Bitch Flicks – Page 20 – The radical notion that women like good movies

‘She’s Gotta Have It’: The Audacity of Sex and the Black Women Who Have It

I appreciate this film now because it centers on a Black woman who unabashedly is exploring and thoroughly enjoying her sexuality. By doing this, Spike Lee took long held beliefs and perceptions of Black women and pushed back on the constrictions and perceptions of society.

This guest re-post written by Reginée Ceaser appears as part of our theme week on Ladies of the 1980s.

When I was not quite a teenager, I watched Spike Lee’s movie entitled She’s Gotta Have It. I watched and enjoyed the characters’ monologues and the way Spike Lee’s character, Mars, repeated questions during conversation. I knew it was about a young woman who had three boyfriends but did not understand much else, let alone its importance in the framing of the sexuality of Black women. Released in 1986, She’s Gotta Have It chronicled Nola Darling balancing a relationship with three different men at the same. The three men know about each other and constantly vie for Nola’s attention and affections in hopes of being the one she chooses to have a monogamous relationship with.

An issue brought up in the film between the men is maybe Nola is being a “freak” because she’s lacking something emotionally (like daddy issues). The remedy to attempt this “freak” behavior is make Nola go to therapy to work out her issues. Her therapist, a Black woman, feels that Nola does not have the deep emotional issues originally perceived, and is enjoying her healthy sex drive. Satisfied that she’s had enough therapy, Nola continues her relationships with her suitors. Looking back on the film today, I appreciate this film now because it centers on a Black woman who unabashedly is exploring and thoroughly enjoying her sexuality. By doing this, Spike Lee took long held beliefs and perceptions of Black women and pushed back on the constrictions and perceptions of society. Films like She’s Gotta Have It come out few and far between due to the “sensitive” context.

Preconceived notions of Black women in society have permeated into the fabrics of the stories of Black women in film and television creating flat, one-dimensional characters that are forced to speak to the humanity and womanhood of all Black women. Black women characters have been defined for decades by barely developed characters to serve their “larger than life” trope. For instance, there is the angry Black woman, the sassy Black woman, the fat and sassy Black woman, as well as the fat Black woman with low self-esteem, and the fat Black woman that desperately wants the love of a man but in the end is humiliated by him. There is also the frigid Black woman or the hypersexual Black woman. Lastly, and an all-time favorite, the Black woman that must choose between having a career or having a man (read: a dependable, steady sex life) to be fulfilled.

Many stories regarding Black womanhood are deeply rooted in sex and the respectability of sexual behavior projected upon them. Black women are often forced to live in a very tiny box with huge expectations of them and anything less than is being a renegade and a menace to society. We are supposed to be high achievers, while wearing our skirts to our ankles and necklines to our chins. Sex before marriage is frowned upon, having sex outside of a serious relationship can garner side-eyes and distance from friends, and having the audacity to freely explore sexuality outside of the norms of committed relationships and marriage is a disownable offense. There is no gray area allowed, no progression of full womanhood to be pursued and any open, honest conversation about sex and sexuality of Black women is relegated to girls’ night with friends.

Fast forward to 2013, and Mara Brock Akil debuts a new scripted drama, Being Mary Jane, centering on a Black journalist named Mary Jane, portrayed by Gabrielle Union. I fell in love with Being Mary Jane when Mary Jane sat her in office and masturbated with the help of a mini vibrator before going on a date. Another aspect that I loved about the scene is that Mary Jane didn’t immediately turn to porn to aid in her arousal; she had a computer and a smartphone and yet depended on herself and the vibrator. It is a choice that audaciously and efficiently wrestled down and shattered the myth that only way Black women achieve sexual pleasure is through men. It was gratifying to watch a long-held belief of Black women being scared, frigid and afraid to touch themselves and love themselves sexually evaporate on prime-time television.

Mara also crafted a nuanced woman that balanced a progressing career, taking care of family, evaluating and redefining friendships and of course, navigating an intricate and messy personal life. With Mary Jane’s intricate and messy personal life, Mara takes another bold opportunity to rebuff sexual respectability and cement agency and consent by introducing Mary Jane’s friend with benefits.

Friends with benefits is a subject that is frequently discussed but is tap danced around to avoid being labeled as promiscuous and “loose.” Also hinging on that fear is the thought of losing control of the ability to just have sex with no other emotional attachment. Mary Jane’s friend with benefits, or Cutty Buddy as he is affectionately known by fans, is paramount because he represents more than just surface level sex. He’s a beautiful, muscular, handsome man with a voice that sounds like hot butter on a fresh oven biscuit. He respects her and even cares for her but is fully aware of their agreement, makes no illusions about it, and is committed to upholding it. There is a mutual understanding and reciprocation of attraction that is delightful to see play out. That reciprocation is exciting to see, because too often we see or read about men who have casual sex or play the role of friend with benefits and then immediately degrade and shun them for engaging in sex outside of societal norms of a relationship. For example, in She’s Gotta Have It, Nola Darling did choose a man to have a monogamous relationship with and he in turn verbally attacks her and sexually assaults her for making him feel used. It is the ultimate act of “punishment” that is unfortunately used when sex isn’t played by the rules.

Navigating womanhood is not a straight shot; it’s not perfect but the chance to develop and nurture it on one’s own terms is a perfect realization in the feminist school of thought. Being Mary Jane provides the dialogue and the safety net in saying out loud ,”I see you, I’ve been there too and you are not alone.” The embracing of positive sexuality of Black women on television is not progressive feminism. It is the hope that future depictions of such will not be labeled progressive, but just as common as the stereotypes that have lingered for too long.

Reginée Ceaser is a New Orleans native who is a rockstar in her daydreams, retired daytime soap opera viewer, and proud television binger. Reginée can also be found giving dazzling commentary on Twitter @Skiperella and on her blog, Skiperella.com

Did Gender Alter the Tone of the ‘Alien’ Series? Narrative Implications of Femininity

It is science fiction fact however, that Ellen Ripley should not have been “Ellen Ripley” at all. Dan O’Bannon’s original script for ‘Alien’ stated: “The crew is unisex and all parts are interchangeable for men and women.” … In ‘Aliens,’ both Ripley and the alien are further solidified as female. …We come to an implied understanding that is wholly complicit in their both being mothers, adding a subliminal layer that would not have been present had either Ripley or the alien been male.

This guest post written by Kayleigh Watson appears as part of our theme week on Ladies of the 1980s. | Spoilers ahead.

When Ridley Scott cast Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) in Alien, he created The First: The First Action Heroine; The First Female in a Science Fiction Film That Did Not Have To Be Rescued or Was Not Brunch for a Swamp Monster. Such titles may as well be monikers attached to her name. Ripley was important, and still is, her legacy living on in many an action heroine that followed: Buffy (the Vampire Slayer), The Bride (Kill Bill), G.I Jane, Trinity (The Matrix), Furiosa (Mad Max: Fury Road) and Sarah Connor’s transformation in Terminator 2.

It is science fiction fact however, that Ellen Ripley should not have been “Ellen Ripley” at all. Dan O’Bannon’s original script for Alien stated: “T he crew is unisex and all parts are interchangeable for men and women.” In the climate of the time, it is wholly plausible that Ripley was intended to be a male, as despite the script’s stated gender ambiguity, the original name for the character was still “Martin Roby.” So far so standard for horror and sci-fi, for the genres had always been male-dominated whether it be characters on-screen or in literature or those who create them. After all, it was not until the New Wave of sci-fi that women began to truly stake their claim on the genre, birthing feminist science fiction and writers such as Margaret Atwood, Joanna Russ, Marge Piercy, Ursula K. LeGuin and the singular entity that is Octavia Butler — C.L. Moore and Leigh Brackett being exceptions in the “Golden Age,” and Brackett went on to contribute to the screenplay of The Empire Strikes Back.

O’Bannon once stated that:

“I don’t see it as that revolutionary to cast a female as the lead in an action picture,” said O’Bannon. “It didn’t boggle me then, and it doesn’t boggle me now. My conception from scratch was that this would be a co-ed crew. I thought there was no reason you had to adhere to the convention of the all-male crew anymore.

After all, Star Trek had already had a mixed gender crew for years, and Ridley Scott had a similar reaction when the prospect of making the character female was pitched to him (“I just said, ‘That’s a good idea.”’). Scott later said in an interview:

“My film has strong women simply because I like strong women… It’s a personal choice. I’m no male chauvinist, nor do I understand female chauvinism – I just believe in the equality of men and women. It’s as simple as that.”

In Alien itself, Ripley – portrayed by the then largely unknown actress Sigourney Weaver – blended into the background of the team of the Nostromo crew; she was straightforward in conduct, voicing her opinion, making decisions, contributing to physical work and not waiting for someone else to save her. It can be intrinsically interpreted that these factors are entwined with the fact that Ripley’s character was intended to be male and, should “Martin Roby” have existed in her place he would have led the way as a main protagonist, one that is ultimately smarter than crewmembers with more authority.

Except nobody expected that of Ripley, solely because she was female. She was the ultimate unexpected protagonist, with the audience wholly expecting her to be snuffed out somewhere between the second and third act – because they had been conditioned their entire lives to do so. Her gender made her disposable – one only has to recall the aforementioned damsel vs. swamp monster scenario to consider how this should have played out. Yes, Ripley was female, but she was not feminine. That is the distinctive line here; she was not overtly sexualized (until she strips to her underwear near the culmination of the film: you can’t have it all, it seems), she fought back, she did not need to be rescued by a male, she wielded weapons: she defeated the “bad guy.” Due to the duality of the writing, Ripley became an androgynous entity in a fictional universe so symbolically enveloped in gender.

The Alien universe is primarily constructed around the perception of the “monstrous feminine” and plays into a lot of male-centric fears to do with gender alienation, with an aesthetic to follow suit. Renowned artist H.R Giger was in charge of designing the alien and set, and his explicit and sexually symbolic imagery can be viewed throughout, with phallic monsters hiding in a womb-shaped interior ready to pounce on unsuspecting victims. The Nostromo is the monstrous womb that births death, the gestation of that alien creature involving male rape – orally, impregnation and birth via the destruction of the male body; who can forget that iconic scene mid-film where the baby alien bursts through John Hurt’s chest, takes a look around at the crew’s horrified faces, before scurrying off into the unknown?

This narrative decision turns gender roles on its head and plays into male fears of human reproduction and that which they will never experience. It also draws from 1970s fears of “no longer being in control of our bodies,” as film studies professor Mark Jancovich asserted, thanks to “pollution, pesticides, food additives, man-made cancers” causing mutation. Extrapolating and combining the two sure makes for one horrific film. This monstrous amalgamation is culminated in a predatory creature that was designed by Giger to be both vaginal and phallic with a mysterious omnipresence onscreen. No character is sure what it is that they are facing.

Yet gender implications are reinforced in the making of the antagonist – the alien itself – female. Had Ripley’s character been “Roby” and the alien been male, the conflict would have been conventional. Had there been a binary gender-based conflict, e.g. Roby fought a female alien or had Ripley been a woman and the alien been male, it would have played into the perception of the “monstrous feminine” on alternate sides; the alien being primarily grotesque and man eating, with Ripley being similarly so for possessing male attributes of character. However, both Ripley and the alien are female, which makes for an interesting dilemma: both are considered to be “monstrous” and “feminine” despite neither possessing attributes of human femininity. Both are also capable of deploying death, to which men are either a spectator or a victim, which sparks Freudian psychology, simultaneously castration anxiety in males and possession of the phallus in females. So even though Ripley is female, are viewers actually still watching a protagonist that is essentially male?

