Tag: Academy Award Nominee

One Immigrant’s Thoughts on ‘Brooklyn’ and Western Privilege

From the thousands of immigrant stories that could have been told, that Hollywood chose a heterosexual love story between two white Westerners in the 1950s is telling — that critics and audiences have lauded and lavished it with praise is even more so.

Brooklyn movie

This guest post is written by Fernanda Cunha. | Spoilers ahead.

I watched Brooklyn in the same week my Facebook newsfeed flooded with reports of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids across the country. In December, I had both heard and read of the Department of Homeland Security’s plan to raid and deport Central American families, at the same time, the John Crowley-directed film Brooklyn continued playing to rave reviews. As a first generation immigrant whose main self-identifier is native of Brazil / immigrant / foreigner, I deliberately and adamantly seek stories about the immigrant and diasporic experience, and I’m excited when they manage to permeate mainstream culture and media. In some ways, this was also true for Brooklyn — though my excitement was not the same as discovering Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s novel Americanah or Cristina Henríquez’s The Book of Unknown Americans, both contemporary novels about different immigrant experiences — as I looked forward to watching a young woman’s migrant journey. In retrospect, having now seen the film, I am not entirely sure how I ever thought I would relate to the film’s premise. In its desperate attempt to tell a universal story (which is unsurprisingly white and Western), the film only ends up feeling false, and ultimately falls short.

Released to select theaters in November 2015, the recently Academy Award-nominated Brooklyn (based on the novel by Colm Tóibín) stars Saoirse Ronan as Eilis Lacey, who migrates from Ireland to Brooklyn in the 1950s, the story begins with a hesitant, and nervous Eilis preparing for, and somewhat dreading, her journey to the United States, and ends with her triumphant Brooklyn “homecoming,” after returning to her original hometown of Enniscorthy and feeling trapped by her surroundings and her sister’s sudden death.

BrooklynCover

Visually, the film delivers — the cinematography looks pretty, and the production and costume design both succeed in building a believable 1950s visual story. It’s in Ronan, however, that the film finds its backbone. Her performance makes what could potentially be unrealistic and false scenes feel sincere and raw. The film’s idealistically brief moments of homesickness and grieving become the most touching scenes of the film through Ronan’s physical translation of a weak and lacking screenplay. And lacking it is. Eilis’s experiences as an immigrant take a backseat in her newfound love for an Italian-American man, and the immigrant’s story I was so looking forward to is lost in the film’s attempt at Western appeal and universality. From the thousands of immigrant stories that could have been told, that Hollywood chose a heterosexual love story between two white Westerners in the 1950s is telling — that critics and audiences have lauded and lavished it with praise is even more so.

Besides Eilis’s laughably brief moment of homesickness and her inability to be home for her sister’s burial, none of her experiences as an immigrant felt familiar to me. She does not get made fun of for her accent — she does not even have to struggle with learning English, and in turn does not have to spend most of the next two years in the United States in silence, embarrassed of the ways her tongue cannot seem to master the language. She relates to Americans easily, and there are no mentions of deportation. Despite a small disappointment at not seeing myself reflected on screen, I am okay with this unfamiliarity. I am sure hers looks like another immigrant’s story, and I understand that the immigrant experience is not monolithic and manifests differently for every individual.

Brooklyn movie 4

I struggle, however, with Hollywood’s choice to tell and so openly embrace this kind of immigrant’s story while the United States continues to deport Central American immigrants to mostly widespread silence. I worry about the continued invisibility of native Latin American peoples in the United States, especially undocumented ones, when their dehumanization persists through a proliferation of Latin American xenophobia and hate speeches of public figures like Donald Trump. Representation is meaningful and powerful, and the lack thereof is just as salient. I wonder what it means for others to not see these representations, to be so sheltered to stories of undocumented immigrants that society perceives their actions and existence as inherently and automatically criminal.

In today’s social and pop culture climate, it’s not difficult to wonder how differently critics and audiences would receive a film like this if told from a Latin American woman’s perspective. It probably would have never been made. In the miraculous chance that it had, I wonder if audiences would have viewed Eilis’s decision of accepting an opportunity in the United States as stealing, taking something that was not hers. I doubt Eilis’s actions of marrying an American before returning to her home country where she rekindles a friendship with another man and flirts with the idea of staying would have been well received. Audiences would have no sympathy for a woman like that. I can imagine the kinds of names she would have been called, and the implications others would discern in her actions.

Brooklyn movie

In some ways, I am glad this story doesn’t exist, not only because I found the film uninteresting and lazy, but because it would be a disservice to the kinds of stories I experienced and heard as an immigrant. Still, the disappointingly simplistic story Brooklyn tells beats the reality of not having our stories told at all. I would rather see a simple and two-dimensional love story between a Latina immigrant and an American man than watch another movie set in Latin America in which crimes and violence dominate, and all perpetuated by the Latin@ characters. Stories in which the American characters suffer tremendously in a ruthless foreign land — the creative voices behind those films receive praise endlessly for their bravery, and the Latin@ voices continue to be ignored and silenced.

Fernanda Cunha is a native of Brazil living in the U.S., a writer, and a student of Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies. Her writing focuses on the humanization of immigrants, often done through a feminist lens. Her writing has been featured in The Feminist Wire.

‘Carol’ and the Ineffable Queerness of Being

The potency of ‘Carol’ struck me. I found myself hopelessly enraptured by the film’s meticulously flawless and at times excruciatingly realistic depiction of the ineffability that typifies so much of the queer experience. … The film pinpoints and satiates that pulsating, unspeakable longing that I (and I know countless others) have felt too many times.

CAROL

This is a guest post by Eva Phillips.

I harbored a tremendous amount of dubiousness for Todd Haynes’ Carol. A lavishly developed adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s 1952 novel The Price of Salt, the film — chronicling the deeply complicated and ferociously passionate romance between two women, Carol Aird (Cate Blanchett) and Therese Belivett (Rooney Mara) — received such unfettered, rabid praise that I, ever the cranky-queer critic, was immediately suspect. Perhaps it was because I had so much personally riding on the film being a pillar of Sapphic excellence (cranky-queer and malignant narcissist — I’m a jack-of-all-trades). As an almost predictably sad, sexually discombobulated — and, importantly, sexually terrified — kid, I could only reconcile my ample feelings about my sexuality through film. My desires, my confusions, my deciphering whether it was okay to have no clue what I was feeling exactly, had no place in my social life, and, moreover, no place to be securely articulated. Media with glimmers of queer characters and themes provided that arena for articulation of the yearnings, the frustrations, and the utter fear I was often consumed by — films were my realm of liminality. So I became a scavenger of any remotely queer cinema, subjecting my computer to countless viruses covertly streaming Better Than Chocolate, ferreting away rented copies of But I’m a Cheerleader to consult after lacrosse practice, secretly stifling a lot of ire about how indulgent the problematic Loving Annabelle turned out to be.

Carol movie

There was an indisputable comfort and benefit to effectively hiding myself in this really, really, really queer canon. These films allowed me a sort of expression and understanding, and, frequently, blissfully demonstrated oh, this is the sex thing, yes, good, good to know. Yet, despite these films salubrious qualities, the sort of discursive shelter they provided, they often seemed too removed or lacking (of course, you could make the argument that “movies aren’t supposed to fix your emotional/developmental crises” and, you’d be right, I suppose, but terribly rude). They seemed to dwell in a sort of microcosmic queer utopia, or, conversely, despotically tragic queer dystopia (Kill the lesbians! Lock the queer gals up! Happy endings are heteronormative! Bisexuality is a myth!) that never quite addressed the comingled anguish and mirth I experienced in my emotionally tumultuous coming-of-age. I would frequently resort to media where I could engineer some kind of unspoken queer subtext — usually anything with Michelle Rodriguez being seductively cantankerous in the vicinity of Milla Jovovich or Jordana Brewster; or my probably unhealthy fascination with a Rizzoli & Isles ultimate partnership. The wordless, even chimerical quality of these attractions in otherwise “straight” cinema often was more rewarding for me, allowing a safeguard in their silence. There was immeasurable pleasure because my desires and their imagined attractions remained equally untellable.

But in a peculiar way, Carol was like my Queer-Film Baby (a baby that really needed an induced labor, since my town’s theatre was stymied by Star Wars–The Revenant fever) — I pined for it to be some prodigious, cinematic gift to Queer Dames (specifically me), something that would satiate and demonstrate the viscera of queer development and craving. But I cynically feared it would royally muck things up like some of its equally revered siblings (lookin’ at you and your emotional/sexual lechery, Blue Is the Warmest Color). Contrary to many depressingly mono-focused proclamations, I did not want Carol to be (or fail to be) the next Brokeback Mountain (though, had Anna Faris inexplicably made a cameo in the film, I would have been completely on board). I wanted the film to exist in its own right, to not be conflated with the masculine machinations of something else, and to not suffer the Brokeback-fate of hetero-appropriation to show “look how attuned I am to the gay folks struggle.” Like any fretful expecting parent, I did copious research on Carol before its release, and remained skeptical at the inundation of sea of mainstream accolades, fearing voyeuristic tokenism or perhaps somber applause at yet another tragic queer ending. Not even cherished and respected queer testimonials could sway me to believe that Carol was going to deliver, so to speak, and transcend the lineage of queer forerunners as well as triumph the beast of my nagging dubiousness.

