1970s movies – Bitch Flicks

Barbara Loden’s ‘Wanda’: A Persuasive Portrait of Female Aimlessness and Alienation

It does not rejoice in the freedom of the open road. There are no cool, seductive lovers or beautiful cars. Wanda is not a charismatic counter-culture heroine or anti-heroine. She’s not a heroic working-class figure either. Loden’s portrait, however, aims to shed light on the psychological condition of young, working-class women disconnected from societal demands and expectations.

Written by Rachael Johnson.

Set in coal-mining Pennsylvania, Wanda (1970) is the story of a directionless working-class woman who leaves her husband and young children for a life on the road. Barbara Loden (1932-1980) not only plays the title role of Wanda, she also wrote and directed the film. Although it would, sadly, be the only feature she would make, it remains one of the most culturally significant portraits of American womanhood of its era, as well as one of the greatest independent films of all time.

We see Wanda at the beginning of the film sleeping on her married sister’s couch, but she soon embarks on a journey to nowhere. Unable to secure and maintain a job, her situation becomes increasingly precarious. She is ditched by a man at a rest stop outside of town following a one-night stand, and robbed of her money when she falls asleep alone in a movie theater. She meets a small-time, hopeless crook, Mr. Dennis (Michael Higgins) and develops a relationship of sorts with him. He’s an aggressive, charmless man but he offers a kind of security. Initially hesitant, she becomes Mr. Dennis’s accomplice in a bank robbery. It all ends disastrously, and at the close of the film we see her surrounded by strangers in a bar, as isolated and aimless as she was at the start of her journey.

Some may find Wanda’s inertness and passivity baffling, even exasperating. We are not given much insight into her former life. We only have her husband’s testimony in court that she was a poor homemaker and neglectful mother. Was she bullied and belittled by her husband? Why does she not fight for custody of her kids? In the courtroom, she instructs the judge to give her husband the divorce he wants and states that the children “will be better off with him.” Although it is what society dictated for women, perhaps Wanda never even wanted a family.

Loden’s description of Wanda in a 1972 interview on the Mike Douglas Show is quite instructive:

“She’s really running away from everything…She doesn’t know what she wants but she knows what she doesn’t want, and she’s trying to get out of this very ugly type of existence but she doesn’t have the equipment that a person that has been exposed to more different kind of people that would help her… She can’t cope with life..”

It is, indeed, evident that no one was there for Wanda growing up–no loving, supportive parent/s, inspirational teacher or mentor. Loden, interestingly, got the inspiration for the film from a newspaper article telling the curious tale of a female accomplice to a bankrobber who thanked the judge for sentencing her to twenty years in jail but it is also semi-autobiographical. A native of North Carolina, Loden did not come from a privileged home. Brought up by strictly religious grandparents following her parents’ divorce, she endured a hard childhood. Loden equally understands Wanda’s psyche. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times (1971) she explained, “I used to be a lot like that… I had no identity of my own. I just became what I thought people wanted me to become.”

Crucially, the director seems to recognize that countless working-class American women of her background and generation were never taught to develop their very identity and assert themselves. Although Hollywood tries to propagate the myth, not everyone survives shitty childhoods through self-education and force of will. There are, also, indications that Wanda was abused and/or neglected as a child. To say she has poor sense of self-worth is an understatement. Unlike mainstream American movies, Wanda, moreover, recognizes that human beings of all backgrounds repeat the same mistakes over and over again. Loden does not judge her protagonist and nor should we. Judging Wanda does not help us understand her. In fact, it reflects a position of privilege.

Barbara Loden’s own journey was remarkable and successful though ultimately tragic. Unlike her heroine, she was graced with opportunity and talent, as well as encouraged to realize her creative ambitions. Loden was a dancer and model before becoming a screen and theatre actress. She was married to director Elia Kazan and starred in his films Wild River (1960) and Splendor in The Grass (1961). As said, Wanda was her first and last film. Other projects remained unrealized up until her death. No doubt misogyny played an ugly, starring part in keeping her out of the film business. She tragically died of breast cancer in 1980 at the age of 48.

Wanda was critically acclaimed when it was first released- it won the International Critics Award at the Venice Film Festival in 1970- but in the years that followed, it fell into relative obscurity in the United States (Loden and Wanda have always been more appreciated in France).

Shot on a small budget, Wanda is a stark film devoid of sentiment. Nicolas Proferes was the cinematographer and editor, and in terms of its look and form, it’s a grainy, unpolished film that reeks of the real. It is, in fact, a road movie but without the usual romantic qualities of the genre. It does not rejoice in the freedom of the open road. There are no cool, seductive lovers or beautiful cars. Wanda is not a charismatic counter-culture heroine or anti-heroine. She’s not a heroic working-class figure either. Loden’s portrait, however, aims to shed light on the psychological condition of young, working-class women disconnected from societal demands and expectations. Some may find her portrait of female identity lack and alienation a tough viewing experience but it is a rewarding one. Loden’s low key performance, it should be noted, is, also, entirely persuasive.

Although the film is beginning to be rediscovered and revisited, Wanda needs to be even more appreciated. Loden’s story too should also be more widely known. As we are only now beginning to fully realize, the history of women in film has, criminally, been one of forgetting. We need to remember and honor Barbara Loden as a director of one of the most grittiest and unconventional American films of the 20^th century.

‘Julia’: A Portrait of Heroic Friendship in an Age of Darkness

Although peppered with flashbacks to the women’s childhood and youth, ‘Julia’ is set during their formative academic and professional years. The film chronicles the women’s personal and political lives in the decade that saw the rise of Fascism. We witness how the fight against those dark forces transforms both friends.

Written by Rachael Johnson as part of our theme week on Female Friendship.

Directed by Fred Zinnemann, Julia (1977) is an exceptionally beautiful portrait of female friendship and heroism. Primarily set in the thirties, it tells the story of two interesting, gifted women, the playwright, Lillian Hellman (Jane Fonda) and anti-Nazi activist Julia (Vanessa Redgrave).

Before I look more closely at Julia, I need to briefly address the controversy surrounding its narrative source. The film’s Oscar-winning screenplay (written by Alvin Sargent) is based on Lillian Hellman’s memoir Pentimento: A Book of Portraits, specifically her account of her friendship with a childhood friend and anti-Fascist activist called Julia. The story, unfortunately, turned out to be a fabrication. The lie, of course, cheats the reader, and violates historical truth. The question remains, however, whether Julia is partly true or a blend of real historical figures. My focus, here, of course, is on the film. We can choose to write off the cinematic adaptation as fraudulent or appreciate it as a work of fiction. Julia is a fascinating, involving study of courage and its depiction of friendship persuasive and affecting. The caliber of the acting can also not be disputed. Redgrave and Fonda both give riveting, career-defining performances.

Although peppered with flashbacks to the women’s childhood and youth, Julia is set during their formative academic and professional years. The film chronicles the women’s personal and political lives in the decade that saw the rise of Fascism. We witness how the fight against those dark forces transforms both friends.

Lillian becomes a playwright, battles all the frustrations the profession of writing entails, and eventually achieves success and celebrity. She lives with her lover, and fellow writer, Dashiell Hammett (Jason Robards), in a beach house facing the Atlantic. An even more adventurous soul, Julia goes abroad to study medicine at Oxford and Vienna, before becoming a committed anti-Fascist activist. Although both friends are ultimately characterized as strong women with strong ideals, Julia is portrayed, from the start, as the more courageous, self-assured, and politically engaged woman. Lillian is more insecure, and human, while Julia is both resolute and ethereal. Although a fellow left-winger, Lillian is not immune to the finer things of life. Regarding class identity, Julia’s mindset is more remarkable. A child of extreme wealth, she utterly rejects the lifestyle and values of her privileged caste.

The flashbacks to the friends’ youth are haunting and illuminating. Even as an adolescent, Julia (Lisa Pelikan) is enraged by economic inequality and social injustice. We see her express her impatience at her friend’s conventional need to hear of her family’s trips to Europe. The young Lillian (Susan Jones) is dazzled by Julia’s affluent, cosmopolitan background and lacks her friend’s political consciousness. Lillian, in fact, worships her friend. Julia recognizes that veneration sometimes characterizes female adolescent friendship, and the actresses who play the teenage friends credibly capture that particular dynamic. Such friendships can, of course, become abusive but this is not the case with Julia and Lillian. Although the young Julia plays the dominant role, and has a patrician, prefect-like manner, she is, nevertheless, a warm, just, soul. Julia enlightens, and inspires Lillian. Crucially, she is Lillian’s heroic example.

The deep affection Lillian has for Julia endures and Fonda conveys her love with a remarkable candor. The scenes between the adult childhood friends are, in fact, extremely moving and beautifully played. The playwright, it must be noted, is written as a considerably complex woman. She is sensitive, vulnerable, moral and humane, as well as idealistic and spirited. Fonda’s compassionate, intense portrayal captures both her insecurities and charisma. The scenes between Lillian and “Dash” are also vividly, and tenderly performed. Robards plays Dash as a crabby, no-nonsense yet supportive mentor-lover and both actors are magnetic in their moments together. Whether the portraits of both writers are authentic characterizations is another matter but that applies to all autobiographical and literary depictions of real people, of course.