This crisis of gender is complicated further as the Alien series progresses, as in Aliens – the 1986 sequel directed by James Cameron – both Ripley and the alien are further solidified as female. Cameron pushed the series into being specifically feminist, having Weaver reprise the role in more extreme circumstances. She gained a surrogate daughter – Newt – to protect, more men to fight and an Alien Queen – one who breeds – to defeat. Both the protagonist and antagonist (not the same alien) have graduated from being maidens to mothers. Both have dependents to protect. We first saw this side of Ripley when she went to find Jones – the Nostromo’s cat – in Alien, however it is important to point out aspect was part of the original script and not dependent on Ripley being female. Through the course of the film, we come to an implied understanding that is wholly complicit in their both being mothers, adding a subliminal layer that would not have been present had either Ripley or the alien been male.

By the time Alien 3 rolls around, it is quite clear where we stand, for whilst Alien subverted the genre and Aliens showed itself to be intrinsically feminist, Alien 3 fulfills the cycle of female purpose by casting Ripley as the “crone” of the “maiden-mother-crone” of the Triple Goddess interpretation of the female life cycle. She chooses to perish after discovering she is hosting an alien queen inside of her body, and as such, despite the franchise being perceived as a feminist one, the female protagonist has still been dragged back into a trope. It is an end that feels almost inevitable for the character – one that could have still been plausible had Ripley been “Roby” instead – yet is far more telling: the genre has to regain control of this strong female protagonist. Perhaps, in that manner, the real winner in this is the alien itself, for despite its specified gender, both it and its children continue to persist as a threat to humankind. Perhaps, the alien queen is the true exemption of this 1980s franchise.

See also at Bitch Flicks: Ellen Ripley, a Feminist Film Icon, Battles Horrifying Aliens… and Patriarchy

Kayleigh Watson is a writer and occasional illustrator from the UK. After realizing that her childhood ambition of being a vet would mean she would actually have to cut up pets (ew), she decided life would be better spent absorbing art and telling others about it. Her years spent studying for her BA (Hons) English and Creative Writing also involved music blogging, reading SF, and watching lots of Buffy. She currently writes about music for female-centric site The Girls Are as well as talking film and TV (or trying to) at her new blog Post-Modern Sleaze. A collection of her work can be found at what kayleigh said, and she tweets about all of the above under @kaylwattson. Her GIF game is strong.

The Feminisms of ‘Born in Flames’

It’s no coincidence to me that three years later Lizzie Borden would direct ‘Born in Flames,’ a film that depicts a collection of different feminist voices all aligned in a common goal of resisting what bell hooks terms the white-supremacist-capitalist-patriarchy.

Written by staff writer Heather Brown, this re-post appears as part of our theme week on Ladies of the 1980s.

What is the role of difference in feminism? When in doubt, ask Audre Lorde. In 1980, she delivered a lecture entitled “Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Difference” (later published in Sister Outsider) in which she states, “There is a pretense to homogeneity of experience covered by the word sisterhood that does not in fact exist.” It’s no coincidence to me that three years later Lizzie Borden would direct Born in Flames, a film that depicts a collection of different feminist voices all aligned in a common goal of resisting what bell hooks terms the white-supremacist-capitalist-patriarchy.

The film takes place 10 years after a social revolution in the United States (!). However, despite the political structure of a socialist democracy, social, and economic justice for the historically marginalized is still a long way off. Filmed in cinema verité style with non-professional actors and against the backdrop of Reagan-era New York City, the post-revolution future looks appropriately gritty, unflinching, and chaotic — much like the film’s narrative. So, too, are the voices of feminist activists that structure the film. First, we meet Adelaide Norris (Jean Satterfield) an African American woman who, along with Hilary Hurst (Hilary Hurst), a white woman, leads the Women’s Army. Both are disenfranchised by the government’s “work-fair” program, and we see them work to mobilize their respective communities across racial lines. And most importantly, we see them disagree about how to do it. Adelaide, influenced by her mentor Zella (played by the late feminist activist Florynce Kennedy), weighs the necessity of the Women’s Army to take up arms against the state, which has only ever perpetuated militarized violence toward women, lesbians, communities of color, and the poor in general. Zella tells Adelaide, “All oppressed people have a right to violence.”

In addition to seeing women converse with and debate one another, we also see them speaking from dedicated feminist platforms on pirate radio. Isabel (Adele Bertei), the DJ of Radio Ragazza, is an outspoken critic of the Women’s Army. She and her community represent the white, anarchist-punk perspective that promotes creative resistance through art. Then there’s Honey (Honey) of Phoenix Radio, a DJ who Adelaide seeks as an ally by extension of overlap of their membership in Black communities. Yet another voice is the Socialist Youth Review, a liberal magazine whose reporters (white women, including a young Kathryn Bigelow) occasionally weigh in to critique the Women’s Army for its agenda and question the need for it to exist at all, given the social gains achieved by the revolution. And finally, a distinctly anti-feminist perspective that provides a counter-narrative to the action unfolding is the voiceover of FBI agents, who aim to take down the Women’s Army, starting with Adelaide Norris. We hear them remark, “We don’t know who to find out who is charge” and “it’s not clear how they function.” These statements reveal just how confounding it is to the very centralized government that a social movement could share authority amongst its members.

One of the ways that the Women’s Army shares this authority is shared is through collective anti-street harassment activism and anti-rape squads. In a harrowing but triumphant scene, a woman is being assaulted by two women on her way to the subway, and out of nowhere appears a fleet of women on bicycles, blowing whistles and circling the men. The men leave the scene and the Women’s Army come to the aid of the attack victim. What is particularly important about this scene is not just how little things have changed when it comes to the endurance of street harassment and violence against women, but that the Women’s Army creates its own policing solutions to these problems. Instead of acting out carceral feminism, which relies on law enforcement and state violence to combat violence against women, the feminisms of Born in Flames create justice rather than restore “order.”

Though much is made of the differences between the activist groups, one thread runs through the film: the shared experience of work. There are several montages — set to the soundtrack of Red Krayola’s “Born in Flames,” which will get lodged in your brain for weeks — in which close-up shots of hands and all kinds of bodies are engaged in all kinds of labor. From bagging groceries, to child care, to sex work, each act is equated as valuable in its own right. One of the acts of resistance occurs after Adelaide, like many other women who are lower in the social caste, is laid off from her construction job and organizes a demonstration to fight for jobs that have the potential for growth.

The film’s rising action occurs when Adelaide is detained by the FBI on suspicion of arms trafficking — a fabrication intended to stamp out her and the Women’s Army. Without spoiling the film, let’s just say that the different feminist subgroups are called to combine their efforts and create Phoenix Regazza Radio to stand in solidarity as they enact a final act of terrorism. While this particular act is a bit chilling to watch post-9/11, it powerfully symbolizes the danger that will befall society should the marginalization of women and the white-supremacist-capitalist-patriarchy persist.

Heather Brown is a Bitch Flicks staff writer. She grew up in Connecticut but hopes that having lived in Virginia and North Carolina — and being married to an Arkansan — gives her occasional license to have a Southern accent. She recently fled a full-time job as a professor in central New Jersey, where she taught classes in gender studies, feminist theory, linguistics, and rhetoric. Long story short, she decided to leave the ivory tower to have more fun on the outside. Now she teaches online part-time, works as a freelance writer and instructional designer, and is currently pursuing professional coach certification training in Chicago, Ill., where she moved at the end of 2013 with her partner and cat, Edie. She lives for live music, road trips, and good movies. She blogs sporadically at PhDilettante.

‘Videodrome’ and the Pornographic Femme Fatale

David Cronenberg’s sci-fi-horror-noir ‘Videodrome’ updated the femme fatale as a response to media-saturated late twentieth-century culture. …The femme fatale is reborn and unleashed to warn of contemporary dangers, including how women’s media representation as sex objects is connected to capitalist propaganda, often with the intent of making a violent agenda seem pleasurable.

This guest post written by Stefan Sereda appears as part of our theme week on Ladies of the 1980s.

“The beams become my dream
My dream is on the screen.”
— Blondie, “Fade Away and Radiate”

In Paul Schrader’s 1972 article, “Notes on Film Noir,” the soon-to-be screenwriter-director predicted with accuracy that the noir style would experience a revival in the decade ahead. While the list of New Hollywood noir films is too extensive to list here, encompassing everything from Point Blank (1967) to Blade Runner (1982) and several of Schrader’s own efforts, the Hollywood Renaissance is also known for genre revisionism, and one film noir convention that all but disappeared in the 1970s was the femme fatale.

Critics and audiences argue about whether classical femme fatales were “progressive” representations of American womanhood. From one perspective, fatales such as Kitty Collins (Ava Gardner) in The Killers (1946) and Kathie (Jane Greer) in Out of the Past (1947) embodied paranoia about crime, urban decay, family collapse, capitalist competition, and the sexual promiscuity associated with mid-century American womanhood. Of course, the villainous femme fatale archetype gained popularity in a decade wherein men found themselves competing with women in the workplace. On the other hand, femme fatales exercised agency and autonomy, unlike women found in most classical genres and especially in contrast to their domesticated “good girl” foils in noir. Although femme fatales were always destructive manipulators punished for their transgressions, these bad girls were resourceful and ambitious drivers of their own agenda who weaponized their sexuality.*

In the 1970s, film noir’s women were recast as social victims. The most glaring example of the femme fatale’s reformation takes place in Roman Polanski’s Chinatown (1974), where Evelyn Mulwray (Faye Dunaway) is a false suspect who only lies to protect her daughter, the offspring of an abusive, incestuous relationship with her father. Deadly women lurked off to horror films such as Brian De Palma’s Sisters (1973) and Carrie (1976). By 1981, the femme fatale came sauntering back wearing ironic virgin white when Kathleen Turner appeared as Matty Walker in Body Heat (1981). Blade Runner (1982) featured two fembots-turned-fatale (and another faux–fatale) whereas David Cronenberg’s sci-fi-horror-noir Videodrome (1983) updated the femme fatale as a response to media-saturated late twentieth-century culture.

A Postmodern Fatale

Andy Warhol hailed Videodrome as “A Clockwork Orange of the 80s.” The Canadian film stars James Wood as Max Wren, a television producer-turned-amateur detective looking for “something that will break through,” until he finds “Videodrome,” a pirate broadcast showing only detached scenes of torture and murder. Max is captivated, but “who would want to watch a scum show like Videodrome?” Max’s casual girlfriend, Nicki Brand, played by Deborah “Debbie” Harry of Blondie fame, is certainly an enthusiast.

Max first meets Nicki on a talk show, where they debate mediated sex and violence. Nicki bemoans contemporary Western existence as “overstimulating times,” but Max challenges her for wearing red (it’s worth noting the famous blonde appears with red hair in Cronenberg’s film), suggesting, “You know what Freud would say about that dress?” Nicki confesses Max is right about her — she also hosts the “Emotional Rescue” show, a talk radio advice program where she blithely addresses her callers as “lover,” signaling her detached post-sexual revolution approach to intercourse and personal attachment, if not her listeners’ attitudes as well. Nicki is a forward first date: the scene cuts to Max’s apartment, where she flippantly inquires, “Got any porno?” Nicki finds a copy of “Videodrome,” which she admits is a turn-on, despite it having no ostensibly sexual content. Max quips, it’s “torture, murder… not exactly sex,” but Nicki answers, “Says who?” She also reveals a history of S&M with “a friend” who she let cut her, and encourages Max to pierce her ear as foreplay while “Videodrome” plays in the background.

