Where Have You Gone, Sarah Connor?

Remember Linda Hamilton (playing Sarah Connor) and her guns in Terminator 2?
This guest post by Holly Derr is cross-posted with permission from The Ms. Magazine Blog.
Summer always makes me a bit nostalgic for childhood. I remember fondly the excitement of being out of school, the long days with nothing to do but read and the cool refuge from the hot Texas sun provided by a matinee of a summer blockbuster at the local movie theater.
Unfortunately, this summer’s action movies have left me nostalgic for more than the air conditioning. Only a few of the most highly anticipated movies of the summer feature more than one woman, and those women are primarily co-stars, not leads. After Earth and World War Z have wives who stay home while the man goes on the adventure. Elysium co-stars Jodie Foster as a bad guy, but from what little information has been released on the plot, her weapon of choice appears to be government red tape. Even Monsters University only has one female student—and she’s a cheerleader.
Anne Hathaway as Catwoman
To make matters worse, the characters who do get in on the action are mostly played by women who cannot believably fight. The Heat is a buddy cop movie starring Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy, but it looks to be more comedy than action. The female hero of Kick Ass 2 is a young girl. And though Gwyneth Paltrow as Pepper Potts in Iron Man 3, Zoe Saldana as Uhura in Star Trek: Into Darkness, Gal Gadot as Giselle and Michelle Rodriguez as Letty in Fast and Furious 6, and Rinko Kikuchi as Pacific Rim‘s Mako Mori are supposedly tough, they are so thin that it’s hard to believe that they’re actually capable of action. In fact, though Uhura is present for two of the fights in the new Star Trek, in the first, she mainly hides behind a wall, and in the second, she merely fires a phaser which, being a phaser, doesn’t even have any kickback.
This trend is disturbing but not accidental: The diets these women go on to prepare for their roles mean that no matter how much training they do, they’re not eating enough to build muscle. To prepare for Catwoman, Anne Hathaway went vegan and was, by her own account, exhausted all the time. Not surprisingly she failed to build any muscle despite intensive training: most scientists agree that the full range of amino acids responsible for muscle growth is only found in animal products. (Think about it–have you ever seen a muscular vegan?) Gwyneth Paltrow published her “elimination” diet in her book, It’s All Good, and indeed it does appear she does more eliminating than eating. And Alice Eve, whose totally unnecessary underwear scene as Carol Marcus in Star Trek: Into Darkness has prompted its fair share of criticism, told Allure that to prepare for the role she ate nothing but spinach for five months. Perhaps that’s why she and her counterpart in the film, Saldana (who clocks in it at a whopping 115 pounds) spend most of the movie looking like they are about to cry.
Ellen Ripley
I say we bring back Ripley. To prepare for her role in Aliens, Sigourney Weaver did dumbbell chest presses, squats, shoulder presses, and rows—all with weights—and she didn’t diet at all. Did you hear that? Not at all. I say we bring back Sarah Connor. In Terminator 2, Linda Hamilton did basic soldier training and ate a high-protein diet, and, indeed, she has guns in her hands and on her arms. Or remember when a 140-pound Jamie Lee Curtis did a strip tease to protect her “cover” in True Lies? Now that was a motivated underwear scene. (Note to J.J. Abrams: Having Eve take her clothes off in the middle of rushing from one place to the next for no reason at all is simply objectification.)
These female heroes of yore were popular not just because they were badass: They were also fantastic characters. Unfortunately, the summer movie with the best female fights (and the most diverse casting) is probably going to be the one that provides the least opportunity for character development. Gina Carrano, an actual Mixed Martial Arts professional, and Michelle Rodriguez did almost all of their own fights for Fast and Furious 6, and those fights are pretty damn cool. But because Rodriguez’s character Letty has amnesia, she moves through every moment of the film when she’s not driving or fighting like she’s in a daze. Carrano as Riley never speaks more than one or two lines per scene.

 

 

Saldana, Eve and Paltrow are gorgeous and talented, and the problems with their performances are largely the result of underwritten characters. I don’t mean to body shame this summer’s starlets for being slender, though I do wish they would eat. I mean to shame Hollywood for asking them to starve themselves, and to shame a culture that thinks starving women are beautiful. It’s not a coincidence that many women action heroes are actually children—that’s about as big as Hollywood lets women get these days.
Media-saavy Geena Davis, in an interview about her movie The Long Kiss Goodnight (in which she played amnesiac CIA agent Samantha Caine who, like Jason Bourne, has forgotten who she was but not how to fight), explained why this matters:

Thelma and Louise had a big reaction, there was a huge thing at the time, that, ‘Oh my god, these women had guns and they actually killed a guy!’ … That movie made me realize—you can talk about it all you want, but watch it with an audience and talk to women who have seen this movie and they go, ‘YES!’ They feel so adrenalized and so powerful after seeing some women kick some ass and take control of their own fate. … Women go, ‘Yeah – fucking right!’ Women don’t get to have that experience in the movies. But hey, people go to action movies for a reason; they want to feel adrenalized and they want to identify with the hero, and if only guys get to do that then it’s crazy.

Long live Samantha Caine. Long live Thelma and Louise.
Holly L. Derr is a writer, director, and professor living in Los Angeles. She writes regularly for The Ms. Magazine Blog on theater, film, television and reproductive rights. Her tumblr Feminist Fandom addresses representation of sex, gender, sexuality, and race in the media. Follow her @hld6oddblend.

 

‘True Blood’ Season Six Kick Off!

Written by Rachel Redfern

***Spoiler (or more aptly called, rumors) alert  

With the passing of one great HBO show comes the dawn of a new one. While we all cry for the season finale of Game of Thrones and the subsequent nine months without Peter Dinklage, it means now we have True Blood to look forward to.

Starting June 16th, the next great gratifyingly guts and love HBO show will be up and running with ten episodes pleasantly filled with Eric Northman (Alexander Skarsgard), Bill Compton (Stephen Moyer), and Alcide Herveoux (Joe Manganiello); while the show has a normal run of twelve episodes a season, it’s been shortened to a soul-crushing ten due to Anna Paquin’s pregnancy.

As a little recap, season five ended with Eric yelling, “Sookie, Run!” after the creation of Billith, the lovable Bill turned into a religious vampire fundamentalist who drinks the ancient blood of Lillith and becomes an evil liturgical nightmare. 

Artwork of Lillith

As a feminist, I find it fascinating that Lillith was chosen as the starting point for the vampire religion. In the original legend of Lillith, she was created before Eve to be Adam’s wife, but she refused to be Adam’s “slave” and so rebelled against god, left the Garden of Eden and then slept with Satan. She gave birth to many children by Satan, but when god demanded she give them to him she refused. Therefore, like so many female mythic figures (and modern day ones) she has been cast as either a demonic prostitute or as a great mother figure who protects children, more commonly known as the angel on the hearth.

This obviously transitions into the use of religious themes from season five, and that will be carried over into season six. (According to the season six trailer, an incredulous Sookie tells Bill, “You really do think you’re god.”) Whether True Blood intends to cast Lillith as a demon or an angel hasn’t been entirely determined (though my money is on demon); however, it’s incredibly unique to have a woman as the savior figure in a religion (the only other film/tv show I can think of is Dogma, and I’m not sure that counts). Unfortunately though, it seems Lillith can’t just stay a woman; Bill drinks Lillith’s blood and effectively becomes a part of her,  either taking on some part of her divinity or just becoming her in flesh. While it was a bit frustrating to have her become a man at the end of the season, it’s also still interesting to have a possibly androgynous religious figure.

True Blood is a show that has consistently dealt with some of the more mythological and pagan representations of women: Holly (Lauren Bowles) as a good witch; Marnie (Fiona Shaw) and Antonia in season four as the sometimes bad, sometimes good witches; Maryann (Michelle Forbes), as the evil ancient maenad in season two; and a whole host of good, bad and flighty fairies throughout the entire show.

Of course on the surface, True Blood gets a reputation as a vampire romance with lots and lots of sex; however, the show in general has powerful themes: religious fundamentalism, terrorism, racism, homosexuality, and even PTSD. Todd Lowe and his gentle search for earthly normalcy provided a great counterpoint to the search for supernatural artifacts or dominion of the other characters. Also, Lafayette (Nelsan Ellis) is one of the most interesting homosexual characters on television; Ellis plays the role with a physical masculinity but with a more feminine wardrobe and a flamboyant sexuality. For me, Ellis’ masterful acting as a playful joining of genders and stereotypes is able to move away from a trite rehashing of more mainstream representations of homosexuality. (Note: The following clip, while representative of Ellis’ fine powers of gender melding, also contains explicit language. NSFW.)

