She’s Possessed, Baby, Possessed!

When Phoebe is taken over by the deadly sin lust in “Sin Francisco,” she sexually assaults her professor and has sex with a policeman on the job, while Piper dances on her bar during her high school reunion when she’s possessed by an evil spirit. And almost all the evil women in the show are sexualized: the succubus, shapeshifter Kaia, the Stillman sisters in “The Power of Three Blondes,” the seer Kyra, etc.

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This guest post by Scarlett Harris appears as part of our theme week on Demon and Spirit Possession.

It seemed like one Halliwell sister or another was possessed by demonic forces every week on Charmed.

There was Phoebe and the Woogeyman, the Banshee and the ghosts of Lulu and Grams, as well as Cole’s demonic spawn; Piper was possessed by the evil spirit of Terra in “Coyote Piper,” as well as the Valkyries and Hindu goddess Shakti (who ever said possession had to be evil?); Paige was overcome by her boyfriend Richard’s dead fiancée Olivia’s ghost (phew!), the Evil Enchantress from her childhood fairytale fantasies, and by a witch doctor’s voodoo magic; while Prue gets turned into a fairy, an empath and embodies the deadly sin, pride. Not to mention all manner of innocents who get taken over—mostly—by evil.

It also seemed like whenever a possession occurred, the sisters’ clothing went the way of Prue in season 3’s “Look Who’s Barking”: to the dogs. While the Charmed Ones’ sartorial choices were minimal at the best of times (perhaps a side effect of living in one of the most sexually progressive cities in the world, San Francisco) this is not necessarily done with the male gaze in mind.

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Being a show that focused on women’s lives, Charmed was screened on the WB network to a primarily young female audience, many of them raised by second-wave mothers. Stereotypes tell us that these young women were probably brought up to believe in free love and the burning of the bra, both of which the Halliwell sisters certainly subscribed to. And in the ’90s, “girl power” and “having it all” were the terms du jour which Charmed played in to. If you believe it shouldn’t matter what you look like to be able to do your job, Charmed offered that up in spades: the Charmed Ones could kick (mostly male) bad guys’ butts and look like they were heading to the club doing it. (Oftentimes they were, as Piper owned the club, P3.)

The episode “Blinded by the Whitelighter” explicitly addresses this lack of practicality in the Halliwell Manor’s presumably shared wardrobe: Natalie, Leo’s whitelighter colleague, puts the sisters through boot camp, which includes a demon-fighting makeunder with appropriate support for both their ankles and their breasts.

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But back to possession. Charmed is not the first piece of pop culture to sexualize possession. Jennifer’s Body, Ghostbusters, and the modern remake of The Exorcist come to mind, whilst io9 rounds up another seven films that do much the same. This is probably because sexuality, specifically a woman in charge of her sexuality, is deemed evil or, at the very least, uncouth. We see it when it comes to famous women, such as Rihanna, Miley Cyrus, and even Beyoncé’s recent self-titled musical ode to married sex, and Charmed is no exception. When Phoebe is taken over by the deadly sin lust in “Sin Francisco,” she sexually assaults her professor and has sex with a policeman on the job, while Piper dances on her bar during her high school reunion when she’s possessed by an evil spirit. And almost all the evil women in the show are sexualized: the succubus, shapeshifter Kaia, the Stillman sisters in “The Power of Three Blondes,” the seer Kyra, etc. We seldom see the same—both in Charmed and pop culture at large—when men are on the receiving end of possession. It’s more likely to be framed in humorous or serious ways, such as when Leo succumbs to the sin of sloth or Cole’s numerous evil turns. Even when the spirits that possess the sisters aren’t evil per se, the Halliwells are still scantily clad; take, for example, Phoebe as a mermaid, genie, fairytale character, Lady Godiva, Mata Hari… so pretty much Phoebe in general! The show does take pains, though, to show the Charmed Ones being sexy and sexual in their normal lives, not just as the means to an end of an evil plan (in “The Devil’s Music,” for example) or becoming part of that evil plan themselves. It seldom shames them for their desires, either.

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While Charmed doesn’t always get it right when it comes to sex, gender politics and morality, it makes an effort to show the sisters four in all elements of their lives, including sex. Maybe the myriad “sexy possessions” the Charmed Ones succumb to are part of a wider “protest statement” of the objectification of women? We can dream.

 


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Scarlett Harris is a Melbourne, Australia-based freelance writer and blogger at The Scarlett Woman, where she muses about feminism, social issues, and pop culture. You can follow her on Twitter.

 

Direct from Hell: ‘Paranormal Activity’ and the Demonic Gaze

Micah’s patriarchal control through the first half of the film is omnipresent as he mocks, coerces and films his girlfriend’s descent into possession. The second half of the film deals with the demon taking control of the film. Micah and Katie are too weak to properly deal with the situation and they lose sight of their safety. The audience see what the demon wants them to see; it is in control of not only Katie’s mind and body, but also what the audience is exposed to, creating an unstable and terrifying experience.

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This guest post by Alexandra West appears as part of our theme week on Demon and Spirit Possession.

Oren Peli’s Paranormal Activity became a worldwide sensation and one of the most profitable films ever made. Shot in 2007 but not officially released until 2009, the independent film made its mark on filmgoers and helped popularize the found footage horror format which began with the likes of Cannibal Holocaust (1980) and The Blair Witch Project (1999). After filming was completed, director Oren Peli had it tour the festival circuit where it generated a fair amount of buzz. Universal acquired it and the film languished in development hell. There were talks of a full-on remake doing away with the found-footage aspect and turning it into a traditional narrative with celebrities starring. But it would be Steven Spielberg who saw the film while Universal and Dreamworks were figuring out what to do with it and he suggested leaving it as it was, but re-film the ending so that it was open-ended and sequel ready.

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The film opens with a couple, Micah (Micah Sloat) and Katie (Katie Featherston) who live together and are “engaged to be engaged”. Strange things have been happening in the house so Micah decides to take control over the situation and buy a camera to capture the events and determine the culprit. Katie invites a psychic over and tells him things like this have been happening to her since she was little. Things begin to escalate with the cameras capturing not only supernatural occurrences but also the deterioration of Micah and Katie’s relationship. Then the demon takes control.

In Laura Mulvey’s ground-breaking essay “Visual Pleasure in Narrative Cinema,” she posited the idea of the “male gaze.” Looking closely at cinema from the 1930 through 1960s, Mulvey traces a pattern of fetishizing the female body, the camera examining and idolizing it which created an objectification of the body engendering the gaze as decidedly male.  This creates the idea of woman as object rather than a human being with her own thoughts, concerns and motives. She is held captive by male desire. As Mulvey writes, “The alternative is the thrill that comes from leaving the past behind without rejecting it, transcending outworn or oppressive forms or daring to break with normal pleasurable expectations in order to conceive a new language of desire.” Mulvey’s essay was published in 1975 and has gone on to become a staple of film studies course and film criticism.

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Paranormal Activity, for the first half, is completely submerged in the male gaze. Micah’s camera picks up what he wants to see and what he demands of his only consistent participant, Katie. As the film begins, the unexplained incidents–which are the catalyst for Micah purchasing the camera–are dispersed with the couple’s normal life; Katie is annoyed at Micah following her around and filming her, Micah goads Katie for sex and brags about it and in one instance, when Katie is in the washroom, she screams. Micah runs for the door, pauses, returns to get the camera, and then runs to check on Katie. Katie, having been scared by a large spider in this case, surmises that Micah went and got the camera before helping her. His need to capture all the events that pass that could explain away Katie’s fear is surpassing his instinct to actually help her.

The tone of the film begins to shift when Katie invites a psychic over to help. Katie says this isn’t the first time this has happened to her as she was visited by something as a child and she’s worried that it’s all happening again. Micah continually scoffs at the psychic, making it clear that he’s threatened by his girlfriend turning to someone else for help rather than him. The psychic agrees with Katie that something is going on and that it has been following Katie for all these year. He fears that it is demonic, meaning it wants to possess Katie. The psychic also warns that constant filming and playing with this entity is inviting it in, encouraging it to enter their world. He gives Katie the number of a demonologist and tells her to get in contact with him. While Katie feels she finally has answers, Micah convinces her that it’s nothing he can’t figure out. Katie agrees to forgo calling the demonologist for the time being.

Some of Paranormal Activity’s most iconic scenes are of the couple sleeping.  Micah sets the camera on a tripod and the film shows us a time-lapse version of them sleeping. The first few nights reveal small occurrences such as the door to the bedroom moving slightly though no windows in the house are open. Micah pores over the footage, reveling in the fact that he’s onto something and catching it all on camera.

The film takes a stark turn. Katie is sleeping less and less, weakening her and putting a strain on her and Micah’s relationship. They decide to go out one night. Before they leave, Micah sets up a Ouija board to try and communicate with the entity. Katie walks in on him setting it up and angrily tells him that this is exactly what the psychic told them not to do. As she storms off, Micah follows, leaving the camera filming the Ouija board. The camera captures the Ouija board moving on its own and eventually bursting into flames which extinguish on their own. The events escalate with Katie being pulled out of bed by an unseen force and bite marks appearing on her back. Micah, determined to make things right, decides to get them out of the house though they have been told the demon will follow. Before they leave, Katie tells him that they should stay. Micah, frustrated, says fine, leaving the camera behind to catch an eerie grin on Katie’s face. On the final night Katie gets up from bed, goes downstairs and screams. Micah runs to help her and several loud thumps are heard. Katie returns to their bedroom, hurls Micah’s body at the camera crawling toward the camera and in the final moments of the film, her face morphs into something demon-like. The epilogue text states that Micah’s body was found a few days later and that Katie is still missing.

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The gaze of the film is subverted from the first night they film themselves sleeping. It is the demon’s entrance into their lives. Though Katie says she experienced something similar as a child, Micah’s involvement causes it to grow worse. The film becomes terrifying because the audience knows Micah is no longer in control. As he says in the film, “I’ve been doing my research. I’m taking care of this. Nobody comes in my house, fucks with my girlfriend, and gets away with it.” Micah’s insistence on controlling the situation is precisely what allows it to escalate. Rather than heed the psychic’s warning, Katie trusts Micah and leaves herself open and vulnerable to the external entity. The film takes a decisive turn after the Ouija board scene. The demon has become more powerful and is wreaking havoc on their lives. No longer are we viewing this world through Micah’s male gaze, we are viewing it through a demonic gaze. The biggest similarity between Micah’s gaze and the demonic gaze is that Katie is the subject. She is either being followed by Micah’s camera or the demon. The only time she takes control of the narrative, first by getting Micah to stay in the house and then by killing him, is when she is possessed.

Mulvey posited that something radical must shift in film to escape the dominant male gaze toward a more equalized gaze. While the film industry’s awareness of the lack of complicated female characters, female directors, and writers is growing there is still work to be done. Paranormal Activity is a fascinating examination of this shift, though not ultimately a successful one. Micah’s patriarchal control through the first half of the film is omnipresent as he mocks, coerces and films his girlfriend’s descent into possession. The second half of the film deals with the demon taking control of the film. Micah and Katie are too weak to properly deal with the situation and they lose sight of their safety. The audience see what the demon wants them to see; it is in control of not only Katie’s mind and body, but also what the audience is exposed to, creating an unstable and terrifying experience.