It soon becomes apparent Nicki is more sexually versed than Max and beyond his containment, as she progressively seems less naïve than she first appeared in each of her scenes. When Nicki announces she’s going to audition for “Videodrome,” Max warns her “these mondo weirdo video guys… they play rough… rougher than even Nicki Brand wants to play.” Nicki responds with a fatale’s obstinacy, extinguishing a cigarette on her breast. The next time Max sees Nicki, she’s performing on “Videodrome.”

Besides what Freud might call the subconscious “death drive” apparent in her masochism, Nicki shares superficial characteristics with the archetypal fatale. Her makeup and dresses recall the 1940s. As with many fatales, and Harry in real life, Nicki is self-aware of her status as a sex object, to the point where she craves objectification. In a screenplay loaded with double entendres, the name “Nicki” sounds sharp, but also resounding with the false innocence of fatale names like Kathie, Kitty, and Matty. “Brand,” on the other hand, connotes medieval torture and image commodities. Eventually, Max learns a corporate brand, Spectacular Optical, developed “Videodrome” as a mass brainwashing device in preparation for global warfare. Through “Videodrome,” Nicki — or, at the very least, the fatale’s simulacrum — ensnares, tortures, and directs Max.

Moreover, Cronenberg casts Harry to perfection. Before appearing in Videodrome, Harry was already a postmodern shapeshifter, the only woman to be a Playboy Playmate, a punk rock phenom, a pop star, and a household name big enough for The Muppet Show. A New Yorker up on the trends, she was even rapping as early as 1980. Blondie sprinted along a razor line between punk and pop, attracting Andy Warhol’s attention: his likeness of Harry graces the cover of Phaidon’s Andry Warhol Portraits.

Several Blondie songs, some with Harry-penned lyrics, demonstrate what made Harry an ideal choice for the role of a thrill-seeking sex obsessed woman adrift in a consumer-capitalist landscape. On the BDSM-themed debut album opener, “X-Offender,” she plays a sex worker who threatens to “perpetrate love” with her cop crush after he slaps the cuffs on her. “One Way or Another” relates post-sexual revolution mores to consumer excess, with Harry in stalker-mode, ready to pounce on a love-object in the supermarket and discard him thereafter like any other replaceable commodity. Of course, the song title, “Die Young, Stay Pretty,” offers a paradox that parallels Nicki’s early demise and uncanny life thereafter as a televisual seductress. “Fade Away and Radiate” is more specifically about screen performers surviving death as image commodities, with bandmate Chris Stein’s lyrics beating both David Cronenberg and Jean Baudrillard to the punch with regard to commenting on the hyperreal. Despite their sneering punk credentials, several Blondie songs are about gleeful abandonment to the consumer culture landscape of postmodernity — “Platinum Blonde,” “I’m on E,” “Rapture,” and the American Gigolo theme, “Call Me.” “Roll me in designer sheets,” Harry purrs, “I’ll never get enough.”

Pornography and Propaganda

Cronenberg’s techno-horror film is partially a response to porno chic, released a little more than a decade after Gerard Damiano’s Deep Throat (1972) broke through to mainstream audiences. Throughout the 1970s and into the 1980s, Toronto television station Citytv — the basis for Videodrome’s CIVIC TV — broadcast softcore adult films. Nicki becomes the film’s personification of pornography’s seductive and desensitizing potential.

Unlike the majority of horror films, Cronenberg’s ouevre torments male protagonists (by contrast, horror auteur Dario Argento made the sexist, objectifying remark, “I like women, especially beautiful ones. If they have a good face and figure, I would much prefer to watch them being murdered than an ugly girl or man.”). In Videodrome, much of the terror results from Max discovering his capacity for sadism. Yet the narrative and its iconography also interpret the media as a penetrative force. Max eventually learns “Videodrome” is not fiction but snuff, and that the violent imagery is meant to lubricate the brain to be more receptive to a signal that causes hallucinations. The film refuses to distinguish between these hallucinations and the narrative proper. Soon Max hallucinates/grows “new flesh”: a vaginal wound in his stomach that conspirators use as a tape player to remold him as an assassin. In other words, Videodrome also locates its horror in a man discovering in himself “feminine” traits such as openness and vulnerability for mass media to exploit. Cronenberg, the so-called “Baron of Blood,” likens violent media’s propagandist assault on the senses to rape when various parties forcibly penetrate Max with videotapes.

Nikki’s first appearance on Videodrome marks what Federico Fellini would call the film’s volta: its pivot-point between a narrative “reality” and the surrealist (or hyperreal) events that follow where “reality” becomes an outmoded concept. Soon after McLuhan-esque figure Dr. Brian O’Blivion (Jack Creley) finishes telling Max via video, “Television is reality, and reality is less than television,” Nicki is strangling him, and then seducing Max to consummate with his writhing tv set. Later, she appears to him via a VR headpiece, handing him a whip to encourage his penchant for violence in a dreamlike S&M scenario.

Similar to many fatales, Nicki has a “good girl” foil in Brian O’Blivion’s daughter, Bianca O’Blivion (Somja Smits), who runs a “Cathode Ray Mission” to give derelicts their fix of time in front of a television screen. Yet Bianca is as ruthless as Videodrome’s creators when it comes to brainwashing Max, and she turns him against the conspirators who sent him to kill her. Before Bianca sends Max off to kill while reciting the dictum, “Long live the new flesh,” she shows him an image of Nicki being strangled, insisting the “Videodrome” people killed her and used her image to seduce him, not unlike what she herself is doing to Max. It would seem Videodrome’s femme fatale is indeed punished for her transgressions.

Yet after Max believes he has put an end to “Videodrome,” he wanders to an “abandoned vessel.” There, he finds a television showing Nicki’s image. Nicki tells Max that to become “the new flesh” he must leave “the old flesh” and displays a scene of him shooting himself in the head. The film ends with Max saying, “Long live the new flesh,” and a cut to black synced with the sound of a gunshot.

The finale is ambiguous: is Bianca behind Max’s suicide or is “Videodrome,” and how much of what transpired was “real” or hallucinatory? Will Max have a second life preserved as a simulacral image? Regardless, in Cronenberg’s prophetic film, the femme fatale is reborn and unleashed to warn of contemporary dangers, including how women’s media representation as sex objects is connected to capitalist propaganda, often with the intent of making a violent agenda seem pleasurable.

References:

*For a more thorough academic reading of the classical femme fatale and “nurturing woman,” see: Janey Place, “Women in Film Noir,” in Women in Film Noir. Ed. E. Ann Kaplan. London: BFI, 2001.

Dr. Stefan Sereda is a writer/researcher with a PhD in English and Film Studies and an MA in Literature with a focus on gender and genre. His publications on American cinema and global media have appeared in A Companion to Martin Scorsese, The Memory Effect, Viewing African Cinema in the Twenty-First Century, the Directory of World Cinema: Africa, and ARIEL: A Review of International English Literature.

‘Working Girl’ and the Female Gaze

We so often view films through the Male Gaze with camera shots that are more interested in capturing the way a woman’s body looks under the guise of “sex sells” that it’s become somewhat of the norm. While ‘Working Girl’ is appreciative of the beauty between Sigourney Weaver and Melanie Griffith, it employs a “female gaze” so to speak with Harrison Ford.

This guest post written by Allyson Johnson appears as part of our theme week on Ladies of the 1980s.

In any other film (9/10 times at least) just reading the synopsis of this movie would have greatly aggravated me and, to be frank, still did a little. There aren’t many films about women competing that paint the characters in question as anything more than shrewd, conniving and petty. Working Girl, much to my delight, doesn’t do that. Or, at least, it isn’t the main character’s objective. Hers is to simply find success and prove to herself and others that she has the talents and the skills to be more than what meets the mind.

The she in question is Tess McGill (Melanie Griffith), who lands a job as a secretary at a big company with a powerful woman, Katharine Parker (Sigourney Weaver) as her boss. At the start Tess is utterly enamored with Katherine, seeing her as a woman to look up to and admire, someone who has already achieved what she’s seeking and, in another film, I would have loved to see a buddy work comedy between the two, because who doesn’t want to be friends with Weaver? Of course, this isn’t to be because movies don’t like it when women are friends and instead, Katherine steals ones of Tess’s ideas and passes them as her own, leading Tess down a path of claiming her agency as a business woman looking to make a mark in the working world. What’s interesting is to see that despite her mounting disdain towards Katharine, Tess still adopts her mannerisms of how she operated in a work environment from the way she dresses and cuts her hair, playing a part to imbue herself with confidence she’s not sure she has yet. The difference is she’s coming at the role with a sense of selflessness and ambition, opposed to Katharine’s selfish nature.

Part of this is impacted by the actresses performances in the roles. Griffith who had been known for much more flightier characters brings a warm sense of empathy to Tess and a thread of naturalism as she too was undervalued as a performer until this Mike Nichols film gave her a bigger break out chance. Weaver, meanwhile, had at this point already played one of cinema’s greatest badasses in Ridley Scott’s Alien as Ripley, and her screen presence was one that captured attention; Weaver to this day is effortlessly enigmatic and it’s easy to understand why someone — real or fictional — would want to follow in her footsteps.

The contrast is one of the stronger aspects of the film which, to its benefit, never pits the characters against one another due to petty or contrived reasons. Tess is never aiming to purely undermine Katharine or trying to steal her position, but rather using Katharine’s absence to pursue her own career, even if it’s through dubious means.

The added element that solidifies the difference between Working Girl and other workplace dramedies — something that more fully flips the script?

Enter Jack Trainer.

A film that understands Harrison Ford’s beauty (and, frankly, exploits it) and treats it as such is a winner in my book automatically (Raiders of the Lost Ark — hello) and late 80’s Ford was on a roll as it is in taking more challenging work with some of cinema’s greatest talents, Mike Nichols being a wonderful addition to that list. While he certainly isn’t played strictly for eye candy (that would be something) he is, in a way, played a “prize” between the two women while also having his own role to play. We so often view films through the Male Gaze with camera shots that are more interested in capturing the way a woman’s body looks under the guise of “sex sells” that it’s become somewhat of the norm. While Working Girl is appreciative of the beauty between Weaver and Griffith, it employs a “female gaze” so to speak with Ford. So much so that there’s a scene that goes to great lengths to express this as he changes in his office and women looking in through the window catcall and whistle.

Perhaps it’s not enough to turn convention on its head, but it’s a welcome change of pace.

Also a change of pace is the fact that by the end of the film, Katharine and Tess aren’t fighting over Jack. They’re fighting over their place in the working world and, to narrow it down to a single moment, they’re fighting over a great idea that Tess had, one Katharine wishes she could have come up with and resents Tess for.

I wouldn’t call Working Girl a feminist call to arms and this is largely due to how broadly Katherine’s character is painted towards the end of the film. At the start she’s written to be calculated, sure, but not the caricature that she becomes halfway through and if she’s distrustful of other employees there’s sense to that too, considering she’s found herself in a sea of suits, in a position of power that’s so at odds with what society had dictated she be. There’s reason to her hostility even but then, rather than exploring her further to make the dynamics between she and Tess more intriguing, the film takes the rather easier route and lets Katharine remain in the two dimensional realm with Weaver doing everything in her might to make her into something more.

Add to that the lack of diversity and there was definitely room to grow — a lot of room.

Writer Kevin Wade and director Mike Nichols crafted a film that is both celebratory of the female experience while also skewering the system that placed them in gendered boxes in the first place. The biggest success of the film isn’t the romance or the drama, but the implications of what lead the characters to their positions in the first place. Katharine fought for the position she has and Tess fought to catch up and achieve the same goal. It’s imperfect, but ambitious, just like its leading ladies.

