1970s – Bitch Flicks

Killing Time: The Luxury of Denial in ‘Dawn of the Dead’

This guest post by Jennifer Krukowski appears as part of our theme week on Dystopias.

George A. Romero’s 1978 zombie classic, Dawn of the Dead, poses many of the same questions as your average zombie flick: what is the difference between living and surviving, and what makes us human? Where Dawn of the Dead stands apart from the rest is its exploration of the childlike bliss of denial in a time of crisis. We don’t know what the world looks like in this particular zombie epidemic because the heroes isolate themselves from it after seeing a mere glimpse of the beginning of the end. The characters spend more time literally watching paint dry than fighting zombies, and yet it is still an entertaining, scary, and thought-provoking experience for the viewer. The end of the world means not having to plan for the future. There’s a banal comfort in that. It is pleasurable to imagine certain responsibilities crumbling away in the wake of a disaster.

Of the four main characters in this film — Roger (Scott H. Reiniger) and Peter (Ken Foree) who are police officers, and Francine (Gaylen Ross) and Stephen (David Emge) who work for a local news station — Francine is the only one who does not indulge in the luxury of denial. She is willing face the scary and uncertain future of the outside world, whereas Peter, Stephen, and Roger prefer to distract themselves from the possibility that there may not be one. Being that Francine is nearly the only survivor, Romero seems to express through this film that, against all odds, hope for a better life — or at the very least, a “real” life — is far more brave than it is naive.

Stephen, Roger, Peter, and Francine flee the city in a stolen helicopter — the most detached mode of transportation available. When they land on the roof of an abandoned shopping mall, the initial plan is to rest briefly, get a few supplies, and move on. As the men sleep, eat, and smoke, Francine paces anxiously, ready to keep moving. Initially, Peter and Roger venture into the mall only to collect a few essential supplies. On their way down, they switch on the power for everything in the mall because “we might need it,” although things like rotating window displays and decorative water fountains are functionally useless beyond creating the illusion of normalcy. As soon as they realize that they have access to a fully stocked department store, the desire for necessity is lost in the wake of a delirious shopping spree. Even Francine’s boyfriend, Stephen, agrees that Peter and Roger are acting like “maniacs,” and yet he grabs a gun that he doesn’t know how to shoot and rushes off to join the fun.

While the men are shopping, Francine is left alone to fend off a zombie with no means of self-defence. As she attempts to escape onto the roof, the others return to save her from the zombie and bring her back inside. She is dismayed to realize that they intend to stay there indefinitely. While the men enthusiastically describe the mall as a “kingdom” and a “goldmine,” Francine describes it as a “prison.” And though it may be smarter to leave, it is certainly more convenient to stay. Squatting in a shopping mall seems like a viable option to everyone but Francine who, feeling trapped and vulnerable, knows that it is too delicate a bubble to settle into. She makes frequent attempts, often subtle and sarcastic, to remind the others that they are simply indulging in a fantasy, most notably when she refuses to accept a wedding ring from Stephen, telling him that “it wouldn’t be real.” If he wants to marry her, he must part with his fantasy life first. He never does.

The dichotomy of real/artificial is exhibited in many ways as the characters go through the motions of daily life, where everything is an imitation of something familiar and resources seem unlimited. Pre-recorded announcements to shoppers are an unsettling reminder of how alone they are. Roger gorges himself on candy and plays an arcade game wherein his character dies, but comes back to life to play another round with no consequence. For a moment, Peter may be contemplating a return to the outside world when he takes money from the bank, but when he and Stephen strike a pose for the security cameras with fists full of cash, he knows that his actions lack consequence, and thus the money, too, lacks value. He will never spend it.

Stephen and Peter pose for security cameras

Mannequins, a vaguely threatening presence, are featured almost as prominently as zombies and contribute similarly to the theme. Roger is startled briefly by a mannequin, and the mannequins are also used for target practice. When Francine attempts to comfort herself by indulging in a makeover, she models her hair and makeup after a gaudy mannequin head. It is one of the film’s more disturbing images, reflecting her slow mental break from reality, which she is ultimately able to overcome.

Francine's makeover — Francine’s makeover

Time seems to stand still for a while in the shopping mall, perfectly preserved and untouched by an outside world that grows increasingly mysterious as radio and television broadcasts become more sporadic. One of the only signifiers of time passing is Francine’s pregnancy. As she nears her due date, her body is as a visual reminder of the inevitability of change, which may subconsciously threaten the others who are less willing to consider the future when, for the moment, everything they need is right at their fingertips. While it would be possible to give birth inside the mall, Francine’s pregnancy forces her more than anyone else to physically experience the passage of time and consider her future, no matter how uncertain it may be. It is very possible that the mall is the safest place for them to be at the time, and while we can only speculate as to why exactly it is so important to Francine that they get away, what really seems to make her nervous is not having an exit strategy. She is the first to demand helicopter lessons from Stephen in case anything happens to him. As Stephen is her lover and presumably the father of her unborn child, it is surely more difficult for her to imagine the possibility of his death than it is for Peter or Roger, but she has the strength to consider the dangerous reality of their situation and prepare for the worst case scenario.

It is not only her future responsibilities as a mother that gives Francine strength. This is a part of her personality. She is often drinking and smoking, so she is not portrayed as a perfect mother-to-be. Not everything she does is for the benefit of her child’s future. While at her job in the television studio, we see that she is highly focused and assertive. When a cameraman walks off the job during a live broadcast, Francine quickly jumps behind the camera and takes over. This example of taking the wheel is mirrored later when she has completed her flying lesson with Stephen, sincerely happy for the first time in the film. It is in her nature to take charge, which is ultimately what saves her life.

Francine may not have a perfect survival strategy. It could be that she is the one who is truly in denial. But in the end, Francine wants to leave the mall, and she does. Roger and Stephen want to stay, and they die inside. When their bubble becomes overrun by looters and zombies, Peter decides that he would rather kill himself than face the uncertain outside world, but at the last moment he changes his mind and joins Francine in the helicopter. They don’t have much fuel and they might not survive, but waiting to die is no way to live, no matter how you pass the time. Although the future probably isn’t optimistic for Francine and Peter, their willingness to face reality is what keeps them alive. At least until they take off.

Jennifer Krukowski is your average eco-feminist horror enthusiast. A graduate of York University’s Theatre Studies program, Jennifer currently works as an actor and odd-jober in Toronto while pursuing an interest in writing for film and television.

Twitter and Instagram: @jenkrukowski

‘Seventeen Moments of Spring’: Stirlitz as Soviet, Female-authored Bond

Unlike Bond, who uses the dangers of his job as a pretext for casual flings with disposable women, Stirlitz holds himself longingly aloof from women to avoid endangering them. Unlike Bond, who is empowered by his “license to kill,” Stirlitz kills only once, and his victim is fully humanized. Finally, unlike Bond, Stirlitz’s cinematic image is the creation of a woman.

Viacheslav Tikhonov as Stirlitz, smoldering suppression and cigarettes

Written by Brigit McCone.

In August 1973, an estimated 80 million Soviet viewers were transfixed by the espionage drama of Seventeen Moments of Spring, emptying the streets during its broadcast. As a national hero, icy cool super-spy Stirlitz is rivaled only by James Bond. Like Bond, he originated in a series of novels, in his case by Yulian Semenov. However, where Bond’s spying represents a license to role-play, escaping everyday accountability, Stirlitz’s spying represents an emotionally draining and dehumanizing inauthenticity, reflecting everyday Soviet censorship culture. Unlike Bond, who sidesteps issues of inauthenticity on assignments by incompetently using his real name, Stirlitz’s “real” name (Maksim Maksimovich Isayev, which could be Jewish) is not even used by the show’s narration. Unlike Bond, who uses the dangers of his job as a pretext for casual flings with disposable women, Stirlitz holds himself longingly aloof from women to avoid endangering them. Unlike Bond, who is empowered by his “license to kill,” Stirlitz kills only once, and his victim is fully humanized. Finally, unlike Bond, Stirlitz’s cinematic image is the creation of a woman.

Official communist doctrines of gender equality meant that female directors like Tatyana Lukashevich and Tatiana Lioznova received more mainstream support than their Western counterparts. Seventeen Moments of Spring was a project of the Central Studio of Children and Youth Films, explaining the educational montages woven throughout, though Lioznova transcended her brief with a psychological depth that appealed to all ages (and genders). While Stirlitz could not be described as feminized, his emphasized sensitivity is a reaction against hypermasculine propagandist ideals, explaining his cult appeal.

Though women are marginalized in the show’s arena of Nazi high command, Lioznova never allows them to be forgotten. During an interrogation, the camera focuses on a female stenographer’s conflicted reaction. An educational montage pays tribute to the Red Army’s female soldiers, while another celebrates Edith Piaf and Paris, in defiance of Cold War oppositions. Pregnant, undercover radio operator Kate Rien, torn between duty and love, is celebrated for her “heroic emotions.” Her maternity raises the stakes, as in Lois Weber’s Suspense, but does not undermine her courage, resourcefulness, or political conviction. Though some feminists may be irritated by Lioznova’s use of Kate’s escalating maternity to define her heroism, she joins Fargo‘s Marge Gunderson as a rare screen depiction of a pregnant woman actively engaged in wider struggles. Stirlitz’s concern for supplying Kate with milk, his regular outings and chess games with the elderly and bereaved Frau Zaurich, and his care for a stray dog are incidental to the plot, but vital to his psychological health and heroic status. Lioznova suggests that a theoretical struggle on behalf of “the nation” is invalid without compassion for individuals, since “the nation is made up of people.”