 

True Blood also did an amazing job with firmly insinuating a real sense of place into the series; there is a gritty realism to its deep south with the humidity, rich and poor suburbs, accent, clothing and behavior. Ultimately the show portrays poverty, varying levels of education, spiritual communities, even a few crappy old cars, and unlike many other shows, characters are of varying beauty and body type, have unstylish hair cuts and ill-fitting jeans (except for a lot of the vamps–most of them are just dripping sex). So at least the show maintains some sense of realism while the main cast runs around staking vampires and strip dancing with fairies.

We also have to recognize the incredibly kick ass soundtracks that the producers bang out over every season: Beyond the bland mixes of generic pop music of most shows, True Blood features punk rock, country, folk music, fabulous jazz and sleazy hip hop in a brilliant mashup. It also has in my opinion, one of the best, if not the best, opening sequences of any tv show. 
 

The cast of True Blood


So, on to season six: what can we expect? Spoilers and rumors to follow.

Sookie and Jason: Looks like Sookie and Jason are on the trail for Warlow (Rutger Hauer), the mysterious vampire who killed their parents and to whom Sookie was apparently promised. Sookie also looks like she’s coming in to her own and letting someone (Bill? Eric?) know she doesn’t belong to anyone and that she’s getting sick of the way her life is going.

Eric and Sookie: Eric and Sookie look like they’re getting it on in a few scenes and beyond that, Eric looks sweet, and sexy and amazing. Perhaps this season we’ll get to see him in the heroes’ role as he realizes the best parts of himself? Also, apparently Nora isn’t just his sister? Supposedly, there’s a little bit more of a secret there than we originally thought. Bigger than all of that though, is the rumor that Eric might meet the true death in this season, which if that happens, would entirely change the course of the show.

On a side note however, the show has received some criticism for its unwillingness to kill off major characters, so while I think that Eric dying is a low possibility, (though Skarsgard’s career has been gaining recently; he might want to move on to other projects) perhaps that’s why the show might be ready to take the plunge of major character death? Also, consider this season’s tagline “No one lives forever.” 

True Blood Season 6 and tagline

Pam and Tara: Pam and Tara will continue their relationship and the two definitely seem to be going it alone. However, I have heard that Tara has a near-true-death experience, which we hope will only be an experience and not a permanent change. 

Evil: The humans might just be the villains in this season, along with Warlow, since rumors have been leaked of scary anti-vampire weapons (one of which might end up hurting Tara). It also looks like there’s some intense secret lab where humans have been conducting experiments on vampires and other supernaturals. Perhaps a vampire/werewolf alliance will be on the horizon this season?

On a happy note, everyone’s favorite pastor family is back with Sarah Newlin (Anna Camp) and Steve Newlin (Michael McMillian), and Sarah looks like she’s probably gonna be a badass. 

Trailer #2

Trailer #1 

What do you think will happen this season? Is it time for a main character to die? 

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 Host’: Less Anti-Feminist Than ‘Twilight’, but Hardly a Sisterhood Manifesta

The Host posters

This guest post by Dr. Natalie Wilson is cross-posted with permission from Ms. Magazine.

I readily admit I did not read The Host. I couldn’t face it after immersing myself in all things Twilight while researching my book Seduced by Twilight. I started it, but less than 20 pages in I couldn’t stomach any more of Stephenie Meyer’s purple, flaccid prose. No, I agree with Nicki Gerlach—that “Meyer is not a particularly concise or elegant writer, never saying in one sentence what she could hammer at for three.”
As such, I went into the film of The Host with low expectations, presuming I would hate it and be bored to tears. I was prepared for a sappy ode to sparkly true love and immortal families. And while the narrative does indeed ultimately celebrate these things, it does so in a way far more engaging than its Twilight predecessor. This is largely due to a stronger lead—a fierce young Melanie Stryder (Saoirse Ronan), who resists the occupation by the alien known as Wanderer (later called Wanda). Early in the movie, after Wanderer is implanted into her neck, she informs her alien occupier through interior dialogue, “I’m still here. Don’t think this is yours. This body is mine.”
Max Irons as Jared and Saoirse Ronan as Melanie in The Host

While I would have been thrilled had this refusal of bodily occupation turned into a sci-fi version of “my body, my choice,” I am familiar enough with Meyer to know this would not be the case, despite her recent claims to being an uber-feminist. Yet while Melanie may not be more bell hooks than Bella Swan, she at least is not the passive sap that led us through thousands of pages and four films of not doing much more than ogling Edward the vampire in Twilight. No, Melanie jumps out of windows, steals cars, survives a trek through the dessert and fends off various humans and alien foes. Alas, she is, like Bella, anchored to the world of patriarchal heteronormativity and gender conformity via her positioning as nurturing sister to her younger brother Jamie, and love interest to first Jarad (Max Irons), then Ian (Jake Abel).
But I was pleasantly surprised when the film didn’t make me grimace through painful odes to abstinence or groan at a genuflection to the mighty power of patriarchs. Instead, I quite liked Melanie, a female character who could not only walk without tripping, seemed to have a mind of her own, chutzpah and, gasp, didn’t deny her sexual urges.
Meyer claimed she intended to “portray a positive relationship between the two women at the center of the story,” and, indeed, she does. Melanie fights Wanderer’s occupation of her body, but they ultimately become close allies, referring to each other as “sister” by film’s end. Is this the sisterhood manifesto Meyer’s recent “I am a feminist” claims suggest she supports? If so, it seems her brand of feminism involves women uniting in their love for men. Que feministe!
Saoirse Ronan in The Host

Admittedly, Melanie and Wanda also love one another by the end of the film, but they are still ultimately defined by their male love interests. (Ah, if only THEY could have become lovers, a la the fanfiction that has Bella  and Alice as the Twilight couple rather than Bella and Edward.)
Granted,  Melanie is far more of a Hermione type than a Bella one.  She is cognizant that the opening claim of the film that  “The Earth is at peace. There is no hunger. There is no violence. The environment is healed. Our world has never been more perfect” is false. When we first see her, she is fighting off the alien invaders of her planet and then willfully jumping from a window, choosing potential death over an alien-occupation of her body. (If only Bella had resisted wolf/vampire takeover with anything like such resistance!) But, alas, Melanie’s identity is also mired in a love triangle—well, more of a quadrangle, actually, wherein her reason to live is fueled not only by her filial love for her little brother but also romantic love for Jared/Ian.  This “unusually crowded romantic triangle—with four aching hearts but only three bodies to play for” (as CNN put it) results in a narrative that is less feminist utopia, more sci-fi romance.
While Melanie gets a feminist gold star for refusing to play the controlled virgin (in fact, she takes the sexual lead, insisting she and Jared should have sex given the apocalyptic alien invasion of the world), things become less copacetic when Wanda and Ian fall for each other—a narrative thread that makes the fight for body/self less between she and Wanderer and more of a question whether she “belongs” to Jared or Ian. While there are certainly queer possibilities in this love triangle of three bodies and four lovers, this is Meyer-world, so of course no such queery-ing happens. Instead, an alien who could have been genderless is decidedly feminized, and an inter-species romance that could have been queer/polyamorous is decidedly hetero-ized.
Movie still from The Host

In the scenes where the Wanda-occupied Melanie desires to kiss Ian, the internal dialogue delivered by Melanie has creepy undertones that smack of valuing only certain kinds of love. When Melanie tells Wanda “this is so wrong … you’re not even from the same planet…” she could just as readily be arguing against same-sex love and/or any romantic formations that do not accord with heterosexual monogamy.
Nevertheless, when Wanda informs Ian that even though “this body loves him” (meaning Melanie’s body) but “I also have feeling of my own,” there is the slightest suggestion that maybe, just maybe, hetero-monogomy is not the only option. Wanda, noting “this is very complicated,” can be read here as arguing for the possibility of polyamory/queer romance, while Melanie’s later insistence she and Wanda can both live in the one body similarly questions the notion of singular, fixed identity.
Regrettably, the ending of the film (spoiler alert!) fails to champion any such queer/feminist notions. No, instead of occupying the same body and loving both Jared and Ian, Wanda is implanted into another human body—a female one, of course—and one that is also white and traditionally attractive. You didn’t think this alien-human love could transcend gender or white privilege, did you? Of course not. This is Meyer-world, after all.
Chandler Canterbury as Jamie in The Host

Though The Host is more feminist-friendly than Twilight in ways, it is no feminist ode. Along the way to its happy-ever-after for the two central couples (Melanie and Jared and Wanda and Ian), it also takes some worrying forays into the violence-is-sexy meme and has undercurrents of pro-life messaging. In one scene, Wanda says “kiss me like you wanna get slapped,” and in others her discovery that the human holdouts are killing aliens can be read as a pro-life message wrapped in an alien invasion package— especially if we consider that some of the first words said of Melanie in the film are “this one wants to live.” Later, Wanda’s character continues this anti-abortion meme, telling the humans, after discovering embryo-sized aliens surrounded by blood on an operating table, “I can’t stay here, not with you slaughtering my family in the next room.”
Alas, while some laud “the significance of one of the most popular authors in the world standing up to say she’s a feminist,” I concur with Jezebel’s Madeleine Davis, who queries Meyer as follows: “If the world’s a better place when women are in charge, why not give them a little bit of agency between the covers of your books?” Admittedly, The Host gives female characters more agency than Twilight, but it is still mired (Meyer-ed?) in traditional romance, normative gender roles, hetero-monogamy as the happy ending and pro-life sentiment. It is more feminist-friendly than Twilight, but is that really a win for feminism when we have to argue the merit of stories that are not as rabidly anti-feminist as that four-book ode to patriarchal romance?

