“Get Back In Your Kennels, Both of You”: The Bitchy Diversity of ‘The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert’

The traditional family is marked as a hostile space of enforced hypocrisy.

 Bus


This post by Brigit McCone appears as part of our theme week on Depictions of Trans Women.


 

Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, is a family on wheels. The bright, pink bus that carries three drag queens across the Australian Outback becomes a homely, domestic space, not because of the harmony between the central trio, but because of their acceptance of friction. In their bickering intimacy, the trio model an ideal of accepting surrogate family, all of whose members are allowed to express themselves fully. Bickering and bitchy humour become the symbol of that freedom of self-expression, as much as the trio’s flamboyant, Oscar-winning costumes. There is no toning down to cater to the offended sensibilities of homophobic or transphobic onlookers. Hugo Weaving’s Tic/Mitzi and Terence Stamp’s trans woman Bernadette play the long-suffering parents to Guy Pearce’s abrasive and bratty Adam/Felicia. In the cramped interior of the bus, there is no escape, only a slow journey toward accommodating each other. The fact that there is never a question of romance between the central trio adds to the family vibe of their camaraderie.

The film also openly acknowledges tensions along the transfeminine spectrum. The tension between Felicia and Mitzi’s feminine personas as theatrical performance, and Bernadette’s feminine identity as an integral part of herself, fuels a running feud between Bernadette and Felicia. Bernadette disdains Felicia’s artificiality as “a bloody good little performer, 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” while Felicia torments Bernadette with her “real” name, Ralph, and teases Tic about his marriage to a woman. In their sexuality and gender expression, the group defies easy categorization and perhaps this is the point. To define is to limit. Each of the trio is a work in progress. While tensions between transfemininity as authentic self-realization and as artificial performance simmer between Bernadette and Felicia, Felicia’s own dualities are neatly summed up by Tic: “There are two things I don’t like about you, Felicia: your face.” This conflict is never neatly resolved with an easy moral, but instead accommodated within the broader philosophy of bitchy diversity and tolerated friction that makes the surrogate family work. In the role of Bernadette, meanwhile, Terence Stamp inaugurated the dubious tradition of big name, cismasculine stars playing trans women as a novelty, a demonstration of acting prowess and a marketing gimmick. Stamp’s performance, however, surely ranks among the finest in this genre: restrained, sensitive and toughened at the same time, with an innate dignity and waspish wit that plays well off Bernadette’s more theatrical companions. Casting a cismasculine performer suits the role of Bernadette particularly, since her difficulty in passing as visually female is a part of her character’s ongoing struggle to be recognized for her authentic self.

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The contrast between the Paradise of wish fulfillment and infinite self-realization, represented by the flamboyantly decorated bus and the flamboyantly decorated bodies of its occupants, and the harsh desert landscape with its equally harsh standards of small-town conformity and heteronormativity, is the central conflict of the film. Invited to perform for four weeks in Alice Springs, in the middle of the conservative Outback, Tic finds himself returning to face the wife and son he abandoned. Bernadette, by contrast, is fleeing the tragedy of her lover Trumpet’s death. The manner of his death, asphyxiating on his home peroxide, walks the tight-rope between farce and tragedy that the film so excels at. The bittersweet, clashing tone is established by Hugo Weaving’s opening performance, in full drag: “You’re a discontented mother and a regimented wife… I’ve been to Paradise, but I’ve never been to me.” Butch customers play pool and ignore the performance, while Weaving’s drag alter-ego Mitzi gets a can to the back of the head as she walks offstage.  Dressed as brightly throughout as birds of paradise, the friction between Paradise and reality is ever present. The trio stifle in the narrow confines of their wheeled refuge, but the outside is a space of danger. As a forfeit in a game of Snap, Mitzi and Felicia wear full multi-colored drag in rural Australia – being hassled in bars by transphobic patrons is a reminder that the element of daring is never far away from unrestrained self-expression. The trio wake to find their bus spray-painted with the slogan “AIDS fuckers go home!” with Tic admitting that “it’s funny you know. No matter how tough I think I’m getting, it still hurts.”

Transfemininity is a protective badge of defiance and toughness, while its wish fulfillment is as hard-earned in a hostile world as Adam’s dream of climbing the hostile terrain of Australia’s King’s Canyon in full drag. As Adam/Felicia is held down and threatened with violence by a transphobic/homophobic crowd, she breaks down in tears and is told by Bernadette to “let it toughen you up.” Her fellow queens have rescued her when she needed it most, showing the caring and solidarity that underpins their bitchy surfaces. The queens will fulfill their dream to conquer King’s Canyon, ceremonially owning the Outback both by this feat of endurance, and by a flamboyant reinterpretation of Outback nature as drag costumes in their Alice Springs performance. The film itself can be read as a similarly flamboyant reimagining of the traditionally macho genre of the road movie, playfully proposing drag as the ultimate journey to self-realization. Breaking down in the desert and practising their drag performance, they are invited to join an Aboriginal Corroboree. Performing a full drag act for the Aborigines, the possibility of an intersectional solidarity between different categories of outsiders and marginalized minorities is suggested, with the didgeridoo accompanying “I will survive.”

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The nuclear family is a space of tension and enforced performance for each of the trio. Adam’s abusive uncle tries to swear him to secrecy, while his mother helps him to get the bus Priscilla in the hopes that a trip to the Outback will help him to overcome the “phase” of his gayness and meet a nice country woman. Bernadette is denied the dolls she really wants by parents who insist that she play with traditionally masculine cement mixers, rejecting her and never speaking to her again after she has “the chop.” The traditional family is marked as a hostile space of enforced hypocrisy. Having internalized this vision of nuclear family, Tic cannot reconcile the flamboyance of alter-ego Mitzi with his own narrow ideas about the butch role of husband and father: “Do you think an old queen’s capable of raising a child?” The bus Priscilla’s bitchy diversity serves as a more authentic space of family, because freedom of expression is its watchword. The outside world’s appearance of tradition and conventionality can be deceptive however, covering hidden depths of flexibility and souls who are “starved for entertainment,” like the rural rescuer-mechanic Bob who loves the transfeminine “Le Girls” revue and whose acceptance of unconventional femininity is modelled in his relationship to his Asian “mail-order bride,” Cynthia, as well as his trans-attraction. Cynthia is perhaps the broadest caricature in the film, an exotic dancer who speaks in broken English, and makes “a complete fool of herself” with her compulsive exhibitionism. Bob’s gentlemanly urge to shelter and protect her, however misguided, cannot be separated from his chivalrous urge to protect Bernadette in the pair’s tentatively blossoming romance. The film has no time for respectability politics. Acceptance must be universal, even for the broadest stereotype or most confrontational caricature, otherwise it is worthless. That is the credo of bitchy diversity.

As Tic faints after being watched by his son performing in wild drag as Mitzi, he is told by his bracingly no-nonsense estranged wife that “assumption is the mother of all fuck ups. Don’t bitch to me, bitch to him.” The nuclear family is thus proposed as a potential space of bitchy diversity, where Tic could bitch freely to his son and become a positive role model through the very fact of his freedom. His son accepts his father fully, warmly applauding his drag performance and asking if he has a boyfriend at the moment, while matter-of-factly announcing that his mother used to have a girlfriend. After owning the Outback and reimagining the traditional family, the queens go home, no longer cowering in the city as a defence against the country, but positively choosing it as a homeland of their own, just as Bernadette positively chooses Bob as a home for her heart. The road movie comes to a jubilant all-singing, all-dancing climax to the strains of ABBA’s “Mamma Mia.”

 

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

See also on Bitch Flicks: “Cinderella II”: The Gender Identity Romcom of Some Like It Hot


Brigit McCone wants to roam the Australian Outback in a dilapidated bus. She writes and directs short films and radio dramas.

Bitch Flicks’ Weekly Picks

Check out what we’ve been reading this week – and let us know what you’ve been reading/writing in the comments!

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Aziz Ansari’s Hilarious New Show Tells Stories Rarely Seen on TV by Amy Lam at Bitch Media

10 Awesome Feminist Films From the ’90s by Gisselli Rodriguez at Ms. blog

Documenting Women’s Stories: November 2015’s Crowdfunding Picks by Laura Nicholson at Women and Hollywood

For A Year, Shonda Rhimes Said ‘Yes’ To All The Things That Scared Her at NPR

Shonda Rhimes On Running 3 Hit Shows And The Limits Of Network TV at NPR

Watch 25-Minute Conversation with Gina Prince-Bythewood on ‘Love & Basketball’ & Indie Filmmaking Challenges by Tambay A. Obenson at Shadow and Act

10 Female-Directed Movies on Netflix That You Need to Watch Now by Allyson Johnson at The Mary Sue

Reese Witherspoon Gives Glamour Awards Speech: Female-Driven Films “Are Not a Public Service Project” by Ashley Lee at The Hollywood Reporter

Why Catherine Hardwicke Started to Fight Back Against Hollywood Sexism by Ramin Setoodeh at Variety

The ‘Ishtar’ effect: When a film flops and its female director never works again by Rebecca Keegan at LA Times

What have you been reading/writing this week? Tell us in the comments!

Domestic Terrorism: Feminized Violence in ‘Misery’

Annie is a human being, dangerous not because of an evil supernatural force, but rather a severe and untreated mental illness. Although Annie is not given an official diagnosis in the film or the novel, an interview with a forensic psychologist on the special edition DVD characterizes her as displaying symptoms of several different conditions, including borderline personality disorder (BPD).


This guest post by Tessa Racked appears as part of our theme week on Violent Women.


Content Note: This essay contains discussion of physical and emotional abuse.


Misery, directed by Rob Reiner, is the 1990 film adaptation of the 1987 Stephen King novel of the same name. The scenario is as chilling as it is simple: romance novelist Paul Sheldon (James Caan) is saved from a car accident during a blizzard by Annie Wilkes (Kathy Bates). He is trapped in her house due to his injuries; she has an unhealthy obsession with his novels and violent temper. Paul’s latest novel, on the verge of being published, ends with the death of her favorite character, the titular Misery. Annie is widely considered Kathy Bates’ breakout role; she won both an Oscar and a Golden Globe for her portrayal, and Annie is listed as 17th on American Film Institute’s list of top 100 villains.

King has explicitly stated that Misery is about his personal battle against addiction: “Annie was my drug problem, and she was my number-one fan. God, she never wanted to leave,” he said in an interview with The Paris Review. It also expresses King’s frustration with his career, feeling trapped in the horror genre. (Similarly, the film adaptation was a departure genre-wise for Reiner, who had until this point made more comedic, sentimental fare like The Princess Bride and When Harry Met Sally…) The bulk of the story is the conflict between Paul, who wants to move on from writing the Misery series, and Annie, who forces Paul to languish in that stage of his life due to her unwavering fixation with both the series and her own idea of who he is as an author. A flashback scene between Paul and his agent (Lauren Bacall) foreshadows his ordeal, as he explains his decision to end his popular romance novel series by killing off the protagonist: “if I hadn’t gotten rid of her now, I would end up writing her forever.” Annie’s prison from which Paul must escape is her home; the violence she enacts is twisted versions of caregiving and romance. Not only is the antagonist of Misery a woman, but her modes of terror are coded distinctly as feminine.

