2013 Golden Globes Week: An Open Letter to Owen Wilson Regarding ‘Moonrise Kingdom’

This is a guest post by Molly McCaffrey and is cross-posted with permission.

Movie poster for Moonrise Kingdom

Dear Mr. Wilson,
For many years, I believe people had the sense that Wes Anderson was the genius behind the three films you co-wrote with him:

Bottle Rocket,

Rushmore
and The Royal Tenenbaums.



This is probably because Anderson’s persona jibes with our expectations for an artistic genius whereas you, as much as I hate to admit it, come off as the class clown, the cad.
So it was easy to believe that Anderson was the brains behind the operation, and you were the color. But, having seen all of the Wes Anderson movies—including the ones you co-wrote and the ones you didn’t, it’s now clear to me that we all had it backwards.
Clearly, you are the brains, and Anderson is the color.
Because ever since you stopped collaborating with Anderson, things have gone downhill in his work. Don’t get me wrong—some of the movies Anderson made without you showed moments of true brilliance, but none of them were the masterpieces that are Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums—two films that were as much about character development as they were about oddball behavior, unusual costumes, retro props, quirky sets, and elusive ingénues, the trademarks of Anderson’s style.
In fact, after watching the four Anderson films you did not co-write, one is left asking the question: what went wrong after Tenenbaums?

There is no doubt that both The Life Aquatic 

and The Fantastic Mr. Fox 

hit some high notes, and it’s not unusual for intelligent viewers to defend one or both of them.
The Darjeeling Limited is another story.

Anderson’s fifth is generally regarded by most of his fans to be his most disappointing film. That’s reason enough not to talk about it, but I want to talk about it precisely because doing so might lead us to the source of Anderson’s current problem.
In order for absurdity—the hallmark of any Anderson film—to work, it must be paired with emotional honesty; otherwise, the story risks alienating the audience. For instance, in The Royal Tenenbaums, the viewer can overlook the absurdity of Margot listening to old albums on a child’s record player inside a pup tent in the middle of her brother’s childhood bedroom because Richie has just tried to kill himself and is about to tell her—his sister—that he did it because he loves her. The audience is so caught up in the depth of Margot’s and Richie’s emotions that we don’t become distracted by the fact that the two of them share them in front of what looks to be a child’s bed sheet decorated with bright red rocket ships and ringed planets.
In contrast, The Darjeeling Limited doesn’t provide an honest moment of emotional complexity—when the three main characters save some Indian children from drowning—or include a named female character—when they finally reunite with their mother—until almost an hour into the film. Unfortunately, by this point, Anderson has lost most of his audience, viewers who find themselves desperate for an authentic hook on which to hang their emotional needs.
No doubt absurdity is a popular trend in 21st century cinema. We see it in the work of Anderson and in the work of other admired filmmakers such as Charlie Kaufman, Sofia Coppola, Spike Jonze, Diablo Cody, and David O. Russell just to name a few. And, of course, we see it in the work of a handful of their predecessors: David Lynch, Tim Burton, and Jim Jarmusch, for instance. For this reason, it’s crucial to understand how and why absurdity can and cannot work. For evidence of why this issue is so important, please see I Heart Huckabees. See Broken Flowers. See The Darjeeling Limited.
And that brings me back to the films of Wes Anderson without you, Mr. Wilson, and specifically to Moonrise Kingdom.
Simply put, Moonrise Kingdom broke my heart.
It broke my heart because it had so much potential. It was, in fact very close to being a truly great film, another Rushmore or The Royal Tenenbaums. But, sadly, it failed to get there.
At its core, this ode to young love is an incredibly moving story, a story with emotions that remain with you days later. A story that grabs you by the shoulders and spins you around in circles until you fall happily to the grass, laughing euphorically to yourself. But that grab-your-heart story gets lost amidst far too many knee socks

and lightning bolts

and short skirts.

It’s heartbreaking to watch because it’s easy to see that with the right help—with your help perhaps—this film could have been as brilliant as the others.
But it’s not.
After much soul-searching and speculation, I’m forced to admit that the only noticeable difference between the great Anderson films and the almost-great Anderson films is you, Mr. Wilson. And once I realized this, it wasn’t hard for me to begin to believe that Anderson—like Sonny without Cher—can’t make great art without you.
And that’s why we need you, Mr. Wilson. We need you to stop whatever you’re doing right now and go find your buddy Wes Anderson. We need you to make certain he never again creates another almost-great film. We need you to tone down his oddball moments, 

to edit out his Parisian prologues

and his gratuitous girl-on-girl action,

to say no to his unnecessary narrators in inexplicable long red coats,

to curtail his need to document every quirky corner of his detailed sets,

to tone down his male gaze,

and to encourage him instead to capture the provocative emotions of his always fascinating characters—both male and female. We need you because you might be the only one who can do this for Anderson.
In short, we need you, Mr. Wilson… Wes Anderson needs you… American cinema needs you.
Please send help.
Molly McCaffrey
———-

Molly McCaffrey is the author of the short story collection How to Survive Graduate School & Other Disasters, the co-editor of Commutability: Stories about the Journey from Here to There, and the founder of I Will Not Diet, a blog devoted to healthy living and body acceptance. She has worked with Academy Award winner Barbara Kopple and received her Ph.D. from the University of Cincinnati. Currently she teaches at Western Kentucky University and designs books for Steel Toe Books. She is at work on her first memoir, You Belong to Us, which tells the story of McCaffrey meeting her biological family. 

