Tag: 1990s

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

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

 

The To Do List.
Written by Leigh Kolb

 

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

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

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

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

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

Revisiting ‘Mermaids’: Identifying Connections With The Flax Women

Mermaids film poster.


June Roberts’ screenplay of 1990’s Mermaids is adapted from Patty Dann’s novel and happens to be one of my all time favorite films.
As infectious retro soundtrack flares and mod dresses make scenes pop, I connect in certain respects to each Flax woman–Cher’s big-haired, mother hen, Mrs. Rachel Flax and her two daughters–Winona Ryder’s quirky, awkward, Charlotte and Christina Ricci’s sweet, future Olympic swimmer, Kate.
The film opens with the Flax women trio on eighteenth move–this time to Massachusetts. These habitual migrations stem from either Rachel’s failed relationships or embarrassment of becoming small town gossip fodder such as the case when Charlotte’s teacher believes her to have a mental disorder. Charlotte and Kate are primarily raised by flamboyant Rachel still living promiscuously and with shocking hoopla surrounding actress Kate Winslet’s third pregnancy; it’s imperative to note that Charlotte and Kate also have different fathers–one a product from teenage love and other from an affair with an athlete. In the sixties, this would be much more ostracized condemnation than now because middle class Mrs. Flax isn’t married and wealthy Mrs. Winslet is.

Rachel (Cher) and Lou (Bob Hospkins).

Rachel doesn’t cook and doesn’t like sitting around a table having traditional meal conversation, but she does enter countless relationships with various men including married ones.
While buying school staples, Rachel takes her daughters to a shoe store where she catches eye of charming Lou, the owner. He is attentive to Rachel’s whims, but she despises his “interference” in her daughter’s lives which possibly stems from desires to usually cut men off after having physical fill of them. In overprotective stance, especially of little Kate, Mama Bear Rachel obviously doesn’t want the female trio to include a missing male figure that isn’t one hundred percent reliable.
“I have never wanted to hit a woman the way I want to hit you right now,” Lou spits to Rachel.
Although he doesn’t throw a fist, this is such an ugly blow and he loses appeal quickly. It’s no excuse to do or say the words. Having moved from one disappointment to another still searching for that perfect, unmarred place to call home, Rachel has a justified reasoning for not wanting to surge Kate’s hopes of a father figure.
Rachel stays with Lou and allows further access. He influences more intimate times together and Rachel continues creating strange hors douerves as meals–her specialty being odd looking marshmallow kabobs.
Now my deepest connection is centered primarily in Charlotte, Rachel’s older daughter.

Charlotte (Winona Ryder) longs for Joe (Michael Schoeffling).

A naïve devotee to religion and born Jewish, Charlotte prays in Christian earnest, stares in awe at nuns while curiously wondering about their undergarments, and silently condemns her mother’s behavior–finding her wild ways altogether blasphemous. The most hysterical narration races inside Charlotte’s precociously engaged head as her large black brown eyes express desires for uncontrollable rationality that weave from the very person she is so dead set against becoming. Joe, a handsome convent caretaker and bus driver, ten years older, incites passions that ignite from the very moment she first sees him, but still, she clings desperately to God Almighty and hopes relentless pining suffices.
However, after witnessing her mother planting a New Year’s kiss on her beloved Joe, Charlotte feels threatened and insecure. Prior to losing virginity to him, it is quite apparent that she poufs up her hair, puts on tawdry makeup, dons her mother’s oversized black polka dotted pink dress, and downs alcohol, believing that embodying her sinful role model is the only way Joe would have her. It’s saddening because he didn’t explain why he kissed her mother and drove off in a big, macho huff as though Charlotte offended him, planting sordid competition to arise inside her.
Now Joe doesn’t seem to be this great, charming fiction that overly sentimental Charlotte dreamily continues telling herself and the audience. So often lust is confused for love, especially in youth, and Charlotte is clearly not thinking with the best intentions. In moments spent with him, this hormonal seventeen-year-old girl constantly wants kisses and to be tossed onto the ground to make a “Joe Jr.” Their connection is no deeper than a shallow appeal to his physical appearance and being cloistered in the place she yearned to be–alongside nuns.
“Why are you so set on repeating my mistakes?” Mrs. Flax asks.
Yes. Charlotte spends time in saintly shrines whispering pious pleas or fasting from her sinful inhibitions, but nothing changes the fact that she is her mother’s daughter and that she cannot reject blood filtering through veins. In the end, at high school, she’s less shy, growing popular with boys, and dressing differently while wearing her hair poufy.
It’s not just religious fervor or deepening fascination with a handsome bus driver bridging forth my strong connection to Charlotte’s character–though it’s a peculiar similarity. Her curiosity and ignorance struck a beautiful cord threading invisibly and Ryder’s gifted portrayal draws immediate replay. When Charlotte is distraught from kiss “pregnancy,” she drives off towards Connecticut and immerses herself with a television looking family in this minute mid-teenager life crisis. Her longing to know absentee father opened up my Pandora’s box of living with a single mother and rendered frustrations of not having that stout manly figure in my world. As she fibs to this family about him, anyone could see that she wishes that her stories were true, even those rapt listeners knowing them to be incredibly farfetched.
Kate, the last and littlest Flax is no ordinary girl.
She doesn’t play with Barbie dolls or dream of being a princess in a big castle waiting for a man to sweep her off dainty feet. Since age five, she has trained vigorously at swimming and is constantly trying to break the world record for holding breath under water inside the bathtub. This winner is the little force that unites the strained Rachel and Charlotte–delightfully enough Charlotte used to pretend that Kate was her baby. Despite horrendous climax in which Charlotte places a drunken Kate in treacherous peril–a nearly fatal drowning incident, she is bravely back in championship form and holds no traumatic scar save for a little loss of hearing.

