2015 Oscars – Bitch Flicks

‘Still Alice’: The Horrors of a Mind Interrupted

Julianne Moore as Alice, a performance that earned her a Best Actress Academy Award.

I was the youngest person in the theater. And I’m grown.

Still Alice was not a movie on my radar. I heard that Julianne Moore put in an Oscar-worthy performance prior to her actually winning the award. It looked like one of those small art-house films that I normally adore, however the subject matter was not up my alley.

Four years ago I helped care for an older Aunt who suffered from dementia after living a remarkable life as one of the first Black nurses in the U.S. Navy. We had talked for years about me writing her life story. Her mind was sharp, she was proudly independent in her own home, and liked to take drives around town on her own and still traveled the world. She was proof that an unmarried, child-free, financially independent woman could live a full life despite what a sexist and racist society from her generation deemed socially acceptable. My Aunt Grace was in her 80s when she died. I endured her shockingly fast deterioration with my mother and sister. It was literally experiencing the invasion of a body snatcher who stole my amazing Aunt’s mind. Robbed her of all agency. So nah, watching a movie about a woman who suffers early onset Alzheimer’s was not on my list of Must-See-Movies.

My mother saw the trailer and was really curious. She is retired and often takes classes for retired persons to keep them active and to gain access to information to help them live full lives during retirement. Lately, she had been reading up on dementia and Alzheimer’s. She wanted to see the movie with me.

“Why do you want to see a movie that looks depressing?” I asked, trying to persuade her to watch something more entertaining. In reality, what I wanted to say was “Look, I don’t want to re-live Aunt Grace onscreen.” I eventually did say that out loud as we walked into a theater full of people that looked my mother’s age and older. I did a double take. I could not believe there was no one else there my age or younger inside the theater. I got the distinct impression that everyone wasn’t there just to be impressed with a tour de force performance or a brilliant plot. I listened to the whispers in the crowd before the preview trailers. Most of them I imagined (like my mother) were here to see what could happen to them. I felt like they were here to learn the warning signs. The anxiety in the room was that visceral.

Alice and her husband John Howland (Alec Baldwin). Their normal life about to be disrupted.

Because of that energy, my experience watching Still Alice was akin to viewing a horror movie. Going in we knew a horrible event awaited Alice Howland (Julianne Moore) before she did. And we, the audience, waited with bated breath for signs of the coming terror. Every minor occurrence in her life within the first 10 minutes was cause for anxiety. Every fumble of a word, every physical action Alice made that looked like a mistake caused my stress level to rise as the movie continued. I wondered if my stressful viewing would’ve been different if I hadn’t experienced the same drama that the Howland family goes through in the film. I wasn’t alone in my stress. My viewing audience gasped when Alice reintroduces herself to her youngest son’s girlfriend after meeting her five minutes previous. When Alice momentarily forgets where she is on her regular jogging route, a woman behind me said out loud, “Oh! She doesn’t know where she is already! Oh, no!”

Alice reintroduces herself to her son's new girlfriend after meeting her minutes before. — Alice reintroduces herself to her son’s new girlfriend after meeting her minutes before.

Still Alice unfolds in an episodic fashion. It is not interested in subplots, or melodramatic movie moments. It is a quiet film that builds on the rapid downward spiral of a successful linguist who has spent her entire life studying language and how the mind works with words, only to find herself losing the power of those words herself. In screenwriting circles this means she is the perfect character in which to explore this sudden change of events in her life with this disease. The film quickly runs through the basic plot drill of learning about the disease, disclosing this tragic news to her family and job, and then making the necessary lifestyle changes to prepare for the inevitable. Going in, it is obvious there will be no happy ending, nor even a satisfying resolution. Like real life, shit happens, and depending on where you are on the socioeconomic scale, your life choices can be limited or better than most.

In this case, Alice Howland has sufficient income from her own work as a linguist (she has seminal books written, she goes on speaking tours, etc.), as well as the income of her doctor husband John Howland (Alec Baldwin). Unlike most people, this upper income family has the best health insurance to see a specialist right away. They have the disposable income to survive without Alice’s salary after she leaves the career she loves, and they also have access to an in-home caretaker without changing any of their spending habits. There are no worries about losing their home, or even their second home near the beach. In fact, John is up for a prestigious new job with the Mayo Clinic, and the only downside is that they will have to move, which is a real concern for Alice’s condition. With Alzheimer’s, routine is very important. Familiar surroundings help people maintain security. Alec Baldwin is really good at conveying with his eyes alone the desire to thrive in his dream career, but also the pain of coping with and caring for his ailing wife, a woman who was an equal to his own brilliant mind. He wants to be there for her, but he doesn’t want his life circling around the drain too. To most, this might seem selfish, but it is a pressing issue and cause for real overwhelming angst.

Alice teaching linguistics, trying her best to maintain her normal life.