In one of Lioznova’s trademark, lingering shots of wordless longing (see Three Poplars at Plyushchikha Street, a kind of Soviet Brief Encounter), Stirlitz’s Soviet superiors bring his wife to a Berlin bar, before he leaves for the Spanish Civil War. The two watch each other across the room, unable to risk contact. This flashback, which Lioznova insisted on over the objections of writer Semenov, is juxtaposed with the efforts of Gabi Nabel to become intimate with Stirlitz at the end of WWII. Initially assumed to be the sweetheart of one of Frau Zaurich’s dead sons, Gabi’s solidarity with Frau Zaurich is instead based on simple, Bechdel-friendly compassion, bonding after Gabi’s house was bombed. Gabi and Stirlitz share a lingering dance, but he gently rejects her, emphasizing the impossibility of intimacy in his position. Later, a sex-crazed female mathematician will drunkenly proposition Stirlitz, with a comical lack of success (though Stirlitz’s swearing “on [his] life” to return to her, while making his escape, is mistranslated as an out-of-character “may you drop dead”) before Stirlitz struggles to write home, unwilling to burden his estranged wife with declarations of love. Stirlitz’s desirability is embodied in this placing of women’s well-being before his own needs. Personal conflict dominates over political intrigue at the show’s poignant finale. Though Lioznova’s protagonist is masculine, his heroism is defined primarily through his empathetic relationship to the feminine, the elderly, and children.

Pastor Schlagg: "The nation is made up of people. So, you eliminate people in the name of the nation." — Pastor Schlagg: “The nation is made up of people. So, you eliminate people in the name of the nation.”

Stirlitz’s allies are a librarian who prefers humanist Greeks to imperial Romans, and a pacifist pastor. These characters can be read as protesting Soviet authoritarianism as much as Nazism. In the words of writer Semenov: “the secret of Stirlitz’s longevity is explained not only by his charm and intelligence, but by the fact that I chose for him to remain outside the system after 1921, and to serve (while remaining patriotic) not the system as it is, but the ideal of struggle against fascism.” When the show’s fictional Stalin says of Nazi high command: “the closest associates of the tyrant, being on the brink of downfall, will betray him to save their lives,” he subtly indicates the paranoia that fueled his own purges of close associates. Through her spy’s deep cover, Lioznova largely sidesteps communist propaganda to focus on the conflict between Stirlitz’s humanist sympathies and pressure to compromise himself in the interests of the (Nazi) state.

Similarly, Mikhail Romm’s 1948 The Russian Question focuses on the conflict between censorship culture and individual conscience, in the dilemma of (American) journalist Harry Hill, who strives to tell the (positive) truth about the Soviet Union, when threatened with unemployment and persecution by his (American) superiors. Mikhail Kalatozov’s 1950 Conspiracy of the Doomed was the first Soviet film to acknowledge the widespread famines that followed collectivization, blaming the (American) government for causing them, as well as condemning the (American) secret service’s maneuverings to undermine the sovereignty of the USSR’s neighbors. In 1969, after Soviet invasion had crushed Alexander Dubcek’s attempt to establish democratic “socialism with a human face” in Czechoslovakia, Moscow’s Taganka theatre staged Protect Your Faces, climaxing in Vladimir Vysotsky performing his individualist anthem “Wolf Hunt,” protesting (American) violence against the democratic leader (John F. Kennedy), while actors with mirrors showed audiences their own faces. The play was a sensation, and banned after three performances. In the sometimes patronizing Stalinism and Soviet Cinema, this phenomenon is defined as “social Freudianism,” an entire society’s projection of its suppressed self-image onto its enemies. Far from unconscious, however, “social Freudianism” exploits anti-capitalist and anti-fascist propaganda as permissible outlets for criticism, within a culture of “dancing with the censor” whose audience was adept at decoding subversive subtext.

Oleg Tabakov as Walther Schellenberg: horrifyingly likable Nazi

This subtlety becomes immediately apparent when considering Seventeen Moments of Spring as anti-Nazi propaganda. Nazis feature in Western propaganda (a.k.a. pop culture) as evil caricatures and disposable cannon-fodder, but the Nazis of Seventeen Moments of Spring are intensely humanized and frequently sympathetic. As one of the film’s soulful Nazis puts it: “it’s easy to advise other people to be honest. But everyone personally tries to turn his dishonesty into honesty. To justify himself and his actions, so to speak.” Stirlitz’s Nazi counterpart, the mischievously machiavellian Walther Schellenberg, is introduced intimidatingly by his official report: “a true Aryan, of Nordic character, brave and firm… merciless towards the Reich’s enemies. An excellent family man… no discrediting liaisons.” When slavic, married Isayev (Stirlitz), is likewise defined as “a true Aryan, of Nordic character, self-possessed… Merciless towards the Reich’s enemies… Unmarried. No known discrediting liaisons,” we realize this information is unreliable. Gradually, as each of the film’s Nazis receives the banal description “a true Aryan, of Nordic character… merciless towards the Reich’s enemies,” it devolves into a deadpan joke at the expense of hollow official rhetoric. After the show’s broadcast, actor Oleg Tabakov received a letter from the real SS Commander Schellenberg’s niece, thanking him for bringing “Uncle Walther” to life with an apparently authentic performance.

Hitler’s henchmen are profiled in Stirlitz’s “information for pondering” with descriptions of their wives and families, followed by examples of their rhetoric dehumanizing enemies – Goering: “kill, kill and kill. Don’t think of the consequences,” Goebbels: “you should be cruel and merciless when it comes to those we’re fighting against,” Himmler: “we should be honest, decent and loyal only towards the representatives of our race.” Lioznova highlights Goering’s justification of an inhuman death camp as “what the nation wants,” implicitly contrasted with Pastor Schlagg’s definition of the nation as a collection of individuals. Schellenberg and Stirlitz will both reveal themselves shockingly desensitized, maintaining grim, gallows humor for the sake of their sanity. They muse together about their “true” personalities, discarded and stored for future use, like “coats in the wardrobe.” As Stirlitz catches himself thinking of Germany as “our country,” Seventeen Moments of Spring questions whether it is ever possible to play a role without becoming it. For Russian Jew Lioznova, who lost her family in the war, identifying with Germans and insistently humanizing Nazis is the ultimate rejection of their dehumanizing ideology, echoing Hannah Arendt’s philosophies.

The opening and closing images of the series are of Stirlitz, staring up at a formation of cranes. An iconic wartime song by Mark Bernes, “The Cranes Are Flying,” portrayed cranes as reincarnations of soldiers killed in battle. The Cranes Are Flying is also the title of the 1957 Palme d’Or winning masterpiece by Mikhail Kalatozov (I Am Cuba, Conspiracy of the Doomed), which explodes the romanticized mystique of anthems such as “Wait For Me” in its unflinching portrait of the brutal realities of wartime, centering the female experience of abandonment. Through his meditations on flying cranes, Stirlitz thus indicates his consciousness of the burden of his country’s sacrifices. Churchill, as Seventeen Moments of Spring reminds us, once telegramed that “future generations will recognize their debt to the Red Army as unconditionally as we… who were the witnesses of those great victories,” but it is now rarely emphasized in Western histories that 75 percent of Nazi casualties were inflicted on the Eastern front, along with an estimated 20 million Soviet deaths.

While triumphalist American images of WWII reflect their successful foreign war, the Soviet experience was national trauma, barely concealed by its rebranding as “Great Patriotic War.” Scars are markers of villainy in the creepily eugenic Bond franchise, but Lioznova lingers on scarred bystanders and the rubble of bombardment as testament to war’s destruction. The “always careful” Stirlitz’s iconic masculinity lies not in swaggering machismo, but in his willingness to admit the futility and insignificance of his role, his personal courage in the face of totalitarianism, and his compassion for suffering. Compare Vladimir Vysotsky, as the leading postwar icon of Soviet masculinity, in his open acknowledgement of the trauma of Stalinist purges, and of WWII’s devastation:

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOJ49PGMW_8″]

From the ticking clock of 24 to Bond’s grittier, morally conflicted reboots, the influence of Seventeen Moments of Spring can be seen throughout pop culture, but its emotional depth is unrivaled. By making audiences fear for the fate of every informer, and sympathize with the sacrificed humanity of every oppressor, Tatiana Lioznova arguably created the most profound spy story ever filmed. Depicting a complex world, where integrity is a compromise between loyalty and necessity, and how we behave defines who we become, Seventeen Moments of Spring is James Bond for grown-ups.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZTCoDMlL2k”]

Brigit McCone studied for a year in Moscow State University, writes and directs short films and radio dramas and is the author of The Erotic Adventures of Vivica (as Voluptua von Temptitillatrix). Her hobbies include doodling and rampant Russophilia.

I Think We Need a Bigger Metaphor: Men and Masculinity in ‘Jaws’

The life Brody has lived is utterly different, if not entirely sheltered. What dangers or dilemmas he’s faced in his life simply haven’t left the kind of marks Hooper and Quint bear. And their lack prevents him from engaging in any stereotypical masculine posturing. He is, by that criteria anyway, untested.

This guest post by Julia Patt appears as part of our theme week on Masculinity.

Full disclosure: I love Jaws.

I’ve loved Jaws since I was about 8 years old. (It was during my marine biologist phase.) Sharks are awesome. The movie that frightened people away from beaches in the summer of 1975 made me want to get my SCUBA certification. My first stop in any aquarium is still the shark exhibit.

As a lifelong member of Team Shark, I’ve never had much regard for the people who populate the movie and Amity Island. Let’s be honest — Chief Martin Brody (beautifully underplayed by Roy Scheider) is hardly an archetypal hero worthy of Homeric simile. He’s a quiet aquaphobe who moved to Amity to escape the upheaval of 1970s New York and raise his children somewhere peaceful. More than anything, in fact, we recognize him as a father. Not a stern authority figure but an affectionate, involved parent who at one point demands of his young son, “Give us a kiss.”