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Katie’s only real power comes when she is possessed. Because Micah isolated them, he has no one to protect him. Katie who ultimately kills him and throws his body into a camera knocking it over and creating a Dutch Angle within the film and skewing the look and feel of the night-vision sleeping arrangement that the audience has become so used to throughout the film, signalling the dawn of something new that we are perhaps not ready to see quite yet. Katie’s (or what used to be Katie) greatest act of defiance is escaping the camera view. In the final moment of the film, “Katie” lunges at the camera and it goes black before the final text appears. All the audience knows is that she is gone and has escaped the camera’s gaze. It is no longer able to monitor her.

Paranormal Activity achieved a shift  by mocking Micah’s machismo. His comments and actions when he is control fail to protect either of them. Film fans recognize the trope in horror films of not heeding direct warnings, which leads characters to danger. Micah’s male gaze is so out of control that he convinces Katie to ignore the help they have been given until it is too late. His hyper-masculinity is so performative that the audience can’t help but be weary of him and his intentions. Micah partially succeeded in his goal which was finding out the cause of the disturbances but failed because the answer was only revealed because the demon let it.

 


Alexandra West is a freelance horror journalist and playwright who lives, works, and survives in Toronto. Her work has appeared in the Toronto Star, Rue Morgue, Post City Magazine and Offscreen Film Journal. She is a regular contributor to Famous Monsters of Filmland and a columnist forDiabolique with “The Devil Made Us Watch It.” In December 2012, West co-founded the Faculty of Horror podcast with fellow writer Andrea Subissati, which explores the analytical side of horror films and the darkest recesses of academia.

The Strangeness of (Surrogate) Motherhood in ‘The Innocents’

Part of what makes the excellent 1961 film ‘The Innocents’ different is the main character, the governess, Miss Giddens (played by Deborah Kerr), is thrust into a parental role suddenly. We see her at the beginning in an interview with the children’s uncle, a handsome playboy (played by Michael Redgrave, Vanessa’s father) who tells her he spends much of his time traveling and the rest in his home in London. When he offers her the job at his country estate, he takes her hand (a bold move for the Victorian era, when the film takes place) and asks if she is ready to take full responsibility for the children, because he doesn’t want to be disturbed during his adventures in London and abroad.

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This post by staff writer Ren Jender appears as part of our theme week on Demon and Spirit Possession.

I’m reluctant to tell people that I love a good horror film for many reasons, not the least of which is most horror films seem determined to insult the intelligence of their audiences. In the sub-genre of the “evil or possessed child” horror movie we again and again see parent characters who figure out the true nature of their children at least an hour after the audience has in The Omen, The Bad Seed, and The Exorcist. Parents in horror films go to ridiculous lengths to dismiss the strange goings-on they observe–and often pay a steep price for doing so.

Part of what makes the excellent 1961 film The Innocents different is the main character, the governess, Miss Giddens (played by Deborah Kerr), is thrust into a parental role suddenly. We see her at the beginning in an interview with the children’s uncle, a handsome playboy (played by Michael Redgrave, Vanessa’s father) who tells her he spends much of his time traveling and the rest in his home in London. When he offers her the job at his country estate, he takes her hand (a bold move for the Victorian era, when the film takes place) and asks if she is ready to take full responsibility for the children, because he doesn’t want to be disturbed during his adventures in London and abroad.  The uncle’s “proposal” is an only slightly more extreme version of the “proposal” most women accepted both in the time when the film takes place and when it was filmed: that their children will be financed by the man of the house in exchange for the children’s care and upbringing to be the “woman’s work.” Miss Giddens accepts without hesitation.

The Innocents has an unusual pedigree for a horror film. It was directed by Jack Clayton (whose previous film, Room At The Top, won an Academy Award for Simone Signoret) and written by William Archibald (based on his stage play, which in turn was based on a Henry James novel,  The Turn of the Screw) with help from Truman Capote (author of In Cold Blood) and John Mortimer (creator of Rumpole of the Bailey) . The velvety black and white cinematography is by Freddie Francis (who went on to work with David Lynch).

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Miss Giddens, Miles, and Flora

Most of the film has a Gothic setting: a big, creaky, isolated house and its shadowy garden full of statues (including a cherub hidden under overgrown bushes from whose mouth we see, in closeup, a beetle emerge). But the children, Flora (Pamela Franklin) and Miles (Martin Stephens), are realistically children, not obvious incarnations of evil. They’re talkative and charming with Miss Giddens. They elicit her suspicion only gradually and with typical children’s behavior: pretending not to hear the questions they don’t wish to answer (or saying “I don’t remember”) and staring off into the distance for no reason. They whisper to each other and laugh as the adults look on. They’re unknowingly cruel as when Flora sticks her pet tortoise in the pond and nearly drowns the poor animal. Like the children from Edward Gorey illustrations they’re fascinated with the morbid: Flora watches a spider eat a butterfly and Miles recites a poem about a return from the grave. They can be strangely unaffected by what is happening around them as when Miles, while we hear his sister screaming in another room, warms his hands in front of the fire and smiles sweetly at Miss Giddens. He’s also unexpectedly observant as when he surmises that Miss Giddens was hired so their uncle wouldn’t have to be bothered with raising him and his sister.

When the film was first released, New Yorker critic Pauline Kael wrote that the ghosts in The Innocents were the best she’d seen in a movie. We spot Miss Jessel, the children’s old governess (who was particularly close to Flora) several times, always dressed in black–walking along a dark hallway, standing in the distant reeds near the pond in which she drowned, and sobbing at the schoolroom desk, but we never get a good look at her face. Quint, Miss Jessel’s abusive lover, who was also Miles’ companion, first appears from a distance among the cooing doves on top of a tower, the combination of fog and sun making him difficult for Miss Giddens to discern. She sees his face clearly only after she has found his picture in the music box (which plays the song the film opens with, the melody of which Flora also hums as Miss Jessel’s ghost looks on). Miss Giddens, at first not realizing she has seen a ghost describes him to the housekeeper, Mrs. Grose (Megs Jenkins) who asks, “Would you say he was very handsome?”

Miss Giddens answers, “Yes, yes, handsome, handsome but obscene.” When she finds out he died, she presses Mrs. Grose to tell her all the details of the relationship of Miss Jessel and Quint, including the sexual ones, and the exact circumstances of each of their deaths.

Searching for the truth, Kerr, in huge skirts with tight, high-necked bodices, floats along the halls and grounds. Her Miss Giddens is at turns intimidating and anxious, the type of woman men label either “overemotional” or “repressed.” This role suits Kerr’s presence like few others did–as years later a similar lead role in The Others  would suit Nicole Kidman–and makes me wonder if Meryl Streep has ever considered starring in a horror movie. Kerr at that time had been a movie star for 20 years–when Mrs. Grose refers to her as “young” I wanted to correct her–but the child actors are the scene stealers here: Pamela Franklin (who would later play opposite Maggie Smith in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie) makes Flora’s descent into screaming, raging fits–which begins with the common childhood chant, “I hate you. I hate you. I hate you,” all the more disturbing by the contrast of her sunny, dreamy friendliness in the first part of the film. Martin Stephens (who was also in Village of the Damned) with his wide apart eyes and heart shaped face resembles the then-first-lady Jackie Kennedy and plays Miles with just the right mix of a child’s vulnerability and an adult’s knowingness. When he finds out all the servants have left the house he brings great timing to his line to Miss Giddens, “Well, you’re afraid, and perhaps you made them so.”

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Miles and Miss Giddens

Though Miles is a pre-pubescent boy, he and Miss Giddens’ relationship has, from the beginning, flirtatious overtones; when they first meet he gives her flowers and tells her she is too pretty to be a governess. This bond echoes that between some mothers and sons, especially those mothers who don’t get much attention from adults. Later the relationship begins to turn creepy. Miss Giddens is taken aback when Miles gives her a long, inappropriate kiss goodnight (which inspired the Kate Bush song, “The Infant Kiss“) but opts to stay with him–alone–in order to “save” him. Miles also gives off a “queer kid” vibe, because of his closeness to Miss Giddens and his sister, as well as his line about being “different from the other boys” at the boarding school which expelled him.

In a climactic scene, Miss Giddens tells Miles, “My father taught me to love people and help them. Help them even if they refused my help. Even if it hurt them sometimes,” which could also be a mother’s pledge to a child. But is Miss Giddens helping? She believes the spirits of Miss Jessel and Quint are communing through the children. Both Flora and Miles do have shockingly adult outbursts. Miles calls Miss Giddens, “A damned hussy, a damned dirty-minded hag” to show how little has changed in denouncing women: now the slurs would be “fucking slut” and “ugly bitch” but the meaning is the same. Still, all children at one time or another surprise their parents with what comes out of their mouths (even when, like Miles, they express regret afterward). When Miss Giddens eggs on the children to tell her they see the ghosts they tell her she’s insane: that she’s the only one who can see them. In horror movies women are often a sobbing mess for much of the film, but Kerr soldiers through the scares, clear-eyed, until the end when her tears (like that of Kidman in The Others) are truly earned.

Enjoy this cheese-tastic trailer for the film from 1961 but know that it has only a passing resemblance to the film itself.

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Ren Jender is a queer writer-performer/producer putting a film together. Her writing. besides appearing every week on Bitch Flicks, has also been published in The Toast, RH Reality Check, xoJane and the Feminist Wire. You can follow her on Twitter @renjender

‘Twin Peaks’ Mysticism Won’t Save You From the Patriarchy

I do believe that Lynch and Frost meant to use BOB as “the evil that men do” and as a means to understand family violence and abuse, but they jump around the issue so much that it only reflects uncertainty. The show’s inability to hold evil men responsible for their actions is too reminiscent of our own society. As soon as we answer “Who Killed Laura Palmer?” the show does its best to rebury the ugly truth that we so struggled to uncover. After that it fully commits to understanding the mythos behind it. This is troubling to me.

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This guest post by Rhianna Shaheen appears as part of our theme week on Demon and Spirit Possession.

(MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD!)

I have a Twin Peaks problem. I love Twin Peaks (1990-1991). In college, I was so obsessed with the show that I animated a Saul Bass-inspired titles sequence and wrote a spec script for my screenwriting class. However, as I became a better feminist, I awoke from my stupor of admiration for the show. I began to question the dead girl trope and ask myself, what is so funny about the sexual abuse and torture of an adolescent girl? I’ll admit I was thrilled about its announced return in 2016, but I wonder if a continued story will do more harm than good. Will the show continue to pull the demonic possession card when it comes to violence against women?

In the TV series, Special Agent Dale Cooper first encounters the evil spirit BOB in a dream. However, no one seems to see BOB in real life except for Sarah Palmer, who becomes increasingly unstable and otherworldly after her daughter’s murder.  Much of this is due to her terrifying visions of BOB as well as her husband’s recent, strange antics. When Maddy Ferguson, Laura’s lookalike cousin, comes to support the Palmer family she sees similar visions of BOB in the house.