Julia is the most extraordinary character in the film, however. The viewer sees her, of course, to a considerable extent, through Lillian’s eyes. Preserved by memory and distance, she remains an exotic, daring figure from childhood. Julia may have a certain mythic aspect but she grows up to be a devoted, dynamic political activist and her activism is very real and very dangerous work. Julia provides us with a powerful, multi-layered portrait of female activism. Her characterization does not exhibit the customary misogynist Hollywood stereotyping of female activists as sexless, humorless and nutty. She is sexual, sane, and cerebral. She is, however, a unique human being. Most men and women of privilege crave more wealth, and there is something heroic about Julia’s decision to betray her cosseted class. Julia, indeed, is that rarest of American films, a Hollywood film with a Socialist heroine. Redgrave equally gives her character a steely yet otherworldly power and grace. It is an exquisite performance.

There is another outstanding female performance in Julia. A young Meryl Streep gives one of the greatest scene-stealing cameos in Hollywood history as Anne-Marie, a socialite friend of both Julia and Lillian. It was, in fact, Streep’s very first film performance and her ability to fully inhabit roles is already on display. Her character typifies the kind of woman Julia in particular could have become, a spectacularly self-regarding, superficially charismatic woman of privilege.

Our friends choose a tougher track. When their lives intersect as adults, Julia asks Lillian to perform a courageous act. It will test Lillian but it should also be seen, in a way, as a gift. Lillian is given an opportunity to demonstrate courage and shape history. It is also an act that binds the women together.

Julia is a film laced with tenderness and sadness. Ultimately, it is a tale of both heroism and tragedy. Although it cannot be categorized as obscure, Julia has been somewhat forgotten. This is not that surprising, of course. Most film critics are men, and Julia is a story about women that foregrounds and honors female friendship. Although shot in a conventionally romantic, almost cozy fashion, Julia is unusual in many ways. It is an American film for adults about the loving friendship of two accomplished women with romantic and professional lives. What’s more, it’s a movie about female activism and heroism. It needs to be fully restored to our cinematic memory.

Female Identity and Performance: An Appreciation of Alan Pakula’s ‘Klute’ (1971)

Klute is one of the key American films of the 1970s. Engaging with themes of surveillance and voyeurism, Alan Pakula’s masterpiece is, first of all, an absorbing, suspenseful thriller. It owes its intimidating ambiance, in great part, to Gordon Willis’s extraordinarily skillful and innovative photography. Klute, however, transcends the genre in the many ways it addresses contemporary gender politics; the New York-set neo-noir is both a character-driven study of female identity and sexuality as well as an unsettling portrait of misogyny. Starring Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland–two of the most interesting cinematic icons of the day–Klute is also an actor’s film. Fonda won a richly deserved Best Actress Oscar for her outstanding central performance.

Written by Rachael Johnson.

Klute is one of the key American films of the 1970s. Engaging with themes of surveillance and voyeurism, Alan Pakula’s masterpiece is, first of all, an absorbing, suspenseful thriller. It owes its intimidating ambiance, in great part, to Gordon Willis’s extraordinarily skillful and innovative photography. Klute, however, transcends the genre in the many ways it addresses contemporary gender politics; the New York-set neo-noir is both a character-driven study of female identity and sexuality as well as an unsettling portrait of misogyny. Starring Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland–two of the most interesting cinematic icons of the day–Klute is also an actor’s film. Fonda won a richly deserved Best Actress Oscar for her outstanding central performance.

Sutherland is John Klute, a Pennsylvania-based private investigator searching for a missing friend, executive Tom Gruneman. Fonda plays Bree Daniels, his most important lead in the case. Bree, a high-class call-girl with modeling and acting aspirations, has apparently been receiving obscene letters and phone calls from Gruneman. She does not, however, remember meeting him. Bree is also being stalked. The detective offers her protection and their relationship deepens. They soon become lovers. As Klute pursues the case, another prostitute is found murdered, and it is not long before the killer targets Bree.

It must be said that it is not the plot of Klute that stays with you but rather the characters and performances. Equally, the story’s most interesting themes relate to gender and sexuality. Unusually for a mainstream film, Klute is graced with a complex female protagonist. Bree is shown to be a self-determining, self-reliant woman. She seeks out modeling gigs, goes on acting auditions, and makes regular visits to her female therapist. Bree claims that her current work has given her real independence. She is no longer controlled by a pimp and considers her transactions with her ‘johns’ empowering. Early on in the film, we witness Bree negotiate with a nervous commuter client from Chicago. Supremely self-assured and entirely in control of the situation, she is sexually assertive in a dominant, almost maternal fashion. On the city streets, with her seventies ‘shag’ hairstyle, mini skirt and thigh-high boots, she radiates sexual charisma and power. We also learn that Bree used to work full-time on Park Avenue but now only tricks when she wants to. She further maintains that prostitution, on her own terms, has given her a certain psychological autonomy and control. When she tells Klute that she never climaxes with her clients, it comes across as a boast of personal sovereignty. But as Bree falls in love with the investigator and experiences a kind of sensual rebirth, she feels increasingly overwhelmed and disempowered by her feelings. Making love with Klute, she says, is ‘a baffling and bewildering experience’. What is evident, from her sessions with her therapist, is that her insensibility is a mask for mere numbness. Bree, in fact, tells her that she fundamentally wants to be ‘faceless and bodiless and left alone’. Sucked back into the vortex of her old life, she begins to unravel. At one unsettling point, she attacks her lover with scissors. There are also indications that Bree wants to stop turning tricks. In an early scene, we see her angrily ask her therapist why she is still drawn to the life.

Giving a truthful picture of prostitution on the screen is a thorny issue, of course. Many Hollywood films have prettified and sanitized prostitution and the stereotype of the whore with a heart of gold is one of the oldest in the business. Klute has a relatively complex take on prostitution. What it shows is that the prostitute remained a scapegoat for society’s sexual hypocrisies in the 1970s- an era of progressive change regarding gender and sexuality. Bree herself is fully aware of the double standards but she does not see herself as a victim. When she claims that she is very much in charge when she tricks on her own terms, the viewer is confronted with the suggestion that there are women who are not victimized by the profession. Our response to Bree’s statement, of course, depends on our individual attitude toward prostitution. It may be argued that Bree is too articulate and too bourgeois to be a believable call girl but they should remember that there is not one type of prostitute. Klute even shows that the life has an absurd and amusing side. We learn about a wealthy client who visits Bree’s old Park Avenue workplace not to ‘party’ with the girls but to clean the bathroom. Bree’s profession is, however, depicted as a dangerous one and, as specified above, she is evidently psychologically troubled. Klute is not a polemic on the dangers of prostitution but it indicates the omnipresent threat of sexual violence- and homicide- in the profession while pointing out its associations with drug culture. Klute’s stance on sex work may be interpreted in a variety of ways. Does the characterization of Bree as sexually and emotionally disengaged reflect an accurate understanding of the psyche of sex workers or does it represent a disavowal of female sexuality? Does Klute’s associations of prostitution with danger reinforce Victorian ideas of ‘fallen women’ as vulnerable and passive? What is clear is that the watchful, taciturn Klute is intended as a potential savior for Bree.

Klute does not solely offer a portrait of prostitution. It is also an allegory of the female condition in patriarchy. Klute explores the objectification and exploitation of women through the symbolic figure of the prostitute. We are encouraged to see Bree as an embodiment of female sexuality in a hypocritical, sexist society. In this sense, it is actually irrelevant whether she is believable as a call girl. Although drawn as a highly individualistic, complicated character, Bree is manifestly intended to represent universal femininity. There is a feminist consciousness exhibited in the film. It is apparent in an early scene when we see Bree apply for a modeling job. The female applicants are lined up in a row before being openly and cruelly objectified. The way the scene is framed seems to indicate that the aspiring models are treated in a fashion not too dissimilar from women in a brothel. Klute also uses the theme of surveillance to explore society’s objectification of women. Bree is being watched constantly- by her stalker, clients and protector. The practice and metaphor of acting further points to a feminist awareness. Acting is not just an aspiration for Bree but a means of personal and professional expression. It, also, however, masks fragility and emptiness. These psychological weaknesses are not unique to Bree but represent the fractured psyches of women alienated from a still-patriarchal society. Her dilemma is, effectively, an existential one: she is searching for an authentic social role. The character of Bree fuses Actress, Prostitute and Woman. These identities, as we know, have been interchanged throughout Western history. Klute shows how sexually liberated and economically independent American women were objectified, exploited and abused after the so-called sexual revolution of the sixties.

Klute, moreover, offers a sharp, disturbing portrait of misogyny. The villain is not the classic weirdo or social outcast of most movies and crime reports. Played with a reptilian venomousness by Charles Cioffi, the thriller’s sadistic psychopath is an esteemed man of wealth and power. His heart contains an ocean of hate for women and prostitutes are accessible, serviceable targets for his fathomless misogyny. In his final confrontation with Bree, he tries to justify his actions. They are worth quoting in full: ‘You make a man think that he’s accepted. It’s all just a great big game to you. When you’re all too obviously lazy and too warped to do anything meaningful with your lives so you prey upon the sexual fantasies of others. I’m sure it comes as no great surprise to you when I say that there are little corners in everyone which were better off left alone- sicknesses, weaknesses which should never be exposed. But that’s your stock and trade, isn’t it- a man’s weaknesses and I was never fully aware of mine until you brought them out.’ His character, it is quite boldly suggested, illustrates the hypocritical, perverse aspects of heterosexual masculinity.

