Women of Color in Film and TV: ‘Sparkle:’ Same Song, Fine Tuned

The three sisters of ‘Sparkle’ (2012)

Guest post written by Candice Frederick, originally published at Reel Talk. Cross-posted with permission.

Not every filmmaker understands the point of a remake. Sure, it’s fun to revisit an old classic to gain a new audience, and squeeze out any remaining dollars from the film that there is to be had. But the whole other objective of a remake, the more important aspect, is to enhance the film and modernize it so that it fits in with today’s culture and evolved world. And if you can make it even better than its original, well, that’s a bonus.
Director Salim Akil’s Sparkle, the remake of the 1976 film of the same name, did just that. Revisiting the Motown era (specifically during the ’50s and ’60s) isn’t a new concept in film, but something we don’t see often enough when depicting that era is well carved out female stories. Of course, there were plenty of women in music who dominated the charts, but we rarely get to see them take on the dominant role in their personal lives. At least, not so a we should have.
In Sparkle, we have three very different sisters, Tammy aka “Sister” (Carmen Ejogo), Sparkle (Jordin Sparks), and Dolores aka “D” (Tika Sumpter), who each have a dream. D wants to go to medical school. Sister, the oldest sibling, wants to get the hell out of their strict mom’s (Whitney Houston) house, once and for all. And Sparkle, the youngest and most timid of the three, wants a chance–a chance to become a famous singer and songwriter. With encouragement from her dashing admirer, Stix (Derek Luke), Sparkle enlists her two older sisters in their own singing group so that they can each finally see their dreams come true.
Salim Akil’s Sparkle revisits the Motown era

But right at the height of a promising career, life throws them some curve balls. Sister, always looking for the next quick and easy (and lucrative) opportunity, meets and falls hard for the “coon” comedian extraordinaire Satin (Mike Epps). She quickly gets entangled in his lies, deceit and utter immoralities and spirals downwards, taking her sisters’ singing group down with her. That is, until Sparkle finds the voice she’d kept hidden for so long, which will carry her to the next phase of her life and shine like she always dreamed she would.

Sparks as Sparkle in ‘Sparkle.’ Clear?

Admittedly, Sparkle‘s storyline is the one cliched and predictable element carried over from the original movie. Sparks gives a fine performance but, like Irene Cara before her, doesn’t have much to work with and her real-life singing voice provides the most memorable scenes in her performance. What’s not so expected in this re-imagining is the heightened point of view of the other characters in the story. Emma, the girls’ mom, isn’t just a wise older woman with little dialogue but who dutifully captures the parental element of the story, as she is in the original film. Emma is now a very present mother in the story, someone who rules her house with a sharp but loving tongue, and one who is quick to recite passages from Scripture to remind her daughters of who’s really in control. Emma is also a “cautionary” character, as she herself alludes to but is careful not to define in the movie (as delivered in an eerily familiar and poignant performance by the late Houston). She is heavily nuanced and delicately penned by screenwriters Mara Brock Akil (TV’s Girlfriends and The Game) and Harry Rosenman (Father of the Bride, The Family Man).

The late Whitney Houston as mother Emma

Also fine tuned for a razor-sharp performance is the role of Sister. She was always the most complicated character of the bunch, formerly played by the eternally underrated actress Lonette McKee (in one of her best roles). While Ejogo’s portrayal almost mirrors that of McKee’s (which is high praise), Sister doesn’t come across as similarly damaged as she did in the previous movie. She settles on a rather mature consequence for decisions she’s made, which in turn allows her character to linger just a bit longer here, and leave a lasting impression on the audience.

Sister, played by Carmen Ejogo

Another unforgettable character portrayal is that of D played by Sumpter. If you’ve seen the original film, you might not even remember much of anything substantial about this third sister, except that she was her mother’s mute pride and joy. She was the one with the bright future whose feelings about the whole music thing is, as she further explains in this movie, are that she can “really take or leave it.” This remake does a better job at explaining a lot more behind her actions–i.e. why she’s more fearless than her other sisters in a lot of ways (she really has nothing here to lose) and why she won’t sacrifice everything for someone else’s dream. Sumpter, with help from the screenplay, gives D a backbone, a steel tongue to deliver the film’s wittiest and most entertaining dialogue that will cut through even the most dramatic scenes. Sparkle might have been the character in search of a voice, but it is D whose voice had become magnified and clearer.

D, played by Tika Sumpter

Epps also gives a surprisingly good performance here as well. And he’s got a lot to work with. Satin isn’t just the fleeting bad guy who comes to terrorize the Sister and her Sisters trio. He’s definitely not a guy you root for, but there is more to his story here. He has much more purpose. Epps sheds his comedic image to possibly play the role of his career, but uses some of that comedian swagger in a way that complements Satin’s own demons. Meanwhile, the other fellas in the cast, Luke and Omari Hardwick (who plays Levi, Sister’s jilted ex) contribute good–however serviceable–portrayals in an overwhelmingly female-driven movie.

Thirty-six years after the original release of Sparkle, women are still searching for a sizable number of distinctive and identifiable lead roles on the big screen. This film gives each actress a real arch, a meaty snack to chew on as they flex core acting muscles. It proves that there are still wonderful roles for women–of any color–to make their own and of which one day can look back on and be proud.
While the original film is rightfully regarded as a classic, this year’s Sparkle appropriately adds that exclamation point the first film lacked, and fleshes out each character’s story so that they seem real, like people you may know. Even though it’s essentially a period film, this remake clearly has that new millennium edge we so desperately need to more of.

———-

Candice Frederick is a former Essence magazine editor and an NABJ award-winning journalist. She is also a Contributing Film Writer for The Urban Daily, co-host of “Cinema in Noir” and the film blogger for Reel Talk. Follow her on Twitter.

Women of Color in Film and TV: ‘Sparkle’: Same Song, Fine Tuned

The three sisters of ‘Sparkle’ (2012)

Guest post written by Candice Frederick, originally published at Reel Talk. Cross-posted with permission.

Not every filmmaker understands the point of a remake. Sure, it’s fun to revisit an old classic to gain a new audience, and squeeze out any remaining dollars from the film that there is to be had. But the whole other objective of a remake, the more important aspect, is to enhance the film and modernize it so that it fits in with today’s culture and evolved world. And if you can make it even better than its original, well, that’s a bonus.
Director Salim Akil’s Sparkle, the remake of the 1976 film of the same name, did just that. Revisiting the Motown era (specifically during the ’50s and ’60s) isn’t a new concept in film, but something we don’t see often enough when depicting that era is well carved out female stories. Of course, there were plenty of women in music who dominated the charts, but we rarely get to see them take on the dominant role in their personal lives. At least, not so a we should have.
In Sparkle, we have three very different sisters, Tammy aka “Sister” (Carmen Ejogo), Sparkle (Jordin Sparks), and Dolores aka “D” (Tika Sumpter), who each have a dream. D wants to go to medical school. Sister, the oldest sibling, wants to get the hell out of their strict mom’s (Whitney Houston) house, once and for all. And Sparkle, the youngest and most timid of the three, wants a chance–a chance to become a famous singer and songwriter. With encouragement from her dashing admirer, Stix (Derek Luke), Sparkle enlists her two older sisters in their own singing group so that they can each finally see their dreams come true.
Salim Akil’s Sparkle revisits the Motown era

But right at the height of a promising career, life throws them some curve balls. Sister, always looking for the next quick and easy (and lucrative) opportunity, meets and falls hard for the “coon” comedian extraordinaire Satin (Mike Epps). She quickly gets entangled in his lies, deceit and utter immoralities and spirals downwards, taking her sisters’ singing group down with her. That is, until Sparkle finds the voice she’d kept hidden for so long, which will carry her to the next phase of her life and shine like she always dreamed she would.

Sparks as Sparkle in ‘Sparkle.’ Clear?

Admittedly, Sparkle‘s storyline is the one cliched and predictable element carried over from the original movie. Sparks gives a fine performance but, like Irene Cara before her, doesn’t have much to work with and her real-life singing voice provides the most memorable scenes in her performance. What’s not so expected in this re-imagining is the heightened point of view of the other characters in the story. Emma, the girls’ mom, isn’t just a wise older woman with little dialogue but who dutifully captures the parental element of the story, as she is in the original film. Emma is now a very present mother in the story, someone who rules her house with a sharp but loving tongue, and one who is quick to recite passages from Scripture to remind her daughters of who’s really in control. Emma is also a “cautionary” character, as she herself alludes to but is careful not to define in the movie (as delivered in an eerily familiar and poignant performance by the late Houston). She is heavily nuanced and delicately penned by screenwriters Mara Brock Akil (TV’s Girlfriends and The Game) and Harry Rosenman (Father of the Bride, The Family Man).

The late Whitney Houston as mother Emma

Also fine tuned for a razor-sharp performance is the role of Sister. She was always the most complicated character of the bunch, formerly played by the eternally underrated actress Lonette McKee (in one of her best roles). While Ejogo’s portrayal almost mirrors that of McKee’s (which is high praise), Sister doesn’t come across as similarly damaged as she did in the previous movie. She settles on a rather mature consequence for decisions she’s made, which in turn allows her character to linger just a bit longer here, and leave a lasting impression on the audience.

Sister, played by Carmen Ejogo

Another unforgettable character portrayal is that of D played by Sumpter. If you’ve seen the original film, you might not even remember much of anything substantial about this third sister, except that she was her mother’s mute pride and joy. She was the one with the bright future whose feelings about the whole music thing is, as she further explains in this movie, are that she can “really take or leave it.” This remake does a better job at explaining a lot more behind her actions–i.e. why she’s more fearless than her other sisters in a lot of ways (she really has nothing here to lose) and why she won’t sacrifice everything for someone else’s dream. Sumpter, with help from the screenplay, gives D a backbone, a steel tongue to deliver the film’s wittiest and most entertaining dialogue that will cut through even the most dramatic scenes. Sparkle might have been the character in search of a voice, but it is D whose voice had become magnified and clearer.

D, played by Tika Sumpter

Epps also gives a surprisingly good performance here as well. And he’s got a lot to work with. Satin isn’t just the fleeting bad guy who comes to terrorize the Sister and her Sisters trio. He’s definitely not a guy you root for, but there is more to his story here. He has much more purpose. Epps sheds his comedic image to possibly play the role of his career, but uses some of that comedian swagger in a way that complements Satin’s own demons. Meanwhile, the other fellas in the cast, Luke and Omari Hardwick (who plays Levi, Sister’s jilted ex) contribute good–however serviceable–portrayals in an overwhelmingly female-driven movie.

Thirty-six years after the original release of Sparkle, women are still searching for a sizable number of distinctive and identifiable lead roles on the big screen. This film gives each actress a real arch, a meaty snack to chew on as they flex core acting muscles. It proves that there are still wonderful roles for women–of any color–to make their own and of which one day can look back on and be proud.
While the original film is rightfully regarded as a classic, this year’s Sparkle appropriately adds that exclamation point the first film lacked, and fleshes out each character’s story so that they seem real, like people you may know. Even though it’s essentially a period film, this remake clearly has that new millennium edge we so desperately need to more of.