Misery is a departure from much of King’s earlier work (and the resulting film adaptations), as it is not a work of speculative fiction. Annie is a human being, dangerous not because of an evil supernatural force, but rather a severe and untreated mental illness. Although Annie is not given an official diagnosis in the film or the novel, an interview with a forensic psychologist on the special edition DVD characterizes her as displaying symptoms of several different conditions, including borderline personality disorder (BPD). BPD is commonly thought of as a mental illness that primarily affects women, who make up 75 percent of the diagnoses in the United States. However, this trend may be caused by gender biases in the mental health field for various reasons; some symptoms of BPD are similarly feminized (eg. a frequent co-occurence with eating disorders), while others are considered “normal” male behavior and therefore more pathologized in women (eg. promiscuity).

Misery is not the only thriller that dramatizes symptoms of BPD to create a female antagonist who becomes obsessed with someone she desires and terrorizes that person with emotional outbursts and impulsive, violent behavior. Consider Alex (Glenn Close) in Fatal Attraction (the highest grossing film of 1987), Hedy (Jennifer Jason Leigh) in Single White Female, or Evelyn (Jessica Walter) in Play Misty for Me, all of whom have been described as having BPD. Although they resemble each other as far as the threat they present their films’ protagonists, Annie is a markedly different sort of woman; in her own words, she is “not a movie star type.” Her clothing is plain and modest. She is older and larger-bodied than the other female villains. One of her most memorable characteristics is her frequent use of bowdlerized profanity, such as “dirty birdy” and “cockadoodie.” She is a hopeless romantic, but in short, she lacks sex appeal. Annie is also different in that she is coded as working class and rural. She lives by herself on a farm. She pays tribute to Paul by naming her sow after the literary heroine he’s created. (Misery is one cute pig, to be fair, but her captive seems less than flattered.) Her idea of a fancy dinner is making meatloaf with SPAM added in, and she mispronounces Dom Perignon. She contrasts sharply with, for instance, Fatal Attraction’s Alex, a sophisticated book editor who lives in New York City. Unlike Alex, Annie isn’t positioned as an exciting temptress, or an embodied punishment for lustful transgression. Rather, she is a smothering maternal figure, forcing Paul into an arrested state of mediocrity as a creative and infantilizing him as the helpless prisoner in her guest bedroom.

Although Annie talks about Paul both as the object of her romantic love and her literary idol, their relationship as portrayed in the film more closely resembles that of a mother and child. In their first interaction, Annie extracts an unconscious Paul from the wreck of his car, administers CPR, and carries him back to her home. In the next scene, we meet Annie as she gently reassures Paul that she is his “number-one fan” and that he’s going to be all right. Annie giving Paul life, bringing him into her home, and reinforcing to him that she is there to care for him because she loves him more than anyone else is strikingly similar to a basic narrative of a woman giving birth. Even the way the audience sees who she is for the first time is through visual and auditory tropes often used to convey a newborn baby: the scene is shot from Paul’s point of view, initially blurry and echoing, then coming into focus and resting on a low angle shot of Annie’s face. These low angle shots of Annie from Paul’s point of view are a recurring image in the film, often used when she spiraling out in an angry rant that hints at (or culminates in) the violence she is capable of enacting.

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Annie’s treatment of Paul is nothing short of abusive, but also reinforces the maternal quality of her control over him. The harmful aspects of her caregiving are one of the main sources of horror in the film. She proudly shows off her nursing skills through the homemade braces she’s fashioned for his broken legs, as the camera pans down the horrific sight of his severe injuries that would normally be covered by casts. An early suggestion of menace comes when she coyly admits that she made pilgrimages to the lodge where he was working on his latest novel and would stand under his window, as she shaves him with a straight razor: “Like a baby!” she pronounces upon finishing both her task and her description of stalking him. This scene is followed by our first glimpse of her temper. She chastises Paul for his use of profanity in the manuscript he has allowed her to read– his first novel outside of the Misery series to be published– and her indignancy quickly grows into anger. She yells and spills the soup she is holding. “Look what you made me do!” she cries, showing both a mother’s frustration with a child making a mess and an abuser’s displacement of blame for their own actions.

Although she seems to be a simple person at first, her awareness of the situation’s dynamic is made abundantly clear after she flies into a rage over Paul’s latest published work, Misery’s Child, in which the main character dies. Not only is she distraught over losing Misery, but she is angry at Paul for defying her perception of him as an ever-obliging font of “genius” romance novels, or, as she describes it, being a “lying old dirty birdy.” She just barely prevents herself from smashing an end table over Paul’s head. Instead, she wields his dependency, and the potential removal of her love and care, as a threat: “don’t even think about anybody coming for you… nobody knows you’re here, and you better hope nothing happens to me, because if I die, you die.” Annie’s violent mothering reaches its summit in the dramatic reveal of her past: Paul discovers, through a remarkably convenient scrapbook that she keeps in her living room, that her nursing career was fraught with the mysterious deaths of infants in her care.

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Although Annie enacts her relationship with Paul through caregiving, she is motivated by romance. It is evident from her perspective that she sees their relationship as a budding love story: when she is calm, she often talks to him in a shy, girlish manner, in awe of his “genius.” Once she manages to coerce him into writing a satisfactory retcon of Misery’s death, she celebrates by blasting Liberace records, as she considers his music to be very romantic. The subsequent montage of Paul feverishly working on Misery’s Return is set to Liberace’s rendition of Tchaikovsky’s dramatic “Piano Concerto Number 1.” Paul tries to escape by playing along with her, even suggesting they have a candlelit dinner together so that he will have an opportunity to drug her wineglass (which she clumsily knocks over during his toast, being unused to navigating a romantic setting like their dinner in the real world). After she murders the sheriff (Richard Farnsworth) investigating Paul’s disappearance, she informs her prisoner that their only option is a murder-suicide. However, she does so in rapturous tones, using language that could be lifted from a darker version of Paul’s own novels: “You and I are meant to be together forever. But now our time in this world must end.”

The relationship Annie wants to have with Paul is toxic, as it is based on her preventing him from growing/healing, from being his own person. She prevents him from physically walking away from her home, and she prevents him from professionally walking away from the Misery series. The infamous “hobbling” scene is a perfect illustration of how she objectifies Paul. Setting up the grisly procedure, she explains that it was how workers “in the early days of the Kimberley Diamond Mines” were punished for stealing, and how she will punish him for leaving his room. As she prepares to break his ankles with a sledgehammer, she blithely compares the victims of this procedure to cars and tells him that it’s “for the best,” dehumanizing him and denying the pain that she is about to put him through. The scene ends with the camera zooming in on her gazing down at the agonized Paul as she whispers, “God, I love you.”

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In most horror films, the threat that the villain poses is annihilation: their aim is to maim and kill the protagonist. Annie’s goal is different. She too uses violence, but it is a tool that she wields to enforce a much different threat: inertia. She embodies this threat by adopting roles that are closely tied with femininity: she is the nurse who refuses to let her patient heal, the “mother” who prevents her “child” from gaining independence, the muse who forces her author to continue writing long after the story has concluded. The inability to grow is an obstacle that confronts people of all genders– after all, empowering women to transcend confining social roles is a ubiquitous concern among feminists– but Misery is an expression of this conflict as a potential threat that women pose men.


Recommended Reading:

“Borderline Personality Disorder- a Feminist Critique”

 


Tessa Racked lives in Chicago. They write essays about fat characters in cinema at Consistent Panda Bear Shape and make condensed observations about a variety of subjects @tessa_racked. Tessa celebrates the completion of every tweet with a cigarette and a glass of Dom Perignon.

 

 

Dysphoria Dystopias in ‘The Matrix’ and ‘Glen or Glenda’

However, comparing Wood’s deeply personal product with the Wachowskis’ deeply polished one, ‘Glen or Glenda’s explicit gender dysphoria with ‘The Matrix’s allegorical dysphoria reveals parallels that illuminate both films.

THE-MATRIX

“You’re here because you know something. What you know you can’t explain, but you feel it. You felt it your entire life.” – Morpheus, The Matrix

Though Lana Wachowski’s coming out should not be an excuse to limit interpretation of the Wachowski siblings’ most iconic film, The Matrix, to a closeted discussion of gender dysphoria, yet it is a film that is profoundly concerned with psychic dysphoria as sci-fi dystopia: with jarring disconnects between perceived reality and actuality, embodied in a heroic struggle for the reimagination of the self against escalating systems of social control. Ed Wood Jr.’s cult 1953 B-movie, Glen or Glenda, explicitly harnesses classic science fiction to dramatize the psychology of gender dysphoria. As was fictionalized in Tim Burton’s biopic Ed Wood, Wood was a self-accepting crossdresser who approached the topic of gender dysphoria with an empathy almost unique for his era, clumsily advancing enlightened opinions that would later become orthodoxy. There may be deceptive cunning underneath Wood’s film’s rough surface. Assigned to create a cheap, B-movie freak-show exploitation of the notoriety of Christine Jorgensen’s sex change, Wood delivers a freak-show of random mad scientists, mischievously accuses the cismale audience of suffering from pattern baldness due to their failure to wear women’s hats, creates a surreal nightmare of social conditioning, and then allows his transgender subjects to be islands of humanity within this freakish world. He effectively delivers a transgender freakshow in which the transgender are never freaks. On the surface, Wood’s film and the Wachowskis’ could not be more different: one is the cheap and amateurish product of a man popularized by the Golden Turkey Awards as “the worst director of all time,” while the other is a slick blockbuster considered a milestone in special effects, that has spawned serious, academic debate over its philosophical meanings. However, comparing Wood’s deeply personal product with the Wachowskis’ deeply polished one, Glen or Glenda‘s explicit gender dysphoria with The Matrix‘s allegorical dysphoria reveals parallels that illuminate both films.

Dystopia, Now: Contemporary Reality As Sci-Fi Nightmare

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“It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth” – Morpheus, The Matrix

 The most fundamental parallel between The Matrix and Glen or Glenda is their shared concept of present reality as a creation of sci-fi dystopia. In Glen or Glenda, Boris Karloff’s mad scientist is positioned as a creator-figure, who performs sex change transformations with a wave of his hand, while omnisciently supervising all life. Though Karloff’s never-really-specified relationship to the film’s realist narrative, complete with weirdly hovering intrusions over the action, are celebrated ironically as symptoms of Wood’s incompetence and oddness, yet Karloff’s role in Glen or Glenda mirrors that of the machines in The Matrix: he enables a dual discourse of irresistible predestination and faulty creation. Karloff’s “pulling of the string” drives surges of wildebeest like irresistible animal impulses, which place Wood’s hero as a puppet who must “dance to that which one is created for” while recognizing that “nature makes mistakes, it’s proven every day”, just as Neo struggles to accept that he is not in control of his own life through the guidance of his re-creator Morpheus.