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.

How ‘New Girl’s Jess and Nick Avoided Common Rom-Com Pitfalls

Jess (Zooey Deschanel) and Nick (Jake Johnson) have their first kiss
Written by Lady T.  
This year’s season of New Girl introduced a sitcom plot that fans and audience members anticipate and dread in equal measure: the BIG KISS between two lead characters, and the will-they-won’t-they dynamic that followed.
Hooking up the two lead characters of any show is always a risky move for writers to take. No matter how much chemistry exists between the two actors, viewers and critics often fear–with good reason–that once the unresolved sexual tension is resolved, the relationship will become an endless cycle of breakups, reunions, and miscommunication, and no longer be entertaining to watch (ahem).
As a fan of New Girl, I was apprehensive about the idea of Jess and Nick getting together, because I’ve watched TV before and I’ve seen how even great sitcoms can be dragged down by tiresome will-they-won’t-they plots (such as Community’s Jeff/Britta dance of sexual tension before the writers wisely changed course with that storyline). Now that the season has come to an end, I can safely say that Jess and Nick’s kiss did not drag down the show, but elevated a good season into a great one. In fact, Jess and Nick have become one of the more delightful TV romances I’ve ever seen.
How did the writers pull this off?
1. They kept up the pacing and moved the story forward.
On another show, Jess and Nick might have only reached their first kiss by the end of season two, if that. Nick would have realized his feelings for Jess at the end of season one, right after she started dating someone else, and the reverse would happen at the end of season two. On New Girl, Jess and Nick kissed mid-season, had a few awkward conversations about it, kissed again, eventually slept together, and are now in a state where they are pursuing…something, fumbling as they do it. Their relationship is progressing at the pace of actual humans, not characters who know they’re on a television show.

Jess and Nick, before almost kissing.

2. They didn’t forget that the show is a comedy.
So far, there have been no huge declarations of love between Jess and Nick. The closest that came to a declaration was Jess admitting that she didn’t want to call off whatever they had in the season finale, followed by Nick kissing her passionately. Other than that, the writers have emphasized the “comedy” part of romantic comedy, and the results have been great. Whether it’s Nick panic-moonwalking away from Jess on the morning after their first kiss, or Jess finding herself turned on when Nick acts remotely like a responsible grownup (learning how to do laundry!), the characters are still being funny even as they try to navigate their feelings for each other.
3. The barriers to a Jess/Nick relationship are organic to their characters.
The writers on New Girl have not wasted their time with many romantic false leads or contrived subplots designed to keep Jess and Nick apart. They haven’t had to, because there’s enough standing in their way of having a functional relationship without the typical sitcom contrivances.

Nick carries Jess over the threshold.

On the plus side, Jess and Nick are friends and roommates who get along, care about each other, offer each other emotional support, and have plenty of sexual chemistry–all ingredients to a successful relationship. On the other hand, Jess’s sunny disposition, determination, and optimism clash horribly with Nick’s eternal grumpiness and lack of direction. The girl who makes up her own theme songs and the guy who gets so irrationally angry that he yells at doors can’t possibly have a relationship without some serious bumps in the road.
That’s why Jess and Nick’s conflicts have been so refreshing to watch. She’s unsure about his directionless nature and the fact that he has a credit score of a homeless ghost, and he knows that she’s unsure about him because of that reason, which leads to him feeling even more insecure. The fact that they’re friends who live together also complicates matters. If whatever they have becomes more serious, there will be many entertaining bumps in the road along the way.
4. The endgame is a question mark.



Jess dresses as Elvis for Nick’s father’s funeral (it makes sense if you watch the episode)


The relationship between Jess and Nick has been developing for a while, with mutual attraction acknowledged long before they actually kissed, but there’s no sense that Jess/Nick is an “endgame” couple. Considering their differences in personality, there’s a big chance that a relationship between them won’t work at all. They also might stay together for a long time. When they drive off together at the end of Cece’s wedding that wasn’t, there’s a sense that anything can happen between them.
From the perspective of someone who’s watched countless romantic comedies and rom-com pairings on television, I’m relieved to see a different take on a pairing of potentially mismatched friends. As a feminist, I’m happy that there’s no sense of an “endgame” with Jess and Nick, that Jess’s story isn’t all about whether or not she ends up with a guy (even if said guy is my current favorite character on television and Jake Johnson needs to win ALL the Emmys). Whatever she has with Nick is a big part of Jessica Day’s life, but it doesn’t define her, and she’s treated as a human being trying to figure out her life.
Would that all writers of romantic comedy treated their characters the way Elizabeth Meriweather and the staff of New Girl treat Jess and Nick–as people, not props in a foretold rom-com ending.

Nick and Jess, shortly before calling off their relationship (and then un-calling it later)

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

Miyazaki Month: Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind

Written by Myrna Waldron.

Nausicaa hears the bubbling healthy water inside a petrified tree

  • Unlike the previous three reviews for this “retrospective,” I was going into this review almost completely blind. I had not seen Nausicaä before today, and only knew that it was a film with a strong female protagonist and a lot of flying around on gliders. Thinking back on it now that I’ve seen the film, it is definitely very good, but I do not consider it on the same artistic level as Princess Mononoke or Spirited Away. The film is unmistakably Miyazaki, as it has his favourite themes of pacifism, environmentalism, feminism, and “Things that fly are really cool.” I think the pacifism and environmentalism themes were a lot more heavy-handed in Nausicaä than they were in Princess Mononoke. I also found the characterization kind of lacking — I can’t even remember the names of most of the male characters. The animation is incredible, of course. The music is a mixed bag. “Normal” scenes are scored simply, with the soundtrack only adding necessary emotional pull. Scenes where the insects rampage, however, are scored with a distinctly 80s-sounding electronic fast-paced musical style which, I feel, conflicts with the rest of the film. It reminded me a lot of boss battle music that you find in video games. Oh well!
  • I decided to just watch the movie with the English dub on — as I was seeing the film for the first time, it would have been very hard for me to follow two scripts at once without already knowing what the characters are saying and what is going to happen. The English dub is…okay. I was practically gleeful to hear Patrick Stewart’s voice. He could narrate the recipes on the back of a soup can and I’d listen enraptured. I have to say that Alison Lohman was a lacking heroine. She said far too many of her lines in the exact same intonation. I have no idea why they cast Shia LeBoeuf in anything, because his voice isn’t particularly notable, and his delivery was average. Heh, remember when Hollywood tried so hard to make Shia LeBoeuf happen? Uma Thurman was decent as Princess Kushana — there was definitely a lot of coldness and bitterness in her delivery, which gave the character much needed development. And, because I did not check the Japanese script, I don’t know if this is a problem specific to the English script or what, but it drove me NUTS that the characters kept referring to Nausicaä as “The Princess” or “Princess” as if she didn’t have a name. Also, comparing my notes to the TV Tropes article, it seems that the English dub mispronounced/mistranslated a few terms — I heard Torumekian as “Tolmekian” and Ohmu as “Ohm.”  
  • Speaking of Princesses, Nausicaä and Kushana make a very interesting comparison to the traditional Disney-style fairy tale princesses we’ve come to grow up with. Most notably, both of them are tremendously proactive. They don’t wait for other people to do their tasks for them; they act immediately. Nausicaä is tomboyish rather than traditionally feminine. Kushana retains some femininity, but it heavily contrasts with her warlike ambitions and her armour-like prosthetics. There are no tiaras or poofy dresses here — neither woman has any time for that kind of crap. Neither one has any romantic ambitions or entanglements either, as both tremendously value their independence. I suspect that Kushana is meant to be a strong counterpoint to Nausicaä. Kushana is bitter where Nausicaä is optimistic, vengeful instead of peaceful, etc. There is one thing that bothers me though. Both of Nausicaä’s parents are dead, so shouldn’t she now be a Queen, not a Princess? I can understand the Valley of the Wind’s people being reluctant to acknowledge the murder of their sovereign and do not have time to hold a coronation, but to continue to call her Princess robs her of a chance to gain a significant leadership role. The Disney Princesses always remain Princesses. They can get married, have children, and the parents are nowhere to be found, but they must never become rulers. In Kushana’s case, I discovered via TV Tropes that in the extended Nausicaä manga, she has a living father and brothers, so it is understandable that she is still “Princess” despite her obvious leadership role.

