The radical notion that women like good movies
This conflict drives Sydney’s arc and establishes a recurring question at the heart of ‘Alias’: can you be both a mother and a spy? … Sydney’s own mother Irina figures powerfully into this conflict. … Yet Irina’s arc throughout ‘Alias’ is the tension between her desire for a relationship with her daughter and her independence as a spy.
Thus, theatre erases the histories of People of Color in Europe by claiming that they use “colorblind casting” instead of just “casting” when they cast a Person of Color in a role that, historically, could have been a person of color. Meanwhile, TV and film European period pieces erase that history by Whitewashing it, not casting and thereby not providing employment to, or visibility and representation of, actors who are People of Color at all.
He is soft. He is round. He is squishy and loving and completely without pretense. There is no guarding wall around his heart, no desire to compete with other boys, no need to be seen as “cool” or “tough” or “edgy,” and no compulsion to become anything other than what he already is because he knows that “what he already is” has value.
And therein lies what makes the show such a wonderful example of fat positivity and feminism—Rae is, per her own description, mad and fat, but it takes less than a single episode to make it abundantly clear that she is so much more than that.
In a close-up Sarah takes a piece of a (year-old) cookie that is trapped deep in the car seat and puts it in her mouth, like a communion wafer: she closes her eyes and, for the first time since before her son went missing, we see her face smooth, for a moment, into bliss. The only other time we see her free from tension and sorrow, is when, in another stunning shot, this one on a rooftop, she states with great confidence, “My son is alive.”
When looked at as a trilogy, the ‘Taken’ films are all about Bryan’s relationship with his daughter as she becomes a woman and he is no longer sure how to relate to her. It’s a common real life situation writ large, and a wholly unexpected through-line for an action franchise.
‘Working Girl’ is a product of its time, when feminism meant a white lady achieving all the power and success normally reserved for white men. And what’s worse, the antifeminist backlash of the 1980s is paradoxically woven throughout. See, Tess isn’t like the other women who’ve made it in business, she’s a “real woman.”
“Why do you want to see a movie that looks depressing?” I asked, trying to persuade her to watch something more entertaining. In reality, what I wanted to say was “Look, I don’t want to re-live Aunt Grace onscreen.” I eventually did say that out loud as we walked into a theater full of people that looked my mother’s age and older. I did a double take. I could not believe there was no one else there my age or younger inside the theater.
While Rory struggled with the myriad of concerns afforded to a main character: her love life, her future, her friendships and family, Lane’s biggest conflict was always her overbearing, uber-religious mother and to a lesser degree, her own Korean heritage. Being Korean is never posed as a positive thing for Lane, it is only a marker of difference.
Pahuja sees the film as going beyond the issues of women’s rights; according to her, the film is about India, and what’s happening there, and the fear about the future as the culture of the country goes through extreme changes. She adds that, through the film, she would like to showcase the kind of “hatred being taught in the camps in the guise of patriotism.”
At its heart, ‘Ouran’ is about gender and, for better or worse, how it is perceived and performed. Though often praised and adored for its challenges to heteronormativity and gender roles through its range of characters, especially its protagonist, it ends up reinforcing heteronormativity and the gender binary to a large extent.
Though based in downtown Chicago, there is a paucity of people of color in the show, and those who do make appearances seem to be present for only short amounts of time, save for one: Kalinda Sharma. She is an independent private investigator for the firm Lockhart and Gardner, and is a supporting character in the series’ narrative. Played by actress Archie Panjabi, the role of Kalinda Sharma is one that is groundbreaking in terms of thinking about queer South Asian bodies onscreen in the American imaginary.