To his credit, Brody seems to understand he’s in way over his head (sure, pun intended) when it becomes apparent their quiet new home has a shark problem. He tries to close Amity’s beaches, is met with public uproar, and ultimately gets overruled by the island’s mayor, a consummate politician, who explains blandly: “We rely on the summer people.” (It’s just economics.) Later, after a particularly grisly attack involving a young boy, Brody accepts a harsh slap from the child’s mother for leaving the beaches open. From his perspective, he deserves it. He would do more, but he lacks standing, authority, and power. In fact, he doesn’t even know that much about sharks, only what he’s picked up by self-educating. Given our hero and his limitations, it seems like Amity Island will remain an open buffet for many years to come.

Then, 50 minutes into Spielberg’s carefully paced film, we meet Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss), the young, wealthy scientist and shark enthusiast who comes to assess Amity’s shark problem based on the remains of the first victim. Hooper provides a stark contrast to Brody: he’s confident, fast-talking, and assertive. When the pair try to convince the mayor that it’s a Great White they’re dealing with, Hooper gives up, exasperated, and spits, “ I’m not going to waste my time arguing with a man who’s lining up to be a hot lunch.”

While Hooper and Brody immediately form a friendly connection, their differences are readily apparent. They belong to different generations; they belong to different socioeconomic classes. “How much?” Brody asks after Hooper admits his high-tech setup in self-funded.

“Me or the whole family?”

And although he is hardier and — in some ways — braver than Brody, Hooper likewise cannot solve the problem of the shark. Like Brody, he is an outsider on the island. The mayor dismisses him out of hand as a fame-seeker. And his bluster primarily serves to cover up his own fears. E.g., during the film’s two autopsies, Hooper recoils, fighting the urge to vomit, and, in one case, shakily asks for a glass of water. In investigating a wrecked fishing boat, he is startled by a floating corpse and drops the massive shark tooth that would make their case. In a way, he creates no more momentum and has no more agency than Brody.

It’s only after the Fourth of July, when the beaches are open and Brody’s own son is nearly a victim of an attack, that the story can advance and our would-be heroes take real action. This begins when Brody, more aggressive than we’ve seen him all film, forces the mayor to hire local shark-hunter Quint (Robert Shaw) to kill the animal.

Ah, Quint. Salty, idiosyncratic, shanty-singing Quint. He makes an initial appearance at a town hall meeting, announcing his presence by dragging his fingernails down a chalkboard and launches into one of his quintessential (I’m not sorry) monologues, concluding, “I don’t want no volunteers, I don’t want no mates, there’s just too many captains on this island. $10,000 for me by myself. For that you get the head, the tail, the whole damn thing.”

Quint is our monster-hunter. Our Ahab, sans whalebone leg. He is, in fact, what we expect out of our hyper-masculine Hollywood heroes. He belongs to another era entirely, one far removed from the radar and shark darts and cages Hooper brings to the table. And unlike Brody, he has no family, no obligations, and no qualms doing what he believes must be done. Despite his statement about needing no volunteers and no mates, he acquiesces and allows Brody and Hooper to accompany him on his quest, but he is undeniably in charge.

Onboard the Orca, we see the ways in which the power dynamics among the three men develop. Although there is a clear conflict between Hooper and Quint — “You’ve got silly hands, Mr. Hooper” — Hooper’s established skills save him from the worst of the chores, such as ladling chum into the water. Instead, these fall to Brody, whose status as a novice places him at the bottom of the social hierarchy. This even leads to conflict between Brody and Hooper, who chastises him for mishandling equipment.

Of course, they’re not alone out there. The shark’s appearance both divides and unites them. They work together to bring it to surface and yet Quint — in a moment of psychosis? desperation? — destroys their radio equipment with a baseball bat, preventing them from seeking help, and then kills the Orca’s engine by running it too hard. In the dark, they sit below deck in the galley, not sleeping, but drinking and trading stories about old scars.

Or rather, Hooper and Quint trade stories. This one from a moray eel. That one from a thresher shark. Brody has nothing to contribute to the conversation, although he considers sharing his appendectomy scar before deciding against it. Here we have the ultimate distinction between the three men. The life Brody has lived is utterly different, if not entirely sheltered. What dangers or dilemmas he’s faced in his life simply haven’t left the kind of marks Hooper and Quint bear. And their lack prevents him from engaging in any stereotypical masculine posturing. He is, by that criteria anyway, untested.

Instead of participating in this proverbial measuring contest, Brody asks Quint about a removed tattoo on his arm. Quint relays the story in his final speech of the film — the sinking of the USS Indianapolis during World War II and the death of its many crewmen in shark-invested waters. It’s a chilling story, brilliantly delivered by Shaw and beautifully reflected by the reactions of Scheider and Dreyfuss, whose respective characters are both too young to have fought (and we can imagine both have missed Vietnam for other reasons). They are simply in awe of Quint as he speaks. “You know that was the time I was most frightened?” he muses. “Waitin’ for my turn. I’ll never put on a lifejacket again.”

This instance of admitted vulnerability is, I’d argue, what bonds the three of them in this brief moment. After a silence, Hooper starts singing “Show Me the Way to Go Home” and the other two join in, smiling. This feeling of camaraderie is, of course, immediately cut short when the shark attacks the boat for the penultimate time.

This is the lead-up to the final showdown the next morning. They have settled on a final attempt to kill the shark: by sending Hooper down in the cage with a dose of strychnine. This could be a heroic moment for Hooper, but the shark gets the better of him and all but destroys the cage. From the surface, Brody and Quint can’t know he escaped and hid; they assume the attack was fatal. Meanwhile, the Orca is sinking and the shark remains undeterred. It launches itself onto the boat, tilting the deck and thus forcing a screaming Quint into his open mouth. It’s the goriest, longest death scene in the whole movie, which up this point has frightened us largely through suggestion and perspective.

This, of course, leaves Brody alone to deal with the shark. Although he’s our protagonist, the audience doesn’t necessarily see this moment coming. Isn’t he doomed? Ingeniously, when the shark strikes next, Brody manages to get an oxygen tank into its open mouth. Rifle in hand, he climbs up the mast of the near-submerged Orca. The shark advances. Brody fires and misses. Again. “Blow up,” he mutters. “Blow up.” Then, another iconic line: “Smile, you son of a bitch.”

That’s the lucky shot — the shark does indeed blow up. Of course, our hero doesn’t settle for some stoic, gunslinger pose at the end of this struggle. He cheers and whoops, celebrating his victory in open relief. When Hooper reappears, he is startled, then the two laugh together, all of their tension gone. “Quint?” Hooper asks.

“No,” Brody replies. Both fall silent. Then, they begin the long swim home.

What does it mean that Brody is finally successful in killing the shark? He is the last man standing, not necessarily because of his own survival skills, but because the men around him willingly put themselves into danger. They have done it before and succeeded — that they fail indicates the shark’s power rather than their lack of ability. However, it is Brody’s last desperate attempts that fend off the indomitable representation of danger. He kills the shark not to display any prowess or make any point, but simply because he wants to live.

Ultimately, it is the family man who hates the water and has never been to war who lives to tell the tale and saves the day. The grizzled ex-Navy shark-hunter, who survived the sinking of the USS Indianapolis dies screaming and terrified in the jaws of the beast he assured everyone he could defeat. The era for such men has passed, the film seems to tell us. And it is not quite the era of Matt Hoopers either. He survives, but it seems unlikely he would have made it back to shore if not for Brody’s success. His technology likewise does not save him. Rather, the film seems to aim for the middle. We are in a time of soft-spoken fathers who don’t have anything to prove and would just rather not go swimming, thank you very much.

At first glance, Jaws appears to be a consummate man’s man type of movie — almost stereotypically masculine. After all, it’s about our struggle against nature. Women play a limited role in the drama, either as wives and mothers or victims. Our three male protagonists, different thought they may be, venture into the wild to protect the homestead. However, the film repeatedly asks us to reconsider our view of masculinity by presenting such disparate characterizations. We require all three men to overcome the deadly animal in the water. None of them in isolation likely could have accomplished it, despite Brody’s singular victory in the end.

Thus, in many respects, Jaws seems to deal more with the question of male helplessness. Remember how the film begins: a young woman asks a young man at a bonfire to go swimming with her. He is too intoxicated to make it off the beach; the shark attacks her and she disappears. Throughout the film, we see innumerable nods to male fragility, from Brody’s deputy vomiting when he discovers the young woman’s remains, to the elderly men wading into the water with their pasty bodies, to Quint’s undignified end. While Brody seems a more capable man at the end of the film, he is still at his most vulnerable as he fires that last shot from his position on a sinking boat.

How Jaws was and remains an incredibly successful horror film is how it masterfully evokes those feelings of helplessness and dread in the audience as well. The shark continues to frighten us because we recognize its power. And it matters very little how strong or capable the people around us are — they will always pale in comparison.

Recommended reading: “The men, monsters, and troubled waters of Jaws”

Julia Patt is a writer from Maryland. She also edits 7×20, a journal of Twitter literature, and is a regular contributor to VProud.tv and tatestreet.org. Follow her on Twitter at @chidorme.

As Goes Missouri, So Goes the Nation: ‘The Pruitt-Igoe Myth,’ ‘Rich Hill,’ and ‘Spanish Lake’

Rural poverty and urban poverty are not the same. Individual racism and institutional racism are not the same. However, these forces are woven together as they are fiercely kept separate in our common mythologies of what America means. We avoid difficult stories that disrupt the narratives we’ve come to understand.

Written by Leigh Kolb.