Saint loving Charlotte (Winona Ryder), Mama Bear Rachel (Cher), and swimming cap covered Kate (Christina Ricci).
Parenting, however, is still Rachel’s struggle, but she grows maturely as does Charlotte.
“You two didn’t come with an instruction manual!” Rachel cries, confused by Charlotte’s ever growing silent treatment. “Just tell me and I’ll try my best.”
And she does.
She may make mistakes, but Rachel tries and wants to do right by her daughters.

Charlotte (Winona Ryder), Kate (Christina Ricci), and Rachel Flax (Cher).

Mermaids ends on a feel-good note. Three smiling, happily connected women dance and set the table to “If You Wanna Be Happy.” Times have certainly changed, and strained relationships have finally mended towards the exciting promise of something better–a start of stronger female foundation. 

Travel Films Week: ‘How Stella Got Her Groove Back’


How Stella Got Her Groove Back film poster.

How Stella Got Her Groove Back is based on Terry McMillan’s bestselling novel of the same name and stars two wonderful actresses as best friends–Academy Award nominated Angela Bassett playing strong, determined Stella and Academy Award winning Whoopi Goldberg as hilarious, sassy Delilah. Actor Taye Diggs is Winston, Stella’s Jamaican “groove.”
Hard-working, single mother Stella is devoted to work and parenthood, but just four minutes into the film, her two sisters claim to know what’s best for her.
“You need a husband and your son needs a father,” blasts Angela, Stella’s married and pregnant sister.
“Had him, got rid of him, so glad I did,” Stella retorts.
While family is obsessed with this absurd logic that men are the Holy Grail to women, it’s fun spirited Delilah that demands Stella and she take a nice little getaway to scenic Jamaica together–Stella’s own original idea.

Delilah (Whoopi Goldberg) and Stella (Angela Bassett) checking out the Jamaican view.

“You haven’t been anywhere since I was a natural blonde!” Delilah screams over the phone. One cannot help but applaud Goldberg’s humorous quips of persuasion, especially seeing as she and Bassett have great chemistry as female comrades. It’s an addictive pleasure to see African American women engaged in these quintessential friendships onscreen and no grand schemes of bitterness, jealousy, and hatred so typically written.
Amongst beautiful, luscious, tropical settings where the twosome have their adventure, Stella meets the much younger Winston and the two engage in a steamy affair.
But during all the drama, Delilah is undergoing a private health crisis and Stella learns of it very late.
Delilah and Stella’s hospital scenes are terms of bittersweet endearment and still make eyes water, for this sisterhood bond is perhaps remarkably closer than the biological glue between Stella and her two siblings. When Stella lays beside Delilah in the white bed and they sing in raspy voices laced with sorrow, both of their hearts are visibly breaking onscreen. Cancer has torn them asunder, ripped the cords of one of the film’s most genuine core relationships and has ultimately broken Stella.
She lost her best friend.
Winston (Taye Diggs) is supposedly Stella’s (Angela Bassett) “groove.”