Carol movie

It really wasn’t until a little less than a third of the way through the film, after several decadent scenes of Therese and Carol getting lost in delectably nervous dialogue and sumptuous gazes and exquisitely drab shots setting up Therese’s mundane, silently craven life, that the potency of Carol struck me. I found myself hopelessly enraptured by the film’s meticulously flawless and at times excruciatingly realistic depiction of the ineffability that typifies so much of the queer experience. As pivotal as it is understated, the moment comes in a brief utterance that is embedded in a scene riddled with delicate class dynamics and clumsy potential “first date” politics and thus is otherwise overlooked. The scene centers around Carol — played by Blanchett with such fastidiousness, exacting the balance between regality and utter petrification — taking the savagely wide-eyed Therese to lunch as an ostensible thanks for returning her abandoned gloves (a most likely intentional accident). Therese observes, acquiescing to the generational gender expectations, that Carol must have thought a man shipped the lost gloves to her home, apologizing that she was, in fact, the anonymous sender. Carol balks at the alternate possibility, delivering the line that so characterizes what I identify as the film’s superb construction of unspeakable desire: “I doubt very much I would’ve gone to lunch with him.”

There is something so simultaneously infinitesimal and yet infinitely meaningful in this moment. The quiet duality of Carol’s comment, her ecstatic implied reciprocation of Therese’s attraction, establishes a precedent for the outstandingly subdued power of the film. Crucially, though, this moment epitomizes what transforms the film from a complex portrayal of unremitting love into a cinematic portrait of the distinct ineffability of queer desire. Carol’s declaration that she would certainly not have gone to lunch with a male employee is not simply the quelling of “do they/don’t they” trepidations so common to most potential “first date” dynamics — it is an implicit affirmation that Therese’s unfettered and uncertain desire (marvelously and tacitly established in the shot-reverse-shots of the first department store interaction between Therese and Carol) is neither misplaced nor forbidden. Merely by saying, “I doubt very much…” the film pinpoints and satiates that pulsating, unspeakable longing that I (and I know countless others) have felt too many times. Does this individual understand (let alone share) my desire? Is this going to be another suppressed attraction? Is this even allowed (or have I jeopardized myself by exposing inklings of desire)? It is an instance which communicates a euphoria distinct and most poignant to a queer audience (particularly this queer, now four-time audience member) of not just having desire requited, but understanding that who you are, how your desire manifests is welcomed and safe.

Carol movie

Thus the lunch exchange socked me in the gut. The narrative and the characters’ machinations ecstatically eviscerated me, so I fully surrendered to the film (even the somewhat aberrant “oops, we forgot a thriller-centric author wrote this, let’s give Carol a pistol” bit). Every touch or grasp of the shoulder — a reoccurring technique brilliantly juxtaposed in the opening dinner scene, as the difference in emotional arousal is palpable when Carol touches Therese’s shoulder rather than the male friend — translates an empyreal, unutterable world. Every longing stare, every coded phrase (“Why not get the suite…if the rate is attractive?” being one of my nearly-cringe-worthy favorites) and even more coded physical symbols (the portentous abandoned gloves, the removed shoes that must hastily be thrown on when Carol’s husband interrupts her first domestic reverie with Therese) are indicative of a particular vernacular of queer longing borne from the uncertainty or inability to directly profess or announce one’s passions, one’s indelible feelings of love. Equally compelling, the non-romantic (or not in the film’s action, at least) female relationship between Carol and her best friend Abby (plucky-as-ever Sarah Paulson) functions as an extension of this inextricable union. Carol and Abby, while open about their past affair, talk to one another in a uniquely cultivated language that both evokes the complexities of their desire (past and current) and the indefatigable, indescribable bond to one another forged through their specific type of union (they share one of the more beautiful and symbolic forgotten moments: shot from behind, the two intertwine arms and support one another down the stairs).

Carol movie

Many details contribute to the dedicated presentation of this ineffability, this new language of necessity and yearning that distinguishes the queer experience in pleasure, euphoria and aching want. Carter Burwell’s lithe lilting score captures the more finite moments of piqued curiosity or plummeting despair that cannot adequately be articulated. The melodramatic mis-en-scène (maybe Haynes’ greatest nod to Douglas Sirk yet, despite Far From Heaven’s ambitions) augments the powerfully silent subversion that Therese and Carol undertake in their romance. But it’s mostly a testament to Blanchett (whose austerity has been woefully misconstrued by some as haughtiness) and Mara, and even Paulson. They do not allow their characters to succumb to over-the-top tropes, but instead manage to recreate those aspects of queer discovery that I had written off as inimitable in films — the stares that communicate every jumbled, blitzkrieg thought, wish, lust but are not over vamped; the gradual transition into comfort with physicality as each more intrepid, explorative touch conveys the longing that often cannot be spoken; the quiet resilience of women who are not damned by the transcendent nature of their love, but reclaim it, making it physically and emotionally more explosive than any other kind of love.

I have never been so lachrymal in a theatre (except for Toy Story 3 surrounded by small children and for wildly different reasons) than when Therese fumblingly tries to ask “things” of Carol, to which Carol pleads, “Ask me things, please.” I openly wept because I viscerally knew how it ached to have your love feel so inscrutable, desperate to be quenched yet caught in limbo. I wept, at times agonized from the pernicious self-refusal so brutally portrayed, and at times over-joyed, because I had never witnessed the ineffability I went through (and still continue and will always go through, to some extent) in the various stages of my queer acceptance and pursuits of love so accurately acted out before me. No word or line authoritatively delivered, no movement swift or lingering made is insignificant — these women act each second with the full weight of the balefulness, muted cravenness, and language I and a panoply of others adopted, have been all too intimate with. I had never seen so much of myself, my friends, my partners, laid so brilliantly bare on screen.

Carol movie

All of this is certainly not to say the film is unblemished: there’s that tricky, body politics moment during Carol and Therese’s New Years’ consummation in which Carol, transfixed by Therese mutters about her breasts, “Mine never looked like that;” disconcerting class and gender elements; the insufferable good-ole-boy-ness of Kyle Chandler’s character’s name (Hoage? Hart? Harf? Oh, HARGE. Sure. Whatever). But what is so fascinatingly and stupendously gratifying about Carol, particularly when assessed with other pitifully doomed or categorically wishy-washy queer dame narratives, is that the coded, incommunicable language actually pays off. The film captures that quality of subversion and unuttered, unbridled attraction, but then it allows (and it seems pathetic to have to say “allows”) the protagonists to consummate their love — Therese can rush to Carol’s dinner party and, in a spectacular narrative cycle, return the gaze of their first exchange, but this time to silently communicate the agreement to embark on a real relationship. Speaking of gazes, Carol is valorous in not only exclusively and unwaveringly committing itself to the Female Gaze — no one is (irrevocably) punished! Lady-orgasms aren’t devoured by omnipresent dude-licentiousness! — it renders the once believed indomitable Male Gaze utterly irrelevant and desecrated in the wake of female longing.

I share in the disheartenment that the Academy Awards denied Carol the recognition it so rightfully deserved (thankfully, though, Mara and Blanchett got their dues). However, there is, not at all ironically, a quiet valiance in the film’s success that makes it perhaps more profound than, say, Brokeback Mountain. Carol triumphs in electrifying homogeneous audiences, in gripping the audiences at Vanity Fair and Slate but it never compromises its irrefutable queerness to placate or entice heteronormative expectations. The women are empowered by their ineffable queerness and we are allowed a dialectic palisade in an elegant art-house romance; the film’s realities coexist harmoniously. It’s really all this cantankerous queer critic could ever ask for.

Eva Phillips is constantly surprised at how remarkably Southern she in fact is as she adjusts to social and climate life in The Steel City. Additionally, Eva thoroughly enjoys completing her Master’s Degree in English, though really wishes that more of her grades could be based on how well she researches Making a Murderer conspiracy theories whilst pile-driving salt-and-vinegar chips. You can follow her on Instagram at @menzingers2.

Older Women Week: Judi Dench Carries ‘Notes On A Scandal,’ and Other Badass Accomplishments

There’s an imperative reason why Dench was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress in a film for Notes On a Scandal. The Academy can be a load of BS with their ageism and racism, but sometimes, they get it right. It’s also quite wonderful to point out that Dench scored her first nomination at 64, her first and only win at 65, and four nods after— the last being Notes on a Scandal. For people to say that she is too old for anything is simply wrong on all counts. She truly is at her artistic best.