Allyson Johnson is a 20-something living in the Boston area. She’s the Film Editor for TheYoungFolks.com and her writing can also be found at The Mary Sue and Cambridge Day. Follow her on Twitter for daily ramblings, feminist rants, and TV chat @AllysonAJ.

“You Have No Power Over Me”: Female Agency and Empowerment in ‘Labyrinth’

So what distinguishes ‘Labyrinth’ from the Hero’s Journey tropes it so closely follows? Its protagonist. Sarah is the hero of the story. She doesn’t need to be saved because she’s the rescuer, and she carries the plot forward with her resourcefulness, tenacity, and self-actualization. …She navigates a tricky tightrope between fantasy and reality, dreams and goals, past and future, and discovers the kind of woman she wants to be.

This guest post written by Kelcie Mattson appears as part of our theme week on Ladies of the 1980s. | Spoilers ahead.

Adolescence is tough, no matter who you are. Your emotions, perspectives, and body are changing, and the prospect of entering the complex, confusing world of adulthood can seem frightening. It’s especially hard for teenage girls. Life is capable of hideous cruelty: society has pre-set expectations it demands women meet, and there will always be those who attempt to control and oppress female agency. But there’s also freedom — the freedom to choose your own path, to explore, to express, and to discover who you are and the power within you.

Those are the major themes behind Jim Henson’s 1986 film Labyrinth. Although it wasn’t popular at the time of its theatrical release, over the past thirty years it’s become a deeply loved cult favorite for its coming-of-age themes, vivacious imagination, and David Bowie’s amazingly outrageous clothes. (Oh, dear David.) But beneath the puffy ball gowns and sparkly technicolor makeup lies a palpably feminist treatise.

On the surface Sarah Williams (Jennifer Connelly)’s story is about her maturation into an adult, but bound inherently to that is the development, and realization, of her personal agency. When we first meet her she’s a clever, imaginative girl who prefers the company of books, stuffed animals, and made-up fantasy lands over the mundane demands of suburban life. To this end Sarah is also an embodiment of the stereotypical characteristics unfairly assigned to teenage girls — immature, petulant, and selfish. She throws a temper tantrum when tasked with babysitting her younger brother Toby so her parents can, gasp, enjoy an evening out by themselves. Why should she be forced to look after a crying baby when she’d much rather dress up in a flowing white gown and play pretend? Sarah’s defense mechanism against her growing responsibilities is to cast herself into a skewed fantasy where she’s an innocent victim terrorized by evil parents.

It’s immature, yes, but so very relatable. Sarah feels isolated, confused, and jealous of her brother, and fueling the core of those frustrations is the desperate desire to do what she wants. “Life isn’t fair,” she cries when things don’t go her way, as I’ll bet most of us have. She’s a normal adolescent girl yearning for the independence to make her own choices. And that first choice happens to be asking the trickster Goblin King from her play to take Toby away.

Enter David Bowie’s Jareth in a shower of glitter, who offers Sarah a decision of his own design. If she solves the mysteries of his labyrinth within a thirteen-hour window, he’ll return Toby to her. If not, Jareth keeps custody of the baby in his goblin kingdom. It’s Sarah’s choice whether or not to rescue her helpless brother.

This is where Labyrinth dovetails nicely into several synonymous identities. It’s a fairy tale homage with modern-day values; it matches beat-for-beat the plot structure of the typical Hero’s Journey; and it’s a tale of internal strength that’s unabashedly, specifically feminine in nature.

As a fairy tale, admittedly it’s nothing too new. It follows in the footsteps of its predecessors (The Brothers Grimm, The Neverending Story, Where the Wild Things Are, The Wizard of Oz) by imparting life lessons through symbolism — the magical alternate reality is a safe place where our conflicted protagonist can decipher the fundamental difficulties of growing up. As a Hero’s Journey it’s nothing revolutionary, either: the “character embarks on a quest, encounters personal trials to stimulate his/her growth, hits their lowest point before rising up stronger” template has become such a commonplace backbone for popular media you can find it almost anywhere you look. Even Sarah reconciling herself to the obligations of adulthood is a commonly explored arc, from 1977’s Star Wars to 2014’s Boyhood.

So what distinguishes Labyrinth from the Hero’s Journey tropes it so closely follows? Its protagonist. Sarah is the hero of the story. She doesn’t need to be saved because she’s the rescuer, and she carries the plot forward with her resourcefulness, tenacity, and self-actualization.

At first glance it’s easy to write her off as a passive character seemingly helpless to Jareth’s erratic whims and elaborate traps. But although Sarah reacts to the obstacles Jareth throws into her path, she actively resists his narrative, twisting the conflicts around to suit her needs until Jareth becomes the one reacting to her. When he tries to disempower her by casting her in the role of a lost princess needing his protection from a horde of masked strangers, Sarah rejects his fantasy by literally breaking it with her fists. She’s not tempted by the pretty trinkets he offers nor quelled into submission by his magnetism; she’s steadfastly resolute in her goal. Of course she gains quirky Muppet allies along the way, but as she tells her newfound friends, “I have to face him alone. It’s the way it’s done.” And, and — she doesn’t win through brute physical strength, but through an emotional, mental acknowledgment of her own power.

Before the labyrinth, the idea of personal power was all fantasy. A book to read, lines to recite. Sarah has to endure practical life experiences, albeit in a fantastical setting, to recognize the full extent of her capability and then apply that knowledge in order to survive in a treacherous, unpredictable world. A man’s world.

“You have no power over me,” she declares to Jareth’s face; thematically, to outside forces at large. Once she claims ownership of herself, she triumphs in her dual goals: rescuing Toby, and finding happiness. A girl declaring what she wants without shame brings down an empire.

When you look closely, even the movie itself emerges from the decision Sarah makes to sacrifice her brother. She regrets her wish immediately, but that doesn’t change the fact she serves as the action’s primary catalyst. That’s rare, in the 1980s and today. Sarah alone directs her destiny by challenging the labyrinth’s infinite parade of decisions, even as she accepts that not all choices are simple, clean, or fair, and all of them have consequences that can’t be neatly resolved.

In that sense Sarah’s Hero’s Journey isn’t treated any differently by the script than if she were a boy — except for the fact her gender identity informs the film’s proceedings. The execution isn’t perfect: her emotional outbursts are treated as juvenile things to leave behind, and her faults (jealously, selfishness) are ones that tend to be assigned only to girls. But Labyrinth’s dramatic tension is centered entirely in a young woman’s mind as she navigates a tricky tightrope between fantasy and reality, dreams and goals, past and future, and discovers the kind of woman she wants to be. Compassionate, quick-witted, and iron-willed, willing to trust others and open to evolution of thought, while also prone to pre-judgment, naivety, and her fear of the unknown — all of which she overcomes. This makes Sarah not a weak token effort at inclusivity but a character who boasts a full, varied emotional life. She’s not there to service a guy’s development, to just be his victim or his love interest.

Which brings us to that pesky Goblin King. My adoration of Bowie aside, my interest in Jareth is in what he represents to Sarah — a deliberately disturbing mix of childishness and sexuality. Arrogant and assured, he first infantilizes Sarah by offering her gifts to win her submission. When charm fails, he tries intimidation, using his age, power, and authority to order her “back to her room” to “play with her toys.” When Sarah’s ingenuity continues to surpass his expectations, he flat-out presents himself as a distraction. Their dynamic becomes (perhaps always was) a choreographed seduction instead of the normal villain-hero relationship. Jareth’s threats read more like flirtations, especially in tandem with Bowie’s preening, charismatic performance and those, err… very tight pants. That blend makes him both a domineering father figure trying to restrict her autonomy and a potential lover.

Sex is mysterious, dark, and completely adult. Playing with lipstick in the bedroom mirror might be the first step of Sarah’s path toward romance (“I’d like it if you had a date,” her stepmother laments, “you should have dates at your age” — somehow I doubt she meant David Bowie), but Jareth personifies the seductive allure of the unknown, that elusive discovery of more. This is a movie with farting rocks and puppet dance parties, though, so the undertones remain subtle. But intentionally or not, Jareth’s both the embodiment of the patriarchy and the loss of Sarah’s innocence — a man dictating to a woman what he deems is the best thing for her, while also introducing an initiation into the sexual world as reward for her coming to heel. Those threats are very real, very relevant ones.

In a normal fairy tale, Sarah’s happy ending would be to marry him. Jareth fits the love interest archetype: rich, powerful, and regal, with control issues to boot. As tempting as his proposal can be from a certain perspective (I do swoon a bit), it’s a tangible power imbalance and unsettling in a way that borders on emotional abuse — of which Sarah is instinctively, if not implicitly, aware. She may have matured in her understanding of how the world works, but her white clothes signify she sees herself as the innocent in a sea of cruel lasciviousness. So despite the reciprocation and recognition of her desire, she knows she isn’t ready for that major step. That could be interpreted as a reinforcement of the damaging notion that a “good” woman must be chaste. But although Sarah rejects Jareth’s advances (and, impressively, his piercing male gaze; the camera never objectifies her), he still functions as the spark to her burgeoning sexual awakening. She’s curious and aware, but it has to happen on her terms at the right time.

For all his, “Fear me, love me, do as I say, and I will be your slave,” declarations (cool story, bro, but she’s sixteen), in the end Jareth’s just a privileged, lonely, petty man. He doesn’t get the happy ending he wants. Sad Goblin King is sad.

Of the things Sarah discovers along her labyrinth adventure, above all she learns the power of choice. She chooses between bravely confronting the uncomfortable uncertainties of real life or surrendering her free will to a fantasy. She chooses who she wants to be — a healthy balance somewhere between no longer a child but not yet a grown woman. One of my favorite things about Labyrinth’s message is Sarah doesn’t entirely dismiss her material possessions, but rather finds space for creativity and wonder alongside everything else. She can face her nebulous future with clarity, solid in her convictions and rooted in the understanding of her personhood.

Labyrinth teaches us that women have power. We can say what we want no matter the overwhelming pressures otherwise. We can shape a path for our lives and choose what’s right for us at the right time. We alone determine our self-worth; our stories matter.

We just have to remember the words.

Kelcie Mattson is a multimedia editor by morning, aspiring critic by afternoon, and tea aficionado 24/7. She’s been a fangirl since birth, thanks to reruns of Star Trek and Buffy. In her spare time she does the blogging thing on feminism, genre films, minority representation, comics, and all things cinephile-y at her website. You can follow her on Twitter at @kelciemattson, where she’s usually overanalyzing HGTV’s camerawork and sharing too many cat pictures.

10 of the Best Feminist Comedies of the 1980s

10 feminist comedies from the 1980s that focus on women and their careers, friendships, families, relationships, and journeys of self-discovery. Also, a look at how well these films do (or don’t) pass the Bechdel Test.

This guest post written by Jessica Quiroli appears as part of our theme week on Ladies of the 1980s.

9 to 5

If I may, this is the greatest women’s comedy of all-time. So perfect on every level, it’s hard to know where to begin; but how about with the three main characters? These are women on the verge: Judy, a woman in the middle of a painful divorce, is a bundle of raw nerves and professional inexperience. Rosalee is boss Franklin Hart’s secretary, experiencing his sexual harassment on a regular basis that she dutifully smiles through, while also putting a firm foot down. She’s also misjudged by women in the office about her relationship with Hart. Her story shows a side of women in the workplace that was too often kept secret, when women couldn’t freely report their superiors’ behavior without risking unemployment. And then there’s Violet, the woman who trained Mr. Hart, and is now his “right hand.” She’s so in control, so sharp, that it only makes sense that she’s who accidentally sends them into a madcap adventure of unintentional crime. Played by Jane Fonda, Dolly Parton, and Lilly Tomlin, this wild ride is a classic in any era, but a rare, feminist gem of the 80’s.