———-

Candice Frederick is a former Essence magazine editor and an NABJ award-winning journalist. She is also a Contributing Film Writer for The Urban Daily, co-host of “Cinema in Noir” and the film blogger for Reel Talk. Follow her on Twitter.

Women of Color in Film and TV: Shirley, Donna, and Lana: African-American Women in Thursday Night Sitcoms

Written by Max Thornton.
Thursday night is the best TV night for comedy fans. Even now that 30 Rock has departed this mortal coil (goodnight, sweet show; may flights of angels sing thee to thy rest), there is still a lot to enjoy about Thursday nights. For me, it’s the trifecta of Community, Parks and Recreation, and Archer.
(Remember 2009, the year all three of those shows debuted? Ugh, what happened to you, TV – you used to be awesome.)
I love Community, Parks and Recreation, and Archer. They are my three favorite shows on the air at the moment. Coincidentally, each of them has an African-American woman among the main ensemble, and it makes for an illuminating comparison to look at the respective treatment of Shirley Bennett, Donna Meagle, and Lana Kane.
Community: Shirley Bennett (Yvette Nicole Brown)
Not gonna lie, I adore that pun.
The central conceit of Community is that seven unlikely friends are drawn together as a study group at a community college. The intent to explore diversity is built into the concept. Unfortunately, the actualization is not always as laudable as the ambition.
Shirley has tended to get short shrift in terms of character development. A lot of the time it kind of feels as though the writers don’t quite know what to do with her. It’s not necessarily because she’s one of the older characters – they never seem to run out of things for Chevy Chase to do as crusty old white dude Pierce. It’s not necessarily because she’s a woman of color – Troy and Abed are the show’s most beloved characters, and neither of them is white. I think it’s an intersectional thing. Shirley is an African-American woman, a committed Christian, and a middle-aged mom, and possibly none of these are things a writers’ room for a hip young pop-culture-savvy show is entirely comfortable with.
There has been some recognition on the show’s part that Shirley was a little underdeveloped in the early episodes, and seasons two and three made a conscious effort to give her more depth. We learned that she has a history of alcoholism, that she kicks ass at foosball, that her Miss Piggy voice is actually her bedroom voice. She had a very ill-advised hookup and a paternity scare while getting back together with ex-husband Malcolm-Jamal Warner. She has toned down the evangelical fervor of her faith to accommodate the diverse religious traditions (or lack thereof) among her friends.
Shirley is still often the show’s most problematic character and the one that is left most adrift in its various plots. At this stage, though, she is well-rounded enough that she actually feels like a real character. It just took a little longer than it did for everyone else on the show.
Parks and Recreation: Donna Meagle (Retta)
My main complaint about Donna is that she is too often in the background. She was technically only a recurring character in the first two seasons of Parks and Rec, only getting promoted to a regular in the third season.
Donna rarely if ever has storylines focused on her, which is a shame because she’s kind of awesome. She’s one of Pawnee’s most competent employees, tending to just get things done when the rest of the Parks Department is goofing around, but she also has a healthy sex life (both partnered and solo: in one episode she was shown casually reading Fifty Shades of Grey at work), a friendship with Aziz Ansari’s character Tom, and a brilliant made-up holiday called Treat Yo Self.
Although Donna is more of a background player than Shirley, she feels fully developed on much less screentime. It certainly helps that Retta is not the only woman of color in the Parks and Rec cast: Rashida Jones and Aubrey Plaza are both perfecton the show, and if any character is a little undercooked it’s Jones’s Ann Perkins (and her ennui is finally being addressed in-text).
Ann and April: NOT friends.
One question I do have for the Parks and Rec writers, though: With such a fantastic, positive, nuanced portrayal of a larger woman on your show, why do you keep making so many fat jokes about the citizens of Pawnee?
Archer: Lana Kane (Aisha Tyler)
Archer is a show of an entirely different tenor than the NBC sitcoms. An animated dark comedy on FX, it’s considerably less popular and considerably edgier than either Community or Parks. As always, edginess in comedy is a double-edged sword. When it works, it’s absolutely brilliant (and perfectly attuned to my personal sense of humor); when it doesn’t, it’s just painful.
For the most part, Archer walks the line very well. If you’re unfamiliar with the conceit, creator Adam Reed’s description “James Bond meets Arrested Development” is not a bad one. Lana Kane is one of the top spies at ISIS, an espionage agency centered on the dysfunctional relationship between suave, self-centered, reckless Sterling Archer and his mother Malory, the agency’s head. At its best, the show functions largely as a workplace comedy with cool gadgets and some magnificently weird characters.
Lana is indisputably the most sane person at ISIS, in a Dave-Nelson-in-NewsRadio kind of way, and she also has to cope with being a woman of color in a pretty unforgiving milieu. Archer does a pretty good job of portraying other characters’ prejudice against her in a way that skewers the discriminators, not the discriminatee. Just look at the most recent episode, when Lana challenges Malory for refusing to send her on a mission to Turkmenistan.
Lana: “Because I’m black, or because I’m a woman?”
Malory: “Pick one! I mean, look, I don’t want to sound racist, but–”
Lana: “But you’re gonna power through it.”
Malory proceeds to explain how sexist and xenophobic Turkmenistan is, and how she just had to send only white men – who are meanwhile cocking up the mission with considerable panache. It’s a nifty but non-preachy way to demonstrate the myopia of racist thinking.
I love my Thursday night shows, and I’m glad they include rich roles for women of color. None of them is perfect, though, and it’s a sad truth that they are all created and helmed by white men. Putting women of color in your shows is great, but as long as the creators, showrunners, and executives are overwhelmingly white men, there is still a helluva lot of progress yet to be made.
Max Thornton blogs at Gay Christian Geek, tumbles as trans substantial, and is slowly learning to twitter at @RainicornMax.

Women of Color in Film and TV: Mammy, Sapphire, or Jezebel, Olivia Pope is Not: A Review of ‘Scandal’

Scandal, created by Shonda Rimes and starring Kerry Washington
 Guest post written by Atima Omara-Alwala.
Like every other woman of color who enjoys film and probably many film and TV critics alike, I waited with baited breath to see what the debut of Scandal, the first major network television show in nearly 40 years with an African American woman in the lead would bring. Even with a number of film awards that many black actresses have received in recent years, there has always been the criticism, and justified, that they are stereotypical limiting roles. With Shonda Rimes as creator of Scandal (the godmother of Grey’s Anatomy and Private Practice), whose work pioneered color-blind casting and complex characters regardless of race, I had exceptional high hopes this show would be different. Shonda didn’t disappoint. 
Many writers and film critics have written about the three usual archetypes that black women have fit into in popular culture representation. And it is through this prism Scandal is viewed. The Jezebel, who is very sexually promiscuous; the Mammy, who is the tireless devoted mother like figure regardless of all the wrong you did; and the Sapphire, a head-whipping, finger-snapping, anger-filled black woman. These stereotypes permeate all aspects of the American black women experience. 
In Scandal, the actress Kerry Washington (from Save the Last Dance, The Last King of Scotland, and Django Unchained) plays Olivia Pope. Olivia Pope is based loosely on the life of Judy Smith, a real Washington operative who is a former member of the George H. W. Bush White House and a well-known crisis manager in DC circles. Like Judy, Olivia works with her team of lawyers, former CIA operatives, and political operatives to fix the problems and very real scandals of her very prominent clients. 
Olivia Pope is tough but not in a stereotypical overbearing black woman portrayal like Sapphire. She is tough with necessity. She works in Washington DC and is in the thick of national politics and crisis managing. As someone who actually has worked as a woman of color in politics, I know for a fact no shrinking violets need apply to a world where required skills to success are extreme confidence, intelligence, and very quick thinking, and in Scandal, apparently very fast talking. Among Olivia’s clients are Congressmen, candidates for public office, corporate executives, a renowned pastor, a President, and a former Presidential candidate. 
Olivia is not a tireless devoted Mammy because to fix other people’s problems and scandals, Olivia takes a NICE check to clean up your mess. (Evidence: A townhouse in Washington DC and a designer wardrobe to die for, ladies!!) Olivia truly is the lady boss. Her team is fiercely loyal to her as she takes care of them and they do the best for her because she is the best at what she does. It’s established within the first couple of episodes how good she is at what she does. The White House, which she left, calls her back often, and people come to her because her gut, as she infamously says, “is never wrong.” While many of us have seen this in our personal and professional lives (eg. Judy Smith), Olivia Pope is something rarely seen in black women representation on screen and is LONG overdue. 
Being a Shonda Rimes created character, Olivia is like all of Shonda Rimes’ female characters: while tough and brilliant, Olivia is a flawed and complicated women. Kerry Washington is a great actress with a broad range who can pull this off well. In one second Olivia is talking tough and intimidating even world officials and next she is sensitive woman with a trembling lip in the next. 
But even though Olivia is the great fixer of other people’s problems and scandals, she hides and really can’t fix her own major one: Olivia has a long running affair with the President of the United States, Fitzgerald “Fitz” Grant III (Tony Goldwyn), from when she worked his campaign, who is also white. 
Herein lies the debate on Scandal: Is Olivia a Jezebel dressed up in 21st century political correctness? Instead of being a hooker on the stroll, slave mistress, or black girl in heat, she has her own job and career but still got to be all up on someone else’s man, especially a white man? The black blogosphere and Twittersphere debate and differ in opinion. Some say yes: 45-year veteran in advertising Tom Burrell, who has worked to promote positive portrayals of black people in media, calls Oliva Pope “a “hot-to-trot” sexually aggressive trope as old as the institution of slavery itself in the character” (damn!). Some brought up, by extension, the inevitable comparison to a Thomas Jefferson/Sally Hemings drama pretty darn quickly (of course) and some go as far as to guilt other black women (specifically) viewers for watching the show, in one popular meme (seriously?). Others defiantly say no, Olivia Pope is NOT a Jezebel. For my part, I tend to agree with the naysayers. 
Olivia Pope is a groundbreaking black female character on television, period. She is a self-reliant, highly accomplished most sought-after professional. But she also made the mistake (something which she very much realizes) of falling in love with a white married man, who also happens to be, oh, the leader of the free world. The show is sharp in that it doesn’t make Olivia blind to her circumstance as any black woman in her shoes wouldn’t be. You find out in Season 2 that not only does she leave the White House to start her own firm but to get herself away from the President and let him focus to be the President he needed. Even in a fit of frustration she says of her relationship with Fitz to him, “I’m feeling a little Sally Hemings-Thomas Jefferson about all this.” Later Fitz confronts Olivia and tells her that the comment was “below the belt.” Because, he said: “You’re playing the race card on the fact that I’m in love with you.” He then proceeds to soliloquize his love so intensely for Olivia, that she (and even I) were a bit worried for his mental state. 
Olivia is no Jezebel, because she takes control of her destiny being tied to Fitz and leaves it to chart her own path. Olivia is no Jezebel because the show has progressed long enough for her to have built a relationship with another man, a highly accomplished black man at that, while she still unquestionably loves Fitz she actually attempts to move on with her life, unlike him. No, she’s not perfect, but raise your hands in the air and wave them like you just don’t care if YOU are. As a black woman I realize we want to see ourselves escape the stereotypes because we’ve been held down by these images so much that we inevitably hold ourselves up to perfection to escape it. But this is also damagingly unrealistic for the black woman to do that not only to our mental health but perception from others. Frankly, the more of our stories are out there, the more we’ll reach parity in representation in film and television. 
If I have any criticism on Scandal, it’s who IS Olivia, before Fitz, before the White House, and how she came to do what she does. We have a better snapshot, if not complete, on most characters, and knowing Shonda likes to take her time unfolding a character, I am looking forward to what that brings. 
All in all, I think Shonda Rimes has done an outstanding job breaking barriers and it looks like she has struck a chord with African American audiences, according to the latest New York Times article. According to Nielsen, Scandal is the highest rated scripted drama among African-Americans, with 10.1 percent of black households, or an average of 1.8 million viewers, tuning in during the first half of the second season. Real life crisis manager Judy Smith live tweets during the show as do other prominent black political operatives and commentators, namely Donna Brazile and Roland Martin. Among the group aged 18 to 34, the show typically ranks first in its 10 p.m. Thursday time slot, which means success to the industry. It’s fast moving, jaw dropping, how-in-the-hell-did-I-not-guess-that cliff hangers that Shonda Rimes is so good at, combined with great actors, projects nothing but continued success for Scandal. 
And I will be there every Thursday to watch.
———-
Atima Omara-Alwala  is a political strategist and activist of 10 years who has served as staff on 8 federal and local political campaigns and other progressive causes. Atima’s work has had a particular focus on women’s political empowerment & leadership, reproductive justice, health care, communities of color and how gender and race is reflected in pop culture. Her writings on the topics have also been featured at Ms. Magazine, Women’s Enews, and RH Reality Check.