Notes on a Scandal film poster.
Dame Judi Dench is a favorite of mine and definitely worthy of this appropriately named tumblr.
Dench played the wonderful Armande Voizon in Chocolat, a witty, brooding mother who gluttonously indulged despite having diabetes. She doesn’t have the “traditional” Bond Girl look and physique, but she kicks major ass as M (who is supposed to be a man) in the James Bond films. Sadly, it is her appearance in the Bond films that gets her the most recognition. She also voiced the darling Mrs. Lilly on the British animated series, Angelina Ballerina, and I have no shame in admitting that my hard drive houses several episodes. We can’t forget her unforgettable turns in Importance of Being Earnest,  Iris, Shakespeare in Love, Mrs. Henderson Presents and so on.
When I see Dench on screen, I don’t see an aging actress fading and desiring work outside of matronly figure. I see a talented woman full of zesty relish and passion for her craft. Notes on a Scandal showcased a terrifying brilliance unlike anything I had ever seen from her, ultimately proving that Dench can wear many hats.
Barbara (Judi Dench) in her turtleneck and sweater cardigan wouldn’t hurt a fly.
Dench’s earlier portrayed characters contain humor and charm. In Notes on a Scandal,  a film based on Zoe Heller’s novel, Barbara Covett certainly has that nestled inside her sea of condescending criticisms of the world around her. She drifts sans lifeboat and purpose; her greatest love is writing scribbles and taking care of her cat. Young, sensually stirring, carefree Sheba Hart (Cate Blanchett) floats listlessly into Barbara’s mundane life. A dark and sinister side disguised underneath a mask of a nonthreatening single old woman emerges with savage claws and teeth bared, waiting with perceptive eyes to strike into Sheba’s vulnerability.
There’s an imperative reason why Dench was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress in a film for Notes On a Scandal. The Academy can be a load of BS with their ageism and racism, but sometimes, they get it right. It’s also quite wonderful to point out that Dench scored her first nomination at 64, her first and only win at 65, and four nods after– the last being Notes on a Scandal. For people to say that she is too old for anything is imply unstated and wrong on all counts. She truly is at her artistic best.
In the Guardian’s article called, “I Never Want to Stop Working,” Dench briefly touches on why she felt compelled to play such a wicked character.
“I remember reading the novel Notes on a Scandal and thinking: I would love to play that woman, to try to find a humanity in that dreadful person. I was thrilled to be asked to do that.”
Barbara’s (Judi Dench) cat just died and she’s going postal on Sheba (Cate Blanchett) for trying to “abandon” her during the mourning process.
Notes on a Scandal is almost a Single White Femalesituation and some parts are unsettling in this disturbing thriller. Except that Barbara doesn’t want to mimic Sheba. She wants her. The undeniable tension between Barbara and her ravenous fixation on Sheba manifests into an overwhelming viscerally charged moment of raw intensity. Barbara is seeking sensual validation and believes that Sheba holds the key to fulfilling the fragmented jigsaw. She is deluded into actually concluding that Sheba is the missing puzzle piece that fits into an isolated world longing for female companionship. Sheba, so naive and unaware of Barbara’s lesbian attraction and dishonorable intentions, is just as lost and confused as the young boy she seduced. 
Dench plays the hell out of this demented woman on the brink of lunacy with a sweet voice coated in cold calculating manipulation and demure blue eyes spurning icy darts of pure evil. I was so used to  her sweet and congenial characters that Barbara Covett just literally frightened the depths of my soul. She is an unrootable and unstable character, yet smart and sly. It opened up this strange can of worms–I love Dench, but for the life of me, I despised Barbara and her sick, compulsive selfishness. Why couldn’t she have asked Sheba, “Let’s be friends?” Why deceive?
With close cropped silver hair and a diligent work ethic, Judi Dench continues to defy Hollywood’s obsession with long hair and youth.

Notes on a Scandal is a twisted piece of filmmaking that does touch on age and the desire to stay trapped inside youthfulness–that place where all the cool people reside. I have yet to read Zeller’s book, but feel compelled that I must do so.
As for Judi Dench, let’s applaud her never-ending quest to continue shining through and not letting a little thing like age get in the way of a versatile career. I see another Oscar nod or two in her future.

Fun with Stats: Best Actor/Actress Nominations vs. Best Picture Nominations

Written by Robin Hitchcock
Last year’s Best Actress and Best Actor Oscar winners, Meryl Streep and Jean Dujardin. The Iron Lady was not nominated for Best Picture. The Artist was nominated for and won Best Picture.
It’s February, which means it is the Dog Days of Oscar Season. So for this week’s post I’ve done what any obsessive fan would do: create a massive database to conduct some simplistic statistical analysis to which I will subsequently ascribe excessive importance and profundity!
Specifically, I decided to look at the Academy Awards’ 843 nominated performances for Best Actress and Best Actor over their 85-year history, and see how many of those were from films that also received a nomination for Best Picture. My hypothesis was that the movies that earn their leading ladies Best Actress nominations are less likely to be nominated for Best Picture than those films that garner Best Actor nods. I’ll speculate on some of the reasons why that might be in a bit, but first I will share the results I found:

Pie chart illustrating relationship between Best Actress nominations and Best Picture nominations
Out of the 423 performances that have been nominated for Best Actress, 153 were in films also nominated for Best Picture. This means that approximately 33.16% of Best Actress nominees were from Best Picture-nominated films.  In contrast, 229 of the 420, or 54.5% of the performances nominated for Best Actor were in Best Picture-nominated films.[1]
Pie Chart illustrating relationship between Best Actor nominations and Best Picture nominations
[1]Some minor notes on how I calculated these figures. These are incredibly minor quirks that only the hugest of geeks would care about, so push up your glasses. I counted all of the performances for which the nominees in the first year of the Academy Awards separately, even though winners Janet Gaynor and Emil Jennings were awarded for their cumulative work.  I did not include Bette Davis in Of Human Bondage in 1934, because she was not nominated even though she did come in third place through write-in votes. I separated films not nominated for Best Picture but nominated for Best Foreign Language Film in the above pie charts but not in the calculation of data, because several foreign language films have received Best Picture nominations straight out (for example, this year’s Amour). You can check my work in my [Oscar Spreadsheet of DOOM, and you probably should, because my brain DID NOT want to accept the fact that The Reader was nominated for Best Picture, and that was only four years ago.
The disparity here is plainly evident but I did my statistical due diligence and ran a chi squared test, proving that the distribution of Best Picture nominations between the sub-groups of Best Actor and Best Actress deviates from what you would expect. The chi squared value here equals 28.634, with 3 degrees of freedom and a p<.0001. That's math talk for "something isn't right here." Basically, these figures offer proof of the statistical significance of Best Actor nominees more frequently appearing in Best Picture nominated films than nominees for Best Actress do.
Now let’s consider why this might be the case. Oscar nominations for Best Actor and Best Actress require more than a great performer: that performer needs a meaty role to play. What this data suggests is that the kind of movies that provide these great parts for actresses are less likely to be “Best Picture caliber” than the films that have Best Actor-worthy male roles. The films that yield Best Actress nominations are more often “small” (e.g. Frozen River, TransAmerica, You Can Count on Me) or “non serious” movies (e.g. Julie & Julia, Bridget Jones’s Diary) that aren’t as attractive to the Academy as Best Picture contenders.

2003 Best Actor  winner Sean Penn (for Best Picture-nominated Mystic River) with 2003 Best Actress winner Charlize Theron (for non-nominated Monster).

Notably, in the years where there were 5 or fewer nominees for Best Picture (1927/28–1930/31, 1944–2008), the disparity between Best Actors and Best Actresses appears even greater: 109 out of 348 (31.32%) Best Actress nominations were for Best Picture-nominated films; whereas 177 out of 347 (51.01%) Best Actor nominations were for films nominated for Best Picture. The chi squared for this data set is actually a smidge lower at 27.841, but that still indicates considerable statistical significance.
Conversely, isolating the years with an expanded list of Best Picture nominees (1931/32–1943, 2009–2012) finds no statistical significance in the disparity between Best Actor and Best Actress nods correlation with Best Picture nominees. Both Best Actor and Best Actress nominees see a significant bump in the chances of their film being nominated for Best Picture: up to 71.23% for men and to 58.6% for women. The chi squared is 2.565, df=3 and p=.4637, so these results aren’t statistically significant. Unfortunately, this data set is much smaller than the other ones I looked at, and makes the strange bedfellows of the last four years of Oscars and a set of nominees from 8 decades ago, so it may need to be viewed more skeptically.
To get a better idea of how these trends might have changed over time, I also split the data into two roughly equal blocks, everything before 1970, and everything after.  The good news is that the disparity had already started to narrow in the modern era even before the Best Picture nominations field expanded in recent years. When the data is split into these two groups, the earlier era gets a chi squared score of 20.037 (df=3, p<.0002), indicating extreme statistical significance; the newer data computes to a chi squared of 9.816 (df=3, p=.0202), which indicates statistical significance as well but less dramatically. 
But this does not mean there has been steady progress on this front over the years. These graphs show fluctuation over the years and decades for both genders of nominee, with men remaining slightly above women most years and more substantially above women in all decades: 

Charts showing disparity between Best Actor/Actress and Best Picture nominations over years and decades
To sum up: Academy Awards nominees for Best Actor have been nominated for films also nominated for Best Picture to a much greater degree than the nominees for Best Actress. In years that have a wider field of Best Picture nominees, the disparity between actors and actresses narrows to the point it is not statistically significant. The disparity has also decreased in more modern years but remains statistically significant. 
I believe, optimistically, that this is more of a problem with Oscar’s past than it’s present and future. With more (but still not enough!) women filmmakers active, we’re going to see more and more women in central roles in the Big Important Pictures that tend to get nominated for Best Picture, as we have this year with Best Actress nominee Jessica Chastain at the center of Kathryn Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty. Furthermore, the expanded list of nominees for Best Picture makes room for different kinds of films, so smaller, women-centric gems like Amour, The Kids are All Right, and Winter’s Bone are included in the Best Picture nominee club. In the future, I hope the sex of a nominated performer won’t be predictive of the Best Picture nomination of his or her film. While this is certainly only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the Academy’s limitations in recognizing diversity in their nominees, I’m still glad we’re seeing progress here. 

