1990s – Page 2 – Bitch Flicks

The Sublime Sadism in ‘Breaking the Waves’

Her role as sexual martyr is better suitable for Bess than the role that is expected of her: the patriarchal role of the woman. The religious community in which Bess is brought up is stifling and oppressive, in which male domination prevails in both the personal and public life of the community (the household and the entire commune is dominated by the elderly male church leaders).

This is a guest post by Giselle Defares.

The relationship between faith and love, the religious experience that is love, suffering and sacrifice, are themes that frequently recur in our pop culture. For some, love can be seen as the most powerful emotion we know, an emotion that can entail spiritual forces. In Breaking The Waves love and faith appear, despite the spiritual connotations, as matters proposed in a very earthly and physical manner. However, the age-old trope of the suffering woman who sacrifices herself so that the man triumphs is nothing new.

The Danish director Lars von Trier follows the beat of his own drum. Von Trier can be called many things: neurotic, shit stirrer and allegedly misogynist. In 2011 he was declared persona non grata after his ridiculous remarks in Cannes during a press conference for Melancholia: “I really wanted to be a Jew, and then I found out that I was really a Nazi… What can I say? I understand Hitler.” He took a “vow of silence” after this debacle. Not only did von Trier make various headlines in his career via his questionable, controversial statements, it’s also the result of the themes portrayed in his films. In most of his films the female characters are placed in violent and sexual situations. In an old interview with The Guardian, Von Trier said “Basically, I’m afraid of everything in life, except filmmaking.” Right.

Breaking the Waves centers round a strict Calvinist community in rural Scotland. Bess McNeill (Emily Watson) is a young woman who expresses her piety by cleaning the church. Here she holds various conversations with God. When Bess wants to marry Jan Nyman (Stellan Skarsgård), an outsider who works on the oil rigs, the church elderly are hesitant. Nevertheless, the first weeks of their marriage are successful. When Jan needs to get back to work at the rig, Bess becomes emotionally unhinged and begs God to bring him back. As a result of a fatal accident on the rig, Jan is brought back to the mainland. He is completely paralyzed, and his life is uncertain; both Bess and “God” blame themselves for Jan’s situation. When she asks God for help, he answers with the question: “Who do you want to save, yourself or Jan?” Bess then makes the fatal decision to save Jan.

Whether or not it was the intent of von Trier, Bess is frequently compared to the Christ figure in a modern tragedy. Her sacrifice was for a higher purpose and “not in vain.” In Bible and Cinema: Fifty Key Films, Adele Reinhartz gives two basic criteria that a movie character must meet in order to be seen as a Christ figure: “That there be some direct and specific resemblance to Christ and that the fundamental message associated with the possible Christ figure has to be consistent to the life and work of Christ, and contrary to his message about liberation and love.”

On the basis of these two criteria Bess can be seen as the female representation of a Christ figure. Her love, like that of Christ, is selfless and knows no boundaries. Bess commits herself entirely to sacrifice her being for this selfless love, even if it leads to death. However, this form of sacrifice is soon to be regarded as a specific element in her life. Bess is easily persuaded by Jan, because “God” commands her to fulfill his wishes. Jan’s requirements are so also God’s requirements. Bess is obedient and submissive to the male power, which forces her to place herself in unpleasant situations trying to save a man.

A representation of this point can be seen in the middle of the film when Bess prays directly to a hospitalized Jan. Bess exclaims, “I love you, Jan.” Jan answers, “I love you too, Bess. You are the love of my life.” Both Jan and God have the same voice, thereby Jan and God are put on the same pedestal. The masculine is the divine, the women must be submissive therein.

The female suffering in Breaking the Waves is deemed more important than the female existence. Her role as sexual martyr is better suitable for Bess than the role that is expected of her: the patriarchal role of the woman. The religious community in which Bess is brought up is stifling and oppressive, in which male domination prevails in both the personal and public life of the community (the household and the entire commune is dominated by the elderly male church leaders).

The position of the women in this patriarchal community is determined by the male counterparts. The imposed position of the wife doesn’t sit well with Bess; in the first chapter she goes against the grain by marrying Jan in the church, then she speaks in the church, which is forbidden for women. They also ask the women in the community that they remain calm and adhere to their men. Not the whimsical Bess: she beats Jan as he arrives late to their wedding, and is hysterical when he leaves her to work on the rig. This latter characteristic, hysteria, is considered as one of the “weakest” properties of a woman. Alyda Faber, a theologian, states in Redeeming Sexual Violence? A Feminist Reading of Breaking the Waves: “Von Trier creates the image of Bess as sexual martyr through a peculiar valorization of feminine abjection as madness, formlessness, malleability, hysteria. This common reiteration of femininity as weakness.”

Although Bess has more difficulty with the role of sexual martyr, she fulfills the role better than the imposed patriarchal role of a woman. Von Trier uses Bess as a sinner and as a martyr; archetypes that enable that Bess – from a feminist theological approach- is seen as a Mary Magdalene. Von Trier also literally refers to Mary Magdalene in Bess. This happens in the dialogue in which God speaks to Bess: “Mary Magdalene had sin, and she is my beloved.” Bess is caught between the two paradigms where Mary Magdalene was stuck as the virgin and the whore.

Her character begins as that of a virgin, which fits into the mold created by the church until she persists throughout the film and turns into a “whore.” It starts with her sexual relationship with her husband, where she learns to give her love of God over to Jan. Her faith and love into “the word” God has been replaced by the belief in carnal love. Bess at one point states: “You cannot love words. You cannot be in love with a word. You can love another human being.” Her faith for the greater good is stronger than the word of God; this faith in love has led her to sexual freedom–from virgin to whore. Despite Bess being often compared to Mary Magdalene and represented as a Christ figure she remains an ordinary woman who only has to offer her goodness.

Watson is phenomenal in her role as Bess and she deservedly received an Oscar nomination. She truly carries the film and has great chemistry with Skarsgård in the first chapters. Her suffering is stretched throughout the film causing pain and simultaneously pity for her character. Admittedly, the plot is very thin and at times feels illogical. The other characters feel like cardboard cutouts but the film is saved by Watson as the whimsical Bess.

Von Trier styled the film almost like a documentary while using the handheld camera work of cinematographer Robbie Müller. The images are grainy, gray and pale in color, and there’s almost no use of a musical score. At first, the angular camera work doesn’t seem to work with the emotional storyline nor the strict and rigid community in which it takes place. Only with the announcement of a new chapter in the film are images shown that almost resemble moving paintings in beautiful, vibrant colors. As if the gaze of God descends on rural Scotland.

Breaking the Waves is, in essence, just an good old fashioned melodrama. It’s captivating and moving, but there’s no room for false sentiment.

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

Giselle Defares comments on film, fashion (law) and American pop culture. See her blog here.

You May Meet Alex and Hedy As You Progress Through Life

Though we might sympathize, mostly we reflect on them, after escaping them, with awe and terror. They are not good. They are not our lovers nor our friends; they do not have our best interests at heart.

This is a guest post by Stephanie Brown.

“‘I won’t be ignored, Dan.'”

As a new friend and I got to know each other during the past couple of years, this became our shorthand joke. We’d say it when we worried we were calling or texting too often. We used that line because the character Alex Forrest, who says the line (actually “I’m not going to be ignored, Dan!”) in the film Fatal Attraction is the symbol for a person who doesn’t take a hint, let alone an outright declaration that a person doesn’t want an involvement. She’s a person who becomes a stalker because she’s delusions about her relationship with a married man. She becomes as destructive and vengeful as a witch in a fairy tale.

No one wants to be the person who has no common sense about other people. No one wants to be Alex Forrest, or Hedra “Hedy” Carlson in Single White Female, another film that gave us a character so needy and envious, she puts Snow White’s stepmother to shame. When someone “goes all Single White Female” on you, you know you’re dealing with someone who can suck the life out of you by copying your moves and destroying you in the process. Viewers, like the victims who surround an evil witch in a fairy tale, learn that it’s almost impossible to outwit these two, as their nasty feelings manifest into destructive actions, but outwit them we must.

Both films are misogynistic. They depict women we hate and would hate to be like. If we knew more about them we’d probably feel compassion for what made them so evil–but like figures in fairy tales, the backstory is irrelevant to the action and to the victims facing their wrath. Alex and Hedy are symbols for those hatable people who are normal-on-the-surface-but-crazy-underneath. They are hatable because they are impossible to like once you get to know them. Their big, destructive personalities can be glimpsed in people we know, as we can glimpse Snow White and her stepmother, Cinderella, and her sisters, or Jack-in-the-Beanstalk’s father-son rivalry in families we know. Male screenwriters and directors developed these characters, and they can be dismissed as depictions of exaggerated, baseless male fears. But hatable women exist, be they one’s partner, relative, or friend. Like fairytale archetypes, Alex and Hedy harken back to significant relationships–and by being sort of preposterous they are kept at a safe remove. Alex is not our own wife or nightmare ex, she is only a one-night stand who lied to us and herself about having sex with no strings attached. Hedy is not the mother, sister or co-worker who envies us, she is someone we randomly met to share expenses on an apartment. We can displace our hatred on the fictional character, while we might not be able to admit hatred for those we are close to due to fate or necessity.

I saw Fatal Attraction by myself when I was living by myself, an SFW (single white female, in the shorthand of classified seeking-roommate ads of the day) in Oakland, Calif. The theater was packed and the audience’s shout-outs to the screen funny and raucous as Alex’s behavior became increasingly bizarre.

By the climax–where she is shot in the bathtub by the wife, Beth Gallagher–I was laughing out loud. The movie seemed ludicrous to me. Soon after seeing it, I tuned into the end of a radio show. The person speaking was animated about her subject, the movie Fatal Attraction, which she said was a hot conversation topic between men and women because the story reflected anxieties about feminism and working women. To me it seemed to be a cautionary tale for men about how the wages of sin (adultery) can lead them to ruin, but it was hard for me to believe that a person like Alex could even exist. But then, I lived alone (and was lonely) and had no one to really talk to about the movie, whether it was ludicrous or should be taken seriously, or about feminism or anything else.

What I did know about living alone was that it might make you go crazy. You forget how much you have been with your own thoughts when you finally talk to someone. Not having a romantic partner made me unhappy and disappointed with life, which are probably the feelings Alex and Hedy had, being alone in the world, looking for a connection. Why they did not have connections is only hinted at, and we can only guess why. I was in my 20s when I saw these films, the time of life when most people have temporary living arrangements, like the characters in Single White Female. I had lived in five different places by the time I was 26. You took chances on roommates and places and living alone in safe or unsafe neighborhoods. I had lived anonymously in two large cities. Like city dwellers Dan and Allie, in a city one has to take a person at her word when looking for a living arrangement or when meeting in the workplace. You don’t have a small town’s generational history to inform you that someone has been damaged by their childhood or was outcast by everyone. That’s also the reason why the city appeals to people–it’s a place to reinvent oneself, where no one really knows you, and where most relationships are friendly but safely superficial. This is the same in the large workplace, where one can observe another’s eccentric or charming or moody behavior at a distance. You only know what someone is really like by working closely with them. It’s amazing how personality deficits and disorders are revealed when one is in daily contact with someone else in the workplace. In all cases, your relationships are left mostly to chance.