In the closing moments of Klute, we see Bree leave her New York apartment with her lover. As the outcome seems to fulfill the imperatives of a conventional Hollywood ending, it may arguably be seen as a sell-out. The good, traditional man saves the troubled, wayward woman. Of course, the romantic in us believes that happiness lies with this man of honor and compassion. For the first time in her life, Bree has experienced genuine sexual intimacy and joy with a man. In a wonderfully understated performance, Sutherland gives the quiet Klute a gracious, self-effacing masculinity. Nevertheless, Bree’s closing voiceover seems to cast doubt over a permanent future for the couple. She is perhaps too complex a character to be rescued and her fate remains ambiguous.

Ultimately, what makes Klute most memorable is Fonda’s multi-layered, full-blooded performance. She invests Bree with a remarkable intelligence and plays her with a singular openness and bravery. With her would-be lover Klute, she is alternately satirical, seductive and mocking. In her therapy sessions, we witness Bree’s quest for self-definition in articulate, questioning observations and emphatic hand gestures. Fonda’s performance is equally rich in empathy. Bree’s acting endeavors are shown to be sincere and enterprising. As noted, the character’s worldliness is countered by deep apathy and despair. Her capacity for self-destruction is revealed in an especially striking party scene where she regresses perilously into her old life. To a deafening funk soundtrack, we see a stoned, sweaty Bree weave her way through a crowded club, stop to make out with a stranger and embrace an old girlfriend before surrendering to the throne of her former pimp, Frank Ligourin (a sleazy-handsome Roy Schneider). Fonda’s expressions in this riveting episode are a pitch-perfect blend of brazenness, revulsion, discontent, despair and defiance. Bree’s final confrontation with the murderer is equally unforgettable. Forced to endure the recorded screams of a fellow prostitute being tortured and murdered, she bows her head and silently cries. Terrified yet still trying to maintain her dignity, we watch her wipe away the snot now dripping from her nose. Few Hollywood actresses of any era have been allowed to be as real and raw as Fonda in this scene. In her autobiography, My Life So Far (Random House, 2005), the actress explains that she was crying for all female victims of male violence in these moments.

Klute is a classic that deserves to be revisited again and again. An involving, atmospheric thriller and politically-aware study of female identity, it boasts one of the most original and emblematic heroines in the history of American cinema and features one of the greatest screen performances of all time.

Foreign Film Week: Red, Blue, and Giallo: Dario Argento’s "Suspiria"

Written by Max Thornton.

I started getting into film when I was a teenager. Growing up with daily power cuts, both scheduled and unscheduled, is not conducive to childhood as a cinephile, and anyway my parents did not consider film a “real” art like literature or music – I can vividly remember being forced, at age seven, to quit Video Club and join Chess Club instead, because my mother did not think that sitting around watching videos constituted a worthwhile extracurricular.

(I am still breathtakingly terrible at chess.)

So, partly as the cultivation of an indoor hobby in response to the unpleasant British climate, and partly as the world’s meagerest teenage rebellion, I started watching films. In particular, I sought out horror films, thanks to the friendly proprietor of our local video rental store (now sadly gone the way of all such places in the Netflix age), who would happily rent the bloodiest, goriest, most revolting 18-ratedmovies to an obviously-14-year-old me, always with a cheery, “Enjoy!”

Most of these.

I was neither a discerning nor an educated viewer, but even so I quickly cottoned on to the fact that certain Italian directors had produced some above-average horror flicks in the 1970s, characterized by a cavalier attitude toward nudity, pervasive Catholic imagery, and lashings of gore. Ignorant of the term giallo, I proceeded to dub this subgenre “spag-horror,” which isn’t actually an awful name for it.

As my initiation into the worlds of sex and violence, many European horror films of the 1970s no doubt occupy a Freudian subspace of my psyche. Probably the Ur-example of this genre and its strange, ambivalent attitude toward women and sexuality is Dario Argento’s 1977 meisterwerk, Suspiria.

From its kickass score by prog-rockers Goblin to its borderline incomprehensible plot, I love damn near everything about Suspiria. For starters, it’s set in a ballet school, which is a direct line to my heart; and it features Udo Kier (UDO! KIER!); plus, it’s a strikingly female-dominated story. Argento says of the film: “there are only three men in it: one is blind, one can’t speak and the other is gay. It’s the women who have the power.” Which is such a problematic statement on so many levels, but let’s just focus on the undeniable fact that the film is mostly about women.

The film opens with American dancer Suzy Banyon (played by a young Jessica Harper – did you know she writes children’s books and has a cookery blog now??) arriving at a German airport on a rainy night. Pretty much the first thing we see is her repeated attempts to hail a taxi; her young face, rain- and wind-swept above the virginal whites of her clothes, expresses a vulnerability that will recur throughout the movie. Her big, frightened eyes peer out of the taxi at the gushing storm-drains, the phallic tree-trunks in the spooky woods, the bright red facade of the ballet school (on the subtly named Escher Strasse). Untoward goings-on, shockingly enough, are underfoot at the school, and Suzy soon finds herself completely out of her depth as things get steadily creepier.

Suzy and Sara, swimming.

What’s particularly interesting about Suspiria, especially in relation to the giallo genre as a whole, is its lack of nudity or overt sexuality. There’s a pretty good reason for this, as Argento explains:

To begin with, I imagined the story set in a children’s school, not of teens. I thought that it could be interesting that the school was for very young girls, eight, ten years old. This was the first version. The distributor strongly opposed this choice, and the film was made also with American money, from Fox, and they were against that too. So I changed the script and raised the girl’s age, but I kept a sort of childish attitude, so the characters behaved like children. The decor too… I used little tricks, for example the doors have the handles not at a normal height, but at face level, the height at which a child of 8 years old would find the handle. It gives the impression of dealing with children, even though they have adult bodies.

I don’t think it’s reading too much into the film to find some Freudian undertones in the whites and reds, in the repeated motif of water, in the pivotal role of irises. There is a strong fairy-tale quality to the film’s artifices, its primary colors, scenes awash in blue or red; the story of the young girl entering a world of danger and threat carries echoes of Red Riding Hood, Hansel and Gretel, Snow White – Bruno Bettelheim would surely have something to say about that.

Make no mistake, this is a pretty violent movie. There are some quite fantastically grotesque murders. Within the first fifteen minutes, we see a still-beating heart stabbed and a woman’s face split in two by plate glass. Throughout, the lily-white garments of the murdered women are streaked and splattered with bright red blood. We also get a revolting maggot infestation, some magnificently scary chase scenes, and a truly bonkers climactic sequence.

Red, the color of a very murdered woman.

And yet Suzy retains a sense of childlike innocence and vulnerability throughout, relating to her friends and teachers like the little girl she was originally written to be. It’s a very weird juxtaposition, and I think it crystallizes the strange combination of female empowerment and ingrained misogyny that characterizes classic European horror. What, in the end, are we to make of stories where women are both the brutally murdered corpses and the proactive investigators of the mystery; both the pure childlike heroine and the monstrous villain; both desexed and penetrated by sharp objects; both agents and victims?

It speaks volumes to the general lack of such female-dominated stories in our broader culture that I even find myself asking this question.

———-
Max Thornton blogs at Gay Christian Geek, tumbles as trans substantial, and is slowly learning to twitter at @RainicornMax.

Adaptive Female Voices in ‘Days of Heaven’

Written by Rachel Redfern.

Terrence Malick’s 1978 film, Days of Heaven, is considered a film classic well-known for it’s portrayal of the American myth and its spectacular cinematography (though I don’t think I know anyone who’s ever seen it).

The film is typical Terrence Malick, a bit pretentious, with a lack of dialogue and a struggle with continuous narrative, but beautiful and unique at the same time. Set against the poverty of the Great Depression, Richard Gere (Bill) stars as a transient worker in the Texas Panhandle traveling with his girlfriend, Brooke Adams (Abby), and his younger sister Linda Manz (Linda) who is also the narrator. While working at a wheat farm, the dying owner of the farm falls in love with Abby who he believes is also Bill’s sister. Bill encourages Abby to marry the farmer since he’ll be dying soon anyway and they obviously need the money. A love triangle results, bad things happen, fire and death ensues.

There’s the obvious sort of concerns a feminist would have for a film with a plot like this; first, Bill seems to think its fine to pimp out his girlfriend and then get’s angry when she actually falls for the guy. Second, both men fight over her and no one ever seems to ask her what she wants. However, I found the movie surprising because in the end, it’s Linda and Abby who are the driving force of the film and who both show independence as they move forward in life.

The most interesting character in this film though is Bill’s younger sister, a street-wise little girl who’s blunt narrative underscores her own realistic perceptions of the world. Strangely adult, with a rambling, youthful narration style, she accepts the events of her life without too much fuss, offering a sensible, down-too-earth, yet empathetic commentary on the actions of her brother and his girlfriend.

Linda Manz as Linda in Days of Heaven

Both of the women are calmly accepting of the events of their life and are highly adaptive. While the whole world is burning around them and they seem to be losing everything, they continue to survive and try to make a new life for themselves wherever they’re thrown. In the end, despite the damage that’s been caused in their name, the two women are hopeful and even excited about their future.