Call for Writers: 2013 Oscar Nominees

The Academy Awards ceremony airs Sunday, February 24th at 8pm
Every year, Bitch Flicks runs a series of reviews focusing on Oscar-nominated films, and in last year’s Best Picture Nominee Review Series Roundup, Amber explained exactly why we do this:
Despite the prevailing (and, to a certain extent, correct) opinions that the Oscars 1) are a political campaign in which the films with the best marketing take home the awards; 2) do not genuinely reflect the best films made every year; 3) promote female objectification (red carpet ridiculousness); and 4) exhibit the continued dominance of the white male filmmaker, we still think they’re important.

Here’s why.

The Academy Awards are the most visible celebration of filmmaking in the United States–and possibly the world. Yet–and despite the misnomer of “liberal Hollywood”–they continue to exhibit cultural values and norms that are conservative and simply unacceptable. Women are typically rewarded for playing roles that support a central male character in films. People of color are rarely nominated for–and even more rarely win–major awards.

We can’t just ignore the Oscars. We need to make our voices heard. That’s one reason we run a series of feminist film reviews on the Best Picture nominees.

And so we’re doing it again this year. The following list includes films nominated for an Academy Award, whether it be for Best Picture, Sound Mixing, or Makeup and Hairstyling. The films in bold denote movies that we haven’t yet mentioned at Bitch Flicks; however, we’re accepting original reviews and cross-posts of any of the nominated films. If you’d like to write about the Academy Awards in general–and the sexism inherent within them–send us an email with your proposal. 

These are a few basic guidelines for guest writers on our site:

–We like most of our pieces to be 1,000 – 2,000 words, preferably with some images and links.
–Please send your piece in the text of an email, including links to all images, no later than Friday, February 15th.
–Include a 2-3 sentence bio for placement at the end of your piece.

Email us at btchflcks(at)gmail(dot)com if you’d like to contribute a review. We accept original pieces or cross-posts.

We look forward to reading your pieces!


Full-Length Feature Film Nominees

Amour
Life of Pi
Argo
Lincoln
Beasts of the Southern Wild
Silver Linings Playbook
Django Unchained
Zero Dark Thirty
Les Misérables
The Master
Flight
The Impossible
Brave
Frankenweenie
ParaNorman
The Pirates! Band of Misfits
The Sessions
Wreck-It Ralph
Anna Karenina
Mirror Mirror
Skyfall
Snow White and the Huntsman
5 Broken Cameras
The Gatekeepers
How to Survive a Plague
The Invisible War
Searching for Sugar Man
Kon-Tiki
No
A Royal Affair
War Witch
Hitchcock
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Chasing Ice
Ted
The Avengers
Prometheus
Moonrise Kingdom

Short Film Nominees

Inocente  
Kings Point 
Mondays at Racine  
Open Heart 
Redemption  
Paperman
Maggie Simpson in “The Longest Daycare”
Head over Heels
Fresh Guacamole
Adam and Dog
Asad
Buzkashi Boys
Curfew
Death of a Shadow (Dood van een Schaduw)
Henry

The Gender Situation in ‘Pulp Fiction’

Written by Leigh Kolb.To celebrate the 20th anniversary of Quentin Tarantino’s major directorial debut, Reservoir Dogs (1992) and Pulp Fiction (1994) were shown in theaters on Dec. 4 and 6, respectively, as special engagements.

While Reservoir Dogs solidified Tarantino’s spot in Hollywood, Pulp Fiction made him a star. It won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, the Academy Award for Best Screenplay (it was nominated for Best Picture) and John Travolta, Samuel L. Jackson and Uma Thurman were nominated for Academy Awards.
The film opens with a couple (Pumpkin/Ringo and Honey Bunny/Yolanda) eating at a diner. The two are discussing their next robbery attempt and realize robbing a restaurant would maximize their profits. The banter between the two shows that they are partners, and are in love.
As they enact their plan, they stand up with their guns. Pumpkin announces that this is a robbery, and Honey Bunny screams:

“Any of you fucking pricks move, and I’ll execute every motherfucking last one of ya!”

Honey Bunny/Yolanda, left, screams and threatens restaurant patrons as Pumpkin looks on.
The iconic sounds of “Miserlou,” by Dick Dale and His Del Tones begin, and the audience quickly realizes that unlike Reservoir Dogs, women will have a voice in Pulp Fiction.
Like Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction examines masculinity–glorifying and critiquing it. Instead of conversations about women, however, women have integral roles in each of the intertwining narratives.
Vincent Vega & Marcellus Wallace’s Wife
 
When Vincent and Jules discuss the meaning of a foot rub, they are speaking about intimacy and what it means to touch a woman’s feet. The rumor is that their boss, Marcellus Wallace, had a man pushed off a building for rubbing his wife’s feet. They’re exploring something beyond a foot rub (although Tarantino himself does love feet). On some level, they’re exploring male/female interactions and levels of intimacy.
Vincent tells Jules that Marcellus asked him to take his wife Mia out, and it’s clear that this woman invokes intimidation in men. Vincent goes to Lance’s house (his drug dealer) to purchase some heroin. He self-medicates before going to pick up Mia. She’s left a note on the door to come in, and she watched Vincent enter the house on security camera footage and speaks to him over an intercom. She is god-like in this scene (and while it fits the narrative, we know that Uma Thurman is also a god/muse to Tarantino).
Mia self-medicates with cocaine, and the scene at Jack Rabbit Slim’s makes the audience feel high. Mia chooses the restaurant and made the reservation (she is in control), and the two engage in friendly banter. She was an actress, and tells him about her failed television series, Fox Force Five. Vincent confronts her about the foot rub rumor, and she denies it, pointing out that a husband protecting his wife is “one thing,” but that was ridiculous. She says:

“Truth is, nobody knows why Marsellus threw Tony out of that fourth-story window except Marsellus and Tony. When you little scamps get together, you’re worse than a sewing circle.”

Here, the men are gossiping and being “silly,” which are most often the stereotyped flaws of female characters.
The two dance in a twist competition–upon her insistance–and win the trophy. The dance itself is one in which no one really leads; they are partners.
Mia and Vincent dance as equals.
Back at the Wallace mansion, Mia finds the baggie of heroin in Vincent’s coat pocket, mistakes it for cocaine, and snorts a long line, immediately overdosing. She’s a modern-day damsel in distress, whose distress is really a simple mistake.
Vincent rushes her to Lance’s house, and Lance yells, “You fucked her up, you fix her!” But we know this isn’t the case. Again, the assumption is that the man is at fault, and the woman is helpless, but that isn’t how they end up here. Everyone bumbles around the apartment, trying to figure out the adrenaline shot (at one point Lance is in a cluttered room looking for a medical book, and the board game “Chauvinist Pigs” is perched atop a pile). No one in this scene is truly heroic or capable, which makes it feel realistic. Vincent successfully injects the adrenaline into Mia’s heart, and Vincent takes her back home. They, and we, sober up fast.
The Gold Watch
 
The story of the gold watch, passed down to Butch from his great-grandfather, to his grandfather, to his father and then to him, is essentially a story about the decline in traditional American manhood. By the time the watch got to Butch’s father in the Vietnam War, he was a POW and had to “hide it in his ass” for years so he could pass it down to his son. The shift in American war culture/patriotism between WWII and Vietnam was stark. The “Greatest Generation” of American men in the second world war gave birth to boys who would serve in Vietnam, a war that utilized a draft and was met with protest and hostility. By the time Butch becomes an adult man, he is fighting, yes, but for money and not his country. His war is internal, and devoid of the heroism from a few generations ago. (This crisis of a lack of clearly defined masculinity is the cornerstone of Gen X novels/films such as Fight Club, which explores at length this generation of young men with no great war.)
Captain Koons presents a young Butch with his father’s watch.
Butch’s desperation to have that gold watch with him, even eventually risking his life to do so, is indicative of his desperation to hold on to this generationally diluted manhood.
Butch doesn’t throw the fight that he’d fixed with Marcellus, and instead wins and accidentally kills his opponent. In the getaway cab ride, the female cab driver asks him what it’s like to kill a man, because it’s a subject she’s “very interested” in. She seems more interested than he does, in fact.
Esmerelda lights Butch’s cigarette.
When he’s back at the hotel room with his girlfriend Fabienne, the two share intimate moments and comedic dialogue. Fabienne seems silly and child-like, but Butch is sweet and respectful to her (although he erupts when he realizes she’s forgotten the watch, he quickly apologizes and says he was to blame). As she’s lying on the bed wishing for a pot belly, she says:

“I don’t give a damn what men find attractive. It’s unfortunate what we find pleasing to the touch and pleasing to the eye is seldom the same.”