The ending came with a typical Hollywood bow–tied much too neatly.
“Not every woman needs a man in her life,” Stella had pretty much uttered in the film’s beginning.
But finality proved her to be incorrect.
She clung and frequently apologized to Winston–a childish man that felt threatened by her success and leeched onto her strength. Their vast age difference proved to be a demolition factor; always leaving when times were too rough, insipid, weak-minded Winston was everything opposite of Stella’s majestic character.
It was better suited that Winston return to Jamaica alone while Stella focused on goals for her bright future as an independent and savvy businesswoman. Director’s camera focused on their awkward looks and wet eyes in that last, crushing love scene reeking of desperate closure and unspoken understanding–a solid presentation that the “groove” dwindled.
For Stella to be at the airport and saying “yes” to Winston’s marriage proposal seemed an unbelievable notion.

Stella (Angela Bassett) should have kept Winston as a vacation fling.

Winston should have stayed primarily a Jamaican rendezvous.
Yes. It is always a joyful occasion to see African American romances onscreen (it’s incredibly rare to feature an all African American cast in this genre–unless it’s Tyler Perry related grrrrr!) and not have courtships be the overplayed “thin line between love and hate” stereotype, but Stella’s relationship with Winston wasn’t exactly great as it progressed to turbulent fights and public screaming matches. 
By the film’s cheesy end, I only wished for Delilah’s ghost to visit Stella and continue their friendship in a spiritual manner as Stella embarked on her personal quest. Perhaps even treating herself to more splendid travels and finding other pursuits called “fun” that don’t involve young men.
Winston isn’t worth being the pot of gold at the end of Stella’s rainbow, much less her “groove.”

The Gender Situation in ‘Pulp Fiction’

Written by Leigh Kolb.To celebrate the 20th anniversary of Quentin Tarantino’s major directorial debut, Reservoir Dogs (1992) and Pulp Fiction (1994) were shown in theaters on Dec. 4 and 6, respectively, as special engagements.

While Reservoir Dogs solidified Tarantino’s spot in Hollywood, Pulp Fiction made him a star. It won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, the Academy Award for Best Screenplay (it was nominated for Best Picture) and John Travolta, Samuel L. Jackson and Uma Thurman were nominated for Academy Awards.
The film opens with a couple (Pumpkin/Ringo and Honey Bunny/Yolanda) eating at a diner. The two are discussing their next robbery attempt and realize robbing a restaurant would maximize their profits. The banter between the two shows that they are partners, and are in love.
As they enact their plan, they stand up with their guns. Pumpkin announces that this is a robbery, and Honey Bunny screams:

“Any of you fucking pricks move, and I’ll execute every motherfucking last one of ya!”

Honey Bunny/Yolanda, left, screams and threatens restaurant patrons as Pumpkin looks on.
The iconic sounds of “Miserlou,” by Dick Dale and His Del Tones begin, and the audience quickly realizes that unlike Reservoir Dogs, women will have a voice in Pulp Fiction.
Like Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction examines masculinity–glorifying and critiquing it. Instead of conversations about women, however, women have integral roles in each of the intertwining narratives.
Vincent Vega & Marcellus Wallace’s Wife
 
When Vincent and Jules discuss the meaning of a foot rub, they are speaking about intimacy and what it means to touch a woman’s feet. The rumor is that their boss, Marcellus Wallace, had a man pushed off a building for rubbing his wife’s feet. They’re exploring something beyond a foot rub (although Tarantino himself does love feet). On some level, they’re exploring male/female interactions and levels of intimacy.
Vincent tells Jules that Marcellus asked him to take his wife Mia out, and it’s clear that this woman invokes intimidation in men. Vincent goes to Lance’s house (his drug dealer) to purchase some heroin. He self-medicates before going to pick up Mia. She’s left a note on the door to come in, and she watched Vincent enter the house on security camera footage and speaks to him over an intercom. She is god-like in this scene (and while it fits the narrative, we know that Uma Thurman is also a god/muse to Tarantino).
Mia self-medicates with cocaine, and the scene at Jack Rabbit Slim’s makes the audience feel high. Mia chooses the restaurant and made the reservation (she is in control), and the two engage in friendly banter. She was an actress, and tells him about her failed television series, Fox Force Five. Vincent confronts her about the foot rub rumor, and she denies it, pointing out that a husband protecting his wife is “one thing,” but that was ridiculous. She says:

“Truth is, nobody knows why Marsellus threw Tony out of that fourth-story window except Marsellus and Tony. When you little scamps get together, you’re worse than a sewing circle.”