It’s this adaptive nature that I find so compelling in these two protagonists and seems to be a theme I’ve noticed in most female narratives. For example, think of pretty much any movie with single mothers, or Skyler from Breaking Bad, Scarlet O’Hara in Gone With The Wind (not a nice example, but definitely adaptive), Steel Magnolias, Fried Green Tomatoes, The Color Purple, Winter’s Bone, (hell, Ripley in Alien). Each of these female characters is moved about and acted upon and thrown into unexpected situations, yet each manages to thrive. Perhaps in a world where so much has been dictated to them, this adaptive nature of so many women is a natural result.

The Terror of Little Girls: Social Anxiety About Women in Horrifying Girlhood

Horror films have a long-standing tradition of commenting on the social fears and anxieties of their time.

Another universally recognized truth of horror is that scary children are terrifying–especially little girls.

While an analysis of “creepy children” in horror films usually proclaims that they are providing commentary on a loss of innocence, and it would make sense that a little girl is the “ultimate” in innocence, it can’t be that simple. We wouldn’t be so shaken to the core by possessed, haunted, violent little girls if we were simply supposed to be longing for innocent times of yesteryear.

Instead, these little girls embody society’s growing fears of female power and independence. Fearing a young girl is the antithesis of what we are taught–stories of missing, kidnapped or sexually abused girls (at least white girls) get far more news coverage and mass sympathy than stories of boy victims. Little girls are innocent victims and need protection.

In the Victorian era, the ideal female was supposed to be pale, fainting-prone and home-bound. Feminist literary icons Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar write about this nineteenth-century ideal in The Norton Anthology of Literature by Women:

“At its most extreme, this nineteenth-century ideal of the frail, even sickly female ultimately led to the glorification of the dead or dying woman. The most fruitful subject for literature, announced the American romancer Edgar Allan Poe in 1846, is ‘the death… of a beautiful woman’… But while dead women were fascinating, dying girl-children were even more enthralling… These episodes seem to bring to the surface an extraordinary imperative that underlay much of the nineteenth-century ideology of femininity: in one way or another, woman must be ‘killed’ into passivity for her to acquiesce in what Rousseau and others considered her duty of self-abnegation ‘relative to men.'”

The feminine “ideal” (and its relation to literature) coincided with women beginning the long fight for suffrage and individual rights. It’s no surprise, then, that men wanted to symbolically kill off the woman so she could fulfill her ultimate passive role. There was something comforting about this to audiences.

Rhoda Penmark will not lose to a boy. Or anyone else.

Fast forward to the 1950s and 60s, and the modern horror genre as we know it emerged and began evolving into something that provided social commentary while playing on audiences’ deepest fears (the “other,” invasion, demonic possession, nuclear mutations and the end of the world).

We know that horror films have always been rife with puritanical punishment/reward for promiscuous women/virgins (the “Final Girl” trope), and violence toward women or women needing to be rescued are common themes. These themes comfort audiences, and confirm their need to keep women subjugated in their proper place. It’s no coincidence that the 50s and 60s were seeing sweeping social change in America (the Pill, changing divorce laws, resurgence of the ERA, a lead-up to Roe v. Wade).

Terrifying little girls also make their debut in this era. Their mere presence in these films spoke not only to audiences’ fears of children losing innocence, but also the intense fear that little girls–not yet even women–would have the power to overthrow men. These girl children of a generation of women beginning a new fight for rights were terrifying–these girls would grow up knowing they could have power.

The Bad Seed‘s Rhoda Penmark (played by Patty McCormack in the 1956 film), genetically predisposed to be a sociopath, murders a classmate and the janitor who suspects her. Her classmate–a boy–beats her in a penmanship contest, and she beats him to death with her tap shoes. A little girl, in competition with a boy, loses, and kills. While in the novel Rhoda gets away with her crimes, the Hays Code commanded that the film version “punished” her for her crimes and she’s struck by lightning. It’s revealed that Rhoda’s sociopathic tendencies come from her maternal grandmother, a serial killer. This notion of female murderous rage, passed down through generations and claiming boys/men as its victim, certainly reflects social fear at the time.

In 1968, Night of the Living Dead premiered on big screens and has been seen as commenting on racism/the Civil Rights movement, Cold War-era politics and critiquing America’s involvement in the Vietnam War. However, little Karen Cooper’s (Kyra Schon) iconic scene has long disturbed audiences the most. Infected by zombies, she eats her father and impales her mother with a trowel. A horror twist to an Oedipal tale, one could see Karen as living out the gravest fears of those against the women’s movement/second-wave feminism. Possessed by a demon, she eats her father (consumes the patriarchy) and kills her mother (overtaking her mother’s generation with masculine force).

Little Karen Cooper consumes patriarchy and overtakes her mother.

Five years later, Roe v. Wade had been decided (giving women the right to legal first-trimester abortions), the Pill was legal, no-fault divorce was more acceptable and women began flooding the workforce.

Meanwhile, on the big screen, sweet little Regan MacNeil–the daughter of an over-worked, atheist mother–becomes possessed by the devil.

The Exorcist was based on a novel, which itself was based on the exorcism case of a little boy. Of course, the novelist and filmmakers wanted audiences to be disturbed and terrified, so the sex of the possessed protagonist changed (would it be as unsettling if it was a little boy?).

Chris MacNeil, Regan’s mother, goes to great lengths to help her daughter, and resorts to Catholicism when all else has failed. Regan reacts violently to religious symbols, lashes out and kills priests, speaks in a masculine voice and masturbates with a crucifix. This certainly isn’t simply a “demonic possession” horror film, especially since it was written and made into a film at the height of the fight for women’s rights (the Catholic church being an adamant foe to reproductive rights). Only after Regan releases her demon, which possesses a priest (who flings himself out of a window to commit suicide), does she regain her innocence and girlhood.

Tied and bound, Regan haunts and kills men, and reacts violently to religious images.

What her mother and her culture are embracing–atheism, working women, reproductive rights, sexual aggressiveness–can be seen as the “demons” that overcome the innocent girl and kill men (and traditional religion).

These films are have terrified audiences for decades, and for good reason. The musical scores, the direction, the jarring and shocking images–however, they also play to society’s deepest fears about women and feminism. For little girls to be possessed is the ultimate fall.

In 1980, The Shining was released. Yet another film adaptation of a novel (Stanley Kubrick’s treatment of Stephen King’s novel), this film contains two of the creepiest little girls in film history–the Grady girls. The Shining shines a light on crises of masculinity. Jack Torrance, played by Jack Nicholson, is a recovering alcoholic who has hurt his son, Danny, in the past. When he takes his wife, Wendy, and son with him to be caretakers of a hotel over a winter, his descent into madness quickly begins. Danny has telepathic abilities, and sees and experiences the hotel’s violent past. As he rides his Big Wheel through the hotel, he stops when he sees two little girls begging him to “Come play with us Danny. Forever.” These girls–dead daughters of Grady, a previous caretaker who killed his family and himself–are trying to pull Danny into their world. Danny sees images of them murdered brutally, and flees in fear. Meanwhile, Jack is struggling with his alcoholism, violence and lack of control of himself and his sensitive wife and child. When he sees Grady, Grady advises him:

“My girls, sir, they didn’t care for the Overlook at first. One of them actually stole a pack of matches, and tried to burn it down. But I ‘corrected’ them sir. And when my wife tried to prevent me from doing my duty, I ‘corrected’ her.”

Danny is confronted with the horror of what men are capable of.

In this aftermath of the women’s movement, Jack (a weak man, resistant to authority) is being haunted and guided by a forceful, dominating masculinity of the past. He’s stuck between the two worlds, and succumbs to violent, domineering alcoholism.

But he loses. Wendy and Danny win.

While his predecessor succeeded in “correcting” his wife and daughters, that time has past.

Here, the flashing memories of the ghosts of the past are terrifying. The Grady girls provide a look into what it is to be “corrected” and dominated.

“Come play with us Danny,” the girls beg, haunting him with the realities of masculine force and dominance.

Starting with the late-70s and 80s slasher films (and the growing Religious Right/Moral Majority in politics), the “Final Girl” reigned supreme, and the promiscuous young woman would perish first. Masculinity (characterized with “monstrous” violence and strength) and femininity became natural enemies. These fights on the big screen mirrored the fights in reality. The Equal Rights Amendment was pushed out of favor and was never ratified, and a growing surge of conservatism and family values began dominating American rhetoric.

In the late 90s and early 2000s, we see a resurgence of the terrifying little girl. This time, she is serving as a warning to single/working/independent/adoptive mothers.

In The Ring (the 2002 American adaptation of a 1998 Japanese film), Rachel Keller (played by Naomi Watts) is a journalist and a single mother. She unknowingly risks her son and his father’s lives by showing them a cursed videotape. A critic noted:

“If she had never entered the public sphere and viewed the cassette in the first place, she would not have inadvertently caused Noah’s death, nor would she have to potentially cause the death of another. Rachel would, perhaps, have been better off staying at home.”

Single motherhood has often been the driving force behind horror plots.

In her investigation into the video, she discovers the twisted, dark past of the video’s subject, Samara, a young girl who started life troubled (her birthmother tried to drown her). She was adopted by a couple, but her adoptive mother suffered from visions and haunting events due to Samara’s powers. They attempted to institutionalize Samara, but eventually the adoptive mother drowns her in a well after Samara cannot be cured of her psychosis. Her adoptive father, Rachel finds, locked Samara in an attic of their barn, and Samara left a clue of the well’s location behind wallpaper. (Bitch Flicks ran an excellent analysis of the yellow wallpaper and the themes of women’s stories in The Ring.)