For over a century, Missouri was known as a bellwether state; a politically split swing state (blue urban Kansas City and St. Louis bookend red rural communities), the state’s presidential vote almost always reflected the outcome of the presidential election. In the Civil War, Missourians fought for both sides. Demographically, economically, socially, and politically, Missouri has often been seen as a microcosm of America as a whole.

In an NPR article, the term “bellwether” is defined:

“You might be wondering where the word ‘bellwether’ comes from. Just think about Mary and her little lamb… she’d tie a bell around the neck of a wether (a castrated male sheep) who would lead the little lamb and the rest of the flock around until Mary came back. And when she returned, the bell signaled the flock’s location.”

The bell around Missouri’s neck has been sounding, tuning a nation in to the economic and divisive realities of a nation divided, economically and racially. Three recent documentaries paint a portrait of tragic desperation that is not isolated to middle America; it’s the struggle of a nation faced with the staggering reality of deep divides in class and race.

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The Pruitt-Igoe Myth

The Pruitt-Igoe Myth, directed by Chad Freidrichs and released in 2012, tells a more complex version of a modern myth. Pruitt-Igoe was a public housing development in St. Louis, built to be a shiny clean alternative to the tenements of the city. It was designed with the goal of “lifting residents out of poverty,” and was built using federal funding after the Housing Act of 1949. The documentary, which succeeds greatly in its usage of historical footage and current interviews with past tenants, paints a picture of a development full of hope. Those interviewed remembered Pruitt-Igoe as an “oasis in a desert,” and their time there had been incredibly exciting and happy. There was also fear, though. A complex portrait is drawn that leaves the viewer wondering, “What happened?”

The complex was segregated. Public housing was racially segregated until 1956; after that, many areas remained or became increasingly segregated due to redlining and “white flight” as suburbs became attractive options and were also subsidized heavily by government funding. Against the backdrop of a post-war economy that was not growing as expected, and the deep racism that permeated the country as schools were desegregated, Pruitt-Igoe was a socialist penthouse built on a racist, shaky free market.

Twenty years after its completion, it was fully demolished. The mythology that has surrounded its failure typically stigmatizes public housing and the residents; however, the real story has much more to do with the lack of maintenance and support, welfare policies that broke apart families, and decaying conditions coupled with increasing rent. While the government built the complex, the maintenance and upkeep was to be paid for with tenants’ rent. This model relied on a vibrant, growing city and economy.

That’s not what happened.

The government was also committed to pro-suburb housing policies, where middle class and working class whites went to live. The Pruitt-Igoe Myth does an excellent job outlining the history of economic decline and housing and zoning laws that were often unfriendly to poor and working class African Americans.

Another reality that the film reveals is the “control” that the welfare department had over those in the apartments who received aid, including the anti-family “man in the house” rule, which dictated that if an “able-bodied” man lived in the home, the family couldn’t receive assistance. For some of the interviewees in the film, that meant that their fathers had to leave the state, or hide when agents came to check and see if a man was living in the house. (And just a few decades later, conservatives decry the breakdown of the family as the cause of poverty and crime.) The rules were restrictive–telephones and televisions were not allowed. The theme of “control” runs through many of the former tenants’ narratives–the control that the housing authority attempted to have over them, and the lack of control they felt in their deteriorating living conditions.

Instead of fixing and maintaining the units, authorities made everything “indestructible” (caging in light bulbs for example). One former tenant said that that “made you want to destroy things.” While The Pruitt-Igoe Myth is ostensibly about a housing project, it is also about segregation, masculinity, poverty, distrust of law enforcement, racism, the decline of the American city, and whites’ deep fears of Black poverty and crime (the mythology of Pruitt-Igoe became a scapegoat to uphold those fears).

This iconic footage of Pruitt-Igoe being destroyed was used in the film Koyaanisqatsi. "Koyaanisgatsi" is a Hopi Indian word, and means "life out of balance." — This iconic footage of Pruitt-Igoe being destroyed was used in the film *Koyaanisqatsi*. “Koyaanisgatsi” is a Hopi Indian word, and means “life out of balance.”

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Rich Hill

On the other side of Missouri is Rich Hill, a rural town with a population of just over 1,000. A former coal mining town, the economy of Rich Hill has declined rapidly in the last few decades, and its inhabitants are faced with poverty and a lack of employment opportunities.

Filmmakers Tracy Droz Tragos and Andrew Droz Palermo (who are cousins), grew up visiting family in Rich Hill. They stress the importance of showing poverty in America, and that we cannot keep those living in poverty “at arm’s length.” They directed Rich Hill, a beautiful documentary that focuses deeply on the lives of three young teenage boys who are up against a world that seems hopeless.

Between 2000 and 2010, poverty rates in Missouri doubled, at a rate 3.5 times the national average. Rural areas have been hit by declining manufacturing opportunities. The three boys chronicled in Rich Hill are all faced with devastating family situations. Andrew is good-looking and charming, and seems optimistic amid the chaos of his life–a father who does odd jobs, sings country music, and moves his family around constantly. Appachey lives in rage, and chain smokes at age 12. His mother had him when she was a teenager, and his father left when he was 6. Harley’s mother is in prison because she tried to kill his stepfather after his stepfather had raped him, and the cops did nothing. Harley lives with his grandmother. “I don’t need an education,” he tells us. “I just need my family.”

The film spans a year, and it’s punctuated by Fourth of July celebrations. Toward the end, the fireworks are juxtaposed with scenes of Andrew and his father arm wrestling, and the town chanting “USA!” in celebration. These scenes are stunningly beautiful and deeply sad.

Andrew says, “I keep praying. Nothing’s came yet, but I keep trying…”

Tragos said that in making the film, they were trusted because they had their grandparents’ name. She explains that this was “less of a nostalgia piece than for an urgent piece about these kids’ lives.” It’s clear that the filmmakers were pulled in to these boys’ lives (their website features updates and fundraising links for the boys and other organizations).

The plight of the mothers and grandmothers is overwhelming. It’s difficult to watch the one father who is in the picture; he has delusions of grandeur, and we can see Andrew following in those charismatic, aimless footsteps (although most viewers are completely charmed and heartened by Andrew’s grinning confidence). The boys are all smart and funny, yet they are faced with a system–whether it be the juvenile system, or a free-falling economy–that is completely against them and their families.

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Spanish Lake

Spanish Lake is an unincorporated township north of St. Louis eight miles away from Ferguson. Filmmaker Philip Andrew Morton lived there until he was 18. When he returned 10 years later, his childhood home and elementary school were abandoned, and he wanted to explore the phenomenon of “white flight” that occurred in St. Louis in the last half century.

He made Spanish Lake, which centers mostly on the white people who left Spanish Lake as they reflect upon the past. While these interviews make up the majority of the film, there is a bit of history that gives some context to the demographic shift. Spanish Lake was kept unincorporated due to anti-government sentiment, which led to a lack of social services and the building of Section 8 apartments, where many impoverished African Americans moved after housing developments like Pruitt-Igoe were destroyed. Realtors redlined neighborhoods, pushing whites in and out strategically. White people–fueled by racism and the lack of what had been strong, unionized labor opportunities–fled to other suburbs or rural areas.

In Spanish Lake, Morton captures a reunion of “Lakers”–former residents of Spanish Lake who have a reunion at Spanish Lake and drink beer while reminiscing about the past. Morton’s motivation in making Spanish Lake was his own nostalgia, as he remembers his childhood in Spanish Lake with a sense of pain and loss. While there’s no doubt that he also has a social awareness (that was certainly heightened as the timing of his film coincided with Ferguson making waves around the world, as Ferguson’s demographic shift has been similar to Spanish Lake’s), the overriding tone of the documentary is nostalgic, peppered with just enough history to give some context.

White former residents talk about the fights, and getting beaten up by “sisters,” and laugh about shooting a Black Santa off a new resident’s roof. The pain in these former residents’ comments is palpable, but it’s left unexamined. The documentary plays for more than 30 minutes before a Black person speaks. There are short clips of Black apartment residents thanking the local police force and their new (white) landlords.

Had Spanish Lake existed in a vacuum, it would have been a fine piece of nostalgic film that briefly illuminated a modern history of segregation and deeply entrenched racism and a decaying middle class as labor and manufacturing opportunities dissolved.

If viewers are looking for a nuanced commentary on “how Ferguson became Ferguson,” Spanish Lake is not enough. The Pruitt-Igoe Myth, full of authentic voices that speak to the fear and trauma of growing up in poverty and institutional racism, should be required viewing.

However, Spanish Lake itself does capture how many white Americans react and speak about a recent history of demographic changes, housing segregation, and school desegregation. It’s uncomfortable to hear their voices, but those voices are familiar and loud, all across America.

There’s a lot of talking, but not a lot of critical thinking. And when it comes to talking about race and class in America, that’s a painfully accurate representation.

White voices dominate Spanish Lake — White voices dominate *Spanish Lake*

We don’t want to hear how, in so many ways, Pruitt-Igoe was set up for failure, and fit into a narrative that it was the residents themselves who were failures. We don’t want to listen to the young Black man who was a boy in Pruitt-Igoe, who loved quietly watching insects in a field before he saw his brother brutally murdered–then all he could think about was killing.

We don’t want to hear about rural poverty, and how the economy has gutted middle America and left in the rubble children who are failed by their parents, their schools, and the legal system. One audience member at a Rich Hill screening praised Andrew for his faith and encouraged him to keep praying, as if his optimism and charming smile would someday pay the bills.

We don’t want to hear the racism of former residents of a “nice area,” who can’t see that their own anti-government stance helped usher in low-income housing, which they were also against. Then there weren’t social services available–because they were against centralized government–and that lack of social services harmed everyone. In so many ways, Spanish Lake represents an entire nation of people who vote and scream against their own interests without any sense of introspection. What makes Spanish Lake jarring is the modernity of the footage. In The Pruitt-Igoe Myth, the footage of residents and officials of Black Jack, another township north of St. Louis who wanted to keep a certain “element” out of their neighborhoods is in black and white, grainy news reels of a time that seems so long ago. But it wasn’t. In Spanish Lake, former residents make the same arguments in broad daylight in high-definition.

