2013 Oscar Week – Page 2

2013 Oscar Week: More Royal Than Affair

A Royal Affair (2012)

Guest post written by Atima Omara-Alwala.

Anyone reading the synopsis of A Royal Affair wonders if it will be more of the same. I mean what else can be said about a high-born woman trapped in loveless marriage to an awful unsophisticated idiot who finds love in the arms of an enlightened dashing sensitive man? (Looking at you Keira Knightley, in The Duchess or let’s be real, any movie about Marie Antoinette). However it is saved by actually not being about the affair but a story of the fight for enlightenment and freedom. These ideals are at the center of Danish director Nikolaj Arcel’s film, which is based on the lives of Danish King Christian VII, his wife and Queen Caroline, Mathilde, and their royal physician, Dr. Johan Streunsee.

The protagonist is Caroline Mathilde (Alice Viksander), who is the primary orator of the movie. We find her in exile in an undescribed place where she begins to write her story to her children. Caroline, who is English by birth, is betrothed at a young age to the equally young King Christian VII (Mikkel Følsgaard) of Denmark. Though the story does not go into great detail about her family origin, she is the youngest child of the then-ruling British royal family.

Being a young woman of royal birth, the best that women of Caroline’s station can hope for is a powerful marriage, with love as a luxury. This expectation is driven home in the scene where Caroline frets over whether her husband should like her. Her mother, actually trying to be very kind, says, “Dear, if you are able to get your husband into your bed on your wedding night, you will be a great success.”

And so with that Caroline’s married life begins as she is sent to a foreign land she has never visited to a place with a language she barely speaks. King Christian the VII as a husband leaves much to be desired. He is relatively childish and awkward but, beyond that, something is mentally off about him. His mental instability is made apparent in a scene where King Christian’s stepmother, the Queen Dowager Juliane Marie (Trine Dyrholm), warns him his wife’s prettiness and artistic abilities can eclipse his reign. Very suddenly, Christian moves from happiness to anger, as he takes his insecurity out on Caroline in front of their guests and demands that she “move her fat thighs” away from the piano she is playing for guests. A real Prince Charming, to be sure. Caroline, justifiably, is horrified into shocked silence as is everyone else in the room. The King’s mental capability and his mercurial nature becomes an important player in the film later.

The following wedding night scene is so painfully awkward you can’t help but feel sorry for Caroline right away. Thankfully, the filmmaker saves us from the rest of the inartful consummation by fading to black. The unhappy marriage is summed up very quickly in the next few scenes as her only solace is her friendship with lady-in-waiting, Louise Von Plessen who is sent away eventually. Christian VII is revealed to not only be verbally abusive but a heavy drinker, carouser and frequenter of Copenhagen’s finer houses with ladies of ill-repute. All of which rightfully disgusts and angers Caroline but she endures with relative matriarchal silence. Eventually, Caroline completes her most important royal duty and becomes pregnant with her first child and heir to the throne Frederik.

Around this time, enters Dr. Johan Struensee (Mads Mikkelsen, a former Bond villain in 2006’s Casino Royale!). What is interesting about Johann is that besides being a doctor he is also a man of the Enlightenment movement that is sweeping the continent. A well-read man, Johann bonds with the king over their mutual love of Shakespeare. It is for this major reason he is selected to be the royal physician and then elevated to overall trusted adviser.

King Christian’s irritation with his wife’s continued moodiness over their marriage leads to him encouraging Johann to give his wife a checkup to find out what exactly ails her, so she can be more “fun” in the King’s words.

In her own right, Caroline has an excellent education and it is revealed before she came to Denmark that she also enjoyed the writings of Voltaire, Rousseau, and other idols of the Enlightenment. Her bond forms with Johann, whom she has regarded with suspicion and complicit in her husband’s behavior, when she realizes he has smuggled and hidden many of these banned writers’ books into Denmark. In Johann, Caroline finds someone who can understand her, and in her Johann instantly respects a woman he greatly underestimated as clearly just another pretty and mindless royal wife. The bond is further cemented when Johann convinces the King and Queen that their son and heir, Frederic,k needs to be vaccinated from smallpox, something never done, but Johann successfully does also gaining him admirers at Court.

While Johann and Caroline eventually enter into the expected royal affair, the story becomes more about what their illicit partnership cultivated. Johann often accompanies the King to his Council meetings where the conservative Council men enact oppressive rulings of the state of Denmark. Due to his clear mental incapabilities, the Council treats the King like a puppet. And Johann and Caroline are both frustrated by the Council’s anti-Enlightenment, conservative, aristocratic policies of censorship and the unequal rights of men etc. It is Caroline who reminds Johann of his power over the impressionable King. And it is then that the light turns on for Johann of how the King can be used to promote a greater good.

And so it unfolds, King Christian, through the influence of Caroline and Johann’s affair, becomes the arbiter of the Enlightenment movement in Denmark. He abolishes the conservative Council, establishes freedom of the press, ends prison torture, etc. Denmark becomes a pioneering country in freedom even at the notice of Voltaire himself. Like Caroline and Johann, strangely even King Christian appears most happy during this time, as Johann is careful with his power over the King encouraging him to think actively and use his power as king but for enlightenment ideals. The political intrigue and fight for power is at the heart of this film as both Caroline and Johann fight for control from the conservative council with the King as their proxy.

Like all movements challenging the status quo, the conservative Council challenges the ideals of the Enlightenment celebrated by Caroline and Johann and their informal salon they have gathered around them. For US viewers the conservative Council’s arguments against social reforms is very familiar.. “Where is the money?” “Must be paid for” etc. And certainly viewers around the world can related to the ideals of equality and freedom. The unfolding chess match, with the mentally unstable King as its chess piece, has its consequences finally as the conservative council reaches a major checkmate against Queen Caroline and Dr. Streunsee. Caroline and Christinan’s enemy at the court, Queen Dowager Juliane Marie discovers her infidelity through the questioned birth of Caroline’s second child, Louisa.

The consequences of political infighting and manipulation even for a greater good plays itself out in a less than idealistic fashion and as a result we find Caroline back as we did at the start of the movie, in exile, penning the final pieces of her story to her children, in hopes they at least understand, if not accept her motivations. What the children do with that knowledge makes for an interesting ending.

This movie is Oscar worthy and passes the feminist smell test because A) Despite the title has “affair” in it has surprisingly little gratuitous sex in it, especially at the expense of Caroline. B) She controls the narrative and not someone else which is often the case with women who end up in her situation (read: Henry VIII’s unlucky wives) C) She is an equal partner in the Enlightenment discussion with Johann. D) it is less about an affair and is more about the coming together of two unlikely revolutionaries whose intellectual partnership became a major historical turning point for a nation’s history and political system.

While Alice Viksander didn’t carry a ton of emotional range as Queen Caroline she does command your respect, and your interest in the movie to the very end.

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Atima Omara-Alwala is a political strategist and activist of 10 years who has served as staff on 8 federal and local political campaigns and other progressive causes. Atima’s work has had a particular focus on women’s political empowerment & leadership, reproductive justice, health care, communities of color and how gender and race is reflected in pop culture. Her writings on the topics have also been featured at Ms. Magazine, Women’s Enews, RH Reality Check.

2013 Oscar Week: Acting Up: A Review of ‘How to Survive a Plague’

Guest post written by Diana Suber.

At the beginning of the AIDS epidemic, I was a child and only vaguely aware of the crisis as hundreds of people, mostly young gay men at that time, were dying from an unknown virus with no cure in sight. As a teen in the late eighties and early nineties, I do remember seeing the “Silence = Death” posters, t-shirts, and buttons with the iconic pink triangle, but I realize now that I did not know the full scope of what it all meant. So I was intrigued to watch the documentary How to Survive a Plague directed by journalist David France. Nominated this year for an Oscar in the Best Documentary Feature category, How to Survive a Plague chronicles the organization ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) and its offshoot TAG (Treatment Action Group) from 1987 to 1996 and these organizations’ dedicated efforts to pressure the United States government and other authorities to prioritize HIV/AIDS research and treatment and to approach the epidemic as a healthcare emergency and not merely an isolated scourge among homosexual men.

“Silence = Death”

The principal setting of the film is Greenwich Village, New York, considered to be “ground zero” of the HIV/AIDS activist movement, where activists meet to organize, having been motivated to stop their friends, family members, lovers, and themselves from dying. The film is rich in archival footage of ACT UP and TAG meetings, protests against the federal and local government and various agencies such as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and interviews with ACT UP and TAG activists at the forefront of the movement, including Peter Staley, Mark Harrington, and David Barr, just to name a few. Many of the activists featured in the film are white gay men; yet almost all of them attributed the long-term success of the movement to Dr. Iris Long, a straight woman and chemist, who gave the activists a crash course in drug testing protocols and working through the FDA/NIH bureaucracy. Other women activists featured in the film include Garance Franke-Ruta, Ann Northrop, and Dr. Ellen Cooper.

Director David France, who was a journalist at the time these events were unfolding, has said that his goal as a journalist and then as a filmmaker was to bear witness. Consequently, the film is a very detailed account of the power of grassroots activism. Not only did these activists–gay and straight, young and old, male and female, healthy and dying–use protest in the streets as a means of garnering attention to what activist and playwright Larry Kramer described as a plague that was killing hundreds of thousands, but they educated themselves and became experts on medical research, experts at navigating the bureaucracy of drug testing and drug approval protocols, experts on creating policies for the treatment of HIV/AIDS patients, experts at wrangling the media, and experts at placing pressure on key decision-makers in the FDA and NIH. The activists also partnered with and prodded drug companies to find and manufacture drugs to treat the disease. In fact, ACT UP and TAG’s open dialogue with scientists at pharmaceutical companies like Merck & Co. ultimately lead to the discovery of the combinations of protease inhibitors which have stopped HIV/AIDS from being a death sentence.