Here, the men are gossiping and being “silly,” which are most often the stereotyped flaws of female characters.
The two dance in a twist competition–upon her insistance–and win the trophy. The dance itself is one in which no one really leads; they are partners.
Mia and Vincent dance as equals.
Back at the Wallace mansion, Mia finds the baggie of heroin in Vincent’s coat pocket, mistakes it for cocaine, and snorts a long line, immediately overdosing. She’s a modern-day damsel in distress, whose distress is really a simple mistake.
Vincent rushes her to Lance’s house, and Lance yells, “You fucked her up, you fix her!” But we know this isn’t the case. Again, the assumption is that the man is at fault, and the woman is helpless, but that isn’t how they end up here. Everyone bumbles around the apartment, trying to figure out the adrenaline shot (at one point Lance is in a cluttered room looking for a medical book, and the board game “Chauvinist Pigs” is perched atop a pile). No one in this scene is truly heroic or capable, which makes it feel realistic. Vincent successfully injects the adrenaline into Mia’s heart, and Vincent takes her back home. They, and we, sober up fast.
The Gold Watch
 
The story of the gold watch, passed down to Butch from his great-grandfather, to his grandfather, to his father and then to him, is essentially a story about the decline in traditional American manhood. By the time the watch got to Butch’s father in the Vietnam War, he was a POW and had to “hide it in his ass” for years so he could pass it down to his son. The shift in American war culture/patriotism between WWII and Vietnam was stark. The “Greatest Generation” of American men in the second world war gave birth to boys who would serve in Vietnam, a war that utilized a draft and was met with protest and hostility. By the time Butch becomes an adult man, he is fighting, yes, but for money and not his country. His war is internal, and devoid of the heroism from a few generations ago. (This crisis of a lack of clearly defined masculinity is the cornerstone of Gen X novels/films such as Fight Club, which explores at length this generation of young men with no great war.)
Captain Koons presents a young Butch with his father’s watch.
Butch’s desperation to have that gold watch with him, even eventually risking his life to do so, is indicative of his desperation to hold on to this generationally diluted manhood.
Butch doesn’t throw the fight that he’d fixed with Marcellus, and instead wins and accidentally kills his opponent. In the getaway cab ride, the female cab driver asks him what it’s like to kill a man, because it’s a subject she’s “very interested” in. She seems more interested than he does, in fact.
Esmerelda lights Butch’s cigarette.
When he’s back at the hotel room with his girlfriend Fabienne, the two share intimate moments and comedic dialogue. Fabienne seems silly and child-like, but Butch is sweet and respectful to her (although he erupts when he realizes she’s forgotten the watch, he quickly apologizes and says he was to blame). As she’s lying on the bed wishing for a pot belly, she says:

“I don’t give a damn what men find attractive. It’s unfortunate what we find pleasing to the touch and pleasing to the eye is seldom the same.”

Fabienne and Butch.
She requests and receives “oral pleasure” from Butch, and in the hotel room scenes, the audience sees more of Butch’s body than Fabienne’s. Again, she seems naive and childish, but their relationship is equitable and for the most part, enjoyable to watch. Maybe Butch has a similar innocence, but it is well-guarded under his outward masculinity.
The next morning, when he flies into a rage about the watch, warfare and explosions blast on the television in their room, another reminder of the distance between Butch and that celebrated masculine pastime.
He goes off on a quest to retrieve the gold watch before they flee to Knoxville (since Marcellus will be trying to find him and kill him for not throwing the fight). He takes off in a Honda hatchback, and gets to his apartment. Vincent is already there, sent to kill him, but he’s on the toilet reading Modesty Blaise, who debuted as a female action hero in a comic strip, collection of stories/novel and films of the same name in the 1960s. (Tarantino is a Blaise fan, and certainly Kill Bill‘s The Bride shares many similarities with the female protagonist.)
Modesty Blaise, a 1960s crime series with a female protagonist.
Butch picks up Vincent’s gun and kills him as he steps out of the bathroom. When he escapes, he runs into Marcellus (women flock to the sides of Butch and Marcellus to help them), and the two end up in a depraved dungeon of a pawn shop with a racist owner. When Butch breaks free as Marcellus is being raped by security guard Zed, he can’t leave. He goes back down and kills the shop owner with a sword, and breaks Marcellus free (who then shoots Zed in the groin). There are obvious masculinity issues here, from the anal rape (my gosh what would Freud do with Butch’s narrative) to the phallic sword, Marcellus and Butch agree that they are even, and Butch will never utter a word about the rape.
Butch takes off on Zed’s motorcycle and arrives back to pick up Fabienne. Some kind of post-modern manhood has been achieved, and he’s free to go on–with the gold watch.
The Bonnie Situation
 