Bechdel Test Check: Of course! It’s a comedy about working women, workplace sexual harassment, fair pay, and a good old crime caper they alone must solve. First, they discuss matters of business, lamenting Mr. Hart’s horrible sexism and incompetence; then they band together to get out of hot water. They talk survival in the first half, then literal survival, and avoiding prison, in the second half. These women have a lot more to discuss than romance.

Private Benjamin

One of the best, if just for the ending alone. Goldie Hawn stars in this unique story about a young woman, Judy Benjamin, who seeks a challenge to her otherwise nice life by joining the U.S. Army. She quickly realizes the reality of that decision, but forges ahead. Judy rises to the challenge, bonds with the other women, and eventually has to decide what life she’d rather live. The other awesome thing about this movie: Hawn co-produced it with Nancy Meyers, who also wrote the screenplay.

Bechdel Test Check: Many conversations with the awesome Eileen Brennan, who plays Captain Doreen Lewis, including on arrival, when Judy explains she’s looking for the Army with “the condos.”

Desperately Seeking Susan

A buddy comedy without the buddies meeting until the very end. Susan, (pitch-perfect Madonna), is the exciting, perhaps dangerous woman leading an unapologetically carefree life. Rosanna Arquette’s Roberta is a woman married to a man she’s dissatisfied with, living a life she’s uninspired by. Reading about Susan’s life via a personal ads chain sparks Roberta’s imagination and she begins to follow Susan. All the action revolves around them; the men in their lives are the baffled bystanders. The women create the action, tension, and fun. Ultimately, we get two (!) heroines who’ve succeeded in the world by pursuing individual happiness they’ve refused to sacrifice.

Bechdel Test Check: Susan and friend Crystal discuss the working life. Crystal has a great monologue about feeling disrespected and being “legally blind.” Susan and Roberta’s sister-in-law Leslie chat, with Roberta’s husband Gary in the mix, about Roberta’s diary and how little they really know about her.

Fast Times at Ridgemont High

Stacy Hamilton isn’t waiting for the boys to find her. The high school girl Stacy, played by Jennifer Jason Leigh, embarks on a sexual awakening of her own design. She’s unsure, of course, but that doesn’t stop her. Stacy’s on a personal mission to achieve a rite of passage, a high school senior who’s sexually curious. She seeks advice from her experienced friend Linda (Phoebe Cates), hoping for tips and confidence. This movie’s viewed as a sex comedy for teenagers, but the subject matter’s depth, and how it’s portrayed, gives the film an emotional center with a genuinely sensitive, sometimes sad element. Yes, Jeff Spicolli, famously played by Sean Penn, is likely the most memorable character in most people’s minds (even IMDB lists him as the top billed-star). Stacy, however, is the heart and soul of the story. Her character is one we don’t see often enough: a teenage girl, discovering sex, sexual politics, and her own resolve to grow up and treat herself better.

Bechdel Test Check: There’s really nothing. If she’s talking to another girl, it’s about sex with boys.

Working Girl

Tess McGill’s devotion to her career is motivated by her desire to prove her self-worth, to no one else but herself, then to the corporate world. She has ideas, and plenty of intelligence and creativity to realize them. But her boss, Katherine (played by Sigourney Weaver) isn’t interested in helping her climb the ladder. The premise of a woman not wanting to help another woman is unfortunate, but realistically speaks to an earlier time in corporate America when it was even harder for women to succeed. Tess is fair, energetic, ambitious, and sexy. She doesn’t sacrifice anything to be loved, accepted, and successful. It’s inspiring and so fun to watch her emerge.

Bechdel Test Check: Tess and best friend Cyn, played by Joan Cusack with the most Brooklyn accent you’ve ever heard this side of a Joe Pesci movie, discuss Katherine’s absence and business meetings. Also, toward the end, Tess calls her friends and colleagues to make a huge professional announcement.

Baby Boom

J.C. Wyatt’s clocked countless hours, challenging the male-dominated corporate world so relentlessly, she’s nicknamed “The Tiger Lady.” She’s close to being made partner when baby Elizabeth comes along, after a cousin leaves her to J.C. for reasons that baffle her. Her colleagues and boss begin treating her differently. And the man she’s in a relationship with (played by everyone’s favorite, Harold Ramis) politely opts out. J.C. eventually takes her baby and business sense to Vermont and due to a dose of cabin fever, she creates a lucrative baby food company called “Country Baby.” The natural baby food achieves national success and her old company comes crawling back to her. J.C. also meets a veterinarian played sweetly and seductively by Sam Shepard, who respects her as she is, loves her, and loves her child. The story isn’t run-of-the-mill, but women everywhere can relate to juggling all the plates.

Bechdel Test Check: Really only one and it involves discussion about Elizabeth, just not a man. When Elizabeth is handed over to her by the woman from the adoption agency, Diane Keaton hilariously stumbles from impatient, to confused, to stunned, becoming completely unhinged by the circumstances.

Broadcast News

This powerful comedy/drama about a female news reporter, starring Holly Hunter, is perfectly imperfect. The story, the characters, the choices, and the ending are raw reality, rather than the gift-wrapped stories Hollywood, and audiences, love. Of course we love them! But we also love the messy, relatable truth. Jane’s a highly-respected news-producer, handling the egos of news-men Albert Brooks and William Hurt, who compete professionally, and for her affections.

Bechdel Test: Joan Cusack again! Very, very briefly, Jane and Blair exchange words about a segment that needs editing. Cue the most famous scene in the movie.

Heartburn

There’s no way to omit a woman’s story that’s both legendary in literary and journalistic circles, and one relatable to many women. While many of us are merely observers of what it was like for female professionals in the 80’s (and 90’s) who were trying to balance family and career, writer Nora Ephron lived through all the societal stages. But this is a very personal story, with some really raw ugly stuff that you can easily judge, but are better off staying out of the way of, as Rachel Samstatt’s (played by freaking perfect Meryl Streep) friends and colleagues learn. Food writer Rachel has such intense doubt on the day of her wedding to Mark Foreman (played also horribly perfect by Jack Nicholson) that her friends and family, and finally Mark, have to convince her to marry him. There’s a lot to laugh at, and a lot to boil the blood, as we watch Rachel figure out who she is and what she needs to be happy.

Bechdel Test Check: One absolutely killer scene. Rachel returns to New York, after leaving Mark, and she runs into an old friend named Judith (played by Doctor Marsha from ‘Sleepless in Seattle’!). Rather than tell Judith about her husband’s affair, Rachel lies and says that her mother died. Judith tells her that she’s learned that the death of one’s mother can actually be “a blessing.” There are worse things, Judith tells Rachel. “I know, Judith. I know.”

Beaches

This is a love story between two lifelong friends. There’s no replacing the relationship, as C.C. Bloom (Bette Midler) tries explaining to husband John, played by the underrated John Heard. That might be because the friendship began when she and Hillary Whitney (Barbara Hershey) meet in early adolescence, before boys, before adult life pulls them in many directions. They’re each other’s foundation, the one thing that they can count on. Hershey plays Hillary so understated in the light of Midler’s raw, over-the-top performance, that when she falls apart, her meltdowns resonate. When they finally meet again as adults, Hillary flips a switch for a minute, announcing she’s “Free at last!,” prompting C.C. to recoil, uncertain about a person she knows to her core, but is getting to know in a whole new way. This ranks high in all-time great female friendship movies, because, mostly, they aren’t competing for a man’s attention. They’re most hopeful to receive each other’s love and acceptance.

Bechdel Test Check: Their first meeting is as young girls, but we sure need more of those girlhood stories. C.C introduces herself, as if in Technicolor, to the refined Hillary. A lot is revealed quickly about what these girls know, want, and need. Hillary hangs her head sadly, and in hardened monotone, explains that her mother died when she was a little girl. C.C. proudly announces she’s a singer, disappointed that Hillary hasn’t heard of her. C.C. also smokes, calls her mother by her first name, and attempts to calm her mother’s emotions. Hillary talks about her aunt and her concerns that she’s getting into trouble. In a sense, they’re already business women trying to meet their families’ expectations. They harbor too much responsibility, and they talk like the old friends they’ll become. In a later, pivotal confrontation they argue about envying each other.

Terms of Endearment

Essentially about two women obsessed with each other, Aurora Greenway and her daughter Emma spend their lives loving, fearing and fighting each other. Men are in their orbit, flying as close as they can, never fully understanding or appreciating them. The mother and daughter (played by Shirley MacLaine and Debra Winger) love one another in an indescribable way, and determine their purpose and happiness. They take what they can and they own it, unapologetically. When Emma begins her affair with Sam (John Lithgow) she proceeds simply and fearlessly. When Aurora talks about sex and stringing men along, or becoming a grandmother (more accurately yells like she’s been wounded), she’s confronting uniquely female experiences. Full disclosure, Emma Greenway Horton is my all-time favorite female fictional character. Created in the Larry McMurtry lab, she’s first introduced in early books as a background character. This story, in case you don’t know, ends badly. But, until then, you’ll be laughing a lot.

Bechdel Test Check: Emma’s best friend Patsy takes her to lunch with her sophisticated New York friends. After lunch, Patsy admits she told them about Emma’s illness and they argue. Later, Patsy tells Emma why their friendship is so meaningful to her.

Jessica Quiroli is a minor league baseball writer for Baseball Prospectus and the creator of Heels on the Field: A MiLB Blog. She’s also written extensively about domestic violence in baseball. She’s a DV survivor. You can follow her on Twitter @heelsonthefield.

Feminism and Classism in ‘The Legend of Billie Jean’

‘The Legend of Billie Jean’ addresses questions of gender and class that are as real today as they were in 1985 and sets its story within the struggles against the patriarchy and the ruling wealthy class by people who all too often fall victim to those oppressions. … She wants dignity, and respect – truly, what she is after is equality.

This guest post written by Horrorella appears as part of our theme week on Ladies of the 1980s. | Spoilers ahead.

[Trigger warning: discussion of sexual assault]

The Legend of Billie Jean is a film that I found my way to only recently; a year ago, in fact. It wasn’t one of the 80’s teen classics that was endlessly rerun on cable every weekend throughout my high school and college years, so I didn’t have the opportunity to get to know the great Billie Jean Davy the way I got to know Samantha and Farmer Ted, Andie, Bender, or any of the other John Hughes characters. On the one hand, I wish that Billie Jean had been a character that I would have found in my teenage years. Her strength, her unwillingness to be beaten down, and the way she stands up for herself would probably have had a positive impact on my confused, teen self. But on the other hand, I’m glad I discovered her exactly when I did – in my 30s as I am surrounded by a new feminism and as women are beginning to be heard in new and exciting ways. I resonate with this character much differently than I would have at the age of fifteen, and even now, she has given me a new role model.

Though thirty years old, The Legend of Billie Jean speaks to me in a very real way, and mirrors issues that are still at the forefront of our conversation. It addresses questions of gender and class that are as real today as they were in 1985 and sets its story within the struggles against the patriarchy and the ruling wealthy class by people who all too often fall victim to those oppressions.

The film tells the story of Billie Jean Davy (Helen Slater), a teenager living in a Texas trailer park with her mother (Mona Lee Fultz) and her brother Binx (Christian Slater). At the opening of the film, the siblings drive Binx’s Honda scooter to a secluded river area to swim and try to escape the oppressive Texas summer heat. On their way, they cross paths with Hubie Pyatt (Barry Tubb) and his gang of teenage miscreants. Refusing to succumb to both his forceful advances on Billie Jean and his desires to push Binx around, the pair flee, but not before Binx splashes Hubie’s face with a milkshake as a means of distraction. Thinking they are safe, Billie Jean and Binx relax. Their respite is all too short, however, when Hubie and his boys track them down and trash the scooter in an act petulant of revenge.