Although the movement was very successful, it was not without its drawbacks. Activists interviewed stated great disappointment when drugs for which they had advocated for and invested much time and resources did not ultimately work on the virus or its symptoms. Many activists did not survive to see the fruits of their labor realized. Indeed, a very poignant part of the film is when activists march to the White House, occupied at that time by President George H. W. Bush, and dump the ashes of their loved-ones on the lawn while yelling “Shame!” The documentary also explores some of the internal politics and strife that occurred within ACT-UP over the years as personalities clashed over the direction and focus of the movement. This strife led to a segment of ACT-UP leadership breaking off and forming TAG. Fortunately, neither organization allowed politics to derail their existence or the ultimate goal.

To his credit, France tempers the emotional frustration and urgency that permeates the film with moments of humor. One of my favorite scenes was footage of TAG activists placing a giant condom over the home of the late Senator Jesse Helms. And as I watched other archival footage of protesters with signs saying “Healthcare is a Right” scrolling across the screen, I was struck by how much the echoes of the past tend to reverberate in the present. The activists featured in this film — through their tireless work, their courage, and their deafening lack of silence — saved millions of lives. (The film states that more than 6 million lives have been saved since 1996 when the three-drug combination of protease inhibitors was identified as a viable treatment). But the fight is not over because there is still no cure for HIV/AIDS, the virus is still spreading worldwide especially among communities of color, and millions of people cannot afford and/or have no access to the life-prolonging drugs that are now available. And so the greatest take-away from How to Survive a Plague is the knowledge that silence is still not an option.

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Diana Suber is a movie-loving lawyer who lives in Atlanta. She writes movie reviews and other thoughts on film at her blog http://www.atlflickchick.com/.

2013 Oscar Week: ‘Brave’ and the Legacy of Female Prepubescent Power Fantasies

Written by Amanda Rodriguez.

I liked Disney Pixar’s Brave well enough. It’s pretty enough. It’s a story about a mother and daughter, and there was no romance, both of which are nice; though, as I’ll show, neither are as uncommon as they might initially appear. I didn’t find the feminist qualities of this movie to be particularly impressive. Brave is actually situated within a somewhat prolific trope of female prepubescent power fantasy tales. Within this trope, young girls are allowed and even encouraged to be strong, assertive, creative, and heroes of their own stories. I call them “feminism lite” because these characters are only afforded this power because they are girl children who are unthreatening in their prepubescent, pre-sexualized state.

Let’s consider a few examples.

First, we’ve got Matilda, a film based on the eponymous novel by Roald Dahl. This story is about a genius six-year-old girl who realizes she has telekinetic powers. Matilda is brave and kind to those who deserve it and punishes authority figures who take advantage of their positions of power. This story, similar to Brave, is about the budding (surrogate) mother/daughter relationship between Matilda and her kindergarten teacher, Miss Honey. They find idyllic happiness at the end of the film when they adopt each other to form their own little family.

“I can feel the strongness. I feel like I can move almost anything in the world.” – Matilda

Then there’s Harriet the Spy, based on the book by Louise Fitzhugh, about an inquisitive, imaginative girl who learns the power of her voice and how her words affect others. Another potent mother/daughter bond is featured between Harriet and her nanny, Golly.

“You’re an individual, and that makes people nervous. And it’s gonna keep making people nervous for the rest of your life.” – Golly

We can’t forget Pippi Longstocking, based on the book series by Astrid Lindgren. Pippi is independent and adventurous with a slew of fantastical stories. She also has incredible physical strength, exotic pets, and teaches her friends Tommy and Annika that just because the trio are children, doesn’t mean experiences and desires should be denied them.

“I’m Pippilotta Delicatessa Windowshade Longstocking, daughter of Captain Efraim Longstocking, Pippi for short.” – Pippi

There’s also Whale Rider based on the book by Witi Ihimaera. Pai is a determined young girl who wants to become the chief of her Māori tribe, but that is forbidden because she’s a girl. With wisdom and vision, Pai strives to unite and lead her people into the future. She is dedicated, stubborn and perseveres, showing she has the uncanny spiritual ability to speak with (and ride) whales.

“My name is Paikea Apirana, and I come from a long line of chiefs…I know that our people will keep going forward, all together, with all of our strength.” – Pai

One of my personal favorites is Pan’s Labyrinth (or El Labertino del Fauno meaning “The Labyrinth of the Faun” in Spanish). Interestingly, Pan’s Labyrinth is the first on our list that wasn’t based on a book, as it was written and directed by Guillermo del Toro. The film takes place in post Civil War Spain with young Ofelia as our heroine. She is forced to live with her fascist captain stepfather who hunts down rebels while her mother languishes in a difficult pregnancy. Totally isolated, Ofelia retreats into a dark fantasy world replete with fairies, fauns, and child-eating monsters. In this world (that may or may not truly exist), she is a long-lost immortal underworld princess trying to make her way home. Throughout the tale, Ofelia forms a strong connection with Merecedes, a kitchen maid who is not only secretly a rebel spy, but is brave and crazy badass. Ofelia is intelligent, defiant, loyal, and ultimately self-sacrificing.

“Hello. I am Princess Moanna, and I am not afraid of you.” – Ofelia

All of these stories validate young female agency because all these girls are prepubescent. They are too young and too physically underdeveloped to be objectified or vilified for their sexuality. There are tales that continue to advocate for the empowerment of their slightly older heroines despite their budding sexuality. These are pseudo coming-of-age films. I say “pseudo” here because the main characters don’t actually become sexual beings.

A great contemporary example of a pseudo coming-of-age tale is the action-thriller Hanna, starring the talented Saoirse Ronan as a 14-year-old CIA experiment with enhanced DNA to make her the optimal weapon. She is trained in arctic isolation and is therefore unsocialized and unschooled in the ways of the world. Most of the film centers around her mission to kill Cate Blanchett’s evil CIA agent character, Marissa. However, there is an interlude when Hanna befriends brash young Sophie who is eager to grow up. The two sneak out and go dancing, and a boy kisses Hanna. Our young heroine is at first intrigued and even enraptured by the experience, but she ends up knocking the boy to the ground and nearly breaking his neck. Later, there is also sexual tension between Hanna and Sophie as the two lie next to each other in a tent, falling asleep, but nothing comes of it. These are examples of Hanna’s awakening sexuality, which the film insinuates may ultimately be terrifying in its power and lack of boundaries. Hanna, though, is still young and chooses her father and his indoctrination over her own self-discovery.

“Kissing requires a total of thirty-four facial muscles.” – Hanna

Not to forget Jim Hanson’s classic Labyrinth starring Jennifer Connelly as Sarah, a teenager who is enthralled by the fantasy of the Labyrinth along with its alluring goblin king, Jereth (aka David Bowie in an impressive Tina Turner mullet wig). Sarah withdraws from her family, yearning for adventure and romance while hating her obligation to babysit her “screaming baby” brother, Toby, so she calls on the goblin king to take the boy away. She then spends the rest of the movie trying to get the toddler back. Jareth attempts to seduce her into forgetting the child and being his goblin queen, which is what Sarah initially wanted, but, in the end, she chooses her family and fantastical goblin friends over love, romance, and her sexuality. When she says to her goblin friends, “I need you; I need you all,” she is affirming that she’s not ready for adulthood and wants to remain a child a bit longer. Her intact innocence is what allows her to be uncomplicatedly triumphant, to assert her equality with and independence from Jareth.

“For my will is as strong as yours, and my kingdom is as great. You have no power over me!” – Sarah

To be empowered, all the aforementioned heroines must remain perpetually young, fixed forever in their prepubescent state within the reels of their films. Once our heroines become sexual teens, their power is overwhelmingly defined by their sexuality, and/or their worth is determined by their body’s objectification. In fact, many of these tales are no longer fantasies, but horror movies (or movies that have horror qualities) that demonize female sexual awakenings.

I don’t even want to disgrace the hallowed web pages of Bitch Flicks with an obvious account of the worthless Twilight series that equates female sexuality with death and advocates teen pregnancy over reproductive rights. However, Bella is a prime example of a young woman whose own self-value is dependent on how the male characters view her. She is the apex of a noxious love triangle, and her desirability defines her, creating the entire basis of the poorly acted, poorly produced saga.

“It’s like diamonds…you’re beautiful.” – Bella re: Edward’s sparkly skin. Gag, Puke, Retch

Ginger Snaps clearly fits the mold of the vilification of budding female sexuality. Ginger gets her period for the first time and is therefore attacked by a werewolf. The attack has rape connotations, implying that Ginger wouldn’t have been as enticing to the wolf if she weren’t yet sexual, especially since her mousy sister Brigitte is spared. Ginger goes through a series of changes, becoming sexually aggressive and promiscuous. When she has unprotected sex with a boy, turning him into a werewolf, this further underscores the connection between Ginger’s monstrous lycanthropy and her unchecked sexuality. There’s also a great deal of sexual tension between Ginger and her sister, Brigitte, suggesting that her sexuality is boundless and therefore frightening.