Using a nightmare sequence of mobbing crowds and mocking variants of the schoolyard chant “slugs and snails and puppy dog’s tails, that’s what little boys are made of, sugar and spice and all things nice, that’s what little girls are made of,” Wood dramatizes the sinister power of social conditioning in a way that would be considered Lynchian surrealism, if he wasn’t dismissed as the worst director of all time. Where Wood uses a nightmarish dream sequence, the Wachowskis use body horror, in the violation of flesh-penetrating bugs and the imposed silence of a mouth literally sealed shut, to expressively dramatize the sinister power of their Agent “gatekeepers” over the hero’s most intimate body and self. Wood’s visual vocabulary for expressing the internal experience of gender dysphoria is drawn from James Whale’s Frankenstein, a queer lexicon of absent nurture and flawed divinity. The Wachowskis’ visual vocabulary in The Matrix is drawn from Ghost In The Shell, a cyberpunk anime that explores gender identity through a dystopia where characters can explore their identity by “plugging themselves in” to superpowered new bodies (or “shells”) of any gender. The effect of both texts, however, is to code lived reality as a profoundly unnatural and imposed nightmare that is essentially dystopian and demands the psyche’s resistance, symbolized for the Wachowskis by re-Creator Morpheus’ red pill.

Wood’s decision to open his film with a trans* woman’s suicide, narrated through her suicide note of repeated arrests for cross-dressing–“let my body rest in death, forever, in the things I cannot wear in life”–underlines the seriousness of the psychological crisis of gender dysphoria. Wood’s dramatization also recognizes the individual nature of each trans* experience, from the “transvestite,” who was conditioned by the environment of early youth to value femininity over masculinity and yearn to express his feminine side, to the “pseudo-hermaphrodite” Anne, who seems to correspond to a trans woman in her description as “a woman within… indeed meant to be a woman.” Anne challenges gender stereotypes by excelling as an army officer, before choosing a sex change operation. The “removal of the man and the formation of the woman” is represented onscreen by Bela Lugosi’s scientist blessing the new incarnation in a pseudo-religious ceremony. 

The Holy Trinity: Variations And Incarnations

 Trinity

“You’ve been living two lives. In one life, you’re Thomas A. Anderson… the other life is lived in computers, where you go by the hacker alias “Neo”… One of these lives has a future and one of them does not.” – Agent Smith, The Matrix

When Keanu Reeves’ hero, hacker Thomas Anderson, is introduced, he has constructed an imaginary identity and vicarious second life as “Neo” that is confined within the cyber-realm. The basic plot of the first film is Anderson’s gradual embrace and embodiment of “Neo” as his true identity, while realizing his imposed identity of Thomas Anderson as a fictional construct. It is Hugo Weaving’s sinister Agent Smith of the social-conditioning “matrix” who continually imposes the (explicitly masculine) identity of “Mr. Anderson” onto Neo. It is when Neo finally resists and asserts “my name is Neo!” that he frees himself from the inevitability of his defeat. It is Neo’s allies who affirm his true identity, with Trinity’s iron belief in his potential self, embodied as a kiss, acting as the catalyst for his final awakening into unbounded liberation. Many commentators have pointed out that Neo can be read as a Christ allegory. Fewer have highlighted that Trinity’s name evokes the Holy Trinity’s conception of a single being’s incarnation into multiple forms. If Morpheus functions as a Creator/Father mentor to Neo’s Christ-figure, Trinity must represent his Holy Spirit. Her kiss is therefore not only Mary Magdalene’s handmaiden witnessing Christ’s resurrection, but the descent of the dove/spirit as agent of his baptism and awakening to mission.

The film’s iconic uniform of black leather, slicked back hair and shades visually codes Carrie-Anne Moss as a female variant of Keanu Reeves’ hero, reimagining the patriarchal Holy Trinity of the Christian religion as a transracial, transsexual one (the theme of transracial incarnation would later play a controversially race-bending role in the Wachowskis’ Cloud Atlas). While the dizzying complexity of the Matrix sequels are beyond the scope of my study, it should be noted that they center on Neo’s battle through ever complicating systems of social control and predestination to avoid the compelled sacrifice of Trinity. A traditional feminist reading would bemoan that Trinity serves as yet another apparently Strong Woman reduced to damsel-in-distress. However, reading Trinity as Neo’s liberated alter-ego enables an interpretation that is more coherent and thematically rich. Trinity is introduced before Neo – demonstrating her super-strength and desirable mastery over laws of nature, she is his ultimate goal throughout the films.

Glen Or Glenda describes the relationship of “Glen” and “Glenda” as “not half man, half woman, but nevertheless man and woman in the same body,” evokes the idea of multiple incarnation of a unified being. A kind of trinity is established between Glen, Glenda and the supervising creator Karloff, similar to that between Morpheus, Trinity and Neo.

The Blue Pill: The Lure Of The Cure

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“You take the blue pill, the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe.” – Morpheus, The Matrix

In The Matrix, the “blue pill” represents returning to the “prison for your mind” that is coercive social conditioning. The character of Cypher represents the lure of the cure, in rejecting the “desert of the real” with its lack of comforts, its isolation and its persecution by patrolling machines, in order to resume a pre-programmed, conforming life where he forgets his past and betrays the team because “ignorance is bliss.”

Neo is dissuaded from his own instincts for comforting conformity by Trinity, the empowered alter-ego who gives him strength to resist his moments of doubt with her own certainty: “You know that road. You know exactly where it ends. And I know that’s not where you wanna be.” In Glen or Glenda, Barbara becomes the strengthening image, with her willingness to accept and love Glen, even if he never abandons women’s clothing, being the catalyst for his mental freedom. While insisting that a sex change is a happy ending for Anne, Glen’s happy ending becomes his reabsorption into a standard male role by finding his cravings for loving femininity fully answered by Barbara. This ending satisfies the mainstream audience’s urge to “cure” Glen, but only if they can grant the trans* audience’s demand that Glenda be accepted as she is, as a part of Glen, as a crucial precondition of the cure.

Gender policing limits the opportunities for full self-realization of all people, though their realized selves might take many forms across a wide spectrum of gender identity. In Lugosi’s words, “one is wrong because he does right. One is right because he does wrong.” Paradoxically, the mainstream audience are the obstacle to their own liberation, because of their mental indoctrination into an ideology of gender policing. As The Matrix‘s Morpheus puts it, they are “the very minds of the people we are trying to save, but until we do these people are still a part of that system, and that makes them our enemy.” Or as Glen or Glenda has it: “You Are Society – JUDGE YE NOT.” In the struggle to envision a world without rules or controls, without borders or boundaries, the self-actualization of all people is implied. As long as their matrix of policing thoughts and ingrained prejudices exists, the human race will never be free. What an everyday nightmare.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vUoSPJm5w0″]

 


Brigit McCone covets the Bride of Frankenstein hairdo, writes and directs short films and radio dramas. Her hobbies include doodling and hanging out with her friends.

To Boldly Go: ‘Star Trek: The Next Generation’ Explores the Limits of Sexual Attraction in “The Host”

Once Beverly decides that so little of her attraction to Odan was wrapped up in his host body, the floodgates of sex, sexuality, gender, and physical attraction were wide open.


This guest post by Swoozy C appears as part of our theme week on Sex Positivity.


Last year, after seeing my closest twitter friends relentlessly tweet its praises, I set out to strengthen my nerd cred by finally watching Star Trek: The Next Generation in its entirety. The show is a great watch for a number of reasons, but one of the best is its attempts progressive social messages. Despite Geordi La Forge (played by Lavar Burton minus all of his real life swagger) being an apparent 24th century holdover from the Men’s Rights Advocates, Star Trek was incredibly forward thinking in its open exploration of sexuality.

“The Host” has stuck out as one of my favorite episodes for this. In this episode, Beverly Crusher (Gates McFadden), the Enterprise’s chief medical officer, falls in love with a Trill ambassador named Odan (Franc Luz) who is on the ship to mediate a dispute between the inhabitants of two moons. While on his way to a meeting, Odan is fatally injured. Once he returns to the Enterprise, he explains to Beverly that as a Trill, he exists in a symbiotic relationship between a “symbiont” and a host body. In order to survive, Odan must be transplanted into a new host. Because he is necessary for the success of the upcoming mediation, Riker offers to host Odan until the new body arrives, taking on Odan’s personality and all of his memories.

the-host-hd-161

Understandably, Beverly is hesitant to accept the person who looks like Riker, a man she has come to love like a brother, is now Odan. She is angry for what she sees as purposeful omission on his part in not telling her that his body was merely a host and not Odan himself. When Beverly cries that he should have told her what he is, he responds with, “This is what I am,” shining a brief light on what may not have been overtly visible as an allegory for transgenderism and homosexuality in 1991 when the episode first aired. What is overt is the question: when we are romantically or sexually attracted to someone, what is it about that person that we are attracted to? This is the question that Beverly must wrestle with.

Once he is no longer in the body that she recognizes as his (and is in fact in a the body of someone she has had a long standing friendship with), Beverly must confront what it means for her to be in love with and sexually attracted to Odan.

Despite his new body, Odan’s personality, memories, and feelings are the same. He still loves and is attracted to Beverly. Beverly’s struggle is played out in a scene with the ship’s counselor Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis). “What was it I loved about him?” she asks. “His eyes? His hands? His mouth? They’re gone.” Here is where the episode shines in asking some very provocative questions. How much of our attraction is based on someone’s personality and how much is based on the body they inhabit? How much of the person and our attraction to them is held in who they are physically? Now that Odan is in Riker’s body, can she still be in love with him? Can she still want him sexually?

In her discussion with Deanna, the counselor, who has previously had a romantic relationship with Riker, encourages Beverly to accept her second chance at love. After some soul searching over a cup of lemon tea, she realizes that the body Odan inhabits is not a key factor in why she loves him, accepting the fact that not only can she love him in Riker’s body, but in the new host that is sent for him.

the-host-hd-293

Despite the heteronormativity of a Riker/Beverly relationship, it is not hard to take the leap to ask how much gender is related to both our physical bodies and our sexual attraction. Odan is gendered male throughout the episode, but why? Is the symbiont inherently male? Or is he considered male because of the host bodies we’ve seen him inhabit? How much of Beverly’s attraction is based on his maleness? Once Beverly decides that so little of her attraction to Odan was wrapped up in his host body, the floodgates of sex, sexuality, gender, and physical attraction were wide open. And briefly, it appeared that Star Trek was going to reach into the depths to explore this; when Odan’s new host finally arrives, it is to our and Beverly’s surprise, a female body.

Perhaps the writers of this episode felt their audience was not ready to directly address transgender and homosexual issues, or perhaps they themselves were not ready to tackle it head on. When this episode aired, we were still six years away from Ellen’s coming out moment and “you’re gay” was one of the worst pejoratives you could use toward someone at school. Whatever the case, the writers failed miserably at what could have been one of the most forward thinking, progressive episodes of television at the time. Instead of bringing us into the utopia of the 24th century that Star Trek is set in, the writers rooted us firmly in the homo- and transphobia of our then current era.