At that time I still kept in touch with childhood friends and still felt close to them. Though we only saw each other a few times a year, we talked on the phone for hours sometimes, at long-distance expense, which I budgeted for; it felt so necessary to me. However, every time we got together I could feel us drifting apart.

The friend I was closest to called me soon after Fatal Attraction was released, and asked me what I thought of it. It had really struck a chord with her. She saw it by herself and then took her boyfriend to see it, because she wanted him to see her resemblance to Alex; she thought it would help him understand her better. In particular, the scene where Alex sits alone in her apartment and turns the light on and off is what she wanted him to see. She wanted him to understand how she felt–I suppose how she felt when she felt desperate? They were not in a cheating relationship and were not married, but she related to the character’s personality. I don’t remember if I told her this, but I found that very disturbing. I could not imagine relating to Alex at all, and I still don’t. Had I not known her for as long as I had, I would have dropped the friendship then and there. As it was, our friendship did not last and for me is was because of coming behaviors that did indeed evoke Alex’s. I also knew by that time that I ought not to live alone with few connections. It might make me into an Alex or a Hedy. I also knew that I had the capacity to be like Allie or Dan, using people and expecting them to not care, and I knew I had experienced envy from others, and I did not like how it felt.

These films were released within a few years of each other: Fatal Attraction in 1987, Single White Female in 1992. They are sometimes seen as mirrors of the era, especially as responses to ascending feminism. But to me, feminism had already ascended and was accepted–I suppose I was naive, but to me they were about women with damaged psyches whose gigantic wells of neediness and envy were so mythic they created tragedies because they did not know how to do anything else. In the 30 years or so since these films were released, I’ve come to know many women like both of these women–not that they’ve come to bloody conclusions, but they have created nightmares, migraines and heart attacks, for instance, as well as fear and anxiety and frustration. I wish we had had the characters’ back stories in the films. In the years since, I’ve become fascinated by what breaks people and makes them behave in such ways. I have learned compassion for them while still keeping them at arms’ length. The stories’ plots, however, depend upon us identifying with Dan in Fatal Attraction and Allie in Single White Female. It is possible to find yourself at a point in life where you must obtain a restraining order against someone. At that point, it is not hard to identify with these victims.

People like Alex and Hedy are people who feel dead and empty and hopeless; they can’t be helped, they push too hard, they want the impossible and don’t give up when they should. Someone who seems fun and lovely at first but who is impossible once the mask is taken off her face. We saw a few glimpses of Alex’s scrapbook in the film, but were not given enough to speculate about her background or what made her the way she was. We don’t know why they lack connections with others.

But maybe that is beside the point: the Alexes and Hedys I’ve known have few connections because everyone has left them behind and wants nothing to do with them. No one can stand them for very long. It’s hard to believe, because when you meet them, they are friendly and fun and have good heads on their shoulders. But after a while the mask slips and one finds oneself growing annoyed at giving the same advice to their requests for advice, or hearing the same complaints about the same person again and again, or finding out something that makes the hair stand up at the back of your neck: that the person was let go from a job because, you’re now told, the principal of the school did not understand how to discipline kids properly, the way she did. When your work acquaintance becomes your boss and you discover she yells and screams until you feel like you are living with an abusive mother in a tiny house where you are never fed or looked after, you know why she has gotten stuck at this particular rung in their career, and why you are likely to pass her as she drifts downward. People like her fake it by using buzzwords and speaking aggressively and sounding smart, while there is no substance to back it up. To mask their incompetence, they need to steal your ideas, block your ideas, exhaust your ears, or take on your mannerisms and demeanor because they see how others have a positive response.

Fairytales tell us how to make practical choices when faced with another’s envy or wrath. Children are instructed on what to do when faced with Snow White’s envy (leave home) or Cinderella’s sisters (wait it out–they will destroy themselves) or how to fell a jealous father-giant (be clever and nimble and you will cut him down eventually). There are people who wish us ill and mean us harm. There are people so envious and angry of those around them (usually those who are competent, gifted or kindhearted) that their satisfaction comes from seeing the envied fail and flail. As Jeanette Winterson wrote of her mother in Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal, a book that uses fairytales tropes as a way to understand a destructive, cold mother: “She filled the phone box. She was out of scale, larger than life. She was like a fairy story where size is approximate and unstable. She loomed up. She expanded. Only later, much later, too late, did I understand how small she was to herself.” [1]

When we’ve escaped from an Alex or Hedy, we can look back and see how someone who destroys others is sad or desperate or lonely or feels small. I think Winterson is right–destructive women loom large, change size, extend themselves by loud voice, by taking things from you, by holding weapons because they feel small and overlooked. Though we might sympathize, mostly we reflect on them, after escaping them, with awe and terror. They are not good. They are not our lovers nor our friends; they do not have our best interests at heart.

Because I’ve known them, I value my new friend all the more, the one with whom I can use a shorthand joke from Fatal Attraction. She also has known these kinds of people, who actually may be men or women.

1. Jeanette Winterson, Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?, p. 2-3. New York: Knopf, 2011.

Stephanie Brown is the author of two collections of poetry, Domestic Interior and Allegory of the Supermarket. She’s published work in American Poetry Review, Ploughshares, and The Best American Poetry series. She was awarded an NEA Fellowship in 2001 and a Breadloaf Fellowship in 2009. She has taught at UC Irvine and the University of Redlands and is a regional branch manager for OC Public Libraries in southern California.

Why We Love Janice and Why We Love to Hate Janice

Is Chandler going somewhere, just minding his own business? Chances are that Janice is just around the corner. As Janice once put it, “You seek me out. Something deep in your soul calls out to me like a foghorn. Jaaa-nice. Jaaa-nice.”

This guest post by Artemis Linhart appears as part of our theme week on Unlikable Women.

You can hear her presence from a distance. If it isn’t the laugh that tips you off, it might just be her nasal, loud voice – the stuff that Chandler’s nightmares are made of. As a viewer, you can also feel her presence from a distance. Is Chandler going somewhere, just minding his own business? Chances are that Janice is just around the corner. As Janice once put it, “You seek me out. Something deep in your soul calls out to me like a foghorn. Jaaa-nice. Jaaa-nice.”

This holds true for all 10 seasons of Friends. Just when you thought she was out… they pull her back in.

The thing about Janice though, is that she is more than a running gag. What is established early on in the first season as the on-again, off-again love interest and general catchphrase provider, the inescapable fate of Chandler Bing’s love life, is in fact a statement about our – the fans’ – loyalty and commitment to the characters of the show.

Clearly, it’s a Love Hate Thing. The character evokes in the viewer split feelings of sympathy with both Chandler and Janice herself.

Why We Love Janice

She’s fun.

She may be whiny, but Janice is up for all sorts of fun stuff. Spending a day with her seems like a great thing to do – even though “Joey and Janice’s Day Of Fun” did nothing to change Joey’s feelings about her. Phoebe may be the only one to genuinely like her, but Janice truly cares about all six of the Friends and shows that she’s a fun person to be around.

She’s confident.

Not only is Janice confident when it comes to her style – she pulls off bold fashion choices with ease and, while others might be amused by her outfits, she wears them with pride – but she also never fails to show how strong a person she is. Janice knows what she wants and is not afraid to go ahead and get it.

When she hears about Joey hating her, instead of being offended or shamed, she confronts him and wants to make things right.

She has a good heart.

Janice is loyal to Chandler despite all the pain he has caused her. She truly cares about him. Remember the customized candy hearts and the Bullwinkle socks she gave him for Valentine’s Day? Those were gifts that really showed how thoughtful she is.

Forget lobsters! – Janice is the Bullwinkle sock to Chandler’s pair of Rockys. She might get lost in the sock drawer at times, but she’s sure to resurface every once in a while for Chandler to mix and match.

She’s supportive.

When Chandler pretend-moved to Yemen, she helped pack, bring his luggage to the airport and, on top of it all, agreed to a long-distance relationship.

At one point, she did actually make Chandler happy.

And we love a happy Chandler.

It is always fun to see Chandler’s pitiful tries to break up with her.

New Year’s, Valentine’s Day, you name it. Chandler may be the worst breaker-upper there ever was.

Why We Love to Hate Janice

We feel the pain.

Empathy, folks. We’ve got it.

It’s not just Chandler who suffers.

Joey, Rachel and Ross also get their fair share of Janice-induced agony.

We are protective of Monica and Chandler’s romance.

For Monica, there might even be a hint of jealousy involved. After all, Mon/Chan is the One True Pairing.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CZiZiBF7YQ”]

It makes us part of the group.

We love our Friends. They hate Janice. We know Janice is awesome, but we love to be on their side and hate Janice together.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLgpoSYVTx4″]

Oh… My… God.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNjjeZO2AZ4″]

Admittedly, she is quite a bit irritating.

In conclusion, this video pretty much sums it all up:

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rhoZrJXxsI”]

Artemis Linhart is a true Friends geek. She works and watches in Vienna, Austria.

Eve and the Second Sight

The story of Eve also elevates the image of Black women as the foundation of families. This element becomes most important as the film progresses.

This guest post by Rachel Wortherley appears as part of our theme week on Black Families.

Eve’s Bayou (1997) begins with the haunting lines: “The summer I killed my father I was 10 years old, my brother Poe was 9, and my sister Cisely had just turned 14.” With this preamble is the expectation of the tragic to occur. While the core of a majority of Black family dramas involves tragedy in the form of slavery, poverty, or mental/physical abuse, Kasi Lemmons’ directorial debut reinvents the way audiences view Black families. On a rare occasion, the story of a Black family is allowed to be told through the eyes of a Black female protagonist. Eve’s Bayou is in part a “coming of age” drama.

The history of the Batiste family of Louisiana lies in their ancestry. Eve, an African slave, saved a French aristocrat, Jean-Paul Batiste, from cholera. In return, Batiste granted her freedom and named the island in Louisiana, after her. In turn, Eve bore Batiste 16 children. Ten-year-old Eve Batiste (Jurnee Smollett), the story’s protagonist, is named after her and is a descendant of Eve and Jean-Paul Batiste. The fact that their ancestry is an integral part of their lives reveals several things: the first being that they clearly know who they are in terms of culture. Through the sordid decades of slavery, Blacks in America have little to no knowledge of their genealogy. It is a part of our past that is not clearly defined. However, in Eve’s Bayou, their background is not only acknowledged but embraced. They can often be heard speaking French phrases throughout the film. The story of Eve also elevates the image of Black women as the foundation of families. This element becomes most important as the film progresses.

