The radical notion that women like good movies
The HBO series ‘Looking,’ which focuses on the lives of gay men (co-created by the gay writer-director Andrew Haigh who made the art-house film ‘Weekend’; two of the main cast members, including the lead, are also out gay men) occupies a ground somewhere in between, in which women do exist, though only in supporting roles–but those roles are cast and, written with an acuity that transcends their brief time onscreen.
But this to me is the part we should pay attention to. When we don’t get to be headstrong, sexy scientists with daddy issues, we’re locked away. Because evidently we’re worth a lot, which while flattering, also insinuates that we are prizes that can be traded, bought, or stolen. In any film of the above mentioned genres, it’s safe to assume that at some point, the concerned wife, sexy girlfriend, or charming daughter will be kidnapped. When the body is used as a bargaining chip, the images that flood our minds are women tied to chairs, kidnappers holding phones to our crying faces, and makeshifts rag gags in our mouths.
My entry point to this area is my interest in creating media that highlights women of color, queer people, its intersection, and other types of characters not often seen on screen. People who aren’t lawyers or in advertising. People who wear the same sweater more than once. People who don’t fit into prefab boxes. My conviction about the need for more diverse content won’t ever falter, but hearing truths from women working in the field is, unfortunately, a downer. While representation of women remains a glaring issue, it’s in the creation of stories and characters where we continue to see problems.
I’m a 90s kid, and I can vividly remember watching Disney’s ‘Heavy Weights’ (Steven Brill, 1995) and cracking up over Ben Stiller’s performance as the deranged Tony Perkis. Stiller’s hysterical role as Perkis is clearly an early preface to his infamous role as White Goodman in ‘Dodgeball’ (Rawson Marshall Thurber, 2004), a film that contains the same elements of fat-shaming and the subversive power of owning your own happiness. Brill’s film examines fat culture and American boyhood, a theme I don’t think we see enough in mainstream film today (more recently, see ‘The Kings of Summer’ (Jordan Vogt-Roberts, 2013)).
Check out what we’ve been reading this week–and let us know what you’ve been reading/writing in the comments!
The first season of Showtime’s ‘Masters of Sex’ concluded in December last year. The show was well-received, both critically and popularly, and it has been great to see series find its stride over the course of the season. It would have been devastatingly easy for a show that is ostensibly about the study of female sexuality to turn into a series that highlights white male gate-keepers, however Masters of Sex has managed to avoid this pitfall admirably. Michelle Ashford, the show-runner, put together a largely female writing staff, seemingly as a result the show has some of the best, most fully realized, three-dimensional female characters on television today. Below are some of the things that I have personally found to be highlights of the season.
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.
What disappointed me most, I think, was that Black Swan could easily have been a progressive film with a positive, young woman-centered journey out of repression at its center. It could have recouped that gender-centric childhood ballerina dream of so many little girls into a message about determination, hard work, personal strength, and emotional growth. Instead, Darren Aronofsy has produced an Oscar-winning horror film. That’s right: I said HORROR. While that might seem like a stretch, it seems clear to me that the horror I refer to is the possibility of changing an age-old story. The horror of Black Swan is the absolutely terrifying idea that a young woman might make it through the difficult process of maturation, develop a healthy, multi-faceted sexuality, and be successful at her chosen career at the same time.
I have a thing for creepy/taboo relationships in fiction. All I had to hear was “baby obsession” and I was sold on The Truth About Emanuel. I’m also familiar with Kaya Scodelario from her Skins years and I was curious to find out if she had range beyond troubled teen queen. On that front I was a bit underwhelmed. Thankfully, the true focus of the story extended far beyond her.
Check out all of the Women & Gender in Cult Films & B-Movies Theme Week posts here!
Consistently, then, femininity in men is dangerous. It may be actively dangerous, as in Uncle Monty, who assaults Marwood whilst in near-drag, or passively dangerous, in that it makes the feminine man a target for harassment, as in the lout at the pub who calls Marwood a perfumed ponce. Ultimately, it is dangerous because it marks the other, and to be other is to be in danger.
Let’s face it: many of us feminists will pay lip service to sex workers’ rights while at the same time hold within us a mess of conflicting feelings around the subject. In fact, many of us are probably a bit more repressed about sex than we’d care to admit. The idea that there are women who voluntarily seek out such work has long been a feminist conundrum. But perhaps the bigger problem is the paternalistic impulse of feminists trying to rescue sex workers. Jill Soloway, the writer and director of Afternoon Delight knows this all too well. As she says in an interview about the film, “It’s not just about rescue. If you’re into rescue go rescue the garment workers. It’s about amping up your own relationship to your own shame around sex.”