“I get this ache…and I, I thought it was for sex, but it’s to tear everything to fucking pieces.” – Ginger

Lastly, we have the pseudo-feminist film Teeth about a young girl who grows teeth on her vagina (vagina dentata style). Our teenage heroine, Dawn, is in one of those Christian abstinence/purity clubs, and everything is fine until she becomes attracted to and makes out with a boy. The film punishes her for her newfound sexuality and mocks her abstinence vow by having the boy rape her. Dawn’s vagina then bites off his penis. Over the course of the movie, Dawn is essentially sexually assaulted four times. Four times. She is degraded from the beginning of the film to the very end. Her supposedly empowerful teeth-laden vagina is a dubious gift, considering she generally must be raped in order to use it. Instead of focusing on the power of her sexuality and the awesome choice she has of whether or not to wield it, the film victimizes her at every corner, undercutting her potential strength and sexual agency.

“The way [the ring] wraps around your finger, that’s to remind you to keep your gift wrapped until the day you trade it in for that other ring. That gold ring.” – Dawn

Basically, Brave isn’t really that brave of a film. It’s traipsing through a well-established trope that, though positive, is stagnant. Don’t get me wrong; I love all the prepubescent female power fantasy tales I’ve listed, and I’m grateful that they exist and that I could grow up with many of them. However, we can’t pretend that Brave is pushing any boundaries. It sends the message that little girls can be powerful as long as they remain little girls. The dearth of representations of postpubescent heroines who are not objectified, whose sexuality does not rule their interactions, and who are the heroes of their own stories is appalling. There may be exceptions, but my brain has a fairly to moderately comprehensive catalog of films, especially those starring strong female characters. Scanning…scanning…file not found. If I, who actively seek out films that use integrity in their depictions of kickass women, can’t think of many, how is the casual viewer to find them? How is the teenage girl coming into her sexuality while facing negativity and recriminations supposed to see herself portrayed in a light that gives her the opportunity to be nuanced, to be smart and brave, to be independent or to be a leader?

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Race and the Academy: Black Characters, Stories, and the Danger of Django

“It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity.” – W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk

Written by Leigh Kolb

When I first wrote about Django Unchained, I focused on the power of Django’s story, and how Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz) and Quentin Tarantino give Django the “white access” he needs to get into Candyland and into movie theaters.

I was excited and hopeful about what the film could symbolize on a grand scale, that a revenge-fantasy that shows the horrors of slavery and has a Black protagonist who overtakes his oppressors was a box office hit and was set to receive numerous award nominations.

My excitement was short-lived. Jamie Foxx (Django) and Samuel L. Jackson (Stephen) were shut out of acting categories for both the Golden Globes and Academy Awards.

While their co-stars are completely deserving of recognition for incredible acting (Waltz and Leonardo DiCaprio were nominated for Golden Globes and Waltz for an Academy Award–Waltz won both), Foxx’s lack of nominations is symptomatic of a larger Hollywood problem–not only whose stories audiences see, but also whose stories get awards.

When Tarantino understandably felt uncomfortable with the thought of filming scenes of a slave auction and brutality against slaves, he struggled with not wanting to film those scenes in the American south. He sought advice from Sidney Poitier (the first African American to win a Best Actor Oscar). His response:

“‘Sidney basically told me to man up,’ Tarantino says. ‘He said, ‘Quentin, for whatever reason, you’ve been inspired to make this film. You can’t be afraid of your own movie. You must treat them like actors, not property. If you do that, you’ll be fine.'”

Overall, Tarantino was fine. His Black actors, however, were not recognized for their performances (this was reminiscent of his 1997 film Jackie Brown, which received Golden Globe nods for Samuel L. Jackson and the title character, Pam Grier, but only received an acting Academy Award nomination for white co-star Robert Forster).

In an Oscar year that feature films that deal with race (The New York Times recently published an excellent article examining race and the roles of Black men in this year’s Oscar contenders), the acting awards nominations are startlingly white (Denzel Washington and Quvenzhané Wallis being the exceptions).

I want to focus mostly on the Black actors and actresses who have won Academy Awards, the plots of the films they were in (synopses from imdb.com) and their character descriptions. I know that this topic is complex and demands analysis far beyond this, but a brief reflection shows a pattern.

[Warning: spoilers ahead!]

Lilies of the Field (1963, Sidney Poitier, Best Actor): An unemployed construction worker (Homer Smith) heading out west stops at a remote farm in the desert to get water when his car overheats. The farm is being worked by a group of East European Catholic nuns, headed by the strict mother superior (Mother Maria), who believes that Homer has been sent by God to build a much needed church in the desert.

– Homer Smith: handyman who provides unpaid labor to a group of nuns

Training Day (2001, Denzel Washington, Best Actor): On his first day on the job as a narcotics officer, a rookie cop works with a rogue detective who isn’t what he appears.

– Alonzo Harris: crooked narcotics officer, killed at the end

Monster’s Ball (2001, Halle Berry, Best Actress): After a family tragedy, a racist prison guard reexamines his attitudes while falling in love with the African-American wife of the last prisoner he executed.

– Leticia Musgrove: struggling single mother, incarcerated husband, object of lust for racist cop

Ray (2004, Jamie Foxx, Best Actor): The life and career of the legendary popular music pianist, Ray Charles.

– Ray Charles: blind man overcomes odds, becomes music legend

The Last King of Scotland (2006, Forest Whitaker, Best Actor): Based on the events of the brutal Ugandan dictator Idi Amin’s regime as seen by his personal physician during the 1970s.

– Idi Amin: Ugandan president, evil, hundreds of thousands died under his regime

Flight (2012, Denzel Washington, Best Actor – pending): An airline pilot saves a flight from crashing, but an investigation into the malfunctions reveals something troubling.
– William “Whip” Whitaker: alcoholic, drug-addict pilot, ends up incarcerated

Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012, Quvenzhané Wallis, Best Actress – pending): Faced with both her hot-tempered father’s fading health and melting ice-caps that flood her ramshackle bayou community and unleash ancient aurochs, six-year-old Hushpuppy must learn the ways of courage and love.

– Hushpuppy: precocious five-year-old girl living in poverty with a dying, abusive father

An Officer and a Gentleman (1982, Louis Gossett, Jr., Best Supporting Actor): A young man must complete his work at a Navy Flight school to become an aviator, with the help of a tough gunnery sergeant and his new girlfriend.

– Gunnery Sergeant Emil Foley: rigid drill instructor, trains protagonist

Gone With the Wind (1939, Hattie McDaniel, Best Supporting Actress): American classic in which a manipulative woman and a roguish man carry on a turbulent love affair in the American south during the Civil War and Reconstruction.

– Mammy: “outspoken handmaid”

Glory (1989, Denzel Washington, Best Supporting Actor): Robert Gould Shaw leads the US Civil War’s first all-Black volunteer company, fighting prejudices of both his own Union army and the Confederates.

– Pvt. Trip: escaped slave, dies fighting

Ghost (1990, Whoopi Goldberg, Best Supporting Actress): After being killed during a botched mugging, a man’s love for his partner enables him to remain on earth as a ghost.

– Oda Mae Brown: con artist/psychic, “confidence trickster”

Jerry Maguire (1996, Cuba Gooding, Jr., Best Supporting Actor): When a sports agent has a moral epiphany and is fired for expressing it, he decides to put his new philosophy to the test as an independent with the only athlete who stays with him.

– Rod Tidwell: football player

Million Dollar Baby (2004, Morgan Freeman, Best Supporting Actor): A determined woman works with a hardened boxing trainer to become a professional.

– Eddie “Scrap-Iron” Dupris: narrator, retired boxer, employee at gym

Dreamgirls (2006, Jennifer Hudson, Best Supporting Actress): Based on the Broadway musical, a trio of Black female soul singers cross over to the pop charts in the early 1960s.

– Effie White: lead singer of the Dreamettes until she gets forced out of the group, becomes an “impoverished welfare mother”

Precious (2009, Mo’Nique, Best Supporting Actress): In New York City’s Harlem circa 1987, an overweight, abused, illiterate teen who is pregnant with her second child is invited to enroll in an alternative school in hopes that her life can head in a new direction.

– Mary Lee Johnston: unemployed, abusive (sexually, physically and emotionally), scams government for more welfare

The Help (2011, Octavia Spencer, Best Supporting Actress): An aspiring author during the civil rights movement of the 1960s decides to write a book detailing the African-American maids’ point of view on the white families for which they work, and the hardships they go through on a daily basis.

– Minny Jackson: outspoken, difficult maid; good cook

Of the four Black men who have won Best Actor Oscars, two are in powerful positions of authority and are evil (they serve as foils to their noble white co-stars), one provides free labor (let that sink in), and the other is a musician. The Black Best Supporting Actor winners quite literally support white protagonists.

The Black female actresses’ winning roles are even more troubling. None of them really has independent agency, except for maybe Hushpuppy–who is a child (she’s also not expected to win). Otherwise the list is full of maids, single mothers on welfare, and one trickster con artist. It felt horrible to even type that.

These characters are comfortable and safe to white audiences. If the character seems unsafe to white audiences, he or she is punished. Last year, the LA Times released a study that Oscar voters were 94 percent white and 77 percent male. Certainly this affects the Academy’s choices.

Now let’s look at the plot synopsis for Django Unchained.