Fabienne and Butch.
She requests and receives “oral pleasure” from Butch, and in the hotel room scenes, the audience sees more of Butch’s body than Fabienne’s. Again, she seems naive and childish, but their relationship is equitable and for the most part, enjoyable to watch. Maybe Butch has a similar innocence, but it is well-guarded under his outward masculinity.
The next morning, when he flies into a rage about the watch, warfare and explosions blast on the television in their room, another reminder of the distance between Butch and that celebrated masculine pastime.
He goes off on a quest to retrieve the gold watch before they flee to Knoxville (since Marcellus will be trying to find him and kill him for not throwing the fight). He takes off in a Honda hatchback, and gets to his apartment. Vincent is already there, sent to kill him, but he’s on the toilet reading Modesty Blaise, who debuted as a female action hero in a comic strip, collection of stories/novel and films of the same name in the 1960s. (Tarantino is a Blaise fan, and certainly Kill Bill‘s The Bride shares many similarities with the female protagonist.)
Modesty Blaise, a 1960s crime series with a female protagonist.
Butch picks up Vincent’s gun and kills him as he steps out of the bathroom. When he escapes, he runs into Marcellus (women flock to the sides of Butch and Marcellus to help them), and the two end up in a depraved dungeon of a pawn shop with a racist owner. When Butch breaks free as Marcellus is being raped by security guard Zed, he can’t leave. He goes back down and kills the shop owner with a sword, and breaks Marcellus free (who then shoots Zed in the groin). There are obvious masculinity issues here, from the anal rape (my gosh what would Freud do with Butch’s narrative) to the phallic sword, Marcellus and Butch agree that they are even, and Butch will never utter a word about the rape.
Butch takes off on Zed’s motorcycle and arrives back to pick up Fabienne. Some kind of post-modern manhood has been achieved, and he’s free to go on–with the gold watch.
The Bonnie Situation
 
When Jules and Vincent are saddled with the problem of a dead man in their car, they turn to Jimmie and go to his house. He is adamant that they take care of their situation soon, because his wife Bonnie is about to come home. He says:

“Now don’t you fucking realize man that if Bonnie comes home and finds a dead body in her house, I’m gonna get divorced, all right. No marriage counselor, no trial separation. I’m gonna get fuckin’ divorced. Okay? And I don’t wanna get fuckin’ divorced. Now then, you know, I mean, I wanna help you but I don’t wanna lose my wife doin’ it, all right.”

This honest admission of a husband who doesn’t want to lose his wife is refreshing. She’s not a nag, she’s not a bitch, but she’s his wife and he wants to be married to her.
Marcellus calls Winston “The Wolf” Wolfe, who is the antithesis of Jimmie. The Wolf is partying with glamorous women at 9 a.m., clearly living like James Bond and speeds to Jimmie’s in a silver sports car. Jimmie is waiting for his wife to get home from work, brews fancy coffee and is hesitant to give The Wolf their best linens to clean up the mess. As a trade, The Wolf gives him a stack of bills to buy themselves a new bedroom set.
Jimmie’s “feminine” tendencies and The Wolf’s classic masculinity complement one another.
These two men–Jimmie and The Wolf–exist in opposite worlds and diametrically opposing masculinities. However, the two of them working together solves problems. This acceptance of and need for different shades of stereotypical masculinity and femininity reminds the audience that Tarantino is aware and critical of gender performance.
When they drop the cleaned-out car to Monster Joe’s Truck and Tow, Joe’s daughter Racquel comes to meet them. The Wolf says, “Someday, all this will be hers.” This is a nod to the next generation of gender roles–whether it be women running junk yards, crime rings or killing sprees, Tarantino’s women are not shut in dainty boxes.
Racquel, the heiress to Monster Joe’s Truck and Tow.
During the epilogue, we are again in the diner where Pumpkin and Honey Bunny/Yolanda are holding up the customers. Vincent and Jules are there (Vincent is in the bathroom during most of the scene), and Jules engages in a stand-off between the two while trying to talk Pumpkin out of doing what they’re doing. He allows them to collect the customers’ cash without hurting anyone. Yolanda becomes unhinged and pitiful in this scene, and a viewer may be dismayed at Tarantino’s decision to make the woman fall apart at this very moment, and that this shows her weakness. However, we must realize that many of the characters throughout the film have shown fallibility or been in positions of weakness (Vincent’s self-medication and debilitating nerves about Mia, Mia’s overdose, Marcellus’s sexual assault and Jimmie’s anxiety about his wife). This does not mean anything except that the characters are human.
Jules and Vincent have been scrubbed clean and left to look like “dorks,” somehow emasculated without their black suits.
Humans are not one-dimensional caricatures. They commit crimes, they overdose, they are racist, sexist and complex. As long as men and women alike are portrayed in all aspects of the human experience in a film and are reflections of reality (no matter how unpleasant that reality is), then authenticity can be achieved. Pulp Fiction, in all of its gore, turns a critical eye on masculinity and femininity and offers a more nuanced take on its male and female characters than films of similar genres. And as Tarantino’s later films went on to have female characters who take active and leading roles, The Wolf was right in pointing out that “all this” will someday be a woman’s, too.
—

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

Women in Politics Week: ‘Persepolis’

 
This piece on Persepolis, by Amber Leab, first appeared at Bitch Flicks on July 1, 2009.

I rented Persepolis before the recent Iranian election, and have been thinking ever since about the film.

Persepolis is adapted from the autobiographical graphic novels written by Marjane Satrapi (which I haven’t read), and represents the first graphic-novel-as-film. Other graphic novels have been made into films, but none (to my knowledge) have remained as true to form as this. Visually, the film is lovely, stark, and at times deeply disturbing.

In Persepolis, we meet Marjane, a young girl living in Iran at the time of the Islamic revolution of 1979. The society changed drastically under Islamic law, as evidenced by Marjane’s teacher’s evolving lessons. After the revolution, in 1982, she tells the young girls, who are now required by law to cover their heads, “The veil stands for freedom. A decent woman shelters herself from men’s eyes. A woman who shows herself will burn in hell.” In typical fashion, the students escape her ideological droning through imported pop culture: the music of ABBA, The Bee Gees, Michael Jackson, and Iron Maiden.

While the film is a personal story, it does offer a concise history of modern Iran, including the U.S. involvement in the rise of Islamic law and in the Iran-Iraq war. This time in Iranian history is especially important right now, with the disputed re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the ensuing protests. One scene in particular depicts a group of people protesting when a young man is shot, bleeds to death, and is hoisted over his fellow protesters’ shoulders–eerily reminiscent of what happened with Neda Agha Soltan, whose public murder has rallied the Iranian protesters and people all over the world.

The history of Iran, while it determines the course of Marjane’s life, really is a backdrop—especially in the second half of the movie. In other words, the film is more about the experience of one woman than a documentary-style account of Iranian history. Once Marjane escapes the society she grew up in, her problems become much more ordinary for a Western audience, more commonplace. She vacillates between different crowds of people. She falls in love and has her heart broken. She feels angst and confusion over who she is and what she wants. She goes home to Iran for a time and, like so many others, ultimately finds she cannot return home.

As evident in the film, Satrapi grew up in a wealthy, educated, progressive Iranian family. They sent her to Vienna as a teenager so she didn’t have to spend her adolescence in such a repressive society, and because they feared what might happen to such an outspoken young woman there. While acknowledging her privilege, not many women in circumstances other than these would be able to accomplish what she has. Satrapi isn’t afraid to show missteps she makes in growing up, either. Young Marjane learns that her femininity, even when repressed by law, offers great power—and shows how she misuses that power. Missing her mother’s lesson at the grocery store about female solidarity, she blames other women for her troubles (“Ma’am, my mother is dead. My stepmother’s so cruel. If I’m late, she’ll kill me. She’ll burn me with an iron. She’ll make my dad put me in an orphanage.”), and falsely accuses a man of looking at her in public to avoid the law coming down on her.

Persepolis is, in every definition of the term, a feminist film. There are strong, interesting female characters who sometimes make mistakes. The women, like in real life, are engaged in politics and struggle with expectations set for them and that they set for themselves. They have relationships with various people, but their lives are not defined by one romantic relationship, even though sometimes it can feel that way.

As much as I like this movie, I can’t help but write this review through the lens of an interview Satrapi gave in 2004, in which she claimed to not be a feminist and displayed ignorance of the basic concept of feminism. I simply don’t believe gender inequality can be dissolved through basic humanism — especially in oppressive patriarchal societies like Iran. I wonder if feminism represents too radical a position to non-Westerners, and if her statements were more strategy than sincerity. Making feminism an enemy or perpetuating the post-feminist rhetoric isn’t going to help anyone. That said, this is a very good movie and I highly recommend it.