When Odan comes to talk to Beverly in her new female body, Beverly is cold and visibly uncomfortable. When Odan tells Beverly that she is still and always will be in love with her, Beverly uses the excuse of being unable and unwilling to keep up with the Trill’s changing body, despite her excitement for the new host body up until she saw that it was female. Beverly had come so far in her own sexual exploration throughout this episode, but almost all of it is undone in these final three minutes. Suddenly, and without any contemplation that the we as the viewer get to see, Odan’s body is much more important to Beverly than it was just two scenes prior.

the-host-hd-348

Of course, anyone who has sexual or romantic preferences can tell you that gender and attraction can be inextricably linked. Where Star Trek fails is in not exploring that link or even overtly admitting that gender is the real issue for Beverly. In refusing to acknowledge this, and instead place blame on a too often change in host bodies, Star Trek not only back tracks on the entire premise of the episode, but does a disservice to Beverly and the audience. Beverly’s disgust at the idea that she and Odan might continue a same- gendered romantic relationship is shortsighted for a show that takes place in the 24th century alongside a more evolved human society. It also morphs Beverly from the thoughtful, empathetic character that she has been throughout the show and this episode into a cold and uncaring one.

While having Beverly love and accept Odan’s gender fluidity would have made for a nearly perfect episode, almost as much could have been gained by simply letting her admit that, while she cared deeply for Odan, she was unable to maintain her romantic and sexual attraction with this new female body. In 1991, allowing a character like Beverly to openly question her sexual orientation, even if only to discover that she could not be in a same-gendered relationship, would have been groundbreaking.

See also: Trill Gender and Sexuality Metaphors in Star Trek


Swoozy C is a registered nurse living that Mudita lifestyle in Los Angeles. She is a featured contributor at Femsplain.com, writing and making videos about sex, sexuality, and gender. https://twitter.com/swoozyc

 

 

‘The To Do List’: The Movie I’ve Been Waiting For

And then I saw it–a film that extols the importance of female agency and sexuality with a healthy dose of raunch, a film that includes a sexually experienced and supportive mother, a film that celebrates female friendship and quotes Gloria Steinem, a film that features Green Apple Pucker and multiple references to Pearl Jam and Hillary Clinton.
Yes. This is it.

Let’s get to work, vagina. – Brandy Klark, The To Do List

The To Do List
This repost by Leigh Kolb appears as part of our theme week on Sex Positivity.

 

I remember leaving the theater after seeing Superbad and asking my friends if any of us could imagine a film like that being made about young women–quirky best friend teenage girls who were on a quest for those things that so many teenagers are on a quest for.

We agreed that we couldn’t imagine it (and then I probably delivered a lecture on the great harm of stifling female sexuality).
That notion–that those teenage “cumming-of-age” stories are reserved for boys only–has been deeply ingrained in us through pop culture. When American Pie came out while I was in high school, the message was clear: there’s a myriad of ways that teenage boys get to claim and act out their sexuality, but if you’re a woman who does the same, you will be singled out and considered an oddity, a freak or simply a prize.
Even before that, I remember always noticing that young adult novels or films about teenage girls that I enjoyed often de-sexed the female protagonist. Teenage female sexuality was either nonexistent or an anathema, set apart to frighten girls or teach lessons. I never saw myself and my feelings truly and fully reflected back to me.
“Sisters before misters”–best friends Fiona (Alia Shawkat), Brandy (Aubrey Plaza) and Wendy (Sarah Steele).
When I saw the trailer for The To Do List, I started to get excited. Maybe this is it–what I’ve been waiting for all of these years.
It’s set in the early 90s. My heart rate quickens.
I see the soundtrack‘s track list. I just can’t even.
And then I saw it–a film that extols the importance of female agency and sexuality with a healthy dose of raunch, a film that includes a sexually experienced and supportive mother, a film that celebrates female friendship and quotes Gloria Steinem, a film that features Green Apple Pucker and multiple references to Pearl Jam and Hillary Clinton.
Yes. This is it.
 
It was everything I wanted.
 
I especially love how the “To Do List” itself wasn’t borne out of peer pressure. Brandy (Aubrey Plaza) is mildly affected when her peers shout “Virgin!” at her, but what makes her want to explore and understand her own sexuality is twofold: she wants to be able to be comfortable knowing what to do with hot guys (she’s the one who is attracted and drawn to the college guy), and it’s explained to her that college is like a sexual pop quiz, and she needs to study to ace it.
Brandy takes notes as her older, experienced sister (played by Rachel Bilson) talks about sex.
She understands studying. She understands her own blossoming sexual desires. So she opens up her Trapper Keeper, lines her paper into a grid, and makes a list of sexual acts she must complete before the end of summer, with the ultimate goal being “Intercourse.” (The fact that the film was set in 1993 is important not only for nostalgia’s sake but also for the fact that Brandy didn’t have the Internet and couldn’t easily look up the definitions of the “jobs” she was writing on her list.)
Brandy’s “To Do List” replaces buying shower shoes for the dorm with sexual exploits.
Early on in her journey, Brandy reads statistics about how few women achieve orgasm, and she’s incensed. She writes “Masturbation” on her list (and does so wearing a “Pro-Choice Pro-Clinton” T-shirt, which writer-director Maggie Carey said she wore frequently in high school). The masturbation scene is important because, as Carey says, “When you do see women masturbating, it’s usually a male fantasy about a woman masturbating, it’s not what actually happens.”
Brandy voices anger over the virgin/whore dichotomy, referencing Gloria Steinem. And yet as much as this film empowers female sexuality and independence, it does not do so at the expense of the men in the film. (Remarkable, how completely possible it is to have fully sympathetic male and female characters in a raunchy comedy.) Even Brandy’s father, a Rush Limbaugh-reading, overprotective man who is uncomfortable talking about sex, is portrayed in a sympathetic light.
The teenage boys have stereotypical sexual desires, but Brandy’s desire is always paramount. For the first time while watching a teen comedy, I got to reminisce and laugh from my own perspective–and oh, how I could taste that Pucker when I saw it on screen and feel those goosebumps when “Fade Into You” started playing–instead of imagining what life must have been like for boys I knew in high school.

The film also really has a “radical” message about virginity–not panicked, not preachy, but reasonable and realistic. Maybe most importantly, Brandy never has any regrets (“Teenagers don’t have regrets,” she says. “That’s for your 30s”). The To Do List is “nonchalantly” feminist from start to finish.

After she read the script for the first time, Aubrey Plaza said,

“When I read the script, I just thought it was funny, be it female or male, but I love that it was from a female perspective, and I’d honestly never seen anything that had explored the specifics of that time in a girl’s life when they’re experiencing all their firsts.”

This film is a first full of firsts.
And unlike most first-time sexual exploits, writer-director Maggie Carey knew what she was doing and made it really pleasurable for the audience.
“It’s a skort!”
(And who doesn’t want to make out to Mazzy Star?)
A teenage sex comedy that subverts what’s usually “reserved for the boys” and shows female sexuality and agency as, you know, an actual thing (while celebrating 90s pop culture)? Check.
And just as Brandy will want more and more of the final exploit she checks off, I want movies like this to keep coming and coming.

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

‘Thelma and Louise’: Redefining the Female Gaze

The violence may decrease as the movie progresses, but Thelma, Louise – and we – become comfortable about their actions as the film winds down, because they were now tapped into our veins, nourishing our battered spirits with acts that said, “See? We recognize your anger, cause we’re angry – and we’re not going to take it anymore.”

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This guest post by Paulette Reynolds appears as part of our theme week on The Female Gaze.


“…the awareness of any object can induce an awareness of also being an object.” –Jacques Lacan

When psychiatrist Lacan formulated his theory of the mirror image in the 1950s, he was referring to the infant’s discovery of themselves as a meaningful object; thus, the Ego was formed.

Film critics applied Lacan to a number of philosophies on cinematic looking, but it took British feminist and film theorist Laura Mulvey to take this concept to the next level in the early 1970s. By giving it a name she also gave it a purpose, minting the phrase “the male gaze” and asserting that essentially men viewed women as sex objects – and that this objectification existed in all films:

“Men do the looking; women are there to be looked at. The cinematic codes of popular films ‘are obsessively subordinated to the neurotic needs of the male ego’” [1]

While Mulvey focused solely on men viewing the female characters on the screen, the females in the audience were left searching these cinematic women for the appropriate visual clues as to how they were were to be objectified in their everyday lives. Or were they?

It would be another 20 years before film theorists decided to consider the female spectator and how she felt about what role models were being offered for viewing. Another British film theorist, Jackie Stacey, devoted an entire book to the subject, Star Gazing, gathering female subjects for a study on viewing American films during the WWII years. She developed a broad examination of how women use their own gaze, both passively and actively:

“… Powerful female stars often play characters in punishing patriarchal narratives, where the woman is either killed off, or married, or both, but the spectators do not seem to select this aspect of their films to write about. Instead, the qualities of confidence and power are remembered as offering female spectators the pleasure of participation qualities they themselves lacked and desired.” [2]

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I began this article with a quote about ego identification, which seems like a fitting point to keep in mind about the iconic feminist film statement of Thelma and Louise.

This Oscar-winning film from 1991 chronicled the coming-of-age for two working-class women, Thelma and Louise, as they strike out on the mama of all road trips. Each is running from relationship issues that involve absent men: Louise’s boyfriend Jimmy is gone for long stretches because of work and Thelma’s husband Darryl is absent because he cheats. Thelma’s response to Darryl’s infidelity and control issues is to be the perfect wife, clipping coupons and keeping a tidy house. Louise – a rape survivor – answers Life in general by hiding behind a tough outer shell, which keeps everyone out, including Jimmy and those repressed and unresolved memories. Yet we sense that underneath their poor coping mechanisms is a simmering rage, because – yes – we’ve all been there.

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The vacation developes into a lost weekend of murder, crime and acts of revenge (and sweet sex), triggered in part by violence directed at them from a variety of arrogant, entitled men. I say in part because Thelma’s passive-aggressive urges frequently surface, leaving Louise to clean up the mess like a good surrogate big sister.

Thelma and Louise’s acting out allowed the female spectator of 1991 to connect and identify with Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis in an immediate way. This universal understanding – and approval – was instant, after all what woman hasn’t been lied to, disrespected, abused verbally or physically by some man in her lifetime? In a world directed and controlled by men, they did what we often wanted to do. When that truck blew up in a glorious angry ball of fire and heat, that was our exploding anger. The violence may decrease as the movie progresses, but Thelma, Louise – and we – become comfortable about their actions as the film winds down, because they were now tapped into our veins, nourishing our battered spirits with acts that said, “See? We recognize your anger, cause we’re angry – and we’re not going to take it anymore.”

