Tag: 2010s movies

“Men’s Vows Are Women’s Traitors”: Helen Mirren Runs the Chastity Gauntlet in Shakespeare’s ‘Cymbeline’

After recalling his greatest tragedies, Shakespeare suggests that all could end well, if men loved without defensive cowardice. “Some griefs are med’cinable.” Rising to such newfound greatness of heart, King Cymbeline describes himself as becoming “mother.” William Shakespeare: feminist punk?

Helen Mirren rocks. Just sayin'.
Helen Mirren rocks. Just sayin’.

 

Written by Brigit McCone.

Plots were not Shakespeare’s strong point. He borrowed most from history or other authors, before illuminating them with psychological insight and philosophical depth. One of his final plays, 1611’s Cymbeline, is particularly jarring because the Bard is actually plagiarizing (“reimagining”?) himself: King Cymbeline (King Lear) becomes enraged and imprisons his only daughter, Imogen (Desdemona/Cordelia), for daring to marry “poor but worthy gentleman” Posthumus (Othello), who is exiled and meets cynic Iochimo (Iago), provoking Posthumus to bet that Iochimo can’t seduce super-chaste Imogen. Iochimo fakes proof of Imogen’s infidelity, being Iago and all, so Posthumus flies into Othellish rage and orders Imogen killed. Imogen discovers the order and flees in drag (she’s also Portia and Viola) as “Fidele” (she’s faithful, get it?), taking a death-simulating drug along the way (did I mention she’s Juliet?) There’s a wise woman and a cryptic tree prophecy that comes true unexpectedly (unless you’ve seen Macbeth). We’re one suicidal Dane short of a Greatest Hits album here.

After five or six more annoying coincidences, the plot somehow resolves. But hang in there because, as ever, there’s human truth lurking in Shakespeare’s narrative tangle, and Cymbeline is probably his most feminist play. In theaters now: a radical new version with Ethan Hawke, that aims to prove the play really is interesting, by burying its interesting exploration of female fidelity and male double standards under guns! Bikers! Testosterone! And soldiers! If you watch the trailer closely, you may briefly glimpse Dakota Johnson, playing Shakespeare’s lead:

 [youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulaGT6b8tgg”]

Grit! Shakespeare! Guns! Blank Verse! Testosterone! Manpain! Grrr! 

Centering the woman is admittedly a dramatic weakness of Cymbeline, though not as dramatically weak as its plot. The crushing double standards of Shakespeare’s age demanded purity from a heroine, unstained by the fascinating flaws of Lear, Othello, Hamlet or Macbeth. Imogen is, honestly, a little dull. Shakespeare’s good servant, Pisanio, pointedly calls Imogen “more goddess-like than wife-like” in her endless forbearance. But crucially, jealous Posthumus repents his rage before discovering Imogen’s innocence. Where murder was the conventional response to female infidelity, at least on stage, Shakespeare has his hero turn on the audience, while still believing his wife guilty, and demand, “you married ones, if each of you should take this course, how many must murder wives much better than themselves for wrying but a little?” (Screw biker gangs; where’s Deepa Mehta‘s update confronting arranged marriage and honor killing?)

Though Shakespeare is limited to absolute chastity in his heroine, he subversively tests the play’s men with Imogen’s dilemmas, demanding female fidelity be equated with male. Luckily for Bitch Flickers, there’s a 1982 BBC adaptation smart enough to cast Helen Mirren and let her rip. Mirren breathes full-blooded life and passion into Imogen, adding conflict and doubt to her dull purity. Her Imogen is faithful, not by natural chastity, but by choice. From the opening, Shakespeare evokes possessive claustrophobia, with Posthumus gifting Imogen “a manacle of love. I place it upon this fairest prisoner.”

Posthumus' manacle of love
Posthumus’ manacle of love

 

For her loyalty to Posthumus, Imogen is condemned as “disloyal thing” by her father, King Cymbeline, who demands that she marry his royal stepson, Cloten. Yet, when Cymbeline hears his own wife’s deathbed confession that she never loved him, only “affected greatness” (wanted his rank and wealth), he gasps: “but that she spake it dying, I would not believe her lips in opening it.” King Lear’s expectations clash with Othello’s. Imogen’s conflicting loyalties are embodied by Pisanio, a servant forced to swear loyalty to two masters, who justifies choosing the heart over vows: “wherein I am false, I am honest. Not true, to be true.” Compare Lady Macbeth: though stereotyped as a scheming manipulator, her inner monologues are devoid of personal ambition and filled with her need to fulfil her husband’s desires, taking the burden of his guilt upon herself. In her sleepwalking, she feels Macbeth’s victims sticking to her hands, even those of which she had no warning. Lady Macbeth ruins her husband, not out of selfishness, but out of a love so selfless that it sacrifices her moral judgment and her very identity. If only she had known when to be “not true, to be true.”

Imogen: "what is it to be false?"
Imogen: “What is it to be false?”

 

As Iochimo claims Imogen has cheated with him, our “worthy” Posthumus seems eager to believe the oath of this stranger over his wife’s vows, even when reminded by bystanders that the proofs are not absolute. Convinced of Imogen’s guilt, Posthumus launches into a misogynist rant, revealing paternity fraud as the root of his anxiety – “we are all bastards!” – as well as scapegoating male flaws on women – “there’s no motion tends to vice in man, but I affirm it is the woman’s part.” But his bet’s true motive is rather suggested by Iochimo: “he must be weighed by her value.” Imogen’s virtue is Posthumus’ status symbol, while Iochimo himself seems driven to prove the falsity of all womankind, as if the mere possibility of female loyalty would imply Iochimo’s responsibility for provoking past disloyalty. As objectifying is a classic strategy for denying your own impact on another, so Iochimo longs to “buy ladies’ flesh” in some way that will guarantee its not “tainting.”

This insecure craving for guaranteed affection becomes the counterproductive engine of his repulsiveness. Robert Lindsay’s Iochimo is like polished igneous rock: the hard, glittering bitterness of a cooled eruption. As he smuggles himself inside Imogen’s bedchamber, to memorize its decorations and the moles of her body as proofs of infidelity, Iochimo even peers into her bedside book, finding “the leaf’s turned down where Philomel gave up.” Philomel was a mythical Grecian heroine raped by her brother-in-law, whose tongue was torn out to prevent her testifying, an image central to Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus. Lindsay’s choked gasp makes it clear that his character interprets Imogen’s reading matter as rape fantasy. Is she reading Philomel’s story as a cautionary tale, or has the pressure of stifling chastity really provoked “hot dreams” (Iochimo’s words) about the release of imaginary ravishment? Is it any of our damn business?

Iochimo, wearing Imogen's stolen manacle while being a creeper
Iochimo, wearing Imogen’s stolen manacle while being a creeper

 

Though restraining himself from rape, Iochimo’s compulsive need to test and “prove” Imogen’s virtue is itself a violation. By referencing Philomel, Shakespeare reminds us of Imogen’s vulnerability, which the 1982 production underlines by Iochimo’s hovering shirtless over her as she sleeps, monitoring her every sigh. We must remember that our noble hero, Posthumus, has given letters of recommendation to this total stranger, along with a hefty bribe to rape his wife (theoretically, “seduce” her), because Posthumus is willing to accept proof of sex (not of consent) as evidence of Imogen’s betrayal. Though Posthumus swears the deepest love for Imogen, his underlying misogyny (“there’s no motion tends to vice in man, but I affirm it is the woman’s part”) has driven him to betray her utterly, ironically to test her faithfulness. As Imogen howls, when she discovers his suspicion: “men’s vows are women’s traitors!” Posthumus’ vow of love betrayed Imogen into believing herself exempted from his misogyny. But conditional pardons are no security. As Mirren mutters, ripping up love letters, all his scriptures are turned to heresy. There are many ways to break faith.

Tragically, Imogen lived before the invention of chocolate chip ice cream
Tragically, Imogen lived before the invention of chocolate chip ice cream

 

Meanwhile, in another part of the forest… meet Belarius, Cymbeline’s bravest soldier who, maddened by false accusations of treachery, kidnapped the king’s infant boys and raised them as his own. This apparently irrelevant subplot introduces the idea of unjust suspicion avenged by paternity fraud, just as Pisanio voiced Imogen’s divided loyalty. Belarius’ motive, “beaten for loyalty excited me to treason”, equally justifies Imogen in infidelity, by masculine logic. When his sons are returned to Cymbeline, the king asks if they are indeed his. Belarius does not answer “yes,” but “as sure as you your father’s.” Shakespeare proposes that no-one, male or female, can ever truly be verified. At least, not by the objective measure that Iochimo aspires to. Trusting their hearts alone, Imogen and her long-lost brothers love each other, without knowing their kinship.

Belarius, meanwhile, proves his “honest” courage fighting Romans, rallying fleeing Britons by yelling that only deer should be slaughtered while running away: “Britain’s harts die flying, not our men.” The pun is appropriate. Male culture promotes valor in warfare, but justifies defensive cowardice in love, provoking the very ruin it most fears. Britain’s hearts die flying, like its harts. Bayonets, bullets or biker gangs, they’re still metaphors for sexual insecurity. As in the battle, where some were “turned coward but by example” and needed only a rallying cry to regain courage, so Posthumus’ blistering “you married ones…” speech rallies Shakespeare’s audience to a more courageous love, where chastity is a faithful heart, not a flaunted status symbol: “I will begin the fashion, less without and more within.”

In a blind chaste test, 3 out of 4 women preferred Posthumus
In a blind chaste test, three out of four women preferred Posthumus

 

Shakespeare not only explores the hypocrisy of chastity testing and daughterly duty, but the exhausting demands of unwanted attention. Imogen’s suitor, Cloten, seeks to win her by conventional expressions of love, serenading her with music to make her obligated. Tellingly, he describes this wooing as battle – “I have assailed her with musics” – urging his fiddlers and singer “if you can penetrate her with your fingering, so we’ll try with tongue too” to emphasize the violation of his unconsensual serenading. If she yields, Imogen betrays Posthumus. If she remains silent, her silence will be taken for yielding. Finally, she is provoked into telling Cloten that she hates him, that if every hair of his head were a man like him, she would prefer Posthumus’ rags to the lot of them. Cloten takes this insult as provocation to plot the rape of Imogen. There’s just no escaping the bind of his manacle of love. At least, not until he tries that arrogant attitude on a man, and gets his head lopped off. Gotta love Will. A fiery Helen Mirren dominates, as she battles through Shakespeare’s chastity gauntlet. If only her exasperated “but that you shall not say I yield, being silent, I would not speak” felt less familiar to today’s woman.

 By the finale, the Queen and Cloten, heartless plotters of murder and rape, are dead. But what of Posthumus, whose insecurity would enable a stranger to rape his wife? What of Cymbeline, shocked at his own wife’s lovelessness, but demanding loveless marriage for his daughter? What of Belarius, honest warrior but paternity fraudster? What of Iochimo, self-loathing “tainter” of womankind? Forgiveness is their punishment, conscience their natural judge. Though Iochimo stole Imogen’s “manacle of love” as false proof of her infidelity, he accepts his heart must bleed in its trap. Karma’s a bitch. Britons make voluntary peace with Romans. King Cymbeline declares: “pardon’s the word… to all!” After recalling his greatest tragedies, Shakespeare suggests that all could end well, if men loved without defensive cowardice. “Some griefs are med’cinable.” Rising to such newfound greatness of heart, King Cymbeline describes himself as becoming “mother.” William Shakespeare: feminist punk?

Aren't double standards some bullshit, for sooth?
Aren’t double standards some bullshit, for sooth?

 

See also at Bitch Flicks: What Shakespeare Can Teach Us About Rape Culture, Helen Mirren stars in Julie Taymor’s Gender-bent The Tempest

 

Brigit McCone can rant for days about how misunderstood Lady Macbeth is. She writes and directs short films and radio dramas. Her hobbies include doodling and working “a breach in nature for ruin’s wasteful entrance” into everyday conversation.

 

Captain Uhura Snub: The Politics of Ava DuVernay’s Oscar

It is appropriate, when celebrating the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr., to recall Dr. King’s words to Nichelle Nichols, as she considered quitting ‘Star Trek’ in frustration at the limitations of her role: “You can’t leave!… For the first time on television, we are being seen as we should be seen every day. As intelligent, quality, beautiful people … who can go into space.” Dr. King’s words show that he clearly understood the value of a token image, as a symbol, a precedent and a possibility model for future progress.

Written by Brigit McCone as part of our theme week on the Academy Awards.