Django Unchained: With the help of a German bounty hunter, a freed slave sets out to rescue his wife from a brutal Mississippi plantation owner.

– Django Freeman: trained, violent bounty hunter, whips and kills white people, burns down a plantation

One of these things is not like the others.

Django Unchained ends with a triumphant Black couple who have gained their revenge, freedom, and love. Think about how vastly different that ending is than those that are provided to Black characters in the films above. Many white couples and individuals end those films successfully, with complex story arcs that show their agency and growth.

When W.E.B. Du Bois discusses the “double consciousness” of seeing oneself “through the eyes of others,” he could very well be talking about modern-day Hollywood. He saw the world looking at African Americans with “amused contempt and pity,” and it’s hard to look at that list of Academy Award winners and not come to that same conclusion.

Meanwhile, Lincoln has been nominated in three out of the four major acting categories (all white actors). This is a film about abolishing slavery from a totally white and white-washed perspective (the omission of Frederick Douglass is unbelievable).

Whose stories get told? Whose stories get accolades?

It’s pretty clear. The Academy (94 percent white and 77 percent male) values stories that reflect their privileged consciousness and reinforce the Black double-consciousness that Du Bois was attempting to push through over 100 years ago.

Those chains, it seems, remain unbroken.

—–

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

2013 Oscar Week: ‘Beasts of the Southern Wild’: Deluge Myths

Quvenzhane Wallis as Hushpuppy in Beasts of the Southern Wild

Guest post written by Laura A. Shamas, Ph.D.

Warning: spoilers ahead!

With the Oscar season in full swing, many of the nominated films released in 2012 are in the spotlight again. Beasts of the Southern Wild is nominated for four Academy Awards: Best Actress, Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Director. Post-Sandy especially, the flood mythology motifs of Beasts of the Southern Wild deserve further examination, as they point to important symbols and mythic tropes active in the film. Water, personified as a character, reminds us of the potency of tales of the Deluge. Although floods are associated with destruction in mythology, they may also be seen as harbingers of renewal; Hushpuppy, the young female protagonist, leads with hope and wisdom at the film’s end.

Beasts of the Southern Wild, written by Lucy Alibar and Ben Zeitlin (based on Alibar’s play Juicy and Delicious), and directed by Zeitlin, is set in The Bathtub, a fictional delta region similar to parts of southern Louisiana. The story centers on Hushpuppy (Quvenzhané Wallis), a six year-old girl growing up in a ramshackle compound in a boggy bayou, raised solely by her ailing caring and erratic father, Wink (Dwight Henry). Hushpuppy’s mother left a long time ago, and in her own special house, the girl sometimes converses aloud with a symbol of her mother — an old sports jersey her mom left behind. In Act Two, Hushpuppy links a flashing white light over water in the distance to her mother’s identity.

WATER AS SYMBOL

We see that Hushpuppy and Wink’s lives are impacted by the presence of Water, as it incites much of the film’s plot. In Act One, a powerful storm of hurricane-force comes at night; their compound is flooded. In the downpour, the monsoon is personified when, with a rifle, Wink shoots up in the torrential rain and yells: “I’m comin’ to get you, Storm.” The next day, Hushpuppy and Wink navigate their rusty boat, crafted from an old truck, through swollen, overflowing waterways; a lone pet dog joins them. They look for survivors and take stock of the crippling destruction in their region. At first, it seems that no one else has survived, and Hushpuppy remarks, in voiceover narration: “They’re all down below trying to breathe through water.” Their square boat resonates as an ark-like image in this sequence. In Symbols of Transformation, C. G. Jung identifies Noah’s Ark as “an analogy of the womb, like the sea into which the sun sinks for rebirth.”[i]

In A Dictionary of Symbols by Jean Chevalier and Alain Gheerbrant, the meaning of water “may be reduced to three main areas. It is a source of life, a vehicle of cleansing and a centre of regeneration.” [ii]

All three of these aspects are depicted in Beasts of the Southern Wild. In Act Two, water is shown as a source of life in a teaching sequence: Wink shows Hushpuppy how to catch fish by hand (“You have to learn how to feed yourself. Now stick your hand in this water!”). Also in Act Two, the ocean feeds the community in the celebratory scene of The Bathtub’s storm survivors feasting on crawfish in their makeshift shelter in Lady Jo’s seafood shack. Wink tells Hushpuppy to “Beast it!” as she eats a crab. We gradually understand that Wink, as Mentor, is teaching his daughter bayou survival skills.

Later, the water serves as a source for spiritual cleansing; Hushpuppy embarks on a search for her mother, and finds maternal nurturing from women who work aboard a pleasure ship, the “Elysian Fields Floating Catfish Shack” featuring “Girls Girls Girls.” Wink’s passing, with final ship burial rites that are similar to those of the ancient Vikings, is connected to a spiritual return to the sea.

The theme of “regeneration” is clear in the ending of Beasts of the Southern Wild, and discussed in further detail below. Much more than a mere setting, water is part of every major plot turn, and somehow young Hushpuppy must learn to live with it, on it, and sail through it.

FLOODING: MEANING AND MYTHS

Key tropes from flood stories are featured in Beasts of the Southern Wild. In ancient flood mythology, deities send destructive waters to punish humanity; some flood myths are also categorized as part of creation myths because a new cycle may begin after the water recedes. A deluge brings fear, according to ARAS’ The Book of Symbols: “Floods are especially frightening because they intimate unpredictable forces of like nature within ourselves.” [iii] A deluge may herald a post-Apocalypse renewal — a spiritually cleansing effect, related to the purification function of baptism. From a myth perspective, it can be seen as a three-part process: ruination, revival, and purification. [iv] As Tamra Andrews writes in A Dictionary of Nature Myths: “Humanity returned to the water from whence it came, then began again.” [v]

Beasts of the Southern Wild

Classic tales from traditions worldwide feature flood motifs. The Sumerian Epic of Atrahasis predates Noah’s story; ARAS’ The Book of Symbols says the Atrahasis tale “describes casualties of flood strewn about the river like dragonflies.” [vi]

The familiar story of Noah’s Ark is one of many legends in which the deluge brings a renewal, the start of a new cycle, even a rainbow. In the Gilgamesh Flood Myth (which some scholars trace to The Epic of Atrahasis), Upnatishtim must build a boat to weather a storm so foul its verocity frightens the very gods who created it. Like Noah, Upnatishtim’s boat eventually lands atop a mountain.

In the Irish legend of Fintan mac Bóchra, Fintan escorted one of Noah’s granddaughters to Ireland. As one of three who lived through the deluge, Fintan “the Wise” survived the deluge by shape-shifting into a salmon and two birds; eventually he became a human again and advised the ancient Kings of Ireland. A Kikuyu story (Kenya) tells of spirits drowning a town with beer, as inhabitants find refuge in a tavern.

In China, the tales of “Yu The Great” center on flood fighting, with family sacrifices as part of the battles, and supernatural assistance in the form of a yellow dragon, or in some versions, Yu is the dragon. [vii] An ark features prominently in the Greek myth of Deucalion and Pyrrha, Prometheus’ son and Pandora’s daughter, who survive a flood unleashed by Zeus. Floods are also featured in numerous Native American tales, such as the Arapaho story of Creation, in which a man with a Flat Pipe enlists Turtle to help save the land or the Chickasaw Nation’s Legend of the Flood in which a raven delivers part of an ear of corn to a lone remaining family on a raft, post-Deluge.

Hushpuppy faces an Auroch in Beasts of the Southern Wild

In Beasts of the Southern Wild, the melting ice cap imagery is linked to the global warming rise of coastal waters — perhaps Earth’s way of punishing humankind (which could be seen as divine chastisement related to myths above). The “watery end of the world” theme, the motorboat as ark, the tavern as place of refuge, the release of supernatural beings (such as Hushpuppy’s vision of the frozen Aurochs unleashed through global warming), the connection to animals and earth as agents of healing (Hushpuppy listens to them): all of these elements in the film may be seen as related to flood myth tropes. Although there is no rainbow at the end, there is definitely as sense of renewal as Hushpuppy becomes the new Bathtub leader. The imagery and mythic tropes in the film overall resonate with symbols of giving birth: from the womb-like ark, to overwhelming water which could be seen as related to amniotic fluid, through Hushpuppy’s search for her long-absent mother.

HUSHPUPPY AS HEROINE

By the end, Hushpuppy emerges as a culture heroine, leading the surviving people of The Bathtub forward as they walk on a road with water lapping at them from all sides — with Hushpuppy as a signifier of renewal, in keeping with traditional motifs of flood mythology. This conclusion gives us a female-lead vision of hope for the future; Hushpuppy’s voiceover narration tells us that one day scientists will find evidence of a girl named Hushpuppy who lived with her father in the Bathtub.

With our collective experience of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and now Sandy in 2012, the poignant depiction of flood mythology tropes resonate strongly in this award-winning film. Watching Beasts of the Southern Wild allows us to consider the Deluge’s symbolic import to the human psyche not only as an image of destruction, but as an important signal of change, marking a time of transformation.

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Laura Shamas is a writer, film consultant, and mythologist. Her newest book is Pop Mythology: Collected Essays. Read more at her website: LauraShamas.com.