Billie Jean reports the incident to the local police department, but finds the detective (Peter Coyote) to be less than helpful. She then goes to visit Hubie and his father (Richard Bradford) to claim the money necessary for the repair work: $608. Instead of simply paying up (oh, and maybe apologizing), Mr. Pyatt attempts to assault Billie Jean, telling her that she can earn the money through sexual favors. She is able to flee when Binx enters the store and threatens Pyatt with a gun, believed to be empty. The gun goes off (much to Binx’s surprise) and wounds Pyatt, offering an opportunity for escape. Knowing the magnitude of their situation and with little faith in the fact that anyone would take their word over Pyatt’s, the pair hit the road.

In the days that follow, the story of a young woman who just wanted fairness, equality, and a fair shake spreads. She becomes a hero figure to teenagers across Texas when she cuts her hair (inspired by Joan of Arc), dons a particularly inspired warrior look and makes a video decrying the harshness of a world that would believe Pyatt over her because of his money and his status as a man. All she wants is payment from Pyatt for the money owed for the scooter, decreeing, “Fair is fair!” It would become a rallying call that would be echoed by teens across the state and the theme of Billie Jean’s mission.

Through Billie Jean’s story, we see the harsh reality of a world where being affluent and male is everything that you need to survive. Pyatt never has any intention of just owning up to his son’s behavior and paying for the scooter repairs. He assumes he can take what he wants from Billie Jean (here, in the form of both money and sex) and nobody will protest or stop him because she’s a woman and poor. His status as a male figure protects him from any repercussions to his actions. He has no fear throughout this process that his story will ever even be questioned, and is free to proceed as he wishes. He has full control, and she can either bend to his will, or abandon her quest entirely. Even when Billie Jean fights back, she is forced to flee because her recent attempt at getting help from the police went unanswered. The world has proven that no one will believe the truth of the story — that Pyatt started the altercation and that Binx never had any intention of shooting the man, as he believed the gun to be empty.

As the story progresses, Billie Jean’s flight becomes more than just the desire to escape from a situation that sees her and her friends unfairly on the wrong side of the law. She wants wrongs to be set right. She wants Pyatt to pay the $608 he owes for repairs on the scooter – no more, no less. Fair is fair. She wants what she is rightfully owed and for Pyatt and Hubie to own up to what they have done and make it square. She wants dignity, and respect – truly, what she is after is equality.

Pyatt refuses to give her that equality. The reason the situation goes as far as it does it because he won’t admit that Billie Jean is entitled to the same treatment hat he would give someone male and of higher income were the situation repeated. Billie Jean is a trailer park girl and is of little value in his eyes. She is simply an object; someone that he can take advantage of, force himself on, and someone who nobody would believe even if she did make the truth known. His maleness and his wealth make him untouchable.

The film utilizes the Male Gaze throughout to allow us to see how Pyatt and his ilk view women. It is always used as a means of making women feel small, trying to force some sense of ownership on them. The first instance occurs during the initial altercation between the Davys and Hubie’s group of friends. Throughout all of it, one of the young men is photographing Billie Jean – her movements, her reactions, and most importantly, her body as she her climbs out of the pond and tries to prevent the group from taking the scooter, scantily clad and dripping wet. While she is on the offensive in that moment to try to prevent any harm from coming to her brother or to his property, he captures the sensual nature of the image and uses that shot as a means of holding power over her. She is in his sights – an object of prey. He can see her and thus, she is vulnerable.

Later, that photo becomes an iconic image of Billie Jean when it is released to the public and sold as posters at Pyatt’s beachfront pop-up store. He has assaulted her, he has refused to own up to his role in the altercation, he has refused to pay her what it owed, and now he is selling her. His final attempt at owning her by any means necessary. He has her image and he is profiting off of it.

Billie Jean serves as an icon to both feminism and to an ongoing class struggle. As her legend grows, kids and teenagers begin to look up to her and to see her as a hero figure. Even though most of the stories surrounding their exploits have been fabricated (often for the benefit of male businessmen who want the notoriety of having been held up by the notorious Billie Jean Davy), the teen populace of Texas identifies with her as someone bucking the system. Someone who refuses to play by the rules of the status quo when those rules are meant to benefit and serve a select few, rather than the downtrodden many. If the story were set today, Pyatt would be the 1% and Billie Jean would be the rest of us.

These themes of a class struggle are further illustrated by the inclusion of the scooter as a plot device. That scooter is Binx’s most prized possession. He was only able to afford it thanks to some insurance money that their father left behind when he passed away. This is a luxury item to them; something that Binx cherishes not only for its practical uses, but also because it represents a life he can only dream of. It is the one instance that he has been able to grasp of a life beyond the trailer park. And Hubie ripped it apart in a childish rage — not only as revenge for the milkshake incident (hardly a fair trade, mind you), but because doing so put Binx and Billie Jean back in their place. The destruction was a reminder and a warning against trying to rise above their roots and to invade the sacred space of those wealthier.

Within the film, Billie Jean’s story grows to make her something of a combination of a Robin Hood figure and a Bonnie and Clyde story. Her deeds are greatly exaggerated, but she represents something that resonates strongly with the community. She stands up and refuses to let a wealthy male figure walk over her. In a world where feminist issues are still prevalent (though thankfully, also a part of the conversation), Billie Jean remains a hero that we can all look to for inspiration. She demands the very definition of feminism – equality. She wants no more and no less than what is owed to her. Fair is fair.

Horrorella has written about film for Ain’t it Cool News, the Women in Horror Annual and on her blog at horrorella.com. She geeks out incessantly over movies, television, comics and kitties. You can gab with her on Twitter @horrorellablog.

Historical vs. Modern Abortion Narratives in ‘Dirty Dancing’ and ‘Fast Times at Ridgemont High’

Given this climate, it is somewhat surprising that two mainstream Hollywood films, ‘Dirty Dancing’ and ‘Fast Times at Ridgemont High,’ would take progressive approaches to a topic like reproductive justice. While ‘Dirty Dancing’ remembers the realities of abortion pre-Roe v. Wade and illustrates the role that class plays in access to abortion, ‘Fast Times at Ridgemont High’ shows a main character who exercises her right to choose without trauma or punishment, while managing to keep a relatively light tone.

This guest post written by Tessa Racked appears as part of our theme week on Ladies of the 1980s.

The political and cultural landscape of the United States in the 1980s was widely characterized by conservativism, reflected in cinema by the popularity of glossy action films like Top Gun and Lethal Weapon that glorify violent masculinity and the institutions that enable it. This trend was partly influenced by a backlash against the 1970s, including the rise of feminism in popular consciousness. Given this climate, it is somewhat surprising that two mainstream Hollywood films, Dirty Dancing and Fast Times at Ridgemont High, would take progressive approaches to a topic like reproductive justice. While Dirty Dancing remembers the realities of abortion pre-Roe v. Wade and illustrates the role that class plays in access to abortion, Fast Times at Ridgemont High shows a main character who exercises her right to choose without trauma or punishment, while managing to keep a relatively light tone. (If there’s another film that accomplishes the latter feat in the 32 years between Fast Times and Obvious Child, please mention it in the comments section because I certainly couldn’t think of one.)

Dirty Dancing (written by Eleanor Bergstein) is very much characterized by its historical setting. Our protagonist is Frances “Baby” Houseman (Jennifer Grey) the youngest daughter in a family on summer vacation in 1963. In her opening narration, Baby describes the time period as “when everyone called me ‘Baby’ and it didn’t occur to me to mind, before President Kennedy was shot… and I thought I’d never find a guy as great as my dad.” These are the last days of innocence, both for her and her society — remembered with nostalgia, but also the recognition that it came with some serious misconceptions about how the world works. Baby is good-hearted and idealistic, but has lived a sheltered life. She is caught between her desires to “save the world” by joining the Peace Corps, inspired by her father Dr. Houseman, and her obedience to her aforementioned family’s expectation that she settle down with a respectable (i.e. upper middle class) man, like the resort owner’s snobby grandson Neil. Baby has been raised to do the right thing, but within the boundaries of her status as a good (i.e. upper middle class) girl. This means abstaining from socializing with the working class resort staff, who turn out to be the very people who both need Baby’s help when one of them needs access to abortion, and in turn facilitate her own maturation.

Fast Times at Ridgemont High (directed by Amy Heckerling) is also situated in a specific historical point, due to it being a very modern film for 1982. The first scene takes us to the pinnacle of cool teen hangouts, the mall, and is set to the Go-Gos’ 1981 hit “We Got the Beat.” Depictions of femininity are filtered through a viewpoint that values modernity and autonomy. Freshman Stacy Hamilton (Jennifer Jason Leigh) worries that she isn’t as attractive to men as her classmates who dress like Pat Benatar, and chooses to be sexually active as part of exploring maturation. Scenes of her engaging in sex are relatively explicit (she is fully nude in one scene), but filmed in such a straightforward way that the titillation factor for the audience is minimized. There are two minor characters who are Black, but otherwise, the cast is homogeneously white and middle-class, putting the gender dynamics between characters in a relative vacuum free of intersectionality, unlike the room that Dirty Dancing makes for consciousness around class. The structure of the film makes the abortion narrative more progressive. Stacy is one of the protagonists, and the one who chooses to terminate her own pregnancy. The parallel of this story with those of the other main characters — Rat has a crush on her, Brad can’t hold down a job, Spicoli goofs off in history class — serves to normalize abortion, depicting it as a situation that some teenagers have to go through and may cause stress, but is not a cause of major trauma or drama.

Where Fast Times at Ridgemont High is very blatant in its depictions of sexuality, both in characters’ conversations and sexual interactions with each other, Dirty Dancing frequently uses dancing as a metaphor for eroticism. While engaged in a tame, awkward mambo with Neil, Baby and the audience both get the first glimpse of dance instructors Johnny and Penny (Cynthia Rhodes). Johnny and Penny impress the guests with a flamboyant mambo that quickly turns into an illustration of power dynamics at the resort. Resort owner Max Kellerman quickly shuts down their performance; they meekly part each other’s company to teach more conservative dance steps to guests. As dance and sexuality are linked in the film, the boss’ control over when and how Johnny and Penny dance parallel the social control that individual male characters and patriarchal society hold over both Penny and Baby.

Later that evening, Baby sneaks off to a staff party where she’s exposed to the titular dirty dancing, sharply contrasting the scene on the guests’ dance floor. “Kids are doing it in their basements back home,” staff member Billy tells Baby when she asks how they learned their hip-gyrating moves. Soon after, we discover that Penny is pregnant and wants to get an abortion. Again, the historical setting becomes key: as the movie is set before Roe v. Wade, Penny’s access to abortion is highly limited due to its legal status. Billy knows of a practicing abortionist, but the $250 fee that it costs (equivalent to $2,000 in 2016) is more than Penny can afford. She has been impregnated by Robbie, who straddles the Kellerman’s class divide. As a waiter, he can party with the staff (and have sex with Penny), but unlike Johnny and Penny, who depend on their salaries to survive, Robbie is a med student who is saving up for a sports car and flirts with Baby’s older sister Lisa, with the approval of their parents and Max Kellerman. He also refuses to support Penny in getting an abortion. “I didn’t blow a summer hauling bagels just to bail out some chick who probably slept with every guy here… some people count and some people don’t,” he tells Baby before trying to clarify his point by offering her a copy of The Fountainhead he carries in his back pocket (no seriously, that happens).