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In the hunt for Laura Palmer’s killer, the local Sheriff’s Department is absolutely useless. As soon as Agent Cooper turns them on to Tibetan method and Dream Logic, all serious detective work goes out the door.  It also doesn’t help that the town chooses to project this crisis outside of “decent” society. According to Sheriff Truman:

“There’s a sort of evil out there. Something very, very strange in these old woods. Call it what you want. A darkness, a presence. It takes many forms but…it’s been out there for as long as anyone can remember and we’ve always been here to fight it.”

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But this old evil is within the town as well as outside of it. The show’s “quirky allure” tricks viewers into believing that Twin Peaks is different. That some places remain untouched by patriarchal evil. When we discover that it was Leland Palmer we are shocked.  Leland’s mirrored reflection of BOB exposes the threat as one within the confines of the domestic space.  It is patriarchy passing itself off as the loving and benign father of the nuclear family.

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But what is even more shocking is that an entire community allows this to happen. In the prequel film, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992) we follow Laura Palmer through the final seven days of her life. Unlike the series, Laura has a voice here. We get to see her walking, talking, and acting like a teenager. When pages from her secret diary go missing she confides in her friend Harold that “[BOB] has been having [her] since [she] was 12” and “wants to be [her], or he’ll kill [her].” Harold does not believe her. It’s an extremely painful scene, because not only do we know she will die, but we know that many real-life victims of childhood abuse are often not believed either.

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Days before her death, Laura finally discovers that it is her father. At dinner, Leland torments his daughter’s dirty hands and questions her about her “lovers.” Leland then pinches his daughter’s cheek. The sheer look of horror on Laura’s face is heartbreaking as she looks into the eyes of her abuser. Her mother, Sarah All-I-Can-Do-Is-Scream Palmer, tells her husband to stop, saying, “She doesn’t like that.” He replies, “How do you know what she likes?” It’s absolutely chilling, but even then the mother remains ignorant. How can everyone be so clueless?

As viewers, the warning signs seem obvious. The only way Laura can cope with this parasitic spirit is through copious amounts of cocaine and promiscuous sex with strange, older men. Why would a Homecoming queen who volunteered with Meals on Wheels, and tutored disabled Johnny, act this way?  Well, to anyone schooled in recognizing sexual abuse the answer seems obvious. As many as two-thirds of all drug addicts reported that they experienced some sort of childhood abuse. The link between prostitution and incest or sexual abuse has also long been established.

Now this brings us to the question: Who’s at fault for Laura Palmer’s murder?  Was it poor Leland or the demon that possessed him?

Moments before his death, Leland confesses his guilt to Agent Cooper:

“Oh God! Laura! I killed her. Oh my God, I killed my daughter. I didn’t know. Forgive me. Oh God. I was just a boy. I saw him in my dream. He said he wanted to play. He opened me and I invited him and he came inside me.”

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With fire sprinkler water pouring over him, Leland seems cleansed of his sins. Lynch paints a pretty sympathetic portrait of Leland. He is cursed and tormented rather than murderous and abusive. He is blameless for his actions. Leland gets to go “into the light” while Laura is condemned to the purgatory of the Black Lodge.

In Diane Hume George’s essay Lynching Women: A Feminist Reading of Twin Peaks she perfectly discusses the problem with Leland’s poignant ending:

“We are instructed regarding how to situate our sympathies and experience our sense of justice. But this is just another clever use of the simplistic formula by which lascivious misogyny is presented in loving detail, […] scapegoating offenders whose punishment casts off the guilt that belongs to an entire culture ethos. And that ethos, both pornographic and thanatopic, not only goes free. It gets validated.”

Things become even more fucked up after Leland’s funeral where people remember him as a victim. Agent Cooper gives Mrs. Palmer some words of comfort:

“Sarah. I think it might help to teII you what happened just before LeIand died. It’s hard to realize here [points to her head] and here [points to her heart] what has transpired. Your husband went so far as to drug you to keep his actions secret. But before he died, LeIand confronted the horror of what he had done to Laura and agonized over the pain he had caused you. LeIand died at peace.”

I’m sorry, but death does not absolve you. Horrible people die and somehow we’re supposed to forget the history of horrible things they have done? We all die. This does not erase our actions, even if you’re a white cis male.

For a minute, let’s forget that BOB is a thing (ESPECIALLY when you consider that most of the town has no knowledge of these spirits and how their worlds work). These people are celebrating the memory of Leland Palmer after (I assume) finding out that he murdered and raped his own daughter (along with Maddy Ferguson and Teresa Banks). Excuse me, is anyone else bothered by how much denial these people are in?

Like many fans, I turned a blind eye, preferring to seek refuge in the myth of Killer BOB and the Black Lodge rather than identify the clear signs of abuse in front of me. As Cooper says: “Harry, is it easier to believe a man would rape and murder his own daughter? Any more comforting?”

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While I no longer indulge the BOB theory, I do read BOB as patriarchal oppression. Its truth is one that women (Laura, Maddy, Sarah) see and know too well. Cooper only solves the mystery when he FINALLY believes and listens to a woman. Laura Palmer must whisper in his ear, “My father killed me” for him to finally understand.

M.C. Blakeman writes:

“While he may ultimately let Leland off the hook by claiming he was “possessed” by the paranormal “Bob” the show’s resident evil force, the fact remains that the women of Twin Peaks and of the United States are in more danger from their fathers, husbands and lovers than from maniacal strangers.” 

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I do believe that Lynch and Frost meant to use BOB as “the evil that men do” and as a means to understand family violence and abuse, but they jump around the issue so much that it only reflects uncertainty. The show’s inability to hold evil men responsible for their actions is too reminiscent of our own society. As soon as we answer “Who Killed Laura Palmer?” the show does its best to rebury the ugly truth that we so struggled to uncover. After that it fully commits to understanding the mythos behind it.  This is troubling to me. As one of the most influential shows on television, Twin Peaks created a narrative formula that will forever shape the way this country looks at rape and child abuse. It’s important that as viewers we constantly question this, even if it is disguised as harmless, intellectual programming.

 


Rhianna Shaheen is a recent graduate from Bryn Mawr College with a BA in Fine Arts and Minor in Film Studies and Art History. Check her out on twitter!

‘Demons:’ Finding New Language for an Old Cult Classic

I am a horror fan and most times I root for the monster. There, I said it. I root for what should be the feared. The dreaded Other. With all the loaded symbolism that the horror genre represents (fear of sex, fear of the unknown, fear of death and decay, xenophobia etc), I find it cathartic and often liberating to root for the disruption of life as we know it. I love watching humans deal with chaotic change.

Movie Poster of "Demons"
Movie Poster of Demons

Confession.

I am a horror fan and most times I root for the monster. There, I said it. I root for what should be the feared. The dreaded Other. With all the loaded symbolism that the horror genre represents (fear of sex, fear of the unknown, fear of death and decay, xenophobia etc), I find it cathartic and often liberating to root for the disruption of life as we know it. I love watching humans deal with chaotic change.

Chaotic change occurred for Hollywood in the 1980s when pretty much everyone I knew owned a VCR player and collected VHS tapes. People could lounge in the comfort of their own homes for just $1 (I remember paying that the first time I rented a tape at the neighborhood video store, before chain retailers like Blockbuster and Hollywood Video existed). For a junior high kid, this was cinema gluttony on the highest order. I could practically watch anything as many times as I wanted in my pajamas eating chocolate pudding and drinking Dr Pepper.

Although I was exposed to Italian giallo films early on at the drive-in while in grade school with classics like Suspiria, my viewing of the film Demons in the comfort of my living room introduced me to a whole new level of crazy Euro-gore. It also gave me a sneak peek of an actress who would later become a good friend in my adult years.

Demons (1985) has all the elements that make a great Euro-gore campy flick: tons of unearthly bodily fluids, unholy creatures ripping out of humans, bloody demonic possession, supernatural Nostradamus predictions, and a movie theater built on top of a gateway to hell. Classic Italian horror has no chill and will throw in everything and the kitchen sink. The actors are gorgeous and the movie has the quintessential throbbing 80s soundtrack with, for goodness sakes, Billy Idol’s “White Wedding” pumping the action along. Microwave popcorn heaven. The movie plot was ripe for a horror cinefile like myself.

Cheryl (Natasha Hovey) and Kathy (Paula Cozzo) arrive at the theater.
Cheryl (Natasha Hovey) and Kathy (Paula Cozzo) arrive at the theater.

 

In a nutshell, Demons follows two college students, Cheryl (Natasha Hovey) and Kathy (Paula Cozzo), as they arrive at an ominous movie theater to see a free screening of an unknown movie. Cheryl was given a flyer in a subway station by mysterious man wearing a silver half-mask that concealed part of his face. Cheryl convinces Kathy to skip classes. In the theater lobby they encounter other movie patrons arriving, including a Black pimp and his two working-girls, one white, the other Black. Rosemary (the Black working-girl) sees a demonic silver mask hanging on a motorcycle display. She playfully puts on the mask only to have it scratch her face and draw blood. This being horror’s obligatory symbolic penetration (orally) of a female character. It’s the catalyst that ignites the evil to come.

 

Rosemary Wears Mask
Rosemary (Geretta Geretta) playfully wears mask that cuts her cheek.

 

Eventually the audience settles in to watch what turns out to be a horror movie (surprise!) about people discovering an ancient book and the same silver mask that Rosemary put on in the theater lobby. Rosemary’s wound starts to bleed again while watching the events unfold onscreen, so she goes to the restroom to staunch the blood flow, which has gotten worse, .. …yikes…it’s turned into squirting yellow puss. She becomes demon possessed and transforms into a hideous, green vomit-spewing supernatural contagion. Shenanigans ensue.

 

Rosemary (Geretta Geretta) becomes possessed.
Rosemary (Geretta Geretta) becomes possessed.

 

What I always found to be a cool element of Demons was the film in the movie foreshadows what is to come for the film audience. And there are moments when the audience senses that this “movie” they are watching is not fiction. Eerily, a demon-possessed character in the theater film actually watches the mounting terror of the audience watching it back. The watchers become the watched. There’s also a subversive moment in the film that I latched onto as a kid, that I still find thrilling as an adult. The character of Rosemary (Geretta Geretta) on the surface plays into the classic stereotypical trope of the hyper-sexualized Black woman (she’s a hooker), and also the tiresome trope (and sad joke) of Black and/or non-white characters always dying first. But in Demons, Rosemary doesn’t die, she becomes transformed into a horrific Other, and takes everyone with her. She could kill people outright, or if she scratched anyone, they would turn into a demon too. I loved that element in the film. If she goes down, everyone goes down. She doesn’t disappear or fade into the background as Black characters often do. Hell, even the scorned Black pimp, Tony (Bobby Rhodes), takes on leadership of a more altruistic kind at one point in the film.

The beauty of revisiting old films that you loved as a youngster is that you get to change your mind about it as an adult. My first go-round with the film, I enjoyed the over-the-top craziness, and was actually excited when the heroine, Cheryl (The Final Girl), gets away with another theater patron, George (Urbano Barberini–The Final Boy) in what was a thrilling escape from the literal bowels of hell inside the possessed theater. But Demons throws in a Michael Jackson Thriller video ending, and has Cheryl break the fourth wall by turning around and showing us she has turned into a demon herself. This twist was foreshadowed by the slow camera pan towards the back of her head. I saw it coming but was thrilled nonetheless. Miss Goody two-shoes doesn’t get away.