Until the end, Alice and John’s own adult children really don’t have to change their lives or routines because there is money to handle that. How different this story would be if there was no abundance of income. For average Americans, a serious illness ruins families forever. Jobs are lost, homes are foreclosed, and people become homeless or slip into poverty that they can’t escape from. Despite the horrible circumstances the Howland family finds themselves in, they have a safety net that can keep them together. Even with devastating pain, certain privileges will help certain families overcome challenges better than others.

John and Alice during a consultation with a specialist. Higher incomes have access to better medical treatment.

There is a poignant moment in the film where Alice, still in control of her mental faculties, makes a video for herself to watch when the time comes that she can no longer remember her name, her children’s names or even where she lives. In a rational and loving voice she tells her future self to swallow a bottle of pills and never tell anyone. She plans to kill herself when her mind betrays her. And there is a harrowing and quite dark comedic moment when the ailing Alice stumbles across the video and attempts to follow her own directions.

Alice tries her best to hide her condition. She is terrified of the stigma. She goes so far as to tell her husband that she wishes she had cancer instead, because people knew how to deal with cancer, and she would still have her mind. Her attempts to hide her illness at work backfires when her annual job evaluation reveals that her university students have raked her over the coals for being a terrible professor. Then and only then does she confide in her boss that she has Alzheimer’s. The look on her face as her boss comforts her says it all: this is the end of her life, the one anchor outside of her immediate family that held her in the fold of “regular Alice.” And let’s be honest, she’s right about the stigma. Our society still does not know how to deal with individuals whose minds seem to be turning against them. People struggling with mental health often feel like unwelcome pariahs around family and even close friends. When Alice’s youngest daughter Lydia (Kristen Stewart) asks her point blank, “What’s it like?” we can see Alice visibly relaxing as she tries to explain this frightening change to her sense of self. She thanks her daughter for not being too afraid to talk openly about it. Lydia appears to be the only person in the family dealing with Alice in the here and now. The rest of the family walk around on eggshells thinking of the old Alice and how she used to be, and also thinking about the problems they will deal with in the future, but always in the context of how it affects their personal lives.

Lydia (Kristen Stewart) showing great compassion and support for her mother.

The parting shots show Alice nearly a year later, sitting on her couch, oblivious to her family making plans for her future. John is moving for the new job. Once settled, he may or may not send for her. We hope so. There is reconciliation with Lydia who wants to be an actress in Hollywood which is the only real hiccup in Alice’s life before the progression of her disease. Alice has three happy, healthy, unbothered adult children. The fact that Lydia wants to be an actress and is pursuing her dream is such a petty thing for Alice to be concerned about. But appearances seem to be what she and her ice queen older daughter Anna (Kate Bosworth–with the best resting bitch face ever), live for. I guess everyone in this family is supposed to be a big impressive SOMEBODY in Alice’s eyes (Anna’s too). Lydia leaves L.A. to live at home for the sake of the rest of the family, (who continue to thrive unencumbered.) It is the free-spirit daughter who copes the best, and is the better person out of all the Howland clan to help Alice transition into this new life.

Sadly, writer/director Richard Glatzer died from Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) on March 10, 2015, a month after Julianne Moore won her Oscar under his direction. I will miss his creative voice after being first introduced to his work with his spouse and collaborative film partner Wash Westmoreland through the film Quinceañera. He and Westmoreland have a body of work to be proud of.

Still Alice was not an easy film to watch and process. The audience (and my mother) didn’t seem pleased with the ending. I heard people murmuring “That was it?” as we left. “I thought there would be more,” my mother said. There was nowhere for it to go really. And that was the point. Enjoy and love your family while they are still capable of knowing you. Then love and enjoy them when they forget. They are still themselves, trapped inside their minds, doing their best to not be frightened of the changes. It taught me to be thankful that my own mother, also named Alice, is still here with me, pushing her own mind to keep learning and growing.

Writer/Director Richard Glatzer (pictured in wheelchair) died recently under the loving care of his partner.

Professional raconteur and pop culture agitator, Lisa Bolekaja can be found on Twitter @LisaBolekaja or co-hosting on Hilliard Guess’ Screenwriters Rant Room (Stitcher and Itunes). Her latest short story can be found in the SF anthology How to Survive on Other Planets: A Guide For Aspiring Aliens from Upper Rubber Boot Publications.

‘The Boxtrolls’: Better Than Its “Man in a Dress” Jokes

In a nice contrast to many children’s films and books, the character at the start who goes against the mob is a girl, Lord Portley-Rind’s daughter, Winnie (voiced by Elle Fanning in a mid-Atlantic accent passing as British). Although Winnie, in her pink ruffled dress and blonde ringlets might look like other storybook heroines, her fits over never being believed or taken seriously by adults and her morbid fascination with the boxtrolls make her more like Daria than Alice in Wonderland. When she asks another character if boxtrolls ate his parents, she adds, “Did they let you, I mean, make you, watch?”

Written by Ren Jender as part of our theme week on the Academy Awards.