2013 Golden Globes Week: Does ‘Argo’ Suffer from a Woman Problem and Iranian Stereotypes?


Written by Megan Kearns.

When I saw Argo in the theatre, I wasn’t really expecting to have a whole lot to say regarding gender in the film. In the majority of the trailer, all you see is men, men, brief glimpse of the women, and more men. Did Argo reaffirm my fears of making women silent and invisible?
Based on the 1979 Tehran hostage crisis, Argo depicts the true story of CIA operative Tony Mendez rescuing 6 American diplomats out of Iran. 
Argo is an incredibly well-crafted film. It’s taut, suspenseful and at times buoyantly humorous.  But style over substance weakens the film. Character development suffers. We never discover the hostages as people. Their lives, their views don’t ever really unfold.
Surprisingly, the hostages aren’t really the focus of the film. It’s Ben Affleck. Oh yeah and Alan Arkin and John Goodman, as a film director and make-up artist respectively. But we see Ben Affleck talk on the phone with his son. Ben Affleck agonize over decisions. Ben Affleck looking pensive.
While I liked the movie, I felt unease throughout. Argo depicts a white, male Eurocentric perspective. There’s no place for a complex depiction of women in this paradigm.
We’re never allowed into the lives or hear the perspectives or opinions of women. None of the women in Argo are given their own identity aside from how they relate to men. The 2 female hostages’ roles as diplomats were connected to their husbands. Because their husbands worked for the government, the women signed up for foreign service too. But that’s not why I have a problem with gender depictions in the film.
We never see hostages Cora Dijek (Clea Duvall) and Kathy Stafford (Kerry Bishe) talk to each other, aside from a group discussion with all 6 of the hostages. The women never reminisce together, never laugh, never express worry, never talk together – unless it’s with the men. Seriously, what is it with films NOT showing women talking to each other?! I’m gonna let you in a little secret, Hollywood. We women? We talk. To each other. Shocking, I know.

Nico Lang asks “where are the women in Argo” and asserts:
“I’m not saying they should create a new role for a woman or magically create a female spy (it’s not Alias, after all), but the women here deserve more than virtual silence. The film doesn’t take place at an all-boys’ school or a magical world in which all of the women have gone mute. It was the 1970’s, not Spike TV. There were women who had relationships to the story, and the film’s desire to marginalize them or cut them out completely shows how little modern Hollywood thinks of female narratives. Movies actually made in the 70’s had better roles for women than this, and the idea that Affleck gets let off the hook for sexism because he made a period piece is insulting…As a movie about movies, Argo wants to hold up a mirror to Hollywood and reflect the craziness of the industry, but in doing so, also perpetuates that industry’s rampant and systemic sexism.”
But what’s interesting is that when Affleck arrives to have the hostages take on fake identities in the film industry, as a Canadian production crew scouting for a film location in Iran, a stereotypical gender reversal occurs.
Typically in a crisis situation, it’s the woman or women who express hesitations or reservations or worries. Not here. No here it’s a dude who does. While Kathy looks (understandably) nervous and tense, the two female hostages remain calm and collected. I initially found it refreshing to see a non-stereotypical gender portrayal in such a mainstream, critically-acclaimed blockbuster. But do they remain calm because they barely have any dialogue? Hmmm, maybe this is a gender fail after all.
Beyond sexism, Eurocentrism permeates the film. At almost every turn, the Americans are placed at the forefront. That might not be such a huge problem if the hostages were actually the focus of the film.While so much was glossed over and inaccurate, I liked that Affleck at least attempted to provide a brief history of Iran. But why did every Iranian have to appear unhinged, brutal and savage breaking down the walls of the embassy? “Argo presents a country of more than 35 million in 1979 exclusively through the lens of terrorism and hostage-taking…” Argoperpetuates the unfortunate contemporary stereotype that Iranians somehow “hate” Americans. When the hostages are driving through Tehran, surrounded by Iranians, you can feel the palpable tension, thick and constricting. Again they are seen as the frightening enemy. Iranians are lumped together as scary and barbaric.