Samara’s life was punctuated by drowning, which has throughout history been a way for women to commit suicide or be killed (symbolizing both the suffocation of women’s roles and the return to the life-giving waters that women are often associated with). While Rachel “saves” Samara’s corpse and gives her a proper burial, Samara didn’t want that. She rejected Rachel’s motherhood and infects Rachel’s son. Rachel–in her attempts to mother–cannot seem to win.

Rachel “saves” Samara from her watery grave, but she still cannot succeed.

The ambiguous ending suggests that Rachel may indeed save her son, but will have to harm another to do so. This idea of motherly self-sacrifice portrays the one way that Rachel–single, working mother Rachel–can redeem herself. However, the parallel narrative of the dangers of silencing and “locking up” women is loud and clear.

And in 2009’s Orphan, Esther is a violent, overtly sexual orphan from Russia who is adopted by an American family. Esther is “not nearly as innocent as she claims to be,” says the IMDB description. This story certainly plays on the fear of the “other” in adopted little girls (much like The Ring) and how that is realized in the mothers. In this film, Esther is actually an adult “trapped” in a child’s body. The clash of a childish yet adult female (as culturally, little girls are somehow expected to embody adult sexuality and yet be innocent and naïve) again reiterates this fear of little girls with unnatural and unnerving power. The drowning death of Esther, as her adoptive mother and sister flee, shows that Esther must be killed to be subdued. The power of mother is highlighted, yet the film still plays on cultural fears of mothering through international adoptions and the deep, disturbing duality of childhood and adulthood that girls are supposed to embody.

Like Samara, Esther is a deeply disturbed daughter, capable of demonic violence.

In the last 60 years, American culture has seen remarkable change and resistance to that change. Horror films–which portray the very core of society’s fears and anxieties–have reflected the fears of women’s social movements through the faces of terrifying little girls.

While nineteenth-century literature comforted audiences with the trope of a dead, beautiful woman, thus making her passive and frail (of course, we still do this), twentieth and twenty-first century horror films force audiences to come face to face with murderous, demonic, murdered and psychotic little girls to parallel fears of women having economic, reproductive, parenting and marital (or single) power.

Little girls are supposed to be the epitome of all we hold dear–innocent, sweet, submissive and gentle. The Victorian Cult of Girlhood and Womanhood bleeds into the twenty-first century anti-feminist movements, and these qualities are still revered.

Horror films hold a mirror up to these ideals, distorting the images and terrifying viewers in the process. The terror that society feels while looking at these little girls echoes the terror it feels when confronted with changing gender norms and female power.

—

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

Horror Week 2012: The Failure of the Male Gaze in ‘The Vampire Lovers’

The Vampire Lovers | L-R: Carmilla (Ingrid Pitts) and Laura (Pippa Steel)

Guest post written by Lauren Chance.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that any fandom, genre or medium must be in want of some lesbians and lo, the so-called ‘lesbian vampire’ genre that exists as a subsidiary to the vampire mythology is here to theoretically do what all lesbian sub-genres inevitably exist for. Horror, to speak generally, is created by men for men and vampires, with their sexual connotations and otherness are arguably the finest example of the masculine expression of the dominant male — one that kills as it penetrates and, as Bram Stoker would have it, infects the mind of the innocent, virtuous and above all else, stupid female.

The lesbian vampire is something of an anomaly though. Rather than being an offshoot of an established genre, it was created alongside the mainstream vampire genre as we know it today. Carmilla, the story upon which The Vampire Lovers (1970) was based, was by no means the first example of vampire fiction, however, it was amongst the very early entries into what was to become an extremely saturated genre. It predates Dracula by twenty-five years and the lyrical ballad from which Le Fanu purportedly took influence was written by Coleridge in 1797… which does predate John Polidori’s The Vampyre — the first established vampire text — by over twenty years.

Which is a roundabout way of saying that the lesbian vampire genre arguably came first in terms of coherent narratives about vampires. But why so much context only to discuss a minor entry into the canon of vampire filmography? Purely because The Vampire Lovers, above all other films with a strong Sapphic vampire plot best embodies the unashamedly sexual aspects of the story and the spirit of intriguing intimacy that Le Fanu put into his text.

Carmilla (Ingrid Pitt) in The Vampire Lovers

In both the novella and The Vampire Lovers, Carmilla exclusively stalks female victims, showing little interest in the male characters as anything other than fodder or a means to an end; Ingrid Pitt’s Carmilla never looks quite as comfortable with the lone male in the film she interacts with in a sexual manner as she does with the various women she seduces and bites. As an acting choice it works wonders towards directing a great deal of the interest and sympathy in the film firmly towards Carmilla, rather than the largely inconsequential male lead who is filmed as a somewhat heroic lead but, as with all of the male characters, is filmed as if we should have no reason to be interested in them: there is no doubt that Ingrid Pitt and Carmilla are the stars of this film, regardless of Peter Cushing’s presence.

The Vampire Lovers was the first of the Karnstein Trilogy and as time went on the lesbian subtext dwindled significantly despite the second film also being based on Carmilla, however, there is a very telling difference between Yutte Stensgaard’s almost indifferent attitude to the other women in the cast and eventually her love for a human man in Lust for a Vampire (1971) and the loving, tender way Ingrid Pitt approaches her three primary victims. Pitt’s Carmilla caresses them in their beds, kisses them with obvious intention, undresses them and gazes adoringly at her chosen prey until it is hers. The girls are shown reclining, receptive, vulnerable, eternally dressed in white at night and pastel colours during the day. Laura is peaches and cream English, perfect and untouched and within the first twenty minutes of the film we see in a microcosm how Carmilla operates. She finds a way into Laura’s home, befriends her, touches her as a lover would and then begins to slowly drain the life out of her: mostly, it has to be noted, by biting her breasts. Their bond is such that the male characters don’t even register that it could be problematic. Laura’s father comments that “Laura seems devoted to her [Carmilla].” At the first grand ball where Carmilla first spots Laura, Karl dismisses his intended’s suggestion that the mysterious woman is interested in him and instead insists “Nonsense, she’s looking at you.” No one ever comments upon why Carmilla is looking at Laura. As Laura deteriorates though her reliance and devotion to Carmilla, or Mircarla as this household know her, begins to cause strife amongst the men, her father and the Doctor are helpless in the face of Laura’s bond with Carmilla.

L-R: Carmilla (Ingrid Pitt) and Laura (Pippa Steel) in The Vampire Lovers

It is interesting that there is no indication that Laura holds any lasting interest for Carmilla. The vampire moves on with her mysterious – and never explained – Aunt/Countess and is soon in place in the household of Laura’s long-distance friend, Emma. Carmilla’s cycle begins again.

L-R: Emma (Madeline Smith) and Marcilla (Ingrid Pitt) in The Vampire Lovers

The film can be neatly cut up into three sections. The first is Laura’s and the final section involves the male characters delving into the Karnstein history and trying to discover Carmilla’s tomb. However, the second section, by far the most engrossing, is very curious in that it could quite easily come from any romance. As with Le Fanu and Carmilla’s predecessor, Coleridge’s Christabel, there are fewer mentions of vampiric activity and Carmilla’s affection for Emma are much more dominant in the narrative than her true nature. What makes The Vampire Lovers such an intensely curious film is that one would imagine the lesbian scenes would be exploitative and, if not crude, then certainly unnecessarily over-the-top. However, this is not the case and I respectfully doff my cap at Hammer Horror and director Roy Baker.

The usual calling cards of Hammer Horror are straightforward: a fairly basic plotline, a “repertory”-esque cast of actors, interchangeably buxom women who meet theoretically grisly but aesthetically titillating ends and the sense that the whole thing is one big joke that everybody, from the actors to the audience are in on. Now, please don’t misunderstand me. This author loves a bit of nonsensical horror romping as much as the next discerning viewer. But there’s no getting around the fact that the Hammer productions were not great works of art; they could in fact be better described as a kind of soft-core horror pornography, filled with fire-engine red blood and more nudity that one would strictly need in a story that was ostensibly about a preying vampire. And yet the two most notably sexual scenarios in the film are directed with a great deal of grace and merit. In both situations Ingrid Pitt has long since lost any clothes she began with (at no point does she ever seemed perturbed about her general state of undress) and Carmilla is preparing to utterly seduce someone.

The Vampire Lovers

There is a softly lit air of concealment to the first scene and a rather more obvious silhouette to the second, however, it would be difficult to argue that though the scenes are sexual in nature, they aren’t presented through the “male gaze.” These women aren’t entering into carnal pleasures that they inexplicably have every knowledge of already and are therefore able to put on a show for the gratification of others; indeed the appreciation of Carmilla is seen in the faces of the female characters and it is with tentative exploration that they approach the mysterious woman.