We want to believe that it’s all simple. Segregated housing policies are a thing of the past, and we’re in a “post-racial” society. Poverty is due to laziness. People should just choose to live in better conditions and pull up their bootstraps, and ignore history. We want to ignore history.

That is the American mythology that has a chokehold on us all.

But the chain is tightening around Missouri’s neck, and the bell is sounding. We must leave the mythology in the past and deal with reality.

Because Missouri–its segregation, its poverty, and its denial–is America.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7RwwkNzF68″]

[youtube_sc url=”http://youtu.be/QNp0AuPiZ3Y”]

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yw38xwWu3r4″]

See also: “Mapping Decline: St. Louis and the American City”; “St. Louis: A city divided” at Al Jazeera America; For its poverty rate, Missouri should be placed on child neglect registry. at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Leigh Kolb is a composition, literature, and journalism instructor at a community college in rural Missouri.

History We Need: ‘Chisholm ’72’

Directed by Shola Lynch, the 2004 documentary ‘Chisholm ’72: Unbought and Unbossed’ tells the story of Chisholm’s campaign for her party’s nomination, and without even trying to, the film offers a necessary antidote to popular culture representation of the dominant white male supremacist lens of history-making that is reified when it goes unchallenged.

If you’ve been following Mad Men this season then you know that the year is 1969, and Nixon has just taken office. Although the show is centered on white upper-middle class men and women, we are finally seeing a wee bit of narrative texture in the two minority women characters employed at the Madison Avenue advertising firm that is the show’s locus. But this is not a takedown of Mad Men, a show whose characters, writing, and style I find compelling even though I support the critiques offered by the likes of W. Kamau Bell and Daniel Mendelsohn. I bring up this series because, unless the writers this season will reveal otherwise, the New York City of 1969 on this show is not likely to highlight a major historical moment of this time and place: in that year and in that city Shirley Chisholm became the first black woman elected to Congress. Three years later, she would launch the first major bid by a woman for candidacy for the Democratic Party for the President of the United States. While there had been other candidates for third and fourth parties as far back as 1872 (Victoria Woodhull, to be precise), Chisholm’s campaign was serious in its determination to represent the United States and all its citizens in no uncertain terms. Directed by Shola Lynch, the 2004 documentary Chisholm ’72: Unbought and Unbossed tells the story of Chisholm’s campaign for her party’s nomination, and without even trying to, the film offers a necessary antidote to popular culture representation of the dominant white male supremacist lens of history-making that is reified when it goes unchallenged.

Lynch’s film follows a familiar style of documentary that viewers have come to expect from the POV series. There are numerous interviews with politicians, activists, and intellectuals who worked alongside Chisholm on her campaign or are called upon to reflect on why they did not support her nomination even while they supported her as a politician. The accounts of author/activist Amiri Baraka and former Congressmen Reverend Walter Fauntroy and Ronald Dellums are especially fascinating in that they reveal the complex interplay of concerns over standing behind a candidate they believed in vs. one who they thought could realistically defeat Nixon. Chisholm understood these concerns, but nonetheless offered a direct challenge to the conventional wisdom of electoral politics in her campaign announcement speech:

“I have faith in the American people. I believe that we are smart enough to correct our mistakes. I believe that we are intelligent enough to recognize the talent, energy, and dedication, which all American including women and minorities have to offer. I know from my travels to the cities and small towns of America that we have a vast potential, which can and must be put to constructive use in getting this great nation together.[…] I stand before you today, to repudiate the ridiculous notion that the American people will not vote for qualified candidates, simply because he is not right or because she is not a male. I do not believe that in 1972, the great majority of Americans will continue to harbor such narrow and petty prejudice.”

Though it is clear Chisholm sought the support of a united party, she was also explicit in her desire to bring together two groups to which she has dual membership: women and black people. After all, she opens her campaign announcement speech like this:

“I am not the candidate of black America, although I am black and proud. I am not the candidate of the women’s movement of this country, although I am a woman, and I am equally proud of that.”

The film’s archival footage is rich with evidence of her attempting to demonstrate her goal to encourage her party toward inclusiveness. We see her move with total confidence and self-possession through crowds of supporters on the campaign trail, on voter registration drives, and facing crowds of thousands. What is perhaps the most remarkable thing about her political presence is she seems to address each audience she encounters with an exacting sense of urgency to motivate all people to seize the rights and privileges of full citizenship. In interviews and behind-the-scenes campaign footage, Chisholm comes across as almost unbelievably authentic (especially for a politician), and embodies the film’s subtitle (taken from her 1970 political autobiography): she was truly “unbought” when it came to her refusal to make political deals that would compromise her constituents and “unbossed” by those who have her remain firmly entrenched in the status quo she was elected to challenge.

Although it’s no spoiler to say that she lost the bid to George McGovern (who would lose to Nixon), the film’s real dramatic force is in the enduring impact felt by those who would go on to realize their own political power as a result of Chisholm’s courageous work. For instance, U.S. Representative Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) recalls when she first met Chisholm and joined the campaign. At the time she was both a student on public assistance and a single mother, and she remembers what Chisholm told her about her own will to act: “[She] told me, no matter what I do in life, use your power judiciously, use it with humility, but use it.”

I could spend all day quoting Chisholm; her famous 1969 speech on “Equal Rights for Women,” for instance, remains as relevant today as it did then (sadly). But rather than do that here, I’ll turn to reading and researching the words and history of a great human being who, as the Shola Lynch said, possesses “a story is an important reminder of the power of a dedicated individual to make a difference.”

“I’ll Make You Feel Like You’ve Never Felt Before”: Jennifer’s Power in ‘I Spit on Your Grave’

No movies ever had to justify a cowboy going on a rogue revenge kick after his log cabin was burned to the ground or his family was killed; certain sufferings of injury, murder of loved ones, robbery, etc., have been accepted throughout cinematic history to merit revenge at all costs. ‘I Spit on Your Grave’ was a large part of a relatively new phenomenon, possibly born out of the feminist movement, to add rape—based on the woman’s experience of rape, whether validated by law or not—to that list of worthy harms, which is an important statement in our rape culture.

Jennifer, before she murders the final man

This guest post by Sophie Besl appears as part of our theme week on Rape Revenge Fantasies.

I got into exploitation films through Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill. I liked the Bride’s unapologetic rampage, and was thrilled to learn that Tarantino’s work emerged from a rich tradition of female-fronted films starting in the early 1970s. What interested me most was that this tradition was created by men for the entertainment of a predominately (young, urban) male audience. Yet these exploitation films, such as Coffy, Foxy Brown,[1] Lady Snowblood,[2] and dozens of low-budget slasher films[3] where the “last man standing” was almost always a woman, felt like some of the most empowering, pro-women films I had ever seen. No subgenre of exploitation films brings up the question of whether these films empower or exploit more so than the rape revenge genre. While there is evidence on both sides, as a feminist woman, I greatly enjoy films that follow this plot formula, seeing them as explorations of women’s potential to be fierce and powerful in the face of horrific abuse.[4]

I Spit on Your Grave, originally released as Day of the Woman[5] in the late 1970s, is to me the flagship film of the rape revenge genre. A woman named Jennifer rents a house in the country to spend some quiet time to herself writing and relaxing, but is trapped, tormented, raped, and almost killed by a group of four men from the small town. She then plans and exacts gruesome revenge on each of them. The film was torn apart by critics, yet decidedly not from a feminist angle. A review decrying the scene where Jennifer castrates one of her rapists as “one of the most appalling moments in cinema history,”[6] also calls out the double standard of sexual violence in film–rapes in other films, or even the rape of Jennifer earlier in the same film, did not rile up even close to the same level of distaste at the time it was released.

But while reviews were mixed for an understandably disturbing horror/exploitation film, this film importantly caused viewers to identify with a rape victim in ways previous films did not allow. In her book Men, Women, and Chain Saws, Professor Carol Clover suggests that I Spit on Your Grave is an example of the movement away from how rape was treated in films prior to the 70s, which typically caused the viewer to adopt the rapist’s point of view, such as with somewhat titillating close-ups of a woman’s face as she is strangled.[7] In this film, the viewer adopts Jennifer’s perspective. The camera reveals the ugliness and uncouthness of the male perpetrators from her point of view, and the acts are depicted in such a violent and unpleasant way that there is little discernable sexuality in the assaults. The filming reverses prior conventions in a way that could cause even male viewers to side with the victim rather than the rapists.

Another element that enables male viewers to identify with Jennifer is her victim-to-hero character, not commonly seen fully realized in female characters. Films from earlier in the century tend to have “victim” and “avenger” as separate characters—and often female- and male-gendered, respectively—but in rape revenge films, these roles are unified in one character. Without the “assumption that all viewers, male and female alike, will take Jennifer’s part, and…‘feel’ her violation…the revenge phase of the drama can make no sense” (Clover, 1992). If viewers want to cheer for Jennifer as a hero in the second half of the film, then they have inherently sided with her during her victimization in the first half.