Argo wants to show the merits of peaceful negotiations, that violent actions don’t need to be taken to resolve conflicts. So why not depict both sides – both American and Iranian – with nuance and complexity? I expected more from a supposedly progressive director and a producer (George Clooney) passionate about social justice.
“But throughout the film, the Iran we see in the news clips and the Iran we see dramatized are all on the same superficial level: incomprehensible, out-of-control hordes with nary an individual or rational thought expressed…Argo glosses over the diversity of opinion in Iran and the intellectual ferment before the theocratic lockdown, making the culture look exactly the way an insular American public has come to believe all Islamic countries look.”

Argo is a white film, directed by a white dude (albeit an awesome white dude), with mostly white actors, told from a white perspective. And I don’t necessarily have a problem with that. Except for the fact that Persians and Arabs face so much discrimination in this country. Yes, I love Homelandtoo. And I can’t wait to see Zero Dark Thirty. But do we really need yet anotherfilm or TV show perpetuating Arab and Persian stereotypes?
We know how American women are depicted. So how are Iranian women depicted in Argo?
A woman narrates the opening of the film, providing context of Iranian history. This same woman also speaks for the Iranians holding the American embassy hostages to transmit to news agencies.
The only other Iranian woman we see is Sahar (Sheila Vand), the housekeeper to Canadian ambassador Ken Taylor (Victor Garber – aka my boyfriend Jack Bristow, yes I’m obsessed with Alias) and his wife Pat Taylor (Page Jeong). Sahar eventually helps the hostages, lying to Iranian troops to protect their cover.

Interestingly, Ben Affleck told The Huffington Post’s Michael Hogan that the filmmakers changed the gender and nationality of the Taylor’s housekeeper:

“I changed it because I wanted to represent a Persian character that wasn’t a fanatic, that wasn’t railing against the United States, but that’s just somebody like all of us who’s trying to go to work and feed their family and do all the things they need to do, and who’s kind of buffeted by the political winds that are kicked up by others, particularly by others that are higher up than them.”
In his article I quoted earlier, Nico Lang doesn’t expect Affleck to create another role for women. Yet that’s precisely what he did. While I always love more female roles, sadly Affleck’s gender reversal doesn’t fix Argo’s gender (or Eurocentric) problem.
Jennifer Epps calls Sahar “the most important Iranian character in the film.” But she warns:
“But calling her the most important Iranian character is not saying much — and neither is Sahar. Over a handful of scenes she may have a grand total of 3 lines. In this case they are translated, because they are relevant to the plot. Her character, however, is defined by her attitude toward the Americans. She also may be the only kind of Iranian the movie is interested in individuating because she is separated from her society, ensconced in a Western household.”

Yes, Sahar – an Iranian woman – ultimately helps save the Americans. But her employers are suspicious and distrustful of her motives once they think Sahar has discovered their secret of harboring the American hostages. Again Iranians come off as the ominous “other,” to be feared or not trusted.

Just like the other women in Argo, Sahar’s opinions and views are erased. Her importance truly lies in how she relates to men.

Unsurprisingly, parts of Argo are fabricated and not historically accurate. After all, this is a fictionalized movie, not a documentary. But then why not make the hostages more interesting? Why not develop the female characters – show their perspectives and feelings – as people, not just mere props or sidekicks to men? Why not give women a voice?

Argo shows how far we still have to go in gender equity in film. Sure, it’s a well-made movie. But that doesn’t inoculate it from sexism or racism. Awards indicate the art, culture and opinions we value. Just like somany Golden Globes and Oscar-nominated films, Argo revolves around men. Women deserve better. We’re not just satellites orbiting dudes.

Like many Hollywood films, Argo reifies who truly matters in our society. White men.

The Power of Narrative in ‘Django Unchained’

“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” – William Faulkner

Written by Leigh Kolb

Spoilers ahead
In 2011, two presidential hopefuls signed a pledge that, in its original form, insinuated that African-American children had families that were more cohesive and better off during slavery.
Texas and Tennessee both in the last two years have seen school boards and political activist groups push K-12 curriculum that “softens” slavery references, explores the “positive aspects of American slavery” and downplays minority struggles throughout American history.
A southern governor issued a proclamation for Confederate History Month with no references to slavery in 2010.
Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained, an anti-slavery revenge fantasy (based more in fact than fiction) was released just a few days before the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, which was passed on Jan. 1, 1863 (however, it would be almost three more years until slavery was outlawed in the United States with the Thirteenth Amendment). 
If you find the above information upsetting–that many are trying to whitewash a history so fresh and raw (after all, 150 years is not that long ago)–then Django Unchained is for you. If you don’t find the above information jarring, then perhaps the film is especially for you.
Tarantino has been candid in many interviews about his desire to showcase this time in American history (the film is set in 1858, two years before the start of the Civil War). His 2009 film Inglourious Basterds was a Holocaust revenge fantasy–not historically accurate, but emotionally fulfilling. Django Unchained‘s fiction isn’t as factually inaccurate, but the cathartic nature of looking at a historical horror through the lens of revenge is still there. 
Tarantino recently explained this catharsis on NPR:

“… to actually take an action story and put it in that kind of backdrop where slavery or the pain of World War II is the backdrop of an exciting adventure story — that can be something else. And then in my adventure story, I can have the people who are historically portrayed as the victims be the victors and the avengers.”

