The radical notion that women like good movies
The notion of Catherine as a subversive anti-hero develops when you view the film not as a story about the supposed protagonist Detective Nick Curran but as Catherine’s journey from mind games to almost domestic bliss but always returning to her basic instincts which threatens the Hollywood happy ending of established heteronormativity.
Small screen torture porn, at least in the cases of ‘American Horror Story’ and ‘Penny Dreadful,’ seems to be serving rather to take our fear of sex and women out of the dark and into the light, giving us an opportunity to vicariously take women apart and show them as disgusting as a substantial portion of our society fears we might be.
Are spine-chilling films always in demand because they help us dialogue with and about death? … In the past year, I’ve been focused on seeing films directed by women because I participated in the “52 Films by Women” initiative.
The possibility existed to use season 3 to explore the sexual identity of three very central female characters in this show. Buffy could have been questioning; Faith could have been explicitly bisexual rather than simply implying as much through very sexually-charged dialogue with Buffy; Willow could have started exploring her sexuality earlier to arrive at a more self-aware place, whether that was as a bisexual woman or a lesbian.
Both Nacho Vigalondo’s monster movie, ‘Colossal,’ and William Oldroyd’s period piece, ‘Lady Macbeth,’ are solid, carefully-made films built around a stunning performance from their lead actors – Anne Hathaway and Florence Pugh, respectively – and both tell the story of a woman surrounded by men who try to control her. Rightly or wrongly, both films also seem to presume that the best way for women to be strong and empowered is through physical violence.
‘Sisters’ displays an early concern with women’s liberation in mainstream American film (De Palma’s collaborator on the screenplay was Louisa Rose). Many of the film’s social complaints remain liberal talking points today: that police can be motivated by racism, that the legal institution can subject women to excessive scrutiny, and that the medical-psychiatric institution remains patriarchal and sexist in its diagnosing and treatment of women. Yet the film’s intersections with disability are more complicated.
So what makes sisters such fascinating subject matter for horror films? What makes them both scary and powerful, yet the most vulnerable, both to outside forces as well as to each other when they are threatened? … Sisters can behave as a single entity and fight for the same things, but there are two bodies — two physical forces — to reckon with.
But more and more it seems you can judge the quality of modern adaptations on how the filmmakers view Lizzie in relation to her sisters. Even though the representation of women has greatly expanded since Austen’s time, a story that revolves mostly around sisterly relationships remains rare, which makes it even more vital. And while it is true that Austen’s romance has a timeless quality that makes it popular, the narrative of sisterly love remains transcendent.
While many Black sitcoms revolve around a family, it’s rare that specific interactions between sisters are depicted. While “sisterhood” here often refers to the strong bond between friends, biological sisterhood is sometimes forgotten. Sisters with strong relationships on television display some of the deepest and truest kinds of family love out there.
The impulse to erase a woman’s testimony, to deny her agency and perception of the crime, while denying society’s victim blaming and bias against survivors of rape — this is the basis of what feminism describes as rape culture. Yet here it is practiced not by a misogynist man, nor by a loyal friend of the alleged rapist, but by a female director aiming to create “emphatically a feminist film.”
‘The Neon Demon’ brings to light the dual narcissism of our culture: the simultaneous, reciprocal reality created when consumers come into contact with images. The images exist so long as we look at them, and all Refn has done is reify our culture’s unhealthy obsession… I’m glad for ‘The Neon Demon,’ because it solidifies something that was already there: a hundred ornate mirrors reflecting back a society complicit in rape culture.
Strength is more than fighting with swords, and no one has proved that more often than Sansa Stark. She’s gone from being a (honestly, pretty annoying) starry-eyed teen to a brave and complex heroine, capable of making tough decisions in the face of tremendous personal pain. Perhaps most importantly, she’s done it without attempting to remake herself in the image of men or by diminishing the strongly feminine traits that set her apart from many of Game of Thrones’ other women.
