Search Results for: Taken

‘Deuce Bigalow’: Pleasure, Male Likability, and Finding Love Through “Man-Whoring”

Navigating male prostitution has always been tricky, but ‘Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo’ (Mike Mitchell, 1999) unburdens audiences from tackling any heavily philosophical explications through its potty humor, shallow characters, and offensive depictions of ailments such as Tourette Syndrome, Gigantism, Narcolepsy, and obesity. This same brand of mindless humor is found in ‘Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo’ (Mike Mitchell, 2005). However, despite what the movie lacks (and it’s certainly aware of itself as a raunchy, unconventional rom-com), its central themes are love and kindness, and what is perhaps less apparent is the seemingly rare ability to pause and see someone for who they truly are, as opposed to how they may be of service in terms of sex or money. This goofy film featuring Rob Schneider begs a feminist critique not only because the film lacks many multi-dimensional characters, but because it is a prostitution narrative encoded as a story depicting the pursuit of romantic love, rather than a cautionary tale about the dangers of the world’s oldest profession.

‘Scarlet Road’: Sex Work and Disability

Mark says he wants a girlfriend and that although he understands Rachel is a sex worker, he likes that Rachel makes him feel as though he has a girlfriend. That’s an important distinction that the trailer conveniently cut out. People with disabilities are not children who form childish emotional attachments from fantasies. We understand reality, but that doesn’t mean we don’t want to escape it from time to time like everyone else.

Inara Serra and the Future of Sex Work

Inara shows all the benefits to the cultural changes of the last 500 years. She’s a Companion, a highly trained and respected sex worker who ministers mostly to dignitaries, businessmen, and other elites. She’s taken a ride on Serenity, the ship around which most of the show’s action centers, because she wants to see the universe. Because she is a Companion, she can write her own ticket – there will always be clients, so long as they stick to planets with some level of economic stability, and she can just rent a shuttle for as long as she wants. Plus, Inara herself is fun, witty, and classy as all get out. She’s the woman we all want to be, and she’s a sex worker. That’s progressive, right?
The problem here comes not from what the show is saying about sex work. It’s saying very complimentary things. The issue is that this show, this wonderful lovely show, is showing us something entirely different. Namely, that sex work is bad and nasty and wrong.

Porno Moms and the Sexual Healing of Family in ‘Boogie Nights’

The vision of Eddie/Dirk’s home life at the beginning of the film shows us that no family is without its failures, and that true family and community bolsters individuals while forgiving and healing these flaws. The film is progressive in its inclusivity (of male, female, and queer characters), and specifically in its treatment of Amber as she constructs her own version of motherhood and family, for better or worse.

Seed & Spark: Rape as a MacGuffin: The Hollywood Cop Out

But why are stories of female characters taking aggressive or assertive stances allowed to happen only after they have been victimized? In men’s revenge stories, oftentimes a woman has been killed off and he sets out to even the score. In a female revenge story, more often than not she has been assaulted and wants to get even. In both cases, women are victimized and the female body is used to move the narrative forward.

Meet Samantha, the Manic Pixie Operating System in ‘Her’: A Review in Conversation

Bitch Flicks staff writers Amanda Rodriguez and Stephanie Rogers talk about the critically acclaimed Spike Jonze film ‘Her,’ sharing their thoughts while asking questions about its feminism and thematic choices.

First Jane Tennison DCI: Revisiting ‘Prime Suspect’s Complex Lead

In the final episode of ‘Prime Suspect,’ the long-running British series, Jane Tennison (Helen Mirren), a hardworking, hard drinking detective who has sacrificed so much of her life for her job and made more than a few enemies, skips her own retirement party and walks out and into the rest of her life. In the other room, her colleagues are jovial, waiting for the stripper they hired, preparing balloons, and liberally dipping into the refreshments.
But Jane is uncertain.

Seed & Spark: What If?

It’s been a big season for African American cinema. With movies such as ’12 Years A Slave,’ ‘The Butler,’ ‘Fruitvale Station,’ and ‘Best Man Holiday,’ a shift was felt in audiences going to the movies that hasn’t been felt before. But what about a woman’s place in the realm of films starring women of color as protagonists?

‘The Seventh Seal’: A Skull is More Interesting Than a Naked Woman

‘The Seventh Seal’ was released in Sweden in 1957. The title is a reference to the Book of Revelation (Rev. 8:1): “And when the Lamb had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour.” Ingmar Bergman’s 17th film examines the big question: where is God? Set in Sweden in the 14th century during the Black Plague, the film documents the travels of the knight Antonius Block (Max von Sydow) and his squire, Jöns (Gunnar Björnstrand), as they return home from the Crusades (this is one of many useful anachronisms in the film, just go with it). Block is literally pursued by Death (Bengt Ekerot). Along the way, Bergman also muses on love, isolation, and death.

‘Orphan Black’: It’s All About the Ladies

‘Orphan Black’ is gritty sci-fi with layered mysteries, mistaken (and impersonated) identity, and lots of complicated female characters. The most intriguing part of the show is that many of those multifaceted female characters are played by the same woman, Tatiana Maslany. She portrays all the clones involved in a seemingly nefarious scientific experiment.

What’s Missing ‘Inside Llewyn Davis’ and ‘The Punk Singer’

Films like ‘Llewyn Davis’ make me particularly grateful for documentaries. Sini Anderson’s ‘The Punk Singer’ (disclaimer: I know Anderson slightly and produced one of her shows when she was with Sister Spit in the ’90s) is all about music and politics: feminism and women, while focusing on one person, Kathleen Hanna, formerly of the bands Bikini Kill, Le Tigre and current front-woman of The Julie Ruin.