2013 Oscar Week: The Roundup

Academy Awards Commentary:

“Oscar Hosts Preferable to Seth MacFarlane: An Abbreviated List” by Robin Hitchcock

“This Needs No Explanation” by Stephanie Rogers

“Fun with Stats: Best Actor/Actress Nominations vs. Best Picture Nominations” by Robin Hitchcock

“5 People Who Should Host the Oscars at Some Point” by Lady T

“Fun with Stats: Winners of Oscars for Acting by Age” by Robin Hitchcock

“2013 Academy Awards Diversity Checklist” by Lady T

“Race and the Academy: Black Characters, Stories and the Danger of Django“ by Leigh Kolb

“5 Female-Directed Films That Deserved Oscar Nominations” by James Worsdale

“Best Actress Nominee Rundown” by Rachel Redfern

“Feminism and the Oscars: Do This Year’s Best Picture Nominees Pass the Bechdel Test?” by Megan Kearns

“Academy Documentaries: People’s Stories, Men’s Voices” by Jo Custer

Amour: nominated for Best Picture; Best Actress, Emmanuelle Riva; Best Director, Michael Haneke; Best Foreign Language Film; Best Original Screenplay, Michael Haneke

“Best Actress Nominee Rundown” by Rachel Redfern

Life of Pi: nominated for Best Picture; Best Cinematography, Claudio Miranda; Best Director, Ang Lee; Best Film Editing, Tim Squyres; Best Original Score, Mychael Danna; Best Original Song, Mychael Danna, Bombay Jayashri; Best Production Design, David Gropman, Anna Pinnock; Best Sound Editing, Eugene Gearty, Philip Stockton; Best Sound Mixing, Ron Bartlett, D.M. Hemphill, Drew Kunin; Best Visual Effects, Bill Westenhover, Guillaume Rocheron, Erik-Jan De Boer, Donald R. Elliott; Best Adapted Screenplay, David Magee

Argo: nominated for Best Picture; Best Supporting Actor, Alan Arkin; Best Film Editing, William Goldenberg; Best Original Score, Alexandre Desplat; Best Sound Editing, Erik Aadahl, Ethan Van der Ryn; Best Sound Mixing, John Reitz, Gregg Rudloff, Jose Antonio Garcia; Best Adapted Screenplay, Chris Terrio

“Does Argo Suffer from a Woman Problem and Iranian Stereotypes?” by Megan Kearns

Lincoln: nominated for Best Picture; Best Actor, Daniel Day-Lewis; Best Supporting Actor, Tommy Lee Jones; Best Supporting Actress, Sally Field; Best Cinematography, Janusz Kaminski; Best Costume Design, Joanna Johnston; Best Director, Steven Spielberg; Best Film Editing, Michael Kahn; Best Original Score, John Williams; Best Production Design, Rick Carter, Jim Erickson; Best Sound Mixing, Andy Nelson, Gary Rydstrom, Ronald Judkins; Best Adapted Screenplay, Tony Kushner

“In Praise of Sally Field As Mary Todd Lincoln” by Robin Hitchcock

Beasts of the Southern Wild: nominated for Best Picture; Best Actress, Quvenzhané Wallis; Best Director, Benh Zeitlin; Best Adapted Screenplay, Lucy Alibar, Benh Zeitlin

“Best Actress Nominee Rundown” by Rachel Redfern

“Beasts of the Southern Wild: Gender, Race and a Powerful Female Protagonist in the Most Buzzed About Film” by Megan Kearns

“Beasts of the Southern Wild: I Didn’t Get It” by Robin Hitchcock

“Cosmology, Gender, and Quvenzhané Wallis: Beasts of the Southern Wild“ by Max Thornton

“Beasts of the Southern Wild: Deluge Myths” by Laura A. Shamas

Silver Linings Playbook: nominated for Best Picture; Best Actor, Bradley Cooper; Best Actress, Jennifer Lawrence; Best Supporting Actor, Robert De Niro; Best Supporting Actress, Jacki Weaver; Best Director, David O. Russell; Best Film Editing, Jay Cassidy, Crispin Struthers; Best Adapted Screenplay, David O. Russell

“Best Actress Nominee Rundown” by Rachel Redfern

“Silver Linings Playbook, or, As I Like to Call It: fuckyeahjenniferlawrence” by Stephanie Rogers

Django Unchained: nominated for Best Picture; Best Supporting Actor, Christoph Waltz; Best Cinematography, Robert Richardson; Best Sound Editing, Wylie Stateman; Best Original Screenplay, Quentin Tarantino

“From a Bride with a Hanzo Sword to a Damsel in Distress: Did Quentin Tarantino’s Feminism Take a Step Backwards in Django Unchained?” by Tracy Bealer

“Heroic Black Love and Male Privilege in Django Unchained“ by Joshunda Sanders

“The Power of Narrative in Django Unchained“ by Leigh Kolb

“Race and the Academy: Black Characters, Stories and the Danger of Django“ by Leigh Kolb

Zero Dark Thirty: nominated for Best Picture; Best Actress, Jessica Chastain; Best Film Editing, Dylan Tichenor, William Goldenberg; Best Sound Editing, Paul N.J. Ottosson; Best Original Screenplay, Mark Boal

“Best Actress Nominee Rundown” by Rachel Redfern

“Jessica Chastain’s Performance Propels the Exquisitely Sharp But Aloof Zero Dark Thirty“ by Candice Frederick

“Zero Dark Thirty Raises Questions on Gender and Torture, Gives No Easy Answers” by Megan Kearns

“The Zero Dark Thirty Controversy: What Does Jessica Chastain’s Beauty Have to Do With It?” by Lady T

“Maya from Zero Dark Thirty Is an Emotional Character” by Alison Vingiano

Les Misérables: nominated for Best Picture; Best Actor, Hugh Jackman; Best Supporting Actress, Anne Hathaway; Best Costume Design, Paco Delgado; Best Makeup and Hairstyling, Lisa Westcott, Julie Dartnell; Best Original Song, Claude-Michel Schonberg, Herbert Kretzmer, Alain Boublil; Best Production Design, Eve Stewart, Anna Lynch-Robinson; Best Sound Mixing, Andy Nelson, Mark Paterson, Simon Hayes

“Extreme Weight Loss for Roles Is Not ‘Required’ and Not Praiseworthy” by Robin Hitchcock

“Les Misérables: The Feminism Behind the Barricades” by Leigh Kolb

“Les Misérables, Sex Trafficking & Fantine as a Symbol for Women’s Oppression” by Megan Kearns

“Les Misérables: Some Musicals Are More Feminist Than Others” by Natalie Wilson

Flight: nominated for Best Actor, Denzel Washington; Best Original Screenplay, John Gatins

“The Women in Whip Whitaker’s Life: Representations of Female Characters in Flight“ by Martyna Przybysz

“Flight‘s Unintentional Pro-Woman Message” by Lady T

The Impossible: nominated for Best Actress, Naomi Watts

“Best Actress Nominee Rundown” by Rachel Redfern

“It’s ‘Impossible’ Not to See the White-Centric Point of View” by Lady T

The Master: nominated for Best Actor, Joaquin Phoenix; Best Supporting Actor, Philip Seymour Hoffman; Best Supporting Actress, Amy Adams

“The Master: A Movie About White Dudes Talking About Stuff” by Stephanie Rogers

The Sessions: nominated for Best Supporting Actress, Helen Hunt

“On Sex, Disability, and Helen Hunt in The Sessions“ by Stephanie Rogers

“The Transformative Journey of Sex in The Sessions“ by Rachel Redfern

“Depicting Sex Surrogacy in The Sessions“ by Alisande Fitzsimons

Brave: nominated for Best Animated Film

“Why I’m Excited About Pixar’s Brave & Its Kick-Ass Female Protagonist … Even If She Is Another Princess” by Megan Kearns

“Will Brave‘s Warrior Princess Merida Usher in a New Kind of Role Model for Girls?” by Megan Kearns

“The Princess Archetype in the Movies” by Laura A. Shamas

“Brave and the Legacy of Female Prepubescent Power Fantasies” by Amanda Rodriguez

Frankenweenie: nominated for Best Animated Film

ParaNorman: nominated for Best Animated Film

“The Brainy Message of ParaNorman“ by Natalie Wilson

The Pirates! Band of Misfits: nominated for Best Animated Film

Wreck-It Ralph: nominated for Best Animated Film

“Wreck-It Ralph Is Flawed But Still Pretty Feminist” by Myrna Waldron

Anna Karenina: nominated for Best Cinematography, Seamus McGarvey; Best Costume Design, Jacqueline Durran; Best Original Score, Dario Marianelli; Best Production Design, Sarah Greenwood, Katie Spencer

“Anna Karenina, and the Tragedy of Being a Woman in the Wrong Era” by Erin Fenner

5 Broken Cameras: nominated for Best Documentary

“Academy Documentaries: People’s Stories, Men’s Voices” by Jo Custer

The Gatekeepers: nominated for Best Documentary

“Academy Documentaries: People’s Stories, Men’s Voices” by Jo Custer

How to Survive a Plague: nominated for Best Documentary

“How to Survive a Plague: When Aging Itself Becomes a Triumph” by Ren Jender

“Acting Up: A Review of How to Survive a Plague“ by Diana Suber

“Academy Documentaries: People’s Stories, Men’s Voices” by Jo Custer

The Invisible War: nominated for Best Documentary

“The Invisible War Takes on Sexual Assault in the Military” by Soraya Chemaly

“Academy Documentaries: People’s Stories, Men’s Voices” by Jo Custer

Mirror Mirror: nominated for Best Costume Design, Eiko Ishioka

“Trailers for Snow White & the Huntsman and Mirror Mirror Perpetuate Stereotypes of Women, Beauty & Aging and Pit Women Against Each Other” by Megan Kearns