Other than these new and progressive ways of considering female rape victims in film, I Spit on Your Grave provides three fantastic and thought-provoking elements:

The entire movie operates outside the realm of the law

Unlike many other rape revenge films (such as Last House on the Left, where the rapist is a criminal actively hunted by police; The Accused, which is entirely about the legal system and rape; or even the 2010 remake of I Spit on Your Grave, where one of the four men is a police officer), I Spit on Your Grave takes place without any sign of law enforcement. Jennifer does not go to the police after her attack. There is an interesting scene where she prays briefly at a church, but mostly the film recounts, somewhat objectively, the play by play of her attack, followed by the play by play of her revenge killings (though the trailer does proclaim “There isn’t a jury in this country that will convict her!”). No movies ever had to justify a cowboy going on a rogue revenge kick after his log cabin was burned to the ground or his family was killed; certain sufferings of injury, murder of loved ones, robbery, etc., have been accepted throughout cinematic history to merit revenge at all costs. I Spit on Your Grave was a large part of a relatively new phenomenon, possibly born out of the feminist movement, to add rape—based on the woman’s experience of rape, whether validated by law or not—to that list of worthy harms, which is an important statement in our rape culture.

Jennifer uses feminine seduction to exact her revenge

In rape revenge films, the feminine experience of rape often, notably, is the cause for the hero-victim to take on masculine qualities, such as low emotionality and physical brutality. However, in I Spit on Your Grave (while she is undoubtedly brutal in committing murder), Jennifer gets her first “victim” by softly entreating him, “I’ll give you something to remember for the rest of your life.” She actually begins to have intercourse with him (interestingly, he was the only one of the four men who did not want to assault her—he had been a virgin, is cognitively challenged, and caves to peer pressure) so she can slip a noose around his neck and hang him. She simply drives up to her next “victim” and beckons him into her car. He goes willingly because he believes she wants some more. When she pulls a gun on him, he tries to talk her out of shooting him. She complies and invites him back to her house, which he also willingly does due to her coy demureness. At her house, they take a bath together, and while touching him underwater saying, “Relax, I’ll make you feel like you’ve never felt before,” she subtly slips a knife into the tub and cuts his genitals off. Jennifer swims up to the next man’s boat in her bikini and seductively climbs in. Caught off guard, he is pushed into the water, and Jennifer kills him and the last man with an axe and the boat’s motor as they flounder. Her sexuality is her means of entering the situations that enable her to execute each man.

I find it interesting that the castration scene was removed in the remake (as was another such scene in the remake of Last House on the Left), and I’m not sure why. Castration seems to be on an equal plane with the level of violence in these films. (Was it too distasteful to male viewers? Something to think about.) There is also no seduction during the revenge in the remake, with Jennifer instead relying on torture/murder tactics similar to the Saw movies. While perhaps this rewrite to agendered violence is feminist in that she can use the same cunning, engineering, and brutality as men, I think the significance of 1978’s Jennifer using female sexuality, the root of her attack, as part of her revenge technique should not be overlooked.

All four of the men must die, no matter their physical role in the gang rape

During their attack on Jennifer, three of the men constantly “offer” her to the cognitively challenged man, who is visibly horrified by what his friends are doing and avoids participating at all costs. The other three men commit different acts trying to impress and show off to one another, sickly showing that this is more of a sport or game to them than a sexually driven act. When Jennifer confronts each man alone, he pleads and blames the other men. The group dynamic may have caused the men to do things they otherwise wouldn’t have, and the film could serve as a sick warning to men in our rape culture. However, it is important and noteworthy, especially because some reviews at the time described “three rapes” and “three rapists,”[8] that there is no doubt in Jennifer’s or the viewer’s mind that all four should be punished.

I don’t believe the anti-feminist trope that women need attacks like this to make them strong. Many of these films involve gang rapes, or other situations where the woman is at a serious disadvantage due to the men’s weapons or physical strength. To me, the message in these films is that if men choose to take advantage in these sick ways, they will be punished beyond their imagination. A common question is, What do men get out of watching these films (made for men, by men)? I think, because rape is based in extreme powerlessness, degradation, and humiliation, it gives audiences a free pass to fully experience and enjoy the revenge half of the film. In a rich history of movie characters avenging murders of loved ones and all types of suffering, the rape revenge fantasy should only take second place to someone being able to avenge their own murder. Anything the media or society can do to enforce the idea that rape is a paramount crime is a step in the right direction, and I Spit on Your Grave played a large role in building that case through film.

See also at Bitch Flicks: Rape as a MacGuffin: The Hollywood Cop Out

Recommended reading: I Was Wrong About I Spit on Your Grave

Sophie Besl is an exploitation film fanatic with a day job in nonprofit marketing. She has a Bachelor’s from Harvard and lives in Boston with her feminist boyfriend and three small dogs. She tweets at @rockyc5.

[1] Coffy (which Tarantino cites as a direct precursor to Kill Bill) and Foxy Brown, both star Pam Grier, a darling of Blaxploitation whom Tarantino later directed in Jackie Brown. (For more on the fantastic Pam Grier, please read these Bitch Flicks articles on her unfinished legacy and her time in another exploitation subgenre, women in prison). A similar discussion of racism is relevant with Blaxploitation movies—while these films use excessive nudity and do confirm stereotypes, they star Black protagonists who are in themselves empowered in fighting personal battles, and viewers of all backgrounds identify with these protagonists.

[2] Lady Snowblood stars a fierce female protagonist, and is part of the chambara subgenre of exploitation, a revisionist, non-traditional style of samurai film popular in Japan in the early 1970s (Wikipedia).

[3] Slasher films are an exploitation and horror subgenre. While they too are arguably feminist, in that the murderer is usually defeated by the “Final Girl,” in these films, the female protagonist fights because she has to. Rape revenge plots have women calculate revenge, then choose to engage in violence as an avenger, rather than a continuation of being a victim.

[4] When a female character is the attacked avenger, I prefer films that focus on rape revenge fantasy as the entire plot, as opposed to a story like The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, where it is a part of a larger story. A story where it is simply part of the plot sends me the message that rape is part of what women have to deal with on a daily basis; it is inescapable. The extreme treatment of and sole emphasis on rape in films like I Spit on Your Grave and Last House on the Left enables these films to be an exploration of power plays and humanity’s darker sides, rather than a statement about the prevalence of rape in women’s lives.

[5] The original title of this film is significant. The “day of the woman” to me clearly refers to the day of her vengeful murders. By using the phrase “the woman” instead of the character’s name, this seems to imply that her revenge is not just on behalf of herself against her attackers, but on behalf of all women against all men who have perpetrated crimes like this.

[6] Review from Mick Martin and Marsha Porter, Video Move Guide: 1987, as cited and described in Men, Women, and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film, by Carol J. Clover (Princeton University Press 1992).

[7] See Clover (1992, p. 139) for more. She argues that, in films made before 1970, rape was “construed as an act of revenge on the part of a male who has suffered at the hands of the woman in question (to have been sexually teased, or to have a smaller paycheck or lesser job, is to suffer).”

[8] Clover, 1992.

The Unfinished Legacy of Pam Grier

Grier’s legacy has lasted over four decades, but there’s something about her career that leaves me feeling unsettled, as if her filmography is indicative of larger (backward) social trends. She started out headlining action films–an amazing feat for a woman, much less a black woman in the early 1970s. A glance at a few of these films show feminist themes that are incredibly rare 40 years later. Her early films were groundbreaking, but nothing much was built after that ground was broken.

Pam Grier was the first black woman to be on the cover of Ms. Magazine (August 1975). Jamaica Kincaid wrote the article, “Pam Grier: The Mocha Mogul of Hollywood.”

This repost by Leigh Kolb appears as part of our theme week on The Great Actresses.

[Warning: spoilers ahead!]

The first time I saw Pam Grier in a film, I blurted out, “Why isn’t she in everything?”

I first saw Grier in Jackie Brown, and couldn’t understand why she wasn’t featured prominently in more films (and then I quickly remembered African American female protagonists are few and far between). It wasn’t always this way, though.

Grier’s legacy has lasted over four decades, but there’s something about her career that leaves me feeling unsettled, as if her filmography is indicative of larger (backward) social trends. She started out headlining action films–an amazing feat for a woman, much less a Black woman in the early 1970s. A glance at a few of these films show feminist themes that are incredibly rare 40 years later. Her early films were groundbreaking, but nothing much was built after that ground was broken.

Coffy (1973)

Coffy (Grier) is a nurse with a passion for bringing justice to those who keep drugs on the streets. The film opens with her posing as a seductive addict, and she gets herself in an apartment with a drug dealer and supplier. She brutally kills them, and then reports to her job as a nurse.

Coffy is a vigilante, trying to avenge those who made it possible for her 11-year-old sister to get hooked on drugs, causing her to wind up in a juvenile rehabilitation center. After her friend (a “good” cop, unlike many who are tied into the drug trade) is beaten brain dead after defending her, Coffy has an even deeper sense of purpose in retaliating against the machine that’s fostering corruption in her community.

“This is the end of your rotten life, you motherfuckin’ dope pusher!”

While Coffy uses her sexuality to position herself against her enemies, she does what she need to do to win. When a john is degrading her, she says, “You want to spit on me and make me crawl? I’m gonna piss on your grave tomorrow.” Racism, greed, corruption and masculine shows are evil, and a capable woman undoes it all.

The overall quality of the film, the fashion, the music–it’s clearly dated. However, the strong female protagonist stands out as something that’s all too foreign in 2013.

Foxy Brown (1974)

Probably the most popular of Grier’s blaxploitation films, Foxy Brown follows its protagonist through another journey of violent revenge. Foxy sets out to seek justice for the murder of her boyfriend (a government agent who worked to get drugs off the streets–again, an anti-drug theme). She poses as a prostitute to infiltrate the drug/prostitution/sex slave network that’s responsible for the blight of her community. She outwits her enemies and captors at every turn, and ends victorious.

When she’s going to the neighborhood committee for help at the end, she pleads:

“It could be your brother too, or your sister, or your children. I want justice for all of them. And I want justice for all the people whose lives are bought and sold, so that a few big shots can climb up on their backs, and laugh at the law, and laugh at human decency. But most of all, I want justice for a man, this man had love in his heart, and he died because he went out of his neighborhood to do what he thought was right.”