Mme. Perrodot (Kate O’Mara) in The Vampire Lovers

Arguably, as with any interpretation of vampire texts, one could say that Carmilla is preying upon victims who simply don’t understand what is happening to them. The taking of blood by an unnatural source from a girl on the cusp of womanhood who, tellingly, has no mother to guide her through puberty is a parallel too obvious to explore at length. But one could argue that when Carmilla kisses Laura, her intended victim perhaps doesn’t notice that there is anything extraordinary in the embrace and thus succumbs to it. On the other hand Emma can have been left in very little doubt of Carmilla’s intentions when the vampire declares her love and insists, “I don’t want anyone to take you away from me.” There is emotion behind Carmilla’s desire for Emma that does not simply extend to the carnal and Pitt and Baker use every opportunity to fill the screen with longing looks and claustrophobic framing of the two women — Emma and Carmilla are never especially far from each other.

Inevitably though Carmilla must die. But, as befitting of The Vampire Lovers, in which a multitude of things regarding Emma and Carmilla’s intimate relationship are allowed to go unsaid and unmentioned by the other characters, there is the clear suggestion that Emma is not entirely rid of Carmilla’s influence. At the moment of the vampire’s final death, Emma is languishing in her bed, having been saved by Karl and despite her safety, she cries out in horror when the final blow is struck.

Emma (Madeline Smith) in The Vampire Lovers

It is very telling that the final moment in the film is a hint that the deep nature of their relationship is something the men cannot sever and neither can they entirely take Emma away from Carmilla now that she has had her. The lesbian vampire sub-genre as we know it today has suffered serious set-backs since The Vampire Lovers, which seems a thoroughly unlikely thing to say when one considers that it was made over forty years ago now. However, there is a single-mindedness to Pitt’s Carmilla that makes her enthralling for the audience and a certain tone of her performance that lifts the character out of being gratuitous with her lusts and desires. She wants Emma and she intends to have her, there is no debate over what the men think of the situation, no snide jokes that are there entirely to belittle the female relationship. In portraying the men as being entirely ignorant, Baker allows the audience to see the relationship from Carmilla and Emma’s perspective. Their touches are not always sexual, but sensual instead, the kisses not entirely chaste but always intimate and above all else the love Carmilla has for Emma is entirely between them with no one else ever being aware of it.

———-

Lauren Chance has a Masters in English Literature and lives in London, carefully avoiding that horrible and impossible moment when one grows tired of the City and existence at the same time. She had written on Daphne du Maurier most recently and a number of other things during her colourful experience at Queen Mary, University of London. She is particularly interested in biopics at the moment and hopes one will shortly be made about Ingrid Pitt. You can follow her tumblr at http://crackalley.tumblr.com/.

Bitch Flicks’ Weekly Picks

Amber’s Picks:

GOP women contribute importantly to the political landscape — with their looks via About-Face

The Man Who Loved Movies (and Women) Andrew Sarris Honored by MoMA, American Academy of Arts & Letters by Penelope Andrew via HuffPost

Can We Graph Trends in Movie Genres? by Aisha Harris via Slate’s Browbeat

Our Reality: Teen Parents Telling Their Own Stories by Emily Manuel via Tiger Beatdown

Consciousness-raising and difference in The Woman’s Film (1971) and Self-Health (1974) by Shilya Warren via Jump Cut

Megan’s Picks:

Amy Poehler and Meryl Streep Are Pissed About Attacks on Reproductive Rights by Amanda Marcotte via Slate’s XX Factor

Yes, There Are Fat Women Getting Hollywood Roles…But We Still Treat Them Like Crap by Lindy West via Jezebel

Nashville, and Why All Female Rivalries Aren’t Catfights by Alyssa Rosenberg via ThinkProgress

Middle of Nowhere and the Black Independent Film Movement by Roya Rastegar via The Huffington Post

“Your Women are Oppressed, But Ours Are Awesome”: How Nicholas Kristof and Half the Sky Use Women Against Each Other by Sayantani DasGupta via Racialicious

Women on TV Step Off the Scale by Allessandra Stanley via The New York Times

Could Issa Rae Save the Black Sitcom? by Jason Parham via The Atlantic

10 Reasons We Won’t Participate in the Lena Dunham Backlash by Emma Gray and Margaret Wheeler Johnson via The Huffington Post

Why Dredd Is Really a Superheroine Movie by Alyssa Rosenberg via ThinkProgress

What have you been reading this week? Tell us in the comments!

Women in Science Fiction Week: Princess Leia: Feminist Icon or Sexist Trope?

Princess Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher) in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope

When I was a young girl, Star Wars was my favorite movie. I’ve watched it more times than any other film. Premiering in 1977, the same year I was born, the epic sci-fi space opera irrevocably changed the movie industry. Beyond battle scenes, or the twist of Vader being Luke’s father, it impacted my childhood. Because Princess Leia was my idol.

In the Star WarsTrilogy, Princess Leia Organa of Alderaan (Carrie Fisher) was a member of the Imperial Senate, a diplomat and a spy for the Rebel Alliance. Courageous and determined, she boasted a defiant will. Leia boldly spoke her mind. And it’s what resonated the most with me.

When I was 7, my mom sewed a Princess Leia costume for me for Halloween. A white dress with a hood cinched by a sparkly belt and accompanied by a plastic light saber. Yes, I realize Leia didn’t wield a light saber in the movies but she did have a laser gun. I continued to wear that costume long after Halloween. Every week (sometimes multiple times in a week), I would pop in our VHS of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, don my white dress and act out Princess Leia’s scenes. I probably would have worn that costume to school if my mother had let me.

Looking back, why did Leia have to be a princess? Why did she have to bear a title that too often symbolizes hyperfemininity, passivity and sexualization? Why couldn’t she have been the President’s daughter or a merely a Senator? So yes, Leia is a princess. But she’s a badass warrior princess — a precursor to the rise of the warrior princesses we’re currently seeing today.

Princess Leia captured by Stormtroopers in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope

In the very first scenes of Star Wars, we see Leia shoot a laser gun. Yeah, she gets captured. But she didn’t go down without a fight. When she’s taken hostage, Leia unflinchingly stands up to Darth Vader, who intimidates everyone. But not her. She remains defiant. She stands up to Governor Tarkin, the Death Star’s Commander too as we witness in this compelling exchange:

Princess Leia:Governor Tarkin, I should have expected to find you holding Vader’s leash. I recognized your foul stench when I was brought on board.

Governor Tarkin:Charming to the last. You don’t know how hard I found it, signing the order to terminate your life.

Princess Leia: I’m surprised that you had the courage to take the responsibility yourself.

Governor Tarkin:Princess Leia, before your execution, I’d like you to join me for a ceremony that will make this battle station operational. No star system will dare oppose the Emperor now.

Princess Leia: The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers.

Even after she’s tortured by Vader, she refuses to reveal the location of the Rebel Base. When Grand Moff Tarkin, the Death Star’s Commander, threatens Leia to reveal the location of the Rebel Base or they’ll destroy her home planet of Alderaan, she lies disclosing a false location.

When Luke Skywalker, Han Solo and Chewbacca stage a rescue, Leia isn’t automatically obsequious. She immediately questions Luke when he’s disguised as a Stormtrooper with her infamous line, “Aren’t you a little short for a Stormtrooper?” When they’re all trapped, Leia takes matters into her own hands and shoots their way into a garbage chute, telling them, “Well somebody has to save our skins.” Leia continues to retain her grip of control when she tells Han: “I don’t know who you are or where you came from, but from now on you’ll do as I tell you, okay?”

Of course he horrifyingly says to Luke, “If we can just avoid any more female advice, we ought to be able to get out of here.” Nice. So men shouldn’t listen to a fucking diplomatic senator. Oh no. Why? Clearly, because they have vaginas.

L-R: Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), Leia (Carrie Fisher) and Han Solo (Harrison Ford) in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope

Even though Leia has romantic feelings for Han Solo in The Empire Strikes Back, she continues to call out his arrogant bullshit. She quips snappy retorts such as, “I’d just as soon kiss a Wookie” and “I don’t know where you get your delusions, laser brain.” She’s never at a loss for words and never afraid to express herself.

She also has burgeoning psychic powers as she picks up on Luke’s cries for help at the end of the film. Obi-Wan tells Yoda when Luke Skywalker leaves Dagobah, “That boy is our last hope.” But Yoda wisely tells him, “No, there is another,” cryptically referring to Luke’s twin sister Leia.

In Return of the Jedi, Leia puts herself in harm’s way posing as a bounty hunter to save Han. Sadly, after she’s captured by Jabba the Hut, she’s notoriously objectified and reduced to a sex object in the iconic metal bikini, essentially glamorizing and eroticizing slavery. And of course she needs to be rescued. Again.

Leia gets rescued. A lot. And that’s incredibly frustrating and annoying. But Leia often subverts the sexist Damsel in Distress trope. She takes matters into her own hands to free herself and others, whether it’s shooting their way into the garbage chute in Star Wars, shooting Stormtroopers, rescuing Han (Return of the Jedi), rescuing Luke (Empire Strikes Back), or killing Jabba the Hutt. Even when she’s being rescued, Leia always spouts her acerbic opinions, refuses to back down, and asserts her identity.

Princess Leia advising Rebel pilots in Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back

Throughout the trilogy, we see Leia lead and dispense tactical information to Rebel fighters. But ultimately, her underlying role appears to be to motivate Luke on his hero’s quest and Han on his personal transformation. Although George Lucas’ original ending with Leia coronated as Queen of the survivors of Alderaan sounds pretty amazing. It also would have been great to see her begin training as a Jedi, something the books explore. But even when you have a strong female protagonist, like Leia, her story must take a back seat to the dudes.