He goes on:

“You know, there’s not this big demand for, you know, movies that deal with the darkest part of America’s history, and the part that we’re still paying for to this day. They’re scared of how white audiences are going to feel about it; they’re scared about how black audiences are going to feel about it.”

This fear is certainly understandable, since America’s history of slavery, racism and subjugation is still, in many ways, a taboo topic (or a topic rife with revisionism). Django Unchained, however, does everything right.

The opening scene of the film is a line of raw, whipped black backs. This image is not foreign to audiences–people are generally well-versed in that aspect of violence against slaves. The image is awful and uncomfortable, but eases the audience in to this time period with something familiar. As the film progresses, layers of violence and misery are peeled back until audiences are squirming and uncomfortable. As they should be.
For the first part of the film, Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz) and Django (Jamie Foxx) are portrayed as partners. Both have stories, and basically split the role of protagonist. Schultz frees Django to aid in his bounty hunting. In their time together, Schultz teaches Django to read, shoot and “act” however he needed to in order to accomplish his goals.

Schultz teaches Django how to shoot and read, granting him access to the free world.

The poignant scenes where Schultz and Django are eating together in their camp highlight the importance of authentic voices. They ask one other questions and learn one another’s stories. Schultz acts shocked when he learns that Django’s wife, Broomhilda (Kerry Washington), speaks German. He was intrigued by their story, and asked Django about her and their life together. 
The importance of the authentic voice and hearing people tell their own stories is essential. How, then, can Tarantino, a white man in 2012, effectively bring the injustice of slavery to mass audiences?
The answer can really be found in the film itself.
Schultz tells Django the legend of Brünnhilda (which mirrors Django’s own journey for his wife). Django asks Schultz why he is helping him, and why he cares whether he finds his wife, and Schultz answers, “I’ve never given anybody their freedom before. I feel responsible for you.”
This responsibility to give Django access to the free world is similar to Tarantino’s responsibility to bring this black empowerment film to mass audiences. It’s about access, not help or hand outs. Access is what white Americans (especially white American males) still have at this point, and they should be responsible for sharing that access with others and telling important stories. Tarantino’s popularity and neutrality (as a white man with no other “agenda”) gave access to this story.
Could a black man have made a film with a celebrated hero who  says, “Kill white people and get paid for it? What’s not to like?” I can’t imagine that would have had the same mass appeal. While I’m not suggesting that this is a fair or good scenario, that’s where we are in our history. And if we’re going to continue to have people downplaying our nation’s history of oppression and “softening” slavery, we need these stories more than ever.
As this access is granted to Django, the story becomes more and more his own. He changes after the first bounty kill. Two men are getting ready to whip an enslaved woman; Django shoots the one who is quoting Bible passages and holding the Bible (he shoots him through a Bible page that is stapled to his shirt) and whips the other. He has claimed his place, and his journey begins to be more wholly his own. (The shot to the Bible page is also important considering pro-slavery factions would use the Bible as a defense for owning slaves.)

Django turns the whip on the oppressor.

By the time the two reach Candyland, Django has truly come into his own. As they travel across the horizon, rapper Rick Ross’s “100 Black Coffins” plays as Django struts on his horse (Foxx was instrumental in helping choose this music). The rap works, and indicates a shift in whose story we’re really starting to see. When Schultz warns Django to stop “antagonizing” plantation owner Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio), Django asserts that he’s just “getting dirty,” and acting like he knows he needs to. This dialogue upends the “know your place” rhetoric that even well-meaning, slavery-hating Schultz falls into.
The use of mandingo fighting as a plot point (both to get Schultz and Django to Candyland, and also to horrify the audience) is important. While forcing slaves to fight or entertain for sport and profit was not uncommon, this kind of fighting until death didn’t appear to happen. And before you take a big sigh of relief (it wasn’t that bad, then), the main reason this kind of fighting would not have happened is because it was economically unwise to kill someone who would be a strong worker. It’s all business.
Candie’s continued references to phrenology remind us that in addition to the perceived Biblical support of slavery, pseudoscience of the time also supported racist (and sexist) ideas about people’s capabilities. 
When he breaks apart old Ben’s skull at the dining room table, one can’t help but think about poor Yorick in Hamlet. As Hamlet cradles the skull of his father’s jester who he knew well as a child (much like Ben’s role as Candie’s father’s slave), he considers life and death and reflects upon how we all end up the same. Ben’s skull, however, launches Candie into a tirade about phrenology, as he breaks a piece off to show the indentions that prove black people are biologically subservient.

House slave Stephen, left, Broomhilda and Candie.