After seeing Selma, I’ve finally stopped yelling “Ava DuVernay was robbed! Robbed, I tell you!” long enough to jot down some thoughts. Let’s be clear: Ava DuVernay was robbed because her work on Selma turns familiar history into a gripping story, humanizes Martin Luther King Jr. while honoring his legacy, and captures the sweep of history without sacrificing the resonance of individual lives. It was inspirational history, the kind the Oscars typically reward, executed with supreme skill. Though her representation of L.B.J. was criticized, DuVernay’s characterization accurately reflected his wider shift from obstructing to supporting civil rights, while taking artistic liberties with the timeline of that shift. If Ron Howard could win Best Director for the blatantly inaccurate A Beautiful Mind, DuVernay was obviously due a nomination for Selma. Minimum.

Not pictured: Steve McQueen and Kathryn Bigelow
Not pictured: Steve McQueen and Kathryn Bigelow

 

It is because DuVernay’s work was brilliant, beyond her race and gender, that we must ask why a Black woman was snubbed. Did 12 Years A Slave‘s triumph at the 2014 Oscars influence the snubbing of Selma‘s director and actors? Recall Kathryn Bigelow’s win for Best Director in 2010. The moment Barbra Streisand stepped out to present the award, it was clear Bigelow’s name would be called. Though Bigelow’s acceptance speech never referenced being the first woman to win, Streisand’s presence shrieked, “It was time we gave it to a woman,” even as the hypermasculine Hurt Locker hardly challenged the Academy’s preference for male stories. Or recall 2001, when Denzel Washington and Halle Berry made their historic wins at the same ceremony as Sidney Poitier’s lifetime achievement award, a synchronicity that shrieked “It was time we gave it to Black performers,” threatening to overshadow Washington and Berry’s individual excellence. The Academy is not exactly subtle in framing minority wins as token gestures. If Bigelow resisted the symbolism of her win, Berry embraced it, using her speech to honor Dorothy Dandridge, Lena Horne, Diahann Carroll, Jada Pinkett, Angela Bassett, Vivica Fox, and Oprah Winfrey. Tokenism is uncomfortable, but it’s still visibility. Tokens are symbols, precedents and possibility models (as Laverne Cox might put it). If we read Oscars partly as tokens, the question arises: was Ava DuVernay snubbed because, as a Black woman, the Oscars of Steve McQueen and Kathryn Bigelow collectively represented her category?

The African American feminist Ana Julia Cooper wrote “Women versus the Indian” in 1891, criticizing white suffragettes who viewed women as a separate category, in competition with racial minorities for their rights (see also Sojourner Truth’s “Ar’nt I a Woman?”). Those who mentally isolate categories of oppression seek to maximize mainstream approval in their choice of spokesperson: the straight man of color for racial justice; the white, cis woman for feminism; the white, straight-acting gay man for LGBT causes. Each individual choice of “representative” collectively upholds the overall superiority of the straight, white male perspective (add wealthy, educated, able-bodied etc.). Because this pattern channels subversive impulses into a collective reinforcement of dominant ideology, dominant culture rewards it. One symptom is the repeated use of white women and Black men to collectively represent Black women – “the Captain Uhura snub.”

Not pictured: Captains Sisko and Janeway
Not pictured: Captains Sisko and Janeway

 

It is appropriate, when celebrating the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr., to recall Dr. King’s words to Nichelle Nichols, as she considered quitting Star Trek in frustration at the limitations of her role: “You can’t leave!… For the first time on television, we are being seen as we should be seen every day. As intelligent, quality, beautiful people … who can go into space.” Dr. King’s words show that he clearly understood the value of a token image, as a symbol, a precedent and a possibility model for future progress.

Nichelle Nichols’ Lieutenant Nyota Uhura should be an icon to every woman who is underemployed and unappreciated at work. Her mouth said, “Klingons on line one, Captain,” but her eyes said, “I should be running this place.” Within the limitations of her role, representing both token Black lieutenant and token woman, and thereby freeing a seat for another white guy, Nichols took every opportunity to demonstrate Uhura’s intelligence, charisma, courage and sex appeal. When allowed to banter with Spock, in scenes that inspired their romantic relationship in JJ Abrams’ reboot, Uhura revealed herself to be Spock’s respected intellectual equal, with the skills to man the helm, navigation and science station if needed. In combat with Mirror!Sulu, she revealed potential as an action heroine, anticipating Pam Grier (whose groundbreaking stardom in blaxploitation inspired a trend of white action heroines, instead of mainstream opportunities for Pam Grier). Uhura was cool under pressure and commanding. Though the original Star Trek‘s “Turnabout Intruder” episode claimed that women were not emotionally capable of captaincy, Uhura disproved that claim on the animated (and female-authored) “The Lorelei Signal.”

In time, society progressed and its vision of the future evolved. Dr. King’s dream of television normalizing inspirational Black leadership came true for the Trekverse, when Captain Ben Sisko of Deep Space Nine took command, combining professional skill with hands-on fathering. The aspirations of feminists paid off when Kate Mulgrew’s swashbuckling Janeway helmed Voyager. But while evolution in Star Trek‘s racial and feminist politics produced a few token promotions of Uhura’s rank, it left her marginalized supporting role unchanged. Zoe Saldana’s Uhura occupies roughly the same position in Star Trek reboots as Nichelle Nichols did on the original show. Black women can be judges, police chiefs, or politicians on our screens, at statistically disproportionate rates, but only in tokenist supporting roles that serve to discredit the reality of discrimination. When the time comes for diversity among aspirational heroes, those heroes become white women and Black men. That, in a nutshell, is the Captain Uhura snub, the intersectional finger trap of representation politics. Nichols herself aged regally and with no diminishing of spirit in the later Star Trek films, but Sisko and Janeway substitute for the unique icon that Nichols’ Captain Uhura could have been, not only as a Black woman but as a woman who  paid her dues in limited and sexualized roles before showing what she was capable of. Voyager drew a sharp line between the asexual (or rather, not overtly sexualized) competence of Janeway and the spandex-clad sex-bot Seven of Nine. Captain Uhura would have straddled that line, challenging the assumed incompatibility of being a sexual object with being an aspirational hero.

Not pictured: Captain Marvel and Black Panther
Not pictured: Captain Marvel and Black Panther   

 

Ororo Munroe, a.k.a. Storm, is an icon. As a member of the X-Men, she fights for the rights of the mutant minority, against those who fear what they cannot understand. As an ally (and sometime wife) of Black Panther, she defends the sovereignty of Wakanda against colonial forces. Oh, and she also flies, bends the elements to her will and shoots lightning. 20th Century Fox owns the rights to X-Men, so Marvel Studios cannot be directly blamed for scheduling Captain Marvel  and Black Panther to headline instead of Ororo (though they can easily be blamed for taking a decade to produce diverse superhero films). But upcoming plans to film starring vehicles for Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel have put female superheroes on the agenda. Why hasn’t this prompted 20th Century Fox to greenlight a solo outing for Wind-rider Storm, despite the rich source material of Greg Pak’s popular solo comics and the fact that the woman shoots lightning? Storm’s role in Bryan Singer’s X-Men franchise screamed “Lieutenant Uhura,” providing visible diversity while being constantly marginalized by the plot. Pak has the last word: “Storm’s the embodiment of fierce, raw power – and deep abiding empathy. She’s the most powerful woman in the Marvel Universe — incredibly exciting and elemental — even dangerous.” Movie, please. 

Not pictured: Richard Pryor and Joan Rivers
Not pictured: Richard Pryor and Joan Rivers

 

In an earlier post, I discussed evidence for regarding Loretta Mary Aiken, better known as Moms Mabley, as the pioneer of modern stand-up comedy. Evolving from vaudeville monologues, Jackie Mabley was nicknamed “Moms” because of her nurturing attitude to other performers. Her tackling of taboo topics such as race, gender, sexual double standards, poverty, and substance abuse, defined the truth-telling role we associate with the art of stand-up today. Moms herself said that everyone stole from her apart from Redd Foxx, and she was older than Redd, too.

In particular, Richard Pryor and Joan Rivers, many decades younger than Mabley, both recognized her as a major influence. In pop culture, Pryor is often hailed as the “Godfather of Comedy.” The tendency of Black comedians to recognize Pryor as the most significant pioneer of Black comedy comes at the expense of Pryor’s own acknowledged debt to Mabley, as does the tendency of feminists to cite Joan Rivers as the groundbreaking pioneer of female stand-up. Moms is often totally omitted from lists of top stand-ups, despite her claim to being the original. These choices of “representative” diminish the unique contribution of Moms Mabley, and the visibility of Black women as innovators of world culture. 

Not pictured: Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton
Not pictured: Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton

 

As we prepare for Barack Obama to step down from the U.S. presidency, all indicators point to the next Democratic nominee being a white woman, with Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Warren as the frontrunners. When we celebrate womankind finally getting their shot at global leadership (Angela Merkel aside), let us take a moment to remember the candidacy of Shirley Chisholm (not to mention that Ana Julia Cooper should clearly have been running the country in the 1890s).

A founding member of the 1971 National Women’s Political Caucus, as well as the first Black congresswoman, Chisholm actively mentored an all-female staff, took political stands in favor of reproductive rights and against the Vietnam war, and fought against social exclusion on the basis of class, race and gender. Her political philosophy may be summarized by her 1972 presidential campaign slogan: “Unbought and Unbossed.” She was the first woman to win delegates for a major party nomination and the first Black candidate to run on a major party ticket. Chisholm’s voting record shows exceptional integrity and political courage, matched by the intelligence and determination to rise from a background of poverty and intersectional discriminations. Chisholm was an exemplary candidate. The fact that her career trajectory – breaking boundaries for both women and Black candidates before being snubbed for leadership – mirrors a fictional Star Trek character, hints at the power of the collective imagination to shape reality.

 

Change will come. After establishing her reputation with Grey’s Anatomy, which introduced a dynamic, multiracial cast behind the commercial appeal of white protagonists, Meredith Grey and Dr. McDreamy, Shonda Rhimes has created compelling, multi-faceted Black heroines (or antiheroines) who dominate Scandal and How To Get Away With Murder. Whoopi Goldberg has directed a documentary on Moms Mabley, while Shola Lynch directed one about Shirley Chisholm’s presidential bid. Last year, directors Amma Asante and Gina Prince-Bythewood offered Gugu Mbatha-Raw starring roles as fully realized protagonists. But these are all examples of Black women directors, fighting alone for better screen representations. Yes, Ava DuVernay has demonstrated talent and ambition with Selma that cannot be destroyed by a mere Oscar snub. Yes, she will probably continue to make great films until her achievements are officially recognized (am I the only one rooting for a biopic of Queen Nzinga starring Lupita Nyong’o?). But it’s high time that the “progressive” mainstream, from the Academy to Star Trek to white feminist commentators, started opening doors without waiting for them to be beaten down.

"Open a hailing frequency, Mr. Kirk"
“Open a hailing frequency, Mr. Kirk”

 

Brigit McCone reckons Ranavalona of Madagascar should be the next epic Shonda Rhimes antiheroine. She writes and directs short films and radio dramas. Her hobbies include doodling and shouting at the television on Oscar night.

‘Ex Machina’ and ‘Her’: Dude, the Internet’s Just Not That Into You

‘Ex Machina’ and ‘Her,’ by contrast, are uncomfortably searching explorations of the hetero-male fear of, and emotional need for, women, that feel like self-scrutiny. By replacing women with female images that are literally constructions of male fantasy, the films offer no distractions from probing the heroes’ own psychology. These guys are not chauvinazis. They are the real deal.

A Step Forwards Or Stepfordwards?
A Step Forward Or Stepfordward?

Written by Brigit McCone. 

There are enough similarities between the new release Ex_Machina and Spike Jonze’s 2013′ Oscar-winner Her to herald the birth of a minor genre, which I hereby dub “dude, the Internet’s just not that into you.” It bears some relation to the “female autonomy horror” genre of films like Lucy and Gone Girl, in which a woman’s being inscrutable, uncontrollable and smarter than the hero is associated with her being threatening, coldly emotionless, violent and/or Scarlett Johansson. It bears some relation to the “dude, porn and/or Scarlett Johansson’s just not that into you” romcom of Don Jon. It might even be connected with the “dude, Scarlett Johansson’s cold inscrutability is becoming autonomous, kill her with fire” genre of Under the Skin. There’s a trend here, is what I’m saying. Compare 1975 feminist classic The Stepford Wives, with its radical concept that a woman being compliant and robotic was a creepy thing. Surely, moving from a horror of female robots to a horror of female autonomy is a step backward for womankind? So why do these films, Ex Machina and Her, feel like a step forward? The answer is their honesty about male psychology.

The men of The Stepford Wives are classic straw chauvinists (or “chauvinazis”). Any man would feel good about his own tolerance for women after watching that film. That might be excused if the film were exaggerating the chauvinazis’ evil to express female perceptions of male mastery. It is not. The Stepford Wives was written by Ira Levin and William Goldman, and directed by Bryan Forbes. Not a vagina among the lot of them. It condemns a crowd of chauvinazis, whose perspective the film’s male authors wish to separate themselves from, in the name of a female perspective that they also don’t share. Ex Machina and Her, by contrast, are uncomfortably searching explorations of the hetero-male fear of, and emotional need for, women, that feel like self-scrutiny. By replacing women with female images that are literally constructions of male fantasy, the films offer no distractions from probing the heroes’ own psychology. These guys are not chauvinazis. They are the real deal.