Now, I love Star Wars. But if you stop and think about the Star Wars Trilogy, it’s pretty shitty to women.

We only ever see 3 women — Princess Leia, Mon Mothma, Aunt Beru (Luke’s aunt) — who aren’t slave girls or dancers. Men make decisions, lead battles, pilot planes, smuggle goods and train as Jedis. It’s men, men, men as far as the eye can see. Hell, even the robots are dudes.

Wicket the Ewok and Princess Leia in Episode VI: Return of the Jedi

The entire Star Wars Trilogy suffers from the Smurfette Principle. The fact that there are no other women for Leia to talk to or interact with perpetuates the notion that women’s lives ultimately revolve around men. With a marketing campaign — if you look at the poster for each film — turned Leia into nothing more than a sex object (and of course aided by the metal bikini) reifying the idea that women’s bodies belong solely to tantalize the male gaze.

Boys and men see numerous male characters to emulate. But for girls and women? We get one. Leia. Well, unless you count Aunt Beru or Mon Mothma, both of whom only get like 60 seconds of screen-time. Leia exists as the sole token female.

“In Star Wars, a boy can grow up to be a knight, or a wizard. But if you’re a girl, you have one good role model…But you better be born a princess or good at space hooking cause those are your options.”

Why ‘Star Wars’ Is Secretly Terrifying for Women — powered by Cracked.com

As the above video from Crackedastutely points out, all the women in the Star Wars Trilogy are space strippers, aside from Leia, Aunt Beru and Mon Mothma (a Republic senator and co-founder of the Rebellion, aka the red-haired woman in Return of the Jediwho gives tactical orders to the rebels). The Cracked writers also assert that Leia is actually a terrible female role model because she ditches her duties with the Rebellion to save her man (although so do the dudes) and then blows up Jabba’s barge which was filled with other slave women. Okay, that’s pretty douchey, Leia.

Sure, you could blame it on the fact that Star Wars is 35 years old. But even in the Prequel Trilogy, we haven’t come much further. While we definitely see more women — Queen Padme Amidala, Shmi Skywalker (Anakin’s mother), Naboo queens Queen Apailana and Queen Jamillia, Jedi Knights Staas Allie and Aayla Secura, Jedi Master Depa Billaba, Queen Breha Organa (Leia’s adoptive mother), Zam Wessell (bounty hunter who attempts to kill Padme) — only Padme and Shmi receive any focus. And of course their lives revolve around men. Actually, their lives around one man: Anakin. Yes, Padme is a political leader. But her role as birth mother to Leia and Luke and her death fueling Anakin’s anger trump any individuality she possesses. Both Padme and Shmi die tragically; both women’s purpose in the films serves to explain why Anakin turned to the Dark Side.

Clearly, sexism and racism plague the Star Wars Trilogy. Really, only 3 women speak, only 3 women aren’t strippers and only 1 black person…in the whole fucking galaxy?! Gee thanks, George Lucas.

Princess Leia in Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back

If it seems like I vacillate between hailing Leia a feminist icon and condemning her a sexist trope, it’s because I’m torn. Leia is a spirited, fearless and fierce female protagonist. She kicks ass. Yet she exists in a fictitious galaxy mired by sexism where women barely exist that continually puts men — their stories, their perspectives, their struggles — front and center.

Despite its massive gender and race problems, Princess Leia aided me through my childhood. For a mouthy, opinionated little girl who was always getting in trouble for voicing their thoughts, Leia emulated a confident and rebellious woman. She had crucial duties and responsibilities as a leader and revolutionary. But she didn’t give a shit what anyone thought. Unafraid to let her temper flare, she spoke her mind regardless of the consequences.

In a world that so often silences women’s and girls’ voices, Leia shone as a beacon of hope. Not only did she teach me women could be political leaders and fight for freedom. But she affirmed that women can and should fearlessly speak their minds and take charge of their lives.

Motherhood in Film & Television: The Evolution of Margaret White

Piper Laurie and Sissy Spacek (1976 film)

This piece is from Monthly Contributor Carrie Nelson.

(Warning: Contains spoilers about Stephen King’s Carrie and its film and stage adaptations.)

I love Stephen King’s Carrie, and not just because we share the same name. More than anything, I love the way that Carrie honestly explores the tensions and horrors of being a teenage girl. The details of the story aren’t terribly realistic – not many teenage outcasts have telekinetic powers, and few high school send-offs involve murdering everyone at the prom. But the anxiety around getting your first period, the fear that the boy asking you on a date is only doing it as a prank, the compulsion to make fun of others even though you know it’s wrong – these are normal parts of being a teenager. King’s book taps into those experiences incredibly well, which is why the story has resulted in numerous artistic adaptations.

Carrie was first made into a film in 1976. Since then, it has become a stage musical, a made-for-TV movie, and it will soon be made into a new film, directed by Kimberly Peirce and starring Chloë Moretz in the title role. Every adaptation of Carrie contains similar elements (notably the torturous shower scene in the beginning and the fatal prom toward the end), but other aspects of the story change slightly in each incarnation. What I want to talk about today are the ways in which the character of Margaret White, Carrie’s religious fundamentalist mother, has evolved over the years. Margaret is arguably the most frightening character in Carrie, and I believe that she has only become more disturbing in each new incarnation, but for a different reason than one might suspect.

In the 1976 Brian De Palma adaptation, Piper Laurie plays Margaret. Laurie’s interpretation of the role is iconic, but something about the performance has always rung false to me. Laurie’s Margaret is loud and bombastic and evil, to a degree that’s almost campy. In particular, the scene in which Margaret dies is significantly different from King’s novel. In the book, Carrie uses her telekinetic powers to stop Margaret’s heart, but in the De Palma film, Carrie uses her powers to send knives flying at Margaret, crucifying her and mimicking the imagery of Saint Sebastian that torments Carrie throughout the film. It’s an unforgettable image, and given the visual nature of cinema, it makes sense that this particular detail would be modified from the book. (It’s important to note, however, that the De Palma adaptation is the only version with this ending – all others I’ve seen remain true to King’s original ending.) However, the excessive spectacle of the scene (and the film as a whole) lessens the emotional impact. Laurie’s Margaret is shocking and disturbing, but there’s an emotional element missing from the performance, which has always bothered me.

Marin Mazzie and Molly Ranson (2012 musical revival)

I saw the 1976 version of Carrie for the first time nearly five years ago, and it wasn’t until recently that I realized what doesn’t work for me about Laurie’s performance – it’s entirely one-dimensional. It’s cartoonish, even. It’s hard to be frightened by Laurie’s Margaret when she seems so unlike any mother who could realistically exist. But that isn’t how the character has to be. I thought about this in March, when I saw the MCC Theater’s Off-Broadway revival of the Carrie musical. Now, I did not see the original version of the musical, which opened on Broadway in 1988 and closed after only five performances, making it one of the biggest Broadway flops of all time. I cannot speak to that version, but I can speak to the heavily revised revival, in which Marin Mazzie played an unnervingly sympathetic version of Margaret. Though the story is the same, and Margaret is still deeply disturbed and abusive, there is a greater emphasis on Margaret’s inner struggle and the reality that she truly wants to help her daughter. In the second act, Margaret sings, “When There’s No One,” a moving ballad that reveals her intention to murder her daughter and the despair she feels about that decision. Rather than solely seeing Margaret’s evil and rage, in this version we see her rationalization. We see a fully developed character, a person who truly believes she is making the right decision, which makes the decision even more horrifying. There is nothing cartoonish about Mazzie’s Margaret, which made her far more terrifying than Laurie’s Margaret ever could be.

Patricia Clarkson (2002 made-for-TV movie)

I feel similarly about Patricia Clarkson’s interpretation of Margaret in the 2002 made-for-TV movie version. In a dramatic shift from Laurie’s excitable reading, Clarkson nearly whispers all of her dialogue. Clarkson’s Margaret is completely understated, so much so that you almost believe she might come around and change her mind about her daughter. Of course, she doesn’t, and the scene in which Margaret tries to kill Carrie is shocking not because of the spectacle but because it catches you off-guard. This isn’t to say that the 2002 Carrie isn’t filled with spectacle – it is, sometimes to a distracting degree. But Clarkson’s performance as Margaret remains the calm, quiet element of the film, making her ultimate act of violence against her daughter all the more frightening.

Kimberly Peirce’s highly anticipated remake of Carrie will be released in 2013. Little has been revealed about Peirce’s plans and vision, but Chloë Moretz promises the film “really looks into the relationship of Margaret and Carrie.” Julianne Moore recently signed on to play Margaret, a decision that makes me incredibly excited and anxious to see the film. I believe Moore will be able to add subtlety and nuance to the role, adding layers to Margaret’s character that have never been present before. I look forward to reading more about the film and Moore’s work on it as it enters production.

I recently spoke with a friend who said that she didn’t think Carrie should be remade. She said the original is good enough as it is, so why change it? While I agree that the 1976 version is a classic, and nothing will ever replace it in cinematic history, I do think that much more can be done with the story. Particularly, I believe Margaret has much more room to grow as a character, and if the 2002 television film and the 2012 stage adaptation tell us anything, it’s that Margaret’s horror doesn’t come from her anger and violence – it comes from the completely calm way in which she rationalizes her beliefs and her actions. I hope to see Peirce’s version take Margaret even further as a character. I don’t know what that will look like, but I am anxious to find out.