NOTES

[i] Jung,C.G. Symbols of Transformation. Collected Works, Volume V. Edited and Translated by Gerhard Adler and R.F.C. Hull. Princeton University Press, 1977. Page 211, Paragraph 311.
[ii] Chevalier, Jean, and Alain Gheerbrant. Trans. John. Buchanan-Brown. A Dictionary of Symbols. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1994. Page 1081.
[iii] “Flood.” The Book of Symbols by The Archive For Research In Archetypal Symbolism (ARAS). Amy Ronnberg, Editor-In-Chief. Cologne: Tashen, 2010. Page 50
[iv] Andrews, Tamra. A Dictionary of Nature Myths: Legends of the Earth, Sea and Sky. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998. Page 72
[v] Andrews, Tamra. A Dictionary of Nature Myths: Legends of the Earth, Sea and Sky. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998. Page 72.
[vi] “Flood.” The Book of Symbols by The Archive For Research In Archetypal Symbolism (ARAS). Amy Ronnberg, Editor-In-Chief. Cologne: Tashen, 2010. Page 50.
[vii] Wilkinson, Phillip and Neil Phillip. “Yu Tames the Floods.” Eyewitness Mythology. London: Dorling Kindersley, 2007. Page 175.

2013 Oscar Week: ‘How to Survive a Plague’: When Aging Itself Becomes a Triumph

Guest post written by Ren Jender.

When the late Ed Koch, former mayor of New York City, saw How To Survive a Plague, journalist/director David France’s Oscar-nominated documentary about ACT UP (the AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power) New York, he wrote a review for his local neighborhood newspaper. The review was not just a rave but recommended the activists profiled receive Presidential Medals of Freedom! Koch didn’t mention those same people and many others spent much time (including a demonstration documented at the beginning of the film) protesting his administration’s criminally inadequate response to the AIDS crisis. Some of the people he praised in his review, including one of the founders of ACT UP, Larry Kramer, have called him a “murderer.”

Ed Koch image via Peter Staley, POZ Blogs

Koch is an extreme example of the mainstream’s counterintuitive embrace of this film in particular and ACT UP in general. Although we see video of hateful, reactionary Jesse Helms spewing venom toward the group from the floor of the U.S. Senate we would never know most mainstream (and even some of the gay press’) coverage of ACT UP actions, like the one disrupting a service at St. Patrick’s Cathedral (to protest the Catholic Church’s stance on safer sex) or the one shutting down the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) — archival footage from both actions is part of the film– was far from laudatory.

Still, France’s overview, fortified by his work on AIDS issues in the gay press during the crisis years, is impressive even to those of us who were there. Though I never attended ACT UP meetings I took part in my city’s ACT UP demonstrations (“demos”), did safer sex outreach with ACT UP members and went to the huge Kennebunkport demo, shown in the film, where George H.W. Bush was hung in effigy.

In the beginning of Plague intertitles and footage of people with AIDS close to the end of their lives set the scene, then archival video (including interviews) from ACT UP’s own media collective takes over most of the narrative. We see a loud, crowded meeting of the group where an action is planned and then the action itself, ending with activists being carted off one-by-one, screaming chants all the way to the police wagon. The film captures in this demonstration and the ones it shows later the camaraderie, exuberance and carnival-like atmosphere of ACT UP’s brand of activism, so necessary in an epidemic which devastated everyone in its path.

AIDS decimated the population of gay and bisexual men during the period covered in Plague, and I’m not sure most young queers realize the effect that loss still has on our community. In the film, I noticed the t-shirts many of the activists wore (the film repeatedly captures on many bodies the unisex, activist uniform of: a t-shirt, motorcycle jacket, jeans and Doc Martins) were unmistakably designed by acclaimed artist Keith Haring (which he did as a fundraiser for ACT UP: he also makes a brief, wordless appearance in a demonstration in the film). The music in Plague is by cellist and vocalist Arthur Russell. Both men died of AIDS in the early nineties. They make up one small corner of the heart of queer culture lost during that time period.

France expertly pieces together newsreel footage and present-day interviews, but for most of the story he culled hundreds of hours of ACT UP’s own electrifying videotape, some of which is also included in United in Anger another film released in 2012 about ACT UP New York. Audiences should see both, because at least as many riveting films could be made about the AIDS crisis as have been made about World War II.

I’ve read some blog criticism that How To Survive a Plague is the rich, white, male version of United in Anger. In contrast to Plague,Anger spotlights many more HIV-positive women and women of color in ACT UP as well as men of color. It also makes clear that part of the schism (also documented in Plague) between ACT UP and the Treatment Action Group (which helped develop protocols for drug trials and accelerated drug approval by working with pharmaceutical companies) was because the latter was made up mostly of white, gay men. But since Plague is, in the end, about (spoiler alert) those who survived HIV, its focus on privileged, white, gay men, while not enviable, is inevitable.

How to Survive a Plague

Part of what galvanized these men into action was their outrage that even though they had been bond traders, movie producers, PR executives and Ivy League graduates, because they were gay (or bisexual) and because they were HIV-positive, the medical establishment and the government still treated them as if they were scum. The film documents in interviews with them as well as scientists their tireless work. We see, toward the beginning, a member of the drug buyer’s club rattle off a laundry list of medications before saying, “None of which work, by the way.” Toward the end, years later, we see how the Treatment Action Group helped bring to market the protease inhibitors and combination drug therapies that continue to extend the lives of many people with HIV (at least those with access to these drugs) today.

Those drugs have not eradicated AIDS, but changed it from a virus that killed everyone it infected (we see one man quietly recite the ACT UP chant “ACT UP. Fight back. Fight AIDS,” to end the eulogy he gives at a fellow ACT UP member’s public funeral procession, then see his own obituary in the newspaper) to a disease that many people can now live with for decades.

One of the most moving scenes in the film is close to the end when we see the survivors (many of whom we had seen only in archival footage up to this point) in a series of long, silent close-ups, as they are now, all of those twenty years etched onto their faces and the wrinkles, jowls, grey hair and aging itself becomes a triumph, as it rarely is on American movie screens.

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Ren Jender is a writer/performer and producer whose work appears regularly on xoJane. She is currently soliciting work for a film anthology made up of short films by queer women writers. Follow her on Twitter at @RenJender.

2013 Oscar Week: ‘A Royal Affair’

Guest post written by Rosalind Kemp.

Rather than merely bringing European history to the screen A Royal Affair is an effective character drama of three people and their relationships with each other. It begins with Caroline Mathilda leaving her English home to join her husband King Christian VII, whom she’s never met, in Denmark. It is clear at their first meeting that all is not quite right with the king and despite her best efforts at performing her duty Caroline finds his eccentric behaviour hard to bear. The court labels the king as mad and while he’s on a European tour German doctor, Johann Friedrich Struensee, is convinced to become his personal physician. Struensee manages to gain the king’s trust with kindness and patience and by indulging the King’s fancies. Along with the development of a friendship with the King, Struensee discovers a political affinity with Caroline; both share the same radical, enlightened political ideas and what begins as an intellectual bond becomes a love affair. The film has sublime visuals without being frilly or fetishising historical dress and design, and the central trio of actors are powerfully affecting and all engage the viewers’ sympathies despite the conflicting motivations and desires of the characters.

Mads Mikkelsen as Johann Friedrich Struensee and Alicia Vikander as Queen Caroline Mathilde in A Royal Affair

At first A Royal Affair seems an unusual choice for Denmark’s nomination for the Academy’s best foreign film. The cultural products from Denmark we’re used to seeing in the UK and USA tend to be modern, sparing and noirish rather than lavish period dramas. But Queen Caroline has kindred spirits in Sara Lund of Forbrydelsen and the female characters of Borgen and The Bridge. All of these stories have people struggling with the power (or lack of) that society has bestowed on them. All are commentaries on contemporary Danish society. The relevance of A Royal Affair to the melodramas within politics today increases its value beyond historical fantasy or indulgence while still offering us the pleasures of period drama.

An interesting element to the film is how the characters are all shown sympathetically as humans making compromises to stay alive in a world that restricts them from being themselves; Struensee, whose opinions correspond with the film’s message, states “some of society’s norms prevent people from living their lives.” They all must create strategies to deal with a difficult world that is hostile to them due to their gender, their position, their “madness”, or their beliefs. Before she is married, Caroline is sober but positive about her future. But she doesn’t suffer fools gladly and hasn’t the temperament to put up with her husband’s behaviour. Once she realises the restrictions upon her she becomes steadily more melancholy until she starts to talk with Struensee. He first tries to enliven her at the order of Christian who fed up with his “grumpy” wife asks Struensee to “make her fun! I want a fun queen.” It is clear to us that her behaviour and conduct is not dull by choice but the result of a lifetime’s training in how to be a queen and of the correct femininity. Trying to cheer her Struensee asks if she rides and when she says no he replies “That is because you use side-saddle”. In this way her suffering is explicitly shown as being a result of her conforming to femininity and her joy at rebelliously riding astride is clearly visible.

Alicia Vikander as Queen Caroline Mathilde in A Royal Affair

Of course her husband could have treated her better but he too is suffering under societal expectations. He is king and expected to rule but is also seen as an idiot and a madman so is ridiculed and patronised. Struensee explains that “some people are so sealed inside their fate that they hide – deep within their mind” thus Christian’s “madness” is a coping strategy for a role he doesn’t wish to act. Once Struensee takes over Christian’s responsibilities in court, he no longer has the time to be his friend. He supplies Christian with Moranti, a black child, to play with in his place. It’s particularly sad and sickening to see the silent boy being given like a toy to an infantilised man. Despite escaping from a slave ship, Moranti hasn’t escaped his otherness and it seems that even though Struensee and Christian make moves to end slavery and serfdom in Denmark, on an individual basis people’s liberties can’t always be won. Struensee it seems has a healthier strategy for coping with the injustice of his position. He uses his influence on the king to bring about changes to society more in line with his radical enlightened beliefs. Of course the punishment Struensee receives for his transgression is harsher than the others’ suggesting that the privileges of aristocracy over the common person is more powerful than those of gender, education or sanity.