But in hindsight, I’m now disappointed with this ending.

As an adult I had the pleasure of reading texts about filmmaking, horror theory, and feminist texts discussing the horror viewership of women and all the subtext that brings. As an adult, I view film with a more critical gaze, looking at context as well as content. Fresh eyes bring fresh views. What bothers me now about Demons that bugged me on the surface as a kid, is that Cheryl and George, the characters we are supposed to root for, start off as equals in the beginning, and end up taking on binary gender roles by the end.

 

Cheryl (Natasha Hovey) and George (Urbano Barberini) sense evil in the film they watch.
Cheryl (Natasha Hovey) and George (Urbano Barberini) sense evil in the film they watch.

 

Cheryl and George are strangers when we meet them at the eerie theater. They are both on neutral gender ground. They both are frightened by the movie that they watch together, and they are both proactive in surviving. By sharing Cheryl’s emotional state, George is feminized in a way, and by sharing George’s active behavior in protecting themselves, Cheryl is given masculine traits. There is a balance. But once their friends are possessed and killed, Cheryl becomes a falling, weepy, girly mess that George has to prod along and save. George changes from clean cut preppy-looking Golden Boy in the beginning, into some Mad Max Samurai Warrior hybrid by the end. He turns into a movie superhero. Cheryl turns into a movie damsel you want to scream at. Patronizing patriarchy wins.

 

Tony the Pimp (Bobby Rhodes) leads other demon possessed theater patrons after more victims.
Tony the Pimp (Bobby Rhodes) leads other demon possessed theater patrons after more victims.

 

There is a moment near the end of the movie where gender balance appears to be restored. The mysterious man who gave away tickets to the evil screening stands atop the theater roof where Cheryl and George have made their way up to. There is a struggle, and both Cheryl and George impale the bad buy’s head through a metal pipe together. Shortly thereafter, we learn Cheryl’s real fate. As an adult, this is the moment that shows a missed opportunity to have the rare Final Girl/Final Boy moment alive and together at the end of the movie. Equally frustrating now is the fact that the narrative followed Cheryl in the beginning, castrated her agency in favor of some random guy, and steals her away at the end. Such a different read from my teenaged-self. But of course I’ve watched thousands of hours of film since then. I now have new language to call out what I couldn’t contextualize back then. However, I still have love for this film.

My favorite part of loving this crazy movie is the fact that many years later, while attending the Sundance Film Festival, I was able to share a townhouse with the actress who played Rosemary, Geretta Geretta. I walked into the townhouse kitchen knocking snow off of my boots, saw Geretta and squealed, “Ohmigod! You were in Demons!” Geretta stared at me and said, “You remember that movie? How old are you?”

Me (Lisa Bolekaja) and Geretta Geretta (my beloved Rosemary) hanging out at our favorite Hollywood Thai spot.
Me (Lisa Bolekaja) and Geretta Geretta (my beloved Rosemary) hanging out at our favorite Hollywood Thai spot.

 

We’ve been friends ever since. I convinced her to start going to horror conventions to show people that women love horror too. Rosemary the Demon is just as iconic as Jason, or Freddy, or Michael. Female horror monsters need to be admired and respected too. And Demons is a cult classic. Geretta agreed.

Who would’ve thought that the demonic monster I was rooting for as a teenager would end up being my friend in real life? But it makes sense though. I love monsters. And they love me too.

 

Geretta Geretta taking my advice and bringing female horror icons to conventions worldwide.
Geretta Geretta taking my advice and bringing female horror icons to conventions worldwide.

Because Being Female is Frightening Enough: #YesAllWomen and ‘The Exorcism of Emily Rose’

In the film a young girl, Emily Rose, perishes following a protracted period of “attack” by demons while under the protective care of Father Moore, a Catholic priest. Female attorney Erin Bruner is chosen to defend Moore against charges of negligent homicide in Emily’s death. Through the two’s connection to the girl throughout the film, each undergoes what I’ve called here a “conversion experience,” as they learn more about the possibility that demons really do exist—demons that can be read to correspond to the challenges that women face in culture every day. Even before the advent of #YesAllWomen, a film like ‘The Exorcism of Emily Rose’ shows us how to overcome skepticism and create a connected community of individuals committed to sharing troublesome experiences in the service of awareness and activism.

Emily possessed
Emily possessed

 

This guest post by Rebecca Willoughby appears as part of our theme week on Demon and Spirit Possession.

Elliot Rodger’s killing spree in Isla Vista, California in May of 2014, incited much controversy, as did the Twitter hashtag #YesAllWomen, which subsequently emerged as a forum for women to share experiences of sexism and misogyny in everyday life.  Yet, attitudes of skepticism persisted: many Twitter users seemed resistant to the idea that ALL women, at one time or another, experienced circumstances and situations that made life difficult, if not downright annoying or even unbearable.

What’s frightening is that some of the most prevalent types of experiences women reported using the hashtag could be considered normal, everyday occurrences. But female Twitter users describe these moments as uncomfortable, and sometimes terrifying. Perhaps this is why it seems useful to examine the hashtag within the context of the horror film, particularly possession films, which tend to emphasize women’s bodies being acted upon by external forces. The use of the supernatural—specifically, the presence of demons— in Scott Derrickson’s The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005) can be illustrative of the horror of #YesAllWomen’s sexist experiences, and the skepticism with which they are sometimes met. The film’s unique combination of courtroom drama and horror film emphasizes its investment in skepticism and seems to allow the film to ask: how can we, as viewers, ever really believe this might be “based on a true story”?

In the film a young girl, Emily Rose, perishes following a protracted period of “attack” by demons while under the protective care of Father Moore, a Catholic priest. Female attorney Erin Bruner is chosen to defend Moore against charges of negligent homicide in Emily’s death. Through the two’s connection to the girl throughout the film, each undergoes what I’ve called here a “conversion experience,” as they learn more about the possibility that demons really do exist—demons that can be read to correspond to the challenges that women face in culture every day. Even before the advent of #YesAllWomen, a film like The Exorcism of Emily Rose shows us how to overcome skepticism and create a connected community of individuals committed to sharing troublesome experiences in the service of awareness and activism.

Skepticism in possession films, or films about [usually female] mental instability certainly isn’t unusual. One of the best examples may come from classical Hollywood, in the form of George Cukor’s 1944 classic, Gaslight, wherein the heroine is convinced by her con-artist husband that she is going crazy, when in fact he is manipulating her environment. Bitch Flicks guest writer Elizabeth Brooks usefully points out that possession films, specifically, often make a point of “gas lighting” female protagonists. While audience members may begin to share the heroine’s perceptions and doubts about her reality, often other characters in possession films are skeptical: the parish priest, the victim’s family, boyfriend, sister, you name it.  Emily Rose and Erin Bruner exemplify an oppressive truth: that violence, misogyny, and sexism experienced by one woman—represented in the film as demonic attacks on Emily—initially divides these two women from any sort of communication concerning those issues. In fact, in the film the two never meet. By the end of the movie, however, Erin’s own trials have linked her physically and emotionally with Emily via several terrifying incidents.

Emily's long walk
Emily’s long walk

 

The first occurrence of otherworldly forces and their attack on Emily look a lot like a rape. Emily is alone in her dorm room at night, smells something burning, and goes to check it out. We see Emily alone at the end of the long hallway, and we’re startled along with her when a door slams at the end of the corridor; she latches it and returns to her room. She gets back into bed, and suddenly her blankets begin to slip off. Indentations appear in her mattress on either side of her body, and she is forced down onto her back.  Her night-shirt is slowly lifted up toward her midriff. As she tries to force it back down, she grapples with an invisible assailant, but her hands are forced to her sides. Then, suddenly the weight is lifted, and she vaults out of bed and onto the floor, screaming. It reads like a rape to me, even if a spiritually-coded one. Weirdly, no one on screen involved with Emily’s case voices this opinion as a possibility. Instead, the lawyers, doctors, and other professionals involved in Emily’s case collectively move right from superstition and spiritual attacks to illegal drugs to epilepsy and psychosis.

The film vacillates between having viewers believe that Emily’s trials are the machinations of the spirit world, and entertaining the possibility that Emily may be psychotic and epileptic. This balance alone, along with the combination of horror film tropes with courtroom drama, makes the film unusual. Additionally, a wide range of female types populate the margins of this film, leaving viewers with perhaps an atypically rich tapestry of female experience. We see a female judge, and a madam fore-woman of the jury. We see Emily’s traditional, devout housewife mom, her encouraging and faithful sister, the female family doctor, and a female anthropologist expert witness. Professional women and homemakers; average citizens and hopeful youth, even with a reasonable range of representation of racial and ethnic backgrounds. In other words, the population of #YesAllWomen in a microcosm, all represented in a world with flaws Emily’s possession calls stark attention to.

Dr. Briggs, a medical expert witness for the prosecution, provides a glaring example. While under cross-examination, he asserts that he would have tranquilized Emily, force-fed her, and administered electro-shock treatment (against her will if necessary) to save her life. Certainly such a course of action would have completely deprived Emily of dominion over her own body—as the “demons” do. “Possession” in this film is not only a spiritual, but physical term: Emily’s welfare and control over her own treatment is repeatedly assaulted by the prosecution and the (usually male) representatives of the medical community. Though Emily aims to become an educated, professional woman herself, her choices are frequently disparaged, and anyone who supports them—her father and Father Moore specifically, are—forgive the pun—demonized.

Father Moore allows Emily to reject the traditional, patriarchal view that medical illness must be treated with drugs and doctors. Additionally, he chronicles her resistance to these oppressions in the form of a tape of the exorcism, which eventually finds its way to Erin. This archive serves as evidence of Emily’s experience that can be shared with a wider community, making it more difficult to refute. Like Twitter archives, Father Moore attempts to preserve and disseminate proof of Emily’s attacks, just as #YesAllWomen serves as proof of the multitude of challenges women face in everyday existence.

Erin's talisman
Erin’s talisman

 

To rebut the over-zealous doctor witness and his extreme stance on Emily’s treatment, Erin locates an anthropologist studying contemporary cases of demon possession in the third world. Erin believes this woman may “see possession for what it really is. Maybe we’ve taught ourselves not to see it. Maybe we should try to validate the alternative.” This alternative is learning to see Emily’s plight as what Dr. Sadhira Adani calls a “basic human experience,” which we might read as the situations and circumstances of #YesAllWomen.

Sadhira Adani believes Emily is “hypersensitive,” which we may see as a positive framing of Emily’s resistance or sensitivity to the flaws of patriarchal culture. In other words, Emily’s “problem” is NOT hysteria, psychosis, or epilepsy, but rather clear vision. Further, while it’s certainly a production decision not to use extensive special effects in the film, a lack of effects may also indicate that what happens to Emily is all the more “realistic.” Without what reviewer Liese Spencer calls “Linda Blair fright makeup” Emily’s plight is more relatable to the average audience member—especially female audience members who might more readily pick up on the alignment of Emily’s possession with a more universal women’s issue.

Two sequences from the film tie Erin to Emily through their experiences of fear. After learning that a man Erin previously helped to acquit has killed again, she rushes into a restaurant ladies’ room to compose herself. Visual parallels to Emily’s rape scene abound: the doors of the stalls echo the dormitory doors lining Emily’s hallway, and square mirrors mimic the hallway’s bulletin boards. As Erin splashes her face with water, we hear another door slam—a woman emerges from a stall to check her makeup.