“Happily Never After: The Sad (and Sexist?) Rush to Cast Some of Our Most Promising Young Actresses as Fairy Tale Princesses” by Scott Mendelson

Searching for Sugar Man: nominated for Best Documentary

“Searching for Sugar Man Makes Race Invisible” by Robin Hitchcock

“Academy Documentaries: People’s Stories, Men’s Voices” by Jo Custer

Skyfall: nominated for Best Cinematography, Roger Deakins; Best Original Score, Thomas Newman; Best Original Song, Adele Adkins, Paul Epworth; Best Sound Editing, Per Hallberg, Karen Baker Landers; Best Sound Mixing, Scott Millan, Greg P. Russell, Stuart Wilson

“The Sun (Never) Sets on the British Empire: The Neocolonialism of Skyfall“ by Max Thornton

“Skyfall: It’s M’s World, Bond Just Lives in It” by Margaret Howie

Snow White and the Huntsman: nominated for Best Costume Design, Colleen Atwood; Best Visual Effects, Cedric Nicolas-Troyan, Philip Brennan, Neil Corbould, Michael Dawson

“Trailers for Snow White & the Huntsman and Mirror Mirror Perpetuate Stereotypes of Women, Beauty & Aging and Pit Women Against Each Other” by Megan Kearns

“Snow White and the Huntsman: A Better Role Model?” by Allison Heard

“Happily Never After: The Sad (and Sexist?) Rush to Cast Some of Our Most Promising Young Actresses as Fairy Tale Princesses” by Scott Mendelson

“A Feminist Review of Snow White and the Huntsman“ by Rachel Redfern

“The Princess Archetype in the Movies” by Laura A. Shamas

“Matriarchal Impositions of Beauty in Snow White and the Huntsman“ by Carleen Tibbets

Chasing Ice: nominated for Best Original Song, J. Ralph

A Royal Affair: nominated for Best Foreign Language Film (Denmark)

“A Royal Affair“ by Rosalind Kemp

“More Royal Than Affair” by Atima Omara-Alwala

Hitchcock: nominated for Best Makeup and Hairstyling, Howard Berger, Peter Montagna, Martin Samuel

“Too Many Hitchcocks” by Robin Hitchcock

“Hitchcock Turns the Master of Suspense into a Real Life Dud” by Candice Frederick

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey: nominated for Best Makeup and Hairstyling, Peter Swords King, Rick Findlater, Tami Lane; Best Production Design, Dan Hennah, Ra Vincent, Simon Bright; Best Visual Effects, Joe Letteri, Eric Saindon, David Clayton, R. Christopher White 

“The Hobbit: A Totally Expected Bro-Fest” by Erin Fenner

“The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey: The Addition of Feminine Presence During a Quest for the Ages” by Elise Schwartz

No: nominated for Best Foreign Language Film (Chile)

Ted: nominated for Best Original Song, Walter Murphy, Seth MacFarlane

“Damning Ted with Faint Praise” by Robin Hitchcock

War Witch: nominated for Best Foreign Language Film (Canada)

“A Thorn Like a Rose: War Witch (Rebelle)“ by Emily Campbell

Kon Tiki: nominated for Best Foreign Language Film (Norway)

The Avengers: nominated for Best Visual Effects, Janek Sirrs, Jeff White, Guy Williams, Dan Sudick

“The Avengers, Strong Female Characters and Failing the Bechdel Test” by Megan Kearns

“The Avengers: Are We Exporting Media Sexism or Importing It?” by Soraya Chemaly

“Quote of the Day: Scarlett Johansson Tired of Sexist Diet Questions” by Megan Kearns

Moonrise Kingdom: nominated for Best Original Screenplay, Wes Anderson, Roman Coppola

“An Open Letter to Owen Wilson Regarding Moonrise Kingdom“ by Molly McCaffrey

Prometheus: nominated for Best Visual Effects, Richard Stammers, Trevor Wood, Charley Henley, Martin Hill

“Is Prometheus a Feminist Pro-Choice Metaphor?” by Megan Kearns

“A Feminist Review of Prometheus“ by Rachel Redfern

“Prometheus and the Alien Movies: Feminism and Anti-Feminism” by Rhea Daniel

Documentary Short Film: nominees include Inocente, Kings Point, Mondays at Racine, Open Heart, Redemption

Animated Short Film: nominees include Adam and Dog, Fresh Guacamole, Head over Heels, Paperman, Maggie Simpson in “The Longest Daycare”

Short Live Action Film: nominees include Asad, Buzkashi Boys, Curfew, Death of a Shadow (Dood van een Schaduw), Henry

2013 Oscar Week: Academy Documentaries: People’s Stories, Men’s Voices

Guest post written by Jo Custer.
The lifecycle of documentaries aspiring to global visibility begins each year at Sundance mid-January and ends in December when Oscar nomination voting begins. Of the five nominated this year, four premiered quietly at Robert Redford’s House of Docs, while The Gatekeepers — a series of interviews with former heads of Shin Bet, Israel’s NSA and CIA in one — slipped into the running even more quietly via Telluride, after its Jerusalem debut. 
Film writers often tout the launching success of the year’s first Academy qualifying festival and can even present bias which may be attributable to the competition structure, as the Wall Street Journal did when it printed that Kirby Dick’s expose on the treatment of military rape victims, The Invisible War, would be one to watch but overlooked How to Survive a Plague, David France’s long, slow grip on the fight to normalize healthcare for AIDS victims. Both nominees were in the U.S. documentary competition. Only one of the WSJ‘s picks for Sundance-projected success came from the world cinema documentary competition, and it wasn’t Searching for Sugarman, Malik Bendjelloul’s bizarre tale of a Detroit singer/songwriter who recorded two flop albums and then quietly became a demi-god in apartheid-era South Africa. Nor was it 5 Broken Cameras, in which Guy Davidi chronicles Palestinian Emad Burnat’s inability to keep a camera operational in the suffocating presence of the Israeli Army.
Without conflating the already hard to separate issues of press-generated success vs. Oscar-generated success, this year’s most monetarily rewarding mark of honor has drawn five films. That’s five films from a pool that increases yearly at a hard-to-measure growth rate. When Sundance first created the House of Docs in 1999, theatrical releases of non-fiction films represented less than two percent of all releases, according to figures collected from Box Office Mojo. Since 2001 non-fiction theatrical releases have grown, sometimes doubling or tripling in a year until in 2011 documentaries comprised 18% of all films released.
Coinciding with the growing interesting in non-narrative film, there has been a noticeable uptick in women documentarians as well. Dozens can be found in lists of 2012 docs to watch that didn’t make the Oscar list, including Amy Berg (West of Memphis), Alison Klayman (Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry), Katie Dellamaggiore (Brooklyn Castle), Lauren Greenfield (The Queen of Versailles), Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady (Detropia, Jesus Camp), Susan Froemke (ESCAPE FIRE: The Fight to Rescue American Health Care), and Kristi Jacobson and Lori Silverbush (Finding North). U.S. women represented fifty percent of documentarians at Sundance last year while international women documentarians were outnumbered eleven to four.
Disregarding for a moment whatever else the relationship between these numbers might suggest, two things continue to happen. First, despite the rise in the number of docs which garner theatrical releases, their box office revenues remain low, short-term. Second, the one body with the power to make a filmmaker’s career in the short term — the Academy — continues to play it safe in its selection of documentaries to bring into the limelight. What makes this year’s lineup incredibly hard to argue against isn’t the documentaries themselves, but rather what they represent: a carefully balanced melange of social justice issues, most of which effect women, but all of which were brought about by the storytelling devices of men.
The Invisible War
The most salient of these to American audiences, Kirby Dick, took on the U.S. military in The Invisible War, in defense of thousands of rape victims across all branches who are silenced far more often than their offenders are brought to justice. Dick began his David vs. Goliath track record with This Film Is Not Yet Rated, taking on the MPAA with an honesty that everyone but the ratings body itself cared about. According to the action kicker just before the credits, Defense Secretary Leon Pannetta disallowed commanding officers to govern processing for rape victims two days after seeing the film, which notes that officers aren’t just getting away with rape but learning how to maneuver the justice system before returning to civilian life with no record of being a sex offender. Hard-hitting and hard to watch, the film seems to have done part of its job. Perhaps more importantly to the Academy, it is the token women’s film this year. Not all victims of military rape are female, of course, but this was the year of the War On Women. Apparently, Kirby Dick’s take on that will serve as our commemoration.
How to Survive a Plague
Perhaps less salient — if only because memories are short — David France’s long-suffering piecing together of how gay men and lesbians banded together under a retired chemist and housewife to learn about AIDS and how to fight it rings truer to its subjects’ voices. Opening in “Year 6 of the Epidemic” in Greenwich Village, the epicenter of the plague, it tells the story the networks kept from the news each night of Reagan’s presidency. There were no drugs to treat the disease. People were being turned away. It was nearly one hundred percent fatal. People who were dying anyway laid down in the streets to protest and be arrested and went the opposite way of the closet eventually — away from the black market and into the realm of FDA tested, prescribable drugs. Archival footage from dozens of sources make this authentic look at what it means to be an activist layered but also fatiguing, as though France wants the viewer to feel the malaise of too many years of dying and not nearly enough justifying. Just as notable, the camera never gets too close to the women. It’s a men’s story, in the end. 
Searching for Sugarman
Another absorbing and visceral man’s story is Searching for Sugarman, which surprises and delights in its juxtaposition of two very different climes — Detroit in 1968 – 1971 and South Africa at the height of apartheid. The “Sugarman” of interest is none other than Rodriguez, whose career never really got out of the studio in North America. But his first album made its way to South Africa and got copied and redistributed and bought in such demand that he became, according to figures in the film, bigger than Elvis or The Rolling Stones. His music inspired a censorship sick society to rally behind music and a movement that eventually won. Filmmaker Malik Bendjelloul left Sweden to globe-trot and stumbled across the Rodriguez story while in South Africa. Considering how uplifting the storytelling is, he chose well.
5 Broken Cameras
In 5 Broken Cameras, Guy Davidi remains the silent silent director while Emad Burnat tells the story of his life in Palestine since the Israelis began encroaching actively upon his community and house and life. Showing footage from each of Emad’s cameras interstitially but linearly, it attempts to avoid the macrocosm argument of whose land it is by focusing on the microcosm but never quite makes it. The Israeli Army demonstrates its displeasure with Palestine time and time again, tearing up olive trees and soil for no other reason than its being there. Its most effective moment comes in a little seen glimpse of Islamic married life, in which Emad’s wife, beyond tired of her husband’s preoccupation with the distance the lens gives him, yells at him to turn off the camera while she performs domestic duties, but he does not. He can’t, not even when he is placed under house arrest. He films himself doing nothing because filming is what he does. Very heavy on the imagery of Emad’s son, it is another man’s story — set on the most unstable ground in the world, and still often seen as the center of it.
The Gatekeepers
Almost as if to be fair to the uprooters of innocent olive trees, the Academy also nominated Dror Moreh’s The Gatekeepers, which I did not get a chance to see thanks to a limited release and a tight grip on screeners. It features interviews with six former heads (all men) of Shin Bet, the “unseen shield” of Israel — a far more authoritarian point of view than Emad’s.
It seems more than safe to say that the Academy may have been influenced politically to seek a balance in representing both sides of an ongoing conflict. But safety was ever the problem with this year’s documentary lineup: A “women’s issue” delivered by a well-respected man during the War on Women; a pleaser for the LGBTIQ community who showed up a little less strong in this year’s Presidential election, but still showed; a token non-issue entertainment piece that also happens to shine in its unusualness; and two pieces from the Middle East. Under Academy auspices, docs play like little more than complementary copy.
In case you were wondering, Sugarman has my bet for best doc of the year. As does women’s continuation to make social justice documentaries for almost no monetary return, but rather making names for themselves that will last. Hopefully it will rub off in the darker places, too.
———-
Jo Custer is a New Orleans writer/director/producer, theatre director, blogger and sometimes a journo. She has just finished auditions for her next short film, Sonuvabitch, gearing up to shoot this May and will also be directing The Four of Us for the stage this spring. You can follow her sojourns as a filmmaker/cab driver here: http://jocuster.wordpress.com/