As this is supposedly a story of a love triangle (though it’s so much more) a lot of the film focuses on relationships. Romance is actually a long time coming with the friendships between Struensee and Christian, and Struensee and Caroline being more clearly established. Struensee manages to identify both of their sufferings and provide support when neither have other friends. This could make his alliances seem suspiciously convenient to his political and social goals but the relationships are at no time presented as being insincere. We’re also inclined to wonder if each person’s isolation adds to their sorrows. When Caroline first arrives in Denmark she develops a strong bond with her lady in waiting Louise until Christian viciously attacks her and removes her from the queen’s service. This leaves Caroline without a confidante until she’s sent away after being accused of plotting treason and is reunited with her. Each character suffers on their own and in this unjust world, to negotiate a place for yourself there can be no unity or sisterhood. The only time we hear Caroline speak to her mother-in-law Juliane Marie is when she is begging not to be separated from her son Frederik the crown prince. Both women understand each other’s love for their children and the need to protect them but in the royal household they cannot both succeed.

Mikkel Boe Følsgaard as King Christian VII and Mads Mikkelsen Johann Friedrich Struensee in A Royal Affair

The relationship between Christian and Struensee is depicted touchingly with Christian’s boorish manner becoming kinder in his friend’s presence. Their betrayals of each other (though it must be said that Christian’s was unwitting) are painful demonstrations of the impossibility of transgressive friendships. It is the removal of Christian’s power and autonomy that marks Struensee’s betrayal rather than his affair.

A Royal Affair shows that sometimes friendship is more important than sex, which is refreshing for melodramas such as this, and that’s perhaps what makes it more disappointing when we see less of Caroline on-screen once her relationship with Struensee becomes sexual. She may discuss politics with him in her bed-chamber but when it comes to putting their ideas to council it has to be enacted by the men. There is no doubt that Caroline’s influence is powerful but it is so often behind the scenes, it’s pleasing in any case that her fascinating story has now been shown in film.

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Rosalind Kemp is a film studies graduate living in Brighton, UK. She’s particularly interested in female coming of age stories, film noir and European films where people talk a lot but not much happens.

2013 Oscar Week: The Brainy Message of ‘ParaNorman’

Guest post written by Natalie Wilson, originally published at Ms. Magazine. Cross-posted with permission.

Got a thing for zombies? Have some tween-age children in your life? Do you like whizz-bang stop-motion animation? Or, perhaps you are one of those types who appreciates a well-developed cast of characters that kicks stereotypes to the curb, features strong women and – can it be true?!?! – has a positively depicted openly gay character. If so, get thee to a theater and see the little-buzzed-about but much deserving ParaNorman–a zombie film not only with brains but a lot of heart.

Displaying it’s cleverness and attention to detail with tongue-in-cheek nods to horror films in general and zombie mania in particular, ParaNorman, which opens in wide release Friday, offers a number of sly critiques of cultural norms. Soon after meeting the spiky-haired but soft-hearted Norman and his wise-cracking dead grandma, we meet the dad, who is mocked for his stereotypical views of “limp-wristed hippy garbage” and for berating Norman about his supposed abnormalities.

What makes Norman abnormal, from his conservative father’s viewpoint, is his ability to see and converse with dead people; but what makes him wonderfully better-than-normal is the fact that he resists norms, befriends outcasts (both dead and alive) and says things like: “When people get scared they say and do terrible things” and “They did something awful. That doesn’t mean you should too.” His insight that making others suffer is not the answer to injustice is a key message of the film, along with the equally important emphasis on doing away with preconceived notions about who is “good” and what is “normal.”

Norman Babcock and his family in ParaNorman | (L-R): Grandma Babcock (Elaine Stritch), Sandra (Leslie Mann), Perry (Jeff Garlin), Norman (Kodi Smit-McPhee), Courtney (Anna Kendrick)

Stereotypical expectations are undercut when the annoying older sister, Courtney, turns out to be Norm’s savior. Her insistence that, “You all need to stop trying to kill my brother. You are adults!” nods to yet another point made in the film: that adults don’t necessarily know better, especially “normal” adults or those with authority, like dads, teachers and cops.

While father figures are usually more heroic in children’s films and mothers are either dead or monsters (or both), this time around it’s Norman’s mother who is the non-monstrous parent. However, both parents take sidelined roles to the standout Scooby-gang that saves the day–Norman, his wonderfully quirky friend Neal, the seemingly typical-jock Mitch, sis Courtney and tormented bully Alvin. All of these characters are stock types, yet by the film’s end each character has disproven stereotypes. Most surprisingly, the uber-muscular “dumb jock” turns out to be gay–revealed by the line “You’re gonna like my boyfriend; he’s like a total chick-flick nut.” With his character and others, the film lures us into believing it’s perpetuating stereotypes only to pull them out from under us.

This undercutting of preconceived notions is also made via the fact that the zombies and witches are not sources of evil: The “average citizens” of Blithe Hollow are. As the citizens turn into a zealous lynch mob, they serve as a metaphor for our own cultural tendencies to shout “terrorist” before we have assessed where the real threat/fear is coming from. In fact, the centuries-old “curse” in the film turns out to be one big misunderstanding (a misunderstanding that those in the know about witches will recognize as a clever nod to the way the categorization of “witch” was wielded to denigrate women and Others perceived as a “danger” to the normal patriarchal way of doing things). Yes, just as in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible – but this time in 3D!

Neil (Tucker Albrizzi) and Salma (Hanna Noyes) in ParaNorman

On that note, I must give a shout out to the very smart Salma, a standout secondary character who carries around a book called My First Nuclear Fusion Reactor and asks why witches are always depicted in historically inaccurate ways as hideous with pointy hats. While I wish she had made it into the Scooby-gang, the fact that Norman and Neil look to her as a go-to person for advice is a lovely nod to the notion that intelligence and heroism do not reside in a specific gender.

The film is filled with timely satiric highlights – as when the cop asks the townspeople, “What are you doing firing at civilians? That is for police to do!” The film mocks the hollowness of consumer-crazed Blithe Hollow, a town that trades in the “witch’s curse” and, in so doing, curses itself to consist of zombified consumers who are as ready to kill as they are to eat and shop. Hmmm, remind anyone of…Americans?

Alas, I don’t understand the complaint lodged by Boxoffice that this film is “in no way appropriate for kids.” Tossing aside the strong anti-bullying and forgiveness-is-good messages of the film, the reviewer warns, “Nightmares and bedwetting are bad. But teaching your kids to take death casually is just bad parenting.” Guess I missed the film’s memo about taking death casually as I was too darn focused on the way prejudice, vengeance and normality are depicted as the true nightmares of Norm’s world – and our own.

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Natalie Wilson, PhD is a literature and women’s studies scholar, blogger, and author. She teaches at Cal State San Marcos and specializes in areas of gender studies, feminism, feminist theory, girl studies, militarism, body studies, boy culture and masculinity, contemporary literature, and popular culture. She is author of the blogs Professor, what if …? and Seduced by Twilight. She is a proud feminist mom of two feminist kids (one daughter, one son) and is an admitted pop-culture junkie. Her favorite food is chocolate.

2013 Oscar Week: Best Actress Nominee Rundown

Written by Rachel Redfern.

This year’s nominations for Best Actress in a Leading Role has the most diverse age of any Best Actress nomination field. Ever. With Emmanuelle Riva leading at the graceful age of eighty-five and Quvenzhané Wallis blooming at the energetic age of nine, can we just say, ‘Yes!’

I enjoy the Academy Awards for what it is: big dresses, nice tuxedos, and a (slightly) staged attempt to decide the best films of the year; however, I often do feel like the films, directors, actors and actresses that are nominated, are not surprising choices. There’s a sense sometimes, that it’s the same five directors, actors and actresses that are nominated every year; Steven Spielberg for instance has been nominated for a Best Director award EIGHT TIMES and has won twice. Not that Spielberg isn’t a great director, but I feel like we’ve been here before.

Let’s be honest, the academy could use with a bit of shaking up and while an old and young actress being nominated at the same time is hardly going to cause a riot, it’s a step in the right direction.

So here it goes, a run down of this year’s Oscar nominations for Best Actress in a Leading Role.

Emmanuelle Riva nominated for Amour

Emmanuelle Riva

It’s a well-known fact that the percentage of women over the age of forty in movies, is pretty low compared to the substantial portion of the population that they should actually represent. To whit, google ‘Women over forty in Hollywood’ and the majority of the articles that will pop up look something like this, “40 Foxiest Women Over 40,” or “Sexiest Women Over 40” and so on and so on. So basically, if you’re over forty in Hollywood and you can’t pass for thirty-two, then we just don’t want to hear about you.

That’s not to say, that there aren’t older actresses playing roles in movies, because there are, but just not important roles. The point in their lives that this age group has reached, is no longer interesting, despite the fact that Liam Neeson keeps running around beating up wolves and being mighty kick-ass for a man well past his fortieth year.