At Erin’s home, the clocks stop, she smells something burning, lights go out when she tries to investigate, she breaks a glass, and finally the door to her apartment seems to open on its own. The significance of the open door should not be missed: like the unlatched door in Emily’s first attack—which this scene also closely mimics—it could mean an intruder has entered Erin’s apartment, intending her harm. She is alone, as Emily was.

Finally, as Erin recounts her experience of finding a locket to Father Moore, she describes a moment after these events which seems to push her to the realization that she and Emily may be more connected than Erin initially imagines.

We see Erin in flashback as she recounts the experience of finding the locket. She considers what it might mean if “demons really do exist.” But just then she finds the locket on the sidewalk, coincidentally inscribed with her own initials. At this moment, she does not feel alone. Instead, she says, it made her feel as if “no matter what mistakes I’d made in the past, at that moment, I was exactly where I was meant to be; like I was on the right path.” This is the purpose of female community, of which #YesAllWomen is a prime example. Erin’s conversion experience is underway after she’s been made to feel some of the same fears as Emily, to be made to feel lost, alone, and even under “attack,” and also after finding this talisman that acknowledges these feelings and knits her to something larger than herself.

Visiting Emily
Visiting Emily

 

However, Erin’s conversion is not so simple; her privilege and ambition run deep. Soon she is back to her power-hungry and results-oriented self, speaking in purely legal terms and seeming to ignore the communicative experience she’s just recalled. One last frightening experience seems to be what is needed to get Erin fully on board with the female community Emily signifies.

Erin awakes late at night, alone in her bedroom. We hear whispering, which quickly turns into a distant-sounding scream. When she gets out of bed to investigate, she finds that the tape of Emily’s exorcism is in her living room playing, having turned on by itself. She turns it off, mouthing Emily’s name. Emily’s story has now become her focus.

Emily’s final vision of the Blessed Virgin (the ultimate female symbol of sacrifice) is recounted in a letter that Father Moore gives to Erin once he’s sure her conversion is complete. In it, Emily tells of a dream she has the day after her exorcism. In another flashback, an unseen force leads Emily through a mist. Viewers see Emily have an out-of-body experience. As she leaves her physical body behind, THIS Emily looks beautiful and healthy, not battered, twisted, and weak. Yet the Virgin gives her two avenues of action: she can relinquish her body and die, achieving peace; or stay in her body and suffer. It seems a simple choice, but the Virgin assures Emily that if she stays, her suffering will mean something; her story will help others.

It is for this reason that Father Moore has risked his freedom, for this reason that Erin jeopardizes her powerful position to help in sharing Emily’s experiences—but only after she’s had frightening experiences of her own. Their exposure to Emily’s case initiates a conversion experience by which they are both then unable to deny the pitfalls of women in patriarchy, even from their privileged positions.

In the final scenes of the film, Erin and Father Moore appear vulnerable and displaced, if satisfied. He says he cannot go back to his parish, and Erin has refused her law firm’s offer of partnership. Where will they go now? What will they do? They appear at Emily’s grave, as if on a pilgrimage, observing her epitaph, which reads “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.”

Ostensibly the goal of any horror film is for the viewer to experience some fear and trembling; the combination of these goals with the framework of logic and justice found in the courtroom drama allows The Exorcism of Emily Rose to achieve a broader aim. We can read Emily’s “hypersensitivity” as vulnerability, a vulnerability that she must summon the courage to share in order to communicate a broader, societal concern that would otherwise remain in the shadows. Spiritual trials aside, Emily’s plight is indeed the plight of all women.  Father Moore and Erin Bruner may be the first who achieve symbolic salvation through describing and disseminating Emily’s fear and trembling to others. The Exorcism of Emily Rose and #YesAllWomen illustrates that communication, supportive community, conversation, and awareness are often the first step to activism.

 


Rebecca Willoughby holds a Ph.D. in English and Film Studies from Lehigh University.  She writes most frequently on horror films and melodrama, and is currently a lecturer in Film/Media Studies at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania.  

 

‘The Conjuring’: When Motherhood Meets Demonic Possession

Punishment is the main objective of the demon Bathsheba in ‘The Conjuring,’ and specifically she seeks to punish the mother figure of a family. The hauntings and road to possession begin when in 1971, Roger and Carolyn Perron move into an old farmhouse in Rhode Island with their five daughters. Slowly, they begin to experience paranormal disturbances.

This guest post by Caroline Madden appears as part of our theme week on Demon and Spirit Possession.

Punishment is the main objective of the demon Bathsheba in The Conjuring; specifically, she seeks to punish the mother figure of a family. The hauntings and road to possession begin when in 1971, Roger and Carolyn Perron move into an old farmhouse in Rhode Island with their five daughters. Slowly, they begin to experience paranormal disturbances.

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Carolyn, the mother, is the most affected and punished by these disturbances. She is physically punished when she wakes up one morning to see bruises on her back. Other bodily harm occurs throughout the hauntings. The spirit goes so far as to pretend to be Carolyn’s daughter when playing a family game with her. She is then dragged to the cellar and attacked.

the-conjuring-lily-taylor- carolyn perron possess basement cellar

Carolyn is the only one who is constantly singled out by the demon. The father is not dealt with at all. While the daughters are also horrified and attacked by the spirit, punishing the daughters is just another way for the demon to get at Carolyn. Carolyn cares for her daughters, and it is devastating for her to see them attacked. This is quite a simplistic characterization, for Carolyn is written to merely serve the theme of the story rather than as a dynamic female character. Being a mother is her main characteristic, but she is established as warm and caring one, thus allowing the demon to prey and try to destroy her strong bond with her daughters.

But why is the demon attempting to destroy this relationship between mother and child? Why is the demon trying to attack this loving family and destroy their content life? When Carolyn brings in paranormal investigators Lorraine and Ed Warren, with some research they discover that the demon is that of a woman named Bathsheba. They learn that in the 1850s, Bathsheba was married to a rich farmer named Sherman. Together they had a child, and when it was a week old the father caught Bathsheba sacrificing her baby to the devil. Bathsheba then hanged herself after proclaiming her love for Satan, cursing anyone who tried to take her land. Carolyn learns that Bathsheba specifically seeks out the punishment of mothers, all who have lived on this property before her, in order to have them sacrifice their children to the devil.

While female characters are often the ones singled out for possession, The Conjuring takes another interpretation by viewing possession through the lens of motherhood. We have often had possessed fathers who go on to wreak havoc on their family, such as The Amityville Horror (who the real-life Warrens also investigated) and The Shining. The mother character is often the one to protect her child against the man. (Most notably, Shelley Duvall as Wendy Torrance in The Shining.)

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It is perhaps more believable and less horrifying when a father figure turns on their family, for it is more common or widely seen for fathers or stepfathers to be abusive to a family. While mother abuse does happen, it is thought to be quite rare. It is far more horrifying for a once loving mother to turn into an evil, abusive, and psychotic one. When we hear of heartbreaking stories of child abuse or murder at a mother’s hand we often exclaim, “How could a mother EVER do that?” whereas if we hear about a man committing abuse, it is merely shrugged upon and seen as something that always happens. In reality, women who hurt children are not worse than men who hurt children; both are equally awful.

Motherhood in society is more often debated upon and mothers are seen as the sole caretakers for a child. Mothers have to live up to often highly unrealistic standards. If they fail, they are criticized and condemned. Those who rise to those magic standards are seen as noble, for they are doing “the most important job a woman can do.” It is more “acceptable” for a father to walk out on a family or fail to rise to the occasion of fatherhood; you won’t hear much criticism or outcries. But if a mother does, she is deemed horrible and selfish. So in all, it is seen as more shocking and thrilling for a mother to turn against her children in violent and horrifying ways.

the-conjuring-lili-taylor-joey-king-kyla-deaver-warner-bros

After being attacked by Bathsheba, Carolyn is eventually possessed by her. When she wakes up from a nap, she sees Bathsheba lying on top of her. Bathsheba then vomits in her mouth in order to get inside Carolyn and possess her to elicit her last final punishment. Bathsheba will use Carolyn to kill her children and sacrifice them to the devil, as she has so many times before with other mothers. The now possessed Carolyn behaves as normal, conspiring with her husband and the Warren’s to take the children back to the hotel where they will be safe. Then we see Carolyn take two of her daughters, Christine and April, back to the house. The girls are frightened and do not know what is wrong with their mother.

The Warrens and Carolyn’s husband rush back to the house where they find Carolyn trying to stab her daughter Christine with scissors. They eventually are able to tie the possessed Carolyn to a chair to perform an exorcism. Despite being tied up, Bathsheba continues to punish Carolyn with the most painful physical abuse thus far. Carolyn spits and vomits huge amounts of blood, nearly choking on it. When anyone tries to take her outside, Bathsheba makes Carolyn’s skin sizzle and mottle with severe burns. Bathsheba levitates the chair and quickly slams it down on the hard concrete basement floor. Her husband begs Carolyn to “be strong” and “fight” against the demon, but it is clear that it is beyond her power to try and stop this.

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The possessed Carolyn eventually escapes and goes to try and kill her other daughter April, who is hiding under the floorboards. Lorraine Warren tries the final act to bring Carolyn back. Lorraine recounts a special memory with her daughters at a lovely day on the beach. Through the power of the special relationship between mother and child, Ed Warren is able to complete the exorcism and Carolyn is able to return to her normal self. For at her heart, Carolyn is a good and caring mother, and there can be nothing to sever that.

The demon attempts to destroy (what is seen as from society) the most sacred bond, the bond between a mother and child. The demon wants to completely destroy all of those relationships, as she had destroyed that idea of motherhood when she killed her child for Satan. But in the end Bathsheba still slightly wins. Even if she was exorcised and Carolyn’s role as a caring mother won out in the end, her daughters still have scarring memories of their mother while she was possessed. Although only for one night, they still suffered from the hands of abuse. Those memories may linger on and alter the viewings of their mother. Bathsheba was still able to alter the mother and daughter relationship but not in the way that she had hoped.

The-Conjuring-1024x421 carolyn perron basement cellar hide and clap bathsheba hands

The Conjuring is one of the unique horror films where possession is examined through the eyes of motherhood. We have seen possessed fathers wreaking havoc and terror on their families but not as many mothers. A violent and uncaring mother will always be scarier than a father. An abusive and evil father, we see those horrors more often in everyday life. The Conjuring plays on the already pre-existing attitudes we have to see violence inflicted by mothers on their children as to be of a most evil nature.

 


Caroline Madden is a recent graduate with a BFA in Acting from Shenandoah Conservatory. She writes about film at Geek JuiceScreenqueens, and her blog. You can usually find her watching movies or listening to Bruce Springsteen.

 

Seed & Spark: The Revolution Will Be Streamed: Why Underrepresented Communities Need to Find, Fund, and Forge the Streaming Media Landscape

The statistics are startling, but the silver lining is promising: The conditions that brought women to the forefront in early film now exist in streaming media. Now is the time for marginalized communities to claim their most significant share yet of the media landscape by finding and funding streaming projects and investing in/forming streaming media companies.