Behind Candie always in these dining room scenes is a marble statue of two Roman gladiators fighting (his hobby is nothing new), and is Stephen (Samuel L. Jackson), his house slave. Stephen embodies the Stockholm Syndrome kind of subservience that Candie sees as inherent. He plays the ultimate “Uncle Tom” character to foil Django’s free and increasingly independent and violent nature. Of course, in keeping with the Ben/Yorick parallel, Stephen also is much more clever than Candie is, and has wisdom and knowledge (Shakespeare often gave the jesters/fools much more wisdom than their masters).
Stephen.

The way Candie and Stephen treat Broomhilda is abhorrent, and Django predicted correctly that she was used as a “comfort girl” (sex slave). While her part is the damsel in distress, she’s clearly as fierce and independent as she can be (when they arrive at Candyland, she’s being brutally punished for trying to escape). 
As business is being settled toward the end, Schultz cannot stop the images of a dog killing a runaway slave they’d encountered earlier. He’s not angered by losing a much larger amount of money than he’d anticipated, or being “caught” in a scheme. He’s haunted by the brutality he’s seen at Candyland. He starts discussing The Three Musketeers with Candie, and tells him that Alexandre Dumas was black (again reinforcing the idea that it is important to have the whole story to avoid reducing people to stereotypes). A demand for a handshake becomes too much for Schultz, and he shoots Candie, setting off a bloodbath. He knows he’s sacrificing himself with that gesture, but it’s worth it to him.
Few remain alive after the resulting gunfight, but Django and Broomhilda are both caught and punished. Django, in the throes of torture and seconds away from castration, is visited by Stephen, who  rattles off all the ways they could have punished him, but Candie’s sister ordered that he be shipped to a quarry, where he’d be enslaved again.
“This will be the story of you, Django,” says Stephen.
While Django’s story began by being freed by Schultz and partnering with him, thus receiving access to the free world, he long ago became the author of his own story. And Stephen’s wrong–Django wins. Django frees himself this time.
As Django kills Stephen, Stephen screams, “You can’t destroy Candyland–there’ll always be a Candyland!” 
And while Django does effectively end Candyland, Stephen isn’t incorrect. Candylands will exist for years after Django leaves, and we are still feeling what Candyland was in America today.
In an interview with VIBE, DiCaprio, Washington and Foxx discussed their reactions to the screenplay. DiCaprio said,

“For me, the initial thing obviously was playing someone so disreputable and horrible whose ideas I obviously couldn’t connect with on any level. I remember our first read through, and some of my questions were about the amount of violence, the amount of racism, the explicit use of certain language. It was hard for me to wrap my head around it. My initial response was, ‘Do we need to go this far?'”

Foxx and Washington said,

Foxx: “When President Obama became president in 2008, a blemish on my hometown was the fact that it wasn’t on the front page of the newspaper. When they went down to talk to them, they went [country accent] ‘Hey listen, we run a newspaper, not a scrap book.’ I’m paraphrasing. So I had both of my daughters come down to the plantation, and I walked them through and I said, ‘This is where your people come from. This is your background.’ And I said, ‘this is more than just a movie for your father.’ My little daughter, I took her into the shack, and I said, ‘these are where the slaves stayed.’ Every two, three years there is a movie about the holocaust because they want you to remember and they want you to be reminded of what it was. When was the last time you seen a movie about slavery?”
Washington: “When is the last time you saw a movie about slavery where a black man frees himself?”
Foxx: “We read back in the day about Nat Turner and other guys who were not taking it. That’s why, when I read the script and we went back to the plantation, there were certain things inside me bubbling up.”

These responses are indicative of the conversations about our own history. White people frequently echo variations on a theme of “I didn’t have anything to do with that.” It’s easy to denigrate and forget a past that we keep ourselves disconnected from. For black Americans, however, there is a sense of connectivity, of history, to that time and place. As there should be–for everyone, no matter how painful it is.

Django leaves a pile of bodies in his trail to freedom.
Django Unchained is an excellent film. The writing, direction, acting and soundtrack are powerful. And while it’s poised to be at the receiving end of many accolades this awards season, the best, most lasting impression it can leave is to change conversations and common narratives (even fictional ones) so that whitewashing our history becomes impossible. 


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

‘Les Miserables’: The Feminism Behind the Barricades


Written by Leigh Kolb
Feminist ethics typically defines feminist philosophy as focusing on morality and relationships and not just traditionally masculine justice.
While Les Miserables features female characters who do exist largely to save men, this larger feminism vs. patriarchy dilemma is at work between the ideologies of Jean Valjean and Javert.
A Washington Post writer bemoaned how anti-feminist Les Mis truly is, with its stereotypical women who “exist not to drive the plot but to sacrifice for the men, the real stars of the show.” She refers to them as “bit players” in the musical, and notices that the women are all “abused” and “marginalized.” Yet as a feminist, she can’t help but love it.
While the female characters indeed do suffer to save men, there is much more at play in this film (an adaptation of the stage adaptation of Victor Hugo’s 19th century novel).
From the very beginning, we know that the hero’s journey belongs to Jean Valjean (Hugh Jackman), and that his path of self-realization will be the heart of the plot. After being “saved” by a compassionate priest, he vows to change himself (literally and figuratively, as his convict papers limited his employment possibilities). Eight years later, he has a new name and is mayor of a new town and a factory owner.
Fantine (Anne Hathaway) is a worker in a factory when she is introduced to the audience. The group of women–in sweatshop conditions–sing “At the End of the Day.” The lyrics showcase poverty, a lecherous foreman, hungry children and dismal working conditions. Fantine is fired for hiding that she has a child (the assumption is that she is immoral, which her co-workers pounce on). Valjean does not fight the foreman to keep her employed, and she is fired.