Nausicaa flies into a rage after her father is murdered
  • Nausicaä is a well-developed female protagonist, and Kushana is also a decently developed female antagonist, but I found myself wishing that they had the moral ambiguities found in the characterizations of San and Lady Eboshi. Nausicaä is a rather obvious messiah archetype and practically has no flaws at all. I have to stretch a bit to find some — her sheer determination to help everyone and everything in danger, no matter what, borders on recklessness. Her lapsing into sheer lethal rage at finding her father murdered is a flaw she fears in herself. This dark side of her makes her not so different from Kushana in some ways. However, on the positive side, Nausicaä has a tremendous amount of agency, and is equally as brave, talented and selfless as any ideal heroic male protagonist would be. Her glider, which she effortlessly rides the wind on, is an obvious metaphor for freedom. She also has a distinct talent in that she can communicate effectively with the animals and insects in this post-apocalyptic world. The other people in the world fear these animals and execute them for their own safety, but Nausicaä resolutely believes that they have the ability to reason and are capable of kindness.
  • One aspect of Nausicaä’s character I appreciated was her interest in chemistry and botany. On her many expeditions, she gathers the supposedly poisonous spores in the Toxic Jungle, brings them back home, and then secretly cultivates them. She discovers that irrigating the plants with clean water and soil removes their toxicity completely. She was doing this in hopes of finding a cure for her father’s poisoning, but his murder almost forces her to give up completely. As time goes on, she even realizes that the forest and insects evolved specifically to clean the earth’s pollution. Observing ancient petrified trees, she deducts that the trees absorb the pollution so it becomes inert. The trees die, petrify, and then become purified sand. This plot point, of course, relates to Miyazaki’s usual message preaching environmentalism. The world of Nausicaä presents a dark future — the pollution humans have caused has gotten so bad that the earth itself is striking back at future human generations and slowly eliminating them. Nausicaä’s discoveries offer some semblance of hope, as she teaches her fellow villagers how to irrigate the plants safely.
  • Princess Kushana is a relatively sympathetic antagonist. Having lost an arm and both her legs to insect attacks, her wanting to enact vengeance on them is understandable. She even hints that there is further damage to her body that only her future husband will see. A TV Tropes writer interpreted that line to mean that Kushana’s reproductive organs were removed, which I don’t agree with. She’d have quite a bit trouble going to the bathroom if that whole area were removed! And, uh…I don’t really want to think about the subtextual implications of the female antagonist having lost her reproductive organs. I think that line just means that she has deep scarring on parts of her body that only someone who will see her naked would see. Regardless of what actually happened to her body, the contrast between Kushana’s beauty and her missing limbs is very striking. It relates to the contrast/contradiction inherent in her personality — she is clearly intelligent and reasonable, and yet full of rage and imperialistic ambitions. The design of her armour/prosthetics is quite interesting. It’s almost Greek/Roman in style, which makes me mentally compare her to Athena. Since Nausicaä’s name is taken from Greek mythology, I suspect this analogue is deliberate.
Kushana has difficulty getting the incomplete Stone God to attack
  • The pacifism message is hammered HARD in this movie, almost as hard as the environmentalism message. Nausicaä consistently chooses not to fight, even in the face of certain death, and deeply fears the one part of her that succumbed to rage in the wake of her father’s murder. When she meets her future pet fox-squirrel for the first time, she allows it to bite her finger — without flinching — in order to show it that she is not to be feared. The neighbouring countries/factions to the Valley of the Wind, Torumekia and Pejite, are competing with each other over a Giant Warrior, an ancient artefact left over from the nuclear wars that destroyed the world. When Kushana activates it, it demonstrates enormously devastating destructive power, but immediately collapses and melts when Kushana tries to force it to attack again. The message here seems to be that warmongers put far too much trust into their weapons, and get drunk on the destructive power they are capable of. In comparison to Kushana’s warmongering, Nausicaä’s capacity for self-sacrifice is her most significant character trait. She allows herself to be shot twice to save a baby Ohmu, and even lets it push her into the Acid Lake to demonstrate how dangerous it is. The Ohmu are shown to be intelligent, compassionate creatures, and they revere Nausicaä’s willingness to sacrifice everything for peace. Nausicaä is even a fairly obvious Jesus archetype, in that the Ohmu combine their abilities to resurrect her after she dies trying to stop the herd from rampaging. (Miyazaki claims the Jesus analogue was accidental…in which case, um, really? Maybe it’s my Western education that makes it so very obvious to me.)
  • I can say quite confidently that I liked Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind quite a bit, but I definitely prefer other Miyazaki films. Still, this film has a LOT going for it. As a feminist, I’m always glad to see a proactive and well-developed female protagonist, although I wish they’d given her a few flaws to make her more relatable. I especially appreciated a nuanced female antagonist who had a sympathetic reason for her extremism. I found the environmentalism and pacifism themes a little heavy-handed in this film (I almost felt like I was watching Fern Gully in some parts), but that may be because I saw his later films with a more balanced approach to presenting those themes. The imaginativeness of the film is probably its strongest point. The airships and gliders are a lot of fun, as is the design of the Toxic Jungle, which manages to be both menacing and beautiful at the same time. If I were to recommend this film, I would suggest to show it to someone who hasn’t seen other Miyazaki films yet, as I have a feeling that the messages in his film would be more effective if they hadn’t already been presented in other films. But, hey, strong female protagonist. A Miyazaki special. Can’t go wrong with that. Thank you for reading my Miyazaki Month retrospective!  



    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.

    Andrée Inspires Father And Son In ‘Renoir’

    Poster for French film, Renoir.

    Written by Janyce Denise Glasper


    Gilles Bourdos’ Renoir is a feast for an art appreciator’s enjoyment, opening on lush, brilliant cinematography and a flaming red-haired woman riding a vintage bicycle dressed in vivid orange coat, brown kid gloves, and rounded sunglasses.

    This is Andrée Heuschling bringing forth a brazen, illustrious spirit to a real life triad. 

    More than young, ripened flesh for master French Impressionist painter, Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s eyes, Andrée amuses and delights both him and his son, future filmmaker Jean Renoir.

    Set five years before his death, aging painfully with arthritis overwhelming old hands and body confined to a wheelchair, Pierre still finds pleasure in painting and undergoes wince-filled treatments just to sit at his beloved easel. He is surrounded by former models and lovers who proudly cater to his every whim–giving him baths, mixing paints, etc.



    Andrée (Christa Theret) poses for Pierre-Auguste Renoir (Michel Bouquet).


    Andrée doesn’t long for that servitude.

    She arrives at Renoir’s door solely wanting to model.

    Lithe and graceful, laying smooth alabaster skin among colored textile chaises inside cluttered studio or among outdoor grasses on blankets, Andrée courts Pierre’s every instruction and lavishes attentiveness in natural, beguiling light. As his gnarled, knobby hands sketch rounded figure, pencils lingering on back as though touching with fingers instead of eyes, she chatters away animatedly and is unabashed about nudity. She sees posing for art as a job and has no interest in becoming domesticated.

    Jean returns from war, injured and limping.

    Immediately, the quiet young man is enchanted by Andrée’s personality. She gets him to escape out of his comfort zone, and the two fall into a serene kind of love that is soft and at times erotically charged without overtly sensual love scenes. In one surprising act, the two are in bed, and she puts lipstick on his lips and kisses him passionately, redness coating her mouth upon exchange.

    Although nude and unapologetic, seen visually as a still life to wrinkled, nearly dying Pierre, Andrée’s relationship with Jean is much more intimate and private, an exchanging of tranquil stares and gentle touching that occurs away from the eyes of the household.