This is a guest post by Kathleen Wallace. 

Being a woman in and around the entertainment industry can feel like being in an unhealthy relationship: They’re just not that into us.

It wasn’t always this way. According to Dr. Jane Gaines, a film professor at Columbia University and one of the editors of the Women Film Pioneers Project, women in the film industry in America between 1916 and 1923 were more powerful than in any other business. In fact, in 1923, the number of women-owned production companies outnumbered those owned by men.

AliceGuyBlache
Alice Guy Blache, filmmaking pioneer, film studio owner, director of over 1,000 movies including some with interracial casts.

 

LoisWeber_BehindCamera
Lois Weber, silent film actress, screenwriter, director, producer, bane of censors; founded her own movie studio in 1917.

Fast forward 90 years to 2013, and only 23 percent of producers and a stunningly mere 7 percent of film directors are women (Geena Davis Institute on Gender In Media).

Sobering statistics about women in film.
Sobering statistics about women in film.

 

The statistics are startling, but the silver lining is promising: The conditions that brought women to the forefront in early film now exist in streaming media. Now is the time for marginalized communities to claim their most significant share yet of the media landscape by finding and funding streaming projects and investing in/forming streaming media companies.

When the moving image was uncharted territory, roles were less defined, which left greater room for minorities to take on more responsibility and to have more of a voice. According to Dr. Gaines, to meet the “booming demand” for fiction films between 1895 and 1925, “Women were given many, many more chances to direct and produce.”

The better part of a century later, streaming media outlets present an unprecedented demand for content. For example, in 2013, the average time spent on digital surpassed the time spent watching television. Soon mobile viewing will surpass digital viewing. Also unprecedented is the access content creators have to distribution via streaming media. And thanks to the advent of crowd-funding, the financial barrier to filmmaking is lowered and audiences have greater access to filmmakers and therefore greater say in what media is produced. What a time to be both a filmmaker and an audience member!

Digital has overtaken TV and mobile on on track to overtake digital.
Digital has overtaken TV and mobile on on track to overtake digital.

 

History teaches us, though, that this golden time will not last. In the 1920s and 1930s, as the film industry matured and companies figured out how to monetize films, underrepresented communities were squeezed out. Streaming is still, just as film was a century ago, the new frontier of media, but the “Streaming-TV Gold Rush,” as deemed by New York Magazine, is on: HBO announced recently that it will offer a streaming-only service. Lionsgate and Tribeca Enterprises (which runs the Tribeca Film Festival) announced the creation of a subscription VOD service. And it’s been over a year since Jason Kilar, ex-Hulu CEO, and Richard Tom, ex-Hulu CTO, announced the creation of their company, Vessel, a premium streaming platform specifically for short-form video content.

Deep pockets are searching for ways to make money in digital media. And the money is there to be found; earlier this year, digital ad revenues surpassed television ad revenue. The question is, when the big companies do find the money, what will happen to the level of diversity we enjoy in streaming media now?

This is not to say that studio executives are maliciously excluding underrepresented groups. Studio executives just aren’t that into us, so they don’t see as great a need to represent us. As Justin Simien, the director of the movie Dear White People (which incidentally was crowd-funded), said in a recent NPR interview, “It’s taken as given that a white cast represents everyone.”  Organizations like the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media are drawing strong attention to the issue, but the statistics on equal representation are still depressing.

With streaming media, we don’t have to see ourselves through someone else’s lens anymore. And if we take the reins of streaming media now while the gold rush is on, we can help ensure that it stays that way.

Here are three steps to take those reins:

First, find streaming content that speaks to you. There is seemingly limitless content on the big platforms like YouTube and Vimeo. There are also smaller companies like Seed&Spark, which cater to independent filmmakers. This company definitely harkens back to the early days of film: Seed&Spark is a female-lead company helps filmmakers fundraise as well as distribute their films, and 58 percent of the projects crowd-funding in their studio have women in prominent positions. (Full disclosure: I am currently crowd-funding my own web series through Seed&Spark. It’s called Settling Up.)

Second, when you find a project you like, support it. Throw money behind it. It doesn’t have to be a lot; truly every bit helps. Then spread the word. A Facebook post or tweet to your followers helps raise the project’s profile. Large numbers of both donors and followers signal to the streaming studios to come – like Vessel – that there is an underrepresented audience out there craving more content tailored to them.

Supporting projects also helps you build a relationship with your favorite streaming filmmakers, which helps ensure their projects’ longevity, since funding for streaming is still largely grassroots-based. “Relationships have made the most successful web series what they are today,” says Amy Kersten, an independent streaming producer whose work centers on women and women’s issues. When you subscribe to a series, when you post about an indie VOD film, when you comment on a video, you are creating dialogue between yourself and the filmmaker which helps ensure content is of the people. (Again, full disclosure, Amy is producing and co-directing my web series.)

Third, make streaming media yourself or get involved in a streaming media company. If this last one is for you – and it may not be – I  strongly urge you to go for it. Underserved communities need more representation behind the camera as well as behind the studio desk. My web series, Settling Up, is the first streaming media I’ve created, and I’ve learned tons along the way – made plenty of mistakes, too. But at the end of the day, I’m telling stories that have gone untold for too long, and I’m very proud that our female to male ratio on the crew ranges between 2:2 and 4:1.

It’s media for women, by women. And I’m definitely into that. Long may it last!

 

__________________________________________

KathleenWallace_legit_1

Kathleen Wallace is a NYC-based writer-producer-actor. Her web series, Settling Up, premieres in early 2015. She works with Amios Theater Company and Barefoot Theater Company, teaches fitness and public speaking, and is founder and Chief Cape Advocate of Be A Superhero Day, a day of public service. Kathleen holds degrees from Yale and the National Theater Conservatory and certificates from multiple schools in Germany. This winter she appears as Amanda in Private Lives at the Walnut Street Theater in Philadelphia.

Choice Within Fashion and Fundamentalism: ‘The World Before Her’

In making ‘The World Before Her,’ Pahuja chooses to walk the neutral line by avoiding a personal stand and trying to hold up a mirror instead. In an interview with ‘First Post,’ she says that she made this documentary in an attempt to create a dialogue. Her humanizing, vérité cinema approach works to that effect.

This is a guest post by Nandini Rathi. 

Chinmayee, a young girl at the Durga Vahini camp in Aurangabad, takes pride in the fact that unlike before, she has no Muslim friends anymore since her thoughts have matured in Hindutva at Durga Vahini. She takes exclusive pride in Hindu culture and looks forward to strengthen her thoughts about it in the future camps.

In another part of the country, Ruhi Singh, a 19-year-old Femina Miss India 2011 aspirant laments that her hometown, Jaipur, is not supportive of her ambitions as many people fear that allowing girls to get educated and choose their own careers will be tantamount to a loss of culture. “As much as I love my country and my culture,” she says, “I consider myself to be a very modern, young girl. And I want my freedom.”

This freedom, which is echoed by other characters in the The World Before Her (Pahuja, 2012), is of being who they want to be and living as they choose to live, without constantly having to worry about safety. Even though many institutions nurture the dream and promise to fulfill it, they come with strings attached. Indo-Canadian director Nisha Pahuja works hard in this phenomenal documentary to reveal some tensions within a rapidly modernizing India, through the microcosm of the Miss India beauty pageant and the Hindu nationalism of Durga Vahini. Apart from raising questions about objectification of women in the glamour industry, the movie also touches upon the state of communalism and religio-nationalism in India.

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After stumbling upon its fascinating Kickstarter pitch video almost two years ago, I finally watched The World Before Her on Netflix. It was thoroughly engaging and every bit worth the time as Pahuja juxtaposes two diametrically opposite, extreme worlds of modern Indian women — behind the walls of the Miss India pageant boot camp in Mumbai and the Durga Vahini physical training camp in Aurangabad. Durga Vahini is the women’s wing of Bajrang Dal, a subsidiary of the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP), a Hindu right-wing organization in India.

Beauty pageants deem all their critics to be a singular species from the “Old World.” Right-wing Hindu organizations see beauty pageants as a sign of Western attack on their frozen-in-time, monolithic conception of “Indian culture.”  Archival footage informs the audience of the Hindu right wing’s various physical attacks on girls in pubs, in the name of desecration of this “Indian/Hindu culture.” In making The World Before Her, Pahuja chooses to walk the neutral line by avoiding a personal stand and trying to hold up a mirror instead. In an interview with First Post, she says that she made this documentary in an attempt to create a dialogue. Her humanizing, vérité cinema approach works to that effect.

The narrative of The World Before Her cuts back and forth between a Miss India crown aspirant, the sweet 19-year-old Ruhi Singh and a Durga Vahini camp youth leader and staunch VHP supporter, the 24-year-old Prachi Trivedi. It is full of ironies along the way, as the two radically opposite worlds come out to be more similar than what we initially imagined.

The doors of opportunity and exposure open far and wide for the Miss India crown-bearers. Pahuja claims early on that the beauty and glamour industry is one of the few avenues in India where women stand at par with men. Ruhi has the drive to win and the full moral support of her family. However, for many girls, to make it as far as the Miss India pageant is a difficult task of overcoming family reluctance as well as personal resistances. These girls understand that culture is, and was, never a fixed entity — but one that constantly evolves with time and contact with other cultures.  Contestant Shweta says that that they are often accused of becoming “American,” to which she smartly argues that she isn’t becoming American for wearing jeans or eating a burger, anymore than Americans are becoming Indians for taking up Yoga.

42 Durga Vahini camps veteran and leader Prachi Trivedi is easily the most fascinating character, who likes to command others and talks to Pahuja with breathtaking candor. Prachi strongly believes in her Hindu nationalism which is based on the idea that the golden age of Hindu India was marred by outsiders who are still the enemy within. She has no qualms about killing any moment for her religion. Her father is cheerfully antagonistic to what she wants to do with her life. He fulfills his duty towards Hindutva by teaching the young girls in the camp — who the “bad guys” are, aka Muslims and Christians. Unlike Ruhi’s parents, Prachi’s father believes that she doesn’t have any rights besides what he gives her. One gets goosebumps when Prachi says that she forgives him for all the bullying, because it’s enough for her that he let her live — and didn’t kill her at birth for being a girl child, like many others do.

Prachi does not think her life is intended for marriage and family. She wants to dedicate her whole life to the Parishad (Vishva Hindu Parishad). But she is not sure if, being a girl, she has the freedom to make such a choice. The choice of a woman to stay single and not produce children is completely outrageous to the Parishad as well as her father. Her candid self-awareness reveals her vulnerable side in that poignant moment; it is so easy to forget then, that her ambition is to become the next Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur of the Malegaon bomb blast notoriety.

There is a palpable tension in the values inculcated at the Durga Vahini camp. “Sher banne ki prakriya yahan se shuru hoti hai (the process of becoming a lion begins here)”, says one of the camp instructors to the girls. On one hand, they want to increase young women’s confidence so they can be independent enough to rise to the call of action for the religio-nation. On the other hand, they are taught the dharma (duties) of a Hindu woman — in which chasing careers is a futile, corrupting, Western pursuit and only a “high moral character” matters, especially in the role of a wife and mother. Women’s action and power matters and is extremely important, but only while it actively and appropriately services the religious nationalism. They are nowhere expected to take liberties or choose their own paths. A conflict from this is likely underway in the future, as it is for Prachi.