When Jules and Vincent are saddled with the problem of a dead man in their car, they turn to Jimmie and go to his house. He is adamant that they take care of their situation soon, because his wife Bonnie is about to come home. He says:

“Now don’t you fucking realize man that if Bonnie comes home and finds a dead body in her house, I’m gonna get divorced, all right. No marriage counselor, no trial separation. I’m gonna get fuckin’ divorced. Okay? And I don’t wanna get fuckin’ divorced. Now then, you know, I mean, I wanna help you but I don’t wanna lose my wife doin’ it, all right.”

This honest admission of a husband who doesn’t want to lose his wife is refreshing. She’s not a nag, she’s not a bitch, but she’s his wife and he wants to be married to her.
Marcellus calls Winston “The Wolf” Wolfe, who is the antithesis of Jimmie. The Wolf is partying with glamorous women at 9 a.m., clearly living like James Bond and speeds to Jimmie’s in a silver sports car. Jimmie is waiting for his wife to get home from work, brews fancy coffee and is hesitant to give The Wolf their best linens to clean up the mess. As a trade, The Wolf gives him a stack of bills to buy themselves a new bedroom set.
Jimmie’s “feminine” tendencies and The Wolf’s classic masculinity complement one another.
These two men–Jimmie and The Wolf–exist in opposite worlds and diametrically opposing masculinities. However, the two of them working together solves problems. This acceptance of and need for different shades of stereotypical masculinity and femininity reminds the audience that Tarantino is aware and critical of gender performance.
When they drop the cleaned-out car to Monster Joe’s Truck and Tow, Joe’s daughter Racquel comes to meet them. The Wolf says, “Someday, all this will be hers.” This is a nod to the next generation of gender roles–whether it be women running junk yards, crime rings or killing sprees, Tarantino’s women are not shut in dainty boxes.
Racquel, the heiress to Monster Joe’s Truck and Tow.
During the epilogue, we are again in the diner where Pumpkin and Honey Bunny/Yolanda are holding up the customers. Vincent and Jules are there (Vincent is in the bathroom during most of the scene), and Jules engages in a stand-off between the two while trying to talk Pumpkin out of doing what they’re doing. He allows them to collect the customers’ cash without hurting anyone. Yolanda becomes unhinged and pitiful in this scene, and a viewer may be dismayed at Tarantino’s decision to make the woman fall apart at this very moment, and that this shows her weakness. However, we must realize that many of the characters throughout the film have shown fallibility or been in positions of weakness (Vincent’s self-medication and debilitating nerves about Mia, Mia’s overdose, Marcellus’s sexual assault and Jimmie’s anxiety about his wife). This does not mean anything except that the characters are human.
Jules and Vincent have been scrubbed clean and left to look like “dorks,” somehow emasculated without their black suits.
Humans are not one-dimensional caricatures. They commit crimes, they overdose, they are racist, sexist and complex. As long as men and women alike are portrayed in all aspects of the human experience in a film and are reflections of reality (no matter how unpleasant that reality is), then authenticity can be achieved. Pulp Fiction, in all of its gore, turns a critical eye on masculinity and femininity and offers a more nuanced take on its male and female characters than films of similar genres. And as Tarantino’s later films went on to have female characters who take active and leading roles, The Wolf was right in pointing out that “all this” will someday be a woman’s, too.
—

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

Twenty Years Later: ‘Reservoir Dogs,’ Masculinity and Feminism

Written by Leigh Kolb.

Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs turned 20 this year, and was re-released in select theaters on Tuesday, Dec. 4.
In the introductory interviews that preceded the feature film, actor Eli Roth said that what was most powerful to him in Reservoir Dogs was that “Everybody had a voice.”
Discerning viewers may, at this point, remember that there are no women who have voices in the film. Women are talked about at length, but aren’t players in the film.
However, by analyzing these discussions about women and looking closer at the masculinity of the characters, one can certainly come to the conclusion that Tarantino has a nuanced view of gender and is a feminist filmmaker.
In the opening diner scene, the men are discussing the true meaning of Madonna’s “Like a Virgin.” Most of the men reflect upon their varying degrees of fandom for Madonna. Mr. Brown delivers a brutally vivid description about how he thinks the song is all about a big dick (“dick, dick, dick, dick, dick…”) and making a woman who has had a lot of sex feel like she’s having sex for the first time again. While the language is crass, there’s no clear judgment of the woman in question, or applause for the well-endowed man. It’s just a song analysis.
The diner conversations illuminate misunderstanding of and respect or disrespect for women.
At the very least, the topic Tarantino chooses to open his film with is intriguing. Their understanding, or misunderstanding, of women shows up again a few minutes later, when Eddie brings up K-Billy’s Super Songs of the 70s, and the fact that he’d never realized that in “The Nights the Lights Went Out in Georgia,” the female narrator is the one who kills Andy. Again, they analyze and comment on song lyrics that are sung by women and center around a woman. They are–on some level–interested in understanding women.
The tipping scene at the diner is integral in showing the audience how we are supposed to feel about certain characters. When Mr. Pink adamantly refuses to tip, and goes on a tirade against tipping, Mr. White says:

“These people bust their ass. This is a hard job… Waitressing is the number-one occupation for female non-college graduates in this country. It’s the one job basically any woman can get and make a living on. The reason is because of their tips.”

“Fuck all that,” Mr. Pink says, later adding that “This non-college bullshit, I got two words for that: Learn to fuckin’ type.”
A few minutes into the film, we think that Mr. Pink is an asshole and Mr. White is compassionate. And we’re right. The characters have been shaped during this exposition by their thoughts about women. The less they respect and understand women, the less we are supposed to respect them.
Mr. Orange gets shot when he attempts to carjack a woman (“Who’d have fuckin’ thought that?” he cries, while bleeding in the back of Mr. White’s car) and she shoots him. He then kills her. His instinct is to think the woman in the vehicle is helpless and would be easily overtaken, but he was wrong.
There are various scenes during flashbacks that further explore issues of women and femininity. Mr. White tells Joe that he and his former partner, Alabama, split up due to tensions of pushing “that woman-man thing to far,” but he also adds that she was a really good thief. Mr. Orange (an undercover cop mentored by a black man) concocts a story in which a woman is his drug dealer. Mr. Pink whines about the feminine moniker assigned to him (“It sounds like Mr. Pussy”). Mr. Blonde and Eddie wrestle and spar, showcasing their over-hyped masculinity and their different stations (Mr. Blonde having just been released from prison, and Eddie being the coddled son of Joe, the boss). Mr. Pink’s simplistic views on black women and white women leads Eddie to delve into a story about a cocktail waitress who glued her abusive husband’s penis to his stomach.
The women in Reservoir Dogs exist almost completely off screen, but they wield power in their stories (and literally in their actions, in the case of the woman who shoots Mr. Orange).
Originally, Tarantino had a female police officer briefly appear in the film (this scene is on a special edition DVD extras disc). The absence of female characters doesn’t make the film anti-feminist, though (in fact, considering Tarantino’s treatment of most of his police officers, a female cop may not have done much for the feminist argument).
Reservoir Dogs is not just a violent film about a diamond heist-gone-bad. And while its discussion of women helps the audience to navigate the characters, what makes this film truly feminist is its deconstruction of masculinity.
Analyses have focused on the homoerotic nature of Mr. Orange and Mr. White’s relationship, and of  the demonstration of “new queer cinema” theories present in the film. On its surface, this is a film entirely dedicated to white heterosexual masculinity–from the sharp black suits, to the guns, to the violence, to the racism–but that masculinity is largely a show.
Mr. Orange and Mr. White, however, both embody the most stereotypically feminine traits of their colleagues. Mr. White is the nurturer, and Mr. Orange the child, pleading for Mr. White to “hold” him and take care of him. They both share vulnerability, their names and are physically close and intimate. They cry together.
Mr. White comforts and nurtures Mr. Orange. He is heroic because of this.
In one of the final scenes where Joe, Eddie and Mr. White are in a triangular stand-off. This shot in itself provides interesting commentary on traditional masculinity and the threat that deviations prove to be to those in charge. Eddie is protecting his “Daddy,” Joe is protecting his patriarchal business and Mr. White is protecting Mr. Orange. Mr. White (“Mr. Fucking Compassion,” Eddie calls him) is the most empathetic and kind, and he wins that battle.
From left, Eddie, Joe, Mr. White and Mr. Orange.
And while no one wins in the end, Mr. Orange and Mr. White come the closest. They survive the longest (if we agree that Mr. Pink is shot as he escapes), and if the audience sees anyone in this film as heroic, it is them. As the cops are coming into the warehouse, Mr. Orange tells Mr. White that he is an undercover cop, and Mr. White is clearly devastated, and pained when he goes to kill Mr. Orange (which his professional code dictates that he must).
The peripheral value of women and the value of the feminine provide a strong, feminist subtext to Reservoir Dogs.
Before the Dec. 4 screening, there were the aforementioned interviews, and there were also previews hand-picked from Tarantino’s collection: Mean Streets; Mother, Jugs & Speed and The Duellists. Harvey Keitel (Mr. White) is in all of these films.
When Tarantino and his friend and producer, Lawrence Bender, were starting the process of making Reservoir Dogs, they were asked who their top choice would be if anyone in the world would be in the film. They answered with “Keitel,” although they realized that would never happen. Bender’s acting coach knew that his wife, Lily Parker, worked with Keitel at the Actor’s Studio, so they gave her a script. Parker loved it, so she gave it to Keitel, and he was on board.
Between Parker’s power and the incredible contributions of Tarantino’s long-time editor, Sally Menke (she worked with him until her death in 2010), one could go so far as to say that Reservoir Dogs as we know it exists because of women.
In any case, feminists should not shy away from Tarantino’s work (even if we can’t sufficiently answer whether or not Tarantino is a feminist–which I believe he is); instead, we should note the power of the women in his films (as Bitch Flicks has in the past), the power of the women who are not in his films, the power of the women who make his films happen and the power of deconstructing and commenting on American masculinity.
—