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They showed women violently dealing with their anger at patriarchy – perhaps for the first time since the great noir films of the 1940s and 1950s. These were nervous and high-strung working-class women and they weren’t going to sit still anymore. They were going to proactively deal with their situations – and what was more – they weren’t going to apologize for those actions either. This is what ultimately led to their doom, for two women to boldly act like men with unapologetic violence towards their oppressors had to be punished.

And then, cornered like a couple of scared girls, they ran their car off a cliff.

Sitting in that theater, 24 years ago, I felt like I had been victimized. My diffused anger and rage at societal norms of men getting away with gender abuse and violence had suddenly been given a voice. But in a heartbeat, we were all told that those forbidden emotions – those reserved for men to freely express – were not a viable option for us to feel. The lesson was shoved down our throats – abet in a truly melodramatic “chick flick” way – that we would literally careen off a cliff if we explored those feelings too deeply, screamed too loudly. We even had a coach, in the person of Detective Hal Slocumb – a sensitive soul who spent most of the film gently talking to our heroines like they were wild animals, needing to be calmed down before they used the tranquilizing stun gun.

After all, what would have happened if they had been caught or turned themselves in? They might act as role models for other women to reflect upon. What a scary thought to keep millions of men tossing and turning at night – and not in a good way. Some may argue that their suicide was an existentialist “fuck you” to the orderly world that Man had created for Woman, and that they freely chose to die to keep their “dream” of freedom as they went out in a blaze of glory. But such rationalization rings a bit hollow to this reviewer.

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If the male gaze finds a “woman’s film” difficult to digest, it might be because the stereotypes they’re familiar with may not be so neatly drawn. Thelma and Louise must have been such a film for many males, who were – no doubt – highly uncomfortable at the images of the female response to discrimination. Even today, most rapes go unpunished, most battered women still live in fear and many women still remain passive in the face of verbal abuse. One can only imagine how vindicated the male audience felt when Thelma and Louise took a nose-dive off the Grand Canyon. The male gaze was once again pacified at the expense of the female audience.

Yet, Thelma and Louise is hailed as a definitive feminist statement by women, film critics, Hollywood, and – oh yes – men. I disagree. A film that spends 128 1/2 minutes making a bold statement, only to cop-out during the last 30 seconds is just that – a film that sold out women with a cautionary ending to satisfy societal expectations – or more importantly – societal fears. The issue of the “male gaze” has less to do with psychologically driven male angst and more to do with propagandizing females to direct our gaze away from empowered images of ourselves, regardless of who writes the script.

Yet something good did come from Thelma and Louise. Remembering that females are “responsible for purchasing 50 percent of all movie tickets” and are “more frequent moviegoers than males in the 18-24 year old demographic ($4.2 million vs. $3.3 million)” [3], movie studios took notice at the 1991 box office receipts for two “feminist statement” films – Thelma and Louise grossed $45 million in the spring and Fried Green Tomatoes followed up with a tidy $119.4 million in December.

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And so, the age of the female-centered movie – for the sole pleasure of the female spectators – had arrived. By 1995 Dolores Claiborne was able to get away with murdering her abusive husband and The Quick and the Dead’s Sharon Stone could freely seek revenge for the death of her father.

During the film, Thelma and Louise strike a pose and immortalize themselves in what may be the first screen selfie. The two friends look exactly how they want the world – both female and male – to see them: happy and empowered. They control the camera, and while one level of Thelma and Louise becomes discarded, another stronger image remains fixed within us. It doesn’t matter who writes the scripts – and in many cases, who directs the film – it’s the female spectator of today who has the power to gaze, anyway that she chooses.


Sources

[1] Laura Mulvey. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” Screen 16.3 Autumn 1975 pp. 6-18 August 21, 2015.

[2] Stacey, Jackie. Star Gazing: Hollywood Cinema and Female Spectatorship, New York, NY Routledge. 1994. pp.158

[3] Smith, S.L., Granados, A., Choueiti, M., Erickson, S., & Noyes, A. “Changing the Status Quo: Industry Leaders’ Perceptions of Gender in Family Films”

An Executive Summary.” Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media (2010) August 21, 2015.

 


Paulette Reynolds is the Editor and Publisher of Cine Mata’s Movie Madness film appreciation blog. Film viewing and theory are her passion, but film noir remains her first love. Paulette breathes the rarified Austin, Texas air and can be seen on Twitter: @CinesMovieBlog.

 

“Everything Is Going To Be OK!” – How the Female Gaze Was Celebrated and Censored in ‘Cardcaptor Sakura’

In other words, there was a concerted effort to twist the female gaze into a male one under the belief that CLAMP’s blend of hyper-femininity and action would be unappealing for the male audience it was being aimed at.

Cardcaptor Sakura

 


This guest post by Hannah Collins appears as part of our theme week on The Female Gaze.


With their starry eyes, cutesy costumes, Barbie-esque features, and catchphrases overflowing with dreamy positivity, the magical girls of the shoujo (girls) genre of anime might not seem like the most feminist of heroines upon cursory glance. Yet, the plucky sorceress’ of such cult classics as Sailor Moon can be seen an emblematic of a counter-movement of female action heroes in Japanese culture – the antidote to the hyper-masculinity of the shonen (boys) genre.

Sailor Moon and Goku from Dragon Ball

 

This assessment by no means disregards the problems of the magical girl genre – infantalisation; fetishisation and glorification of hyper-femininity – and shoujo characters with their typically doe-eyed innocence can be easily corrupted to cater to a specific male fantasy of virginal femininity. However, the work of the all-female team of manga/anime creators known as “CLAMP” not only combats these issues, but also, as Kathryn Hemmann in The Female Gaze in Contemporary Japanese Culture writes, “employs shŌjo for themselves and their own pleasure.”

I became a fan of CLAMP – like most people of my age – in the 1990s. As a child, my introduction to the wonderfully weird world of Japanese cartoons consisted of the standard diet for most children of that era: Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh! and Dragon Ball Z. Imported, dissected, re-dubbed, and re-packaged to suit the tastes of a Western audience, and more specifically, a male audience. But amongst the shouts of “Gotta Catch ‘Em All!” and “Kamehameha!” there was one show that really left a lasting impression on me. It was about a little girl gifted with great power through capturing and using magical “Clow” cards. She wasn’t muscly; she wasn’t self-assured; and she certainly wasn’t male. She was Sakura Kinomoto, the show was called Cardcaptors (Cardcaptor Sakura in its original Japanese format), and it was my first exposure to both CLAMP and the magical girl or “mahou shoujo” genre they helped to popularise.

CLAMP at the Phoenix Anime Expo 2006

 

Like most adolescent heroes, Sakura seems hopelessly ill-equipped to begin with, and yet her sheer determination to achieve her full potential sees her through to becoming a magical force to be reckoned with without ever surrendering her loving personality. Rather than conforming to the “strong female character” stereotype that implies that women must act more masculine to achieve truly equal footing with male action heroes, Sakura’s power stems from traits considered more conventionally feminine: love, empathy, and pureness. Even her wardrobe changes into unapologetically girly battle outfits aesthetically reinforce CLAMP’s refusal to bow to a male audiences’ preferences.

These themes of romance and friendship are a core part of the story development and instrumental in the viewer’s investment in the characters. Through Cardcaptor Sakura, CLAMP explores the complexities of both platonic and romantic female love – both heterosexual and homosexual – from an almost exclusively female perspective. As Sakura pines over her older brother’s best friend (who unbeknownst to her, is also his love interest) Sakura’s best friend Tomoyo pines over her. Tomoyo, who lives a rich and sheltered life in a female-centric household, seems to live vicariously through Sakura. Upon discovering her secret heroics at night, she begins to capture Sakura’s adventures on camera and even provides her with her signature battle costumes, which cause Sakura huge embarrassment. Yet, at the risk of hurting her friend’s feelings, she grudgingly wears them anyway.

As the show develops, we are shown more and more just how deeply Tomoyo’s feelings run. In episode 11, Tomoyo gives Sakura a rare tour of her impressive mansion home, including a cinema room in which she confesses that she watches her recordings back of Sakura in battle constantly. It seems that Tomoyo is as much a part of the audience to Sakura’s life as we – the viewers – are. It also strikes me that this obsessive behaviour might translate entirely differently if Tomoyo were male.

Tomoyo spying on Sakura

 

Tomoyo’s idolisation of Sakura is far from veiled, and yet it is not revealed to be unmistakeably romantic until Episode 40, in which Sakura must capture a Clow card that makes people dream about their hidden desires. Sakura, Tomoyo, Syaoran Li (Sakura’s rival and love interest) and his cousin Meilin visit a fun fair. Sakura and Meilin team up to play a Whack-A-Mole game and Tomoyo – as usual – picks up her camera to film Sakura in action. Suddenly, the Clow card appears in the form of a glowing butterfly and lands on Tomoyo’s shoulder. Tomoyo falls into a dream sequence, in which we see her deepest desire play out through her eyes. On a pink background of falling cherry blossom, copies of Sakura dressed in Tomoyo’s outfits call her name and dance playfully around her. We are shown a shot of Tomoyo’s face – staring in awe at first, and then relax into a smile. “I’m so happy!” she says to herself, and runs toward the dancing copies of Sakura – still filming.

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

It seems like an odd moment to be sexually awakened – watching your crush play a Whack-A-Mole game at a fun fair – and perhaps if the show had been targeted at a more mixed audience (or the characters were older) this moment might have been filled with more obvious sexualised content. But through Tomoyo’s own eyes, CLAMP visually summarise the complex feelings of romance, admiration, obsession, and innocent love she feels for Sakura. Not only this, but as Sakura dances continually out of Tomoyo’s physical reach, the implication becomes one of wanting something you know you can never have. Tomoyo knows by now of Syaoran’s feelings for Sakura and like a true friend encourages their romance for the sake of Sakura’s happiness rather than her own.

This “doomed” romance trap seems to be a family curse, as we discover in episode 10 that Tomoyo’s mother appeared to also be hopelessly in love with Sakura’s mother (her cousin). Similarly, Sakura’s mother didn’t return her cousin’s feelings as she was in love with an older man (Sakura’s father) in the same way that Sakura is attracted to Yukito – an older boy. Both mothers are absent from their lives – Sakura’s mother through death, and Tomoyo’s through continual business trips – yet their daughters seem fated to play out their romantic histories.

Tomoyo invading some personal space!

 

Suffering from a bout of nostalgia, I decided to revisit the show as an adult, first in it’s Americanised form, and then the original Japanese version to compare the differences. I was shocked to discover that in an effort to make the show fit the perceived needs of their rigidly defined demographic of young boys, the executives at Kids WB had hacked all elements of “toxic” feminisation from it – romance, homosexuality, and the agency of Sakura has a protagonist (even her name is removed from the title) – dramatically reducing the run-time from 70 to just 39 episodes. In fact, if they had been able to “maximise” their cuts, the show would reportedly have run for merely 13 episodes. In other words, there was a concerted effort to twist the female gaze into a male one under the belief that CLAMP’s blend of hyper-femininity and action would be unappealing for the male audience it was being aimed at. In Japanese Superheroes for Global Girls, Anne Allison quotes this from an executive from Mattel, “[…] In America, girls will watch male-oriented programming but boys won’t watch female-oriented shows; this makes a male superhero a better bet.”