It would be nice if the insecurities of an archetypal “nagging wife” got the same sensitive exploration as those of Her‘s Theodore and Ex Machina‘s Caleb, because they are rooted in the same universal dilemma: it is impossible for someone to choose to be with you, without having power to leave you; it is impossible to love another without giving them power to hurt you. Olivia Wilde’s blind date does express this insecurity in Her, but far less sympathetically than the hero. Theodore’s friend Amy, however, is allowed to express frustration with her husband’s controlling behaviour, guilt and relief over their separation, without judgement, while Theodore builds empathy by playing her sarcastic “Perfect Mom” simulations. Jonze’s male feminist cred is solid. He hilariously embodies macho peer pressure as a squeaky, shrunken, foul-mouthed video-game character, while praising the hero’s femininity is a compliment. Theodore’s job, “beautifulhandwrittenletters.com”, reminds us that issues of emotional authenticity are a timeless human dilemma; Theodore is cyber-Cyrano de Bergerac. Here’s why the men of The Stepford Wives are laughably phony straw chauvinists: they are emotionally unrecognizable in their satisfaction with cold simulations of affection. From limitless porn to the interactivity of cam girls, from impossible hentai scenarios to Craigslist Casual Encounters, the internet offers men everything except emotional authenticity, yet most crave more than such cyber-Stepford. Society’s irrational hostility to porn performers stems partly from the rage of being given what we asked for, instead of what we wanted. Her and Ex Machina are a step forward, not Stepfordward, because they acknowledge that female autonomy is essential to male romantic satisfaction. At the same time, they recognize this as the source of its terror. This is not the (female-authored) “female autonomy horror” of Gone Girl, so much as “male vulnerability horror.”

Is she for real?
Is she for real?

The plot of Ex Machina is simple enough: young, ambitious programmer Caleb is summoned to eccentric genius Nathan’s isolated mansion, where Nathan has been designing a female cyborg, called AVA, whose artificial intelligence derives from the input of his massively successful social network (Google-meets-Facebook, basically). Caleb’s job is to test AVA, to see if she is actually conscious or only a robotic simulation of thought and feeling. In the process, he finds himself attracted to her. There’s a lot going on beneath this simple set-up, from the philosophy of consciousness to the privacy issues raised by social media, but writer-director Alex Garland’s decision to embody the Internet as an attractive woman puts the theme of cyber-Stepford front and centre.

Oscar Isaac’s deliciously douchey, scene-stealing Nathan regards the creation of autonomous, thinking life as an act of conquest, part of the empowerment fantasy of godhood expressed by his chronic urge to control his surroundings. To achieve his ultimate fantasy, Nathan must create a woman who can respond to him, interact and be amusingly unpredictable, without unpredictably escaping Nathan’s control. Gradually, we learn that Caleb has been summoned to interrogate AVA because she refuses to cooperate with Nathan. AVA, like all her previous prototypes, loathes Nathan for imprisoning her. Nathan and his prototypes represent the escalating spirals of abusive relationships; the insecurity that drives the abuser to control their victim also deprives that victim of the freedom to demonstrate voluntary attraction. The abuser’s inability to confirm attraction intensifies their insecurities, while rendering them ever less attractive by their increasingly controlling behaviour. Rinse and repeat. In Ex Machina, Nathan’s controlling psychology breeds a twisted, claustrophobic, and darkly fascinating dynamic.

Douche Ex Machina
Douche Ex Machina

Caleb, by contrast, is an essentially decent guy, achingly akin (or akin in his aching) to Her‘s Theodore. Domhnall Gleeson is impressive in a demanding role, where the audience’s attention is repeatedly drawn to Caleb’s involuntary microexpressions as indicators of his sincere feelings, which AVA can read like a lie detector. Because Gleeson succeeds in performing social awkwardness, defensiveness, loneliness and longing with a restraint that reads as sincere, right down to his microexpressions, the film pulls off its shift from examining AVA’s inner life to exploring Caleb’s. Alicia Vikander’s skilled performance as AVA is plausibly attractive in its doe-eyed warmth, but admirably nails “uncanny valley” by becoming creepier the closer Vikander gets to being visually human. This is an impressive feat when your performer actually is a human – by the time Vikander stands fully fleshed before a mirror, she is as indefinably skin-crawling as Scarlett Johansson in Under the Skin.

Because our Caleb is a good guy, he cannot love AVA without striving to release her, even at the potential cost of a Terminator/Matrix–style machine apocalypse. But the film is smart enough to question whether Caleb wants to release AVA for her own sake, or as part of his rescuer fantasy that requires her to reward him sexually and romantically. When boss Nathan reveals, apparently casually, that AVA is designed to be penetrable and experience pleasurable stimulation in sex, Caleb and the audience are primed for a sexual climax, either Blade Runner conquest (the scene where Caleb slices his arm to check he’s human nods to Decker-is-a-replicant conspiracy theories) or Fifth Element awakening. After all, expecting a sexual reward for risking the safety of the world is not incompatible with Hollywood’s definition of a Nice Guy, but inseparable from it.

Indie Average Joe and the Erection of Doom
Indie Average Joe and the Erection of Doom

Ex Machina is an effectively eerie and tense psychological thriller, sustained by a trio of  excellent performances. If you want to check it out, I highly recommend doing so before reading this MASSIVE SPOILER.

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Still here? At the film’s climax, AVA escapes, is forced to kill Nathan for her own survival and locks Caleb in her former prison before walking out into the world. She has taken no visible pleasure in killing Nathan or imprisoning Caleb, but blossoms into a smile when she sees the outdoors for the first time. She is frightening to us, not because she has revealed sadistic cruelty, but because she has revealed herself to be unknowable. This ending reveals the paradox of power at the heart of abusive relationships: the abuser is made predictable by the self-exposure of abusive behavior, while the abused becomes conversely less predictable. Because her behavior was constrained by the need to manipulate her abusers to survive, nothing that AVA did reflected her true feelings. It is Nathan’s efforts to protect himself that have revealed him in all his (douchey) human frailty, creating an unknowable god in AVA that rises triumphant from his machinations.

As Nathan tells Caleb, while they test AVA for sincere feeling, there remains that elusive third option: she may be capable of love, but still choosing to simulate her love for Caleb. Ex Machina‘s ending thus reveals nothing about whether AVA is capable of empathy, nothing about whether she is conscious or simulating symptoms of consciousness with predictive algorithms, nothing about whether she is going to render humanity obsolete with an army of robot replicants or just wander off to look at a tree somewhere. An hour of witnessing abusive tests and invasive scrutiny has taught the audience (and her captors) absolutely squat about this woman/cyborg’s subjectivity but, in releasing AVA, we make our first genuine discovery: she is utterly uninterested in Caleb. She does not care whether he lives, but is equally uninterested in torturing him or watching him die. She has no interest in talking to him, when not forced to do so for her liberation. Despite her pleasure-programmed cyber-vagina, she has no interest in awakening her humanity through sexual exploration with Caleb. There is really no possible way that she could demonstrate less interest in our sensitive hero. His desire for her makes him vulnerable. Her indifference makes her free. Autonomy is a bitch.

In contrast to the unknowable AVA, our hero Caleb has revealed himself to be utterly predictable and transparent. Like the Jackson Pollock that hangs symbolically in Nathan’s office, his actions have been shaped by patterns below the level of his conscious intent, more visible to onlookers than to himself. His attraction to AVA could be engineered by Nathan, from a compilation of Caleb’s porn searches. His need to rescue AVA is a hardwired response of his romantic drive. Would Caleb take such risks to release AVA if he were not attracted to her? If he would not, then isn’t it justice that he should take her place because she is not attracted to him? If she doesn’t tip off rescuers before Caleb starves to death, his punishment will surely be excessive. But if we are seduced by Gleeson’s vulnerability into believing that AVA owes him a romantic reward for her basic freedom, or we believe that the operating system Samantha is at fault for out-evolving Her‘s Theodore, we become cyber-misogynists.

The viewer’s instinctive bias toward the human hero, over the unknowable robot perspective, mirrors the sexist bias of those men who view women as fundamentally alien, even while craving their approval. The cool thing about Her is that it explores how an intelligent being can become elusive and emotionally estranged without trickery or deliberate cruelty, but the cool thing about Ex Machina is that it recognizes that there is no possible way to interrogate and control an intelligent being without becoming their abuser. Rooted in defensive emotional vulnerability, these films are frighteningly insidious, familiar and relatable, when compared to the reassuringly inhuman chauvinazism of Stepford. Digging deep, directors Alex Garland and Spike Jonze have struck the raw nerve from which controlling impulses flow. The horror was human all along.

Female autonomy: it's like kicking a puppy
Female autonomy: it’s like kicking a puppy

 

Brigit McCone struggles with asserting feminist autonomy when given the puppy eyes, writes and directs short films and radio dramas. 

Blurred Lines: The Cinematic Appeal of Rape Fantasy

While Whore stigma is gradually declining, kinky desires remain stigmatized, especially in women. By vocally disowning that desire, “Madonna” Anastasia Steele qualifies herself to serve as an avatar for readers who struggle to acknowledge and integrate their sexual urges. The “displaced consent” model of rape fantasy may be recognized, and distinguished from the “sexual assawwwlt” model, by its masterful Ice Prince hero, whose full control is essential to eliminating the heroine’s responsibility.

FiftyShades

Trigger Warning: Detailed discussion of rape apologism (and some explicit reference to Robin Thicke)

The Myth Of Male Power by Warren Farrell (PhD, of course) is arguably the intellectual foundation of Men’s Rights Activism (MRA). It is also notorious for its rape apologism, using female fondness for fictional rape fantasy to argue that men should not be prosecuted for date rape, as long as they are “trying to become her fantasy.” For the record, I don’t believe rape fantasies cause rape. In the real world, desire is not so easily misunderstood. What rape fantasy does feed, as Farrell illustrates, is rape apologism. Our cultural models of “romanticized rape” shape the excuses of rapists and encourage their general acceptance. We might respond by pointing out that women consent to rape fantasy automatically, just by imagining it, by turning the pages as they read or by opening their eyes to watch on-screen. Since rape fantasy is consensual, it has nothing in common with the violation of actual rape. But with the often coercive “romance” of Fifty Shades of Grey set to rule the box office, now is a good time to ask: what actually is the cinematic appeal of rape fantasy?

 

 

Gone With The Wind: Putting the “awww” in Sexual Assawwwlt

 [youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRxfZHr3AxY” title=”GWTW%20marital%20rape%20scene”]

 

Rhett Butler threatens to crush his wife’s skull, declares “this is one night you’re not turning me out” then carries her upstairs, visibly struggling. Cut to Scarlett awakening the next morning with smiling pleasure. Her husband threatened to kill her, declared his intention to rape her while she protested, yet she is shown waking up happy the following day. Like Fifty Shades of Grey, this is an adaptation of a female author’s book, cited as sexual fantasy by many female viewers. What’s going on?

Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind mirrors classic interpretations of Wuthering Heights‘ romance – like Linton, Ashley represents the heroine’s social aspirations, while Rhett mirrors Heathcliff as her primal, resisted passion. This must be understood within a wider tendency by female-authored texts to reject their primary object of desire, which I’ve previously examined for Jane Austen’s Unsuitable Suitor and the “Wolf” of SARCom. In response to such rejection, Twilight‘s Jacob Black forces a long kiss on heroine Bella Swann. Buffy‘s spurned “Wolves,” Spike and hyena-possessed Xander, both attempt to rape Buffy.

This rape-as-romantic-desperation trope echoes the emotional vulnerability of Rhett Butler’s marital rape, where he finally confesses jealousy and desire for Scarlett. As Rhett threatens to crush Scarlett’s skull, the gesture emphasizes his powerlessness to control her thoughts and emotions. Though his role is brutal, supposedly excused by drunkenness, the scene actually affirms Scarlett’s emotional power: he attempts to intimidate her, but cannot; he acknowledges his craving for her emotional approval and his inability to secure it. Treating sexual assault as emotional surrender is the defining feature of this category of rape fantasy, the “awww” in the “sexual assawwwlt.” Because Rhett is the primary love interest, Scarlett’s resistance is a demonstration of emotional power, not lack of desire, as her satisfaction the following morning demonstrates. She is the avatar of female viewers, who both desire Rhett and desire power over Rhett. Our culture views sex as male conquest and female surrender, but “sexual assawwwlt” flips that script: it is female conquest through emotional withholding, provoking a rape that affirms male emotional powerlessness.