2013 Oscar Week: Searching for Sugar Man Makes Race Invisible

Written by Robin Hitchcock
Rodriguez, the central figure of documentary Searching for Sugar Man
Searching for Sugar Man, considered the front-runner for Best Documentary Feature at the 85th Academy Awards this weekend, shares the unlikely story of Sixto Rodriguez, an obscure failed musician in the United States who became an icon on the other side of the planet in South Africa. Rodriguez is a figure of mystery to his fans, and urban legends bloom about his having committed suicide on stage. A group of fans seek out the truth in the 1990s, and find Rodriguez is alive, still living in poverty in Detroit, completely unaware that to a generation of South Africans, he’s a rock god. 
It’s a fascinating stranger-than-fiction story that is heartwarming and inspiring: perfect subject matter for a documentary. And Searching for Sugar Man is undeniably well-crafted, building suspense and mystery in the first half of the film on the hunt for Rodriguez, yielding to a very satisfying emotional catharsis in the second half of the film, where we meet Rodriguez and his daughters and see his triumphant arrival in the land that adores him. The stand-in music videos for Rodriguez’s songs that pepper the film are gorgeous to look at and the songs themselves are a revelation.  Searching for Sugar Man is an excellent film that has a huge problem: the invisibility of race. 
Searching for Sugar Man is about white South Africans. This is not in of itself a problem. White South Africans have stories that deserve to be told. [I am a white American living in South Africa and I think you should hear me out, for example.] But race is an intrinsic part of any South African story, especially any apartheid-era South African story. And Searching for Sugar Man is barely interested in race. It presents white South Africans as synonymous with South Africans, which is an exceptionally outrageous instance of white cultural hegemony given this country’s very recent history of extreme racial oppression. 
Stephen “Sugar” Segerman, one of the South African Rodriguez fans integral to solving the mystery of the musician’s fate, does qualify Rodriguez’s South African fans as the “white, liberal, middle-class,” but it’s a quick aside in one of many descriptions of Rodriguez’s South African ubiquity.  We see how the white conservatives in the apartheid government responded to Rodriguez (by censoring his records and banning airplay). But at no point in Searching for Sugar Man do we hear from a black or coloured South African on Rodriguez (with the very small exception of a news broadcaster in archival footage). I wanted to know if Rodriguez’s influence made it outside the white bubble in apartheid-era South Africa, but Searching for Sugar Man wasn’t interested in telling me. Documentaries should not leave glaring questions unanswered.
Another South African blogger had the same curiosity, and asked a  black friend    about his memories of Rodriguez:

He replied that he had known of the artist, but only because he used to work in broadcasting. This short and interesting answer was essentially all I asked for; a black South African commenting on the fact that Rodriguez was virtually unknown or seemed to not have played a vital role in the lives of black South Africans. Not to prove that Rodriguez did not matter, but to acknowledge that though Rodriguez fan base was mainly white, it does not mean that black South Africans have nothing to contribute with in this particular and fascinating aspect of South Africa during apartheid. A story about Rodriguez would be incomplete without the mentioning of apartheid, and a story that talks about apartheid without including a black South African experience feels incomplete to me. 

Searching for Sugar Man‘s treatment of apartheid is also limited to the white middle-class perspective. Rodriguez’s anti-establishment lyrics are said to have ignited political awakening in the white Afrikaner youth in South Africa. The white male Rodriguez fans elaborate: one saying Rodriguez’s song “The Establishment Blues” taught them the very concept of being “anti-establishment”, planting the idea that “it’s OK to protest against our society; to be angry against your society.” 
Segerman adds, “Because we lived in a society where every means was used to prevent apartheid from coming to and end, this album somehow had in it lyrics that almost set us free, as oppressed peoples. Any revolution needs an anthem, and in South Africa, Cold Fact was the album that gave people permission to free their minds and to start thinking differently.” 
South Africans protesting apartheid in the Soweto uprising of 1976.
While there is no doubt that the apartheid government was oppressive to all South Africans, I bristle at hearing a white man refer to himself and his Afrikaner friends as “oppressed peoples” in a film that doesn’t provide the context of how apartheid shaped the lives of people of color in South Africa. The anti-apartheid movement we see in Searching for Sugar Man is one of privileged white youth rebelling against the censorship and control of their ultra-conservative government; when the fight against apartheid was a life-and-death struggle for basic human rights and freedom for millions of black and coloured South Africans. 
Searching for Sugar Man‘s narrow white perspective on apartheid-era South Africa is all the more troubling because Sixto Rodriguez is himself a person of color (Mexican and Native American) living in extreme poverty in Detroit. Clarence Avant, an African American record producer who worked with Rodriguez, is the first and only person in the documentary to suggest that Rodriguez’s race may have contributed to his commercial failure in the United States. Rodriguez does not appear to be concerned with material wealth, having given away most of the money he’s earned touring after his rediscovery in the late 1990s (Since the release of this documentary, Rodriguez has embarked on a world tour). But when one compares the urban blight Rodriguez sang about on his albums to the circumstances of many South Africans two decades after the end of apartheid, the omission of their story in this documentary is even more appalling. 
I’m delighted that Searching for Sugar Man has helped expose Rodriguez’s fine music to a wider audience (including myself); and as a resident of South Africa it is nice to see this country have a worldwide cultural moment. I just wish that the documentary that achieved all this was more fully and honestly representative of South Africa and its history.  

2013 Oscar Week: Feminism and the Oscars: Do This Year’s Best Picture Nominees Pass the Bechdel Test?

Written by Megan Kearns.

When people watch movies, they often think it’s just entertainment. That they don’t really matter. But media impacts our lives tremendously. Films reflexively shape and reflect culture. Feminist commentary is vital. 

It might seem like they don’t but the Oscars matter. The Oscars are the most visible celebration of filmmaking in U.S. and possibly the world. They can also positively impact career trajectories in financing and future themes in film. Called “liberal Hollywood,” they continue to exhibit conservative and sexist values and norms.

Too often, films depict misogyny, sexist gender roles, damsels in distress, women killed, and women’s bodies objectified. The Oscars typically reward women for playing roles that support a central male character in films.

The Academy is 94% white, 77% male, often perpetuating sexism and racism with their white, dude-centric accolades. Women and people of color are rarely nominated for — and even more rarely win — major awards. Although the actor – male or female – with the most acting nominations is Meryl Streep (nominated 17 times) and the actor – male or female – to win the most Oscars for acting is Katherine Hepburn (won 4 times).

Only 6 black women — Hattie McDaniel (Gone with the Wind), Whoopi Goldberg (Ghost), Jennifer Hudson (Dreamgirls), Halle Berry (Monster’s Ball), Mo’Nique (Precious), Octavia Spencer (The Help) — have ever won for acting. Sadly the roles they won for are “maids, single mothers on welfare and one trickster con artist.”

Only 4 women in 85 years have been nominated for a Best Director Oscar — Lina Wertmüller (Seven Beauties), Jane Campion (The Piano), Sofia Coppola (Lost in Translation), Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker). In 85 years, Kathryn Bigelow the only woman ever to win Best Director Oscar. Ever. No women of color have been nominated as Best Director.

In 85 years, only 7 women producers have won the Best Picture title, all as co-producers with men — Julia Phillips for (The Sting), Lili Fini Zanuck (Driving Miss Daisy), Wendy Finerman (Forrest Gump), Donna Gigliotti for (Shakespeare in Love), Fran Walsh for (The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King), Cathy Schulman for (Crash), Kathryn Bigelow for (The Hurt Locker).

This year Quvenzhane Wallis is the only female of color nominated for acting. Lucy Alibar who co-wrote Beasts of the Southern Wild, is the only woman nominated for Best Screenplay. No women are nominated for Best Director. There are women directors who could have (and some should have) been nominated – including Kathryn Bigelow (Zero Dark Thirty), Ava DuVernay (Middle Of Nowhere), Sarah Polley (Take This Waltz) and Lynn Shelton (Your Sister’s Sister).
The Academy often overlooks female directors and female-centric films.

Women’s dialogue and plotlines rarely focus on other women or even themselves. If women talk to each other, it’s usually revolving around men. This is why the Bechdel Test – while not perfect or automatically indicating feminism – matters. The Bechdel Test: film must 1) feature two named female characters, 2) who talk to each other, 3) about something other than a man.

Now the Bechdel Test doesn’t measure whether or not a film is good or even if it’s feminist or female-centric. And it’s not just about judging films on an individual basis. The Bechdel Test matters because the overwhelming majority of movies fail, indicating the institutional sexism and rampant gender disparity prevalent in Hollywood.

So let’s look at each of this year’s Best Picture nominees:

The heartbreaking Amour focuses on the marriage and love between wife Anne and husband Georges after Anne suffers a stroke. Their daughter Eva and Georges argue about putting her into medical facility. Eva talks to Anne after her stroke but it’s more of a one-sided conversation. It may not pass the Bechdel Test but it’s arguably a female-centric film as Anne is often the focus.

Argo has a woman problem (and perpetuates Iranian stereotypes) as the women are pushed to the background. The two female hostages never interact with each other alone (the way the men do), only as a group, and we never really hear their opinions or views. The Canadian diplomat’s wife and their housekeeper Sahar — a pivotal female character who’s not initially trusted or credited with bravery — talk extremely briefly. Just like the other women in Argo, Sahar’s opinions and views are erased. Her importance truly lies in how she relates to men, again reifying the exultation of men.

The breathtaking and unusual Beasts of the Southern Wild boasts a unique, nuanced, fierce female protagonist of color. While the film focuses on Hushpuppy’s relationship to her father Wink, her relationship to her absent mother is equally important as we see in her wearing her jersey and searching for her. She also has conversations with her teacher Miss Bathsheeba. We often see boys and men in films that showcase a hero’s journey or transformation. But here we see a journey with a strong-willed, opinionated girl. And I couldn’t be more thrilled.