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

 

‘Reality Bites,’ ‘Slackers’ and the Movies Made About Underemployed Youth

Occupy Wall Street started a year ago this Monday. The movement came out of a recession and an underemployed youth culture.

So, of course I want to look at a film that follows the frustrations that young people face in an economic crisis. Unfortunately, save for Lena Dunham productions, there isn’t a lot of that coming out right now – and that issue might be for another post. (As in: our economy is being dragged through the dirt, but our high grossing blockbuster hits are still mostly about rich white dudes. Maybe these rich white dudes observe the plight of the poor, but it is still from their vantage point. i.e. The Social Network/Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps/The Dark Knight Rises.)

Surprisingly there’s more films about frustrated-20-somethings in a bad job market from the early 90s. The 90s being the decade where a lot of people were pretty well off. But, there was that recession in the early 90s that influenced music, art and film in a lot of interesting ways.
Two films in particular, Slackerand Reality Bites, came out around the same time to address a youth culture that felt disenfranchised. They both ostensibly sought to delve into the coming-of-age story specific to disillusionment with the American dream. While Slacker is maybe a bit convoluted in its non-narrative narrative, it is far more successful in encapsulating a culture and economic climate that fed into each other. Reality Bites, on the other hand, just sort of bites.

Movie poster for Slacker
Richard Linklater’s Slackerfollows various characters around Austin, Texas. Each person bumps into, or passes another conversation that leads the camera to another story. The characters all seem to share the same sense of detachment from mainstream culture and desire to pontificate in a typical Linklater fashion. There isn’t really an arc to the film, but there is a voice. And, that’s the point. Linklater is trying to capture something while also getting a chance to look at long semi-philosophically titillating tête-à-têtes.

Reality Bitesinstead uses the educated but wandering youth archetype to facilitate an easy-to-consume pop culture-inundated whine-fest where the characters seem a bit more concerned about their love-hate romances than anything else.

When talking about Reality Bites I will be using the abbreviated form of the term “romantic comedy” (i.e. rom-com) as a verb. Here is an example of how I will use this: In Ben Stiller’s directorial debut in the 1994 film, Reality Bites, about 20-somethings trying to get by in a recession-drenched economy, Stiller took what could have been an informative narrative about the emerging 90s youth culture, and instead he went and rom-commed it.

The woefully hip cast of Reality Bites
Reality Bites just about literally fetishizes the economic strife of the young by slapping romantic intrigue on minimum wage and unemployment.