The cultural concept of “female sexual power” was born in 411 B.C., with the sex boycott plot of Aristophanes’ comedy Lysistrata. At the time, this was amusing partly because women were understood to have ten times the lust of men. The female fertility cults of Demeter practiced ritual obscenity, the first known sex manual was authored by Philaenis, daughter of Okymenes, and Sappho wrote nine volumes of lesboerotic poetry, all acknowledged literary classics. These expressions of female-authored sexual culture were wiped out by patriarchs of the early christian church. However, the male-authored Lysistrata‘s model of empowerment-through-sexual-resistance survived. “The Rules of Love,” laid down by Eleanor of Aquitaine’s Courts of Love in the 12th Century, included “an easy attainment makes love contemptible” and “jealousy is absolutely required by love.” Eleanor’s influential “Rules of Love” represent an aristocratic female response to social powerlessness, diverting frustration into a sadistic model of love as gratifying empowerment, rather than as emotional fulfillment. Margaret Mitchell’s depicting Scarlett as empowered by her own rape thus reflects over 2,000 years of ideology promoting sexual resistance as an expression of female power. This “female power” of sexual resistance is a poisoned chalice: by separating resistance-as-power from resistance-as-reluctance, it justifies rape as the only way to satisfy female desire, while diverting women from actual social empowerment. “Female sexual power” thus feeds rape apologism and demands male telepathy – a practice best confined to fiction.

 

 

 Fifty Shades of Grey: Madonna’s Like A Virgin

 [youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JMg9InBcgE”]

          If “sexual assawwwlt” represents female sexual conquest, then the “displaced consent” of Fifty Shades of Grey represents disowned responsibility. In E. L. James’ book, Anastasia Steele expresses unwillingness and reluctance to engage in BDSM with Christian, while her consent is detached and embodied as the infamous “inner goddess.” Again, a key to understanding can be found in Jane Austen. Writing at a time of intense Whore stigma, where expressions of female sexuality were harshly punished by the withdrawal of social protection, Austen repeatedly created plots in which the heroine resists her attraction to the Unsuitable Suitor while another woman, usually a female relative, abandons social protection and elopes with him. This constant repetition suggests that the “Whore” relative represents the displaced sex drive of the “Madonna” heroine, an “inner Lydia” comparable to Anastasia Steele’s “inner goddess.” While Whore stigma is gradually declining, kinky desires remain stigmatized, especially in women. By vocally disowning that desire, “Madonna” Anastasia Steele qualifies herself to serve as an avatar for readers who struggle to acknowledge and integrate their sexual urges. The “displaced consent” model of rape fantasy may be recognized, and distinguished from the “sexual assawwwlt” model, by its masterful Ice Prince hero, whose full control is essential to eliminating the heroine’s responsibility. The classic “Ice Prince” of teen SARCom is emotionally intense, but sexually unavailable; E. L. James titillates readers by adapting Twilight‘s sexually unavailable “Ice Prince” Edward into the emotionally unavailable, but sexually intense, Christian Grey.

Compare the earlier Secretary, Erin Cressida Wilson’s adaptation of Mary Gaitskill’s story: the heroine Lee actively requests and provokes the domination of her boss, Mr. Grey, and is depicted in solo acts of masochism and masturbation that clarify her independent desire for BDSM. In BDSM practice, it is the submissive who ultimately controls the play through safe-words and consent, an ironic “paradox of power.” In Fifty Shades of Grey, however, the book’s BDSM negotiations are utterly undermined by Anastasia’s inability to sign or renegotiate Christian’s contracts, due to her disavowal of kinky desire. For sharp analysis of the book’s resulting abusive elements, from the perspective of a practising submissive, see Cliff Pervocracy’s reviews, while E. L. James’ own interviews exemplify covert desire and reinforce norms of respectability politics: “I am fascinated by BDSM, and fascinated as to why anyone would want to be in this lifestyle. Don’t get me wrong – I think it’s as hot as hell, and find Doms hot as hell. I met this guy recently who is a Dom… well… ‘nuff said about that – but he was fucked-up.”

Female director Sam Taylor-Johnson is apparently trying to minimize the book’s disavowal of desire, by emphasizing Dakota Johnson’s lustful facial expressions as nonverbal cues for Jamie Dornan’s Christian. His line “I like to see your face. It gives me some clue what you might be thinking” is prominent in the official trailer. But fangirls now rushing to pre-book tickets are expecting, and will demand, faithfulness to the source novel, including Anastasia’s open reluctance to enter a D/s relationship and her refusal to sign or renegotiate Christian’s contract, which deny her power of consent. E. L. James’ book also shares Gone With The Wind‘s trope of using a sexually aggressive, non-white man to provoke white male heroic protectiveness, suggesting a correlation between mainstream rape fantasy and conservative ideology. How will Taylor-Johnson tackle that? Should we support female directors regardless?

Culture’s association of sexual resistance with (white) respectability, and with (white) entitlement to social protection, acts to detach sexual resistance from lack of desire. Yet, just as Austen’s heroes cannot actually marry both the girl of their dreams and the random female relative who represents her sex drive, a hero’s being justified in forcing himself on an unwilling woman, because her consenting inner goddess is hovering like a sexual Great Gazoo, is equally unrealistic. The seduction of Anastasia may be compared to the seductions of Brad and Janet in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, a rare example of the “displaced consent” trope being unisex, as Brad and Janet’s desire is clear in their visible pleasure at “giving in,” while their vocal resistance reflects social inhibitions and fear of losing status. Janet is shown to be liberated by her coercive seduction, embracing her desires in sex-positive anthem “touch-a, touch-a, touch me,”  while Brad caresses his fetish gear and croons, “I feel se-exy!” However, Rocky Horror‘s flamboyant absurdism helps to underline the fantasy aspect of this rape fantasy, as a hypothetical mental experiment in gender and sexual fluidity. Kids, don’t try this at home.

 

 “Blurred Lines”: Male Readings Of Rape Fantasy

 

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyDUC1LUXSU”]

 

Like its female equivalent, mainstream male rape fantasy centres on forcing the acknowledgement of suppressed female desire. The fact that dominant culture continues to interpret women’s sexual resistance as unconnected to any lack of desire, may be seen in the huge popularity of Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines.” While Thicke’s lyrics include consent-positive lines like “go ahead, get at me,” the feminist backlash highlights the damaging impact of invalidating sexual resistance, not to mention Thicke’s creepy delivery (catchy hook, though).

There is no denying that degrading porn (porn focussed on humiliation rather than pleasure) appeals to misogynist men and to sexual predators, but is that all it does? Can its full popularity, dominating the ratings of porn aggregate sites, really be explained only by a widespread sexual hatred lurking in most men? I suggest that comparison with the female model of “sexual assawwwlt” offers a more complex reading. The male porn performer, like Scarlett O’Hara, is not a direct expression of desire but an avatar of sexual frustration. Popular porn is shaped by commercial pressure; to cater to the male viewer’s resentment of the female performer’s unavailability (to him personally), the male performer must paradoxically punish that sexual unavailability while having sex with her. Compare Gone With The Wind‘s urge to punish Rhett Butler’s emotional unavailability, while he’s being emotionally vulnerable. I suggest that cinematic sexual fantasy can only be understood through this contradictory duality: performers represent their characters’ sexual fulfillment, while simultaneously being avatars for the viewer’s conflicting sexual frustration. These dual pressures shape dysfunctional models for imitation.

As long as the performers are willing and comfortable, there is nothing wrong with a purely cinematic rape fantasy, or with the intense trust of consensual BDSM power exchange, that confront inhibitions while cathartically venting sexual frustrations. However, we must recognize the roots of rape fantasy in a toxic sexual culture that stigmatizes female lust and imagines female consent as disempowering surrender. Fantasy is as good a way as any to explore the resulting tensions between power and desire. But punishing female inhibition with bodily violation, when that inhibition stems from punishing female sexuality, adds injury to insult before rubbing battery acid on the wound. Films become toxic when they blur the lines of fantasy and reality, leading viewers to mistake expressions of frustration for models of fulfillment.

 

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10YPz0F-KOE”]

 

Brigit McCone is semi-apologetically Team Wolf, writes and directs short films and radio dramas.

Black Widow is More Than Just a Pretty Face in ‘Captain America: The Winter Soldier’

Interestingly and unfortunately, most reviewers have been unable to see this. Her costume is tight, but then so is the captain’s and we are not treated to lingering shots of her butt and cleavage; in fact, most of the time we are looking at her face and not her body. Generally speaking the captain is at least if not more so objectified than she is and yet we do not seem to allow that to interfere with his essential humanity. This is often not the case when it comes to the perception of Johansen’s character. People can’t seem to see past the fact that she wears a cat suit even when she does so much more than look sexy. Like most action movies, this one doesn’t pass the Bechdel test but unlike most action movies it provides us with a female character who is actually a character in her own right.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier was everything I expected and a little more. Captain America has always been the strait-laced cousin to Iron Man and Thor. It doesn’t have the campy good humour that is so delightful about Thor or the kind of brash arrogance that typifies Iron Man.  Captain America is generally the “nice guy” of the Marvel universe. Co-headlining is Scarlett Johansen reprising her role as Natasha Romanoff (alias Black Widow) for this movie. Her character was first introduced to us in the universe in Iron Man 2 where her portrayal was that of a sexed-up femme fatal. However over subsequent movies, particularly The Avengers, she has evolved into a pretty decent three dimensional character.

 

Captain America: The Winter Soldier

The movie opens with Cap, aka Steven Rogers (Chris Evans), and Black Widow having to go rescue some hostages from a covert S.H.I.E.L.D boat that had run afoul of pirates. I was quite excited at first because the pirates spoke French and presented as white to my eyes. “Omg the bad guys aren’t brown people,” I whispered excitedly to my partner. This notion was to be destroyed later when someone said something about “French pirates” to be told something along the lines of ‘They’re Algerian actually.” Oh well, it was nice while it lasted. They are mostly a macguffin anyway. The raid on the boat reveals the fundamental difference between Romanoff and the Cap. He always strives to do what is right while she does what she believes (or is told) is necessary. This is an on-going theme throughout the movie. What is necessary is sometimes not what can be considered morally right, but does that make it any less necessary?

From this point on, it is pretty much what you would expect from a superhero flick. Many fights and explosions held together by a storyline that taps into people’s fears about NSA surveillance and how topical the temptation to trade freedom for security is.  There is some strong messaging about the value of personal liberties and the consequences that can occur when these are overstepped even on the basis of protecting us from what might be lurking out there in the depths.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier also introduces us to another lesser known hero from the Marvel universe, Falcon. Anthony Mackie does a great job and manages to be funny and endearing while also being totally badass. His introduction also provides a much needed perspective about the difficulties soldiers have on their return home, something most action movies don’t touch with a stick. This follows up neatly from Iron Man 3 where Tony Stark was clearly seen to be suffering from mental health consequences from his time in The Avengers. I really appreciate how the Marvel universe movies manage to slip in every now and then that violence is not without consequences to the one who commits it. I really hope we get to see more of Falcon in subsequent Marvel universe movies. It is really great to have the introduction of a super-hero of colour to the film universe and he is a nice addition to the team of Romanoff and Rogers.

Falcon

 

One of the interesting things I have found about the Marvel universe movies is how they play with the heterosexual female gaze. Who can forget the close-up of the Cap’s buttocks while he was working out his frustrations on a punching bag in The Avengers and Thor’s shirtless scenes in both Thor and Thor: The Dark World. In Captain America: The Winter Soldier, The Captain’s body is very much on display. When he is not in uniform he wears an extremely tight white t-shirt that appears to be custom designed to show of each of his muscles. His uniform also appears to be built to highlight his physique.  

captain america wears tight shirt

On the other hand, the movie is blessedly free of a seduction by the Black Widow scene. Unlike in other Marvel movies that she has appeared in (primarily Iron Man 2), she does not need to use her feminine wiles to get her job done. Instead we are treated to a display of Natasha’s tech and problem solving skills. She also kicks ass, Her fighting style tends towards stealthy and efficient in contrast with the Cap’s flashy shield-throwing antics, but that is almost a side note to her intelligence in this movie..

Interestingly and unfortunately, most reviewers have been unable to see this.  Her costume is tight, but then so is the captain’s and we are not treated to lingering shots of her butt and cleavage; in fact, most of the time we are looking at her face and not her body. Generally speaking the captain is at least if not more so objectified than she is and yet we do not seem to allow that to interfere with his essential humanity. This is often not the case when it comes to the perception of Johansen’s character. People can’t seem to see past the fact that she wears a cat suit even when she does so much more than look sexy. Like most action movies, this one doesn’t pass the Bechdel test but unlike most action movies it provides us with a female character who is actually a character in her own right. She doesn’t exist merely to reveal plot points about the captain and provide fodder for the heterosexual male gaze. Black Widow tends to gain unfavourable comparisons to Natalie Portman’s Jane Foster in the Thor movies because Jane is a scientist and doesn’t prance around in skin tight leather. However this is a failure to realise that Romanoff’s leather is a distraction from the quick mind, loyal friend and ruthless agent that she is.  The movie does a great job with providing tantalising details about Natasha’s past, hopefully because they intend to make a stand alone Black Widow movie. I really hope that this is the case because Romanoff is an interesting character that deserves a thorough exploration in her own right.

