The radical notion that women like good movies
You see it all the time, actors kissing passionately on screen. It looks like they really mean it. But have you ever thought about what it is like for them – the first time they have to conjure that passion in a roomful of cameras, equipment, and onlookers?
A Peter Pan syndrome, or in Jungian terms, the “puer aeternus” complex (forever young), is active here for Megan’s character as she fears personal and professional commitment; the term is “puella aeterna” for women. The appeal of this complex is to stay “forever young,” a girl-woman without adult-level commitments. Her complex is strongly activated by her friend Allison’s (Ellie Kemper) bridal shower and large wedding.
To my fellow Americans, happy election week! (Or, depending on your politics and your jurisdiction, unhappy election week.) I thought I’d celebrate by revisiting one of my favorite political thrillers, 2000’s ‘The Contender.’ I’m not sure if it is a credit to this film or a knock against America politics that it holds up so well 14 years later. When ‘The Contender’ was released, Hillary Clinton was in the midst of her first Senate campaign. Now, she’s the front-runner to be the democratic nominee in the next presidential election. But ‘The Contender’ still feels extremely relevant.
Not all friendships are built to last. Teenage friendships are little romances between two people–tiny beautiful, impossibly fragile things that break apart upon touch or close examination. Just as a true romantic relationship between two unformed people rarely lasts, so often we grow out of our early friendships. Because so much of growing up means developing into a person who can live in the world, films about the ends of friendships can be just as satisfying coming of age stories as the typical narratives of beginnings. Each ending after all, is the beginning of something else.
Summer has always been a magical time where childhood lingers, and every time I get on a swingset again, or have a hankering for a push pop, or throw on my ‘Now and Then’ soundtrack, I think of my childhood and feel invigorated with that rush of youth. I think of Taylor and Sara, and a time when we were so eager to make our own adventures. I also think of those four girls from the Gaslight Addition; somehow they affected my life by making me appreciate what it means to be and have a true friend in this wild world.
BUTS started as a joke we had about our bodies. We are both pear-shaped women. (And God bless Lena Dunham for putting that silhouette out there without apologizing or qualifying it.) However, as our beauty standards still predicate, the hourglass figure rules. But our “hourglasses” had all the sand in the bottom! We would laugh about it and pad our bras when going to auditions.
By any regular standards, even the 1980s, ‘Mannequin’ is a TERRIBLE movie. It never should have been green lit, let alone hit wide release. It’s often lumped in with other Brat Pack pics, thanks to the presence of Andrew McCarthy and James Spader, but it really should be categorized separately, as a romcom gone wrong. Showroom dummies that come to life after hours should be the stuff of horror movies, or episodes of ‘Doctor Who,’ not fluffy fantasies starring a nearly naked Kim Cattrall. John Hughes wouldn’t have touched this material with a ten-foot pole.
Mike Nichol’s ‘The Graduate’ has one of the most popular soundtracks of all-time. The songs reveal the dynamics of a character, theme, and a moment without the use of dialogue or a backstory, but simply through the lyrics of a Simon and Garfunkel song.
However, female desire occasionally lives in the subtext of ‘Mad Men’ like fire ants fighting to dig themselves out of a mountain of sand. The show’s complex female characters are regularly lusted after, and at times brave leaps are taken into the sea of their cravings. Other times, their behaviors appear inconsistent, and it seems we’ve been cheated out of crucial discoveries that lurk just beneath their surfaces.
More often than not, the victim of violent crime in film and TV is a woman. With your average procedural, almost every episode features a woman who has been raped or one who has been raped and murdered. In real life, women are disproportionately the victims of violent crimes and these stories increase awareness of the physical and psychological aftermath faced by these women, their friends and family and society.
However, by positioning a narrative to begin with the victim already dead and voiceless, she is only that, a victim in the story, never allowed to become a person.
As an amateur cyclist, I was ecstatic to review Half the Road, especially because the obstacles female professional cyclists face (pathetic prize winnings along with the lack of pay equity, sponsorships, media coverage, recognition, and equal opportunity to compete in events) has long galled me. To finally have a documentary that gives the women most affected by this gender discrimination a platform to show their outrage, their passion for cycling, and their absolute right to “half the road” is crucial for letting the world know this problem exists while (hopefully) acting as a catalyst to evolve the governing body for cycling, the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) to accept gender parity as a necessity and the norm.
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.