This exchange between Baby and Robbie illustrates some key points that Dirty Dancing makes. It reinforces the inaccessibility of abortion at this point: for characters with lower-paying jobs, it means the bulk of the summer’s wages, whether that means no sports car or no food. It also highlights the oppressive repercussions of the prevailing middle-class values of the day. Robbie aligns himself with the the “people who matter,” by feeling entitled to walk away from his responsibilities, letting less privileged staff take care of it. People mistakenly assume that Johnny impregnated Penny because of the support he shows her; not only has Robbie dumped sole responsibility for the pregnancy on Penny, he has left Johnny in the role of “father.” His reasoning for this entitlement? Penny must be a “slut,” and therefore isn’t worthy of respect. Once Penny grows to trust Baby, she tells her in a vulnerable moment: “I want you to know that I don’t sleep around… I thought he loved me. I thought it was something special.” This scene is a plea for the audience’s respect and sympathy for Penny as much as it is Penny wanting respect and sympathy from Baby. If she had sex with Robbie because she was deceived on some level, she becomes a victim, making her choice to have an abortion more acceptable. Even her decision to have sex with him becomes more acceptable because she did it for love, as opposed to a more casual desire.

Gaining access to abortion for Penny involves both supplicating and subverting the more privileged characters in the film, Dr. Houseman in particular. Baby procures the money from her father by rebelling against her role as dutiful daughter through lying to him, and reassuring him that the money isn’t going towards anything illegal. But money isn’t the only barrier that Penny must overcome. The abortionist is only available on the night that she and Johnny are booked to perform at another resort. “Everybody works here,” Johnny frostily informs Baby when she asks if they can cancel the performance. World-saving Baby solves the problem by learning Penny’s dance routine and filling in for her at the performance (not to mention falling in love with Johnny over the course of their training montage). Unfortunately, the “real M.D.” that Penny was promised turns out to be a guy with “a dirty knife and a folding table.” Baby turns to her father for help saving Penny’s life.

Unlike Objectivist Robbie, Dr. Houseman treats Penny with kindness, saving her life and her ability to have children, but he is not as progressive in his values as Baby. He is rude to Johnny, assuming him to be the father, and forbids Baby to fraternize with him or Penny. His instincts are to prevent Baby from ending up like Penny, to keep her as pure and innocent as her nickname implies. However, when he discovers that Robbie is the one who got Penny “in trouble” and sees Johnny stand up for Baby (spoiler alert: nobody puts her in a corner), Dr. Houseman apologizes to Johnny for his rudeness and praises Baby’s dancing.

Unlike Penny being cast as a victim, Fast Times at Ridgemont High‘s Stacy straightforwardly experiments with sex for the first time. Encouraged by her older, more sexually experienced friend Linda (Phoebe Cates), she wants to be mature and desired by men. Her initial experiences are ambivalent; she actively pursues Ron and Damone, but actual sex with them is disappointing for her. Her sexual debut with Ron takes place in a dugout at an empty baseball field; the camera switches between closeups of her face and her point of view, looking not at her partner but at the graffiti on the dugout walls, obviously not getting much pleasure from sex with him. Both Ron and Damone are focused on their own pleasure and take no notice of her uncomfortable expressions or requests to slow down; after Damone ejaculates prematurely, he can’t leave her house fast enough. The film gives us a protagonist who engages in casual sex with two different men, and makes no apology about her decision to terminate the resulting pregnancy, demanding that the audience respect her decision if we are to remain on-board with her and her story.

Stacy’s access to abortion is remarkably simple. The decision completely excludes her parents (who are barely present in the film to begin with). Her abortion is a private matter between her and Damone. Once Stacy tells him that she’s pregnant and after he stops trying to deny his responsibility (like Robbie, he also tries to slut-shame himself out of responsibility, asking how she knows it’s his), he says that she has to get an abortion, only to discover that she already decided and scheduled the procedure. She asks him to pay half of the $150 fee and give her a ride to the clinic. Until this awkward conversation, the rest of the logistics have been easily planned.

The cost is still high for two young people but not as exorbitant as what Penny has to pay (assuming Fast Times takes place in 1981, it’s the present-day equivalent of about $430); also considering that both Stacy and Damone are high school students in a relatively affluent community, being set back $75 is probably not a crisis. There is a scene of Damone, who makes money by scalping concert tickets, trying unsuccessfully to call in debts in order to raise the $75. We see his list of expenses, with “abortion” listed above “Rod Stewart tickets?”; the stakes are not so high that some humor can’t be afforded. Additionally, the cost of the abortion is not an anomaly in the film. The other characters have money concerns as well: Rat panics when he takes Stacy to a nice restaurant but leaves his wallet at home. Brad goes through a series of jobs over the course of the school year that he needs to pay off his car. Damone is constantly negotiating prices with his customers. The struggle to pay for an expense without relying on one’s parents is an expected factor in the characters’ lives.

Likely due to his inability to raise the money, Damone fails to give Stacy a ride to the clinic, causing her distress and embarrassment. However, her problem is quickly solved as she lies to her brother Brad about needing a ride to the bowling alley across the street from the clinic. The drama of her getting the abortion is mildly heightened when she doesn’t have anyone to drive her home, but Brad saves the day by picking her up after the procedure is over.

Unlike Penny’s experience, the abortion is performed with little fanfare. The scene of the procedure itself is cut from the theatrical release, which shows Stacy in a clean, modern examination room being treated by the doctor and nurse with the same detached professionalism they would likely show any other patient. Unlike Penny’s near-death experience at the hands of a quack, Stacy is able to walk out of the clinic, and Brad promises not to tell their parents and quickly relents from asking her for details: “Come on! Who did it? You’re not going to tell me, are you? Okay, it’ll just be your secret.”

Linda, who gives Stacy advice about men throughout the film, seeks revenge for her after finding out that Damone didn’t follow through on his promise to give her a ride, graffitiing “prick” and “little prick” on his car and locker. His female classmates giggle at him as he passes by them in the hall to discover the message on his locker. He also comes close to losing a friend, as he and Rat almost come to blows when Rat confronts him over having sex with Stacy. Compare Damone’s public humiliation to Robbie’s comeuppance in Dirty Dancing: getting a pitcher of water thrown on him by Baby and losing the respect of Dr. Houseman, neither of whom he would likely never see again anyway.

Ultimately, Dirty Dancing treats Penny’s abortion as a historical artifact, a somber near-tragedy of a bygone era. While a sympathetic character who isn’t sacrificed on the altar of moral stances, Penny is hardly the focus of the film. If anything, her story is a springboard for Baby’s character development and romance with Johnny. She is well and happy at the end of the film, but just another face in the crowd supporting Johnny and Baby as they finally nail the lift that Penny could probably do in her sleep.

In Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Stacy’s abortion leads to personal growth. The experience doesn’t frighten Stacy away from sex per se, but it does incite her to reconsider what she wants from a relationship with a man. “I don’t want sex, anyone can have sex… I want a relationship, I want romance.” She achieves this goal by re-igniting her relationship with Rat. The epilogue informs us that the couple “are having a passionate love affair… but still haven’t gone all the way.”

From a reproductive justice standpoint, Penny’s story is an unnerving tale from a former era that tragically still threatens many people living today, should they seek an abortion. Stacy’s experience is one that should be available to anyone who wants it, both in terms of ease of access, safety, and perhaps most importantly, positioning people who want access to abortions as the self-determining protagonists of their own stories.

Tessa Racked blogs about fat characters in film at Consistent Panda Bear Shape. They have had “(I’ve Had) the Time of My Life” stuck in their head for over a week now.

‘A Different World’ Shook Up My World

‘A Different World’ will forever hold a special place in my life. …It became my North Star to an experience largely foreign to me — undergraduate life. It gave me insight into the strength gained from friendships with Black women. … Seeing images of young, gifted, and Black women pursuing higher education at a historically Black college or university (HBCU) shaped my vision for my life.

This guest post written by Shara D. Taylor appears as part of our theme week on Ladies of the 1980s.

The 1980s hit series A Different World will forever hold a special place in my life. Set at the fictional, historically Black school Hillman College, it became my North Star to an experience largely foreign to me — undergraduate life. It gave me insight into the strength gained from friendships with Black women. It provided me with a reason to focus on my schoolwork, even when I found myself spending an inordinate amount of time in the principal’s office.

As my mom tells it, she raised me to think college was the natural next step after high school. Despite having no one else in my family who had completed a bachelor’s degree, I never considered other options. She probably didn’t know it then, but her efforts came with reinforcements in the form of a Thursday night TV show. I knew my life probably would resemble the lives of the students at Hillman, though it meant following an obscure path made brighter by these representations.

Because of A Different World, a spin-off of The Cosby Show, I didn’t see the obstacles ahead of me. I didn’t listen to the teachers who predicted doom and gloom for my future. Instead, I listened to southern belle Whitley Gilbert (Jasmine Guy) when she explained how her grandfather learned to love himself during his time at Hillman. I paid attention when the earthy Freddie Brooks (Cree Summer) extolled the need to remember history after discovering a stop on the Underground Railroad behind a wall in the Gilbert Hall dorm. It still gives me goose bumps when I reflect on that episode.

When pre-med student Kimberly Reese (Charnele Brown) stretched herself too thinly with her classes, jobs, and extracurricular activities, Freddie and Kim’s other friends forced her to party when she really wanted to study. She woke up exhausted the next day, but managed to ace her exams.

Jaleesa Vinson (Dawnn Lewis), an older Hillman student who had been married and divorced before enrolling, played big sister to a lively group of early 20-somethings. She often butted heads with the spoiled Whitley whose divorced, Hillman alumni parents gave her everything she wanted without teaching her any responsibility. Over time, their relationship grew into one of mutual respect, though they still worked each other’s nerves.

I couldn’t describe it as a youngster, but I recognized the complexities in these relationships. I figured my life might be like theirs some day, so I paid close attention.

While writing this piece, I thought about the images of Black women that had appeared on television prior to A Different World’s premiere in 1987. I couldn’t find one example of a group of young, Black girlfriends finding their way in life while walking on the wobbly bridge into womanhood. To be sure, other Black women had shared friendships on the small screen before A Different World’s debut. In the 1970s, there were Florida Evans and Willona Woods on Good Times and Louise Jefferson and Helen Willis on The Jeffersons. In the 1980s, the women of 227 — Mary Jenkins, Rose Lee Holloway, Pearl Shay, and Sandra Clark — supported each other as adults. However, all of these women lived more stable lives than college students.

We saw more representations of young, Black women throughout the 1990s and 2000s in Living Single, Moesha, and Girlfriends. For me, none matched the camaraderie that I felt with the characters on A Different World.

Although my love of the show began when I was only four years old, it sustained me through my rough middle school years when I landed myself in the principal’s office several times per week. In high school, my main goal was to get to college with as few visits to the principal as possible. Somewhere along the way, I absorbed A Different World and its rich characters into my bloodstream. Seeing images of young, gifted, and Black women pursuing higher education at a historically Black college or university (HBCU) shaped my vision for my life. As a child, I knew for sure that I wanted to continue my education at a school like Hillman.

I remember the day I told my mom that I planned to attend Howard University (HU!). I was a junior in high school. A substitute teacher in my Algebra II class suggested it when I told her about my desire to study business at an HBCU. I went home that afternoon, searched Howard’s website, and decided it fit my criteria. That evening, I walked into my mom’s room and declared my intentions. She fell silent for a minute. “I can guarantee you one year. You have to figure out the rest,” she replied. I accepted her challenge. I knew I’d get to Howard somehow; my Hillman friends-in-my-head had convinced me of it.