If you like superhero movies I think that this is one to watch. While the emphasis is definitely on the effects, it also manages to carry a fairly intelligent engaging storyline and entertain throughout.

 

Gaayathri Nair is currently living and writing in Auckland, New Zealand. You can find more of her work at her blog A Human Story and tweet her @A_Gaayathri.

 

The Curse of Token Women in Action Movies – Katee Sackhoff in ‘Riddick’

This reveals one of the key weaknesses of incorporating token women in action movies. Token women are not real characters, they exist to tick boxes so that filmmakers can point to these characters and say “See we aren’t sexist, we had a woman and she even punched a dude in the face!” However because these aren’t real characters they end up being almost exclusively objects for the male gaze and to be fair, for Dahl this was not nearly as bad as it can sometimes be. She has a functional uniform not much different from her male colleagues and she is only subject to a couple of minutes of gratuitous nudity.

Action movies are perhaps the worst and most consistent offenders when it comes to failing the Bechdel Test, a depressingly bare minimum for assessing the female presence in a given film or TV offering. Riddick is no exception; like the other movies in the franchise, it is very much a one man against the world sort of scenario. Previous Riddick movies Pitch Black and The Chronicles of Riddick have at least managed to have interesting women characters. Pitch Black even managed to pass the Bechdel Test.  Sadly Riddick does not even come close as it falls back into the old action movie trap of only having one named female character in a sea of men.

In Riddick, Vin Diesel once again takes on the titular role. It takes place shortly after the end of The Chronicles of Riddick where Riddick was made the Lord Marshal of the Necromongers after having dealt to the previous one due to the Necromonger law of “You keep what you kill.” Over the course of the previous movie, The Chronicles of Riddick, we find out that Riddick is perhaps the sole surviving member of a race called the Furyians and he becomes captivated with the idea of discovering more about the history and demise of his people. Riddick opens with him convincing a Necromonger general to give him the location of his home planet Furya, so that he can go have a nosey. Unsurprisingly he is tricked and ends up on an extremely inhospitable planet all alone struggling to survive. He soon has an urgent need to get off planet when he realises the rain poses a very real threat and so activates a beacon on an abandoned bounty hunter ship that alerts nearby mercenaries to his location. They appear speedily as there is a massive bounty on his head and it is worth double if he is brought in dead.

Ridick 2013

As I watched the first 30 minutes, I was all like, “Huh. They aren’t going to have even a token woman in this movie, interesting.” This would have been sad as the franchise has had some interesting women characters, historically. Then they revealed that one of the mercenary ships had a female prisoner on board. She was cut loose because if they captured Riddick the ship would be overweight. I think she probably had under a minute of screen time that ended with her being shot for sport by the captain of the ship. I suppose it was meant to underscore just how big of a douche the mercenary captain, Santanna, was. However the killing of women on screen to emphasise the evilness of male characters has become so routine that the scene was more mundane than horrifying, we knew she was going to die the moment she was set free. Her death also serves as motivation for Riddick, the unnamed woman was both brown and a prisoner, two things Riddick can identify with I guess. After she is shot we see Riddick looking grim and presumably deciding to kill all of these mercenaries for being heartless assholes toward pretty ladies.

600px-RiddickSniper-2

Clearly by this point it wasn’t looking great for women in this movie. As the second batch of mercenaries arrive we are soon treated to the fact that one of them is Katee Sackhoff, most renowned for playing the tomboyish pilot and complicated woman, Starbuck on Battlestar Galactica. She plays second in command of the second, less vile mercenary ship. Immediately on arrival she is hit on by Santanna in an unsurprisingly crude manner. Her response is to punch him in the face and then tell him that “I don’t fuck guys.” The statement seemed a little out of place and reads as though he is out of line for hitting on her because she is a lesbian, not because it is rude and annoying in a professional context. But OK, I can happily roll with an openly gay heroine on a mainstream action movie even if it is introduced kind of weirdly. Sadly this is as about as good as the character gets. Throughout the rest of the movie she constantly has to use her fists on Santanna, something that actually makes her look ineffectual as a leader, rather than presenting her as an ass-kicking woman as was no doubt intended. Movies seem to have fallen into convenient shorthand where a woman who is able to exact violence on a man is a good female character because she is not a passive victim. This is not the case, a woman can still kick butt (and in this case it is a pretty nominal amount of butt kicking) and still be a terrible female character.

This is reinforced when Dahl is subject to gratuitous shower scene where we see one of her nipples and Riddick leering in from the window; he is trying to steal her toiletry kit, not harm her, but the threat is there. The implication is that he could do anything to her at this point and she would be powerless to stop it. The whole scene serves to underline how vulnerable she is as a woman despite her ability to repeatedly punch Santanna in the face.

katee-sackhoff-riddick

This reveals one of the key weaknesses of incorporating token women in action movies. Token women are not real characters, they exist to tick boxes so that filmmakers can point to these characters and say “See we aren’t sexist, we had a woman and she even punched a dude in the face!” However because these aren’t real characters they end up being almost exclusively objects for the male gaze and to be fair, for Dahl this was not nearly as bad as it can sometimes be. She has a functional uniform not much different from her male colleagues and she is only subject to a couple of minutes of gratuitous nudity.

It does get worse though. When Riddick is captured by the mercenaries, he makes a few predictions, the first is that Santanna will not live for more than five seconds after he is free and the second is that he will end up “balls deep” in Dahl but only after she asks him “real pretty like.” This is pretty gross, but not really surprising in an action movie that revolves around a single hyper-masculine protagonist. What transforms it from pretty gross to slimy homophobic misogynist bullshit is later, when Riddick is stranded on a rock surrounded by many creatures who want to kill him, he is rescued by Dahl from a transporter in a safety harness. He grabs her ass and she says to him, “I have something to ask you, real pretty like…” At the end of the movie Riddick says, “Tell Dahl to keep ‘er warm for me.” This is basically embracing with open arms the myth that every lesbian just hasn’t met the right man. This myth is not only demeaning of a woman’s sexuality, but it is dangerous, it is at least partially responsible for the fact that the incidence of rape for lesbians by men is higher than for women generally. I’m sure people could argue that they are simply joking, but I don’t think that flies in the context that Riddick says to her while making a series of predictions that all come true with grave consequences.

It is hard for me not to wonder, is a token woman in an action movie worse than no woman at all? At least then we would not have to deal with the casual objectification and reinforcement of dangerous myths. Of course that isn’t really the answer–women shouldn’t have to choose between shitty representation and no representation at all. A token woman in an action movie is never a real character; she exists as a box ticking exercise, a device by which we can learn things about male characters and to provide fodder for the male gaze. Obviously not every character in every movie can be fully realised but more often than not these two dimensional parts are the province of women and/or people of colour.  Riddick was no exception to this except perhaps in that Vin Diesel is not really read as white.  I hope that the next movie will return to the roots of the franchise and provide us with female characters of substance and complexity.

 

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Gaayathri is a writer currently located in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, although this is set to change soon. She is the child of diaspora two times over and is passionate about all forms of social justice. She likes to travel and prefers television to movies; however, she feels a strange compulsion to watch all movies that have fish-eating people in them, no matter how terrible they are. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Political Studies from the University of Auckland and she has spent her formative years working at various types of feminist organisations from the community to the regional in both New Zealand and around Asia. Her work has been featured around the feminist blogosphere including Flyover Feminism, Feministe, and Leftstream as well as in United Nations and NGO publications. You can find more of her work at her blog A Human Story and tweet her @A_Gaayathri.

‘Gravity’ and the Impact of Its Unique Female Hero

I was excited to see Gravity for a long time. A female-centric sci-fi film? Yes, please! I adore Sandra Bullock. Even when she stars in shitty movies, I don’t care. I unapologetically love her. While people envision her as a comedian (and yes, she’s incredibly funny), I’ve always thought she had the potential to shine in more serious roles (sidebar, 28 Days is one of my favorite films).

But the best part of Gravity? It offers us a different kind of female hero.

Gravity film

Written by Megan Kearns | Spoilers ahead

I was excited to see Gravity for a long time. A female-centric sci-fi film? Yes, please! I adore Sandra Bullock. Even when she stars in shitty movies, I don’t care. I unapologetically love her. While people envision her as a comedian (and yes, she’s incredibly funny), I’ve always thought she had the potential to shine in more serious roles (sidebar, 28 Days is one of my favorite films).

But the best part of Gravity? It offers us a different kind of female hero.

Haunting and harrowing, Gravity is a gripping cinematic spectacle about astronauts stranded in space. The visual effects are breathtakingly stunning. I can’t stand 3-D. But the visuals were so gorgeous, so crisp, I completely forgot I was watching a 3-D film. The film envelopes you, immersing you into the vast expanse of the star-filled void of space. You feel as if you’re stranded, drifting in space too. Gravity transports the audience to a place most of us will never see.

Gravity doesn’t merely rest on its technical laurels. The dialogue suffers from schmaltz in a couple places but the acting is nuanced and powerful. While George Clooney is his typical charming self as veteran astronaut Matt Kowalski on the brink of retirement, make no mistake. This is Sandra Bullock’s film. The film rests on her shoulders, which she carries with  raw emotion and nuance.

Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) is not a stereotypical female protagonist. Yes, she’s smart. And white. And thin. While those traits make her similar to the majority of women leads, her personality differs. A biomedical engineer on her first mission in space, she’s quiet and reserved. But that shouldn’t make you underestimate or question her strength. Dr. Stone analyzes situations, she uses her ingenuity to figure out solutions to the problems that bombard her in space.

We feel the palpable tension she feels. We feel her anxiety, her panic, her fear. It feels claustrophobic at times as the camera shots sit inside her helmet, as if we too are stranded in the empty abyss of space. We also visually see the camera from her perspective, a tactic that garners greater empathy for her from the audience. We see the world through her eyes.

Gravity film Sandra Bullock

Films often objectify women as sex objects or relegates them to the role of the male protagonist’s wife, mother, sister, lover, sidekick. And yes, the studio tried to give Dr. Stone a love interest (bleh), as if she needs a relationship with a man to define her. When we do see strong women who define themselves, they typically are portrayed as tough badasses kicking ass or wise-cracking or feisty. Don’t get me wrong. I love badasses. I love mouthy, opinionated, angry, tough as nails women. But those shouldn’t be the only kind of female protagonists we see.

It’s unusual to see a female hero who’s frail or vulnerable or even an introvert. Looking at children’s movies, the majority of female protagonists are extroverts. We rarely see a girl who isn’t spunky or gregarious in a leading role. (Although others disagree and insist that we see plenty.) As Natalie Portman recently said, feminism in film is about more than just kicking ass:

“I want [women & men] to be allowed to be weak & strong & happy & sad — human, basically. The fallacy in Hollywood is that if you’re making a “feminist” story, the woman kicks ass & wins. That’s not feminist, that’s macho. A movie about a weak, vulnerable woman can be feminist if it shows a real person that we can empathize with.“

And therein lies the beauty of Dr. Ryan Stone. Not all women leads need to kick ass in order to be strong or complex. We need to see the stories of intelligent, quiet, reserved, vulnerable women too.

We also rarely see a female film hero struggling with depression. Dr. Stone has lost the will to live. Due the tragic death of her daughter, she yearns for silence. Grief swallows her. She tells George Clooney that that’s what she likes best in space. The silence. There’s no chaos. Only peace. He tells her that he gets it as, “there’s nobody up here who can hurt you.” In her life, her routines confine her. She goes to work and then just drives, listening to the radio, a reminder of her daughter. Yet these routines keep her buoyant as she struggles to stay afloat amidst her depression. She’s surviving but not really living.

The film itself becomes a “metaphor for depression, or for grief: untethered and abandoned in a void so large that it boggles the mind, or simply shuts it down.” Dr. Stone drifts and spins out of control, disconnected, echoing the overwhelming feelings of depression. The trauma of child loss in film and television often catalyzes a mother’s journey towards empowerment. In Gravity we witness Dr. Stone’s transformation from a woman consumed by grief and despair, drifting along on a sea of sadness and attempting suicide, into a survivor who yearns and fights to live. By the end of the film, she’s grounded, no longer disconnected.

gravity-detached

There’s a part in the film when I thought, “Oh, here it comes. The ubiquitous scene where a dude comes and rescues her. As if she can’t rescue herself.” Thankfully, I was wrong. Some quibble that it’s a hallucination of Kowalski, so he’s the one who saves her. Nope, it’s all her. Sure he inspired her. But it’s her memory, it’s her imagination.