The first time audiences meet the Batiste family, we are immediately thrust into a world that is uncharted and unfamiliar for most Black families in motion pictures, as well as the audiences. The hot sound of jazz fills the Victorian mansion, women are dressed in fine satins, and laughter fills the air. The young Eve appears and immediately incites mischief upon her brother Poe (Jake Smollett), while her sister, Cisely (Meagan Good), reprimands them, likening them to William Shakespeare’s Tybalt and Mercutio. Louis Batiste (Samuel L. Jackson) is their father and a successful, beloved doctor in the community. Their mother, Roz (Lynn Whitfield) is a homemaker, whose beauty is referenced throughout the film. There appears to be a strong family dynamic and they are living the quintessential American dream. Here, the Black family to audiences is “normalized” to a general American landscape. This factor becomes a metaphor for the supernatural aspects—the gift of second sight—of the film. Lemmons forces her audience to see beyond what is generally depicted about a Black family in the 1950s.

While the traditional family dynamic is important in the film, the coming of age aspect is even more so instrumental to the plot. When audiences first meet Eve, we see through her eyes how she feels marginalized within the family dynamic. She suffers from the classic “middle child” syndrome. Poe, her younger brother, is the quintessential “mama’s boy” to Roz, while Cisely is the clandestine “daddy’s girl” to Louis. Eve finds kinship in her aunt Mozelle (Debbi Morgan). Both share two qualities: their beautiful red hair and the gift of second sight. Not only do Eve and Mozelle see the future, but they are hyper-aware of their surroundings. This becomes especially significant when Eve becomes cognizant of her father’s infidelity. This realization not only disrupts the harmonious father-daughter relationship, but ultimately changes their family dynamic.

Louis’ penchant for adultery is not something that is usually portrayed in stories about Black families. Largely, Black fathers are either portrayed as: physically/emotionally absent or highly upstanding. In comedies, fathers are most likely the source of comic relief, while his wife is the “straight man” and the situational aspects generally focus on him or he is involved in some manner in the resolution. A current example of this is ABC’s Black-ish, while earlier incarnations are The Cosby Show, and The Jeffersons. I think that in Lemmons’ film, as well as Spike Lee’s Jungle Fever, fathers are portrayed as loving, yet flawed. Louis is undoubtedly a serial adulterer, but that does not change his affection toward his children.

When Eve discovers Louis’ infidelity she and Cisely begin to either cling to or detach themselves from him. Eve accompanies him on his house calls—once he closes the door in Eve’s face to give a patient what can be presumed “sexual healing.” This later prompts Eve to question, “Do you ever want other children besides us?” Louis assures her by telling her that he loves her mother, but the seed of distrust was planted the night of the party when she witnessed his infidelity in the shed with family friend, Mrs. Matty Mereaux. Cisely begins to cling to her father. She waits up for him at night when he arrives home late from house calls and pours him a drink to assuage his stress. Cisely also contends with Roz, who scolds Louis about his late nights. Cisely sees her mother as the antagonist who is driving her father out of their lives. This anxiety arguably prompts the “kiss of death” that transpires between Louis and Cisely.

The kiss that occurs between Cisely and her father is what Eve thinks led to his subsequent death. Cisely confides to Eve that one night, she went to comfort her father and a sexual kiss was exchanged. At her resistance he slaps her to the grown and a look of rage filled his eyes. This admission prompts Eve to procure the local witch, Elzora (Diahann Carroll), to cast a spell of death. However, the night that Louis is killed, something within Eve prompts her to attempt to save her father. In going to the town bar to bring him home, it is likely that Eve has reservations about how he hurt Cisely. But it is hard to not believe her sister when Eve has witnessed her father’s distrust on a number of occasions. Yet, it is too late, Mr. Mereaux in a crime of passion, shoots Louis dead, with Eve as witness. This moment leaves Eve forever changed, even more so when she discovers that Louis did not molest Cisely. Rather Cisely’s prominent memory is that Louis hurt her. Symbolically this means that everything Cisely disbelieved about her father to be true.

It is significant that in the beginning of the film, adult Eve states: “The summer I killed my father I was 10 years old, my brother Poe was 9, and my sister Cisely had just turned 14.” Whereas at the end she says: “The summer my father said goodnight I was 10 years old, my brother Poe was 9, and my sister Cisely had just turned 14. ” This changing in lines demonstrates that Eve accepts that her father’s death was not of her provocation, but his own.

The death of Louis allows for several new things to occur. It brings Roz closer to her children, it allows Eve to understand that not everything is “black and white,” and most significantly, women continue to be the foundation of their family. Though Poe is the sole male in their household, perhaps upbringing from Roz, Cisely, Eve, and Mozelle will influence him on how to respect women. However, Cisely and Eve are missing years in their adolescence in which fatherly love and influence is key. Yet there is not the sense that the sisters will stray. The indicator of this lies in the final shot as Eve destroys Louis’ letter in which he reveals the miscommunication between him and Cisely. Ten-year-old Eve assumes the role of her ancestor Eve by nurturing her sister. As they stand together, hand in hand, looking out across the bayou, they intend to deal with this situation and future hardships together. Eve’s Bayou ultimately becomes about how women and sisters look beyond tragedy to find strength in one another.

Rachel Wortherley is a graduate of Iona College in New Rochelle, New York and holds a Master of Arts degree in English. Her downtime consists of devouring copious amounts of literature, television shows, and films. She hopes to gain a doctorate in English literature and become a professional screenwriter.

Alcoholic Aunts, Homeless Cousins, and Depressed Dads: How Mental Illness Is Invisible in ‘The Cosby Show,’ ‘The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,’ and Beyond

Black families can be rich and poor and everything in between on TV, but why can’t we show the mental health crises Black families face?

This guest post by Keisha Zollar appears as part of our theme week on Black Families.

When watching Black families in film and TV like Everybody Hates Chris, Soul Food, and Bebe’s Kids, mental illness was/is invisible. I think to myself, which Cosby kid battles with depression? Does Uncle Phil have an eating disorder? And would Dr. Doolittle ever see a therapist?

Are Black families so marginalized in film and TV that we are afraid to show the cracks of mental illness as they actually are?

As many as 25 percent of Americans suffer from mental illness, and some of those Americans are Black.

Growing up in the early-late 1980s and early 1990s, most of the Black TV families I saw were high functioning, white-collar families with an upstanding father figure who was always around, and there was plenty of food on the table. There were also TV shows like Roc, reruns of Good Times, and other tales of the economic divide where I saw a different Black experience. As a kid, my immediate family was more Cosby than Good Times but I did have relatives who were more Roc than The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air in their day-to-day lives. Growing up, it felt like TV was holding a mirror up to my family but with one exception: why was no one as sad and anxious as I felt? Why did no one talk about overwhelming emotions? The process of dealing with addiction? The pain of divorce?

I also remember the Black movies of my childhood.

My grandparents took my family to watch Do The Right Thing because my Grandma said, “It’s important to support Black artists like Spike Lee.” I remember the story, the realness, the colors–also what we might call nowadays: “grit.” My parents would show me Roots, Bebe’s Kids, and Nutty Professor with pride and joy.

The movies and television I watched as a child inspired me to pursue my own journey in entertainment. Entertainment was/is a noble pursuit of truth, exploration, fantasy, and more.

Then the economic bubbles of the 1980s-1990s burst and burst and burst…

“In a decaying society, art, if it is truthful, must also reflect decay. And unless it wants to break faith with its social function, art must show the world as changeable. And help to change it.”

-Ernst Fischer

Then in the early 2000s I became an adult; my parents divorced, I struggled with depression and anxiety, I got in therapy, and realized that the TV and films I loved as a child were missing something. Where was the “Real Talk” about mental illness in entertainment? Where was the entertainment that went beyond just telling Black people to pray, to be strong, to avoid sugar and crack cocaine? Why was everyone being so mean about Uncle Phil’s weight in the The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air?

Uncle Phil’s weight in the The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air always seemed to be the punchline. Episode to episode Uncle Phil is fat shamed–by main characters, auxiliary characters, and even by himself. Every character on the show knew Uncle Phil had a problem with food. The adult in me kept thinking, “Why did no one acknowledge Uncle Phil’s cries for help, his risk factors for diabetes, his possible food addiction?”

Then I thought about Hillary’s shopping addiction!

And of course The Cosby Show…

Denise Huxtable was the “wild child,” or a character on TV who was crying out for help. Denise was a beloved character that couldn’t hold onto a job, then disappeared on the show to go to college, dropped out of college, ran off to Africa, married a man unknown to her parents, then showed up on the Huxtable doorstep with her own family, then tried school again and didn’t finish (the order of events in Denise’s life isn’t fully accurate but I’m painting an impressionistic portrait of Black media from my POV, there you go Super Cosby Fans).

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qshPuptg1C0″]

Now there is Theo Huxtable, who struggled with a learning disorder: dyslexia.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxYjKDxYH2U”]

It was a liberating moment on TV to see a main character struggle with education, not because he was “dumb” as a character trait, but because he was flawed. In the episode where Theo found out he had dyslexia he was overjoyed because he had a diagnosis; it was TV saying it was OK to have a learning disorder. It felt like The Cosby Show said it was OK to see if you had learning challenges.

I remember thinking while watching the show when it aired, “This is important, and it’s OK if I have dyslexia too.”

As an adult I know I don’t have dyslexia, but I’m still waiting for my TV moment on an important Black show to describe what I do have: depression and anxiety.

Getting diagnosed has changed my perspective on watching film and TV. I see the PTSD that poverty can cause in cartoon movies. I see eating disorders where I used to see “harmless” fat jokes. I see the stress of being Black in America but no mention of eating disorders, obsessive compulsive disorder, and panic disorder.

Now I watch these shows and I think, maybe I’m making up all this mental illness in the Black community, but then I look at Surgeon General’s reports and check out pages like this.

House of Payne shows the ravages of addiction with a recurring crack-addicted mother, and a few other shows seem to tackle addiction but it seems the vast majority make mental illness invisible. It feels like Black TV and film wants us to ignore or pray away the fact mental illness exists.

Black families can be rich and poor and everything in between on TV, but why can’t we show the mental health crises Black families face?