Throughout my time as an undergrad, I often stood in awe of my peers and what I saw them accomplishing. At Howard, the women on campus held leadership positions in student government, social justice organizations, and pre-professional associations. My female classmates pushed me to be a better woman, a better friend, and a better global citizen. As if on cue, they offered encouragement when I needed it most and reality checks when I lost my way. The women of Hillman did the same for each other. They shared their triumphs and disappointments in their careers and their love lives. They uplifted each other when the outside world tried to belittle their existence for being Black and woman. They wouldn’t stand for it and neither would my Howard people.

In 2015, I celebrated my 10-year Howard class reunion with a couple hundred of my beautiful classmates. Nothing could have prepared me for the swell of love and pride I felt being back on campus. I have yet to find another environment as nurturing and supportive as the one at Howard.

Many years after my trying adolescence, my mom asked me how I managed to keep up my grades despite my rebellious behavior. I explained that being smart and being “cool” were never mutually exclusive in my mind. She and I can thank A Different World for that.

Every Thursday for six years, I watched my future self and my future classmates laugh and cry and dance across my screen. I’m not sure where I would’ve landed without Whitley and Freddie or Kim and Jaleesa. I don’t know where I’d be without the women of Howard University who continue to inspire me.

I’ve determined how I exist in this world through them. For that, I’m eternally grateful.

Shara D. Taylor watches films to break the monotony of her raging urban planner lifestyle. Her interests include Hip-Hop, A Different World, Back to the Future, and everything directed by Ava DuVernay. You can send her pleasant tweets @sharas_soapbox.

‘Pretty in Pink’: A Desire for Autonomy

Re-watching the film recently, it seems apparent that rather than Andie allowing herself to submit to Blane and all that he represents, her narrative arc is really a search for a sense of autonomy rather than a desire to transition into a world of privilege. …Blane represents an opportunity to take control of her life, to become increasingly autonomous in her decisions.

This guest post written by Siobhan Denton appears as part of our theme week on Ladies of the 1980s.

John Hughes’ ability to represent a believable, empathetic, and most importantly, a realistic teenage experience has long been recognized. His characters are rightly flawed, and often blunder their way through their narrative as they begin to recognise their wants and desires, and attempt to turn these desires into reality.

Pretty in Pink was the first John Hughes film that I saw, and as such, has been especially formative for me, particularly so in terms of the characterization of Andie Walsh (Molly Ringwald). Andie is entirely relatable as she struggles to reconcile her own place in society (being from the ‘wrong side of the tracks’) and her desire for Blane (Andrew McCarthy), whose wealth seems emblematic of the life that Andie could have if she too was gifted with a privileged background. Andie is all too aware of her lack of social status, refusing to allow Blane to see where she lives, or admitting to her principal that she believes that she is lucky to be receiving a good education and as such, her relationship with Blane can be interpreted as an attempt to transcend her social status.

Much of the film’s discussion surrounds the reshot ending (as evidenced by the plethora of tribute videos on YouTube), an ending that, rather than depicting Andie with Duckie, showed her reuniting with Blane, despite his ill treatment of her. Watching this ending on previous occasions, it seemed to stretch incredulity: Why would Andie select Blane, whose embarrassment proved stronger than his own feelings, over Duckie, who has been devoted to Andie throughout her life? Re-watching the film recently, it seems apparent that rather than Andie allowing herself to submit to Blane and all that he represents, her narrative arc is really a search for a sense of autonomy rather than a desire to transition into a world of privilege.

Andie, despite her circle of friends, appears to be lonely and isolated throughout the film and there is a clear sense that she cannot be her true self with anyone she interacts with, aside perhaps, from Blane. She is friends with Duckie, but as seen in her first interaction with him as they walk down the school hallway, she isn’t really interested in what he has to say. Similarly, as she drives home from Cats with Duckie, the pair are barely registering what one another is saying. Ignoring Grice’s Maxims as featured in his theories of Conversation Principles, the pair fail to maintain relevancy, quality and manner in their discussion. Andie regards the palatial houses en route, while Duckie spends much of the conversation complaining about the music, or stating to Andie in response to her admiration of the houses, “You want beautiful, look in a mirror.” Superficially, it might appear that Duckie is engaged in what Andie is saying, but in reality he’s not. Her comments highlight a clear state of dissatisfaction with her life, and notably, come after her interaction with her friends in Cats, in which she posits the idea of embarking on a relationship with a “rich guy,” a suggestion that is rapidly quashed by Jenna (Alexa Kenin). Andie is not happy, despite outward appearances, and it is clear that for her, Blane represents an opportunity to take control of her life, to become increasingly autonomous in her decisions. This dissatisfaction is not recognised by Duckie, and he chooses to redirect the conversation into a sexual sphere, once again stating his admiration for Andie despite her continued disinterest. Duckie’s unheeded desire for Andie, as has been noted by Kevin Smokler at Salon, is not to be encouraged. His belief that Andie is the one for him leads Duckie to feeling that Andie in some way owes him, or should return his affection. Learning of Andie’s forthcoming date with Blane, Duckie reacts angrily, stating that she can’t respect herself if she goes out with him. This mean-spirited reaction is not the response of a kind and caring potential partner, but rather a vindictive character who is unable to afford the object of his desire autonomy. Andie doesn’t want Duckie, but is currently unable to make this clear to him; it is not until she embarks on her relationship with Blane that she begins to assert her own sexual identity and indeed, her own sense of self.

On a simplistic level, it might seem rather tenuous to draw links between Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette and Hughes’ Pretty in Pink, but their female protagonists both share a clear lack of, and desire for, autonomy. Academic writing on Coppola’s film has regularly noted Marie Antoinette’s lack of voice and in turn, her lack of control:

“Having no equals in the world with whom to share themselves, they are severed from an intellectual life that would allow them to speak themselves into existence” (Lane and Richter, 2011: 197).

This concept of lacking an equal with whom, through sharing oneself, a protagonist can become validated seems rather apt when considering Andie’s relationship with Blane. Unlike Duckie, Blane’s desire for Andie is measured and considered. His arrival at Tracks, the record store at which Andie works, is clearly a planned and calculated move. While Duckie almost rather literally screams to get Andie’s attention (intentionally setting off the alarm), Blane seeks her advice on a record, highlighting that he not only values her opinion, but trusts her ability to form one. It is Blane’s attention that provides Andie with the strength to confront the classmates who earlier in the film made their disdain for her apparent. While this strength through male attention could be seen as reductive, Andie’s strength isn’t buoyed by Blane himself, but rather the realization that she too is desirable and worthy of attention.

Later, when going to a party, Andie makes it clear that she doesn’t want to attend but allows herself to be convinced by Blane. As they walk around the party, Blane is clearly attuned to Andie’s reactions; watching her closely, he quickly recognizes that she feels uncomfortable so seeks a space in which the pair can be alone, and thus separate from others. Blane is similarly uncomfortable and similarly accosted when they attend Andie’s venue of choice and it is apparent that the pair’s relationship cannot exist within the confines of the society in which they currently interact with. Initially, this need to be separate proves too difficult for Blane and he succumbs to the pressures excised by his apparent friends. Conversely, the experience for Andie only makes her desire for autonomy stronger, and she declares that she wants to attend prom in order to show that “they didn’t break me.”

Realizing that Blane has attended the prom on his own away from his friends, Andie understands that he has set out to distance himself from the privileged world which he inhabited and in doing so, has also made it clear that he also seeks autonomy over his own desires. This statement of control allows Andie to finally realize her own control over her life and her actions, and in turn, state her desire and love for Blane. Now that the pair have willingly removed themselves from a public sphere and space, they are able to create their own private space (both literally and metaphorically) and gain true autonomy.

References:

Lane, C. And Richter, N. (2011) ‘The Feminist Poetics of Sofia Coppola: Spectacle and Self-Consciousness in Marie Antoinette (2006)’ in H. Radner and R. Stringer (ed.) Feminism at the movies. Oxon: Routledge.

Siobhan Denton is a teacher and writer living in Wales, UK. She holds a BA in English and an MA in Film and Television Studies. She is especially interested in depictions of female desire and transitions from youth to adulthood. She tweets at @siobhan_denton and writes at The Blue and the Dim.

‘The Fits’: A Coming-of-Age Story About Belonging and Identity

It’s when the older girls on the dance team begin to have “fits” or what’s referred to as hysteria, that Toni begins to question just how much she wants to fit in. It’s fear mixed with curiosity that drives her. It’s an exploration of a part of the human psyche, told less with words and more with images, a coming-of-age story about friendship, belonging and identity, but with an eerie, occasionally unnerving tone.

This is a guest post written by Melanie Taylor.

The Fits is a trip into the internal world of an eleven year old girl named Toni who is curiously but tentatively tip-toeing into the mysterious and unfamiliar realm of adolescence. Toni, played by Royalty Hightower, trains in boxing with her brother at the local rec center, but when she spies on a dance team of teenage girls called the Lionesses, who practice next door, she steps out of the familiar confines of boxing to join them. This leads her on a mysterious path to question what’s happening around her.

Based on the trailer, the film — directed by Anna Rose Holmer, and co-written by Holmer in collaboration with co-writers Saela Davis and Lisa Kjerulff — appears to be about a young girl trying to make it on a dance team, but it’s a much more internal exploration of self-discovery without vocalizing those changes. As a matter of fact, the main character barely speaks throughout the entire film and when she does, other than soft counting or a quiet “yeah” here and there, she doesn’t say much until around the midpoint of the film. Even with the sparse dialog, everything that Toni thinks and feels is conveyed through the use of sounds, images, and long takes.

Despite being first-time actresses, the cast gave honest and compelling performances. Lead actress Royalty Hightower brought a strikingly mature quality to the film, given her young age. Breezy, played by Alexis Neblett, her new friend who she meets on the dance team, was equally as compelling, bringing a charming playful levity to the scenes and to Toni’s intense internal world. Director Holmer says she cast a real dance team to bring to the film a sense of “authentic sisterhood that young women experience when they bond on a team.”

The older girls on the dance team were seen from the perspective of Toni, catching glimpses of conversations by eavesdropping, peering through cracked doors and around corners, piecing together her own narrative about them. But it’s when the teenage girls begin experiencing unexplainable “fits” that she begins to question her place in this new group and the more she senses the inevitable changes of growing up, scary as it may be. The sound design made use of environmental factors to create tension and release over and over. Sounds frequently shifted from loud jarring eruptions of shouting girls bursting through hallway doors, to sudden silence and the quiet rustling of a shirt. These effects gave the film a Kubrick-esque quality of eeriness and a sense that something isn’t quite right. The jarring noises or slow wiry discordant notes gave the score a spooky horror film vibe at times, but without violence or gore and a more positive mood. But really, the sounds are meant to reflect the internal conflict of growing up and transitioning into a new phase of life.

These changes can be scary and having a group of like-minded peers around can help ease that process, like the Lionesses dance team that Toni joins. Holmer says the film was inspired by watching videos on YouTube of girls who recorded other girls having “fits,” like hysteria, but that went unexplained. The film is not about what happens with the dance team; it’s about the desire to belong without losing your own sense of self. The Fits is about being fit, having “fits,” and wanting to fit in without compromising one’s sense of self and individuality.

Melanie Taylor graduated from CSUN with a degree in screenwriting. She writes for her blog The Feminist Guide to Hollywood and is also a musician who shares her music on soundcloud.com/phantomcreatures. Follow her on Twitter @mellowknee.