Whilst moaning about all this to my partner recently, I asked him if he had watched the dubbed version of the show as a child. He said that he had, but didn’t realise until he was older that the show had probably been intended for girls. I asked him if he remembered being turned-off that the show’s hero was a little girl as opposed to the ultra-masculine characters of his favourite childhood anime, Dragon Ball Z. His totally undermines Mattel’s assumptions about the show’s gender appeal: “I thought Sakura was really cool. In fact, I loved her so much I begged my mum for roller-skates that Christmas so that I could skate around to be like her.” Even more affirming than this is the fact that whilst the dubbed version of the show ended up being cancelled, the original Japanese one ran to its intended conclusion; spawned two films; and inspired two spin-off series using the same characters – Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle and xxxHolic.

Tsubasa: Resevoir Chronicle and xxxHolic

 

Sadly, by “butching” Cardcaptor Sakura up to be squeezed into the TV schedule alongside Pokemon and Dragon Ball Z, Western children were deprived of the tender and emotionally complex storytelling and character development behind all the magic and swordplay – and even from getting a satisfying ending to the show. It seems that whilst Japanese children are considered mature enough to deal with female superheroes, complex pre-pubescent emotions, and LGBTQ+ representation from a female perspective, Western children are unfortunately not treated with the same respect or intelligence.


Sources

The Female Gaze in Contemporary Japanese Literature, Kathryn Hemmann.

On Writing (Strong) Female Characters, Daniel Swensen.

Magical Girls: Empowered or Objectified? Wiki for SC2220: Gender Studies for University of Singapore.

The Americanisation of Cardcaptor Sakura, Actar’s Reviews.

 


Hannah Collins is a freelance illustrator, writer, Feminist, anime nerd, and Britney Spears apologist. You can read more of her writing on gender in pop culture at Fanny Pack and her on own blog.

 

 

Straight Outta Women: NWA Biopic and Lack of Female Representation

Director and Compton native F. Gary Gray and the two rappers, who also serve as the film’s producers, made sure to include some of their best male comrades like Snoop Dogg and Tupac, but there are no signs of the women they helped bring into the music scene.

Clip from Murder She Wrote (YouTube)
Clip from “Murder She Wrote” (YouTube)

 


This guest post by Tamara Dunn previously appeared at Standard-Speaker. Cross-posted with permission.


Pioneer rap group NWA has its rise in the music business projected on the big screen in Straight Outta Compton. The young lives of Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, Eazy-E, MC Ren, and DJ Yella are illustrated with scenes from their upbringing on the unforgiving Compton, California, streets to NWA’s formation in the late 1980s. Any fan of “Rap City” on BET or “Yo! MTV Raps” was familiar with their music videos, depicting violent environments that reflected their rhymes and beats and the troubles of youths all over.

Aldis Hodge, from left, as MC Ren, Neil Brown, Jr. as DJ Yella, Jason Mitchell as Eazy-E, O’Shea Jackson, Jr. as Ice Cube and Corey Hawkins as Dr. Dre, in the film, “”Straight Outta Compton.” (Jaimie Trueblood/Universal Pictures via AP)
Aldis Hodge, from left, as MC Ren; Neil Brown, Jr. as DJ Yella; Jason Mitchell as Eazy-E; O’’Shea Jackson, Jr. as Ice Cube; and Corey Hawkins as Dr. Dre, in the film Straight Outta Compton. (Jaimie Trueblood/Universal Pictures via AP)

 

Looking at the Straight Outta Compton cast members listed at Internet Movie Database, there’s a clear lack of women in the NWA biopic. There are relatives and some significant others who have small roles in the movie, but there are key people who are missing from the frame. As NWA was making their first records, Dr. Dre and Ice Cube produced solo female acts as part of the fledging empire. Director and Compton native F. Gary Gray and the two rappers, who also serve as the film’s producers, made sure to include some of their best male comrades like Snoop Dogg and Tupac, but there are no signs of the women they helped bring into the music scene.


Here are three influential women who didn’t make the cut:

Michel’le

R&B singer Michel’le (BET)
R&B singer Michel’le (BET)

 

The songstress with the deep singing voice but high-pitched speaking voice was previously engaged to Dr. Dre and married to controversial music mogul Suge Knight. Michel’le appears as a Jackie Kennedy type figure to Dr. Dre’s John F. Kennedy in the 1989 music video “Express Yourself.” She also made her own music, with her 1989 debut album Michel’le going double platinum with Eazy-E’s Ruthless Records. In a March 20 interview with The Breakfast Club, from New York’s Power 105.1, Michel’le described the abuse she endured during her six-year relationship with Dr. Dre. She currently appears on the reality show R&B Divas: Los Angeles on TV One.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHC-zIvtgt0″]

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u31FO_4d9TY”]

 


Yo-Yo

Rapper/actress Yo-Yo appears on the talk show “Mo’Nique.” (BET)
Rapper/actress Yo-Yo appears on the talk show Mo’Nique. (BET)

 

The Compton native broke out with anthems like “Can’t Play with My Yo-Yo” with producer and collaborator Ice Cube in 1990 and “Black Pearl” in 1992 long before Spice Girls were promoting girl power. Yo-Yo created songs and a new sound that contradicted hyper-masculine gangsta rap that NWA was making and released positive messages for women. Her rapping success led to acting roles in Boyz n the Hood and Menace II Society as well as television roles on Martin and The Jamie Foxx Show.

These days, Yo-Yo’s focus is on an organization promoting the performing arts and academics among young people called the Yo-Yo School of Hip Hop. According to IMDb, she also has two acting roles in the works.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZ-UEn11aDs”]

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10nZly0tTlU”]

 


Tairrie B

Eazy-E and Tairrie B on the set of “Murder She Wrote” video.
Eazy-E and Tairrie B on the set of the “Murder She Wrote” video.

 

From Anaheim, California, Tairrie B is one of the first white female rappers in the 1980s and 1990s. Her music video for her 1990 single “Murder She Wrote” is a mix of Madonna’s “Vogue” laced with gangster cliches, but it shows that she can be just as tough as her producer Eazy-E. Tairrie has also accused Dr. Dre of physical abuse during the time she was recording her debut album Power of a Woman for newly formed Comptown Records. It was her only rap album with her labelmate. After Eazy-E’s death in 1995, Tairrie switched to alternative rock and metal, fronting various bands.

This year, Tairrie released her first rap album in 25 years titled Vintage Curses. With a deeper voice and years of forgiveness, she pays tribute to NWA and her former mentor. In a July 2 interview with the Daily Mail, Tairre shares no hard feelings and sees their impact on her music.

“Their music and lyrics had a significant impact on me, which has resonated for over two decades, much like it has with many people. They put gangster rap on the map and there is a reason NWA are considered a monument and the root of it all which makes their story hugely important.”

Her new album was released on the same day as Straight Outta Compton was released in theaters.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yG45At8jhd8″]

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epAVR82R6J4″]

 


The failure to include their stories should come as no surprise following a damaging casting call released last year for the film. The call was for women ages 18-30 who lived in the Los Angeles area during the time of shooting. However, the women were classified and ranked according to skin color, hair, and size. In a July 17, 2014 Gawker article, the release described “A Girls” the top of the list, as the “hottest of the hottest” models of any race with real hair and no weave. On the opposite end were the “D Girls,” African-American women who were “medium or dark skin tone” and were “poor, not in good shape.” The casting call, from Sande Alessi Casting, went viral, with Internet users sharing their unfavorable opinions on TMZ and The Huffington Post.

There’s plenty of room for women in hip hop to be well portrayed in movies. While it may not be happening with Straight Outta Compton, it’s time for their light to shine in Hollywood.

 


Tamara Dunn is a card-carrying cinephile and the resident film expert at the Standard-Speaker. Her favorite films are The Battle of Algiers and Traffic.

 

 

The Dinosaur Struggle Is Real: Let’s Talk About Claire Dearing’s Bad Rep and Childhood Nostalgia

Does Claire have to forgo her more gentle side to have some form of agency in the corporate world? Does she have to exhibit traditionally masculine traits in order to operate within a male dominated realm? Is she less of a woman because she’s not very interested in kids or having kids? There’s a dichotomy going on here that’s worth exploring.


This is a guest post by Ashley Barry.


Jurassic World‘s opening cinematic had me starry eyed and shivering with excitement. The familiar but epic score accompanied by grand, sweeping shots of Costa Rica transported me right back to my childhood. I’m surprised my face didn’t fracture because a smile was perpetually plastered on it during the entire length of the introductory cinematic. I was home and temporarily lost in the labyrinth of my own nostalgia.

The first installment of the series was released in 1993 and, for some unknown reason, my parents allowed me to watch it. I was five years old and an easily spooked kid (I was afraid of shower drains for crying out loud). With the exception of the infamous tyrannosaurus rex scene, during which I hid underneath a heavy blanket I couldn’t see through, I was blown away by the idea of a dinosaur park and I idolized Ellie Sattler. The franchise itself later evolved into a familial tradition, my dad toting home the newest installment from the rental store whenever I came down with some form of the plague.

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It’s difficult to outdo the original movie and, at times, Jurassic World seemed like it was trying to do just that. Though Jurassic World was filled with throwbacks, even going so far as to revisit the original park, I preferred the first film because it didn’t focus so much on gender politics. They were in a crisis situation and there was no time to argue or zone in on such things. Anybody could be a dinosaur’s dinner. Jurassic Park was the first of its kind and, for me at least, the character development was more organic and believable.

Ellie, an empowering character, was never required to forgo her femininity or empathy to be strong and capable. Though she adhered to the final girl trope during the scene in which she had to override the controls in the control room (the most inconveniently placed control room ever), she was an expert in her field and, whether she was working in the dirt or reaching into a colossal pile of triceratops dung, she was unafraid to literally dirty her hands. Though she was just as capable as her male counterparts and coworkers, she still rocked her neatly pinned hair and cut off shorts.

Ellie was never criticized for having a career or not being maternal enough, as if there’s some kind of scale in existence that makes such a determination. She was able to retain her femininity and empathy whereas Claire, in Jurassic World, switched from a hardened non-maternal figure to a maternal figure, a transition that felt forced. I truly believe Claire was assigned a negative and unforgiving reputation. Whether it was the digs at her femininity or her disinterest in having children of her own, it was an unfair reputation she didn’t deserve.

Claire Dearing, the parks operations manager, is a great example of a modern if not progressive woman in that she’s highly career-oriented and ambitious. I reveled in the fact that she’s a female identifying person who’s in a position of power in the corporate world, which is a typically male-dominated space. It’s great to see her acting as her own agent, but in selecting a career over a family, Claire is often distracted and, at times, disconnected from what’s really going on behind the scenes. She’s usually awkward around and sometimes indifferent toward her nephews, which the film presents as a flaw. Does Claire have to forgo her more gentle side to have some form of agency in the corporate world? Does she have to exhibit traditionally masculine traits in order to operate within a male dominated realm? Is she less of a woman because she’s not very interested in kids or having kids? There’s a dichotomy going on here that’s worth exploring.