A couple of good articles about women’s role in the recent Iranian protests:

The Nation: Icons of the New Iran by Barbara Crossette

Feminist Peace Network: Memo to ABC: Lipstick Revolution FAIL

——

Amber Leab is a Co-Founder and Editor of Bitch Flicks and a writer living in Asheville, North Carolina. She holds a Master’s degree in English & Comparative Literature from the University of Cincinnati and a Bachelor’s degree in English Literature & Creative Writing from Miami University. Outside of Bitch Flicks, her work has appeared in The Georgetown Review, on the blogs Shakesville, The Opinioness of the World, and I Will Not Diet, and at True Theatre.

Biopic and Documentary Week: Persepolis

This piece on Persepolis, by Amber Leab, first appeared at Bitch Flicks on July 1, 2009.


Marjane can’t hide behind ABBA
In Persepolis, we meet Marjane (Satrapi), a young girl living in Iran at the time of the Islamic revolution of 1979. The society changed drastically under Islamic law, as evidenced by Marjane’s teacher’s evolving lessons. After the revolution, in 1982, she tells the young girls, who are now required by law to cover their heads, “The veil stands for freedom. A decent woman shelters herself from men’s eyes. A woman who shows herself will burn in hell.” In typical fashion, the students escape her ideological droning through imported pop culture: the music of ABBA, The Bee Gees, Michael Jackson, and Iron Maiden. 
While the film is a personal story, it does offer a concise history of modern Iran, including the U.S. involvement in the rise of Islamic law and in the Iran-Iraq war. This time in Iranian history is especially important right now, with the disputed re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the ensuing protests. One scene in particular depicts a group of people protesting when a young man is shot, bleeds to death, and is hoisted over his fellow protesters’ shoulders–eerily reminiscent of what happened with Neda Agha Soltan, whose public murder has rallied the Iranian protesters and people all over the world. 

Biopic and Documentary Week: Poster Girl

This piece on Poster Girl, by Stephanie Rogers and Amber Leab, first appeared at Bitch Flicks on February 17, 2011, as part of their coverage of the Athena Film Festival.

Poster Girl (2010)
Poster Girl was, without a doubt, my favorite film at the Athena Film Festival. It’s no surprise that the film is nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary – Short Subject, even though this was a first effort at filmmaking from director Sara Nesson. 
[…]
Nesson also juxtaposes photos of Robynn prior to her Army experience–where she’s in a cheerleading uniform, smiling and having fun with friends–with the post-Army Robynn, a tattooed, pierced, PTSD victim who stares at the former photos as if they couldn’t possibly be her. And they aren’t anymore. The new Robynn is an activist who speaks out against war and gun violence, even while dealing with debilitating panic attacks.

The Descendants: Review in Conversation

The Descendants (2011)

Amber’s Take:

 

I went into The Descendants knowing only: George Clooney, land inheritance, and Hawaii. Had I even taken the time to visit IMDb and read the one-line synopsis (“A land baron tries to re-connect with his two daughters after his wife suffers a boating accident.”), I would have known a major plot element, and I might’ve been better prepared for it — and not as successfully manipulated.
The Descendants is a tricky film. You know the kind: you’re completely engrossed while watching (and I confess to being near tears for most of the film, blindsided by the emotional devastation of the situation), but once the spell of the theatre is broken, you wonder how the movie you watched is getting such astonishing praise.
The King family and their land.
That’s not to say The Descendants doesn’t have admirable elements. The film is visually stunning and offers viewers a pleasant surprise: a portrait of Hawaii (two islands specifically: Kaua’i and O’ahu) — a state of beauty and contradictions, extreme wealth and poverty, and a complicated history. Usually the Hawaiian Islands appear in film only as a vacation destination. Here, it’s something else. Not only is the setting the site of plenty of human drama, but it’s also a character in itself–similar to the role played by California’s Santa Ynez Valley in director Alexander Payne’s previous film, Sideways.
The film is also full of excellent performances, including George Clooney as Matt King, Shaliene Woodley as 17-year-old Alexandra, and newcomer Amara Miller as Scottie. I was shocked that Clooney didn’t win the Oscar for his performance, especially considering he’d already won eight awards for the role–including the Golden Globe–and is nominated for at least thirteen more (the film has been nominated for a whopping 65 awards). The relationships between the characters are easy and believable, even if Matt’s character suffers from the “unable to look past Actor George Clooney” problem. Alexandra is rare and refreshing teenage girl, and Woodley does a tremendous job with the role and with her character’s uneasy relationship with her parents. 
The film’s biggest problem, a fundamental mistake that I can only see as entirely unacceptable, and possibly rendering the film an utter failure (are my thoughts on the mistake clear?) is this: the character of Elizabeth King. Other than a flash of actor Patricia Hastie joyously water skiing at the beginning of the film, Elizabeth spends the rest of the film in a hospital bed, wasting away until her death. That in and of itself is not the problem; Elizabeth’s physical presence is deeply unsettling, and the details of her medical condition (the clenched hands, the life-support equipment, and the gaunt face really got to me) are rendered with disturbing realism.
But Elizabeth’s presence and all this detail comes at a price to the story: with continual reminders of the tragedy, Matt King is basically forgiven all of his transgressions and unlikable characteristics. He’s unbelievably wealthy (not particularly sympathetic in the midst of a recession) and yet a penny pincher, he’s been a terrible father and husband, and the biggest dilemma in his life is how to divide up the massive wealth his family inherited amongst his not-as-attractive cousins.
Further, Elizabeth is an example of the sexist “Women in Refrigerators” trope. Anita Sarkeesian explains how this trope plays out in comics, television, and films:

Writers are using the Women in Refrigerators trope to literally trade a female character’s life for the benefit of a male character’s story arc.