    Andrée (Christa Theret) finds love in Jean Renoir. (Vincent Rottiers)


    One short, small scene did incite a furious spark.

    Studio doors are opened and inviting while Andrée sleeps without a trace of Pierre. Fabric leaves bared breasts and rounded up thrust waist vulnerable to anyone’s gaze. In steps the younger, darkly disturbed son–Pierre the junior, circles Andrée with predatory sharpness. He then takes a bowl of blue pigment, hovers close, and blows wisps of it onto her skin.

    Whether it happened to be a dream or bumpy reality, this moment disturbed the order of things in Andrée’s carefree, liberated world, and it wasn’t even addressed. Pierre the younger certainly gave off a terribly sinister vibe that he would inflict harm unbeknownst to anyone and ignited an ire as if troubling behavior spoke of eventual abuse toward women. 

    Christa Theret captures a natural human richness into Andrée. With raspy voice and expressive blue eyes, she offers breadth into a brazen, outspoken character at a time where domesticity still placed women inside a box. To Pierre, she is a motherly comrade, cradling cheek and expressing gratitude to elder patron, but to Jean, she provides him keys necessary to unlock sensitive shell and incites an awakened passion to make film. Andrée knows that she is beautiful, but is also commanding, brave, and intelligent, valuing only for respect, decency, and to break the mold of her sensitively depicted gender.



    Andrée (Christa Theret) in most scenes is shown as a piece of art.


    However, picturesque Renoir suffers from too much opulence and grandeur, focusing too heavily on Andrée’s lusty body and lovely scenery that purposefully mimics Renoir’s infamously luminous compositions. But that’s supposedly Impressionism’s meaning–all the colors without a paintbrush dipping into black.

    Andrée simply stimulated the Renoir men’s taste for sensual inspiration and artistic expression–a muse catering toward creative distraction.

    Nothing more. Nothing less.

     


    The Male/Female Gaze on BBC America’s First Season of ‘Orphan Black’

    Orphan Black poster

    This is a guest post by Ms Misantropia.

    Last Saturday was the season finale of BBC America’s Orphan Black, a fast paced Canadian sci-fi series about human cloning. The show’s main protagonist, Sarah Manning (Tatiana Maslany), is a street-wise orphan just returning to Toronto after having spent a year abroad. She barely lands in the city before a woman who looks exactly like her commits suicide by train, right in front of her. In the following commotion — out of curiosity and hoping to score some cash — Sarah grabs the woman’s purse and walks away.
    She does find some money in the woman’s purse, but also a cell phone and keys to a nice flat. Having no place to live hiding from an abusive ex-boyfriend, Sarah hatches a crazy plan: she will temporarily switch lives with this woman — Beth Childs — and let the world believe that Sarah Manning is dead. Then she will pick up her young daughter, who is currently living with Sarah’s own foster mother, and she will clean out Beth’s bank account and skip town. To set the plan in motion Sarah enlists the help of her foster brother and best friend, Felix (Jordan Gavaris). However, things start to get complicated quickly when Sarah realizes that Beth was a police detective (with a nosy detective partner), that she lives with a man — Paul (Dylan Bruce) — and that there are even more women out there who look exactly like her. To make matters worse, there also seems to be someone out there trying to kill them all.

    Sarah kicking ass
    Orphan Black is what television could have evolved into after the 1990s, had not the Internet — with its masses of misogynistic and pornographic material — caused such a backlash during the beginning of the new millennium. The show does not have an overtly feminist agenda; it doesn’t present us with in-depth looks at inequality or the hardships of women, or serve up feminist slaps on the wrist. What it does is tell a story using a modern and more equal filming/viewing alternative, in female (and male) characterization and in camera focus/gaze. The formula is brilliantly simple: Whatever the story, simply avoid the habitual sexism and misogyny that the audience has, sadly, become so used to.
    There are many TV shows at the moment that are loaded with gratuitous female nudity. Game of Thrones might be the most widely discussed example, but even shows like critically acclaimed Homeland and the amazing The Americans employ the trick to gain or boost ratings. At a premiere or during sweeps week it becomes glaringly obvious that producers think they can’t promote or continue a show without throwing in random “boob-shots” here and there (and unfortunately they might be right). Sure, we sometimes get a token man-ass-shot during a sex scene, but in actual screen time most sex scenes are almost completely shot at an angle zooming in on the woman’s breasts, naked arched back or orgasmic face.
    While naked women in media are almost always beautiful, young and skinny — and constantly sexualized — male nudity is shown in other ways: a man preparing for battle, a man stumbling to the fridge for a snack, a man running down the street in a drunken stupor. Naked men are most often more “normal” looking and are allowed to be old, obese or even ugly. A naked over-weight silly man is funny, even relatable, while a naked over-weight silly woman is either completely invisible, shamefully pitied or horribly degraded — if not in the media itself, then on the Internet afterward. It always comes down to the same thing: a naked man is still a human being, a naked woman (and often also a fully clothed one) is an object.

    Paul with his morning coffee
    Orphan Black contains quite a few shots of naked bodies, but no obvious gratuitous “boob-shots,” and where there is female sexualized nudity there is also male sexualized nudity. As an example, in the first episode when we see Sarah jumping Paul’s bones in the kitchen (to avoid conversation that would tip him off that she is not Beth) we get to see actor Tatiana Maslany’s naked body for a moment, but it is followed up in the next scene by shots of only Paul’s naked body. The camera lingers on Paul, as Sarah’s gaze lingers on his body. This allows the audience the female gaze — for a change.
    Orphan Black hosts an entourage of diverse female characters. Considering that Tatiana Maslany has to introduce several different clone personalities over just a few episodes, the audience can forgive what only briefly feels like parodied acting. As the show develops, 28-year-old Maslany’s skills as a versatile actor become more evident. Though the fast pace of the show doesn’t leave much time for developing very complex characters, the diversity among them makes up for that. Orphan Black has female characters who are strong, weak, smart, caring, neurotic, sexy, tough and downright crazy.

    Helena, one of the clones

     With a more diverse and equal viewing experience also comes portraying other characters and relationships than just white straight people. Orphan Black has one main character — Art, Beth’s detective partner — and three other characters who are black, and it has two regular Latina/o characters. The show has not yet made it onto GLAAD’s LBGT characters list but I suspect it is only a matter of time, since two of the main characters are gay — Felix and Cosima — and they are both getting a lot of screen time in every episode.

    Felix is, as mentioned earlier, Sarah’s foster brother and best friend. He is an artist and a male prostitute. He can be silly and flamboyant at times, but he is also caring and funny. He’s an excellent sidekick in complex social situations, he always has Sarah’s back, and he gets to serve as the voice of reason more than once. Despite him having to resort to prostitution to make ends meet, he seems to be secure in himself and his sexuality. Cosima is one of the clones, a scientist who is trying to map them all out, and find out the wheres and the whys of their existence. She is smart and sweet, but her scientific curiosity at times gets the better of her and puts her in danger. The show gets extra points for portraying Cosima’s courtship with a fellow scientist without objectifying the two women for the straight male gaze — something most shows nowadays fail miserably at.
    Felix and his lover bidding adieu

    Orphan Black has been picked up for a second season and is slated to premiere sometime during the first half of 2014.
    Ms Misantropia blogs here.