Django Unchained features a black male protagonist spurred on by “heroic love.” It’s wonderful to see a black married couple who love each other onscreen. And Django captures the “psychological and emotional terrorism” blacks endured. But from a gender perspective, women don’t interact with one another aside from a white woman ordering a female slave. Broomhilda – the catalyst of Django’s journey – is ultimately a damsel in distress rescued by her husband.

Les Miserables boasts feminist themes showcasing plight of women – poverty, sacrifice, sexual slavery. Fantine is a pivotal character. While Eponine and Cossette are in the film, they never interact with each other. Rather there’s a love triangle with Marius in the middle. Despite the large cast of characters, Les Mis ultimately revolves around Jean Valjean – one man’s redemption and salvation.

While his mother impacts his life throughout the film, Life of Pi revolves around an Indian boy’s survival on a shipwrecked boat with a tiger and his search for religion and spirituality.

Obviously, Lincoln is about a dude….Lincoln. And yes, his wife Mary Todd Lincoln is depicted as “his intellectual equal.” But again she revolves around him. Also the film whitewashes the abolition of slavery with the omission of Frederick Douglass. Really? How the hell can you discuss abolition without Douglass?? Even when we do see two women together – Mary Todd Lincoln (Sally Field) and Elizabeth Keckley (Gloria Reuben) – they barely converse. That’s right, only white dudes have impacted or changed history.

Silver Linings Playbook features the unconventional friendship and attraction of a Tiffany and Pat, both struggling with mental illness. We learn that Tiffany is a widow who’s been on medication with an unnamed illness. We see Tiffany and her sister Veronica talk with each other about their lives. I loved this movie. Jennifer Lawrence is once again an outstanding badass. And who knew Wedding Crashers’ Bradley Cooper (although I did love him as Will on Alias) was this good? I’m thrilled that we’re starting to see more nuanced portrayals of mental illness, specifically bipolar disorder – Homeland, Friday Night Lights. But when it comes to gender, while Tiffany is complicated, confident and vulnerable, we get a few details here and there about her life. The predominant focus remains on Pat.

The most controversial (and outstanding) film of the year, Zero Dark Thirty revolves around a strong, complex, intelligent female protagonist. Many have disputed its feminism because they believe it condones torture. While it doesn’t condemn torture is vehemently as it could or should, it raises complex questions. Throughout the film, Bigelow shows that not only does she not condone torture, but ultimately makes a bold and damning statement against the U.S.’ War on Terror. Friends Maya and Jessica debate strategy, challenge each other and unwind. Zero Dark Thirty makes an interesting commentary on gender politics, showcases female friendship and a complex female protagonist struggling to assert her voice in a male-dominated world.

So 3 films pass the Bechdel Test. It’s interesting, although not surprising, that two of those films, which are the most female-centric films nominated this year – Beasts of the Southern Wild and Zero Dark Thirty – are also the two with a woman co-screenwriter or woman director.

I’m really, really, really tired of the white dudefest.

It’s really hard to ignore the correlation between the lack of female-centric films and how few women write and direct.

Of the top 250 grossing films in the U.S. in 2012, 9% of directors were women and 15% were writers. Women 18% of all directors, executive producers, producers, writers, cinematographers, and editors working on top 250 films. Only 33% of films’ speaking roles belong to women

Despite the fact that women buy 50% of movie theatre tickets (as of 2010), most films feature male protagonists. When a female character exists, usually she’s some guy’s lover, spouse or sidekick. Or she’s the damsel in distress he’s going to rescue, validating his virility and masculinity. Male characters do talk about women but they exist as one topic in the spectrum of dialogue. When we see female characters, they serve as “damsels in distress, pining spinsters, fighting fuck toys,” sexy seductresses or “manic pixie dream girls.” Men’s films are seen as universal. Women’s films are seen as niche. That has to change.

All of these objectifying tropes exist for the male gaze, implying that women’s lives must revolve around men. We need to see more women on-screen and behind the scenes. Hopefully then we’ll see more diversity in female characters in age, class, race, sexual orientation as well as personality traits. 

This past Wednesday, Bitch Flicks guest-hosted Women’s Media Center’s weekly tweetchat #sheparty where we dialogued about women and the Oscars. We discussed the problem, the abysmal stats, focus on male-centric films, and solutions. We also debated if Zero Dark Thirty — which has faced a sexist backlash — would have been universally acclaimed if directed by a dude. I say without a doubt yes. Explaining why talking about gender disparity matters, Melissa Silverstein of Women and Hollywood said, 
“People don’t think about whether a film is directed by a man or a woman. We need to help folks understand why it is important. We need to make people understand in terms they can process about the gender disparities in Hollywood. People don’t think about whether a film is directed by a man or a woman. We need to help folks understand why it is important.” 
So can we change the gender dynamics in Hollywood? Yes, we can. 
Female filmmakers can support and mentor other women. As the recent Sundance Institute study showed, networking is vital, studios must be more supportive of work/life balance for women, and we need to make people realize a gender disparity exists in the first place. We as moviegoers can attend opening weekends for female-fronted or women directed movies. We can support independent filmmakers through Indiegogo, Kickstarter and other crowdfunding campaigns. At #sheparty, Spectra of Spectra Speaks said, 
“Taking on the big bad Oscars is important, but so is doing our part as individuals to support women filmmakers. Write about them. Independent filmmakers need actual support — reviews they can show distributors, social media buzz to coax funders.” 
It’s important to deconstruct and analyze and laud mainstream movies. But we film writers must be sure to write about female-centric films and women filmmakers – both mainstream and indie – too. 
When we see more diverse female filmmakers, we see more diverse female protagonists. We need to see women of different races, classes, sexualities and women with abled as well as disabled bodies. We must demand to see more films featuring strong, intelligent complex women living life on their own terms, whose lives don’t revolve around men. We also need to recognize films featuring women and created by women in awards shows.

Women’s stories matter. Women’s voices must be heard. It’s long overdue for the Oscars to realize that too.

2013 Oscar Week: Depicting Sex Surrogacy in ‘The Sessions’

poster for The Sessions
Guest post written by Alisande Fitzsimons.
One of the more moving films of 2012 was Ben Lewin’s drama The Sessions. Based on the life and articles of profoundly disabled poet and journalist Mark O’Brien (played by John Hawkes), The Sessions depicts the period in O’Brien’s life when he engaged with Cheryl Cohen-Greene, a sex surrogate played by Helen Hunt. 
Bitch Flicks Co-Founder Stephanie Rogers has already written about Sex, Disability and Helen Hunt in ‘The Sessions’ for this site, pointing out that, “Helen Hunt is awesome.” She’s right – the power of Hunt’s performance as Cheryl cannot be understated, and even though she’s already collected one Oscar (for As Good As It Gets in 1997), a lot of us are rooting for her to collect another in 2013. 
Helen Hunt as Cheryl Cohen-Greene with John Hawkes as Mark O’Brien
What Exactly Is A Sexual Surrogate? 
When she first meets Mark O’Brien, Hunt’s character takes care to explain that she is a sex surrogate, rather than a sex worker but is not shown explaining the exact differences to him on-screen. For the record, the difference is this: sex workers provide sexual services in exchange for money. These services can vary wildly and some sex workers do indeed work with disabled or sexually dysfunctional clients. 
A sexual surrogate on the other hand is a certified sex therapist who educates and sometimes engages in intimate acts with their patients in order to reach a therapeutic goal. 
In The Sessions Hunt’s character treats O’Brien over four two hour sessions. O’Brien has never had an intimate relationship when he first begins working with Cohen-Greene but makes rapid progress, becoming comfortable with his own body, then with Cohen-Greene’s body, before finally achieving full intercourse with her and bringing her to orgasm. 
Growing up in the UK, I wasn’t aware that this kind of therapy existed, and I found the film’s insight into it fascinating. The film was released there at a particularly useful moment in British culture. As I type, a former Brothel keeper called Becky Adams is getting a lot of press attention for a new charity she has founded called Para-Doxies. 
The aim of Para-Doxies is to introduce disabled people of all genders and sexuality to sex workers so that their sexual needs can be met. As far as I’m aware therapy such as the sort offered by Cohen-Greene is not available in the UK. Realising how much good the sex therapy O’Brien received did him makes me hope that Adams’ project succeeds and that disabled sexuality becomes more widely accepted. 
There’s Sex But It’s Not Conventionally Sexy. 
I don’t mean that section heading in a bad way. In fact, the depiction of sex in The Sessions is wholly refreshing. As well as giving audiences an insight into disabled sexuality (because for some people the fact that disabled people do indeed enjoy sex apparently came as a bit of a shock), the film also does a marvelous job of presenting a leading lady who has sex both with her husband and patients in a way that’s not meant to titillate. I know I don’t have to remind anyone that this is unusual. 
There are no bras or slips left on during sex in this film but even though we see Hunt naked and having sex, there’s no part of this film that makes a female viewer uncomfortable. Not because Hunt is made to look unattractive in the film – she’s simply not – but because the nudity is so much in keeping with the realist tone of The Sessions that the sex is in no way “pornified” and so does not cater to the male gaze. 
Even when O’Brien, whom Hunt’s character has come to love — but, crucially, has not fallen in love with – orgasms during sex with him, it’s not the sort of noisy When Harry Met Sally moment we’ve come to expect from Hollywood films. Rather, it’s a quiet but heartfelt moment of wholly convincing intimacy between the couple. 
Arguably this should make the moment on-screen even sexier because it reflects real-life lovemaking more than most sex scenes ever will. The catch though is that the scene is so beautifully written and performed that it felt hard to watch. I mean that too in a good way. I mean, who over the age of 13 can’t look at a sex scene? 
The emotional investment the audience makes in the characters of Cohen-Greene and O’Brien means that watching it is not unlike one of those moments when you walk in on a friend having sex – awkward. 
Helen Hunt as Cheryl Cohen-Greene
The Private Life of a Sexual Surrogate 
Apart from the sessions in which she treats O’Brien, Cohen-Greene’s professional life is depicted on-screen when Hunt is shown making notes about how the treatment is going. This part of the film is crucial, not only because it gives the audience insight into O’Brien’s state of mind from a healthcare professional but also because it is what will distinguish Cohen-Greene’s work as a sexual surrogate from that of a particularly sympathetic sex worker in the minds of less liberal viewers. 
Another interesting insight the film is careful to make is into Cohen-Greene’s private life. While most of the film does indeed concentrate on O’Brien – it’s his story, and based on poetry and articles he wrote so the world could really understand disabled sexuality – the small amount of time the camera spends with Cohen-Greene at home is interesting. 
What, for example, motivates someone to become a sexual surrogate over any other kind of therapist? It’s a role that hugely benefits patients but one that may cause problems for the surrogates themselves. 
Cohen-Greene, for example, is married with a teenage son in the film. Her husband, whom she describes as “a philosopher” is in fact unemployed, leaving the family to rely on his wife’s income. It’s apparent that he has no problem with the nature of her work – and all credit to the filmmakers for not reducing an unemployed character to a loutish stereotype – but rather accepts her job as a valid form of employment and therapy. 
In fact, until Cohen-Greene begins treating O’Brien it seems that the couple had no problems with jealousy at all. O’Brien though sparks something in his therapist that her husband recognizes as threatening. It’s not as if a man who was forced to spend at least 20 hours a day in an iron lung due to catching polio during his childhood should, in Hollywood terms at least, be much of a threat to any healthy marriage. 
Yet O’Brien’s flirty and lively personality, not to mention his superior mind that can conjure up incredibly beautiful poetry, do start to come between the couple, even though it’s clear that Hunt’s character does not actually fall for her patient so much as come to respect him and care for him deeply, the way most of us do for our closest friends. She never, in spite of the non-physical intimacy the therapy could foster between them, tells him much about her personal life at all. A sure sign of love and respect for the man she is married to. 
— 
That Cohen-Greene is not depicted as a kind of saint who can see the lovable in a disabled man is another strength of The Sessions. The character is undoubtedly a good person but also a real one, and perhaps most importantly given the delicate nature of this kind of sex therapy, a wholly professional one. 
When the patient-therapist relationship she has with O’Brien threatens her marriage, she reacts first with anger then with consideration and does what she needs to to make that relationship work. 
At the film’s end she is shown attending O’Brien’s funeral with her husband, to whom she is still married. When O’Brien’s girlfriend, whom he met after his sessions with Cohen-Greene have finished, reads out a love poem that is clearly about Cohen-Greene, Hunt just smiles. 
When the love you have for someone is that great, be it platonic or romantic, sometimes the fact that both of you know is enough. It’s a credit to Hunt that her characterization of a character who could easily have been made out to be brassy or manipulative never is, and I really hope she’s duly rewarded by the Academy for it. 