My desire to see Black families explore mental illness in media is not about victimizing the oppressed in media. I just want to see my own Theo moment on TV; maybe some little Black teenager who is smart and capable, but is sad and cries too much goes to see a nice doctor with her parents. This little Black girl gets tested and gets diagnosed as being depressed and she runs home to tell her parents about her depression. Her parents hear the word “depression” and are relieved at a diagnosis and the audience empathizes and learns, and everyone is OK.

Keisha Zollar is an actor-writer-comedienne. Keisha has been seen on Orange Is The New Black, Celebrity Apprentice Season 14, The Today Show, College Humor, Comedy Central, MTV, UCBComedy, and numerous web-series. Currently, Keisha in post production for An Uncomfortable Conversation About Race and she has recently directed her first interactive sketch called Neggers. She is proud of her latest series In Game, a diverse web-series about LARPing (nerd stuff). Learn more at www.KeishaZollar.com.

‘Smart Guy’: Intelligent Black Families and Race-Bending Tropes

The humor isn’t meant to put down white folks, but rather poke fun at the very real actions of white guys who attempt to adopt Black culture simply because it’s “cool.” This sort of behavior has existed in “white sitcoms” for nearly a century (making the Back character the “token” of the show) and it seems the only reason ‘Smart Guy’ comes under fire is because white critics are now seeing the characters they identify with in positions that aren’t of power or virtue.

This guest post by BJ Colangelo appears as part of our theme week on Black Families.

As a proud child of the 1990s, I was lucky enough to grow up with some of the best sitcoms on television. Perhaps my nostalgic love of these shows have clouded my view on whether or not these shows were any good, but I still stomp my curmudgeonly feet around and shout, “These kids today don’t know good TV!” I grew up in a lower-middle class family in an extremely diverse community, so I’ve always been exposed to multi-cultural families. Hell, my mom named my (white, red-headed) sister after a guest-starring character she loved on Hangin’ With Mr. Cooper. Disney Channel used to show re-runs of a lot of shows I loved growing up, and I distinctly remember running home off the bus to make sure I wouldn’t miss the “newest” episode of Smart Guy.

I. Loved. Smart. Guy. Growing up, I was a gifted child, so T.J. Henderson was a boy after my own heart. He was living the life I always dreamed of having. I probably wasn’t high school smart at 10 years old the way he was, but all I could think about was how awesome it would be to outsmart all of the older kids that picked on me for being so little. T.J. had a super-hip older sister named Yvette who was a staunch feminist and loved the fine arts. I saw a lot of myself in Yvette, even at a young age. T.J.’s older brother Marcus was the big man on campus, and I idolized how cool he was. The patriarch of the family was Floyd Henderson, the most caring father on TV (next to Danny Tanner of Full House), but was way, way cooler than Danny Tanner could ever hope to be.

One of the biggest criticsms people seem to give Smart Guy, is that it’s “racist” against white people. First of all, “reverse racism” doesn’t exist, so I’m not going to even go into that argument. However, critics tend to site Marcus and Mo’s (Marcus’ best friend) white pal Mackey to be one of the major reasons the show is “racist.” Mackey is one of the few major white characters, and he’s a giant doofus. He consistently tries to “fit in” with Marcus and Mo, usually to no avail, and had a tendency to respond to his failures with, “It’s because I’m white, isn’t it?” The entire cast would nod their head in agreement and the canned laughter would play. Smart Guy isn’t racist, but it wasn’t afraid to race-bend a “token” character usually reserved for a Black man on a sitcom, and instead attach the attributes to a white character. The humor isn’t meant to put down white folks, but rather poke fun at the very real actions of white guys who attempt to adopt Black culture simply because it’s “cool.” This sort of behavior has existed in “white sitcoms” for nearly a century (making the Back character the “token” of the show) and it seems the only reason Smart Guy comes under fire is because white critics are now seeing the characters they identify with in positions that aren’t of power or virtue.

Smart Guy definitely fell into the “Huxtable Effect” of making Black families palatable for white audiences at times, but it was never afraid to point out the indifferences and injustices Black families face on a day to day basis compared to white folks. It was a safe and “beginner’s guide to systematic racism” for white audiences. For example, in the episode “Working Guy,” T.J. gets a job working on (at the time) a brand new product called a DVD. As expected, Marcus is invading T.J.’s new gig and T.J. is left to explain to his coworker (an old white guy) to ignore Marcus, because he’s just T.J.’s brother.

“Oh, I get it – it’s a Black thing,” the guy exclaims. He raises his fist. “Righteous!”

“No, he’s my actual brother,” T.J. explains. “Same house, same parents… similar genetic coding.”

This is a common situation of a white person trying to relate to a Black person with limited knowledge of their culture, as well as the ever-popular trope of an older person trying to interact (and failing) with a younger member of society. However, Smart Guy’s influence is something far more important than allowing black families to be seen as something other than token.

Unlike many sitcoms, Smart Guy focused on a single-parent household. In particular, Smart Guy focused on a household headed by a single, Black father. For the last two decades, the media has tried to paint Black fathers as absent, neglectful, and violent. Smart Guy showed a Black father not only successfully raising three children on his own, but also managing to keep the needs of his wildly different children in check. We all know the importance of representation, but the fact Smart Guy was picked up by The Disney Channel after its WB cancellation is absolutely vital to its existence. This means that Smart Guy was thrown onto one of the most popular and wildly accessed channels for children at the peak of its popularity. The people who grew up watching Smart Guy on their televisions as children are the same people who are now of voting age.

Smart Guy was also a little bit ballsier compared to shows like The Cosby Show. T.J. was a child of the new millennium, and the show wasn’t afraid to explore things like internet predators, systematic racism (like shoplifting accusations), and pre-teen sexual awakenings. At only 51 episodes, Smart Guy covered more topical situations than just about every other show on television at the time.

The ever popular statement of “racism isn’t something you’re born with; it’s something you’re taught” rings especially true for the audiences that grew up watching Smart Guy. By allowing children to see a Black family as something other than what Fox News wants to make them out to be, it gives children a starting point to develop their own beliefs and understanding of families that may look a little different from their own.

BJ Colangelo is the woman behind the keyboard for Day of the Woman: A blog for the feminine side of fear and a contributing writer for Icons of Fright. She’s been published in books, magazines, numerous online publications, all while frantically applying for day jobs. She’s a recovering former child beauty queen and a die-hard horror fanatic. You can follow her on Twitter at @BJColangelo.

Why ‘Pretty Woman’ Should Be Considered a Feminist Classic

Whether we believe Vivian’s “white knight” fantasy is cheesy is beside the point; a film in which a woman explicitly negotiates the terms she wants for her relationship, and displays willingness to pursue her goals independently if those terms aren’t met, cannot be considered patriarchal.

This is a guest post by Brigit McCone.

Pretty Woman has already been reviewed negatively by Bitch Flicks as “one of the most misogynist, patriarchal, classist, consumerist, and lookist movies ever to come out of Hollywood” and by sex workers for portraying prostitution unrealistically and romanticizing the patronizing “Captain Save-a-Ho” client’s rescuer fantasy. There is justice to these criticisms, but I would like to examine the film more positively from another angle. Pretty Woman consistently shows greater respect for the bodily autonomy of its heroine, Vivian (Julia Roberts), than most traditional portrayals of romance and most feminist portrayals of prostitution. The debate whether Pretty Woman should be considered a feminist classic cuts to the heart of feminism itself: is it a liberation movement that prioritizes the freedom and agency of women above all, or a dogma that dictates gender roles to women? To explore this question more fully, I’d like to address the most common criticisms leveled at Pretty Woman:

Pretty Woman Glamorizes Prostitution!

It says something about our common perception of sex work that the film most often accused of glamorizing prostitution should open with a “dead hooker in a dumpster,” before our heroine is punched in the face and sexually assaulted by a creep who screams, “She’s a whore, man!” when challenged. Would a film be accused of glamorizing accountancy if it opened with a bankrupted accountant leaping to his death from the upper window of an office block? If anything, Pretty Woman may be accused of glamorizing the exit from prostitution, by making a future of monogamy with a patronizing rescuer-john into an unrealistically attractive option. The glossy, Hollywood production values of the film may glamorize prostitution, but only in the sense that Apocalypse Now glamorizes warfare, or Wall Street glamorizes capitalism. I suspect that those who claim to be disturbed by Pretty Woman‘s “glamorizing” of prostitution are actually more disturbed by these key assertions: that a prostitute is an individual, that prostitution is work comparable to other forms of labor and that abuse of a prostitute is the sole responsibility of the abuser.

Vivian’s individuality is shown in Pretty Woman as she proves stereotypical assumptions wrong. She does not do drugs; her backstory involves some bad relationships but no explicit sexual trauma; her intelligence repeatedly surprises listeners. Arguably, this marks Vivian as the exceptional “tart with a heart” cliché, who deserves to be loved and rescued because she is “special” and “not like the others.” I would argue that the treatment of Kit de Luca complicates this reading. Through Vivian, we are encouraged to sympathize and feel solidarity with Kit, a streetwise prostitute and drug addict. Vivian gives Kit a large sum of money at the end of the film, respecting her right to choose whether to spend it on her drug habit. Vivian never dictates life choices to Kit, only supports her self-esteem and encourages her to regard herself as having potential to define her own dreams. Through Vivian’s attitude to Kit, the viewer is encouraged to extend their respect for Vivian’s agency to the agency and individual potential of all sex workers.

Sex worker advocacy groups have long claimed (and it’s now being discussed by Amnesty International and the World Health Organization) that the most effective way to combat trafficking, abuse, and other hazards of prostitution is by decriminalizing it and recognizing it as work, entitled to the same health and safety protections as any other labour. By repeatedly comparing Vivian’s work as a prostitute with Edward’s (Richard Gere’s) corporate work, Pretty Woman reinforces this message, albeit in cutesy Hollywood style. Vivian’s backstory also notably emphasizes that her reason for becoming a sex worker was her desire for financial autonomy and her struggle to pay rent.

Finally, virtually all cinematic depictions of sexual assaults on sex workers fall into one of two categories: those that pay no attention to the abuser’s character and treat him (almost always “him”) as a faceless “symptom of prostitution,” reinforcing the victim-blaming narrative that the heroine attracted inevitable assault by her choice of profession, or those that center the abuser as an “anti-hero” while treating the sex worker as disposable. Pretty Woman does neither. When Stuckey assaults Vivian at the climax of the film, we are already well-acquainted with both characters and understand the assault as a direct expression of Stuckey’s insecure manhood, repulsive entitlement and poisonous resentments, while the assault’s impact on Vivian is sympathetically centered. By allowing us to know both would-be rapist and intended victim, Pretty Woman succeeds in resisting victim-blaming and suggests that the assault of sex workers is an unjust and inexcusable act that reflects the character of the abuser. For that alone, Pretty Woman should be considered a feminist classic.

Pretty Woman Is Materialist!