Fantine, in pink, works to support her child.

Fantine is the ultimate suffering mother, and Hathaway does a remarkable job at portraying her suffering when she chooses (out of necessity) to sell her hair, necklace, teeth and body. “I Dreamed a Dream” was incredible, especially considering the actors sang live during filming. Fantine’s plight is clearly the fault of awful men–the man who impregnated and then left her, the abusive foreman, the disgusting johns–she is a fighting victim, and she has the audience’s sympathies. 
When Valjean saves Fantine from Javert (Russell Crowe), who was arresting her because he believed her abusive customer over her, and takes her to the hospital, he realizes that he’d let this happen, albeit passively, and pledges to take care of her daughter.

Fantine’s transformation into a dying prostitute.

Valjean realizes that he hadn’t done what he should have in the first place, and makes up for it (this is really Valjean in a nutshell). Unlike the strict Javert, who lives rigidly within a patriarchal code of justice, Valjean’s morality grows and evolves, as he questions himself and the world around him.
The film introduces a new song, “Suddenly,” placed after Valjean rescues Cosette from the Thenardiers (Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter, in roles that seem made for them). As she sleeps, he expresses her transformative effect on him. Having a child gives him new hope and life. He sings, “Suddenly I see / What I could not see / Something suddenly / Has begun.” This stereotypically feminine maternal love for a child changes Valjean.

Cosette and Valjean save one another other.

Javert identifies Valjean by his brute strength, because that is all he can see in his fight for black and white justice. 
In “Stars,” Javert’s ode to order and righteousness, he subscribes to a religion that is authoritative and patriarchal. His views of justice contrast Valjean’s and are deeply rooted in traditional masculinity. Valjean’s religion is about grace, empathy and compassion, and his justice is not about man’s law, but about morality and care–typically feminine virtues.

Javert, after the revolt.

Many of us fell deeply in love with Les Mis as young girls and “tweens,” and the plights of Cosette dreaming about a castle on a cloud, or Eponine longing for someone in a different world who doesn’t love her back, tugged on our pubescent heartstrings. The music never ceases being beautiful, but as we get older, we understand the larger implications of Fantine’s suffering, Valjean’s existential crises and Javert’s clinging to justice without morality.
The class issues that drive the story are introduced with Valjean and Fantine, and come to a head with the revolt led by university students against the injustice of poverty. Eponine’s (Samantha Barks) unrequited love for Marius (Eddie Redmayne) is painful, but she is still a strong female character. She leads Marius to Cosette (Amanda Seyfried) and fights behind the barricades. The film shows her binding her breasts during “One Day More,” and when she pulls the rifle away from Marius so she is shot, the audience sees it up close. She’s sacrificial, obviously, but independent and strong, doing what she needs to do for her community, herself and Marius. Her plight symbolizes an oppressive system of social classes more than it does weak womanhood.

Eponine, a victim of poverty, terrible parents and unrequited love.

When Gavroche sings about “little people,” and is eventually killed, he also is a symbol of the evils of oppression. 
Cosette and Marius are equally smitten with one another (no games, no desperation). When Valjean learns about their love for one another, he’s in the midst of wanting to flee to get away from Javert. When he hears of the revolt, he goes, largely to protect Marius. He doesn’t know Marius, but he knows his daughter loves him, and that’s enough. He pleads with God to “bring him (Marius) home,” and protect him. When Marius is shot, Valjean saves him anonymously. He loves Cosette so much that he is willing to risk his life for a man who she loves, and he trusts her judgment. Women aren’t the only sacrificial figures here.
Valjean has the opportunity to kill Javert, but refuses. Javert commits suicide when he is faced with an inner conflict that he can’t resolve. Javert sings:
“Damned if I’ll live in the debt of a thief!
Damned if I’ll yield at the end of the chase.
I am the Law and the Law is not mocked
I’ll spit his pity right back in his face
There is nothing on earth that we share
It is either Valjean or Javert!”

This dualistic view of mankind’s nature and society loses–at its own hand. Valjean’s morality overcomes Javert’s strict code of justice. 