Fan-designed poster for upcoming remake

Carrie Nelson is a Bitch Flicks monthly contributor. She was a Staff Writer for Gender Across Borders, an international feminist community and blog that she co-founded in 2009. She works as a grant writer for an LGBT nonprofit, and she is currently pursuing an MA in Media Studies at The New School.

Motherhood in Film & Television: ‘Carrie’

Jamie Lynne Grumet on Time

Recently there’s been major hullabaloo about Jamie Lynne Grumet, the 26-year-old California mom who proudly posed on the cover of Time magazine breastfeeding her 3-year-old son. Ridiculed, condemned and completely unorthodox, this shocking image continues to reverberate across the globe.

A similar effigy from the 1976 film Carrie has lingered in our minds for more than three decades. It’s near the end of the movie, when religious momster Margaret White (Piper Laurie) is at the end of her rope trying to jam some fundamentalist sense in her terribly feeble-minded teenage daughter, Carrie (Sissy Spacek).

For several minutes she’s imploring one strict value after the next on Carrie, desperately teaching her to repent for the sin she has committed. But when her daughter needs her the most, she is knee-deep in a sermon trying to shelter her from all the evil in the world. In a fit of rage, her telekinetic daughter mind-hurls several knives at her, stapling her to the wall in a perfect crucifixion. Her head tilted to her right in blissful silence.

“I should’ve killed myself when he put it in me…. I should’ve given you to God when you were born, but I was weak and backsliding, and now the devil has come home.”

A crucified Mrs. White

One could discern that Mrs. White was taken out of her misery, which enveloped her throughout her adult life and suffocated her maternal instincts. Or did it?

Often times we are quick to judge parents—especially mothers—whose values and beliefs differ from our own. We deify figures like Angelina Jolie as Mother Theresa or sacrifice them as we do both Jamie and Margaret. But both sides have their own story, and they both think they’re right.

On the surface, it’s so easy to criticize Margaret. But there is something so inherently evil yet desperately loving about Laurie’s pitch-perfect performance of the religion-stricken single mother. You know she wants what she thinks is best for her child, like all great mothers do. But she’s too terrified—or terrifying?—to really consider what she’s saying. She wanted Carrie to be God-fearing, like herself. She wanted her to not suffer the tainted feeling of self-disgust with which she was burdened every day. In essence, she wanted her daughter’s life to be better than her own, by not making the same mistakes she did.

But when Mrs. White saw her daughter developing breasts and getting her period, and even receiving interest to attend the prom, her maternal preference overwhelmed her. She had to intervene before her Carrie ended up shameful, deflowered and ungodly like she had become. It was imperative.

Sissy Spacek and Piper Laurie in Carrie

However, she could never really convey her true intentions to Carrie. It was always about what Carrie shouldn’t be doing, even when Carrie herself couldn’t fully comprehend the course her life was taking. It was always about repenting, while never examining what the repenting was for.

Meanwhile, Carrie is relentlessly teased in her school for her extraordinary innocence, and became the object of a vicious stunt that escalated beyond both her and the perpetrators’ most barbaric imaginations. Her fate at school is exacerbated when news gets around about what her mother is like. While her mother’s behavior minimally explains the way Carrie is, it doesn’t end antagonistic remarks of her peers. They don’t understand why neither Carrie nor her mother are the way they are, but they do know that they must be against it.

It’s not until Carrie realizes that there’s something gravely askew about her mother’s parental guidance—really on account of her peers’ reaction to her mien—when the position of her mother’s stance becomes horribly acute. Margaret’s unusual parenting style made sense for a long while, before it was held under the light and scrutinized by those on the outside, and before Carrie knew well enough to attempt to break away from it. That was the precise time when Margaret discovered that her daughter had become the person she tried to prevent all these years, and that her long-time fear had finally come to fruition.

“All the kids think I’m funny, and I don’t wanna be. I wanna be normal…. a whole person, before it’s too late for me to –“ [Margaret throws tea on her face, Carrie wipes it off].

Piper Laurie as Margaret White

Laurie’s perfect portrayal of a mother obsessed with her own ideals is mesmerizing to watch unfold. She’s like a pressure-cooker that slowly percolates until she eventually boils over and quietly explodes by the end of the movie. But she never loses her cool; she barely offers any inflection in her voice. She’s calm but deliberate. It’s the very thing which unsettles you when you watch her onscreen. You know her heart is in the right place, and that she—like most good mothers—just want her daughter to grow up better than how she saw the rest of the world.

But once her fear overpowered her rationale, once her masked hysteria was put on full blast through the halls of her daughter’s high school, she became victimized by her own steeple of values. She became the monster that you delighted in only when she was sacrificed for the greater good.

Clearly Margaret is not without her faults. As stated before, she wouldn’t impose these atypical morals on her daughter if she didn’t truly believe them to be right. That’s why we see her preaching the message around the neighborhood, to even parents of Carrie’s peers—she sees nothing wrong in what she does, but everything amoral about what everyone else does, which ultimately makes her out to be a frightening proselytizer when all she wants to do is protect them. When she can’t convince others to see her view, she is comfortable knowing that her daughter will at least be saved from the fires of hell.

But by then it’s too late. Her daughter had been influenced by the kids at school, who nominated themselves as judge and jury in the case of Margaret White versus everyone else.

Whatever you think about the way in which other mothers choose to parent their children—and Lord knows some of them are real head-scratchers—is it ever okay for us to impart our notion of right and wrong on them? I wonder how Margaret would have fared if she was on the cover of Time with the cover line, Pimples are the Lord’s way of chastising you.

Candice Frederick is an NABJ award-winning journalist and film blogger for Reel Talk. She’s also written for Essence Magazine and The Urban Daily. Follow her on twitter.

From the Archive: Norma Rae

I’m feeling a little nostalgic (and I’m on vacation), so today I’m reposting the very first review I wrote for Bitch Flicks, way back in March 2008. It’s a movie I loved and still love, and is definitely worth your time if you haven’t seen it.

Norma Rae

Sally Field’s career, honestly, hasn’t meant much to me. Aside from recent Boniva commercials, Forrest Gump, and Steel Magnolias, I haven’t seen much of her work. She’s always struck me as a respectable actress, but not someone I seek out from a personal interest. Not being familiar with her early career, her so-called serious turn in Norma Rae was lost on me. What wasn’t lost, however, was an honest portrayal of a working woman, and a social issue that continues to dog women and men (though women, I suspect, suffer more from lack of unions) everywhere.

A primary question about social fiction is whether the story remains relevant, or if the sociopolitical situation remains mired in the past. Norma Rae does retain relevance, though she’d likely be working in Wal-Mart today instead of a textile mill (as I watched, I wondered how many textile mills still operate in the U.S.). While the movie seems to be a window on a past time in working America, it’s still relevant—and progressive—on many levels.

The plot of Norma Rae is inspired by the real life experience of Crystal Lee Jordan, a woman who worked in a North Carolina mill to unionize its employees, spurred on by an out-of-town organizer, until being fired on a bogus charge of “insubordination.” Norma Rae (played by Field, who won the Best Actress Oscar for the role) lives with her parents in the beginning of the movie, and reunites with an old friend who she marries after a brief courtship. As Norma Rae becomes more involved with union activities, the she experiences the usual relationship (romantic, familial, and work) strains, but doesn’t quit until the mill bosses force her out. It’s at this time she makes her famous stand; she refuses to leave, scrawls “UNION” on a piece of cardboard, stands on a table in the middle of a busy factory floor, and stoically remains–in an exhilarating climax to the film–until all her fellow employees shut down their machines and stand with her. She’s arrested and fired in the end, but finishes what she started and believed in.

It’s true that Field gives a standout performance, and the union-organizer Rueben (played by Ron Liebman) isn’t bad either. But what stands out for me in the film–and what makes this, in my opinion, a good piece of feminist muckraking–is the character’s relationship with men. We don’t learn too much about her relationship with other women, but what’s striking about her relationship with men is the lack of romanticism involved. Norma Rae has a couple of kids from a couple of different men–neither of whom are present in their lives–and when she marries Sonny, it’s for entirely pragmatic reasons. He proposes while on a date with both their children present, and makes his case to her that he’s a good man and that their lives might be easier if they lived them together. There’s no grand romance, and it’s refreshing to see marriage represented as the economic institution that it essentially is–particularly in the face of contemporary Hollywood, which just can’t seem to make a movie without a romantic sub-plot geared toward female viewers.

The other–and more prominent–relationship in the movie is between Norma Rae and Rueben. I admit that while watching the movie I waited for romance to blossom between these two characters, but felt great relief when it never happened. We see their relationship go from cautious skepticism to a fully fledged friendship, as Norma Rae becomes dedicated to the union cause. There are few representations of purely intellectual relationships (not to mention asexual friendships) between men and women that come to mind in movies, and though one could certainly argue that there is sexual antagonism underlying their interaction, it’s an emotion that stays below the surface, never consummated–all the way to their farewell handshake at the end of the movie.

Norma Rae isn’t a super mother, nor does she fit the description of a woman we’re typically supposed to look up to. She’s made mistakes in her life and she’ll probably make a few more. She’s not looking to move away from her roots and improve her life based on others’ terms; she doesn’t act out of selfish desire. In other words, she’s a rarity in film: a real woman.