The group leader responds, “Sister, I think what you’re asking for is revenge.”

She says, “You just take care of the justice, and I’ll handle the revenge by myself.”

“The party’s over, Oscar, let’s go.”

Grier’s body–from the opening bikini-clad sequence to close-up shots of her naked breasts–is objectified more frequently in this film than Coffy. She had become more of a star at this point, and producers decided against it being a sequel to Coffy (as the writer had intended), so her career wasn’t a part of the film. Foxy is still a strong, empowered woman–she seeks help from her peers (the new “anti-slavery” society), helps other women and punishes men who are cruel to women. Foxy’s role seems as revolutionary as Coffy’s (maybe more so, with the increased star power).

Sheba, Baby (1975)

The opening credits to Sheba Baby are set to Barbara Mason’s “Sheba, Baby,” boasting how Sheba Shayne is a “sensuous woman playing a man’s game,” “she’s kicking ass and taking names,” and “she’s a dangerous lady, who is well put together…” Sheba is a private investigator in Chicago (a no-nonsense businesswoman, as she yells at her partner for leaving the office a mess) who is called to her hometown of Louisville when her father is in danger. She’d been a cop in the town before leaving, and an old love interest is in business with her father, who owns a loan company. Themes of police ineffectiveness and corrupt white men at the top of a chain of violence are featured again, and Sheba takes justice into her own hands when the police only step up when it’s too late (after her father is killed). She uses her looks to gain access to a yacht party, where she struggles, fights and overcomes the men who are responsible for her father’s death (as well as shutting down many other Black-run businesses in the neighborhood).

“Now you tell your boss that he is not dealing with my father anymore. He is dealing with Sheba Shayne.”

While the themes in this film are similar–anti-racism, anti-white patriarchal corruption and pro-vigilante justice–Sheba, Baby is unique in Sheba’s even fiercer independence than the previous films. When Brick asks her if she “has anyone” in Chicago, she replies: “If you’re asking if I sleep alone every night, I’d have to say no. If you’re asking if I’m going steady with anyone, I’d have to say no. So what are you asking?” The next shot, they are in bed together. However, Sheba doesn’t rely on Brick’s help (she works without him), and leaves him at the end of the film because their separate careers are too valuable. In the final shot of the film, she’s walking the streets of Chicago, smiling and confident.

The ending of Sheba, Baby should have been indicative of a future of Grier’s style of female protagonist. However, Grier wouldn’t again headline a film until Jackie Brown, Quentin Tarantino’s 1997 film (he wrote it specifically for Grier, and she was nominated for numerous awards for it, including a Golden Globe). She certainly worked in the interim, and has since (including stage work and starring in The L Word). But nothing like the string of films she starred in in the 1970s.

When asked about being the first woman to play this type of powerful character, Grier responded:

“I saw women share the platform with men in my personal world, and Hollywood just hadn’t wakened to it yet. Bette Davis and Katharine Hepburn changed the way they saw women during the 1940s, but I saw it daily in the women’s movement that was emerging, because I was a child of the women’s movement. Everything I had learned was from my mother and my grandmother, who both had a very pioneering spirit. They had to, because they had to change flat tires and paint the house—because, you know, the men didn’t come home from the war or whatever else, so women had to do these things. So, out of economic necessity and the freedoms won, by the ’50s and ’60s, there was suddenly this opportunity and this invitation that was like, ‘Come out here with these men. Get out here. Show us what you got.'”

She certainly did. But like so many cultural revolutions, the women’s movement saw backlash in the 1980s and beyond, as did this new kind of feminist, African American cinematic genre.

Grier points out that she’s often criticized for the nudity and violence in her early films.

In regard to the nudity, she says,

“We’ve got $20 million actresses today who are nude in Vanilla Sky, nude in Swordfish. So what did I do different? I got paid less, but that’s it.”

To critics of the violence, she points out,

“I saw more violence in my neighborhood and in the war and on the newsreels than I did in my movies, so it didn’t bother me. Coming from the ’50s, things were very violent. We were still being lynched. If I drove down through the South with my mother, I might not make it through one state without being bullied or harassed. I feel like unless you’ve been black for a week, you don’t know. A lot of people were really up in arms about nothing, and if you challenge them, they go, ‘Well, maybe you’re right.'”

She also notes that although some people objected to the term “blaxploitation,” she didn’t feel the films were demeaning:

“You know, Clint Eastwood, Sylvester Stallone, they can all do shoot-’em-ups. Arnold Schwarzenegger can kill 10 people in one minute, and they don’t call it ‘white exploitation.’ They win awards and get into all the magazines. But if black people do it, suddenly it’s different than if a white person does it.”

Her poignant commentary on the double standards in Hollywood serves as a larger reminder of the double standards in society. The notion of a Black protagonist fighting villainous white people is something that is still uncomfortable. Grier’s nudity in the early films, and her blatant sexiness, felt different than typical female objectification. Even when her cleavage was featured prominently, she had the power–she wasn’t passive, so her sexuality didn’t seem like a marker of weakness simply for the male gaze. It was jarring to feel so comfortable with what looked like female objectification, because it was so different than what we are used to now. Looking at the poster art from her earlier films, one would see her portrayed as an object. However, in the actual films, she is a sexual being, with agency, independence and strength.

Jackie Brown

The Ms. article “In Praise of Baadasssss Supermamas” points out that “…Coffy and Foxy fought against systems that beat up on everyday folk. Imagine what they would do in the 21st century.” It’s a pretty great thought.However, it’s more likely that we get Fighting Fuck Toys (FFTs) in modern cinema, and as Caroline Heldman writes:

“Hollywood rolls out FFTs every few years that generally don’t perform well at the box office (think Elektra, Catwoman, Sucker Punch), leading executives to wrongly conclude that women action leads aren’t bankable. In fact, the problem isn’t their sex; the problem is their portrayal as sex objects. Objects aren’t convincing protagonists. Subjects act while objects are acted upon, so reducing a woman action hero to an object, even sporadically, diminishes her ability to believably carry a storyline. The FFT might have an enviable swagger and do cool stunts, but she’s ultimately a bit of a joke.”

Grier’s heroes are never the joke, and that’s what works. She can carry a storyline, have sex when she wants it (or not) and end up victorious, with her complete agency intact. She’s a subject acting upon the injustices around her.

Pam Grier is an incredible actress, and her most iconic roles serve as a reminder that women can do it all on the big screen. It’s just been too long since they’ve been allowed to.

—–

Leigh Kolb is a composition, literature and journalism instructor at a community college in rural Missouri.

‘Mary and Lou and Rhoda and Ted’: Examining Feminism in ‘The Mary Tyler Moore Show’

When the show started, things were very different than they were even a few years later — it was a time of very fast change in gender politics. When they were pitching the show, the one female executive who championed it was such an anomaly that they had no executive restroom for women.

This is a guest post by Holly Rosen Fink.

One of the greatest shots ever in the opening of a show has to be of Mary Tyler Moore tossing her hat into the air with the theme song “You’re Gonna Make it After All” in the background. The visual and audio combination is very telling of a time when women were breaking out of their shells in the 1970s. The show was ground-breakingly feminist in many ways – the two male producers hired a group of mainly female writers and took the show’s plot in daring directions every chance they got. I sat down with Jennifer Keishin Armstrong, the author of Mary and Lou and Rhoda and Ted: And all the Brilliant Minds Who Made The Mary Tyler Moore Show a Classic to find out how they did it.

How did The Mary Tyler Moore Show‘s producers get the scripts so right during a time of upheaval for women in American history?

JKA: They hired women, for starters. It’s a real testament to gender diversity, because they ended up being able to get the input of the female writers they hired, even as they hired plenty of experienced men who could write a killer script. This also allowed fairly inexperienced women who hadn’t gotten a shot before to get the skills and resume lines they needed to move up in the business. It made a huge ripple-effect difference in the industry in ways we probably can’t even begin to measure. That said, feminists at the time didn’t love the show — as with many groundbreaking shows, it was under tons of scrutiny as the only show of its kind. They hated Mary’s weaker moments and her propensity to call her boss “Mr. Grant” while others called him “Lou.” In the end, I think these chinks in Mary’s feminism made her a stronger character and a better ambassador. But it took the perspective of history to see her that way.

The Mary Tyler Moore Show show went on in 1970. All these years later, it’s still inspiring and influencing writers and characters on TV. Why is that?

JKA: I think it’s a writers’ show, to a large extent. It’s so character-driven, rather than just joke-driven. Writers respond to that and want to make their own shows that way whenever they can.

Originally, Mary Tyler Moore was meant to be divorced but the network refused. She still ended up single and working, which was a revolutionary story line in the 1970s. What was it like talking to the show’s creators about this period of the show’s history? Were they open about their experiences?

JKA: I am such a sucker for those stories of disgusting, blatant early sexism, and the Mad Men-type stuff! When the show started, things were very different than they were even a few years later — it was a time of very fast change in gender politics. When they were pitching the show, the one female executive who championed it was such an anomaly that they had no executive restroom for women. When she was on that floor, she just left her shoes outside the bathroom to let them know she was in there. And yes, the network folks had no interest in Mary being divorced. As one of the executives, Mike Dann, told me, he thought a divorcee would be “kind of a loose woman.” The fact that a few seasons in they could have references to Mary taking birth control and staying out all night on a date is a sign of quite rapid progress.

But they took risks when they could, writing divorce in later for Lou and a gay brother for Phyllis and Rhoda as a New York City Jew. Eventually, Mary was staying out all night and going on the Pill. How did the writers push these modern ideas through?