As a film in which the monetary value of sex and companionship is negotiated, Pretty Woman is inevitably about materialism. But this does not necessarily mean that it is uncritically materialist. The film makes a point of highlighting how impersonal wealth is: “Stores are never nice to people, they’re nice to credit cards.” Vivian’s famous, triumphant confrontation with the shop assistants – “You work on commission, right? Big mistake!” – might be read as glorifying her newfound superiority as rich woman, but it satisfies because it allows Vivian to confirm that the shop assistants were judging her credit card all along. The scene shows Vivian that her personal worth is irrelevant to society’s hostile treatment of her, building her self-esteem. Since Vivian empowers herself in other scenes by implausibly rejecting cash payment to assert personal worth, this anti-materialist interpretation of her shopping triumph feels correct. Pretty Woman repeatedly highlights ironic contradictions between the performance of wealth and the personal self. Edward performs wealth by purchasing the penthouse as status symbol, but he cannot enjoy it as he’s personally afraid of heights. His elite peers can purchase opera tickets as status symbols, but Vivian can appreciate opera as personal taste – by choosing “La Traviata,” an opera about a sex worker, the film also highlights the ironic contrast between society’s mindless appreciation of sex worker pathos in elite entertainment and their mindless hostility to sex workers in life.

Elements in Pretty Woman satirizing materialism, and exploring the hazards of prostitution, are hangovers from the original script, $3000, in which Vivian was a drug addict and discovered Kit overdosed at the film’s end. That version might seem “edgier,” but is it truly edgy to echo and reinforce society’s dominant narrative of prostitution? By adapting $3000 into a commercial romcom, Disney accidentally spawned something far more challenging: a film in which prostitutes aren’t necessarily doomed, and men are individually responsible for their treatment of them. Wealth, likewise, is not presented as automatically good or bad in the film. It is his over-investment in wealth and status that drives Stuckey to become a vengeful would-be rapist. Money can destroy lives, or build “great, big boats.” Kit’s final choice, whether to spend her “scholarship fund” on her dream or her drug habit, shows that money has empowering potential but is no guarantee of happiness. If Pretty Woman‘s beautiful clothes and jewels distract from this message, that is a reflection of the viewer’s attitude to luxury, not the film’s.

Pretty Woman Is Patriarchal!

There can be few images more patriarchal than a white knight riding up to rescue his (usually comatose) princess, claiming her love as his inevitable reward. This is not, however, the ending of Pretty Woman. Pretty Woman ends with Edward role-playing Vivian’s explicitly requested fantasy, and thereby indicating willingness to comply with the conditions she laid down for their relationship. In fully accepting Vivian as his romantic partner, rather than conditionally accepting her as a mistress or object of pity, Gere echoes the “I like you the way you are, so what do I care how you got that way?” philosophy of Marilyn Monroe’s Bus Stop, another underrated affirmation of the bodily autonomy, emotional complexity, and romantic viability of promiscuous women. Whether we believe Vivian’s “white knight” fantasy is cheesy is besides the point; a film in which a woman explicitly negotiates the terms she wants for her relationship, and displays willingness to pursue her goals independently if those terms aren’t met, cannot be considered patriarchal. Whether we believe Edward is a slime-ball who looks like a peeled prawn in the bathtub is equally irrelevant; female emancipation must include the right to have questionable taste in men, or it is no true freedom. Gere serves here as a metaphor for sex work itself: whether one personally finds him icky should not distract from crucial issues of consent and agency.

Vivian displays her willingness to leave Edward and set boundaries on multiple occasions: when he embarrasses her by outing her sex worker status at a social gathering, she dictates the way she wishes to be treated; when he offers her the status of a mistress, she dictates the status of a full equal. Let us never forget that, when the prince rescues her, she rescues him right back. Pretty Woman should also be celebrated as one of the only romances to include explicit negotiation of condom use, initiated by the female sexual partner. By ultimately suggesting that a sex worker’s ethos of “we say who, we say when, we say how much” is the key to success in romantic relationships, Pretty Woman is deliciously subversive. A romantic “happy ending” only serves patriarchal goals if it is a reward, conditional on female compliance and chastity. If it becomes just an individual dream, that any hooker can define and negotiate for herself, then its coercive power collapses. That is the real reason why conservatives howl about the “glamorizing of prostitution” in Pretty Woman. That is why millions of women love and laugh with Pretty Woman worldwide. That is why Pretty Woman deserves to be considered a feminist classic.

Pretty Woman Is Heterosexist, White Supremacist, and Lookist!

Pretty Woman is about straight, white, conventionally pretty people, but it is not derogatory to other groups. While the film’s villain, Stuckey, is indeed short and balding, and this may fuel his competitive resentment toward Edward, Hector Elizondo’s hotel manager, Barney, is also somewhat balding, yet serves as the moral core of the story. Though nominally a supporting character, Elizondo delivers a master class in creating fully realized humanity with a few brushstrokes – subtly suppressed frustrations and resentments that co-exist with, and complicate, his character’s warmth and dignity, leading to a well-deserved Golden Globe nomination for the role. At the film’s end, an unnamed African-American demands the audience’s recognition for his humanity and dreams, while challenging them to define their own. Pretty Woman certainly marginalizes its minority characters, but it does not dehumanize them. For Hollywood, sadly, that remains a minuscule achievement.

Pretty Woman is not a realistic portrayal of prostitution; it is a Hollywood fairy tale and never claims to be otherwise. At the same time, the values that it embodies as fairy tale are both progressive and feminist: recognition of the agency and bodily autonomy of sex workers; categoric rejection of victim-blaming in assaults on sex workers; positive endorsement of a woman’s negotiating boundaries within romantic relationships; positive endorsement of the romantic potential of promiscuous women as life partners; positive endorsement of personal worth as founded on ethics, independent of wealth, education or sexual history. Pretty Woman is a beautiful freak; an accidental anarchy spawned from commercial compromise. To describe Pretty Woman as “anti-feminist,” or to fail to celebrate its feminism, is to prioritize the sexist surfaces of “whores” and “white knights” over real issues of agency, desire and consent. Big mistake. Big. Huge.

Brigit McCone always thought Vivian should have chosen Barney the hotel manager, but recognizes he’s probably married. She writes and directs short films, radio dramas and “The Erotic Adventures of Vivica” (as Voluptua von Temptitillatrix). Her hobbies include doodling and taking romcoms ridiculously seriously.

Wednesday Addams, Smasher of the Patriarchy

She’s not nice, she’s not fragile, she’s not kind or sweet or even vaguely pleasant. She’s mean and angry and cynical and disaffected and sarcastic and snide and everything I wanted to be as a child. She’s also an intersectional feminist. And a little girl. She’s the best.

Wednesday Addams, as played by Christina Ricci in Addams Family Values — Wednesday Addams, as played by Christina Ricci in *Addams Family Values*

This cross-post by Deborah Pless previously appeared at her blog, Kiss My Wonder Woman, and appears as part of our theme week on The Terror of Little Girls. Cross-posted with permission.

What does it mean to be a little girl? There’s so much cultural baggage associated with female childhood. On the one hand, little girls are pure and innocent and needing of protection. They’re the emotional backdrop of a thousand action movies – the father must get home and save his darling little girl. On the other hand, little girls are threatening. They’re creepy. They’re the demons of a thousand horror movies – the family unit must save itself from the imprecations of a terrifying little girl who wants to destroy them.

And then there’s Wednesday Addams. She’s another thing entirely.

Wednesday Addams was the hero of my childhood. She was little girl who looked sort of like me, who was pasty and awkward, but who took no crap from anyone. Who defended her right to self-determination with a vengeance if needed. Who spoke up for those who weren’t given a voice. Who set fire to her enemies. I’m not saying it was healthy or tame, but she was my favorite character as a child. In a lot of ways, she still is.

Wednesday and her nemesis Amanda (Mercedes McNab)

The Addams Family movies of the early 90s (The Addams Family and Addams Family Values) were the kind of movies that never really made sense logically, but somehow worked all the same. They were loose on plot and big on tone, with outlandish storylines pretty much just there so that the actual Addams family had something to react to.

The movies were like extended improv sessions, where we stuck the Addams family members in weird situations and got to watch how they reacted. See Gomez and Morticia go to parent teacher meetings! Watch Wednesday and Pugsley at summer camp! What’s an Addams family wedding like? A birthday party?

The point of the movies was never the plot, but rather the experience of the characters in contrast to the world around them, and as long as you remember that, the movies hold up very well. They’re still fun and weird and kooky and occasionally deeply disturbing. They’re still deeply ridiculous. And Wednesday is still really, really threatening.

That’s right, threatening. Part of why I loved these movies so much as a kid was because Wednesday, far from being a delicate flower, or even playing second fiddle to her brother, is arguably the most dangerous character in the whole story. She has a sense of apathy and morbid misery mixed in with a violent streak and superhuman strength. She’s very threatening. Especially to everyone she views as, well, a threat.

Wednesday’s first impression of summer camp

Now, admittedly, most of this is coming from Addams Family Values. While I really do enjoy The Addams Family, it’s not until the second movie that Wednesday’s character really crystallizes, and there’s a good reason for that. Simply put, in the second movie, she’s at precisely the right age to perfectly subvert our expectations of girlhood.

In Family Values, Wednesday is directly prepubescent–a tween, if that were ever an appropriate word to apply to her. She’s just on the cusp of developing hormonal urges, secondary sexual characteristics, and a more formed idea about who she herself will be as an adult. But, she is still a child, so she still occupies that cultural space of supposed innocence and vulnerability. She’s at once both a potentially developed teen, and a fragile child.

The movie addresses this dissonance early on. When Wednesday and Pugsley are dropped off at summer camp – as part of a duplicitous plot to get them out of the way – one of the other moms comes up to Morticia and asks after Wednesday. Morticia responds, “Oh, Wednesday’s at that very special age a girl has just one thing on her mind.”

“Boys?” asks the excited upper-class white woman.

“Homicide.”

The expectation for Wednesday in this movie, at least the expectation of those around her, is that she fit into either one or the other roles of idealized femininity. Either she can be a pure and adorable child, something Wednesday is not naturally inclined towards, or she can be a teenage temptress, something she similarly has little interest in. Throughout the film the camp counselors try to turn Wednesday into a normal child, punishing her with Disney movies and singalongs, while a secondary plot tempts her with the offer of romance, albeit romance with an asthmatic, morbid fellow outcast.

Pugsley (Jimmy Workman), Wednesday, and Joel (David Krumholtz)

It’s telling then that Wednesday eschews both of these options. She flirts with Joel (David Krumholtz), but is very ambiguous about whether or not she wants his attention. While at one point she does say a tearful goodbye to him, using endearments and kissing his cheek I think, later she seems utterly uninterested in his existence, and admits that if someone loved her as much as he implies he does, she would pity him and probably murder him.