But, not this year. Emmanuelle Riva is the oldest Academy Awards nominee for Best Actress in the event’s 84-year history and she’s being nominated for Best Actress, meaning, one of the (if not the) main character in a film. Riva has been making movies for over fifty years, even starring next to Juliette Binoche in Krzysztof Kieslowski’s critically acclaimed film Three Colors: Blue. After having been such a stalwart actress and prolific artist, it’s wonderful that she’s finally been recognized for her contribution and skill.

Riva is being nominated for her role as Anne in the French film Amour, a beautiful film about love and aging and hope and even the scary thought of love in the face of death.

Naomi Watts nominated for The Impossible

Naomi Watts

Let’s continue on with our theme of age. (I mean, why not? Chronology is as good a method as any to organize this post). Coming in at bright young age of forty-four, Watts has been producing movies for over twenty-five years and has starred in a fairly eclectic mess of films. She’s most famous for her role as Betty Elms in David Lynch’s thriller, Mulholland Drive, a film that garnered Watts a few awards back in 2001. However, this is Watt’s second Academy Award nomination for Best Actress, the first being for her work in 21 Grams; She’s also starred in big blockbusters such as, The Ring and King Kong.

Watt’s latest nomination for Best Actress is for playing Maria Bennet in The Impossible, a controversial film based on the true story of a family touring in Thailand when a tsunami hits and they’re separated. Go here to read Lady T’s take on the film.

Jessica Chastain nominated for Zero Dark Thirty

Jessica Chastian

Jessica Chastian is a fast-moving young actress who has exploded into the top tiers of Hollywood, probably most noticeably for her part in The Help and Terence Malick’s The Tree of Life. Two years ago I’d never even heard of her; today, Chastain has been nominated for one of the highest awards in film and is at the center of a divisive controversy involving her role in Kathryn Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty. Zero Dark Thirty’s portrayal of torture, and Chastain’s involvement in those scenes has a few people boycotting the actress and encouraging others to do the same.

However, Chastain’s experience of filming Zero Dark Thirty in Jordan speaks well about her commitment to her art since, as she says of her situation during that time, “with regard to the way women are treated,” she says, recalling a particular incident when soldiers insisted that she walk to the prison instead of being driven. “They don’t see women that often. I was like, ‘I’m not getting out of this car, how dare these guys’, but then you think: this woman had to live in Islamabad and all these places when she was doing this job – and had to experience the same treatment of women where she had no control.”

Jennifer Lawrence nominated for Silver Linings Playbook

Jennifer Lawrence

The twenty-two year old queen of this year’s unbelievably popular, Hunger Games, Jennifer Lawrence is next on our list of Oscar nominees for Best Actress and startlingly, this is already her second nomination for the award. She was first up for the award in 2010 for her role in the amazing, Winter’s Bone, (Seriously, read about it, watch it, love it) and at the time was the second-youngest actress to ever be nominated.

After a ridiculously short non-award-winning break of one year, Lawrence has been nominated this year for starring alongside Bradley Cooper in Silver Linings Playbook, another film about age and love and death and mental illness, though at the other end of the chronological spectrum from Amour. Lawrence has only been acting for six years and has managed to achieve some hefty success and play a wide-variety of roles: a poverty-stricken young girl from the Ozarks in Winter’s Bone, Mystique in X-Men First Class, Katniss in the Hunger Games and now, widow and sometimes sex addict, Tiffany Maxwell in Silver Linings Playbook. Whether she wins the Academy Award or not, I’m pretty sure that this will not be Lawrence’s last nomination.

Quvezhane Wallis nominated for Beasts of the Southern Wild

Quvenzhané Wallis

Quvenzhané Wallis. I wish I knew how to pronounce that name correctly because it just looks absolutely lovely. This pint-sized powder keg of delightful talent was a mere six years-old when she started shooting Beasts of the Southern Wild, and at the age of nine, she’s the youngest nominee for Best Actress that the competition has ever seen. Tatum O’Neal however, was a pretty close second since she was only ten when she won the award for Paper Moon in 1973 (an amazing movie starring Tatum’s father Ryan O’Neal and one of my favorite actresses ever, Madeleine Kahn). Interestingly enough, Wallis isn’t even the youngest nominee in academy history; Justin Henry was only eight when he was nominated for Best Actor in 1979 and Jackie Cooper was nine for his role in Skippy.

Beasts of the Southern Wild is Wallis first film, though the actress is already slated to appear in Steve McQueen’s new film Twelve Years A Slave later this year. Here’s hoping that she continues to act and thrive in Hollywood and that hopefully, she’ll be able to rush us into a new age of films filled with women of character and distinction.

Who do you think deserves win? Who do you think will win? (Two very different questions to my mind). Do you think that the oldest and youngest nominations for Best Actress falling in the same year is revolutionary? Or just a usual kind of year for the academy?

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Rachel Redfern has an MA in English literature, where she conducted research on modern American literature and film and its intersection, however she spends most of her time watching HBO shows, traveling, and blogging and reading about feminism.

2013 Oscar Week: ‘Hitchcock’ Turns the Master of Suspense into a Real Life Dud

Hitchcock

Guest post written by Candice Frederick, originally published at Reel Talk. Cross-posted with permission.

You’d think that any movie that involves the late great Alfred Hitchcock would be riveting, spectacular and painstakingly suspenseful to watch. But Hitchcock, Sacha Gervasi’s debut feature film that follows the days leading up to the production of the filmmaker’s classic film, Psycho, is none of the above.

Right out the gate, Hitchcock struggles to simply be interesting. Although Anthony Hopkins looks comfortable inside the physical girth of Hitchcock and the actor captures both his enthusiasm for movies while also basking in the perks of being “the master of suspense,” John J. McLaughlin’s trite screenplay gives him little to work with. It makes his performance look like a great imitation, at best (reminiscent of Meryl Streep in 2009’s Julie & Julia). Instead of offering a candid and enlightening view of Hitchcock outside of his work, or even his deeper psychological thoughts behind Psycho, we get an artless chronicle of Hitchcock’s financial straits and lack of support from the studio. After McLaughlin’s brilliant screenplay for 2010’s Black Swan, this is a real letdown.

Another thing the film focuses on is the infamous shower scene in Psycho. Arguably one of the finest shot scenes in film history, Hitchcock spends so much time enticing the audience with it that when it happens, it’s just not special and just a quick moment. It really just plays up Hitchcock’s satisfaction with the audience’s reaction to the scene. Then it all fades to black. You just don’t do Hitchcock like that.

Helen Mirren as Alma Reville (aka Lady Hitchcock), Anthony Hopkins as Hitchcock in Hitchcock

The one-dimensional character development doesn’t end with Hitchcock. Helen Mirren’s Lady Hitchcock (Alma Reville) is not much better realized. Mrs. Hitchcock’s story almost solely exists as an aside to her husband’s. Granted, the movie does show that she was more than just a wife; she was her husband’s right arm. She often helped rewrite his scripts, including Psycho, and appeared to be the glue that held her husband’s motivation for his career, even when he was deemed too old for Hollywood and the cards were stacked against him. Her talent was apparently overshadowed by her husband’s success. The arc is far too bland for an actress of Mirren’s caliber, but at least Mirren gets a few zingers to deliver to counter Hopkins’ “Try the finger sandwiches. They’re made of real fingers.”

Lines like that will undoubtedly give you a twinkle in your eye, since it’s easy to believe that Hitchcock the man might have had a fondness for perverse humor like that. But it just seems like lazy writing if you throw a couple of lines like that here and there when the rest of the film left much to be desired.

(L-R): Jessica Biehl as Vera Miles, Scarlett Johansson as Janet Leigh, James D’Arcy as Anthony Perkins in Hitchcock

With an impressive cast, including Toni Colette and Scarlett Johansson, and a rich subject, Hitchcock really should have been a better movie. Colette was completely underused as Hitchcock’s assistant, and Johansson’s portrayal of actress Janet Leigh provided nothing more than a few quips about her décolletage and screaming in the shower. Cloud Atlas‘ James D’Arcy as Anthony Perkins is a dead ringer for the actor, even if he only had one tepidly compelling scene with Hopkins that digs into the character. Even Jessica Biel as actress Vera Miles is decent, even though her storyline had such potential but was glazed over and ultimately flatlined.

Gervasi at least manages to recapture the essence of Hollywood in the 50s and 60s with a recreation of the vintage studio lot and classy Tinseltown fashion. But stripping the character down to a point where his fictional depiction is far less fascinating than the actual persona seems counterproductive. If Hitchcock himself was alive today, he’d undoubtedly turn his nose up.

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Candice Frederick is a former NABJ award-winning journalist for Essence Magazine, and the writer for the film blog, Reel Talk. She is also the TV/Film critic for The Urban Daily. Follow her on Twitter.

2013 Oscar Week: ‘The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey’: The Addition of Feminine Presence During a Quest for the Ages

Guest post written by Elise Schwartz.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey directed by Peter Jackson is the prequel story to The Lord of the Rings trilogy. It begins by introducing the protagonist, Bilbo Baggins, on the day of his 111th birthday, the same day that the Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings movie begins. It is the day that Baggins begins writing about the greatest adventure of his lifetime: an unexpected journey. The movie dialogues Baggins’ first encounter with Gandalf the Grey, a host of Dwarves, Elves, Orcs and Goblins, while assisting the Dwarves in their quest to reclaim the Lonely Mountain.