Elizabeth’s tragic accident is the catalyst for Matt’s existential crisis…and nothing more.
Megan’s Take:
For me, I left the theatre thinking it was kind of meh. Yes, it was visually beautiful, I mean it’s Hawai’i, of course it’ll be gorgeous! And I loved the use of Hawai’ian music. But I didn’t really see what all the hype was about…except for the two daughters’ performances, especially Shailene Woodley as Matt’s rebellious (although what 17-year-old isn’t?) daughter Alex.
Shailene Woodley as Alexandra King
Absolutely outstanding, Alex stole every scene. The underwater scene blew me away. After Matt tells Alex that her mother isn’t just sick but dying, she sinks below the surface of the pool, weeping underwater…simply brilliant. Alex evoked so much pain and agony through her facial expressions and her body language, without ever uttering a word. She collapsed onto herself as her world began to crumble. Then she pushes against the pain and rage. For me, that heart-wrenching scene is hands down the best in the film.
I also found it really interesting that Alex realizes that she fights with her mother so vehemently yet she’s exactly like her mother. She rebels against authority and constraints, just like her mother. But Alex also resents her mother for cheating on her father. Mother-daughter relationships are so rarely depicted accurately on-screen. It would have been great if we could have seen more of their relationship in flashbacks. Alex appears to be the moral compass of the film. She has a zero bullshit meter and nothing gets past her. Even at such a young age, she’s like a parent to her father, telling him about the infidelity and advising him on how to handle her little sister Scottie (Amara Miller).
My favorite parts were the ones with Alex or Scottie or the two together. I loved when Scottie tosses the lawn chairs in the pool as Matt talks on the phone. There were a couple other humorous, and at times bittersweet, moments, like when Matt says, “Paradise? Paradise can go fuck itself,” Matt running in flip flops, and when Scottie calls Alex a “motherless whore” (not a huge fan of using the word “whore” but her delivery was flawless) and she accusingly points to Alex after Matt asks her where she learned to talk like that. But the film squanders these rare moments.
I would have preferred if the movie focused on the two sisters and their perspectives. Supposedly (as I haven’t read the book), Payne drastically reduced Scottie’s role from the book as he said he wasn’t interested in her character, wanting to explore Alex’s story. Sadly, the film isn’t really about either sister.
I felt like that was The Descendants’ problem. It never focused on what I wanted it to focus on (as if I’m the only audience that matters…ha!). The film glosses over issues of wealth/class and race/ethnicity, never really exploring these crucial societal themes. Additionally, a massive gender problem plagues the film.
Amber, it’s so interesting you mention Elizabeth and the “women in refrigerators” trope. I hadn’t even really thought about it while watching. But you’re totally right. It disturbed me how the film tried to dismantle her perfection. Elizabeth’s father tells Matt she was a perfect wife to him, not knowing about Elizabeth’s infidelity as the audience does. Her friends talk about her with such reverence as being fun and fearless. And of course no one is perfect. But I kept getting the feeling that the whole point of Elizabeth’s infidelity was to somehow excuse Matt’s bad behavior as an absentee husband and father (“I’m the backup parent, the understudy.”) Like well, see…he wasn’t that bad. At least he didn’t cheat on her like she did to him.
That’s what pissed me off about the film: its perspective and commentary on women. Matt bemoans, “What is it about me that makes women in my life want to destroy themselves?” As if the women in his life aren’t struggling with their own demons…it’s all how it affects him.
George Clooney as Matt King
Taking the “women in refrigerators” trope one step further, Jill Dolan at The Feminist Spectator talked about how dead or dying women facilitate men’s “self knowledge and redemption” as in the recent films The Ides of March and The Descendants. Even in her death, it isn’t really about Elizabeth. Or her grieving daughters, or friends, or family. It only matters how it impacts her husband, another role in which Clooney plays a man facing an emotional mid-life crisis.
It’s clear director Alexander Payne didn’t want to focus on the women in the film. I know it’s Clooney, and I love him. But it still irritated me that the movie ultimately revolves around him. I know, I know…big surprise. Another movie, an Oscar contender no less, revolving around an upper class white dude.
I think The Descendants would have been so much more interesting if told from Alex’s or Scottie’s perspective. But heaven forbid Hollywood focuses on the female characters.
So, Amber…what are your thoughts on the film’s gender roles and the interactions between the female characters? What do you think about the film’s statement on fatherhood and the relationship between fathers and daughters?
Amber’s Take:
I think Stephanie Brown does an excellent job discussing fatherhood in her Oscar review for this site. The movie’s two fathers (three if you count Brian Speer) are, in some ways, mirror images of each other: neither is particularly involved in family life, and neither seems to know his spouse or children well. Though I haven’t quite figured out what to make of Elizabeth’s mother’s absence-by-Alzheimer’s, the fact that one adult woman was fridged and another imprisoned by dementia shows at best real disinterest in women’s relationships (and hostility at worst). Perhaps the relationship between the two daughters was sidelined for similar ideological purposes.
Regardless of what we might want the movie to be about, or focus more heavily on, we’re stuck with the hero coming to terms with being a father and making what are perhaps the first serious decisions in his life: embracing his family and role as father, and keeping the land inheritance in the family (you could just say he kicks the can down the road, avoiding a decision, too). However, I think you’re spot on when you say the film couldn’t figure out what it was about (it’s not just you!).
Judy Greer as Julie Speer
I think that it’s a film that wants to be about many serious things, all while not bumming us out too much with its weight and seriousness. In this turn toward comedy–perhaps to avoid Terms of Endearment qualities, a comparison I never considered before reading Brown’s analysis–we see the subjects of inheritance, the accidental nature of being born into certain families, and ethnicity diminished, and we also see the women diminished. Not just in Elizabeth, or her mother, or the relationship between the two girls, but also in a minor character: Julie Speer (played by Judy Greer). There are two moments with this character that have stuck with me in the weeks since I saw the film. The first was the strange and unsettling forced kiss from Matt, a message from him about her husband’s infidelity and an outlet for his anger, the latter of which felt all about violation and…property. The second is the moment in the hospital when Julie first encountered the woman who had fallen in love with her husband. The film didn’t allow her an earnest confrontation; the moment was turned comedic by Matt interrupting–essentially denying her the kind of catharsis she might’ve needed. What makes this moment particularly egregious is that Matt, immediately after, was permitted a sincere, emotional, cathartic moment with her.
At almost every turn in the film, a woman was not permitted full autonomy. Except for Alex, who was permitted to be a full, complex character. What does it mean for a teenage girl to be the moral center of a story–of this specific story? I haven’t figured it out yet, but it surely doesn’t make up for the indifference and hostility toward the other women.
Megan’s Take:
I completely agree with you that having a female as the moral compass or center of the story definitely doesn’t negate the message of hostility to women. It’s a common theme as films often bestow strength and autonomy to teen female characters, as if they’re not comfortable with adult women possessing strength and wielding power.
I also agree with you about Julie Speer. I too was annoyed and I couldn’t shake the feeling that she was surrounded by men using her: her unfaithful husband Brian and Matt King and his invasive kiss. While it was incredibly uncomfortable to watch her scream at the woman who caused her pain, ripping away that opportunity felt equally cruel.
Alex is the only female character allowed autonomy. But all of the women in the film must control their emotions and behavior. Alex possesses the most freedom as she speaks her mind freely. But she must rein in her drinking/partying and hide her pain and anger, crying underwater. Scottie must stop taking pictures and saying inappropriate things to people. Matt forces her to talk to her mother to grieve. Julie must control her emotions. Elizabeth is not only chastised but vilified in absentia for her reckless actions of drinking and infidelity.
The patriarch, Matt King
While the women have their actions and emotions policed, none of the men do. Elizabeth’s father punches Alex’s friend Sid. Sid makes ridiculous comments and is ultimately rewarded by Matt coming to him for advice on his daughters. Brian Speer is fearful when he meets Matt, but it doesn’t seem like he faces any real consequences for his actions. Matt King does have to “grow up” and finally act like a father. But he’s free to behave however he chooses, following the man who had an affair with his wife, grieve however he chooses, choosing whether or not to retain his family’s land. Matt tells his daughters, even Julie how to grieve.
What message does it send that women, both as children and as adults, must stifle their emotions and urges?
Tying all the pieces of the film together – the women denied their autonomy, erasure of discussions on race and class, revolving around a male protagonist – it reinforces white patriarchy. Not patriarchy in the sense of fatherhood but rather male privilege and female oppression. Yes, Matt King evolves into a more loving and attentive father, a bittersweet transformation. Yet I can’t help but feel the underlying theme implies men can do whatever they want, be whomever they choose, while women should not only listen to the needs and heeding of men, they are punished if they don’t.
 
Amber Leab is a Co-Founder and Contributing Editor to Bitch Flicks. 
 
Megan Kearns is a Bitch Flicks Contributor and Founder of Opinioness of the World.
 

Oscar and Indie Spirit Best Picture Nominee: The Artist: "Peppy Miller, Wonder Woman"

This is a guest review by Candice Frederick.
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You know what they say—behind every man is a great woman.
And that’s made evident in the 1920s nostalgia-soaked silent film, The Artist. Although the movie beautifully captures the difficult fall of silent film star George Valentin (Jean Dujardin) from Hollywoodland heavyweight to Hollywoodland has-been, the movie’s heart lies with his heroine, Peppy Miller (Bérénice Bejo).
We first meet Peppy as a face in the crowd, scrambling to catch a glimpse of the one, the only George Valentin on the red carpet. Amid the glitz and glamour of the paparazzi swarming Hollywoodland’s biggest star, we see a “regular” girl. In fact, it’s Peppy’s ambiguity that sets her apart from said crowd. While all the other female fans are elbowing each other to get a chance to see their idol strike a pose on the red carpet, Peppy works her way to the front of the pack and just watches George, studying him. It’s like she sees the man behind the star, a man hidden from everyone else. A man she knocks off his feet.
That’s the thing about Peppy—it’s her authenticity that charms audiences. Unlike George’s man-made celebrity, which seduces his loveliest fans, Peppy’s unflinching compassion for those around her downright enchants the audience.
In that way, Peppy becomes George’s guardian angel. When his career begins to slide downhill, and his once marqueed name can’t even fill up a full row of seats at a theater, Peppy is the only one by his side, his number one fan when he has no one left. She picks him up when he hits rock bottom, when his pride stunts his career from forging ahead. As their careers see-saw one another, it is Peppy who remains the emotional compass throughout the entire film, the one who gets what George refuses to get.
This natural clairvoyance propels her own film ambitions. Peppy’s career skyrockets into superstardom, but, with the exception of one significant scene where she tries to play up her career by essentially downplaying those who came before her (like George), she remains unaffected by the Hollywood allure. It’s fascinating to watch a charismatic leading lady remain grounded even after her career takes off.

And it’s even more interesting to see her come to the rescue of her masculine counterpart, even if he did become a washed up star by the time of his rescuing. That’s something that would have never happened during the era the film is set in. In fact, Peppy would have more than likely have been drawn as a mere shallow competitor to George’s steadfast—however delusional—career. Since she was not written that way, it gives this wistful film the modern boost it needs to stand out.
But The Artist doesn’t just paint Peppy as George Valentin’s superhero. Peppy is also a trailblazing woman on her own. Much like many George before her, she knows how to play to a crowd and to the hungry paparazzi. She became such a power player in Hollywood that she was able to negotiate George’s reacceptance into Tinseltown after threatening to drop out of a project herself. That’s major move for a film actress, a bold one her part (that ended up paying off).
Peppy is that person you want in your corner—a bubbly (but not annoyingly so), impossibly adorable, smart, caring person with a good head on her shoulders. She never gets involved in any overblown scandal in order to get her name up in lights. She doesn’t sleep her way to the top of the Hollywood food chain. She never had to. All she was interested in was being a good friend, becoming an actor like her idol George, and spreading happiness to everyone along her path.
This all plays to the deep complexities of her character, which go far beyond uplifting the lead male character. Peppy is a strong character by herself, without even relating to George. They are both equally rounded characters who supply the substance in a movie that’s heightened by their stories and the actors who play them. Their relationship helps stack every layer of this film, therefore elevating it past its seemingly cursory exterior.
While we never really learn much information about Peppy’s background (she remains mostly anonymous on that front throughout the entire film), somehow we still feel as though she gives us a window to her soul. You relate to her, you empathize with her, and you cheer for her each time she steps in front of the camera. In short, Peppy has that likability factor that fans crave. How can they not? She practically waltzes from scene to scene and, before we know it, we’re smitten by her magic.
Although this season’s awards race may have you under the impression that Peppy is indeed a supporting character, Bejo’s performance of her will have you believing differently. Bejo brings out all the key qualities of Peppy in a performance that’s not emotionally powerful, but emotionally resounding nonetheless.
Even in silence, you hear the tapping of her shoes, the pep in her step, and her infectious laugh. How can a film with no words emit such a roaring character? Put Bejo front and center and she becomes one with the music. Every sympathetic look, impossibly happy reaction and playful gesture becomes a full fledged sympathy with Bejo. She doesn’t need any words, because the audience just knows. And, you know what, she and us are right here.
Too often people equate a good performance to one that’s grandiose, a powerhouse portrayal. Though some of those performances are in fact riveting, Bejo’s performance isn’t less so. She sparkles as Peppy, bringing out her magnetism as the gargantuan starlet she becomes, while also humanizing her and keeping her grounded. In other words, you take Peppy out of the City of Angels and she’d still be the same Peppy, girl wonder. Superhero to George Valentin, fallen star.