So, not so much the icon of seductive femininity. But neither is she a convincing child, because Wednesday possesses a level of awareness about the world and frankly alarming superhuman strength that make it virtually impossible to view her as someone in need of protection. Because she isn’t someone in need of protection. She’s not just virtually unkillable, she’s also unconcerned with her own safety. She’s not afraid, and weirdly that’s much more terrifying.

Wednesday isn’t scared of what might happen to her, she’s only afraid of being forced to submit to cultural standards she doesn’t agree with. She’s perfectly willing to risk life and limb (hers and other people’s), but she’s terrified of Disney movies. I would say that if she fears anything, it’s becoming normal.

And that’s a powerful message. The idea that the biggest thing we have to fear is not abnormality but the loss of what makes us distinct. It’s especially poignant coming from Wednesday, because what makes her distinct is so, well, distinctive. As Joel says when Wednesday asks if he’ll ever forget her, “How could I? You’re too weird.”

But let’s bring all of this back around again: how is Wednesday Addams a smasher of the patriarchy? Because she uses this discomfort around her, the fact that adults and her peers have absolutely no way to categorize her and her place in society, to sabotage them. She uses her place as a “child” to speak truth to power, and as a “woman” to make them uncomfortable. I mean, the best example of this, and my favorite moment of the movie, is when Wednesday destroys the camp’s end of summer play.

Wednesday as Pocahontas in the camp play

The play is horrible, a mawkish retelling of the first Thanksgiving that somehow manages to be more offensive than usual. The main character is Sarah Miller, played by Wednesday’s blonde camper nemesis, Amanda, and Sarah Miller goes on long speeches about how superior Western culture is, before admitting Pocahontas, played by Wednesday, and her tribe – played by all of the other camp outcasts.

Wednesday plays along with the script for a few lines, and then takes it on a rapid detour:

“Wait, we can not break bread with you. You have taken the land which is rightfully ours. Years from now my people will be forced to live in mobile homes on reservations. Your people will wear cardigans and drink highballs. We will sell our bracelets by the road sides, and you will play golf. My people will have pain and degradation. Your people will have stick shifts. The gods of my tribe have spoken. They said do not trust the pilgrims. And especially do not trust Sarah Miller. For all these reasons I have decided to scalp you and burn your village to the ground.”

Which they then proceed to do.

Now, this speech is wonderful because it so directly confronts all of the assumptions made earlier in the play, and because it speaks up on behalf of those who are being misrepresented, even though they are not there to defend themselves.* But it’s also wonderful because it’s the kind of thing that only a child could say. Specifically a little girl. I mean, if a boy said that, can’t you imagine the camp directors just picking him up and dragging him off the stage? If a teenage girl were to say it, she would be ruining something for children. If an adult said it, well they wouldn’t be given the opportunity would they?

Wednesday is the only character in the film who can make that speech, and it’s all the more powerful for how it subverts their expectations of her. It’s also worth noting that this speech is followed by a strong reversal. Wednesday, Pugsley, Joel, and the other camp outcasts (who are notably children of color and differing abilities) overthrow the camp leadership, burn the campgrounds, and are actually seen roasting their camp directors on a spit.

The idea of course being that if you’re not afraid of anything, then you can accomplish pretty much whatever you set your mind to. Wednesday isn’t afraid of repercussions or bodily harm, and she has the assurance that her family will support her no matter what, so she’s emboldened to act out. She smashes the patriarchy, literally, and she can get away with it because she’s a little kid. No one’s expecting it. Arguably by this point in the movie they really should be, but they’re not.

I’m not saying Wednesday is perfect. She isn’t. She’s still a very privileged white girl from an unusual but still pretty standard background. She hails from a nuclear family and has never known want or hunger (except maybe voluntarily because she’s weird).

But that’s honestly OK. She’s a slightly problematic representation of intersectional feminism, but at least she is a representation of intersectional feminism. And, even better, she’s an unapologetically outspoken dissenter. She’s sure of who she is and what the world ought to be, and she’s perfectly comfortable telling everyone that–with a smirk and a sneer and a withering glance.

Hell yes, Wednesday Addams is smashing the patriarchy by not conforming to social expectations, being a creeptastic little girl, and inviting you to join her. Right on.

*Arguably one of the only big criticisms that can be made of this movie from a thematic standpoint is that this speech is given by Wednesday, an upper-class white girl, rather than an actual Native American, but it would be hard to change that in the narrative without drastically changing the story, and I think it’s worth having someone say it at least. Still, worth noting, the upper-class white privileged girl really doesn’t speak for everyone.

Deborah Pless runs Kiss My Wonder Woman and works as a freelance writer and editor in Western Washington when she’s not busy camping out at the movies or watching too much TV. You can follow her on Twitter and Tumblr just as long as you like feminist rants, an obsession with superheroes, and sandwiches.

The Beth Thomas Story: How a TV Film and Documentary Captured a Child Enraged

Tim and Julie didn’t know about the sexual abuse Beth had been subjected to as early as 19 months old by her father. They didn’t know she was suffering from Reactive Attachment Disorder, a condition that surfaces from past trauma and neglect into oceans of disturbing, detached, unresponsive, and apathetic behavior. They couldn’t possibly know that a young girl could be filled with so much—that much rage.

This guest post by Kim Hoffman appears as part of our theme week on The Terror of Little Girls.

CORRECTION UPDATED 2/10/16: An earlier version of this article incorrectly associated the Attachment Center with the Evergreen Psychotherapy Center. We have been informed that The Evergreen Psychotherapy Center has never been, is not currently and will never be associated with The Attachment Center of Evergreen.

When I was a kid, I was introduced to a movie called Child of Rage, a 1992 CBS TV movie that would be on Lifetime after school. It gave me equal parts dread and fascination—it was about a young girl who wanted to kill her adoptive family, severely traumatized by previous abuse as a baby. What I didn’t know at the time was that the film was based on the real life story of a little girl named Beth Thomas, and that two years earlier in 1990, HBO had released a documentary about the real-life Beth as part of their America Undercover series, called Child of Rage: A Story of Abuse. In the documentary, an oppressed Beth accounts for all the moments I’d seen repeatedly play out in the TV movie, including frank and expressionless accounts of her polluted understanding of right from wrong—like murdering the parents who adopted her and the only brother she’d ever known. I marveled, and still marvel, over the power of this six and a half-year-old child who was never shown displays of love and empathy, until she was prepared to take another person’s life.

Tim and Julie Tennant adopted little Beth and her younger brother Jonathan back in the ‘80s. The couple took the sibling pair into their home, not aware of their past abuse at the hands of their biological father. Her mother, who had abandoned her and Jonathan, died when Beth was one. When Child Services found the children, Beth was screaming in her own soil and Jonathan was found in his crib with a curdled bottle of milk, his head flattened from the way he’d been positioned. Tim and Julie didn’t know about the sexual abuse Beth had been subjected to as early as 19 months old by her father. They didn’t know she was suffering from Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD), a condition that surfaces from past trauma and neglect into oceans of disturbing, detached, unresponsive, and apathetic behavior. They couldn’t possibly know that a young girl could be filled with so much—that much rage.

In the documentary, a psychiatrist interviews Beth, but he’s one out of a whole team of therapists who guided Beth in her recovery. In 1989, Beth and her adoptive parents went to live with a woman named Connell Watkins, a therapist who practiced a type of “holding” therapy for children who are severely affected by RAD. That same year, a girl by the name of Candace Newmaker was born—but no one would guess that a little over a decade later, the 10-year-old would die in an accidental killing at the hands of Connell and another therapist, Julie Ponder. In that incident, they were conducting a “rebirthing” session in which they wrapped Candace in sheets and pillows to simulate a “womb connection” between Candace and her adoptive mother. Candace had been previously diagnosed with RAD after almost setting her house on fire, and years spent on medicine to keep her rage at bay—often biting or spitting at her therapists. Regardless, this session went terribly wrong. After an hour and ten minutes, the girl’s mother asked if she wanted to be born, and Candace quietly murmured “no”—her last word before dying there in that session. But this event hadn’t taken place yet, not back in 1989 when Beth was dancing the dangerous edge of child murderer and child rehabilitated. Could it be possible?

In the CBS movie, Beth’s character is called “Cat.” The new mom begins to notice Cat’s strange behavior—controlling her brother’s every move, acting jealously about any attention he receives and finding ways to seduce or manipulate adults in order to have the spotlight on her—including a highly inappropriate fondling of her adoptive grandfather. Cat’s coping mechanism for when she’s caught doing something bad includes smashing things and screaming obscenities, eventually retreating into docile panic, holding out her stuffed teddy bear like a wall of armor between herself and the adult—becoming very small and childlike, after displaying such high-strung violence. The most shocking moment in the film is when her new parents catch her bashing her brother’s head into the cement floor in the basement. It’s an eerie scene that sticks with me still, the young boy clutching his dinosaur stuffed animal, and Cat in powder pink sweatpants and tiny little sneakers following him into a corner.

However dark and disturbing, Child of Rage depicts Beth Thomas as a manipulator and seducer to a tee—we begin to see more and more of Cat’s charms and her ability to influence anyone’s move, especially when she knows their move may squash her plan. When the parents find out the truth about Cat’s past abuse as an infant, their worries seem to magnify, especially after so many incidents: Cat kills a nest of baby birds, stabs the family dog with a pin, and slices a classmate across his face with a shard of glass. She lies about her involvement or reasoning and remains sweet—with a tinge of repulsion we can’t help but see slip out from her pursed lips when she draws out, “Yes—Mommy.”

Meanwhile in the Beth Thomas documentary, as she props her head up with her small hand, her eyes widen every once in a while as she explains in detail her desire to kill. Still, it’s obvious that by now in her real-life therapy, she has gone from deceptive to forthcoming, though her remorse is hard to locate from simply observing her. She only trips up once, about the baby birds she killed. The psychiatrist asks her if she thinks the birds could fly or run away from her—she seems confused and half states/half asks, “Yes?” He then asks if she remembers them dying, and she stumbles through an account of her mom telling her that one of them had died, yes. But the psychiatrist goes straight for it—telling Beth, “Your mom told me that you killed the baby birds, Beth.”

Suddenly Beth shows traces of sad emotion that the psychiatrist seems to draw out, coddling her: “That’s OK, that’s OK,” though I don’t know that this is a breakthrough, perhaps just a child whose red-handed admission is still proof she has a long road ahead. This single event was big for Beth; it was her one killing spree. She even admits to hocking a knife from the dishwasher and stashing it in her room. When asked what she wanted to do with the knife, she chirps back at the therapist, “Kill John. And Mommy and Daddy.” She then says, “They can’t see me, but they can feel me,” when she explains why she chooses to sneak about in the shadows while her parents sleep, unaware that their small child could be lurking their hallways yielding a knife.