———-

Alisande Fitzsimons is a sex positive writer. She can be found tweeting @AlisandeF.

2013 Oscar Week: Matriarchal Impositions of Beauty in Snow White and the Huntsman

Kristen Stewart and Charlize Theron star in Snow White and the Huntsman
Guest post written by Carleen Tibbetts.
Despite the various twists on the classic fairy tale, there is a definite constant in Snow White: women are their own worse enemies. The storyline is essentially the same: jealous, vain stepmother wants to oust stepdaughter who will one day surpass her in physical attractiveness. Stepmother fails. Stepdaughter’s kindness, beauty, and naivete prevail as she triumphs over her would-be destructor. Rupert Sanders’s Snow White and the Huntsman, however, is a different animal. Yes, at the heart (pun intended) of the story are still the female archetypes of beauty, female rivalry and jealousy, whether or not “true” love will make a woman complete, etc. Sanders’s version also explores, though not fully enough, the fragile nature of mother-daughter relationships. True, her mother wishes Snow White into existence based upon her own ideals of beauty, but it is also the child’s tenderness that moves her. When Snow White is still small, before her mother passes away, her mother places her hand over the girl’s chest and tells her she possesses a “rare beauty” there. When the “evil” queen was a young girl, her mother placed a spell, a curse, really, on her that her beauty would be her protector, her bargaining tool, and also her undoing. 
Both Snow White and her “evil” stepmother were taught to view their worth in terms of beauty. For Snow White, it was her compassion, her sweetness, and her soul. For the “evil” queen, it was how far she could get by on her looks. The ways in which both Snow White and Ravenna’s “beauty” are reflected their mother’s eyes lays the groundwork for their respective indifference to or obsession with their own attractiveness.
The “evil” Queen is this adaptation is still a shape-shifting sorceress, however she doesn’t transform into a sweet octogenarian to play to Snow White’s compassion to give her the poison apple. This queen tries to stave off the aging process at all costs, appears to Snow White under the guise of true love, preying on her lonely heart in order to rip it from her chest. Prince Charming in this instance is no prince. He’s a widowed brute drowning his grief in beer and bar brawls. Female assertion of power is so central here that the Huntsman needs no name. He could be any man. He’s disposable yet indispensable in this fairy tale revenge fantasy. 
Charlize Theron as Queen Ravenna
Charlize Theron’s Queen Ravenna comes to power by preying on a benevolent king’s nature and masquerading as a prisoner of war. The first time we see Ravenna (a flaxen-haired, sanguine, statuesque counterpart to Snow White), she is shackled, bound in a cart, covered in gold dust and fur. The king wants to save her, and does so by making her his victory prize. To the victor go the spoils. He wastes no time and marries her that day. On the wedding night, Ravenna decides she’s not down to consummate this thing. Her language quickly changes from addressing him as her “lord,” acquiescing to his kisses, to telling him that he and his gender are vile, shallow creatures. As the king tries to make love to her, Ravenna, a former trophy wife several times over, says, “Men use women. They ruin us. When they are finished with us, they toss us to the dogs like scraps.” Using her powers, she paralyzes the king in the middle of his attempt at seduction, completely emasculating him, and then murders him without hesitation. 
Queen Ravenna
Literally overnight, sacks her own kingdom. She immediately has young Snow White locked in a tower and begins to consult the infamous mirror on the wall. In this version of the story, the mirror is truly stand-apart. It’s a giant gold circle that offers Ravenna a wavering, distorted reflection. She demands to be left alone with the mirror and her insecurities. As she asks it the timeless question about her fairness, liquid gold pours out of the mirror and morphs into a humanoid form (Very T-1000) as it assures her she is the most gorgeous woman around. Ravenna’s beauty even bewitches her (albino with a Page Boy haircut) henchman brother. Ravenna rejuvenates herself by literally inhaling life force from young women she keeps on hand. Whenever a wrinkle starts to manifest, she sucks their purity and innocence from them. Medieval Botox.
Ravenna spends her days this way, depleting girls of their youth, taking milk baths, sporting amazing headwear, snacking on small animals and picking through their flesh with her talon jewelry (ala Pamela Love) while her brother looks on in adoration, etc. Inevitably, the day comes when the mirror tells Ravenna that Snow White has already one-upped her in the fairest department. The spell her mother placed on her as a child haunts her: “By fairest blood it is done, and by fairest blood it will be undone.” Ravenna sends brother dearest to help with Snow White’s de-hearting.
Kirsten Stewart as Snow White on a white horse
We get our first glimpse of Kristen Stewart as the grown Snow White in her locked cell getting snatches of sunlight through the window, playing with crudely fashioned toy dolls, and sharing “conversation” with small birds that flit by. She manages to escape via the sewage system into the sea and washes up on a beach where she is led to a clichéd white horse. The horse takes her as far as The Dark Forest, where, for some inexplicable reason, Ravenna’s powers do not work. The horse doesn’t survive, however, and Snow White wanders the forest distraught and disoriented.
Enter Chris Hemsworth as the (definitely alcoholic, possibly Scottish) Huntsman the Queen recruits to fetch Snow White and instead becomes her protector/guide/love interest. The awkward sexual tension between Stewart and Helmsworth manifests in scenes such as his cutting off the muddy tails of her dress, under which she’s already wearing pants. Although he tells her not to flatter herself and aside from the fact that the gesture is completely sexually loaded, it also frees her from some gender-specific dead weight (literally and figuratively). Stewart’s various garment changes somewhat reflect her character’s rather quick transformation from bewildered girl-woman to a self-actualized adult, which, for the most part, occurs in the company of her “protector” menfolk.
Snow White’s “protector” menfolk
After meeting the dwarves who explain to the Huntsman that she is indeed a princess who gives off the essence of “life itself,” Snow White’s childhood friend, William, enters the rotation. Upon learning she’s alive and on-the-run, he volunteers to help hunt her down, then turncoats and joins up with her and the other eight men at her service. A William-Huntsman-Snow White love triangle follows. Snow White and her boyfriends have wandered into a corner of the kingdom where Ravenna can get to them. Ravenna shape-shifts and appears to Snow White as William, her supposed true love, a love that Ravenna tells her will betray her as she tricks her with, yes, a poison apple. The Huntsman and William attempt to kill Ravenna, but she breaks apart into hundreds of ravens (hence, the name Ravenna) that fly back to the castle.
The Queen and her raven nature
What follows is an exquisite scene, possibly the best in the film, where Charlize Theron emerges from a gooey mass of black sludge, half-dead birds flopping around, feathers everywhere, as she returns to her human form, wrinkled, crawling toward her beloved mirror. Unable to get Snow White’s heart, Ravenna must up her human injectible count, so when we see her next, she’s glaring into the golden mirror as dozens of spent dead girls lie at her feet.
Meanwhile, Snow White seems to have kicked it. William tries to revive her with a kiss. Nada. Her body is brought to her loyal subjects so they can mourn their loss. Dressed in a white, almost bridal gown, barefoot, and laid out on a concrete slab, the Huntsman finds her the most beautiful when she is at her most vulnerable (read: female) state in the entire film. In his grief/sexual arousal, the Huntsman cries to that Snow White she reminds him of his dead wife in strength and spirit (ironically). Tears of “true” “love!” The spell is broken! There’s nothing a mostly-dead girl loves more than a man telling her she reminds him of his fully-dead wife! Apologies, William.
Fierce Snow White
Gone is the meek Snow White. She emerges from her death stupor fierce and ready for a good smiting. She rallies her male subjects to join her, screaming, “I will be your weapon!” Next, we see Stewart doing her best Joan of Arc with her hair braided, tied back off her face, atop a white horse. She’s transformed. She’s ready to settle the score with the Queen, yet the Huntsman’s flirtatious remark, “So you’re back from the dead and instigating the masses? You look very fetching in mail,” undercuts her, for lack of a better word, makeover. This flattery has no effect on her. Or, if it is supposed to, we can’t really tell with that one facial expression Stewart so expertly emotes. Should she want to look fetching? What does that say about male gender norms if the Huntsman isn’t threatened but aroused by Snow White’s cross-dressing or her newly-acquired “uppity” nature?
Snow White assumes the throne
As aforementioned, yes, this is a revenge fantasy and it is about to get epically Elektra. What does it mean when one woman storms another woman’s castle? Snow White is leaping through fire in slow motion, taking life after life as her braided ponytail whips through the flames. Strange womb re-entry images come to mind as Snow White penetrates the castle and makes her way its utmost interior where Ravenna awaits her, all hopped up the teenage girl life essence she’s been sucking down. She throws Snow White around the throne room with superhuman strength, until, in what is one of the most anti-climatic scenes, Snow White manages to pierce Ravenna’s heart. Fairest blood spilled for fairest blood. She withers instantly and dies. Snow White in her battle gear is reflected in Ravenna’s golden mirror, truly the fairest of them all. Coronation. Roll credits.
Snow White and the Huntsman is a nominee for Best Costume Design, thanks to the brilliant Colleen Atwood (think almost any Tim Burton film), who has been nominated nine times in the past and won three. Atwood’s breathtaking designs evoke a cold alchemy, a fusion of Norse and Celtic metalwork. Her crow costume, her talon jewelry—Charlize Theron she could not embody the raven in Ravenna without Atwood’s creations.
One does not think “Oscar” without thinking “Charlize Theron.” The woman is undoubtedly a force, having won Best Actress for her portrayal of Aileen Wuornos in 2003’s Monster, in which she looked anything but gorgeous. Theron’s stature and intensity make her Queen Ravenna the most fascinating, complex, twisted, neurotic, tortured, and beguiled “evil” queen to date (Although, Sigourney Weaver’s queen in a 1997 adaptation comes fairly close).
Sadly, whether or not this film is Oscar-worthy, part of its hype is due to Sanders-Stewart . Rupert Sanders, a 41-year-old married man when his first major motion picture debuted, allegedly engaged in some dalliance with Kristen Stewart, some nineteen years his junior. Whether or not anything occurred during filming, photos were taken of the two being friendly beyond the prescribed working relationship. No matter the circumstance, the “other” woman is always to blame. K-Stew, you temptress! Rupert Sanders’s wife is beautiful! They have children! The fact that he cast his wife in the role of Snow White’s mother adds another unsettling layer to the scandal. Sanders’s king paid the ultimate price for his lust, and although Stewart and Pattison are going strong, Sanders himself may not find work easy to come by as talks for further Snow White installments remain open.
———-
Carleen Tibbetts lives in San Francisco. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Word Riot, Metazen, Monkeybicycle, Coconut Poetry, and other journals.