On the occasion of Nina Davuluri’s crowing as Miss America, Rediff columnist, Amberish K. Diwanji noted that India’s beauty pageants do not reflect its diversity. Although the issue of inclusion of an Indian dalit or tribal woman in a beauty pageant is much more complicated (keeping in mind, the economic disparities, rural/urban divides and cultural clashes), simply speaking, the definition of beauty in pageants (and the glamour industry) is disturbingly narrow. I was shocked by Cosmetic Physician Dr. Jamuna Pai’s ease in administering Botox injections to achieve some ‘golden rule’ in the facial proportions of the contestants. Add to it, the application of face-whitening chemicals to burn through their tans. Miss India trainer, Sabira Merchant, describes the Miss India pageant boot camp as a factory, a manufacturing unit where beauty is controlled and prepared to meet the demands of the national and international fashion industry. The rough edges have to be straightened out and polished. The routine of the camp makes sure that any personal inhibitions on the woman’s part have been overridden. “The modern Indian woman” is produced for the world to look at.

“… I always had this vision of putting cloaks on women so we can’t see their faces, only their legs — and then decide who has THE best pair of legs. Sometimes you may get thrown — beautiful girl, lovely hair, she walks so good, she has a great body — we don’t want to see all that! I just want to see beautiful, hot legs!” –Marc Robinson, former model and Pageant director

Out of context, this would read as a perverted person’s fetish fantasy. I am trying to remind myself that Robinson speaks for the beauty industry– and so I shouldn’t think of only him as a creep. The parading Ku Klux Klan-esque figures are the contestant ladies, who ought to feel hot when they catwalk up to him like that.

unnamedScreen Shot 2014-10-23 at 2.06.17 PM

What about self-respect and dignity, one is forced to wonder. Contestant Ankita Shorey, who felt claustrophobic during the cloak session, reflects on her feelings about bending over backwards for the sake of success.

“Aurat ko maas ke tukde ki tarah plate par rakhkar serve kiya jaaye, aur taango, breast aur hips ke aadhaar par taya kiya jaaye – ye toh poori duniya ki aurat zaat ke liye be-izatti ki baat hai, khaali Hindustaan ke liye nahin.” — an Activist in the 1996 archival footage of demonstrations against hosting Miss World in India

(To serve a woman like a piece of flesh on the plate, and to judge her on the basis of the size of her legs, hips and breasts – it is disrespectful to the womankind all over the world – not just to women of India)

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My roommate’s and my reaction was — that’s true, she’s right. She expressed a genuine concern that would resonate with anyone who is even mildly concerned about the male gaze and the objectification of women’s bodies in media/glamour/film industry. Her saffron clothes suggest that she could be from a Hindutva-espousing party that sees pageants as a plain attack on “Indian culture”. It’s that awkward moment when feminists and right wingers find themselves to be bed fellows on this cause.

The formidable Ms. Merchant says in the second half: “There is a dichotomy and the girls seem like very with it, but they have traditional values. Should we go with the Old World or should we go with the New World? When they ask me that question, I always tell them to go with the New World, because the only thing constant in life is what? Change.” Just as Hindutva-espousing groups like VHP have no reason to not promote a blind hatred of Muslims and Christians, the beauty industry has no need or desire to parse out what the “New World” values really are.


P.S. While there is definitely a dichotomy between the old ideas and the new ones, Pahuja has chosen extreme, contrasting examples for the most narrative oomph. It creates a better story, which I am all for. The documentary is also timely as it is being viewed at a time when the Hindu right in India is gaining power and popularity (since Narendra Modi’s victory at the center). That said, it is crucial to remember that girls who participate in beauty pageants and those who participate in the likes of Durga Vahini camps are extreme minorities. They do not represent the majority.


 

Nandini Rathi is a recent graduate from Whitman College in Film & Media Studies and Politics. She loves traveling, pop culture, editing, documentaries, and adventures. Now living in New York city, she wants to be immersed in filmmaking, journalism, writing and nonprofit work to ultimately be able to contribute her bit toward making the world a better place. She blogs at brightchicdreams.wordpress.com.

 

A Performance, and Film, for the Ages: Gena Rowlands and ‘A Woman Under the Influence’

It was announced earlier this week that the Los Angeles Film Critics Association is to honor Gena Rowlands with its 2014 Career Achievement Award. Long overdue, no doubt, but perhaps the well-deserved attention will encourage people to revisit her impressive work. Most associated with the films she did with her husband, the ground-breaking independent director, John Cassavetes, Rowlands is an exceptionally talented and courageous actor. I must admit that I did not fully appreciate her talent until I experienced her extraordinary turn in ‘A Woman Under The Influence.’

A Woman Under the Influence
A Woman Under the Influence

 

Written by Rachael Johnson.

It was announced earlier this week that the Los Angeles Film Critics Association is to honor Gena Rowlands with its 2014 Career Achievement Award. Long overdue, no doubt, but perhaps the well-deserved attention will encourage people to revisit her impressive work. Most associated with the films she did with her husband, the ground-breaking independent director, John Cassavetes, Rowlands is an exceptionally talented and courageous actor. I must admit that I did not fully appreciate her talent until I experienced her extraordinary turn in A Woman Under The Influence. It’s not only Rowland’s finest performance; it is, unquestionably, one of the greatest cinematic performances of all time.

John Cassavetes with Gena Rowlands and Peter Falk
John Cassavetes with Gena Rowlands and Peter Falk

 

Both written and directed by Cassavetes, A Woman Under The Influence deals with non-conformity, mental illness, and the family. It’s also a considerably sympathetic examination of the socio-cultural role of women. Rowlands plays Mabel Longhetti, a mother of three young children, and wife to construction worker, Nick (played by Peter Falk). Mabel is a lively, spontaneous, somewhat charismatic woman, but it is clear from the very start, that she is psychologically unstable. She is feverish performing the most ordinary of tasks, such as getting the kids ready to visit their grandmother, or preparing pasta for her husband’s co-workers. Cassavetes seems to indicate that Mabel’s mental illness is an extreme form of non-conformity; her unrestrained behavior includes flirting with one of her husband’s co-workers directly in front of him. Although an uninhibited soul, Mabel is a deeply vulnerable woman who is consumed by her role as a wife, and mother. She wants to make everything right, but it is all too much. Perhaps she also feels that she has lost her very self. Her husband is characterized as a loving, traditionally masculine type who often responds to his wife’s extroverted ways, and unstable behaviour with frustration, and, sometimes, aggression. Mabel is, eventually, hospitalized for six months, and we see Nick struggle to perform his paternal role. In that it recognizes that that Mabel’s condition has both a psychological and social source, A Woman Under The Influence manifests a certain feminist awareness.

Gena Rowlands as Mabel
Gena Rowlands as Mabel

 

Rowland flawlessly channels Mabel’s open and exposed self, as well as her extraordinary intensity. She mines all aspects of her character, and deeply empathizes with her condition. Although she plays a woman whose condition issues from self-consciousness, specifically self-alienation, it is not a self-conscious performance. There are no gimmicks or false notes. Rowlands fully inhabits the role. She is, simply, Mabel, in all her complexity.

Mabel with husband Nick
Mabel with husband Nick

 

Unlike most American movies, A Woman Under The Influence does not romanticize non-conformity and mental illness. Cassavetes’s masterpiece is worlds apart from the likes of A Beautiful Mind (2001) and Silver Linings Playbook (2012). Frankly, it makes those films look totally fake. Unlike most Hollywood movies, it, equally, does not paint a sanitized portrait of the nuclear family. Cinematic depictions of struggling parents and young children are often unduly sentimental and exploitative but Cassavetes never falls into that trap. Although the family’s often heart-breaking story is sympathetically told, the director does not manipulate his viewers. Nor does he sugarcoat the bad stuff. He completely immerses us in the life of the family. We literally live with them. The nuclear family is vividly, and accurately, characterized as a psychic, and literal site of love, want, humor, hate, and sickness. Very few films about the domestic space have so effectively captured its unceasing tensions, and complexities. Note too that Cassavetes never judges his characters. He portrays their intimate, authentic selves. Contemporary audiences may also find the socio-cultural setting unusual too: A Woman Under The Influence is an American film about a working-class family.

Unravelling
Unraveling

 

A Woman Under The Influence is Cassavetes’s most powerful, and greatest film. Peter Falk’s naturalistic, and vivid portrayal of Nick should also be acknowledged but it is Gena Rowlands’s performance that stands out. It is up there with Brando in On The Waterfront, Streep in Sophie’s Choice, and de Niro in Raging Bull. In short, it is a performance for the ages.

 

 

‘God Help The Girl’: Sunny Glasgow Hosts a Twee Musical

The songs allow the audience access to the inner minds of the characters, which is especially helpful for a secretive character like Eve. The songs swirl into a beautiful world where shining girls dance through the streets of Glasgow like it’s their own personal playground, always dressed for a costume party in enviable vintage. Songs cut into elaborate sequences of the band playacting on golden hills in school uniforms and battling with umbrellas on courthouse steps, that seem like mini-music videos. The film is so stuffed with beauty and whimsy that it often seems hard to make room for the parts of the story that are truly ugly.

A poster for God Help The Girl which recalls Belle and Sebastian album covers
A poster for God Help The Girl, which recalls Belle and Sebastian album covers

 

The word ”twee” is generally used as a pejorative but there’s no other way to describe God Help The Girl.

Like pornography, it’s hard to define what is twee, but you know it when you see it. Pressed to explain it, there are a few reliable touchstones: striped scarves (preferably homemade), outdated mediums like vinyl and cassettes, the films of Miranda July and of course, the music of Belle and Sebastian, the legendary Scottish band led by Stuart Murdoch, God Help The Girl’s director and mastermind.

In his book, Twee: the Gentle Revolution, writer Marc Spitz explains twee as an artistic movement centering on outsiders, telling stories whose serious or even cynical core is hidden by bright colours, sweet pop songs and a general sense of buoyancy, like a sugar cookie laced with arsenic. Think of the pastel confections produced by Wes Anderson; each feature tragic deaths but they’re not what we remember. Likewise, God Help The Girl has a serious story, following Emily Browning’s Eve on her slow recovery from anorexia and depression, yet it never becomes an “issue movie.” Instead, it’s a pastiche of quirky film references and self-aware wit, all swinging to a host of bouncy, jangly pop songs.

 

The Band: Cassie, James and Eve pose in their best clothes
The Band: Cassie, James and Eve pose in their best clothes

 

God Help The Girl began as Murdoch’s side project, conceived as a 60s girl-group, a soundtrack for the film that didn’t yet exist. The songs, which told the story of a young woman, named Eve entering into a difficult adulthood, were recorded by female vocalists as God Help the Girl back in 2009 and are covered by the cast members in the film.

It begins with Eve (Browning) escaping from a psychiatric ward to go listen to a band she likes. As part of her recovery she begins writing music as way to deal with her feelings. Throughout the film, she improvises songs about her life, simple observations about her day-to-day concerns, forming an amazing soundtrack, that teeters between whimsy and melancholy.