    "We Almost Love Each Other": ‘The Mindy Project’s Rom-Com Conclusion

    This is a guest post from Leah Prinzivalli.
    Spoiler Alert!
    Season one of The Mindy Project concludes with predictable romantic comedy twists between Mindy (Mindy Kaling) and her boyfriend Casey (Anders Holm). The Will they? Won’t they? plotline nods to tradition, allowing the comedy to break convention thematically. 
    Mindy decides to volunteer in Haiti with Casey, then quickly backs out, setting up the viewer to believe high-maintenance Mindy could not handle third-world living conditions. Her male colleague Danny mocks her, “You called 911 when a butterfly got into your house?” and “You couldn’t last without your Jimmy Choos.” Mindy later goes camping with Casey, Danny (the token “straight guy”), and Morgan (a male nurse). When Danny notices Morgan has caught on fire, Mindy immediately smothers it with her blanket. Danny fails to act and afterward makes an excuse. The incident bolsters Mindy’s confidence in her ability to live in Haiti – leading us to the real reason why she may not end up going, her desire for independence. 
    Mindy Kaling stars in The Mindy Project
    Despite their constantly changing relationship status, Mindy and Casey’s dynamic is refreshing. When they decide to spend a year together in Haiti, they do so acknowledging, “We almost love each other.” This level-headedness is refreshing both for Mindy as a character and for the traditional romantic comedy plot. At least in this moment, the couple accepts their relationship at face value. 
    Not one to stay lucid for long, Mindy tricks Casey both into believing she wants to get married and thinking she’s pregnant in this episode. Danny, again playing the cliché, reminds Mindy that men often fear commitment. Forgetting that Casey is atypical among her boyfriends, Mindy tries to use convention to her advantage in order to escape Haiti and her own fears about committing. When Casey actually does propose, she can’t understand why. Mindy tries to talk him out of it, “I work too much, I’m kinda selfish, I’ve never voted.” He responds, “Who are these guys that make you think that way?” As has become a pattern this season, the importance has been on the men in Mindy’s life to define her view of herself. 
    Mindy’s bold take on the romantic gesture
    Mindy’s new short haircut is, for better or worse, the most memorable piece of this episode. Danny’s ex-wife/current girlfriend Christina (Chloe Sevigny) remarks, “Whenever I’m in the field I keep my hair short. It’s better for the field and people don’t sexualize you.” A pre-breakup-and-makeup Mindy responds, “Who doesn’t want to be sexualized?” Mindy puts her sexuality and desire to be wanted above the volunteer purpose of the trip, which feels right for the character. This exchange led Mindy to cut her hair short later in the episode, “desexualizing” herself in order to commit to Casey. “Who will have me now?” she asks, implying that only Casey will find her desirable. It is this play on the romantic comedy “bold gesture” that wins Casey back, a comedic device but also a troubling one. When Mindy pulls back her hood to reveal her new hair, one eavesdropping neighbor cries out, “It was a boy the whole time.” Many jokes about the parallel between long hair and womanhood ensue, although the fact remains Mindy still changed her appearance because her boyfriend asked. 
    One of the most likable aspects of The Mindy Project is that her career has never been an issue. The character seems most confident in surgery or when dealing with patients and can switch gears instantly from a relationship minidrama to delivering a baby (notably, she works as an OBGYN). For all the focus this episode on Mindy’s relationship struggles, we are reminded of her professional success in a satisfying shot for shot parallel to the first episode. She wipes off her lipstick before surgery to M.I.A’s “Bad Girls.” In the pilot, the “Bad Girls” surgery scene followed Mindy’s arrest for public drunkenness after her ex-boyfriend’s wedding. Last week, we saw Mindy choose Casey over that ex. The patient from the pilot did not have insurance; here she is working as a team with the other doctors to deliver triplets. By the finale, our lead has grown — by a reassuring yet believable amount.
    Leah Prinzivalli is a NYC-based writer. For an alarming amount of her thoughts about television, follow her on Twitter @leahprinz.

    Up the Stairs, Out the Front Door: ‘Nyctophobia’

    Nyctophobia, a film by Emily Bennett
    This is a guest post by Emily Bennett.
    If you asked me a year ago if I liked scary movies, I would have responded with the immortal words of Sydney Prescott in Scream: “What’s the point? They’re all the same. Some stupid killer stalking some big-breasted girl who can’t act who is always running up the stairs when she should be running out the front door. It’s insulting.”
    When Scream first came out, I remember being completely obsessed with the film. I watched it at a friend’s slumber party and never told my parents. I secretly made a collage of Skeet Ulrich and hid it in my closet for months. And I remember, every time we’d have a slumber party, someone would bring out some horror movie that we weren’t allowed to watch. Halloween, Arachnophobia, and the dreaded It were favorites. 
    Drew Barrymore stars in Scream
    I remember my friends and I stuffing pillows into our pajama tops, pretending we were big-breasted girls running away from the killer. None of us thought we could play the killer, so we would run around the house, with huge pillow breasts, screaming in terror. We thought this was what horror films were about. And we thought they were really, really scary.
    Once I hit high school, I stopped having slumber parties and started going to acting classes. A LOT of acting classes. I was so devoted to learning my craft that I became an acting snob. And I mean a complete snob. I refused to watch anything without Marlon Brando, James Dean, or Vivien Leigh. My horror film days were over. They were garbage compared to what I was watching and studying, as far as I was concerned.
    Fast forward to a few months ago. Devon Mikolas cast me in his horror feature House of the Witchdoctor. I was fortunate enough to act alongside the brilliant Bill Moseley, Leslie Easterbrook, and Dyanne Thorne. I was thrilled! A paying film gig! Then I started to do my research…
    I watched nothing but horror films for weeks on end. And I was fascinated, because I was finally seeing them with adult eyes. Don’t get me wrong, The Omen and Rosemary’s Baby held up completely. But other films that had scared the crap out of me suddenly offended me. Some of them were pure obscenity, in fact. There seemed to be no purpose to the female characters’ suffering, and because of that, it wasn’t scary to me anymore. 
    After filming House of the Witchdoctor, I returned home and started to write. That childhood love of scary movies came back to me. I decided I wanted to write, produce, and star in my first horror film. It took me no time to decide on the subject of the film. I chose what I felt is the most quintessential fear we all had as children: Nyctophobia, or fear of the dark. 
    I wanted to write a seemingly weak male character (Dennis), and a seemingly overpowering female character (Martha) to explore gender stereotypes that exist in horror films. And I wanted to place the male in the fearful role. Writing another “big-breasted bimbo” horror flick didn’t interest me. Instead, I wanted to explore fear in a different way. Hopefully, the end result of the film is that audiences can enjoy it without feeling that they’ve already seen it before. 
    Using the crowd sourcing site Seed&Spark was the best decision I could have made for my first film. Instead of being lost in the Kickstarter crowd, I was featured on the site, giving me a HUGE advantage. In the wake of the “Zach Braff Kickstarter debate,” I’m so encouraged that an unknown producer, such as myself, could raise enough money to make a film. I believe crowd sourcing may change the landscape of film for the better, and I’m grateful to be a part of that movement. (This is not a statement for or against Zach Braff’s film.)
    Honestly, I don’t have an overarching message to women filmmakers, other than JUST KEEP MAKING FILMS. In the end, I don’t care if a man or a woman made a film, as long as it’s thought provoking and not formulaic. I don’t want to keep seeing the same old horror films with “some big-breasted girl who can’t act who is always running up the stairs when she should be running out the front door.” When I watch a horror film, I want to be terrified. And the old formula is just not terrifying anymore. We’ve all seen the same big boobs running away from their death. I’d like to see something else now. So I’m going to write my own films and see what happens.
    Emily Bennett was born and raised in Charleston, South Carolina. She attended The South Carolina Governor’s School for the Arts and Humanities, then moved to London to attend The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (3 year BA program). After graduation, Emily acted extensively in New York City and Chicago. Most recently, she starred in Devon Mikolas’ House of the Witchdoctor with the wonderful Bill Moseley and Leslie Easterbrook, premiering at Crypticon Kansas City later this year. Nyctophobia is the first of several films Emily hopes to complete in the next year. Her upcoming horror short Delete will hit the web in June. Once Nyctophobia is completed, she will begin production on her next film Chat Room, starring the devastatingly brilliant Callie Stephens. Ultimately, Emily hopes to combine these films into an anthology to showcase both her vision and the brilliant talent of her cast and crew members. 