2013 Oscar Week: Matriarchal Impositions of Beauty in ‘Snow White and the Huntsman’

Kristen Stewart and Charlize Theron star in Snow White and the Huntsman
Guest post written by Carleen Tibbetts.
Despite the various twists on the classic fairy tale, there is a definite constant in Snow White: women are their own worse enemies. The storyline is essentially the same: jealous, vain stepmother wants to oust stepdaughter who will one day surpass her in physical attractiveness. Stepmother fails. Stepdaughter’s kindness, beauty, and naivete prevail as she triumphs over her would-be destructor. Rupert Sanders’s Snow White and the Huntsman, however, is a different animal. Yes, at the heart (pun intended) of the story are still the female archetypes of beauty, female rivalry and jealousy, whether or not “true” love will make a woman complete, etc. Sanders’s version also explores, though not fully enough, the fragile nature of mother-daughter relationships. True, her mother wishes Snow White into existence based upon her own ideals of beauty, but it is also the child’s tenderness that moves her. When Snow White is still small, before her mother passes away, her mother places her hand over the girl’s chest and tells her she possesses a “rare beauty” there. When the “evil” queen was a young girl, her mother placed a spell, a curse, really, on her that her beauty would be her protector, her bargaining tool, and also her undoing. 
Both Snow White and her “evil” stepmother were taught to view their worth in terms of beauty. For Snow White, it was her compassion, her sweetness, and her soul. For the “evil” queen, it was how far she could get by on her looks. The ways in which both Snow White and Ravenna’s “beauty” are reflected their mother’s eyes lays the groundwork for their respective indifference to or obsession with their own attractiveness.
The “evil” Queen is this adaptation is still a shape-shifting sorceress, however she doesn’t transform into a sweet octogenarian to play to Snow White’s compassion to give her the poison apple. This queen tries to stave off the aging process at all costs, appears to Snow White under the guise of true love, preying on her lonely heart in order to rip it from her chest. Prince Charming in this instance is no prince. He’s a widowed brute drowning his grief in beer and bar brawls. Female assertion of power is so central here that the Huntsman needs no name. He could be any man. He’s disposable yet indispensable in this fairy tale revenge fantasy. 
Charlize Theron as Queen Ravenna
Charlize Theron’s Queen Ravenna comes to power by preying on a benevolent king’s nature and masquerading as a prisoner of war. The first time we see Ravenna (a flaxen-haired, sanguine, statuesque counterpart to Snow White), she is shackled, bound in a cart, covered in gold dust and fur. The king wants to save her, and does so by making her his victory prize. To the victor go the spoils. He wastes no time and marries her that day. On the wedding night, Ravenna decides she’s not down to consummate this thing. Her language quickly changes from addressing him as her “lord,” acquiescing to his kisses, to telling him that he and his gender are vile, shallow creatures. As the king tries to make love to her, Ravenna, a former trophy wife several times over, says, “Men use women. They ruin us. When they are finished with us, they toss us to the dogs like scraps.” Using her powers, she paralyzes the king in the middle of his attempt at seduction, completely emasculating him, and then murders him without hesitation. 
Queen Ravenna
Literally overnight, sacks her own kingdom. She immediately has young Snow White locked in a tower and begins to consult the infamous mirror on the wall. In this version of the story, the mirror is truly stand-apart. It’s a giant gold circle that offers Ravenna a wavering, distorted reflection. She demands to be left alone with the mirror and her insecurities. As she asks it the timeless question about her fairness, liquid gold pours out of the mirror and morphs into a humanoid form (Very T-1000) as it assures her she is the most gorgeous woman around. Ravenna’s beauty even bewitches her (albino with a Page Boy haircut) henchman brother. Ravenna rejuvenates herself by literally inhaling life force from young women she keeps on hand. Whenever a wrinkle starts to manifest, she sucks their purity and innocence from them. Medieval Botox.
Ravenna spends her days this way, depleting girls of their youth, taking milk baths, sporting amazing headwear, snacking on small animals and picking through their flesh with her talon jewelry (ala Pamela Love) while her brother looks on in adoration, etc. Inevitably, the day comes when the mirror tells Ravenna that Snow White has already one-upped her in the fairest department. The spell her mother placed on her as a child haunts her: “By fairest blood it is done, and by fairest blood it will be undone.” Ravenna sends brother dearest to help with Snow White’s de-hearting.
Kirsten Stewart as Snow White on a white horse
We get our first glimpse of Kristen Stewart as the grown Snow White in her locked cell getting snatches of sunlight through the window, playing with crudely fashioned toy dolls, and sharing “conversation” with small birds that flit by. She manages to escape via the sewage system into the sea and washes up on a beach where she is led to a clichéd white horse. The horse takes her as far as The Dark Forest, where, for some inexplicable reason, Ravenna’s powers do not work. The horse doesn’t survive, however, and Snow White wanders the forest distraught and disoriented.
Enter Chris Hemsworth as the (definitely alcoholic, possibly Scottish) Huntsman the Queen recruits to fetch Snow White and instead becomes her protector/guide/love interest. The awkward sexual tension between Stewart and Helmsworth manifests in scenes such as his cutting off the muddy tails of her dress, under which she’s already wearing pants. Although he tells her not to flatter herself and aside from the fact that the gesture is completely sexually loaded, it also frees her from some gender-specific dead weight (literally and figuratively). Stewart’s various garment changes somewhat reflect her character’s rather quick transformation from bewildered girl-woman to a self-actualized adult, which, for the most part, occurs in the company of her “protector” menfolk.
Snow White’s “protector” menfolk
After meeting the dwarves who explain to the Huntsman that she is indeed a princess who gives off the essence of “life itself,” Snow White’s childhood friend, William, enters the rotation. Upon learning she’s alive and on-the-run, he volunteers to help hunt her down, then turncoats and joins up with her and the other eight men at her service. A William-Huntsman-Snow White love triangle follows. Snow White and her boyfriends have wandered into a corner of the kingdom where Ravenna can get to them. Ravenna shape-shifts and appears to Snow White as William, her supposed true love, a love that Ravenna tells her will betray her as she tricks her with, yes, a poison apple. The Huntsman and William attempt to kill Ravenna, but she breaks apart into hundreds of ravens (hence, the name Ravenna) that fly back to the castle.
The Queen and her raven nature
What follows is an exquisite scene, possibly the best in the film, where Charlize Theron emerges from a gooey mass of black sludge, half-dead birds flopping around, feathers everywhere, as she returns to her human form, wrinkled, crawling toward her beloved mirror. Unable to get Snow White’s heart, Ravenna must up her human injectible count, so when we see her next, she’s glaring into the golden mirror as dozens of spent dead girls lie at her feet.
Meanwhile, Snow White seems to have kicked it. William tries to revive her with a kiss. Nada. Her body is brought to her loyal subjects so they can mourn their loss. Dressed in a white, almost bridal gown, barefoot, and laid out on a concrete slab, the Huntsman finds her the most beautiful when she is at her most vulnerable (read: female) state in the entire film. In his grief/sexual arousal, the Huntsman cries to that Snow White she reminds him of his dead wife in strength and spirit (ironically). Tears of “true” “love!” The spell is broken! There’s nothing a mostly-dead girl loves more than a man telling her she reminds him of his fully-dead wife! Apologies, William.
Fierce Snow White
Gone is the meek Snow White. She emerges from her death stupor fierce and ready for a good smiting. She rallies her male subjects to join her, screaming, “I will be your weapon!” Next, we see Stewart doing her best Joan of Arc with her hair braided, tied back off her face, atop a white horse. She’s transformed. She’s ready to settle the score with the Queen, yet the Huntsman’s flirtatious remark, “So you’re back from the dead and instigating the masses? You look very fetching in mail,” undercuts her, for lack of a better word, makeover. This flattery has no effect on her. Or, if it is supposed to, we can’t really tell with that one facial expression Stewart so expertly emotes. Should she want to look fetching? What does that say about male gender norms if the Huntsman isn’t threatened but aroused by Snow White’s cross-dressing or her newly-acquired “uppity” nature?
Snow White assumes the throne
As aforementioned, yes, this is a revenge fantasy and it is about to get epically Elektra. What does it mean when one woman storms another woman’s castle? Snow White is leaping through fire in slow motion, taking life after life as her braided ponytail whips through the flames. Strange womb re-entry images come to mind as Snow White penetrates the castle and makes her way its utmost interior where Ravenna awaits her, all hopped up the teenage girl life essence she’s been sucking down. She throws Snow White around the throne room with superhuman strength, until, in what is one of the most anti-climatic scenes, Snow White manages to pierce Ravenna’s heart. Fairest blood spilled for fairest blood. She withers instantly and dies. Snow White in her battle gear is reflected in Ravenna’s golden mirror, truly the fairest of them all. Coronation. Roll credits.
Snow White and the Huntsman is a nominee for Best Costume Design, thanks to the brilliant Colleen Atwood (think almost any Tim Burton film), who has been nominated nine times in the past and won three. Atwood’s breathtaking designs evoke a cold alchemy, a fusion of Norse and Celtic metalwork. Her crow costume, her talon jewelry—Charlize Theron she could not embody the raven in Ravenna without Atwood’s creations.
One does not think “Oscar” without thinking “Charlize Theron.” The woman is undoubtedly a force, having won Best Actress for her portrayal of Aileen Wuornos in 2003’s Monster, in which she looked anything but gorgeous. Theron’s stature and intensity make her Queen Ravenna the most fascinating, complex, twisted, neurotic, tortured, and beguiled “evil” queen to date (Although, Sigourney Weaver’s queen in a 1997 adaptation comes fairly close).
Sadly, whether or not this film is Oscar-worthy, part of its hype is due to Sanders-Stewart . Rupert Sanders, a 41-year-old married man when his first major motion picture debuted, allegedly engaged in some dalliance with Kristen Stewart, some nineteen years his junior. Whether or not anything occurred during filming, photos were taken of the two being friendly beyond the prescribed working relationship. No matter the circumstance, the “other” woman is always to blame. K-Stew, you temptress! Rupert Sanders’s wife is beautiful! They have children! The fact that he cast his wife in the role of Snow White’s mother adds another unsettling layer to the scandal. Sanders’s king paid the ultimate price for his lust, and although Stewart and Pattison are going strong, Sanders himself may not find work easy to come by as talks for further Snow White installments remain open.
———-
Carleen Tibbetts lives in San Francisco. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Word Riot, Metazen, Monkeybicycle, Coconut Poetry, and other journals.