It’s frightening to watch a child, a real life child, so small on the sofa that her legs barely skim over the side, speaking so candidly about life and death—not to mention her traumatic sexual abuse that no child (or adult, even) can make full sense of and process in a way that any of us should feel is simple. In the film, when the parents take Cat into intensive therapy, the therapist gives them a book called Kids Who Kill by Charles Patrick Ewing, written in 1992, the same year the TV movie aired. If you look up the book, you’ll find it’s connected back to Beth Thomas through the company it keeps in the category of “books on children who kill.”

There’s a lot of speculation over what happened to Beth Thomas after her intensive therapy with Connell Watkins. In the documentary, a woman in a bright track-suit with a cheery disposition talks with hope about Beth’s recovery, while we follow Beth on her chore run around the Attachment Center in Evergreen, Colorado, feeding goats and whatnot (no animals were harmed, seriously). Her name is Nancy Thomas, and she later adopted Beth. It’s rumored that the Tennants kept Jonathan. It’s a little disheartening to think that Beth has had not one, but three mothers. Nancy now owns and operates Families By Design, an organization that provides support for parents and children coping and suffering with RAD. Essentially, it’s become Nancy’s lifework.

Even Beth Thomas herself has participated in many of Nancy’s events, including writing a book that she and her mother wrote together, Dandelion on My Pillow, Butcher Knife Beneath. The book was released in 2010, following Nancy’s previous guide book five years earlier, When Love is Not Enough: A Guide to Parenting with RAD. What Cat displays in the film really illustrates best how easily young girls who are suffering with RAD can use their sexuality in ways that mirror what they’ve seen adults display, though the end result is obvious—that the behavior for how sexuality is displayed in adults is in sometimes lost in translation. How it’s modeled in children who are, as is, sexual beings, but confounded by past trauma in developmental years, can be disturbing and uninhibited. When Cat tells her grandpa that he can be her “sweet, sweet teddy bear,” we have to wonder if baby Cat was influenced by the language she heard from her biological father—the abused taking the abusive language and integrating that into their foundation for bonding, relating, receiving something she wants, gaining total affection and love.

Look anywhere: The reviews on Amazon, web forums, personal websites, reviewers—there is an obvious split among people in support of Nancy Thomas and the practice of Attachment Therapy, and people who, as a result of the Candace Newmark case, find AT and this version of therapy to be abusive and inconclusive—even some adults who underwent said therapy have stepped out over the years to express their concerns over the therapy they were subjected to as children, but, therein lies the toughness with accurately, tangibly calculating whether or not a type of therapy that is aimed at manipulative, violent, disturbed, abused children has: long-term positive effects, or deepens PTSD because of its method.

Something to keep in mind when you watch the film (and I recommend watching the Beth Thomas documentary first, and then delving into the CBS movie last)—the 1992 movie does not mention the word rape, or sex, or vagina, or anything else sex-specific, at all. They hint at the fact that Beth was raped by her biological father through grainy nightmarish flashbacks, and in one instance when Beth shows the sexual abuse through two teddy bears. In the Beth Thomas documentary, she admits to masturbating daily, even sometimes in public, to the point of infection and bleeding and having to be taken to the hospital as a result. She also expresses that she committed similar acts on her brother Jonathan, molesting him at any opportunity she got—which is why Tim and Julie Tennant eventually had to lock Beth in her bedroom for everyone’s safety. All of this, of course, lends itself to the reason why they sought outside help.

Today, Beth works as a nurse, and continues to support her mom Nancy’s organization in Colorado, speaking out about her recovery, and even coming to the defense of Connell Watkins on the witness stand back in 2000. (Watkins served seven years of her 16-year sentence.) Beth professed she wouldn’t be here without Connell. By all accounts, those closest to Beth will attest to her dramatic change and healing. But Attachment Therapy remains the seesaw on the playground when it comes to understanding how to properly heal traumatized children. The Beth Thomas story is a reality—it’s not an afterschool special. For all we know, Beth may very well still have issues—with men, with father figures, with forgiving herself for the acts she committed on her brother, and it may be confounded by the fact that she’s a woman who hadn’t yet grown up and very well had to all at the same time. There was adolescence, teen years, periods, relationships—all of which presents foreign emotion for any girl. Imagine being Beth Thomas, having her childhood, and then facing life head-on. I want to believe in Nancy Thomas, in AT, and in little girls like Beth who “beat the odds” and reclaim life. Again, I ask: Is it possible? Or will she always just be the little child of rage?

[youtube_sc url=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2-Re_Fl_L4″]

Kim Hoffman is a writer for AfterEllen.com and Curve Magazine. She currently keeps things weird in Portland, Oregon. Follow her on Twitter: @the_hoff

Alarming Innocence: The Terror of Little Girls in ‘The Crucible’

Miller’s examination of the Salem Witch Trials, held in the Province of Massachusetts Bay from 1692-3, depicts the internal, secretive drive of a New England witch hunt, and how paranoia quickly escalates to devastate a marriage, a family, neighbors, and eventually, to cripple an entire community. The actions of little girls set it all in motion.

This guest post by Laura Shamas appears as part of our theme week on The Terror of Little Girls.

When I first saw Arthur Miller’s The Crucible as a child, I found it utterly terrifying; why could this crowd of girls see and feel things that no adult could? Later, studying it in school and learning about its allegorical references to McCarthyism in the 1950 s, I appreciated this American theatre classic at a deeper level. Miller’s examination of the Salem Witch Trials, held in the Province of Massachusetts Bay from 1692-3, depicts the internal, secretive drive of a New England witch hunt, and how paranoia quickly escalates to devastate a marriage, a family, neighbors, and eventually, to cripple an entire community. The actions of little girls set it all in motion.

The Crucible had its premiere on Broadway in January of 1953. In his 1987 memoir Time Bends: A Life, Miller describes a 1952 flash of understanding of “the Puritan cult” upon viewing etchings and woodcuts on the walls of the Historical Society Witch Museum: “Portrayed were the afflicted innocent girls pointing in terror at some farmer’s wife who was secretly persecuting them and yet stood in proud contempt of their Christian accusations” (p. 42).

Much as been written about Miller’s “fictionalization” of the Salem trial accounts, e.g., the conflation of characters, and the changing of characters’ ages. For example, accuser Abigail Williams was around 11 years old during the actual trials, not 17. John Proctor was about 60, not a youthful man. In 1996, Miller responded to some of this, as quoted in the New York Times: “My job as a dramatist is to create a drama, not documentary history—any more, if I may say, than Shakespeare had in mind when he created his kings and characters who had very little resemblance to the real people.”

When I saw the 1996 film of The Crucible, penned by Miller and directed by Nicholas Hytner, I was struck by its depiction of the condemnation of female sexuality in the Puritan world. The theme of “the witch as female scapegoat” is applicable to the film. Miller mentions female sexuality perceived as horror in a 1996 NY Times op-ed entitled “Salem Revisited”: “Witch hunts are always spooked by women’s horrifying sexuality awakened by the superstud Devil. In Europe, where tens of thousands perished in the hunts, broadsides showed the Devil with two phalluses, one above the other. And of course mankind’s original downfall came about when the Filthy One corrupted the mother of mankind.”

In “Salem Revisited,” Miller describes Puritanical views of race and sexuality related to Tituba from Barbados, who was enslaved to Reverend Samuel Parris at the time of the trials. As one of the few people of color in Salem Village, Tituba was abused and treated as Other. Miller notes: “Tituba was tortured into naming women she had seen with the Devil, thus starting the hunt on its way. The conflation of female sexuality and blackness in a white world is an old story, and here it had lethal result.”

Due to space limitations, I’ll narrow my analysis to three key scenes in the film: the opening dancing scene in the forest, the first accusation scene near Betty’s bed, and a courtroom “yellow bird” scene near the end, involving the condemnation of Mary Warren (Karron Graves), who works for John (Daniel Day-Lewis) and Elizabeth Proctor (Joan Allen).

In a marked difference from the play’s opening, the movie begins at night as teenaged Abigail Williams (played by Winona Ryder) awakens a young girl named Betty Parris (Rachael Bella). Together, they sneak out of the house, lit by a full moon, and head into the dark woods; other girls join them. The group of giggling Puritan girls, ranging in ages from about 6 to 17, tramp through the wild forest together until they reach a ceremonial campfire. When they’ve gathered in a circle, Tituba (Charlayne Woodard) asks: “What’d you bring me?” The girls each put something into a boiling cauldron at the fire’s center–an herb or toad, and a boy’s name is uttered as part of a spell. Young Betty, notably, says nothing but puts something into the pot. Abigail supplies a live black chicken for the brew. Tituba twirls the animal above her head as part of a ritual, and sings in another language. The girls dance and sway to Tituba’s music, and express their longings for certain young men or boys, by name. Although Abby says nothing, the other girls volunteer that Abby wants John Proctor for her love match. Then suddenly, Abby takes the chicken from Tituba, smashes its head, and is splattered with blood. She smears it onto her face. This inspires the other girls to scream, and a few of them disrobe, dancing in “hysteria.”

Suspicious Rev. Parris (Bruce Davison) comes upon their gathering. Someone yells, “It’s the minister!” The girls run. Parris’ daughter Betty, held by Abigail, shouts, “I can’t move, I can’t move.” Alone by the fire, Parris discovers a toad in the pot. The next morning, back at Parris’ home, where his niece Abigail resides, too, Betty can’t move or speak. Eventually, an exploration of Betty’s catatonic condition leads to conjuring charges against Abigail and Tituba. As Betty begins to “wake up,” she says she was trying to contact her dead mother in the ritual and wants “to fly” to her. “Keep still, you little devil,” someone replies, already setting the tone for the demonization of the girls. Alone with the girls later, Abigail cruelly threatens them to keep quiet about what really happened that night.

This opening ritual scene establishes the adolescent girls as a group, a collective, or as a female chorus found in ancient drama. Ringleader Abigail and servant Tituba stand out in the first scene, as well as young Betty and Mary Warren, but the other girls are part of a pack, expressing an ardent interest in magic to woo young men: they exhibit a supernatural interest in romance, an eagerness to “short-cut” courtship with a spell. The wild young girls in the woods, with exceptions noted above, are established as monolithic, secretive, lusty, rule-breaking, and unfazed by the use of spells–or in other words, in league with the Devil. Their charm contributions to the boiling cauldron, which could be seen as a fiery womb symbol, are indicative of their acceptance of the dark arts; their spontaneous wanton disrobing, seemingly for Satan, signifies the magnitude of their repressed lust. This moonlit spectacle depicts the “horror” of budding female sexual desire from a Puritan perspective.