When Marius and Cosette reunite in “Every Day,” Valjean sings “She was never mine to keep / She is youthful / She is free.” This epiphany should lift up any feminist’s heart, because that’s a pretty refreshing thing to hear from someone, much less a 19th-century father.

Marius and Cosette.

After they are married, Cosette and Marius find Valjean (who has exiled himself again and is staying in a convent). Valjean gives Cosette a letter with his life story, and as he’s dying, he sees Fantine and the priest and goes toward them. 
The ending is a gorgeous reprise of “Do You Hear the People Sing,” as Valjean goes toward an enormous barricade and sees all those who have died. While there has been a great deal of loss throughout the film, this ending is uplifting. The message is that love has prevailed–platonic love, familial love and romantic love. 
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy defines feminist ethics as questioning traditional ethics:
“…traditional ethics overrates culturally masculine traits like ‘independence, autonomy, intellect, will, wariness, hierarchy, domination, culture, transcendence, product, asceticism, war, and death,’ while it underrates culturally feminine traits like ‘interdependence, community, connection, sharing, emotion, body, trust, absence of hierarchy, nature, immanence, process, joy, peace, and life’ … it favors ‘male’ ways of moral reasoning that emphasize rules, rights, universality, and impartiality over ‘female’ ways of moral reasoning that emphasize relationships, responsibilities, particularity, and partiality (Alison Jagger, ‘Feminist Ethics’).”
Javert clearly embodies traditional, masculine traits and an obsession with rules. Valjean, on the other hand, grows into a sympathetic hero by developing a more feminine morality (putting a priority on connection, questioning hierarchy, working for peace and developing relationships). Valjean is our hero.
While Javert’s Christianity drives his actions (he sings “Mine is the way of the Lord” in “Stars”), Valjean’s stumbling toward Christianity is more authentic and is portrayed as preferable, with a focus on forgiveness, sacrifice and giving. As he’s dying, he sings along with the ghost of Fantine, “To love another person is to see the face of God.” This is the truth we’re supposed to walk away with–not the truth of laws and authority, but the truth of emotional vulnerability and mercy.
The women of Les Miserables suffer and sacrifice for men, and their plights certainly propel the men’s stories. Cosette, who is more one-dimensional than the other women, survives and thrives. She had the privilege of having a good parent and being in love, which again shows the importance of good relationships.
The only way, then, that Les Miserables could be anti-feminist is if Javert and his worldview had won. But he doesn’t; instead, the audience is supposed to celebrate what are often considered culturally feminine traits and morality. Les Miserables is critical of social injustice, poverty and oppression. And at the end of the day, that sounds like feminism.
The barricades are erected and are triumphant at the end of the film.

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

Call for Writers: Golden Globe Nominees

We’ll be posting pieces highlighting the Golden Globe nominees the week leading up to the ceremony (January 7-11). If you’d like to submit something–either an original piece or a crosspost–you can drop us an email: btchflcks@gmail.com. 
We’re particularly interested in receiving pieces that focus on the nominees below, mainly because Bitch Flicks hasn’t yet covered them. But we’re open to anything. Submit!

MOVIES

“Argo”
“Life of Pi”
“Zero Dark Thirty”
“The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel”
“Moonrise Kindgom”
“Salmon Fishing in the Yemen”
“Rust and Bone”
“The Impossible”
“The Deep Blue Sea”
“Arbitrage”
“Flight”
“Bernie”
“Hyde Park on Hudson”
“Quartet”
“The Paperboy”
“Amour”
“A Royal Affair”
“The Intouchables”
“Kon-Tiki”
“Rise of the Guardians”
“Frankenweenie”
“Hotel Transylvania”


TELEVISION

“The Big Bang Theory”
“Episodes”
“Smash”
“Game Change”
“Hatfields & McCoys”
“The Hour”
“Political Animals”
“Damages”
“House of Lies”
“Hemingway and Gellhorn”
“American Horror Story: Asylum”
“Sherlock”
“Magic City”

2013 Golden Globe Nominees

Here’s the list for the main categories. If we’ve talked about them on Bitch Flicks, those pieces are hyperlinked.


Movies

Best Picture, Drama
“Argo”
“Django Unchained”
“Life of Pi”
“Lincoln”
“Zero Dark Thirty”

Best Picture, Musical or Comedy

“The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel”
“Les Misérables”
“Moonrise Kindgom”
“Salmon Fishing in the Yemen”
“Silver Linings Playbook”

Best Director
Ben Affleck, “Argo”
Kathryn Bigelow, “Zero Dark Thirty”
Ang Lee, “Life of Pi”
Steven Spielberg, “Lincoln”
Quentin Tarantino, “Django Unchained”

Best Actress, Drama
Jessica Chastain, “Zero Dark Thirty”
Marion Cotillard, “Rust and Bone”
Helen Mirren, “Hitchcock”
Naomi Watts, “The Impossible”
Rachel Weisz, “The Deep Blue Sea”