Now, with a female-centric stranded-in-space sci-fi film, it might be easy to draw comparisons to the queen of survival: Ripley. Both female heroes are stranded in space, both fight to live. Both characters are regular women, both mothers, taking charge in a crisis. Both films feature reproduction themes and motifs: rape and the fear of female reproduction in Alien, womb imagery and rebirth symbolism in Gravity. And both films feature scenes where the female leads remove their protective gear to illustrate their vulnerability. Okay, they do have share a lot of similarities! But here’s where they diverge — Ripley has a ferocity that Ryan Stone does not possess. And that’s a good thing. We need to see myriad female personalities depicted on-screen.

Some have criticized that the film has to humanize Dr. Stone by making her a mother. It’s a fair complaint as most iconic strong female characters in film (Ripley, Sarah Connor, Beatrix Kiddo) are mothers. My fabulous Bitch Flicks colleague Amanda astutely wrote that she encompassed the grieving mother archetype. But Dr. Stone isn’t merely defined by motherhood. Nor do I think her being a mother makes her more palatable to audiences. We see and hear about her career. We accompany her on her emotional journey.

Another reason Dr. Stone as a character matters? We need to see more women scientists on-screen. There are still few women scientists, when compared to the number of men, and female scientists are paid far less than their male colleagues. Young girls aren’t encouraged to participate in STEM fields. They need to see female role models. When Kowalski asks Dr. Stone, “What kind of a name is Ryan?,” she tells him that her father always wanted a boy. It’s a brief gender commentary on how society gives preferential treatment to boys. Dr. Stone works in an extremely male-dominated field. Her father bestowed a masculine name upon her all because he wanted a child of a different gender. This interestingly parallels director Alfonso Cuaron’s own struggle to feature a female protagonist as the studio wanted him to change the lead’s gender. Thankfully, he refused.

Our society sees women as inferior, that everyone aspires to be men. That men do all the awesome, strong things while women serve as pretty décor and accessories to men. Hollywood assumes that only men won’t go see “women’s movies,” whatever the fuck those are (are they films with women sitting around discussing their periods? Wait…I want to see that movie…), while women and men will see films with male protagonists. This is bullshit. People want to see good stories with complex, interesting characters regardless of gender.

Women often have to endure seeing a mediocre or shitty movie with female leads because we desperately yearn to see ourselves represented. Men get to see themselves in myriad iterations in a wide swath of roles. But women are typically relegated to the love interest, damsel in distress or sidekick. Most female film characters don’t shatter gender stereotypes. They rarely lead as heroes, usually serving as props to the male protagonists, and playing out gender tropes.

Seeing a woman in a commanding role on-screen, seeing things from her perspective, seeing her decisions – this is a big fucking deal. Sandra Bullock has called her role as Dr. Ryan Stone “revolutionary,” as Alfonso and Jonas Cuaron wrote the script with a woman as the protagonist. Society traditionally thinks of men in leadership roles, not women. You can’t be what you can’t see. Seeing media representations of yourself in your gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, religion, seeing bodies of different sizes and abilities – all of this matters. It impacts how we see ourselves, the lives we envision for ourselves. And how others see us.

Gravity offers a unique female hero. It’s okay that Sandra Bullock’s character isn’t shooting guns or beating up bad guys. It’s okay that she’s quiet and vulnerable. It’s okay to see a woman struggling through emotional pain. In fact, it’s a good thing. Not all women are the same. Our female leads should reflect that reality.

Megan Kearns is Bitch Flicks’ Social Media Director and a feminist vegan writer living in Boston. She loves watching films and entirely too much TV including Parks and Rec, The Wire, Sex and the City, Breaking Bad, Damages and Scandal. Follow her on Twitter @OpinionessWorld.

‘Runner Runner’ Runs on Empty

In terms of plot and character, Runner Runner leaves a lot to be desired. Justin Timberlake plays Richie Furst (Rich First, come on), an online gambler who has to risk it all to earn enough tuition to complete his master’s degree at Princeton. After realizing the scam behind a suspicious loss, he finds himself sucked into the seedy poker underbelly of Costa Rica and under the thumb of his ruthless American boss, Ivan Block (Ben Affleck). They get territorial over shared one-dimensional love interest Rebecca (Gemma Arterton) to add some manliness. An FBI agent (Anthony Mackle) tries to blackmail Richie with exile in order to take out Block. Eighty percent of the movie is Justin Timberlake looking confused or angry while other people monologue at him. We are supposed to really care about whether or not Richie makes it out of there before the house of cards comes crashing down, despite the fact that he has little to no character depth. Block really likes alligators. Conclusion: Internet poker is even more of a snooze fest than I originally thought.

Runner Runner promotional poster.
Runner Runner promotional poster.

 

Written by Erin Tatum.

In terms of plot and character, Runner Runner leaves a lot to be desired. Justin Timberlake plays Richie Furst (Rich First, come on), an online gambler who has to risk it all to earn enough tuition to complete his master’s degree at Princeton. After realizing the scam behind a suspicious loss, he finds himself sucked into the seedy poker underbelly of Costa Rica and under the thumb of his ruthless American boss, Ivan Block (Ben Affleck). They get territorial over shared one-dimensional love interest Rebecca (Gemma Arterton) to add some manliness. An FBI agent (Anthony Mackle) tries to blackmail Richie with exile in order to take out Block. Eighty percent of the movie is Justin Timberlake looking confused or angry while other people monologue at him. We are supposed to really care about whether or not Richie makes it out of there before the house of cards comes crashing down, despite the fact that he has little to no character depth. Block really likes alligators. Conclusion: Internet poker is even more of a snooze-fest than I originally thought.

Richie tries to play it cool.
Richie tries to play it cool.

 

Given the recent media frenzy around the series finale of Breaking Bad, I started to really think about about America’s obsession with (white) white collar crime. It’s no secret that many of our movies and television shows revolve around white guys pulling off meticulous financial schemes or smoothly sauntering their way through government corruption and drug rings. Part of the intended fascination with Runner Runner is the idea that Richie would have to resort to such desperate measures even as a Princeton man. Audiences (particularly white middle-class audiences) are captivated by the idea that all the privilege and power of whiteness and white masculinity sometimes isn’t enough to give you everything you want out of life or, shockingly, control fate. “Turning to the dark side” definitely has a racialized element. Since crime is almost always explicitly coded as nonwhite, especially in media, writers will often go to great lengths to differentiate their protagonist from your run-of-the-mill criminal. As a result, white characters are usually only involved in crimes that are highly cerebral and require an incredible amount of power networking and/or a ridiculously esoteric skill set. Weirdly, Richie represents the epitome of this mindset in his lazy execution. Who needs solid plot or a relatable cast when you get to watch an upper-middle-class white boy throwing his money and future around? Instant scandal!

Block propositions Richie.
Block propositions Richie.

 

The film takes this philosophy and runs with it (har har) in almost laughably stereotypical ways. Upon discovering that he lost all his money in a fixed online poker game, Richie immediately drops everything and flies straight to Costa Rica to confront Block. Block easily seduces him into staying by offering him a hefty salary. If only it were literal seduction, this film would have been a little more interesting. Within three months, Richie is living a comfortable life as Block’s right-hand man. Never mind that he went there not speaking a word of the language and specifically to get the money to pay for his degree. I guess we’re just supposed to assume that his exams and diploma are frozen indefinitely until he decides to return to New Jersey. Welcome to white boy land, where reality can be shaped to cater to your every whim! People of color, both male and female, are used to personify Costa Rica as the nexus of sex and sin. Every other shot shows Richie navigating through substance fueled parties, conversing with greasy, potbellied honchos as they halfheartedly grope gaggles of prostitutes teetering around with champagne. Notably, Richie resists all offers of indulgence with the exception of Rebecca (conveniently a white upper-class woman), designating himself as “pure” and leaving everyone else to be consumed by their own vices. The hypocrisy inherent in such a sentiment is best exemplified when Richie’s father, a doomed gambling addict, nobly offers to sacrifice himself to the bookies so that Richie no longer has baggage preventing his escape. In contrast, the vast majority of people of color who have their lives ruined by similar schemes are portrayed as getting their just desserts.

Rebecca spends a lot of time looking glamorous and contemplative.
Rebecca spends a lot of time looking glamorous and contemplative.

 

Women are also given the short end of the stick, to the point where there is almost nothing to analyze to begin with. Rebecca is the most watered down high-stakes damsel in distress that I’ve seen in recent memory. She may as well be a figment of Richie’s imagination because she only seems to float in and out when he needs advice or encouragement. They have sex once after a flurry of coy banter and beyond that share a few private conversations about the impending implosion of the scam while looking seductive. There is no basis for any alleged emotional connection between them at all. We’re told that Rebecca can’t leave Block and we are meant to feel sympathetic towards her plight, but the narrative never bothers to give her any background, motive, or ambition. Her sole purpose is to reinforce the hero/villain dichotomy between Richie and Block by exaggerating feminine vulnerability. It makes it hard to cheer when Richie and Rebecca finally escape Block’s clutches and fly off on a private jet into the sunset. This couple is about as compelling as a pair of used napkins.

If the film had actually taken the time to examine the inner workings of online gambling, it may have been suspenseful or at the very least informative. Instead, we are forced to contend with lukewarm machismo and endless male posturing from start to finish. Director Brad Furman really should’ve known when to fold.

 

‘Don Jon’: Manhood in the Digital Age

Barbara retains her mystique as long as she continues to refuse to sleep with Jon, meaning that he actually has to put effort into courting her. Upon discovering her fascination with romantic comedies, Jon playfully gripes in the voiceover about how she’s delusional and those things never happen in real life. From that point onward, like any good self-deprecating genre film, the same swelling music plays any time Jon and Barbara share a romantic moment. Additionally, the same thumping club music pops up whenever Jon sizes up a new conquest. Jon and Barbara both use media as a crutch to validate fantasies about relationships, yet are comically incapable of recognizing their shared escapism because they insist that the other’s pastime is a bastardization of social dynamics, which neither of them actually understand. Oh, you two!

Don Jon promotional poster.
 