    ‘Terms of Endearment’ IS NOT a Melodrama

    Written by Robin Hitchcock
    Debra Winger and Shirley MacLaine in Terms of Endearment
    Terms of Endearment has a lasting reputation as a melodramatic, emotionally-manipulative chick flick. This is a film that grossed over $100 million (an even more significant benchmark in the early 80’s) and won five major Academy Awards (Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay for James L. Brooks, Best Actress for Shirley MacLaine and Best Supporting Actor for Jack Nicholson). If Nicholson’s performance as astronaut playboy Garrett Breedlove had been shuffled into the lead actor category (I didn’t do an exact minute count, but I’m fairly certain he appears in as much if not more of the film than Anthony Hopkins did for his Best Actor winning performance in Silence of the Lambs) Terms of Endearment would join that film, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and It Happened One Night in the rarefied Big Five Sweep club. 
    But Terms of Endearment is now oft-cited as one of the worst Best Picture winners and an example of the Oscar’s fleeting fascination with family dramas instead of “Important” issues. 1979’s Kramer vs. Kramer and 1980’s Ordinary People also make worst best picture lists, at least in part because they “unjustly” beat out Apocalypse Now and Raging Bull for those top prizes. Those also-rans are undeniably powerful films that have had a lasting impact on cinema, but is part of what made their “worthiness” of the title Best Picture their focus on men? [See also Shakespeare in Love’s much-derided win over Saving Private Ryan].  
    James L. Brooks, Shirley MacLaine, and Jack Nicholson with their Oscars for Terms of Endearment
    The muddled legacy of Terms of Endearment, and the seeming unlikeliness that such a picture would find such box office and awards success today, supports my fear that movies focused on women are seen as inherently less important and respectable. When I was watching Terms of Endearment this week, all traces of its reputation fell from my mind as I fell into simply enjoying watching the film. It is incredibly easy to be swept into caring about the lives of Aurora Greenway (Shirley MacLaine) and her daughter Emma (Debra Winger). Their mother-daughter dynamic is very recognizable: they are eternally frustrated with each other but nevertheless co-dependently needful of each other’s love, and can switch from delightfully supportive of the other person’s happiness to cruel about the other person’s problems and back in seconds. These relatable characters are made alive by incredible performances, and the film is generously sprinkled with the winning dialogue (“I don’t think I was treating her badly.” “Then you must be from New York.”) and memorable moments (Emma and Aurora instantaneously making up over the phone after Aurora has boycotted Emma’s wedding) that create that undeniable feeling of  “movie magic.” 
    For a so-called melodrama, Terms of Endearment‘s plot is actually quite true to life. Emma and her husband Flip (Jeff Daniels) move to Iowa for Flip’s stalled academic career; their relationship falters as they struggle with money and child rearing and both take on affairs. Aurora has an opposites-attract fling with her self-satisfied cad of a neighbor (Nicholson), who eventually shows surprising tenderness toward her. These are the kinds of things that happen all the time in the lives of people we know but are hardly ever seen in movies. Emma’s affair with her banker Sam (John Lithgow) is presented as two people filling emotional and physical needs outside of their marriages, not as an epic romance that cannot be because of the constraints of society a la Anna Karenina and countless other works of fiction. 
    Aurora and Garrett in bed.
    How is that melodrama? And how refreshing is it to see a wife and mother having extramarital sex be portrayed sympathetically? It’s even more refreshing to see a sexual relationship between two fifty-somethings treated as normal and—get this—sexy. They’re even played by actors ROUGHLY THE SAME AGE (contra Jack Nicholson’s next Oscar-winning romance with a woman a quarter-century younger than him in As Good as It Gets). 
    I’m guessing that the accusations of sentimentality mainly come about from the film’s third act, in which Emma discovers she has terminal cancer and dies. There are some very emotionally fraught scenes, like the Oscar clip reel-bait in which Aurora takes out her pain and frustration at watching her daughter die by screaming at the nurses that Emma needs a shot of pain medication. The most famous scene in Terms of Endearment may be Emma saying goodbye to her children when she knows she is dying. The scene does not hold back: her oldest acts sullen and distant, her younger son cannot hold back his sobs, and Emma finds the strength to say the exact right thing to each of them (including: get haircuts). I don’t think the choice to share such an emotionally raw scene with the audience should be dismissed as “manipulative.” It’s certainly no more manipulative than the countless examples in fiction where people just miss their chance to say goodbye. 
    Emma says goodbye to her sons.
    Desperately attempting to find closure with a dying loved one is something that most people experience at some point in their life. Presenting a common problem with unflinching honesty is in fact THE OPPOSITE of melodrama. As such, I’m pretty sure that “Terms of Endearment is a sentimental melodramatic manipulative tear-jerker” is just another way of saying, “It can’t be good if girls like it.”
    Robin Hitchcock is an American writer living in Cape Town, South Africa who would like to get one look at Des Moines before she dies.

    The Lifelike, Feminist Choreography of ‘Frances Ha’

    Frances Ha movie poster.


    Written by Leigh Kolb
    Spoilers ahead!

    “27 is old.”

    Frances Ha is a love letter to that idea–that 27 is old, but is, at the same time, the beginning of everything. For this generation, 27 is at that cusp between youth and adulthood and it is painful, terrifying and full of misery and joy.

    The film captures that moment perfectly, and its bare French New Wave style allows the story,  which focuses on, in the words of director Noah Baumbach, “That period in your 20s where you’re necessarily having to separate yourself from a kind of romantic idea of yourself,” to be on full display.

    In addition to capturing that moment, Frances Ha also has at its center a friendship between two women. It easily passes the Bechdel Test, and was co-written by the actor Greta Gerwig, who plays Frances.

    “I’m not messy, I’m busy.”

    In an interview, Gerwig says that the film and its focus on evolving relationships and changing is about that “moment when you’re exiting your youth and you really only know it when it’s gone. It doesn’t announce that it’s the last day of youth, it just leaves…” While these kinds of stories are not rare, seeing the focus placed on a woman’s life and female friendship is.

    Frances Ha is one of those rare films that makes a feminist’s heart grow three sizes in an hour and a half.

    The female protagonist and her best friend, Sophie (Mickey Sumner), are engaged in the most important relationship on screen. Frances and her boyfriend at the beginning of the film break up (he wants to get cats and for her to move in with him; she wants to keep living with Sophie), and Sophie has a relationship with the kind of guy who wears a ball cap and says, “I have to take a leak,” but the central relationships are Frances and Sophie and Frances and herself.

    Frances and Sophie’s friendship is incredibly realistic.

    Frances is an aspiring modern dancer (she’s an understudy and teaches dance lessons to children at a dance company), and anyone with minimal knowledge of the dancing profession knows that 27 is likely far too old to have any hope of joining the company, yet Frances hopes. She’s sure that this is the year she will be chosen for the company and at least get to tour.

    Sophie moves out to live with an acquaintance in Tribeca, where she’s always wanted to live. Frances haphazardly becomes a roommate to two “rich kid” young men (an artist, Lev, and a writer, Benji, with wealthy parents), and she doesn’t get asked to dance in the Christmas productions, much less be a part of the company. Frances’s life–which hasn’t yet felt like it’s begun–is unraveling.

    Frances, Benji and Lev.

    When she goes home for Christmas, she lies in a bathtub full of water as her mother pounds on the door: “Frances, how much longer?” she pleads.

    The length of her life seems short and long, and the next step is elusive.

    Through it all, Frances perseveres. She doesn’t break down, she doesn’t quit moving, even if her moves sometimes feel clunky–and real.

    In what’s arguably her lowest moment, when she’s attending a dinner party with her temporary roommate who doesn’t seem to like her, Frances does break–in her own way. She drinks a bit too much and when she learns (from strangers) that Sophie is moving to Japan with her fiance, Frances decides to go to Paris.

    Frances dances through the streets to David Bowie.

    “Sometimes it’s good to do what you’re supposed to do when you’re supposed to do it,” she says. At this moment, she means going to Paris–even on a charge card–and having a worldly experience. It’s disappointing, as most of those experiences that we are “supposed” to have often are. Frances is left feeling empty, and more lost than when she began.

    She makes sure to be home on Monday, because the head of the dance company had requested a meeting with her. Frances–charmingly delusional–thinks she’s going to ask her to be a member of the company. Instead, she’s offered an office administration job. Frances says no. She’s not ready to move into that part of her life, where she no longer has that unfettered hope of being who she thought she was going to be.

    She returns to her alma mater to be an RA during a summer dance camp (where she discovers she’s not even allowed to take dance classes) and a server for special events. It’s during this experience–the juxtaposition of her life and the college students’ lives, and her being an adult in a place of youthful potential–that something changes. She runs in to a drunk Sophie at a fundraiser. Sophie is belligerent and stays over in Frances’s dorm room. Their roles are reversed that night. Frances seems to have it all together and Sophie is falling apart.

    “Your blog looked so happy,” Frances says after Sophie says she’s been miserable and won’t be marrying her fiance. They both had been struggling to do what they are supposed to do when they are supposed to do it, but it’s not working. They must separate themselves from that “romantic idea” they’d had of themselves, their “story of us” that included taking over the world, to move forward.

    Frances does so by taking the administrative job at the dance company, and is able to continue choreographing. Her eyes glisten with happiness in the control booth as dancers on stage perform her choreography. As the gorgeous, disjointed dance goes on, the camera pans through the audience, focusing on all of the people in Frances’s life who care about and support her. The company owner compliments her work, gushing over the performance. Frances briefly talks to one of her old roommates, Benji, and it is clear that something might develop between the two of them. But the person she’s “making eyes” at is Sophie, her best friend.