Critics are loath to say out loud that well-made (and even some not-so-well-made) films, like the rest of pop culture, influence us in every way–fashion, language, and politics. But the proof that critics understand the political power of film comes to light in indirect ways: critics aren’t giving much publicity to the racist but groundbreaking and, in its day, critically acclaimed film, The Birth of a Nation in this, the year that marks a full century since its premiere. And since a North Carolina man shot, execution style, his Muslim, charity-minded neighbors (and a rash of anti-Muslim actions have followed) the (mostly male) cadre of critics who previously were singing the praises of American Sniper, a film that depicts Muslims as perfectly appropriate, shoot ’em up targets, stopped doing so.

Deciding what to write about The Boxtrolls (directed by Graham Annable and Anthony Stacchi), a film I enjoyed on many levels but which contains some destructively retrograde messages–mixed in with its mostly progressive ones–was difficult. I should make clear that I’m not usually an eager consumer of entertainment designed for children. I don’t have kids of my own and although I liked the one Harry Potter book I’ve read I never felt the need to read the others. But The Boxtrolls is beautiful to look at (and comes from LAIKA, the same folks who gave us Coraline)–stop-motion animation set in a steam-punk version of 19th century England. With a great deal of economy (the clever script by Irena Brignull, Phil Dale, Adam Pava, and Anthony Stacchi is based on the book, Here Be Monsters! by Alan Snow) the film sets up the premise: boxtrolls, small monster-like creatures who get their name from the cardboard boxes they wear and draw themselves into, turtle-like, at the first sign of danger, scavenge the town streets at night for scraps and goods they can take to their underground lair. Archibald Snatcher (played, magnificently, by Ben Kingsley–it’s the best role he’s had since Sexy Beast; he should play villains more often!) is an opportunistic striver who seeks to elevate his station, first by demonizing the harmless boxtrolls and then capturing all of them, making the streets “safe” for the townspeople and collecting his reward from the town’s ruling elite, headed by Lord Portley-Rind (voiced by Jared Harris) who resembles the king in a deck of cards and has about as much depth.

Winnie’s curiosity about the boxtrolls ends up with her encountering them in their own lair–and meeting Eggs, named after the box he wears, (and voiced by Isaac Hempstead Wright) a human boy adopted by the boxtrolls who doesn’t realize he’s not one of them, though he’s twice their height. After he disavows all the ways he is different from his adopted kin he can’t really argue when Winnie suggests, “Then let’s see you fit in your box.”

WinnieEggsBoxtrollsSmall — Winnie and Eggs

The two work together to try to stop the machinations of Snatcher (whose name, manner and appearance seem to be a tribute to the “child catcher” in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang) though as in most films, the boy takes on the main role in vanquishing the villain. In spite of how vivid the animators and Fanning make Winnie, this film does not even come close to passing the Bechdel test. One of the few women characters, Winnie’s mother, is played by the great Toni Collette but she barely gets a line in. And the boxtrolls must reproduce by cloning because we never see one who’s female.

But the huge problem at the center of The Boxtrolls are the scenes when the screenwriters, to show how propaganda can influence the actions of otherwise reasonable people, have Snatcher put on a corset and an evening dress and assume an alter-ego, a red-haired, French chanteuse who sexily sings about killing boxtrolls while she charms all the men in town (who don’t seem to see beyond the wig). I’ve written before about the history of murderous trans* women in film but I was particularly surprised to find this trope–along with the one in which a trans* woman hides her identity and the men who were attracted to her are chagrined once she is outed–in a film that aggressively courts a progressive audience.

Not only is The Boxtrolls full of messages about not dehumanizing those who are “different,” and that adoptive families are just as loving as other families, but it also has kind of an Occupy moment when its boy hero tell others, “Stand up for yourselves. Don’t be afraid anymore.” At the end of the film over the credits we hear “The Boxtrolls Song” an explicitly pro-queer-family anthem by Eric Idle (of Monty Python fame) that includes in its laundry list of different kinds of families those with two Moms or two Dads.

I was sad that this otherwise delightful, humorous (some of Kingley’s lines made me laugh like I haven’t since Obvious Child), anti-capitalist film nominated for a Best Animated Feature Oscar had to pollute itself with “man in a dress” jokes, especially considering that these jokes couldn’t be mere throwaways–stop-motion films take years of painstaking effort to create (which could also explain the “Occupy” theme). I wondered if anyone involved in the film knew that a generation ago, making fun of the rest of the queer community would have been considered acceptable children’s entertainment too.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2dFVnp5K0o” iv_load_policy=”3″]

Ren Jender is a queer writer-performer/producer putting a film together. Her writing. besides appearing every week on Bitch Flicks, has also been published in The Toast, RH Reality Check, xoJane and the Feminist Wire. You can follow her on Twitter @renjender

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

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

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

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

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

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

Not pictured: Captains Sisko and Janeway

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

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

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

Not pictured: Captain Marvel and Black Panther

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

Not pictured: Richard Pryor and Joan Rivers

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

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

Not pictured: Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton

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

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

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

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

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