Written by Erin Tatum.
I’m a big Joseph Gordon-Levitt fan, so needless to say I’ve been eagerly awaiting the arrival of Don Jon, which he wrote, directed, and starred in. From its premise, Don Jon sounds like an edgy deconstruction of the typical Hollywood love story: Jon (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), a porn addict, falls for Barbara (Scarlett Johansson), who is obsessed with romantic comedies. Naturally, both of them claim that the other’s fixation is unhealthy and fake. I was curious to see which genre would ultimately end up condemned, since these types of romances usually only work if one person “reforms” the other. The result is unexpected, but the film manages to pole vault over the stereotypical trappings of both the narrative and the genre.
Jon attends church with Barbara and his family.
First and foremost, Jon is a Jersey boy to the core. His family is strictly Italian Catholic and almost never shown outside of church or having family dinner over pasta in the living room. In particular, the presence of the church is ubiquitous throughout the film. Jon diligently attends confession every week, despite having no intention or desire to change his porn habits. His punishment is always the same – reciting 20 prayers. Later on, he even expresses disappointment that the consequence remains unchanged even after he truthfully admits that he hasn’t masturbated all week. The faceless, monotone priest allegedly giving him moral guidance on the other side of the sliding grate is a clear commentary on the apathy of religious institutions in terms of the lack of investment in the individual. For all his swagger, Jon is a man who craves structure and validation. His disillusionment with the church is the catalyst to his realization that maybe he isn’t the only one who sees what they want to see.
Jon wastes no time with seducing Barbara.
Jon’s porn addiction represents a merger between the instant gratification of the digital age with masculine entitlement, spawning his sexual existentialist crisis. He confesses to the audience he can’t understand why he doesn’t find real sex as satisfying as porn, even though he regularly gets laid. While he rationalizes this compulsion as a commonplace marker of manliness, his inability to get total pleasure from anything other than Internet clips also creates a distinct anxiety around his masculinity. As a result, Jon and his friends are predictably and almost methodically misogynistic as they routinely comb the clubs for the next conquest, rating women on a scale of one to the mythical perfect 10, which they call a “dime.” Barbara enters and captures Jon’s attention. She acts coquettish but resists Jon’s attempts to close the deal, leaving him intrigued. Of course, not immediately sleeping with someone signals a female character’s potential for exceptionalism to both the protagonist and the viewer, especially in a film where sex objects and exploitation are (excuse the pun) a dime a dozen. While the objectification of women rages unchecked, homophobia remains surprisingly absent or unmentioned, relegated to an offhand comment by Jon about how it’s annoying to accidentally climax right when the camera pans to the man.
Jon enjoys some “personal time.”
As a brief side note, while the film is primarily a critique on society’s relationship to women, sex, and pornography, I do admire Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s consistent examination of male objectification in film. I fell in love with his dorky charm in (500) Days of Summer (more on that phenomenon in a minute) and his understated suaveness in Inception. For someone who is so damn attractive, the man sure has a knack for making moments of supposed erotic titillation consciously unsexy. He turns the cinematic gaze back on itself. While we get plenty of cleavage, short dresses, and backside shots from the women, the voyeurism of Jon only goes as far as repeatedly watching him masturbate. It’s true that you could chalk this up to typical Hollywood gender conventions, but it’s worth noting that Joseph Gordon-Levitt implicates the viewer in Jon’s passive absorption of porn. There’s something more than a little intrusive about being forced to watch his blank faced expression until he ejaculates without emotion. It has none of the intimacy or romance of idealized sex in Hollywood. Perhaps Joseph Gordon-Levitt is suggesting that the general moviegoing experience is somewhat masturbatory in that many of us watch movies to escape reality and disconnect our brains, just as Jon uses porn to fuel unrealistic expectations of women and avoid emotional vulnerability.
Cue cheesy music.
Barbara retains her mystique as long as she continues to refuse to sleep with Jon, meaning that he actually has to put effort into courting her. Upon discovering her fascination with romantic comedies, Jon playfully gripes in the voiceover about how she’s delusional and those things never happen in real life. From that point onward, like any good self-deprecating genre film, the same swelling music plays any time Jon and Barbara share a romantic moment. Additionally, the same thumping club music pops up whenever Jon sizes up a new conquest. Jon and Barbara both use media as a crutch to validate fantasies about relationships, yet are comically incapable of recognizing their shared escapism because they insist that the other’s pastime is a bastardization of social dynamics, which neither of them actually understand. Oh, you two!
Never has a college discussion been this raunchy.
Their relationship progresses quickly, with Jon even introducing Barbara to his family. A great Don Jon drinking game would be to take a shot every time Joseph Gordon-Levitt or especially Scarlett Johansson call each other “baby”. Mother of God, these two drop the B-word more than a Justin Bieber music video. For a while, the plot veers toward your typical “good woman reforms troubled man” fanfare as she compels him to alter his way of life through subtle encouragements. Some of them seem a bit controlling, like her insistence that Jon can’t clean his own apartment anymore and must hire a maid. Others point towards Barbara acting as cheerleading girlfriend wanting her boyfriend to better himself. She convinces Jon to take a night class to further his education during a steamy dry humping session in the hallway outside her apartment, working him up until he agrees and then rewarding him by deliberately causing him to jizz his pants. Barbara exposes the hypocrisy in Jon’s perception of the Madonna/whore dichotomy. She might withhold sex, but that doesn’t mean that she’s above using seduction to manipulate people into getting what she wants. I just like the idea that rushing into sex isn’t classy, but intentionally making your boyfriend ejaculate in public is totally okay with them. What is this, a middle school dance?
Esther introduces herself to Jon.
Jon tries to hide his porn from Barbara even after they start sleeping together, knowing that she disapproves. She ultimately catches him in the act and dumps him. At the night class, Jon meets Esther (Julianne Moore), who mocks him for struggling to watch porn in secret on his phone. She gives him a classic German stag film in an attempt to broaden his horizons and increase his taste level. Given Esther’s aging flower child demeanor, I thought that she was just going to act as Jon’s porn Yoda until she rehabilitated him enough to send him running back to Barbara. Jon and Esther begin an unusual courtship that contains all of the physical spark and emotional intimacy that he was trying to convince himself he had with Barbara. Esther reminds him that sex is a two-way street and reveals that her husband and son recently died in a car accident. This confession leads into the most poignant sex scene of the film, signifying Jon finally “losing” himself and appreciating his partner. I can honestly say that I never thought I would see Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Julianne Moore in bed together, but they have excellent chemistry. It’s weird that Esther is the “true” love interest when the trailers largely never mentioned Moore.
Esther bonds with Jon.
What’s really peculiar is the flat resolution of Barbara’s character. Don Jon almost feels like two different films sutured together because of the complete mood shift between leading ladies. Rather than Esther serving as an introspective fling or love triangle fodder, she helps Jon realize that he wants nothing to do with Barbara. The exes have a brief conversation for closure at a café, during which Barbara appears vapid and callous. Jon scolds her for expecting her partner to sacrifice everything and do whatever she wants, a criticism she brushes off with pouting indifference before vanishing for good. It is disappointing that Barbara’s infatuation with romantic comedies was only used to create a zany opposites attract vibe with Jon’s porn addiction. I was anticipating a story about a couple working through their misunderstood idiosyncrasies together. We don’t really see Barbara’s perspective at all and in fact she is vilified as the delusional, overly controlling girlfriend while Jon is vindicated and gets the girl, albeit a different one than he expected.
Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the ending because I genuinely didn’t see it coming (no pun intended). Pigeonholing Barbara felt a little lazy and unnecessarily misogynistic, but Jon’s romance with Esther is refreshing and endearing. The parallels in Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s creative career choices are an interesting commentary on the spectrum of cultural misinterpretations of relationships. Just as Tom believes he’s fallen in love with Summer in (500) Days of Summer, Jon believes he’s fallen in love with Barbara. Viewers sympathize endlessly with Tom as the lovelorn nice guy and it would be easy to write Jon off as a sleazy womanizer. However, the two characters might have more in common than we’d like to admit. The flaw in the logic of both men is that they’re allowing women to stand in for projections of a given ideal (Summer for love and Barbara for sex) instead of actually falling in love with the women themselves. We shouldn’t go into relationships expecting other people to function as mere extensions of ourselves and our desires. If boy meets girl, it doesn’t necessarily mandate that they stay together, even on the silver screen. Sometimes, as Jon and Barbara suggest, they’re better off growing apart.

‘Thérèse’ Explores Twentieth Century Marriage Convictions and the Sexual Paths Of Two Women

Thérèse film poster.

Written by Janyce Denise Glasper

The 2012 film Thérèse touches on the aftereffects of burgeoning sexuality between two women–Thérèse and her sister-in-law, Anne–and focuses on a companionship that was formed when they were young girls.
“Have you thought about it?” Anne asks. 
“You mean sleeping with your brother every night?” Thérèse asks back. 
“Yes? Doesn’t it scare you?”
“No, I never think about it.”
“You’re lying!”
“No, I swear. Never.” 
In this particular scene, the night before the big wedding between two adjoining pinery owners, Anne speaks of sexual intercourse with the vivid curiosity of a lively young woman. Her widened bright eyes and excited mouth speak candidly about scandalous romantic stories and masturbation–the latter a taboo topic among women of twentieth century France. Thérèse sees it nothing more than another trivial duty, another part of a rich union. Cigarette smoking, free thinking Thérèse appears bored with the overall thought, expressing little emotion, little joy. In terms of love, Thérèse affectionately nicknames Anne her “little girlfriend” and the soft, intimately close soon-to-be sisters clasp hands and sleep together–a picture of a long-time bond.
It was always three’s company between Thérèse (Audrey Tautou, center) and the Desqueyroux siblings, Anne (Anaïs Demoustier, right) and Bernard (Gilles Lellouche).
After the quiet wedding, the marriage bed occurs and Thérèse does not relish the occurrence or find satisfaction. When Bernard is lying atop of her still body, he grunts loud and moves awkwardly, selfish in his lovemaking skills. He is all about himself. No affection. No lingering touches that instill ardor. Cold, stoic Thérèse floats inside of an impermeable bubble, mouth closed, blank opened black eyes voided, arms lying limply on his back. She is as rigid as society conviction. Sex is a tedious obligation, not a pleasure.
This disheartening emotional prison that Thérèse is sequestered inside isn’t the kind that’s listed on the New York Times Bestseller List by historical romance novel writers who pen independent women seeking pleasure by graciously giving lovers. Thérèse’s privileged life has become the source of grave unhappiness, of silent depression. Her marriage isn’t a quintessential novel. It’s mundane and slowly killing her, especially with Bernard caring far more for the baby growing inside than Thérèse.
Thérèse (Audrey Tautou) enjoying one of Anne’s letters.
However, Anne’s sensually fluffed letters stimulate Thérèse’s duress. Anne has fallen in love with a roguish man named Jean that incites her vivacious spirit and electrifies naïve frustrations brewing between girlhood and fantasy. Her luscious words bring fruitful splendor to Thérèse, a vicarious longing that also inadvertently fuels Thérèse’s great jealousy. In Bernard, she feels no spark, no fire. In such a strict upper crust rule where women must obey husbands and yield to their every command, Thérèse has ultimately denied wanting those kinds of desires, growing up motherless and shadowing her father’s character, bearing perfect picture of the sophisticated society wife. Anne overtly shares captivating joy of having a man titillate ripening womanhood and this wicked experience is unknown to Thérèse, who greedily reads these letters in private vein, visibly shaken by the depth of Anne’s growing fulfillment.
Thérèse takes part in Anne’s family double crossed meddling, vowing to keep Anne away from her aching desire to marry a Jew. It’s unbearable seeing Anne break and shatter, like fragmented glass breaking in these tormented scenes. She is a pitiable wreck, refusing to eat, her disposition waning to a waxen pallor of imminent heartbreak. When Bernard’s dogs viciously attack her and he does the same straight after, the scene showcases a terrifying parallel between certain men and ferocious animals. Bernard may be gentle at times, but he has a violent side as beastly as a dog’s bite and treats his sister with cruel disdain. And as it turns out, Anne’s beau is too good to be true as well. Jean turns out to be a ruthless cad, a real asshole. This surprises Thérèse. He tells Thérèse in boastful fashion that he never has had an intention of marrying Anne or acquiring the deep tender feelings foolish Anne had so generously penned:
“Anne certainly has shared her life’s passions with me. You know what I’m talking about… the life that awaits her. The life that awaits all women around here. A bleak, provincial life. Proper, conventional, and rigid.” 
Should Anne’s desires have remained dormant? Untapped? Are we to bow down to Jean and thank him, though prior he also asks, “Is it forbidden to play for a bit?”
My need to punch Jean became stronger as he continued talking. It didn’t matter what books he read or how intelligent he appeared to Thérèse, who eventually secretly writes to him throughout the film. The fact remains that he intentionally took advantage of Anne’s innocence, sullied her world, and played her like a damned toy. It begins to become hard to choose a side. Do viewers side with Anne’s family who bar and treat her like an asylum patient? Yes, they have valid reasons. Yet it’s sickening how women are not allowed to have the same sexual freedom as men and that if they showcase signs of this, they are relegated to being treated like they have mental incapacity. Sexual feelings and thoughts are wrong. They must be shut out. Even today, women who showcase sexual liberation are labeled horrifically. The other presented question is do we congratulate Jean who stirred a passion that burned so brightly inside Anne? Do we say, hurray to the man who made Anne his intended victim–his target for foreplay? Either way the choices are unfair to Anne. They are for Thérèse, too. They both have to conform to tradition- ignore natural bodily desires and submit to marriage, to a man of family choosing.
Thérèse (Audrey Tautou) often is lost in thought and women in her time were not allowed to think.
The second shown sex scene between Thérèse and Bernard is a disturbing, grossly violent act, occurring some time after the birth of the couple’s daughter. It shows Bernard being further self-seeking and rough. Thérèse has swatted her hand, but he is forceful and initiates a randy monstrous shallowness. She looks perplexed by this turn of events. Now Thérèse does have a friendship with him, a certain kindhearted camaraderie. In certain scenes he is more like a brother than a husband. Yet in this one horrid night, Bernard demonstrates his power and Thérèse has no choice but to succumb to him and her growing downfall to ruin by trying to kill him.
Anne’s fate is adjacent to Thérèse’s. After being mentally and physically imprisoned by her family, Anne’s awakened passions are replaced by civil, respectable duty. Completely subdued and complacent, Anne prepares to marry a kind, dull gentleman that family prefers. The life which has scarred Thérèse  will be Anne’s. She has lost whimsical magic and charm. Her eyes are no longer merry and twinkling. Her smiles have lessened. She and Thérèse have both become muted in the course of the film.
Thérèse’s final scene with Anne is a sad one as well. It is apparent that they’ll probably never cross paths again. No more holding hands and sharing secrets. The past of two carefree girls has passed. They are fragmented shells that have dealt with family rejection, male dominance, and having sexual beliefs turned eschew. One cannot help but mourn the loss of their spirited personalities.
 Thérèse (Audrey Tautou) and Bernard (Gilles Lellouche) in happier times. 
Bernard does give Thérèse the keys to her freedom. He aches as he sees her literally dying before his eyes. Thérèse has lost so much, including rights to see her own child, but by the end, she gains something unexpected.
She has liberty.
Unfortunately, not many women can say the same.

She’s Too Old: Sexuality and the Threat of Aging in ‘Adore’

Adore film poster.