It also seems to miss the mark on what that youth culture was at the time. Did Stiller think grunge meant jerk? Because the male love interest, Troy (Ethan Hawke), is not appealing in any way. He’s a pseudo-intellectual who seems to have plenty of gripes with “the Man,” but nothing much intelligent to say about it. He’s hung up on the female love interest (and yes, that’s how I’m identifying them, since they rarely rise above those archetypes) Lelaina (Winona Ryder), in the most jealous and obnoxious way possible. After he spies Lelaina hooking up with a guy after her date, Troy makes snide comments indicating she’s promiscuous. Lelaina, our primary protagonist, does seem pretty cool sans her narcissistic documentary. But, she’s drawn to the poorly written symbol of her culture, Troy, for inexplicable reasons.

It’s painfully rom-commed. Reality Bites seems so contrived and marketed to a counterculture demographic, but it still relies on lazy plot devices and expects the audience to be intrigued by sexual tension over everything else. Which leaves the audience without much to actually connect with.

These films are both trying to appeal to a specific demographic, but the tone of Reality Bites is one that is perpetuated even while drowning us in unnecessary hormones. 

Reality Bites Slackers: and the Movies Made About Underemployed Youth

Occupy Wall Street started a year ago this Monday. The movement came out of a recession and an underemployed youth culture.

So, of course I want to look at a film that follows the frustrations that young people face in an economic crisis. Unfortunately, save for Lena Dunham productions, there isn’t a lot of that coming out right now – and that issue might be for another post. (As in: our economy is being dragged through the dirt, but our high grossing blockbuster hits are still mostly about rich white dudes. Maybe these rich white dudes observe the plight of the poor, but it is still from their vantage point. i.e. The Social Network/Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps/The Dark Knight Rises.)

Surprisingly there’s more films about frustrated-20-somethings in a bad job market from the early 90s. The 90s being the decade where a lot of people were pretty well off. But, there was that recession in the early 90s that influenced music, art and film in a lot of interesting ways.
Two films in particular, Slackerand Reality Bites, came out around the same time to address a youth culture that felt disenfranchised. They both ostensibly sought to delve into the coming-of-age story specific to disillusionment with the American dream. While Slacker is maybe a bit convoluted in its non-narrative narrative, it is far more successful in encapsulating a culture and economic climate that fed into each other. Reality Bites, on the other hand, just sort of bites.

Movie poster for Slacker
Richard Linklater’s Slackerfollows various characters around Austin, Texas. Each person bumps into, or passes another conversation that leads the camera to another story. The characters all seem to share the same sense of detachment from mainstream culture and desire to pontificate in a typical Linklater fashion. There isn’t really an arc to the film, but there is a voice. And, that’s the point. Linklater is trying to capture something while also getting a chance to look at long semi-philosophically titillating tête-à-têtes.

Reality Bitesinstead uses the educated but wandering youth archetype to facilitate an easy-to-consume pop culture-inundated whine-fest where the characters seem a bit more concerned about their love-hate romances than anything else.

When talking about Reality Bites I will be using the abbreviated form of the term “romantic comedy” (i.e. rom-com) as a verb. Here is an example of how I will use this: In Ben Stiller’s directorial debut in the 1994 film, Reality Bites, about 20-somethings trying to get by in a recession-drenched economy, Stiller took what could have been an informative narrative about the emerging 90s youth culture, and instead he went and rom-commed it.

The woefully hip cast of Reality Bites
Reality Bites just about literally fetishizes the economic strife of the young by slapping romantic intrigue on minimum wage and unemployment.

It also seems to miss the mark on what that youth culture was at the time. Did Stiller think grunge meant jerk? Because the male love interest, Troy (Ethan Hawke), is not appealing in any way. He’s a pseudo-intellectual who seems to have plenty of gripes with “the Man,” but nothing much intelligent to say about it. He’s hung up on the female love interest (and yes, that’s how I’m identifying them, since they rarely rise above those archetypes) Lelaina (Winona Ryder), in the most jealous and obnoxious way possible. After he spies Lelaina hooking up with a guy after her date, Troy makes snide comments indicating she’s promiscuous. Lelaina, our primary protagonist, does seem pretty cool sans her narcissistic documentary. But, she’s drawn to the poorly written symbol of her culture, Troy, for inexplicable reasons.

It’s painfully rom-commed. Reality Bites seems so contrived and marketed to a counterculture demographic, but it still relies on lazy plot devices and expects the audience to be intrigued by sexual tension over everything else. Which leaves the audience without much to actually connect with.

These films are both trying to appeal to a specific demographic, but the tone of Reality Bites is one that is perpetuated even while drowning us in unnecessary hormones.