Claire is either presented as cold and uptight, seeing the dinosaurs as investments rather than actual animals, or she’s warm and caring and inherently maternal. It’s problematic because the film reinforces the idea that all women are inherently maternal and to unlock a woman’s maternal instinct is as simple as triggering an on/off switch. At the beginning of the film narrative, Claire not only forgets how old her nephews are, but she leaves them in the care of her assistant due to her hectic schedule. Is it really a problem? Is it really her problem? Why are the other characters passing such harsh judgment on her? Are they exempt from judgment? Consider, for a moment, the reality of how busy Claire must be. Her career is obviously important to her but she’s also in an authoritative position, meaning she’s likely under a lot of stress. Why are her duties cast aside? Despite her success, the other characters often scrutinize her for not being maternal enough.

There’s a scene in which she has a heated discussion with her sister, Karen. When Karen stresses the importance of close familial ties, she’s operating under the assumption that Claire will have children someday. Claire’s response is short and to the point, but firm. Not all women want children and that should never be viewed as a shameful or selfish want. Motherhood does not make a woman. Though Claire corrects her sister, she’s still viewed as the quasi-villain of the film. She’s under constant scrutiny from other characters, characters that want to alter her in some way.

“When you have kids of your own—“

“’If,’ not ‘when.’”

There’s a shift at one point in the film when the hybrid dinosaur escapes its enclosure and becomes a real threat. Claire’s transition from cold business woman to maternal figure is more apparent at this point. I recall a moment where Claire looks at one of the security monitors and watches a mother comfort her child. This instance may or may not be the thing that triggers Claire’s inherent maternalness. However, the unlocking of Claire’s inherent maternalness aligns with the trope of the fierce or ferociously protective mother. When Claire presents as an active agent of the corporate world, she relies on her intelligence to carry her through. When her maternal side is unlocked, she goes from being an uptight business woman to a sexy action hero. It raises a few questions. Is her womanhood only a cause for celebration when she accepts her maternal side? Is she more of a woman now that she has taken on the protective role of the mother figure?

After luring the t-rex out of its enclosure, there’s a sexualized shot of Claire lying on her side. The shot itself is clearly intended for the male gaze. With her red hair all mussed and her arms bare, the audience is viewing and consuming a very different version of Claire. It’s a version that doesn’t quite line up with her original character. Does she want to revel in her sexuality? Does she even have time to do so? In becoming a more protective figure, she has become more traditionally feminine. Is she only able to loosen up when adopting a more protective role?

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There has been a lot of backlash in regards to Claire’s outfit, especially her stiletto footwear. She’s receiving backlash from both the fictional people in her own world and real life movie-goers. It’s a hard and definitely unfair burden to bear. Visually, Claire is dressed in all white towards the start of the film, which might be a nod to John Hammond but it’s also the very picture of sterility. This image circles back to Claire not wanting children and could be read as a visual representation of her neutralized attitude towards them. When she commits to saving her nephews, she ties her shirt in a fashion that’s similar to Ellie’s shirt. Though my childhood self appreciates the throw back, especially because it’s a throw back to my idol, Owen ruined it for me because he made fun of her “impractical” outfit. Instead of being taken seriously, she became the punch line of a joke and it’s not the first instance in which she served as the punch line of a joke. Is that her only purpose? Is she there to be poked, prodded, and laughed at?

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Lastly, there’s something to be said about her stiletto footwear. Too often we’re taught to view and interpret symbols of femininity as things that are weak, vain, and impractical. Personally, I would have rolled my ankles had I been running away from dinosaurs in those heels. Claire impressed me with how well she managed in those nude colored heels of hers. It might have been a painful experience, but she endured the pain to not only save her own skin but to save others as well. There’s a kind of strength in that and it’s a strength that needs to be acknowledged and celebrated.

Claire isn’t a bad character. She’s smart and strong, but she operates in a world that wants to change her and back her into a wall. Ellie was feminine and caring, but that was OK. Though Jurassic World had some great parts, I struggled with the film as a whole because everyone was trying to make a villain out of Claire and a hero out of Owen. Oddly enough, I felt as though the first installment was more progressive in its presentation of deeply developed male and female characters. It’s 2015. Shouldn’t we be moving in a forward direction?

 


Ashley Barry works at a publishing house in Boston and holds a master’s degree in children’s literature. Though her background is in the book business, she loves writing about all mediums. She’s also a contributing writer for a video game website called Not Your Mama’s Gamer. She can be reached at abarry4099@gmail.com.

 

 

 

‘Ever After’: A Wicked Stepmother with Some Fairy Godmother Tendencies

As an orphan of common origins, Drew Barrymore’s spunky protagonist, Danielle de Barbarac, is forced into a life of servitude to her father’s widow, the Baroness Rodmilla de Ghent, and the Baroness’s two natural daughters, Jacqueline and Marguerite. As Baroness Rodmilla, Anjelica Houston is equal parts breathtaking as she is fearsome, as cruel as she is oddly sympathetic.

Ever After Cover


This guest post by Emma Kat Richardson appears as part of our theme week on Bad Mothers.


Let’s face it: Ever After is pure fluff. Sure, as a late ‘90s girlhood staple, it’s been deified by 20- and 30-somethings old enough to remember when Drew Barrymore was touring with Hole and flashing David Letterman. And yes, there is some feminist gravitas about the film that makes it stand out; a streak of personal empowerment runs through this hip retelling of the classic, demur Cinderella tale. It was the perfect interpretation of a decidedly not-feminist fairy tale for the Girl Power! generation.

Revisiting Ever After now is a bit like biting into a Hot Pocket after 10 or more years of not having done so; it’s a bit more plastic than you last remembered. The shiny Hollywood gloss that decorates Ever After from head to toe becomes more transparent with age. To its credit, the film does a relatively competent job of co-opting the look and feel of a real Renaissance setting, but this doesn’t prevent the acting from being frequently overwrought, the plot devices predictable and contrived, and the fact that everybody speaks with a British accent, despite living in France. (No Francophile worth her weight in, well, Francs, would stand for it!)

That said, there is one compelling element to this fairy tale that makes it well worth a closer look: the utterly fascinating dynamic between Cinderella and her “wicked” stepmother.

As an orphan of common origins, Drew Barrymore’s spunky protagonist, Danielle de Barbarac, is forced into a life of servitude to her father’s widow, the Baroness Rodmilla de Ghent, and the Baroness’s two natural daughters, Jacqueline and Marguerite. As Baroness Rodmilla, Anjelica Huston is equal parts breathtaking as she is fearsome, as cruel as she is oddly sympathetic. Disney never could have dreamed up such a multi-layered villainess. Together, the two lock horns in a continuous battle for control over personal fortune and fate. It’s far from a healthy relationship, and Rodmilla is far from a nurturing force. Even toward her own daughters, she’s spiteful and manipulative; throughout the film, she continuously taunts Jacqueline about her weight, and spends a considerable amount of time trying to push Marguerite into bed with the prince. (Not that Marguerite is exactly unwilling; she’s certainly inherited more of the toxic elements of Rodmilla’s personality.)

And then, there are hints at Rodmilla’s background that suggest more substance than one-dimensional wickedness. For one thing, she’s a noble woman who appears to have married Danielle’s father, a man far below her station, out of love. The de Barbaracs are not nobility; before she met Prince Henry, Danielle had never been to court. Her father, Auguste, is a country gentlemen of modest means and one small manor farm for property. On the other hand, the baroness brings with her a title and riches. Presumably she is a dowager baroness, since she has two daughters but no baron to keep her swathed in rich furs. We see more evidence of their love when Danielle tends to Rodmilla in her most intimate moments – brushing her hair before bed, sharing heartache over the memory of Danielle’s father, who died of a heart attack when she was just 8. “Did you love my father?” Danielle inquires earnestly. “Well, I barely knew him,” is the restrained reply. “No go away, I’m tired.” Visibly moved, Rodmilla stifles a tear and looks off into the distance, sobered.

Rodmilla
What am I doing, out here in the country? Not getting ye olde tan on, tis for certain.

 

While she may have loved her father, she merely tolerated Danielle, which is the most generous possible way of putting it. With his dying breath, Auguste reaches for his scrawny, weeping daughter–not his glamorous new wife, also howling with grief. It is an unintended slight for which Rodmilla never forgives Danielle, and the severity of Danielle’s punishment for this offense is boundless. Yet, Danielle can’t help but try at every turn to please her ceaselessly demanding stepmother. In lieu of any other parental figure, Danielle may have latched on to Rodmilla as the only viable role model in her young, fragile life. It’s possible she even learned how to cultivate self-reliance and independence from the formidable baroness; after all, Rodmilla spends the majority of the movie husbandless, scheming, and maneuvering her way into higher chances and better opportunities. In many ways, Rodmilla and Danielle are more alike than they are drastically different, as every other Cinderella narrative would have you believe. Both are rather unusual women for their era: Danielle is the daughter of a low-born farmer, but she can read and write, and even quote Thomas More from memory. Rodmilla, a woman born to privilege, actively chooses to be single and to make her own way in the world – even if this occasionally involves playing by the rules of the patriarchy, which govern both their lives.

Ever After 1
I’m the thinking man’s helpless victim, don’t ya know?

But ultimately, of course, we all know how this story concludes. Danielle triumphs over her tormentor, capturing the heart of the prince and rising to a status so high it would have made even the grasping Rodmilla dizzy. Given that, however indirectly, she taught Danielle to follow her heart and live out her ambitions for a better life, can we really write her off as a bad – or, indeed, wicked – mother? Rodmilla is deeply flawed, and far from perfect. She’s narcissistic and hypocritical: “We must never feel sorry for ourselves,” says the woman who spends much of the movie moping about how under-appreciated she is. And yet, the pivotal role she plays in the development of Danielle’s self-actualization cannot be denied. Even more so than in her relationship with Prince Henry, Danielle is indelibly shaped by her stepmother’s influence. Driven to succeed on each of her own terms, these two remarkable women together fill the void left by far too many conventionally competitive mother-daughter dynamics. In the end, karma doles out adequate payback, with Rodmilla and Marguerite being sent to work in the royal laundries, as Danielle becomes queen-to-be through her marriage to Henry. “I only ask that you show her the same kindness she has always shown me,” Danielle says to the king and queen, while debating Rodmilla’s punishment for lying to the queen about Danielle’s identity. Even as Rodmilla acquiesces to her fate, there’s a glimmer of respect in her eye for her long beleaguered stepdaughter. Perhaps she has taught her ward well after all.


Emma Kat Richardson is a Detroit native and freelance writer living in Austin, Texas. Her work has appeared in xoJane.com, Bitch, Alternative Press, LaughSpin.com, Real Detroit Weekly, 944, and Bust.com. She’s enough of a comedy nerd and cat lady to have named her Maine Coon Michael Ian Cat. Follow her on twitter: @emmakat.