This Hobbit movie, which will eventually be the first part in a trilogy, is based on roughly the first half of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit. The book was published in the late 1930s and was intended to be a stand-alone children’s book. The LOTR trilogy only came to be as a request from Tolkien’s publisher. It was during this trilogy that Tolkien really developed Middle Earth and the characters that lived within its regions. It’s possible that due to the fictional world not being truly developed prior to The Hobbit being published, we only meet the 15 male characters that make up the traveling party and their enemies. Jackson took it upon himself to bring the two stories together as a whole movie series by introducing additional characters to the audience of The Hobbit that play a large roles in the LOTR. One main example of this is through the character Galadriel, the Elf Queen.

Galadriel appears in a scene that was created specifically for the movie adaptation. During this scene there is a meeting of the White Council, which consists of Gandalf the Grey, Saruman the White, Elrond the Lord of Rivendell and Galadriel. The council meets to discuss the mission of the traveling party to take back the Lonely Mountain and the role of Baggins as part of the company. Galadriel remains quiet and watchful during much of the meeting’s discussions. Though, she does interject during a heated debate between Gandalf and Saruman, and insists that Saruman let Gandalf speak. At the conclusion of the meeting, she offers Gandalf guidance and assistance if he were to ever need her help.

The members of the council treat Galadriel in an ethereal, yet mindful way. They show her respect in a manner that almost makes it seem like she should be placed on a pedestal. It is much how she and other female characters are regarded in the LOTR. Jackson was careful to show this in the style that it was intended – with dignity and admiration towards women of power.

Galadriel (Cate Blanchett) in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

Many other reviews such as this one have questioned why Galadriel was included in the film, when her character wasn’t introduced in the book. Was this just a way of adding females into the plot line? It’s possible. But we must remember that Jackson is tying the two series together and trying to create cohesion, which will turn into a much grander story overall. So why didn’t he include Arwen or Eowyn? Simply from a historical timeline, this is 60 years prior to the LOTR stories and Galadriel was the only female character Tolkien introduced that was alive at the time. As well, she is a character of authority that can add substance to the overall journey of the series.

So, even though The Hobbit was not meant to hold a well-rounded cast, Jackson’s film adaptation of the first half of the book does an exceptional job of introducing the audience to the world of Middle Earth and the characters within. He was careful to insert only the most necessary characters that needed introduction while sticking to the main themes and plot directions of the book. Though, I’m still curious to know if he will end up pushing the envelope enough with the Hobbit series to take home another Best Picture award in the future.

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Elise Schwartz writes at HalloweenCostumes.com and has been known to spend an entire weekend watching the extended versions of the Lord of the Rings films start to finish.

2013 Oscar Week: Heroic Black Love and Male Privilege in ‘Django Unchained’

Guest post written by Joshunda Sanders.

Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained was a movie I never thought I’d see or write about. As much as I adore movies and popular culture, particularly when black characters are front and center, well, the Crunk Feminist Collective put it best:

“… I am not a fan of Tarantino at all. At all. Generally, I find his work contrived, overly self-conscious, and, frankly, boring. Plus, to me he’s like the worst kind of hipster racist, a grown up version of Justin Timberlake desperately trying to affirm his black card at all times, while thoroughly proving himself to be white as hell…”

I’ll add the caveat that I like Tarantino’s gumption, but that’s where the warm feelings end. Tarantino is the Kanye West of moviemakers: obnoxious as he is talented, arrogant and flippant as he is hard to ignore. America loves men like him. For that reason, he brings up all my contrarian cockles. Between the grotesque violence and excessive use of the N-word in his movies, combined with the fact that I did not appreciate Pulp Fiction or From Dusk ‘Til Dawn, (the only movie I stomped out of mid-way) I saw no reason to spend money to see another Tarantino production.

What led me to the theater, finally, was what always leads me there: deep curiosity and a good friend.

Salamishah Tillet, writing for CNN’s In America blog, wrote: “There is much to criticize in this film: the excessive use of the N-word, gratuitous gun violence and its male dominance. Women are objects of apathy or sympathy and are not as nearly as complex or charismatic as any of the male characters. This is very much a movie about how men, white and black, navigate America’s racial maze.”

Dr. King Shultz (Christoph Waltz) and Django (Jamie Foxx) in Django Unchained

I enjoyed Jamie Foxx at the center of this inverted spaghetti Western. German King Shultz, a hilarious German bounty hunter riding in a carriage with a giant bouncy tooth swaying from its roof, plucks Django from a group of weary slaves and transforms him into a superhero. Viewers are shown flashbacks of Django with Broomhilda, (Kerry Washington) his slave wife who was taken from him. So we get the moments of tenderness without oversexed images. But as Tillet mentions, Washington, like other women, are one-dimensional with no agency.

I feel that I should make the case for a better use of Washington in Django, but it makes sense to me that Tarantino wouldn’t provide any context for black women with agency — he did it with limited success in Jackie Brown as homage to Blaxploitation because the agency of Pam Grier was a seductive plot point. I also would have had to support Tarantino movies for the rest of my life if he had gotten it right. Instead, I felt a sense of relief that a black woman was depicted a damsel in distress, exoticized (she speaks German) but not hypersexualized.

Hildi is worth fighting for and she maintains her dignity. It’s a story I’ve not witnessed before in a Western on the big screen, and rarely anywhere else.

Obstensibly, Django is allowed to exact his revenge on white slave-owners and black men who would keep him from being great. Foxx is the best at this kind of cool glee. He has come a long way from playing the buffoonish Wanda on In Living Color. That his bloodlust is inspired by love and winning back a black woman as a prize allowed this black woman viewer to construct an alternative narrative for his motivations and for the justification of mass murder.

I have also never had the privilege or pleasure of laughing deeply or sincerely during any film set against the backdrop of slavery in the antebellum South. It is humor and wit that carries Tarantino in Django, the unexpected surprise.

In a scene that evokes the KKK with white racist men wearing bags over their heads, there’s a bit where they start arguing about the fact that they can’t see, that one of their wives put a lot of time and effort into the thing and can’t y’all just get over this whole can’t seeing thing? I’ve got a goofy, dark sense of humor, so maybe it was just me, but I could not stop laughing loudly during that scene, in part because it humanizes virulent racists while also mocking their stupidity and vanity in a surprising way.

It also makes you forget what they are, though his accurate portrayal of the harrowing, sickening depth of racist terror reminds the viewer. That felt dangerous and provocative to me. The type of emotions we go to the movies for. Ditto for the score, which blends Blaxploitation with hip hop fantastically, updating the Western with a big of swag.

Stephen (Samuel L. Jackson) and Broomhilda von Schaft (Kerry Washington) in Django Unchained

Because slavery and violence are rarely spoken about as a kind of spiritual terrorism to say nothing of emotional and psychological antagonism against blacks, I was pleasantly surprised by that accuracy here, explained by Jelani Cobb as violence “deployed as a kind of spiritual redemption” at The New Yorker:

“And if this dynamic is applicable anywhere in American history, it’s on a slave plantation. Frederick Douglass, in his slave narrative, traced his freedom not to the moment when he escaped to the north but the moment in which he first struck an overseer who attempted to whip him. Quentin Tarantino is the only filmmaker who could pack theatres with multiracial audiences eager to see a black hero murder a dizzying array of white slaveholders and overseers. (And, in all fairness, it’s not likely that a black director would’ve gotten a budget to even attempt such a thing.)”

Like Cobb, and, more famously, Spike Lee, some of my hesitance to support Django had to do with the unfair privilege afforded Tarantino to take creative liberties with not just using racist language with such entitlement (which is how it comes across even if it’s not his intention) but also with the power and assumption of greatness that would never happen for a black director. I find the idea that Tarantino should not be allowed to be great because he calls black folks out of our names to be a symptom of our greater anxieties. The issue to me is not whether or not Tarantino is racist, but that he benefits from the privileges afforded him as a white male to pick and choose his racist tendencies.

There are tons of creative men — white, black, brown — who have this privilege. If they make mediocre films or books, do we stop to analyze why? Well, sometimes. With Tarantino, all the time. In the case of this film, that criticism was a relentless din. I don’t have an answer for why I find that odd and complicated, except that creativity, racism and privilege are embedded in American culture. All creative products are considered superior if they are made by white people. That Tarantino benefits from this is neither his fault, nor is it new. I’m not apologizing for him, I’m simply pointing out why I think the discussion of the flaws in his movie as historical sticking points and the use of the word Nigger miss the point.

Django (Jamie Foxx) and Broomhilda von Schaft (Kerry Washington) in Django Unchained

But I’m also a sucker for a love story, so because Django is about heroic love, about the kind of victory that necessitates revenge, it thrilled me unexpectedly.

Not just any heroic romantic love, which we never see, really, between black men and women anymore, but also about the love of freedom, the universal thirst for power. At the end of the day, I cared much more that Tarantino was true to that than I do about the Spaghetti Western genre or whether or not the details of slavery were historically accurate. I know enough about history that I would not ever expect Tarantino to offer me an accurate lesson on the institution of slavery.

So, the film is not perfect but as critics agree, it is clever. It is also as close to perfect as we can hope for until someone writes the perfect heroic black love story and revenge fantasy.

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Joshunda Sanders is a writer and journalist based in Austin. She blogs at jvictoriasanders.com.