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Candice Frederick is an NABJ award-winning print journalist, film critic, and blogger for Reel Talk. She is also the co-host of Blog Talk Radio’s “Cinema in Noir.”


Oscar Best Picture Nominee: ‘Midnight in Paris’ and Its Woman Problem

Marion Cotillard and Owen Wilson in ‘Midnight in Paris’
I’ve never understood why people adore Woody Allen and lavish him with accolades. I’ve never liked his films. Nope, not even the adored Annie Hall, aside from the FABulous fashions donned by Diane Keaton. I know, I know…I’ve braced myself for the verbal lashings that will undoubtedly ensue. Besides his creepy penchant for dating and then marrying his daughter, I loathe the way Allen generally depicts women in his films. Yes, his movies make some interesting gender commentaries and contain phenomenal female actors (Diane Keaton, Meryl Streep, Patricia Clarkson, Penelope Cruz). But it irritates me that the myriad interesting and intelligent female characters in his movies seem to be punished for their strength or continually fall for the neurotic chump’s charm bullshit.

In Allen’s latest Oscar-nominated endeavor, Midnight in Paris, Gil Pender (Owen Wilson) is a successful Hollywood screenwriter struggling to write his first novel. He visits Paris with his constantly complaining fiancé Inez (Rachel McAdams), as he yearns to live amongst his literary idols in the Roaring Twenties. Gil discovers that at midnight, he is able to transport to 1920s Paris and hobnob with writers, musicians and painters. A love letter to Paris and artists, Midnight in Paris explores the dichotomy between illusions of nostalgia and pragmatically embracing the present.

Allen has a knack for evoking the visceral beauty of a city: NYC in Annie Hall and Manhattan, Barcelona in Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Paris in Midnight in Paris. With lush cinematography, Allen capturesthe seductive allure and breathtaking romance of Paris. He also infuses the film with myriad authors and artists from the 1920s, a bibliophile’s dream. These delightful distractions almost made me forget (almost) that while an okay film, it’s certainly not a great one.

Now, I didn’t hate Midnight in Paris like my kick-ass colleague Stephanie. But I totally understand why she did because it royally pissed me off too. The portrayal of women in this film is fucking problematic.

Kathy Bates is fantastic as writer and art collector Gertrude Stein. Yet she’s highly underutilized, striving to make the most of her small role. Incredibly influential, we witness Stein’s Parisian salon which attracted talented writers, like Ernest Hemingway and Ezra Pound, whom she advised and mentored. After reviewing his manuscript, Gertrude bestows Gil with her wisdom: “We all fear death and question our place in the word. The artist’s job is not to succumb to despair but to find an antidote for the emptiness of existence.” Aside from Gertrude, none of the female characters are either truly likeable, interesting or complex individuals.

Audacious Zelda Fitzgerald (Alison Pill, who tries her best to imbue her with charm), F. Scott Fitzgerald (Tom Hiddleston)’s wife and a writer in her own right, diminishes her artistic talent by saying, “…and I realize I’ll never write a great lyric and my talent really lies in drinking.”

An “art groupie” muse, Adriana (Marion Cotillard) designs couture fashion and becomes the object of Gil’s affection, despite his fiancé. When Gertrude reads the first line of Gil’s book aloud, Adriana praises it saying she’s “hooked” and later calls his musings on the “City of Light” poetic. Enamored with her, they begin to spend their evenings talking and walking around Paris. Cotillard is a divine actor. But her character is beige and boring. Although I must admit I’m glad Adriana ultimately chooses her own path.

In addition to seeking Stein’s advice on his book, Gil turns to another woman, an art museum guide (Carla Bruni), for advice on being in love with two women at the same time. Oh, and he also flirts with 25-year-old Gabrielle (Léa Seydoux) (cause you know, that’s what middle-aged dudes do) who sells old records from the Jazz Age and shares his love of Paris in the rain.

Owen Wilson and Rachel McAdams in ‘Midnight in Paris’

But the worst female depiction – yeah, if you’ve seen the film, you know who I’m talking about – was Inez (Rachel McAdams). Inez complains about Paris’ charming bistros, getting wet in the rain, living outside the U.S. and Gil not purchasing $20,000 chairs. She undermines Gil’s talent in front of him to her friends saying, “He’s not sure he can write a novel.” Inez criticizes everything Gil says and does all while gushing over her crush, academic Paul (Michael Sheen), going so far as to shush Gil when he speaks in order to hear Paul’s pretentious diatribes. When Gil talks about Inez to others, he highlights her beauty (of course) and adds that she possesses a “sharp sense of humor.” Watching their relationship, it’s painfully obvious that there’s absolutely nothing keeping them together as the only thing they share is a mutual like of Indian food.

Now, I don’t automatically have a problem with a villainous or unlikeable female character, especially since there are so many female roles in the film. In fact, I often lament how unlike men, women are not allowed to play unlikeable or unsympathetic characters. But I have a huge problem with the “nag” role. The cliché of women as “nags” permeates pop culture.

I also have a huge problem that the seemingly sole reason Inez was made so horribly despicable was to “allow” Gil to cheat on his fiancé. The audience would sympathize with Gil for kissing another woman, buying her trinkets, baring his soul to her and planning to sleep with her even though he was engaged because his fiancé was such a shrew. Oh that’s right, I forgot! It’s okay to cheat on someone as long as they’re an asshole.

Allen told Rachel McAdams that she should play this role as she should “want to play some bitchy parts” as they’re more interesting. Maybe. But not this part. I didn’t find her character interesting at all. Yes, McAdams tries her best with the material she’s given. But the character is one-dimensional and annoying, lacking any depth or complexity.

Midnight in Paris, like pretty much all of Allen’s films, lacks diversity. They’re a sea of white with no people of color anywhere in sight. Oh I take that back. There’s a black woman in a car that Gil gets in on his “way” to the 1920s, one shot of Josephine Baker (Sonia Rolland) dancing that lasts all of 30 seconds and a few black people watching her dance.

Along with race, sexual identities are also omitted. The film contains three famous lesbians: Gertrude Stein, Stein’s life partner Alice B. Toklas (Thérèse Bourou-Rubinsztein) and writer Djuna Barnes (Emmanuelle Uzan). Of all three, Gil only alludes to Djuna’s sexuality when he says she led when they danced together. So lesbianism is almost completely erased, paving the way for good ole’ heteronormativity.

The only overt gender commentary occurs when Ernest Hemingway (Corey Stoll) says, “Pablo Picasso thinks women are only to sleep with or to paint,” but he believes “a woman is equal to a man in courage.” Which is interesting since Allen is a person who in his personal life doesn’t always believe equality in relationships is desirable: “Sometimes equality in a relationship is great, sometimes inequality makes it work.” (???) Yeah, this explains a lot. He also has a penchant for younger women, in his movies and in reality, because younger women are more innocent, “before they get spoiled by the world.” Gag. 

This attitude that older women are less desirable as romantic partners seems to echo throughout the film, particularly in its ending. Don’t stay with the older (relatively speaking) jaded woman. Get with the young, innocent girl! While numerous women abound, everything in the film revolves around Gil, a stand-in for Woody Allen. Women are merely a buffet to be sampled – if one doesn’t work out, oh well, try another!
I’ll admit; the book lover in me was almost seduced. It felt like a light-hearted, whimsical, bibliophile remake of Purple Rose of Cairo. Instead of film characters leaping off-screen, novelists from the past reside in alongside the present. But there is no way in hell this should ever be nominated for a Best Picture or Director Oscar. It’s nothing more than an esthetically pleasing diversion.

I swear people nominated Midnight in Paris for so many awards because Hollywood is lazy. Rather than nominating ground-breaking, intelligent films like Pariah, The Whistleblower or Young Adult, this gets nominated because Allen is a famous, old, white male director. Good job, Hollywood. Way to keep perpetuating the dude machine.

The film suffers from a major woman problem. The women in the film are just as intelligent and talented as their male contemporaries. Gil turns to women for advice and guidance. Yet Allen reduces almost all of them to love interests and arm candy, nothing more than satellites to a dude.