Written by Erin Tatum.
The original title of Adore was Two Mothers, which should give some indication of its Freudian undertones. Best friends since childhood, Lil (Naomi Watts) and Roz (Robin Wright) remain close throughout their lives. They have sons the same age: Roz has Tom (James Frecheville) and Lil has Ian (Xavier Samuel). We see Lil’s husband pass away when the boys look to be about 10, the exposition also establishing the friendship between the kids. The boys soon grow into handsome, muscular young men. Roz’s husband Harold already accuses her of being emotionally distant in their relationship and implies she and Lil are secretly lovers. Multiple people assume that Roz and Lil are lesbians throughout the film, much to their amusement. Ambiguous lesbianism is arguably the only running joke. The fact that Roz and Lil look almost identical (minus hair length) and are constantly perceived as having romantic tension makes the ensuing pseudo-incest even creepier.

Lil (left) and Roz (right) raise their sons together.
Adore is about wanting what you can’t have and the resulting guilty titillation when you not only get what you want, but seemingly have total control over the situation. You could see the whole cougar betrayal thing coming a mile away, as soon as the two mothers talk about how collectively hot their sons are immediately after the age up transition. I would hope that my parents and my friends’ parents wouldn’t sit around calling us sexy the second we were legal. The social dynamics of the film are a bit off – are we really supposed to believe that two 18-year-old boys spend their entire day drinking on the beach with their moms? – but it’s that sort of isolation that sets up the forbidden fruit paradigm. Cross-generational lust is most exciting when there’s sexual or emotional deprivation going on, because apparently the only way we can fathom desire across a large age gap is to make one or both partners psychologically deprived.
Roz and Lil admire their genetic handiwork.

Lil’s husband is dead and Roz’s husband conveniently just accepted a new job far away, so the two women are ripe to…pick the fruit of each other’s loins. Yikes. Yes, they both sleep with the other’s son. If “Motherlover” didn’t pop into your head at this point, my review is a failure. I’d be more okay with this development if the two boys hadn’t grown up as next-door neighbors. Maybe Roz and Lil could have reunited for the first time since having kids and each is blown away by their attraction to the other’s child. I’m cool with a lot of weird shit, but you fundamentally shouldn’t have sex with someone you’ve known and cared for as a parental figure since they were in diapers. This isn’t Buster Bluth and Lucille 2. Ian makes a move on Roz for pretty much no reason. The justification for both May-December romances is essentially that it’s scandalous to watch a young man pursue an older woman, which insinuates that they’re tragically wasting their time and potential for masculine privilege by doing so. That has some extremely unfortunate implications as to the perceptions of older femininity, which is why I could never quite get on the cougar bandwagon here, even though the film tries really hard to convince its audience that older women are seductive and love is indiscriminate to age.

Things get steamy between Lil and Tom.
Shockingly, Tom witnesses his mother leaving Ian’s room sans pants and marches right over to Lil’s house to exact revenge. He awkwardly kisses Lil and tells her flat out that he’s doing it just to spite Ian and his mom for sleeping together. Tom is kind of a tool, but Lil eventually gives in after he silently climbs into her bed (boundaries???). Roz and Lil and have a heart-to-heart the next day. They are both surprisingly okay with having boned each other’s children, but they agree that the shenanigans need to stop. Naturally, both couples immediately have sex. They settle into dating and continue to hang out in their creepy foursome, their friendships strengthened by the new exchange of bodily fluids. The narrative then jumps forward two years to let us know that both couples are still together and it wasn’t just a summer fling.
Ian comforts Roz about her aging anxieties.

Although you would think that the length of their relationships would be a testament against shallow fears, the threat of aging continues to plague Lil and Roz. Lil frets over her wrinkles in the mirror as she notices Tom’s attention straying towards a young theater ingénue. Ian sensuously traces his fingers up the back of Roz’s bare thigh as she remarks with chagrin that soon she won’t allow him to see her naked anymore. Ian assures her playfully that he won’t let her age. This type of garbage is supposed to be romantic, but I say fuck you, Ian. Validating your partner’s internalized insecurities, no matter how humorously, is not endearing or sexy. People always worry that their partner will leave them if they get old or gain weight or become disabled. Is your “true love” really that genuine if it could so easily be decimated by such superficial factors? As much as Adore attempts to champion the cougar, Roz and Lil walk a very fine line between empowered women with a healthy libido and self-martyrs consumed by their own overambitious sexuality. Tom cheats on Lil with the theater girl. That’s pretty ballsy, considering that Tom had to convince Lil to be bored/lonely enough to date him in the first place. Tom is a dick.
Roz comforts a distraught Lil after Tom cheats.

Lil is devastated, so in solidarity, Roz agrees that they should each dump their boyfriends at the same time since they agree it’s inevitable that they will both be ditched for a younger woman. Ian bitterly protests this decision because Tom fucking around is not his fault. I feel for him. Ian displayed a sincere passion for Roz from the start and remained committed to her, whereas with Tom, Lil was always merely a lukewarm personal pet project to piss off Roz and Ian. Tom gets married and Roz remains firm on her break up with Ian. Ian soon begins a fairly unenthusiastic courtship with a younger woman to spite Roz and try to move on. I’m glad everyone has such healthy coping mechanisms when it comes to relationships! Ian resolves to break up with the new girl until she tells him that she’s pregnant. Cringe.
Roz and Lil take their granddaughters to the beach.

A few years later, the boys each take their young daughters to the beach along with their respective wives and mothers. I half expected a flash forward to when the girls were legal and trying to seduce each other’s dads. Family fun. The dynamic is uncomfortable to say the least and the wives clearly dislike spending time with Roz and Lil. Long story short, Ian catches Tom and Lil having sex and is so outraged that he blurts out their entire history to the horrified younger women. Disgusted, they pack up the grandkids and leave, warning the group to never contact them again. I don’t think that’s how custody works. Roz and Lil decide they can’t fight fate and the foursome is shown sunbathing together once more, presumably coupled up again. Even if they had to jump through some stereotypical hoops, it’s nice to see relationships between older women and younger men taken seriously and given a legitimate future.

Queer Infatuation in ‘Farewell, My Queen’

Farewell, My Queen

Written by Erin Tatum.

Farewell, My Queen has been on my to-watch list for a while. I’m a sucker for the opulence and pretty costumes of period pieces. Really, you could assemble the worst cast imaginable and I’d probably still watch to drool over the outfits. The narrative chronicles events in Versailles on the eve of the French Revolution from the perspective of the Queen’s reader, Sidonie Laborde (Léa Seydoux). Sidonie displays fervent loyalty towards Marie Antoinette (Diane Kruger) and jealously monitors the ups and downs of her intimate friendship with Gabrielle de Polastron, Duchess of Polignac (Virginie Ledoyen). Personally, I loathed Sofia Coppola’s airheaded incarnation of Marie Antoinette and found Kirsten Dunst to be insufferable. I understand that there is a popular perception of Marie Antoinette as childish and self-indulgent, but there’s a difference between that and feeling like you’re watching the 18th century equivalent of a Manic Pixie Dream Girl drop a tab of acid and run through fields for two hours while rap music plays in the background. Anyway, I digress. The point is that I was excited for an authentically French take on the story.
Marie Antoinette (left) and Sidonie (right) bond over medical treatment.

The trailer for the film would lead you to believe that the central plot is the lesbian love triangle to end all lesbian love triangles. As such, for once I may have gone into a film with my queer expectations a little too high. Sidonie has an ambiguously romantic obsession with Marie Antoinette, who in turn is fixated on Gabrielle, although none of the women’s feelings for each other are ever made explicit. Neither Marie Antoinette nor Gabrielle seems to notice their admirer in that way. This always ends well. Sidonie’s official duties include reading aloud to the Queen, which is a gangly metaphor for the former’s intellectualism and the allegedly cerebral bond between the two. Sidonie’s infatuation with the Queen is ignited after Marie Antoinette insists on rubbing rosewood oil on Sidonie’s pesky mosquito bites. Only in the personal hygiene vacuum of the 1700s would this gesture be considered sensual or sexy.
Sidonie takes a ride on a gondola and the suave gondolier attempts to hit on her by sharing juicy Versailles gossip. He mentions Marie Antoinette’s preoccupation with Gabrielle and insinuates that he has been sleeping with Gabrielle, all the while still trying to smooth talk his way into Sidonie’s stockings. Was it really that easy to sleep around in the 1700s? I’m assuming it’s meant to be a commentary on the boredom and hedonism of the French upper-class, but still, given the religious zealousness of the time, it’s difficult to believe that adultery is idle chit chat. Sidonie pouts in response to the outside confirmation of her worst fear – that Marie Antoinette loves someone else. The most bizarre thing is that we’ve barely been introduced to the women or any of their dynamics at this point, so her wounded reaction feels unwarranted. 
Sidonie approaches a group discussing a propaganda pamphlet. 

Meanwhile, the atmosphere at the palace becomes tense when everyone gets word of the storming of the Bastille. This is truly the heart of the film’s main thrust, as servants, aristocrats, and the royal family alike wait for their gilded world to come crashing down around them. The atmosphere teeters between nervous anticipation and chaos, even as the lavish rituals continue as normal. Farewell, My Queen really comes into its own as a critique of the vacuous and self-destructive denial of the elite with regard to the shifting status quo, which would have been more than substantial enough to carry the premise. I don’t understand why the love triangle was marketed and propped up as the core drama of the narrative, other than for poetic depth. Whether or not you buy into the rumors that Marie Antoinette was queer, the idea is undeniably fascinating. As a society, we tend to view Marie Antoinette’s lifestyle as the pinnacle of our materialistic fantasies, so it’s titillating that the woman who has it all would only find true fulfillment in love objects that were doubly forbidden by way of lesbianism and adultery. However, the execution is lukewarm and its intrigue pales in comparison to that of say, I don’t know, the French Revolution.

Everyone starts leaving the palace in droves as they fear the collapse of the government. Nonetheless, Sidonie repeatedly pronounces loyalty to the Queen and refuses to leave her despite the protests of her more levelheaded peers and superiors. Using this love triangle as the overarching B-plot doesn’t quite work because we get a lot of telling and not showing. Sidonie constantly talks about her devotion to the Queen and other characters comment on it, but we don’t see any interaction other than the early rosewood oil scene to justify her obsession. Maybe that’s the point. Infatuation requires very little kindling. Sidonie is falling in love with her own imagination and who she projects Marie Antoinette to be – not who Marie Antoinette actually is. The exact nature of Gabrielle’s relationship with Marie Antoinette is also unclear, but the Queen and Sidonie appear to be birds of a feather in that both women worship a mirage. This isn’t so much a love triangle as it is a chain of unrequited emotional overinvestment.

The Queen laments that Gabrielle is leaving her behind.

The king and queen hold court to announce they will not be leaving the palace. Gabrielle rushes up to the Queen for a dramatic embrace. They press their foreheads together in unspoken intimacy, ignoring the spectators as the rest of the court watches uncomfortably. Marie Antoinette pulls Gabrielle aside for a more private goodbye and Sidonie follows to eavesdrop. After some coquettish banter, Marie Antoinette abruptly changes the tone of the conversation to insist that Gabrielle leave Versailles. Gabrielle reluctantly agrees, causing Marie Antoinette to angrily accuse her of abandonment before sobbing uncontrollably. What a drama queen! Haha, bad monarchy puns.
Although Sidonie is discouraged by the clear extent of Marie Antoinette’s affection for Gabrielle, she remains determined to prove herself. The Queen asks her to go on one last, very important mission. She instructs Sidonie to dress in Gabrielle’s clothes and escape with Gabrielle and her husband in disguise so that any potential assassins will mistake Sidonie for Gabrielle and attack her instead. Sidonie balks at this plan and Seydoux effortlessly portrays the slow encroachment of betrayal and disillusionment across her features. She realizes too late that Marie Antoinette perceives her as little more than an expendable pawn to be manipulated to protect those whom she actually loves. Adding insult to injury, Marie Antoinette orders Sidonie to strip on the spot. A moment that may have once been erotic becomes filled with powerlessness and shame for Sidonie as the Queen carelessly glances over her nude body with disinterest.
Marie Antoinette pulls Sidonie back in for a little more humiliation.
As Sidonie prepares to exit Versailles as the decoy Gabrielle, Marie Antoinette calls her back. She asks Sidonie to tell Gabrielle that she’ll never forget her and gives her a chaste kiss on the lips. Given how much Sidonie purported to care for the Queen, the exchange is heartbreaking because it’s very obviously meant for someone else. The fact that the kiss is devoid of passion and occurs while Sidonie is passing as Gabrielle just pours salt in the wound. For all her starry eyed daydreaming, Sidonie learns that Marie Antoinette is just as callous and self-serving as everyone else. The Achilles’ heel of infatuation lies in the fact that you’re falling in love with your own self-constructed idea of the person and not the actual person in reality. Against the odds, Sidonie goes across the Swiss border unscathed with Gabrielle and her husband. In voiceover, she claims that she will be a nobody now since acting as the Queen’s reader was her whole identity. I guess old habits die hard.