Things pick up when she meets James (Olly Alexander), an under-appreciated musician looking for an identity and Cassie (Hannah Murray playing a version of her Skins character), an outcast who goes to “the posh school” in town. The three misfits are drawn together by their shared love of music, and form a band in a bright, sunny Glasgow, far from the grey rainy days most North Americans imagine.

 

The core band recruit musicians to form their desired pop sound
The core band recruit musicians to form their desired pop sound

 

The music is well-integrated into the story–no surprise, as the story was written around the songs. The songs allow the audience access to the inner minds of the characters, which is especially helpful for a secretive character like Eve. Late in the film, James mentions that he learned all about Eve’s past and her eating disorder through listening to her songs, the only place where she fully exposes herself. Indeed, though she seems to be a strong and self-possessed young woman, Eve can be closed off and defensive. Like James, we only gain insight into her character when she sings.

Like the 60s pop musicals it tries to emulate, the plot of God Help The Girl is essentially a vehicle to get from song to song. It works because everyone involved seems to have such faith in the material. The actors seems to feel the emotions in the songs they sing and the chemistry between the core trio is palatable. Most important, is the film’s function as an ode to art’s power to help us heal, an idea Murdoch appears to evangelize.

 

The group perform an impromptu dance, reminiscent of French New Wave
The group perform an impromptu dance, reminiscent of French New Wave

 

The film is peppered with a dizzying array of surreal visual jokes, like Maria Von Trapp, guitar case in hand, joining the line of musicians, a newspaper that proclaims itself the choice for geniuses and The Smiths’ Meat is Murder t-shirt Eve wears as she sings about cutting meat out of her diet. Dance sequences recall French New Wave classics and in many scenes, the humour recalls the Beatles’ A Hard Day’s Night, such as the band being chased through the streets.

The songs swirl into a beautiful world where shining girls dance through the streets of Glasgow like it’s their own personal playground, always dressed for a costume party in enviable vintage. Songs cut into elaborate sequences of the band playacting on golden hills in school uniforms and battling with umbrellas on courthouse steps, that seem like mini-music videos. The film is so stuffed with beauty and whimsy that it often seems hard to make room for the parts of the story that are truly ugly.

 

Many artistically shot sequences throughout the film seem to be mini-music videos
Many artistically shot sequences throughout the film seem to be mini-music videos

 

For all the talk of Eve’s health problems, the film sure does make her thinness appealing. Though she mentions she carries everything she owns in her backpack, she has a massive, stunning wardrobe, full of skin-tight outfits that would only work on a rail-thin body and would make great thinspo for those sadly inclined. Though she left the hospital before she was deemed recovered, Eve seems to have no self-confidence issues or need to hide her weight as expected in someone with anorexia. She also mentions being happy with the size of her breasts and is comfortable beings seen naked and having sex, all of which don’t appear characteristic of a severe anorexic who quite recently had difficulty having a full meal with her shrunken stomach. Also unusual is the fact that we never see her eat. Though several songs mention her refusal to eat and her desire to recover, we never get the satisfaction of seeing her take a bite.

Each day, she counts out and takes pills for other unspecified mental health problems but the film avoids any real discussion of what else is wrong with her and of her past. We learn she left her home in Australia to follow a boy to Scotland, which hints at further mental instability but it is never elaborated on. It appears as if Murdoch figured the visual iconography of Eve holding her pills in her hands and looking sad would enough to show the depth of the character’s depression. Ultimately, Eve’s problems are boiled down to her inability to live in the adult world.

Befitting of the twee genre, God Help The Girl is tonally inconsistent, going from sappy to silly in the blink of an eye. It often feels over-long and self indulgent, as some scenes drag on longer than they should have. It’s clear Murdoch is in love with his own story and expects us to want to spend as much time in its world as he’ll allow us. Likewise, it can often be a bit too precious. It’s easy to see how it could turn some off, induce toothaches, that sort of thing, in the viewer that isn’t ready to surrender to it’s sweet sweet glory.

Eve, Cassie, and James are the sort of characters mentioned in Belle and Sebastian songs come to life. The insecure hipster boy, the ethereal dancing schoolgirl, the depressive singer who believes in the power of books and faith healing, all appear in Glasgow isolated from anyone but each other. None of their families seem to exist, nor do outside friends, besides Eve’s drug buddy who pops up out of nowhere for a short scene. What little we know of their earlier lives comes from a single conversation.

 

A ‘will-they-won’t they’ romance develops between James and Eve
A “will-they-won’t they” romance develops between James and Eve

 

As expected, James falls in love with Eve. He can’t help it, there’s something about her, mysterious and quiet as she is, that plays into his every romantic notion. Though he’s not alone. Everyone she meets seems attracted to Eve and longs to help her put herself back together. She’s irresistible and she knows it, yet we don’t hate her for it.

God Help The Girl is deceptively posed as a band origin story; you know the sort: three lost individuals come together to form a band, have their dreams of fame come true and fall into an ugly break-up and/or drug addiction. The band in God Help the Girl, forms briefly and dissolves amicably (though not without the obligatory scene of hearing their song on the radio), but it turns out, in the end, it was Eve’s story all along.

She gets on a train to go to music school in London and live a new life, with the structure she needs to function as an independent adult and we realize their summer with Eve was just a momentary phase in James and Cassie’s lives. For Eve, this summer was the last bittersweet gasp of life before becoming a real adult, her oft mentioned anxiety and though they will all remember it fondly, they will never be able to recapture it again. She is greatness and for one brief, shining moment they shared her light. There’s no question she will be a pop music legend someday and they will have known her when.

We’re not sure what will happen to the others. Eve is the singer, the songwriter and she creates their world. She allows us to think on the nature of fiction, of the stories we piece together from the raw stuff of our lives. After all the title pleads for help for Eve, she’s the girl we’re meant to focus on.

God Help The Girl is a movie that really seems meant for bored, yet artistic teenagers isolated in the suburbs and sure that no one else shares their tastes. It’s destined to live on as a cult hit, “discovered” again and again by young people–like a relic of some obscure 60s group no one else has ever heard of.

It’s the kind of movie you step out of and think, “So, there are people like me out there!”

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Elizabeth Kiy is a Canadian writer and journalist living in Toronto, Ontario.

Binge Watch This: ‘Dance Academy’

‘Dance Academy’ is a teen soap opera set at a ballet school. So basically, it’s ‘Degrassi’ meets ‘Center Stage.’ That should be enough to have you diving for your remote right now.

The central female characters of 'Dance Academy'
The central female characters of Dance Academy

Netflix subscribers, as soon as you’ve gotten through Gilmore Girls (or maybe sooner, should you get GG fatigue once Logan gets in the picture), you need to watch the Australian TV series Dance Academy. My Cape Town bestie KDax has been telling me to watch Dance Academy for months, and now that I’ve finally taken her advice I can only think “so much lost time!” I could be through my third rewatch by now, instead of only having seen one of the three available seasons! Don’t make my mistake: watch this series NOW.

Dance Academy is a teen soap opera set at a ballet school. So basically, it’s Degrassi meets Center Stage. That should be enough to have you diving for your remote right now, but if you need more convincing, here are some more details:

Psst... the joey is a metaphor for Tara!
Psst… the joey is a metaphor for Tara!

Tara Webster is a naive 15-year-old girl from the Australian Outback whose talent for ballet has her plucked out of her small-town life and brought to the National Academy of Dance in Sydney. We see her adjust to life in the big city and going from being the best dancer for miles to a small fish in a big, ultra-competitive pond, while going through the standard coming-of-age drama with the rest of her teenage classmates.

The cast of Season One of 'Dance Academy'
The cast of Season One of Dance Academy

There’s her best friend Kat, who grew up in the industry as the daughter of the Sydney Ballet’s prima ballerina, who is as loyal to her friends as she is rebellious against authority. Kat’s older brother, Ethan, is the self-serious choreographer and apparent ladies’ man who Tara instantly crushes on. Kat and Tara’s platonic dude friend is Sammy, equal parts awkward and earnest. Christian, the troubled kid from the wrong side of the tracks, is out on bail after robbing a convenience store (also, distressingly, the only PoC in the main cast of the first season). And finally Tara’s roommate Abigail, the Queen Bitch antagonist, who remains a sympathetic character despite all her cruel manipulations.

If you want love triangles, you got it
If you want love triangles, you got it

While the teen drama plots of Dance Academy are not particularly original, the cast is so natural and likable that the even the most standard material feels fresh. The first season relies very heavily on two intersecting love triangles (I’d say love quadrilateral if two of the points were not siblings, and Dance Academy is not enough of a soap opera to head down Incest Drama Lane). I would have said that another teen love triangle was number one with a bullet on my list of things I never needed to be asked to care about again. But Dance Academy made a liar out of me, by making every character involved compelling, every relationship plausible, and all the shifting degrees of attraction and loyalty make sense within the story.

Similarly, Dance Academy successfully takes on many After School Special-esque “Issue” storylines by committing to the emotion at their core. I was particularly impressed with the handling of the seemingly inevitable eating disorder plot when Abigail responds to her growing breasts with extreme calorie restriction. Dance Academy is able to condemn the ballet world’s absurd body standards without falling into the insulting oversimplification that ballet causes anorexia, and never blames the victim even though she’s the ostensible “villain” of the series. Her eating disorder isn’t confined to a single “Lesson Episode” along the lines of DJ Tanner’s exercise bulimia or Jessie Spano’s “I’m so excited I’m so scared” caffeine addiction; Abigail’s recovery and how it effects her relationships and other emotional issues is an ongoing plot.

Abigail, the sympathetic antagonist.
Abigail, the sympathetic antagonist.

Oh, and did I mention how whatever ballet they are working on always has symbolic parallels to the plot? I love this show.

Dance Academy does have a handful of awkward fumbles, though, like the cringe-inducing episode where Christian takes Ethan to “the hood” to show him what Real Hip Hop Moves look like. As painful as that was, I wish the series didn’t shy away from class commentary so much. For the first half of the season it feels like Christian only exists as a character so they can “address” class, which is as unfair to the character as it is to the issue. There’s also a huge contrast between Tara’s rural upbringing and the world of privilege most of her classmates come from, but it is rarely acknowledged. The one episode that really deals with Tara’s embarrassment over her “simple country folk” parents swiftly overshadows cultural class differences by making the story about cold hard cash, when Tara’s mom asks her to defer school to save their finances. This problem is immediately solved with a scholarship and never mentioned again. Meanwhile, Kat and Ethan are never called out on their bratty entitlement (Kat’s my favorite character, but when she complains about traveling the world with her famous mother I seethe).

Pretty much any time they do hip hop it is awkward.
Pretty much any time they do hip hop it is awkward.

But this is just season one, and every time I’ve made a criticism of Dance Academy, KDax has said, “just you wait.” For example, this would be the paragraph where I’d complain about the universally cis-het cast and grumble some more about the general excess of white people, but I know the subsequent seasons are going to attempt to correct these problems.

Given how much I’ve loved this first season of Dance Academy despite its failings, I have high hopes for my ongoing obsession over the next two seasons. Won’t you come and dance with me?

 


Robin Hitchcock is an American writer living in Cape Town who had bits of Swan Lake stuck in her head the entire time she was writing this.