JKA: They were partially sneaky and partially lucky. A few years in, divorce seemed more palatable, and giving it to Lou instead of Mary certainly made a difference. It didn’t sully their sweet heroine. That said, All in the Family had since come on the air, which blew open a lot of previously closed doors in terms of subject matter. With both All in the Family and Mary doing well, the network was much less likely to mess with them. Network executives are only skittish when something isn’t raking in tons of cash. The gay brother storyline wasn’t originally part of the script; it was added when the actor playing him happened to be gay. But it was still possibly the most blatantly edgy the show ever got. The all-nighter and the Pill were couched in very subtle references that certainly a younger viewer would miss completely. Mary simply mentions offhand that she won’t forget to take her pill, which could, after all, be any kind of pill. And we know she stayed out all night only because we see her leave her apartment at night in an evening gown and return the next morning in the same dress. We never find out what really happened during those hours.

Most of the writers were women. Were they active in the feminist movement?

JKA: They were. I don’t remember any saying they weren’t, and for most of them, it was just an obvious and standard part of life at the time. They went to regular meetings and some of them engaged in at least small forms of activism. I don’t think they had time to be major players in the movement because they were too busy working!

Why did you spend so much time focusing on their lives (which I loved, by the way)?

JKA: It seems like the only interesting way to tell the story, to me. For my tastes, I prefer stories about people rather than just a bunch of geeky trivia about a show. I wanted to write something that goes beyond a fan encyclopedia. There’s a place for that kind of book, for sure — and I used them in my research! I wanted the book to reflect the show, and I think if the writers of The Mary Tyler Moore Show had to write the story of their show, this is the way they’d do it — by focusing on the characters.

Ethel Winant was the only female executive at the show’s start. There were so many men that she didn’t have her own toilet. How did she know the show would be such a huge success?

JKA: She certainly had well-honed instincts, and the show is evidence of her impeccable casting skill. But I think she also responded to the material itself. It makes sense that she would see the value in a show about a career woman, given that she was such a pioneer, and my interviews with her son backed that up.

How did Mary Tyler Moore change the face of TV and women’s roles in the TV industry?

JKA: Like any success, it spawned many attempts at re-creation, which meant lots more shows about women. Some of them stuck, like Maude and even Mary’s spinoff, Rhoda. It also produced several female writers who could go onto other things, kind-of spreading the show’s influence that way. They went on to write for many shows, create some shows, produce, and work as TV executives. They also inspired that entire generation of women who’s currently kicking things up a level, producing in and starring in their own shows.

Was the network supportive of their efforts?

JKA: At first, the network was skeptical. But success is the best way to get the network off your back, and by the end of the first season, the show could mostly do whatever it wanted.

At the time Mary Tyler Moore was on, All in the Family and Maude were developed. Did they compete with these shows?

JKA: They didn’t really. They were all on the same network — CBS was it at the time. So they were able to enjoy each other as colleagues quite a bit and just admire each other’s work. The Mary Tyler Moore guys — Jim Brooks and Ed. Weinberger and Dave Davis — would actually watch All in the Family together and marvel at its greatness. They certainly wanted to keep up their own standards to stay in step with Norman Lear’s shows, but they couldn’t ever compete directly with them.

Did the actresses realize they were feminists at the time? Did any of them stay involved with the movement post 1970s?

Val Harper identified as a feminist, and continues to, while the others didn’t as much. Val was even interviewed by Gloria Steinem for a Ms. cover story during her Rhoda days!

Were the actors jealous of all the attention the actresses got? They seemed like wonderful friends in the end.

JKA: They were, a little bit. They all mentioned it, in fact, but mostly in a good-natured way. They loved the women, but they felt like they were getting more attention, particularly from Jay Sandrich, the director, which is what really got to them. I told Jay that, and he said he never even realized it, but even now, his answer was a playful, “Tough luck.” Honestly, I was struck by how much the entire cast seemed to still love each other.

Is it true that Lou Grant became a feminist himself?

JKA: He did! He’s quite cantankerous and hard to pin down on this stuff, so even when I tried to ask him about it now, he was a little squirmy. But the fact is that feminism is among the many political causes Ed Asner has championed. He was involved with NOW and gave a radio address for them about men in feminism. He also made sure there were women working on Lou Grant and getting paid fairly.

Who are some feminist characters on TV today?

JKA: The feminist-or-not question is always such a hot one these days, but I adore The Mindy Project, which addresses issues like body image and women’s professional success without being too “issuey” about it. Same goes for Girls, where Lena Dunham’s constant nakedness alone is a huge statement.

Holly Rosen Fink is a writer and marketer living in Larchmont, NY. You can follow her on Twitter @hollychronicles.

Unsentimental Love and ‘Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore’

I’ve long been a little troubled by the women characters in Martin Scorsese’s films. I say this as compliment overall, because though the female protagonists are few, they’re far from shallow and weak. From Lorraine Bracco’s Karen in Goodfellas to Vera Farmiga’s Madolyn in The Departed, Scorsese has shown that he can depict women who are multi-faceted and complex. It’s just that their stories are always told in relation to the men their lives. Theirs is always a kind of power struggle with their husbands or boyfriends, and in the end, that power is rarely on par with men’s. I had heard that Scorsese’s 1974 Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore was different, but since it’s one that so rarely talked about, it took awhile for me to finally check it out. And I’m so glad I did.

Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore poster — *Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore* poster

This is a guest post by Heather Brown.

I’ve long been a little troubled by the women characters in Martin Scorsese’s films. I say this as compliment overall, because though the female protagonists are few, they’re far from shallow and weak. From Lorraine Bracco’s Karen in Goodfellas to Vera Farmiga’s Madolyn in The Departed, Scorsese has shown that he can depict women who are multi-faceted and complex. It’s just that their stories are always told in relation to the men their lives. Theirs is always a kind of power struggle with their husbands or boyfriends, and in the end, that power is rarely on par with men’s. I had heard that Scorsese’s 1974 Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore was different, but since it’s one that so rarely talked about, it took awhile for me to finally check it out. And I’m so glad I did.

Ellen Burstyn’s Alice is a 30-something mother in Socorro, New Mexico, where she lives with her husband Donald (Billy Green Bush) and son Tommy (Alfred Lutter). Donald is an overbearing bastard of a man who does little more than bark at Alice and Tommy, who each take care to stay out of his way. Nothing Alice does is ever good enough for Donald. Thelma and Louise fans won’t be able to help but compare him to Darryl, the lout of a spouse who bullies Thelma. Unfortunately, there’s no Louise in this film to whisk Alice away in a 1966 Ford Thunderbird Convertible. Alice’s release from Donald is spurred by a freak car accident that kills him and leaves her and Tommy to fend for themselves. Just like the viewer up to this point, Alice has wished for Donald to disappear, but her guilt is raw, and Tommy senses her ambivalence. Rather than remain in a town she hates in a house she can no longer afford, Alice packs up the station wagon and heads to Monterey, California to reclaim her first love: singing. What ensues is an unlikely road movie with a mother and son at the center, and men on the periphery.

Alice’s first stop is Phoenix, which is about as far as her money will take her. When she and Tommy settle in to a motel, Alice must go shopping for clothes that will make her look younger, as she tells her Tommy. It was at that moment in watching the film that I saw the story come into focus: what happens when a parent doesn’t hide the difficulty of making ends meet from her kid, but instead matter-of-factly involves him in the day-to-day slog of getting by, promising that good things are to come despite the current circumstances? Rather than keep Tommy in the dark about how broke she is and how no one will hire her for a living wage, Alice unsentimentally–yet lovingly–informs Tommy of her plans as she makes them.

Well, almost. Given that Tommy is still young (10 or 11), Alice does prefer to keep intimate details to herself, particularly when it comes to the first man she meets since her husband’s death, Ben (played by Harvey Keitel), who’s a regular customer at the bar where she lands a singing gig in Phoenix. Tommy is no fool, though, and when he asks one too many personal questions Alice tells him she’s not going to talk to him about her sex life. Sure, she doesn’t take this moment to have the birds and bees discussion, but when was the last time you heard a parent acknowledge the existence of a sex life to their kid? Its instances like that that make this film a fascinating study of a parent-child relationship in the context of shifting gender dynamics in a changing society.

Alice_Doesnt_Live_Here_Anymore_28780_Medium — The film is a fascinating study of a parent-child relationship.

A glance at the movie poster for Alice tells you that she’s going to eventually make her way into the arms of a rugged and mostly affable Kris Kristofferson, but she must deal with Ben first. While Alice initially rebuffs his advances, he eventually wears her down and wins her over. Yay, we think! Someone who will treat Alice with the tenderness she deserves. It doesn’t take long for Ben to reveal himself as a philanderer and psychopath, and this realization prompts Alice and Tommy to once again pack up the wagon for the next town, Tucson. Alice decides to make a pragmatic move and start working a job that’s close to their motel and will ensure free food: waiting tables. At this point in the plot the story expands to include the women at the restaurant—the brassy Flo (Dianne Ladd) and timid Vera (Valerie Curtain)—and Tommy’s new friend Audrey, played by a very young and very boyish Jodie Foster (creepy alert: two years later she and Harvey Keitel would be joined as the prostitute/pimp dyad in Scorsese’s Taxi Driver, which makes you feel gross when you watch them in Alice). Alice also meets David (Kris Kristofferson), and like her, we’re not altogether sure that his fixation with Tommy is genuine or just a sneaky way to pick up his mom. We see Alice try to work through the challenges of managing her expectations of love and work, and there’s real narrative power in how she fully inhabits all her choices, be they selfish, selfless, stupid, or sane. Though billed as a romance, the real love story has two couples at its core: Alice and Tommy, and Alice and herself.

Heather Brown lives in Chicago, Ill., and works as a freelance instructional designer and online writing instructor. She lives for feminism, movies, live music, road trips, and cheese.