Best Actor, Drama
Daniel Day-Lewis, “Lincoln”
Richard Gere, “Arbitrage”
John Hawkes, “The Sessions”
Joaquin Phoenix, “The Master”
Denzel Washington, “Flight”

Best Actor, Musical or Comedy
Jack Black, “Bernie”
Bradley Cooper, “Silver Linings Playbook”
Hugh Jackman, “Les Misérables”
Ewan McGregor, “Salmon Fishing in the Yemen”
Bill Murray, “Hyde Park on Hudson”

Best Actress, Musical or Comedy
Emily Blunt, “Salmon Fishing in the Yemen”
Judi Dench, “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel”
Jennifer Lawrence, “Silver Linings Playbook”
Maggie Smith, “Quartet”
Meryl Streep, “Hope Springs”

Best Supporting Actress
Amy Adams, “The Master”
Sally Field, “Lincoln”
Anne Hathaway, “Les Misérables”
Helen Hunt, “The Sessions”
Nicole Kidman, “The Paperboy”

Best Supporting Actor
Alan Arkin, “Argo”
Leonardo DiCaprio, “Django Unchained”
Philip Seymour Hoffman, “The Master”
Tommy Lee Jones, “Lincoln”
Christoph Waltz, “Django Unchained”

Best Screenplay
Mark Boal, “Zero Dark Thirty”
Tony Kushner, “Lincoln”
David O. Russell, “Silver Linings Playbook”
Quentin Tarantino, “Django Unchained”
Chris Terrio, “Argo”

Best Original Score
Dario Marianelli, “Anna Karenina”
Alexandre Desplat, “Argo”
Tom Tykwer, Johnny Klimet & Reinhold Heil, “Cloud Atlas”
Michael Danna, “Life of Pi”
John Williams, “Lincoln”

Best Original Song
“For You” from “Act of Valor”
“Not Running Anymore” from “Stand Up Guys”
“Safe and Sound” from “The Hunger Games”
“Suddenly” from “Les Misérables”
“Skyfall” from “Skyfall”

Best Foreign Language Film
“Amour”
“A Royal Affair”
“The Intouchables”
“Kon-Tiki”
“Rust and Bone”

Best Animated Feature
“Rise of the Guardians”
“Brave”
“Frankenweenie”
“Hotel Transylvania”
“Wreck-It Ralph”

Cecil B. DeMille Award
Jodie Foster


Television

 Best Television, Comedy or Musical
“The Big Bang Theory”
“Episodes”
“Girls”
“Modern Family”
“Smash”

Best Television, Drama

“Breaking Bad”
“Boardwalk Empire”
“Downton Abbey”
“Homeland”
“The Newsroom”

Best Miniseries or Television Movie
“Game Change”
“The Girl”
“Hatfields & McCoys”
“The Hour”
“Political Animals”

Best Actress, Television Drama

Connie Britton, “Nashville”
Glenn Close, “Damages”
Claire Danes, “Homeland”
Michelle Dockery, “Downton Abbey”
Julianna Margulies, “The Good Wife”

Best Actor, Television Drama
Best Actor, TV Drama Steve Buscemi, “Boardwalk Empire”
Bryan Cranston, “Breaking Bad”
Jeff Daniels, “The Newsroom”
Jon Hamm, “Mad Men”
Damian Lewis, “Homeland”

Best Actress, Television Comedy Or Musical
Zooey Deschanel, “New Girl”
Lena Dunham, “Girls”
Tina Fey, “30 Rock”
Julia Louis-Dreyfus, “Veep”
Amy Poehler, “Parks And Recreation”

Best Actor, Television Comedy Or Musical
Alec Baldwin, “30 Rock”
Don Cheadle, “House of Lies”
Louis C.K., “Louie”
Matt LeBlanc, “Episodes”
Jim Parsons, “The Big Bang Theory”

Best Actress In A Miniseries or Motion Picture Made for Television
Nicole Kidman, “Hemingway and Gellhorn”
Jessica Lange, “American Horror Story: Asylum”
Sienna Miller, “The Girl”
Julianne Moore, “Game Change”
Sigourney Weaver, “Political Animals”

Best Actor in a MiniSeries or Motion Picture Made for Television
Kevin Costner, “Hatfields and McCoys”
Benedict Cumberbatch, “Sherlock”
Woody Harrelson, “Game Change”
Toby Jones, “The Girl”
Clive Owen, “Hemingway and Gellhorn”

Best Supporting Actress in a Series, MiniSeries or Motion Picture Made for Television
Hayden Panettiere, “Nashville”
Archie Panjabi, “The Good Wife”
Sarah Paulson, “Game Change”
Maggie Smith, “Downton Abbey”
Sofia Vergara, “Modern Family”

Best Supporting Actor in a Series, Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television
Max Greenfield, “New Girl”
Ed Harris, “Game Change”
Danny Huston, “Magic City”
Mandy Patinkin, “Homeland”
Eric Stonestreet, “Modern Family”