Abigail, in an early scene with Proctor, forces a kiss on her former lover, even as he calls her “child” and says he’ll cut off his hand before he becomes involved with her again. This short exchange reinforces the concept of “female as sexual aggressor” in the film.

By night, the Salem girls are presented as believers in conjuring, but by day, we find them seated together in a church space for questioning by the newly arrived demonology expert Reverend Hale (Rob Campbell). The girls are costumed in a rainbow array of solid colors, each a different hue; the rainbow imagery visually associates them with “light” and iridescence. The shadow/light dichotomy of the girls is highlighted here, for, in daylight, the group reflects innocence and purity—and in this scene, even a love of Christianity.

Abigail, under questioning, accuses Tituba of magic. This leads to another sequence that presents the Salem girls as terrorizing: after tortured Tituba blesses the Lord, she begins to name Salem women as witches, to appease her brutal owner Parris. Abigail suddenly declares: “I want the light of God! I want the sweet love of Jesus! I did dance with the Devil. I saw him. I wrote in his book. I go back to Jesus. I kiss his hand.” And then she adds: “I saw Sarah Good with the Devil!” The other girls take up this refrain, supplying the names of myriad local women—and a man. They name Bridget Bishop, George Jacobs, Goody Howe, Goody Sibber, Goody Pike, and many more, as “with the Devil.”

Seeking revenge on Salem adults who’ve wronged them, the girls line up on a stairwell and function as a chorus of young female accusers. Reverend Hale yells: “Hallelujah! Glory Be to God! It is broken. They are free!” The adults who witness this scene believe the girls’ accusations, even though there’s no proof; a jailer is summoned to imprison the accused. Abigail’s reaffirmation of her love of Christ makes her “pure” again in the eyes of the adults. The fickle nature of the girls is established in this scene; opportunistically, they accuse innocent people in order to save themselves from the soul-damning charges of witchcraft. They have their scapegoats; they will not be blamed. Their volatile swing from “Satan to Jesus” helps to launch the witch trials that will claim 20 lives: 19 hangings, and one man pressed to death.

Their impenetrable solidarity is also what makes the girls so scary. Perhaps because they’ve been threatened by Abigail, or perhaps because they’re truly part of a groupthink mentality focused on self-preservation, the girls, except for Mary, follow Abigail’s lead through most of the film. They become alarming again in a courtroom scene in which Proctor accuses Abigail: “This is a whore’s vengeance now.” After Elizabeth is questioned about Abigail and Proctor’s affair, Hale pronounces Abigail “false.” But Abigail abruptly screams and points to the ceiling of the court: “Why do you come, yellow bird? You cannot want to tear my face.” The girls, huddling together, “see” the yellow bird, too. Abigail identifies it as Mary’s evil spirit; they begin to repeat everything Mary says. Judge Danforth (Paul Scofield) asks Mary why they parrot her. After more screaming, the girls run out of the courtroom, to escape the predatory “yellow bird”; they sob as they run into the sea, a baptismal visual reference. Eventually, in the water, Mary recants her support of the Proctors, calling John “the devil’s man.”

In this sequence, female sexuality and jealousy (“a whore’s vengeance”) are identified by Proctor as the key motives driving the witch hunt. The vindictive girls accuse one of their own as a conjuror to save Abigail, and thus, saving the group as a whole. Loyalty to community, family, and Christian morality are not girlish attributes in The Crucible. Instead, the girl accusers seek only their own safety as the film nears its climax; there’s no more talk of romance or lust. The terrorizing little girls who offer no real proof of their accusations in The Crucible watch the community hangings as a gleeful ensemble; we see their happy faces for the first few executions. Eventually, as time goes on, they become saddened. One wonders what might happen to them in the near future, as Abigail runs away from Salem for good.

The Puritan condemnation of budding female sexuality—a rejection of mysterious girls who long for love and lust—is mined by Miller and director Hytner for all dramatic effect in The Crucible. Females are both scapegoats and accusers in this world. In a final nod to a view of women as weak and sexually complex, Elizabeth accepts blame for Proctor’s adultery in the final moments, saying she “kept a cold house.”

In The Crucible, ruthless fickle girls propel paranoia; they are able to turn on a whim from the Devil to Jesus, and accuse their elders to save themselves. They are truly terrifying because they have no loyalty to conventional mores or religion, only to each other—a taboo sorority founded on nocturnal sexual secrecy, a presumed purity based on pretense. They are portrayed with a “pack” mentality, easily lead by a jilted teenager with a cruel streak. And the scariest aspect of all: they are so “innocent” that their accusations require no true evidence, thus upending an ideal of basic justice in the modern world. But they have an undeniable agency throughout most of the film; as a force, they are one. A communal suspicion of young girls proves fatal in The Crucible, as the last image in the film makes plain: a close-up of the hangman’s rope.

Laura Shamas is a writer, mythologist and film consultant. Her previous writing on witches is: ‘We Three’: The Mythology of Shakespeare’s Weird Sisters. Website: LauraShamas.com.

‘The Shining’: Demon Selection

Jack is both a victim and perpetrator of domestic violence. Jack’s father was an abusive alcoholic who beat and berated him. When Jack drank he used to parrot his father’s words (“take your medicine” “you damn pup”). He is primarily verbally abusive. The last incident of drinking that pushed him to sober up was accidentally breaking Danny’s arm. Wendy, perhaps like Jack’s mother, lied for him but swore she would leave if he didn’t sober up.

The Torrance family happily driving to the Overlook Hotel

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

Stephen King’s The Shining miniseries debuted almost 17 years ago. King’s take was made to follow closer to his original novel and as a rebuff of Kubrick’s classic (King still disliked the movie). The miniseries is often criticized for being long, needing more scares, and having too much detail and long dialogue. While these points have merit, King’s version has a better Wendy, more background, and far more character development. The story itself is well known – The Torrance family moves into the Overlook Hotel for the winter. Father Jack is an alcoholic, out-of-work teacher, and amateur playwright. Young Danny has psychic abilities. The Overlook is haunted. Wendy is along for the ride with no job to perform nor psychic abilities. She has also lead a fairly charmed life, minus Jack’s problems, and is not possessed by the Overlook at any point. *

But why does the Overlook not chose Wendy? Or why can’t it reach her the way it can Danny and Jack?

The Hotel wants Danny. Wendy knows it. Jack is already “infected” by the hotel and refuses to believe it. Danny knows it as well. This suggests that his power will live on in the hotel after he is dead and a ghost. The hotel might seek out people who Shine and their Shining stays with their spirits trapped in the Overlook. It is never fully explained how Danny got his gift or his Shining – which includes telepathy, telekinesis, visions, and the ability to regenerate a haunted hotel and its ghosts. Some fans have assumed Jack himself might have the Shining.**

Jack drinking with Grady at the party where all the guests and the band have been dead for years

Danny is never fully taken over by the hotel, but it grows stronger with his presence. It uses what it can take of his Shining and, being a little boy, he unintentionally feeds it. He has a false sense of security since he was told by Dick Hallorann, who works at the hotel and explains to Danny what the Shining is, that the things one might see at the Overlook are like “pictures in a book.” Soon the pictures become physical manifestations and the hotel has its own puppet to use when it takes full control of Jack.

There is one other very big reason why Jack might have been the one the hotel fully possessed (to the point where Jack tries to control himself and can’t–only once does he break through and tells Danny to run, but loses this battle within minutes): Jack is both a victim and perpetrator of domestic violence. Jack’s father was an abusive alcoholic who beat and berated him. When Jack drank he used to parrot his father’s words (“take your medicine” “you damn pup”). He is primarily verbally abusive. The last incident of drinking that pushed him to sober up was accidentally breaking Danny’s arm. Wendy, perhaps like Jack’s mother, lied for him but swore she would leave if he didn’t sober up.

With the hotel influencing Jack, but not yet controlling him, he begins to act like the alcoholic he once was and uses the same words. This was more intense than his last incident as a dry drunk; this is full drunk Jack with no alcohol. Eventually the hotel has the power to conjure objects that torment the family – party favors and panties in an elevator that turned on by itself (“There is something that wants us to join the party, Don’t you understand that?” Wendy explains to Jack) and a bar with alcohol for thirsty Jack.

Jack possessed by the Overlook — Jack, possessed by the Overlook

The hotel preys on Jack’s past problems. Even as a grown man, he still loves his father and speaks to what sounds like his ghost on the radio. The emotional conversation where Jack acts like a crying boy and is berated once again, culminates in Jack smashing the family’s one means of communication with the outside world. Jack carries the scars of abuse, the confusion of loving your abusive parent, and guilt over continuing the cycle of alcoholic abuse.*** He also confides that he feels like he belongs at the Overlook. He lashes out at Wendy in jealousy over her good life and unleashes all of his frustrations with his own life. His fear of them living on the street if he can’t fulfill the duties of this job are probably exaggerated, but his feelings of failure and concern for his family never being able to obtain a comfortable lifestyle are genuine.

Jack isn’t an evil man. He is damaged and the hotel takes full advantage of it. He is alone, hurt, guilty, and has a past full of enticing cruelty and trauma for the sinister hotel to enjoy. We do not know about other victims of the hotel. Did the woman in 217 who has sexually charged scenes, including the way she kisses and then strangles Danny, have some sexual abuse in her past before she committed suicide at the Overlook? Did she even plan on killing herself before checking in or was the suggestion given to her during her stay? Does this shed light on how the hotel that has killed so many remains open and functioning with its “indiscretions” covered up by management?

Without the word of the (Stephen) King, we can only guess that the hotel wants people who Shine or who have emotional issues that make them susceptible to the demonic influence and also please he sadism of the Overlook. And this is why Mr. Jack Torrance was possessed by the hotel and not his wife. This is why Jack let the hotel in, while Danny tried to keep it out.

*In the DVD Wendy isn’t the only one to hold this honor; Dick Hallorann never subcomes to the Overlook. In the book, however, when the hotel is at its strongest, Dick has a moment where he is compelled to kill Danny.

**This theory gains momentum since Dick’s grandmother had it. Perhaps it skips or is weaker in some generations.

***! ! ! SPOILER ! ! ! Danny grows up to be an alcoholic in King’s latest novel.

Wolf is known to her friends as the Pop Culture Queen and loves to read books, watch movies, and keep up on her TV shows. She is a perpetual psychology student who hopes to finish her schooling before she’s 90. She occasionally finds the time to write for fun and win trivia contests. Criticism, questions and suggestions are always welcome in her email: hairdye_junky@yahoo.com.

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

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

(MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD!)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

M.C. Blakeman writes:

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

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

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