. Rather, it embodies a general sentiment of frustration and complacency. The film paints a portrait of a young woman, already impressionable due to her age and unwavering drive to succeed. Sarah’s not a martyr because she’s not really sure she wants to be, despite an unspecified determination. She’s not sure which position to play; she knows she wants to be in the one that lets her win. Which makes her a prime target for both Hiller Brood and the anarchist group because she’s not on either side, really. She’s extremely accessible, in part due to Marling’s natural vulnerability, which makes her point of view that much more relatable even if it doesn’t specifically resonate with you.

Thankfully, Batmanglij and Marling’s screenplay approaches the subject on a much broader level so that it never comes off as a public service announcement, despite the course of events. Sarah’s strength, even when she becomes submerged with the group, is so magnetic to watch. The film also does a good job of clenching the viewer with a heart-thumping score that increases the intensity and pace of the events. If you’re a fan of Tony or Ridley Scott’s work, you can see their influence there. They are just two of the producers of the film.

When we first meet Sarah (Marling), we know her as a young woman who jogs to the sound of Christian music playing in her ears. With Marling’s introductory narration in the beginning of the movie, you can tell right away that Sarah is a soft, empathetic young woman who could easily fall prey to a more pragmatic personality (like her boss, Sharon, for instance). She’s just trying to do what’s right, what she knows to be pragmatic. She has a steady live-in boyfriend with whom she is in love, though she does not confide in him about her professional escapades. She does everything her boss tells her to do, but her actions become less dependable when she becomes affected by the group’s efforts, providing the film with its murky transition.

The beauty of The East is that it doesn’t take any side; it humanizes both sides and shows the weaknesses and strengths of both arguments. In that sense, it is an honest movie. It doesn’t tell you to think any one way or change your opinion on the pharmaceutical industry. Though the movie takes you inside the lives of those involved in the protest movement, and one pro-industry magnet who’s gone rogue, it doesn’t beat you over the head with either story. It’s the rather sensitive portrayals from each character that you will remember the most.

Candice Frederick is an NABJ award-winning print journalist, film critic, and blogger for Reel Talk.

‘Farah Goes Bang’: A Love Letter to Female Friendships

Farah Goes Bang movie poster

Written by Amanda Rodriguez
Spoiler Alert

“I wanted to do something I hadn’t done before. Change the world and be awesome.” – 17 year-old female John Kerry Campaign Volunteer in Farah Goes Bang

Meera Menon’s Tribeca Film Festival award-winning Farah Goes Bang is a lot of things: it’s a coming-of-age and sexual awakening story, a road trip narrative, a political tale, a multicultural expression, a chick flick, and a love affair with all the beauty and grit of the American experience. The strongest facet of this film, however, is its unflinching depiction of the strength and intimacy of female friendship.

The story centers around three young women who’ve just finished college and decide to take a road trip together as volunteers on the John Kerry presidential campaign. Our heroine, Farah, is tired of her pesky virginity and wants to lose it on the campaign trail. On the road, both Farah (Persian) and her friend Roopa (Indian) encounter racism along with its companions stereotyping and bigotry. Menon talked in an interview on KeralaNext.com about the culture clash the women encounter:

“Their odyssey through the heartland of America is meant to demonstrate the ways in which these girls are often not seen as American, though they are as American as any other. I really wanted the film to integrate their faces and races into a new sense of American identity, one that embraces the hybrid, cross-cultural form that I have experienced in my own sense of citizenship.”

All I have to say is: YES. As a feminist woman of color, this kind of representation of my experiences (and the experiences of countless women just like me) is invaluable. Showing these women as rounded human beings with troubles that are not so foreign or alien as white culture would have you believe is something we desperately need as part of a movement toward inclusivity, toward acceptance and the embracing of those our society typically marginalizes and others.

“I think [the scarf] looks pretty, kinda like it belongs on you.” – KJ “That is so racist.” – Roopa

Farah Goes Bang passes the Bechdel test all day long. The core of this film is the connection between these three women and how it supports them, gives them strength, allows them their fluidity of identity, and is fun as well as necessary for each of their unique journeys. Menon says,

“The film, at its heart, is about the importance of female friendships during the rapid period of personal growth that is your twenties. I have learned so much through my friends, particularly female, about who I am and the woman I hope to be. This film is a love letter to how formative those relationships are when you are young.”

Near the end of the film, Farah finally gets her hook-up on the much anticipated election night. It’s dark out, so we never clearly see the man she seduces, nor do we learn his name. (The seduction itself is a pivotal character shift because, until this point, Farah had always been meek and incapable of owning her sexuality.) After they have sex, she goes back to the cabin where her friends are, wanting to spend the rest of this meaningful night with the people who are most important to her: her girlfriends. It is the bond of friendship that sees these young women through the crushing disappointment of the election and the very adult realization that the world isn’t very easy to change.

KJ, Farah, and Roopa enjoying a special night of anticipation and fireworks.

Though the film is a bit rose-colored and unrealistic with some of its themes (Roopa’s lack of internal struggles render her one-dimensional when compared to her two friends, KJ’s cathartic conversation with a military vet, and Farah’s empowering encounter with a drag queen followed by her ideal one-night-stand with a beautiful, nameless stranger), it turns out it’s still nice to watch a movie about women that doesn’t involve a rape or murder (especially a women-on-the-road story), where the women don’t necessarily all get what they want, but they come out the other side together, happy, and ready for the next challenge.