    The framing of Frances’s life around a dance career is perfect, because dance is a profession that one ages out of, and it’s so much, on the surface, about performance. Frances, as she perceives herself getting older, feels like she needs to perform to choreography not her own. When she realizes she can make her life work in another way, she’s rewarded.

    In an article at Forbes, Dina Gachman notes the importance of Frances’s career trajectory, and the lesson that there’s something in between getting exactly what you think you want or settling for less:

    “That doesn’t mean you should meander all over the place without a plan waiting for success to rain down on you, but one of the great things about Frances Ha is that it’s saying: It’s OK that your life and career aren’t picture perfect. Maybe the picture is just different than you imagined.”

    In the end, Frances is moving into her own apartment, a sign of success, since her living arrangements have always been cause for stress and uncertainty. She’s able to work and make a living in the dance world. She’s everything she wanted to be, just in a different way.

    Frances dancing in a grown-up pencil skirt.

    As she goes to put her handwritten name plate onto her mailbox, her name is too long to fit. She folds it neatly, and “Frances Ha” peeks out from the window. She did what she needed to do to make it fit, much like she did with her life. When she does figure out how to make all of the pieces fit, she gets everything she needs and realizes what she wants.

    In “Why Frances Ha is the Must-See Feminist Film of the Year,” Imran Siddiquee says,

    “While capturing the hilarity, awkwardness and anxiety all of us might face in our late 20s – gaining and losing best friends while pursuing what feels like an increasingly impossible dream – Frances Ha says something very specific about gender. It shows us that women can be messy, graceful, sad, funny, artistic, ambitious and caring all at once. You know, human.”

    The sheer humanity on display throughout Frances Ha feels much more groundbreaking than it should.  The women and men in the film are not people you aspire to be, but they are people, on some level, who you are and who you know.

    After watching the film, I immediately told my best friend she had to watch it. The depiction of female friendship and the muddy misery of the mid-20s was breathtaking. There are so many art-house and Hollywood films that center on men’s coming-of-age stories, and so few about women’s. Frances Ha shows that it can be done, and it can be done well.

    That moment when you are in the control booth of your life, which may not look how you thought it would, but it’s just how it’s supposed to be? That’s a great moment.

    When a flawed and wonderful woman is having that moment on the big screen? That’s a great moment for all of us.

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

    The Butler, the Billions, and ‘Bernard and Doris’s Broken Hearts

    Movie poster for Bernard and Doris
    This is a guest post by Margaret Howie.
    But the question, again, is do you ever really want to ever be intimate? If you do, then it might as well be this person. It’s not about gender. It’s not about race, or age, or anything. The hurdle is intimacy. –Susan Sarandon (on Bernard and Doris, from the movie’s official site).

    Money changes everything, as noted by deep thinkers from Karl Marx to Cyndi Lauper. The very rich are so interesting because they seem to occupy a different world from us, one where you don’t have to worry about picking up after yourself — you have to worry about the people you’ve hired to pick up after you. Bernard and Doris’ director, Bob Balaban, encountered the dramatic potential of wealth and domesticity when he appeared in 2001’s manor house drama Gosford Park. Balaban’s movie, produced by HBO in 2006, is based on the real life relationship between tobacco heiress Doris Duke (Susan Sarandon) and her gay Irish butler Bernard Lafferty (Ralph Fiennes). Balaban and screenwriter Hugh Costello used this scenario to examine two vulnerable people who crossed class and professional boundaries to make a messy, painful, and touching drama.

    Duke controversially changed her will near the end of her life in 1993, leaving Lafferty in charge of her enormous estate. After her death he was accused of manipulation, and even murder. But while the script uses some of the facts of Duke and Lafferty’s time together to begin and end the story, it’s not concerned with trying to build a case for or against him. Instead of going the Law & Order route, it affixes a great big disclaimer in the opening credits in order to play with fictional interpretations.

    The result is more than a chance to gawk at the excesses and indulgences of a wealthy woman and her lavish property, or speculate as to what exactly happened in Duke’s final days. Thanks in large part to the brilliant performances by Sarandon and Fiennes, it’s an examination of a peculiar combination of people in extraordinary circumstances who develop a deep bond.

    Susan Sarandon as multimillionaire Doris Duke
    From the priceless opening scene, where Doris spits out an over-chilled cantaloupe and instantly fires a hapless butler without bothering to make eye contact with him, her character’s leadership is established. The rich young socialite seen in the opening credit sequence has grown into an authoritative, frugal, beautifully appointed woman. The film is careful to show early on that there’s nothing simple about having this amount of money to manage. Doris makes her decisions very quickly and very definitively, and if she doesn’t spend much of her leisure time sober, that’s no one’s business but her own.

    With her elaborate outfits, fluffy dogs (played by Sarandon’s own pets), and sturdy sexual appetite, Doris could easily be shown following in the snobbish steps of 48 carat ditzes like Goldie Hawn in Overboard or Claudette Colbert in It Happened One Night. She’s rich and attractive and probably in need of being taken down a peg or two. But the film chooses to revel in Duke’s powers. She’s shown as dominating the various spheres she occupies: business, artistic, political, celebrity. Even her spiritual quest is done with distinct flair: she moves her newly found Indian guru over to America. Doris’s wealth, control and personality are all wrapped up in the New Jersey mansion she hires meek butler Bernard Lafferty to look after.

    Doris may be in the habit of shedding staff like so many overchilled cantaloupes, but Bernard proves himself to have an immense practical and empathic capacity. She’s a smart woman who understands the value of a servant who quickly pays off a nurse she’s recently punched out in a plastic surgery clinic.

    Bernard is a nurturer, softly spoken and with an awestruck air whenever he’s around Doris. He soaks up every crumb of her attention and is shown trying on her earrings and scarves, lighting up with the reflected glamour. When one of her business managers pushes Doris to fire him, she incredulously points out that he does embroidery.

    Bernard Lafferty (Ralph Fiennes) in an early scene in Bernard and Doris
    Under her instruction, he begins to grow more colourful and flamboyant. Like the orchids she nurtures in an immense greenhouse, Bernard blooms with more feminine accessories, brightly coloured shirts, a twinkling diamond earring, longer hair. It’s a sharing of Doris’s personal style, and of her funds that purchase all this glitz. The film shows that all of her relationships are guided by money, and while at first she appears to be in charge of it, it still has the power to unsettle her. In the aftermath of a furious argument with her young lover Ben (Nick Rolfe), she confesses to Bernard that her first husband asked her on their wedding night how much his allowance would be. She lost her infant daughter and her father, the two people she seems to have found unconditional love from, and the rest of the world has offered her only the love that comes with an expense account.

    But while Bernard and Doris are brought together by money, they find each other a balm for their loneliness. It’s an imperfect match, as rocky and erratic as any long-term serious relationship. He falls off the wagon and loots her wine cellar. She drives drunk with him in the passenger seat. He sets her against her other advisors and monopolises her healthcare. She derides him for being needy. Neither of them maintains graciousness, for all the wealth that saturates them. This is what’s so effective about the movie–demonstrating the state of love they reach when they do get on. When Doris breaks down over Nick’s betrayal and her only child’s death, Bernard offers her pure acceptance. When his drinking lands him back in rehab, she returns it. It’s this volleying of trust back and forth that the two actors’ brilliant performances make believable. 

    Doris: “I don’t get it. You don’t fuck me; you don’t steal from me. So what do you want from me?” Bernard: “I want to take care of you, Miss Duke.”
    The movie has fun with traditional gender roles and domesticity. Every inch the lady, Doris is also the master of the house. She and Bernard love dressing up in beautiful things, not as mere fripperies but as the accessories of power that stuns grey-suited boardroom members. The climactic scene comes when Bernard, wearing one of her gorgeous ballgowns and jewelry, carries the infirm Doris down for a private birthday dinner. It’s a gleefully camp moment, but also a poignant one.

    She knows that he’s achieved his dream of shared intimacy, but over a discussion of her funeral plans, she sharply reinstates her superiority, snapping at him, “I must really be crazy to believe a fucker like you.”

    Scenes like this pose the question of how little can be known about a close relationship, even from the inside. At the end of the film, Bernard is still inside the house, now the master. Over his head hangs the question of what really passed between him and his former employer. The hothouse environment where Doris grows orchids provides an example of what could have happened, when extremes of wealth, personality, and needs are pushed together to flourish, and possibly rot. Bernard and Doris explores the ambiguities of intimacy between two imperfect people, where there is no happy ever after, but it’s nothing less than a love story to the end.

    Margaret Howie is a London-based bookseller who doesn’t need a butler but wouldn’t mind a wine cellar.