 

 

‘Waterworld’: Where We Were with Gender 20 Years Ago

Helen represents a new kind of fantasy woman, popular in the late ’80s and ’90s – one who’s ballsy and opinionated, but can absolutely, 100 percent, still be controlled. In fact, the only reason Helen’s “safe” for mainstream audiences in 1995 is that Kevin Costner’s total dominance over her is constantly reinforced.


Written by Katherine Murray.


In 1995, Waterworld was known for being stupid, stupidly expensive, and the first in a series of bad decisions that hurt Kevin Costner’s career — its reputation hasn’t changed a lot since then. Still, if I’m honest with you, the movie didn’t bother me that much when I was 11. Watching it again this past weekend, I wasn’t exactly shocked to find my perceptions had changed, but I was interested to see where Waterworld falls in the history of popular culture – including popular notions of gender. The movie isn’t as good as you’d hope – in fact, in many ways, it’s really, really bad – but it represents an important phase in how we understood ourselves as men and women.

Jeanne Tripplehorn and Tina Majorino star in Waterworld
This kid grows up to star in way better movies and shows

 

For those of you who’ve blocked it out, Waterworld is a post-apocalyptic action-adventure movie about a future where the polar icecaps have melted, and humanity lives aboard boats, rafts, and makeshift floating cities. Dirt has become a form of currency, and people preserve fresh, drinkable water at all costs. In the midst of this open sea nightmare, Kevin Costner (whose character doesn’t have a name) is a mutant drifter who lives on the margins, salvaging, trading, and doing battle with pirates, all while looking bad-ass on his boat. Jeanne Tripplehorn is Helen, a shopkeeper on one of the floating cities, who’s adopted a girl named Enola – played by a 10-year-old Tina Majorino.

Enola has a map on her back that no one can interpret, which might show the way to dry land. When a group of pirates hears about it, they attack the floating city to kidnap her, and Helen makes a deal with Kevin Costner to save all their lives. The three of them travel together for most of the movie, facing random dangers on the sea, before they finally have a big showdown with the pirates.

From a critical perspective, Waterworld is both not as bad as we remember it, and worse than we remember it – suffering most from an inconsistent tone. The pirates are like something out of a Saturday morning cartoon, and everything that’s not the pirates is much more serious and grim than the movie seems to think it is. Judging Waterworld by the standards of ‘90s action-adventure movies, where were pretty broad in terms of character and plot, the first act is really promising. The plot points fall like dominoes to get Kevin Costner, Helen, and Enola on the ship together – there’s genuine tension, and all three characters are interesting.

From the vantage point of 2015, it would be easy to criticize the movie for its lack of subtlety and formulaic plot, but that’s partly because cinema has changed a lot in 20 years. Waterworld was created at a time when mainstream audiences didn’t expect a lot of self-referential humour or genre-subverting plot twists. Part of the reason we have so much of that now is because we first had a long stretch of films that were simple and earnest, and collectively established the genre conventions in the first place. It’s not that Waterworld’s doing anything so great and interesting – it’s just that, in terms of plot development, it’s more in the middle of the pack for 1995.

It’s also in the middle of the pack in terms of how gender’s portrayed, and that makes it an interesting snapshot of where were just 20 years ago – both in terms of how far Waterworld is from the movies that came out before, and how far it is from the movies coming out now. From the perspective of gender analysis, the most important part of the movie is the slow-moving part in the middle, where the story’s just about three people on a boat, and how they relate to each other.

Jeanne Tripplehorn stars in Waterworld
♫ Anything you can do, she can do slightly less well ♫

 

Like many female leads of the ’90s, Helen is required to be capable, but not so capable that the man in her life can’t outdo her. She’s also required to be outspoken, as long as no one has to listen when she talks. In the movie’s first act, Helen breaks Kevin Costner out of a cage when the elders in her village try to murder him for being a mutant outsider. She and Enola see that he’s their opportunity to leave the city, and the three of them work together to open the gates and escape in his boat.

As soon as they’re on the boat, though, the story takes an ugly and confusing turn. Kevin Costner first wants to pitch Enola overboard because she’ll use up his resources and, although he lets both of them stay in the end, he’s completely fucking horrible for over half the movie, and it’s not clear how aware the movie is that that’s the case. The movie doesn’t seem to think it’s right for him to act like such an asshole, but it seems to think that this is understandable behaviour, and, sometimes, that it kind of makes him cool. Among the violent, hateful things Kevin Costner does:

  • He actually does throw Enola overboard, though we’re supposed to forgive him because he changes his mind and goes back for her
  • He cracks Helen in the head with a paddle, nearly knocking her unconscious, but her body is under a sail so we don’t have to see how brutal it is
  • He pimps Helen out to an obviously unbalanced creepball they meet on the sea, over her repeated objections – again, we’re supposed to forgive him because he changes his mind

In one of the most disturbing scenes, Helen damages the ship’s harpoon by using it to fight off pirates (and she manages to screw up fighting pirates so that Kevin Costner can look like the hero). Kevin Costner decides – and the film seems to agree with him – that he has the right to punish her for this by swinging a machete at her head and cutting off her hair. Enola speaks up to tell him he’s being an asshole, at which point he notices that she’s been using his crayons after he told her not to. We cut to shot where we see that Helen and Enola have now both lost their hair, and they sheepishly move out of Kevin Costner’s way when he walks by, and stop talking so they don’t annoy him. The movie doesn’t show us Kevin Costner swinging a machete at a terrified 10-year-old girl, and it seems to want us to think it’s funny that he’s restored order on the boat by getting the women to shut the hell up and stay out of his way.

Helen represents a new kind of fantasy woman, popular in the late ’80s and ’90s – one who’s ballsy and opinionated, but can absolutely, 100 percent, still be controlled. In fact, the only reason Helen’s “safe” for mainstream audiences in 1995 is that Kevin Costner’s total dominance over her is constantly reinforced. First, they butt heads in a series of conflicts he always easily wins, and then, once she starts to fall in love with him, they stop butting heads about anything, and she drops back to follow his lead. The message is basically that, if he can learn to be nicer to her, she can acknowledge that he’s her superior.

Helen is a step up from the days when the ideal woman was silent, empty-headed, and dependent, but she still exists mostly as an artefact of male fantasy. She’s fiery at first, because the man of 1995 could find that sexy. And, even though she stands up to the pirates, she’s ultimately submissive for the right kind of guy, because the man of 1995 found that non-threatening. What we see in Waterworld is a snapshot of American culture’s evolving idea of women, at a stage when we were trying to convince ourselves that feminism was compatible with all of the existing power structures patriarchy built, if we could just find the right way to look at it. We no longer believed that men had the right to control women, ipso facto, no matter what – but we still seemed to believe that men could earn the right to control certain women, by meeting vaguely defined obligations toward them. Because Kevin Costner ultimately protects Helen and Enola from other men, and overcomes his natural urge to murder them himself, he earns the right to be the boss in their relationship. It’s maybe half a step back from where we are now, and one step forward from when we were chattel.

Kevin Costner, Jeanne Tripplehord, and Tina Majorino in Waterworld
Check out that rugged, badass seashell earring

 

Aside from the predictably horrible stuff about women, Waterworld is also interesting because of the snapshot it gives us of maleness. Kevin Costner’s character is antiquated by today’s standards – a type of hyper-competent manly man we don’t believe exists anymore, outside of adolescent fantasy. He’s good at everything he does, he kills people, he has a cool boat, he’s stoic, he’s wise, he gets the best of anyone who tries to screw him over – he’s such a badass that, when he goes fishing, he lets a sea monster swallow him whole so he can kill it from the inside.

He’s basically a cowboy who drinks his own piss.

At the same time, there’s a sense of vulnerability to character, because he hasn’t chosen to be an outsider. He’s an outcast because he’s a mutant, ashamed of his gills and webbed feet, forced to hide them for fear of being discovered. The movie strongly implies that the reason he’s mean isn’t just because it’s neat to be an asshole, or because he’s privy to some deep truth about the harsh realities of life – it’s partly because he’s lonely and he needs to learn how to connect with other people. In fact, the entire arc of his character development – such as it is – is that he learns to be less selfish, and becomes attached enough to Helen and Enola that he’ll risk his life and lose his boat to save them.

In the narrative of 1995, male leads still need to prove they’re capable of doing all the bad-ass things that men are supposed to be able to do. They still have to show that they don’t want to be all sissified, and caring, and interested in having conversations – they don’t want to hang around with women all the time, they don’t want to talk about their feelings, they don’t want to be all lame and interested in things like friendship when they could just swing machetes at your face – but then, somehow, somewhat against their will, they gradually start to have some vulnerable emotions and, as long as they keep blowing up the pirate ships, it’s still OK.

This doesn’t seem like a big deal by today’s standards, where male leads are often awkward, average, bumbling guys who get by with the help of their friends, but, in terms of action-adventure movie standards, having a hero who expressed self-doubt, loneliness, or insecurity was a step toward acknowledging that men have feelings, too.

The scene in Waterworld that’s maybe most instructive about how the movie sees both men and women, and the dynamics of relationships between them, is the scene just as we enter act two. Kevin Costner says he wants to toss Enola overboard, and Helen offers to have sex with him if she and Enola can stay. There’s a wide shot of the deck as she takes off her dress, and then there’s a long, silent moment where the actors communicate a lot of information through their expressions. It’s clear that Helen doesn’t want to sleep with Kevin Costner – that this is a horrible sacrifice she’s making to keep Enola safe, and it’s basically the worst day of her life. Kevin Costner is, at first, tempted by her offer, because he’s lonely, but, when he reads the disgust in her face, he backs off – maybe because he thinks she’s disgusted by his being a mutant, maybe because he doesn’t want to have sex with someone who isn’t into it, no matter what the reason – we don’t know. When she asks him later why he didn’t do it, his answer is the equally unreadable, “Because you didn’t want me.”

Waterworld is a movie that understands that women don’t actually want to have sex random dudes just because they are the heroes of the movie. It understands that, when women offer to trade sex for something, it’s usually not because they feel great about the deal. It understands that it would be wrong for Kevin Costner to accept the trade. At the same time, it’s a  movie that wants to show us Jeanne Tripplehorn’s butt when she takes off her dress, and make sure we know that Kevin Costner totally could have done it with her if he wasn’t such a stand-up guy. Just like to totally could have murdered that kid, and totally could have pimped out his lady friend, also if he wasn’t such a stand-up, awesome guy.

It’s a vision of a world where men can still have the power to do whatever they want to to women, but where they sometimes shouldn’t – where, in fact, they are princely, amazing, good guys if they don’t. It’s a world where you should try to be nice to the people in a one-down position from you, as long as they aren’t climbing up.

Also, it’s a world where any random rope can be a bungee cord, and I don’t understand that part quite as well.

 


Katherine Murray is a Toronto-based writer who yells about movies and TV on her blog.